I read Interpreter of Maladies, whole book of stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, just a few months ago, and incidentally, also another Pulitzer prize winner. I also loved her charmingly flat style. I'm not a fan of grand descriptions and other such literary nonsense. It's somewhat embarrassing, considering that I'm a soon-to-be librarian and all, but it's the truth. I like stories to move along (I guess that literary nonsense would be called "plot") rather than meandering in simile, metaphor, etc, like some kind of grandpa on a Sunday morning drive. teehee.

Yesterday, while home sick from work, I read the Nanny Diaries. While by no means what I'd consider high art, the Nanny Diaries was by far the best revenge of overworked, underpaid peons I have ever had the pleasure of reading. This work of fiction, an expose of life as a nanny for rich New Yorkers written by two former nannies, does what Nickel and Dimed should have done for minimum wage earners. I wish I would have written something like it about one of my jobs.

Speaking of menial labor, the head librarian fired our student shelver and has now assigned me the task of putting all returns in shelf order and away, while assigning another student the task of working the reference desk. So I'd better get to work. Blogging and sophomore papers on ancient Rome be damned, I'm putting the biographies away!

The Best American Short Stories 2002, installment the third, in which Erik hurries up and gets on with it. This is really one of the weaker BASS volumes, so I don't feel like spending much more time on the bad stories. Here's the rest of the book:

"Nobody's Business" by Jhumpa Lahiri

A melancholy story of a guy who tries to protect his housemate from heartbreak. He's got a crush on her. It has a charmingly flat style, and it's ingenious in the way the housemate's boyfriend's infidelity makes the protagonist feel as he has been unfaithful to her.

"Digging" by Beth Lordon

Spans generations of Irish farmers and immigrants, but there's not even half a decent story among all the happenstances and entanglements.

"In Case We're Separated" by Alice Mattison

This story sucks, but I'd like to see a better story with the same last three sentences: "Maybe she and Sylvia both had secrets, like Edwin. Maybe life required secrets. What an idea."

"Billy Goats" by Jill McCorkle

If this collection needed a piece about growing up in the South and colorful characters (and this collection surely doesn't need any more), it could do worse than to include McCorkle. However, these ten pages share no resemblence with a complete story--they just have anecdotes and mood.

"Watermelon Days" by Tom McNeal

A period piece about a classy dame whose life goes offtrack on the plains, this story goes offtrack itself and sort of sputters to an end.

"Nachman from Los Angeles" by Leonard Michaels

There are some wonderfully sharply-drawn characters here, but the moral dilemna of writing term papers for money fails to excite.

"Bulldog" by Arthur Miller

A fine little period piece and glimpse into the scattered mind of a thirteen-year-old waking up to the world.

"The Rug" by Meg Mullins

This immigrant's wife never joins him in NYC. Might be slightly touching in the connection between the rug merchant and an elderly socialite client, or it might not.

"Family Furnishings" by Alice Munro

A period piece about family secrets that sets itself up for its own pointlessness. Munro has done better.

"Surrounded by Sleep" by Akhil Sharma

An immigrant boy confronts a family tragedy with a mix of his old religion and his new (comic books and movies). Whatever.

"Love and Hydrogen" by Jim Shepard

A tale of homosexual love aboard the Hindenburg, this story is so much better than the rest of the collection that it's hard to describe. The balancing act performed by the two crew members in hiding their relationship is mirrored by the delicate task of keeping the airship afloat. It's great. Oh, and if you were surprised when the boat sank in Titanic, you might be shocked at how this story ends.

"Aftermath" by Mary Yukari Waters

This period piece set in Japan after the war is about the failing of memory, and it tells its tale well enough--I forgot about it.

OK, now on to more enjoyable books. Why did I even start out reviewing such a downer? I need something good to read!

Per Robot's recommendation, I am reading Middlesex, and in concordance with her review, it is pretty wicked awesome. 'Tis the first book in a long while that I've stolen time from other things (mostly working) so that I can read it. Hasn't happened since The Cold Six Thousand.

In looking for that link, I came across the knowledge that James Ellroy either is called, or wishes to be called "The Devil Dog". That's just retarded.

Good book I just finished: Mister Posterior and the Genius Child, about an eight-year-old girl growing up in the 60s who's the victim of a flasher. Except that the flasher only flashes his bottom. Mr. Posterior is witty, sad, introspective, funny, nostalgic...a great read. I loved it. Best book I've read since Middlesex.

whoa- i feel a little weird reading all the content, then coming in right after my first introduction and mentin of name being in reference to a book about anal sex. as if all involved here didn't already think questionable things about me.... uh, yeah. so uh, \books!!!!

in true nick fashion - i have a ton of non fiction books in the current array. i can never really finish any of them, because i mean - they're like reference books - you don't actually READ them like start to finish, but you read them you know? all of the good fiction books i read come by way of others recommendations.

the other thing that makes me not so hot is that i can never remember details, for example - allow me to summarize my recent reading activities:

a whole bunch of books along the lines of "home studio construction"
a whole bunch of books along the lines of "the physics of audio"
a whole bunch of books along the lines of "renovating your house"

the last fiction ones were vaguely following the plotline of "beauty gone ugly". there was that one "look at her" i think it was, about the model who got into a disfiguring wreck that rachel stole for the book club. then the other one was about some b movie actress who goes to shit and goes through a bevy of self-destructive relationships.

so, that's my contribution. i like geeky reference stuff and bad chick/relationship type books. i always get sucked in on the paperback table. oh yeah, i mean come on, i actually own a book called "slave to fashion". i don't think i got more than a few pages into it because it kinda sucked i think. i don't remember.

oh yeah, that and the aforementioned dirty sex books. i guess i tend to pick those up as well. but the geek ones have been winning out lately. i'll see if i can get some more details. details, not my strong suit right now.

