Book #52: The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders

Book 52 is the conclusion to book plan 2007....and in the nick of time. I am excited to close out the year with Saunders's words, as I believe him to be one of the most prolific writers of our time (plus he's a hell of a nice guy). His essay collection, The Braindead Megaphone, focuses on two ideas: writing and war. Not really in that order. He talks about war in Iraq, war of borders, war of people, and war of man against himself as an individual. He meditates while freezing his ass off in Nepal and contemplates the fragility of humanity as well as its remarkable strength.

The Braindead Megaphone is also a writing handbook. In various essays he focuses directly on writing, on craft elements that are danced around in the best of workshops, and explains what's what in the writing world and how writers can best achieve their own success. He extends the handbook further into the "non-writing" essays by showing (rather than telling, yes?) how important it is to not only report events but to contemplate them. To look for and apply human experience on levels deeper than the surface, and to treat them both seriously and humorously.

George Saunders is a man who is unafraid and unapologetic about his views, yet so unassuming and modest about those views that they almost sneak up on a reader as given fact rather than one man's opinion. It is his strength of voice and conviction, an attitude of "here it is. It's mine, take it or leave it", that endeared me to him when I met him and endears me to him every time I read his work. I will read this collection of essays again, some more than others, and all for different reasons than I read them the first time.

Book #51: Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country by Louise Erdrich

I have a strange relationship with Louise Erdrich's books. Her "classic", the popular Love Medicine, is one of a handful of books I simply cannot read. I've begun it dozens of times, but every time I give up on it and put it down for something else. Other books of hers, though, I've breathed in and loved deeply.

Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country is fascinating on many levels, and its only flaw is that it isn't long enough. Erdrich only scratches the surface of herself, her love of books, her love of family, and her love of Native American tradition. The stories she tells within the pages and the people she introduces are compelling and they teach lessons that are valuable to us today.

The premise of the book is a trip she takes to meet up with the father of her newest daughter, Kiizhikok. She talks of rocks and paintings and her daughter's relationship with animals. She shares fears and joys, dreams (the nighttime kind) and does a fantastic job of explaining Ojibwe traditions without making them seem too private or internal, like readers are intruding by reading about them.

I love Erdrich's work and someday I'll read Love Medicine. Her openness in this book and her discussion of the importance of books in our world is one that I embrace as well as anyone who knows me can attest to (though I'm going to say I'm probably more of a bibliomaniac than a bibliophile, sadly).

Book #50 A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

I really, really enjoyed Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down. The premise is right up my alley: four strangers all head to the same rooftop to commit suicide on New Year's Eve. Each has their own reason, and they start to talk. The novel bounces between all four of their points of view, and Hornby did an incredible job creating four distinct personalities.

There was some very grim humor, things that no one would ever be allowed to say or do in "real life," but the whole novel has this surreal quality to it, no doubt based on the impossibility of its premise, so it works. Mixed in with the grim humor are some touches of very profound thought and several moments of sadness that took my breath away. At the end of part two, right when the reader is wondering "okay, what's going to happen in part three that hasn't happened already?" something does happen and it cast a whole different look on the characters. The moment is Reality, something that actually would happen in life, and contrasted against the farce of the overall situation it becomes a tragedy.

I would read a book featuring each of these characters individually--they were all strong enough to have earned their own novel--and I'll miss them. So much so, I think, that I may need to read the book again at some point. I have several friends who are not Hornby fans but I would definitely suggest this book to them anyway. I can't speak for his other novels, but he hit the human condition pretty aptly in this one.



And, hey, this is book 50! Go me!

Book #49: Rainlight by Alison McGhee

Alison McGhee may very well be my favorite author of the year. Hers is a style I would love to emulate, both in terms of idea and of style. Rainlight is a young adult novel told from four points of view (with a brief fifth for a few moments toward the end, the most moving point of view in the entire story). Following a tragedy, four people who are all closely related (in some cases closer than they think) all work together to help lessen the loss. Mallie is nine but extremely mature for her age, and she was, for me, the most compelling character. Her grandfather, Tim, was the other major character for me.

