Mustang Ranch is the famous (legal) brothel in the U.S. In certain counties in the state of Nevada, brothels are legit. The legality surrounding these business establishments is a sticky and complicated business - often pitting county laws vs state laws.

What started out as a health research paper about the usage of condoms among sex workers ended up being an entire book about the lives behind the gate of the Mustang. Understandably, author Alexa Albert (then a med-student) was met with resistance from the proprietor of the Mustang. Took her years before he ever took her seriously. Eventually, she was quickly thrown into the lives of the working girls of the Mustang. She lived inside the ranch, talked to the ladies, found out about their personal lives, and even observed one of the prostitutes at work. Plenty of the ladies have married lives outside of the Mustang, and how they reconcile their work with their personal relationships becomes one of the most interesting parts of this book. There are young pros and old ones - the oldest working whore is about 60. The boring parts of the book, or at least the parts where I had to struggle a bit to care, are the parts where there are lengthy paragraphs about the politics of keeping a brothel legal in the state of Nevada. Written with a lot of sensitivity and respect, the reader is taken on a "behind the scenes" walk-through of the most famous brothel in America.

I've had "Tales of the City" for years in my bookshelf. Now I don't know what it is that compels me to pick up one of the books from my dead pile (books I bought but have languished on my shelf unread for more than a year), but it's identical to suddenly feeling like listening to a song at random. That, or if I wait a real long time, even the oldest dead-pilers appear to be new again. That said, the day I decided to finally read "Tales of the City", I realized just how wrong I was about it. It made reading fun again. (Prior to reading it I think I had been stuck trying to finish a biography of a writer I bought on sale.)

What a joy it was then, to come across the next two books in the series, "More Tales of the City" and "Further Tales of the City" in one go - and at 20 pesos each too! (This is one of my favorite Book Sale memories. And yes, I'm the sort of reader that has specific Book Sale memories.) "More Tales..." picks up from where "Tales..." left off. SPOILER ALERT: Mary Anne accidentally kills the guy she's dating in the last book, and nobody knows it but Brian, her neighbor; her bestfriend Michael Tolliver and Mrs. Madrigal, her landlady (a hip, hip lady if there ever was one). What I love about the Tales books is the soap opera quality of the story - each chapter is like an episode. (The Tales books originally appeared as a serial in a newspaper in SF before thjey were publised as novels). It has that Charles Dickens-quality to it. The chapters are snappy reads - you'd get only the dialogue, almost like a script, but you'd never miss what was happening in the narrative while the characters are talking. Somehow the dialogue alone is capable of pushing the plot forward, without sacrificing the exposition. "More Tales..." has a few surprises up its sleeve - and reading it makes the characters even more lovable. This is one of those books where you feel like you know the characters or that they're alive somewhere in the world.

I liked "More Tales" better than I liked the third book - "Further Tales..." The third book, unlke the second one, takes place a few years after "More Tales...", and introduces new characters. Why I needed to care about these new characters wasn't really clear to me. That was part of why I didn't exactly warm up to the story as quickly as I did with "More Tales..." The tone of the novel may have shifted to a more somber tone. With the first two books, I felt more of a connection with the characters, while in the third book, I noticed a more detached way of story-telling. Less snappy, and more reflective, "Further Tales..." seemed a bit of a downer after the hyper storytelling of the first two books. I still liked it, and noted that Mary Anne loosened up a lot and is less of a hayseed since moving to SF in the first book, so that was nice. Bit of a wild goose chase in the main premise, with a soap opera resolution - believe me, with the Tales... books, a soap opera resolution is a good good thing.

