My Favorite Books of 2010

I've been meaning to post about the best books I read this year (not necessarily books that were released this year, since I rarely read books right away). Here they are, in no particular order:

Snow Angels by Stewart O'Nan:

This book almost made me cry at work. I maintain that the last paragraph is one of the most perfect examples of prose I've ever read. If you haven't read Snow Angels yet, what are you waiting for? I can't recommend this enough. This book, to me, was about how painful it can be to realize how much sadness exists all around us, and how sometimes we can love each other with everything we have but it still won't be enough. Also it's about high school, which I always love.

Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel:


Lauren loaned me this book when H. and I visited her in Brooklyn. I read almost the entirety of it at the airport and on the plane, so the book is kind of this wonderful, light-headed, hazy memory for me. I can't think of time I've ever read a book in so perfect a situation, because the story itself is kind of slippery and mysterious and very much suited for high-altitude reading.

Citrus County by John Brandon:

Holy Macaroni was this book good! Why haven't you read this yet? Don't give me excuses like, "I've been in class," or "I'm working on a sketch comedy show." Not acceptable. I still don't understand how this book was so funny when it really should have been upsetting. Don't get me wrong, I was plenty worried for a good portion of it, but somehow the tone really straddled the line between light and dark. I was going to say Mr. Hibma was my favorite character, but Shelby is also my favorite character. Everyone's my favorite character, you guys. Read this book. Sidenote: As I was google image searching Citrus County in order to find this picture, I came across SO MANY MUGSHOTS!

Book & Film Clubs

It's June 1st, which means we let the entirety of May go by without mentioning our Book & Film Club picks. You were probably so worried! Well, you didn't have to be, because Book Club solidered on (this is a joke, later it will makes sense, I promise)and Film Club kind of limped along sadly.
Our May pick for Book Club was The Barracks Thief by Tobias "Toby" Wolff.

It made me cringe a lot, and it made me sad, and I read it in the course of one night. I had a difficult time picking something for Film Club, so we are going to double up when Alex comes home and watch two month's worth of films in one month. I ended up choosing Douglas Sirk's Magnificent Obsession, which begins the way I like all my movies to begin...with a magnificent speed boat crash. Yeah, I'm making Alex watch this.

This is basically how Film Club will go from now on. Alex will pick something intelligent, and I will pick a film that features lines like, "I didn't ask for your resuscitator!"
And Book Club for this month is a doozie. Something I've wanted to read for a long time...

East of Eden! This breaks the only rule of TTWF Book Club, which is NO OPRAH. We got close enough with our first pick. But oh well. Sometimes rules are meant to be broken. John Steinbeck agrees.

"Like my jacket?"- John Steinbeck

Lady Stuff

On a Winfrey Family Vacation a couple of years ago (which took place on/near a mountain and involved staying in a cabin, as do all Winfrey Family Vacations), Alex brought along a book called Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me. The book consisted of (mostly) humorous essays by comedians, writers, and comedy writers about, you guessed it, the things they learned from the women who dumped them. I brought along East of Eden, because I entertained foolish hopes of using the car time to work my way through a classic. I ended up not even opening East of Eden and instead reading Alex's book when he finished it. A lot of my favorite comedians were represented (notably, David Wain, whose contribution was among my favorites) and I enjoyed the book.
After I'd finished it, Alex asked if it was weird to read a whole book chronicling mens' relationships experiences (and it was all men...no lesbians allowed here!). Well, no. Actually, it wasn't weird, because welcome to the whole wide world of comedy, film, and literature. While I consciously and unconsciously seek out the work of female comedians, writers, and directors, there's no denying that even underground/independent art forms are predominantly male. Of course, this isn't really anyone's fault, and it isn't even inherently bad. Like I said, I really enjoyed Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me. But did I feel like the book was intended for me? Did I feel like I was in on the joke? No way. But that's okay.
When I read Julie Klausner's fantastic book I Don't Care About Your Band, I thought "Finally! It's Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me, but for women!" It was everything the other book had been: witty, smart, in turns hilarious and heartbreaking. But this time, I didn't feel like I was sitting in the corner watching everyone else have fun. Julie Klausner was a woman making astute pop-culture references and identifying with a Muppet. She was funny, and she didn't have to pretend to be a man in order to get a laugh.
All of this is one big rambling way of saying that Julie Klausner is on one of our favorite podcasts, The Sound of Young America. TSOYA has had interviews in the past with some of my favorite smart, funny ladies (Miranda July, Charlyne Yi, Sloane Crosley, Maria Bamford) as well as lots of smart, funny men. The best part of this interview is that Julie Klausner comes across as a very nice person, because as you know, Alex and I have a hard time liking a comedian if they seem mean-spirited. Julie Klausner also compares her book to Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me, saying, "I didn't dump you. You were terrible, and then you disappeared."
Truly a woman after my own heart.

