It's funny how people can influence your lives, and how the influence spreads out like ripples in a pond and continues to affect you long after you barely think of that person. In college, I had one class with Dr. Janet Groth, Magazine Article Writing. I came to like and respect her a lot and got to know her a bit after college. But she influenced my intellectual life a great deal by requiring us all to get a semester-long subscription to The New Yorker. It's been over ten years since I took her class, and in that time, I've subscribed to it on and off, but mostly on. I look forward to its arrival every week, and I bet you can guess my favorite part! It's the short story.
That was where I first heard of George Saunders. He kind of rose from being an occasional fiction submitter to writing the "Shouts and Murmurs" more regularly. I thought that was too bad, because I don't really like "Shouts and Murmurs" much, but loved his short stories. I always read them.
Saunders is excellent in finding the absurd in modern life. Sometimes, like in his novella "Bounty," he stretches that talent into the near future. Increasingly and alarmingly, he doesn't have to. I think of him every time I drive on the 33, with its huge billboards reading "Get Joint Replacement Surgery" and "The Best Stroke Care Is At Mercy." That's right out of one of his stories.
His stuff has taken on a more political bent as of late, but my favorites are the ones with ordinary people struggling to find humanity in a corporatized, bland world. The one about the professional caveman re-enactor at a failing theme park whose job is threatened by the corporate drones because of his reluctance to violate his moral code by ratting out a co-worker ("Pastoralia"). The one about the teenaged couple with brain implants, raised by a corporation to be product testers, who risk their consciousness for a chance at independent life ("Jon"). Even the one about the grandfather who makes the decision to give in to corporate coersion to give his grandson a shot at freedom of expression ("My Flamboyant Grandson").
When corporate repression isn't the theme, societal repression often is. The characters in "Winky" and "Sea Oak" had the deck stacked against them from the beginning: raised in poverty, with no real models for any type of success, and are repeating the cycle as adults. But there's a hopefulness and humanity to all of his characters. Most of them are trapped by circumstance: the narrator of "Pastoralia" has a special-needs child, and we get the impression that his caveman job was the best one he could find to keep a roof over his family's head, even if he never gets to sleep under it himself. Neil, of "Winky," has his bizarre, born-again sister permanently ensconsed in his house. And the narrator of "Sea Oak" lives in the projects with his sister, his cousin, their babies and his great-aunt, and supports them all by working as a male stripper. But they don't give up. They fight back against a repressive social structure and a bland corporatized landscape the best way they know how: by being themselves, taking joy in the little things, and moving forward inch by inch.
I love George Saunders because he can be both optimistic and cynical enough for these strange times in which we live, and I believe that literary history will judge him as one of the major voices of this era.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Celebrate Indie Bookstores, Support Your Community
I love visiting independent bookstores. I was nearby one of the major ones in my area yesterday, and was already thinking about my daily blog post, so I stopped in for help.
Going to an independent bookstore always makes me think things. Barnes and Noble and Borders may be nicer inside, and have the advantage of offering coffee, but they're also pretty sterile. If you've been inside one, you've pretty much seen them all, from New York to California and everywhere in between. My local bookstore, Talking Leaves, definitely isn't like that. They have posters on the walls for local events. They carry more free newspapers than I knew existed (we have a Marxist paper here, who knew?). The walls and counter spaces are festooned with political cartoons about freedom of speech, quotes urging the customers to fight against homogenization and the repression of liberty, and interesting photographs of the city.
The two college-aged women working there were talking and laughing and listening to Hole's Live Through This album as they cut open boxes of books. I used to listen to that same album all the time when I was in college, but it belonged to my friend Karen, and I haven't heard it since then, so it made me feel good to hear them playing it and enjoying it. The only other customer was a college-professor type straight out of Central Casting, tweed jacket with elbow patches and everything. In the middle of the store was a table of books about George Bush marked 40% off. I'm also a member of Talking Leaves, so I scored Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose's Bushwhacked for seven dollars and change. I wanted to stay longer, but they were getting ready to close, so I left.
Today, over on Bookchase, I found this post, about a very well-known independent bookstore in South Carolina that was forced to close its doors. It's a sad story and it's happening all too often. Around here, businesses are fighting back against Miracle Mile with a Buffalo First initiative. They're having an organized shopping event, and offering a coupon book for locally owned stores. Even if your city doesn't have such an organized movement, it's important to remember to take a little extra time and spend a little extra money at a locally owned business. They offer different products, better service, and an actual experience.
I find it especially nice at Christmas time. It's much less stressful than battling thousands of irritated shoppers in the big-box stores, and then battling them again on the drive home. It's more fun than cruising to some internet site and point-clicking your way to a gift that you pray arrives on time, in one piece, as ordered. The staff is usually less harried because they're not dealing with thousands of angry people a day while wondering what will become of their jobs on January 2nd. So I join Sam Houston in encouraging you to support your local independent bookstore, and other local retailers -- or lose them.
Going to an independent bookstore always makes me think things. Barnes and Noble and Borders may be nicer inside, and have the advantage of offering coffee, but they're also pretty sterile. If you've been inside one, you've pretty much seen them all, from New York to California and everywhere in between. My local bookstore, Talking Leaves, definitely isn't like that. They have posters on the walls for local events. They carry more free newspapers than I knew existed (we have a Marxist paper here, who knew?). The walls and counter spaces are festooned with political cartoons about freedom of speech, quotes urging the customers to fight against homogenization and the repression of liberty, and interesting photographs of the city.