Since having read "Kitchen Confidential", Anthony Bourdain has gone on to become one of the most successful "celebrity chefs" (how he'd balk at the term) today. I enjoyed reading "Kitchen Confidential" the first time I read it, but at the time, "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations" was still a distant blip in his future. I think he was still shooting for "A Cook's Tour" or at least, maybe trying to end things with the Food Network. "Kitchen Confidential" was a revelation of sorts - I consider this book to be my gateway drug to food writing. Soon after reading it, I picked up Ruth Reichl's "Garlic and Sapphires", hoping to find more of the flavor that I picked up from Tony's reminiscences of growing up around, and eventually, finding a career in food. Reading it, I felt like this guy was onto something with his writing, and would not be surprised to find out much later, that he would have another tv show - one that combined travel with food.

The Anthony Bourdain on tv wasn't that different from the Anthnoy Bourdain in print, which I ws glad to find out. Minus the swearing, he was the still the same guy - his speaking voice is something you wouldn't be surprised to hear after reading a couple of his books. Naturally, I became a fan of his show. This year, I decided to re-read what got me so interested in the first place.

Reading "Kitchen Confidential" a second time makes me think maybe the guy's done a lot of growing up since having written the memoir. "Kitchen Confidential" was so macho in tone and narrative. It had a "I've seen this, I've done this, I've snorted that and lived to show you my scars" swagger. Tony, having taken up a fan's challenge for him to return to the kitchens after almost 2 decades of not cooking professionally on an episode of "AB: NR", finds himself humbled by the experience. Cooking, like comedy, is a young man (or woman, for that matter)'s game. Though he made a lot of his early cooking experiences seem unendurable and chaotic, what really came through for me was the love for what it was he was doing. Passion always came through no matter how many times he talked about not getting any sleep. It was something that I connected with. The bitching in the book was coming from a place of gratitude and love - the feeling that you would never for a million years think of doing anything different than what it is you're doing now. I've had that feeling many times about my work and my field. (As a fan, it makes me happy that Tony has earned his tv production chops - it gives me a glow to read his blog entries about shooting with his team, and it makes me wish I was part of that crew, too.)

"Bitten" is gorgeously bound - it's a sensual little number too look at, and even to hold. Stories range from the vaguely speculative to the ghastly to the "gothic". One of my favorite writers, Francesca Lia Block, contributes to this anthology, as does Sera Gamble (who writes for the tv show, 'Supernatural'). 

"Little Birds" collects more of her famous dollar-a-page erotica. (Her first being "Delta of Venus".) Anyone who's ever read "Delta of Venus" will find more of the same stuff in that book in "Little Birds". Mysterious counts, lusty peeping toms, ladies on top of dunes, pervy artists' muses and models - these are some of the characters that populate Anais Nin's erotic universe. It may help to note that these stories were written in the 1940's - what was hot then is still pretty damn hot now.

To this day, nobody can hold a candle to Anais Nin when it comes to writing sexy little stories. Her stories are vivid, feverish, pervy wet dreams. The characters she writes about seem to inhabit an alternate universe where it's half desert and half Paris brothel, and everyone can't wait to get naked. The book's a pretty slim volume, but more than a few pages is enough - each story's like a heady shot of some kind of endorphin-releasing drug. Best savored over time, rather than devoured at one go.

"A Confederacy of Dunces" was published post-humously, eleven years after John Kennedy Toole's death. The author's mother found the manuscript in her son's belongings, called up writer Walker Percy, convinced him to read it, and the book ended up winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1981.

The joy of taking on this book begins with Walker Percy's introduction, which tells the reader about how the book came to him. He began reading it begrudgingly, waiting for it to suck. The book wasn't that bad enough for him to stop reading, then eventually got interesting, then exciting, and finally, in the end, it got him thinking how incredibly good the book really is.

I wanted that feeling, too. I fully expected that I'd wait for it to suck at some point so I can stop reading it, but I found that, like Walker Percy's introduction - it wasn't bad enough to abandon, then stuff got interesting, then exciting then...

The book is about Ignatius J. Reilly, this fat bastard who lives with his mom in New Orleans. Ignatius is an over-educated slacker who hates everything, including his interests. Ignatius speaks in this overly-affected post-collegiate way and everybody else talks back in a New Orleans dialect. He keeps a lot of notebooks in which he writes these epic philosophical tomes, he has a Jewish, leftist-activist girlfriend (pictured her a Janeane Garofalo the entire time) and his own twisted sense of style (i.e., green hunting cap, plaid scarf).

