A Birthday and a Book
February 22, 2008

Sunday, February 22, is my birthday and I plan to spend some time with friends and family. I don’t know everything that is planned but one thing it will include is a visit to a Mexican restaurant that has a house specialty I adore: shrimp soup. It’s freshly made for each order so it takes about forty-five minutes. But, oh, is it worth it. This large white ceramic bowl is filled nearly to the brim with a spicy broth redolent of coriander, pequin chiles, clam juice, tomato paste, chicken broth, fresh pepper, a touch of garlic, and perhaps even a bit of rosemary. Nestled in the bowl is an array of oversized fresh vegetables that were cooked in the broth—half a chayote, half an ear of corn, a small red potato, half a zucchini, and chopped tomatoes. Nestled on and around the vegetables and rising above the brim is a mountain of pink-and-white shrimp. A generous side of chopped cilantro and sliced limes is offered for individual flavoring. I invariably manage to finish this dish—barely—only because I can’t bear to leave any of it behind.

Later that night I plan to hunker down with one of the books that was part of my recent book buying binge. In the last few years I’ve noticed that reading has become an essential part of any important day for me. Certain events that I have always enjoyed celebrating now include a personal “quiet celebration” of reading that is planned out in advance. This reading differs from the usual process because of the thought I put into it ahead of time. What is the purpose of the celebration, what are my feelings about it, how much time do I have, how do I want to use it, and what books will “fit” the occasion?

Birthdays are for me, as probably for many, bittersweet. You mark the end of one year and the beginning of another. You might worry that you haven’t done what you want yet and time is running out. Or you might see that this birthday or the one five years hence, will provide new opportunities along with their inevitable changes. Which is why, I think, that creating something special is important.

Reading seems to be my “quiet celebration.” I enjoy the other aspects of the day or the event, but this evolving rite is deeply personal, a way for me to find my own meaning, my own interpretation. Sometimes the chosen book mirrors the day as will often happen on Memorial Day weekend or at Christmas. Other times the book may highlight unfulfilled dreams or it may reflect former ambitions, dropped but not forgotten, in ways not anticipated earlier.    

In the Heart of the Amazon Forest is my choice for this year’s birthday read. It’s kind of a surprising choice for me since it was, upon first glance, a terrible disappointment. The book is so compact and thin it wouldn’t even be a chapter in many books. But upon investigation (prior to returning it, I thought), I discovered it is part of Penguin’s Great Journeys editions, a collection of ten similarly petite books that are actually excerpts of the authors’ original books of “the most incredible tours, voyages, treks, expeditions, and travels ever written.” I suspect it may have to do with now being in my fifties, but I find myself more and more drawn to these books of discovery and adventure at its most difficult. I crave intimate knowledge of what could be termed extreme nature as well as extreme adventure—but I want to do it from my armchair. I have no interest in fighting squadrons of mosquitoes, hiking in wretched heat and humidity, hacking my way through vines, trees and other flora so thick that daylight is nonexistent, or wearing the same clothes for weeks on end. But I love reading about the experiences of others doing them. I find both irony and appeal in the fact that I am comfortably ensconced in a nice home, the electric refrigerator, American toilet, and a soft bed only steps away while reading of some of the worst experiences I can imagine. I have no interest in joining anyone struggling up Mt. Everest or canoeing down the Amazon, at least not in person, but I am sure glad others do. 

So it is natural that this book has been calling to me since it arrived. In the Heart of the Amazon Forest comes from Walter Henry Bates’s original 1863 book, The Naturalist on the River Amazons. I like it for both its promise of adventurous words as for its physical beauty—rich paper, an extravagance of blank pages at the back, lovely maps on the inside covers, and an extremely attractive cover.

Need I say my initial disappointment has been replaced by excitement? The book sits on the stand next to my bed where I see it each morning and night. It has come to symbolize my personal reading for my birthday celebration this year. I admit it has been difficult to keep from  picking it up and reading just the first page or even the first paragraph, but I have kept my word to myself. This book, and the shrimp soup, say “Happy Birthday!” to me—from me.

Note: This week we have a new contributor joining the BiblioBuffet team. Regular readers may already be familiar with Lev Raphael, who has written several guest columns for us. He now has his own space—Book Brunch—in which he will share his views on whatever catches his literary eye be they book reviews, essays, commentary, and occasional interviews. Lev is the author of nineteen books (including the upcoming My Germany) and hundreds of articles for major publications. We expect you will like him as much as we do, and we are proud to welcome aboard this prolific author, writer, radio host and reviewer, a true man about book town. 

