Reading Is Sexy

Ever since Rory Gilmore wore a shirt like this on Gilmore Girls, it’s been one of my favorites. I actually own it in two varieties – long sleeved and boy t-shirt. I don’t have it in this pink flavor, though I’d like to.

Tuesday Tidbits

David Foster Wallace and Dan Brown took a class together at Amherst.

25 international writers choose 25 of the best books from the past 25 years (via Wasafiri).

NPR talks to Francine Prose about her new book Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife.

It’s Banned Books Week

The American Library Association sponsors Banned Books Week, challenging people to recognize the importance of the First Amendment and celebration the fact that we’re free to read all sorts of books here in the United States, whether they be mystical, scary, sexy, full of swears or whatever some single person might find objectionable. Here’s a link to some frequently challenged books, including great stuff like His Dark Materials, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Beloved, Of Mice and Men, Bridge to Terabithia and the Harry Potter series.

Hemingway’s House

About nine years ago, I had the chance to visit Ernest Hemingway’s Key West home. It was the bright spot in a trip that was otherwise a little bit melancholy. It was fascinating to see the place where a writer I had so admired had worked…and played. While there, he wrote To Have and Have Not (a personal favorite) and The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber, among other things.

I found a little inspiration in seeing the room where he did the majority of his work, and enjoyed playing with the kitties that still frequent the grounds. Writing spaces have changed so much since that time. Now, a laptop and a chair are plenty enough, but I think there’s something to be said for writing things on paper now and again.

Saturday Stuff

Nick Hornby talks about autobiographical elements in Juliet, Naked (via YouTube).

The Mainichi Daily News interviews Haruki Murakami.

The Guardian lists the ten best tattoos in literature.

The “best of” lists continue as The Times selects the 50 best paperbacks of 2009.

Revisiting The Millions’ Best Fiction of the Millennium List

The Millions has revealed its full list of their Best Fiction of the Millennium. Reviewing the books they selected, I’ve read seven of the 20, with another four or five coming up on my reading list. I was fairly disappointed in the book that wound up in the #1 position. I found Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections to be thoroughly unlikeable, and a book that I had to slog through just to say it hadn’t defeated me. I hated all of the characters,and had no reason whatsoever to care about what happened to them. It really does go down as one of my greatest reading disappointments in recent memory, particularly given all the glowing praise it’s received.

The Millions certainly got a lot of them right, though. Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell) and Atonement (Ian McEwan) are two of my favorite novels in recent memory. I’ve now read everything Mitchell has ever written and a lot of McEwan’s offerings as well, and both are talented authors whom I admire greatly. Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go isn’t as good as his earlier Remains of the Day, but I do think it’s a worthy entry. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, is a rough read, by which I mean that the story itself is so painful that it almost hurts to keep turning the page. But he’s certainly evoking emotion and painting a picture of a world that may not last much longer.

Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead is also sad, but delicate in its way. I’ll be reading her more recent novel, Home, soon and I very much like her writing style. The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is an odd duck of a book, one that I liked and thought was unique, but a number of friends have hated.

Books that were already on my “to be read” list include The Known World (and its follow-up, All Aunt Hagar’s Children), 2666 (I recently read The Savage Detectives by the same author), Varieties of Disturbance, The Fortress of Solitude, and American Genius: A Comedy. I’m semi-considering Stranger Things Happen for Halloween reading this year, as well.

The readers of the Millions had their own list, which adds good stuff like Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell.

It’s been an intriguing discussion, and while I was a bit surprised at the winner (I was expecting Cloud Atlas or 2666), I think it’s generally a good representation of 21st century literature thus far. I would have liked to see a few more women on both lists, but I like that there’s a well-rounded number of authors from a variety of cultures. And of course, I now have a couple of additional books to ponder adding to my massive, ever-growing to-do list.

Thursday Tidbits

Fantasy Magazine has a nifty list of the Top 10 Literary Steampunk Works, (including Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, pictured above).

Slate’s Ron Rosenbaum discusses his experience reading The Original of Laura, Vladimir Nabokov’s final work that will be released in November.

Read an excerpt from Neil Gaiman’s upcoming kids’ book Odd and the Frost Giants (note: doesn’t work on sucky browsers).

More Wednesday Mishmash

Marcel Proust apparently lived on beer in the last days of his life. This info and more comes from his maid’s memoirs (via The Sydney Morning Herald).

Best Buy, Verizon and Barnes & Noble will throw their support behind the new iRex E-Reader (via PCWorld).

Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff, is interviewed by The Rumpus.

Wednesday Mishmash

James Ellroy talks to NPR about his new book, Blood’s a Rover.

The Guardian looks at sexism in the horror genre.

It’s time for the bookies to start taking bets on who will win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The current favorite is Amos Oz (via The Guardian).

E.L. Doctorow talks to CBS about his new novel, Homer & Langley

Halloween Reading

During the month of October, I always like to pick out a couple of books that seem appropriate for the Halloween season and bump them to the top of my reading list. This year, I have a few set aside, but I thought I’d solicit a little bit of feedback as to which ones should be highest priority – or if I should perhaps consider something else altogether. I probably won’t get to all of them, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try.

At the moment, I’m looking at:
The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson
The Shining – Stephen King
The Italian – Ann Radcliffe
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
The Place Called Dagon – Herbert Gorman
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley (re-read)

What are your favorite books for the Halloween season? Any others I should be thinking about?