Books I read in October:

Princess on the Brink by Meg Cabot. Princess Diaries Volume VIII. I've stuck with Princess Diaries through seven books now, mostly because they're hilarious, but this eighth one almost made me stop reading the series. It showed an immaturity and prudishness I don't find commendable in a young adult book. Protagonist Mia refuses to say the word "penis," but instead refers to them as "it." She calls sex "Doing It." She says that the idea of seeing a penis grosses her out. Mia gets totally riled and upset when she discovers her boyfriend had sex with someone before he and Mia had gotten together.

Mia is 16. She was raised by a hippie mother not characterized as a prude. In my opinion, Mia does not accurately reflect many teens today, especially the set she is supposed to belong to. And while I don't think that books should be full of role models for the readers (what a bore), I can only feel that Cabot's book is upholding sexist views of feminine purity.

However, the book was redeemed when Mia's best friend Lily goes on a rant about virginity being an outdated patriarchal concept. You are forgiven, Meg Cabot.

Cupid Doesn't Flip Hamburgers by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones. 12^th book in The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids. I used to love these as a kid. They sort of define my childhood. They get me in the proper mindset for Halloween.

Most of Phaedrus by Plato. Philosophy and flirtation, a win-win situation. For Critical Theory.

Timaeus by Plato. For Critical Theory.

Skeletons Don't Play Tuba by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones. 11^th book in The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids.

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. The last book in the quartet, this was my way of transitioning from my young adult kick to my Halloween reading. It seems when it comes to Twilight no one is impartial; you either love it or despise it, and many people despise it and make it the butt of their jokes without having even read it. So I'm here to take the middle ground.
Within the first chapter or two of the last book in the Twilight series I seriously considered not reading it after all. The Twilight books have a bad rep for a reason.

There's all together too much whispering in the book. And heartthrob Edward may be physical perfection, but it seems Meyer forgot to give him a personality. So bland. I won't even go into the sexism issue in the books.

Every time a character made a joke, I would be surprised to find myself laughing. Or if Meyer had a good metaphor, I'd be like Wow.

I stuck with the book, and about midway it switched from Bella's perspective to Jake's. Jake is a werewolf, and I am so down with the werewolves. Jake has much more personality than Bella or Edward. Suddenly the book had me. I wanted to do nothing but read it. I realized I hadn't given Meyer enough credit. For all of her problems, she can spin a good plot. And she’s funny.

When it switched back to Bella's point of view, it bogged down again. Back into sappy teenage vampire romance. But after the first few pages of that, it picked up once more. I finished it feeling quite satisfied. I really enjoyed it.

Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas. This was for Lyric Essay. Due to a mix-up with the syllabus, I read the second half before I read the first half of the book. But I really loved it. I don’t know if I would have loved it as much if I’d read it in the proper order, however. Yeah, I still might have. I’ve gotten Ryn to read it and I’ve leant it to Chris and I plan to lend it to my mom too.

Maybe three stories from Virago Book of Ghost Stories.

Some of "Boy Under Darkness" by Mervyn Peake. It’s a short story, but I’ve been reading it for a while. I read a few pages at breakfast. Keenan lent me the book.

Monsters Don't Scuba Dive by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones. 14^th book in The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids.

Dracula Doesn't Drink Lemonade by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones. 16^th book in The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids.

Sections from The Practical Writer, as well as a number of articles for Editing and Publishing.

Lyric essays by Lia Purpura, Eula Biss, and Sherman Alexie. Purpura’s “Autopsy Report” was a good autumnal read. It reminded me of the year I was in the Death and Dying class and visited the morgue.

Excerpts from Saint Augustine, Aristotle, and Nietzsche for Critical Theory. It felt good to be reading Nietzsche again.

In September I read and completed:

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson.

Beautiful. Each word delicate yet heavy. I’d been reading it since March, and I want to continue reading it, picking it up while at a lake, at night, on a train, or whenever the wind tells me to.

Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television by Nadia Bolz-Weber.

"I guess you could pretty much slap the label Christian on any genre of show by praying at the end and--poof!--there's a whole market lining up to consume your product. What kind of 'Christian' show could we pitch that is just a low-budget copy, but at the end we pray?"

"Porn," Jerry says without missing a beat.

"Hey, that Leviticus 15 bit might come in real handy," agrees Sara.

In which Pastor Bolz-Weber and various friends watch Trinity Broadcasting Network for 24 hours straight. Both funny and thoughtful, with Nadia's trademark sarcasm and cynicism. It’s full of "body builders and prosperity preachers, cartoons and menopausal evangelicals."

Nadia is the pastor at House of All Sinners and Saints. I saw Nadia at Holden Village this summer. I went to her first session the day I decided to break up with Chris, and just needed something to keep me occupied. Nadia definitely came at a good time, gave me something to get really interested in. And as Amy and I discussed later, she renewed our pride in being Lutheran.

This book has been making the rounds between the Crosses and Dutchers. Nadia wrote to Joann Cross in the front, “Go forth and break some shit for the Lord!”

Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake.

The second of the series. Absolutely fantastic. For more details, see here.

Sprout by Dale Peck.

This book started me out on a young adult kick. It caught my eye in the Bellingham Library, so I took it home. Started it one night after work and didn’t put it down except to sleep. It reminds me of John Green’s books, which means it was nerdfightery, quirky, poignant, and generally good.

This book’s timing is impeccable: it reveals things at exactly the right moment; its foreshadowing is wonderfully subtle. Sprout says in the very first sentence that he has a secret, but scattered throughout the novel he reveals other secrets, ones you hadn’t expected, though you had known something was up.

The Departure by K.A. Applegate.

#19 in the Animorphs Series. I loved these when I was a kid. I still dig them.

Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer.

Really fabulous. An alternative history pleasantly similar to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, even has Lord Byron in it. It’s like Jane Austen plus magic. Austen but more playful and slightly more risque. A Mysterious Marquis, a fake marriage, an enchanted chocolate pot: Could it get any better?

I suggest you read Katie’s blog post on it.

Paper Towns by John Green.

There are a thousand ways to look at it: maybe the strings break, or maybe our ships sink, or maybe we’re grass—our roots so interdependent that no one is dead as long as someone is still alive. We don’t suffer from a shortage of metaphors, is what I mean. But you have to be careful which metaphor you choose, because it matters. If you choose the strings, then you’re imagining a world in which you can become irreparably broken. If you choose the grass, you’re saying that we are all infinitely interconnected, that we can use these root systems not only to undertand one another but to become one another. The metaphors have implications.

Reading the first half of this novel, I was like Yeah, John Green is pretty funny. He’s good, but not great. But by the end of the novel I was like Oh yeah. John Green is great. John Green at his funniest and at his most poignant.

To me this book carried off where his first novel, Looking for Alaska, left off. While reading Paper Towns I had the same problem with it that I’d had with Looking for Alaska, that the heroine was more myth than real person, but by the end of Paper Towns it seemed that it was a rebuttle to Looking for Alaska, recognizing the myth and looking past it to the real person.

There is more I want to say, more praise I have to give, but it would either not make sense unless you’ve read the book or it would be a spoiler if you plan to read it. Again, I shall direct you to Katie's blog.

I also read some of:

Ulysses

StringTown

Missouri Review

Dear Professor Trueblood,

I am a senior at Fairhaven College concentrating in Publishing, Creative Writing, and a Cultural Perspective on Western Literature. Last year I was an editor of InkSpeak and this year I am an associate editor of Jeopardy. So that you can further acquaint yourself with me, I shall briefly discuss my views on literature, my reading tastes, and my own writing.

I think a main purpose of literature is entertainment. I also think a primary purpose is to communicate and share the human experience. With the invention of the internet the ways we entertain ourselves and the ways we communicate have changed dramatically. People my age were the first to have MySpace while they were in high school. People from all walks of life use Twitter; authors are tweeting books in 140-character increments. I read an article that argued online RPGs (role-playing games) are interactive stories people create together and that RPG players are our new storytellers.

However, I prefer a traditional book in my hand to the online world at my fingertips. Elements I appreciate in books include beautiful language, humor, romance, and the extraordinary or supernatural. When I say extraordinary or supernatural, this could be a book in the fantasy genre, or even a realistic fiction that captures the wonder and mystery of life. Examples: In Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, a much cherished book, each word is delicate yet heavy, the wonder and mystery of life captured in poetic language. Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake, another favorite, has delicious florid prose, humor, just a touch of romance, and a rich surreal quality.

To get an idea of my reading tastes we can look at data I have been keeping track of over the last five years. Since 2004, I have read 130 fantasy and sci-fi books, 77 manga, and 38 realistic-fiction books. In the top three categories of what I have read in 2009 we have eighteen plays, eight non-fiction books (including creative non-fiction), and seven fantasy and sci-fi books. Genres I frequent include fantasy, chick lit, young adult literature, and magical realism. I also read children’s books and poetry.

At twelve my favorite series was The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind. At seventeen my favorite book was This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Books I’ve read over and over again are the Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate. A book I have long meant to read but have not yet gotten to is Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past.

The hardest book I ever read was Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein. I studied it for a month and decided no one really knows what Stein was trying to say (as much as they like to expound on it), but that doesn’t stop me from being really excited about the book and calling it a favorite.

And let us not neglect poetry. I read a goodly amount of it, including a number of poetry magazines. Three favorite poets are James Bertolino, Issa, and Frank O’Hara. A favorite anthology is A Book of Luminous Things.

To give you the most up-to-date information on my reading: In the last week I thoroughly enjoyed Sorcery and Cecilia, or, the Enchanted Chocolate Pot. I read some of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, but it just wasn’t up to par. This week I am in a young adult kick, reading such work as Paper Towns by John Green and Sprout by Dale Peck. I read Animorphs before bed; the familiarity calms my mind. To further illustrate my recent reading habits: The other night I decided to have a long hot bath. Books go very well with baths, so I asked myself: Should I bring to the tub Joyce’s Ulysses, which I am working my way through, or Breaking Dawn, the last Twilight book which I need to read to finish the quartet?

My guiltiest pleasure, if you could even call it a pleasure, is Meyer’s Twilight series; halfway through each book I throw it away in disgust, but I always go back to finish it. These books speak to the fourteen-year-old still inside me; and as a pretentious English major, sometimes most of the fun of reading a book is being able to wax poetic on its many faults, which is certainly the case for Twilight.

I wouldn’t feel this letter were complete without mentioning a few more books and authors: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel by Susanna Clark, Perfume by Patrick Suskind, Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, Celine by Brock Cole, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, Angela Carter, Douglas Adams, Ray Bradbury, and Neil Gaiman.

As for my own writing: at the moment I mostly write poetry, creative nonfiction, and blogs, but I also write short and long fiction as well as children’s books. I think of myself as a storyteller by nature, always creating stories behind the settings I am in and the people I see, narration constantly running through my head. A professor has called my writing character driven; I feel that I heavily rely on the beauty of my language.

Flipping through an encyclopedia is often a good way to get inspired. Bodies of knowledge that inform my writing include botany, zoology, gastronomy, and mythology. The natural world often informs my poetry. This summer I wrote a fairy tale which required me to look through a cookbook. I have heavily researched ancient Mesopotamia both for a novel I was working on at fourteen and a completely different novel at 19.

I hope this letter proves helpful and I look forward to working with you in class.

Sincerely,

Books I Completed in August:
A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry. Edited by Czslaw Milosz. A very good anthology, although Milosz’ introductions to poems weren't good.

The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk. A post-apocalyptic novel showing two possible futures: an oppressed and environmentally-devastated one, or a peaceful and environmentally-sustainable one. Interesting characters, engaging plot, thought provoking, sometimes too idealistic in my opinion, some style imperfections, but overall a very good read.

Shallow Water Dictionary by John R. Stilgoe. I was assigned this for Stan Tag’s Words class back in fall ’06, but didn’t read all of it. I felt it was the sort of thing that I should read among shallow water. So this summer when I went to my family’s duck shack on the estuaries of the Skagit River I immersed myself in Stilgoe’s discussions of flotsam and jetsam, streams versus brooks, guzzles, and wunnauanounuckquese. A good quick read for those who loves words or those who love to explore the shallow water places (I love both).

Julie & Julia by Julie Powell. Powell calls herself histrionic, and that is what this book is. Not an unenjoyable read for food lovers.

Finding Water, Holding Stone by James Bertolino. I love Bertolino’s poetry. It’s fantastic. And that’s all there is to say about that.

Abhorsen by Garth Nix. Third of a trilogy. Nix’s language does not impress, but he sure does weave a good plot.

Richard Hittleman’s Yoga 28 Day Exercise Plan. One of the books I got from Woody. I completed all 28 days on Sunday! I have trouble sticking to things, so it’s kind of awesome.

Stuff I’ve read parts of:

The Sensuous Man by M. I spent a day reading this on Janine’s floor, reading good bits out loud and demonstrating various excercises. I am now an exceedingly sensuous man, prepared to deflower virgins at a moment's notice, armed with the best pick-up lines around, proficient in hip thrusts and tongue waggles. Really though, it was a pretty good book.

Marge Piercy’s poems.

Picked up Ulysses again.

Working through Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake.

Assorted poetry from various sources.

Magazines I’ve read, skimmed, or looked at the recipes of:

Vegetarian Times July/August 2006 and November/December 2006

Martha Stewart Living September 2009

Poetry July/August 2009

Poets and Writers July/August 2009

Cookbooks:

The Fannie Farmer Cookbook by Marion Cunningham.

The Big Book of Juices and Smoothies by Natalie Savona.

Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

The Bread Book by Linda Collister and Anthony Blake.

The All-Natural Sugar-Free Dessert Cookbook by Linda Romanelli Leahy.

Blogs I Follow (other than LiveJournal):

yours, et cetera. Being primarily concerned with books and music; being the the blog of Ms. Katie Hartman, my beloved roommate.

The Adventures of Amy. Being primarily concerned with the life of one Amy Cross at Holden Village; being the blog of the Head of the Snack Bar and Pool Hall, Chief Ice Cream Scooper, Occasional Barrista, and my dear dear friend.

Whole Wheat. Being primarily concerned with music; being the blog of Ms. Jennifer Hartman, former director of KUGS radio, esteemed sister of Ms. Katie Hartman.


You are as young as your spine is flexible.
-Yogic adage

Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.
-James Joyce with one of the best character introductions I've read, from Ulysses

"A liqueur of complex composition, made by Carthusian monks, esp. formerly at La Grande Chartreuse. Balm leaves, orange peel, hyssop, peppermint, etc., and various spices are said to be used in its manufacture. Of the three qualities, green, yellow, and white, the first is the most valued and the yellow is the sweetest..."
"A color, yellow in hue, of medium saturation and high brilliance. It is less red and of higher saturation and brilliance than canary yellow..."
Charting the definitions of chartreuse becomes anachronistic, like pulling a boat against wind and tide...
"Other colors--such as shades of chartreuse, lime, pink, and orange--may not reproduce so well. It would be possible to design a film that would reproduce these colors better, but then some of the more important colors would suffer..."
Everywhere along the creeks clumps of marshgrass fall from the steep banks into the channels, sinking to the grayish-black muddy bottom and waving their stems in the current. After several days the blades of grass, dying from too much immersion, turn chartreuse in color. At high tide, as Essay glides above them, they swirl like tropical anemones. Uncharted and unphotographable, but chartreuse beyond a doubt.
-John R. Stilgoe on one of my favorite colors, from Shallow Water Dictionary.


 

Yesterday Woody asked me if I like books. "You don't know by now?"

What I've been reading:

June

The Tuesday Erotica Club by Lisa Beth Kovetz.

Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story by Christopher Moore.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel by Susanna Clark. Fantastic! It weaves together low fantasy, social comedy à la Jane Austen, and fairy tales. Deliciously long and dense, humorous, full of footnotes, and Lord Byron is a character. How could I not love it? I have nothing but praise for this book. (Just discovered there is a subgenre called “fantasy of manners.”)

Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones. Jones tells a good yarn. She remains a beloved author, although at the end of her books I often feel like I’m missing something.

July

Deerskin by Robin McKinley. Good, but overdramatic at times.

Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley.

Caravan by Dorothy Gilman. Originally read this in elementary school.

In the Forests of the Night by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. I loved Atwater-Rhodes when I was 14, and since Katie and I are on a vampire kick I thought I’d give it another try. Turns out they’re really bad. Repetitive and immature (both in style and content), but they cater to a teenage girl’s fantasies (the author was 13 when she wrote her first book, afterall). But they’re super-quick, so I read a couple for nostalgia’s sake.

Demon in My View by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes.

Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore.

The Art of Departure: Poems by Susan J. Erickson. Local poet. I love her stuff.

Also been reading some of Joyce's Ulysses and Bertolino's Finding Water, Holding Stone.

What I Read in May

Nadja by Anton Breton. For school.

Wise Children by Angela Carter.

“The Wasteland” by T.S. Eliot. For school.

Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein.  For school.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. For school.

La casa de Bernarda Alba por Federico Garcia Lorca. Para la escuela.

Plus many a children’s book, excerpts from Well of Loneliness and Despised and Rejected, “Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street”, assorted poetry, criticism of Stein, and some creative non-fic essays.

Begetting

Some believe
spiders hatch their eggs
by staring at them

I believe
by staring at this page
I will hatch a poem.

-Rosalee van Stelten

Books Completed in April

Sunshine by Robin McKinley.  I hadn’t thought a vampire story would be a good read for Spring, but one can be proven wrong.  This was sort of refreshing for a vampire story.  I also love that the main character is a baker.  This book makes me crave cinnamon rolls like nobody’s business.

San Manuel Bueno, Martir by Unamuno.  For Spanish class.

The Rose Revived by Kate Fford.

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie.  The first Christie I’ve read; it had its strengths and weaknesses.

And many a short work by people such as F.T. Marinetti, Mina Loy, Ezra Pound, Rebecca West, Tristan Tzara, Andrea Barrett, Billy Collins, David James Duncan, Maxine Hong Kingston, Pico Iyer.

Books I Read in March

The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq.  For school.  I quite enjoyed it.

The Samurai Swordsman by Stephen Turnbull.  For school.

Helen by Euripides.  For school.

Iphigenia in Taurus by Euripides.  For school.

Heroes of the Valley by Jonathan Stroud.  Has a subtler version of the humor I enjoyed in Stroud’s Bartimaeus. 

Harp of Burma by Michio Takeyama.  For school.

The Bacchae by Euripides.  For school.

Hyppolytus by Euripides.  For school.

Medea by Euripides.  For school.

The Passion by Jeannette Winterson.  I recommend it.  I loved it at first--the beautiful language, compelling characters, magical realism—but by the end it was like Winterson had showed us all her tricks and it seemed sort of tedious.

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore.  Mr. Moore, you make my laugh so much.

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.  Fantastic.  I thought this book a good spring break read to get me in the mood for Mary’s Children’s Books class, and so it was, but it turns out we’re reading it in class.

I forgot to mention this in an earlier post, but in January I also read Aristotle’s Poetics.

Yesterday I taped a piece of paper over the clock.

It makes me smile how excited Chris gets about Camus’ Sisyphus.

I showed Chris my pictures from Holden Village.

Have Read in January and February

The Orestia by Aeschylus (Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides).  For school.

Apology by Plato.  For school.

Stop in the Name of Pants! by Louise Rennison.  The ninth book of the Confessions of Georgia Nicholson.

Hana Kimi 19-21 by Hisaya Nakajo.

Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus.  For school.

Selections from Punish and Discipline by Foucault.  For school.

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles.  For school.

Oedipus Colonus by Sophocles.  For school.

Antigone by Sophocles.  For school.

Ecce Homo by Nietzsche.  For school.

Elektra by Sophocles.  For school.

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense by Nietszche.  For school.

Electra by Euripides.  For school.

The Fall by Albert Camus.  For school.

Hana Kimi 22 by Hisaya Nakajo.

Musui’s Story by Katsu Kokichi..  For school.

Alcestis by Euripides.  For school.

Iphegenia at Aulis by Euripides.  For school.

A sign on our mailboxes
 

Today for second lunch I had a sandwich containing dijon mustard, romaine lettuce, avocado, red bell pepper, and red onion.

This morning I dreamed that when Chris got out of bed, he went on my computer and looked at my LJ.  When I found out, I was displeased.  Later in the dream, Ray told me she could only meet me at 9 AM, when I have class.

My cat Ryn is so cute.  At night, if we are alone she comes in my room and purrs.  But if Chris comes over she hisses and runs away.  I always find her socks in my laundry.

After reading books and the like, it is best to burn them or throw them away.

-Hagakure, Chapter 1