BOOKS I JUST READ

Lucky moments.

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 14:17:24 -0500

Lucky moments.

"Lately I’ve noticed a disturbing tendency in myself to accept things the way they are."

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:32:05 -0500

“Lately I’ve noticed a disturbing tendency in myself to accept things the way they are.”

- Roberto Bolano, The Savage Detectives

The Missionary Position

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:30:40 -0500

This book is a polemic against Mother Theresa and makes big, but interesting claims.

I went into this with high expectations that weren’t quite satisfied. (I’m sure Hitch would have had some sort of funny quip about sex in response.) This book was a long essay, and I think it could have been more powerful shorter. As it was, the length made it feel un-credible, not incredible. It felt like he was stretching out a long-form journalism piece, not going into more depth. And while some parts were really interesting, particlurly anything relating to Mother Theresa’s financials and debunking the legend surrounding her alleged “miracle,” I just felt that Hitchens didn’t do enough hard-hitting, or digging, and the book fell short.

Random Family

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:53:47 -0500

It is my fervent belief that this book should be required reading in every high school in America. It’s that good, so good that I think if every high schooler read it, this country would be better, filled with more emotionally developed people, maybe filled with people who are more understanding and empathetic.

This book is devastating. It’s not a feel-good book, and actually this book completely wrecked me for the week after I read it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, it was so completely powerful, compelling, intense, every word that means anything that reminds you of getting yelled at when you were a kid, or maybe the first time you read Of Mice and Men. I cried then and I cried the night I finished this book, both nights feeling completely at the mercy of an author. That’s what Random Family does, it brings you to the emotional state of a 9-year-old that just finished Of Mice and Men. What is Random Family about? It’s about a family in the Bronx, and their lives. That is all.

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s book is every cliche people say about a good book. But most importantly, it did what David Simon tried to do in writing The Wire, it slowly creates a city, moving backwards from a single point. LeBlanc immerses herself in the Bronx, in this family, and less wouldn’t have been enough to result in this book. At times, I wondered how she could possibility be so close to her subjects without involving herself in their lives, how she had the strength to observe so faithfully. Her act of journalism is truly staggering when thought about this way, which is one of the reasons I was crying and something I still can’t stop thinking about. Even though she didn’t insert herself into the story at all, her strength, observation, and insight are what remain with me after the incredible story she’s relayed has ended.

(Adrian Nicole Leblanc is a MacArthur fellow, and is currently working on a project about comedians in New York.)

Happy 50th Birthday to A WRINKLE IN TIME, first published in...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:24:31 -0500

Happy 50th Birthday to A WRINKLE IN TIME, first published in 1962 and written by Madeleine L’Engle. The first in an engrossing, imaginative, wonderful series that is still making readers think!

"There’s a time for reciting poems and a time for fists."

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:05:52 -0500

“There’s a time for reciting poems and a time for fists.”

- Roberto Bolano, The Savage Detectives

So I started The Savage Detectives yesterday and of course already love it, and I hate to be that lame as to already be quoting it (from the 6th page and I’m only 49 pages in) when I could be using this time to read it, but, come on! This quote might be the best thing a guy character has said/thought in a book, ever.

Motherless Brooklyn - Jonathan Lethem

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 12:56:22 -0500

Just about when the title of the book is explained, I started to love Motherless Brooklyn. That’s when I saw the tenderness and humanity in it, the little gem of something shining through the prose. Somehow, I assume that Lethem loved this book the same way as he was writing it, an expansion as he got to know his characters better, as they lived and did in his own neighborhood; his neighborhood sketched, then inked, then painted, and then photographed on the pages.

The driving force behind Motherless Brooklyn is a a kind of quest, even though at first it seems like Lionel’s Tourette’s Syndrome. It takes such a front seat in the beginning pages but is soon second nature, the spastic prose becomes normal and the calmness of the surrounding characters becomes unusual, especially since their normalcy becomes associated with a kind of heartlessness, an apathy that in juxtaposition to Lionel’s outbursts and warmth seems cold, evil, and strange. This warmth that emanates from Lionel almost infects the reader, we hope and yearn for him to find love, to find comfort, to be accepted. We don’t only cheer Lionel on when we read Motherless Brooklyn, we feel empathy for him, we imagine his life and hope it can be better.

