There's a Fungus Amongst Us

My favorite thing about the house I live in? The meyer lemon tree in the back yard. It's huge and ridiculously productive--I have lemons year round. Hundreds of them.

I also have a white fly problem, ants all over the tree, and the leaves have an unslightly mold/fungus substance on them. I've done a little research into the issue, and knew that three things would need to be done:
1) prune the tree properly
2) consult the experts about how to get rid of the fungus and flies
3) likely spray something toxic.

I've pruned this tree before--a thorough job takes 5 or 6 hours. It's painful.

But...you're viewing a picture of the pruned, sprayed (with non-toxic materials) tree! You see all those lemons? That's after we removed 5 shopping bags full of fruit. What a tree. I'm making preserved lemons, lemon granita, and lemon bars today.

Book List Archiving, Cont.

Elese raised an interesting question to the last post--what's the male/female breakdown? I had no idea what to expect. I'm almost exactly even: 46% women, 54% men.

I also should have included a top 10 for the year. Here are the most highly rated titles:
1. My Year of Meats, Ruth Ozeki, Rating: 4.9
2. Y The Last Man (Series), Rating: 4.8
3. The Stand, Stephen King, Rating: 4.8
4. The Chosen, Chaim Potok, Rating: 4.8
5. American Gods, Neil Gaiman, Rating: 4.7
6. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute, Rating: 4.7
7. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling, Rating: 4.7
8. The Promise, Chaim Potok, Rating: 4.6
9. The Vintner's Luck, Elizabeth Knox, Rating: 4.6
10. Nowhere in Africa, Stephanie Zweig, Rating: 4.5

Book Journal

I keep track of the books I've read in a cute little journal from Chronicle Books. It's really satisfying to flip through, but isn't particularly useful when I'm trying to figure when (or if) I read a particular book. I've been thinking about digitizing the records for the past few weeks.

I initially planned on just making an excel spreadsheet, and then decided to do a quick google search to make sure there wasn't already something out there for book tracking. I found a great free program called books for Macs (download it here). It's not totally perfect (it autofills with information from amazon, generally with the most recent edition. I'd rather have the original publication date), but it's simple and fast and highly searchable.

So, I now have book stats! Here's an overview of 2005.
Total books read: 102
Pre-1900: 3 (The Innocents Abroad, Around the World in 80 Days, Anna Karenina)
1940s: 1 (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter)
1950s: 4 (Town Like Alice, Around the Bend, On the Beach, East of Eden)
1960s: 3 (The Chosen, The Promise, Travels with Charley)
1970s: 1 (Lucifer's Hammer)
1980s: 2 (The Amateurs, Clan of the Cave Bear)
1990-present: obviously, a ton of books
Non-fiction: 16
Memoir: 11
Authors appearing more than once on list: 7 (Bill Bryson, Chaim Potok, John Steinbeck, Nevil Shute, Nicholas Evans, Sandra Gulland, Tom Clancy)

April 2006 Book Reviews

I seem to be reading a lot about mental illness and the pressures of modern life lately. I'm not sure what that's about. Possibly Adam's influence? He picked out To Hell with All That for me. Or is there a sudden flood of publishing in this area? Why would that be? Interesting thought to ponder...

Before launching into this month's reviews, I wanted to make a comment on the various blog pages you may be reading this on. I'm publishing the book posts in two places; you may want to select one or the other.

The Grand Tour: book reviews, vacation pics, and assortment of random things that interest me (and hopefully, you). All book-related content is repeated in the book archive.
Book Archives: just books. Lists, reviews, top 10 lists. A better choice if you'd prefer to not see where I went hiking this past weekend.
Crochet to Go: just crochet-related topics.

On to the list:
1. Oh the Glory of It All, Sean Wilsey, Rating: 3.0
I've had numerous people recommend this book. Sean Wilsey is the son of a San Francisco socialite, and (by my calculations) about 35 years old. The book gets off to a running start, detailing the excesses and idiosyncracies of his highly colorful parents. By the half-way point, however, the book has lost its focus. What's the subject? Sean's life? His mother? Boarding schools of the 1980s? Ultimately there's enough good material here to make it a worthwhile read, but you'll have to wade your way through all the surplus writing.
2. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro, Rating: 4.3
The writing in this book is stunning--Ishiguro is definitely one of the better writers out there today. I'd prefer to not reveal the topic (and would caution against reading any reviews of the book). Ishiguro slowly parcels out information, and it's best if you don't really understand what is special about the characters before he's ready to tell you. (One of my coworkers saw the book on my desk and said, "Oh, is that the book about the [deleted]?") Anyway, it's extremely well written, quite moving, and well worth your time.
3. Library: An Unquiet History, Matthew Battles, Rating: 3.9
It's my understanding that this is one of the standards in the world of writing about libraries. It's packed with interesting tidbits, as well as mountains of uninteresting tidbits. This is definitely not for everyone. I'm glad I read it, but it wasn't easy to finish.
4. Girlfriend 44, Mark Barrowcliffe, Rating: 3.5
Witty and trite, this is chic lit written by a man. Originally published in the U.K., the edition I read was packed with Britishisms (not necessarily a bad thing). The humor at times seems excessive, detracting from the plot. One of the better books in the genre.
5. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith, Rating: 4.4
This book is charming and somehow timeless, despite being over 50 years old. There's a fairly faithful movie adaptation out there, but stick with the book--the male actors in the movie don't live up to the promise of the literary characters. It's a teenage coming-of-age story and a romance, but don't let that stop you from reading it. The author is better known for writing One Hundred and One Dalmations.
6. My World and Welcome To It, James Thurber, Rating: 4.3
I need to read more Thurber--he's hilarious! His writing is definitely not P.C., but I supposed that's a major part of the charm. This book is a collection of some of his best New Yorker writing.
7. To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife, Caitlin Flanagan, Rating: 4.0
Flanagan writes for a variety of publications on various aspects of modern womanhood--having children, having a nanny, balancing work and house cleaning, our desire to be Martha Stewart and CEO, etc. She's very good at calling it like it is. I can't say that I'm going to change anything about my lifestyle as a result of reading her book, but I did find it very interesting.
8. Fragile Innocence, James Reston, Jr., Rating: 2.9
This book is popping up everywhere. Terry Gross interviewed Reston a few weeks ago, and Entertainment Weekly ran a long review. Reston writes about his daughter, who has an unknown disease that has left her without the ability to speak or function above a 9-month-old level. It's intriguing. It's also very flawed, in my opinion. Reston carefully documents the name of every doctor and teacher, but never mentions any at home help (yet makes it clear that he and his wife work full time, and believe it's impossible to leave the child alone). He also makes huge statements and completely fails to back them up in any way. His nervous breakdown gets 2 paragraphs, leaving one to wonder if it was just a figure of speech, or an actual episode? I felt that times that the book was a padded version of his daughter's medical record.