Like everyone else in the blogosphere I wanted to do a short count-up of my favorite books for the year.  I’m pretty sure only one of these books is a relatively new print (The Adults – Alison Espach) and the rest are just books I happened to read this year and fell for, cried over, and later drowned in.  (Up a river without a paddle, har har).  It took me forever to write just one blurb for the first book because I’m feeling after-Christmas lethargic.  Even though the family had ham not turkey – and I’m honing my vegetarian skills so I don’t touch the sad pig.  Because I’m lazy, mostly, instead of writing paragraphs, you can check out a few of the reviews on the “Books Read This Year” page and for everything else I’ll just write a quick sentence.

After reading my one-sentence wonders, it may seem that I have a very strange book taste – which is true, my palate is quite smooth and wet (and depressing).  I generally don’t like best sellers (just a fact).  A lot of times it’s because I’ve already talked myself out of liking it before even opening the cover page and sometimes it’s just because the writing is horrendous.  See:  One Day by David Nicholls which I have tried to give away countless times, and A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.  I also refuse to read anything that has made Oprah’s Book Club, unless of course it doesn’t say that on the cover and I’m tricked into it.

What this means for you: if you particularly hope for a fairytale ending, I don’t really recommend any of my favorites for your reading pleasure.  I’m not a fairytale kind of girl….(except when I’m planning my wedding, without any ring, on pinterest).   But everyone needs a little darkness.  We’re all attached to those gray shadows anyway.  Just coon up, and let the black dust span in.

1. Lark & Termite – Jayne Anne Phillips

• A story of a train out of water.

2. Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safron Foer

• A folktale and the reality of a Jewish-American road trip.

3. The Adults – Alison Espach

• A ripening.

4. Blue Angel – Francine Prose

• Bad sex in Creative Writing.

5. The Country Between Us – Carolyn Forche

• Two girls; one has been to Paris, one on another road.

6. The Gathering – Anne Enright

• Three generations of potatoes, freckles and death.

7. Bee Season – Myla Goldberg

• A spelling bee, a shaved head, and a kleptomaniac.

8. The House on Mango Street – Sandra Cisnos

• A young girl building a staircase in her mind rather than a wedding.

9.  Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach

• True(ish) stories of your eyes, hair follicles, and slippery, red organs after the rest of you floats away.

10. Delicate Edible Birds – Lauren Groff

• Stories where the middle leaves no room for a happily ever after.

11. Reasons For and Advantages of Breathing – Lydia Peelle

• You’re  on a farm, you’re riding a ferris wheel, you’re starving a crippled goat and losing your locket.

These are like six word memoirs for novels.  For those of you who don’t know, six word memoirs are what people used before twitter and other social networking thought it would be cool to limit word count.  For example, “For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.” – Hemingway.  If you’re really interested, see the NPR story on it (since you know I love to share a good NPR listen).

Hope everyone can give me some good recommendations for my 120 goal next year.

If you’ve been following for a while then you know that I have an assortment of odd plants surrounding and sitting on my NEW ANTIQUE DESK! (ahhhhhhhh!)  I haven’t yet blogged about the desk, but I’ve done a few blogs on my weird plant fetish; the succulents, the African Stone Plant, the Hot Pink Moon Cactus and my speckled orchids.  Well, it’s time to add a new plant to the desk menagerie: The Blue Mystique.

Blue Mystique

So, what’s the first thing I did when I got home with the orchid?  Duh, mirror pictures.  It’s like the myspace generation of gardeners or something.

Featured here is the Blue Mystique (which honestly makes me think it has super-human X-men skills, like a fighting flower).

It all started when I took a trip to Home Depot with dad to buy mom some odd  put-together Christmas present (I can’t really say what that is) and the fire alarm started going off.  As usual, the fire alarm was erratic, loud, headache-inducing and we grabbed our box of Christmas cheer and ran to a register.  Passing through the garden section on our way, I saw the Blue Mystique and began a week long lover affair where I was swooning and dreaming of owning this flower.  Then, on Sunday, my father unfortunately had to go to the hospital and my entire family (and family friends) crowded into a hospital room, removing their shoes, scarves and sweatshirts to be together.  We were all discussing Christmas presents and I encouraged my cousin to get me the Blue Orchids.  Usually, he takes a long time to come through and I couldn’t wait that long (because I’m both selfish and impatient, two bad qualities).  So, once I had it in my head that I was going to have these majestic, crime-fighting flowers the impatience took over.

