book a week geek

I might squeeze another book into this list before the year ends, but I also might just snuggle my way into 2010 instead.  Either way, this is the things I read in 2009, and while it’s likely I accidentally omitted a thing (or 5), for the most part, this is it.  What a year!  Plenty of good reads.  I am so excited for 2010 and fresh new fun readings!

• A long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier-Ishmael Beah
• Apples & Oranges-Marie Brenner
• Plague of Doves-Louise Erdrich
• Love Medicine-Louise Erdrich
• Coffee at Luke’s: an unauthorized Gilmore Girls gabfest
• The Beet Queen-Louise Erdrich
• Sportswriter-Richard Ford
• Lucy Knisley-French Milk
• Leanne Shapton-Auction book
• Saïd Sayrafiezadeh-When Skateboards Will be Free
• Octavia Butler-Fledgling
• Tim Gunn’s Guide to Quality, Taste and Style
• Daniel V’s Guide to How Style Happens
• Michael Greenberg-Hurry Down Sunshine.
• Raymond Carver-Call if you need me
• Miranda July-No One Belongs Here More Than You
• Dan Savage-Skipping Towards Gomorrah
• Sarah Vowell-Take the Cannoli
• Koren Zailckas-Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
• Jeffrey Eugenides-Middlesex
• Junot Diaz-Brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao
• Milan Kundera-Identity
• Octavia Butler-Wild Seed
• Isabel Allende-Paula
• Louise Erdrich-Master Butchers Singing Club
• Jhumpa Lahiri-Interpreter of Maladies
• Isabel Allende-House of the Spirits
• Isabel Allende-Of Love & Shadows
• Isabel Allende-My Invented Country
• David Rakoff-Don’t get too comfortable
• Louise Erdrich-Blue Jay’s Dance
• Isabel Allende-Sum of our days
• David Rakoff-Fraud
• Susan Jane Gilman-Hypocrite in a Poufy White Dress
• Sherman Alexie-Absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian
• Philip Pullman-His Dark Materials series
• Suzanne Collins-Hunger games series (2/3)
• Julie Powell-Julie & Julia
• Lorrie Moore-A gate at the stairs
• Octavia Butler-Kindred
• Fear & Trembling by Amélie Nothomb
• Ann Patchett’s Patron Saint of Lairs
• Time Traveler’s Wife-Audrey Niffineger
• Margaret Atwood-Year of the Flood
• Sherman Alexie-War Dances
• Julia Alvarez-In the name of Salome
• Lydia Davis-Varieties of Disturbance
• Kazuo Ishiguro-Never let me go
• Kelly Link-Stranger Things Happen
• Alice Munro-Too much happiness
• Alicia Partnoy-The Little School
• John Crowley-Little, Big
• Michael Greenberg-Beg, Borrow, Steal
• Robin Romm-The Mercy Papers: a memoir of 3 weeks
• Maile Meloy-Both ways is the only way I want it

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!  No, not Christmas.  BOOKLIST TIME.  There are a billion best of 2009 lists floating around out there, and as I am frankly tired of doing research for other people, you can find them yourself if you are interested.  What this means is I can reflect back on my year and regret some things I’ve read and look forward to kicking 2010 (CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?  2010!!!?) off with some exciting new reads.

I have mined the following from a variety of lists, and after frowning at myself for not having read them earlier, I am hereby promising myself that they are next up.  Some are embarrassing.  Some probably suck.  Such is the nature of best of lists.

• • Lit: a Memoir-Mary Karr
  • Raymond Carver: a writer’s life-Carol Sklenicka
  • Under the Dome-Stephen King (I cave.  I really want to read this.  Blame the cover.)
  • Family Album-Penelope Lively
  • Follow Me-Joanna Scott
  • Museum of Innocence-Orhan Pamuck
  • Nocturnes-Kazuo Ishiguro
  • Dorothea Lange: a life beyond limits-Linda Gordon
  • The Mercy Papers: a memoir of three weeks-Robin Romm
  • A Paradise Built in Hell: extraordinary communities that arise in disaster-Rebecca Solnit
  • Both ways is the only way I want it-Maile Meloy
  • A Short History of Women-Kate Walbert

So what I am doing now?  I am reading Little, Big by John Crowley, which is essentially a 500-some page book about fairies and being secretly married to them and having your children kidnapped in the night.  I think that’s what it’s about.  It is one of those books that carries me along magically for about 25 pages and then drops me someplace weird in my sleep.  I obviously love it, because who doesn’t love weird fantasy books, but oi! is it ever long.

