paperbackgirl.

Junior Literati.

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:11:00 -0500

A few years ago my younger cousin Henry started showing an interest in reading and naturally I began to impose my favorite young adult books on him for every birthday and Christmas. Part of me thought that he would probably prefer Apple gift cards or video games, but I plowed ahead with my recommended reading list anyway. Today he turned 13 and having forgotten to send a gift or card I texted my aunt in a panic asking whether he would prefer a Vans or Target gift card. She texted back, “He actually really likes the books you pick out, any ideas along that line?” I am still beaming.

Click through for Henry’s reading list:

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Divergent by Veronica Roth

The Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

What I read: January 2012. Paltry, but 1Q84 should count for at...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:11:00 -0500

What I read: January 2012. Paltry, but 1Q84 should count for at least four books. Can you tell that all of my holds on the hot Fall releases came up at the library at the same time?

Spotted on the Upper West Side—looks like the HBO...

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:29:37 -0500

Spotted on the Upper West Side—looks like the HBO adaptation of The Corrections has started filming.

If I had known this was going to wind up (see what I did there?)...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:39:00 -0500

If I had known this was going to wind up (see what I did there?) on Murakami’s Facebook page I would’ve spent longer than ten minutes on it! Still kind of freaking out over this…

NYC book swap tonight.

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:50:00 -0500

7pm at Library Bar, details here.

If you’re interested in coming but worried you won’t know anyone, this is not at all a cliquey meetup, plus you have a built in conversation starter—books!
Don’t let social awkwardness stand in the way of free new books. One of your New Year’s resolutions was probably to make new friends, and to that I say carpe diem.
If you don’t want to part with any of your precious books, pick up a used one somewhere and come on over.

My breakdown of Murakami themes.

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:25:56 -0500

My breakdown of Murakami themes.

1Q84 Post-Mortem.

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:39:00 -0500

Based on the buzz surrounding 1Q84 I expected a departure from Haruki Murakami’s standby themes. I stopped reading him a while ago because after six or seven novels it felt like I was reading the same repackaged story, the innovative and exciting qualities that struck me after first discovering him now seemed stale. Within the first few hundred pages of 1Q84 I found myself distracted by mentions of cats or ears or cooking spaghetti, like playing a literary version of I Spy.

Anyway, 1Q84 is a thriller and was so creepy and disturbing that reading it before bed started to interfere with my sleep. Murakami is an expert at building tension and the prospect of resolutions and explanations for the bizarre happenings kept me going through all 923 pages. The ending didn’t provide the satisfaction I was looking for and felt anti-climactic—the main characters ran away from the danger rather than facing it head on.

If you’re new to Murakami or have only read a few of his books I would recommend 1Q84, assuming you have the stomach for 900+ page books. If you’ve read a lot of his work and are expecting something fresh it might be best to take a pass. This is not to say I think the book is uninteresting or poorly written, it’s a great piece of work and I have a huge amount of respect for Murakami’s talent—Kafka on the Shore is one of my all time favorites.

A Bookworm's Guide to Casting The Corrections

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:12:00 -0500

A Bookworm's Guide to Casting The Corrections:

I put on my Hollywood director hat and wrote this for Flavorpill.

Using Pinterest as a visionboard for writing your novel.

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:51:35 -0500

Using Pinterest as a visionboard for writing your novel.:

I love this.

esquared: Ms. Wharton’s childhood home, at 14 West 23rd Street,...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:07:53 -0500

esquared:

Ms. Wharton’s childhood home, at 14 West 23rd Street, in 1880.

(now houses a Starbucks, of course)

Edith Wharton Turns 150 (NYT)

thebronzemedal: Hey guys! We’re having a bookswap next week....

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:30:37 -0500

thebronzemedal:

Hey guys! We’re having a bookswap next week. You should be there!

It’s been a while but we’re back!

1Q84.

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:14:27 -0500

Another race against time: I am halfway through 1Q84 with 400 pages to go and it is due back at the library on Saturday. Who knew checking out library books could be stressful? I have a lot of Thoughts and Opinions on Mr. Murakami’s latest, review to come!

63

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:45:00 -0500

The number of pages it took for Haruki Murakami to mention a cat in the 925 page long 1Q84.

