more judaism and the last of summer reading

Shabbat we had the option to do absolutely nothing, or we could participate in a variety of workshops, lectures, talks, activities, etc. In the morning I went to the “morning musical service,” which was just a regular reform service that included lots of Shabbat songs, many of which I did not remember/know at all, and even more that I learned with completely different tunes. That would be weird, except that I’m pretty sure that everybody else Jewish in the world knows the tune that I don’t. I’m thinking the guy who was our songleader when I was little just liked coming up with new stuff.

For the next block, I went to “Whole Torah in Just One Hour,” with one of NYU’s rabbis. He seems pretty chill, and he greeted everyone by going, “Shabbes,” the way the stoner turtle in “Finding Nemo” might say it. In 75 minutes, this guy managed to do all of the following: quote the Iliad in Greek; reference King’s “I have a dream” speech; talk about 100 Years of Solitude; give an anthropological history of the ancient Sumerians; describe the epic of Gilgamesh; and actually talk about the Torah. The whole trick was, of course, that you can’t do the whole Torah in an hour, but we did get to chapter 13 of Genesis, which he said was further than they got last year. So that was fun.

In the afternoon, I went to “Let’s Talk About Sex,” because, frankly, what else sounds interesting when that’s on the bill? And it really was, because we talked about myths about Jews and sex, like how no, nobody has sex through a sheet, and actually, it’s commanded that you be completely naked (no socks) when you have sex. We also looked at Genesis, cartoons, short stories, halacha, and quotes from Maimonides to discuss men and women’s roles in relationships and where sex fits in. I wish it had gone on longer, because that could be a really interesting class. It was a little bit too large of a group for a really good discussion.

I’d say more, but it’s already been so long and I’m on to new and different things. I finished three more books before school started on Monday, and I’m still plodding through that García Márquez (on a side note, why does everybody in the English-speaking world refuse to see how easy it is to pronounce his name correctly rather than emphasizing the “quez” part?). Those books were:

1. The Journals of Sylvia Plath by, of course, Sylvia Plath. This is another exhausting book that takes quite a long time to read, but being in the company of genius is always awesome, like in the real sense of that word, so it was wonderful to read. The most frustrating thing, aside from knowing I will never be that amazing, was knowing that Ted Hughes destroyed her final journals. I so wanted to read them. I wonder if he did.

2. Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink. I don’t want to say much, because I read this to review for teenreads.com, and the review of that is going to be up soonish. But it was in the vain of Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle trilogy, and while it wasn’t perfectly written, it was a pretty awesome plot, and it was definitely a fun read.

3. The Worst Years of Your Life, edited by Mark Jude Poirier. I was happy to see this collection, because I love teen angst, I try to love YA, at least when it’s good, and it was so neat that this was an accepted collection of “literary” stories that still dealt with that stuff that usually gets labeled “crap” or “Gossip Girl” (which, incidentally, was not crap when it began–only when it continued). Unfortunately, a lot of the stories just seemed so “literary” and weird that I couldn’t really get into them, but the ones that were good were really evocative and interesting. I also appreciated that they mixed contemporary and new authors with older ones.

So that makes 19 books this summer. That’s not what I hoped. And it seemed like so many. It takes longer to read books now than when I was younger. Part of that is that I read harder, better books. I hope. But is it also my short attention span since the Internet came to be? Still, I’ll plod along and keep reading. All I’ll be doing for school this semester is reading anyway.

Stuff about school and life later. Off to do endless homework and work.

blume, judy; cohn, rachel; or, summer reading #5

I’m nearly done with Plath’s journals, but I needed a break and decided to read some YA I had missed out on. Somehow, when I read nearly all other Judy Blume books, I never read Forever…, the sex book. Then I read Rachel Cohn’s latest, which came out a while ago but I never read, You Know Where to Find Me.

Rachel Cohn’s books have always consistently made me want to write. Like, while I’m reading, I feel desperate to work on whatever it is I’m working on. Gingerbread is a favorite, and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is awesome as well. When I was reading this book, I didn’t actually like it as much as her others, but I still felt this need to write, and I was trying to figure out why. I was also trying to figure out why Judy Blume is so awesome, even if now her books read very seventies and seem a little silly (I was very confused when reading Just As Long As We’re Together, because I didn’t understand the whole pad with a belt thing).