The novel promises that secrets will be revealed and they are, but not in any of those huge in-your-face unbelievable moments that writers can sometimes rely on. The secrets are not what's ultimately most important--McGhee keeps the focus on the characters and their lives.
Like All Rivers Flow to the Sea, McGhee's style in Rainlight was more poetic than I'm used to in fiction--particularly young adult fiction--to the point that I'm going to need to read this book again because at some points I was so caught up in the beauty of the language that the plot started to slip for me. Some of the characters and their relationships blended for me; I blame that not on lazy writing but on lazy reading.

The greatest thing about Alison McGhee is that she's in Minnesota, and is hugely active at the Loft. I'm planning to take a workshop with her in the spring on the chronology of fiction, something she's extremely artful at. Can't wait!

Let the games begin...

Christmas starts tomorrow. I got my hair done today for the occasion (yeah, it's still getting darker) and have finished buying, wrapping and bowing all of my gifts. Gatsby is heading to the PetHotel for day camp tomorrow and I am heading with Ma and Pa to Alexandria for Christmas #1.

Christmas #1 will be the most difficult. Two grandparents who don't really even know that it's Christmas. We'll get to the assisted living place at around 11; the first words out of my grandma's mouth will be regarding my hair. She'll want to know why I've ruined it (or something to that effect) and will point out a picture of me in my blonder days and remark how pretty I was. Ayuh. We'll eat some broiled chicken in the dining room (I've eaten there at least five times and have yet to eat anything besides broiled chicken. Kick ass potatoes, though) and then open presents. Grandma will be overwhelmed and Grandpa will want to take a nap. We'll take our leave at around 3pm, exhausted. Hopefully my dad and my grandma won't fight because, well, it's Christmas.

Christmas #2 is my favorite. At around 3pm on Christmas Eve I'll bundle up Gatsby and take him to my parents house. We'll have some drinks and hang out....for about eight hours. We eat dinner, open presents, eat pie, open presents, play with the dog, play with our presents, etc. I'll head home around 10pm, full, fat and tired, and totally satisfied. I might even go to midnight mass. Well, I guess for us Lutherans it's called "candlelight service." Either way, it could happen.

Christmas #3 is still up in the air in terms of its goodness. On the 25th I'll be, for the third time, trundling up to my parents' house and then to Buffalo. My aunt and grandpa are a guarantee. My cousins and my grandpa's girlfriend are optional. Cousins would be cool...grandpa's girlfriend will be a lousy way to end Christmas. She only talks about herself, and she never, ever shuts up. Every story that anyone manages to squeeze in gets turned back around to her. She squeezes my grandpa's knee and calls him "honey". This makes me gag, and gagging is not something anyone should have to do on Christmas day. If, however, Grandpa's girlfriend is not attending the festivities, then I'll get to hang with my grandpa and catch up with everything and pretend that he does not have a girlfriend. We'll open some presents either way, and at around 3pm (my whole life revolves around 3pm, yes it does) I'll head home and collapse in a satisfied heap of post-Christmas goo.

Tonight I'm still plowing through books. I'll hit 50 easily--I'm still trying to push to 55 or 60 by New Year.

Book #48: 1984 by George Orwell

Yeah yeah, I've never read 1984. But, though I may have been the last person on earth to read it, I finally did. A student nearly had an aneurysm when I told him I'd never read it and brought it to school the next day for me.

It was exactly as I thought it would be. I can't say that it was particularly horrifying or troublesome, but it was definitely compelling. I found the relationship between Winston and Julia very interesting. I've always been fascinated by (and involved with) secret affairs, and their relationship was proof that a book needs at least two characters interacting to be interesting.

I wonder if 1984 could be published today. I don't think so. I think it moves too slowly and is too heady. But, I love the concept of creating a world that could so possibly come out of the one that we have now. I love that I knew exactly where Orwell was talking about.

Overall, I'm glad I read it because it's a book everyone (especially an English teacher) should read. Did it change my life? Not so much.

Book plan 2007 is coming to an end. I want to read two more books to round out the year at 50. If I can hit 55 that would completely awesome. I'm thinking that, at this point, 100 books isn't so much going to happen.

Book #47 The Time It Takes to Fall by Margaret Lazarus Dean

The answer to the question is two minutes and forty-five seconds...the question is "How long did the Challenger astronauts fall, alive, to the earth".

