365 Days of Reading

It's Day 365 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project!! For 365 days, a full year, I posted about what someone was reading (including self, family, friends, and strangers). I discovered this by asking or observing, in a variety of places, including the bookshop, of course, but also the beach, church, homes, and volleyball tournaments.  I focused on print matter--mostly books, but sometimes periodicals, including magazines and literary journals. And, even with all the electronic ways to read, people are still reading books, and, whatever way we read, people are definitely reading and loving it.  What a joy it has been to chat with you all.  And thanks so much to those who commented here, furthering the discussions and sharing recommendations.

Yesterday, I looked back at some of the blog entries at the beginning of the project, to remind myself of its impetus and to make sure I hadn't lost track.  I am math challenged, you know.

I was reminded of the whole chick lit/dick lit thing--equal time for annoying sexist labels--and Julie's suggestion of the more Internet-search friendly term "lad lit," so I will tell you that a man looking for vacation reading walked out of the bookstore yesterday with what we might call lad lit:  Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger (time for a re-read); Songbook, essays on music by Nick Hornby (he would have taken The Wishbones, if we'd had it); and Stranger Than Fiction, a book of short stories by Chuck Palahniuk.  I almost bought the latter myself, as soon as I saw it, riffling through to see if there was a story in it that was the basis of the film Stranger Than Fiction, which I love, but it isn't.

No, now that I realize Palahniuk has an official site called The Cult, I may stay away.  But you can let me know otherwise.  This is the lad who wrote Fight Club.

I may have realized that before, even here in this blog, as info seems to fold like blueberries into the gray batter of my brain when I am writing an entry a day on what people are reading!

And, as far as math challenge goes...I started this project on February 10th, but, here it is, Day 365, on February 8th.  I know there's a reasonable explanation for this...but I already put those muffins in the oven.

Kathleen's brain.

Blueberry muffin.

Blueberry muffin is clearly larger.

Anyhoo, I began the project after watching the film Julie and Julia, and musing on Julie's blog project of cooking Julia Child recipes and blogging about it.  Like random clockwork, the book Julie and Julia turned up in the shop the other day, but I resisted it, leaving it to some other happy customer, as I would also have to resist Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child, if it turned up.  One, because I am a lousy cook, and, two, because it would be very, very expensive.

Again, anyhoo, wait...what was the anyhoo?!  Find out tomorrow...!  How's that for a page turner?

Post Howlism

Day 364 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project, and yesterday all the streets were closed off in front of and surrounding my workplace, the bookstore, when I headed there after church.  It promised to be an annoying afternoon.  When the orange-cone situation turned out not to be 1) a murder 2) a pending explosion 3) a major ongoing leak, but, instead, 4) temporary-but-ongoing utility work, I got to work and promptly got stuck in the unshoveled back lot.

I will pause to mention that the boss bought a $100 electric shovel on a whim during the snowstorm...and then did not use it on the employee parking spaces in back.  Yes, yes, I was pissy and annoyed, but I got over it. I had to vent a little, to everyone around me, but I got over it.  Oh, wait, I am venting now!!

With a regular hand shovel, I shoveled myself out, and shoveled a space for myself  behind my fellow employee who had, originally, driven briefly and "illegally" (I quote her) down the other side of the street to get to work. Later, she shoveled under her car, which was able to get in but unlikely to get out, we did the move-the-cars shuffle, and she went home, while I kept working...till it was time to find something to eat and see Howl, the movie about Allen Ginsberg.

I was in two nearly deserted public establishments during the Super Bowl--one, a restaurant with a bar, where, indeed, the Super Bowl was on above the bar, so I saw glimpses, and the second, the theatre itself, which had maybe 7 moviegoers + 6 staff.  Many locals had seen the film when it was shown Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and more when it was shown last year during the LGBT Film Festival, when I got to see Leading Ladies, a sweet, funny, dance film that we hope Ellen Degeneres is watching right now!

Anyhoo, I can report that a woman is soon to be reading a stack of local history books, searching for the "food ways" of local college students, faculty, and staff during the early days of Illinois State Normal College.  What did they eat, where did they eat? What restaurants were available? What local foods? What campus meals, and when were they available? Who cooked it? I remember my dad talking about the wonderful home-cooked foods at Wooster College in Ohio, the townswomen who baked cakes* and pies for dessert.  I hope our current reader discovers similarly delectable facts about this area.

