2001 - The Final Chapter

After I read The Complete Tightwad Gazette, nothing else seemed interesting. I only wanted to read (and talk and talk and talk...) about how to save money. Although I read a few other things, I was constantly dipping back into TCTG. It all felt like a revelation.

29. Living Well On A Shoestring (nonfiction) -Editors of Yankee magazine. Hmm, there's something about New Englanders...they've really got that thrift thing going on. Is it because of their Puritan past? Good hints, but without personal stories or life philosophy. I enjoyed the flinty good humor.

30. The Best Of The Cheapskate Monthly (nonfiction) - Mary Hunt. Hunt was an extreme spendthrift who got so in over her head in credit card debt that she was finally forced to see the light. Again, hints without trying to show people how to get the mindset that's necessary. Plus, she seems a little chirpy.

31. Your Money or Your Life (nonfiction) - Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. I'm pleased that this was updated in 2008. A worthwhile read about money = life energy and how we so often waste that needlessly. Dominguez and Robin are like Amy Dacyczyn in that they appeal to the reader's intelligence by showing them the workings instead of firing off a volley of hints. Jessica at Both Eyes considers it a book that changed her life and recently wrote a fine review which I recommend.

32. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay (biography) - Nancy Milford. New Year's Eve. Champagne. Dick Clark. LitAmnesia.

2001 Part 3

23. Jackson Pollock: An American Saga (biography) - Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith. This 900+ page biography isn't just about Pollock, it's about 20th century art and Pollock's world in general as well as the figures he came in contact with like Peggy Guggenheim, Thomas Hart Benton, Clem Greenberg and the artist who would become his greatest promoter and wife, Lee Krasner. Naifeh and Smith present Pollock warts and all. The whole book is excellently researched and written. Ed Harris used this for his source material when he directed and starred in a 2000 biopic about Jackson Pollock.

24. For The Love of God: The Faith and Future of the American Nun (nonfiction) -Lucy Kaylin. Kaylin examines convents in the United States that are clsoing due to dwindling numbers of women unvilling to choose a life of religious service. On the other hand, some convents are thriving, but their numbers are small. Kaylin interviews a few dozen nuns and former nuns. Another good book related to this subject is Sisters by John J. Fialka.

25. The Chocolate War (novel) - Robert Cormier. This is Cormier's big hit, but I much preferred Fade, a later novel. This prep school story about Jerry refusing to sell chocolates for the school and the dramatic outcome seems like so much blather.

26. Tiger Eyes (novel) - Judy Blume. I read this for an Adolescent Literature class, but I only remember that the main character's faher died and the family goes to New Mexico to stay with an uncle.

27. Farewell To Manzanar (memoir) - Jeanne Wakatasuki Houston. Another for the Adolescent Literature class. As a child, the author and her fmaily were placed in a Japanese-American interrment camp until World War II had ended. This thoughtful and intelligent look back at how her whole fmaily was affected should be required reading in schools.

28. The Complete Tightwad Gazette (nonfiction) - Amy Dacyczyn. I was teaching an ESL class for university students and we were doing a chapter on recycling. I vaguely remembered "a tightwad lady" who had some "wacky hints" about recycling. I found the book at Hastings and bought it. The lesson for my students ended later that week and mine was just beginning. I became so engrossed in Dacyczyn's story and methods and the stories of other successes from folliwing her advice that I couldn't stop reading and rereading and ruminating. This ended up being one of the books of my life and one that came with me to Korea. TCTG is an excellent resource. I wish I had encountered such a book early in my life.