katherine – Page 23 – Koba English

What I Did on My Summer Vacation, Days 9 and 10: Bethlehem, PA

Day 9

After I wake up from my late ‘fest night, I catch the LANTA bus like usual. I realize as soon as I get to the bus stop that I left my phone at Best Chemist Friend’s. Priscilla is also too old to run Google hangouts so I’m just kind of cut off from the world until I meet her for dinner with my parents later.

I read some more out of Her Smoke Rises Up Forever while I wait for the bus. The guy sitting next to me—probably in his 40s, has a pattern to his speech that suggests some kind of mental or cognitive disorder—sees my ‘fest mug and starts talking. I oblige but give him a fake name, and sure enough the question comes up:

“Are you single?”

“No,” I answer, shaking my head.

“Are you married?”

“Yes.” Technically correct; the best kind of correct. His interest immediately diminishes, but I still breathe a sigh of relief when he gets on a different bus.

It’s another day of cleaning and purging. I find an old notebook with details of part of a trip I took to Chicago back in 2009 and type it up, along with some travel notes from this trip.

With the books mostly whittled down, cleaning and purging now comes to the gifts and knick-knacks and things that I like and have had for years, but have to put through the “Do I want to pay money to ship it across the ocean?” gauntlet. More than a few things don’t survive that.

I drop off the bag of goods outside, then wander inside for the first time in four years (I never managed to drop in while I was home in October). I stay long enough to see if there was a belt that might really work with the dress I had for the wedding, but leave empty-handed.

The rest of the day is uneventful except for dinner with Best Chemist Friend and my parents, when I get my phone back.

Day 10

Today I’m scheduled to hang out with blog friend Hillary at ‘fest. The weekend also is my last chance to visit the Quakertown Farmer’s Market for the next indeterminate amount of time, so after some more closet purging, I toss two garbage bags full of clothes into the car and drive to Quakertown.

I buy a cannoli and do a single circuit around. There are too many new shops and empty stalls for my liking, but it’s comforting to see some things remain: the sticky bun bakery, the “Korner Kupboard” (I don’t know why the K’s and maybe I don’t want to know), the hippie incense store (that expanded, for a hot minute, into another hippie pagan store that quickly closed), the movie/video game store, the low-rent Spencer’s-cum-secondhand store. In better news, the live alligator that had been living in a tank in the back of that store is no longer there; later Googling at home reveals that he’s been sent to an animal sanctuary, then literally the day before I sit down to type this up, Best Chemist Friend messages me on Gchat to tell me that Wally the Gator is dead and that there’s a memorial sign in his former tank.

Wally the Gator, the mascot and pet of one of the vendors at the Quakertown Farmer's Market, in his sketchy, too-small cage back in 2012. — RIP, Wally my dude. You deserved a better life than this. // Image courtesy cc at Meals I Have Eaten

“Our childhood is officially dead,” she says.

“Guess we’re real adults now.”

Some of the empty stalls have been converted to some kind of food court or meeting place, with plastic tables and chairs and bulletin board for announcements. There’s a jug band playing on chorus risers that serve as a low-budget stage, so I sit for a while to write and enjoy the music.

But even with that break, my walk around doesn’t take that long, mostly because I’m deliberately avoiding buying things because where will I put them? Do I want to mail them across an ocean? No! And it’s a good thing, because like a chump I decide to park at Musikfest and so I part with my money there instead. I definitely spent more time on the road to and from the farmer’s market than in the market proper, but that’s okay, because it’s also nice to drive again (until the novelty wears off). I also managed to drop off those bags of clothes in a collection bin on my drive to Musikfest so arguably it was even a productive trip.

I meet Hillary down by the Nintendo product tent, where her husband has been sucked into the void that is video games. I get some lunch at Johnny’s Bagels and we wander around and chat. There are a couple of consignment or secondhand or whatever shops on Main Street that I’ve never really stopped in but that Hillary’s eager to try, and I guess she’s my secondhand good luck charm because I walk away with a really cute pair of dress shoes (something I needed to buy at some point anyway) and a nice top to boot! We also watch the tail end and then the entire act of some street performers, then wander back off Main Street to get some food, pick up my final music purchase (an LP from Black Masala), see some shows, and meet up with some of Hillary’s friends.

