from the bookshelf: non-fiction

I have already compiled (some) of my favorite fiction books in two previous posts, but I decided to do another book-centric post focusing on some of my favorite non-fiction books. I'm going to do a bit of a grab-bag here since "non-fiction" is such a wide umbrella term for anything from history books, essays, academic articles, how-to books, and so on. So here are a few of my favorite non-fiction reads from my bookshelf!

Bomb Power by Gary Wills
One of my side interests includes the communities that pop up around the creation of the atomic bomb, along with the emotional resonance the a-bomb has as a cultural symbol. Gary Wills does a fantastic job of breaking down how the atomic bomb has a profound cultural, social, and psychological impact on those who created the bomb in the first place. Although the bomb is sent to demolish an enemy, no one on either end of the bomb remains unscathed. Fun fact: The Manhattan Project (the group charged to create the atomic bomb during WWII) was heavily tied to the University of Chicago, so I was able to go through the archives and read through actual documents from the Manhattan Project while I was working on my thesis! Nearly all documents including memos, letters, notebooks, and actual physicis...stuff, are in UChicago's archives. The nerd in me was OVERJOYED. 

The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson is the stuff of high school English classes and I am guessing that at some point (especially if you attended school in the United States) you have already read a few of these essays - does the idea of turning into a giant transparent eyeball sound familiar? I believe that I read Emerson's essays when I first began attending college at the age of sixteen and something about his style of writing really caught my attention right away. In fact, it was such an obsession that one of my friends bought me a hard copy of Emerson's essays which remains with me to this day (see above photo!).

Empathic Vision by Jill Bennett
This book played a huge role in my Master's thesis and continues to be a text I repeatedly go back to. I will admit that it is a very dense book, because it delves deeply into both affect theory and trauma studies. However, what I like about it is the way that Bennett focuses on how art (visual art) can become a means through which trauma and affect can be discussed. A really fascinating read for anyone who is interested in art, theory, and socio-political issues.

Japan's Total Empire by Louisa Young
I am continually surprised how little many people in the West really know about what went on in the Pacific during WWII. As someone who is Japanese and as someone who studies texts from the WWI/WWII era, I make it a point to read up on as much history as I can. So when a friend of mine suggested this book to me, I decided to give it a shot. As terrible as it is to read about atrocities that one's country has committed, it is even more terrible to ignore what happened in the past. This book addresses the political and economic relationship between Manchuria and Japan, as well as the historical events that led up to Japan's involvement in Manchuria. It was a very insightful and eye-opening book.

Fair Isle Knitting by Alice Starmore
Now for something very different - a knitting book! Knitting is one of my favorite hobbies and the fair isle style is my absolute favorite style. I have done quite a bit of stranded knitting in my time, but I am nowhere near skilled enough to pull off many of these designs. My favorite part of this book (aside from all the great patterns) is how the colors and features of the natural landscape inspire certain patterns - there are a lot of great side-by-side shots showing the colors of nature alongside a knitted pattern that was inspired by the landscape. It's a great book to page through for inspiration!

This is a great reminder to reread some of these favorites!

from the bookshelf #2

A long time ago I wrote about some of my favorite books and since it has been so long (and because I have so many favorite books) I decided to put together another handful of books that had a strong affective effect on me for one reason or another. Please take a peek at my first book post, because those are some of my all time favorites - including my favorite book of all time - and all of those books are worth a look! There really is no rhyme or reason for this particular grouping, really I'm just sharing books that got some sort of deep, emotional response out of me - which are my favorite types of books.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
I think Margaret Atwood is a phenomenal writer over all and I honestly love every single one of her novels. I have found that most people know The Handmaid's Tale or even her MaddAddam books (i.e. Oryx and Crake and so on), but few people have read The Blind Assassin. She definitely deviates from her "signature" dystopian/speculative fiction in this novel, but I find the way she plays with narrative construction to be so brilliant and the writing itself to be so evocative that I like to push this one on other people.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Pardon my language - but @#$* this book. @#$* this book so much. You might wonder why I say that when I clearly listed it in a 'favorite book' post. The truth of the matter is that this book is so phenomenally well written and the subject matter is so gut-wrenching that it made me bawl like mad when I read it. I could also just be the biggest baby in the world, who knows. Regardless, it is one of the most deeply-stirring novels I have ever read and is one that is written from a narrative perspective that I find really unique, especially considering the novels that are being written currently. If you like WWII era novels (these are my jam) and if you feel like having your heart slowly ripped out, then please read this book.

Kokoro by Natsume Soseki
Natsume Soseki is Japan's most beloved authors and, in my opinion, probably the best. Kokoro is considered his masterpiece, while also being touted as the defining image of Japanese culture as it struggled to make sense of dramatic cultural and societal changes at the end of the Meiji era. In both English and Japanese it is exceedingly beautiful - anyone who wants to dabble into "world literature" (which everyone should do!) or more specifically Japanese literature outside of current pop writers, I highly recommend this book.

The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai
If I had to pick one favorite Japanese novel, without a doubt I would say it was 斜陽 (The Setting Sun). Dazai is a particularly interesting figure for me because his writing comes out of the psychological turmoil of WWII Japan. The Setting Sun is considered by many to be his masterpiece and although he has other novels that are equally famous (人間失格 -"No Longer Human" for example), this is the novel that moved me the most. It was one of those novels that really made you feel the sorrow and confusion of the characters right in your chest - and I love that about this book.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
This is the most psychologically intense, insane, terrifying book I have ever read - I refuse to give any background on it but I highly recommend that you read it and immerse yourself in that world totally, because if you do it totally pays off. It's seriously an amazing book!

