Beach Reads (or Infinite Jest and a Bikini Body)

There is a meme going around today about Beach Reads.  I've skimmed a few of the posts, and as I suspected, most people are focusing on lighter reads - quick paced, shorter, engaging but easy to pop in and out of.

I guess I feel differently.  When I make it to the beach, I have more time to read than ever before.  Hours at a time, when I'm lucky.  The waves and the wind and a book.  Why wouldn't I use that opportunity to read something hefty; something that made me think?

A few years ago, I brought Gravity's Rainbow along with me on a cruise.  It is pictured here on a somewhat sandy towel and drying flippers from snorkeling.  I picked this book to read during swimming breaks, and because of that I'll always remember Pynchon being in that atmosphere (until I read it again.)

There have been a few bloggers talking about a "bikini body" lately, at least in the world of blogs I follow.  Their posts are along the lines of, "Want a bikini body? Put a bikini ON YOUR BODY."  The fearless blogger that drives the point home best (illustrated) is the Militant Baker in her post "How to Get a Sexy Swimsuit Body in Under 5 Minutes!"

This summer, my main read is Infinite Jest.  If I go to the beach, it will become my beach read.  It has also been my dentist read, my coffee shop read, my nail-drying read.  As I mentioned before, I am reading it inside of a vibrant community of readers all summer long. 

Okay, if it makes you feel better, I'll give it a bikini.

There you go!  Now David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest is ready to be a beach read.  Pick up a copy for your vacation today!

Embarking on a Summer of Jest

The last time I read and blogged a mighty tome, it was the late summer of Ulysses in 2011. It was a satisfying experience, more so just to finally finish it, and this summer, starting today, I am finally going to read Infinite Jest

I am not going to go it alone.  Summer of Jest was started by one ambitious reader, a similar project to Infinite Summer of 2009, and it quickly spread.  Now it is a presence in a blog, in Twitter, in Facebook, and Goodreads.  I've talked a few people into joining me, so we'll see how long they stick around.  If you stumble across this blog post, you may join us too!

I thought I'd start out by discussing my previous experience with David Foster Wallace.  I had him on my to-read list before he died in September of 2008, prompted by a friend whose opinion on books I value very highly, but his passing prompted me to get started. 

My first book of his was Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, which I read in October of 2008. The most memorable essay from this volume is the title essay.  It exposes that lobsters actually do feel pain, and die excruciating deaths when they are going to be eaten.  I have spent the last twelve years fluctuating between veganism, vegetarianism, and eating fish, but I'm not sure I've actually consumed lobster since reading that essay.  He is a powerful non-fiction writer, who isn't afraid to include his own experience as part of the narrative.

A month later in November 2008, I read A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, which I posted a review of in Goodreads.  The title essay was about cruises, and I'd had enough cruising experience to know exactly where he was coming from.  At the time, I felt it was strange to have a self-confessed agoraphobe writing about experiences that most people get enjoyment out of because of the people in the situation, and his discomfort allows for a severe critique of many of these circumstances.  At the same time, there is humor mixed in with the sardonic treatment of state fairs and media, which makes for an enjoyable experience.  The cover picture is also pretty memorable.

Another month later in December 2008, I read The Broom of the System.  This is David Foster Wallace's first novel, which he wrote while still in college.  After reading the darker, more serious essays, I was pleased to find myself laughing throughout this novel.  The G.O.D. (Great Ohio Desert) and the family relationships are just part of the highly enjoyable reading experience.  Even back then it had hints of the potential for highly complicated storytelling technique, but this novel only has embedded stories, no footnotes or endnotes.

I bought Infinite Jest for myself not too long after this point.  But I didn't read it.  My friend who had recommended him in the first place made it clear I was "not yet ready" to read Infinite Jest, and sent me off to read a bunch of other post-modern authors in the meantime.  I'm not sure I'm ready now, but more on that later.

The last book I've read by David Foster Wallace isn't really a book, but a commencement speech repurposed into a book, one I picked up and read in May 2012.  It is probably his best known piece of work to the majority of the population - This is Water.

You can actually listen to him giving the speech in its entirety here:

I can't read the book version, I can't listen to his speech, without tearing up.  It is all about how if you can think of life the right way, you can get through it and even grow.  But he took his own life, so it makes me sad that despite this being his message, he couldn't make it through himself.

