I’m exhausted.  I have to run (literally) up to the Church tomorrow morning at 630 am in order to squeeze in Ash Wednesday mass so this may be a short one.

• 

  100 Story House for Bookish Brooklyn

  Everyone’s been all over this on the blogosphere.  It’s the 100 Story House shaped like a Brooklyn Brownstone for Brooklyn.  I’m not  quite sure what we would shape our Story Shelves like here in North Carolina, probably a John Deere green machine.  However, this is a lovely concept and it’s rain proof (imagine that).  You can donate to the public art project here on Kickstarter.   I think Kickstarter really explains all the important information on this project like where the books will come from.  DONATE.

• Over the weekend I found this amazing website, floating around google.  It’s called “Letters to Note” and it’s a blog of letters, telegrams, postcards, tidy notes, to and from famous writers.  It’s really exciting to just read through and see what people you admire were thinking, or see how they described love.  I feel like every writer is out there to get at the word love, or find the feeling, or just explain.  How do you even explain first love?  Maybe you’ll find your voice in these letters.

Tweet of the Week:

Tweet of the Week

• Faulkner and Hemingway to be discussed at Library of Congress for anyone living in the DC area or anyone who knows how to get on a bus.
• More Hemingway news: inscribed book sells for 68,000.  It’s his first book Three Stories and Ten Poems which had a print-run of only 300.  How insane.  Look how far we’ve come, literary snobs.
• Acclaimed poet and writer Mary Oliver is sick and two of her lovely friends have started a literary blog for everyone to support her full recovery.  The blog is beautiful and while there, anyone can write “how they were influenced or changed by her work.”   Here is a poem by Oliver titled, “At Black River” if you are unfamiliar with her work but would like to be changed or influenced.
• My favorite artist has unveiled photos of her many sketchbooks.  If you’re like me, then you’re obsessed with other writer’s journals, or tools.  I remember spending forty-five minutes watching Nikki Finney interviews to figure out what sort of pencil she used when she wrote poems.  Maybe the led is the muse.  I’m the same with notebooks.  So far, I’ve found Target’s Greenroom line to be my favorite because it’s made from recycled material but the ruled lines are very faint.  I’m also a fan of leather journals that are blank.  It’s really personal preference but if you’re a writer, you have to gush over other people’s private diaries and notebooks.  So, swoon away.

Artist Geninne. Click the picture to visit her blog.

• March 26, 2012: Shorty Awards.  Vote for your favorite in social media now. (I recommend voting Better World Books for the activism category).
• Raleigh Review has their second print journal out.  Stellar magazine.  Visit here.
• Anne Lamott has a twitter.  Follow @annelamott
• Library in Texas bets on literary stars via The Atlantic.
• David Foster Wallace turns 50 and people get tattoos.
• Really awesome vintage German sci-fi covers.  Like, seriously awesome.  My nerd beating heart is skyrocketing my blood pressure right now. I’m thinking the one below is my favorite.  It’s like an elephant, alien, octopus hybrid.

German Sci-fi covers thanks to Monster Brains

• Poetry as Tweet.  OR why Shakespeare is still, and always will be better than you according to every literary scholar.
• Cormac McCarthy: Copy Editor. Say what?
• NYPL Series: Why I Love Reading.  This week Long Form Essays and Journalism.
• A Tower of Books to Honor Abe Lincoln.  Listen on Morning Edition.
• Ann Patchett Talks Bookstore on Colbert. Yes, you read that right…Colbert. As in, Stephen.

I want to be in my bed. Goodnight.

And we’re back.  I was too busy slurping a cookout milkshake and watching Breaking Dawn Part 1 with Christine and her dog, Dobby (Yes, Harry Potter) to post my photos.  Also, it snowed yesterday and I spent the evening fantasizing about the wing spans of snow angels.

Here are the photos:

Day 43 | A Very Lego Birthday

My mom needs her own cake show on TLC.  It could be called Bea-Dazzled, or Honey Bea’s, or See Bea Bake.  I could do this all day. The picture above is my nephew’s fourth birthday cake bea-dazzled in homemade white chocolate lego men, my mother’s fancy icing script, and lego candies.

Day 44 | Phase 10

This is my “everything, everywhere” notebook.  It’s called: The “Miss Blue, Pleated Skirt” Notebook.  Why…I’m not sure, I didn’t write my reasoning down. I named it several months ago on the day I finished my last notebook.  It was started on October 20th at the teen center (says the inside cover).  On day 44, I spent three hours playing Phase 10.  Jaquan beat me by ten points, by the end we all felt like we had just fought a hefty battle across roaring seas.

Day 45 | Two Big Ego's

My cat has a favorite chair.  It seems in the last week my father has a favorite chair.  Jasper is not good at sharing.  They’re a cuddling twosome instead, even though my cat is the farthest thing from cuddly.  He’s like an Animal Planet special on wild beasts.

Valentines

I just wanted to post this one as an extra.  I made my teens all a special pixie stick valentine and this is end pile.  So much sugar, so little time.

Day 46 | Rose Garden

Darling took me to the rose garden.  It’s not growing any beauties at the moment, but it looks like something the Prince would kill for Sleeping Beauty.  I can just imagine his platinum sword flying through the brambles.

