Throw it at the Wall

Day 94 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project. Jennifer, who is writing a novel of her own, has been reading Stephen King novels ever since she read On Writing in 2008 and liked his writing advice. I liked his writing advice, too, and I see an anniversary edition coming out in July.

Jennifer has read 20 novels during this King binge, but she did not like all of them. She threw Desperation at the wall. She made an actual dent in the wall where she threw it, so that is where she throws other books she doesn't like.

Like the last book in the Dark Tower series. She threw that. No spoilers, as I haven't read any of them, and she carefully refrained from saying why. But that other guy I talked to said you either love it or hate it. (I think he threw his copy, too!)

Jennifer has also been reading Jack Kerouac and likes him a lot, even though "he never met a comma."

And yesterday a young woman came in looking for The Catcher in the Rye. Perennials in the bookstore are coming back like perennials in the garden! Must be spring.

Girl in Translation

Day 88 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project. I don't know anyone who is reading this book right now. If you are, let me know.

I just love the cover and the title, and I use it as an example of the ongoing hope, despite the expression to the contrary, that you could judge a book by its cover!

You can learn more about Girl in Translation, by Jean Kwok, at Amazon, where you can even click a link to hear the author talk about it. And here's where I'd like to clarify something. This is not a "monetized" blog. Every now and then, I get a message from this site telling me that if I link to Amazon, as I often do, I can monetize my blog and take a cut whenever someone clicks the link here and buys the book there. Aauugghh!

I link to Amazon because it is easy for you to get info there, you can choose various formats and prices, and because they offer Marketplace options for used copies, etc. If I link to a used bookstore's copy of the book, and it sells, the link will no longer be useful, but Amazon will usually have other options. So that's that, housekeeping and full disclosure.

I will soon be reading, for my book group, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford, another book with the idea of "translation" from one culture to another in the background. In Girl in Translation, a girl from China has to adapt to her new life in the United States. In Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, a Chinese-American man recalls young love in recent history, with a Japanese-American girl. Both contain coming-of-age themes, which can be, of course, bitter and sweet.

And that is certainly true of The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger, one of the great almost-ready-to-come-of-age novels of all time! It makes me feel like I am almost ready to come of age, too, and reminds me why I am still childlike at heart and can't really grow up. Sorry! Anyway, I did just finish re-reading that, because it was time. I had loved re-reading Franny and Zooey, so I thought I should return to Catcher in the Rye, recently read by the SOB book group, as noted earlier here.

Holden Caulfield is a kind of "boy in translation" to adulthood, having some trouble confronting the crap of real life, with its constant "phoniness" and lying (of which he partakes) and the awful truth that the strong beat up on the weak, and can't help themselves. None of them can. The strong can't help but beat up on the weak, and the weak can't help themselvees against the strong. Plus, stuff happens, life has cliffs, and that's why we need catchers in the rye.

But, of course, the novel also suggests that we can help ourselves, and each other, and should. So, daily, I am going to re-dedicate myself to that idea, which, again, is why I read: to learn how to live in this world, and to be as decent a human being as I can be.

I will try not to judge a book by its cover, if that "book" is a human being, but only gently open it and turn the pages, by asking questions and listening. Sometimes it turns out to be heavy reading, indeed, and sometimes the content remains mysterious; sometimes I can't read the language nor find a good translation, and sometimes I have to walk away. But mostly people are wonderful to get to know.

And books are wonderful to read!

Body Surfing & Loose Shoelaces

Day 67 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project, and I have to confess that my Internet access problem was solved by unplugging and replugging the adaptor. Sigh....

Laura is reading Body Surfing because Anita Shreve is one of her favorite writers, strong on storytelling and subtle truths of human behavior. Looks like this one returns to a favorite beach house setting for parts of it, and is more disjointed in the telling, perhaps matching a darker set of human interactions than in some of her novels.

I read The Pilot's Wife because many friends had recommended it (and so had Oprah, I learned) and Light on Snow, which I finished in the car, coming back from a winter holiday trip, with light on snow out the window. Perhaps I will read Body Surfing at the beach this summer, when I do plan 1) to try body surfing and 2) to ask random strangers what they are reading!