My conclusion is this: Rachel Cohn’s voice in her novels is always fabulously teenager-y. Smart teenager-y. I’m thinking that if you’re not very smart, you will probably find her books boring or hard to follow. And this latest book was a bit more boring, just because I don’t particularly love books about people dealing with death. I also love that she writes about big issues (Cyd Charisse in Gingerbread has an abortion, Miles’ cousin in You Know Where to Find Me has just committed suicide, and Miles loves taking Percoset and other pills) but also keeps in mind that a lot of the time, those big issues aren’t even the biggest, and other things, like body image, friendships, crushes, etc, are still profoundly important when you’re 17. I also appreciate that her books aren’t PSAs about any of these things. Yes, people make mistakes and learn from them, because that’s been a pretty foolproof formula for novels for years. BUT not everything ends up perfectly. She’s not Sarah Dessen, which I really appreciate. At the end of this latest book, Miles is still overweight, still not sure if she’s going to quit smoking, and still has an unrequited crush on her best friend. She has learned and resolved other issues, but not everything is coming up roses. AND as if that weren’t awesome enough, Rachel Cohn’s characters are “multicultural” without really trying (take notes, all authors everywhere) and she manages to stick in politics without being annoying. Though that could just be because I agree with her politics.

And now onto Judy Blume. She’s kind of like the original Rachel Cohn, except her books are really more like children’s books, except for younger teens and about younger and older ones. Definitely her formula is more like a children’s book. But she does some awesome things, like have incredible audacity (or something) to talk about periods, masturbating, and sex. In Forever…, she describes the character’s boyfriend’s penis (nicknamed Ralph) and giving him a hand job. Even I was almost embarrassed to be reading this book. I also like that Blume can insert a certain amount of “multiculturalism” in her books. Maybe because they were written in the seventies, characters aren’t really that diverse ethnically, but she does describe characters and give interesting family histories that can teach you about American history, like how in this book she describes how a character’s last name came to be when it was mispronounced at Ellis Island. Little things like that in books I appreciate.

summer reading #3

Haven’t updated for awhile, and I am moving very slowly in some books, but I also read very quickly some others. What else is there to do but read when you are stuck in bed with the flu? Now, of course, I am better and off on adventures, but here are the latest books I’ve finished.

I have not read books that I expected to read, due again to the fact that I did not expect to be sick with so much free time. So I’ve been a bit disappointed in things. But such is life.

1. Cocktails for Three by Madeleine Wickham. So disappointing! This woman, who also writes as Sophie Kinsella, has always impressed me, because while she writes chick lit, which basically means dumb, she writes it in a way that makes you want to read it, because both she and her characters have clearly read other books before. This one, however, was utter crap and made me really, really angry. Pregnant women being alcoholics, women being stupid, and just stupid, stupid, stupid. Don’t read it. That is all.

2. Social Justice: A Jewish Perspective by Bernardo Kliksberg. This was lent to me by a friend at Hillel after I was told to stay in bed for three days, and it’s a very good and pretty easy read. Since this is a vaguely religious trip that I’m on (or was on, since now I’m just vacationing and traveling), it was nice to kind of get in touch with my Judaism a bit and remember that there are ways I identify with my religion, even if for me it’s not about being completely stuck in the past or really Orthodox or keeping kosher. Even if you’re not Jewish, this book has a good outline of what social justice is and why it’s important that it exist. It didn’t exactly tell me things I didn’t believe in before, but it was nice to have them outlined well.

3. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I didn’t want to read this book, but my friend lent it to me and I figured I’d at least look at it, and then I finished it in a day. Whoops. I guess part of my reasoning for not wanting to read it was my resentment for Americans who do “spiritual” things to be trendy, and also because I generally feel kind of icky when talking about it. For me, religion is very personal, and while I’m glad I have my beliefs, I don’t particularly care if anyone knows them or not and I don’t really enjoy evangelicals who are constantly trying to tell me what they believe and why I should believe it, too. Maybe that’s mean of me, but it makes me feel uncomfortable. But this book, even when it got borderline sappy, was a great read simply because Gilbert was a really great storyteller. I haven’t felt like writing lately, and in the middle of the book I just had to run upstairs and journal. And it reminded me how much I enjoy traveling, even when I don’t, and how much I like to write personal essays. So I would recommend the book above all. Plus, who wouldn’t want to read about living in Italy?

