BRRRR . . .

It's cold. I turned on the heat in the car for the first time this autumn season today. It was delicious.

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AUTUMN . . .

We spent over an hour researching the etymology of the word "autumn." Didn't find out much, except that it comes from the Latin "autmnus." That's it. Just "autumnus." Etymology blows my mind -- it is bizarre to think of language and words and where it all came from ... and the fact that "autumn" seems not to mean anything.

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BOOKISH . . .

In the Korean tradition, on a baby's first birthday, the family throws THE. MOST. ENORMOUS. FEAST. Bigger even than a traditional Korean wedding ceremony, no joke! And at the end of the party, right before the Korean dduk (rice cake) is cut and passed around, the parents of the baby set out on a low table a whole bunch of things: a bowl of rice, a strand of yarn, a pencil, a book, some money. Each item has a fortune-telling type significance: prosperity, long life, good grades, an intellectual life, wealth.

Me, I picked up a book, and that has dictated the course of my life in all ways. No, I am NOT an intellectual in ANY sense; I don't think an overactive imagination renders me "intellectual," although I have been called "thoughtful," but I think those people think I'm thinking logical and meaningful thoughts. But I have loved books, sometimes more than I have loved real life or loved real people ... and so this meme speaks to me so deeply. Thanks, TinyCricket.

1. Book that changed my life: The Holy Bible, obviously ... and not-so-obviously, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells. The Holy Bible taught and continues to teach me about life and truth; Divine Secrets taught and continues to teach me about the truthful things in life, like friendship, sisterhood, family, tradition, fun, healing, and ridiculous snot-blowing laughter.

2. Book that you've read more than once: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. I read it faster and faster each time I go through it because I know entire passages and conversations by heart now. But it has yet to stop speaking new things to me.

3. Book you'd want on a deserted island: The Holy Bible. Is it not the food I eat?

4. Book that made you laugh: A Girl Named Zippy, by Haven Kimmel. The anecdotes ... I actually spit out food at a few of the humorous surprises.

5. Book that made you cry: The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. I recently finished it, and was in the company of a friend who became suddenly alarmed that all of a sudden, in the middle of Starbucks, after a wonderful dinner and coffee and chat session, I was weeping hysterically. It took five minutes to convince him I was alright ... but how can one be alright after reading a book like this? Weighty, true, piercing, awful, uplifting, desperate, reminiscent, revealing. Ouch.

6. Book that you wish you had written: The Namesake. He, Indian. Me, Korean. We coud've been the same person.

7. Book you don't enjoy: I really, really, really did not like The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen. I made myself read it and read it and read it. I finally got to the last nine pages of the monstrous monstrosity ... and then I closed the book and put it down. I just could not finish it. Not even the last nine pages. I just couldn't. I am still so annoyed that I gave in to the hype and bought the damn thing.

8. Book you are currently reading: The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards. Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, by Noam Chomsky is up next, probably tomorrow.

9. Book you've been meaning to read: The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman. But rats, someone just borrowed it, and I didn't have the backbone to say "NO I HAVEN'T READ IT YET!!!!!" I just asked her to write my name in it, and am currently praying that it finds its way back to me somehow ...

10. Book you remember as a real page-turner: The Alienist, by Caleb Carr. I picked it up, along with a bunch of friends, in the middle of my senior year of college. I stayed up late every night until I finished it, partly because I wanted to find out what happened in the next chapter, but mostly because I was too scared to turn off the light and go to sleep. If the L.O.L.'s will recall, I believe I refused to read it with the door closed, and even slept one night with the door open, so people could hear if I was being brutally murdered in my dorm room.

11. Non-fiction books you've enjoyed: "The Tipping Point," by Malcolm Gladwell; "John Adams," by David McCullough; "Soul Survivor," by Philip Yancey; "Truman," by David McCullough; "The Holy Bible."

12. Children's books your family has loved: Well, my family enjoyed Korean folk tales, and I still have the huge glossy picture books to prove it. I can't wait for children of my own so I can read these books to them, too. But as for English-language books ... the first NICE books my parents bought me were the Little House on the Prairie books, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I got the whole set of them in a huge box, all at once, at a book fair at my elementary school; it was a splurge for my parents at the time, because we were kind of po'. I still treasure them, and judging from how my parents never ask me to clean them off of my shelf or throw them out or give them away, I believe they do too.