ETC: Random Wednesdays

Some miscellaneous posting to match my miscellaneous mood these days:

• Does anyone know a magical cure for one of those headaches you wake up with after a night of sleeping with your neck at the wrong angle after practising drunken sumo wrestling with a bunch of your meaner, heavier friends? You know, those headaches that don't seem to respond to coffee or over-the-counter pain relief? I always read or hear about these cures when I don't have a headache, and of course I don't bother to commit them to memory because at the time I'm planning never to have a headache again.
• I was going to mention that it's my (and, coincidentally, also Rusty's) wedding anniversary today, but I just realized that we got the date wrong, and it was actually yesterday. (Don't worry. This is not a bad relationship omen. We've been getting this wrong for fourteen crankily blissful years.) I was going to borrow a page from Wing Chun and Glark's book and use Wing's "if our marriage were a kid" simile: If our marriage were a kid, it'd have snuck its first beer by now.
• I haven't forgotten about the Worst Date Ever contest, and I may even announce a winner one of these days. I was re-reading some of the entries over the weekend and dear god, people, you've been on some doozies.
• Speaking of contests, I think Chapters has finally become aware of the sucking void that is the customer reviews section of their product pages. They're having a contest in which everyone who writes a customer book review is automatically entered to win a $1000 gift card. That's a lotta dimp!
• I'm looking for a bracelet. A red bracelet, to be specific. As a survivor of the fashion colour wars of the 1980s -- from pastels to primaries to neons -- I find myself now wearing a lot of navy, khaki, grey, and other non-colours. But I'd be willing to dip a toe back in the colour pool if the right red bracelet were to come along. I like these, but I have the feeling that felted wool and summertime are not two great tastes that taste great together. Any tips? I tend to buy hand-made jewelry rather than mass-produced stuff. And I like to define my style (if the word "style" can be applied extremely loosely here) as "rock 'n' roll soccer mom." Is that picky enough for you? You're welcome.

ETC: Don't Hate Me Because I Have the Most Awesome Shoes in the Universe

"What are you doing?"
"Taking pictures of my new shoes."
"Er. Why?"
"To post on my blog."
"Your book blog?"
"Of course."
"Aaaaand... why?"
"Heather did."
"Who?"
"So did Karen."
"Who?"
"And Maggie just did it, too."
"What?"
"Look, all the other girls are posting pictures of their new shoes and I WANT TO, TOO."

ETC: 21 Signs That You May Be Young (or at Least Appear to Be)

Sure, you may be old (or just feel like it), but you may be young, too. Tally your scores from both lists and compare!

1. You frequently visit toy stores, and you don't have kids.
2. You thrill to the sensation of opening a fresh box of crayons and cracking the spine of a new colouring book.
3. You have a jar of buttons, not because you sew but because you like playing with them.
4. You shriek when you wade into the ocean and the first cold wave splashes up your torso.
5. You say hi to dogs and cats before you greet their owners.
6. You watch to make sure that no one else's portion of dessert is bigger than yours.
7. You would wear footie pajamas if they came in your size.
8. And also Underoos.
9. You like your sandwich cut into quarters.
10. You collect cool rocks.
11. You lie to your mom.
12. You own a rubber duck.
13. Even though you have your own place, you long for a cool tree fort.
14. You wish for bunk beds.
15. You start planning your Halloween costume in August.
16. You look at an empty refrigerator box and see a world of architectural possibilities.
17. You have sleepovers with your friends.
18. Your hanging-out uniform is jeans, a hoodie, and sneakers.
19. You're not embarrassed about the fact that you read kids' books.
20. You hate brussels sprouts.
21. You still have your favourite stuffed toy, who you sort of believe is sentient, AND THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

(Ups to Paul for reminding me that you're only as old as the websites you feel. Or something like that.)

ETC: 20 Signs That You, Too, May Be Old

I was re-reading yesterday's post whilst enjoying a nice bag of licorice allsorts and a cup of chamomile tea when I realized that I've turned into my grandmother.

It could happen to you, too. Here are some potential signs:

1. You use the phrase "nice young woman" to describe someone in her twenties.
2. You find yourself complaining about loud motorcycles A LOT.
3. You have approached a group of teenagers talking loudly in front of your house and asked them to please keep it down, and you didn't care if they thought you were "cool" or not.
4. You lose a bit of weight and you're annoyed that you have to buy new pants.
5. You see someone get carded at the liquor store and realize you can't remember the last time it happened to you.
6. You were buying a nice bottle of merlot when it happened.
7. Just one bottle.
8. You find yourself frequently moved by greeting cards.
9. You look for quality manufacturing when you buy clothing because you want it "to wear well."
10. You have witnessed three cycles of a fashion trend. You participated in the first iteration. You mocked the second go-around. And you think the third time around is "cute."
11. You are no longer plagued by petty-worries-in-the-middle-of-the-night insomnia.
12. You find yourself waking up at 6:30 am every morning and thinking how nice it is to get an early start to the day.
13. You do this on weekends.
14. Even though sometimes your bones hurt first thing in the morning.
15. You wish you had more free time for knitting.
16. You have found yourself comparison shopping for shoe inserts.
17. You use the word "nice" a lot.
18. You don't sweat the small stuff.
19. You realize it's pretty much all small stuff.
20. You really like a nice list.

Feel free to add to the list.

BOOKS: Read It Again... for the Very First Time

I generally try not to think about growing old, but when I do I usually reassure myself with some pap about how it'll be okay because I'll be wise and I'll have great memories and I'll be able to say obnoxious things without having to apologize. But it only recently occurred to me that aging could have some very tangible benefits to my reading career.

My friend SueB was telling me about her grandmother, whose memory is not what it used to be. As a consequence, her grandma is the most content person in the world, watching On Golden Pond and reading the same four James Herriott books over and over.

Did you catch that last bit? I know! Ding-ding-ding-ding!

I got to making a mental list of books I'm going to be THRILLED to re-read once my memory has more holes than... hm, I was going to come up with a simile that involved old underpants, but then I thought better of it... well, once my memory goes:

• the complete novels of Jane Austen and Carol Shields
• P.G. Wodehouse's Bertie and Jeeves stories
• Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Forrest Gump
• Harriet the Spy

I'd try to make this list longer, but don't you see? I don't need to. Ha-HA!

These are all books I absolutely adore, but I've read them almost to death. It's a bad sign that I've done this before I've even reached (optimistically) middle age. Now they sit on my shelves, beckoning me to pick them up, but I'm afraid to because I fear that this time will be the last time... that I will have officially overexposed myself to a novel and therefore can never read it again. Fortunately, I now realize that I have senility to look forward to, with the opportunity to discover these books afresh... over and over.

Does anyone understand what I'm talking about, or have I accidentally been ingesting crazy pills again? They sit in my medicine cabinet right next to the sanity pills, so it's easy to make a mistake.

ETC: Just Call Me the J. Peterman of the Web

A few bookish finds from my internet travels:

First off, Mitra's Bookcase. I'm still trying to figure out if I like this or not. On one hand, it has a sort of hobbit-ish look that appeals to me. On the other hand, it has that slightly over-shellacked look that makes me think of those wall clocks that are made out of cross-sections of tree trunks.

(If you like those clocks, please don't be offended by my words. My mom likes them, too.)

I don't think you'd find this Fuckin Far from OK bookshelf in your average hobbit hole. Oh, maybe a few of the younger, more rebellious hobbits, when they're going through their tweens and listening to a lot of Morrissey (or his hobbity equivalent) and drinking a lot of hobbit ale.

Why am I finding it all too easy to picture some twentysomething guy hanging this shelf in his place and using it to showcase all his Kerouac and Hesse and Ginsberg and his treasured signed first edition of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?

The Thumbthing is pure genius. I bet it's really handy for reading porn. Even hobbit porn. Especially hobbit porn.

BOOKS: Just What the Non-Paddle-Wielding Doctor Ordered

After the literary rollercoaster I've been on for the past couple of weeks, Alexander McCall Smith's newest instalment in his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series wasn't just balm for my soul. It was like somebody took my soul, slathered it with warm honey, then put it under a heat lamp for a nice, long nap.

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
by Alexander McCall Smith (#17)
And I read the large-print edition, no less. Have any of you other normal-sighted folks ever read a large-print book in bed? It's delicious. Sure, you have to turn the pages more frequently, but these days that's how I get my cardio workout. You can prop your book up on a pillow a couple of feet away from your face and let your arms sort of relax, rather than lying with your arms scrinched up like a tyrannosaurus to hold your book close to your eyes. Try it out for yourself, and like me, your new typeface motto may become "Go big or go home."

Anyway, a quick re-cap of my recent amazing adventures in literature: I had just come off McCall Smith's rather charming trilogy The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom, when I decided to jump into Dropped Threads 3, an anthology of non-fiction writing by women, which was hugely poignant and inspiring and insightful. All fired up, I got into my mental trebuchet and catapulted into Kazuo Ishiguro's latest novel, Never Let Me Go, from which I had to be revived with those little electrical paddle thingies that doctors seem to rely on so heavily on television. It was FANTASTIC, don't get me wrong, but it left me reeling. I needed some lighter reading fare, but it couldn't be pap. That would be like chasing fine wine with Rockaberry Cooler, and that's just not right.

Fortunately, I had In the Company of Cheerful Ladies waiting in the wings. And it was just what the non-paddle-wielding doctor ordered.

I've enjoyed the previous four books in the series (though they were a bit of an acquired taste, as I've written about elsewhere), but I feel that McCall Smith has really hit his stride with Cheerful Ladies. The novel doesn't just have the odd, gentle humour of the earlier books, nor does it just showcase the humane, generous morality of the series' main character, Precious Ramotswe. It's also the first of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books to give me a real glimpse into the inner lives of Mma Ramotswe and her assistant detective Mma Makutsi, as Mma Ramotse deals with a painful secret from her past and as Mma Makutsi finds love in a surprising place.

This book warmed my heart right down to its very last cockle, and now I can't wait to read the second-latest book in the series, The Full Cupboard of Life, which I managed to skip somehow. But I'm going to have to pace myself and space these stories further apart, because let me tell you, if the stack of unread books on my shelf is any indication, I'm going to have a tough row to hoe in the next couple of months. Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. John Banville's The Sea. Russell Banks's The Darling. And -- lord help me -- Stephen King's latest sleep-wrecker, Cell.

You know, just your typical light summer reading.

Help.

WEB: Looks Like Superman Has a Case of the Mondays

Apparently, more than a hundred years ago, Queen Victoria wanted her loyal subjects to have a long weekend on the third weekend of May so that they could drink a lot of beer and sleep in and maybe get a head start on their gardening. Who are we to argue with her? She was the Queen, fercryinoutloud.

If you're not a proud member of the Commonwealth and you've got a case of the Mondays, please do check out today's instalment over at VidiotBox. It's a clip from one of my favourite smart stupid movies, Office Space... as re-enacted by the Superfriends.

BOOKS: eBooks and iDiots

According to the Wikipedia, Mary Godolphin is a pseudonym for Lucy Aikin, a noted nineteenth-century historical writer who "was remarkable for her conversational powers, and was also an admirable letter-writer." Notwithstanding that those are both admirable traits for which to be remembered, Godolphin/Aikin must also be recognized for one of her greatest gifts to the world of letters: versions of classic books rewritten in words of one syllable.

That's right. Books written pretty much entirely in one-syllable words. Godolphin was clearly a pioneer of the ...for Dummies series.

Godolphin rewrote several books in this seemingly odd way, including The Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, and Swiss Family Robinson. A progressive-minded Unitarian, she was apparently motivated by her desire to promote adult literacy (which at least answers my question of "What the eff?").

Now, I've read The Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe, though not Swiss Family Robinson, and they were tough slogging. And by "tough slogging" I mean "boring." I was interested in seeing if rendering the texts in itty-bitty words makes them any more bearable, so I scoped out the one-syllable version of The Pilgrim's Progress at the Project Gutenberg site:

As I went through the wild waste of this world, I came to a place where there was a den, and I lay down in it to sleep. While I slept I had a dream, and lo! I saw a man whose clothes were in rags and he stood with his face from his own house, with a book in his hand, and a great load on his back. I saw him read from the leaves of a book, and as he read, he wept and shook with fear; and at length he broke out with a loud cry, and said, What shall I do to save my soul?