The two college-aged women working there were talking and laughing and listening to Hole's Live Through This album as they cut open boxes of books. I used to listen to that same album all the time when I was in college, but it belonged to my friend Karen, and I haven't heard it since then, so it made me feel good to hear them playing it and enjoying it. The only other customer was a college-professor type straight out of Central Casting, tweed jacket with elbow patches and everything. In the middle of the store was a table of books about George Bush marked 40% off. I'm also a member of Talking Leaves, so I scored Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose's Bushwhacked for seven dollars and change. I wanted to stay longer, but they were getting ready to close, so I left.
Today, over on Bookchase, I found this post, about a very well-known independent bookstore in South Carolina that was forced to close its doors. It's a sad story and it's happening all too often. Around here, businesses are fighting back against Miracle Mile with a Buffalo First initiative. They're having an organized shopping event, and offering a coupon book for locally owned stores. Even if your city doesn't have such an organized movement, it's important to remember to take a little extra time and spend a little extra money at a locally owned business. They offer different products, better service, and an actual experience.
I find it especially nice at Christmas time. It's much less stressful than battling thousands of irritated shoppers in the big-box stores, and then battling them again on the drive home. It's more fun than cruising to some internet site and point-clicking your way to a gift that you pray arrives on time, in one piece, as ordered. The staff is usually less harried because they're not dealing with thousands of angry people a day while wondering what will become of their jobs on January 2nd. So I join Sam Houston in encouraging you to support your local independent bookstore, and other local retailers -- or lose them.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Another Intriguing Protagonist
I just finished the hot book of 2003, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon. I'm late to the party, I know, but I enjoyed the read anyway.
Like Wallflower, the real driving force of the story is its narrator, 15-year-old Christopher Boone. Christopher is autistic and a mathematical savant. While it's not specified in the book, his condition seems remarkably similar to they way John Elder Robison described Asperger's Syndrome in his memoir that I read a few weeks ago. Like Robison, Christopher has a very hard time understanding emotions and tries to apply logic to situations where logic doesn't really apply. Robison talked about how many people with Asperger's learn to blend in. Christopher hasn't really learned that yet. He's prone to start screaming or groaning when he's upset and has extreme reactions to being crowded or touched in any way.
And there's a lot to upset him in this book. It starts off very badly, when he finds the neighbor's dog impaled on a garden fork. He gets blamed for it at first, but then decides he is going to solve the mystery of who killed the dog, Sherlock Holmes-style (he likes the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, as well as math and science). His investigation ultimately winds up leading to his own doorstep, however, and into many basic assumptions about his family that he'd never questioned.
This is another relatively short book, but it's also well-decorated, having won two major awards shortly after its publication. It's both fascinating and heartbreaking to watch Christopher try to negotiate the world of the neurotypical. He has a lot of trouble just understanding people, and common turns of phrase like "I've had a bear of a day" baffle him. He also can't lie, which puts him at a great disadvantage in certain situations.
It made me sad how often people called him a freak. It also saddened me to see that his local school system apparently had no way to deal with him: his father had to fight hard in order for him to be allowed to take his A-levels (college qualifying exams; I think I forgot to mention that the story is set in England) and he was placed in a Special Needs class with kids who played with their own poo.
But despite the often cruel ways of the world and even of his own family, the book is not a sad book. Christopher ultimately prevails, and emerges feeling more confident about how far his abilites will take him. Another thing that John Elder Robison talked about was the importance of focusing on what kids with Asperger's can do, and how crucial it was not to shove can't can't can't in their faces all the time. As awful as the results of Christopher's investigation are (and it is a mystery, so I can't reveal too much about them), the fact that he solved the mystery, took his maths A-level and already accomplished more than he expected made him feel optimistic about the future, and about the day when he finds his place in the world.
Like Wallflower, the real driving force of the story is its narrator, 15-year-old Christopher Boone. Christopher is autistic and a mathematical savant. While it's not specified in the book, his condition seems remarkably similar to they way John Elder Robison described Asperger's Syndrome in his memoir that I read a few weeks ago. Like Robison, Christopher has a very hard time understanding emotions and tries to apply logic to situations where logic doesn't really apply. Robison talked about how many people with Asperger's learn to blend in. Christopher hasn't really learned that yet. He's prone to start screaming or groaning when he's upset and has extreme reactions to being crowded or touched in any way.
And there's a lot to upset him in this book. It starts off very badly, when he finds the neighbor's dog impaled on a garden fork. He gets blamed for it at first, but then decides he is going to solve the mystery of who killed the dog, Sherlock Holmes-style (he likes the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, as well as math and science). His investigation ultimately winds up leading to his own doorstep, however, and into many basic assumptions about his family that he'd never questioned.
This is another relatively short book, but it's also well-decorated, having won two major awards shortly after its publication. It's both fascinating and heartbreaking to watch Christopher try to negotiate the world of the neurotypical. He has a lot of trouble just understanding people, and common turns of phrase like "I've had a bear of a day" baffle him. He also can't lie, which puts him at a great disadvantage in certain situations.
It made me sad how often people called him a freak. It also saddened me to see that his local school system apparently had no way to deal with him: his father had to fight hard in order for him to be allowed to take his A-levels (college qualifying exams; I think I forgot to mention that the story is set in England) and he was placed in a Special Needs class with kids who played with their own poo.
