Additions to the Summer Reading List

• The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters: I heard about this on NPR this morning, and it sounds good. Ghosts, postwar insanity, big English gothic mansions--I'm there.
• Best Friends Forever, by Jennifer Weiner: I choose to believe that the title is ironic. Anyway, I've loved J-Wein since Good in Bed, so again--I'm there.
• Brooklyn: A Novel, by Colm Tóibín: A plucky Irish immigrant navigates NYC. Do I even have to say it?

Buffalo Lockjaw, by Greg Ames

This book is so depressing. James, a 28-year-old "sensitive artist" type, comes home to Buffalo for Thanksgiving and to possibly kill his mother. That sounds pretty bad until you consider that his mother, once a brilliant, vivacious nurse, is a 56-year-old victim of Alzheimer's. She was an advocate of assisted suicide and once confided to her son that she wanted to kill herself before the disease made her incapable of doing so, but he talked her out of it. Now he feels that it's his responsibility to end her suffering.

The business with his mother is bad enough, but he just sleepwalks through life, hanging out with his friends from high school who are living pathetic, faux-Bohemian (faux-hemian?) lives. James sees this now; he describes these people as artists who create no art and musicians who never play anywhere. Their lives just make me sad. I think the book is well-written, and I don't dislike James. He's self-aware enough to know he's a loser (as he says on p. 263, "I can't figure out why no single women are talking to me: I'm a balding twenty-eight-year-old making archaic political references to myself. I'm a catch"), and the scenes with his mother are touching. I don't know...the book just makes me feel bad. I'm going to finish it, but it's really not my cup of tea.

I do have to add this quotation for my sister-in-law, who I think will appreciate it:

"I understand that this is heroism. How can it be anything else? No matador in the world shows that much courage. Give me a good RN over a fireman or police officer any day. Every day a nurse sees truths that would crush a weaker person. And a good nurse resists the urge to lie, cheat, and steal her way out of reality. She just stands in the ring and fights" (Ames 276).

Playing Catch-Up

I've been seriously slack in posting about what I've been reading lately, so this will just have to do.

• We Thought You'd be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive, by Laurie Notaro

The dorkiest girl alive? I thought that was me! Notaro's essays are laugh-out-loud funny and completely relatable (inner-thigh chub rub, anyone?). She has a gift for finding humor in everyday situations and annoyances: attempting to capture a rat in her house (only to discover that he's really a cute little mousie once he's immobilized on a glue trap), being locked out of the house, trying to find boots that fit her calves (been there). I definitely plan to read more of Notaro's work.

• The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien

Most of my reading diet is pretty lighthearted, so every once in a while I try to remedy that with a book like this semi-fictional, semi-true tale of O'Brien's experiences in Vietnam. The story in which he describes his aborted attempt to escape the draft by fleeing to Canada is heart-wrenching. An excellent companion piece to this would be Keith Walker's A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of 26 American Women Who Served in Vietnam.

• Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do, by Wednesday Martin

This was an interesting read. In some ways, Martin's message is a downer: unless you encounter exactly the right conditions (age of stepchildren, situation with parents pre-divorce), chances are good that the whole stepfamily thing isn't going to go well. However, her main message is that it isn't your fault, and that everyone experiences this. The anecdotes in the book made me appreciate my step-situation, which really is pretty mild. I was lucky enough to get most of the right conditions.

• The Year of Fog, by Michelle Richmond

It was interesting to read this in conjunction with Stepmonster. The protagonist, Abby, is out for a day at the beach with her soon-to-be stepdaughter Emma when the girl disappears. As the weeks pass with no clues, the police and even Emma's father start to believe that she drowned in the ocean. Abby never gives up hope, though, and searches obsessively for almost a year. It was odd to read of a woman who claims to love the little girl more than she loves the girl's father when Stepmonster goes to great pains to establish that this sort of love between stepparents and stepchildren rarely happens. Also, after reading Martin's book, I was surprised that more people, especially the general public, didn't blame Abby for what happened (though she blames herself enough, and so does Jake). The book is pretty good, though--a real page-turner. It also serves as a fantastic advertisement for both San Francisco and Holga cameras. Seriously, who would not want a camera that takes pictures like this? http://microsites.lomography.com/holga/galleries

How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time, by Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer

I got this in the mail yesterday (having finally accepted that I would never find it at my usually well-stocked library) and have about three pages left. Yet I can't wait to begin writing about it, so here goes. How Sassy Changed My Life is pure nostalgia in paper form. I was an avid Sassy reader from seventh grade until the awful, much-reviled "Stepford Sassy" appeared in 1995 (the year of my high-school graduation--I came so close to having Sassy for my entire adolescence!), and this book just brought it all back. The magazine was so smart, so different, so witty, so aware; it represented everything I wanted to be. It spoke to me in a language I understood. I have always loved magazines, but now I put them in the recycling bin once they've been read. My Sassys, on the other hand, were lovingly archived in pink milk crates in my room for years. I read and re-read them to the point that I had much of the content unintentionally memorized. Sadly, I have no idea what happened to them. I guess I got rid of them, but I can't imagine what would have made me do that. I would dearly love to have them again.

Anyway, back to the book. It's a history of Sassy's brilliant rise and tragic (to its readers, at least) fall as well as a look at its impact on culture. The authors argue that today's girl culture was started by Sassy, and I believe it. That aspect of the book is valuable and feels like a vindication for those of us who feel a little weird about being so devoted to a teen magazine. However, the best part is all of the references to the fantastic articles that appeared in Sassy. Jesella and Meltzer are my heroes for including an excerpt from "Our First Annual Junk Food Taste-Off." (I remember "orange" being a category, along with the usual sweet, crunchy, etc.) Andrea (remember all of the writers and editors with whom we truly felt we were on a first-name basis?) describes pork rinds as having "the texture of sunburned skin." How do you not love that? The Taste-Off was one of my all-time favorite articles, along with the one about why you should date the exchange student, how to have a great crying fit (keep a picture of your ex-boyfriend or recently deceased dog on hand in case you start to lose steam), the road trip (including a stop at South of the Border!), and "How to Make Him Want You...Bad!", which mocks the catch-a-man tactics offered by other popular magazines.

So now I finally have the real story of what happened to Sassy (F you, Dale Lang and Petersen Publishing). It's like finally finding out why you were mysteriously dumped by the best boyfriend ever and realizing that it really wasn't you, it was him. I'm off to eBay now to see if I can score some vintage Sassys. Wish me luck!

Illiteracy vs. Innumeracy

Apparently, math people are mad that the rest of us think they're really smart. Yesterday I was reading Slate's Dear Prudence column, and someone with a heavy-duty math job wrote in complaining that when she reveals her occupation, people always make self-deprecating remarks about how they could never do something so complicated. The writer made the comment that it's acceptable to talk about being bad at math, but it's unacceptable to say that you can't read. This echoes an interview with Neil Degrasse Tyson that I read (in Time, I think) a while back. He made the same point: in our society, innumeracy is okay, while illiteracy is not. I took issue with Tyson when I read that, for this simple reason: When people say they are bad at math, they are not saying that they can't count or do simple four-function math. They are saying that calculus scares the bejeezus out of them. That's not innumeracy; that's just the way it is.

Do you know what happens when people find out that you have an English degree or, God forbid, teach English? They almost always disparage their own grammatical skills or confess to reading something like Twilight with a sheepishness better suited to farting in an elevator. That sounds a lot like the same thing Dr. Tyson complains about. Do I dismiss those people as illiterate? Of course not. They can read the paper, magazines, websites--every crucial thing that gets them through life, but they feel intimidated by Shakespeare and diagramming. That's only a problem if you are, in fact, an English teacher.

So in my opinion, this illiteracy vs. innumeracy argument isn't even comparing apples and oranges. It's comparing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to Noix de St. Jacques Pôelées au Champagne at Les Halles prepared by Anthony Bourdain himself. Comparing basic literacy with fluency in algebra and beyond? Shouldn't these big-brains be smarter than that?

The Journal of Mortifying Moments, by Robyn Harding

Will someone tell me why I read this garbage again?

Summer Reading

I'm a little disappointed by the number of books I've read and posted about this year, but I'm not too worried--summer is on the way! In exactly five weeks, I will have some serious free time on my hands, which is bound to be filled with lovely, lovely books. Here are some of the ones on my list of possibilities:

• The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien: I've always been intrigued by this book, but I've never made the time to read it. That ends now. Besides, the AP students at my school are assigned this book every year. Am I going to allow myself to be outread by high schoolers?
• The Help, by Kathryn Stockett: This got a great review in Entertainment Weekly. Sometimes that's all it takes.
• Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, ... With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory, by Roy Blount, Jr.: How do you not love that subtitle? I'm a big fan of RBJ on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me (remember, I'm an NPR geek), and I imagine his take on English will be delicious.
• When I Grow Up: A Memoir, by Juliana Hatfield: Sometimes I get a case of '90s nostalgia, and this looks like the tonic.
• How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time, by Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer: See above. Sassy kind of defined me in the early to mid '90s. Back then, you were either a girl who read Sassy or a girl who read Teen. The girls who read Sassy were fewer in number and felt far superior.
• Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald: As much as I love The Great Gatsby, it's high time I read something else by Fitzgerald.

Any suggestions?