What I Read in 2011

Every year I set the goal of reading 52 books in 52 weeks.

Well, I made the mark! For funsies, I read 75 books in the last 52 weeks.


My Top 10 of 2011:
1. Dance with a Poor Man’s Daughter – Pamela Jooste
2. Eva Luna – Isabel Allende
3. The Penelopiad – Margaret Atwood
4. Local Girls – Alice Hoffman
5. Coloured Lights – Leila Aboulela
6. Purple Hibiscus – Chimanda Ngozi Adichie
7. Lives: Simone Weil – Francine Du Plessix Grey
8. King Leopold’s Ghost: A story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa -- Adam Hochschild
9. Gilead – Marilynne Robinson
10. Freedom – Jonathan Franzen


And the complete list:
1. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand – Helen Simonson (fiction)
2. The Last Fish Tale – Mark Kurlansky (nonfiction)
3. American Gods – Neil Gaiman (sci-fi/fiction)
4. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet – David Mitchell (fiction)
5. Super Sad True Love Story – Gary Shteyngart (fiction)
6. The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival -- John Valliant (nonfiction)
7. The Penderwicks of Gardam Street – Jeanne Birdsall (YA fiction)
8. The Waves – Virginia Woolf (fiction)
9. The Beet Queen – Louise Erdrich (fiction)
10. Embroderies – Marjane Satrapi (graphic novel)
11. Gathering Blue – Lois Lowry (YA fiction)
12. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe – Douglas Adams (science fiction)
13. A Walk in the Night and Other Stories – Alex La Guma (short story collection)
14. Uncle Tom’s Children – Richard Wright (short story collection)
15. Burger’s Daughter – Nadine Gordimer (fiction)
16. Dance with a Poor Man’s Daughter – Pamela Jooste (fiction)
17. In the Dark with me Dress on Fire – Blanche La Guma (memoir)
18. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro (fiction)
19. Eva Luna – Isabel Allende (fiction)
20. Girl with a Pearl Earring – Tracy Chevalier (historical fiction)
21. Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami (fiction)
22. The Attack – Yamina Khadra (fiction)
23. Numbers in the Dark – Italo Calvino (short fiction collection)
24. Brida – Paulo Coelho (fiction)
25. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Alexander Solzhenitsyn (fiction)
26. Labyrinths – Jorge Luis Borges (fiction)
27. First Light – Rebecca Stead (YA fiction)
28. Beats of No Nation – Uzodinma Iweala (fiction)
29. The Penelopiad – Margaret Atwood (fiction)
30. Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters (fiction)
31. Purple Hibiscus – Chimanda Ngozi Adichie (fiction)
32. Let the Great World Spin – Colum McCann (fiction)
33. Laura – Larry Watson (fiction)
34. Sexuality: A Very Brief Introduction – Veronique Mottier (history)
35. Teacher Man – Frank McCourt (memoir)
36. The Art Instinct – Denis Dutton (philosophy)
37. Gilead – Marilynne Robinson (fiction)
38. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” – Judith Butler (philosophy)
39. Henry and June – Anais Nin (memoir)
40. Lives: Simone Weil – Francine Du Plessix Grey (biography)
41. The Seven-Storey Mountain – Thomas Merton (memoir)
42. White Teeth – Zadie Smith (fiction)
43. Freedom – Jonathan Franzen (fiction)
44. Factotum – Charles Bukowski (fiction)
45. Green-Eyed Thieves – Imraan Coovadia (fiction)
46. Siddhartha – Hermann Hesse (fiction)
47. Sozaboy – Jen Saro-Wiwa (fiction)
48. Karl Rahner – William V. Dych, SJ (theology)
49. The Songlines – Bruce Chatwin (travelogue/fiction)
50. The Traveling Poet – Shelley Barry (poetry)
51. On Photograhpy – Susan Sontag (history/philosophy)
52. Coloured Lights – Leila Aboulela (short story collection)
53. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert M. Pirsig (philosophy/fiction/travelogue)
54. She May Not Leave – Fey Weldon (fiction)
55. In Defense of Food – Michael Pollan (nonfiction)
56. The Bang-Bang Club – Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva (history/memoir)
57. King Leopold’s Ghost: A story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa -- Adam Hochschild(history)
58. The Glass Palace – Amitav Ghosh (historical fiction)
59. Anatomy of an African Kingdom: A History of Bunyoro-Kitara – J.W. Nyakatura (history)
60. Promise of a Dream: Remembering the Sixties – Sheila Rowbotham (memoir/history)
61. The Other America – Michael Harrington (history)
62. Commencement – J. Courtney Sullivan (trashy fiction)
63. The Seed is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, A South African Sharecropper 1894-1985 (history/biography)
64. Taking Back God: American Women Rising up for Religious Equality – Leora Tanenbaum (nonfiction)
65. An Eye for Colour – Norman Silver (YA Fiction)
66. True Confessions of Adrian A. Mole – Sue Townsend (YA Fiction)
67. Aminata, The Wind Loves You: An African Folktale – Retold by Chia Hearn Chek, Illustrated by Kwan Shan Mei (Children’s Fiction)
68. The Angry Gods: A Tibetan Folktale – Retold by Chia Hearn Chek, Illustrated by Kwan Shan Mei (Children’s Fiction)
69. Gandhi’s Prisoner?: The Life of Gandhi’s Son Manilal – Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie (biography)
70. The Lost Boy – Thomas Wolfe (novella)
71. From Death to Morning – Thomas Wolfe (short story collection)
72. The History of Love – Nicole Krauss (fiction)
73. News of a Kidnapping – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (nonfiction)
74. Local Girls – Alice Hoffman (fiction)
75. Absurdistan – Gary Shteyngart (fiction)