I got some Starbucks with Aunt Jan, and rushed to the Home Depot to pick up the present to myself.  And sometimes, as much as this season is about giving, you have to give back to yourself.  (That’s my justification so I don’t feel like a crazy, selfish b-word).   And here we are in my bathroom upstairs posing together, like two growing things in love.

I like to have plants in my room (around my window and desk) because they breathe life into a room, more than just my small puffs when I sleep.  They create an oxygenated environment, they add color and their quite a good topic of conversation.  (Not that too many people enter into my bedroom that I don’t know very well).  I’m starting to think along with cats I’m going to be that old plant lady who has a greenhouse built into the side of her cottage.  It’s probably in my genes since my dad has a small jungle in our kitchen that he refuses to shape, or organize.  I think where most writers have a special type of pencil, or a special notebook, I have the specialty of weird plants that help me write, and without them…I’d be just another girl staring at a blank page with a half braid in her hair.

Here are some more pictures:

Let me Tell Ya Bout My Best Friend. No Just kidding. Please enjoy my super woman and heeled pictures in the background. I have a feminist bathroom. Also, I never realized I had a pinky-up stance when taking photos.

Just some artsy fartsy shots

Books & Flowers, what more does a girl need?

I’ll let you know if I kill it by drowning. Eeeeeee, hope not.

Since I obliterated my book goal for 2011, I’ve decided to add an extra bit of pizzazz to my reading list by participating in a few reading challenges.  It’s a little scary because I’ve seen these suckers on almost every book blog I follow and I’m just finally getting on the band wagon of awards, and book blogging, and challenges, and all of those things that are terrifying to a small, curly-haired Alice like me.  So, in an effort to branch out and make reading into a contact sport (where I actually communicate with other people) I’m challenging myself – with others.  What else is new?  I’m always ridiculously competitive.  It’s kind of disgusting.  So, without further adieu, here are the challenges I have chosen for myself and how I plan to complete them:

(I’m so scared)

To Be Read Challenge

The first is the 2012 TBR Pile Challenge.  I think this is the one that especially daunts me because my pile is almost a whole book case huge.  In this challenge, the reader only has to read one book a month from the TBR pile, hoping for 12 of those books to be finished by the beginning of 2013.  I look at them everyday, they smile and wave from their dusty corners and I go on reading books that I excessively buy new.  It’s like I refuse to help my grandma books cross the street that have been sitting, patient and stout for me to crack open their spine.  Well, not anymore sister! I’m going to read 12 of those books.  Consider it done.

I think one of the reasons I chose this over other challenges is because I truly do have a pile of books that haven’t even been opened after I got them from the bookstore.  For instance, I begged my mother to buy me Where Men Win Glory from the airport in Puerto Rico and then I spent two hours crippling my eyes trying to finish Alice I Have Been in order to start it.  Of course, after getting to page 30, I threw it aside for a work of exciting fiction and let Pat Tillman and his (extremely good looking) book jacket face die a second grueling death.  I’m disappointed in that one.  It’s time I gave Pat Tillman what he deserves.  Seriously though, google him if you don’t know what he looks like – he’s gorgeous.

Unlike other bloggers, I won’t be posting a list of books for each challenge – I’m just going to go ahead and write in my “Books This Year” page which challenge each book I read belongs too.  Hopefully it will be easy to decipher and I won’t miss any goals in the process due to organization.  I’m the kind of person that thrives in an organized chaos so this could be interesting.

Aussie Challenge (Yes! Yes! Yes!)

The next reading challenge that I’m especially excited about is the Australian Women Authors Challenge.  We’re not against the boys here or anything (just so I feel like I’m not being gender bias, let me recommend Anthony Eaton as an Australian male author or Markus Zusak for everyone’s reading pleasure).  This challenge is so I can read all of Sonya Hartnett’s young adult novels in one year.  God, I love her.  The best part, NO FAILURES.  Basically, everyone who signs up for this challenge is a winner as long as they read one Australian women writer.  There’s a whole page on gender bias that I just discovered on the host blog which can be found here.

If you’ve been following for a while then you already know that I have lived in Australia for a short period of my life and am guilty-as-charged obsessed with it.  I lived in Canberra (the Capital) mostly, working in a tea shop and writing MFA applications, but I spent a lot of time in Sydney as well and was allowed to dip into the oceans of Cairns and pet sea cucumbers, along with visiting the cows drawl in Kiama.  So, Australia holds a special place in my heart.  While I was there I was really focused on reading Australian poetry, rarely discovering new fiction authors.  This challenge is going to take me back to a place that I love; the desert in the middle, and the kangaroos – I hope.  Plus, it gives me inspiration to finish the Tomorrow series by John Marsden even though his young adult novels won’t count in this challenge.

Where Are You Reading Challenge

And then, unfortunately, I have few plans to travel outside of the US for the next year so I figured – why not do that in a reading challenge.  The “Where are You Reading Challenge” to be exact.  I’m going to make this one my own and go ahead and do 50 different places – not states.  Plus, for some reason I have a grudge against what would come out of Montana or Delaware.  Just personal weirdness against those two states because I’m a strange-o.  I figured I would travel the world and escape into the pages and empty white spaces of the letter “o” in books from around the world.  I’ll be broadening horizons to places I’ve never heard of, probably reading translations, and trying my hardest to get interested in Japanese culture.  My best friend Seth is in South Korea and I’ve been gathering the money to go there in July (fingers crossed – no definite plans yet as I said above) so I feel like I should purposefully read some books from and about the Korean culture.  This would be just to see what South Korea is like and how the country has developed historically, and maybe some translations so I can get a feel for the writing style of the community.  As you can see, this is kind of a more personal reading challenge for me and probably the one I’m going to have the most trouble with.  A lot of times I get really sucked into books of the same genre or culture and I fly through them endlessly, forgetting that their are all kinds of cultures, ideas and books around the world.  So here’s one of my chances to explore.

100+ Books in 2012

And as per usual, I’m doing the 100+ Books in a Year Challenge brought to you by Book Chick City.  I participated in the challenge last year, but in-secret because I really only thought I could read 60 or less books.  I had signed up and put into goodreads.com my goal of 60 and then all of a sudden in July I was surpassing my goodreads.com goal and onto my 100+ goal with Book City Chick.  I was really excited to say the least and cheered silently in bed; fists pumping, legs kicking, covers sprawling, when I finally finished that 100th book for the year.  I think this is the challenge that I’ll be most proud to finish because who knows what could happen next year?  I could have dry spells, or something could happen to put me into mourning, or angst and cause me to take a hiatus.  There are so many factors, and creations that tend to lead us away from books (facebook, television shows – teen mom for me, text messaging) and so this really is a  CHALLENGE.  Reading 100 books should make someone proud because you have to constantly run at your goal, you have to constantly be thinking about it and conquering that pile of books next to your bed.

100 "Shots of Short" Challenge

But there’s one more…because we can’t forget the little guys.  Not many people read short stories, it’s just a fact and so short story authors have a really hard time making money if they aren’t anthologized.  Excuse me while I rant, if you’re out there and you believe literary magazines make oodles of money and are drowning in their own cash, throwing it into leaf piles and jumping with only George’s green face to catch them – you’re wrong.  Yes, there are literary magazines out there who are sitting on a wad of cash and sometimes they are given more money to create (not better magazines) but magazines that may have the appearance of superiority.  Most literary magazines run on a volunteer passion and are publishing only the best work they receive and doing their best to not solicit (some not at all, cough cough, wink wink).  That being said, literary magazines (most of them) do not have money to shell out to the writer’s they publish.  Now, The New Yorker does because they are billions of years old and they have a full staff, and a wonderful upbringing in the Ivy Leagues.  (Don’t get me wrong, I read those things from cover to cover) but short story writers and poets aren’t “hitting it big,” the way we assume novel writers and non-fiction writers are.  So in my support of the little guy, literally the guy writing shorter fiction, I’m participating in my favorite challenge to date (and I encourage anyone reading this to do so as well…) the 100 “Shots of Short” Challenge.

It’s a challenge to read 100 short stories in the next year.  If you read a few short story collections (10 maybe) you can probably reach this goal.  I’m going to try to find some on the internet on different literary magazines websites and read through those and count those as my short stories.  I will probably have to make this a separate section of my “Books Read This Year” page, but it will be worth it because I will be dabbling all year in the sensual and intimate souls that only short stories carry.

And that’s it, folks.  How did your challenges go this year?  What are you thinking of doing this year to challenge yourself as a book lover and who else is participating in any of the above challenges?

Caio!