We also run into cave coworker Kelly, our (as in Kelly and I) mutual friend Janine, and Janine’s new boyfriend, so that’s a pleasant surprise and we stand around and chat a bit. Janine is a bit deep in her cups but in a charming and friendly and hilarious way. But I’m a crappy mutual friend and fail to mention at the time that both Hillary and Janine work in special ed. Oops!

There is some massive issue trying to drive home. A car that might be a Papa John’s delivery car is blocking the box (so to speak) in front of the closest bridge to get out of town, with a couple of cop cars to boot; everyone is being diverted into a righthand turn instead of being allowed to go straight. I circle around and pull into a Wawa. I debate if it’s worth just taking another bridge out of town, but after I get some more writing done (and enjoying the bakery cookies from the grocery store that I can never resist buying) and listening to Black Masala, things have cleared up so I just take my regular route home.

There’s a paranoid parrot in the back of my brain who is convinced that I’ll get run off the road by some drunk fester or other, but obviously I don’t and I make it home fine, a little more sunburned and a little more sweaty than when I left. Mom and Dad are still up (not waiting for me; it’s just not that late yet) and I chat a little with them before I go upstairs.

This is the day where all of the tiki torch insanity goes down in Charlottesville. I don’t have data on my cheap-o plan but Hillary does and so I’m halfway apprised of what’s going on in the world while I’m seeing friends and listening to music and having a good time. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. I catch up a bit on Facebook and all of that good stuff, then curl up in a ball and feel sad until I fall asleep.

Review: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

It’s time for another book from the Austin-based feminist science fiction book club!

Author: Becky Chambers

My GoodReads rating: 2 stars

Average GoodReads rating: 4.18 stars

Language scaling: B2+

Summary: A young woman trying to escape her past joins the ragtag crew of The Wayfarer, a ship that creates artificial wormholes for interstellar travel.

Recommended audience: Fans of Firefly, Serenity, Babylon 5, and/or Farscape.

In-depth thoughts: I was incredibly frustrated with this book because it had a lot of great ideas about alien linguistics and cultures that were hampered down by a writing style that I would describe as “aggressively twee.”

From an editorial perspective, there is a lot of redundancy through showing and telling (rather than showing, not telling). That kind of writing is a symptom of two things. Either 1) you don’t have enough faith in your own writing and story-telling ability to get the point across “between the lines” or 2) you don’t have enough faith in your reader’s ability to infer. Maybe even both.

If you were to go through my previous reviews, you’ll see that I’ve mentioned (more than once!) that a particular book went over my head in parts, or completely, which impacted my ability to enjoy it. The other side of the spectrum isn’t good either, and the balance is different for different people. For my taste, this leans far too heavily on “let’s explain everything.”

From an EFL perspective, however, this might be a perk rather than a drawback. Repetition ensures that the reader has lots of chances to put pieces together, especially in a science fiction novel. A genre that necessarily creates new words, sometimes even new languages, can sometimes be hard to read and understand in a language that you’re not entirely fluent in.

Review: Ancient, Ancient

This is another book club selection, this time for the feminist science fiction book club based out of Austin. (I guess I’m now an honorary satellite member?)

The cover of Kiini Ibura Salaam's Ancient, Ancient — Image courtesy Aqueduct Press

Author: Kiini Ibura Salaam

My GoodReads rating: 3 stars

Average GoodReads rating: 3.89 stars

Language scaling: C2+

Summary: A collection of short stories in the speculative fiction genre

Content warning: “Rosamojo” includes some scenes of child abuse; the rest of the stories aren’t necessarily traumatic but involve a great deal of sexuality

Recommended audience: Readers looking for #ownvoices works

In-depth thoughts: There were a lot of cool ideas in this book that ended up suffering from overly workshopped, possibly way too abstract writing. (Hence the C2+ language rating.) In a lot of ways it reminds me of Freshwater, but where Emezi takes that abstraction and works with it until you get it, grounding it with concrete language and imagery and deliberate call backs to specific mythology, Salaam just leaves it all out there, confusing and weird in a world that seems to be entirely of her own creation but without any rules or explanation.