So that makes 10 books thus far through the summer, and I’m well into the middle of two/three others (a García Márquez book that I’m reading simultaneously in Spanish and in translation and a book of poems). We’ll see if I make it to my goal of thirty, though. And hopefully the rest of the books I read will be better.

Stuff about my latest adventures later.

summer reading #2

Since I’m stuck in my hotel room with the flu, I figured it was time to update. Unfortunately I do not have enough of the books on my reading list with me, so I’ve had to resort to reading books that I borrow from others (the horror!). But as I haven’t updated in awhile, here are the books I’ve read since my last summer reading entry:

1. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. I read the title story in high school, and I read The Namesake soon after it came out, but I hadn’t gotten around to reading this entire collection. It was good to read, because I should definitely be reading more short fiction, and New Yorker “short” fiction starts to piss me off after awhile. This was a pretty good collection, though occasionally it got a bit boring. I suppose it’s something all authors have to do–spend a couple hundred pages in one of their first major works writing thinly veiled autobiographical things (ahem, The Kite Runner) or otherwise similar-to-life stories, and there’s nothing really wrong with knowing something very well and writing about it. But after awhile, I was a bit bored with already knowing the setting (East Coast), characters (Indian immigrants to the US), etc. Still, really great stories, easy to read but not in an over-simplified sort of way, and largely enjoyable.

2. Youth in Revolt by C.D. Payne. This was totally not what I was expecting. Well, it sort of was, because it was definitely really funny teen angst, but I was not quite ready for the really, really ridiculous talk about sex and erections, nor was I prepared for the absurdist tone of it all. It’s definitely a good 500-page read, though. I love it when teenagers in novels have preposterously good vocabularies but still find themselves obsessing over crushes. Good stuff.

3. Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger. I will be the first to admit that I own a copy of her first novel, The Devil Wears Prada, and I have read it multiple times. I have also seen the movie twice. It’s perfectly fun, and this book and books by Sophie Kinsella/Madeleine Wickham are probably the only chick lit books that I feel happy reading, because they’re not completely WASPy (read: annoying, predictable, full of harping ladies a la “The View” and “Sex and the City” who hate their parents for no real reason, obsess about what they’re eating and whether they’ve farted in front of their partners, and don’t ever go to work) and they at least read like they’re written by someone who has read good books and has a good vocabulary. But this book, though kind of fun, ultimately fails because the only way it is fun is the exact same way that her first novel is fun, because it is exactly the same as The Devil Wears Prada, just with different names and a different job. Even The Babysitters’ Club was not this formulaic.

4. The Annotated Alice by Lewis Carroll. This beautiful, large edition of the book comprises both novels, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, which together are usually adapted to make the movies that we know as “Alice in Wonderland.” Reading the annotated version was fabulous, because they just allow you to understand so much more. The “absurd” parts aren’t really that absurd, there are tons of math games, and the poems are often based on popular songs and poems of Carroll’s day. The annotations also explain his “pedophilia” in detail. AND the second Alice book, which is a lot more fun than the first, is actually very cleverly modeled after a chess game. Do children’s books do all that anymore? I think not. Awesome. Read it.

the summer reading challenge update #1

That’s going to need a better title. One that doesn’t sound like…well, that.

So. Since my last entry, I have finished three books:

1. Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce. I read this once years ago and totally forgot just about everything that happened, except I remembered I wanted it to be made into a movie, and I knew which part I wanted to play. It’s pretty excellent. It was nice to read something fantasy again, which I haven’t done for years probably, and equally nice to read some YA that’s actually good, as that’s a slippery “genre” to write in. Pierce really knows how to do fantasy well, which is why I happily went on and read the sequel,

2. Trickster’s Queen. It seemed to lose a bit of steam, or maybe that was me. More happened, but in a way less happened. Still, a pretty worthy group of books, and nice to have a change in the stuff I was reading.