Day 47 | Man Down

My nephew needs to learn the Barney clean-up song, but until then, here is the death of a criminal after trying to rob the bank.  Next to him is the valentine and birthday lego’s that we’ve been racking up.  This was shot between playing power rangers throughout the house and playground.  Of course, I was the nine tongue villain that chased all the small boys through slides and around swings.

Day 47.5 | Valentines for Pre-school

My brother and sister-in-law hung my nephews creations at pre-school this week from the fire place.  Not only do I believe he’ll be the next Picasso, but look at that heart, finger-painted like a small massacre.

Day 48 | Hand Model

This is my cat.  If you haven’t figured out he thinks that he’s Gaston from Beauty & the Beast.  Check out that smize face, Tyra would be proud.  Obviously, he’s America’s Next Model.

Day 48 | Christian Science Reading Room

Don’t they have these rooms in every city?  Last night during Raleigh’s first snow of the year, I came across these homemade snowflakes and the quote taped to the glass of the Christian Science Reading Room.  I love the blue glow of the dark.

Participating Blogroll (almost forgot this):

• Emma Bolden
• Sarah Drummond (my best friend)
• Disturbed Wife
• Cupids Bow – Lady Writer
• Cats & Chocolate
• Thirty Years of Growing Pains

My copy (and someone else's dear copy), Housekeeping

Odd back stain.

I’m that girl scribbling in the margin of your Pulitzer winning poetry book.  Bubble-lettering “ME!” in the top left corner of page three.  Cracking the spine.  Nuzzling the cover.  Taking picture of my eyes and half my nose peeking over that accordion of top pages that you get when you open a book right down the middle.  I look through the books in the local used bookstore for ones that someone else has loved like I will.  Where are the coffee stains?  Where are the fingerprint maps on the edge where you held the page just after baking?  I want that book with the oil smudge of a Southern farmer after a long day, the faded yellow of the back cover from the sun on a porch, and someone else’s name inside, in cursive, which was lost after second grade for me.

So now that you know all of that, I can explain this blog.  Last week I went to my second favorite used bookstore (the biggest one in my area) and picked up four books I had been recommended.  Edward McKay uses milk crates as shelves and I had to dig to the back row of books (behind other books) to find one copy of Housekeeping (supposedly the best women’s fiction of the 20th century even though I don’t believe fiction has a “gender genre.”)  I picked it up without flipping through like I normally would because it was the only copy and recommend to me by a professor.  (If you’re working on setting and beautiful language in description in your own writing, read this book).

While the book is really character, description driven and not very much plot at all, in fact I think it gets a plot on page 170ish (out of 219), I think it was beautifully written and I’ll share some quotes at the bottom.  However, this blog isn’t really about the book, but what I found hidden inside the folds of its pages.

I looked through as I started to read, first searching for the triangle bent pages that show where someone stopped, bookmarked, or just wanted to remember a quote to write down later (that’s me).  But I found other exciting things.  The first wonderful thing about this book is the stain on the back cover.  Unlike some people who would automatically think someone dropped this book in a pile of poop, I thought something different.  I’m always drinking coffee in spill-able mugs while I drive.  The coffee often drips over the edge when it’s stuck in the awkward cup-holder and forced in tilted because of its handle.  I’m too cheap to buy one of those eco-safe ones from Target for 20 bucks.  All this is just to say that it leaves a sticky mark in the cup-holder or underneath the e-break where I sometimes place them.  My dad does the same thing with Pepsi so it must run in the family.  I’m sure at some point I could spill coffee on my seat, as I often do on the cute shirt I’m wearing to work. (These are all signs of addiction).  And like all other book lovers I keep piles of books in my car (literally it’s a small library, you should see people’s faces when they step in the car) which may or may not get spilled on or placed in a coffee puddle.  So, the stain on the back – most likely from a coffee/book lover like myself who sips and drives.  (It’s probably time for an intervention).

My favorite thing about the book is that Claire signed the inside cover as if to say, “this will memorialize me.  This is mine.”  I can’t believe being the book hoarder that I am that I haven’t gone through with an ink pen to every inside cover of every book that I own.  Part of me wants to say that the cover is sacred and unless it’s a book from fifth grade (The BFG) I probably won’t be writing in the cover.  The BFG is special because it has a whole garden crayon drawn in the inside cover.  I was a reading artist it seems.

If anyone can figure out that last name I would love to facebook stalk her and maybe tell her about my find and do a blog solely on the reason why she gave up this book that she so clearly loved.

Quailridge receipt.

It didn’t end there though.  In my area, we have an amazing independent bookstore called Quailridge Books and it seems in 2005,  Claire bought the book there.

I can just imagine Claire swinging the glass door open, hearing the chime of her own entrance, her coat billowing behind her in the winter wind (she’d be the kind of girl to leave it unbuttoned).  The receipt says February 12th which is my nephews birthday (another odd coincidence that I will say was lined up by the stars).

Maybe she was in a hurry and it was on the recommended by staff rack that spins so you can see all the books in one sweep.  Maybe Robinson was going to read at some point in the coming months and so they had placed it on the first shelf as you walk in.  Robinson isn’t local.  Or maybe, she wasn’t in a hurry, and she was recommended this book by a professor and so she went straight to the R’s, reading just before Richard Russo and just after Tom Robbins.  There the white spine, with bold, all capital red lettering read “Housekeeping.”

