September 17, 2008
I just started reading Megan McCafferty’s Sloppy Firsts. I’m only a short way into the book but so far I have this to say about it: finally, someone has managed to write an honest book about what it’s like to be a spazzy, awkward-shaped teenager in high school!
It’s not like I thought my high school experience was all that more horrible than anyone else’s. It’s just, wooooooh, nice to know the experience is shared.
September 16, 2008
Ever since I heard on Sunday about the tragic death of David Foster Wallace, I haven’t really known what to think. It’s hard to know what to say about the death of someone you didn’t actually know but that had a huge cultural and personal impact on yourself or someone you know.
I never had an exceptionally personal connection to him. But my brother on the other hand…
I’ve learned a lot from my brother over the years. He’s taught me how to be sarcastic and to deal with the inner workings of a crazy family. He’s been a parent to me in a lot of ways. He’s protected me and helped me when I needed it. He’s my brother, plain and simple. It doesn’t necessarily sound like a lot. But to me it’s meant more than you can imagine.
Not to long ago when my brother and I were both at our childhood home for one of our ever rarer visits he came into my room, handed me a copy of David Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and said something along the lines of “Read it.”
My brother has always been remarkably close-fisted about sharing his interests with me. He’s remarkably wide-reaching in what he does read and listen to but he’s never been one to give me suggestions. I have two main influences from an entire life knowing him: Weezer and an uncanny love of Sci Fi. So for my brother to actually come and hand me a piece of writing that I know he considers important enough to share with his bonkers little sister, well, it’s pretty important.
I think I read at least part or all of one essay but I tend to be rather like a bird with essay collections. I rarely sit down and read the whole thing in one sitting. I generally can’t be bothered and the sheer shifting of topics is rather tiring. Anyway, the book never got moved back to my apartment and thus it’s still sitting in my room, probably under my bed, gathering dust.
About two months ago I was wandering around the used book section of my local bookstore and I saw a copy of Wallace’s A Broom of the System. I thought about buying it but then I remembered that although I am generally financially solvent, I having been lacking in finances. Of late, I’ve been borrowing books from the library-a weird sort of fusion between my child and adult selves.
So I got A Broom of the System and Consider the Lobster out of the library and set about reading them. Unfortunately, mostly due to sheer size of my library, I’ve been inundated with books as of late. I actually managed to start one of the essays from Consider the Lobster but by the time the due date came up I already had at least five other books started and/or waiting to be read and I returned the books.
These memories have been pinging around my mind the past few days as I try to make sense of the loss of one of the great writers of our generation. Wallace was one of a host of unbelievably talented writers who all came of age at a certain time and in a very short amount of time have changed the way the world and the way I think of writing. The poetry of their writing (for that, more than anything, is what it is) has changed the way I think of literature. We need not read those dull tomes of pain when we can read the great novels of love and pain and confusion.
I’m going home in a few weeks and one of the things I won’t fail to do is to put Wallace’s book in my luggage to cart back to Boston. I may even drag back some of my brother’s copies without his knowledge (is this ok, brother?). Sometimes it drives me crazy that we only realize the greatness of someone once they are gone from this world.
You will be missed, David Foster Wallace. I hope this honors your memory. I’m sorry it took me this long.
September 15, 2008
September 15, 2008
…and remember him.
September 5, 2008
“You don’t happen to have any Harley Davidson enthusiasts there, do you?”
What?
Weird.
September 3, 2008
This sounds like a match made in my book-loving heaven. I think every author should give away chocolate and free books. Not that I wouldn’t read the book anyway. I’m a book whore. But still…happiness.
September 2, 2008
Originally uploaded by leilanesson
Aren’t they precious? About a week old and still perfect. My cousin is tired, as one would expect. I can’t wait to meet them. I bet they’re even cuter in person.
August 29, 2008
Free Books?! What? HAPPINESS!
August 28, 2008
I came to this book sort of sideways. I’ve loved Dave Eggers for years what with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and the 85 or so iterations of McSweeney’s that are floating out there in the world. But as far as his little literary cabal is concerned, I’ve never really gotten into their work. But when I say Vendela Vida’s (Egger’s wife) Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name sitting forlornly in the discounted books section of my favorite local bookshop I decided that it needed a home.
The book is absolutely fascinating, a story of loss and redemption, pain and rebirth. It’s hard to not fall in love with our hapless narrator as she journeys through the frozen tundra of Lapland, a place that seems to have as much mystery as the main character. I’ve been fascinated with Lapland since I read Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials series. The names in his books correspond to those in Northern Lights and every time I saw the brief mention of some town I knew I would grow faint with the warming of my heart.
I couldn’t put this book down. I sped through at an accelerated pace, taking only one small break in the middle, to find the inevitable conclusion. Vida strings out the story in such a way that you are hanging on with each movement the characters make. You love her and you hate her. And then with a clap of a thunderbolt, the story is over. In a matter of pages it comes shuttering to a close, every loose end tied up.
I think normally I would hate that sort of ending. The story has all the natural parts that a story should have but it’s amazing how quickly after the denouement the character ends her path. I loved it. I loved that you got to hear everything after the story. The story is so broken that it needs a complete ending. It’s not a happy ending, not a sad one. It just is. A perfect way to find the end of the story when you go on a journey that changes everything you have ever thought about yourself.
For women, I think this story is a must read. Men will enjoy it too. But there’s something harsh and brittle about the story that I think only a woman could truly understand. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m not. All I know is that my life would be the worse for not having read this book. It will soon be resting on new bookshelf with its other brothers and sisters, happy to be loved.
August 27, 2008
I was scrolling through one of my favorite book blogs, Bookroomreviews when I stumbled onto the fact that one of the books published by my press has been nominated for a Dayton Literary Peace Prize. This is unbelievably, fabulously cool. The Literary Peace Prize is part of the Dayton Peace Prize, founded in the aftermath of the peace accords that ended the Bosnian War.
Wow…this is seriously cool.