Home Sweet Jerz

I made it back in one piece! The 16-hour flight from Johannesburg to JFK was as easy as such a trip can be, and my first full day home was Thanksgiving.
My head is still spinning from the fact that I left South Africa at the beginning of summer, and now I'm home for the end of fall--which, I have to admit, has been downright balmy.

Here's a shot from Arnold's cafe on Kloof Street, Cape Town, where I had a farewell coffee with a few classmates before I left:

And here's a shot from a 5K walk I did this morning in Red Bank, NJ:

A friend from CT told me the other day, "I miss you like Snookie misses J-Woww," which made me laugh out loud. But look at that picture above. It's great to be in Jerz in November.

I've been spoiled so far--diner pancakes, greasy slices of NJ pizza, a night out in Montclair. It feels so good to be home.

I'm going to take a break from blogging this trip--not the least because I'm not exactly on the Cape, as this blog proclaims.

My goals until February are to spend quality time with family and friends, get a wage job and save up dollars for Cape Town 2012, start research for my Masters thesis, and eat as much Mexican and Italian food as I can, to fortify myself for another year without them.

Totsiens for now!

More goodbyes this week. I've been giving lots of hugs to classmates, and met with my academic supervisor yesterday to plan for next year.

Today I got to my last Afrikaans lesson by Jammie Surfing, or riding the UCT student shuttle for, well, less-than-academic purposes. (It's not "free," you know--I do pay tuition! And I used the Jammie to help me learn a new language, after all.)

Anywho, I took the Hiddingh campus bus from town to the main campus in Rondebosch, and from there rode the Claremont Jammie, which put me in the neighbourhood I needed to be in. Five-rand taxi one way, 5-rand back to Claremont. Such a deal!

My lesson, a review of the last six weeks, was held in a lush garden on a hot, sunny day. In a week I'll be in the Northern Hemisphere's late fall and stay until the dead of winter. I need all the Vitamin D I can get!

From there I spent some time sipping coffee and reading at a cafe in Cavendish Square. PJ has lent me some some his favourite YA books from when he was a teenager, and it's been bolstering my self esteem (STILL huffing through The Seed is Mine) to put away a book a day. Yesterday it was An Eye for Colour by Norman Silver, and today it's Sue Townsend's True Confessions of Adrian Mole. (Remind me to force Peej to read all the Georgia Nicolson books someday. I was mad for them in high school.)

Popped into a second hand boutique I've seen in Claremont before, but had never ventured into. Aaaaand it's close to a used book store. Lurve.

Appropriately, the Afrikaans text book I checked out the UCT library was due back today. Just returned it--luckily I've been taking notes throughout my lessons and adventures with Afrikaans.

Blinded by the (Moon)Light

Is it just me, or does this city get prettier every day?

The full moon over the city on Saturday was unbelievable.

Photo by Peter-Jon Grove

Photo by Peter-Jon Grove

Ahh, another scene from Mr. Pickwick's, my favorite spot to read by candlelight:

Adventures with Afrikaans

On Tuesday morning of this week I hosted my fifth Afrikaans lesson at my apartment, and felt like I was ready enough with some useful phrases to have a conversation date with another contact through the Community Talent Exchange.


I considered the day an adventure—and I feel like MetroRail was giving me a farewell gift. Someway, somehow, I got from Cape Town station to Fish Hoek in something like 45 minutes. It’s unheard of!


I’d budgeted a lot of time for the trip, so I had more than an hour to sit at a café and read through my notes and textbook for this new language.


I had to wander through the neighbourhoods a bit (and thank you to everyone at the clinic, the fire station, and the people who took break from gardening in their yards to give me directions), but I was still right about on time for the conversation date.


As well as talent credits, I traded most of my already-read books (I know I’ve found them a good home) and some used plastic containers for gardening, for the chance to introduce myself, and say my age and occupation (student!) in Afrikaans. (We weren’t terribly strict about what was being exchanged—she sent me home with a few sprigs of fresh basil and a lavender plant as well.) Picked up some less formal phrasing (the book I got from the UCT library is old school) and interestingly enough, learned how to say the signs of the zodiac as well.


It was a short trip back to Cape Town, too. Well, I hopped off the train a little early, to visit a friend who bartends in Obz for some extra dinero. The night was beginning slowly, so we ordered pizza to the bar and could have long conversations almost uninterrupted.


Got home early—I woke up at 7 to begin this adventure in Afrikaans!

Back to the Beginning

Five years ago, I volunteered for 14 hours a week at a children's home, in a service-learning class during my semester abroad.

Toward the end of the semester, the woman who ran the children's home gave me a necklace to thank me for the time I'd put in. I loved the beaded blue pattern, and wore it constantly.

...Until I snapped the clasp off, after I was back in the US. I was sad to see it broken, but it made me determine to return to South Africa to get it fixed.

Well, I did come back two years later, but only for a few weeks. The necklace stayed broken.

And now I'm back again, and after 10 months, I just never fixed the broken necklace.

Until yesterday! Finally, the strand of beads can close again. Hooray!

Also, five years ago, I got a haircut just before I went back home. (I like to be presentable when I see the fam.) A housemate of mine had had a bad experience at a salon, and needed the cut fixed. We got a recommendation for a tiny place in the city, and I loved the cut and style I got.

But my geography of Cape Town was embarrassingly bad until this trip, so I could not remember where that gem of a salon was.

A few weeks ago, a little mall on Strand that I often pop into to use the ATM started looking familiar. I remembered a takeaways place where I got a nice chiproll (you know where my priorities lie), and recalled that right across from the snack shop was my favorite salon!

Popped in yesterday for a trim, and the place was as great as I'd remembered.

To wind up this year, I've been led to places and memories from my first trip to Cape Town. It seems fitting.

View from the Reservoir

I still can't get over Sunday's sunet.

This picture sums up how the moment felt:

Photo by Peter-Jon Grove

Cape Town looks like a city made of pink candy...