Last week I trucked through Alicia Partnoy’s The Little School, because sometimes when my life is getting me down I need to be shocked into relativity by something gruesome and awful and real, and this did that.

Next week I will happily reflect on my year of goal achieving.  More like 200FINE.  I love the end of the year.  Here’s to goals.

Post-Thanksgiving gluttony, I thought it might be important to get back to basics.  I have been altering this pasta salad recipe for the last few weeks, because I think it might be the most delicious food I have ever “invented.”  I am basically turning into your Italian grandmother.  Now, bundle up and consider this.

Measurements are, fyi, purely guestimation.

• 3 uncooked C of pasta, boiled as usual
• 2 C of bean assortment (any will do!  go nuts!)
• 1/4 C of white onion, diced
• 1/2 C artichoke hearts, diced (marinated or otherwise)
• 1/4 C sun-dried tomatoes (in my heart, I want to tell you to go all out with these, but they are expensive, unless you have a dehydrater like we did when I was a wee one.  In which case they are expensive only time-wise, or if your child is something like I was and keeps stealing them off of the racks while they are dehydrating.)
• black olives, chopped

“dressing”

• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 2 Tbs balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbs spicy/dijon mustard (I accidentally used ball park mustard yesterday and was worried all afternoon that my salad might taste like a hot dog, but it did not.  Have no fear.)
• healthy dose of oregano, basil and pepper (salt is extremely unnecessary)

Mix ‘em all up and refrigerate.  Like most things in my life, this salad is better the next day.  If I ever write an autobiography, that will probably be the title.  Yields 4-5 servings.  If you are not afraid of tuna, I suspect it would be extremely delicious in this.

I spent a good part of my long weekend being tired and, as usual, a little sad, but also a good part was devoted to Alice Munro’s new Too Much Happiness.  Munro doesn’t need praise from me, so I will just say instead that a few stories from this book coincided nicely with the reading I have been doing lately on memory and its effect on older adults (this naturally is juxtaposed with public libraries, and my dear idols at StoryCorps, but that is neither here nor there).  The story “Child’s Play,” while not necessarily a happy remembrance, jogged something strange in me every time I read it.  At a time when I am worrying more than ever about losing hold of stories I’ve been told or stories I might tell, a work of fiction like “Child’s Play” (as well as the title story) have this daunting ability to  frighten and confuse a reader like, well,  me.  This shouldn’t be a discouragement.  Munro is a force to reckon with, and these stories left me somewhat hopeful (again, this isn’t about her, or the world, or something, this is about me) that someone somewhere is remembering something.  I am not 100% behind this, as far as Munro’s compilations go, but the title story alone is almost enough for this book to stand on.  I want to recommend that story to every person I know who is familiar with her writing.  Because it’s unlike her, and it’s strong (which truly isn’t at all unlike her), and it is inspirational.

Also, school is almost over, which means my life is starting to look like this again:

Ah, to be thankful for Tina Fey, and dogs, and new warm hats, and quilts from grandmas, and other comforting things.  I need a hug.

This is a reminder to myself that I am going to kick this semester’s butt and I am going to finish school and I am going to get the heck outta dodge.  GO ME.

