Sincere apologies for my unplanned 2 week Vox absence. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. There was an upset at work, which I’m not going to go into details about, and on Friday I (finally) had my Wisdom Teeth removed.
This weekend has been very lovely – I’ve done nothing but read and relax in bed. I’ve watched many episodes of Gilmore Girls and Mad Men, and yesterday I read all of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
So anyway, here’s February’s Polysyllabic Spree. My first effort to get caught up on my Vox postings.
Books Purchased
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Uneasy Money by P. G. Wodehouse
Maus I by Art Spiegelman
The Best American Comics 2006 edited by Harvey Pekar
The Way It Wasn’t by James Laughlin
Sima’s Undergarments for Women by Ilana Stanger-Ross
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
Trust Me by John Updike
Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
Rosie by Anne Lamott
Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
This I Believe II edited by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman
Another month, another stack of books purchased that’s larger that I tried for. In my defense, I got some fantastic deals. The Thorn Birds was the only one I paid full price for. The others were at least 50% off, most were cheaper than that. I got the Welty, Updike, and Lawrence for $1 each at the KPL Friends of the Library Book store. The others were used, bargain books, or purchased very cheap at Strand. I did well with my goal of shopping at more independent stores. None of these were from Amazon, and only one (This I Believe II) was from Barnes and Noble (a $4.98 bargain book).
Books Read
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee
The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Comfort Me With Apples by Ruth Reichl
Sima’s Undergarments for Women by Ilana Stanger-Ross
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop was a very delightful “book about books.” In this case, also a “book about bookstores.” Lewis Buzbee worked at several independent bookstores in California before becoming a Rep for a publishing house, and getting to travel around visiting hundreds of bookstores. This little memoir is perfect for anyone who love books. Buzbee writes about the business side of bookstores, with just enough detail to be fascinating; it never gets dull or dry. He also offers a nice, compact history of bookstores – everything from book carts in the ancient world up through the fantastic Shakespeare & Co. in Paris and the state of bookstores today.
Buzbee’s book was also what made me decide I needed to read something by Eudora Welty right away. I chose The Optimist’s Daughter, because that’s the one he recommended to a women in one of his stories:
I still remember Victoria McIlvrag, one of the first customers I ever surprised with a book. Today I don’t remember much about her, except that she wore a brown raincoat and was always with her young son. The first time we met, she told me she had been reading nothing but trashy best sellers – her words – and she loved to read but wanted something new; she wanted to read about real women. I led her to Fiction and handed her a blue and silver copy of Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter. Ms. McIlvrag looked at the book with some skepticism, but bought it anyway, and came back the next week asking for more by Ms. Welty, please, and anything else I cared to recommend.
I did enjoy The Optimist’s Daughter, though it wasn’t quite what I was expecting somehow. I would like to read some of her short stories next, especially one of her most famous – “Why I Live at the P. O.”
I was curious about The Graveyard Book after reading Coraline last month, and after it won the Newbery I knew I had to read it right away. The Graveyard Book is excellent; I couldn’t put it down. I’d like to read Kipling’s The Jungle Book now too, as Neil Gaiman has frequently noted that it was his source of inspiration for this book. There are many great interviews with Neil floating around now, including this one on School Library Journal where he’s interviewed by The Horn Book’s Roger Sutton.
Comfort Me With Apples is the second memoir by Ruth Reichl. I read her first, Tender at the Bone, last month. I have a weakness for good memoirs about chefs or food critics. This month (March) I’ve also just finished her third book, Garlic and Sapphires, about the years when she was the food critic for the New York Times and would dress up in elaborate disguises to visit restaurants on a fair playing field. She has a fourth book, Not Becoming My Mother, coming out in April. There’s an author event for it at Barnes and Noble, and I’m really excited to meet her.
Sima’s Undergarments for Women was an impulse buy at Strand, it was in their 50% off review book section. Here’s the description from Publisher’s Weekly:
In Brooklyn’s Borough Park, Sima Goldner runs a bra shop from her basement while tolerating her oafish husband, Lev, who lords over the upstairs. But when young and beautiful Israeli expatriate Timna takes the gig as the shop’s seamstress, Sima confronts some long-hidden feelings, fears and impulses, and her formerly small life opens up. From the very first page, this is an assured narrative with an even surer voice; readers will know that they are in the hands of a real storyteller as Sima and Timna forge a partnership. Neighborhood subplots bubble along nicely as Stanger-Ross charts Sima’s awakening and shows how Timna’s arrival and continued presence affect Sima. The bra shop works wonderfully as a stage and forum for the many ladies who tromp through it. This ends up being much more than a novel of female bonding—it’s a subtly powerful treatise on friendship, trust and love, written with plenty of verve.
I did enjoy this book, and I read the entire thing on one fabulously lazy Sunday. I don’t read a lot of new books right when they come out (unless they are by an author I’ve read before). They usually have to put in their time on my shelves and wait for their turn, which could be months or years. But Sima’s Undergarments for Women must have received a wildcard spot, because it actually got read by me in the same month it was published. :)
I wrote earlier about how I decided to read The Thorn Birds, and I’m happy to report back that I was not disappointed. It was a lovely book. I do recommend it, especially if you’re in the mood for an engrossing, epic story that spans several generations. It was nice to read a novel set in Australia too. For some reason I don’t think I’ve read many novels set there. The last paragraph is now one of my favorite last paragraphs I’ve ever read, although it’s definitely not as meaningful without reading the entire book.
I have so many wonderful quotes and lines from Bird by Bird underline, starred, or circled. I will write a post soon with my favorites. It’s a fantastic book. Good reading whether or not you aspire to be a writer.
I’ve been wanting to read A Long Way From Chicago for a long time. I’m (very) slowly working on my goal reading all the Newbery Award and Newbery Honor books. A Long Way From Chicago is a 1999 Newbery Honor book, and its sequel, A Year Down Yonder, won the Newbery Medal in 2001. A Long Way From Chicago was very good, it’s a novel told in short stories – each story is about one week every summer when a brother and sister from Chicago head out to the country to their grandmother’s farm. They have many adventures, and their grandma is a fantastic character, very feisty and not afraid to cause a little ruckus in town when need be. I’m looking forward to reading the sequel.
Short Stories Read
“Al Roosten” by George Saunders (from the New Yorker, February 2, 2009)
…It appears I need to greatly increase my short story reading if I want to meet my goal of 52 short stories read this year. I’m always excited when I see a new short story by George Saunders in the New Yorker, and it’s always the first thing I read.
(This post was brought over from emilyw.vox.com. Click here for the original post and comments.)
