26 Years of Jane Austen Aversion -- Cured

I haven't blogged in quite some time, mostly because I was busy getting married... the strangest consequence of which is I suddenly love Jane Austen.

How can this be, after 26 years of finding Romantic Lit tame and dry, (dare I say boring?) I've woken up one day with an appreciation 4 years of university English study couldn't create? Perhaps my scant months of marriage have taught me to appreciate subtly, where before I wanted the bold, raw meat of Modernism?

Whatever the cause may be, my foray into Austen so far includes Persuasion, Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, and I just started Northanger Abbey. I enjoyed Sense least, mostly because I found Elinor a little cold and had no sympathy for Mr. Willoughby, (that scoundrel!) Persuasion is the easiest and shortest, if you're looking for a quick taste to get you in the mood.

If you haven't tried the classics in awhile, I urge you to give Jane another chance. You may find you suddenly adore using words like "signify" and "insipid" about the house, or suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to plan a vacation to Bath. (Though I hear Jane wasn't really a fan.) Now, how to convince Hubs to be Mr. Darcy for Halloween. hmm....

"It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before. "

-Jane Austen

(here's hoping!)

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

Peter Boxall's new work, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, as reviewed by the NYT today (Volumes to Go Before You Die), lead me to create my own personal list of "must reads". Upon starting the task, I found myself breaking things into mental categories:

*Literature: Imperative to my intellectual growth- ie: Ulysses;
*Nostalgia: This book made me love books back when we are just discovering what we love- ie: Little Women;
*Guilty Pleasures: I stayed up until 3 reading this book in one night, though I wouldn't admit it to my friends- ie: Eregon

I've decided to lump them all into a shmorgasborg of booky goodness, disreguarding whether I consider it part of the valid cannon and going purely on whether I enjoyed it enough to read again. As I can't possibly choose from every book I've ever read, (though in the last 3 years I've started keeping a list,) I perused my LibraryThing catalog and picked only from among my own collection. I've left out those which I know will probably belong on the list eventually but that I haven't gotten around to reading yet. (That was harder than you might think, as many of the "snobbery books" are on the yet to read list.) I've also left out plays and books of poetry (I sense future lists for the like...) So here goes, though I've probably forgotten many treasures, I humbly offer:

50 of My Favorite Books (in my collection)(in no particular order):

1. Ulysses - James Joyce
2. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
3. Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -Douglas Adams
5. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
6. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
7. The Blind Assasin- Margaret Atwood
8. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
9. Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski
10. Post Office - Charles Bukowski
11. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
12. The Awakening - Kate Chopin
13. (Any of the Hercule Poirot mysteries)- Agatha Christie
14. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
15. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
16. The Sound and The Fury - William Faulkner
17. As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
18. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
19. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
20. Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
21. Good Omens - Neil Gaiman
22. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
23. The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
24. High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
25. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
26. (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) - J.R.R. Tolkien
27. The Children of Men - P.D. James
28. Fear of Flying - Erica Jong
29. Girl, Interrupted - Susanna Kaysen
30. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
31. The Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac
32. Fall on Your Knees - Ann-Marie MacDonald
33. Wicked - Gregory Maguire
34. Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
35. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
36. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
37. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
38. Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
39. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
40. Anthem - Ayn Rand
41. Harry Potter (yes, all of them) - J.K. Rowling
42. Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupery
43. The Winter of Our Discontent - John Steinbeck
44. East of Eden - John Steinbeck
45. Anna Karenina- Leo Tolstoy
46. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
47. A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf
48. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
49. Night - Elie Wiesel
50. The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. " - Ayn Rand

I Has a Grammar

I occasionally read the tongue-in-cheek blog Stuff White People Like and thought you might share my amusement in this recent post on Grammar. I chuckled while reading because it's true; I get a not-so-secret satisfaction at pointing out obvious flaws in the newspaper, my coworkers' emails, the regulations coming from our elected officials that I edit everyday... Only yesterday I found myself scoffing at a set of new laws which used that when it should have been who. The caste system is alive and well in America, and you can tell the Sudras by their choice of there vs. their.

