Looking for Me?

If you are, you've come to the wrong place. Blogspot and I have, sadly, parted ways. I can now be found at my new address BiblioAddict. And if you've a brave, adventurous soul, I can also be found at Scribblings of a Maniac Writer. See you on the other side.

Goodbye & Goodnight...

After several sleepless and indecisive nights (well, only two really), I've decided to retire my blogspot account and move my BiblioAddict bags elsewhere. This blog has served me well, so it makes me a bit sad to leave, but I think that my new address will better fit my needs. I won't sob or reminisce about the good ole' times but I will say goodbye to each empty room, maybe carve my name into the boards beneath the stairs, and then slip my keys into the mailbox...Now I'm off to my new digs! I really like it, I hope you do too. See you there! And don't forget to bring a bottle of wine!! Click on the new BiblioAddict and meet me there!

A New Neighborhood

I'm thinking about packing up my BiblioAddict bags and heading to a different neighborhood. Head over to this address, look in the closets, scope out the piping and the lighting and tell me what you think...

Reading For the Ole' Red, White, and Blue

The Miami Herald asks presidential candidates what last work of fiction they read:

DEMOCRATS

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden: "Runaway Jury" by John Grisham.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton: "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd: "The Broker" by John Grisham.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards: "Exile" by Richard North Patterson.

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich: "Einstein's Dreams" by Alan Lightman.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama: "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson: "The administration's energy plan."

REPUBLICANS

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback: "The Dream Giver" by Bruce Wilkinson with David and Heather Kopp.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani: "The Beach House" by James Patterson and Peter De Jonge.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: "My oldest son's screenplay."

California Rep. Duncan Hunter: "The Democrats' proposal to balance the budget."

Arizona Sen. John McCain: "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: "Term Limits" by Vince Flynn.

Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo: "An Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore.

I'm not going to take the obvious potshots at those Grisham and Patterson readers - hey, to each his own right? Right. I will say that I'm most impressed with Obama's read. Perhaps, the Miami Herald will next ask the candidates what they thought of their reads. Now that would be interesting reading.

The Long Arm of the Librarian Law...

From the first chapter of The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom, the first book in a series about a mobile librarian detective:

There is a terrible poignancy about a building intended for the public that is closed to the public: it feels like an insult, a reposte to all our more generous instincts, the public polity under threat, and democracy abandoned. Back home in London, Israel had always found the sight of Brent Cross shopping centre at night depressing enough, and his girlfriend Gloria, her family's swimming pool when it was drained in the winter, but the sight of the big red-brick library with its dark windows affected him more deeply, in the same way that the sign of a derelict school might affect a teacher, or an empty restaurant a chef: a clear sign of the impending collapse of civilisation and the inevitable bankruptcy, a reminder never to count your chickens, or to overspend on refurbishments and cutlery. No one likes to see a shut library.

Ah, very true. I personally think that shut libraries will be the seventh sign marking the end of the world. On a related note, just when I forget that truth is always stranger than fiction, I come across this little tidbit in an article entitled "Mobile Library Helps Extend the Long Arm of the Law" from The Gazette & Hearld:

Sam Walsh, a police community support officer based at Cricklade police station, has already travelled with the mobile library on two occasions on a route to the west of the town. The partnership enables people to get advice and help from the police while picking up the latest bestseller and it is proving popular.

There's somthing screwily funny about this. Shall I keep my joke ("Officer! Officer! There's a man robbing my house...But, can I check out this book first, please?") to myself? Yeah, I'll keep it.