The Time It Takes to Fall was recommended to me by a fellow teacher; she described it as a coming-of-age novel that takes place during the Challenger disaster in 1986. She thought I would be interested in it because everyone my age knows Challenger--it was the first major national tragedy in our memories.

The book is excellent. It's unassuming, just words written on a page to tell a story rather than trying to impress literary critics or prize committees or compete with bestsellers. It is purely story, and I loved every word of it. Delores, the main character, is 12-13 during the course of the book. Her father works for NASA and she wants to be an astronaut when she grows up. There were some parts that missed the mark--thoughts a teenager wouldn't logically think--but overall the novel is real and true to the last word.

The book also made me think about where I was on January 28, 1986. I know full where I was: in my fourth grade classroom at Cleveland Elementary in Fergus Falls. What I don't know, because I remember so little of that year, is why we did not watch the Challenger launch. I didn't see it. I don't remember any of the aftermath of it. I don't remember Regan's speech or any of the reports. I sometimes think that I'm the only person my age that wasn't sitting in a classroom in front of a television.

Or maybe I did see it, not live but at some point on the news, and filed it away in my "forget" drawer--where I put things from my childhood that I didn't quite know how to define at the time. If I could go back to one day in my life, I would choose that day. I want to know what I was doing when the shuttle exploded, why I didn't see it happen, what I thought about it. I remember thinking that Christa McAuliffe was beautiful, knowing she was a teacher. I remember hearing the jokes (which are, suitably, retold in the book by students to other students) and thinking they were both funny and horrible.

If you are a child of the 80s--not born in them, but truly a child of them--you will love this book. You will remember it be able to dust off your own memories of that time and place as you read an amazing story of a girl growing up, trying to hold her family together, falling in love, and questioning the mortality of others--still too young to contemplate her own.

Book #46 The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Okay, so about a freakin' YEAR later I'm finally writing about another book. Obviously I would have to be Superwoman in order to make my goal of 100 books for the year, but I've increased my total by about 15 books so far, so I consider it a modified success.

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, is narrated by Death. Need I say more? It's a story of Lisel, a book thief, during Hitler's reign in Germany. She is young, and the author's choice to tell the book from Death's perspective gave Zusak the freedom to use an "omniscient" point of view. Zusak also gave Death his own story, his regret over capturing souls, and the tremendous care he took with the souls of children. Beautiful, fresh perspective.

About 2/3 of the way through, I began to wonder if I would finish it. The book drags, I'm not going to lie. But, the night I finished it (actually a few weeks ago), I pounded through the last hundred pages because I was set on finishing it. And, the last hundred pages were *fantastic*. I cried, pulled myself together, turned a page and cried again. With a book about the Holocaust, Zusak couldn't really have a "happy" ending, and knowing it was narrated by Death, the reader doesn't even have the assurance that Lisel will live.

This book is for nearly everyone. It's a tremendous effort, to simplify the Holocaust and show some of the atypical stories from that time (the Jews marching from the train to a camp through one of the towns, in particular) that are just as moving and powerful as the mass graves we've all seen on videos hundreds of times. I applaud Zusak for giving a fact-based fictional novel that still teaches the reader.

In case you were wondering...

I am no longer reading Sara Gruen's Flying Changes. I was impressed as hell with Water for Elephants, so much so that I bookmooched a few of Gruen's other books, of which Flying Changes was one.

In his book On Writing, Stephen King said that sometimes he puts books down after he reads a particularly tinny sentence. Something that doesn't ring true. Because, he says, he's in his fifties and there are a lot of books to read. I always thought that was a tad harsh. I've pushed through books before that I didn't much care for, because I always hoped that they would come through in the end. Sometimes they do, sometimes not so much.

Yes, I thought that comment by King was a bit too much....until I was in the middle of a lovely scene in Flying Changes where Annemarie Zimmer is heading toward her horse's stall and I read this line:
"Dust swirls in the shafts of cool light like sperm in a Petri dish, but the stall is otherwise empty."

*blink*

What?

"Dust swirls in the shafts of cool light like sperm in a Petri dish..."