Since it’s the dawn of the New Year soon, everyone I know is scrambling to come up with resolutions, or words, or a “bucket list” for a year.  I do all of the above, so I’m in with the masses; reading horoscopes, making wishes on 11:11 and yellow lights, and other odd behaviors you may see me do.  I usually come up with a list of 100 things I’m going to do in the New Year with three things that are completely out of character for me.  This year, those are run a half-marathon, read even more books than last year, and complete Project 365.

Run a half-marathon has always been something I’ve wanted to do.  Partly, because I’m competitive and want one of those white , bold & black face stickers on the window of my Focus, and partly because I need to stay fit.  I have a thyroid issue (an obtuse thyroid, turned the wrong way) and so my weight can become out of control at the drop of a cheeseburger.

Motivation starts with me staring at hot girl bodies to remind myself what I could be with some effort.

Thanks to this issue, I’ve been eating more healthy (lots of fruits and vegetables) and I’ve been concentrating on working out.  The working out part is coming a bit slow and so I’ve convinced my father that he has to wake me up, no matter what, at 8:00 am every morning.  Usually, like the teenager I still am, I laze around under the covers, snuggling my cat for a few minutes and then I almost-stoned head into the shower, but this time…uh uh.

Some of you are scoffing reading this.  ”8:00 am, that’s sleeping in! Try having a three year old!”  It’s an hour earlier than I normally get up for work and in that hour I plan to train for a marathon in Raleigh in November.  (Oak City Classic in case anyone has ran it).  By then, I hope to be able to run a HALF-marathon which is 13.9.  This is my goal.

If anyone has any real motivating music they’d like to share with me that keeps them going, please do so.  Usually, (and this is the honesty coming out…) I listen to music that reminds me how shitty my ex-boyfriends are and how good I’m going to look after this run (aka so much better than them).  WINNING.  Is this typical or did I just share something that everyone is laughing at?  Or, I listen to music that is completely degrading to women, and then I get angry and work harder.  This usually turns into a Lil’ Wayne marathon.

Reading, schmeading.  My goal for next year is 120 books, so I think I can do that.  It’s not too lofty since I’m almost there this year, and I just have to keep maintaining through bad books or flying through wonderful ones like I did this year.  The only thing that’s got me a little nervous is that I’ve been really slacking in December.  It took me two weeks to read Goonsquad and I didn’t even try to read anything else during that time.  I started Sarah Canary three days ago and I have yet to read it at all past page three.  I guess I’m just not giving into my book lust.  You wouldn’t know it from this blog though since I seem like some insane book lady.

The last of my “big” ideas for next year is Project 365.  Thanks to Emma Bolden at A Century of Nerve, I’ve been inspired.  She’s an amazing writer, you should go check out her blog and her published work that is linked there.  Project 365 is the idea that every single day of the entire year you take a picture.  Sounds simple right?  It gets harder.  The goal picture is a picture that encompasses everything in that day into one quick shot.  I think that’s a hefty feat, especially for myself.  I’m that person who will be sitting on the computer looking at pinterest at 11:39 pm and realize I haven’t taken my photo and now I’m forced to take another picture of my cat sleeping.

Tangent: He’s just got the cutest, roly-poly sleeping position that I can’t help myself but squeeze, or photograph him.  Otherwise he’s pure evil and so arrogant.  Let me just go on a quick tangent.  When I bought Jas(per) from a shelter, they told me his name was Gaston because he was just so handsome.  And ever since that day, even after I changed his name to Jasper (yes, due to my Twilight fascination) I’ve been living with his growing ego, which both my parents feed – literally – with treats.  I’m convinced he’s a reincarnated Kenickie from Grease.  Ugh. My life.

Anyway, Project 365 is why you see the flickr widget over there on the side bar.  This is so that if you see I’ve missed a day, you can harangue, harass, throw tomatoes (or other varied forms of produce) at me until I produce some magical photograph for that day.

I think I’ll look back on this project, proud of the fact I was able to accomplish it and happy that I have a year of pictures.  My house already looks like Hallmark threw up everywhere with cards and photos of my nephew, so let’s just add to the hoarding of faces, and books, and the written word with Project 365.  Maybe I’ll even find something unique to hang all the pictures with on pinterest.  I could have a timeline of my life in the hallway! I have so many ideas…that neither of my parents will agree with.