Prosthetic Shoulders for the Book-Needy

Last Sunday, I flew to Houston, Texas (work again) and I decided that, although I was scheduled to be there for two weeks, I would pack light. This meant that, instead of bringing my super-large, heavy duty suitcase, I would bring my light, compact carry-on, which I would then "check" because the bad thing about leaving ole' Heavy Duty at home is that there isn't any room to pack any of my books. Luckily, I have a heavy duty bag/tote which provides ample room (probably too much room) for all of my books, magazines, wallet and all other feminine purse things which somehow find their way to being carried around on my shoulder. Imagine this list of books and magazines I thought it wise to put in my bag:

Big, Fat, American Baby by Judy Budnitz
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
How to Read Like a Writer by Francine Prose
Heat by Bill Buford
The Complete Plays of Christopher Marlowe by Christopher Marlowe
The Final Solution by Michael Chabon
The Shakespeare Riots by Nigel Cliff

Did I mention all of these were hardback? They were. Not to mention:

the current Bookforum
an old issue of The New York Times Review of Books
and...I'm counting...four old issues of The New Yorker

Not so bad, right? Sure, I was struggling but I'd rather lug around seven books than to leave one behind only to discover that that one is the book I'd rather to be reading on the plane. The problem with this arrangement is that I never leave room for books that I might likely buy while I'm away. I buy books at the airport. I can't help it. Even as I'm leaning over, almost buckling from the weight of my bag, those airport bookstores just beacon me (Hey you. Yeah, you with the big bag of books. Come and see what I've got. Come on, you've got time to kill. It never hurts to look, right?)

I don't usually pick anything up because the selection is often very poor (New York Times Top 10 bestsellers, eh, I'm not often very interested) but this week I had the misfortune of coming across some very well-stocked airport bookstores, one of which happened to be independently owned. So in addition to the seven books I was already carrying, I bought four more books - that's right, four more books. I bought two on the way to Houston and two more coming back:

In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart

So there I was dragging myself through the airport in Houston carrying eleven books. The gentleman I sat next to on the plane looked at me as I jammed my grotesquely large bag under the seat in front of me, looked at my books, looked at me again as I opened the book I had in my hand - I was reading my first chapter of Special Topics in Calamity Physics - smiled and asked the question I get all the time: "So you're a student, huh?"

"No," I say with a smile. "I just like to read a lot." He blinked once, twice, shook his head (probably wondering why he had to sit next to the crazy book lady), then returned to the nice, single paperback he'd slipped into the seat pocket. I envied his leg space and his probably un-aching shoulder. But on the almost three hour flight from Houston to D.C. he only had a choice between one book and sleep. I, however, had eleven choices plus sleep. That's worth the prosthetic shoulder I'll probably need after my right shoulder falls off.

A Sumptuous Meal...

In Chapter 5 of Francine Prose’s How to Write Like a Writer, she writes:

All this should begin to give us an idea of the different options available when a writer is choosing to write a story from a particular point of view, or when, as more often seems to be the case, the story is choosing the point of view from which it wishes to be written. To speak as if there were two major points of view - first and third - is like saying that the only thing we need to know in order to prepare and enjoy a delicious multicourse dinner is that there are five basic food groups.

I’m a quarter of the way through Joshua Ferris’ debut novel Then We Came to the End and already I know I’m sitting in the kitchen of a five-star master chef:

While waiting for Lynn to arrive, we killed time listening to Chris Yop tell us the story of Tom Mota’s chair. We loved killing time and had perfected several ways of doing so. We wandered the hallways carrying papers that indicated some mission of business when in reality we were in search of free candy. We refilled our coffee mugs on floors we didn’t belong on. Hank Neary was an avid reader. He arrived early in his brown corduroy coat with a book taken from the library, copied all its pages on the Xerox machine, and sat at his desk reading what looked to passerby like the honest pages of business.

And this is a gorgeously decadent slice of pecan pie (I’m real partial to pecan pie):

Jim made us wince with awkwardness, but we winced for his sake. Joe Poe’s awkwardness caused an entirely different brand of wincing and it was hard to put a finger on. “ ‘He was not only awkwardness in himself,’ ” declared our own poetaster Hank Neary, “ ‘but the cause that was awkwardness in other men.’ ” And like always, we had no earthly clue what Hank was talking about. Unless he meant to say that Joe Pope’s presence made us feel awkward. That was very true. Joe felt no obligation to speak. He would greet and be greeted like a normal human being, but beyond that he remained brazenly, stoically silent. Even in a meeting or a conference call, the man could let long episodes of silence fill the room while he was thinking of what he wanted to say, without hemming and hawing nervously in order to fill the oppressive silence bearing down upon us all. Perhaps that could be called composure, but it made the rest of us uneasy, so much so that Hank, determined to get it right, returned with a second quote pulled form his infinite lode of worthless erudition - “ ‘He inspired uneasiness. That was it! Uneasiness! Not a definite mistrust - just uneasiness - nothing more.’ ” - and when that quote went from one of us to the other via e-mail, we congratulated Hank on finally saying something comprehensible. Uneasiness. That was it precisely.

"I Know What You Read Last Summer"

This is two weeks late but I just found this post on summer reading. Very, very funny with a few great reccomendations. I never think of my summer reading in this quite this way, but he makes it sound so fun that perhaps I should...

For me, summer reading is complicated, because I spend the months of June and July on the road. Every traveller knows the importance of packing light, but books tend to be on the heavy side. So leave them at home, you say. Not an option. Erasmus bought essentials like food and clothing with the change left over from acquiring new books, which makes perfect sense to me. I'm a book addict, a chain reader who finishes one novel and immediately starts the next. Sometimes I read two, three or even four books at a time. I can't go to sleep at night without reading.

Nine months out of the year, this isn't a problem. I'm surrounded by unread books. I've lined the walls with them, with stashes tucked away in closets and basements. So far, things haven't reached the point where I'm emptying the coffee jar and hiding a few paperbacks inside, but to be honest, I welcome that day.

Sound familiar?

Threatening Iago...

This passage from Nigel Cliff's The Shakespeare Riots got a laugh-out-loud response from me:

Shakespeare was revered as a seer and a prophet, the master spirit of the Anglophone civilization, but his plays were also the stuff of log-cabin wisdom, the staple of schoolboy speechifying, and above all the stock-in-trade of popular drama. With one or at most two theaters in all but the biggest cities, men and women of every class went to the same shows and watched the same medley of "legitamate" plays and the skits and songs, farces and acrobatic dsplays that were served up as after-pieces or entr'actes, and no one thought of removing Shakespeare to a separate category called Culture...Some spectators became so wrapped up in the action that they forgot they were watching a play at all. In Albany a canal boatman was enraged by Iago's scheming: "You damned lying scoundrel!" he roared as he rose to his feet, "I would like to get hold of you after the show and wring your infernal neck!"

Ah, the good ole' days when art could move us so...

Killing the Wicked Witch of the West...

"I Don't Think We're In Kansas Anymore, Todo", Part 2

...After I finally make my sci-fi pick, I cautiously, very cautiously approach the graphic novel section. The first thing I see are shelves and shelves of manga. Now. I’ve read manga before - I spent a year in Japan. How could I not? - so I know this isn’t what I want. I am, by all means, no expert but I think manga is the paperback serial version of American comic books. I want to read a graphic novel, which I am told is something altogether different from comics. So I wander the aisles until I finally spot a single lonely bottom shelf dedicated to graphic novels.

Again, I’m no expert, but even I know that this bookstore’s graphic novel is sadly lacking. But I persevere and come up with...nothing. I find absolutely nothing on that single shelf of novels which strikes my fancy. This isn’t because I’m feeling repelled or distressed. It’s because I know I can do much better. There is V for Vendetta, but I’ve seen the movie; there’s also A History of Violence but - yep, I’ve seen that too, and there’s also 300 but - well, you know. So reluctantly I wander away from the graphic novel section empty-handed with some vague idea that I’ll surf Amazon for something interesting later.

I get half-way to the self-help section (god, help me) before I remember...wait...wait.. ...I got it! - a comic excerpt I read in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006 a few months back! Naturally I can’t remember the guy’s name but, hey I haven’t spent half of my life in bookstores and libraries without learning how to do a little stack investigation. So, after I’ve found the The Best American Nonrequired Reading on the shelf, I quickly skim its contents and there it is: Guy Delisle, author of Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea. Now that’s what I want. Excited, I hop/run back over to the graphic novel section and...they don’t have it. I mark it down in my book to buy/order another day. July pick, down. Onwards to the self-help section.

For me, walking anywhere near this section is like walking toward a force field of opposite attraction. And these little voices in my head are whispering: Come on, you don’t want to do this. You don’t need to do this. Stop! Stop now before it’s too late!!! I quiet them - see, no pop psychology needed - ignore the twisting in my gut, and try really, really hard to wipe the cynical sneer from my face before I enter the SELF-HELP SECTION. What is it about this section that makes me so suspicious? Maybe it’s this: In next week’s issue of The New Yorker (Dana Goodyear’s "The Magus"), Mario Maestri says on Paulo Coelho:

Coelho’s narratives and self-help books have the same fundamental effect: of anesthetizing the alienated consciousness through the consoling reaffirmation of conventions and prevailing prejudices. Fascinated by his discoveries, the Coelhist reader explores the familiar, breaks down doors already open, and gets mired in sentimental, tranquilizing, self-centered, conformist, and spellbinding visions of the world that imprisons him. When he finishes a book, he wants another one that will be different but absolutely the same...yuppie esoteric narrative.

I’ve never read Coelho, including his ubiquitous novel The Alchemist, so I can’t comment how true Maestri’s comments are, but he does seem to get at how I feel toward all self-help novels. That, and I think a lot of self-help authors are out to make a quick buck. Which is cynical - yes, even I know that - so here I am standing in the self-help section against every skeptical bone in my body and I pull out the first book I lay hands on... ... How to Get a Rich Man: The Princess Formula by Donna Spangler? Come on, SELF-HELP, you’re not helping your case here. I flip through it, hoping against hope that this is joke. A self-help comic maybe? But no, Ms. Spagler is very serious with tips like: Learn How to Play Tennis. Why? Well, because rich men like women who know how to play tennis. Duh.

I thought self-help novels were about spiritual enlightenment and recovering from grief-stricken times, which - despite my sneering and suspicion - I can respect. There is no way, however, I can respect a book which encourages women to become - I don’t care how you put it - gold-diggers. Is this the spiritual enlightenment we’re seeking these days? The nirvana of platinum engagement rings, Minolo Blaniks, and Gucci bags bought with someone else’s credit card? But, I admit, I almost buy it. Not because I expect to learn anything but because, at the very least, I’m guaranteed to have rip-roaring time snickering at its superficiality for a month.

But that would be cheating I think. The point is to challenge myself, not reaffirm my suppositions, and reading How to Get a Rich Man will do exactly that. Following the most boring ten minutes I’ve ever spent browsing a bookstore - is it me, or is the main advise in every self-help book: “Think positive and all the joys of the world will come your way!”? - I give up. That's right. I give up and pick the most obvious pick: The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. I couldn’t give a flying tornado for what the “secret” is. In fact, I bet I know it already - “Think positive and all the joys of the world will come your way!” - but when the time comes I’ll try to be open-minded. I really will. I promise. August pick, down.

Legs aching, eyes burning, my head making it’s own tribal music, I stumble over to the US History section (another area of the bookstore which I find to be a roller-coaster of exciting fun); by this time, my patience meter has hit ‘E’. It’s all I can do to keep from running to the best-seller table, picking out the nicest cover and making an escape. But I can do better than that. Biographies on John Adams, George Washington - nope, nope, not interested. Books on the Civil War - nope, not interested. On the Dust Bowl? Sorry. Not interested. On World War I? World War II? Yeah, that would be - no, not interested. But suddenly, the clouds part, the sun shines, and the angels sing praise because there, situated perfectly in the American history section is The Shakespeare Riots: Revenge, Drama, and Death in Nineteenth Century America by Nigel Cliff, the very same book I promised to buy a few weeks back. This smacks of cheating - getting a book I planned to get anyway. But, I rationalize, nowhere in the challenge does it say I can’t enjoy myself. And if any book could challenge my associating American history with boredom it’s The Shakespeare Riots. So, Cliff it is. September pick, down.

