Tag Archives: books

tinker, tailor, soldier, torn

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i can’t get enough of ripping john le carre’s title :)

well, this another moral dilemma (granted, not quite as…BIG a deal as my previous post :).

actually, this is a post that stems from a comment left on my earlier post about le carre’s novel tinker, tailor, soldier, spy.

by r. wrote: “i LOVE John Le Carre. I haven’t picked up Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but I definitely want to read it. Only I’m torn. Should I read it before or after the movie? Am I going to be bored watching the movie when I already know the plot?…”

and i love that so much because that is EXACTLY what i have been wrestling with. should i read the book and be surprised? but then will i hate the movie and miniseries? or should watch the 1980 BBC with alec guinness and let that surprise me? OR should i wait and see the oldman/firth version and let THAT surprise me? there is something about in-theatre shock that i love. and oldman/firth are sure to be sensational… but if i see that movie, i know ill never go back and read the book. and ill NEVER watch the old version.

so i was definitely torn.

and here is what i decided (and have done).

i read the first 4/5 of the book. truly. i read all but the last 5th or so — and i watched the first 4 episodes of the BBC miniseries (2 to go). im going to wait to finish the book and bbc until i see the new movie. im going to let the movie shock me (or confirm my sneaking suspicions). and then, since ill have so little of the book to go, im pretty sure i wont mind picking it up and finishing it. AND i might as well wind down with the last 2 BBC eps after all that.

seriously. how complicated can one person be? you never knew until now.

how i do my part to keep IKEA in business

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The fact of the matter is, I don’t normally have a big capacity to read. I love books–I love talking about them, thinking about them, imagining writing my own. I love the smell of them, the feel of them. I love buying them. I love paperbacks and hardbacks. And I also love kindle and nook. I just like having books. I don’t care what form they are in. But when it comes to the actual act of reading I’m a little less enthusiastic. I used to love to read–would do it for hours–but as I get older, my attention span seems to diminish for some reason. So for the past few years, it’s been really hard for me to just sit down with a good back. I mean, sure, I find a real gem every so often, but it definitely takes a lot more to really captivate me. In some ways, I’m sad about that–I miss being so easily enraptured by a good book; but in other ways, I guess I’m okay with it. I’m more discriminating now, and I hope that means the things I do read, I enjoy a lot more.

When I was getting ready to move back to California, I was determined to cut back on “stuff” and be a more moveable person, and so I went through all my books and got rid of half of them. I kept the ones I love and the ones I will read again and the ones I marked up in graduate school. But anything I wasn’t particularly invested in, went. It was great. Liberating. Interesting (to see what I kept and didn’t). I sold my full-length bookcase on craigslist, and when I got to California I bought one of those narrow IKEA billy bookcases. And I fit all my books on it. Perfectly.

And then the past week, for some weird reason, I found myself back in the book business. Not only book-buying–that business started up again with a fury when Penguin released their awesome clothbound classics–but actually reading. I find myself at present engaged in reading no less than three books (which is monumental for me these days), and intent on starting two more immediately (four of these five are books I bought in the past week). I like the idea of finishing one book before I start another, and usually I’m quick enough of a reader that that’s no problem, but this week I just don’t want to wait to start the others. Weird, right?

my five latest purchases (the one on top is a new set of journals)

I’ve been wanting to read Godel, Escher, Bach for years. It seems like all the smart kids have read it, and every time I start to talk about self-reflective stuff, people always throw it out there. So I know I’m like 30 years late, but I got myself started on this one. So far, so good. And by that I mean, I’m way in over my head. This is definitely one of the hardest books I’ve tackled. Apparently there are some great lectures on YouTube that go with the book, so I’ll be checking those out, too.

I’ve told you about reading Stanley Fish’s How to Write a Sentence, so I won’t belabor that point. Suffice it to say, the more I read of this book, the higher my recommendation goes.

I’m also reading Arthur Phillips’s The Tragedy of Arthur, which is pretty good–but a little too chatty for my attention span to be really invested. I like the idea of this book a LOT though, so I stick with it. But it is a bit hard for me to really get into. I don’t want to make this into a book review or book synopsis sort of post, but here’s the link to the New York Times article about the book. This review is what inspired me to buy and read this book in the first place. I don’t advise it for readers with short attention spans, but I do want to say that every small bit I manage to read is pretty amazing. The author is incredibly gifted, and the structure and plot are brilliant. Maybe on a day when my brain is a little slower, and I don’t mind chatty narrative, I can make it all the way through it…

There is also Peter Carey’s Parrot and Olivier in America, which I just bought today, because it caught my eye. It’s about early America and it seems to be a masterpiece. Not that I would know, because I haven’t started it yet :) It’s one of the two books that I WANT to start. It’s fiction, and stars a character loosely based on Alec de Tocqueville. It’s supposed to be (and I quote the certainly-unbiased quote on the front cover): “As big and bold as America itself…Carey at his finest…He is a sheer magician with language.” It also won the Booker Prize, which might be a little more reliable as a character witness…

All of this is well and good, and I’m thrilled with these books–but let’s not forget my capstone purchase. The book I not only judged by, but also bought because of, its cover. No, really. I have no idea what this book is about, and to be quite frank, I don’t even care. The cover is sheer brilliance, the author is H.G. Wells, and that is enough for me. Behold:

That’s right. The cover is a folded sheet of newsprint. The book’s title is the “article” title of the newspaper, and the contents of said “article” are that which is normally found on the cover’s flaps. I am in love. I hope this book doesn’t turn out to be indecent, because I do NOT want to return it. I’m hoping H.G. Wells will be as safe as usual.

Furthermore, this book has inspired me to make a series of my own book covers. I’m thinking I could get a bunch of blank newsprint, design covers similar to this one, and make covers for my own books. But that’s anotherproject and anotherpost.

For now, I need to read. And plan another trip to IKEA.

the art of literature

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ohmygoodness. i have found the coolest posters EVER. spineless classics has designed a series of posters with the entire text of a classic book on a one-page poster–with a cool image silhouette to boot! i cannot rave about this enough. love love love. add it to my reasons-to-be-wealthy list. here’s a few faves:

(emma is, of course, one of my fave books...but i'm not sure i like this poster... i just can't quite like her nose in the silhouette...)

murder, she keeps trying to write

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i feel like i’m fairly well-acquainted with the literary world of murder and crime. i’ve read (almost) everything by dame agatha, sir arthur conan, and carolyn keene/franklin w. dixon. i tried to get into sayers, but couldn’t handle her narrative style and pd james is sometimes too dark for me; georgette heyer is a nice medium between the two. i don’t like thrillers—i’m not reading for an adrenaline rush. i trapeze for that. or wash my dark clothes in hot water. i read mysteries because i like to think about things while i’m reading, to put pieces together, and so on. i want detail, and i want a story that’s meant for me to try and solve it. furthermore, i don’t want to read about sex crimes. i don’t want to read about anything that can give me nightmares. i just like clean, old-fashioned mysteries.

but it seems like i’ve read them all. (note: i just found out about a new series that might be right in line with my taste–ill keep you posted.) so, recently i decided that since there were no more mysteries to read, i should write my own. (i have to give a shout-out to toni morrison on this account; she is quoted as saying, “if there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”)

i had two characters in mind and they were easy and fun to put down on paper. i wrote a chapter just introducing them, getting the setting in place, and so on. the hard part was next: outlining the story. i’ve been trying to work on it for a while now. and sometimes putting it off, then picking it up, etc. but i’ve reached the point (at last) where the rubber must hit the road. im ready to piece the last bit of the plot together, finish the outline, and start writing–not just a fun first chapter, but the legit stuff. writing for realsies.

today my former roomie pinned an awesome poster (above), and while she is using those words to motivate her to work out, i’m using it to motivate me to write. yesterday i did say tomorrow. so today, i’m writing.

book of the year

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i have just finished reading what i have decided should be 2010′s book of the year. it can be 2011′s, too, if it wants, because it’s been a while since i’ve read something i like this much. in fact, i’m going to have to say that the potato peel pie book was the last book i read of this amazingess.

i have a list of my top 5 favorite books (un-ranked within that list), a list i don’t lightly change, and i have to say that this new book has just made the cut.

allow me to introduce you to adam langer’s the thieves of manhattan. if i had to describe it in one sentence i would call it “The Great Gatsby meets The Great Train Robbery (with a little of __________ thrown in).” i can’t quite pinpoint what title to put in the blank, but i think you get the idea. (ironically — and yes, i think this is irony — theives has replaced the great train robbery on my top-5 list.)

the thieves of manhattan is the story of ian minot, a barista who is also a struggling writer. his stories are continually (and brutally) rejected by publishers, while a man named blake markham has just published his “memoirs” and is topping all the best-seller lists. ian knows that blake’s story is completely fabricated, and he’s infuriated by the phony’s success. enter jed roth. jed roth has written a novel that is so far-fetched the publishers said it would never get published unless it was true. and so roth has a plan — ian will publish his novel as his own, claiming that the far-fetched tale is a memoir and very true. then at the opportune time, ian will reveal that the story is false. he’ll be so famous by then, that he’ll be able to get anything he writes published. and roth will get his revenge on the publishers — by shaming them and revealing their hypocrisy. it seems straightforward enough, but there’s a series of twists along the way, delightful characters, and a quick-paced writing style that quickly charms the reader.

langer’s style has a feel that is somehow reminiscent of the great gatsby; not only in his scenes and themes (glitzy parties, what men do for love, phonies and high society), but even in his actual writing. it’s far less difficult to read than fitzgerald, however; i found myself breezing through the pages. one of langer’s best techniques is a vocabulary he creates. ian wears a pair of “franzens” (glasses like jonathan franzen) and buys a new “gatsby” (a sportscoat like gatsby would wear). there’s a glossary for all those, though context is pretty helpful too, and i wasn’t ever bewildered past understanding (even when the fine details escaped me). a slight downside is that the book starts a bit heavy on publishing-industry terms and there’s one or two blips of obscenities, but the storyline and characters more than compensate; and by the end, it makes for a clear, concise, charming read.

on the one hand, it’s an a satirical (and sometimes acidic) take on the publication industry. but there is more at work. langer is also commenting on what kinds of readers we are (have become?) today, the kinds of books and authors we revere — and support. and, to top it off, langer tackles the fine line between fact and fiction — which is one of my favorite literary topics.  in many ways it is the book i wish i had thought of first and written. for anyone who loves metatextualism, capers, and a good plot (three of my favorite things ever) — i give it 5 stars.