3. History Lesson for Girls by Aurelie Sheehan. Last I heard, she was the current director of the creative writing program here, in which I have a minor. The book took place in the 70s, which was probably the single most interesting thing about it. That and horses. It made me want to ride horses a lot. All in all, it was very well written. It was one of those coming of age stories where an unlikely friendship with some normal but kind of fucked up girl had a deep, profound effect on the narrator’s life. Heard that one before?

Here’s to the next batch of books being a bit better.

those things with lots of pieces of paper bound together…

This is somewhat embarrassing.

I just counted the unread books in my room, like ones I own but have not yet picked up, and if I counted correctly, it’s about 57.

In my defense, I own many, many, many more books than that, so it’s not like I haven’t read anything. I just don’t read enough to keep up with my habit of buying books or with my habit of wanting to read books. I’m trying to catch up with classics that I never read, but I’m also trying to keep abreast of what’s going on in contemporary literature, both in YA (I try really hard to believe in the genre, though it’s hard, and I think calling it a genre is sort of stupid) and adult fiction. And then I also try to keep up with authors I like by reading more of their books, which is a sort of bad thing to do when you’re trying to read a lot of stuff. It sucks to find an author you like and can’t get enough of. :-p Then, the other thing I try and do is increase my exposure to different types of writing to work on my craft. So I need to read more short stories, because I’m terrible at those, and I like to read poetry, but it takes really long to finish just one book and feel like you’ve gotten anything significant out of it.

As if that number above isn’t bad enough, my to-read list (you can click on that link on the right that says “my bookshelf”) totals 182*. And it only gets higher every time I finish a book.

This semester burned me out so much, I can no longer remember how to just kick back with a book and read for a really long period of time. And I don’t remember how long it takes me to finish one. But I’m going to venture a guess, and I’m going to challenge myself to finish at least 30 books this summer. I have an abridged list taken from the 57 and the 182 of the ones most important to me to read now rather than later. This includes books that are being made into movies (Youth In Revolt), books by people I know and/or who have taught me in writing workshops (Not A Matter of Love, The Narrow Road Into the Interior), books that were gifts (La Hojarasca), classics/famous books (Oliver Twist, Balthazar, de Sade’s Justine), and books by Tucsonans (Sleeping With Schubert, History Lesson for Girls). So it’s a quite daunting task, but I’m excited. I will take books with me everywhere: to the science class I have to take starting on Monday, to Uruguay, to haircuts, to work, to the rec center, to my parents’ house. Reading has to be the main event for the summer, trumping friends and movies and mooning about boys who don’t like me back. It will even take precedence over writing, I think, just a little. There’s only so much honing of a craft you can do if you don’t read, and I am so, so behind in my reading. I’ve missed it so much.

I’ll take some book recommendations, if you have them, but please look and see if they’re already on my list, and only make them if they’re going to change my life. If you know me well, you know that very small, random things can change my life, but still. Recommendations with a grain of salt. And be advised that I may not be able to get to them for a long time, but they’ll go on my goodreads, and since the Internet never dies, I’ll never forget that I’m going to read them.

I’ll be blogging about my reading. And my travels. Please read. Or tell someone else to. I get lonely when I don’t feel encouraged. :-p

This starts now. Because as of about an hour and a half ago, this semester left my hands. Done. Time for grades.

*And then I remembered my Amazon wishlist, and I added all the books there to my to-read list as well. 200. Hooray!

normal people and famous people and those in between

So I touched Ira Glass tonight.

I also heard him speak and saw him, you know, like all the other people in Centennial Hall did. But then my friends and I went up and acted silly and talked to him.

Anyone who doesn’t already know how awesome Ira Glass is is a fool. Hi spresentation was pretty awesome. He just has such a wonderful voice, and it was just an interesting presentation, though in some ways disappointing. Ira Glass is not someone you feel like listening to while sitting upright in a chair, smooshed against lots of other people. For some reason I felt one of my headaches come on, which didn’t make it any nicer to be uncomfortable, but it’s also one of those things that is weird to experience in person when you’re used to radio or the podcast. I wanted to be lying on the floor or on my bed with my eyes closed. That is how you should experience This American Life.