To err is human, to forgive divine.

-Alexander Pope

Quiz Thyself!

Wondering what to do with all your useless literary knowledge? Take the Never-ending Book Quiz and prove your worth!

Report back.

"It is a very sad thing that nowadays 

there is so little useless information."

                  - Oscar Wilde

Writing that Counts: 2008 Pulitzer Prize Winners

The 2008 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced last week. (I love that Bob Dylan got a nod.)

FICTION
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books)

DRAMA
August: Osage County by Tracy Letts

HISTORY
What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press)

BIOGRAPHY
Eden's Outcasts by John Matteson (W.W. Norton)

POETRY
Time and Materials by Robert Hass (Ecco/HarperCollins)

POETRY
Failure by Philip Schultz (Harcourt)

GENERAL NONFICTION
The Years of Extermination by Saul Friedlander (HarperCollins)

MUSIC
The Little Match Girl Passion by David Lang (G. Schirmer)

SPECIAL CITATION
Bob Dylan

Avada Kedavra! Rowling Curses Lexicon's H. Potter Plots

Does J.K. Rowling have a right to protest thievery of her H. Potter material? Yes. Will she win? Sadly, no.

Rowling's in court this week testifying against a proposed H. Potter encyclopedia published by Lexicon. Word is she was planning her own encyclopedia (with proceeds donated to charity, no less) when Lexicon beat her to the punch and produced their own version. Yes, she's the richest woman writer in the world; but I say to you- she still has a right to own her own ideas.

You may say Rowling has enough success to share, and there's certainly enough fan-base willing to shell out for every bit of merchandising even vaguely related to her hit series, but I stand in defense of Rowling's intellectual rights. The woman produced an iconic story, a story that made both children and adults excited to read, excited to purchase books and cherish them, and excited to look for others to fill the gap now that they've concluded. It seems there are plenty salivating to take advantage of that excitement. Though copyright laws allow for nearly anyone to publish a companion series to her story without violating her rights, I wish we'd let her exhaust her efforts before encroaching on them. Can there be too many books on one subject? Quality over quantity, I say. Putting out nine hundred different companion books while the real author is still alive and writing: Riddikulus!

Find out more: Rowling Testifies Against Lexicon Author.

Reading is Sexy: Because You Heart Shopping Almost as Much as Reading

Perhaps you're in the mood to put down that book and pick up your credit card. Want to tell the world you're clever via witty merchandising? If so, check out a few of my favorites...

• Sarah Utter: Be it mug, t-shirt, or bumper sticker, grab something from her super cute Reading is Sexy line, and broadcast your brains and your girl bits simultaneously.

• Literary Luminaries: Waiting on the weather for that trip to the lighthouse? You'll relish the rain when you get to break out your Virginia Woolf umbrella. Or spend monsoon season catching up on correspondence with the delightfully artsy Great Writers boxed note card set.
  

• Shakespeare's Den: What could be more fun than a James Joyce finger puppet? You might even be inspired to craft your greatest work of poetry with a genuine quill pen, or give the gift of kitsch with author action figures.
  


• Cafepress: Spice up your cubicle with some cheesy literary goodness. Choose a design and put it on just about anything, from magnet to clock to mouse pad to bbq apron? I love that I can put Leopold Bloom on 90 products; yes, everything from my dog to my bum. Don't like anything they have to offer? Make your own.

• Smart Women: Though I've been a fan of the Smart Women Thirst for Knowledge cups since I saw them in Bust many years ago, I only recently discovered their line of library/office goodies. I plan to buy the sweet Reader's Journal as soon as stock replenishes.
  
  
• Speaking of Bust, you don't have to be into women's lib to dig these Dorothy Parker martini glasses. Because sometimes a good book is best paired with a drink. (Hemingway, anyone?)
  