But despite the often cruel ways of the world and even of his own family, the book is not a sad book. Christopher ultimately prevails, and emerges feeling more confident about how far his abilites will take him. Another thing that John Elder Robison talked about was the importance of focusing on what kids with Asperger's can do, and how crucial it was not to shove can't can't can't in their faces all the time. As awful as the results of Christopher's investigation are (and it is a mystery, so I can't reveal too much about them), the fact that he solved the mystery, took his maths A-level and already accomplished more than he expected made him feel optimistic about the future, and about the day when he finds his place in the world.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Books of a Feather: Workin' 9 to 5
I couldn't think of anything at all to write about today, and in the car on the way to Wendy's, I asked my boyfriend for a "Books of a Feather" theme. He had two awesome ones: books written in or about the 1920s or books about bunnies (actually, he said children's books, but I turned it into bunny books after he cited The Velveteen Rabbit and Watership Down.) Unfortunately, I couldn't think of books for either, not ones that I was familiar with enough to write about that way.
So I came home, and stared at my shelves. I remembered hearing that Studs Terkel had died last week, and I thought of the first book I'd ever read by him, Working. Then I knew I had my theme.
So, I'll start with that one. The premise of the book is exceedingly simple. In the 1970s, Terkel interviewed people who held a wide variety of jobs, and wrote down what they told him. In each case, he opened the dialogue by simply asking them to explain what they did, and how they got into it. He got some very surprising answers, and the book remains a favorite of mine because of that. He met a nurse's aide who hates people. He met a grocery store clerk who loved her job so much that she didn't even like to take vacation time, and a dentist who couldn't wait to retire. His interview with a model made it seem like the least glamorous job on the planet (taking public transportation while carrying half the clothes you own? Aw, fun!). His interview with an industrial spy made that job sound more intriguing and stimulating than James Bond's work (the man's profession was to pretend to be an ordinary employee at places that suspected worker theft). Many of the jobs don't even exist anymore, although not many of the ones who saw ahead to their own obsolescence (like the bathroom attendants).
The other two books I picked for this theme deal with the transient nature of work today. The Working Stiff's Manifesto is by Iain Levison, a former English major who had held over 30 jobs by the time he was in his late 20s. Levison's odyssey in this book takes him from a high-end grocery store in New York City, to a job with a friend driving a moving van, to several commercial fishing establishments in Alaska. Every job he holds is basically a shit job. He talks about running across a water-filtration scam, and the other, more subtle 'scams' that lie in wait within many legitimate jobs. For example, he gets fired from the fish market two days short of when his health insurance would have kicked in, for no reason that he can determine. He also gets conned into a managerial position at a chain restaurant, where he's immediately put on salary and required to work almost 80 hours a week, averaging out to less than minimum wage.
Bitter is the New Black, by Jennifer Lancaster, is not such a tale. Lancaster had a great job as a vice-president, and was well-paid, well-liked and well-respected. The bottom dropped out for her the week of September 11th. She lost her job at the worst possible time and had to scrape for another one. Despite being educated, skilled and connected, she actually never did find another job in her field, and became a writer instead. She, too, was the victim of a couple of scams. She was up for a position at a start-up, where they asked her to put together a sample business plan and sales presentation as part of her interview. She dutifully did her homework, and as she was presenting it to the panel that interviewed her, it began to dawn on her that something was wrong, that they were all a little too interested in what she had to say...and predictably, she never heard from them again.
The prime difference between the two authors is that Lancaster seems to have much more knowlege of the way the world works, and much more drive and ambition than Levison, who makes the same mistakes over and over again. Sometimes, you want to shake him and scream: "You accepted a job moving furniture up and down the stairs and you're surprised it's shitty? Really?" Lancaster's tale shows that office jobs are far from idyllic (she's employed for approximately 1/3 of the book), but cutting fish, gutting fish, and moving sofas are not what anyone's dreams are made of, really. But what prevents either story from being mere complaining is the humor.
This seems to be a universal among work tales. Most people feel that work is sort of funny. Terkel's book was full of people's strange and humorous tales from their jobs. People loved describing their craziest co-worker or their nuttiest customer to him. But the main thing I took from Terkel's book is that job satisfaction seems to depend more upon the individual than the job. I often think of that grocery store clerk. She sounded happiest of everyone in the book, and he interviewed Stanley Cup winners, doctors, lawyers, writers, all kinds of people you would expect loved their jobs. Levison's biggest problem, it seemed to me, was that he was a malcontent. He always wanted more, and there was no way for him to get it.
Lancaster, in contrast to him, had it all. Her life story was particularly galling to the reader, because she didn't so much blow it as she had it taken away from her. And then, she was down the rabbit hole. Her experience kept her from getting lower-end jobs. When she went on interviews, she was up against hundreds like herself. Her former connections didn't want anything to do with her because they were afraid of it happening to them. It was a mystifying case of a bad thing happening to someone who didn't deserve it, subtitles to the contrary.
Terkel's book is more hopeful than either Lancaster's or Levison's. Both of theirs showcase individual negative experiences in the workplace. But Terkel also shows you the deeply satisfied grocery store clerk, industrial spy, and piano tuner (that was a neat one too). He also talks about people who got out of bad situations (the newspaper saleswoman) or people who managed to make something out of a bad situation (the suitcase felter, who was also the union president and newsletter-writer and considered her suitcase factory co-workers as good as family). His book will leave you feeling much more hopeful than the other two. However, in fairness to them, their books are much funnier.
So I came home, and stared at my shelves. I remembered hearing that Studs Terkel had died last week, and I thought of the first book I'd ever read by him, Working. Then I knew I had my theme.