Regardless, it was cool. And of course I went up with the rest of my friends afterwards to go talk to him. I wanted him to sign my ticket, since I didn’t have anything else for him to sign. And while waiting in line was fun, just because we all got to hang out and because I talked to this other nice random girl who is about to graduate from law school. But meeting interesting people in this way makes me feel very, very uncomfortable, because I can never make myself look smart or interesting while doing it. Even if I had a burning question to ask Ira Glass, it would never be something that would just come to me while I’m standing in line with a ticket stub and a ballpoint pen. Just like people want to wait after concerts to meet the artist, it was something that needed to be done, but I also didn’t want to. I’m sure if I spent hours with him, we’d find something interesting to talk about, and I could actually make myself appear as smart as I’m pretty sure I am, and I could ask some good questions. But accosting someone after a performance is awkward and nerve wracking. I’m not one of those people who can just go up to a stranger and spill all of my life and dreams and ask for advice. Is it because I know the advice will likely be something I’ve heard before or because I know the advice of a famous person isn’t necessarily better than the advice of someone who knows me better? I’m not sure.

It’s a strange form of networking, and I’m not sure whether it’s better to be good at it or bad at it. Generally, I am pretty good at meeting strangers (at least adults and professionals…I’m terrible at people my own age) and being friendly, talking about myself, and ending up with advice or encouragement or connections or a job offer or something. It’s this conniving but genuine thing that I’ve sort of mastered. And I’ve just been lucky, I think. But when you’re meeting someone who is famous, even when they’re only famous to you, like Ira Glass, it’s hard to gush without sounding swoony, to ask for advice without being a cliché, to ask questions without being boring. I never know what to do.

Not that I’ve met a huge amount of famous people. But it’s still awkward. I hate listening to people fall over themselves at a book signing or an event like this one, and I know it’s mean of me. Who am I to tell someone to be less excited? Just because I’m inhuman doesn’t mean they need to be. But it’s so embarrassing. You know those times when other people, even when they’re strangers, do something so weird that they’re not embarrassed by that you end up being embarrassed for them, just because the thing you share is both being human? It’s horrible. I’m such a bitch sometimes.

billy collins doesn’t like me

The first annual Tucson Festival of Books was this weekend. Saturday I went for pleasure, Sunday I went as a volunteer. It was a pretty great event–not perfect, but especially awesome for the first year. I, dork that I am, went on Saturday dressed in my Marcus Flutie shirt, and Megan McCafferty definitely noticed it when she signed my book. It was sweet. She also spoke for an hour about writing, and like any good author does (Megan McCafferty and Rachel Cohn are hands down the best current YA writers, though technically Megan is an adult writer–another reason why she’s an awesome YA writer, if you can understand me), made me want to get back to my writing. Too bad it’s still lost on that broken harddrive in my bottom drawer

Still, it was a wonderful event. I now have a New York Times t-shirt. Very useful, I know. I also have a tent of a volunteer shirt from yesterday, which I promptly took off because it was too hard to move my arms in a men’s large. AND I have various other goodies, like Bookman’s tote bags. Whatever.

The Billy Collins reading was fabulous. Too bad the audience wasn’t. I have a huge problem with annoying audiences, and I feel like often, baby boomers are incredibly annoying to sit near. My parents are baby boomers, and they’re not obnoxious, but I think it’s inappropriate to continually guffaw at every other line of a poem, even if it is funny. This isn’t a comedy club, and though it’s one thing to chuckle or laugh occasionally, cracking up at everything that was even slightly funny meant a) I wanted to smack lots and lots of people and b) I couldn’t hear the next line of the effing poem. Shut up, people. But who cares, because Collins still writes great stuff, and his voice is awesome. I was wondering why it sounded familiar and then it hit me: Kevin Spacey. I’m not sure if Collins’ life is interesting enough for a biopic, but if it is, Spacey must play him. They have the exact same voice. Same monotony, same dry, wry way of being funny. Awesome.

