Books in the Pacific Northwest

Book Adventures in the Pacific Northwest Seattle, WA & Portland, OR

Dear Reader, Hi, gang! So, I have been quite remiss in writing reviews, most especially because I went on a fun (and far too whirlwind!) trip to Seattle & Portland this past week and a half. You'll be pleased to hear, however, that while I was away I certainly wasn't far from books! We hit up several literary landmarks, including the Seattle Public Library (an architectural gem), the Portland (Multnomah County) library (a gorgeous old building), Powell's Books (an institution), and even the Whisk{e}y Library! (That last one was not quite so bookish, and was more for Troy than for me - but I stumbled across it when I was looking for directions to the real MCPL.) We even considered going to The Bookstore, a bar in Seattle, but were talked out of it because, despite its name, it wasn't apparently very bookish. (Looking at the website now, I think our friend was terribly wrong about this, and I so wish we'd gone!) (NB: Since I am not great at ever remembering to take photos, I am gratefully borrowing some amazing work from others.) (photo by Nicola @ Flickr) The Seattle Public Library was incredible - it was the first real Seattle sightseeing we did, and well worth the visit. I was impressed by so much there - the organization of the place, the use of space, the unbelievably huge collection (even including beautiful old phone directories from the early 1900s!). We got to see the view from the highest point of the library, and also made sure to stop by the Chocolati stand, the Seattle-based coffee & chocolate shop located just inside the main entrance to the library. I got a peanut butter hot chocolate (there were so many yummy options!) and we tried several of the famous chocolates, including the chipotle truffle, the "fish & chips" (a fish-shaped mold with potato chips inside!), a Bailey's-filled truffle, and a vanilla & sea salt one. All incredible. And the woman who worked behind the counter was so friendly and welcoming! She gave us some great suggestions for our visit to her adopted city. I could have probably spent days in the SPL, but we had other places to see, so we reluctantly moved on.  Larry Kirkland, Garden Stair Detail, found here Portland's library was a total gem of an entirely different variety. If Seattle's was the pinnacle of modern style, this was the epitome of a classic Vanderbilt-style library. My Portland-based friend who brought us there was worried it would not live up to the Seattle library, but it absolutely did - it just wasn't the shiny, high-tech marvel of Seattle. It had its own perfect charm, and I adored it just as much. The staircase pictured above was gorgeous etched black marble, encompassing a myriad of subjects. We first climbed it to see the temporary Cesar Chavez exhibit in the upstairs gallery, which was very well done. Then we explored a few of the many grand rooms, where we found gems like globes of various planets, their charming Friends bookstore, and the Beverly Clearly children's room: Beverly Cleary was an Oregon local - I was thrilled to realize this when we drove through Yamhill, OR! Photo by Amara D. @ Yelp My friend also wisely took me to Powell's Books, which is another Portland institution and must-see! What a mecca - and a maze! We kept getting lost in the numerous rooms. But, a good lost, of course! I can't even describe the overwhelming awesomeness, but just think of a chain bookstore done INCREDIBLY WELL. It was filled with people, even on a Wednesday afternoon. I purchased the below design in t-shirt form: Adorable, right? Apparently it was a design contest winner! In any case, both the library & bookstore should be added to any book-lover's visit to Portland. And lastly, even though it wasn't a book library, we did visit the gorgous Whisk{e}y Library which I luckily stumbled across. This is a fairly new place in Portland, so on weekends it still has lines out the door, but we visited on a weekday afternoon and so luckily we were seated immediately. It felt like a place where Sherlock Holmes or Ernest Hemingway could be found. It had a beautiful speakeasy feel, with a dash of library thrown in (there were reading tables like you might find in the NYPL), and featured shelves upon shelves of whiskey and liquor of all sorts! I actually took some photos, for once: (Now you can see why I never take photos - I certainly didn't get my father's photography genes!) So, there you have it! Our literary adventures in the Pacific NW. I highly recommend visiting any & all of the above next time you find yourself in the Seattle & Portland areas! I will certainly revisit them when I get to go back again. Yours, Arianna

