Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Author; Jamie Ford – http://www.jamieford.com/

Publisher; Ballantine Books – http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780345505347

There is a reason why this Novel keeps appearing in “Top 100″ charts; it is a gem.  Amazon (today) ranks it at #72, and that’s quite a feat.

It attests to the quality of the writing, the story and the voice it is written in. 

The flavor of the novel moves from romance to tragedy, from family to loneliness, childhood to adulthood and a touch of most everything else, delicately balanced.  The Author has managed to bring the confusion of Internment to focus and still honestly illustrate its different facets.  One shining sparkle is the courage that many of the American-Japanese showed during their imprisonment.  Another  brilliant sparkle is the compassion that many of the Americans showed despite the overwhelming pressure to despise them.  By casting the main character as Chinese, Jamie Ford was able to showcase this diamond in the clearest light possible.   

If none of this is of interest to you, consider the humanity and compassion of the characters, their fictional lives and the interweaving of one life with another.  Here again, the Author delicately balances imaginary people with such finesse that they never step out of the realm of reality.  There are no superheros and dastardly villans, just people making good and bad decisions, living with the consequences and doing their best.  They are real.

If you still choose to pass this one by, please reconsider; it has earned its merits, not by aggressive marketing but by striving to be the best.

iPad update

I’ve been putting this off because I didn’t think there was much to say about having one in the house.

I’m wrong.

We reach for it first, it’s fast and does almost everything we want.

It moves from the kitchen, for the weather and the morning news, to the living room for discussion-inducing fact checking, football stats, dog allergies, cleaning tips, and surfing.  We hardly bother to turn on the ‘old’ style computer, or laptop.

The Seniors in our life all go home asking for one.  I can’t explain just how easy it is for any of them to comprehend the iPad but once they figure out that they are allowed to touch the screen, they’re gone for hours.

My Mother-in-Law has no previous computer experience.  She’s been using our iPad for 4 days and is having trouble understanding why my Father-in-Law is so slow with his laptop.  She uses the iPad, a touch here, one there and she’s got the weather, the lottery numbers and the home newspaper.  She’s addicted to puzzles, she’s learning Sudoku and just discovered Wikipedia. 

“How come it takes you so long?”  She quizzes. 

“Because he’s using a laptop and mouse, it’s slower.”  I answer for him, “he has to get the mouse cursor to the right place, click the correct mouse button and wait.”

“He needs this.  Can we buy one?”

I’ve already tried this with the other two Seniors in my life, “Yes, but you still need a computer to connect it to, update it and other things.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

So, if Apple is wandering across this site and scrolls to reach the end of this blog, please, please, can you make the iPad a standalone product?  One that does not need to get plugged into a computer.  One that just works from the get-go? I have four people already that are anxious to purchase one.