Book Club: Snow Angels

Our Book Club pick for April was Snow Angels by Stewart O'Nan. Perhaps not a seasonally appropriate choice, but still one that I was very happy with. Out of all the books we've (or I've) read for Book Club, this one is the easiest to recommend, but also the most depressing. Sure, The Moviegoer was depressing, but in a way that's hard to verbalize. For me, while I enjoyed The Moviegoer, the language got in the way of a visceral connection. With Snow Angels, the language (I almost typed "prose," but I'm not in an English program anymore. I don't have to use that word anymore! Barf) was unobtrusive and simple, bringing the devastation of the story to the forefront.
Snow Angels deals with two plots, one focusing on a fourteen-year-old boy, Arthur, and the other on his former babysitter, Annie, and her husband, Glenn. One of these stories is far more tragic than the other, and it's a real credit to O'Nan as an author that he's able to make us care just as deeply about the more trivial story.
What made this novel stand out so much for me was O'Nan's attention to the little high-school details; the indignities of riding the bus, the marching band director trying in vain to extract some kind of greatness out of a bunch of bumbling kids, and most importantly, the real selfishness of 14 year old kids. I'm pretty sure Little Alex never went through a phase like that, but most kids, myself included, did. In one scene, Arthur's parents are arguing in the next room as he prepares for a date, and he thinks, "I wasn't going to let anything ruin my happiness." Well, yeah. That's being 14.
So in a way, sure, this is a book about "growing up," but it's a lot more than that, too. The last paragraph is one of the most quietly crushing passages I've ever read. Highly recommended, you guys! You'll go O'Nanners for O'Nan (sorry).

Book Club: Snow Angels

How is everyone doing with this month's Book Club selection, Snow Angels? Just kidding, I already talked to Alex about the book today. Although if anyone wanted to hop on the Book Club train, this would be a good month to do it, because Stewart O'Nan is a holy-moly good writer. He's the kind of good that creeps up on you, the kind of unpretentious writing that doesn't stand you up and make you take notice. You'll just realize, all of a sudden, that you're seeing exactly what he's describing. This isn't an "upper," though, so be warned. I'm eager to watch the movie after I finish the book because Alex says it's slightly different. The trailer looks absolutely wonderful, and very Midwestern...the book's set in Pennsylvania, but it has a real Ohio feel to it.

The Talented Winfrey Family's H.P. Lovecraft Book Club

Alex was right about April bringing some great things. Of course, as he mentioned, there's the Baby Mountain premiere and our brand-new film club. Also, Friend of TTWF Lauren is in Ohio this week! And IF YOU CAN HANDLE MORE, it's time for a new selection in our book club. But first, a little about our February/March selection, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.
As Alex mentioned, our various clubs and projects are usually attempts to diversify our entertainment selections. I'm not a big science-fiction person--I mean, I grew up watching Star Wars and Alien with Alex and Dad, but those were basically just action movies in space. Also, it should be noted that the ONLY thing I remember about Alien is my dad saying, "There's a little Ripley butt crack," when Sigourney Weaver is fighting aliens in her underwear. Unfortunate but true. Regardless, I ended up really loving DADOES. Perhaps the word "unputdownable" is thrown around too often these days (it's not), but this book was unputdownable! I wouldn't want to ruin the story for anyone, so I won't divulge any plot points. I was going to share a short Philip K. Dick bio, but you all have Wikipedia. I will, however, point this out:
"Dick was "resurrected" by his fans in the form of a remote-controlled android designed in his likeness. The android of Philip K. Dick was included on a discussion panel in a San Diego Comic Con presentation about the film adaptation of the novel, A Scanner Darkly. In February 2006, an America West Airlines employee misplaced the android's head, and it has not yet been found."
I would recommend NOT checking out that android's picture on Dick's wikipedia page. It actually scared me a little.

