lower east side librarian

I secretly wish I was a doctor and not so secretly distrust and resent the medical profession, not to mention the health care industry. The House of Hope and Fear touches on the latter, more than the former. The author/doctor exhibits some annoyance with patients (and their families) that want to participate in developing their own treatment plans. The stories detail the cases of various emergency department patients, but the book is more about the Harborview hospital itself. Even so I didn't feel like I ever comprehended Harborview's unique funding model. It gets some public funds, but doesn't rely on them? But part of its mission is to serve the uninsured. The real problem with this book, which I neither loved nor hated, btw, is that it feels like it was written for someone's approval. Probably a few someones, since the book isn't as coherent as it could be.

Johanna, one of my favorite zine publishers, hadn't made a zine since issue 4 of Sisu came out in May 2006. For some reason, although I acquired No History, No Self from StrangerDanger back in November, I didn't get around to reading it until just now. (I have a serious cataloging backlog problem, which I hope to clear up by the end of the year!) I'm a fool for letting it go so long, but at least I finally read it. Like all of Johanna's zines, NHNS has strong political content, particularly regarding race, mixed race identity, and identity politics. She has put in her time as an activist and has plenty of cred in that arena (also in feminist science-fiction and vegan communities), so what is particularly affecting to me in this new zines venture is how personal and open she is, about missing New York, trying to make friends, being depressed and contemplating therapy. She lists some great self-care suggestions for dealing with depression, the top three being sleep, cats, and tea, things I can totally get behind. That emphasis on self-care I think in this case extends to the rest of the world. NHNS is gentler than its predecessors. Johanna, who doesn't suffer fools lightly, is more inwardly focused this time around, maybe because repatriated to the UK she's missing her friends from home around whom she can actually be herself. Reading this zine I wanted to give Johanna a hug. I also want to know when issue 2 will be out.

The third in See's mystery collection, featuring Chinese Ministry of Public Security Inspector Liu Hulan and her American spouse attorney David Spark, takes place at an archaeological dig. The Hulan is charged with solving some unexplained deaths (some of them pretty grisly, so be warned), and David with protecting China's artifacts from a greedy marketplace. There's a large cult-like religion for them to contend with as they set to their appointed tasks and also try to salvage their marriage, which took a major hit when their 3 1/2-year-old daughter died (between Dragon Bones and its predecessor The Interior.

Staceyann Chin had a pretty bad childhood--abandonment, estrangement, poverty, abuse, fear of sexual assault--and then in young adulthood a certain proclivity that is not well tolerated in her native Jamaica. Yet she manages to tell her story without an excess of anger or emotion. There's no need, as the facts she presents speak for themselves.

When I selected this memoir by a Taiwanese adoptee raised by white parents in Michigan reunited with her birth family, I expected something a bit more critical than Lucky Girl turns out to be. I guess I thought the title would be more ironic than it is. I don't think the title is entirely unlayered, but the author does seem pretty happy with how her life turned out, rather than how it might have if she'd remained one of too many (seven?) daughters of a Chinese couple that kept at it in the hopes of eventually producing a healthy, non-deformed boy.

Last year I read and enjoyed Nguyen's childhood memoir Stealing Buddha's Dinner, so I was way psyched to learn that she had a novel out. In some ways, this story of two sisters takes place where the memoir left off, although with a different cast of characters. The women, born in the US to Vietnamese immigrant parents about a year apart, are in their late twenties and facing what some call the Saturn Return. The older one, Van, is having marriage woes, and the younger Linny has boyfriend problems and also a (related) job crisis to deal with. Plus with their mother is long dead, and their father is only semi-capable of taking care of himself, good Asian girls are expected to pick up the slack.

I wasn't expecting to like The Namesake very much. I wasn't crazy about her short story collection Interpreter of Maladies, and the description wasn't particularly enticing. So why did I even read it? Maybe just because Lahiri is a Barnard alumna? Or because I'd saved it in my library account to read list, and it was the only thing I didn't have to go over to Columbia to borrow? Who knows? Regardless, I'm glad I did.

Vikki Law, who also edits a zine by and for incarcerated women called Tenacious, has written a dense (664 endnotes!), but eminently readable chronicle of the struggles and travails of women in prison.

This book is ridiculously informative, but be warned it is also meant to incite. As Vikki inscribed in my copy, "Remember, prisons don't fall on their own--they need that extra push!"

I was so psyched to read Lisa See's new historical novel that I snatched it off the cataloging truck to get at it faster. With that kind of build up, it would have been surprising if I liked it as much as I expected to, so maybe it's not Shanghai Girls's fault that I didn't love it.

I (mostly) recommend and (somewhat) don't recommend this book. It's a pretty good read, but doesn't necessarily achieve what it sets out to do. I love Lisa See's historical novels, which is how I ended up reading the first two books in her mystery series.