Recent Acquisitions

For Christmas last year, H. bought me a really wonderful, thoughtful gift; McSweeney's San Francisco Panaorama. I actually still haven't read some sections of it yet (politics, sports), but I loved the comics and I pored over the literary supplement for weeks. It was exactly the sort of thing I've always wished we got with our newspaper; a thorough, magazine-sized contemplation of books. Besides a really charming interview between Miranda July and James Franco, the piece that most caught my eye was a column dedicated to out-of-print books. The words out-of-print always make my heart sink; whether it's a book or a little-known movie from the 80's (Electric Dreams, anyone?), the idea that something exists but isn't really accesible is a hard one for my mind to grasp. Anyway, this column was dedicated to Edna O'Brien's August is a Wicked Month, a book I'd certainly heard of but hadn't ever thought much about. The author of the piece described finding her copy at a used bookstore on a roadtrip in the midst of a relationship's unraveling. She ended the article by basically saying that if you ever find a copy, you need to buy it.
I immediately went on a hunt. Surely the internet, that great treasure chest, would prove to be my salvation. Not exactly...this book really was hard to find for a reasonable price, unless I wanted the Spanish edition, which was strangely easy to find. Of course B&N was out of the picture, as was my library, which has a long history of having every book/movie in the world except for the one I want at the moment. So for the last six months, I've been searching in vain.
This weekend, H. and I visited a bookstore in his town. It's one of my favorite bookstores because it's run by a charity that helps adults learn to read, or get their G.E.D., or learn English as a second language. All the books are ridiculously cheap, and since they're donations, the store has a pretty weird assortment. All hardcovers are only three dollars, and I've found some relatively new books. I got quite a haul this time, and as we were leaving, H. pointed pointed out a shelf and two boxes marked "FREE." As I idly picked up a copy of The Bell Jar, a purple paperback stuck out beneath it. "Holy shit," I dramatically stage-whispered to H.

I couldn't believe it. After six months spent searching, there it was, free for the taking! This isn't the sexiest cover available, but I'm not about to look a gift free-book-box in the mouth.
What are the sexiest covers, you ask? Well, there's this one. Edna O'Brien is basically the biggest bad-ass.

Then there's this one:

And then there's (eek!) this one:

The cover describes the book as "a fluid, sensual novel, throbbing with the heartbeat of desire." I assume I'll love it. In the usual nature of such things, I'm sure that this book is now available everywhere for a very reasonable price. But if you can't find it, feel free to borrow my copy.

Recommended Reading

One of the books my mom bought me for my birthday was called Little Bee by Chris Cleave. I love surprise book gifts like that; my mom's a big "Give me a list of what you want!" type of person when it comes to holidays, but really all I ever want is for someone to pick out books they think I'll like. We'd been admiring the cover one day at Barnes and Noble, and I think she bought it as much for her and she did for me. Which is just fine by me! I do that sort of thing all the time.
I was a little familiar with Chris Cleave before starting Little Bee, because I once took an English capstone dedicated to the effect/portrayal of 9/11 on literature. It was one of my dumber ideas...I don't know where in my anxiety-riddled brain I thought it would be cool to meet twice weekly and hear about one of the greatest catastrophes to ever happen in the U.S. To this day, if I see the words "September 11th" on a book jacket, I immediately put the book down (not kidding). I remember Chris Cleave's book, Incendiary, being very good, but still very disturbing.
I thought perhaps this one would be different, which is understandable given the copy on the back cover:

"We don't want to tell you what happens in this book.
It is truly a special story and we don't want to spoil it.
Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it, so we will just say this:
This is the story of two women. Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice, the kind of choice we hope you never have to face. Two years later, they meet again--the story starts there...
Once you have read it, you'll want to tell your friends about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens. The magic is in how the story unfolds."