So, I'll start with that one. The premise of the book is exceedingly simple. In the 1970s, Terkel interviewed people who held a wide variety of jobs, and wrote down what they told him. In each case, he opened the dialogue by simply asking them to explain what they did, and how they got into it. He got some very surprising answers, and the book remains a favorite of mine because of that. He met a nurse's aide who hates people. He met a grocery store clerk who loved her job so much that she didn't even like to take vacation time, and a dentist who couldn't wait to retire. His interview with a model made it seem like the least glamorous job on the planet (taking public transportation while carrying half the clothes you own? Aw, fun!). His interview with an industrial spy made that job sound more intriguing and stimulating than James Bond's work (the man's profession was to pretend to be an ordinary employee at places that suspected worker theft). Many of the jobs don't even exist anymore, although not many of the ones who saw ahead to their own obsolescence (like the bathroom attendants).
The other two books I picked for this theme deal with the transient nature of work today. The Working Stiff's Manifesto is by Iain Levison, a former English major who had held over 30 jobs by the time he was in his late 20s. Levison's odyssey in this book takes him from a high-end grocery store in New York City, to a job with a friend driving a moving van, to several commercial fishing establishments in Alaska. Every job he holds is basically a shit job. He talks about running across a water-filtration scam, and the other, more subtle 'scams' that lie in wait within many legitimate jobs. For example, he gets fired from the fish market two days short of when his health insurance would have kicked in, for no reason that he can determine. He also gets conned into a managerial position at a chain restaurant, where he's immediately put on salary and required to work almost 80 hours a week, averaging out to less than minimum wage.
Bitter is the New Black, by Jennifer Lancaster, is not such a tale. Lancaster had a great job as a vice-president, and was well-paid, well-liked and well-respected. The bottom dropped out for her the week of September 11th. She lost her job at the worst possible time and had to scrape for another one. Despite being educated, skilled and connected, she actually never did find another job in her field, and became a writer instead. She, too, was the victim of a couple of scams. She was up for a position at a start-up, where they asked her to put together a sample business plan and sales presentation as part of her interview. She dutifully did her homework, and as she was presenting it to the panel that interviewed her, it began to dawn on her that something was wrong, that they were all a little too interested in what she had to say...and predictably, she never heard from them again.
The prime difference between the two authors is that Lancaster seems to have much more knowlege of the way the world works, and much more drive and ambition than Levison, who makes the same mistakes over and over again. Sometimes, you want to shake him and scream: "You accepted a job moving furniture up and down the stairs and you're surprised it's shitty? Really?" Lancaster's tale shows that office jobs are far from idyllic (she's employed for approximately 1/3 of the book), but cutting fish, gutting fish, and moving sofas are not what anyone's dreams are made of, really. But what prevents either story from being mere complaining is the humor.
This seems to be a universal among work tales. Most people feel that work is sort of funny. Terkel's book was full of people's strange and humorous tales from their jobs. People loved describing their craziest co-worker or their nuttiest customer to him. But the main thing I took from Terkel's book is that job satisfaction seems to depend more upon the individual than the job. I often think of that grocery store clerk. She sounded happiest of everyone in the book, and he interviewed Stanley Cup winners, doctors, lawyers, writers, all kinds of people you would expect loved their jobs. Levison's biggest problem, it seemed to me, was that he was a malcontent. He always wanted more, and there was no way for him to get it.
Lancaster, in contrast to him, had it all. Her life story was particularly galling to the reader, because she didn't so much blow it as she had it taken away from her. And then, she was down the rabbit hole. Her experience kept her from getting lower-end jobs. When she went on interviews, she was up against hundreds like herself. Her former connections didn't want anything to do with her because they were afraid of it happening to them. It was a mystifying case of a bad thing happening to someone who didn't deserve it, subtitles to the contrary.
Terkel's book is more hopeful than either Lancaster's or Levison's. Both of theirs showcase individual negative experiences in the workplace. But Terkel also shows you the deeply satisfied grocery store clerk, industrial spy, and piano tuner (that was a neat one too). He also talks about people who got out of bad situations (the newspaper saleswoman) or people who managed to make something out of a bad situation (the suitcase felter, who was also the union president and newsletter-writer and considered her suitcase factory co-workers as good as family). His book will leave you feeling much more hopeful than the other two. However, in fairness to them, their books are much funnier.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Perky
The Central Library has started maintaining several displays with titles like "What We're Reading" or "Staff Picks." I've often wondered how that works in corporate bookstores, whether the staff can truly put out whatever they want, or if they're required to pick from a list, or if they get any actual say at all. But I figure the public library is probably reasonably honest, and the last time I was there, I grabbed a small, chartreuse paperback titled The Perks of Being A Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. I'd heard of the book somewhere before. A quick Google search revealed where: on the Banned Books list.
I started and finished it last night. It's only about 200 pages. When I turned it over, I noticed that the publisher was MTV Books, and I thought, "Oh, fuck." I've read two MTV Books before and neither one was very good. This one redeemed the publishing house for me.
The book is a year in the life of a fifteen-year-old boy. Charlie is writing to someone who he doesn't know, and we never really learn where he got the address or heard of the person. He tells the person all about his life and his friends. The blurbs on the back of this book pissed me off, like they usually do. At least they didn't say the book was funny, but I thought that they trivialized it by calling Charlie's story "teen angst." Charlie deals with some real adult problems: his friend's suicide, his sister's abortion, his best friend getting beaten up by a guy who used to be his lover, and it makes him grow up a lot.