*This is actually a home made Smith Island cake, the state dessert of Maryland, photographed by Paul Johnson, on Flickr, who allows this use with attribution!!

("Howooo!" Woman [this blogger] howling for cake under moon.)

And I can report that Howl is a real treat.  James Franco is up for an Oscar this year for 127 Hours, and he is surely a delight in Howl.  And I was so moved by the clip of Allen Ginsberg at the end.  I love the blend of black and white filming, color filming, and animation in this movie, and also the chance to hear sections of the poem more than once!  It really aids in understanding this long poem to hear it as voiceover behind animation and then again in the context of Ginsberg reading it to his friends in a smoky cafe setting, or vice versa.

And the film has the excitement of a courtroom drama, since it is one, with poet/publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti as the defendant in the obscenity trial for Howl and Other Poems, published by his City Lights Books.

David Strathairn is marvelous, as always, as the prosecutor who does not understand and is troubled by the poem, and Mary Louise Parker and Jeff Daniels get to do cameos giving testimony you love to hate.  And Jon Hamm and Bob Balaban get to speak up for free speech.

So, that's my short, late review of Howl.  You can read a better one here, in the New York Times.  That reviewer doesn't like the animation, but I thought it had the little-boy vigor and enthusiasm of these on-the-road little boys discovering themselves.

It brings to mind Ginsberg's answer to the interviewer, asking, "What was the Beat Generation?"

"There was no Beat Generation," said Ginsberg.  "It was just a bunch of guys trying to get published."

So there you have it: my pissy rant, and a real howl about the loss of the best minds of a generation.

Super Howl Sunday

Day 363 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project, and I finished Shakespeare and Company, by Sylvia Beach, in bed last night, not at the volleyball match, where I saw someone reading the new George Bush book and someone reading an old-fashioned print newspaper. And someone right beside me reading something very tiny on a hand-held device.

I sat in a little river of libero parents.  Yes, by random coincidence, I sat next to the dad of the Blue team's libero, #41, the dad of the visiting club's libero, #10, and I am the mother of the Red team's libero, #30.  The libero is a defensive player in the back row who can come in for, not one, but two front row players, and freely (the libero part, I think), not having to be waved in by the ref.  In high-level school tournament play, there is a libero tracker to make sure all this is kosher.

All three liberos were very good, and two had been coached by my husband, as that is his special duty this season of high school age club volleyball. Hubby joined the river and sat beside me after his team (from the morning matches) was done, having won all their games, and after driving all the way home to the fine stew I'd left him in the crockpot and then all the way back for our daughter's crowning match. Her team also won.

How does this tie in with Sylvia Beach? Her last chapter is about the Liberation, after the German occupation of Paris. "Hemingway Liberates the Rue de l'Odeon" is the last titled vignette. I don't think that gives anything away. We know what happened at the end of World War II.

(This is a picture of Hemingway in World War I.)

The Rue de l'Odeon is the street Sylvia Beach was living/working/hiding on by the end of the book, and one day she and her friends carried all the books, furniture, and shelving up two flights of stairs to a hiding place to save it from the Germans. Ernest Hemingway, in full bloody, dirty war hero mode, came to make sure they were all right on the day the last of the German tanks were rolling out of the city.

I learned lots about book biz & publishing biz in this little book, and more about James Joyce, who seems a charming, shy, lovable, quirky guy afraid of dogs and bad about keeping track of money but good about spending it. Yes, I will probably have to go ahead and read his book Ulysses, that no one would publish (except Sylvia) and that kept getting banned, confiscated, and pirated, so that neither she nor he could benefit from the demand for it. Or maybe I won't. I'm glad it's out there, and that I have the choice.

I don't really know what everyone objected to.  Obscenity?  Bad words, people having sex?  It's all around us, all the time. We do it. Oh, and you might enjoy this blog entry by Carolee Sherwood, called penis paintings on friday, vagina monologues on saturday.

At any rate, I feel free to go to the movie Howl tonight, about the poet Allen Ginsberg and his obscenity trial, instead of watching the Super Bowl.

