Filed under: pop culture
Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series: In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place. All of these, you guys. They are SO good. In the Woods come first, and it is about a detective named Rob. The Likeness follows, and his partner Callie is the main character. Next is Faithful Place, with Callie’s boss Frank being the lead this time. They do follow each other in order, but I think you could jump into any of them without being completely lost. The books, and characters therein, are so absorbing and entertaining, that taken as a trilogy I found them very satisfying. It’s a rare feeling, to me, to walk away from a group of books feeling sated. Potter-like, I dare say. The fourth book in the series is due out in March. I can’t wait.
Like most (reading) people, I reached Elizabeth Gilbert burn-out after EPL became what it became, and Smuglia Roberts was far overshadowed by the scenery in the movie version. That being said, I was delighted to find Committed to be very enjoyable. Elizabeth is likeable, a good writer, and I liked the historical bits strewn throughout the book.
I am just as surprised as anyone that yet another zombie book can be good. Last year, it was Justin Cronin’s The Passage, and this year, World War Z by Mel Brooks’ son Max. The book is oral history-style (that thing again), and the stories within are quite believable for mostly having zombies to blame. Terrorist attack at the Mall of America? Believable. Zombie dogs? Duh: so believable and really dumb that other people haven’t wielded that before. US Homeland Security going all honey badger and not giving a shit about human lives and strictly protecting the country? Totes McGotes believable. Don’t let my liberal agenda in the way, though; it’s pure entertainment. Read it before the movie(s?) come out.
Room! I put off reading this because of the thought of it was just too sad for me. (It’s based on the monstrous Joseph Fritzl.) Much less of the book than I anticipated takes place in the Room itself, though; I don’t think I’m ruining it by saying that most of it takes place outside the room. (Ugh, sorry if you find that a spoiler. I have a much more generous embrace of spoilers than others. My take is, even if I know what’s going to happen, I don’t know how.) Anyhow, it made me emote and stuck with me for at least 2 weeks after I finished it, which gives it one of my top spots of the year.
Blood Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef is a “food memoir” in the sense that it’s written by a chef (she runs Prune in NYC), but it – and her life – is more than that. the first chapter ran in the New Yorker and seriously made me joyous; the love with which she writes of the childhood parties where her parents went all out for their friends made me super envious and inspired to share that same kind of magic when we entertain. The rest of the book follows in a somewhat like fashion; this is not your standard chef memoir. (Which yes, btw, is a thing. I’ve read a few.) More accurately, this is a person’s memoir, who is a darn good writer, who happened to become a professional chef late in life. She didn’t aim to become a chef at a restaurant that well-known; in fact, she didn’t have much aim in life at all for a very long time. I did find some holes in the story – one can’t get into a MFA in Writing program by being completely aimless – but I still highly recommend this. (And, she’s here on the 31st for a Talk of the Stacks lecture at the downtown library. See ya there.)
State of Wonder was “it” for me this year. This was the one that kept me mulling, chewing, feeling sick to my stomach about a certain plot twist almost a full month after I finished it. I delightfully found this book to be un-categorizable. Is it about female friendship? A fertility tale? A work story? Heart of Darkness again? A cautionary medical tale? All of the above? Sure.If you have any sort of experience in Central America – or Eden Prairie, surprisingly – it helps build the vision of the story in your head.
One complication to my relationship with this book is that I don’t find Ann Patchett likable one whit. She strikes me a snooty one-percenter without a lick of warmth. But, like many of the characters in the book, it reminds me that humans are complicated people. That we all act in ways that disgust, repel, and fascinate others all the time, and hopefully in the midst of all we can maintain some sort of love.
I snuck in 11/22/63 (that’s really the title, can you believe it?) under the gun in the last days of 2011, and finished it on my new Kindle Fire. (What what!) You know me: a Stephen King apologist and a sucker for time travel. It’s all here: sci-fi, fate, love, nostalgia, 600+ pages, all the tropes of SK, but this time an attempt to stop the JFK assassination. It’s just fun.
A Vist from the Goon Squad was a National Book Award winner, deservedly so. It has a masterly structure and a good story reflective of this era (online dating! Cell phones! Digital music purchases! It’s dismaying how many modern books ignore modern life). I won’t ruin the best part for you, but there’s a single chapter near the end of the book that everyone talks about in reviews. It uses a certain tool in MS Office to deliver it’s content, and even though it shouldn’t be revolutionary as it is – and it is a bit gimmicky – it works so well and is so true to character that it delivers smiles. Those smiles are much-needed; I found the book pretty grim. There’s a flash-forward at the end (not really a spoiler, settle down now) that works decently well for that sort of thing. All in all, I recommend it.