His interjections about his poems were kind of the best part. Writers are some of the most interesting people to speak, especially poets, because you’re so used to ascribing your own voice to their work. I was actually surprised to find him so funny, not because I missed seeing the humor in his poems, but just because I read them as wry, not direct humor. He had two that I think are as yet unpublished, one called “Migraine” or “Hangover,” he said, depending on what feeling you’re more familiar with, that was hilarious, and another about the phrase that has already been kicked out of slang standing for “OMG,” which was a clever poem, but I think it needs work because he had to explain quite a lot of it before he actually read the few lines. But it was funny. Like a joke. Then it was okay to laugh. But other times, I think chuckling would have been far less annoying.

So afterwards I stood in line, which was also annoying, because it made me think of the Jason Mraz concert and about how famous people tend to get snobby and forget how to be gracious. I understand that it’s more efficient to have your book open to the page that needs to be signed, but sticking a post-it with my name in it seemed a bit much, and even more was the “volunteers” who took my book from me and opened it. I have had a book signed before, thanks. I’ve also read a book before, and I know what a title page is, thanks.

But again, who cares, right? Billy Collins. But I think he hates me. He saw my name, and he informed me that it was the same backwards and forwards, and we both acknowledged that it was a palindrome. I really like it when people tell me that about my name, because I’ve never written it before, so I would never have noticed. He said, “I’m going to show you the best palindrome,” and I was pretty excited, because a poet was going to tell me something, and not only is he a former poet laureate (I think you get to always keep the title, kind of like president) but he also has a PhD. so he starts writing “I love m–” and I go, “I love me, volume one.” (Spelled “I love me, vol. I,” it is a pretty sweet palindrome that is also the title of a book of palindromes.)

So he looks up and goes, “Oh. You’ve heard it.”

Oops. So much for being gracious. Foot in mouth, poet laureate crossed off list of future friends.

Still, a pretty wonderful festival over all. Can’t wait till I’m a guest there.

i, hannah

Yeardley Smith writes books now. I’m reading her children’s novel, I, Lorelei, right now and loving it. It just came out earlier this month, I think, and my review should be out soon.

I think everyone knows at this point how much I love children’s books. I think generally, a children’s book says a lot more about the current state of society and culture than your average adult novel. Of course, there are good novels and bad novels in every area, and “children’s book” is not a genre, it just denotes an audience, but still. I will go out on a limb and say that. And they’re just fun.

This one is good for many reasons, but I’ll only talk about two of them so I’m not cheating on my review. First, I loved the book from the first page because of the Marilyn Monroe references and the subsequent references to Scarlett O’Hara, “West Side Story,” and other things that adults will recognize, and un-cool kids will not. Lorelei’s middle name is Lee, which is a pretty obvious homage to the Lorelei Lee of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” Hooray!

And even better is the thing that I am always trying to explain to other writers and just to people in general, about how simple and necessary it is to subtly insert diversity into novels. Diversity is not a novel only about Mexican or Japanese or black people. It’s also not when you insert one Jewish character in a story for the sole purpose of inviting some sort of conflict or plot device directly relating to that person’s being Jewish. Sometimes people who aren’t WASPs just exist, and they’re not strange or different as a result. I, Lorelei has a perfect insertion of this–the “cutest boy” in the sixth grade is biracial. Perfect. Love it.

Any little thing can make me happy.

bah, humbug

Everything about this winter break seems so stressful. I’ve forgotten how to take care of myself. I have to take care of everyone else, and there’s no one to complain to because anyone I could complain to has some condition that I should be sensitive to.

Falling back into angst is not what I like to do. I just feel like another entry here is overdue, and I don’t have the energy to be creative. And that is another way that I’m not doing well this break. I’ve forgotten how to start writing, even when I have ideas or I’m excited about something.

G-d I miss my novel. I almost have it back. If I can just figure out how to unlock these half corrupted files that the hard drive recovery man gave me from my shot computer hard drive. I’m so close. When going through them, I found two files that were in the same folder. Now I just need the actual novel. I had so many chapters. I just can’t start from the beginning.

On the bright side, Megan McCafferty and I are Facebook friends, and she messaged me because I said I was excited to meet her at the Tucson Festival of Books. Hurrah for writers! They are the best.