The stories are the strongest when Salaam remains more or less in this world: “Marie,” “Rosamojo,” and “Ferret” were probably my favorites, as well as a very short piece about ants whose title I can no longer remember and that no one else seems to mention in their reviews so there it is. A trilogy of short stories focus on moth-like aliens who can take a human form and who harvest nectar from humans, most often by seducing them. The premise is unique enough that it really deserved to be its own book rather than a handful of short stories. And unlike almost everyone else, I didn’t care much for the first story (“Desire”) or the last one (“Pod Rendezvous”). “Desire” is just too distracting, caught up as it is in what is (as far as my Googling can find) a fictional mythology and an unusual-and-completely-unnecessary narrative structure. The same can be said for “K-USH” and “Battle Royale,” though people tend to rave less about those two. (I wonder if people pick up the book, read the first and last story, and then declare that they’ve read the whole book?) “Pod Rendezvous,” like the nectar-gathering moth aliens, had so much in there that it should have been a proper novel rather than an overly long short story. A story should be as long as it needs to be, and “Pod Rendezvous” was definitely the wrong length.

Overall, a disappointing collection. It wasn’t bad, but I made the mistake of going in with impossibly high expectations.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation, Days 7 and 8: Bethlehem PA

Day 7

I took the bus from Best Chemist Friend’s back home and spent most of the day packing up books and running errands for Swedish friends (by way of being a taco sauce mule).

This day was a Wednesday, a day I usually spent at bar trivia with friends. But since it was probably canceled because of Musikfest, and because ex romantic entanglements made it potentially weird anyway, I stayed at home and went swimming with Best Chemist Friend instead, discussing outliving our heroes and becoming grimey hippies. Afterwards my mom took us out to dinner, since this was the first she had seen Best Chemist Friend (essentially an adopted daughter for her) in years.

There are so many new places to eat that didn’t exist when I was growing up here, or even four years ago. The restaurant Mom took us to was one had existed when I grew up, but was for sale when I left. Now it’s a restaurant again, with new owners and a new name but much of the same atmosphere (from what I can vaguely remember). I finally had my first Yuengling of the trip, and now I was really home.

Someone holding an unopened bottle of Yuengling lager, with an entire case in the background. — I pledge allegiance to the beer of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and to the commonwealth for which it stands, because of its remarkable taste-to-price ratio, with lagers and black and tans for all. // Andrew Mager on Flickr

Day 8

My goal for the next day was to drop off a few boxes of books at the library, and then hit up Musikfest with a friend and former co-worker. My go-to library for book cast-offs, the Quakertown branch of the Bucks County library system, wasn’t taking donations at the time, so I had to go on a little adventure to find a home for my books.

I thought, for a moment, of sending them to the huge thrift store in Hellertown, but I like to give books to “book places” before “generic stuff-unloading places.” I decided to try the Riegelsville library next, since it was closest to home and near a new cafe that’s supposed to be pretty good.

When my brother and I were still really small, my mom took us on a drive to try to find this same library. It’s easy to see from the main road, but then actually getting there isn’t exactly intuitive. (And, of course, she was doing this in the age before GPS and smartphones.) She drove around for a while before giving up, and from that point on she just patronized bookstores with us instead of the local library. I don’t remember this at all, though; it’s just a story she told me once when we were driving through Riegelsville for some reason or another.

I thought about that story while I drove around the back roads of Riegelsville, looking for the same library, wondering if I’m following the same random no-outlet residential streets Mom did when she was trying to do exactly what I was doing. I had been to this library twice before, for library sales, but years ago. My memory was dim, and this time there weren’t any helpful signs up or large crowds of people and activities going on. I pulled into the only non-church, non-residential parking lot around and then realized this was actually the library—it shares space with the all-purpose Riegelsville Municipal Building.

And by sheer luck Thursday was of the three days of the week that the library was actually open. With some help from the library staff, who were setting up an event in the community room on the first floor, I maneuvered a cart out to the car and unloaded the first round of boxes.