It is now May 3rd. I’ve landed in the country of the Muchkins, killed the Wicked Witch of the West, and had ruby slippers placed onto my feet. Now I’m on my way to see the Wizard of Oz, strolling down the Yellow Brick Road, wondering at the amazing and unusual people I’ll meet along the way. Here's hoping I don't get eaten.

I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore, Todo...

You might think this is strange, but when I accepted the New Notions 5 reading challenge, it never occurred to me that the challenge would actually be well...a challenge. I spent a very difficult time in the bookstore this afternoon, trying to pick out a book that didn’t make my lip curl with distaste. It was a lot harder than I thought! It started off well-enough with a first stop over into the poetry section because I never read books of poetry. Poetry is wonderful and I understand why it’s a revered form of creative artistry, but I myself tend to prefer prose. I find that I often have the same impatient response to poetry that I have to English opera, which is, to quote one of my favorite comedians Jerry Seinfeld: “You got something to say, say it!”

But this is a challenge, so poetry it is, only…I don’t know the first thing about poetry. Alright, I know the first thing. I know the classics: Lowell, Whitman, Dickinson, Frost, etc. But I want to read something new, something fresh. I want to know what’s happening in the poetry world now. So I do what any well-informed, sophisticated reader does: I start pulling books off the shelves based purely on attractive spines. Soon enough, I come across Hoops: Poems by Major Jackson. A quick browse of what’s inside sounds cool and hip enough (and, really, how can you go wrong with a name like Major Jackson?). May pick, down.

Floating on the ease of my first pick, I glide over to the sci-fi section when suddenly reality comes barreling down like a malfunctioning space ship falling from the sky. A quick browse of the wild, unfamiliar titles has me whispering aloud, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore Todo.” For a minute, I’m standing in the middle of the aisle trying to remember exactly why I didn’t take John Otter up on his offer of a sci-fi recommendation (I seem to recall thinking, “Oh, it can’t be that hard! I’ll pop in, see something that strikes my fancy and pop back out!). I’ve read sci-fi before. Last year I read, Dune by Frank Herbert, a long time ago I read Tolkein’s The Hobbit, the entire Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, and half of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers before I gave up and decided that I’d rather watch the movies. And, for months, I’ve been in the middle of reading The Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick.

So I’m not completely inexperienced, and there was that time when I was forced to read William Gibson’s Idoru for a class in communications. But peeking into the titles I pull from the shelf has my gut clinching in the same distress I experienced during the week of Idoru. I’m feeling literally repelled by this section of books. Just when did this section get so big? And why are all the books over 700 pages long? If I’m going to challenge myself with some sci-fi, must I be masochistic about it too? But finally, world of wonders, after I’ve decided upon Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things, the light bulb goes off! There was this book I heard about months back called The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman...Ding! Why don’t I read that? And it’s located in the young adult section (another section you’ll never find me in) so I get to kill two birds with one stone! June pick, down...

This post has turned out to be entirely too long so I’ve decided to split it into two. Tune in later for the final installment of “I Don't Think We’re in Kansas Anymore Todo…”! Next up: choosing a graphic novel, needing help in the self-help section, and spending too much time in history.

My First Challenge Should I Choose to Accept It...

The book blogosphere is bursting with reading challenges. Southern reading, Spring reading, Classics reading, Shakespeare reading, Out-of-the-Box reading... And they all really do sound fun and engaging. Yet - until recently at least - I've managed to keep my book nose out of them. Not because I have something against reading challenges but because well, it says it in my blog title: I'm a slow reader. I barely have time to get through the books already on my TBR list. And I don't like the feeling of being rushed (or rushing) through a novel to beat a deadline. It takes the pleasure out of reading for me. If it's a book I'm really enjoying, I like to take my time and stay a while; give it a chance to make the "long journey to my soul." So, while I applaud those people who can finish a book in a week (ha! I wish - no really, I do), I figured I'd be best served by admiring reading challenges from afar.

But, you know what? Forget what I just said because I've decided to take John Otter over at Grasping for the Wind up on his New Notions 5 Reading Challenge. He assured me speed isn't neccesary (you're nuts John, if you think I won't hold you to that). I'll will, however, be required to complete five books in five months and I'm pretty sure...yeah...yeah I'm pretty sure even I can do that. So, my challenge as I've so chosen to accept it is to read five books that challenge my preconcieved notions on any particular topic. This could be race, politics, religion, what have you. I like reading outside of my box. It's one of the things that makes the reading life worth living. So John, count me in.

I haven't decided exactly what my five books will be yet but I had a most interesting idea at work today. My five books will be chosen from genres that I very, very rarely - if ever - journey into for various reasons. This would include self-help books (because I tend to think they're useless), science fiction (because I get bored with the outrageous technology and talking aliens that look like pimples), most American history (because, for some reason, it bores me out of my mind - love European history though, can't get enough of it), anthing that comes out of the "spiritual" section (for the same reasons why I don't read self-help books), and comics (nothing against them, I just never venture into that section). I'm very, very sure I'm leaving off a long list of other genres. But you know what? I'm willing to accept that all of my preconcieved notions on all of those genres are likely wrong. So I'm going to give them a chance to prove themeselves (see how I transfered the reading challenge from myself to the books? - I'm tricksy, I am). Now all I have to do is actually pick five books. Perhaps this weekend I'll go to the bookstore, wander into unexplored territory, and see what I stumble out with.

Many, Many Apologies...

Sorry to those of you who have been checking in wondering where in the world I've been for the better part of a week. Well if you must know (yes, I know I'm flattering myself to think that anyone actually cared but, I put it to you, if I don't flatter myself, who will?), I've been in Seattle, Washington. It was work-related but I've spent the day walking around downtown, checking out the absolutely amazing Pike Street Market and riding the monorail to the Space Needle (which, strangely, isn't as tall as it looks on television). I've spent the week - when I wasn't working of course - trying to find the now non-existent Betty's Book Shop (another indie bites the dust, apparently), and instead stumbling across both a Border's and a Barnes & Noble. (Sigh) And yes, rather reluctantly and guiltily I did end up buying something from both stores. I picked up Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris and Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife by Sam Savage. Of course, it's only after I run out of both money and time, do I come across an indie bookstore tucked down by the pier called Left Bank Books. I felt guilty for not being able to afford another book, so I bought three stickers instead, one of which which reads, "Reading is Sexy." I have no idea where I'm going to stick it but it was just too cute (and true as well, in my opinion but who's asking me?) to pass up.

And, while I've been neglecting my blog and not spending money in indie bookstores like I promised, I have been gobbling The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson. What is it about the fictionalized memoirs of ministers? I'm not a religious person but Marilynne Robinson's Gilead was my favorite book of 2005. The Testament of Gideon Mack is proving to be just as engrossing. At the risk of repeating all those other folks who have reviewed The Testament, this book is well-told contemplation on the place of religion in the modern life. Take for instance this passage:

...why should the fact that I didn't believe in God debar me from ministry? Not only might faith be unnecessary in a modern minister, it might even not be desirable. There was so much talk about how churches needed to connect with people who had lost their faith or never had any: perhaps what the Kirk needed was an influx of faithless ministers. And if faith was essential, I would find out. I would be found out. It was in this frame of mind that, midway through my fourth and final undergraduate year, I began to explore the option of staying on Edinburgh to study Divinity.

And I've also re-engaged with Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's amazing, I think, how quickly books we couldn't wait to get our hands on fall to the wayside (or maybe it's just me and I'm projecting). Eat, Pray, Love was one of those books. I started it as soon as I bought it and, as often happens, I got distracted by something else and put it down for a new toy. Well, the neglectful child has returned and Eat, Pray, Love is reminding me why I was enthusiastic about buying this book in the first place. Gilbert has the power of inspiring great empathy with her writing. I've never been through a heart-wrenching divorce - or any break-up for that matter (yes, I know I've been incredibly lucky) - or found God again during a breakdown on my bathroom floor but Gilbert is so incredibly honest with herself and her feelings that it doesn't take a large leap of faith for me to feel L'ho provato sulla mia pelle, which is Italian for "I have experienced that on my own skin" or, in a more colloquial translation: I've been there.

Touching the Sides...

Housekeeping vs. the Dirt, a collection of Nick Hornby's reviews for The Believer magazine, is everything I wish BiblioAddict could be (and hopefully will be one day). I'm finding it absolutely wonderful to read a collection of reviews in which it's clear on every single page that this author is obviously passionate about reading. He's informed yet incredibly self-effacing. I'm wondering just what I've been doing these past two months (alright, fine - three months) that have kept me from positively zipping through this slim collection. If Hornby himself should ask (hey, we can all dream right?), I'll tell him I'm trying to let Housekeeping vs. the Dirt touch the sides:

I have always prized the accessible over the obsure, but after reading Housekeeping [the novel by Marilynne Robinson - not his own collection] I can see that in some ways the easy, accesible novel is working at a disadvantage (not that Housekeeping is inaccessible, but it is deep and dark and rich): it's possible to whiz through it without allowing it even to touch the sides, and a bit of side-touching has to happen if a book is going to be properly transformative. If you are so gripped by a book that you want to read it in the mythical single sitting, what chance has it got of making it all the way through the long march to your soul? It'll get flushed out by something else before it's even halfway there.

-- pg. 100

The Reading Roller-Coaster

Well, I guess I should do my part in spreading the word: The Litblog Co-op has announced its Read This! Spring 2007 pick - Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead: Stories by Alan DeNiro. Since I’ve just discovered this apparently popular, well-known litblog today, I’m also adding their Read This! selections from last year: Michael Martone by Michael Martone, Firmin by Sam Savage, and Wizard of the Crow by Ngugl wa Thiong’o. Added to that I still have to buy The Shakespeare Riots by Nigel Cliff (released today - yeah!). Not to mention I’ve already begun dipping into The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson, which I picked up yesterday during a quickie bookstore stop on my way from the post office. Yes, I know I promised to spend my next $20 on The Shakespeare Riots but how could I pass up a book about an atheist minister who’s life is saved by none other than the Devil? It was a no-brainer, really.

I’ve realized just now that the reading life - much like life itself, I suppose - is full of ups and downs. Only two weeks ago, I was complaining that I couldn’t find anything worth reading in the bookstore. That isn’t to say there wasn’t anything there - because surely there was - but I spent a disappointing afternoon browsing Border’s shelves and, after a fruitless search, left with nothing. I hate leaving the bookstore empty-handed. I makes me feel as if I’ve failed somehow and puts me in a terrible mood.

Then last week, I stopped in an independent bookstore (in the airport of all places) and suddenly the sun came out again. I picked up three gems: Shahnameh by Ferdowsi, The Final Solution by Michael Chabon, and The Italian Secretary by Celeb Carr. When I returned home, there was a copy of Andy Mandelbuam’s translation of The Aenied waiting for me in my mailbox, which has been on my coveted-book list for many years now. And now, I’ve come across the Litblog Co-op Read This! list. (Contented sigh) What can I say? I’m thinking I need a second job. Suddenly, the reading life is good again. At least, it will be until I begin wondering when I’m going to find the time to read all these books...

To Be a Critic or Not to Be...

(Sorry. I've been reading Greenblatt's biography on Shakespeare "Will in the World" and it's effecting my thinking)

Yesterday, Meg Rosoff posted an article on "The Guardian" weblog entitled Who'd be a Critic? In it, by way of questioning why anyone would want to be a critic, Rosoff seems to argue that not writing a negative review which might hurt the author's feelings is more important than writing an honest review.

Nowadays, I only review books I really like. It's cowardly, I know, but I figure it's not my job to make people unhappy.

To put it mildly, not everyone agreed with Ms. Rosoff. The folks at the Literary Saloon responded:

How can you possibly worry about whether or not you're hurting an author's feelings when reviewing their book ? Sure, it likely hurts them if you say nasty things about their baby, but the reviewer's only obligation is towards the reader.

And the first reply posted to Rosoff’s blog reads:

As a reviewer, you have one single duty: and that is to your readers. Sod the bloody author. If they have such a thin skin as can't cope with a bad review, then they really are in the wrong trade. Your job is to inform, or at least entertain, your readers. If you can't do that, then leave the reviewing to a professional. There's plenty of them about.

In my humble opinion I think Ms. Rosoff’s critics are right. A review, after all, isn’t about the author. It’s about the book. That’s the only thing a critic should consider when they compose their review, not that the author is “shy, unable quite to believe his luck, and really not a person whose feelings you'd want to hurt even if he hadn't (in my humble opinion) written a book worthy of selling like hot cakes.” The Literary Saloon points out that good people write bad books everyday, which is true. The fact that an author brakes for pigeons in the street and volunteers down at the local soup kitchen shouldn’t, and doesn’t, at the end of the day, have any bearing on his skills as a writer.

But Ms. Rosoff’s article raises a more important question than whether a critic should do what they’re paid to do: at what point does an author’s creative work become an entity of its own, separate from the author? At what point does the creative piece cease to belong to the author and become the possession of the larger community and culture? I would argue that as soon as a finished piece is printed and set out for sale, it is no longer simply the author’s book, it’s ours. As such, we have the right and the privilege to judge as we see fit. You, the author, are - sorry to say - a nonentity.

The Literary Saloon uses a common term often used to refer to an author’s novel: “a baby.” Like all parents reluctant to let their children go, authors are often possessive of their work. But novels, like children, after they have been given all the love and care that a parent can bestow, must stand alone and face judgment. Sometimes our children don’t perform as well as we’d hoped and no one wants to be told they’re a bad parent. But it would be less than unkind to lie or pretend otherwise. It would be a betrayal of literature, of culture, and in the end, of the author, for if you don’t know how bad you are, how can you improve? It’s elementary, really.

Letting Go on "The Guardian"

A copy of my post on "The Guardian" blog about books I've left and let go:

I struggled through and finally gave up on Jared Diamond's "Collapse." I loved "Gun, Germs, and Steel" but I found "Collapse" entirely too dry. It seems as if Diamond made absolutely no attempt to interest his readers in what, at least in theory, should have been a compelling subject. Also, sigh, I never finished "War and Peace." One day I will though. I loved Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre." It's on my top ten list, in fact. But I was absolutely unable to make it through "Villette." I absolutely hated "The World is Flat" by Thomas L. Freidman and left it unfinished with no regrets. Also never finished Nick Hornby's "How to Be Good." I love Hornby as a critic but I have my reservations about his novels. And finally "Love in the Time in Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Prose was great, subject (unrequited love for a woman who absolutely doesn't deserve it) wasn't.

That's all I can think of so far but I'm sure there's more. My only defense is that I've finished plenty more than I've given up on and it always leaves me feeling a little defeated when I just have to move on, which I think is a good thing.

And here's the response I got from Carefree:

Blimey, LitChild [that's me], I loved Collapse by Jared Diamond, and I'm usually a strictly fiction reader, but I've always been fascinated by the myths of Easter Island and the Viking sagas, so I devoured this - and subsequently leant to a friend about a year ago and desperate to get it back so I can read it again one day!

On an off-topic note, I think EVERYONE should read Collapse to try and get some historical perspective on what we're doing to the planet. And then act on it - it was an inspirational read for me.

Blimey?! Ha, ha! Oh, you gotta love those Brits. But come on, surely, despite its noble purpose, I wasn't the only one who couldn't wade through Collapse.