Did you say that killer whales like to have their vaginas scratched? I wasn't paying attention......

What could possibly more exciting than sharks?

Guess again.

My next installment in my book-on-CD habit (about which Liam says I am turning into his Dad), is the Vagina Monologues.

Vagina. Vagina. Vagina.

I have to admit a certain disappointment in the monologues. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for self discovery and all aginst violence against women, but they just seem a little tame. Not to mention the fact that they are mostly delivered in a nasally, New York Jewish voice. Thus, I cannot help imagining my Miami grandmother's vagina throughout said dialogues. Which I'm sure is beautiful. fo course. But still.

My advice, if you are into self discovery, is to read something by Tristan Taormino, who N turned me on to (eek, no pun intended). She wrote the very controversial Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women (which N has not turned me on to. no pun intended), as well as Pucker Up, which is sitting on my nightstand as we speak (and which N did turn me on to).

Wow, those preposition-ending parenthetical statements are rampant today.

The Best American Short Stories 2002, installment the second:

"A House on the Plains" by E.L. Doctorow

Oh, geez, could this title be more evocative of the problems with the collection? Luckily, the story breaks free of its twin shackles: it's a period piece, set on the plains; it's even [shudder] based on the germ of a true story. The exceedingly slow-witted narrator and his brazenly criminal mother get away with murder, and the result is a fun little dime-store crime story. The "unreliable (or dumb and hence unreliable) narrator" trope and the "clever crime" trope are dopey tropes, but when combined in just the right way are synergistic. It's the reason The Usual Suspects is such a good movie while all the other "jewel caper gone wrong" movies suck ass.

"Puppy" by Richard Ford

I seriously suspect this of being an excellent story. It's neither a period piece nor a childhood flashback, and there are some deep guilt issues being worked out here in the telling of a puppy being left in a backyard and can we keep the puppy (no) and what do we do with the puppy (take it to a shelter). There's also race relations in New Orleans, and marital infidelity. Maybe this story tries for too much, or maybe it succeeds--I can't say, because it was just so depressing and hard to read that I can't like it.

"The Heifer" by Melissa Hardy

OMG, this is a period piece about an immigrant couple living on the frontier plains. The wife is a little bitter about coming all the way from Finland to Ontario and realizing her husband is a lazy jerk. Luckily, there's a cow she likes. I'm starting to wonder about guest editor Sue Miller, given all the unsatisfying-marriage revenge fantasies in this book.

"Zilkowski's Theorem" by Karl Iagnemma

A couple of immigrant mathematics professors and the mathematiciana they both love make up this wonderful isosceles love triangle. The moral doubt raised by the uncovering of an old academic deception causes the narrator to escape years of pining and think of a life more than just by the numbers. Digits invade the text and the narrator hangs his experience on statistics, allowing chance occurences to make his decisions for him; this was obviously written out of a true love for math (the way the title of the story refers to a math theorem written out of love). Quote: "The Russian theorists would understand, Henderson concluded idly. They would understand the concept of theorems written for the sake of romance. The Russians had an appreciation for the noble, doomed gesture, but others--the Germans, the Japanese, the Americans--who could say?" Yay!

More to come!

More from Shark Trouble: Killer whales like to have their tongues scratched; barracudas seldom attack people.

Every year, I receive a copy of The Best American Short Stories as a gift. I'm getting close to finishing up the twenty stories in The Best American Short Stories 2002, so it's time to get on with the talking about it. Because it's an anthology, rather than a collection by a single author, I think it's more appropriate to look at each story individually; I'll go through them a few at a time. To immediately contradict what I just said, let me start out reviewing the book as a whole: this collection does have an overall feel to it, and I blame Sue Miller, this year's guest editor. From the list of her books in the bio on the back cover, the only title I recognize is Inventing the Abbotts. I haven't read that book, but I did see the movie and enjoy it (sort of like The Virgin Suicides without the panache). Not knowing anything else about her, I'm going to assume she is utterly consumed with period pieces like Inventing the Abbotts, because this whole damn collection is full of them. Period pieces, frontier tales, and immigrant stories. Even if you don't find this genre well-tread, you'll get tired of it after reading five stories in a row along the vein of "When I Was a Child on the Plains." Hey, it's the 21st Century here! I want some laser guns and rocket ships!

