What We're Reading

A few months ago, like Octoberish, when living in the great city of Austin, I got bored at work and decided to call the BookPeople staff to see what they were reading, because I thought it might go well with this blog. They were very helpful and did a little internal survey and gave me a list. Then I forgot to post the information. Then I found the list again, just now. So, here's what the BookPeople staff was reading back in October, according to my files:

Pride and Prejudice
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (which they described back then as "nonfiction about rehab")
Truman Capote's lost book Summer Crossing
Amy Tan's Saving Fish from Drowning
Martha McCabe Praise at Midnight

Hey, I'm going to call right now to get an updated list.

Someone named Megan answered the phone. She says she's reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, but not Consider the Lobster. One of her female coworkers is reading Lolita. Okay now she's giving the phone to another bookseller. He sounds really feminine and claims to be reading Shine by Star Jones. "We have lots of copies," he says with a chuckle.

Two other books being read by the employees over in Texas's largest indie bookstore, according to the feminine male bookseller: Meat Market by Erik Marcus and Dog Days by Ana Marie Cox.

That was investigative journalism at its best, folks.

-Matt Borondy
posted by Matt Borondy at 1/26/2006 04:57:00 PM

Ross Simonini: God Lives in St. Petersburg by Tom Bissell; Jernigan by David Gates (for an Interview); The Family Daughter by Maile Meloy (for Review); Home Land by Sam Lipsyte (for an Interview); Denial of Death by Ernest Becker; Perfume by Patrick Suskind

Lisa Szkatulski: I'm working on Living to Tell the Tale, the memoirs of Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, etc). It chronicles his life from earliest memories until he proposes to his wife in the fifties. It's really good, and pretty much shows how he found all the pieces (characters, conflicts, settings) of 100 Years in his own life. Pretty sweet. I'm also saving up for The Design of Dissent: Socially and Politically Driven Graphics, by Milton Glaser. Should be a great read / coffee table book.

Robert Birnbaum: Read Sigrid Nunez's wonderful new novel, The Last of Her Kind. Reading Julian Barnes's Arthur & George and a book about Spinoza and Leibinz called The Courtier and the Heretic by Matthew Stewart. And a beautiful memoir by Gail Caldwell (A Strong West Wind), Peter Blauner's Slipping into Darkness and various parts of Best American Essays 2005 especially Andrea Barrett's "A Sea of Information" and Robert Stone's remembrance of Ken Kesey.

Jessica Rowland: The World is Flat, The End of Poverty, Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy (which is actually quite fascinating), Dress Your Family in Courderoy & Denim, and get my quick fixes from NY Magazine. Also - to those on the social justice circuit - I received a book called "Edges" about the Israel/Palestine Conflict, and then a social satire called Junk about a government ban on junk food. I haven't had time to start either, but both seem worthwhile - especially edges, which is done by a Brooklyn writer.

Eric Lagergren: I'm moving through three or four things. Reading The Great Influenza (talk of bird flu influencing this read? You be the judge). Also reading Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman, and Nothing Like it In the World, by Ambrose (about the transcont. rr). And smatterings of other things here and there.

Krissy Haltinner: A Million Little Pieces (we know about that one!); The Pilgrimage - Paulo Coelho (just finished Veronika Decides to Die by him, great book. All of his works are great); Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War - Anthony Shadid; Debt for Sale - Brett Williams; Critical Latin American and Latino Studies - Juan Poblete

Drew McNaughton: Running After Antelope by Scott Carrier, Your Baby & Child by Penelope Leach, Best American Science and Nature Writing 2005, and a Zoology textbook.

Jesslyn Roebuck: I've just finished reading Nicaraguan poet and Sandinista, Gioconda Belli's memoir entitled The Country Under My Skin, and a book of her poems, From Eve's Rib. Both were pretty good reads although the memoir is a tad dense in parts. If interested in the more literary side of things, I suggest her book of poetry. For the social justice side, I'd suggest the memoir. It gives a good look at an insider's view of inciting revolution and social change from within. Now, I'm reading a book about Social Security in order to write a review for the social justice site. Among other things, an oldie but goodie, Emerson's "Self-Reliance and other Essays" brings things back into balance.