I cannot, in good conscience, continue with this book. And I apologize to Mr. King for implying that he was too hard on some of these authors.

Book #45 A Simple Plan by Scott Smith

I read The Ruins by Scott Smith earlier, and bought A Simple Plan because it's his only other novel. Friend Troy who recommended The Ruins emailed to let me know that A Simple Plan was just as excellent and that it didn't follow the movie exactly, so I picked it up off the pile and pushed through.

The first sixty pages were painful--they took me forever. But once I got into the action, I flew through the last few hundred pages in two sittings.

What I love about Smith is his ability to make the reader feel what his characters are feeling, irregardless of the situation. I found myself actually feeling guilty, and a little paranoid, as I read A Simple Plan. Now that's a talented writer. I remember feeling the same way when I read The Ruins--like I was taking on some of the feelings of the characters even though they were in Mexico and I was sitting in Minnesota.

My only problem with Smith is that he doesn't write more.

Book #44 Truck: A Love Story by Michael Perry

I waited forever for Truck: A Love Story to come out in paperback. I don't know why. Anyone who can actually make me laugh out loud, just close the book and giggle for a good solid five minutes, deserves to be bought in hardcover.

I have a huge crush on Michael Perry, the writer. After I read Population: 485, I briefly entertained how I could arrange a meeting, because I was fairly certain that he was the perfect man. Throughout Truck: A Love Story, I realized that, for a variety of reasons, my love affair with Michael Perry will never go further than the page. And, I'm okay with that...so long as he keeps writing.

Truck: A Love Story is a year in the life of Perry as he rebuilds a '51 International Harvester, tries to garden, falls in love, and reflects on the fact that each day we get a little older. His mix of humor with profound thought is unique to him, and it's part of what makes him such a pleasure to read.

"I typed 'snickerdoodle' on the homepage and it scrolled out twenty recipes. Twenty recipes...for a cookie containing a sum total of seven ingredients not counting the cinnamon. Operating in this range of abundance locks me up. How in the world of sifted sugar do you choose? What if the all-time world-record blue-ribbon who's-your-grandma finest snickerdoodle recipe ever committed to a gingham-trimmed note card is sitting there like one of the nine original Beanie Babies at a yard sale and I skip it for a mistranscribed abridgement of Aunt Tooty's Double-Doodle Snickerdoodles supplied by Sylvia G. in Omaha who frankly skimps on the butter?"

And...

"...I'm good. I'm happy. Ain't skerred.
I mean, I do worry some, sure. I worry because I know the future is ruled by chaos. Never mind the seven-year itch, I've recently had married friends divorce after two decades together. I worry because lately one of my favorite albums--check that, our favorite album, the one Anneliese and I most enjoy playing while we are cooking--is Greg Brown's Covenant. These are songs of steady love, of enduring love, these are songs about two people providing each other timeworn comfort. These are songs about a man desiring his wife in her raggedyass old cotton nightgown. And they are sung by a man heading into his third marriage.
Ach, the future. All I know is what I feel now. I feel like a boy who dreamed he could fly. Then he woke up. And he could still fly."

How could you not love him?

The absolutely raddest night EVER

Okay, so tonight Jodi and I braved tornadoes, hail, and general death-causing weather to go to the Loft to see Josh Furst read from his book The Sabotage Cafe. I promised I'd let Jodi write about it first, but I just can't contain myself.

This was, hands down, the most fucking fabulous night ever. EVER.

Josh's reading was kick ass. I haven't finished the book yet (y'all know how I am with the finishing of things), but I had read two of the three parts he read, including the part he read just for Jodi. The other reading was, well, horrifically bad. On multiple levels. The writing was terrible, and the author read like she was bored to tears with her own work.

After the reading, we did the book buying/author signing thing, and Jags' husband, David, asked Josh if he wanted to go hang with us at Grumpy's after he was done doing his writer thing.

He said yes.

So we're sitting there at Grumpy's, at our usual table, except instead of shooting the shit with the likes of our fellow classmates, we're shooting the shit with Josh Fucking Furst. And his entourage, all of whom were quite personable and cool. We talked about the book, Grumpy's tots, and a lot of punk music chat that totally went over my head (at one point I told Jodi how over my head I was...I could have been sitting around with a batch of nuclear physicists discussing the square root of pi and I would have had more to contribute).

