David Sedaris

"Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk" By David Sedaris Illustrations by Ian Falconer Little, Brown: 2010

I remember when this book came out last year. I was in Korea and listened to interviews of the author and read reviews of it. I really wanted to read it, but I knew I did not have the chance to do it since I could not get books in English in Korea that new or particular books that I wanted in English there. Books in English in Korea are like gold there.

I have read other books by David Sedaris and found them to be very funny. He writes memoirs like my friend Ted does. Ted is a huge fan of his and they have met several times and even had lunch once. These stories are not like a memoir but are stories of animals but are not really stories of animals. I have talked about my friend Ted and he recommended this book and thought I had it already. I got this from the library. What Ted did not tell me is that some of the stories were actually quite sad. I complained to Ted over the phone about it and he said that Sedaris explained that life is funny and sad so that is why the stories are that way too or something like that. It was hard to make sense what Ted was say because he was in Seattle, Washington and drinking coffee and espresso out of every coffee shop, it seems, he could find. Ted is a 12 step man and he has switched over to coffee in a big way.

Anyhow, I do recommend the book. It is a wonderful series of very easy to read stories that are not for children. Trust me on this. We, adults, need stories like this, even the sad ones, that are for us only. Harry Potter can be read by adults and children. These stories can be read only by adults. The story that came from the title of the book is a sad one but funny. A squirrel meets a chipmunk and they have this thing immediately. He is happy he can talk with her, the chipmunk, about anything. He is so in love as she is. Then he brings up something and says he really thought she might like as much as he did and she asked what it was. He said it was jazz. She was afraid to admit that she did not know what it was and envisioned it was all sorts of odd sexual practices. Because she became so cold to him, he drifted away and she later married a chipmunk and it was one of her grandsons who told her what it was. She had never saw the squirrel again.

A word about the illustrations. They are wonderful too. Ian Falconer is the author and illustrator of the Olivia series of children's books. They captured the whimsical quality of these stories very well.

If you haven't read any of Sedaris' other books, I recommend them to you. They are really funny. They are about his life in the form of memoirs. If life gives you lemons, one can survive it all by developing a sense of humor like this author.

White, Edmund (Penguin Lives)

"Marcel Proust" by Edmund White (Penguin Lives) Lipper/Viking: 1999

I enjoyed reading this slim 165 page book. It is part of the Penguin Lives series and each author of the series is chosen for his or her expertise on the author in question. Edmund White is a Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Award for Literature from the National Academy of Arts and Letters. His book, "Genet: A Biography" won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lambda Literary Award.

Proust is most known for the seven volume novel, "Remembrance of Things Past" and White chooses to intersperse the creation of this epic novel along with details of his life in this book. Memory plays an important part of the novel as well as Proust's life and how he lived his life. He was active in French social life and the novel includes his experiences and his conflicts associated with the double life he led as a homosexual in a time where it was not socially acceptable although not as condemned as it was in England.

White writes with authority and yet the story of Proust is readable and interesting as he moves through his relatively short life. Many people thought of him as a shallow socialite but he was anything but that. He was a gifted observer of the life of those who lived from party to party and of the art world at the time. Many were astonished that after his death when the final two volumes were finally published that they were reading the work of a genus and that he was one of the most important writer of the 20th century.