That being said, I want a few takers to do this with me.  I’ve already created a flickr account so that everyone can see I’m keeping up with my promises, but maybe someone else is interested in photographing their day-to-day existence.  We can share our days together.  (Aw….).  How I’m going to do this is: every week I’ll post a blog of my 7 pictures (probably on a Sunday) and explain them, I suppose, and sort out why I chose that random tree, or that desk, or this tool shed.   Sort of like a book club, but with photos that we share on our blogs every Sunday.

Raise your hand if interested and Salute your shorts. Har-har.

Also, please link your blog in the comment section so that we can see if there are any takers at all (probably not….) and we can also look at one another’s blog throughout the year of photos.  Every Sunday when I post my pictures (if I indeed choose Sunday) I will link to you as well so that everyone can see your wonderful lives displayed 365 days of the year.  WOO!

Warning: If you sign up for this, you will receive nasty head thoughts if you slow down, and/or forget.  I won’t get nasty with you exactly, but I will be thinking mean things.  If you succeed everyday, I will secretly be jealous of your success at keeping up with this so easily, as I will probably fail at times.  And that’s why I have a glass half-empty mentality. :) Soon it will fill up though, chocolate milk please.

So, who’s in?  And if you’re not in, feel free to share some resolutions you have this year with me and my fellow bloggers.  I’ve thought of sixty for my usual one hundred, but I need a few more ideas of what I should really plan for next year.

What are your resolutions for next year, or what are your words to live by in 2012?

A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan

For the past two weeks I’ve been trying to get into the Goon Squad (which I have nicknamed it).  I’m sure everyone reading this blog has heard of this loathsome book that has won every award known to man for no apparent reason.  (Examples: The Pulitzer, National Book Critics Circle Award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner, Pen/Faulkner Finalist).   I should have known I would despise it after it was a best book of the year by Oprah.  I’m pretty sure my hate for this book fueled my finishing it.  I was on page 100 ready to quit and in my world, once you cross the one-hundred threshold you keep going with pure drive.  This time, pure angst.

This book is bad. Capital, bold face, strike through, bad.  A Visit from the Goon Squad.

I’m not sure why everyone on goodreads.com says that they didn’t like it because they aren’t experimental creative writing majors. I’m an experimental creative writing major and this was one of the worst books I’ve ever read.  EVER. I’m so disappointed at every committee, or board that bet on this novel as a winner.  What were they thinking?  Yes, it’s experimental.  Yes, there is a whole sixty pages of power-point towards the end of the book.  Does that make it award-winning?  Should I have included graphs and diagrams in my upcoming best-seller to get the attention of a committee that has been choosing books since 1917?  I thought Pulitzer was a crowd of balding men who had tweed jackets with cloth elbow scabs?  I thought they all looked like Dr. Phiney from Boy Meets World or my college Shakespeare professor.  I thought these were literary intellectuals.

Clearly, I was wrong.  Have I thoroughly expressed my disappointment?

Let me explain the pseudo plot.  The book is about two people primarilly: Sasha and Bennie.  Bennie is an aging record executive who has had one good band that everyone was overwhelmed with and since has been underwhelming.  He is divorced and has a son, Chris.  Sasha is his assistant (at one point) who is a rebel and steals things (as in a sickness).  We see her at one point going to a therapist, living in Europe in a tenant house, and her as a child when her father beats her mother and her uncle brings her to the beach as an escape.  Otherwise, the middle stories are about those who float in and out of their lives: those that they date, or fuck, or play bubbles in the bathtub with, those friends who have died drowning, or tried to die in hopes of rising again like a Phoenix.

The whole essence of the book is to basically say Time is a Goon.   All of the characters age, pass away, learn to live with themselves or not, and they all do this over time.  They triumph or they fail.  Even minor characters like Alex who has sex with Sasha in the beginning and ends up working for Bennie in the end.  Not only is the plot miserable, half the people you can’t keep up with, La Doll (who the eff…in the beginning) because they are too flat to remember by the time you get to their main section.  And let me just give an example of Egan’s writing:

Egan's planner. I thought this was pretty sweet.

“I could tell by the number of plastic packets of soy sauce and chopsticks included with my delivery that Fong Yu believed I was serving string beans to a party of eight or nine vegetarians.  Does the chemical composition of Jagermeister cause a craving for string beans?  Is there some property of string beans that becomes addictive on those rare occasions when they’re consumed with Jagermeister?  I asked myself these questions as I shoveled string beans into my mouth, huge crunchy forkfuls, and watched TV – weird cable shows, most of which I couldn’t identify and didn’t watch much of.  You might say I created my own show out of all those other shows, which I suspected was actually better than the shows themselves.  In fact, I was sure of it” (96).

Next to this passage that I highlighted in yellow for proof of my complete and utter grittiness, I wrote: Reason #957 that I loathe this book.

There’s so many reasons that I can’t stand this book, or just looking at it next to me on this table, that I’ve decided to make a list for you:

1. Character Sketches.  In any creative writing classes, teachers usually assign character sketches where you can learn about your character.  I don’t even know these characters.  I know them in an ensemble with one another.  I know who one of them slept with one time.  And maybe that’s what she’s going for: a facebook of characters.  People you know because you’re sorority sister slept with their brother in 9th grade.  To further this point, here’s a list of characters…I’m sure to not hit them all.
1. Sasha: Kleptomaniac
2. Bennie: Aging music professional who drinks gold in his coffee
3. Chris: Bennie’s son who has an unfortunate home life.
4. Stephanie: Bennie’s ex-wife who catches him cheating with a robotic blonde from the country club who once thought he was a terrorist.
5. Rob: Sasha’s best friend in college who is in love with her and dies.
6. La Doll: Aging publicist who starts work for a general inflicting genocide to make his image wonderful and squeaky clean.
7. LuLu: La Doll’s daughter who almost witnesses Kitty’s death.
8. Kitty: Washed up movie actress that Stephanie’s brother almost assaults and rapes.
9. Jule: Stephanie’s brother who just got out of Riker’s for attempting to assault Kitty in an interview.
10. Lou: Record executive who cheats on any woman he ever loves and dies without any real connection to the reader.
11. Charlie: Lou’s daughter who is destined for sluttiness.
12. Rolph: Lou’s son who kills himself at twenty-eight.
13. Alex: Boy Sasha sleeps with and takes a bath with in her kitchen-tub in the beginning.
14. Rebecca: Alex’s later wife.
15. Drew: Sasha’s college boyfriend and later husband.
16. Ally: Sasha’s eventual daughter who creates the entire powerpoint section.
17. Lincoln: Ally’s little brother obsessed with the pauses in music.
18. Bix: Black man dating Lizzie (Conservative Texan) who’s friends with Sasha in college.
19. Lizzie:  Conservative Texan, best friends with Sasha.
20. Reha: Best friend of young girl who Lou has sex with by the pool where Rolph can see and while Rolph is in love with best friend.
21. Scotty: Slide guitar aficionado.  Member of the “Flaming Dildos” band.
22. Alice: Scotty’s ex-girlfriend and ex-wife.  Never really fits in with girl side of the high school clique.
23. Jocelyn: Secretly in love with Rolph, but sleeps with Lou while he’s married.
24. Mildred:  Bird Watcher who goes on Safari with Lou and his children.
25. Mindy: Lou’s second or third wife who goes on Safari with Lou and winds up sleeping with Alfred.  However, Lou finds out and marries her out of competitive spirit and they have two children.  One, that later runs Lou’s business.
26. Arc: The General’s main man who also discusses him on the phone with La Doll.  (He may be one of my favorite characters).
27. The General: Mass genocide dictator needs an image resharpen.
2. The second thing I hate about the book, is the rambling futures.  One second we’re in the present learning about a group of friends and the next two paragraphs tell us a short synopsis of the rest of their lives.  I think I hate this because everything you ever learn about writing (not saying that the rules aren’t for breaking) has said, “show, don’t tell.”  And this is telling us something we should have had to unwind, to figure out.  I want to think while I read, I want to be there.  This book doesn’t allow you to be there, it only allows to watch while she kills off all the best characters and leaves the one’s still standing to fend against their regrets and ruin.  For example:
1. “She takes hold of his hands.  As they move together, Rolph feels his self-consciousness miraculously fade, as if he is growing up right there on the dance floor, becoming a boy who dances with girls like his sister.  Charlie feels it, too.  In fact, this particular memory is one she’ll return to again and again, for the rest of her life, long after Rolph has shot himself in the head in their father’s house at twenty-eight: her brother as a boy, hair slicked flat, eyes sparkling, shyly learning to dance.  But the woman who remembers won’t be Charlie; after Rolph dies, she’ll revert to her real name – Charlene – unlatching herself forever from the girl who danced with her brother in Africa.  Charlene will cut her hair short and go to law school.  When she gives birth to a son she’ll want to name him Rolph, but her parents will still be too shattered.  So she’ll call him that privately, just in her mind, and years later, she’ll stand with her mother among a crowd of cheering parents beside a field, watching him play, a dreamy look on his face as he glances at the sky” (83).
3. The last chapter is a small version of Super Sad True Love Story with the devices that tell you all about the people who pass you on the street (weight, eye-color, sexability, loveability, friendability).  It’s like she wanted to discuss the future, and technology, and what facebook can do to people if not managed, and yet…she fails, with epic gusto, again.
4. The reviewers talk about romance on the back blurbs.  Let’s have a serious moment: There is no love in this book.  Or none, that I believe to be real.  The connections weren’t made well enough by the author.
5. The writing isn’t even beautiful.  The most beautiful line talks about Lulu having “her doe’s knees tucked under her” (154).
6. The best section of the book is La Doll, Lulu, The General, and Kitty because at least then there is back story, there is narration, there is a real connection between myself and the characters who are not just flat pieces of cardboard thirteen-year-old’s stand in their room.