So in this plight he went home, and as long as he could he held his peace, that his wife and babes should not see his grief. But at length he told them his mind, and thus he spoke, O my dear wife, and you my babes, I, your dear friend, am full of woe, for a load lies hard on me; and more than this, I have been told that our town will be burnt with fire, in which I, you my wife, and you my sweet babes, shall be lost, if means be not found to save us.

This sad tale struck all who heard him with awe, not that they thought what he said to them was true, but that they had fears that some weight must be on his mind; so, as night now drew near, they were in hopes that sleep might soothe his brain, and with all haste they got him to bed.

Nope. No better.

You've got to wonder: if this was the most compelling text the publishing world had to offer back in the 1800s, maybe it's no surprise that people weren't making literacy a priority over, say, oppressing Ireland or learning to Morris dance. Can you blame them?

In somewhat related (but let's not kid ourselves, almost entirely tangential) news, all this looking at e-texts has reminded me that a new eBook reader has recently been released (or is about to be released; it's difficult to pinpoint exact details) upon an unsuspecting bookloving public.

I have an on-again-off-again thing with eBook readers. I used to download free e-texts, mostly classics such as Peter Pan and Pride and Prejudice, onto my Palm Pilot religiously back in the late '90s, so I was pantswettingly excited about the then-newly released readers. I longed for a RocketBook... oh, how I longed. Then they -- and my enthusiasm -- fizzled out at pretty much exactly the same time.

But this new reader, the iLiad... it has me dreaming again. Imagine being able to read in a darkened room or during a redeye flight without disturbing other people. Imagine being able to take DOZENS of books with you when you travel, thereby freeing yourself from the tyranny of luggage weight restrictions and crappy tourist-town bookstores. Imagine.

They're going to have to change the name first, though. The iLiad? I get what they're trying to do. And it's cute, sure. But I think the marketing department didn't twig to the fact that if they're going to copy Apple's product-naming conventions, they should at least observe that the letters after the "i" -- iBook, iMac, iPod -- form actual WORDS.

ETC: Dr. Strangepoop

Of course, zee whole point of a Doomsday Machine eez lost if you KEEP IT A SECRET! Why didn't you tell zee world, eh?

BOOKS: The Prisons We Make for Ourselves

Can I tell you how not to read the novel Never Let Me Go? Back to back with watching the final season of Six Feet Under on DVD. Emotionally, I'm a ruin. I may never recover.

Psychic scarring aside, Never Let Me Go is easily the best book I've read since... well, since I read one of Kazuo Ishiguro's other novels, The Remains of the Day, last year. But I'm having a hard time writing about it without giving up pretty much the entire plot. And since I don't want to ruin the book for those of you who haven't yet read it (because you are going to read it, right?), you know what that means. Spoiler tags!

You probably all know how to use spoiler tags, but for the uninitiated, all you have to do is just highlight the seemingly white space below and ta-DA! Words will appear. Spoiler tags = the lemon juice and open flame of the internet.

Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro (#16)
A quick recap, in case you read this novel a while ago: the story is told from the perspective of Kathy, whom I guessed to be about thirty (a good Logan's Run-ish age, appropriate to this novel). Kathy is looking back on her life, particularly her time spent at Hailsham, a private boarding school, and more particularly her reflections on the two students she was closest to, Ruth and Tommy.

I twigged pretty early to the fact that there was something weird about this school, and sure enough, it turns out that the novel is set in the not-too-distant future, where cloning and organ harvesting are the norm. The students at Hailsham are all clones who are being prepared by their teachers for their eventual roles as carers (non-medical staff who care for donors) and, when their stints as carers are over, as donors. As donors, they will donate four vital organs in fairly short succession, and then they will "complete" (AKA die).

It's a dark, science-fiction-y story, and Ishiguro's gifts lie in normalizing the premise to make it all too believable. In fact, the story is less about the sci-fi aspect and more about the relationships between the students: Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy. As they enter young adulthood, Ruth and Tommy pair up, with Kathy as the perpetual outsider. The subtle tensions between the three are the focus of the story, as it becomes apparent that the real connection is between Kathy and Tommy, with Ruth keeping herself between them for her own complicated reasons.

So that seems to be the setting, the premise, and the plot. But these are just the framework that Ishiguro uses to hang his bleak exploration of autonomy and selfhood and the limitations we create for ourselves. Not unlike The Remains of the Day, in which a butler reflects on his years of unquestioning service to a class system to which he subscribes wholeheartedly, the characters in Never Let Me Go rarely seem to question their reason for being, nor do they rail at the fact that their lives are to be cut so short by the system to which they are enslaved.

I can't stop thinking about this last point. Why don't these characters rebel? They're not in prisons or chains. There seems to be no policing of them, beyond the ordinary strictures of the boarding school. As students, they're encouraged to pursue literature, the arts, and other forms of self-reflection and -expression, and, alarmingly, this seems to create no self-awareness in them. As adult carers, they're given cars and limitless opportunities to escape. And yet this notion is glaring in its complete omission from the story.

At first, I thought that maybe this is a function of them being clones. If they've been cloned, perhaps they've been genetically tampered with to make them submissive and accepting. And if so, the chilling implication of this is that perhaps they are, in fact, less than human, as the people who run the system would like to believe. But I don't think that this is the case. My limited exposure to Ishiguro's work leads me to believe that he's not a writer who is interested in relatively narrow (though still huge) issues of medical ethics.

No, I think that what Ishiguro wants us to think about is our perception of our own "freedom." We westerners have a vested belief that we are a free and independent and self-directed people. Is this really true? That's a facetious question, of course. We all know it isn't true. From birth, we're indoctrinated by our family, our friends, and the various social systems in which we participate. We can't avoid these things, and I don't think Ishiguro is telling us we must. What I do think he's telling us is that we must never, ever, ever stop examining and questioning them, and our own subscription to them.

The end.

MOVIES: Mama, Let More of Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys

I don't know which was better: the fact that Rusty rented Brokeback Mountain for me as part of our Mother's Day Eve festivities, or the fact that he (er, I mean "young Master Sam") gave me a box of handmade chocolates from a local chocolatier to eat during the movie, or the fact that he agreed to wear a cowboy hat during it.

No matter. It all added up to a pretty rockin' night. Or as rockin' as things get at the ol' Doppelganger homestead.

