I think I only read three books in all of October. That's damn near shameful. I will, however, blame my writing class on this. Where usually we read a majority of 12-18ish page short stories, this time around we're being bombarded by 6,000 word 28-page novel beginnings. It's been hell. Not just the sheer amount of words to read, but only a few of the novel chapters have been worth my time. In fact, one novel start was so offensive that the class was actually angry. Of course the complete lack of punctuation didn't help matters. It just goes to show you, domestic violence is not an issue you can make funny, right up there with rape, child molestation, and genocide. None of these things are funny. Let it be known.
On with the show.
BOOK ACQUIRED
Swimming Inside the Sun by David Zweig
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
Totally Killer by Greg Olear
Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving
BOOKS READ
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon: This novel about identity, identity theft, the Internet, brotherhood, and more is probably going to make my top 10 best books of 2009 -- will blow your mind.
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang: Even with an ending that comes off as a little convenient and coincidental, this graphic novel about growing up Chinese in America weaves together three different stories in a way that is sweet and funny.
Andromeda Klein by Frank Portman: A slightly disappointing novel by the author of the the fan-fucking-tastic King Dork is about a skinny weird girl obsessed with the occult and has a tendency to be a bit boring under the weight of all the magic research.
CURRENTLY READING
Every Boat Turns South by J.P. White
The Complete Essex County by Jeff Lemiere (which I actually finished today, but now it's November)
Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving
"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we
stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don't really
stand for them."
-- Senator Paul Wellstone
"I find it absolutely intolerable to think that a woman's home can be
the most violent, most dangerous and oftentimes the most deadly place
she can be."
“Though systematic change takes many decades, there are pressing questions for me and I imagine for some others like me if we raise our daily consciousness on the perquisites of being light-skinned. What will we do with such knowledge? As we know from watching men, it is an open question whether we will choose to use unearned advantage to weaken invisible privilege systems and whether we will use any of our arbitrarily awarded power to try to reconstruct power systems on a broader base.”
“Only rarely will a man go beyond acknowledging that women are disadvantaged to acknowledging that men have unearned advantage, or that unearned privilege has not been good for men’s development, or that privilege systems might ever be challenged and changed.”
“Those men who do grant that male privilege takes institutionalized and embedded forms are still likely to deny that male hegemony has opened doors for them personally.”
“They may say they will work to improve women’s status, in the socity or in the university, but they can’t or won’t support the idea of lessening men’s.”
“Through Women’s Studies work I have met very few men who are truly distressed about systemic, unearned male advantage and conferred dominance.”
“I was taught to think that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitudes; many men think sexism can be ended by individual changes in daily behavior toward women. But a man’s sex provides advantage for him whether or not he approves of the way in which dominance has been conferred on his group.”
Peggy McIntosh, White Privilege and Male Privilege
It's not enough to recognize it. One needs to actively do something about it. So unless you are doing this, you are part of the problem and part of the structure.
So Spin Ds + Sesame Street = all goodness in my book.
Some post-ironic hipsters that I know cannot admit to loving anything that doesn't have the blessing of Pope Chuck Klosterman and the Bishops who write for Pitchfork, but I am not one of those pathetic sheep. I'm proud to embrace that which I love.
Sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants and there is no way to explain it.
Every Sunday evening, I spend hours refreshing my neighborhood page. It's all command + R over and over and over again at my house. Command + R.
Each time the page refreshes and I don't see an update from Daby, I imagine my eyes dance with delight, and I can feel a smirk on my face. With each passing hour, I can feel a sort of glow start to warm my heart.
And then, then when I'm absolutely sure that he and his coterie of ass-kissing minions have forgotten, there's an update.
My hopes dashed, my joyous heart diminished.
Woe is me.
If you were going to write a book, what would you write about?
I would write about how viewing religions as divine languages can be helpful for people without developed spiritual frameworks. It would be an attempt to show people that it is okay to speak multiple religious languages while maintaining their unique perspective of not having a native religious language.
See, for the first time ever in my book-collecting career I have decided to separate the read from the unread. It's a bold move. In the past I've organized books by favorite status, some trumped up sort of topical nonsense I made up, and strict-alphabetical regardless of topic (fiction mixed with non-fiction, anthologies, references, it was chaos).
For the most part I am sticking with the segregation (fiction, non-fiction, and graphic novels/memoirs). It's just that now the unread will be alphabetized amongst themselves, just like the read. It makes sense in my head.
There are much more read than I first anticipated. I've already filled most of the four shelves of the big bookcase and I'm at T in Thompson. So not too shabby. When I first started I feared it would be much more lopsided, with the unread heavily outweighing the read.
I'm pretty pleased that there are 20ish books on the giveaway/donate table too. These are books that are both unread and probably built to stay that way, and others that I had read but don't need to keep in the permanent collection mostly do to their forgettable nature.
I'm hoping that seeing all the unreads together, pathetic and unloved will move to pick one up and read it. I've already made a plan to incorporate reading one "old" book a month as part of RP2010 (for the record RP2009 includes reading 56 books, 12 of which have to be graphic novels and 12 of which have to be short story collection).
In general, editing Minnesota Reads is just about my favorite thing to do. I love it. I love when people talk about books. Since I'm pretty much a free speech absolutist, I let all kinds of review fly on MN Reads -- good, bad, ugly -- whatever a reviewer is comfortable enough signing their name to, I'm willing to run.
Oftentimes, we get solicited by publicists, editors, and authors who would like us to review their books. Sometimes, we solicit publicists, editors, and authors wondering if they'll part with a review copy. All this is just a way to say we get a lot of free books.
Professional publicists, editors, and authors realize that sending us a book in no way guarantees they will get a good review. Hell, a lot of times it doesn't even guarantee the book will be read.
And then there are the unprofessionals -- they are a pain in my ass.
I've got one who has sent me not one but TWO separate diatribes because her feelings are hurt over a bad review. The woman is a little off and has decided that since the site is called Minnesota Reads that the entire state is against her.
It's hard, because I know that my job is to rise above it, to not respond to her e-mail, and not to defend our editorial policy. But it's so hard. SO HARD!
Grrrr. . . I hate thin-skinned, whiny people.
Why do we use our beliefs to excuse bad behavior instead of as inspiration to do better?
Not all people make this choice. For those that do, I believe it has a lot to do with fear of what is within their own being. Rather than look inward and take responsibility for what they have done, many instead look for an external scapegoat to avoid responsibility for their actions. While there are certain environmental and external factors that contribute to scapegoating, it is ultimately one's own decision in succumbing to bad behavior and then deflecting responsibility externally. The belief system is inconsequential because it is just a guise to cover up responsibility.
