Writing the Good Read

Monday, June 18, 2007

In Love with Miranda July

For Mothers' Day, my husband gave me a book.

Please understand that this is the finest gift this girl can get. Oh sure, diamonds are nice and all, but give me pages and I'll be yours forever. Well, only if it's a good book, I guess.

He surprised me by looking about, finding this Web site, thinking, hey, Mj would like this, and ordering it to arrive before Moms' Day.

When I awoke that morning, he handed me Miranda July. Follow the link, damn it. I'll wait. You won't be sorry. If you don't laugh then you're DEAD.

So I spent a goodly (sorry, just spent a weekend in Williamsburg, Va.) amount of the day curled in a papasan chair devouring the book. Oh, and chocolate, because the boy bought me a Whitman's sampler. It was a DIVINE Mothers' Day.

Love the book. Love the husband. Love the kids. Sigh.

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A Thousand Splendid Suns

Some time ago, I wrote about The Kite Runner. It was, I said, the best book I'd read in quite awhile. What was interesting to me then, is that my husband and I had both read it, one after the other. We don't often read the same books or if we do, we don't feel the same way about them. The Kite Runner was different -- we both liked it equally well.

So when A Thousand Splendid Suns was released, my husband ordered it and began it the day it arrived. A few days later, he handed it to me to begin.

Books are very intimate objects. I do not share them lightly. For me, a book handed over to you in bed is the most appropriate exchange. Books, like gifts, should be carefully chosen; respected. When I give someone a book, it is beyond a handshake. It is significant. A gift of a book to me is one of the most cherished items I can receive.

I enjoyed Hosseini's second book -- not as much as the first -- and truly, it's one tragic event after another (I'm not spoiling anything here; most of the book takes place in Kabul). But tragedy, I appreciate, and a glimpse into another culture is not only fascinating but so important. We should learn something about the people who have lived with one war after another. It helps me appreciate the comfort I have, the security and freedom I take for granted daily.

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Sunday, March 18, 2007

The Book Sale

There is a singular pleasure in shopping for books at the library book sale. Comfortable among fellow bibliophiles, moving as though choreographed, sideways stepping , spine-reading heads held at an angle.

I spent a glorious part of the afternoon at the Charlottesville Friends of the Library book sale, buying, predictably, collections of essays and short stories. One juicy find is a biography of John Irving, possibly my favorite author of all time. (Irving is to books as Ben Folds is to music for me; if you have spent even an afternoon with me, you would know both these truths.) Another is a collection of the best stories of the 1980s, my coming-of-age era. Sigh.

But the best is yet to come as the sale really begins March 24 and wraps up, finally April 1, when everything's a quarter of the price. On April 2 they'll let you cart what's left away for free.

I'm planning to return, of course. I've got my hopes set on cookbooks and classics; a few favorite authors and whatever else captures my attention. The key to success with library book sales is low expectations and a broad range of reading interests.

If you see me there, do say hello. I always love to meet a fellow reader.

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Monday, February 19, 2007

The Book List Meme

Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicise the ones you want to read, put an X in front of the ones you won’t touch with a 10 foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. +The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. + The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. + The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. + The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. + Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. +Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. + Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. +A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)

16. + Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. +The Stand (Stephen King)
19. + Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. +Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. +The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. +The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. +The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. *Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. +The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. + Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. +The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. +Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. +1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. *The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. +The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. +Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. +Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. +Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)

50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. +A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. +Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. +Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. +The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. * The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. +Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60.+ The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. +One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. +The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. * Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. +Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. +Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. +Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. +Ulysses (James Joyce)

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Michael Castro and John Brandi at B & N in St. Louis Jan. 18

The St. Louis Writers Guild presents a reading Thursday, January 18th at 7pm, at the Barnes & Noble Ladue Crossing Store featuring poet and translator Michael Castro and New Mexico poet John Brandi. The store is located at Ladue & Highway 170 (taking the Ladue exit you can go straight across the street into the Ladue Crossing Shopping Plaza where the store is located).

MICHAEL CASTRO is well known locally as the founder of the River Styx Literary organization and the host of the long-lived Poetry Beat radio program. He is the author of ten books of poetry and translations. He will be reading from his new book of translations, A TRANSPARENT LION: SELECTED POETRY OF ATTILA JOZSEF. Attila Jozsef (1905-1937) is Hungary's greatest twentieth century poet.

