Books!Books!Books! Part I

I recently came across this article in The Atlantic about a slow-books manifesto which obviously is borrowing from the slow foods and subsequent slow everything movements. It’s both tongue-in-cheek and sincere. If we’re concerned about what we put in our bodies, why not be concerned about what we put in our minds. And why not take time to enjoy the quieter pleasures of reading (fiction) to the “fast entertainment” of television and the Internet. The Pollan-esque manifesto is: Read books. As often as you can. Mostly classics. and to aim for at least 30 minutes each day of literary reading. I think that’s perfectly admirable and doable, and I am going to try to be better at reading more. 

For more about the amorphous slow reading movement, here are two articles from The Daily Beast and The Guardian.

Because I’ve been pretty bad at reading lately, upping my TV and movie watching while the same ten books sit on my bedside table, half-read. It had been a long, long time since I actually finished a book, but I recently finished several and the pile has shrunk somewhat. Since I love books and reading and talking about books and discovering what other people are reading, I thought I would share some of what I’ve been reading in 2012.

I received Habibi by Craig Thompson for Christmas. It’s a graphic novel about . . . a lot of stuff. It’s a bit Dickensian in its sprawl. The artwork is gorgeous, the story is troubling. But then in many ways it’s supposed to be—again like Dickens. I will say that the narrative conceit using numerology, calligraphy, and Bible/Koran stories is complex and interesting. I found the second half of the book/story to be less satisfying and rather bleak in the end. Thompson has also been charged in this book with Orientalism and sexualizing Dodola, one of the main characters. The Hooded Utilitarian has a thoughtful conversation with Craig Thompson about these issues.

Speaking of Dickens, my friend Lillian and I were reading Great Expectations last fall. Lillian finished; I did not, even though it’s my favorite Dickens. Masterpiece just showed a miniseries with Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham. It is currently up at PBS.org, but probably only till Sunday. There is also a new film version due out later this year with Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Havisham. Hopefully, I will finally finish the book before that comes out.

After Habibi, I read Alexandra Fuller’s new memoir Cocktail Hour under the Tree of Forgetfulness. It is honestly the best book I’ve read so far in 2012, and I can’t stop thinking about it. In many ways it’s the sequel to her memoir about her childhood growing up in Africa. This book centers more on her mother’s perspective. This is what I wrote in Goodreads:
“Alexandra Fuller wrote of her African childhood in Don’t Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight—known afterward to her family as the ‘Awful Book’—and her fey mother, Nicola Fuller of Central Africa, emerged as the most memorable character. In Cocktail Hour under the Tree of Forgetfulness, Fuller returns to that harsh continent to chart her mother’s life and memories as a one million percent Highland Scottish woman who grew up in the perfect equatorial light of colonial Kenya, who led a hardscrabble life in war-torn Rhodesia, who lost children, land, and sanity before courageously achieving an ‘African kind of peace’ on a farm in Zambia under her Tree of Forgetfulness. A notch below the Awful Book, Fuller's writing is beautiful, engaging, and compassionate in capturing her mother's voice and a life Worthy of Fabulous Literature.”
I would suggest that you read this book as it is excellent. But read Don’t Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight first if you haven’t already.

I’ve read a few different graphic novels. First was the Fables series—where familiar fairy-tale characters, after fleeing their enchanted kingdoms, are living in modern-day New York City. I read the first story arc “Legends in Exile.” It seemed like my perfect cup of tea, fractured/re-imagined fairy tales and in a graphic novel format to boot. And while I have friends who LOVE the series, it left me a bit cold. Maybe I thought it would be more like The Sandman, and it’s not really fair to compare anything to The Sandman which to me is the benchmark of adult comics weaving together myth, history, legend, and superheroes into the stuff of dreams and nightmares. I also read Maus I by Art Speigelman which is considered to be a masterpiece in itself and also of the graphic novel format. I wrote: “Art’s complicated relationship with his father frames Vladek’s own story of surviving Nazi Germany as a Polish Jew. In this graphic novel where Jews are mice and Nazis cats, the story achieves a harrowing reality.” I need to pick up the second volume. Finally I read the first volume of the Scott Pilgrim series “Precious Little Life.” While it’s a fun and clever little comic book, I had already seen the film which is a very faithful adaptation, and the source material did not really give me more.

I read Chris Hedges’s polemical book American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. It’s a very interesting book that exposes the fascist elements of some fundamentalists, evangelicals, and dominionists. I think the book deserves its own post, but in case I never get around to finishing it, this angry book, which sometimes gives way to the “left-wing paranoia about a looming evangelical-led theocracy,” is thoughtful, provocative, and relevant. I think it’s definitely worth taking a look.

I decided to read The Paperboy by Pete Dexter after seeing this retro-looking movie poster. The film will star Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, John Cusack, Nicole Kidman, and David Oyelowo. I read the first third of the book in about a week and the final third in another week. The middle third took about three months when I didn’t feel like reading much of anything. I had to renew the book four times from the library. Here’s my brief annotation: “Paperboy Jack James recounts the story of a death-row groupie, a terrifying inmate and his clan, and Jack’s taciturn brother, half of a star investigative team who stir the remote backwaters of 1960s Florida with shocking consequences.” The movie, directed by Lee Daniels (Precious), should be . . . interesting.

I recently finished Kitchen Confidential, Anthony’s Bourdain’s jumbled mixture of memoir and food writing—two genres I love. But I did not love this book. Part of it is Bourdain’s debauched behavior, smug assholery, and machismo—though he is at least aware of these qualities. Anyway, his whole personality rubbed me the wrong way. However, there are worthwhile chapters. If you have every wanted to be a chef or open a restaurant—or even have a romantic idea of being a chef or opening a restaurant, he will quickly disabuse you of such notions. If you eat out a lot, he will tell you, as a chef, what he eats and what he avoids when dining. If you would like to cook like a pro, he will tell you some of the tricks and tools of the trade he uses. If you enjoy the shocking tales of degenerates, you will like the rest of this book. Otherwise, I feel the parts are greater than the sum.

Coming Soon: More Books!