• Library of Congress: I'm always on the lookout for curious decor for my future hypothetical library in my future hypothetical mansion. I adore this lovely print Disgusted With Life, She Retired to the Society of Books for my reading room, as well as these vintage Federal Art Project propaganda prints.

______________________________

Why not seize the pleasure at once?
How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!
-Jane Austen

I once dumped a guy for liking John Grisham

Have you ever started to dig someone, only to discover the only reading material in their house is Maxim, or worse yet, Stephen King? You slowly find that you're no longer picturing them as the father of your future hypothetical children. There go the fantasy nights of lying in bed as he reads you the Fruit poems from D.H. Lawrence's Birds, Beasts and Flowers as foreplay...

This amusing article in yesterday's Times "It's Not You, It's Your Books" explores whether incompatibility in literature means incapability- period. I ask you, does book snobbery have a place in weeding out a potential mate? My verdict? Yes, yes it does.

Dear former potential boyfriend,
When I told you I was too busy to get involved right now, what I meant was I could never drop my drawers while your John Grisham collection eyed me from the shelf near the bed. I'm sure you'll be very happy with your new girlfriend, who you'll meet near the Nora Roberts books at Borders. Take care!

Like Crack for Book Nerds: Library Book Sales

If you desire a notable collection, but have not the funds (ooh me, me!) you salivate at the idea of a bevy of cheap books in one convenient location. For this, my friends, let me suggest the Library Book Sale. An untapped gold mine of bargains and treasures, I keep a list on my fridge of local sales to scout out.

In the Cleveland area, you can usually find one almost every weekend, or at least once a month, with books ranging from 25 cents to one dollar. Not only do you get the fiscal joy of making off with as many books as you can carry for less than 10 bucks, you also get the satisfaction of rooting through boxes for authors you dig, and the subsequent snobbery affirmation when you place your finds on the check-out table next to the woman buying Danielle Steel and know that you are the superior being.

Things to watch out for:

1. Friends of the Library Preview Sales:

If you're obsessed with getting first choice at the pickings, you can join the Friends, who usually have a preview sale a couple hours, or even a day, before the public. Don't do this the first time you scout out a library. Some libraries have better selections than others and/or better prices, so make sure you like the one you visited before shelling out the fee. It's usually very nominal (I joined Macedonia's for 5 bucks) but at 50 cents a book, that's another 10 books you could buy with that money...

2. Take cash:

Some libraries accept checks, but nearly none accept credit cards. Keep a twenty in your back pocket, just in case.

3. Bring something to carry them in:

Some sales provide baskets or brown bags to place your selections in while you shop, but I nearly always run out of arm room and end up scooting boxes around with my feet. It may also help to bring a friend, for extra arm space. (Note: when bringing a friend, choose one with different literary tastes, so as not to come to blows over that one perfect find.)

4. Don't convince yourself to buy a book in poor condition:

Countless times I've found a scraggly-ass book I really wanted and gotten it despite my misgivings, only to find one in pristine condition at the next sale, also for 25 cents. Even for a quarter, it's not a deal if you get to the dramatic climax and it's missing pages 82-93.

Go forth and find many a happy bargain... just not until I've already picked them over, please!

The county names below link to lists of the 2008 local sales. If you're not in the Cleveland area, you can easily do a google search for "(insert your county) library book sale" to find your own fix.

Summit County, OH 

Portage County, OH

Cuyahoga County, OH

______________________________

A house without books is like a room without windows. ~Heinrich Mann

I fancy myself a bit of a reader.

Yes, as one of the masses of sad sorts who earned an English degree, then emerged from the academic womb ready for someone to pay us to read and discuss for a living, (whose naivete was swiftly rewarded with an unfulfilling desk job), I henceforth seek an outlet for all the words I consume on a regular basis.

Wee Blog, I dedicate thee to Mr. James Joyce: the first author to make me FEEL like being an English major had a point.