I waited for it to suck. I had hoped the moment would kick in after the first chapter, but then I just kept on reading. This thing was written in the 60's, but everything about it felt so current. One of the blurbs on the back of the book say it is one of the funniest books ever and made one reviewer laugh out loud. I can assure you - it is not "laugh- out- loud" in that way. It's more of a "laughing in my head because this shit's excellent" kind of feeling. It's a hell of a lot of fun to read, especially if you like characters who are well, characters. There's plenty of ridiculousness to go around, but a lot of times, the antics of Ignatius J. Reilly made me want to lock him up or medicate him heavily. I'd have felt sorry for his mom, but she's a raging drunk. I never wanted to stop reading it though, and when I had to, couldn't wait to pick it up again.

I loved "Sushi for Beginners", but I it was only after reading two or three more of Marian Keyes' work that I realized I was a fan. However, up til last month, I still made the conscious effort not to buy any of her books as brand new editions. Something about that just might change.

The first book I read in 2010 is "Last Chance Saloon", which on the MK canon, comes about four books in her writing career. Relatively "earlier stuff". It's about this group of women (as is often the case in MK's books) who are friends. MK's characters have unusual, often unpronounceable Irish names like Laoghaire or Aofie. This is one of those things I like about her. "Last Chance Saloon" however, only has a couple - Fintan is one of them, and it's no challenge on the tongue. Fintan's gay and has a couple of female frenz named Tara (fat and stuck in a co-dependent realationship) and Katherine (icy, overly organized and without a love life). There's also a semi-friend, whose name I forget because she wasn't really that important in the story, but she has impeccable style and i pictured her as Nico.

Then there's Lorcan (Irish name alert!) Larkin, a failed actor with shoulder length red hair who is a womanizer. I fail to see the attraction in this Lorcan dude, and also what he's doing in this book. We won't know til much later why he's in it.

I love the way the douchebags are written in MK's books. They have such unique cultural douchebaggy-ness. In "Last Chance Saloon", the main db is Thomas, Tara's boyfriend. He's so cheap, he won't pay his share in cab fare when he bums a ride with Tara and her friends. "No," he says. "I refuse to pay. I don't think it's fair that you should profit from my presence." GASP! Thomas consistently puts Tara down because of her weight gain, and is generally a boring fuck of a boyfriend (i.e., everything he owns is brown). Normally, this type of dilemma is just par for the course in the chick-lit universe, but MK's writing makes the common problem less trite. A lot of women stick to the partners they're with because they're scared of being alone - something that's not groundbreaking subject matter. It's really the "how"s of the leaving than the "why"s that keep me reading her books. Also, not a lot of whining and klutziness going on, which is a plus and is a rarity in chick-lit.

While all this is going on in Tara's life, Katherine gets wooed by a co-worker, whom she thinks is cute but she's all "Oh I must protect myself from the inevitable douchebaggery, so no thanks". And then Fintan gets seriously sick, and poses life-changing challenges for his gal pals - Tara must dump Thomas and Katherine must admit she likes her co-worker and go out with him.

As with the MK books I've read so far, there are loads of side characters in this one - officemates, family members and the like. Most of them are pretty endearing, and if they aren't, they're characters you'd be itching to be taken down. Another thing I adore about MK - her characters eventually get what they deserve.

Sure, there are some sappy moments, and Fintan getting sick made me visualize a made-for-tv movie chick flick. Tara's struggles with weight and shitty boyfriend are believable but not annoying, I wanted to see Katherine finally getting laid, and I didn't want Fintan to die. I thought this was going to be a dead friend and lessons learned type of book, but it wasn't. But even if it did, it still would have been a good, entertaining read.

2. "para kay b" by ricky lee
somewhere towards the end - it gets mind-splittingly meta.

