BTT Goes Meta

This week's question:

But, What About Me? December 3, 2009

But enough about you, what about ME?

Today’s question?

What’s your favorite part of Booking Through Thursday? Why do you participate (or not)?

Well, this is a nice, easy one to answer! I love this meme because it helps to keep my blog alive. If I'm reading a longer book, that means I have little to post about until I finish it. Or, if I'm reading a book that's not terribly good, or if I owe so much to the library that I'm not reading anything at all, it helps keep me blogging.

I especially love this meme during NaBloPoMo, or right now, when I'm trying to do 25 more posts (after this one) before 2010. It helps take the pressure off. I feel like Thursdays are a "gimme," sort of. Three more to go before the end of the year, so I really only have to make up 22 topics for posts (agh! where's my brandy!). I like the fact that it brings people over to my little corner of teh interwebz, also that it gets my out of my corner to visit other peoples' virtual book nooks. It's a chance to be a part of something online, the way NaBloPoMo was during the first year I did it.

Sad Little TBR

So, in my quest to hit 400 posts by year's end, I've been doing a wee bit of planning. Today was going to be TBR list day. I realized the other day that I haven't even so much as glanced at that part of my blog in a very long time, not since I changed the template and lost all of my original lists. Believe me, I will think long and hard about ever doing that again.

So I scrolled down today to edit my list. People of the Book, which I finished a few months ago, was still on there. Good. One easy thing to trim, now for the additions. There's the "new" Candace Bushnell, that I've never managed to find at the library. Good. There's the "other" novel by Geraldine Brooks. Good, that can go on there, too. Now, for all the rest of them...wait, where are they?

I couldn't think of anything that I've been *dying* to read. Sure, there are a few that I'm kind of curious about. But nothing that motivates me to keep checking the library. I could probably read 1984 anytime I want, but I never think to look for it. I'm adding David Copperfield after this post, too, even though I've had it out several times and often wind up returning it unread. I also have to add Retail Hell, by Freeman Hall, based as it is on one of my favorite blogs.

Other than that, nada. With most of my favorite authors, I've read all of their stuff and am now waiting for more to come out. And I can't think of any books I've heard of that sound so new and exciting that I just *have* to try them. So, readers, any suggestions for me?

Ghosts

If you grew up in a haunted house, how would that influence the course of the rest of your life? Of your family's? How different would it be from growing up haunted by something? Those questions occupy Jennifer Finney Boylan's beautiful memoir, I'm Looking Through You.

Living under a rock as I do, I was not aware of Jennifer Finney Boylan until some enterprising library page decided that this book would make a nice component of the nonfiction display nearest the escalator. For my fellow sub-geological dwellers, Jennifer Finney Boylan is a Colby College professor, friend of Richard Russo, bestselling author and two-time Oprah guest. She also used to be known as James Boylan. That's right, she is the first best-selling transgendered author (at least that we know of for sure).

This book is the follow-up to her bestseller, She's Not There. If you don't wish to read about being transgendered, don't worry. This book focuses largely on Boylan's unusual upbringing, in the bizarre haunted house that featured the Monkey Bathroom (where the previous owner's monkey lived, of course), the creepy swingin' sixties bachelor pad living room (as she put it, where the parties used to happen before the bachelor was found mysteriously stabbed to death) and the ghost of a child, or possibly an adult, who drowned...or didn't. It's a bit reminiscent of an Augustyn Burrows book, but with much, much more happiness and stability.

For Boylan was fortunate enough to grow up in a loving home. Her father was a classical music lover and banker who would make her play her Chopin and Beethoven in ragtime or 7/8 and would mediate arguments between herself and her sister by ordering them to stop and argue the opposite point. Her grandmother was embarrassingly, humiliatingly open about sex (the story of her father's conception got dragged out at every get-together, complete with its punchline: "Best screwing I ever had!"). Her aunt was always cold, even in summer, and made copious amounts of sock-monkey cats, which she called Kittygirls.

This story is not only intriguing, but beautifully written. It almost looks effortless. It's the type of book that makes one think: "I could do that. I had a weird aunt, too. I could tell about our family traditions and stories, make people laugh and cry, too." It has a forward momentum of its own, a great deal of heart and humor. It's definitely worth a read, and I suspect her first book is, too. People may come to Finney's work for the freakshow aspect of it all, but she gives them tremendous reason to stay.

Procrastination is Bad

So, at the beginning of this month, I said that rather than do NaBloPoMo this year, I was going to set a goal of reaching Post 400 by the end of 2009. I had about 40 posts to go at that point, and 60 days to do them in. The logical thing to do would have been to do 20 posts in November, and 20 posts in December.

As you can see, that didn't happen.

So now I've got about 28 posts to go (after this one) and 30 days to do them in. Essentially, all I've done is moved NaBloPoMo from November to December, notoriously the most hectic month of the year. Good going. If I post every day, I can still take Christmas off. Or, I can double-post a couple of times and get a few more days off, since it's posts, not days that count with this.

On the bright side, I just renewed a shitload of books, so I have enough to keep me busy!