Or perhaps, she perused the store.  She picked up greeting cards for relatives up North hoping it would thaw their hearts from the cold, and the clearing of driveways, and the sounds of snow plows in the night.  She looked through a Dubus collection, or Quindlen because they were both judging the National Book Award and Claire knew that she wanted to win that in ten years.  Joan Didion would win in 2005 for nonfiction and all of America would grieve their husbands.  I know that this is the version of what she did because she also bought a “blank notebook” for ten dollars with tax of 70 cents.

I secretly knew other things the whole time as well. Claire went in with a list of things she’d like to get, a list of things she’d like to do before the evening.  She had a plan.  The book had been mentioned in our newspaper, The News & Observer and she had written her list directly over the article on Gilead, Marilynne Robinson’s newer book that a lot more of you may be familiar with.  She wrote the list on February 6.  She’s so busy it took her until my nephew’s birthday to go to the store and collect her findings.  On the 6th, a Saturday in 2005, she wanted to do the following.

Claire's list

1. reading + breakfast
2. quarters + laundry
3. deposit payroll + pay rent
4. fog @ Flying Saucer 2:30 pm
5. Regulator – Gilead + Housekeeping > by Marilynne Robinson

Claire is somewhere at a desk this evening smudging the knuckle of her pinky finger with ink, dragging her right hand across the page, margin to margin.  She is tapping her left foot because she is anxious to write the scene where the girl gets stuck under the bleachers during a football game, and it is raining.  She has socks on, a barrette pulling back her bangs.  She uses ink, the lines of her palm are damp with sweat, there are sounds coming from outside the window in front of her desk.  The sounds are of small birds, or a trash can moving slightly on its wheels.  Claire will write this scene and then go downstairs to kiss her husband goodnight and peel a clementine using the nail of her thumb.  She will eat each part whole without chewing them in pieces, watching the orange insides bleed a bit onto her fingers.  She will go to bed with her hands sticky, her fingers coated in black residue.  She will begin again on that scene in the morning, she will over-revise.

You finish the story, aren’t we all Claire ourselves?

Marilynne Robinson in News & Observer

Beasts of No Nation

I’m not at all sure why I want to review this novel.  It’s both horrifying and fascinating as other readers have said, and yet it still feels really incomplete.  In fact, I think the ending was a complete cop-out of the ending that Iweala should have taken.  However, I am the “normal” state school college graduate and he is the Harvard alum who has spent lives in both Nigeria and America.  (He has also worked at refugee camps).  Does this mean though that his story should be told?

Let’s dive in.

Beasts of No Nation is the story of a child soldier named Agu who is at one point top of his class and living in his four-people family unit, then quickly thrust into the arms of a dictator Commandant who abuses him in all sorts of ways, some of them beyond even the Commandment’s control.  This is horrifying, yes?  A child is sexually abused by the head of an army, his only friend another child who doesn’t speak at all.  They are forced to carry a gun, march through broken bones and fed the trash of villages already thrashed through.  He experiences his first sexual awakening (although we have no age for Agu, we can assume that he is well before sexual enlightening years).  He experiences torn thoughts on killing others; on the one side believing he is still a good boy and on the other believing he is the devil.  I can’t disagree that the unfolding isn’t chilling.

Project for Peace

However, I don’t think Iweala captures it completely.  The only time I was completely disgusted was during a rape between Agu and his superior…as anyone would be disgusted just by the content.  He hasn’t sold me on the voice of Agu and his use of repetition, and no real grammar.  I think the child voice is spot on, but the accent needs work, and the author admits this in the gray pages of the end.  However, I’ve never heard West African English and so I can’t judge that this isn’t just my Southern, girl interpretation, or if it’s actually really a linguistic feature of the villages.

I think what disappointed me the most was my lack of feeling for Agu.  Here is this boy who has gone through nine lives of war in his one short boyhood and I am not connected with him every second.  I do not feel the need to comfort him.  I don’t immediately want to google child soldiers after I finish the book to learn more.  Honestly, I don’t think this book even brings child soldier’s justice, even though it is dedicated to those who have suffered.  The most fascinating part of the book was the bio of Uzodinma Iweala at the end, which I’m sure Harper Perennial insisted on.  The real reason this book is great is because of the message it tells people like me, who live everyday thinking a stop light is a disaster.

I feel like a horrible human being for not totally buying into this book.  I feel like this might be my inward struggle with the realness.  Maybe I’m not ready to face the fact that this happens to people.  Maybe I should remember that I’m a girl too afraid to watch Blood Diamond because of my future thoughts on engagement rings.

I think the two things that bother me most were my want and need that the main character of this book should be the child who did not speak: Strika.  How badly I want to know what that boy is thinking, how badly I want to know his own horrors to understand his silence.  While the dialogue for Agu always made sense, this was a book of his thoughts.  He is not silent, but what is better than having the thoughts of a silent victim on the page (Strika, Agu’s best friend).

My other problem with this book is that Agu leaves his fellow soldiers after the death of his friend, and walks off into the sunlight, (spoiler) only to be saved in the next chapter.  The very last chapter is a glimpse of the refugee camp with what seems to be a white counselor trying to talk Agu through his survival and his conscience.  I may be the only one who feels this way, but Agu should have died.  In order to understand the brutality of the situation, Agu should have died and been saved through his own death.  He should not live on because of the reader’s hopes of a happy ending, or the need for the author to make hope out of a war that isn’t over.  Agu has killed, and yes his psyche is all off, and his emotions and humanhood are all screwed-up, he is completely brain washed into these killings, but then I want his death to be his redemption.  The true end to this story was redemption through death and Iweala fails to find it.  This refugee camp is a cop out.  And now I’m all angry.