Next month's TTWF H.P. Lovecraft Book Club pick is Snow Angels by Stewart O'Nan. I'm really excited about this one, even though Lexie's warned me it's going to be a downer (he's seen the movie, starring Mr. Sam Rockwell).

The Talented Winfrey Family's H.P. Lovecraft Book Club: February/March

I hope you guys weren't wondering what happened to The Talented Winfrey Family H.P. Lovecraft Book Club. It still exists--it will always exist, even if only in my mind (but probably not in Alex's). We've just kind of relaxed it a little. That's what you call it when you wait until the month is more than half over to pick a book, and then one of you can't even find a copy, right? Sure.
This month's selection was chosen by Lexie: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I think the real question is Do Androids Have Electric Dreams? But I'm not the Philip K. Dick here, I don't make the rules/write the titles. This month's selection will more than likely be extending into next month, so you should read along with us. Do you like Science Fiction? Do you like the movie Blade Runner starring Mr. Harrison Ford? Then you will probably like this book! I imagined that you answered yes to those questions, obviously.
Mama Winfrey is in a real book club, i.e. one that doesn't just include her family members. The theme of the book club is Strong Women and they meet once monthly to drink coffee and chat. Mama Winfrey said most of the women there only read inspirational fiction and don't like the club's selections. Oftentimes, Mama Winfrey doesn't have time to read the book or else she just doesn't feel like it (Pride & Prejudice), so she just drinks the coffee. This month they're reading Mrs. Dalloway and I don't anticipate it going well. She tried to get me to join, but I informed her that I'm already in a prestigious book club and I just don't have time for two in my life. And anyway I only read inspirational fiction.
Basically the best picture:

"And yes I am totally against segregation."

This is old, but still very funny:One-star Amazon reviews of classic books.

Ian McEwan

I was searching our library's online catalog for Ian McEwan today when I came across something very, very curious.

Did you know Ian McEwan wrote a children's book? Well, he did!
When I saw this cover, I knew it was familiar. Then I remembered that I'd read it as a child! I mean, obviously Little Me was going to pick out a book with such a weird cover. I don't remember a single thing about the writing itself, but that cover still makes me feel a little uncomfortable just like it did when I was a kid. If only I'd known then that one day I'd be reading that same author's really unnecessarily descriptive account of semen drying.

Book Club: January

December's book club pick (20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill) was a smashing success. Which is to say, we both actually read it, unlike some recent selections. It was a short story collection, and, to be honest, the quality varied from story to story. There were some I really loved and a couple that I really, really hated. But the first story ("Best New Horror") was one of the scariest, creepiest things I've read in a very long time.
Alex can feel free to write more about Joe Hill if he so wishes, but as for me, I'm moving on to the next. January's pick is We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

Look at that beautiful cover! This edition features an introduction by Jonathan Lethem, who, just warning you, comes across as kind of an asshole! I'll try not to hold that against the book, though. If you've been thinking about joining in, this would be a good month to do it (once again, I think it's just so cute how I pretend other people read our blog or would want to be part of our book club. Adorable). WHALITC (that is a great abbreviation!) is relatively short, and has already used the word "rot" several times in just the first few pages.

Book Club!

I've just read the first two stories in 20th Century Ghosts, but already I love it! Also, Alex reminded me of how it came to his attention...it was on the A.V. Club's list of Best Short Stories of 00's.
Here are a couple of links if you're interested in Joe Hill: there's Bookslut's glowing review of 20th Century Ghosts, and a really interesting profile from the New York Times.

Book Club: December

The Talented Winfrey Family H.P. Lovecraft Book Club is still chuggin' along. Don't you worry your pretty little heads about it. I still have about 20 pages to go on The Moviegoer, so no post about that yet (try to contain your anticipation), but I wanted to let you know what December's pick is. In case you want to read along with us? I don't know who I'm kidding. I don't know why I'm telling you. Either way, our pick is 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill.

Alex picked this, and I went along with it because:
1. It's Stephen King's (Uncle Stevie's) son.
2. Ghost stories!
3. It's semi-recent, which should mean less totally-historically-accurate-but-still-uncomfortable racism (more on that when we get to The Moviegoer!)
4. There were three copies at the library.
5. Good reviews from nearly every major publication in the country (that might be a lie, but there were a lot of good reviews).

As always, feel free to read along. There is still one copy at the library, so you'd better snatch that up before someone else gets their greedy little paws on it.

The Corrections

When Alex said we should read The Corrections, outwardly I was like, "Okay." Inwardly I was like, ":(" because it had been sitting on my bookshelf, taunting me, for like two years now. I lugged that thing to college and back and never even opened it. I'd kind of resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't ever going to read it, but I'm glad that I did. Good book club choice, Alex! I ended up loving The Corrections.
Which isn't to say it was all roses. I don't really enjoy criticizing things, because as someone who's never written a book or a movie, I don't feel like I'm qualified to judge what someone else did. Which is why I was a horrible English major and would be a God-awful critic. Regardless, I had some serious problems with The Corrections when I began it. Namely,the violently anti-Midwest sentiment! Which, yes, I know, was part of Gary's character and not necessarily a reflection of what Jonathan Franzen himself thinks. But seriously. Take this paragraph:

"The midmorning light of a late-winter thaw, the stillness of a weekday nonhour in St. Jude, Gary wondered how his parents stood it. The sky was the same color as the salt-white pavement on which elderly St. Judean drivers obeying barbituate speed limits were crawling to their destinations: to malls with pools of meltwater on their papered roofs, to the arterial that overlooked puddled steel yards and the state mental hospital and transmission towers feeding soaps and game shows to the ether; to the beltways and, beyond them, to a million acres of thawing hinterland where pickups were axle-deep in clay and .22s were fired in the woods and only gospel and pedal steel guitars were on the radio; to residential blocks with the same pallid glare in every window, besquirreled yellow lawns with a random plastic toy or two embedded in the dirt, a mailman whistling something Celtic and slamming mailboxes harder than he had to, because the deadness of these streets at such a nonhour, in such a nonseason, could honestly kill you."

Well, okay then, what's the point of even living? I know I meant for this paragraph to illustrate how much I hated certain parts of The Corrections, but what this actually shows is that The Corrections is so depressing because it's so well written and so, unfortunately, true to life. It was a good book! But it made me sad. Here's hoping that The Moviegoer will be a bit lighter (figuratively. Literally it is about half the weight of The Corrections). As always, feel free to read along with us and check back at the end of the month for our super-insightful reviews (usually something like "I enjoyed this").

Amazing Opportunity.

What's that picture doing up there? Oh, I don't know, maybe it's the selection for the first official Winfrey Family Book Club. Get on board or get left behind. Just kidding. I know the type of crowd that this blog attracts. You all read The Corrections when it came out in 1925. You're in the loop. Anyway, we chose it because:

1) It's good.

2)Kerry has a copy.

3)I could get a copy at the library.

4)It's not The Lobster Chronicles.

5)There were at least four solid reasons to choose it.

I'm not announcing the rate that we will read it yet, but it will be nothing short of lightning fast. Someone on Amazon read it in a night! Yeah right. I'll give y'all some time to get your copy ready.

Sequel!

I'm assuming you've heard about the J.D. Salinger lawsuit. Apparently, some guy wrote a sequel to The Catcher in the Rye and J.D. Salinger got pissed (people should know not to mess with notorious recluses). So he sued him. Good for you, J.D. Salinger. You are striking a blow on behalf of people everywhere who are tired of shitty knockoffs of classics. Anyone who's been to a bookstore lately (probably not J.D. Salinger) knows that there are countless books based on the lives of characters from Gone With the Wind, Jane Eyre, and (of course) Pride and Prejudice. Seriously, Target stocks like 50 books and about 25 of those have the words "Mr. Darcy" in the title. Who wants to read about the less important Bennett sisters? Or about what Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth did after they got married? Those books should all be retitled Yawn. Zzzzzz. Oh, Sorry, I Fell Asleep While I Was Reading Your Fanfiction.
But anyway. I know that I could easily look up the title of this Catcher in the Rye knockoff (I guess there's this thing called Google?), but I choose not to. Instead, here are some guesses as to what the title is:
Catcher in the Rye 2: Still Catchin'
What I Caught in the Rye
Catcher in the Barley
Probably No One Would Have Paid Attention to This Book if it Weren't for J.D. Salinger's Lawsuit
Catch-22 (already taken, so now there could be two lawsuits)
I'm sure you have some ideas. Let me know!

Herzog on Herzog.