On Beauty

Day 362 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project, and my goofy sense of humor inspired 3 people to tell me what they are reading.  That is, over at Facebook, I posted a link to my previous blog entry, Random Shop Talk, with its image of Bond, James Bond, talking shop with his true love, along with the comment, "Book.  Need book."

Diane then brought up On Beauty, by Zadie Smith, which I love, and I told her about White Teeth, another Zadie Smith book, made into a mini-series, which the hubby and I just watched on Hulu.  Told Ben about this in the bookstore, too, as he had enjoyed White Teeth, which I recommended to him!

Both of these novels weave history and cultural conflict into the main narrative beautifully, generally exposing the flaws in anyone's extreme adherence to one thing or one stance.  On Beauty looks at art and religion, and White Teeth looks at science and religion, but that is too much of a generalization and summary.  So much goes on in both novels.  So much is brilliant, so much is funny.  Both build to a big public event...and I like the tenderness at the end of On Beauty, and how Smith can be subtle even while laying it all out there.

Wikipedia tells me On Beauty is an homage to Howard's End, by E. M. Forster, and I liked learning that she followed the structure of another novel in writing her own.  On Beauty was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and she later won the Orange Prize for Fiction, and I tend to like those British literary award winners.

Phyllis is reading Brightsided by Barbara Ehrenreich, about Americans' constant need to be chipper and cheerful and look on the bright side, which can lead to being blindsided by reality, when it smacks you in the face.  Reading some Zadie Smith could help Americans look at reality.

And Sheila read The Girl She Left Behind during the blizzard, snowed in with no electricity, by daylight, and then, quite reasonably, went to bed. By Karen Brichoux, this one is a novel about a girl who leaves Montana for life in the big city, and then comes home.  Sounds like it's quite a journey of self knowledge.

And me, I like how the pinks work in these images.  And I am still reading Sylvia Beach, and will, once again, take it to a volleyball tournament, later today.  Meanwhile, the state cheerleading championship is also going on in our town.

Random Shop Talk

Day 361 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project, and rapidly counting down,* and what someone is reading will be revealed in the following random bookshop conversation.

*The votes are coming in, by way of your comments!  If you haven't yet commented on what you'd like to see happen next in this blog, or what you'd like to see more of, better do it in the next five days!!  (Or I'll just do whatever I want!)

So, a young man and a young woman came into the shop yesterday, one delighted by Babette the cat, one less so, and spent a lot of quality time together looking at the shelves.

Oh, and I should pause to mention that a couple of young women came in, too, likewise having a good time, both delighted by Babette, and prompting from me the question, "Did the cat see your hat?"

"I don't know," said the young woman wearing the hat.

"There's so much to love about it," I said.  "Dangling things, ears."

This was a spectacular hat. White faux fur, pink ears, a pink bow or rosette, long white furry dangling ties. I don't know what kind of animal it was. A fantasy animal, perhaps. (But they have something similar at Hot Topic, via Amazon, here, that purports to be a rabbit.)

Back to the other young couple, and an inexplicable shift to present tense. The young man comes to the register with two books, one a contemporary paperback I've forgotten, and one a small, dark hardcover. Behind him is the young woman. Both are friendly.

"Ah," I say, opening the hardcover to find the price, and the little yellow post-it, showing it was shelved in our Etiquette section. "What a Young Wife Ought to Know!" I pull off the post-it, with our stock number on it, so we can mark it sold later in the database, and look up, a twinkle in my eye, first at the young man and next at the young woman, to say, "We also have What a Young Husband Ought to Know!"

I know this because that's my job--I just described it in our online catalogue and carried it to what I like to call, sometimes fondly, and sometimes with a toe-stubbing lack of fondness, "the chaos of the back room."

In the split second it takes my eyes to twinkle at the young woman, I am also imagining a foray into the chaos of the back room--"Danger!  Danger, Will Robinson!"--and fearing my own and the young couple's possible disappointment if I never returned....

Not to fear! And a twinkle in the eye is often contagious. "We also found," says the young woman, "What a Middle-Aged Woman Ought to Know."

And, speaking of danger, a former co-worker came into the store yesterday, too, to give us a jazz book and look around a bit, while illegally parked on the snow-heaped street, and I learned that his middle name, a family name, is Danger.  Oh, my!  He is a man who can actually say, "Danger is my middle name."