My favorite little bit follows, and is a good example of how Wallace writes, and honestly this particular passage reminds me of my favorite bits of another book, Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon:

"But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars - compassion, love, the subsurface unity of all things." 

Perhaps there has been enough time for me to separate David Foster Wallace's greatest work from the way his life ending.  Perhaps I have done enough homework and other reading that this won't serve as an impossible challenge.  Or perhaps this, like other books I have abandoned, will prove to be just another supposedly fun thing I'll never do again.  Wallace would understand either way.  So here I go!

Five from NetGalley

I've been working through my list of approved titles in NetGalley by expiration date (reading the next to expire first).   If you are a book blogger or librarian and haven't signed up for an account, you should give it a try.  I only ask for books that I'm interested in, and if I'm not into what I try, I don't feel bad about setting it aside and letting the publisher know why.  I don't always get approved for everything I ask for, and that's okay too.  I only sign up for what I actually think I want to read, so I hope that helps.

Books from NetGalley are usually either review copies and so far unpublished, a pre-published draft, or a recently published title that they are trying to get extra press for.  Sometimes I'll read a book I really like months before it comes out.  This happened with The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes.  I read and reviewed it in February, but it won't come out until June 4th in the USA.

In the past month, I have tried five books, but only finished four.  I thought I'd run through the titles in case someone who reads this blog sees something they might want to try too. 

The Yonahlosee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani
Publication Date: June 4, 2013 (USA)
Brief Description: A lush, sexy, evocative debut novel of family secrets and girls’-school rituals, set in the 1930s South.
My rating: 3/5 stars
What I liked: The setting (1930s Appalachia, girls camp), honest discussion of teenage sexuality, how the author keeps important details from the reader for most of the book.
Who I'd recommend it to: People who liked St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell (although it has less magic and more reality).

The First Rule of Swimming by Courtney Angela Brkic
Publication Date: May 28, 2013 (USA)
Brief Description: A woman must leave her island home to search for her missing sister-and confront the haunted history of her family.
My rating: 4/5 stars
What I liked: I'm interested in stories set in the Balkans, especially those that deal with the rebuilding or immigration of families. The story revolves around a mystery that travels between a tiny island in Croatia and New York City.
Who I'd recommend it to: People who have read The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht, or anyone wanting to read more books set in the Balkans!

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Publication Date: March 12, 2013 (USA)
Brief Description: In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox.
My rating: 3/5 stars
What I liked: Another cold weather island, the recent connection to the tsunami, the intertwining stories.
Who I'd recommend it to: Someone who likes the slightly bizarre attempts of a lot of Japanese authors to infiltrate reality with touches of magic (or in this case, quantum reality).

Sea Change by S.M. Wheeler
Publication Date: June 18, 2013
Brief Description: The unhappy child of two powerful parents who despise each other, young Lilly turns to the ocean to find solace, which she finds in the form of the eloquent and intelligent sea monster Octavius, a kraken.
My rating: N/A, I stopped halfway through
Who I'd recommend it to: Anyone obsessed with the kraken, and I know you're out there.  People who enjoy fantasy novels and are looking for a different take or setting, especially those who don't mind quests and magic and spells.

Glass House 51 by John Hampell
Publication Date: March 23, 2013
Brief Description: Information on an individual can be so comprehensive, so insidiously granular and minute, that folks can become information “specimens” kept by perverse “collectors” . . . like butterflies in a virtual bottle.
My rating: 3/5 stars
What I liked: Short chapters make for a quick read, and the beginning with the introduction of the world (programmers, virtual spaces, etc) had me hooked that I read the first 300 pages keeping me up until 3 am.  Ultimately I'm not sure it paid off, but it had a strong start.
Who I'd recommend it to: People who have enjoyed Cory Doctorow's almost-fiction like Little Brother or Pirate Cinema (but I'm not going to make the comparison of 1984 that the author is hoping for).

Bookstore Review: Parnassus Books

When I was in Nashville for a conference, I made time to visit Parnassus Books, owned by author Ann Patchett.  Ann is the author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto, among others.

The store is beautiful, and I was there shortly after opening on a Thursday and it was pretty busy!  There is a small room with cookbooks and travel writing, and a carved out space for children and YA.  In front of that is a beautiful art book section, more in-depth than most bookstores.  While science fiction and fantasy are relegated to the back of the store (why do stores do this?), there is also a substantial section of music books.  When in Nashville....

The author has handwritten recommendation cards throughout the store, which was a nice touch.  A few of the cards are also written by her staff, but the majority seemed to be Patchett.  I bet this sells quite a few volumes!  There was a nice section of local authors, but my favorite feature was probably the shelves of local book club picks.  What a great idea, and a service to the community (also probably selling quite a few books.)

As someone living in the southeast, I know how few authors bother to come down to visit the readers down here.  It is really unfortunate, but clearly having a known author as a bookstore owner has made a difference at Parnassus Books, just check out this line-up:

 

Maria Semple! Isabel Allende!? Augusten Burroughs! Jess Walter! I wish I lived closer. I didn't buy a book.  I didn't buy a $15 poster of the store either.  I was in the mood to produce, not consume, so I bought an empty journal to fill up with my own words.

Book Speed-Dating Report

Last Sunday, I took a picture of all the books I had on hand from the first/earliest page of my GoodReads To-Read list.  I pledged to speed-date all of them before May 1 and report back.  I sat and read 30-50 pages of each one* and I'm ready to delete a few from my to-read list!

First of all, the date that surprised me the most - The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing.  I have had a copy of this for at least four years, probably longer, and kept not even trying it because of its heft.  The 50 pages went quickly and I actually hated to stop reading - the female characters are strong and pass the Bechdel Test (I know that's a film concept, but it stuck out enough to me even in a novel to make note of it).  They talk to each other in a similar way to how I talk to my friends.  I immediately told a few of them to find a copy so we could read it together.  This book is definitely the equivalent to a girls night out, at least so far.  And when a man comes along, there isn't any moving over or backing down.  Consider this retort, which has a lot of retaliation embedded in it:

"Or perhaps what it is you don't like is that I do know what I want, have always been prepared to experiment, never pretend to myself the second rate is more than it is, and know when to refuse. Hmmmm?"  

Haha, this will be a fun read.  I will definitely be calling this one back.

Other good dates included Matrimony by Joshua Henkin, which looks to be an easy read; Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, and Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks.  Oliver Sacks is like the lonely guy who hasn't had anyone to talk to for a while, but has a lot of trivia to entertain his dates with, and hey, I'll bite.  Loving Frank is a compelling mixture of historical figure and fictional memoir that is easy to read.  I feel like I'll finish it feeling I learned something about Frank Lloyd Wright while simultaneously questioning everything I've learned, and that it will make me want to read even more about him.

I did have a few books I will not be calling back.  I feel the need to say that this is not exactly a judgment on the book, but that it is not a match for me.  Some reader out there will be much happier with it, and I release it back into the dating *cough* reading pool. 

My only other qualm is that the majority of what I'm rejecting is all books of short stories, and perhaps I'm just not in the mood for short stories.  Maybe I will be someday! Maybe I should hold on to - NO.  The entire point is to clean out the list.  So the books I'm rejecting completely are only three out of the fourteen.  Not the best odds if my only goal was to delete a book from the list, but not too shabby when you consider their careful consideration.  Those books include The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits by Emma Donoghue - this is the second book I've tried from Donoghue's earlier period, and it just goes soundly under the category of "not my thing."  The time period feels too forced to me, and I don't like lengthy descriptions of ribbons.  The subject matter of the first story didn't settle very well with me either, so it was an easy one to put aside.  I'm also rejecting Mothers and Sons by Colm Toibin because I didn't connect with it, and Rabbit, Run by John Updike because I KNOW THIS IS A CLASSIC BUT I JUST CAN'T MAKE MYSELF READ IT.  Feel free to try to talk me down.  This is the second time I've tried this book, basically I told him to go home and shower and get a haircut, and tried a trade paperback as an upgrade from my previous mass market paperback.  It didn't help. I can't stand the main character, ugh.

The rest of the books from the previous pile, I'm going to keep reading.*  I might postpone Children of God for a bit because it was too intense for where I am at the moment.

*Okay one book I cancelled the date with.  I have read the first few pages before, I remember a tennis match, but I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to see him again so soon.  So his mother continues to guilt trip me when he sees me at the laundromat.  "We're perfect for each other," she insists. 

Maybe someday.

The End of the Affair

Stories Read:
"The End of the Affair" by Graham Greene

This one is on my novella list. It pushes the definition of "novella", for certain. The Penguin edition softcover I have runs 191 pages, and the audio version I have was 6.5 hours long.

That audio version, by the way, was as good as it gets. I was reading it in print, but had a two hour drive ahead of me. I was engrossed and didn't want to stop reading, so I looked it up on Audible. I am so glad I did that! They have a version of it in their A-List collection, read by Colin Firth. It's been a long while since I was this enthralled with an audiobook. The narrative style is perfect for reading aloud, and Colin Firth was an inspired choice to narrate. I did not pick up the print version again. 5 stars!

There was a lot of Catholic stuff in this short novel, which interested me greatly. Wikipedia says: "The End of the Affair is the fourth and last of Greene's explicitly Catholic novels." It doesn't list the other three, but I'll seek them out when I'm finished reading this list of novellas.

There are also two film versions of the book, and I know I contradict myself when I say that I'd like to see them, especially the 1999 film with Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore. I'm not sure what to expect from these versions. I suppose the story could easily be bent to be a defense of the affair, as if we are all just helpless victims of the strong tides of our desires. The story is deeply reflective and extremely well-written. I can't imagine how those things would come across in film, and I wonder if the filmmakers succeeded.

My interest in the book was the characters, and their mindsets. How they justify things, how they know it must end, how their knowledge of the wrongness affects them, even as they try to convince themselves that it's right. How they think about God was especially intriguing. I was immersed from the first scene, which was a chance meeting between a man who had been having an affair with his mistress's husband, who suspects a thing or two.

I know next to nothing about Graham Greene, which is part of the fun of reading lists. I liked this quite a bit.

Next on the novella list is "The Alchemist" by Paolo Coelho. On the short story list, I have Vance, Wolfe, and Hamilton!

Bookfessions: The To-Read List

I have a confession to make.  I have somehow become a book hoarder.  I didn't set out to add this to my list of qualities, but I have an entire room full of books, most I've never read, a bin downstairs full of books I've never read, and a to-do list that has been over 1k for at least a year.

I decided to take action.  Okay, it's a slow action, and will only address thirteen of the books on my to-read list, but it is a start.  If I can do this more regularly, I might actually tackle the list instead of just adding to it.

When I log into Goodreads and look at my to-read shelf, the same twenty books stare me in the face until I search or sort them - the earliest twenty that I added as "to-read" and haven't switched over to "read" or "abandoned" yet. 

I had nine of them on hand already, and requested another six from Paperbackswap.com.  If the math seems wonky to make 13, well, I made the mistake of knowing I needed to read Mothers and Sons by Colm Tóibín but not realizing I already had a copy, so now I have two.  I also have another from that first page on its way to me via media mail, but didn't want to wait to take the picture.

Here's why: by the end of April, in nine days, I will have read at least the first chapter of every book you see in this pile.  I will decide at that point whether the book will be removed from my to-read list and traded off to someone else, or if I do indeed wish to read it.  Nancy Pearl says to give a book 50 pages, so if I'm feeling guilty I may go that far, but I have other books I want to get through this month.

Preliminary thoughts? I had planned to read Loving Frank for my Illinois pick this year, and doubt I'll decide not to continue.  Musicophilia was always a well-intentioned music/neuroscience read, but I don't tend to choose non-fiction when confronted with a stack.  The Hunting and Gathering book has no remembered pre-conceived notions, nor does Mothers and Sons, The Indian Clerk, or The Secret of Lost Things.  These I'm likely to easily discard if they don't grab me, because at this point I no longer remember why I wanted them in the first place.

Infinite Jest and Rabbit, Run are on my shoulds list so it will be harder to talk myself out of those, as well as The Golden Notebook.  Still, that doesn't mean I'll return to them right away.  I've already read the first chapter in Infinite Jest at least twice, and always end up deciding I'll wait until I have more time.  I never do.  I need to buck up and read it!  I think I've started The Little Stranger before too, and it was slow, but man is it on a lot of lists.  Perhaps people who have read farther know something I don't.

Beggars in Spain should be interesting.  I read the novella and liked it and then had a discussion-gone-wrong about it.  This might make reading it a bit cringe-worthy.  I haven't read Children of God yet because I loved The Sparrow so much, too much, and don't want to be done with that experience.  Silly reason not to read a book, liking something too much!

I am pledging to you to report back before I leave for Nashville on March 1!  Check back to see which of these books get second dates and which I don't return their phone calls....