Most Anticipated: The Great 2012 Book Preview

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:07:37 -0500

Most Anticipated: The Great 2012 Book Preview:

Comprehensive preview of notable 2012 releases from The Millions.

"For last year’s words belong to last year’s language And next year’s words await..."

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 16:21:00 -0500

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”

- T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding.”

The leap.

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:20:00 -0500

How I Met Your Mother became available on Netflix Instant a few weeks ago and having missed most of the first few seasons save a rerun here or there, I have been watching the show from the beginning. I love this show because I can relate to the characters and their struggles, young professionals in NYC trying to figure out who they are versus who they expected to be, and who they’re going to be with.

Recently I’ve been struggling with trying to write my first novel, and staying mentally tough has been more challenging than the writing itself. I knew it was going to be the toughest thing I’ve ever done creatively, but I hadn’t anticipated the excruciating sense of inferiority and self-doubt, feelings that are amplified by anything and everything I read. It has made me question if I have it in me, whether I should just roll over and accept that I need to modify or scale back my dream into something within my grasp.

Last night I watched the season finale of HIMYM season four, “The Leap,” the episode where Ted has been struggling as an architect and is offered a teaching job but is adamantly against accepting it. Lily tries to talk him out of his lifelong plan to be an architect and to take the job in the following exchange:

Lily: Screw the plan. I thought I’d be a famous painter. Marshall thought he’d be an environmental lawyer. Robin thought she’d be a TV reporter.
Robin: I am a TV reporter. My show airs every morning at 4:00 AM.
Lily: Is that still on? Good for you.
Robin: Someone, watch my show!
Lily: Barney thought he’d be a violinist.
Barney: Lily!
Lily: Don’t tell me things!
Lily: (To Ted) Listen to what the world is telling you to do, and take the leap.

It feels silly to admit days later, but in that moment it was a direct line to the minimizing voice in the back of my head. I’m not going to give up on the idea of a book spine with my name on it, but it did raise an interesting point: when do we make a judgement call on Plan A and regroup? Is it better to stubbornly pursue a potentially unattainable dream and chase the idea that attaining it will make you happy, or find some middle ground and take the leap?

December reading notes

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:03:00 -0500

This month I’ve been tearing through my stack of “to-read” books in a race against time to pad the amount of books I’ve read in 2011. Since I started tracking the books I read each year in a spreadsheet this has become a sort of December tradition for me, albeit a deranged one.

I started off the month with Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan, for which I could write a six page essay about the problems I had with the flimsy plot and irritating characters. Next up was Blue Nights, Joan Didion’s memoir about her daughter, Quintana. I will read everything Didion writes and found sections of the book touching, so much so that the last chapter had me crying on the subway. Other sections had me nodding vigorously in agreement with the criticisms I’d heard, particularly that she excessively name drops. I was prepared to defend the name dropping because you can’t fault that she often mentions her friends, most of whom are coincidentally famous, but did I really need to be beat over the head seven times that Quintana’s wedding cake was from Payard?

After Blue Nights I unknowingly read three books centered on troubled marriages involving writerly spouses: The Astral, The Paris Wife, and Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I especially liked The Paris Wife, which is told from the point of view of Hemingway’s first wife and was as fun to read as Midnight In Paris was to watch.

Next up is Is Everyone Hanging Out Without me? 11 more days! Race against time!

Photo

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:09:49 -0500

"As I see it, the problem with Amazon stems from the fact that though it started out as a bookseller,..."

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:51:42 -0500

“As I see it, the problem with Amazon stems from the fact that though it started out as a bookseller, it isn’t anymore, not really. It sells everything now, and it sells it all aggressively. Maybe Amazon doesn’t care about the larger bookselling universe because it’s simply too big to care. In a way it’s become, like the John Candy character (minus the eager, slobbering benevolence) in Mel Brooks’s movie “Spaceballs” — half man, half dog and thus its own best friend.”

- Richard Russo, “Amazon’s Jungle Logic.”

Day=made. There is a bookish ‘Hey girl’ blog now.

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:29:00 -0500

Day=made. There is a bookish ‘Hey girl’ blog now.