A Tale for the Time Being - Review by AmberBug

A Tale for the Time Being Ruth Ozeki 3/5	Published 2013 First Sentences"Hi!  My name is Nao and I am a time being."
Publisher's Description: In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun who’s lived more than a century. A diary is Nao’s only solace—and will touch lives in a ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao’s drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future. Full of Ozeki’s signature humour and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.
Dear Reader, This book was chosen for me not by me. There is a quaint bookstore down by the shore in Connecticut (might have mentioned this place before) that convinced me to sign up for a monthly club that sends you signed first edition hardcovers for only the price of the book itself. I absolutely love this deal because it makes me branch out and read something I might have otherwise left alone. Although Ozeki's novel didn't speak to me the way it did to others, I still feel like RJ Julia selected this book with care and the writing and imagination is most definitely there. A Tale for the Time Being does have a large number of readers who LOVED every word. The story is essentially two interconnected stories in one. You have the plot line with Nao, sixteen years old and going through all the troubles a truly unique girl at that age would have to go through (if not a little more). The parts with Nao as the main focus really kept me reading and I loved almost all of it. The second story follows a couple that has some problems. We have Ruth, who becomes obsessed with this story of Nao that happened to wash up on the shore. Such a romantic idea, which I loved. However, the interaction between her and the husband had me cringing. I absolutely HATED the dynamic between the two, they didn't play nice with one another and ended up making me feel awkward (the kind of awkward feeling that comes when you happen upon a very heated lovers spat and you wish you could disappear into the wall before they bring you into it... yes that!) Don't get me wrong, I did like this book for the most part but I had way to many dislikes to give this any higher of a rating. When I liked something in the book, I LOVED it but the same goes for when I didn't like something, it turned into an extreme DISLIKE. Now to get into the gritty ending and for this I have to say goodbye to those who haven't read the book. SPOILER ALERT! DON'T READ THE RED TEXT BELOW IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK!!! What the heck was up with that crazy explanation to tie up the ending to make it clean and happy!? I hated it. I would rather have a sad ending instead of a crazy one! It explained everything so vaguely with parallel worlds and quantum mechanics. I love sci-fi, watched every season of Stargate (also with many episodes on quantum mechanics and parallel worlds) BUT the difference being... I didn't feel it has a place in this book, it didn't really fall into place and the explanation was held by such a small thread it broke when I turned the page in the book.  SPOILER IS OVER! YOU CAN CONTINUE READING!!! The three stars I gave this book was for Nao and her heartwarming, compelling story that kept me reading for the entire four hundred and thirty two pages. I warn you that this is not for everyone (especially with that ending) but at least you'll have a nice journey getting there. Yours, AmberBug P.S. - Check out what Arianna thought of this book!

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A Tale for the Time Being

A Tale for the Time Being Ruth Ozeki 4 / 5	Published 2013 First Sentences "Hi!  My name is Nao and I am a time being."
Publisher's Description: In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun who’s lived more than a century. A diary is Nao’s only solace—and will touch lives in a ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao’s drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future. Full of Ozeki’s signature humour and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.
Dear Reader, Boy, am I slacking!  I'm so sorry.  I finished this book on December 17, but I didn't feel like writing a review for a while, as I was trying to figure out how I felt about this book.  Also, I audiobooked it while driving to & from work, which means that sometimes I finish a book mid-commute and will start another, and then when I get home I'm no longer in the mood to write a review.  Blerg!  (We won't even get into how I've finished ANOTHER audiobook since this one, and also have to write THAT review...) In ANY case, hmm.  What DID I think of this book?  Well, ultimately (and for like 90% of the book), I did love it.  Ozeki told a great and very enthralling story of a girl who lives in Japan and writes regularly in her diary about her life, her family (past and present), and her feelings.  That part was fantastic, and I never wanted to pause when I was reading about Naoko.  However, Nao's stories are interspersed between those which describe a woman (Ruth, which makes you wonder how autobiographical the novel is) who found Nao's journal years after it was written, and who reads the diary entries obsessively and convinces herself that she can "save" Nao, somehow - even though she doesn't even know what has since happened to the girl.  The "Ruth parts" of the book were significantly less engaging than Nao's, and contained a lot of very annoying characters, but I didn't find them off-putting enough that it ruined the book as a whole, and I did appreciate the device the author used in order to create suspense and a larger story. The problem is, really, that I don't like fantastical books.  Perhaps that's not the right term - maybe it's more "surreal"?  I love fantasy, if it's placed into a fantasy world or framed as such.  Just not when it's shoved into an otherwise realistic novel, a la Toni Morrison.  And Amber had warned me that this book hit a point where it just...went a bit off.  I found the worst to be the dream that Ruth found herself having, which had quite wide-reaching effects for it being all in her head.  And the parts about how the journal changed.  What didn't bother me, though, was the science with which the book ended.  I mean, it's science, and it's feasible, in its own rational way.  And I kind of liked how Ozeki introduced the scientific element into her very fanciful novel.  But it did seem very strange to tack it on at the end there, and to kind of devolve from a novel into a (very superficial and simplified) scientific text for a few pages before ending.  That just didn't sit right - perhaps I would have felt better if there were hints throughout the book of this, or even just more discussion about the phenomenon as a whole, but it just wasn't working for me, in the long run.  Hence, while this was a 5-star book for the majority of the story (I particularly loved the POV parts about Nao's great-uncle who served as a reluctant kamikaze pilot in WWII), it ended up dropping down a star in my eyes, for the way it ultimately ended. I do waffle; perhaps it should be close to 4.5, for me.  But, I'm going to leave my initial rating as-is.  And, I would very much recommend this book for the first 90% of it.  Please do keep that in mind - I certainly didn't hate it!  It just threw me for a loop, is all. Yours, Arianna

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