Swamplandia! aka, my Breaking Bad of the year. That is, the book I didn’t like, or ever really warm to, but I really respect bevause of its execution. The author, Karen Russell, was chosen in this year’s New Yorker’s list of 20 under 40 writers to watch…my jealousy alarms go off less frequently for writerly things these days, but lists like that do ring bells. She deserves it. I would go as far to say that the majority of the sentences in the book, not to mention the situations/plot/structure/characterizations – are worthy of an audible “whoa.” And, I may be the only one in America, but I HATE the cover.
That was the best. Now the rest.
Like Tana French’s series, I read a few related books this year. All worthy of remarks, but not remarkable.
Three celebrity memoirs were fun: Bossypants (natch), Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, and Things I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe. Of the three, I would recommend purchasing BPants, allotting the least amount of time to Is Everyone (it’s quite bloggy), and bringing a borrowed copy of Things with you on vacation.
I also read Just Kids and Please Kill Me. Just Kids is a memoir from Patty Smith, chronicling her entrance to the punk scene and her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, and Please is an oral history of the scene overall. I don’t have a particular interest in the scene; Kids won the National Book award, and I’ve been pretty interested in those selections ever since Gilead, so that was my only reason for reading it. S has been telling me that I should read Please for a few years, and so I acquiesced. I wasn’t a fan of either book, but I do like being armed with knowledge. They at least offered me that much.
Filed under: pop culture
Readings
I think I mentioned Julie Klausner’s book last year in this post, but her twitter feed and other writings are a delight. This post, Don’t Fear The Dowager: A Valentine to Maturity, originally on The Hairpin, was just STUNNING to me in its perfection. Not only did it assure me that I am not alone in just being dang tired of twee/cupcake/zooey deschanel etc, but that I was correct in appreciating curves, cocktails, adulthood, etc.
Similarly, this article: Can’t Be Tamed: A Manifesto, posted on This Recording. I went back and read it this summer while we worked our way through seasons 1 and 2 of Mad Men, and whoooo boy did that ever make the pictures with it come to life.
The Dear Sugar column on the website The Rumpus, in particular this column, The Ghost Ship That Didn’t Sail. It came in the middle of a tough summer for me; I didn’t enjoy mothering at all this summer, and was really feeling trapped. I read this at work and had to “take a short walk.” Or, as other people know it, go to the restroom and cry a little. I don’t keep up with Sugar’s other columns like I should, but they always remind me of the gentleness of spirit I’d like to cultivate in myself. (She threatens to reveal her identity soon, but I’d rather she didn’t. I enjoy the anonymity. A quick Google search can put the pieces together, and this essay by a writer I won’t name is such a match for Sugar’s tone that I’ll be really surprised if it’s not her.)
The AV Club of The Onion has been irregularly running a column called “We’re Number One” which looks into a number one album and the details behind it. It’s fun, non-judgmental music writing. IMHO, it’s never reached the heights of the initial essay on Def Leppard, but perhaps it’s just me.
McSweeney’s – which can really do no wrong. Long-winded, and sometimes not interesting to me, but not wrong – holds a yearly essay contest. The winners get to be regular contributors, and their contributors this year have knocked it out of the park. One writer is a missionary in the states living among Muslims, one writer working through her grief of her son dying (reading those have caused many “breaks” at work), and this series, from a college freshman going through Rush in Mississippi. Yes, I realize I’m showing my shallow hand in choosing to link to this series instead of the others, but reading these essays is like looking through a cracked looking glass at my first year at Baylor. The author is a reticent pledge and a truly amazing writer. The writer is SO GOOD I find it hard to believe she is going through it currently (but she is! wow), but it’s so right-on, and so wise, that I am captivated by every column.
Of course, Tina Fey’s “A Mother’s Prayer for Her Child” from Bossypants.
In the beginning of June, I emailed myself the following. I simply had no other place to put it, and wanted to remember this: You know when you’re reading something and a sentence unexpectedly hits you in the gut? That was me, yesterday. Here’s the quote, from a NYT article about experiencing Disneyworld while high on marijuana (seriously): “It seems like a lot of what you end up doing as a parent is trying to figure out ways to save your children from you.” KA-POW.