Upcoming Book Festivals:
The number of book festivals is picking up. This next week and weekend has four of them for luck book lovers in Florida, South Carolina, Texas, and Washington. If you live there or are planning a visit, check these out.

February 27-28 will find Jacksonville, Florida, hosting its Much Ado About Books festival at the main library in downtown. Its events include a workshop for writers, brunch with David Baldacci, lunch with Adriana Trigiani, an awards ceremony for young writers, a day full of panel discussions and author readings, the Children’s Chapter, and Friday night’s Ex Libris, Volume IV: Journey to Xi’am, the annual gala fundraising event with attending authors, dancing and dining.

From February 27 through March 1, Sul Ross State University in the city of Alpine will host the 23rd annual Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering. This is the oldest one in Texas and the second oldest in the U.S. It’s purpose is to “promote, preserve, and practice an important part of the oral tradition of the American West. In addition to classical, traditional, and contemporary cowboy poetry, the event includes presentations of cowboy music and story telling.” All daytime events are free, but each evening’s performance has a nominal admission charge. Events this year include a chuckwagon breakfast, continual offerings of poetry and music, a Saturday night dance, and a Sunday morning cowboy church service.   

Those same date, February 27 through March 1, will also see Columbia hosting the 13th Annual South Carolina Book Festival at its Metropolitan Convention Center. Keynote speaker Scott Turow highlights the festival, but it also offers a fantastic array of authors (more than 80), more than seventy-five vendors ranging from antiquarian book dealers to publishers, special events including the opening night reception and a brunch with the authors. A large variety of panel presentations, author readings and signings; live musical performances and a panel discussion on songwriting; master classes on writing, book collecting, memoirs, book promotion, and technical writing; a Children’s Field Trip Day; and the inaugural Run for Books (an 8K run and a 4K walk) are all part of this incredible day. 

And on February 28, Seattle will play host for the 7th Annual Rainbow Bookfest at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center. The book festival focuses on bring authors of color together under one roof., and to provide “a venue for dialogue between authors, readers, and publishers . . . resources and recognition for authors of color . . . showcase and support works by authors of color; and to entertain readers from both mainstream and minority communities by providing diverse perspectives and rich cultural experiences.” It begins with the Writers Breakfast Workshop, then continues all day with panel presentations, author readings and workshops that range from self-publishing to literary translation. 

The Pub House:
Pegasus Books specializes in books that “stimulates both the intellect and the imagination, be it history or philosophy, memoir or biography, literary fiction or noir thrillers,” a statement that supports their belief that “good literature is essential to the health of our cultural life.”

And their books attest to that statement. In the Bunker with Hitler by Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven is the powerful story of the final week of the Third Reich by the last survivor. Red Princess: A Revolutionary Life by Sofka Zinovieff (the princess’s granddaughter) is the biography of a woman born to Russian nobility and who, after the communist revolution, was taken to England, then Paris by her family where she worked with the French Resistance only to later become a lifelong and outspoken member of the British Communist party. For literary mystery fans, The Vicious Circle, a collection of mystery and crime stories produced by writers of the famed Algonquin Round Table, is perfect.

Of Interest:
With the recent announcement of the Kindle 2, I thought everyone might enjoy a look back at an early reading device offered in the April 1930 issue of Popular Science magazine: the Handy Bracelet. While it says it is designed for magazines and small periodicals, it should work as well if not better for mass market books. That is, if you can turn the pages with your other hand. 

This Week . . .
The Reading Experience: Contemporary Literature and Criticism is an atypical blog. Daniel Green, formerly an academic specializing in contemporary American literature, is now a writer, and his training and interests make this blog an exceptionally well reasoned one. “I would like to test,” he wrote in his first blog post five years ago, the proposition that the internet, in the form of the so-called ‘blogosphere,’ can provide a forum for a new kind of literary criticism, more compacted and concise, perhaps, than conventional print lit/crit, but serious criticism nonetheless. . . . I would hope, in fact, that this blog could work as a kind of bridge between the blogs and other general interest literary publications and what was once called “literary study”—which in my mind is simply the willingness to take works of literature seriously.” If you are interested in pursuing the challenge of literary criticism, to think about what books mean rather than what books are available, this is an excellent place to stop in.  

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren