LGBT YA BOOK CLUB YAY: Girl Walking Backwards

Here we have the first book in this summer's one-woman LGBT YA reading mission. (Such an acronym-heavy genre, I love it.)

Girl Walking Backwards

by Bett Williams

Sometimes I forget how totally intense Young Adult fiction can be, subject matter-wise. I just finished The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, which is by all accounts a book for grown-ups, but it didn't have half the 'adult' themes that Girl Walking Backwards has. If I were to sum up the story of The Marriage Plot, I would say it was about one fairly average woman and two men who become steadily less suitable for her. I mean, it had a little sex and some mental illness, but it was basically tame. Girl Walking Backwards has drugs, alcohol, self-harming, masturbation, sexual abuse, divorce, satanism, sex and mental illness. I don't know how the kids can handle it.

I would totally recommend Girl Walking Backwards, though. It's about a girl living in Santa Barbara, CA, trying to cope with a mother who is basically in a self-help cult, an awol father, and falling in love with a damaged goth girl. The protagonist is very likeable, and if occasionally the prose wanders into teen melodrama territory it does at least feel authentic. Plus, as mentioned above, a tonn of exciting stuff happens.

Further Books Reviews: 2010 Backdated Edition

I want to post some thoughts on the books I read last year, before I forget about them completely. Goodness, I swear my memory gets worse and worse. Must be the drinking.

I read some pretty great stuff last year, spanning a wide range of the human experience - love, death, struggles, intrigue, 18th century French meat products, sexy vampires. Without further ado, etc., etc.

Master and Commander - Patrick O'Brian

This is the first in that series about sailing around in your fancy ship boarding other fancy ships. It was pretty great, but I am not sure I'm ready to commit to reading the entire long series, like my parents or my friend Natalie have. This was pretty good about getting into the nitty gritty practicalities of life at sea without getting you confused by the seafaring jargon. There was also a handy diagram in the front of the ol' boat if you wanted to check up on your rigging. I was hoping that there might be more homoerotic subtext between Captain Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, but I assume that appears more in later books - it's maturin' throughout the series. (Pun!) Then you can 'ship them as a couple. (Double pun!!)

Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi

This was pretty great, I remember really liking the b & w art, especially all the little girls at school in their headscarves. I wonder if the animated movie version was any good?

Club Dead - Charlaine Harris

I haven't a clue what happened in this book, I don't remember which of the Sookie Stackhouse novels is which. I expect there was some vampire shagging, and too much stuff about were-panthers. (Were-panthers, were-tigers, were-foxes etc: RIDICULOUS. I hope that sort of thing hasn't infested the True Blood tv show too much yet.)

The Truth - Terry Pratchett

Ok, I see what must have happened here. If I was reading both Charlaine Harris and Terry Pratchett, I must have been on a plane. This was a solid Pratchett, it was about the development of the printing press and newspapers. Some interesting stuff about the magical properties of movable type, and the outrageous truth-telling potential of the media. The only thing is that the protagonist was obviously gay, but ends up with a tacked-on female love interest. (I know, I just want extra gay in all my reading, but still.)

The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola

This Zola is about the Les Halles food market in Paris. It is glorious, full of lush descriptions of all the foodstuffs in the thriving and vast markets. Even the vegetables sound exciting, but Zola really goes all out when describing what goes on in the central setting of the book, which is a market -adjacent charcuterie. (A business where they prepare meat products, like pates, sausages, bacons, confits, etc.) The French really can make an extraordinary array of delicious foods out of pork fat. This book is not for vegetarians.

I think Zola's point is that all this food makes you decadent, resistant to change and greedy. Still makes it sound bloody delicious, though. The human angle in this book is about the gossipy relationships between market vendors and how everyone conspires to condemn an innocent man.

Interestingly, the translator of my edition claims he doesn't even like Zola's writing very much. He is a food writer, he's just in it for the pork products, too. Most of the footnotes are bacon-specific.

Carry On, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse

Jeeves and Bertie! Excellent stuff. This story collection begins with the arrival of Jeeves in Bertie's life - Jeeves Takes Charge. Yes he does.

Cider With Rosie - Laurie Lee

I can't remember a single thing about this novel was like, except that it had a nostalgic kind of mood. I also have vague personal feeling of guilt, because I bought Cider With Rosie from a bookshop, read it on the commute to my crappy summer job, and returned it two days later, pretending that I thought it was rubbish.

Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

What a corker! Seriously, I think everyone must love this book. I couldn't stop reading it. I was really annoying for about a week because I was supposed to be having a good time on vacation but I was either reading this book or moping around wishing I was reading this book. Note to self: read less absorbing books when on holiday. In case you don't know what Middlesex is about: it follows three generations of a family who migrate to America (that plot is total Pulitzer-bait, amirite?) beginning in Greece, and the protagonist Callie/Cal and his struggles with gender identity, his family's past, and the American Dream!

Commencement - J. Courtney Sullivan

I borrowed this from Jen and Lucy when I stayed with them - thanks for everything, Jen and Lucy! It's about four best friends who graduate from Smith together, and their divergent paths. There's a good lesbian plotline, obviously, because they start out at Smith.

Girl Meets Boy - Ali Smith

This is a re-read, I still love it. It's about sisters, one sister is madly enthusiastic about life and falls in love with a Geurilla Girls-style eco warrior, and the other sister starts out very anxious and conventional but loosens up. There's some cool stuff where the first sister and her lover go around Inverness graffiti-ing mystifying yet profound slogans on everything. The real strength of this novel, I think, is how Smith totally nails the voices of each sister. Innovative yet totally convincing. Plus who doesn't love a genderqueer love story in their novel.

(Unfortunately this novel was a nominee for the Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Smith does get a bit carried away sometimes, but I didn't mind it at all. I would rather read a passage about sex making you feel like a magical leaping fox than some sort of uncomfortable Philip Roth-style thing in this year's Important Novel.)

Trumpet - Jackie Kay

This is a novel about a jazz trumpeter guy who hides his biological sex, but then when he dies there's a big media reveal that he was born female. It's about his wife and adopted son in the aftermath; I liked the bits with the wife but the novel spends too much time in the voice of the angry and embarrassed son, and the journalist who wants to write a tell-all scandalous book. Left kind of a bad taste, for me. I guess I just wanted everything to work out, and for no one to be mean to the poor trumpet player.

The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters

Some good ghostie bits, but mostly disappointing. My least favourite Waters book so far (except perhaps for the depressing Affinity). Make me want to go back and re-read The Night Watch. Shame, because I was really excited about this one. I still think the cover is fabulous, though.

An Anthropologist on Mars - Oliver Sacks

Having heard Oliver Sacks on the radio, I could tell he was fantastically intelligent and a total sweetheart. These are fascinating vignettes of unusual neurological conditions, and how they affect the lives of people who are affected by them. They include an artist who suddenly becomes colourblind, a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome, and a bit about Temple Grandin. Definitely recommended, and I am about to go read more Oliver Sacks.

More to Follow...

Some Book Reviews

So it's that time of year again, when look back through the books I read in 2010 and decide if I liked any of them. (Spoiler: I probably did, else I wouldn't have read them.) From the top:

Small Island - Andrea Levy

Actually tell a lie, I didn't like this one. I wish I did, because everyone raves about it (also it was a gift from relatives with excellent taste). Not only did Small Island win the Orange Prize, but it won the prize for best Orange winner of the decade; plus some other big literary awards. However, it was laboured, boring, stilted, and full of sledge-hammered home moral points. Plus outrageous coincidences that would be out of place in the cheesiest tv drama. *ACTUAL SPOILER ALERT* The heroine's long-lost love just happens to have had a war-time affair with the woman who she just happens to rent an apartment from in another damn country, and then she ends up bringing up their love child! Ridiculous! Everyone's character traits are massively unsubtle, and easily summarised on Wikipedia: "One of the main characters is Queenie Bligh. She is a symbolic of England: Queenie comes with reference to the royal family (she was also christened Victoria after Queen Victoria) and Bligh comes from Blighty, a slightly dated word for England." Get it?!?!? The title is also a massively clever and multi-layered pun. (NOT.)

Potential, and Awkward/Definition - Ariel Schrag

Ariel Schrag wrote these autobiographical comics about her high school years while she was still having them: she wrote each book about the previous year, and then her first college year catching up. Astonishingly honest and raw, showing a precocious grasp of storytelling, kinda funny, and pretty damn queer. My favourite part is when she is obsessed with No Doubt and Gwen Stefani (this is a few years back, pre-Hollaback Girl), and gets backstage, and Gwen gives her a hug! Note: I would recommend the first couple of books, but in the final one (Likewise) she has some sort of breakdown, and it gets pretty dark and angsty. (One angry masturbation scene is quite enough; four, too many.)

Annie On My Mind - Nancy Garden

My quest to read the lesbian literary canon brings me to this charming YA novel about two high school girls in lurve. It's a little cringeworthy at times, but heartbreakingly sincere and very sweet. Seems to be written in a voice very like that of a teenage girl, but one of those dreamy bookish teenage girls. (Not that I knew any of those...)

The Angel's Game - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Loved Shadow of the Wind, so this was bound to be a winner. It's sort of a literary conspiracy theory murder mystery? That maybe has the devil in it? Gothic, macabre, fast-paced, totally weird. The ending is bizarro. Loved it.

French Milk - Lucy Knisley

This is Knisley's travel journal of a visit to Paris with her mother. Lovely, jealousy-causing brush pen drawings of places she visits, buildings she sees, people she meets, things she buys, food she eats. Definitely the food; she really likes food. I suppose she is in France. It looks tasty delicious.

Nights at the Circus - Angela Carter

A third re-read- or fourth? I love this novel. Thank you to Keira in art school for giving me a copy for my birthday and introducing me to such joyousness. Ok, so I will just tell you that the heroine is a tall, buxom, articulate, bleached blonde, filthy-talking cockney trapeze artist with wings. There is also a magical handbag, many cups of tea, a train journey across Russia, and suicidal clowns. Hmm, I am making this sound like some lame madcap steampunk novel. Tell you what, it is written by Angela Carter, so the writing is phenomenal. There, fixed it.

Elizabeth Kostova - The Historian

This was a recommendation from the gf, it was pretty good. She sold it to me based on the fact that it is about vampire hunting through the medium of checking up on codes and footnotes in ancient books across the libraries of Europe. I mean, it's a no-brainer, right? However the only reason I don't give it an entirely ringing endorsement is that I felt like it rather ran out of steam in the last third, and I had trouble mustering up the energy to finish it.

John Berger - Ways of Seeing

Awesome! Also, it's an art theory book with a bunch of pictures in. Which is rarer than you might hope. In fact, some of this book's essays are composed entirely of pictures. Blows my mind.

Empress of the World - Sara Ryan

I feel like Empress of the World, another YA novel about lesbian teens, is like Annie On My Mind 20 years later. Same studious teenage voice, but fewer dangerous consequences for the active young gays. Quite heartening really. Still a bit cringy in parts, but also heartwarming.

Manet - La Gare Saint-Lazare Ligne d’Auteuil, 1877

La Bete Humaine - Emile Zola

So around here you all know that I am a tiny bit obsessed with Zola. I am aware that I have an uphill struggle to share my obsession, and this novel is no help. Guys, La Bete Humaine is SO gloriously depressing. *SPOILER ALERT* Everyone dies. All the characters die. No one is safe. And before they die, everyone has a sucky time of it. A murdering psychopath is the hero. There are two horrific train crashes. One doomed love affair. Also, a fascinating close study of the French railway system! That's what you get with Zola: wonderfully absorbing examinations of societal systems and their effects on the people who live within them, plus depressing drama for the bloodthirsty.

More to follow...

Zola = Sexytimes

Yep, it is a bodice-ripper alright.
(I confess I haven't read this one yet, but if I know Zola half the pricipal characters die miserably and there isn't even the ghost of a happy ending. Just like love!)

Invisible Cities

So here's a bookjacket image I made using a combination of Photoshop and Illustrator. Photoshop for the background and the shapes, and illustrator for the text. You may, if you know my work scarily well, recognise the source images used for the little architecture cutouts: it's the pen and ink drawings of US houses I did a few years back, you can see them here. The book I chose was obviously going to be Invisible Cities, because I love it so, and it ends up influencing my artwork a lot. That about covers it, I think! (Pun unintended.)

You know, I do not find this digital art stuff very easy, but I think it could be useful now that I am kind of starting to get the hang of it.

Books That My Eyeballs Have Alighted Upon in 2009: Part 2

Well, I was half way through my list of sort-of book reviews, covering the entirety of what I read in 2009, which is not as much as usual: see below. Now I shall continue. I know you were anxious for me to do so.

16./17./28. Dress Your Children in Corduroy and Denim/Me Talk Pretty One Day/When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris

I am just loving the particular brand of comic and vulnerably honest autobiographical stories that David Sedaris has to offer. They are funny, but not as laugh-out-loud as I was expecting - more just comically insightful. I also felt like I had really gotten to know Sedaris, through his warts-and-all approach. And you know, he is a really weird guy, interested in a range of really macabre stuff. Which is why I love him. (Start with Me Talk Pretty One Day, is my recommendation.)

18. Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck

I have a really old edition of Tortilla Flat, and the blurb on the back dates from a time where they hadn't discovered irony. I am fairly sure the contents have discovered irony, unless I entirely misread the whole thing. It's about a bunch of guys living in Monterrey, drinking wine and stealing things and generally having a good time, but told in a chivalric style which makes 'em all sound really noble, which I suppose they actually are if you look at it another way! Blows my mind! Nah this was good, I mean it's Steinbeck.

19. Locas - Jaime Hernandez

A re-read of all the Maggie and Hopey comics by Jaime Hernandez. So freaking good! Punk chicks living in a California barrio in the 80s, a zillion well-drawn characters, with a little lesbian lovin' thrown in. Plus just the best artwork I've seen in comics, I swear - the way he plays with light and dark is just incredible. Look at this, for example.

20. Home - Marilynne Robinson

Reading this book you are very aware that the author is an actual genius. Quiet, lovely, cuts to the quick.

21. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Marina Lewycka

I read this while I was at the American Embassy in London queuing for my visa. Takes bloody hours, you need something to read. Thanks, Caroline!

23. The Vesuvius Club - Mark Gatiss

I read this on the train from Southampton to up North. You need something to read while wedged on a train with hundreds of drunken Millwall supporters. Thanks, Lydia!

23./26. Dead as a Doornail/Definitely Dead - Charlaine Harris

A couple of those books that True Blood is based on. These are pretty fun reading, full of sex, death, vampires and werewolves. It's a nice antidote to Twilight, because the heroine actually gets stuff done, and shagging a vampire is no big deal and certainly doesn't involve 500 pages of moping.

27. American Gods - Neil Gaiman

My first book read in American in 2009. Oh yeah. It was a lot of fun, but I enjoyed the more low key earlier sections when you meet all these deities fallen on hard times and driving taxis and whatnot. The latter chapters were a bit overly-epic, and then it wouldn't end. It was like Lord of the Rings. I am glad I read it, though, because it was enjoyable and people have been recommending it for many years.

29. Palimpsest - Catherynne Valente

A totally crazy book which I am very glad I found. It's a steampunk-ish fantasy novel about a fabulous dream city that you can only get to when you sleep with the right people. Said people have a tattoo on them somewhere which is a streetmap of a neighbourhood in this wondrous city (called Palimpsest), and then when you have your post-sexytimes nap you wake up in the city and have all sorts of adventures with animal-headed people and mechanical bees. But then a tattoo appears on you in the morning! And you want to go back so you have to find some new tattooed person to do it with. Palimpsest was a bit overwritten at times, but full of great ideas, not to mention lots of fluid-sexuality shagging.

Alright! Some good books there, some forgettable. None terrible. Roll on 2010, here's hoping there are many fabulous books in my future! (Actually the book I am reading right now is pretty awful. So it can only get better.)

Books That My Eyeballs Have Alighted Upon in 2009: Part 1

So I write a list of the books I read as I read 'em, you may have noticed it nestled discreetly on the right hand side of this blog. Keeping this list encourages me to finish books instead of reading five at once and never getting to the end of any of them. Reason number two is that on rare occasions I will read a book, it will have no impact on my brain, I will forget it, and I will end up reading it again years later accidentally. I can only recall this happening with Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, but my reading time is valuable and that was a repeat I could not afford. Plus who does not appreciate a list? (Probably those rare people without a hint of OCD in their personality, but who's ever met one of them?)

I usually seem to arrive at about 50 books read in a year, but I find that this year I have only arrived at 29! What could be the reason for this? I don't feel like 2009 has been a book-scarce year. I suspect the last couple of months have let me down. I have been so busy, and although I commute a lot it is now by bus and not train - I get sick if I read on the bus. Reason number three is that I picked up this whacking great volume of Great American Short stories, a collection that was edited by a bloke (Tobias Wolff) who is clearly a miserable bastard, and all the stories were depressing/tragic/thwarted. This unhappy reading experience put a hitch in my efforts.

The upside of only reading 29 books is that I feel I can easily review the entire lot. So I think I will, both for my own edification and hopefully your blog-perusing pleasure. Ahem, let us begin:

1. Changing Places - David Lodge

An amusing and accurate look at the contrasts between the US and UK university systems, which seems relevant for today though set in the 60s. I especially liked it having experienced both sides, what with my transatlantic study.

2. Franny and Zooey - J.D. Salinger

If Zooey Deschanel is named after it, then it's good enough for me.

3. The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For - Alison Bechdel

Ok, anyone who is queer, likes comics, has read Bechdel's excellent Fun Home or who likes gossip with a soupcon of politics should read this. I think that covers just about everybody. Thoroughly absorbing. (Although this edition doesn't have every single DTWOF strip Bechdel has ever written/drawn, and I wish it did - I began to suspect the sexy ones were taken out. Maybe that is just evidence of my one track mind.)

4. Small World - David Lodge

Another David Lodge, with more satire of US/UK cultural difference, and the backbiting literary world. I would not recommend reading too much Lodge at once, because you start to feel every character is basically weak or a scumbag, and no one has a happy ending. Too much depressing with your funny, basically.

5. The Best Creative Nonfiction Vol.II - Ed. Lee Gutkind

So interesting! My favourite essays I instantly wanted to photocopy a dozen times and send to all my friends. But then I did not get around to it. C'est la vie.

6. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz

My gf has just read this, and she said that although while reading it she felt it was a fantastic book, the details started leaving her brain as soon as she was done. I agree - I can remember hardly anything, and it's not even a year. Does this mean it had no permanent impact on me? Does this mean it wasn't as good a book as I thought at the time? It is about a hapless nerdy kid and his lack of romantic play, and there are a lot of informative footnotes about the Dominican Republic.

7. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City - Nick Flynn

Totally forgot I read this. That's another buzz-receiving title that didn't stay with me.

8. Sharp Teeth - Toby Barlow

You have to read this book. I know it might not seem promising - a verse novel about werewolves set in LA - but it's worth it. Lyrical, beautiful imagery, and the plot was enthralling. Trust me, I will set you upon the right reading path... Here, I blogged about Sharp Teeth before (includes pictures!)

9. Watchmen - Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Moore has done far better since he did Watchmen, in my opinion. Check out Top Ten instead, is my advice. The plot felt exactly like something a teenage boy would appreciate if he was trying to be deep, and I hated the artwork - so garish and 80s!

10. Americana - Don DeLillo

I like DeLillo, but this felt like a bit of a juvenile work. It took me a long while to get through, it was a hard slog. I would recommend White Noise instead. That seems like that has a similar theme but a more consistent tone - which you could summarise as American modernity making you feel a bit iffy.

11. Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married - Marian Keyes

THE MOST DEPRESSING READING EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE. I don't want to talk about it. But I wrote about it here.

12. Molly Fox's Birthday - Deidre Madden

A quiet, intelligent book about friendship between quiet, intelligent and calm people. Produced a feeling of serenity and studiousness.

13. The Flight of Icarus - Raymond Queneau

Another lovely Oneworld Classic edition. This is a funny little book, written like a play script, about literary characters escaping from their novels and running amok. I think my friend Hannah would like it.

14. The First Person and Other Stories - Ali Smith

I love me some Ali Smith, and I love her short stories. However, I do not think this is her best. It felt somewhat insubstantial.

15. Pirates! In an Adventure With Napoleon - Gideon Defoe

Hilarious! I freaking love these books. However you never know if your sense of humour is the same as everyone else's. Totally a no-brainer for me, though: Funny pirate books, what's not to love?


That will do for now. I will return later with the next 14 "reviews". I bet you are on tenterhooks.

The Essentials

Now, since we have already covered what I'm going to be reading on the plane, I am sure you are all on tenterhooks waiting to learn what other books I am bringing with me to the US of A. You know, those books that I cannot bear to leave behind. The books that I need to have with me wherever I hang my hat. (I don't actually have a hat or a hat rack to hang it upon, ok? It's just a saying.)

The booklovers amongst you will surely sympathise with the heartache of leaving one's collection behind, along with all the connotations and memories each volume has. But I do have to fit all my worldly belongings into two suitcases and I'm trying not to be ridiculous, so I've tightly rationed my book allowance.

Ladies' Delight, Emile Zola, Oneworld Classics

Well clearly I needed this book, and I have already rhapsodised about why. And isn't the new range of Oneworld Classics good-looking?

Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

God, I wish I had this edition. Look how pretty! Unfortunately I've seen this edition sell for hundreds of pounds, I think it might be something to do with how the shiny silver embossing easily flakes off. (Don't quote me on any of that, I am not entirely sure about it.) What I do have is this edition:

Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino, Vintage Classics

...which is your average English paperback edition. I don't really like the look of it that much, I would like to have something more special. However, this paperback has the advantage of being my reading-in-the-bath copy. It is battered, a little soggy, and I don't really care if it gets submerged while I'm soaking in the tub.

Invisible Cities has got to be my favourite book bar none. It is lovely, poetical, I feel that all life is contained within it, it has changed the way I think, and I need a copy to hand at all times. Including in the bath.

19 Knives, Mark Anthony Jarman

Because it took a lot of hassle to get to me, what with one thing and another, and when it did it turned out to be intense, visceral, beautiful writing I won't soon forget. Worth lugging 7000 miles, in my opinion. Not to mention that my generous girlfriend sent it to me as a thoughtful gift.

If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, Anne Carson

Another gift from my generous girlfriend, this time for Valentine's Day, so I couldn't very well leave this behind, could I? This is a lovely volume to always have at hand to dip into. Plus, on a superficial level, you get lesbian street cred.

Robert Creeley, Collected Poems

My edition of Creeley's poems was an unpleasant shade of mustard yellow with a close-up of Robert's not terribly attractive mush smack in the middle. Needless to say, I covered it. I'm not sure whether to bring this book, as it is pretty bulky. But I have always been fond of Creeley's poems, and furthermore I've used my edition to make notes and sketches and record other snatches of poetry I liked. Hmm, I'll have to see how much room I have in my suitcase.

Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons, Penguin

I don't actually need to bring this book, because Kaia already has the copy that I gave her. Score! Cold Comfort Farm is another of my absolute essential favourites, something any thinking person should have access to for any eventuality, namely if they need to do some funny accents, find some classic catchphrases, or in fact experience the most perfectly poised hilarity in the English language.


Boy, this was a boring entry, wasn't it? Well, this blog is after all to record my thoughts, my fears, my life, my opinions, and with that my packing concerns. For now, you will just have to suck it up. More photos of Chuck Bass will be forthcoming.

Anti-Retail Therapy

Well, I am flying to America in less than a week now. Changes, upheavals, all very stressful! Because although I know I am flying to lovely people in a great place, it is still a big change and of course there are so many people I am going to miss.

In such a situation I have alighted on something that makes me feel very much better. Namely, lending out a whole bunch of my stuff to my friends before I go. I'm not going to be making use of these things for maybe about a year, and I can't take them with me, so it makes sense to lend them to people. They can just read the books, and give em' back to me in a year or so. Really, it is very therapeutic for me. Feels like letting go, but in a good way.

Not that this will be of any interest to anyone, but here are the books I've sent off with friends so far:

Spaniel Rage - Vanessa Davis
Tomorrow Stories 1 & 2 - Alan Moore
The Escapist Book 1
La Perdidia - Jessica Abel
America's Best Comics Volume 1 - Alan Moore
New Queer Girl Writing - ed. Michelle Tea
Patience and Sara - Isabel Miller
Girl Meets Boy - Ali Smith
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson
A Complicated Kindness - Miriam Toews
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - Tom Robbins
Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin
Sharp Teeth - Toby Barlow
A Model World and Other Stories - Michael Chabon
The Smoking Diaries - Simon Gray
Middles sex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Michael Tolliver Lives - Armistead Maupin
Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
Gemma Bovery - Posy Simmonds
Confederates in the Attic - Tony Horwitz
Changing Places - David Lodge
The 39 Steps - John Buchan
The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
Moon Palace - Paul Auster
Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
Dress Your Children in Corduroy and Denim - David Sedaris
The Flight of Icarus - Raymond Queneau
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
The Man Who Was Thursday - GK Chesterton

(Plus a whole bunch of CDs and DVDs.)

I can now begin to concentrate on all of the books I will buy from America; in other words all the books I will buy from Powell's.

Plane Reading

As as most of you probably already know, I am moving out to the States next month. Yep, I am heading back to Portland, Oregon, to the city and the woman I love, following the dream, that kind of thing. It's pretty damn exciting.

If you did not know that already, you may instead be aware that I am not great at big announcements, and will hopefully forgive the fact that instead of properly informing you all of my life-changing plans I would rather talk about what books I am planning to read on the plane.

So here we go! I think that choosing what to read on a plane journey is a decision that needs time and consideration. You need something that will hold your attention, soothe a restless and frustrated spirit (because airports and airplanes can be frustrating places) and not ask too much from a tired mind. Funny is good, easy reading is excellent, and an engaging and busy plot is a plus.

Here are my reading choices so far:

When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris

How heavy (contents-wise, not in terms of excess pages) does this book appear? What with the skeleton and the title and the serious font and the oil painting. But David Sedaris is a deft comedic writer, he talks about events from his life in a high-larious way. I don't find him laugh-out-loud funny, but wryly amusing, and very quick reading.

Dead as a Doornail - Charlaine Harris

Call this my personal antidote to Twilight, only not appallingly written, and with actual plot and actual grown-up sexy stuff rather than twisted abstinence porn. Plus I am a big fan of True Blood, the tv show based on the novel series.

American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Thank you, Waterstones 3 for 2 offer! (Is that product placement? Apologies.) Various people have been at me for years to read this book, so I finally will. Even the woman who sold me this in Waterstones (there I go again) said I should read it. I have a feeling you're supposed to read it when you're fifteen, though?

Cool For You - Eileen Myles

This is my wild card choice, I guess. I loved a volume of Myles' poetry I bought in Powell's, so I thought I would give this a crack. It seems to be an autobiography. It looks cool (for me).

Tell you what I'm missing, though: some Terry Pratchett! Always the best thing for a plane journey. One more thing: I am not going to repeat the Marion Keyes disaster of last time.

My Cheering Reading Material

So I have discovered the perfect way to cheer oneself up in times of global economic recession:

Emile Zola - Germinal

Reflect on how at least you are not a miner in 1860s France. Oh boy, now that's grim.

Nom Nom

So this is one of the best books I have read this year. Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow - you should read it immediately! However I don't have the energy right this minute to tell you why it's so good, instead I want to look at the cover. You'll just have to trust me on the top-notch quality of the contents. (Lyrical, moving, thrilling, emotional, intelligent, evocative, powerful, many more dramatic adjectives, flippin' cool! etc.)

Sharp Teeth, the American cover.

Sharp Teeth, the English cover, Vintage.

Which do we like best, English or American?

Personally I am inclined to prefer the American cover by a long shot, although the basic image works well for both. The US cover is bolder, brighter, no clutter whatsoever. (My in-person UK edition has reviews on the front too, which would be much better stuck on the back.) The design, I guess for both, is by Suzanne Dean, and the illustrations are Natasha Michaels - there are some more fantastic stark black dog illustrations throughout the novel.

Man, I always end up preferring the American edition of books to the UK editions. It's a few details like the matt covers and the floppier binding, but I would also go ahead and make the generalisation that the design just tends to turn out better. Bolder, less generic. But hey, maybe it's just my America obsession making me biased.

P.S. Read Sharp Teeth.

Books Illustrated

Elizabeth Bennett, by Colleen Coover

If you like literary figures, and you also like illustration, then boy do I have the blog for you!

"Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time!!"

(I can't really work out what this blog is actually called, but it does have a header of The Thing announced his intentions to open up a can of whup-ass on Oscar Wilde, so we'll go with that.) Some fella has been collecting illustrations of literary figures/authors/characters since 1998, and there they are on the web for anyone to look through! The breadth of material here will keep you going for days (I know I've spent far too much time scrolling through), and the quality level of the artwork is just incredibly high. Aside from too many caricatures of Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut (that's book-reading Americans for you), there's probably everyone's fave author/character here. Plus Gene Ha, Jim Rugg, Will Eisner, Mike Mignola, Terry Moore, Trina Robbins, Kate Beaton, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Chris Sprouse, Neil Gaiman, and every other illustrator you've ever heard of. I don't know how this guy managed to make friends like these. Anyway, enough gushing, enjoy.

Kavalier and Clay, by Steve Rolston

Orson Welles, by Ethan Vansciver

Tom Sawyer, by Kirk Leonard

Don DeLillo, by Brian Wood

Douglas Adams, by Tom Fowler

Don Quixote, by Dice Tsutsumi

A-Boo

My American ladyfriend flew back across the ocean today, and I am miserable. I won't see her again for months. She is 7000 miles away. So today I've been hibernating, woozy from waking up at 3:45am and feeling thoroughly sorry for myself.

Naturally this is an occasion when I need some comfort reading. Usually I would go for some Terry Pratchett, preferably Discworld and one of the ones about the Night Watch. I love reading about some adventure with Vimes and the gang running around Ankh Morpork. Makes me feel much better, absorbing like proper comfort reading should be. Unfortunately they didn't have any Terry Pratchett in the WHSmiths as Manchester Airport, so I had to choose elsewhere. Out of their limited selection I went for Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married by Marion Keyes. I know my friend Nicky likes Marion Keyes, and I even borrowed one of hers once and remembered it to be pretty engaging for, and I hate to use this term, chick-lit. But no! Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married was a bad choice! Here's what I emailed to the girlfriend about it:

"It's not the chick-lit escapism I was hoping it would be. I was hoping for glamorous women living in New York and having well-paid non-specific media jobs, falling for a charming cad with whom they have steamy sex scenes, before parting from him and marrying their perfect guy. The Marion Keyes, despite having flowers on the cover and being a nice shade of pastel pinky-purple, is actually rather grim. The heroine is depressed, has low self-esteem, works in a crap office job, has annoying and selfish friends, goes out and gets drunk every weekend, and is messed around by all the disappointing men in her life. I did not ask for this degree of social realism! Except it is also sloppily written and painfully predictable, and of course must end in a marriage. I'll concede there are a few mildly funny bits. Also now I feel bound to read it til the end."

Argh. I'll pre-buy my Pratchett next time, preferably second-hand. Here are a few more of my comfort reads:

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Dealing With Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
The Alanna books, by Tamora Pierce
Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson

What do you guys read when you are in need of the literary equivalent of a big fuzzy hug?

Whacking Great Hardback Little StrangerFriend

WHY did I not know that Sarah Waters has a new book coming out? It's called The Little Stranger, it's due out in hardback end of May-ish. It's a 1940s England-set spooky house tale, and it seems to be lacking in The Gay from what I can tell, but I do enjoy a good ghost story so that might be fine. Probably all sorts of hidden secrets and psychological torment and trickery and a bit of narrative unusualness as well, in the Waters mould.

This seems to be the English hardback cover, looks very similar to the one for The Night Watch, with the vintage font, aged look around the edges, feeling of, what, a 40s pulp novel? I like it, personally. The colours especially are great, and it looks different and vibrant and a little funny.

Here's the American hardback cover. It's a little blah. I feel like I've seen dozens of covers just like it.

Here's some plot synopsis stuff from Powell's. I'm looking forward to reading the book, but unfortunately due to my personally enforced hardback embargo I will have to wait until next frickin' year when the paperback comes out. It's a hard life.

One final thing, does anyone else feel like the title is a bit too close to Donna Tartt's The Little Friend? I think Waters needs to come up with some more memorable titles. No one is forgetting Tipping the Velvet, lets face it. (At least not if you're doing it right!! Boom tish.)

Will Make You Want to Go Book Shopping

Friends, I have just discovered a great new online source for fantastic bookjacket design. It is called:

The Book Cover Archive

Their collection of the best modern design is ever-growing, they have a thousand as of now, and includes such useful information as designer, photographer, art director, publisher, and (this is the bit which makes my heart sing) cover font identification. They also have some interesting links to other book design-interested sites. Most of all, it is a feast for the eyes just to browse through the pages, if you have an interest in reading, or in looking at what you are reading (you know what I mean).

The Plague, Albert Camus. Designer Helen Yentus

I was hard-pressed to choose my favourite examples from the ones on display, so I just picked a handful that I've actually read (some with these covers, some with markedly more rubbish ones).

1984, George Orwell. Design Shepherd Fairey

The Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allen Poe. Design Coralie Bickford-Smith

The Best Creative Nonfiction Vol. 1, ed. Lee Gutkind. Design Rodrigo Corral

Vintage Hughes, Langston Hughes. Design John Gall

Mcsweeneys Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales. Editor Michael Chabon, Art Director John Gall

The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle. Design Chin Yee Lai

Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer. Design Gray318

Mcsweeneys Quarterly Concern, Issue 13. Design Chris Ware

Eichmann and the Holocaust, Hannah Arendt. Design David Pearson

The Whole Story and Other Stories, Ali Smith. Design Gray318

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley. Design Gregg Kulick

Books V. Cigarettes, George Orwell. Design David Pearson

A Million Little Pieces, James Frey. Design Rodrigo Corral.

Ali Smith, Supersonic 70s. Design Katie Gibb

Animal Farm, George Orwell. Design Shepherd Fairey

A bookjacket archive "For the Purposes of Appreciation and Categorization"? Yes, OK.

Effective Shopping With Emile Zola

"She was so lost and small inside the monster, inside the machine, and although it was still idle, she was terrified that she would be caught in its motion which was already beginning to make the walls quake..." (49)

Excitingly (for me) I just re-read one of my very favourite books, Ladies' Delight by Emile Zola. Also known as The Ladies' Paradise, or Au Bonheur Des Dames in the original French. The novel is part of Zola's epic 20-novel Rougon-Macquart series, which chronicles the fortunes of various branches of a French family 1850-1870. Enjoyable for stunning passages of description, forensic knowledge of the monstrous power of various sprawling social institutions (the railways, the mining industry, politics, the art world, the department store...), and also plenty of sex, death and scandal.

The Ladies' Paradise is set in the eponymous enormous Parisian department store, run by the confident and brilliant woman-conqueror Octave Mouret. I could go on about why I love this book for many pages. However, having traumatically been caught in town the other day, I thought it would be most useful to apply the wisdom of this book to the phenomenon of January sales.

God, I hate the January sales. See that quote up top? That's how I feel when accidentally caught in the masses of a large clothes store, only I am markedly less reverent. Probably I would feel better if I was in a lavish, palace-like department store in Paris in 1865. Anyway, here are some lessons that Zola can teach us about the way that the stores will try to catch you out. Oh the evil ways of marketing, germinating here in the insidious schemes of Octave Mouret! (It's ok, by the way, Mouret is eventually Brought Low by Love.)

Cheapness is never that cheap when you've been shopping all day:

"Ninety-five centimes, can it be true?...Why, I might as well take two of them, that won't ruin us!" (238)

Nothing is as good as it looks:

"In their square cardboard boxes, the suits, tied up with a ribbon, were folded so as to show only the trimmings, embroidered with blue and red, and across the corner of each box a picture showed the garment already made up, being worn by a young lady looking like a princess" (385)

No normal person ever remembers to return stuff:

"Then, penetrating even further into Woman's heart, he had recently devised "returns", a masterpiece of seduction worthy of the Jesuits. "Take it all the same, Madame: you can return the article to us if you find you don't like it." And the woman who was resisting would find in that a final excuse, a possibility of going back on an act of folly: her conscience satisfied, she would buy it." (230)

A shuffling of departments into a confusing and illogical order makes you buy more:

"Here, Bourdoncle, listen to what'll happen...Firstly, this continual coming and going of customers scatters them all over the place, multiplies them and makes them lose their heads; secondly, as they have to be conducted from one end of the shop to the other - for example if they want a lining after having bought a dress - these journeys in every direction triple for them the size of the shop; thirdly, they are forced to go through departments where they wouldn't have set foot, temptations there catch them as they pass and they succumb..." (232)

Beware advertising:

"the sixty thousand francs spent on announcements in the newspapers, the ten thousand posters on walls and the two hundred thousand catalogues which had been circulated had emptied the women's pockets and left their nerves suffering from the shock of such intoxication..." (261)

Do not be seduced by flashy displays:

"There, in the diffused light, stood a bright and gaily coloured display making a delightful effect. The counters, symmetrically placed, looked like flower beds, transforming the hall into a formal garden, beaming with a range of soft flower tones." (238)

In the presence of a gorgeous range of garments in a full stunning rainbow of colours, you buy the item, but really you are buying the rainbow. As the memory of the colourful feast for the eyes you saw in the shop fades, all you are left with is a rather ordinary blue shirt. This is why I spend so much money in American Apparel. (Although AA clothes really are nice.)

Emile Zola, Ladies' Delight, trans. April Fitzlyon 1957, Oneworld Classics 2008

P.S. Speaking of being taken in by commercialism, advertising, packaging etc., how nice is the edition above which I bought for myself in the course of seasonal spending? It was a gorgeous paperback, I couldn't help but buy it even though it's my second copy of the book. Also I wonder where the cover photo was taken?

Hidden Cities

Alexey Titarenko, Untitled (Crowd 4), 1992, from City of Shadows

"When, towards the end of the day, the museum guardian came up to me and indicated that she would soon have to close, said Austerlitz, I had just been reading, several times over, a note on one of the display panels, to the effect that in the middle of December 1942, and thus at the very time that Agata came to Terezin, some sixty thousand people were shut up together in the ghetto, a built-up area of one square kilometre at the most, and a little later, when I was out in the deserted town square again, it suddenly seemed to me, with the greatest clarity, that they had never been taken away after all, but were still living crammed into those buildings and basements and attics, as if they were incessantly going up and down the stairs, looking out of the windows, moving in vast numbers through the streets and alleys, and even, a silent assembly, filling the entire space occupied by the air, hatched with grey as it was by the fine rain."

- Austerlitz, W. G. Sebald

Millennium Approaches

"Greetings, Prophet! The great work begins! The Messenger has arrived!"

What a wonderful image, the moment when the Angel breaks through Prior's ceiling and begins to proclaim his destiny to him. Incongruous and awe-inspiring at once.

If you haven't read Tony Kushner's Angels in America, this won't mean much to you, and also WHY haven't you read it yet?! Go out and read it, or see it. The first image here is from the Angels in America HBO series, showing Justin Kirk as Prior Walter and Emma Thompson as the angel (love); the subsequent images show the same moment in several different stage versions. Fascinating to see how they have conceived of the same scene in different ways, and within different limitations. Dude, I would kill to see this play on stage.

(Credit for this post goes to this wonderful blog, which is full of great images, mostly great images of boobs, so you can't go wrong there.)

(By the way, it always struck me as amazing that the first half of Angels in America, Millennium Approaches, was written and had its debut on stage considerably earlier than the second part, Perestroika. Can you imagine having to wait that long to see what had happened to the characters? Seeing a three hour play and knowing that there are three more hours with the same story and characters somewhere out there in the ether seems far worse than having to wait for the next episode of your favourite tv show, say. I think that they still stage the two parts separately. Seems odd to me.)