He's also trying to figure out who he is and where he fits in. Those parts are beautiful to watch. He makes friends, accidentally, with a couple of seniors who sort of "adopt" him. Patrick and Sam (Samantha) are into independent music and play in the Rocky Horror Picture Show every Friday night, and it's cool to see Charlie's whole world open up as he becomes closer to them. I liked Charlie because he didn't seem jaded. There was sort of a pure innocence about him. He does things like buy a copy of all of his favorite books for Patrick and Sam, with a note saying that he wanted them to have them because they were his favorite people. In his letters, he mentions crying a lot, and talks about how much he loves his friends and family.
Without his voice, it would have been a very heavy, overdone book. I mean, he hits pretty much all of the stereotypical teen "issues:" suicide, homosexuality, drugs, rape, abortion, and teen domestic violence, as well as the more day-to-day stuff like friend drama and dealing with an unrequieted love. And the book's only 200 pages long. I still think the ending went wrong. He should have just let the arc of the story come to its rest, rather than throwing in something new and shocking in the last ten pages.
But even so, I definitely recomend this one. Chbosky has managed to capture the feel of what it's like to be a teenager. It takes you back to the first time you ever sat in an all-night restaurant with your friends drinking coffee until 2AM, or just drove around with them listening to music on the car stereo. In a few years, Charlie will find all of that stuff boring. He'll have more options open to him and want more action than IHOP has to offer. Chbosky catches him at that moment when it's all new, and the book crackles with that energy, which carries it through what could have easily become a swamp of "issues".
I started and finished it last night. It's only about 200 pages. When I turned it over, I noticed that the publisher was MTV Books, and I thought, "Oh, fuck." I've read two MTV Books before and neither one was very good. This one redeemed the publishing house for me.
The book is a year in the life of a fifteen-year-old boy. Charlie is writing to someone who he doesn't know, and we never really learn where he got the address or heard of the person. He tells the person all about his life and his friends. The blurbs on the back of this book pissed me off, like they usually do. At least they didn't say the book was funny, but I thought that they trivialized it by calling Charlie's story "teen angst." Charlie deals with some real adult problems: his friend's suicide, his sister's abortion, his best friend getting beaten up by a guy who used to be his lover, and it makes him grow up a lot.
He's also trying to figure out who he is and where he fits in. Those parts are beautiful to watch. He makes friends, accidentally, with a couple of seniors who sort of "adopt" him. Patrick and Sam (Samantha) are into independent music and play in the Rocky Horror Picture Show every Friday night, and it's cool to see Charlie's whole world open up as he becomes closer to them. I liked Charlie because he didn't seem jaded. There was sort of a pure innocence about him. He does things like buy a copy of all of his favorite books for Patrick and Sam, with a note saying that he wanted them to have them because they were his favorite people. In his letters, he mentions crying a lot, and talks about how much he loves his friends and family.
Without his voice, it would have been a very heavy, overdone book. I mean, he hits pretty much all of the stereotypical teen "issues:" suicide, homosexuality, drugs, rape, abortion, and teen domestic violence, as well as the more day-to-day stuff like friend drama and dealing with an unrequieted love. And the book's only 200 pages long. I still think the ending went wrong. He should have just let the arc of the story come to its rest, rather than throwing in something new and shocking in the last ten pages.
But even so, I definitely recomend this one. Chbosky has managed to capture the feel of what it's like to be a teenager. It takes you back to the first time you ever sat in an all-night restaurant with your friends drinking coffee until 2AM, or just drove around with them listening to music on the car stereo. In a few years, Charlie will find all of that stuff boring. He'll have more options open to him and want more action than IHOP has to offer. Chbosky catches him at that moment when it's all new, and the book crackles with that energy, which carries it through what could have easily become a swamp of "issues".
Friday, November 7, 2008
Books in Season: Some Ideas for What to Read When
Some books just seem to fit better with certain times of year than others. Much like how you don't even want to see that chenille sweater in July, or how your favorite pair of sandals looks alien and suspect in February, some books just have a better effect when they're "in season." Here are some of mine, starting with this time of year and working around the calendar.
Fall
This is the time of year when you're starting to turn your attention back inside. The temperature is dropping along with the leaves, and it's a good time for books about family and home. While Alice Munro is good any time of year, a lot of her stories are particularly wonderful in the fall.
Thanksgiving
My traditional Thanksgiving-week read has been Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo. The story is set between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve. With the economic downturn this year, it might resonate in particular with people who don't feel like they have a whole lot to be thankful for, since most of the characters in the story feel the same way. The main character is forced back to work on a bad knee at sixty, against the advice of everyone who knows him. His boss has his cheating ways catch up with him and winds up sleeping on Sully's couch. Sully's landlady continues to battle aging and loneliness and her concern both over her adult son and over the way she feels towards him. Sully's son has his marriage, his affair and his career blow up in the space of less than a month. You might read it and sympathize with the characters, or be thankful you're not as bad off as most of them.
For nonfiction, this is also a good time for some colonial history, with the pilgrims and all. I feel like a hypocrite suggesting A Little Commonwealth by John Demos, as it's been TBR for so long, but it is a classic in the genre. I started Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Good Wives and the new Tony Horowitz book, both about colonial America, and I'll let you know how they turn out. I can definitely vouch for The Island at the Center of The World, however.
Christmas
Does anyone else watch the made-for-TV production of A Child's Christmas in Wales every year? It stars Denholm Elliot in this wonderful adaptation of the Dylan Thomas short story. My parents have it on VHS, and I'm not sure if it's ever been released on DVD or even if it's still shown on TV, but it's wonderful. It is a virtual word-for-word translation of this beautiful and simple short story. I reccommend the both the short story and the TV version, if you can find it.