...And a Belated BTT

I imagined that it would have something to do with Thanksgiving, and I was right!

Thankful Thursday November 26, 2009
Filed under: Wordpress — --Deb @ 1:52 am



It’s Thanksgiving in the U.S.A. today, so I know at least some of you are going to be as busy with turkey and family as I will be, so this week’s question is a simple one:

What books and authors are you particularly thankful for this year?

This year, as I am every year, I'm thankful for Richard Russo's Nobody's Fool. Definitely the funniest of his books, also the most touching, it is additionally a Thanksgiving/Christmas story, with all of the action taking place between Thanksgiving and New Year's. I usually read it around this time every year.

I'm also thankful for Lisa Jewell. I sort of re-discovered her this year, I guess. I'd read One-Hit Wonder ages ago and pretty much forgot about it right away. I bumped into her new book earlier this year and wound up going back and reading them all. She's a lot of fun, for anyone who hasn't been reading this blog. Light enough that you can take her to the beach or use her for some escapism, but not so shallow that splashing around with her just gets you covered in muddy water and makes you feel slightly stupid.

I'm thankful for the books my friend reccomended to me about freelance writing. Not only will they be a tremendous help, but they opened my eyes to the fact that reserving books is cheaper than I'd thought. They also introduced me to the labor and careers section of the library, which turned out to be at the other end of that escalator in the middle of the place.

I'm thankful for Chuck Klosterman. He has such a wicked sense of humor. I'm also thankful for Greg Ames, who painted a vivid portrait of Buffalo in his book, Buffalo Lockjaw. It seems to me that nationally, the place has a reputation for chicken wings, snow, and a losing football team. Those are certainly elements of life here, but there's more to the city than that. Buffalonians do NOT spend all their spare time shoveling and watching the Bills lose, nor are wings on the menu for every meal (here, we just call them "wings," not "Buffalo wings". DUH, where else would they be from? And, they come with blue cheese and celery. Always.)

But above all else, I'm thankful for the entity that introduced me to all of these books and writers: the public library. In an era where people actually bitch and moan about Extreme Home Makeover recipients being handed "something for nothing" and view public transportation as "a form of welfare," the public libraries offer a massive repository of books, free computer time, programs for families, help with taxes and resume writing, and a bajillion other services I'm sure I'm missing. It's a place where everyone is equal: whether you're homeless or you're trying to escape the ennui of life in a McMansion, you're welcome to stay as long as you want and take as much as you can carry, as long as you promise to bring it back. It's a beautiful institution, and I'm thankful for its existence every time I go.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I just realized I forgot to do a Thanksgiving day post. Normally I pop on, wish everyone a happy day, and head out.

This year was a little different. It was my first holiday where I chose not to spend it with my own parents, and went to my boyfriend's family's house instead. I've missed Easter with my parents many times. Sometimes it's because I'm not around, sometimes it's because they weren't around, but it was never like I was right there and just didn't go.

Thanksgiving Day, for me, was chaotic, and had an unfortunate 6-hour drive in the middle of it. It was a good meal, and nice to see my boyfriend's family again. But it's also nice to be home! I hope everyone else had a nice Thanksgiving, too!

Danger

I've always said that it's a good sign when you check out a library book that's all beat up. The next stop for Where You Once Belonged by Kent Haruf should probably be the repair room, if not the bin. I had to handle it very carefully to keep it from disintegrating!

I got this one mainly because it had a grain elevator on the cover, also because it reminded me a wee bit of a Tawni O'Dell novel, where a former football player returns to his small town after being released from prison for beating his wife into a permanent vegetative state. It's pretty different from that book, though.

This one also deals with a small town, out in Colorado. The returning character, Jack Burdette, is clearly an ungovernable sociopath from early childhood. His prowess on the football field masked all of that, and put him into a position of trust, which he thoroughly abused.

It's hard to talk much about this book. I liked it, but there's not a lot IN it. It's like attempting an analysis on a turkey sandwich with mayo. Well, you can tell the ingredients just by looking at the sandwich. Assuming everything's in date, you can also tell how it will likely taste before you bite into it. It doesn't really have any cultural significance, any deeper meaning. It's just a turkey sandwich, delicious and satisfying, that someone made because he or she was hungry.

And the plot of this book simply reads as a story that needed to be told. Because it was interesting. Because the events stayed with everyone that they happened to. Because the story's already being told, in bits and pieces around town, with all the inaccuracies of gossip, and the narrator who was there from start to finish wanted to see it done right. The characters seem real enough, but not strikingly so. They seem real like the characters in the stories your uncle tells at family get-togethers. The backdrop is only as evocative as it needs to be: you see the grain elevator, the cafe, Jack Burdette's hotel room, the newspaper office, and his wife's house, and little else. The action doesn't take place anywhere else, it's superfluous.

But it's a good tale and an interesting read. It's harder than one might think to write a book the same way you'd tell a story, but Haruf has done it marvelously. He keeps to the main subject, he doesn't ramble, he keeps the reader engaged. Secondary characters wander through but the story never runs away with them. They remain secondary, not as interesting as Jack Burdette and what happens when he returns.