Likewise, Rebecca is reading more Connie Willis, one of her newly discovered favorite authors. Rebecca works at a library and claims that these books keep following her home.

I have mentioned that we cannot keep The Catcher in the Rye on the shelf at Babbitt's, but I did snatch up the little red cheap paperback copy that came in the other day, leaving the hardback for some lucky reader. This is a later printing of the same Bantam edition I read in high school. I will read it again soon, after we discuss Franny and Zooey at book group Wednesday night.

I was late to work two days in a row, by ten minutes, because I stopped to talk with my neighbor, Dick. Another day, I stopped to talk to him on the way home, when I can linger without being late for anything except making dinner, which I wish could just be carrot sticks, pita triangles, and spicy hummus. But that's another story, with loose shoelaces. And wine.

Anyway, Dick was telling me that he was unable to finish a painting he's been working on. He's a retired art professor, finally has time to paint, and can't get this particular painting to work and keeps painting over it. Hey, so did Picasso!

To comfort him, I brought up the famous comment about works of writing never being finished, only abandoned. He said he was just reading in a magazine about a guy who only wrote one book and nothing else because nothing after that ever satisfied him. "He kept writing," said Dick, "but he never sent anything else out to be published. And he just died."

"J. D. Salinger?" I asked.

"Yes, that's the guy."

I believe I was breaking in my new red high-tops on these recent walks to and from work and these chats with my neighbor. The red high-tops were a big hit last night in the lobby of Heartland Theatre, where I went to see a sweet & funny & charming production of The Trip to Bountiful by Horton Foote, who also recently died.

My dad is the sheriff in the production, a good guy! My dad is a retired theatre professor, a great director, and a playwright.

Here's a question for you: Are you able to read plays and get a good sense of them on the page?

I confess I am usually not able to get everything I need from the page. I get a lot more from seeing a production. This does not hold true with George Bernard Shaw--fabulous "stage directions" which are philosophical and/or humorous riffs--and Sarah Ruhl--over all poetic construction & stage directions--two playwrights I do love to read!

Soon I will reread Endgame, by Samuel Beckett, and soon also see the Steppenwolf production in Chicago.

And now I have untied many more shoelaces than I have tied up, and must now...fall over.

French Hedgehog and American Hodgepodge

Day 42 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project.

Karen is reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery, along with Decoding the Human Body Field by Peter H. Fraser and Harry Massey. Ooh, French fiction with philosophy in it + new ideas in health about how body & mind work together. If I were reading these two at the same time, my brain might explode! The Hedgehog book sounds like something I should read next year, when I am 54, to match the 54-year-old residential concierge narrator. And now you know my age. But my college-student son thinks I look about 34, which is sweet. (I've linked you to a paperback of this, but it also includes the description of an audio version.)

Christina was recently reading An American Childhood by Annie Dillard and Bob has no doubt finished by now Barbara Jordan: American Hero, by Mary Beth Rogers. America and change in America are definitely on my mind today, as we watch the unfolding miracle of health care reform. Wooee! Speaking of France, remember when French fries had to be called American fries? And speaking of childhood and American icons, may Holden Caulfield and J. D. Salinger both rest in peace. And speaking of French fries, I want some.

My random, partially exploded, curlicued brain does connect something here--the 12-year-old French girl in Hedgehog, one of the narrators via her journal, is compared to Holden Caulfield in wry innocence. My own local book group is reading Franny & Zooey next, and we can never keep copies of that or Catcher in the Rye on the shelf at Babbitt's. If they come into the store, they go immediately onto the Select New Arrivals shelf by the door and soon walk back out. Those, and books by Ayn Rand. Sigh....

And speaking of Franny, she is a character in The Heroines, the novel by Eileen Favorite in which heroines from other books come to stay at a bed and breakfast run by Anne-Marie and her 13-year-old daughter Penny. See, things do connect in my hodgepodge brain! Sarah is reading The Heroines because she went to hear the author speak recently at her college. Sarah is also reading Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, who has the best middle name ever! And I am definitely linking you to the edition with the sexiest cover, and the one that most resembles Vanity Fair, the magazine, my guilty pleasure.

And that's enough of a hodgepodge for today.