I know, I know, I'm sick of reading all this paranormal fiction. I really need something a little meatier right now. But it also has to be compelling. I've been in a bad way for all of 2009, literarily speaking, I think. Suggestions welcome for literary fiction (along the lines of A Map of Home or Peony in Love, for example) and Twilight readalikes!
Rivalry was one of the "disposable" books I brought to France with me, since it was not on loan from a library. I did, however, acquire it from a library. It was in our giveaway pile at Barnard, though I'm not sure why. It's a Columbia University Press publication and women's studies-ish enough that I would probably order it if I read a good review. It's a translation of a 1917 novel. Can you say "public domain"? Being an academic press publication, it's also got a six page introduction (that I didn't bother to read). Oops--now that I look at the intro, I realize that homosexual that I am as a media consumer, I might not have read it (and might not buy it for the library after all), that the author was a man.
When people ask me whether people are still making zines today, I often tell them about Katie Haegele's wonderful literary zines. The one that prompted me to write this post, Word Math, is a collection of found poems, created from thrifted manuals, spam, and craigslist personals. The last is what particularly slayed me. You can listen to Katie reading it.
Since I graduated from high school, I stopped going to church, I discovered found poetry, and I got my wisdom teeth out. (introduction, 1st page)
For once I was less psyched to read a paranormal fiction series novel. I think I'm getting a little burnt out on them. I didn't enjoy this any less, but instead of a yummy snack on my usual menu of healthy enriching brain foods, it's becoming too much of the norm. Part of the problem feeding my carb-like genre fiction is that I privilege books I borrow from NYPL over Barnard/Columbia books because their due dates are more compelling. The rare books that I acquire in other ways (usually that are given to me) wait months or even years to get read. And what do I check out from NYPL vs. my academic library?--science and popular fiction, comic books and young adult literature. But what am I to do, I'm the English and American literature selector, so I have to read the reviews in Library Journal. Lately I've taken to saving appealing titles in RefWorks to read later, but it's not always possible to wait!
"He speaks in your voice, American, and there's a shine in his eye that's halfway hopeful." is the opening sentence in the novella that was originally the prologue to DeLillo's 827 pager Underworld. It’s a striking line, a powerful one, and to me, someone who reads few books written by men, a masculine line. I wonder if a woman, or for that matter a person of color could have written it. That's not to say women and POC can't write stunning openers, it's to say that there's a confidence in DeLillo's sentiment, that others will relate to him, that his voice is "your voice." One of the main characters in the book is a 14-year-old African-American, but there are no women present in the whole 81 pages, except a mention toward the end of a photograph of Frank Sinatra (also a character in the novella)'s wife Ava Gardner's cleavage, and perhaps a few other reference to everymen's wives. I'm not pointing this out to criticize necessarily, but to say that in reading this book, I was not on my own turf.
When you see a thing like that, a think that becomes a newsreel, you begin to feel you are a carrier of some solemn scrap of history. p.17
As regular readers of my blog and zine know, I'm interested in books and other media that feature librarians as characters (or are written by librarians). I'm especially fond of librarian characters that offer realistic portrayals of the profession, like this one does. 42-year-old Meg McLean, the new county library director in a small northwestern community, is one of the two protagonists of this "Latouche County Mystery." Her co-tagonist is, of course, a cop, cuz this is a detective story.
There's a post tv show world of Buffy!!! I found out about the comics from A.j. Michel's consumption log. I know it's lame that I didn't know about it already, but I'm really not much of a comics/graphic novels girl, which I know is also lame. So Wolves at the Gate is the third episode of Season 8, with an introductory story written by Mr. Whedon himself. The tone of the comics is the same as the show, though I think Buffy comes off a little more like her earlier seasons persona. The slayer army is still around, as are Xander, Willow, Dawn, and Andrew. Plus Dracula makes a cameo appearance. The biggest surprise, though, is who Buffy starts sleeping with. Now to get ahold of the first two episodes of the season, The Long Way Home and No Future for You, which are sadly n/a at NYPL or Columbia.
The latest in Harrison's Hollows series finds witch Rachel Morgan still mourning her dead vampire boyfriend and trying to regain her memory of his double murder. (Vampires die twice in this reality--first to become undead and then dead dead.)
I had to pick up my brother at the airport, but I might be able to squeeze in a stop at the university library as well as a charm shop for Jenks before that. A locator charm was devilishly hard. I honestly didn't know if I could pull it off. The library would be the only place I could find the recipe. Well, besides the Internet, but that was asking for trouble. p. 93
This historical novel of 19th century Chinese feminists was my latest book club selection, and it broke what felt like a long dry streak, in terms of finding good, literary novels to love.
I wasn't going to read another paranormal fiction book so soon after the last two, but I really like the Kitty series and had been waiting a while for this installment to appear in my public library catalog. When it finally did, I place a hold, and when my hold arrived, I of course, in the name of being a good library patron, snapped it up. But I wonder what's taking them so long to get the next installment listed as on order in LEO. (ZOMG, I love that the link from Carrie Vaughn's website takes you to her local independent bookstore, the Tattered Cover! I believe TC was the driver of the independent bookstores lawsuit against Barnes and Noble.)