I’ll stop.  I think I’ve given everyone enough.  Please let me know what you thought.  I guarantee it won’t change my opinion unless I read this book again thirty years from now and find a magic genius has transformed the pages into literary wonder.

But, I’d still like to know (especially those that liked the book) what in the hell you thought….

Here are the links:

• Wall Street Interviews Egan after the Pulitzer
• PBS Talks with Egan
• The Rumpus interview with Egan
• Short Story: Goodbye my Love by Egan and published by Zoetrope.
• Jennifer Egan website

Letters brought to you by Jessica Hirsche.  It’s that time again.  I know you’ve been waiting all week and refusing to look at google so you can find all your book news here or at Boston Book Bums (just because they’re amazing).  If you haven’t, and you’ve googled, ruining the surprise for yourself..it’s okay. We’ll still have fun this news segment.  1.2.3. GO!

• NPR 7 Books with Personality by Nancy Pearl.  I admit that I have no idea who Nancy Pearl is but if your name is jeweled and shiny, I assume you’re wonderful.  Plus, how very of Australian of her to be named after such a beautiful little ball of the sea.
• Photography books for the year – this news moment is going out to Sarah Drummond because she’s my best friend through the lens.  Plus, I need her to read more books so that we can constantly discuss books over laying out, or freezing in bed via skype.  Thanks for moving to New Zealand with Prince Charming, bia.
• Naomi Ragen was found guilty of plagiarism earlier this week.  There’s really nothing to say about this.  If you’re in middle school, you know what plagiarism is and you know you shouldn’t be using it.  If you don’t have enough creativity, or sense of plot to write a book than just read books and enjoy the crack sound of the page when you flip it to fast.
• Huff Post, one of my favorite online newspapers is starting a Huff Post Book Club.  While I’m usually not a fan of book clubs, unless they have older women and crumpets, I think Huff Post will be magical and quite the opposite of Dear Oprah.  If you’ve ever read an Oprah Book Club book than you know what I’m saying (BLAH, Oprah, BLAH).
• Scared of books?  Conquer that fear by creating one with Huldra Press.
• My favorite news tidbit of the day, hahahaha.  (It deals with the Republican Primary).  I know that sometimes I get a little radical on my blog with my pro-democratic rants, but the republicans are imploding on themselves so I really don’t have to say anything anymore.
• Books that Stick by NPR. I haven’t read any of these, but the covers look inspiring.
• Best books of 2011 by NPR.  Warning: The list is pretty darn extensive.  May take you a few minutes of digging through.  Become a book excavator.  My nephew uses that word, it’s too big for anyone older than three.
• Two poets have withdrawn from the prestigious T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry because of sponsorship from a well-known business.
• Here goes Poe again, making people crazy.
• James Scott of Ploughshares writes blog on 20 stories to read since 1980.
• Just a fantastic article (I thought) published in the Atlantic about African-Americans learning about the civil war and why many African-Americans don’t study the war.  I found it quite fascinating and eye-opening.  Plus, if you just look at the main picture at the top of the blog, you get a feel of oppression.
• A twelve-day writing plan from Writers Digest.  It includes motivation and fuel.
• Free Pass to Six Flags for reading.  I wish I was seven.

Enjoy some coffee with your news now, like my mother.  It’s mid-afternoon and you’re free.

Enjoy some Coffee: Add Cream