Black Ice

Black Ice by Lorene Cary
2010
Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal: Lending Library

I have no idea where I got this book.  Another lending library?  I am glad I grabbed it from wherever I did.  It is an autobiography about a woman I knew nothing about before reading it, but I cared about her right away.  She is a bright and motivated young girl that grew up in Philadelphia and went to an elite school in New Hampshire in the 70's.  The school was predominantly white, but it had begun accepting black students before she attended.  She got there and was tokenized but also taught and encouraged.  She found close friends and attempted to find herself.  Ultimately, she would become a teacher at that same school.  She clearly has conflicting emotions and feelings about her time there, understandably.  A teenager would anyway, but with being transplanted from one city and experience to another city and experience, while feeling the pressure to perform above average as a black teenage girl on a scholarship, it would have been overwhelming.  Lorene strives and succeeds and then she allows us into her private thoughts during that time.  It is great all around.























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A People's History of the United States

A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present  Howard Zinn
1995
Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal: Donating

I was recommended this book by one of my high school teachers--which is lucky.  He was not the kind of teacher you would have expected to make that suggestion.  I think it was a very important segue from the way I had been taught.  Much less surprising, I was handed it again in college.  Howard Zinn became a larger than life figure.  Someone that showed so many people to look further into the histories they had been taught and to not just accept without thinking, digging but, more importantly, listening to people not in the positions of power.

I now have an electronic copy of this book, but I have also read it twice so it is off to a new home.

Larousse Pocket French/English English/French Dictionary

Barron's: French at a Glance

Barron's: French Verbs

Langenscheidts Universal-Worterbuch: Englisch

Larousse Pocket French/English English/French Dictionary 1999

Living Language: German Coursebook 2005

Living Language: German Coursebook 1998
Living Language: German Learner's Dictionary 1993
Pronounce it Perfectly in French 2005

Weight: 2.8 oz

Method of Disposal: Donating

Along with all of the other things I am giving up with this move is the ridiculous notion that I will ever learn any of the foreign languages I collected all sorts of books to learn.  German, French, Russian.  I think there is even an Italian.  I should have been smart enough to try Spanish, but everyone kept telling me to so I had absolutely zero desire until it was too late.  Not that 13 years of French got my anywhere in being able to speak French and that is the truth!  I am not ready to give up on learning ASL though...

More Shakespeare

Hamlet Edited by Barbara A Mowat and Paul Werstine 1992
Othello and The Tragedy of Mariam (Tragedy by Elizabeth Cary) Edited by Clare Carroll 2003
Weight: 1 lb 12 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating

I wonder, on average, how many books the English Major graduate owns upon receiving their degree.  Do they usually keep them or give them away?  I have given away a lot of Shakespeare on this blog.  I will say, though, that I prefer to read the editions I was assigned in school.  They are not clunky and heavy like the complete works.  They often come with helpful and insightful commentary, theory, historical background.  These two editions were well used but are still in great shape and, I know, still being assigned in school.  I am sure they will make their way into loving and/or needful hands.
 

The Longman Anthology of British Literature

The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume 1B: The Early Modern Period
David Damrosch (Author), Clare Carroll (Author), Constance Jordan (Author)
2002
Weight: 2.2 lbs
Method of Disposal: Donating

While staying up too late and dreading another day of work, I also began to think about the distance between the United States and Britain AGAIN and grew upset AGAIN.  I kept looking around my messy house and telling myself I needed to get out of bed, stop reading the New Yorker (I had like ten to catch up on), and clean.  Run on the treadmill, at least, I told myself after reading several issues of Runner's Magazine while laying on my back.  On one of my several trips to the kitchen to snack on something or get a glass of water, instead of smoking a cigarette, I saw this book still standing tall on my shelves.  I am not sure why it is still here.  I took it to half.com to see if it was worth anything and, to my renewed frustration, it was not.

That's the thing about text books.  You pay hundreds of dollars for them and they rapidly decrease in value the whole time you have them.  If you do not sell them as soon as class ends they will soon only be worth a fourth of what you paid and, if you stupidly wait years, they will be 75 cents--even if they include "timeless literature."  None of this is new and surprising, but I was looking over my shelves after making this discovery and realizing how very much money I have spent on school books.  I kept them because I loved them or felt like they had more to teach me after I graduated.  With so many of them, I have never even opened them again--as is the case with this one.  I wish I had just written down the titles, sold them then, and bought them back now when they were worth nothing.

On a side note, I kept wondering why none of the books I was listing ever sold and then realized I've had my settings on "on vacation" for ages.  Also annoying.  Nothing like being a million miles away from what I want and being hours away from what I hate to put me in a foul mood.  I apologize to everyone involved.

Bottled Up

Bottled Up  by Jaye Murray
2004
Weight: 4 oz
Method of Disposal: Leaving in Decatur, GA

I just read this the other day because I was not feeling well and was laying around.  I wanted something easy and quick to read so I picked a teen lit book.  I thought it was pretty good.  I appreciated many components of it.  It was important to see how many positive influences Pip had to have and how a little luck also went a long way to setting him on the right track.  I appreciated that the adults were portrayed as people who didn't always know what the right thing to say or do was.  It could be an important read for many teenagers, whether they are going through something difficult or not.

It has rave reviews on Amazon and a lot of people praise the authentic teenage voice.  I am not going that far.  Particularly in the beginning, I had trouble believing in Tye-dye loving, drug using Pip.  I felt like the description of marijuana use was WAY over the top.  The portrait painted of the alcoholic father was good, but the portrait of the mother was really lacking.  It was an alright book.  I am afraid I will loss it soon to my declining memory.

2 X Siddhartha

2 X Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
1981
Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal: “Stolen” by Vallan and one will be left somewhere--unless you want it

Painting on wall at Steinbeck's in Oakhurst

I met Vallan for a coffee and a beer a couple weeks ago. I walked into the café and saw her deep in a book. I thought nothing of it and ordered a mocha. Later, I sat down and she explained to me that she had stolen the book when she dog sat for me in the past. She didn’t think it would matter since I was getting rid of my books anyway. She was right. It had to go at some point. I also have multiple copies of Siddhartha. She really liked it, and she confessed with no pressure. What are you going to do? There was a moment where I thought it was Steppenwolf and that the cover had fallen off, and I was not handling it quite so well, haha, oh well. Goodbye Siddhartha #1.

It was a library book, though paperback and overused. The first time it was checked out was in 96, and it was retired in 97. It came home with me. I have no idea where the other one came from, but it is the exact same edition as the library book. The cover is stripped off.

I believe my mother was the first person to have me read Siddhartha. In my senior year of high school we read it and had to put on a production. I was excited to be a “prostitute” in the “play.” In college, I would be required to read it again. Each time I was unable to find the copy I had read before and had to buy a new one. Now, I find them all over the place. It is a good book though. I imagine I will have many people to give it to when it is time for the others to go.