When I look out my window, I see the street where the action unfolds. When I get off the train after work, I’m walking on the streets Lionel Essrog stalks. And yet, Lethem was able to make them a little more real to me. He wrote about things I actually see every day, places and people he saw too, and through his writing, I see them better. I like that. It’s rare you get the chance to read about a place you live in or love from an author’s point of view, but Lethem’s Court Street is no shade, is no disappointment.

She Came to Stay - Simone de Beauvoir

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:16:24 -0500

I’m trying to think of an un-offensive way to write that She Came to Stay was like Hemmingway at his best but if he was a woman. It was set in Paris, and about the peaceful love between two that turns into self-doubt in one. We usually only get this story from a male perspective, Hemmingway’s, but in She Came to Stay we see the woman’s side. The love between Francoise and Pierre is threatened by the introduction of Xaviere, as Francoise is slowly consumed by self-doubt and Pierre by disgust for Xaviere’s selfishness and jealousy. The triangle of humanity seems to feed all three corners with something that enables them to act like the worst versions of themselves. De Beauvoir succeeded in creating one of the most complex, skittish, odd, and sullen characters in literature in Xaviere. Xaviere is the bad blood in the triangle, and when Pierre leaves for the front, Francoise must deal with Xaviere’s evil nature and her own creeping doubt.

"He hadn’t known how stupid pain could make you and thought it should be the other way around..."

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:00:23 -0500

“He hadn’t known how stupid pain could make you and thought it should be the other way around or what was the good of it.”

- Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

slaughterhouse90210: “Boys like it when you talk to them as if...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:47:47 -0500

slaughterhouse90210:

“Boys like it when you talk to them as if they were grown men—at least he always did when he was a kid—because they pretend that’s what they are anyhow, grown-up men, and they do it for their entire lives.”
― Russell Banks, Lost Memory of Skin

slaughterhouse90210: “It is an amazing thing to watch people...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:13:35 -0500

slaughterhouse90210:

“It is an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort of takes them over. Sometimes they really do struggle with it … so I wonder what it is and where it comes from, and I wonder what it expends out of your system, so that you have to do it till you’re done, like crying in a way, I suppose, except that laughter is much more easily spent.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

"Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work."

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:43:24 -0500

“Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work.”

- Jennifer Egan

"What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them...."

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:21:00 -0500

“What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them. All his reverence and all his fondness and all the leanings of his life were for the ardenthearted and they would always be so and never be otherwise.”

- Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

The Passage, or, Reading for Work

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:01:48 -0500

There are those of us who have taken our love of reading to a weird level: we read for a living. It’s not easy to get a job like this, there are lot of people who would give up their dignity to work someplace “glamourous” where they can get paid to “read” books. Some of us are lucky, and have achieved this glorious dream. After working at some crappy internships, then some better ones, and after surviving the publishing bootcamp known as “The Columbia Publishing Course” I got the call. I work for a literary agent and love my job. My workload consists of 90% not reading. But the 10% of reading-related work is exciting, and awesome, and like I said, I love my job.

But reading The Passage was a singular experience for me. I read it for work, an issue of familiarity. I probably never would have picked this book up otherwise. I’m just not a long vampire saga type of girl, nothing wrong with that. I actually procrastinated reading The Passage for this reason, I am among the last at my agency to have read it, and I was feeling a little out of the loop at the water cooler, so to speak. I had a long trip, with flights and a long layover, so I brought The Passage with me. And no joke, this book saved my life during the six hours I spent at the Frankfurt airport, since I probably would have fallen asleep and been robbed/quietly murdered or just missed my flight if I hadn’t had this addictive story with me.

The Passage, as established above, is unlike the books I normally pick up, which is exactly why it is perfect “work reading.” Work reading can be educational, it can be tedious, it can be terrible. The Passage was indeed educational, it taught me a lot about thrillers. But unlike some of the manuscripts I’ve been tasked with during my work as a reader, The Passage was incredible. Reading it was like reading a book of instructions for things you should look for in a manuscript, and as someone who is doing the looking I greatly appreciated the quasi-tutorial. Justin Cronin’s intricate plot, detailed and developed characters, and sense of place combine to create a mammoth thriller; at 800 or so pages I even closed the book wanting more. It was fun to isolate the reasons why this books works, to recognize the potential of the book after the fact. I tried to put myself in the mindset of not knowing the success of The Passage, seeing it from a slush pile perspective. And I was immediately swept-away by the story, the writing. A chapter in and I knew I would have called this guy up after a hours of night-blind reading.