I didn't think Brokeback was the best movie EVER (despite the fact that at one moment in the film -- I'll leave you to guess which -- I did lean over and whisper to Rusty "This is the best movie EVER"), but I thought it was really good. Heath Ledger did a fine job of portraying an awkward, taciturn, romantic hero, and Jake Gyllenhaal did a fine job of making me wish I were ten years younger.

I can't say whether the movie was denied the Oscar or not, largely because I haven't seen most of the other nominees. To be truthful, I don't think most movies -- neither winners nor also-rans -- deserve any awards. If I had my way, they'd give out prizes only when a movie comes along that really, really deserves recognition... say every seven or eight years.

What Brokeback does deserve, though, is props for providing a solid example of independent filmmaking at its best, in which, due to a (relatively) small budget, the script, the landscape, and (gasp) the acting are trusted to do the work. I haven't seen the film version The Shipping News, a book I liked, because my understanding is that it suffered from Pulitzer Syndrome, wherein a book wins a major literary prize and suddenly all the wrong big-name actors are hired and the movie gets hyped all out of proportion. Poor old The Shipping News. I still think it could be a great indie film, but I guess that ship has sailed.

Funniest moment of the evening: when Rusty, out of nowhere, said, "Being a cowboy is hard." I don't know why, but I had to hit the "pause" button for a couple of minutes to laugh that one out.

BOOKS: And the Best Work of American Fiction of the Past 25 Years Is...

My dear lord. I'd hate to be the editor of The New York Times Book Review after this piece came out. Can you just imagine the letters?

Here's the set-up:

Early this year, the Book Review's editor, Sam Tanenhaus, sent out a short letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years."

I'm already suspicious of this methodology. Tanenhaus allegedly sent his letter to various "literary sages"? Hello? I didn't get mine. Maybe it got lost in the mail. If my letter had arrived, I'm not sure I would have agreed with the panel's choice... mostly because I've never read it.

Come to think of it, I'm drawing a blank on much of the list of runners up. I mean, sure, yeah, I've read both Don DeLillo's Underworld and White Noise. And of course I've read A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. I've read a fair number of Philip Roth's novels (but apparently none of the list-worthy ones), and I've been meaning to read Housekeeping ever since it was strongly recommended to me a short while ago. But everything else? Meh. And I must tell you, even after reading this piece, I still don't feel compelled to pick them up.

Did that come off as unapologetically stubborn? Good.

Actually, I'd be more inclined to nominate books written by many members of the jury. Russell Banks? Yup. Michael Chabon? Uh-huh. Jane Smiley? You bet. John Irving? Why not? Marilynne Robinson. Fo' sho'. Studs Terkel? I've never heard of him, but I dig his name, so hell yeah.

It's great that a novel written by a woman is at the top of the list, but call me when there are more women on the list of judges and more books by female writers on the list of finalists. Or better yet, send me that letter.

BOOKS: Mothuh to Anothuh Brothuh

Before I forget, I must urge you to go check out today's post over on VidiotBox. It is quite possibly the best ode to mothers ever to star a rapping Mr. T.

You go watch it, then come right back here, okay? I'll wait for you.

...

Speaking of mothers, you know that this Sunday is Mother's Day, right? Don't freak out. Even if you live on the other side of the planet, it's still not to late to order flowers. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to tell you I'm normally TERRIBLE at remembering the made-up holidays. It's amazing what becoming a mother myself has done for my memory.

I wanted to write a beautiful, moving post about motherhood that would leave the sensitive among you all weepy and feeling much like one does after watching a really good commercial for long-distance phone service. So I struggled with that for a bit, and then abandoned it. I'm just not in a weepy space right now. Maybe I'm ovulating. (Ovulation time is the antithesis of PMS time, but nobody ever talks about it, much less gives it a catchy little acronym. I've decided what better time than Mother's Day to drag O-time out of the closet and give it the public praise it deserves. Yay, eggs! You go, you yolky little buggers.)

Being all clearheaded and focussed (at least for a couple of days) has put me in a left-brainy, list-making frame of mind. And mentioning acronyms has gotten me to thinking about all the terms I've heard to describe the many sub-sections of the mom demographic. You've got your SAHMs, WAHMs, and WOHMs. You've got your MILFs (or as I prefer to say, referring to myself, MYLFs). You've got your soccer moms, your mommy bloggers, your cybermoms, your dot-moms, your hot moms, and your yummy mummies. And then you've got Freud bringing up the rear (so to speak) with his Oedipal moms, but we're just not going to go there today, thanks anyway.

Are there this many daddy types? I mean, duh, I know there are this many (and then some) varieties of father, but have they been so neatly identified and labelled and publicly acronymed? I think not, but maybe I haven't been paying attention.

You can go two ways from this observation, one negative, one positive:

1. In our world, women get watched and assessed. Not surprisingly, mothers come under close scrutiny and analysis by an opinionated, judge-y public.
2. On a deeper level, mothers are powerful, nigh-mythic figures. Not surprisingly, people spend a lot of time trying to figure them out.

Not surprisingly, I think both these theories have the aroma of truth about them. But since reams have been written already about point #1, I'm going to stick with talking about #2. (Also, see above re: super-happy-fun ovulation hormones. I'm in a zippy, glass-is-practically-half-full mood today.)

Clearly, we moms are elusive figures, many things to many people, and difficult as all get-out to pin down. Except for me: I'm an open book, yo. And speaking of books, have you ever thought about how mothers are represented in literature?

For starters, you've got The Bible, starring the mother of all mothers. Mary is a virgin who bears God's baby, a young lad who will ostensibly go on to save all mankind. As characters go, she's a tough act to follow. So nobody bothers to try, and instead we get generation after generation of... well, of bad moms. It's okay, though, because some of them manage to have some fun along the way.

You've got your unwed moms, such as poor Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter. Then you've got your fallen moms. Edna Pontellier from Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening. Emma Bovary. Anna Karenina. What's the lesson to be learned here, moms? That's right: keep it in your pants or poetic justice will kick you in the butt. Point taken and duly noted.