Of course, if you want bloodier and more dramatic fare, people tend to forget and it's easy to miss, but Hamlet is technically a Christmas story.
Winter
In New York State, where winter is long, cold and dark, it's an excellent time of year for projects. If you've always wanted to read War and Peace, well, what else is there to do? It's not like you'll be going to the beach anytime soon. If there's a classic you've missed somewhere along the way, it's a good time to pick it up. I read Charles Dickens' Great Expectations a few winters ago and was surprised by its humor and accessibility. I liked it so much that I started David Copperfield but wound up abandoning it for some stupid reason. This winter, I think I'll pick it up again.
There are plenty of more modern projects out there, too. I just wrote about Richard Russo's Bridge of Sighs. Russell Banks' Cloudsplitter and Jeffery Eugenides' Middlesex are two other good winter projects.
Winter is also a good time to pick up a series. It gives you something to look forward to other than a 3:00 sunset and the next day the temperature's projected to rise above freezing. Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series is one of the most inventive and funny things I've ever read. Don't be put off by the fact that it's in the "mysteries" department. Thursday Next is a detective who works with and inside of books. Her mentor is Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, who wears sneakers with her tattered wedding dress and likes to race cars in her spare time. One of the books has her spending time with Hamlet, who was quite excited to learn that Mel Gibson had played him in a movie version and wanted to know if Danny Glover played Horatio. It's perfect for lifting the spirits of a book lover during the winter.
Easter
I'm not terribly religious and never have been. To me, Easter means dyed eggs and ham and a new dress. But if you're seeking a spiritual dimension to this time of year, any of Anne Lamott's books on religion do it well. They're a fresh antidote to the smug, self-righteous brand of Christianity that's been on display everywhere in this country for the past few decades, the brand that tries to ban sex education and Harry Potter books from the schools. Anne Lamott presents herself as a deeply flawed person who found meaning and direction in faith. She lives the teachings of Christianity, volunteering at prisons and soup kitchens. But she swears, she loses her patience, she continues to struggle to stay sober, and she chronicles all of that too. She never tries to shove things down the reader's throat, or present religion as the cure to ills, she just says "This is what has helped me."
Spring
Epic fail. I've been sitting here for a while trying to think of a good spring book. It should be easy, given that this is the time of year associated with optimism and renewal. But dammit, I just can't think of a single book that seems to resonate more this time of year. If anyone has any, feel free to pipe up!
Summer
Ahhhhhh...back in easy territory. Warm weather, long nights, hands-down the favorite time of year for most. While the easy answer would be anything chick lit, I do have a couple of other portable reccomendations. Two classics, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Jack Kerouac's On The Road, are in season this time of year. The Great Gatsby also works for a Labor Day weekend read, as that's where the arc of the story ends. Less portable, but also in season, is Ross Lockridge Jr.'s epic novel Raintree County. It was his only book, as he killed himself shortly after it was published. At 1000+ pages, it would seem more of a winter read than a summer read, but the feel is off. This is decidedly a summer story, imbued with fireflies and lemonade and fireworks.
If you want to keep it light, anything by Jennifer Weiner is good. I'd also reccommend a good, trashy biography of someone famous. And none that I've read can hold a candle to Motley Crue's The Dirt. It doesn't matter if you don't even like their music. It's understandable, their music was never very good. But if you like reading about sex, drugs, alcohol and band drama, there's just no way to top this book. Warning: not for the easily offended. Having said that, if you find nothing about this book offensive, you should seek help immediately. But if you don't want to go the sex, drugs, and rock n roll route, Lillian Gish's A Life on Stage and Screen is fascinating for a different reason. Gish was the first famous screen actress and helped build the industry. If you're looking for sex, drugs and hissy fits, you won't find them here. Gish seemingly led as peaceful and happy a life as a celebrity can (and if she didn't, she wasn't telling). But it's an interesting story of the evolution of movies from the inside, and also a different take on the racist film The Birth of a Nation.
Halloween
I've saved the best for last. Obviously, at this time of year you can't go wrong with a good Edgar Allen Poe short story. My recent read The Historian would work well as both a Halloween and a winter read. But there's one book that I'm convinced is actually haunted, that I probably shouldn't mention at this time of year.
The Devil in the White City was the "It" book a few years back. Written by Erik Larson, it told overlapping stories of the organization and presentation of the Chicago World's Fair, and the tale of the remarkably evil H.H. Holmes. Holmes is a killer straight out of a horror movie. In anticipation of the World's Fair, he built a large hotel...as a lure for his victims. It was rife with secret passages and had vats of acid in the basement for easy disposal of the bodies afterwards.
A lot of strange little incidents happened to me while I was reading this book. I heard something in the attic over my office when no work was going on in the building, and I heard something trying to get into my apartment, but found no evidence of it upon investigating. And, one night, I felt something drawing the covers away from my face at night. I could also feel something standing over me. If you decide to read this book, read it with some kind of protection. And I'd reccomend staying away from it during Halloween. After all, why tempt fate?
Fall
This is the time of year when you're starting to turn your attention back inside. The temperature is dropping along with the leaves, and it's a good time for books about family and home. While Alice Munro is good any time of year, a lot of her stories are particularly wonderful in the fall.