Criticizing something good is harder than expressing why something is bad. One of the reasons I started this blog was to improve my skills and writing about why I liked a book. Writing about The Passage is actually hard, an unintelligent “IT’S AWESOME” doesn’t suffice. You can’t gush about something without a reason to, and the things I read that are middle of the road, even in my personal reading, are the most difficult for me. When there’s something to like, but not overwhelmingly, I sit and think over the blank screen, “How do I decide to like or dislike this book?” The Passage taught me how to see this more clearly in books that I’m less expert on, thrillers and commercial fiction in general. It feels good to take those lessons and apply them.

"I had to shift in my seat, even, and I was amazed at how a man who didn’t seem sexy at all..."

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:39:21 -0500

“I had to shift in my seat, even, and I was amazed at how a man who didn’t seem sexy at all could suddenly become starkly erotic just by plainly admitting his desire.”

- Dana Spiotta, Stone Arabia

"And I believe few things are as despicable and dishonest as faking an obsession. The world is full..."

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:33:48 -0500

“And I believe few things are as despicable and dishonest as faking an obsession. The world is full of the lightly obsessed, the faintly committed, the inch-deep dilettantes. All these contrived and affected and presented passions.”

- Dana Spiotta, Stone Arabia

Bossypants!

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:46:07 -0500

As a total Tina Fey fangirl, I was surprised I hadn’t read Bossypants yet, and when my mother-in-law found out, she bought it and sent it to me right away. She loves Tina Fey too, and we’ve talked about how we both wanted to be her when we grew up. Only neither of us could really explain exactly what this would have sounded like if we had mentioned it back in the day. And now we were just happy someone got to be Tina Fey when they grew up, that someone that awesome and that funny exists.

Reading Bossypants was fun. It was like talking to Tina Fey one-on-one, less the Liz Lemon-isms that you inconciously turn into Tina Fey traits. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did, when Tina wrote about her co-workers, and listed their “most valuable jokes.” I realized I assumed Tina wrote them all, that Tina was Liz, and Bossypants showed me where I was wrong. Which was fun. Of course I wanted more about things like her relationship with Amy Poehler, more tidbits about her real life. But I got the feeling that readers of Bossypants (me too) are just happy to have any illusion of hanging out with Tina Fey.

The Flame Alphabet - NYT review

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:36:56 -0500

The Flame Alphabet - NYT review

MOONDOGS - Alexander Yates

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:56:17 -0500

Moondogs, by Alexander Yates, is fantastical and adventurous, but it also contains some truth about human nature within it’s “mystical realist” pages. Even though you’re reading about a seemingly super-powerful rooster, a magical posse of men, and an earthquake-causing lady, you’ll also be witnessing some human emotion that normally does not coexist with such fantasy strewn pages. The character of Efrem, even though not touted in the summary of the book’s amazon page, was the vehicle for all this human suffering for me.

Efrem is a man who can shoot exceptionally well, and he is taken in by Reynato Ocampo to join his own league of extraordinary gentlemen. But Efrem is subtly complex in the midst of the macho, sad, and comic characters in this book (Ocampo, Benny, the rooster) and that endeared him to me. I understood his idealism and confusion, and Yates writes his perspective almost tenderly. I greedily and speedily read through MOONDOGS, but the parts I loved best were about Efrem. His sense of justice, his super ability, and his eagerness to love were elegantly constructed, and his character was vivid and alive, almost effortlessly so.

It’s this effortless construction of character, which is pretty much universal throughout, even though I had a soft spot for Efrem, that makes this novel shine.

WHAT WAS JD SALINGER WORKING ON?

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:28:01 -0500

WHAT WAS JD SALINGER WORKING ON?:

“Suppose Salinger completed a dozen books while holed up in Cornish and left them for his heirs to sort through upon his death. If they all consist of “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” then Salinger’s reclusion will be viewed as a selfish act, void or even destructive of creativity, and he will retain his reputation as having been an eccentric recluse.”