Falling Whistle

Really, you would think I’d be happy Agu was saved, but I’m not.  I’m that sort of person that an ending of a book is more important to me than the happiness of readers at the end.  We didn’t need this sewed up and tied with a bow.  We did not need the yams and the rice to fill his stomach after starvation.  We DEFINITELY didn’t need some white therapist stepping in to work through his child soldier memories.  That last part probably disturbs me the most because it ends on this note that white people are saving West Africa, or that white people are the saviors that everyone needs, or that the white mentality is stronger and better than the mentalities of other races.

What it basically says is that white (american) people understand, and will help.  (Let me speak for the group really quickly…I know this is not everyone’s feelings)…WHAT DO WE UNDERSTAND?  I don’t understand a damn thing about child trafficking, violence, or child soldiers in war.  Here in the US we let young men fight at the age of eighteen and when they die we tell ourselves that they lived a full life, filled with proms and football games.  We don’t understand the brutality of children fighting in war, children sewing together Nike’s in factories, the cost of one large diamond for our ring finger.  Oh, you mean people died from this?  I’m just a bit disgusted with the “white savior” at the end of this book.  Do we have to be constantly bombarded with this idea?

I’m not even sure I’ll post this blog at this point.  I feel like people are going to be offended.  (Side note: I asked my mother and three bloggers I really trust to look over this blog before posting it to make sure I didn’t hurt anyone.  It would pain me incredibly if anyone was offended by this blog and thus why I asked for others opinions).

I’ve learned throughout my life that you can’t say “I don’t see color,” because then you’re taking the uniqueness away from every person in a room.  You’re removing people’s history, people’s culture, people’s identities even.

So, while I recommend this book because some people need their eyes open to the cruelties of the world (me), I don’t think it’s the best book on the subject, and I think Iweala could have handled it better.   I actually do believe he will as he continues writing his heart.

In trying to help somehow with the cause of child soldiers, here are some links that I believe in.

• Falling Whistles is to promote peace in Congo.  The original story deals with boys who are sent to the front lines of war armed with only a whistle.  With your purchase of a whistle, you’re giving survival options to children in Congo through rehabilitation, education, art, human rights education, vocational skills, and nutritional services.
• BBC World Service | Children of Conflict 
• Feb. 7th, 2012: It’s still happening.  Deportation from US.
• Children Soldiers return to Congolese wars.
• Child Soldier. CA to donate 

Here are other reviews by bloggers:

• Libereading
• Amckiereads
• Friends of African Village Libraries
• Caribousmom
• Nathaniel Jonet
• Swit Salone

I know we’re all focused on the music this week with the Grammy’s and the “coming out” of Roman.  If you really want to see what I thought of that please watch Jenna Marbles interpretation of Nicki Minaj.  But, it’s time to get back to the good stuff: books.  Ah, the dusty smells of closets, cedar, and men’s cigar seeped pockets.

That being said: HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! 

Chocolate Never Things I'm Crazy (or you...)

Last week I mentioned The Million’s guide to Literary Tumblrs.  And this week I want to share all the cool stuff I’ve found.

• I came across awesome people reading and did a quick picture of some of my favorites.  (Come on, hairy Sean Connery, swoon).

Doris Day, Jimi Hendrix, Anais Nin & Sean Connery Reading.

Is it weird that Sean Connery looks really similar to my dad when he was young?  Maybe. Nah, my dad was a looker, and a playboy.

• The Books They Gave Me is also a literary tumblr filled with books given by old boyfriends.  It’s kind of my new favorite website. Hint: Anything dealing with reminiscing on old love makes me both depressed and warm.  This entry about Sylvia Plath is my favorite:
  

  Sylvia Plath’s journal page for September 16, 1959 describing the Yaddo furnishings on Smith memorandum stationary.

  • “The day I left for college you slipped it into the backseat of my car. I’d wanted it for months. And now the well-thumbed book sits on the part of my shelf I save for the books I love most, with your inscription—red pen; your beautiful, slim handwriting; your assurances that I am meant to write, that I should use the book not as means of negative comparison but as means of reminding me that this, this, is what I am supposed to do. I am almost out of college; I didn’t want to, could never unwrap me from you.”

This was the week of light sabers and Star Wars.  I’m not at all sure why.  I think that it’s because my best friend Sars lost her puppy to a freak illness this week (RIP Asher Naboo).  Inevitably, Sars love of Star Wars found its way into my week.  I needed a little hint that my friends were hurting.  It’s funny how the world reminds you when to love.

Day 36 | Superbowl Travesty

I spent the Superbowl with my teens.  This is a moment of pandemonium…I’m sure you can tell by the hurt on Tom Brady’s Face. Two words: Poor Giselle.

Day 37 | Finally Finished a Tube

It’s funny now that I take pictures I think of the significance of stupid little everyday things.  I wonder how long it took me to use-up this entire tube of Crest Complete.  Probably a lot in my life has happened since this Crest Complete has been using its whitening powers to remove plaque from my stubbly teeth.  I’m now using Toms of Maine toothpaste which doesn’t taste very good but it’s not tested on any animals and uses all natural ingredients.  Hence: I have become a hippie.  (Yes, I brush my teeth in the shower).

Day 38 | Embarrassing myself in the movie theater

They wouldn’t let me bring my Starbucks into the movie so I had to force them to bring a chair behind this poster so that I could fit into the hole.  It seems Luke is a very tall man.  (Here is where I apologize to all the Star Wars fans and my best friend who may be the biggest one and say, this is Obi-Wan Kenobi, not Luke.  Dang).

Here are the deleted scenes:

Deleted Scene

I so badly want to be tall.

Day 39 | What's more lonely than a roof?

I spent all day at the RR by myself on Thursday.  I tried to think of a way to capture that lonliness without actually having to take a picture of myself all pimpled from stress.  Here’s what came out of it.  The only times I’ve ever sat on a roof were when I was a. trying to run away from home, b. trying to climb out of my window and sneak off to kiss boys or c. just sitting out there smelling the breeze.  It’s a lonely place, unless you’re a young adult who can jump off her roof onto a trash can and not fall through into the clumps of her family’s meals.  I’d say those were some very Ninja Turtle moves.

Day 40 | Bookishness

My brother has this amazing back porch and it’s the perfect place to grab a cup of afternoon coffee and a good book.

Day 40.333 | First Light Saber

This is his first light saber.  Every young man should have one.  As you can see he had too many legos (you should see his ultimate lego table in his room and then you’d really believe me) so we had to move on to bigger and better things.

40.666 | Proving I have the cutest nephew in the world

My precious cargo.

Day 41 | Business Cards

I think I eat enough Mexican that I deserve to have my old business card in one of their slots.  No, the RR is not religious, nor is it particularly foreign (occasionally), but none the less, I felt I was owed this business card placement.  I’ve eaten my weight in queso and had enough salsa that I could float a small boat through my insides – I thought it was time I promote myself for my ability to cheat on a diet.

Day 42 | Cleaning Out My Closet

Yesterday, I cleaned out my closet and got rid of two garbage bags full of clothes (thank you, Sterling Birdie).  And no, I didn’t write a cool rap about it like Eminem, but I did find my Prayer Book from maybe first grade in one of the drawers.  It seems I liked cats even then (see stamps on left).  I thought the prayer on the right was perfect for helping me create a sense of calm in my room while I decided what to keep and what to give away.  (This was post jamming out to Jessie J “Domino” which I’m obsessed with).  Plus, I just really love St. Francis, both the church I’ve gone to since I was six, and the man himself.

Participating Blogroll:

• Emma Bolden
• Sarah Drummond (my best friend)
• Disturbed Wife
• Cupids Bow – Lady Writer
• Cats & Chocolate
• Thirty Years of Growing Pains

I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had anytime to review the wonderful books I’ve read throughout half of February.  I’m going to have to let a few slip by, but two of them I can’t really just let go of that easily.  One is an oldie but a goodie, and the other is brand spankin’ new.  So, today, oldie but goodie.  Next week, brand spankin’ new.

Lorrie Moore Creeper

First lesson in reading or writing literary fiction: if you haven’t read Lorrie Moore, put your pencil down, stop patting yourself on the back for that witty new character you’ve created and go to the literature, particularly the M’s for Moore.  As a side note, if you haven’t read Lorrie Moore, I can not be your friend until you do that.  I know, I have harsh standards for friendship, but that’s definitely one of my top five, after loyalty and before good note passing skills (in my later years we call those penpalships, or letters on stationary).

I’m not even sure I can dare speak about Lorrie Moore.  I’m not even sure, like Alice, I can reach the door knob of Lorrie Moore’s castle.  But, as always, I’m going to try.

Self-Help, at its heart is a collection of stories on how to be a helper of mankind.  I know that sounds really sentimental, but she does it in a way that you don’t even see coming.  One second you’re in this imagined lovers-turned-roommates relationship and the next second (boom) you’re in the clutches of your own life, unable to breathe and heaving for air.  To be honest, I’m pretty sure I’m the girl in both “How” and “How to Become a Writer.”  And this is definitely not a case of me reading too into things.  But that’s the glory of Lorrie Moore, you actually think you’re a character, even beyond that anonymous “you.”   You find yourself saying, “wait, I would totally meet a boyfriend at a ‘rummage sale’” or “‘escape into [a] book.  When he asks what you’re reading, hold it up without comment.’”  I’m really passive aggressive, a perfect girl to hold a book and continue in the silence.

Plus, I’m not going to lie, but every time I read this book (probably at eight times right about now, counting all the anthologized stories I read throughout undergrad ficiton writing classes) I still feel like one of these women.  I still feel caught up in my life, or like I could stab my (invisible) husband in a bakery if I caught him cheating.  This is probably saying more about me than it is about this book.

Drawing of Moore's story "To Fill" by artist Sam Jacoff

I don’t even know really how to describe Lorrie Moore’s writing because it’s just fascinating to look at.  She uses metaphors like everything can be related to everything.  It’s almost a six degree separation with her.  One of the quotes below has a man making love to a woman but using robotic movements like someone opening a cupboard.  Who would think that way?  It’s like her brain is a series of pockets that correlate with one another and of course sex-cupboard, why haven’t we made this connection before?  I wish it was that easy for all writers, but then we wouldn’t have like Lorrie Moore to both teach and humble us.