Thanksgiving
My traditional Thanksgiving-week read has been Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo. The story is set between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve. With the economic downturn this year, it might resonate in particular with people who don't feel like they have a whole lot to be thankful for, since most of the characters in the story feel the same way. The main character is forced back to work on a bad knee at sixty, against the advice of everyone who knows him. His boss has his cheating ways catch up with him and winds up sleeping on Sully's couch. Sully's landlady continues to battle aging and loneliness and her concern both over her adult son and over the way she feels towards him. Sully's son has his marriage, his affair and his career blow up in the space of less than a month. You might read it and sympathize with the characters, or be thankful you're not as bad off as most of them.
For nonfiction, this is also a good time for some colonial history, with the pilgrims and all. I feel like a hypocrite suggesting A Little Commonwealth by John Demos, as it's been TBR for so long, but it is a classic in the genre. I started Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Good Wives and the new Tony Horowitz book, both about colonial America, and I'll let you know how they turn out. I can definitely vouch for The Island at the Center of The World, however.
Christmas
Does anyone else watch the made-for-TV production of A Child's Christmas in Wales every year? It stars Denholm Elliot in this wonderful adaptation of the Dylan Thomas short story. My parents have it on VHS, and I'm not sure if it's ever been released on DVD or even if it's still shown on TV, but it's wonderful. It is a virtual word-for-word translation of this beautiful and simple short story. I reccommend the both the short story and the TV version, if you can find it.
Of course, if you want bloodier and more dramatic fare, people tend to forget and it's easy to miss, but Hamlet is technically a Christmas story.
Winter
In New York State, where winter is long, cold and dark, it's an excellent time of year for projects. If you've always wanted to read War and Peace, well, what else is there to do? It's not like you'll be going to the beach anytime soon. If there's a classic you've missed somewhere along the way, it's a good time to pick it up. I read Charles Dickens' Great Expectations a few winters ago and was surprised by its humor and accessibility. I liked it so much that I started David Copperfield but wound up abandoning it for some stupid reason. This winter, I think I'll pick it up again.
There are plenty of more modern projects out there, too. I just wrote about Richard Russo's Bridge of Sighs. Russell Banks' Cloudsplitter and Jeffery Eugenides' Middlesex are two other good winter projects.
Winter is also a good time to pick up a series. It gives you something to look forward to other than a 3:00 sunset and the next day the temperature's projected to rise above freezing. Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series is one of the most inventive and funny things I've ever read. Don't be put off by the fact that it's in the "mysteries" department. Thursday Next is a detective who works with and inside of books. Her mentor is Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, who wears sneakers with her tattered wedding dress and likes to race cars in her spare time. One of the books has her spending time with Hamlet, who was quite excited to learn that Mel Gibson had played him in a movie version and wanted to know if Danny Glover played Horatio. It's perfect for lifting the spirits of a book lover during the winter.
Easter
I'm not terribly religious and never have been. To me, Easter means dyed eggs and ham and a new dress. But if you're seeking a spiritual dimension to this time of year, any of Anne Lamott's books on religion do it well. They're a fresh antidote to the smug, self-righteous brand of Christianity that's been on display everywhere in this country for the past few decades, the brand that tries to ban sex education and Harry Potter books from the schools. Anne Lamott presents herself as a deeply flawed person who found meaning and direction in faith. She lives the teachings of Christianity, volunteering at prisons and soup kitchens. But she swears, she loses her patience, she continues to struggle to stay sober, and she chronicles all of that too. She never tries to shove things down the reader's throat, or present religion as the cure to ills, she just says "This is what has helped me."
Spring
Epic fail. I've been sitting here for a while trying to think of a good spring book. It should be easy, given that this is the time of year associated with optimism and renewal. But dammit, I just can't think of a single book that seems to resonate more this time of year. If anyone has any, feel free to pipe up!
Summer
Ahhhhhh...back in easy territory. Warm weather, long nights, hands-down the favorite time of year for most. While the easy answer would be anything chick lit, I do have a couple of other portable reccomendations. Two classics, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Jack Kerouac's On The Road, are in season this time of year. The Great Gatsby also works for a Labor Day weekend read, as that's where the arc of the story ends. Less portable, but also in season, is Ross Lockridge Jr.'s epic novel Raintree County. It was his only book, as he killed himself shortly after it was published. At 1000+ pages, it would seem more of a winter read than a summer read, but the feel is off. This is decidedly a summer story, imbued with fireflies and lemonade and fireworks.
If you want to keep it light, anything by Jennifer Weiner is good. I'd also reccommend a good, trashy biography of someone famous. And none that I've read can hold a candle to Motley Crue's The Dirt. It doesn't matter if you don't even like their music. It's understandable, their music was never very good. But if you like reading about sex, drugs, alcohol and band drama, there's just no way to top this book. Warning: not for the easily offended. Having said that, if you find nothing about this book offensive, you should seek help immediately. But if you don't want to go the sex, drugs, and rock n roll route, Lillian Gish's A Life on Stage and Screen is fascinating for a different reason. Gish was the first famous screen actress and helped build the industry. If you're looking for sex, drugs and hissy fits, you won't find them here. Gish seemingly led as peaceful and happy a life as a celebrity can (and if she didn't, she wasn't telling). But it's an interesting story of the evolution of movies from the inside, and also a different take on the racist film The Birth of a Nation.
Halloween
I've saved the best for last. Obviously, at this time of year you can't go wrong with a good Edgar Allen Poe short story. My recent read The Historian would work well as both a Halloween and a winter read. But there's one book that I'm convinced is actually haunted, that I probably shouldn't mention at this time of year.
The Devil in the White City was the "It" book a few years back. Written by Erik Larson, it told overlapping stories of the organization and presentation of the Chicago World's Fair, and the tale of the remarkably evil H.H. Holmes. Holmes is a killer straight out of a horror movie. In anticipation of the World's Fair, he built a large hotel...as a lure for his victims. It was rife with secret passages and had vats of acid in the basement for easy disposal of the bodies afterwards.