I stopped a while to wander through the nearby cemetery and look at the familiar landscape, and also snap some pictures. There was a driver here delivering other books to the library; I absentmindedly watched him take a photo of some butterflies hovering near the flowers. It was just a damn nice day.

A pyramid of small cannonballs, three levels high, sits on a concrete slab in a well-cut lawn. On the left is a small American flag and on the right is a placard explaining that this is a Civil War memorial. — A Civil War memorial outside the Riegelsville Public Library.

After I had my fill of sunshine and cemeteries, I stopped at the Someday Cafe.

The building that now houses the Someday Cafe and Roastery had been sketchy and abandoned for my entire life. It started life as a car dealership back in the 40s or 50s, then became a dance studio, but all of my memories of it were as a sky-blue vacant building that was perennially for sale. At some point, someone tried (and failed) to turn it into an antiques shop (despite there already being another antiques shop right across the street), so I remember lots of junk sitting in the windows.

It’s really gratifying and cool to see the empty, abandoned space I remember from childhood turned into something like this. And I would have killed to have this kind of not-at-home space during high school. It’s just three miles from my house; it’s not completely inconceivable that I could have walked there if I really wanted to, except that the roads between here and my house have no shoulder and are not at all made for pedestrians. But still.

A strawberry smoothie and a crepe in recyclable take-out containers at the Someday Cafe and Roastery in Easton, PA. — Also, the crepe I had was really, really good.

Not everything is better, of course. The abandoned paper mill across the street, which I’d always wanted to sneak into, is long gone. 🙁 So is my favorite used bookstore, which is now a bridal showcase, of all things.

After packing up a few more books, I meandered into Musikfest. This time I planned to spend the night (as opposed to accidentally doing so the last time I was here). I had my Musikfest mug in hand, complete with drink, and wandered around Main Street and the venues down by Monacacy Creek while I waited to meet up with Kelly and for SsingSsing to start. SsingSsing was the group I was easily the most excited to see at the festival. Glam rock + Korean folk music = WHAT THE HELL BUT ALSO YES.

This is the band warming up; it’s not an action shot.

Kelly and I enjoyed the show a lot, but unfortunately there was no merch table at all, so we couldn’t pick up an album or t-shirt or patch to sport our love. After show, we walked around for a little we disappear back to her place to use her bathroom and refill our mugs.

Back at the festival, Kelly grabbed some kind of cheese steak in a cup thing from a vendor and we sit and talk about Life, the Universe, and Everything. I love the work I do now, and I love the students I have now, but there is always a level of professionalism to maintain that isn’t the same as being coworker-buddies with someone. The conversations I have with my students are rewarding and interesting in their own ways—I learn so much about other cultures and traditions and food—but it’s hard to be someone’s teacher and be someone’s friend. Of course, I also have the privilege of dictating my own schedule and doing the vast bulk of my work in my pajamas, so you know, swings and roundabouts! Talking to her and then Best Chemist Friend is the perfect way to round out a day full of errands and music.

Review: Journal of a Solitude

This was a book that I bought at a library sale I don’t know how many years ago. After falling in love with Walden in high school, the similar premise of this book (memoirs of living alone in the countryside) intrigued me. Yet somehow I never got around to reading it until I was going through my books to ship across the ocean. Out of all of the books I hadn’t read yet but really wanted to, this was at the top of the list. So I tore through it during my last days in Pennsylvania and up the highways to Albany, then ended up re-homing it to my friend and hostess in Maine.

The black-and-white cover of Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton featuring a photograph of a desk illuminated by a lamp, as viewed through a window. — Image courtesy W. W. Norton & Company

Author: May Sarton

My GoodReads rating: 5 stars

Average GoodReads rating: 4.17 stars

Language scaling: B1+

Summary: May Sarton’s account of a year of living in the country

Recommended audience: Those interested in poetry and memoirs generally; those interested in queer writers specifically

In-depth thoughts: I could tell that I had started and stopped this book at least a few times: the first few entries were familiar to me, and I had dog-eared a page or two. Younger Me wanted to like this, or wanted to be the kind of person who liked this, but I guess she needed a few more years to be able to really get into it. Now Me couldn’t put this book down.