She’s also both witty and sentimental which is hard to do.  At times you think witty and cynical go together and other times you want to cry because she’s leaving you broken from all angles.  I think the star of this collection is the use of second person to make the reader be literally in the story.  A lot of people are turned off by the “you” but I think in every instance she uses it, although it’s a lot, it works.  (So, get turned on).  I’m not sure that if the writing was less impeccable and less finely detailed than Moore’s, that I would have accepted so many stories in second person.

Signature of Lorrie Morre on Self-Help

In the story, “Amahl and the Night Visitors” Moore chronicles a break-up from moment of initial demise all the way through packing bags (initial demise is of course a cat, aren’t they always)?  However in “How to Talk to Your Mother” she does almost the opposite by chronicling a girls life backwards by year.  From years without your mother, to the womb.  This is probably the moment where I learned ten pages make a life.  In fact, one page, one sentence, probably makes a life.  Thus, why we have six word memoirs.  In fact, I dare you all (readers and whoever else happens to stumble here by googling bad things) to write a chronicle of your life backyards using a person or a situation as the nail it all hangs on.  Moore uses the mother to define the daughter, now you use something in your own life to chronicle yourself backwards, and of course use the second person, “you.”  See where it gets you, email what you come up with.  This is a dare, a triple dog dare.  I’ll do it too, I need to write anyway.

The best gift, from the best writers, is the need to tell your own story; made-up or true. That’s what I believe.

I’ll end this by saying: Lorrie Morrie is all of the things that I want to be when I grow up.

Here are my favorite quotes:

• “Beware of a man who says he loves you but who is incapable of a passionate confession, of melting into a sob.” (43, Moore, “What is Seized”). First of all how does she manipulate grammar that way.  Secondly, isn’t this a story of a whole generation of men and boys in just one sentence.
• “When your parents divide, you, too bifurcate.  You cleave and bubble and break in two, live two lives, half of you crying every morning on the dock at sunrise, black hair fading to dusky gray, part of you traveling off to some other town where you teach school and tell jokes in an Italian accent in a bar and make people laugh.  And when your mother starts to lose her mind, so do you.  You begin to be afraid of people on the street.  You see shapes — old men and spiders — in the wallpaper again like when you were little and sick.  The moon’s reflection on the lake starts to look to you like a dead fish floating golden belly up.  Ask anyone.  Ask anyone whose mother is losing her mind.” (42, Moore, “What is Seized”) I think she wanted to use bifurcate in a sentence, and tell you what divorce is like.  I think she writes magic into places on peoples bodies where it has died, or has become lonely.  
• “I think of my father, imagine him long ago at night casually parting my mother’s legs with the mechanical indifference of someone opening a cupboard.  And I say to myself: I will leave every cold man, every man for whom music is some private physics and love some unsteppable dance.  I will try to make them regret.  To make them sad.  I am driving toward my tiny kitchen table and I will write this: forgiveness lives alone and far off down the road, but bitterness and art are close, gossipy neighbors, sharing the same clothesline, hanging out their things, getting their laundry confused. (46, Moore, What is Seized). 

I have more favorite quotes that go beyond that one story, but I think those quotes kind of tell a story on their own.

Links:

1. Here is a wonderful interview with Lorrie Moore from Paris Review.  I think her answers aren’t sprinted through, but well-thought out.
2. Here is another one from The Believer where she answers different questions.
3. The Short Review…review of Self-Help.
4. The American Literary Review (blogspot). I’m kind of obsessed with the title of this blog.

Without further adieu, your gift guide:

Let’s start big. The Naughty Lover

Bad Girl | Valentine

• Top Left | Personalized Valentine Tattoo Bookmark by My Bookmark @etsy.  25% off for the whole month of February. Tell your bookish suitor that you like him more than just the 14th.  Tell your pin-up girlfriend that you wish it was her in your book, but she’s running through your dreams all day.  (pow!)
• Top Right | Naughty Bookmark (Vintage) by Infinite Caboodles @etsy.  If you just want to be blunt about it.
• Bottom Left | Naughty or Nice Pins.  They also come in Sex Kitten.  As a bookish girl, I used to be obsessed with pins for my “book” bag.  I never really carried school supplies (other than my favorite rollerball pens) but I always carried books filled with post-its.
• Bottom Right | Make-out Necklace. Or as my mom would say “Necking Necklace” which sounds a lot cooler.

For the Romantic Lover

For the Romance of the Bookish

• Top Left | Chocolate Book by Hungry Happenings @ blogspot.  I mean…what girl doesn’t want chocolate?  And even better if it comes in book form.
• Top Right | Literary Locket by Classically Romantic @ etsy.  Who needs a boy to lock away in a pendant against their chest when they can have words; synonyms, vowels, rhyming.
• Bottom Left | Word Bouquet by Hello Mrs Brown @ etsy.  I just really hope my boy sees this blog.
• Bottom Right | Book Charms by Southwest Sky Jewelry @ etsy.  Here’s a new thing about me: I collect charm bracelets from flea markets and antique shops.  I like the feeling of knowing that someone else spent years on a bracelet about themselves.  I, however, can’t seem to come up with a theme or a life of my own for a bracelet.  Obviously, I just wasn’t looking hard enough – duh, book charms.