3. "nick and norah's infinite playlist" by rachel cohn and david levithan
made sure i bought the movie tie-in version for the michael cera photos :P

4. "the best creative non-fiction vol. 1" ed. by lee gutkind
there's woman who can't remember faces, a day in the life of a competitive eater, an anonymous hotel suicide and other neat non-fiction stuff

5. "memoirs of a geisha" by arthur golden
an official "book pile" selection. number of years spent on my bookshelf unread: 7

6. "tales of a fourth grade nothing" by judy blume
also from the book pile. worse: it's from the "borrowed" book pile.

7. "the crimson labyrinth" by yusuke kishi
bought for something like 99 pesos at the last big powerbooks sale. exciting buildup, meh pay-off.

8. "the devil wear prada" by lauren weisberger
the rare instance where the movie is infinitely so much better than the book.

9. "this charming man" by marian keyes
out of all chick lit writers, i love marian the best. a bit mellow-dramatic at times, but still very fun.

10. "just after sunset" by stephen king
rediscovered his short fiction this year. good, tight collection of the new and not so new unpublished work.

11. "the best american non-required reading 2008" ed. by dave eggers
this year's edition felt the recession - the paper used is conspicuously of lesser quality than its previous editions. as always, the non-fictions pieces are more memorable than the fiction. foreword by judy blume

12. "the best american non-required reading 2007" ed. by dave eggers
my favorite piece was probably conan o'brien's commencement speech to stuyvesant high school foreword by sufjan stevens.

13. "nigtmare and dreamscapes" by stephen king
a re-issue of an older collection. some stories feel like fillers - particularly, the longer ones.

14. "tales of the city" by armistead maupin
weirdly, the name that's an anagram for "i made him up" is his real name. another book pile selection. number of years spend unread on bookshelf: 6

15. "365 days" by julie doucet
gorgeously thick and detailed, this comic chronicles a year in julie's life. made me jealous of her career. pa-art art lang, pa-travel travel.

16. "perfect fifths" by megan mccafferty
the closing installment to her jessica darling series. a satisfying end with barry manilow's greatest hits.

17. "the secret history" by donna tartt
cheap-ass mass -market pocket book edition priced at 85 php. gripping, rewarding and quite spooky. similar to "special topics in calamity physics" by marisha pessl

18. "tender at the bone" by ruth reichl
wonderful booksale find priced at 125 php! details from "garlic and sapphires" become more clear with this first volume of her memoir.

19. "the october country" by ray bradbury
another booksale find at 15 php! vintage bradbury.

20. "lady sings the blues" by billie holiday with william dufty
short and sweet. was missing the cd of covers though. bought at booksale for 45 php.

21. "the magicians" by lev grossman
lots of people hated this book, but i can see where it was coming from.

22. "barrel fever" by david sedaris
probably this year's booksale winner at 22php.

23. "the return of the king" by jrr tolkien
it seemed tolkien was in need of a good editor at the time. so many passages could have been culled and the book wouldn't have lost its impact. however, i see why some hardcore fans of the book were upset by the film.

24. "poe's children" ed. by peter straub
bought this book mainly for its gorgeous cover. had three of the stories contained within on different books, but 99% of the selections are winners. i think there was only one story i didn't particularly like and one that i really didn't understand. everything else - top shelf.

unfinished:

1. "one flew over the cuckoo's nest" ken kesey
i think i've spoiled it by seeing the film.

2. "the complete short stories" by dorothy parker
will finish this year. it's a cracker!

3. "st. lucy home for girls raised by wolves" by karen fowler
too open ended for my liking. i don't like thinking, "yeah, and...?" after i finish short stories.

4. "tokyo cancelled" by randa dasgupta
an impulse buy. seemed like a good idea at the time.

5. "james tiptree jr: the double life of alice b. sheldon" by julie phillips
too much burgis bitching from one of the best sci-fi writers. may pick it up again later on though.