The Norton Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism
This one is a bit of an oddball, but let me explain. This was the anthology that first led me to understand what it is about literature that I am fascinated by. I learned to see how philosophy, semiotics, linguistics, culture, history, everything is tied to literary analysis and I learned by reading the works of thinkers who came before me. It's fantastic because it gives you a great run-down of all the greats of literary theory but none of it is watered down, so you are getting Althusser straight-up, as it were. Or if you are not interested in one area of theory, just skip it for another day! Before reading up on theory, I had no idea how to frame my questions, nor did I even know whether or not my questions were even worth pursuing. Even after years of study - including graduate focus - I still return to this big tome and each time it gives me more insight. 

Please share your favorites with me, too, I'm always looking for new reads :)

from the bookshelf #1

Whenever the academic year gets underway I immediately fall off the 'reading-for-fun' bandwagon, even though I have a fantastic library system at my disposal! But, alas, I just run out of time. In lieu of reading new books, here is a list of some of my favorites from my bookshelf - as a disclaimer, three of the six are actually translations (two of which I haven't read in the original, because I cannot read Russian or Italian) so read them in the original language if you can, but if not there are definitely good translations out there!

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky I always hesitate to call this my favorite book because I have never read it in the original (like I said, no Russian skills) but I just love the story so much that I just have to list it as a constant favorite. I first read this when I was twelve - I know, I was an ambitious reader - but of course none of the meaning really sunk in (obviously). I reread it when I was probably about fifteen or so and that's when the story really hit home and I fell in love with the novel. Since then I try to make it a point to reread it once a year and I've actually been mostly successful in that endeavor. ANYWAY. Once you get past the sheer number of characters and also get past the cringe-worthiness of some of their actions, the ideas Dostoevsky manages to present through these characters are truly thought-provoking and beautiful. 

Dune by Frank Herbert And now for a complete change of register - here's some classic sci-fi! If you're not familiar with the Dune series, there are a billion books. I've never actually counted, but I remember going into the local Borders (a moment of silence for Borders Bookstores), heading straight to the sci-fi section, and seeing a few shelf-fulls of Dune books. Some of these were written by Herbert himself while others were written by his son and, weirdly enough, Kevin J. Anderson - whose name is only familiar to me because I read a TON of Star Wars novels when I was young. I had weird taste in books when I was a kid, apparently. Regardless, I love Dune because I'm all over any sci-fi books that create worlds and cultures in detail and I thought the ecosystem of Arrakis was really neat. That being said, I strongly caution anyone who decides to read the rest of the series because in my personal opinion the quality of the books themselves crashes after the second and third novels. Then the stories get super sketchy (which includes scenes of child molestation and even worse things, what the hell Herbert?!) - so word to the wise, just read this one.   If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino Now this is a really awesome book for anyone who likes novels that really play around with narrative structure. However, I do not have any skill whatsoever in reading Italian, so I rely on translation - but the translation was good! I don't want to give too much away because this is a book that does its best work when the reader approaches it with no preconceptions. I read it on a whim without knowing anything about it and it BLEW MY MIND. Go read it!   The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro This was the first book of Ishiguro's books that I read and because of that it holds a special place in my heart. My boyfriend also got me a beautiful hard-bound copy of it and it looks so pretty on my shelf, which also probably adds to its appeal. I remember how struck I was by Ishiguro's evocative language and the amount of feeling he transmits to readers in such short works. This novel is part of his war trilogy (which includes An Artist of the Floating World and A Pale View of Hills, both of which are also fantastic) and is the only one of the three novels set in England - the other two deal with the issues of post-war Japan. Honestly, I love anything written by Ishiguro so it was hard to pick just one novel. Seriously, go pick out any one of his books and I can almost guarantee that you will be floored.     Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami I freaking love Murakami. It was hard for me to pick just one but this novel is my favorite out of all his works - 1Q84 was a close second - I just can't get over the amazing mix of magical realism, psychological study, and his unique narrative style. I've also read quite a few of his novels in the original Japanese and I can tell you his novels do translate well into English. Like the Calvino novel, I don't want to go too much into detail because I think Murakami is so fun to read without knowing what the hell is going on (which is a significant chunk of the time, let's be honest), so go read it!

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall This one is another one of those books that I can reread a million times. I love this one because Hall plays with narrative and the bounds of language, but he does it within the action genre. Most novels that attempt to break narrative convention have a contemplative atmosphere and even though there may be some action in it, the action itself is not necessarily what the focus is on. Hall's novel on the other hand reads like one of the Bourne books but manages to completely blow your mind with new ways in which language can become sentient - just, go read it and you'll see what I mean. Spoiler: yes there is a real shark. But not in the way you'd think.  And as a bonus, here's a book that is not my favorite, but I have a weird love-hate-fear relationship with it because it is an incredible work, but it scares the be-jeezus out of me every time I see it on the shelf: House of Leaves. If you want your mind blown, crying/rocking in the corner, while becoming afraid of your own house, then go read this one.