You Love the Collection

Self-Help by Lorrie Moore

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
After reading this collection of Lorrie Moore stories, you can see why so many writers frequently copy her style. For one thing she makes it look so easy. Her prose is so perfectly paced and all those tough things like character development, plot, and setting just seem to flow effortlessly and logically out of the story. "Look" you say to yourself, "if she can create a beautiful story peppered with puns and thieving wives, why can't I?" And then you try and then you see why you can't. And then you are in a deep despair because you realize it is always the best writing that looks so deceptively easy. You could spend years trying to perfect this style but you know it would never be as good. Just when you are at the brink you read "When Robert MacNeil talks about mounting inflation, you imagine him checking into a motel room with a life-size, blow-up tall." and you giggle and you forgive Lorrie Moore for being such a great writer and you love the collection.


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Reading Visually

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was our book club selection for January. This is definitely not the girly, let's-have-a-good-cry, Oprah-esque book club and that's why I love it. We started the bc with the Watchmen and decided to see what the other seminal graphic novel was like. In fact, I am really glad I could talk about this book with a group of mutual comic novices because there were a lot of plot points and even characters that I was clueless about and in this group I felt more than free to admit my ignorance. On a story level it is fairly well written and I can see that at the time the ambiguously moral batman was fresh and exciting take on the classic story. Now of course, we are used to this ambivalent batman and I got a little tired of the story beating over my head whether or not he was good guy or a bad guy. I did like the comments Miller was making about the media and their influence on public opinion. Twenty years later it is still relevant. In fact, I feel the media he depicted as an exageration is very close to our own reality now. One thing that became clear for me in this book is that I am not very good at reading visually. Often I would find my self skipping panels if they did not include text. I would miss important pieces of the story because of this oversight. It is interesting to me that there is almost a skill in being able to read these. I have a feeling that in the future my book club will give me a few more opportunities to practice.


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Read the Right One

As part of my obsession with reading books before I see the movie, I picked up the swedish vampire novel Let the Right One In just before christmas and while the movie was in theatres. In fact, I missed seeing the movie in the theatre because I decided to read the book and didn't have it done in time. Large book + indie movie with short run = see movie on dvd. I just started a couple of days ago because I figured I should get my sustenance from Netherland before I get my little treat of genre. So far I am not disappointed. The writing is snappy, engaging, and quite creepy. The perspective and shifts of point of view are very cinematic and I wouldn't be surprised if the story translates pretty well on film. My only worry is that reading the book before bed each night might give me creepy dreams. I might have to pick a different book for the night stand and keep this one for Saturday afternoons.

Our Obsession with the Truth

In the long ago hit movie A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson utters the now famous catch phrase "You can't handle the truth." But for American readers today it seems it is the fiction they can't handle. This week another memoir was revealed to be more fabrication than family history, leaving the publishing industry and the reading public disillusioned and disappointed. The story of a couple who found love from behind the chain link of a concentration camp has been revealed to be a fake. The story goes that the young man is kept alive from food thrown over the fence by a young girl who years later he meets on a chance blind date and marries. Apparently, Oprah was so moved by the story and called it the best love story she had ever heard. I too have a big gullible heart that falls for every sad. sap story within ear shot, so I do feel a little bad for Oprah. At least when I believe the story about the guy surfing the tsunami the whole world doesn't find about it. Obviously, Oprah is an extremely smart and savvy person or she would not be enjoying tremendous success for the past twenty years. I would never call Oprah a sucker but I would say she really loves a good story and more often the truth is getting in the way of a good story. And I think the problem is that we as a country are just a little caught up with the truth. Who's to say that two people in concentration camps did not meet, fall in love, become separated and then reunited by chance. I am sure it happened. It just didn't happen these two. Just like there are a lot of people who have spent time in jail, overcame addiction, got beat up, and then put there life back together it just didn't really happen to James Frey. Don't get me wrong, I don't think people should lie and call their books memoirs when they are truly fabricated I just think that this outbreak of fake memoirs is askiing some interesting questions about our value of stories and truth in this country. I am excited to read the Lazarus Project this year, which I read examines this subject in a lot of detail. Written by an eastern European immigrant, who familliar with our culture and his own less than truth obsessed country, has a interesting perspective on American's sense of honesty in story telling. And that the truth bllaaaahhhhhh! (a la Lily Tomlin)

Gifted Books

You can never go wrong with a book as a gift. Unfortunately, this year we are traveling all over and not checking luggage because of the new fees. That makes giving and getting books a little harder. We ordered a couple of books for one family member; 1491 and Flat, Hot, and Crowded. I got Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time (Paperback)
by Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin and the Top Chef cook book. As a gift to myself before we left I bought Netherland by Joseph O'Neill and Let the Right One In. I am about 2/3rds through Netherland now. The language is so rich and O'Neill tackles a variety of themes, such as the immigrant experience, terrorism, and marriage. I am not blown away by the book like I thought I might be. It does feel like a healthy salad; not exactly exciting but good for me. I am kind of hoping that Let the Right One will be a sweet snack.

Potential Reads of 09

Here is a rough list that I will work from in 09 for my TBR list:

Cloud Atlas David Mitchell
Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard
One Foot in Eden: A Novel by Ron Rash
Three Junes by Julia Glass
The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of Fevers, Delirium & Discovery by Amitav Ghosh
The White Mary: A Novel by Kira Salak
The Book Thief Markus Zusak
The Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Top Ten of 08

To close up 08 I put together a list of my favorite books of the year. I am looking forward to a new year of books and am scouring the blogs to join challenges and put together my list of books to read. Over all I read more than 20 books and I am currently reading Netherland by Joseph O'Neal. The year still has a week left to it so I might finish that up just in time. Taking a look at my top ten I am struck by how ecclectic it is. Here's too an equally eclectic and interesting 09 reading.

So here is the list in no particular order.
1. Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
2. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
3. The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden
4. Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany (Hardcover) by Bill Buford
5. Born Standing Up, A Comic's Life by Steve Martin
6. Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin
7. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
8. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
9. Citizen Vince by Vince Walter
10. The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao