3 posts tagged “yiddish”

... my vacation back East was wonderful. Despite my scary books, we had an absolutely fabulous time seeing my parents, my grandparents, my new baby cousin Benjamin (!!) and his parents, having some lovely together time with my husband, going to the beach, watching Crazy East Coast Apocalypse thunderstorms. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

One of the things Eric almost enjoyed was playing a round of golf with my dad. (Said round was interrupted early by aforementioned C.E.C.A.T.) My dad has been an avid golfer since forever, and upon our arrival presented Ainsley with her own set of clubs.

Ainsley got quite the golf education. Me, I got a golf book, by none other than Carl Hiaasen, and allow me to report that it does in fact contain alligators. Not the greatest of his efforts (probably because he was hampered by its non-fictionality, but still pretty darn funny in a lot of places. Worth a quick read for anyone who's dabbled in golf, or been affected by those who do. (Eric started it, but got annoyed that ol' Carl H. remarried in his fifties and fathered a now 5-year-old with his no doubt lovely, no doubt young, Greek wife. And I say, why write awesome  eco-comic alligator novels if you can't parlay them into a trophy wife?)

Another great part of this book is that he golfs with Mike Lupica, who has some great middle grade/YA sports novels (I think he writes grown-up stuff too). I do get him confused

with Michael Lewis, sometimes.

I also just finished Maps and Legends, by Michael Chabon, whom I love, and it was excellent. Happily, I'd read all the books of his own he discusses in these essays, and much of the other literature as well (His Dark Materials and The Road, anyway, and Will Eisner stuff). Sandy's blog reminded me that I wanted to read this, but I think I liked it more than she did. At least, I found this non-fiction to be very straightforward and clearly written, whereas sometimes I find M.C.'s fictional prose to be a bit dense. Like, for instance, the serialization of Gentlemen of the Road? Come again? I felt like I was just learning English. Not so with the book. I felt perfectly proficient in the language, thank you very much.

This should be read solely for the tale of Michael Chabon accidentally pissing off the universe of Yiddish speakers. Which reminds me: everyone go read Outwitting History. Right now.If you are a lover of books, of immigrants, of lost causes, of old Jewish ladies that feed you too much and say "nu?" (and who isn't?) you must read this book. You will be inspired. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll thank me.

And then we'll all go take a Yiddish class together.

I wanted to make a Top 10 list of things I've read and loved this past year, but I instantly forget everything I've read (despite this blog; sometimes I actually leave books on the desk to say HEY, you should write something about this and then every time I see it I say OH YEAH, that was an awesome book ... oh, look a bird!). But, so, here's at least a top 5:

1. Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee (holy moly, where has he been my whole life?)
2. Tamar, Mal Peet
3. Unwind, Neal Shusterman
4. American Born Chinese, Gene Yang (COMIN' TO MY SCHOOL IN MAY, Y'ALL!!!)
5. The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Michael Chabon (Really, he can do no wrong. Plus he's friends with Lemony Snicket.)

Any other nominations from you vast hordes of readers?

I am interested in nominations for top ASS books of 2007 as well. I I can't decide whether to put Eat, Pray, Love on the list. Further rumination is required.

I have a real problem with one of Ainsley's favorite books. It is Zoo's Who, apparently by the literary equivalent of Alan Smithee, and it is simply riddled with what I consider irredeemable grammatical errors. I don't want to go all Eats, Shoots and Leaves on baby board books, but come on!

For instance, I give you the following (line breaks belong to Zoo's Who):

The toucan hops, it
rarely flies, it's hard you
see, with a beak this size!
Moving around between the
trees, picking fruits and
nuts with ease.

Or how about:

The elephant's trunk is her
nose, it stretches right
down to her toes.

Or even:

Zebra's stripes are black and
white, when he sees a lion he
gets a fright.

This book has 14 pages total. Do they not believe in semicolons over there at Priddy Books? In fairness, I suppose, even if a copy editor did manage to glance through this (while stroking the fuzzy panda and the scaly iguana), ee
wouldn't know where to begin. Maybe:

The toucan hops, it        The toucan hops; it
rarely flies, it's hard you      rarely flies. It's hard, you see,
see, with a beak this size!     with a beak this size!
Moving around between the      It moves around between the
trees, picking fruits and           trees, picking fruits and
nuts with ease.                    nuts with ease.

I know the point of this book is to have fuzzy tactile experiences and not to be a punctuation primer, but OH MY SWEET JESUS it's like nails on a chalkboard every night when I read this. I can't even get verbal punctuation up in that bitch.

That's my rant, and I don't even really feel better now. It's still out there. Worse, it's still in here. Also, that tactile toucan? FURRY. NOT EVEN FEATHERY. There is no experience this book offers that is not warped and wrong.

I just finished The Yiddish Policeman's Union, which was AWESOME. I bow before Michael Chabon. But more on that later.