Sleeping on Potatoes [Paperback]

Carl Nomura (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2003

Sleeping on Potatoes, A Lumpy Adventure from Manzanar to the Corporate Tower by Carl Nomura is a true life account of how the U.S. government stripped away the citizenship of Japanese Americans during WWII, incarcerated them in American style concentration camps and confiscated their property. It's the story of how one man triumphed over hatred and racism to become a physicist and visionary leader in solid state physics. Told with a wry and warm sense of humor, this is a book we couldn't put down!

Editorial Reviews

Review

A legacy of strength and perseverance carries Nomura through his Lumpy Adventure. -- Port Townsend Leader, October 15, 2003

About the Author

Born in a boxcar somewhere between Deer Lodge and Three Forks, Montana in 1922, Nomura graduated from Van Nuys High School in Los Angeles in 1941, just in time to be incarcerated, along with all Japanese-Americans from California to the Midwest. He and his family were sent to Manzanar, an isolated wind-swept relocation camp where they were placed behind barbed wire fences, guarded by military personnel, and watched closely by armed security forces in guard towers. After the war, Nomura earned a Bachelor of Physics (1948), a Masters of Science (1949) and a Ph.D. in Physics (1953) from the University of Minnesota. He became a research physicist for Honeywell and later as an executive; he founded the solid-state electronics division. Nomura’s been hailed as a visionary and leader in the field of semiconductor research. He retired as corporate Senior Vice-President of Honeywell.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Erasmus Books; First Edition (stated) edition (September 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0970194730
• ISBN-13: 978-0970194732
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,746,470 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Lumpy Ride to Joy and Wisdom, June 1, 2006

By 

Ernest Dempsey "ED" (Pakistan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sleeping on Potatoes (Paperback)

`Sleeping on Potatoes is the metaphor for the bumpy and lumpy ride I had in my formative years,' Dr. Carl Nomura explains in the preface to his debut publication Sleeping on Potatoes: A Lumpy Adventure from Manzanar to the Corporate Tower (Erasmus Books, Washington, 2003). Nomura then extends this metaphor into a vivified mosaic of his life's experiences by bringing them to view through the eyes of a child and all the way up to a person with aspirations.

Starting informally with his mother Mizuko's story, a Japanese woman who married Nomura's father because `she heard that in America everyone was tall', Dr. Nomura creates a series of true, non-fictional, real life stories that border on the line between short story and personal essay. Reliving in linguistic light the hardship of poverty, a heartless father, the humiliation of being forced to move into relocation centers during the Second World War, and the travails of disease and bereavement, Nomura throws his readers into a joyous shock with the amazing optimism of his attitude and his lively humor that arises spontaneously from the interaction of situation and language. One instance is from his school days: `we thought her name (Sister Perpetual) fitted her because she beat us perpetually'. Certainly not to overlook the fun of fishing and poker, and giving smoking up for good when an angry woman comes inches from your face and calls you a `polluting pig.'

Though a doctor of philosophy in Solid State Physics, and an important figure in the corporate world of technology, it is Nomura's flair of seeing things as matter of course that lures one to appreciate his magnanimity. Not going a braggart, he opens a window to the philosophy of life-contentment, be it a doctorate in physics and excellence in management of small businesses, or using a bathroom 200 feet away from his bed in a trailer. Life is joy if you have your guts tuned to its frequency of vicissitudes.

Marking Sleeping on Potatoes as a book to amuse would be a reader's pitfall. It is a book enormous in its scope, though not in its volume (250 pages). By no means is this the adventurous story of a single person, reflecting on his past. It is the story of many characters that endured and fought against social injustice and untoward circumstances-from women like Mizuko and Louise, to the sufferers in relocation centers, and the motherless litter of cats who were lucky enough to make it to Nomura's house. His heart touching memories of Mox, the neighbor's dog, harbor all the richness and beauty of life. Nomura traces the causes of discontent in marital life, discusses issues associated with terminal illness, and informs on linguistic and the cultural relativism of English and Japanese native speakers.

Now in his eighties, retired and coping with prostate cancer, Nomura's lumpy ride has not come to a pause. It is bumping all along with new interest in learning and doing things and new ways of adding to the richness of his life. With his new wife, children and grandchildren, pets, garden, books, and the untamed freshness of mind, Dr. Carl Nomura lives as if he is immortal.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sleeping On Potatoes...that were not mashed!, January 16, 2005

By 

Robert Abernethy "Bob" (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sleeping on Potatoes (Paperback)

I will always be thankful I met Carl Nomura in the sixties. He was professional inspiration to me and encouraged me to leave industry and get my doctorate. Now I know what he went through as a young man after reading his wonderful book. So you may think my review is biased. It is not.

The book is simply fantastic! I could not put it down. I have passed it all around my family and recommended it to many friends. How could one man go through all that and wind-up a super engineer, manager, farmer, and now author?? He is blessed and we are blessed to share his memories.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars much more than a memoir, May 5, 2004

By 

Rebecca Brown "rebeccasreads" (Clallam Bay, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sleeping on Potatoes (Paperback)

Carl Nomura has a delightfully wry sense of humor, which bubbles to the surface at surprising moments, to bring a chuckle or a giggle to the dust & dirt of the American experience of being the wrong kind of people.

SLEEPING ON POTATOES: A Lumpy Adventure from Manzanar to the Corporate Tower, is a memoir which needed to be told. It is written with brief, luminous strokes, alarming & wry, telling of one man's path through the unique American white water of prejudice, as well as the best revenge -- of living the good life & thriving!

Rebeccasreads highly recommends SLEEPING ON POTATOES as much more than a memoir, it is the sum of one feisty & interesting Spirit's sojourn on earth & how he'd like to be remembered.