The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan

Leonard surprised me with this book. He chose it because he remembered that I liked The Joy Luck Club by the same author. I love how Amy Tan opens up the world of Chinese immigrants, especially those in the San Francisco Bay Area, to her readers.
This was an engaging book, from beginning to end. The modern daughter has no idea about her mother's past; this book is the story of her mother's coming of age in China. It reveals a harsh male dominant culture that is hard to read about. The powerlessness of women in that society is described in graphic but tasteful detail. Winnie, the mother, tells her story with lots of questions about her own role and choices in it. It's fascinating to read about how she considers herself both weak and strong. We are invited along her thought process and get to witness incredible patience, courage, fortitude, and love. It's inspiring.
I enjoyed this book because both my sister and I had Chinese friends in high school and college. While reading, I would sometimes think back to some experiences I had with them...this book explained some things for me...It's fascinating to consider how different and how hard the transition to American life would have been for these immigrants. And how baffling their own American-born children would be to them! I imagine this book could be a welcome bridge-builder in those families.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Melissa gave me this biography for Christmas. It's a treat because it's new, it's hardbound (and heavy!) and has some fascinating photos. It was a good read, despite Isaacson's occasionally confusing syntax. He did a masterful job of getting into Jobs's professional life and associations. There is less about his personal life, but we do get glimpses of Jobs's wife and children. It's often a story of our time and the development of iconic technology tools. It was fascinating to read about how these tools and ideas developed under Jobs's passionate attention. The book also reveals quite a bit about Bill Gates and other key players of this era.

Points to remember...

• Steve Jobs was passionate about DESIGN. This includes how products look, feel, and function. He lived at the intersection of the humanities and technology.
• He designed the new Apple campus building in a way to encourage people in different departments to intersect.
• He was diametrically opposed to Gates's open archetecture and instead controlled the user's experience from end to end.
• He launched a series of products over three decades that transformed whole industries: (pp. 565-566)
• Apple II - took Wozniak's first circuit board and turned it into the first personal computer that was not just for hobbyists.
• The Macintosh, which begat the home computer revolution and popularized graphical user interfaces.
• Toy Story and other Pixar blockbusters, which opened up the miracle of digital imagination.
• The iPod, which changed the way we consume music.
• The iTunes Store, which saved the music industry.
• The iPhone, which turned mobile phones into music, photography, video, email, and web devices.
• The App Store, which spawned a new content-creation industry.
• The iPad, which launched tablet computing and offered a platform for digital newspapers, magazines, books, and videos.
• iCloud, which demoted the computer from its central role in managing our content and let all of our devices sync seamlessly.
• And Apple itself, which Jobs considered his greatest creation, a place where imagination was nurtured, applied, and executed in ways so creative that it became the most valuable company on earth.
• He was very difficult to work with...and the author traces Jobs's personality development over time. It's an interesting story which Isaacson offers with compassion.

My favorite part of the book is the final word which Isaacson gives to Jobs. It's what he hoped his legacy would be, and revealed what he cared about. Page 567 onwards...worth reading again...

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

I first saw this book in a booth at an Indian Education conference, and the title and cover art intrigued me. I read it in November 2010, and marveled at the author's ability to be funny and tragic simultaneously. It reveals so much of what I have seen during my many visits to our Indian reservations. After years of visits and hours of listening, I understand there are no simple answers to the problems there. This book brings many of the dilemmas to light in a poignant, sensitive, and sometimes harsh way. I especially enjoyed the illustrations in the book; they add to the authentic feel of the stories and definitely enhance the humor! I was so impressed with what this book has to say that I lent it to my good friend Pat. He also has experience on the reservation and I wondered what he would think about this book. He kindly gave me permission to share those impressions here:

 I finished Diary of a Part-time Indian yesterday and want you to know how impressed I was. While a bit of a struggle getting through all of the crude references, I felt that it was unfortunately fairly reflective of the age group and the issues they deal with. But more impressive, as you might suggest, was the theme of the book itself. It certainly paints an accurate picture of the reservation world. The author was very skillful at drawing out the comparisons--hope vs despair, pain vs love, change vs risk. In fact, each of these were relevant themes that made an impact on me. The whole discussion of a culture attached to the reservation yet in so doing depriving itself of any hope of betterment/improvement is worthy of debate. Do I deprive myself of hope by not risking, changing or leaving? I liked the author's point that we are all made up of tribes--subsets of a larger culture. That discussion alone gives some hope to such youth struggling with so many deficits. What are other tribes you are connected to that aren't so dysfunctional? I was very impressed with the theme that to nurture hope in that environment you have to leave (both Arnold and his sister left). I likened that to how when we left the pre-existence we did filled with optimism and hope, yet recognizing that to leave is both angst causing and risky. How many of our bro/sis are giving up on our own "reservations" of life now? The metaphor of alcohol representing Satan is worth discussing as well. He literally will lead us down to hell using any addiction, crutch, or vehicle we give him. Sin is indeed addicting.

Rarely do I finish a book with an interest in reading it again immediately. The more the author delved into the reservation world the more you wondered if Arnold would indeed escape its entrapment, hopelessness. I also appreciated the positive aspects of the Native culture--the connection with family, the ability to laugh, etc. I found it interesting, however, that he didn't mince words about reservations being concentration camps, about the curse of alcohol, etc. I look forward to one more quick read.

I have to admit that Pat's deep thinking made me feel like a lightweight! And it shows the value, too, of not just reading a book, but reflecting on its message and application to my life. I never thought about how this life presents us with our own "reservation" experiences! Very interesting thing to ponder. What is it in our lifestyle that is holding us back? So often we think that we can withstand temptation rather than fleeing it!

Like Pat, I appreciated the author's description of the positive aspects of the Native culture. I wonder if Alexie is saying that the only hope is to leave the reservation? Some believe their life's calling is to work to improve life there...not to flee it. I wonder, how does one retain the glorious aspects of one's culture and language if one leaves the tribe? Does one transplant it within a larger culture? And how often does the dominant culture choke out and persecute the transplanted ones? I keep thinking about the safety and security of the family unit, and how Native people view the family unit as much larger than we traditionally have viewed it...It's a wonderful wide web of aunties and cousins and adopted-in members, and everyone is connected. I know I am viewing this through my own limited lens, but it seems generous and open in a way that sometimes our dominant white European nuclear families are not. I love how the richness of the Native culture (and I realize there is not just one) has been opened up to me and enriched my thinking and life. I know my view is limited by my own culture, so I'm very grateful to the patient teachers who have helped me understand my limitations. Grateful, too, for honest authors who will give us an intimate view...