Josh was kind enough to bum me a smoke, and while we were out smoking I was able to tell him what my favorite part of the book was, such a human moment of pity and of just plain, simple, ugly *truth* that I didn't feel totally comfortable saying at the whole table and had planned to email him about, because I didn't imagine I'd get to talk with him alone.

Anyway, suffice to say, tonight was the absolute best night at the Loft ever. Jodi and I were like little kids on the way home, talking about how awesome it was that we got to hang with the author after his reading, and we discussed how he picked part of his reading for her, and what a star fucker I am because of course I think he's totally hot.

Buy Josh's book. Especially if you live in the twin cities, because you'll recognize it. I'm sure if you've ever associated with the punk scene on any level you'll recognize it too, but I can't speak to that. You'll like it. Good characters and good solid writing, and it's always good to support writers who are really good, smart people, like Josh is.

Book #43 Tunes for Bears to Dance To by Robert Corimer

Corimer's style is easy to read and his understanding of how "bad" people can manipulate "good" people is uncanny. Tunes for Bears to Dance To is a short novel that reads as briefly as a short story might. The basic premise is simple: an adult bully takes advantage of a child who is in pain. The adult, Mr. Hairston, tries to make the child, Henry, do something horrible not only to have the task accomplished but also to try to make Henry do something bad.

While the novel is powerful, I would have liked to see it expanded into a longer work. The major plot point comes quickly--almost too quickly to be believed. Minor plot points were barely developed because of a lack of time available in the novel.

Corimer seems to use the theme of good vs. evil as his stock and trade, and he does an amazing job of coming up with situations that we all could face--or have faced--at some point in our lives.

Book #42 New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

I spent yesterday after I got home from work until early this afternoon indulging in the second book in the Twilight series. I slept for a few hours and ate a bit, of course, but other than that I rarely stopped until I finished all 563 pages.

The main character, Bella, resonates so much with me. There were some particular aspects of this novel that rang particularly true, but overall it's her personality that I identify with the most. I've already mentioned that the novels are incredibly well written, but this book went deeper than just the writing style.

The plot has complicated immensely, but every new problem seems natural. The only part of the book that I found unbelievable was the fact that Bella had to watch Romeo and Juliet as a senior in high school. That wouldn't happen; R & J is a freshmen class Shakespeare. Vampires, werewolves, none of that rings false to me, but don't go putting the wrong Shakespeare in some random place. It was forgivable because Romeo and Juliet fit very well with most of what was occurring in the novel.

I said it yesterday and I'll say it again: Meyer is a masterful writer for young adults. Her characters and their emotions are palpable. I have the third book but I'm going to wait with it for awhile, since it just came out recently. Like Harry Potter, I need to pace myself.

Book #41 Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

I heard somewhere that the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer was going to replace Harry Potter as the next "must read" young adult book, so obviously I had to add them to my list.

I was shocked at my level of interest in this first novel, Twilight. After getting into the first few chapters and being introduced to Bella and Edward, the two main characters from two very different backgrounds, I was hooked. The plot is interesting and tight from beginning to end (though I wish that Bella's mother had been handled differently throughout) and the writing was breathtaking in some parts.

If there were books like Harry Potter and Twilight when I was a young adult, I missed them. I was a huge fan of Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine (before Goosebumps), but even those cannot compare to today's YA writing. Harry Potter and Twilight serve a very important purpose in literature: young characters facing realistic adult problems. The language doesn't talk down to readers and the conflicts are deeper than who slept with whom who is taking whom to the dance.

I can't wait to read the next book in the series. Hopefully Meyer won't stop with a trilogy.

Book #40 Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich

My last summer treat was to swallow Stephanie Plum's latest adventure in one gulp. Plum Lovin', a "between the novels novel", was Stephanie at her finest. Nothing exploded, unfortunately, and both Morelli and Ranger made only brief appearances, but it was still a top Stephanie adventure. There was also a fairly major plot advancement that will need to be accounted for in future books.

I've read fifteen...sixteen?...Stephanie Plum books and each one reminds me of why I love Evanovich's books and the character of Plum.