Then you've got the Cathys. Cathy from Wuthering Heights is a self-absorbed drama queen who, if she were alive today, would probably be a Suicide Girl or somesuch other annoying emo kid. And Cathy from East of Eden is pretty much a sociopath. If she were around today, she'd either be in maximum security or else she'd have a nationally broadcast morning talk show. You can bet on one thing: neither of these Cathys would be scheduling playdates, getting up five times a night to nurse, or whipping up a last-minute batch of cupcakes for the PTA bake sale.

And then you've got assorted literary mothers of the grey, drab, henpecking, fade-into-the-background variety. Who doesn't want to be lumped in with them?

You know what kind of mom I'd really hate to be? A mom in a children's book. Mostly because they're dead. E. Nesbit's Bastable clan? Motherless. The kids from Elizabeth Enright's Melendy family series? Also sans mere. Mrs. Finch, wife to Atticus and mother to Jem and Scout? Sadly no longer with us. The biological mom to pretty much every single child in a fairy tale? Kaput. You can almost imagine the conversation between the authors and their editors:

"I have this idea for a book about a bunch of kids who have these really fantastic adventures."
"Sounds fabulous."
"Yeah, but you know who always gets in the way of great adventures? Mothers. What do I do to get her out of the way."
"Kill her."
"Wonderful idea. Thanks!"

I would like to go on record as stating that I fully support adventures of every kind, unless said adventures require running while carrying long, pointy sticks or staying up so late that you get overtired and cranky.

So. Mothers. Can't live with 'em. But apparently killing them is an option.

One final note: Rusty, if you're reading this, Sam wants to give me a gift certificate for this spa. He told me to tell you.

ETC: The Nerve!

No new post today. I'm a little swamped in the work-I-get-paid-to-do department. I know. I'm as outraged as you are. The nerve!

I've been working all week at a Very Special Mother's Day post I'll be putting up tomorrow. Come back then!

BOOKS: Literary Crushes

This very funny post over on Mike's site got me thinking about secret -- or not-so-secret -- unattainable crushes. I didn't post mine in the comments section of Mike's site because I was too embarrassed at the time, but I've given the matter some thought and decided to confess here:

That's right. William Butler Yeats. I dig the man's poetry AND I think he is (er... was) a hot tomato.

I mean, check it out. From Yeats's poem "The Second Coming":

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Come on. That's good post-apocalyptic stuff. Anarchy! Falcons! Blood! Lions! Thighs! Um, gyres! If that doesn't get you a little hot, I don't know what else to say. Gyres!

Don't you judge me.

BOOKS: How to Save Your Local Bookstore

This recent piece in The Guardian laments the fact that independent booksellers are going out of business at an increasing rate. The blame lies with the fact that grocery stores and big-box retailers can offer books more cheaply, and online booksellers can offer a wider selection.

My first reaction upon reading this was sadness and outrage... and then guilt. I honestly can't remember the last time I bought a new book from an independent bookstore. This despite the fact that I'm as concerned as anyone about the ever-growing possibility that just a few behemoth booksellers could control the entire retail side of the publishing industry. It scares me to consider the power such a bookopoly could hold over which books and writers and ideas get published... and which ones don't.

There used to be three indie booksellers that I would check out when I was in their vicinity, but they've all closed their doors in the past few years. I do frequent an excellent used book store that's just a few blocks from my home, but for the most part I'm an online book shopper. It's not that I'm looking for deals, but I am often looking for more esoteric titles that I can't find in bricks-and-mortar locations. For example, a couple of my recent online purchases were Bharti Kirchner's Vegetarian Burgers and Martin Grainger's Woodsmen of the West. I spent a couple of weeks looking for these titles locally, and with no luck, not even at the big-box booksellers here in Vancouver. I had no choice, it seemed, but to go online.

Now that I've written all this, I'm chagrined to admit that I just remembered there's a small independent bookstore a block and a half from my house. I can't believe I forgot it existed, but in my defence it's... well, it's kind of grotty. The selection isn't great, particularly the fiction section, which is where I live, and the ambience could be better. I suppose I could have special-ordered my books through this bookstore and kept my business local. Do bookstores want us to do this? Or is it a huge pain in the ass? Can anyone out there answer this?

How else do we get around the fact that serious book lovers want more choices than merely current bestsellers? And given that many of us are indie-minded souls, how do we reconcile our need to acquire the books we want with our desire to help out small businesses? How do you do it?

BOOKS: Learning to Like Women

Despite the fact that I've been a feminist pretty much since I learned what the word means, it's only in the past couple of years that I've really liked women.

Did I just say that? Dear lord, what a can of worms to open on a Monday morning.

Let me be more specific. I've always had female friends, and I've always liked them immensely, but my feelings about the entire double-X-chromosomed half of the human population -- roughly, what, three billion people? -- have been conflicted. And let me be the first to say that I'm well aware that the problem was all me. I didn't like women because I didn't like being a woman.

I grew up on a farm in rural Ontario. My understanding of my environment -- my family, my school, my community -- was that women were, for all intents and purposes, second-class citizens. As I bumbled along, wanting better for myself but unable to articulate to myself what or why or how, one thing I internalized was that if I didn't want to end up like the women I saw, I needed to dissociate myself from womankind. For the next twenty-something years, I modelled my words and behaviour on those of the men I saw who seemed to have power. This technique seemed effective. I found success in school and work, and I attributed this in some part to the fact that I played these games like a guy.

The other reason, I think, why I distanced myself from women is because I was a bit of a late bloomer socially. I was daunted by groups and mystified by group dynamics. Given that my lot was usually thrown in with that of other girls, I ended up confused and intimidated by groups of girls and women. I had female friends, yes, but only one-on-one or in small clutches.

Throughout my teens and twenties, I was happy with my state. As I've mentioned, I had a few excellent women friends, but for the most part my social wanderings were in largely male groups, where I felt most at ease.

Then I hit my thirties, and the status quo stopped feeling... right. I became aware that there was a disconnect between my theoretical feminist values and my real-world behaviour. But I had a why-change-a-winning-game superstition about altering how I travelled through my world. I felt conflicted and stuck.

And then I got pregnant. It was like someone had flipped a switch. I went from living in a male-paradigmed world to one that was dominated by female physiology and feelings. It was powerfully archetypal and it had a huge impact on me.

Now, I'm not trying to say anything as simplistic as the fact that, in one fell hormonal swoop, all my years of assumptions disappeared and I became one with womankind because deep down we little dears are all exactly alike, dontchaknow. But I will say that pregnancy and motherhood have been enormously humbling experiences for me, and one of the many things they've made me realize is that I'm pretty much your typical garden-variety female. I joke about it now, but it took me months to realize that, when it comes to any physical or emotional aspect of being a mom, I'm absurdly textbook. If hundreds or thousands or millions of other women have thought or felt something, I can pretty much expect that I've felt it, too, or that I'm about to.

I call this revelation "humbling," but I really don't feel humble at all. Or perhaps humility was the first step on the path to how I feel now: despite being pretty much totally average in the mom department, I'm realizing that that's pretty fucking awesome. Your average mom kicks twelve kinds of ass before breakfast, and I'm happy to be one.

I know that there are a billion different flavours of mom out there (er, "flavours of mom"... perhaps my wording needs work), and that's wonderful. Celebrate diversity! Boo-ya! But I also know that, if I meet another mom, we've got at least as many points of similarity as differences, and I find that comforting. No one ever told me that I'd feel relieved and grateful to learn that I'm not so unique, especially in our culture that celebrates rampant individualism so aggressively, but here I am... relieved and grateful.

Dropped Threads 3: Beyond the Small Circle
edited by Marjorie Anderson (#15)
Given my newfound revelation about my place among women, I was thrilled -- thrilled, I tell you -- when I found out that a new Dropped Threads anthology was being published. I've devoured the first two (and wrote about my re-read of one of them here) and find the combination of anecdotal writing and diverse authors (including women who don't write for a living) compelling and addictive.

Originally conceived and edited by writers Carol Shields and Marjorie Anderson in 2001, each anthology chooses a slightly different tack with which to think about how women experience the world. The "theme" of Dropped Threads 3 is "What advice would you give younger women?" This really resonated for me. At 36, I've finally realized that advice from my elders is a GOOD THING. My eardrums are funnels. My brain is a sponge.

Did I say "diverse"? This thick, rich, ripe collection starts with a funny piece by Margaret Atwood in which she states that no one actually listens to advice, but then goes on to give a grocery list of tips that would have made Polonius proud. Other contributors include activist Judy Rebick (on the difference between rebellion and resistance), Olympian Silken Laumann (on accepting the type of mother she is versus the type she used to think she should be), singer Chantal Kreviazuk (on following her instincts), and writers Heather Mallick (on rescuing yourself from bad relationships) and Lorna Crozier (on what we can learn from cats).

There are dozens of female-themed metaphors I could've used to describe the experience of reading this book: it was like being at a veritable coffee klatch/playgroup/quilting bee/hen party. (And isn't it funny that these are the metaphors we use for gatherings of women? We need a chick version of the word "symposium." Or, hm, maybe not.) Whatever words you choose, I felt embraced and nourished by all these women's voices. Corny, I know, but true, as so many corny things are.

Dropped Threads 3 ends with an essay -- humbly titled "A Thought, or Maybe Two" -- by journalist June Callwood. The piece takes on the task of explaining how wisdom is acquired, but Callwood quickly dismisses this as impossible. She closes, however, with a passage that sang to me because I once had an almost identical experience and revelation:

It is, therefore, not particularly useful for me to pass along something that gives me calm, but I'll end with it anyway. I find peace in my sense of insignificance; if I ever thought otherwise, I would be immobilized. I learned this about myself when I was a teenager racked my confusion. One hot July night when I dragged my mattress out to an upstairs balcony to be cooler, I discovered stars. I was enchanted. Such glory, such constancy, such mystery. By day I studied astronomy and at night I picked out the galaxies. At some point I was awed to realize my irrelevance in the vastness of space. Perspective set in and I felt my adolescent angst evaporate.

BOOKS: Comes with Complimentary Bedsore Cream

I was working on a big post but then got sidelined (read: Sam had an explosive poop and needed an unscheduled bath), so while I continue to work away at that, in the interim let me direct you to a site that StephD posted in the comments section a few days back, for a product called Bed Books.

What are Bed Books, you say? I'm so glad you asked. Bed Books are books that you read. In bed. Thusly:

I desperately want to make fun of these, but you know, what if Bed Books work? What if they really do prevent neckstrain and eyestrain and all the other assorted strains we readers subject ourselves to on a nightly basis? And don't even get me started on the number of times I've fallen asleep while reading on my back, only to be awoken by the impact of my book thudding onto my face. This is the primary reason for my prejudice against hardcover novels.

I am a little alarmed at this photo, though. Is it just me, or does it look like this woman's shoulder is growing directly out of her throat?

So far, the Bed Books catalogue contains only 24 titles, but it's a nice little selection, ranging from Alice in Wonderland to My Man Jeeves to Siddhartha to the Bible. You can't accuse the Bed Books people of not covering their bases. And I loved reading their rationale for why all the titles are classics:

Why are the world's first Bed Books literary classics? In our research for the creation of our First Edition Bed Books, we quickly realized that classic literature is classic literature not only because its titles have been reprinted over and over through the years, have been adopted and made into hundreds of theatrical events, radio shows, and motion pictures, but because they are great reads!

And let's not forget that, because they're out of copyright, they're also FREE! You go, you mercenary bed readers. You go.

ETC: Is It International "I Lost a Bet" Day?

Now that I've marginally returned to work outside the home, I find myself out in the great big world without young Master Sam a lot more. Without him to focus my attention on, I've been really noticing my surroundings for the first time in over a year. And I don't know if I was just spectacularly unobservant before, but my little sector of the universe has gotten a fair bit weirder, fashion-wise, since I last paused to look around.

For starters, when did conference lanyards (you know, those fat shoelace-y things you use to wear your nametag around your neck) become au courant for the troubled and the elderly? I first noticed this yesterday, when I saw an elderly woman on the bus wearing one -- snappily emblazoned with the sentiment "Jesus is Lord" -- to carry her bus pass. Then, later in the same day, I saw a rocker-ish chick wearing one (sans inspirational message) to carry her keys. And a short while later, I saw a troubled-seeming middle-aged man using one, but I couldn't make out what he was carrying and it seemed imprudent to investigate.

Also seen yesterday:

1. Woman walking down the street ahead of me using a patio umbrella in lieu of a parasol to fend off the sun.
2. Smelly white guy with big dreads (commonly known as "hippies") playing bongos. Given where I live, this usually wouldn't be comment-worthy, but he was doing it on the bus. The 8:45 am bus. I support the arts and all, but that's just too damn early for bongos.
3. Otherwise normally dressed guy wearing a colourful court jester hat, complete with jingles. His demeanor indicates that he is totally unaware of his headgear.
4. The previous three individuals are almost completely obliterated from my visual memory by the sight of a woman wearing pantaloons, the ruffles of which are fluttering out from beneath those cursed "formal shorts." She is also wearing a poncho. And legwarmers. And a bicycle helmet.

Seriously, was yesterday International "I Lost a Bet" Day? I mean, as someone whose wardrobe contains only three colours, two of those colours being grey and brown, I have as much respect and admiration for the fashion forward as anyone, but is there no limit any more?

Anyway. So. Yes, I've returned to work, in a manner of speaking. It's not terribly challenging work these days, I'm afraid, so I still find myself with a fair amount of free time with which not to cook or do housework. From time to time I feel guilty about this, and when this happens, what I like to do is start another blog. This time, it's a co-effort with my main man, Rusty. It's called Vidiotbox, and the premise is this:

We all know there are a gazillion funny, weird little videos online, but unfortunately there are a pangazillion crappy videos that make it hard to find the good ones. Who has time to sort through this mess? We do! So every morning we serve up one lovingly hand-selected video for you to enjoy. No fuss, no muss. You're welcome very much.

Feel free to poke your nose in the door and check out our already burgeoning archive (if a dozen posts can be called a "burgeoning archive," which I've decided it can), including today's post, which is my new favourite music video.

BOOKS: I Get It

Alexander McCall Smith seems to be one of those writers you either "get" or you don't. Unless you're like me, and you don't get him right away but fate, circumstance and/or a really pushy, bookish God keeps thrusting his books at you until, aha! You finally get him.

A couple of years ago, after reading lots of hype surrounding The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, I was excited to pick it up at my local book discounter. At the time, I thought it was... okay. It didn't light my house afire, but it was all right. Then a friend loaned me Tears of the Giraffe... and it was also okay. (Aside: Yes, I've been reading this series out of order. I don't think that was the cause of my slow-on-the-uptake-ness, though.) Then I borrowed The Kalahari Typing School for Men from the library, back when I still harboured the illusion that I had what it takes to be a solid library patron. Also okay. And then I picked up Morality for Beautiful Girls dirt cheap at a yard sale.

Click!

Suddenly I got the appeal of these books. The dwelling on seemingly irrelevant details. The distinctively untitillating crimes under investigation. The slow unfolding of action. The quiet affection for the Botswanan landscape and people. The deceptively simple morality and personal approach to meting out justice. And the stolid, endearing character of the main character and owner and proprietor of the detective agency, Precious Ramotswe. I got it. I get it.

The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom: The Portuguese Irregular Verbs Trilogy
by Alexander McCall Smith (#12-14)
I was a little concerned that exploring a literary universe outside the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series would require the same time and energy -- time and energy I don't have, to be frank -- but luckily this wasn't the case. I felt almost immediately welcome inside the world of these books, which take place in the cloistered confines of a German linguistics institute.

The hero, the unnaturally tall and memorable Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, is almost diametrically opposed to Precious Ramotswe. Equal parts pompous and naive, von Igelfeld bumbles along in a self-important way that does my Wodehouse-loving soul good. As the trilogy progresses, von Igelfeld's series of adventures become increasingly outlandish, in a way that reminds me of one of my favourite comic novels, Forrest Gump.

(I'll also mention that I adored these books, not just for their refreshing take on storytelling, but because they comprise not one but THREE novels to add to my sad tally for the year. I've never pretended to be a high-minded person who's above such things, so you won't be too shocked -- will you? -- to know that I did a search to make sure this trilogy actually had been published as separate books, and wasn't just an amusing abuse of the word "trilogy" for effect.)

Get out there and read some McCall Smith. He's like Febreze for your spirit, but without the noxious chemical headache afterward.

BOOKS: I'm a Cross Between a Plamglotis and a Frappled Humpdumpler

So. Flanimals. When was someone going to tell me about this book?

No, no, no. I'm not upset. It's just that Ricky Gervais publishes not one but TWO children's books in the past couple of years, and I have to hear about it on Neal Pollack's site?

No. No. I'm not upset. Not at all.

BOOKS: Oh, Reading Vacations, How I Miss Thee

Maybe it's because I haven't had one in so long, and the outlook is dim as to when I'll enjoy one again -- probably not soon! -- but I've been thinking about reading vacations a lot lately.

You know what a reading vacation is, right? You go on a trip -- maybe for months, maybe for just a weekend -- and you bring along a book (or most likely, more books than clothes) and over the course of your vacation you find yourself not so much reading your book as breathing it in and absorbing it through your pores and follicles and various orifices until the book becomes a/the defining element of your trip. And even when the holiday is over and the book has long been reshelved, you can never again think of that book without thinking of that trip, and vice versa.

Sigh. I love(d) reading vacations.

Since it could be years before I can dive into a book as if it were a bathwater-warm ocean, I've been mentally reliving some of my favourite book-and-trip combos.

The Lord of the Rings
I'd never really felt a hankering to read this trilogy, but it meant a lot to Rusty that I try. I postponed and prevaricated, but I finally caved when he got nice little paperback copies of each book to bring with us on a six-week trip to Thailand. No doubt the complete absence of distractions at the isolated beach guesthouse we stayed at helped, but I inhaled these books in just a few days.

One of my favourite memories of our trip is of us hunkering beneath the mosquito netting over our bed each evening (all the electricity in the whole area was shut off at 11 pm sharp, so if you wanted to read, you had to hit the sheets early) and reading to each other. It had been decades since I'd fallen asleep while someone read to me. Bliss.

Anna Karenina
You'll be as shocked to learn this as I am to recollect it, but for a period of time in my twenties I was rather hardcore. I ran. I bicycled. I ran and bicycled great distances, often solo. On one cycling expedition, I took a ferry to BC's Sunshine Coast, then biked for several hours up the coast. My destination: a tiny one-room fully-catered cabin I'd booked for the Thanksgiving long weekend, while Rusty was flying to Ontario to visit his family. (I know. Clever me. I'm not just a pretty face, you know.)

For three days, I ate, slept, and literally read my ass off. (That's right, literally. I read so much, my ass actually fell off. And it was worth it.) I read Anna Karenina in one sitting... well, more specifically, one lying, since I was prone on a gargantuan sleigh bed the entire time. I may have paused for catnaps and bathroom breaks and to gobble down the delicacies that were regularly brought to me on a VICTORIAN TEA TABLE, my friends... but that was it. And man oh man, what a fantastic way to read that particular novel. I've been pining to read Anna again, but I fear that it can't live up to my original reading experience.

One Hundred Years of Solitude
This was another "big" novel that had eluded me, but I was determined to not just read One Hundred Years, but also to enjoy it. I knew I had to pick my time and place wisely. I waited years, but finally a two-week trip to Cuba helped crack the code. Not only did I love it -- particularly the ending, which so took my breath away that I had to re-read the last few pages over and over -- but not once did I even need to refer to the genealogy map at the front of the book in order to keep all the Aurelianos straight. I am awesome!

I Know This Much Is True
A few years ago, Rusty and I packed up Dobbs and took a road trip through BC and Alberta. As we passed through the Rockies, we spent a few days camping in Banff Provincial Park and doing some fairly rugged hiking up and down mountains and whatnot. (I know. Again with the hardcore. Get a load of us.)

The weather was a bit unpredictable, and at one point we got caught on a mountain during a rainstorm, which then turned into a hailstorm. We waited it out, then headed down the trail, artfully weaving our way through treacherously slippery muck and mire. Until we were on the last leg of the trail, practically in view of the truck, when I misstepped, planted my foot on a slimy tree root, fell, and broke my ass. (I lied earlier when I said it fell off due to over-reading. Sorry. Sometimes I exaggerate. But seriously, I broke my ass during this fall. Broke it right in two.)

So I sit in the truck on one cheek for the ride back to our campsite. We get there. Our tent and its contents are soaked. Rusty gallantly suggests that we leave everything there and go rent a cabin. Hurrah for Rusty! The cabin turns out to be all awesomely renovated turn-of-the-century with a huge clawfoot tub and a big comfy bed. I soaked. I availed myself of the bed. But my broken ass was sending out a beacon of pain that wouldn't let me sleep, so I perched gingerly on my side and devoured Wally Lamb's novel I Know This Much Is True in one go. Seriously, people, I don't know when I've ever been so enthralled by a story. I could not stop turning the pages.

I know a lot of people who loathed Lamb's other novel, She's Come Undone, and while I liked it fine myself I can see their issues with it, but I Know This Much Is True was so utterly compelling, I'd hate to think that people missed out on it because of their hate-on for Undone. Come on, give it a try.

Babel Tower
And then there was this other trip where I combined cycling and camping and took myself on a two-week solo tour of BC's Gulf Islands (which are lovely and charming and which everyone should see if they get the chance). At one point, I found myself the only camper in an entire isolated provincial park. I pitched my tent on a small bluff directly overlooking the ocean. Every night, at around 2 or 3 am, I'd wake up to hear the risen tide whooshing away a mere couple of feet away from the door of my tent. Whoosh, whoosh... it makes me feel alive just thinking about it!

Anyway, one night the skies ripped themselves apart for the sole purpose of dumping several cubic metres of water right inside my tent. Based on this experience, I have a little morsel of information about the human experience I can pass along to you: when people are alone and have been alone for long-ish periods of time, we stop processing extreme emotions such as misery and joy. We turn into the animals that we are and merely subsist. I know this because if I'd undergone this experience with another person, I wouldn't have survived. Because they would have killed me in order to end my ceaseless whining. As it was, though I was soaked and miserable in a primordial sense, I just curled into a ball and shut down until morning. It's actually a pleasant surprise to learn that I have survival mechanisms. And if I have them, you probably do, too. Yay!

Anyway. Back on topic. Books. Though I am beginning to wonder why I still persist in going camping...

I dried out myself and my gear and decided to push this solitude experiment further by seeing how long I could go without seeing another person. I'd already been at the park for three days. My biggest problem was that I was running out of reading material. Oh, and also food.

Folks, you have NEVER seen anyone nurse a book the way I nursed my last novel, A.S. Byatt's Babel Tower. I read slowly. I cherished every word. Every sentence was an epic poem. I paused. I reflected. And yet I could only make it last two days. My food, however, ran out after just one day, which made for a fun (read: not fun) low-blood-sugar adventure on the long ride back to civilization. Still, five days absolutely alone with nothing but books for company... I highly recommend it. It wasn't always fun, but it was definitely interesting.

Not all reading vacations are life-affirming idylls, though. Sometimes they turn on you:

Cruddy
As long as I'm passing along my hard-earned wisdom, here's a situation you might want to avoid:

• Going to Whistler with a bunch of friends to stay in someone's uncle's posh chalet.
• Staying up most of the night partying.
• Going to bed with a head full of chemicals.
• Realizing that sleep ain't coming.
• Cracking the spine on the only book you brought for the weekend: Lynda Barry's Cruddy. It's good and all -- because come on, it's Lynda Barry, so how could it not be good? -- but it's a tad... depressing, shall we say. I read it in one sitting and was absolutely ravaged by the end. Fortunately, I had the bleak, flat, cold, blue-ish light of early dawn to perk me up.

So yes, avoid this scenario if you can. Doppelganger: she makes mistakes so you don't have to!

The Nanny Diaries
You know that feeling where the only book you have at hand is an unmitigated piece of crap, but there literally isn't another book around for miles, so even though you're tearing rapidly through the pages, you're seething with resentment the entire time? That's the feeling I had about The Nanny Diaries.

Scene from inside a tent:

Rusty: How's your book?
Me: IT SUCKS.
Rusty: Then why are you still reading it?
Me: I don't want to talk about it!

If you value words, books, paper, and linear time, do not ever read this book. Do not let it come into your home. Do not make a pretence of politely accepting it from some well-meaning person who loans it to you, because if you do, you WILL find yourself someday confronted with this book as your only source of literary amusement.

(I'm very sorry if you liked this book. May God have mercy on your soul.)

So what are your best and worst reading vacations? Let me live vicariously through you. It's all I have.