Recreational reading

I just finished Amy Tan's Saving Fish from Drowning. A couple of days before that I read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. I've been in a very Chinese literature mood. I enjoyed Snow Flower, since it's largely about Nu Shu, a writing invented and used only by women (well, not so much now after the Cultural Revolution). But the book was mainly about the sisterhoods that sustained women in their inner quarters. (I also have an affinity for books that make me cry). Saving Fish had an ending that seemed too cheesy to some extent. But it's difficult for me to not like a book. It was worth reading for the ghostly narrator and the concept of "nats" haunting everything -- all sorts of mischievous spirits that can be human, animal, rocks, trees, etc. Maybe I could use this somehow in my "real" reading, since Chinese literature has a great deal of texts with automatic or trance writing, and many, many ghosts, which might go with my ideas on textual production through mediums. For example, William Blake thought Milton's spirit entered his body through his left foot. Milton would have been a nat! I don't know, there isn't that strong of a connection... but it is an interesting cross-cultural phenomenon. Actually, it's just nice to enjoy reading again.