For the Classic Valentine (or the girl that says she only wants a card.  Hint: She’s lying.  This also pertains to the girl who says she doesn’t like flowers because they die.  Hint: She too is lying.  They should hang out together).

Classic Beauty | For the Girl Who Wants a Card

• Top Left | Book Ring from ChezMargot @ etsy.  Write your special message, get laid or your money back.
• Top Right | Arabian Nights Secret Stash from Hollow Book Safe @ etsy.  Not only a classic book, but keep your classic jewelry safe.
• Bottom Left | Alice Apron from Loverdoversclothing @ etsy.  You knew I’d throw some Alice in somewhere.  I don’t really like to cook, but I’d bake my whole kitchen away if I had this little petticoat apron.
• Bottom Right | Propose with a Book from Pommesfrites @ etsy.  There are no words, tears are forming.

For the Funky Valentine

Funky Chick Valentine

• Top Left | John Clark Bookish Girl Print by John Clark @ etsy.  I bought some of these for my sister-in-law a while back.  They’re wonderful.  I’ve been obsessed for a while.
• Top Right | Ipod Peter Pan by RichNeelyDesigns @etsy.  Someone commented on my Newsday Tuesday blog from a bit ago that they wanted one.  So here they are.
• Bottom Left | Superman Mini-me’s by CreativeButterflyXOX @etsy.  These are really cake toppers but I’m not getting married anytime soon, so for now they’re just decorations.
• Bottom Right | Book Light by ItUsetoBe @etsy.  These are awesome, maybe you want to stay up and read, but have no flashlight…bring the book light, literally.

For the Savy/Stylish/Technological Valentine

For the All Things New Valentine

• Top Left | Bookstore Betty Coat by TulleClothing @ Modcloth.  Fancy sitting around books all day?  Or like me, do you drag your significant others into every bookstore on a bookish cobblestone street?
• Top Right | Necklace in Wonderlandby And Mary @ Modcloth.  Curiouser and curiouser.
• Bottom Left | The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks @ every bookstore ever.  Any smart and savvy girl needs to know to escape to the tallest building in the city with multiple machine guns and a hunky doctor with a vaccine.
• Bottom Right | Novel Tee in Ester by Out of Print @ Modcloth.  Oh, Sylvia.  Darling, Sylvia.  ”Yes, Mickey?”

For the Grammarian Librarian 

Grammarian Librarian

• Top Left | Vintage Library Cards by The Old Design Shop @ etsy.  I wish we still used these to mark dates.
• Top Middle | I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar @ Modcloth.
• Top Right | Shoulder Bag of Notebook by Lyst @ Modcloth.  I would throw notebooks in this bag so it’s only fitting that it has one on the outside.
• Middle Left | I’ve completely lost this sign somewhere on Etsy.
• Middle | Good Grammar is Sexy by Studio Nico @ etsy.  The chick and the t-shirt look good.
• Middle Right | Library Stamper by Rubber Stamps For You @ etsy.  Clearly, we all need these for those who borrow our books and never give them back.  When we’re in their house, nosing around their bookshelves we will Ah-ha our book and prove it’s ours by the stampage.
• Bottom Left | Grammar Nerd Bird House by Repagination @ etsy.  My mom and dad collect bird houses (you should see our backyard) and this is perfect.  I also really like this one.
• Bottom Middle | Library Card Notebook by Campfire Designs @ etsy.
• Bottom Right | Pear Book Ends by Lady and Meemz Fab @ etsy.  I just think produce and books go together well.  Have you ever even seen an overweight librarian?  It’s a skinny culture…all those thin words.

The Homey Valentine

Homey Valentine

• Top Left | Marks the Plot Coaster Set by Out of Print @ Modcloth.  Books, books everywhere and not a word to read.
• Top Right | Raven with Books by Wordybirdstudios @ etsy.  I went a little crazy with the wall decals.
• Middle Left | Where the Wild Things Are (On Your bookshelf) by Black Fin Graphics @ etsy.
• Middle Right | Scrabble Slam @ Target. I play this all the time with the teens and it is too much fun.  Outrageous.
• Bottom Left | Retro Wall Decal with Books by Looks Better @ etsy.  I need a green wall.
• Bottom Right | Booky Mugs by Book Fiend @ etsy.  It’s by a book lover, for a book lover.

Personal Favorites

Geninne @ www.geninne.com

Make your literary lover happy this Love day and fill her/him up with words, sounds, and bookish things.

I’ve found so many things I love for this weeks addition of book news.  In fact, this may be my favorite book news…ever.  Even though there’s only been like eight weeks of Newsday Tuesday.

• Norton has a tumblr.  This is the first I’m hearing of this.  My favorite post of this week was this one.
• Blogging helps teens who suffer from anxiety.  (Duh).
• February horoscopes: Newspaper Blackout edition.

Mine is perfection.

• Let me preface this by saying, yes, I follow MuggleNet.  And it seems that Harry Potter helps college students study classic literature.  It certainly didn’t help me with Jane Austen, but maybe others are experiencing euphoria from classic literature.  Personally, I took a whole class (one whole semester) on Chaucer where my teacher spoke Old English (it is another language) and I only realized how dirty he was by the time Wife of Bath came around.  I’m clueless.
• I found the holy grail of articles for tumblr.  This is a Guide to Literary Tumblrs.  I plan to spend entire days perusing this. The best part: NIKKI GEMMEL HAS A NEW BOOK.  SHE’S ONLY ONE OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS EVER IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE, EVEN PRE-DINOSAUR, HOLY BALLS.