This is also a reminder to myself that I read (upon the entire world’s advice) Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link last week.  I felt lukewarm about parts of it, but liked the rest of it.  One of the stories was about a librarian (in her words, although in reality he was just a student worker who worked circulation, and I hate to mince words, but believe you me, this does not a librarian make) who has covert library sex on the regular, and I read part of this story on the bus next to a girl I know that knows that I work in a library, and the entire time I felt awkward thinking she thought I was reading weird fetishist stories about covert library sex on the regular, which I was, but which I do not do all that often.  I think Kelly Link has a weird and awesome brain.  It appeals to me.  I thought I had read another book of hers a few years ago that was full of jokes about math, and in this case, the joke was on me, because I didn’t understand any of them, but in retrospect I don’t think she wrote that book, and at this point it is totally evident that the end of the semester has completely taken its toll on me.  So okay, I like Kelly Link, and any complaints that I did have are forgotten at this point.  Basically, Stranger Things Happen went really well with my spooky suburban weekend in which I nearly had a brutal fight with three white-tailed deer and in which all I did was research Latin American literature and do a lot of walking in the woods with this little beastie:

In two weeks I will be a normal human being again, with a voracious reading appetite and MAYBE EVEN SOME FREE TIME.  Hang in there, kid.

Within December’s issue of Harper’s there is an article written by Matthew Power, with accompanying photographs by Aaron  Huey, titled the “Ghosts of Wounded Knee.”   I try very hard to not preach about my love of print media, but I have always very much loved the look of photos within Harper’s, as well as the font and the spacing and the style, blah blah, and Huey’s photos simply shine in this format.  This article is goddamn poetry.  I have always very much admired Power’s writing, but what was once simple admiration is now through the roof.  You, sir, are getting a letter from me.  The photographs are stark, and implying that they are telling does not do them justice.  My love of stories from the  Pine Ridge reservation is nothing new or surprising, but Power’s words & Huey’s photos churned my stomach all the more.  The interviews within are beyond hopeless, the stories are heartbreaking, and I can’t recommend it enough.

From an interview:

We’re Lakota warriors, and we should be able to take care of ourselves, but all we get is just the VA checks.  A VA check won’t even buy you a house.  I don’t know what’s going on.  I don’t care.  I hang out with all my homeless veteran buddies.  I’d rather be up here than be a burden on them.  I’d rather beg for food than beg them for food.  Soemtimes I see some of my friends, and they’re so very hungover.  See, we drink and we get drunk, and we sing, we take turns to sing military songs, we sing cadence or we sing Lakota songs.  Then we go to sleep.  Next day we do it again.  We don’t have no family anymore.

If nothing else, at least stop in Borders and flip through these pictures.

So where do we start?  Love may or may not produce happiness; whether or not it does in the end, its primary effect is to energize.  Have you ever talked so well, needed less sleep, returned to sex so eagerly, as when you were first in love?  The anemic begin to glow, while the normally healthy become intolerable.  Next, it gives spine-stretching confidence.  You feel you are standing up straight for the first time in your life; you can do anything while this feeling lasts, you can take on the world.  (Shall we make this distinction: that love enhances the confidence, whereas sexual conquest merely develops the ego?)  Then again, it gives clarity of vision; it’s a windshield wiper across the eyeball.  Have you ever seen things so clearly as when you were first in love?

Taken from pages 231-2 of “Parenthesis,” within A History of the World in 10 and 1/2 Chapters, by Julian Barnes.   I usually turn to Barnes to make me laugh, and that is why this essay was so shockingly gorgeous the first time I read it a few years ago.   I find something new, enchanting and quotable every time I glance at it.  Sometimes a girl just needs to cry at a lovely essay, right?

And, of course, it just wouldn’t be proper to quote Barnes without revealing just how fucking funny he is, so:

Should love be taught in school?  First term: friendship; second term: tenderness; third term: passion.  Why not?  They teach kids how to cook and mend cars and fuck one another without getting pregnant; and the kids are, we assume, much better at all of this than we were, but what use is any of that to them if they don’t know about love?

<3

I have always meant to read Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro) but always got side-tracked by other things.  Probably Buffy.  I finally did, and let me say, I’m glad I did.  I can’t do this book, or Ishiguro, justice.  I don’t even know how to describe it.  It’s kind of about clones who exist only to be organ donors, yet it’s kind of not at all.  Ishiguro handles this odd subject with a hell of a lot of quiet grace.  Half of the time, this book reads like a reflective memoir, and then the other half it’s fucking scary sci-fi.  Hell yes.  Loved it.