A lot of strange little incidents happened to me while I was reading this book. I heard something in the attic over my office when no work was going on in the building, and I heard something trying to get into my apartment, but found no evidence of it upon investigating. And, one night, I felt something drawing the covers away from my face at night. I could also feel something standing over me. If you decide to read this book, read it with some kind of protection. And I'd reccomend staying away from it during Halloween. After all, why tempt fate?
Thursday, November 6, 2008
A Gift That Keeps on Giving
This week's question:
I was pleased when I realized it was Thursday, as I had no idea what I was going to write about today. But I like this question a lot.
I have received probably hundreds of books as gifts over the course of my lifetime. My Aunt Barbara is a retired reading teacher and currently active on the board of her local library, so growing up, I could always count on a book from her at Christmas. My parents and sister usually give me books for Christmas and my birthday. My boyfriend has gotten my books. I've received some great books from friends, things that I never would've read otherwise like A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and (cough) Dante's Inferno (I did get about halfway through and liked it a lot, but something which I can't even recall anymore came up).
However, I'd have to say that the most meaningful gift was Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends, in hardcover. My grandfather died shortly before I turned six. Of his four grandchildren, I'm the only one with any clear memories of him at all: my sister wasn't even three yet, my cousin was still a baby, and my other cousin wasn't born yet. I mostly remember things like him throwing a ball over the roof of his house (which never failed to impress me), his typical greeting to me ("Here Comes Trouble!") and his plaid upholstered rocking chair. But I'm told that he loved baseball and reading, and that he always had three or four books going at once.
I was also told that he intended to buy me Where the Sidewalk Ends for my birthday that year. After he died, they found a couple of books that he'd bought recently and never had a chance to read. My parents used the store credit to pick up Where the Sidewalk Ends for me, as a sort of last gift from him. Since I wasn't even six yet, my memory on some of these points may be faulty. I could even have the story all wrong: maybe he already had the book, and they just gave it to me, maybe the money came from somewhere else, I'm not really sure, but that's how I remember it. I also remember it as being the first "nice" book that I had. This was no board book, no paperback. This was even nicer than the "Childhood of Famous Americans" series that I liked in the local library (my father the history teacher hated this series, as it consistently stopped short of the part where the Americans actually became famous. So I would wind up knowing all about the farm on which, say, Babe Didrickson grew up, or the brother she had that died...but no idea why I should care.) No, my copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends had a hard cover and a glossy jacket and looked more like an adult book than a kid's book.
I still have my copy of it at home. I have a lot of special books: the one from the collection of my graduate-school professor that died, the one that the head of the drama club gave me before my last play with him, and some of the James Herriot books that my mother got as a special gift for the same grandfather that gave me Where the Sidewalk Ends. But I'd say that one is the most special to me.
Presents! November 6, 2008
Filed under: Wordpress — --Deb @ 1:20 am
So, it’s my birthday today. (Please, no applause.) But it’s inspiring today’s question–
What, if any, memorable or special book have you ever gotten as a present? Birthday or otherwise. What made it so notable? The person who gave it? The book itself? The “gift aura?”
I was pleased when I realized it was Thursday, as I had no idea what I was going to write about today. But I like this question a lot.
I have received probably hundreds of books as gifts over the course of my lifetime. My Aunt Barbara is a retired reading teacher and currently active on the board of her local library, so growing up, I could always count on a book from her at Christmas. My parents and sister usually give me books for Christmas and my birthday. My boyfriend has gotten my books. I've received some great books from friends, things that I never would've read otherwise like A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and (cough) Dante's Inferno (I did get about halfway through and liked it a lot, but something which I can't even recall anymore came up).
However, I'd have to say that the most meaningful gift was Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends, in hardcover. My grandfather died shortly before I turned six. Of his four grandchildren, I'm the only one with any clear memories of him at all: my sister wasn't even three yet, my cousin was still a baby, and my other cousin wasn't born yet. I mostly remember things like him throwing a ball over the roof of his house (which never failed to impress me), his typical greeting to me ("Here Comes Trouble!") and his plaid upholstered rocking chair. But I'm told that he loved baseball and reading, and that he always had three or four books going at once.
I was also told that he intended to buy me Where the Sidewalk Ends for my birthday that year. After he died, they found a couple of books that he'd bought recently and never had a chance to read. My parents used the store credit to pick up Where the Sidewalk Ends for me, as a sort of last gift from him. Since I wasn't even six yet, my memory on some of these points may be faulty. I could even have the story all wrong: maybe he already had the book, and they just gave it to me, maybe the money came from somewhere else, I'm not really sure, but that's how I remember it. I also remember it as being the first "nice" book that I had. This was no board book, no paperback. This was even nicer than the "Childhood of Famous Americans" series that I liked in the local library (my father the history teacher hated this series, as it consistently stopped short of the part where the Americans actually became famous. So I would wind up knowing all about the farm on which, say, Babe Didrickson grew up, or the brother she had that died...but no idea why I should care.) No, my copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends had a hard cover and a glossy jacket and looked more like an adult book than a kid's book.
I still have my copy of it at home. I have a lot of special books: the one from the collection of my graduate-school professor that died, the one that the head of the drama club gave me before my last play with him, and some of the James Herriot books that my mother got as a special gift for the same grandfather that gave me Where the Sidewalk Ends. But I'd say that one is the most special to me.
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