There isn’t much that happens, which is what you can expect from something titled Journal of a Solitude. That might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it was mine, at any rate. There is also a directness and simplicity to her writing that pulls you along, and which is probably especially beneficial for English students. I think it’s exactly the kind of cozy book that makes for perfect winter reading.

Review: Murder in Retrospect, or, Five Little Pigs

Appropriate that I decided to get back to my travelogues this week: the next book in the queue to be discussed here is what I read in the library that day: Murder in Retrospect!

Author: Agatha Christie

My GoodReads rating: 3 stars

Average GoodReads rating: 3.96 stars

Language scaling: B2+

Plot summary: A young woman about to marry hires Hercules Poirot to clear the name of her mother, who was convicted of poisoning her husband some years ago.

Recommended audience: Mystery buffs

In-depth thoughts: As I mentioned before, this book was a selection for my Facebook book club. I was surprised to learn that many of the members had never read an Agatha Christie novel before, or even seen one of the innumerable screen adaptations! I went through a huge Agatha Christie binge in middle school. This was about the same time I went through a big band jazz binge as well, so I guess I was a little old lady in a 13-year-old’s body.

Even during my pubescent enthusiasm, I never tackled all of the novels and short stories. (Our school library only had so many books, after all.) Murder in Retrospect (or Five Little Pigs, whichever title you prefer) was one that I hadn’t originally read, so I was excited to read it. I had a nice afternoon in the Bethlehem Public Library doing just that: reading. I finished it in one sitting.

I still love a good Agatha Christie novel, even today, but I have to admit that this one was a little disappointing. There are lots of recurring secondary characters that, for me, make a Poirot novel what it is—Miss Lemon, Captain Hastings, Inspector Japp—and none of them make an appearance. The nature of the mystery also means that the bulk of the book is everyone repeating their testimony of the same day. This is, of course, part and parcel of any mystery, but because this is a cold case (or rather, an already-closed case), there’s nothing else for Poirot to go on, nor is there any sense of urgency. Without any clues to inspect, without any banter with Hastings or Japp, and without the possibility of bringing the true murderer to justice, Murder in Retrospect is more repetitive and less fun than the Christie novels I read when I was younger.

If you’re a mystery buff, you can’t go wrong with an Agatha Christie novel. Even a bad Christie novel is still pretty fun; I’ve always liked Christie’s writing style just as much as her mysteries. The repetition in this story might be helpful for English students, but there is also the danger that outdated vocabulary might pose something of a hurdle. (I can’t recall anything particular as I sit down to write this, but with a book initially published in 1942, I’m sure there are a couple of outdated vocabulary choices.)

Overall, I’m a completionist when it comes to writers I like, so I’m glad I read it. I don’t think Murder in Retrospect will be a novel I pick up again, though.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation, Day 6: Bethlehem, PA

After a busy weekend full of social activity and sight-seeing, I take it easy for the next few days at my parents’ house. I spend my first morning back just putzing around the house and going through the books I had packed up four years ago (surprise, there are more that I can bear to part with!), and then I drive to Lost River Caverns to catch up with my old boss and coworkers and do some shopping. It’s busy, at least compared to what I would have expected mid-August, so my old boss tells me to just help myself. I must give off “I work here” vibes still; people ask me questions about how to get to the bathrooms or where things are.

The inside is all done up and it looks fabulous—so much better than when I was still working there—and I linger a while to talk to my old bosses and coworkers and some of the new shop ladies and guides. Everything is familiar despite the fabulous makeover and once again I miss my weirdo minimum wage retail job.

Next stop on the agenda is the Bethlehem library. I don’t bother driving in during Musikfest; I just wait for the bus (have I gone full European native?) and meander towards the library from the parking/bus hub. There’s no Amerikaplatz next to the library anymore, which I don’t like (fond memories of Tea Leaf Green and Royal Noise Brigade at that stage), but I suppose the library employees appreciate the new-found quiet. I pick out a book—Murder in Retrospect, or Five Little Pigs, which is my Facebook book club’s August choice—and sit down and read, and alternate my reading with checking Facebook and talking with friends on gchat.