Recommended to: people who are hesitant to read sci-fi (I think this could act as a subtle introduction), people who are interested in dystopian fiction, people who are okay with laughing at uncomfortable things, people who can take the time to appreciate pretty little sentences.

p.s. Nova Scotia is amazing.  My new favorite place:

I read a large part of Varieties of Disturbance by Lydia Davis while flying over the patchwork of New England and the Atlantic Ocean and maybe New Brunswick.  I don’t know.  When I am flying I like to try to guess where I am (for a good ten minutes I was convinced I was looking at Cape Cod, at that ubiquitous spit curving up into the ocean) but I think I’m usually wrong.  Although that probably really was Cape Cod, thinking about it.  Reading Lydia Davis is not unlike this: it’s rare for her to name a location, a time, a season, or any identifying specifics about a narrator or character.  While Davis’ characters could literally be anyone (you, me, the girl next to me on the airplane), they are also distinctly no one.  For the most part, this is appreciable.  Davis has swiftly created a kind of universality that most authors would shy from.  Her characters are mysteries, and simultaneously, they’re not–because in the world Davis invents, it doesn’t matter who these people are, where they are, or what they are.  It kind of just matters that they are.

Davis tells stories in one or two sentences, in lists, in short vignettes, in jokes about grammar (!), an index entry (the entirety of which is: “Christian, I’m not a.”) and, most appealingly, in studies–as in “We Miss You: A Study of Get-Well Letters from a Class of Fourth-Graders,” which is-surprisingly and hilariously-exactly what it sounds like.  The fact that she can, and does, make a story out of one little sentence is exciting to me, in the way that I get excited about a pun or a joke between close friends that I understand.  To her credit, the wild variety of format and content within this collection make it utterly re-readable.  I have a feeling I will turn to this book again and again.

Davis is a talented observer, and this spoke to me as I sat in airports and simply watched people.  There is something to be said for noting your fellow travelers and passengers (and, well, also assigning them personalities and stories just for the fun of it).  This book is, frankly, excellent.

Now, I am off to eat chowder & snuggle.  Halifax ftw!

For the third year, I’ve underestimated the gumption of Pittsburgh’s youth.  (I’ve also frankly just forgotten about Halloween all three years, but all the same.)  I didn’t expect trick or treaters any of these years because I live in a building I can only describe as dark and intimidating.  Like, if I were a little kid and I saw the weirdness on my downstairs neighbors’ front porch, no way would I be ringing this doorbell.  But, ah, yinzer children, you are fearless, and I keep breaking your heart.  Our doorbell rang a little after 6 and I slunk down the stairs to crush Princess Leia and a monster’s hearts.  Our exchange went something like this:

(Laika barking incessantly)

Leia and monster: TRICK OR TREAT!!!!

Me:  Oh…no.  We kind of don’t have any candy…

Leia and monster: (sad little frowns appear) Oh.

Me:  Geez, I’m really sorry.  Uh?  Happy Halloween?

So now I feel like I have burnt down a Christmas tree or kicked a puppy or something.  I keep breaking little witches’ hearts.  I checked in the pantry for candy but all I could find was some Tofutti Cuties, 3/4 of a pack of gum,  and a box of Nerds from like two Easters ago.  If only children wanted my cowboy boots or Andy’s records.  Those I could give away pretty easily.   Alas, now I am hiding in the dark listening really quietly to Lady Gaga (by the way, listening quietly to Lady Gaga?  Not that much fun.) hoping no one can see the glow of the computer from the front door.

Since I am being held hostage by my Halloween recalcitrance, I should at least say a thing or two about the new Sherman Alexie, War Dances.  Not my favorite thing by him, but not my least favorite either.  The title story is drop-dead perfection (there is an exchange about Trader Joe’s that I think Alexie might have even stolen from inside my brain), but the rest pales in comparison.  Alexie is a wildly talented poet, but his short stories in this just aren’t what I’ve come to expect from him.  I will probably read this again before I return it, but consider me 25% disappointed.  I am following War Dances up with In the Name of Salome (Julia Alvarez)–also not the greatest thing I’ve ever read.  Alvarez consistently makes me hunger for a deeper understanding of the history of the Dominican Republic–more specifically, Trujillo’s reign of terror–and this book is no exception to that.  Half of it (1960s Poughkeepsie, NY) bores me and the other half (1860s DR) thrills me.  I am tempted to skip the sections from the 1960s but I’ll probably just read it all and be grumpy about it.