Well, that sounds cute! I thought to myself. Well, okay. This was a great book. I couldn't stop reading it, especially up until about the halfway mark. Not only did it have an unbelievable amount of momentum, but the narrators were charming and intriguing (one more than the other). But cute it was not. Totally horrifying and upsetting would be a better description. The book dealt with a lot of issues, chief among them the divide between the "first world" and the "third world," the concerns of the upper class vs. real problems, what sort of responsibility people of privilege have to help those who are disadvantaged, and the treatment of immigrants. But here is the moral of the story, in my opinion: Don't take a vacation in a country that's in the midst of an oil war! It will not turn out well.
This book will only take you a night or two to finish, and it's about 8 dollars or something on Amazon. Recommended!

On Being A Sorry Excuse for an English Major, or My Reading List

I have an English degree. This might surprise you if you've perused my blog. You are like, "I'm sorry, was your concentration in Creative Writing, or was it in Using a Webcam? Because this is terrible." You are awfully judgmental, but you're nothing compared to the Voice Inside My Head. There's a 24/7 dialog going on inside this little noggin that usually culminates in me shouting (in my head, remember!) about how I coulda been a contenda. It's a nightmare in there.
About 2.5 seconds after I graduated, I realized that there were huge, embarrassing gaps in my reading history. This wasn't something I expected. See, I've always been a voracious reader. When I was growing up, there were so many rewards for reading. Of course, Book It, but aside from that there was Accelerated Reader. I don't know if everyone else had this, but the general idea was that each book was assigned a point value. You took a ten question quiz on the school's ancient computers, received the appropriate percentage of points, and then accumulated those points in order to win prizes. Fabulous, fabulous prizes, like...MORE BOOKS! For having the most points in my grade level (huge nerd here), I got a boxed set of the Little House on the Prairie books. Also, a t-shirt, which I wore with misguided, nerdy pride.
In high school, I realized that while the rewards of reading weren't tangible,they definitely still existed. For one, I got to escape my life for a little while. I got to daydream about what the future might be like. Most importantly, I could feel better than everyone else. That's right, I used reading to fuel the sort of superiority complex that only a true outcast could really have. I had the patience to read almost anything, most likely because there was little to no intellectual stimulation at my public school (the only classes I ever studied outside of school for were Calculus and Physics, because like I said, I was an English major). I even read The Fountainhead, a fact that shocks me now. How did I slog through such a boring, long, terrible book? Because I literally had nothing else to do.
I assumed that college would introduce me to the rest of literature's classics, and that would be that. As it turns out, that didn't happen! I read some great books in college, but I still haven't read The Grapes of Wrath. Or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Or Mrs. Dalloway. How did this happen? And what can I do about it?
My solution was to implement a reading list. At first blush, I leaned towards The Modern Library's 100 Best Novels. Plenty of people on the internet are working their way through this list of classics, and it seemed rock solid. On closer inspection, though, it was kind of lame. There are less than ten women on this list. And mostly white dudes. And, most importantly for me, not a lot of books post-1960. While I want to check out all of those novels, I wanted a list that was a little more interesting and diverse. So I found Time's 100 Best Novels from 1923 to Present. The date requirements solve my "too many old books!" problem, and it fits my most important rule: No Ayn Rand! I am not reading Atlas Shrugged, you guys, because I am not a naive, selfish 17 year old. Also, there are lots of fun, light-hearted picks on this list. Like Judy Blume!
I've been very, very slowly working my way through this list for a little over a year. I don't read books off the list continuously, but whenever I'm at a loss over what to read next, it is nice to be able to look at this list and make a pick. I still have a long, long way to go, but maybe someday I'll consider myself "well-read."

Cute Book Alert

Why, yes, all my photos ARE going to be of me holding a book up to my webcam. I think it adds a certain Human Interest. Actually, I can't be bothered to hook my camera up to my computer.
This is a great book I got yesterday. It's a good read if you are:
1) A creative type, but...
2) You have a job.
Oh, that's everyone! Good.

This book will tell you that writing for 15 minutes isn't anything to sneeze at. It's still 15 minutes more than you had yesterday, and something is better than nothing. Sometimes that's all you need to hear.
Also, there are illustrations of Bukowski and Sedaris! Too cute.

Happy Birthday To Me

My family and boyfriend bought me lots of books and DVDs.




I'm the happiest girl in the world.