After I finish the book, I wander through Musikfest, grab a “Marga-mead-a,” and head down to Volksplatz to wait for The Skatalites. I sit through The Hillbenders, a bluegrass act, and enjoy them enough to buy an album as roadtrip soundtrack/thank-you gift for my ride up to Maine. I totally sneak a preview listen later and the album is way more straight country, and kind of worse, than their live performance. 🙁 For me, the highlight of that show was probably a high-energy cover of MGMT’s “Kids.” I had spent the whole day being sad and moody over leaving Austin, and that moment was the point where I started to maybe feel like not everything was a total garbage fire.

Then, after time to change sets and move the first rows of chairs out of the way, The Skatalites come on, and I dance my heart out. They do their cover of the James Bond theme and I get a powerful hit of high school nostalgia. I had listened to their version of the incomparable movie theme a lot in high school, but this was in the days of Napster and people being really ignorant and slapdash with labeling artists (“Wish You Were Here” by Oasis? Really?), so I was never sure if it was actually The Skatalites. I went into the show with zero expectations I’d hear that song, so it’s a nice surprise to hear that opening bass riff.

Later in the set they also do the theme from “From Russia With Love” and I wonder: is that a coincidence or a political statement? Other covers include “A Message To You, Rudy” and “Three Little Birds.”

I ducked out in the middle of an encore to make sure I could get a bus home, only: surprise! The late bus I thought was running wasn’t, so I dropped in at a friend’s instead. Not the most gracious way to make an entrance from across the ocean (“I can’t read bus schedules, Tesia, can I crash your guest bed?”) but friendship is magic! And I’m stopping by home to celebrate Tesia’s PhD, after all. It’s not super late, but I still conk right out.

Review: Freshwater

Continuing in my streak of NetGalley books taking precedence over books I read earlier in the year, I really want to talk about Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater while it’s still, erm, fresh in my mind.

Author: Akwaeke Emezi

My GoodReads rating: 5 stars

Average GoodReads rating: 4.41 stars

Language scaling: C1+

Plot summary: We follow Ada, a young Nigerian woman who is also a human vessel for an ogbanje (or several of them?), through her childhood, university in the American south, and then adult life afterwards, as she tries to figure out who she is and to navigate through her relationships with the other supernatural beings who reside inside her psyche.

Content warning: There are moments of self-injury, sexual assault and abuse, a suicide attempt, and somewhat gory descriptions of a car accident and surgery.

Recommended audience: Readers looking for #ownvoices works; readers interested in literary fiction

In-depth thoughts: My NetGalley copy is an ebook, but it’s times like these I wish I was eligible for receiving dead tree versions because I want to press this book into people’s hands and say YOU NEED TO READ THIS RIGHT NOW. You can’t do that with an .epub file.

I was especially glad for Freshwater, I think, because right before I read it I had finished Ancient, Ancient, a collection of ostensibly Afro-futurism short stories that had way too much blurb hype on the covers for what it actually was. But Freshwater tapped into that vein of timeless urges (sex, death, blood, deities, demons) that Ancient, Ancient claimed to tackle and delivered a coherent, shining python egg of a novel.

The voice and language in Freshwater are captivating and distinctive, experimental without being alienating. This is the first book in a long time where I felt compelled to read more: after reading on the subway, I’d keep reading on the walk back to the apartment and even after I got home, standing in the doorway, coat and hat still on.

As the story deals with a lot of abstract concepts and Igbo mythology in lyrical, image-heavy language, it’s not an ideal novel for English learners to tackle unless they’re already at a reasonably high level of fluency. But if you are, oh man, Freshwater is so, so worth it. I can’t wait to read more from Ezemi.

Review: Crossings

I’m interrupting what would ordinarily be a chronological accounting of the books I’ve read to talk about Crossings, which I just finished a week ago. I’m skipping ahead partially because it was a NetGalley book and I like to be immediate with those reviews and partially because I had a lot of thoughts about it.

Cover for Crossings by Jon Kerstetter — Image courtesy Penguin Random House

Author: Jon Kerstetter

My GoodReads rating: 5 stars

Average GoodReads rating: 4.24 stars

Language scaling: B2+

Plot summary: Kerstetter’s journey as a doctor, a combat medic, and a stroke survivor

Content warning: Kerstetter was a combat medic in Iraq and, before that, an NGO-affiliated volunteer doctor in war zones in Rwanda and Kosovo. He doesn’t shy away from the brutality inherent in either of those positions. Expect frank descriptions of gore, injuries and deaths.

Recommended audience: Readers looking for #ownvoices works (Kerstetter originally hails from the Oneida nation); readers interested in memoirs; readers interested in the military; readers interested in neurology

In-depth thoughts: I originally requested Crossings from NetGalley because I was in the middle of working on a memoirs project and thought that it would be beneficial to read something else in the genre.

I was also, to be entirely honest, inherently put off by the book based on its content, as a more-or-less pacifist. Ironically enough, that also tilted me towards requesting Crossings, because I think it’s important to engage in dialogue with people who disagree with you. It forces you to critically examine your own beliefs and principles, it builds empathy, and it broadens your understanding of the world. While I can’t say that I now understand the appeal of going into combat or the thrill of engaging the enemy, I at least understand how it was appealing for Kerstetter. Even though the war memoirs were my least favorite part, they were still engaging.

What I found the most powerful, however, was everything that came after Kerstetter’s tours in Iraq: his stroke and the possibility of recovery. Kerstetter gives a clear account of the cognitive impairments resulting from his stroke and also his frustration with them. Here he was, someone who had always loved reading and literature, who had gone through university and then medical school, now struggling to make it through children’s books. War might not be anything I’ll ever be able to relate to, but the effect that old age or an accident might have on my mental capacities is something that gnaws at me.

As America (and other nations) continue to cope with the metaphorical fallout from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, accounts like Kerstetter’s will become invaluable as far as the domestic effects are concerned. How could we have better taken care of troops while they were in combat? How can we erase the stigma of PTSD? Can we better acclimate soldiers to their own crossings: from civilian to solider and then back again?

Review: Stories of Your Life and Others

It’s October and somehow I’m still not finished writing up all of the reading I did on my summer vacation (as well as what I did besides read on my summer vacation). This was a book I started and finished during my long weekend in Austin.

Author: Ted Chiang

My GoodReads rating: 4 stars

Average GoodReads rating: 4.27 stars

Language scaling: B2+

Plot summary: A short story collection including “Story of Your Life,” which was the basis for the movie Arrival

Recommended audience: Science fiction fans; anyone who enjoyed Arrival

In-depth thoughts: The problem with reviewing short story collections so long (months) after you’ve read them is that it’s harder to keep all of the stories in mind. I know that I liked what I read a lot, but I struggle to remember exactly what it was that I read — except the titular story, “Story of Your Life,” which is definitely the strongest of them all.

After a quick refresher (as in, reading someone else’s review on GoodReads), my memory came back to me. The other stories I remembered enjoying were “Hell is the Absence of God,” “Liking What You See: A Documentary,” and “Division by Zero.” Despite winning a Sideways award (whatever that is?), “Seventy-Two Letters” didn’t really appeal to me. Neither did “Tower of Babylon.” “Understand” was mildly interesting, in that it was probably the most “traditional” science fiction of the lot (what happens when people give themselves supergenius intellects?), but it didn’t have the same existentialist concerns or the same experimentation with form that characterized what I thought were the best stories. And, finally, “The Evolution of Human Science” is a clever and pithy little work and I enjoyed it in the moment I read it, but by the time I sat down to write this review I’d completely forgotten it.

“Seventy-Two Letters” and “Tower of Babylon” are steeped in Jewish lore (Kabbalah, golems) and Old Testament mythology, respectively, which might confuse readers coming from a different cultural milieu.

What I appreciate about this collection is one of the same things I appreciated about The Three-Body Problem: author commentary is included at the end. It’s interesting to take a peak behind the curtain and see the germ of an idea for a story (if I can mix my metaphors a little). Chiang has yet to produce a novel-length work, but I think many of the ideas in here have enough meat to become novels on their own. I look forward to any future work from Chiang, and I hope he tackles more long-form work in the future.