Matt Borondy: I'm pondering a line from David Foster Wallace's essay on Updike in Consider the Lobster: "Rampant or flaccid, Ben Turnbull's unhappiness is obvious right from the novel's first page. It never occurs to him, though, that the reason he's so unhappy is that he's an asshole."
posted by Matt Borondy at 1/23/2006 12:48:00 PM

I picked up a signed copy of Kerouac in Florida: Where the Road Ends today at a vegetarian restaurant/used bookstore in Gainesville. Bob Kealing, a TV reporter for Channel 2 News in Orlando who does not look like someone who'd be all that into Beat Generation writing, put together this well researched book about Jack Kerouac's time living in central Florida.

Kerouac lived in Orlando when On the Road was published, and he wrote The Dharma Bums as well as Big Sur during that period. Kealing visited Kerouac's old residences, interviewed people who were around back then, and went over old notebooks, letters, and other documents from Kerouac's past in creating this book.

In addition to Kealing's research, Kerouac in Florida features an impressive collection of photos as well as a foreword by Kerouac's old jazz partner, David Amram, who still performs in Orlando sometimes.

As a huge Kerouac fan who grew up in Orlando and has made several visits to the Kerouac House, I had to buy this book, and so far I've found nothing in the pages to make me regret the purchase.

- Matt Borondy
posted by Matt Borondy at 1/17/2006 02:00:00 PM

I just finished reading Joan Didion's memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking. In 2003, Didion's daughter fell suddenly ill with pneumonia, leading to septic shock that was eventually fatal. On December 23 of the same year, Didion's husband of forty years died suddenly of a heart attack.

The situation described above, while doubtless tragic, would lead many lesser memoirists to descend into maudlin remembrances or bland platitudes about pain and endurance, but of course, Didion rises admirably above both, producing an intellectually rigorous survey of contemporary cultural practices surrounding mourning, death, and grieving.

Coincidentally, just before beginning The Year of Magical Thinking, I finished Freud's Mourning and Melancholia, so the subject of mourning is on my mind. I would like to write a piece on modern mourning practices, particularly now that standard rituals like wearing black are no longer in practice.

-Summer Block
posted by Summer at 1/16/2006 12:14:00 PM

"The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time" .... "The busiest people I have known in my life always have enough time to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the good fight."

From The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho

-Krissy Haltinner
posted by Matt Borondy at 1/16/2006 09:03:00 AM

I have not read a book cover-to-cover in months. Lots of driving and poker instead. But I had this really long plane flight from Austin to Las Vegas after Thanksgiving and read an article about Intelligent Design in the New Yorker. At least I think it was the New Yorker. I think instead of teaching evolution or Intelligent Design in school the teachers should just hand out coupons for free hamburgers at McDonald's and smile. You have a better chance of understanding the nature and origin of the universe through a Happy Meal than through the public school system, regardless of where you live. Grimace is his own sort of supreme being. Think about it.

Anyway, there was also a story by Alice Munro which involved a bus, a naked girl, and an old man. I wasn't blown away, but that's probably because I was continuously being interrupted by offers of free peanuts. The other articles I read were about Iraq and Iraq and Iraq. Every article about Iraq seems like total crap, regardless of the perspective of the author and the magazine/newspaper/website where it's published. It's like they figure that since the war is completely pointless and stupid that their articles should share those same traits. Again, maybe it's just the peanuts talking. Anyway, I, quite regrettably, don't bother keeping track of Iraq because all of the information is so blatantly slanted that I feel insulted whenever I try to read it.

Anyway, there was this other magazine I bought at the airport. It was called PASTE and had a picture of Fiona Apple on the cover. December/January issue. One thing about PASTE was that the type is REALLY SMALL. So I didn't want to strain to read it. It was a disappointment because I was hoping Fiona Apple would have something intelligent to say, like, "The world is bullshit," but whatever she said was written too tiny for my eyesight and altitude. It's a nice picture on the cover, though.

Soon enough, I'll be returning to the whole book-reading thing. I think I'm going to read D F Wallace's "Consider the Lobster" and some Gary Lutz this week. Yeah, that sounds like a good use of my time on this planet.

-Matt Borondy
posted by Matt Borondy at 1/15/2006 04:06:00 PM