Buffy & sweater knitting await me.  Ah, the perfect Halloween.

Yesterday I checked in on my 2009 goals and had a momentary meltdown about the year almost being over.  I don’t know why I had a meltdown.  The only goal I am totally failing at is my ultimate handstand goal, but the year isn’t over yet, and furthermore, the yogi in me knows that when my body is ready for the handstand, it will happen.  You cannot rush these things, says the yogi within me.

Looking at yearly goals brings out the spaz I am, though.  Now I am realizing I am at a weird life intersection.  In 2 months from yesterday, I will be done with my (hated) masters program and then will potentially have all of these life options.  I could move anywhere, theoretically, and work.  Anywhere except Canada, it would seem.  Lately I have fallen in love with aspects of my job (simultaneously, many of them still bother me more than I can express).  Nonetheless, I have realized that I am completely content with working reference (in particular, engineering reference.  Who’d have thought?  Definitely not me.).  I am stoked on life?!

Last week was Canadian Thanksgiving, and when I wasn’t eating my weight in turkey & apple pie (I literally gained 4 pounds on T-giving Day), I was snuggling with my sweetie and reading.  I’d mentioned that I was reading Ann Patchett’s Patron Saint of Liars–I finished this.  I will read more of Patchett’s work, I think.  I liked this.  I didn’t love it, but she intrigues me enough that I will carry on & read more.  I don’t even know how to really critique this book, as my biggest criticism was that it wasn’t trashy enough for me.  When I see an Unmarried mothers–Fiction LCSH, you’d better believe I’m thinking VC Andrews.  My disappointment in the lack of smut should not, however, taint my belief that Patchett is a capable novelist.

After finishing this, I re-read Oryx & Crake.  I am not shy about my deep love for Margaret Atwood, and I think Oryx & Crake is nothing short of perfect (give it another shot, Tricia!).  I continue to find this book unsettling, and it hasn’t stopped giving me nightmares about animal hybrids and genetically enhanced women lacking feelings.  Upon finishing this, I immediately began Atwood’s brand-spankin’ new Year of the Flood.  I am less enthusiastic about this one, but I still admire it.  This book is basically the story of Oryx & Crake told through different characters (characters that I recognized as peripheral characters from O&C only because I’d just reread it–whole scenes are recreated from O&C that I’d hardly taken note of in O&C.  I don’t know that YOFT would be so effective if I hadn’t just read O&C again).  YOTF is braver stylistically, but I think a less forgiving audience than me might hate some of the liberties Atwood has taken with the plot.  I love the frame of this story, and while I don’t want to spoil any plot surprises, I think some aspects of the story are just a tad too convenient.  That said, Atwood is wildly courageous and inventive and because of this I am hopeful most people won’t a) notice and b) mind just how easily things fall into place.  I haven’t finished this yet, but if my nightmares are any indication, this book will have a lasting impact on me.  Atwood is wise, and as in my teen years I learned many a feminist lesson from the Handmaid’s Tale, I am confident I (and others) can stand to learn many a cautionary world lesson from Oryx & Crake together with Year of the Flood.  I think these two will stand together beautifully for years to come.  Atwood’s speculations of our future are stark and terrifying, and this makes her portrayal of women & women’s friendship all the more poignant.

Next up: new Sherman Alexie (!!).  I am also crossing my fingers that I can make time in the next week for the freshly published Burlesque West: Showgirls, sex and sin in postwar Vancouver (Becki Ross), which is sitting on my desk burning a longing hole in me.  I am nervous to read this book because I know it will spawn a geek attack in me and I will probably immediately do the following: a.) write Becki Ross a letter declaring my love & devotion and then b.) apply to UBC and move to Vancouver and then, friends, it’s all over.