Music
This is the year I really let music go. Like most people, I pledged to myself when I was younger that I wouldn’t be one of “those people” who only enjoy the music of their youth. I’d charge ahead! Find new stuff! Go to shows! Be able to talk about it! Ha.
First Ave is our local “danceteria” (their words, not mine) and concert space that really defines Minneapolis. Late last year, a bunch of us somehow found out that if it’s your birthday, you and a plus one can get into any show for free, even if it’s sold out. My friend Ashley’s birthday fell on the night when Robyn played the mainroom (Feb. 13) and after a bunch of wishy-washiness on my part (trying to pass it off to her brother, waffling on whether or not I should go, etc etc) I went and it was wonderful. Robyn, Ashley, and I all danced our asses off for about 2 hours and it was so worth all the fatigue the next day. Granted, I think it was the only concert I went to the whole year, but it sure was enough to last me 365 days.
Two songs in particular I’ve liked this year: “Vomit” by Girls and ”Dearest” Black Keys on the Buddy Holly tribute album
TV
Good TV is a relationship. Anyone who disagrees isn’t watching good tv. The relationships zoomed through a screen I’ve really enjoyed in the last year include:
· Parks and Recreation.
· Season 1 of Friday Night Lights on Netflix streaming
· Community
· Cougar Town
· Mad Men
We watch “Breaking Bad” together. I don’t love it; it doesn’t lift me up like Parks & Rec, warm my heart like FNL, revel in its weirdness like Community and Cougar Town, or have the smug high water level of design/performance like Mad Men. But what it does do is tv done right. The acting is crazy good, the story is compelling, the characters engaging if certainly not likable. This summer, before season 4 premiered, I had the thought, “I wonder how Hank is doing after his accident?” Granted, this all flashed through my head in seconds, but: I don’t know a Hank in real life. The only Hank I know is Hank Schrader on Breaking Bad, who was in a kind-of car accident in Season 3. Relationship tv, I l tell you.
Tech
This year we finally switched to smart phones. S saw a commercial over the winter season which touted a Virgin Mobile phone plan for only $25 a month. He thought that sounded like BS, and with some investigation he found that it wasn’t. After a $400 investment (ugh), we were set up on new phones. We still just pay $25 amonth (the plan’s gone up to $35 since) but we get 300 talk minutes and everything else is unlimited: web, texting, etc etc. I did have to pay to end my contract with Sprint, but we determined that over the course of 2 years we’d save around $1000. Dude. Every time I watch The Good Wife on my lunch break on my phone I think about how much I love it. (Additionally, we’ve talked 8 people and counting into the deal. It’s too good to pass up!)
We also bought a Roku Box this year. We’ve never had cable, so to be able to stream Netflix on our tv has been awesome.
Other
I still love, love, love to thrift shop. I had this in my post last year, but I do get a thrill when I find something amazing for cheap, get compliments on something I bought second-hand, or find the perfect thing for someone else at rock-bottom prices. The only drawback is that it has ruined me for shopping in “regular” stores; I was cheap before, but now I have a terrible time paying even sale price for clothes and shoes.
Tilia in Linden Hills (Mpls). I’ve had brunch, a couple dinner dates, and a big family meal there with more than 6 people and this place truly never disappoints.
OMG, RG3 winning The Heisman Trophy. (Translation for those of you who for some reason haven’t heard me crow about this: Robert Griffin III, Baylor’s quarterback, won The Hesiman Trophy this year.)I can’t even tell you what it means to me…literally. I’ve had a blog post about three-quarters of the way finisghed for over a month now titled Sport, Texas, Being an Outsider, and the Heisman Trophy, and I can’t finish it. True, I am also not making the time to finish it, but it is kind of embarrassing to me how much emotion I have about all of this. I thought I was “so over” Baylor, so distant from any investment in it, and not much for sports. The sports part I can broach: S got into college football last year, and this year I just gave in: six Saturday nights in a row were spent on our couch, watching whatever big game was on the tv. For the most part, I didn’t mind. I had my phone or laptop to entertain me, but I like sharing it with him and knowing what people are talking about. Then Baylor started to do well…and it snowballed. The win is definitely one of my favorite things of the year.
Books to come soon. Trying to hit a nice even number by midnight on December 31…