Book #39 The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot by Charles Baxter

This was my first Charles Baxter experience. Like many other MN writers, I drool over the fact that he is but a few miles away teaching at the elusive University of Minnesota. The Art of Subtext is a heady, heady book. It is not a "how to" of writing; rather the book assumes that you really know what you're doing in the writing field and it examines and adds to some of the conventions of fiction writing.

Baxter divides his thoughts into such topics as "staging," "listening," "inflection," and, most interesting, "the face." Writers will find his discussion of including subtext rather than pounding the reader with plot thought-provoking.

Writers looking for exercises or practical advice on how to write, handle a particular problem in writing, etc. will not find it here. His use of many other writers both modern and classic (Lorrie Moore and George Saunders to Dostoyevsky and Dickens) to illustrate the points he makes are extremely helpful, as are the personal stories Baxter includes from his own life, to writers who are looking to fine tune work that already has legs.

Reading this book was, I think, much like the experience of sitting in on a Baxter lecture would be. The chapters are "teachery"--an attention-getting story, the lesson, examples to support the lesson, and some final thoughts. All in all, a very interesting read.

Book #38 Pleasure Prolonged by Cathryn Fox

When I was in ninth grade my friends Cristina and Robyn and I would sit in the upper level of the auditorium during play rehearsal reading the dirty parts of novels that we had, of course, highlighted.

Reading the mistaken delivery Pleasure Prolonged totally put me back there. This was a bodice-ripper to the extreme. No literary merit whatsoever, and thank goodness for that. Just good 'ole Erin and Kale and their quest to have a "casual" affair. Of course they fall madly in love (in a week's time) and can't even manage to have dinner together without racing to the bedroom. Kale admires everything about Erin; he can't believe that she's available, and he says that he's crazy about her. Erin is recovering from a bad break up and is not in the mood to date, but Kale captures her...uh...heart. Yeah, her heart.

I was happy that a real storyline managed to surface in the novel, and I did find the characters interesting (though some of the writing was so cheesy I actually laughed out loud). This totally does not qualify as "literature," but it did remind me that sometimes books are just for fun. I spend so much time studying novels, reading as a writer, and it was refreshing to just sit back and read like I used to back in my "pre-writer" days.

I didn't use a highlighter...though if I had, it might have been easier to highlight the clean parts.

Book #37 Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Now THIS was a book!! Water for Elephants is definitely in this year's top five favorite books. Gruen captures the setting of the 1930s, post-crash circus world brilliantly. The story itself could be called somewhat pedestrian at times (it is a love story), but the twists and additions Gruen includes make the characters so lively I didn't mind that I knew what was happening. At the end of the day--and the end of the book--I didn't have a clue what was coming, which is really what matters.

As a writer, I am in full awe at one of Gruen's choices. The novel opens with a prologue in past tense. This prologue is mirrored in one of the final chapters, in present tense, at a point that I had forgotten the prologue existed. She wrote the scene essentially twice, using the dialogue as a foundation, and showed details that were both the same and different. She had me flipping back and forth between the two in the midst of the climax of the book absolutely rapt.

This is a novel I would someday like to write. Unlike McCarthy's The Road or King's (Bachman's) Blaze, I finished this book thinking "Yes, I could do this." Not because the novel was easy, but because Gruen made it LOOK easy with her style and her unbelievable attention to detail. I can't imagine anyone not enjoying this book, but I think that writers will get a certain plug out of it--it is still possible to write a good, traditional story; use quotation marks; flip back and forth between time periods, all the things that "good" writing books say is going out of style. Gruen's novel, Water for Elephants, is timeless.

Mistake or fate stepping in?

So a few weeks ago I ordered two books from a certain online bookstore. I ordered Robert Olen Butler's From Where I Dream and Kuki Gallman's I Dreamed of Africa.

What I got was Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith and Pleasure Prolonged by Cathryn Fox.

Is this a sign? Am I supposed to read these books? I was planning to return them, but I've been looking at them lately and thinking...yeah. Maybe I could use some smut in my life.

So I'm going to read them. And then I'll bookmooch them and get some quality literature to replace them. Friends, lovers, chocolate, prolonged pleasure--here I come!!