I had just one class today so, like any Winfrey does, I went to the library. Obviously I got this book when I saw it. How could I not? Anyway, I've already found some amazing things. It's such a shame that more people don't know that much about Werner Herzog, because a Werner Herzog reality show sketch would be amazing. Kind of like that Lisa Loeb show where she tried to date people. Except, Werner Herzog would be more concerned about not succumbing to the overwhelming evil of the world. Here is what I learned:

1) He was super not into doing this book. When asked to be interviewed, he faxed back, "I do not do self-scrutiny. I do look into the mirror in order to shave without cutting myself, but I do not know the color of my eyes. I do not want to assist in a book on me."

2) If Werner Herzog created a film school, he would only accept students if they'd walked 5,000 kilometers, and kept a journal of their experiences. He would read the journal and know if they actually walked the distance. He also would have a boxing ring, and required boxing training every night from 8-10. In addition to boxing, he would require classes in juggling, sparring, somersaults (backwards and forwards), and magic card tricks. "Whether or not you would be a filmmaker by the end I do not know, but at least you would come out as an athlete."

And I've only read 16 pages.

Jesting Infinitely (Or at Least Until September)

Because I like taking on gigantic projects and then giving up on them before I've even properly begun, I decided to do Infinite Summer. Even though I almost never buy books, I hied myself to a Barnes and Noble and bought the only copy of Infinite Jest, the same one that sat there for years, neglected, just getting sadder and more tattered looking as people picked it up and then, realizing its heft, put it back. To be fair, I only bought it because someone stole our library's copy (can we talk about this for a minute? Who the hell is stealing all the movies and books Alex and I want? How hard is it to return this stuff?). I fully expected to give up after reading the first sentence, but instead I've held on, mostly on pace, for about a month. Okay, so I'm always 40 pages behind, and this weekend I had a marathon session to catch myself up. But basically I'm on track. It's weird.
So, if you don't know, Infinite Jest is a weird book. A lot of people (what am I talking about? I mean Chase) have asked me what it's about. It's hard to explain. Mostly it's about a tennis academy, but also it's about an addiction treatment facility. Apparently DFW used to play tennis, which I guess explains the exhaustively thorough descriptions of gameplay. It's a difficult book to read, for sure. For me, anyway. I've always had a lot of trouble with reading things that I'm not immediately attracted to (which was why I wasn't a very good English major) and the truth is that a lot of this book isn't easy to fall in love with. But parts of it are, and in the Dave Eggers-penned intro we all learn that this book will change our lives. We'll see. My life is pretty malleable to begin with, so it shouldn't take much. Expect updates as I continue.
Of note: A character brings about his own demise by placing his head in a microwave oven.

Confessions

Sometimes we all do things we're ashamed of. Maybe you
denied a gypsy a loan and then faced the consequences. Or maybe you hit a gypsy with your car while receiving a beej and suffered because of it. Or maybe the thing you're ashamed of doesn't have to do with gypsies at all, which is the category that my own personal shame falls under. I'm not happy about this, but none of us can change what's in our past. And I'm only telling you this because if I didn't, Alex would, okay? Listen, you guys...I read Twilight.

There I was, at Wal-Mart, buying the ingredients I needed for Chicken Tikka Masala. Then it happened. I was going through the self-checkout line, a $7.64 copy of Twilight in my hands. And so I read it. I felt dirty throughout the process, mostly because I try not to read things that my 11 year old cousin also reads. And I felt like, as the holder of an English degree, I should be upholding some sort of literature standard. But then I remembered that I read the entire Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series (there's something you needed to know about me), so who am I to act all high and mighty? So I read Twilight. There you go. It wasn't the worst book I've ever read. But it certainly wasn't the best. I mean, literally NOTHING happened in the first, oh, 350 pages of the book. And there were a lot of descriptions along the lines of "The mushrooms were good." Regardless, I read it. It happened. And I can't take it back.
P.S.- Don't keep hoping for a steamy vampire sex scene. It never happens (sorry).

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

This is a trailer for a fan-made adaptation of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon and It. Looks. Awesome.  Remember in the novel when they focused on how amazing his illustrations were, and how he could communicate movement so well?  Well, they couldn't get someone who was good at drawing to do this.  Like, that looks like a third grader drew it.  Mostly though, What?  My favorite shot is the one of the kid with his head against the wall.