NEW NIKKI

• Earlier this week I finished the latest issue of Creative Nonfiction, of which I have a subscription (it’s wonderful, check it out).  And in it, there was an article on the best creative nonfiction in the 20th century.  I scoured the internet for you and found just a few of the mentioned ones.  Here they are: The Ethics of Living Jim Crow by Richard Wright,  Letter from Birmingham Jail by King, Jr., One More to the Lake by E.B. White, and The Fourth State of Matter by Jo Ann Beard.
• Another thing I discovered in Creative Nonfiction is that Augusten Borroughs author of Running with Scissors, is a shitty human-being.  I’m almost four years late on this but, read here.
• Franzen on Wharton.
• My memoir professor, Elaine Neil Orr, had two pieces published this week.  Driving the Peugeot and Wife’s Fantasy at Mid-life.
• Christopher Baum: How Books Made Me Gay on Huffington Post Blog.
• Chinese author banned in own country.
• Four good reads from National Books Circle Critics Award.
• I just liked the title of this one.  E-books v. Books.
• Children’s book trollop to the top in UK library loaned list.
• Why libraries need to focus on popular books from the Library Journal Blog.
• Here are a few of my favorite Grammarian posts/pictures of the week:

The sad thing is...I remember dancing to this on the bar at City Limits Teen Night. "Dontcha"

Cracks me up, and my grammar isn't even on par.

And that’s it folks; read, read, read.

Here’s Week 5  |  Project 365.  This week I actually really love most of the photos I’ve taken.

Day 30 | Restaurant Stool

At least once a week the humble staff of the RR walk over to the other side of the block and get food at our favorite pizza place in Raleigh (in case you tour the big city sometime).  It’s called Lily’s Pizza and inside they have decorations by local artists, odd poetic bumper stickers, trashed manicans and these grammarian stools.  It kind of made my day to sit on one, not going to lie.

Day 31 | Murder

Every time I see a pile of birds flying around an area of woods, I think someone is definitely murdered below.  I panic at whether to alert the authorities or if that would be a misuse of my privilege to dial 911.  It’s from years of crime shows like Law & Order, or just the entire channel dedicated to homicide and disappearance; Investigation ID.  I think this was definitely heightened after reading Wildwood when a child is taken away by a pack of crows.

Day 32 | Fuzzy Train Wheels

The next three pictures are all together.  My good friend Gabby came in from Australia for two days this week and I had to entertain myself somehow during my two hour wait for her.  I really wanted to sing some Old Crow, “Headed down south to the land of the pines
And I’m thumbin’ my way into North Caroline…”

Day 32 | All by Myself

Around ten:thirty, the train station garbage man let me know that I was no longer allowed to be on this bench. “It’s a strategy to keep the homeless out during the night.”  What I said, “Okay, thank you.” What I should have said, “It’s cold outside, dude, and what is a homeless person going to do to you?  They only come in to use this wooden bench that looks almost like a pew, for sleep.”  I’m sure it’s company policy.

Day 32 | Take a Look in the Mirror

Raleigh train station with one lone girl.

Day 33 | Odd Vegetable. Second Edition

I love knobs, there’s something new everyone can know about me.  Vegetables with knobs make me sweat.

Day 33.2 | Hush Puppies Experience

A girl’s first hush puppie experience must be documented.  This is everyone’s first glimpse at Gabby’s first hush puppie (it’s cool enough to end in -ie and not -y).  Can’t stay in the Carolina’s without widening up those belt loops and eating fried food slathered in barbecue sauce.

Day 33.4 | Honey Sticks

Gabs and I got honey sticks before we went out to eat, another staple of North Carolina.  I had to take a photo for the 2012 book of both of us together.

Day 33.6 | Ya'll get out of that air, now.

When Australians comes to the US, they’re forced into awkward situations: security at the airport, pat-downs, greasy pizza, baggy clothes, and jumping photos in front of large Southern signs.  Ya’ll love it, and Ya’ll know it.

Day 34 | Republican Primary Gum

You should know by now that I fall into the Donkey category.  If not, here is a picture.

Day 35 | Crack Plant

There’s so many thing I can write about this picture.  1.  If you jump on the crack, it won’t break your grandmother’s back, but it may kill a growing seed.  2. My mother bought all these bricks to outline our front garden and hoped that the tulips would still come up.  She didn’t even think about the crocuses.  And here they are, growing through the cracks.  Out of darkness, comes light.

Day 35.5 | Wall of Baby

My mother loves pictures probably even more than I do.  Our hallway is dedicated to her first grandchild and my nephew, Jack the Wolf.  Most of the pictures are of Jack as he’s growing up, but on the far right my beautiful mother is holding a picture of herself and siblings all in a row.  We were trying to decide who Jack most looks like.  He’s definitely a Shealy, that’s for sure.  We all are. PS. How handsome are my Uncles?

Hope everyone is taking in those little moments of their lives this week.  Even if you don’t take a picture, try to take five minutes to yourself of breathing in atmosphere and breathing out problems.