JOHN BRANDI's dozens of publications include poetry, travel vignettes, essays, modern American haiku, translations of contemporary Mexican poetry. He has given innumerable readings in the U.S., France, England, Switzerland, India, and Mexico. Painter and collage master as well as a poet, he has exhibited in galleries in cities in the United States and is in several major collections. His books include: HEARTBEAT GEOGRAPHY: SELECTED & UNCOLLECTED POEMS 1966-1994, A QUESTION OF JOURNEY; VISITS TO THE CITY OF LIGHT, WEEDING THE COSMOS, and RELFECTIONS IN A LIZARD'S EYE. He is also the editor of THE UNSWEPT PATH, a collection of haiku by modern American writers.

When are you going to write a book?

One of the top questions I am asked and still have not learned to answer satisfactorily is, "so when are you going to write a book?"

Ugh. I wish I knew, or I wish I were almost done, or significantly started or god, finished and going on my book tour.

It's not unlike being a senior in college poised to graduate, having majored in the Random Analysis of Something No One Has Ever Cared About. Upon facing graduation, a person at this juncture with this course of study, or any course of study for that matter is inevitably asked, "so what are you going to do when you graduate."

I think my generation has wholly owned the lack of available responses to this question. As an English major on paper, but a Writing major in reality, I stared down this question a lot. My answer was always weak and a little whiny. "I just want to write."

I had three fears as I ended my formal education:
1. I would continue to be poor.
2. I would continue with a lifelong career in mall-based retail employment.
3. I would be bored at work.

Fortunately, although I had trouble articulating it to those posing The Question, I did know what I was doing when I petitioned my liberal arts private college to allow me to write my own major, call it Writing, take every course in every kind of writing available and supplement with several hours of Independent Study. I was preparing myself to be able to handle any kind of job or opportunity that required decent writing skills that might surface. While it seemed wacky, I'm sure, to my family and friends, I knew that the only way I would be happily employed is if whatever occupation I held included writing and lots of it.

I'm pleased to say that my job does include a satisfying amount of wordsmithing. There is always plenty of action going on so boredom very rarely occurs. I supplement the need to write with freelance writing on occasion and of course, the blog posts that help keep the creativity drip splish sploshing away.

When will I write the book? That's not really the question. The question is, when will I finish it?

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

The Memoir Diet

Continuing my steady diet of memoirs, I'm wrapping up Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. I'm delving into Running With Scissors.

In the middle, I read a book of my daughter's that I quite liked; Princess Academy, aimed at the 10-12 year old set, but I loved it just the same.

Thoughts about memoirs: Will it sell if it's not by . . .
  • a gay white man;
  • someone who grew up in a war-torn country;
  • a former or current drug addict;
  • a mental patient; or
  • a survivor of great and significant adversity?

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

The Reading Season

The weather's gone cold and damp so I bury myself in blankets of books using pages to sustain me through travel, early darkness and the gloom that descends with the first frost. Over the last few days I've consumed The Glass Castle and The Tender Bar. Interesting to note they're both memoirs (of the pre-James Frey definition of the genre, let's assume, as I don't believe anyone's questioning their validity).

I have not read many memoirs in the past but these two have certainly captured my attention. I adored The Glass Castle, the first book in my current book club that I've truly enjoyed and didn't want to put down. The Tender Bar I liked for different reasons -- St. Louis readers will enjoy knowing that it is written by McGraw Millhaven's (of KMOX fame) cousin, and McGraw comes of age in the book alongside the author.

After an entire writing life of being told to "write what you know" the memoir seems a natural choice for a writer floundering around with fiction. How much life is it necessary to have lived to write a memoir? I wonder, as I approach another birthday, am I too young to write a memoir?

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Mastering the Monkey Bars

Remember the first time you stood on the ground and looked up at the monkey bars? Maybe you watched another kid swing his way across before you took your turn. What comes so naturally to us as children; introducing ourselves, trying new activities, can still as adults as long as we abandon that tiny part inside of us that cares what others think.

When you first tried to swing, arm to arm on the monkey bars, did you stop and wonder if the other kids would think you looked silly? Did you care? Did you wonder if you were the only one, if others would see you and think it looked like fun, too. Did you hope the others would stay and play?

Moving from St. Louis to Charlottesville, we made our transition, reaching our arms from one solid place to another, gut tingling fear in the middle, before we'd confidently grasped the next bar in our monkey bar move. Still holding onto both bars, dangling safely with both hands hanging on, I'm not quite ready to let go of that first bar, to keep moving till I get to the other side.

Recently, I wrote an article for The Commonspace, a St. Louis grassroots civics and culture publication. I've written for The Commonspace before, only this is my first time to contribute to the Expatriates column (I harbor a secret desire to ultimately write for every section of the publication). The piece is a little bit about letting go; a little about finding the next strong, safe place to hold onto.

It's a testament to then, a commitment to now.
Cross-posted to Leading Charlottesville.