"Along the Frontage Road" by Michael Chabon

The first story in the alphabetically arranged collection belies my characterization that all the stories are Little House on the Prairie. The author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay manages to hold in his sometimes grandiose style and turns in the best story here (so far--I have three to go). It's really short and hits its one point very well (some of the other stories reach a little far), drawing the unsaid background tragedy out of the incongruous act of a father and son buying a pumpkin in the urban landscape.

"The Sugar-Tit" by Carolyn Cooke

I had totally forgotten about this story, and had to look back at it. According to the author's note, it's about a hilarious prank involving the moving of a couch by some drunk men, but so far as I can tell, it's about a sad woman who does nothing except one mean thing at the end. Old-Timey Alert: first period piece!

"The Red Ant House" by Ann Cummins

Ugh. When I was a little girl growing up in some little town in the South, me and a friend did some slightly sexually depraved things. Meanwhile, our parents were depressed. Please note: you will read this story again before the collection is out.

"Seven" by Edwidge Danticat

The first of a couple stories about an immigrant man living in NYC waiting to make enough money for his wife to join him. In this instance, when she shows up it's not as good as they had imagined. A middling story.

More to come!

Ha. Just minutes after complaining about being a CO, I received the following in my mailbox:

SANAD Support Technologies is recruiting for a part time librarian (12-20 hours per week on average) to provice library services at a minimum security federal prison camp in Allenwood, Pennsylvania. The library activities coordinator is anticipated to begin in
September, 2003.

To apply, please send a letter of application and resume to:

Human Resources: HN
SANAD Support Technologies
Suite 400
11820 Parklawn Dr.
Rockville, MD 20852
301-231-5990 (fax)

SST@sanad.com

All hell has broken loose in Anonymous High School Library today. We're less than two weeks away from finals, and I have more than 60 kids, plus a meeting of bejeweled, white, male upper-level administration from the district in the library computer lab, which has pushed the homework center into the library proper. Somebody handed out lollipops, which are shamelessly being eaten by 10 or so of my kids (no food in the library). The administrators keep popping into the study area to use their cell phones (no phones in the library) I've had more reference questions this week than I have all year (most recently wondering why the Gray's anatomy hasn't been updated) and both of my student workers are MIA. This job blows. I want more reference questions , less correctional officer work.

Some things I learned about how to avoid getting tasted by sharks while swimming in the ocean from Shark Trouble. (I know, it's been over a week, but these books on tape take forever!) Your chances of getting bitten by a shark are miniscule. Still, sharks are everywhere, and the ocean is their natural habitat, so to decrease your miniscule chances, follow these rules:

1. Never go swimming in the ocean if you see schools of fish nearby. In the ocean, apex predators (how cool is that?! apex predators! what a great band name!) push the smaller fish up to the surface. If you see fish feeding, it is likely that the nature's food chain is in action.

2. Never go swimming if you see "birds working." Another sign that the food chain is in action.

3. Avoid swimming at dawn or dusk. This is when some sharks feed. Furthermore, sharks can't see as well at these times and will have to rely on senses besides their site to distinguish you from their prey (i.e. taking a bite of you first).

4. Never swim alone. Sharks kill off the weak and sick fish--you wouldn't want to be mistaken for one.

5. Don't thrash around or splash with your friends (I believe this is known as "horseplay"). You will resemble one of those weak fish that sharks pick off.

6. Don't swim near dolphins, seals or sea lions (dude, if you are stupid enough to swim with seals or sea lions, than I suppose a shark would be picking off the weak).

7. Don't wear anything sparkly in the water, i.e. jewelery or buckles on your swimsuits. You will resemble the scales of a dying fish, attracting sharks.

8. Finally, never, never, never go swimming if you are bleeding in any amount from anywhere at all. The sharks, they are hypersensitive to the smell of blood.

oooh. jennifer - thanks! i've heard of that book (i work at a futures trading company) -- now that it's been recommended by someone who isn't a professional gambler as my fella likes to call the likes of me and the people i work with -- i'll definitely check it out.

yay gambling.

bring on the nickel poker.

[/digression from discussion of the proper topic]

hmm. i just finished reading The Russian Debutante's Handbook by Gary Shteyngart. feh. i heard it was super-fancy and hysterical and it was only moderately amusing. i don't know. maybe i had it built up in my head a little too much. i hate when that happens. maybe the humor was just not of my variety. it was funny, just not "the funniest book i've ever read" as i was told by the ding-dong at the bookstore in new orleans. oh well.

"Deep silence had fallen with the starless dusk, and they leaned on each other without speaking; but at every step of their climb Ethan said to himself: "It's the last time we''ll ever walk together."


My pocket-sized pick of the week goes to Edith Wharton's 140-page Ethan Frome. Don't read this book at the beach. This tragic story of stifled love and longing left me heaving a big sigh at the end. The sigh was mainly just me asking myself why I hadn't read it sooner.


If you like reading top-rate book-related blogs, head over to the Bookslut. She always finds the best interviews, commentaries, and controversies...

Cindy: if you like that gambling book, try this one: Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions

Jennifer

I keep name dropping the book to my rock band, as it has served as a new found inspiration for myself, but Our Band Could Be Your Life is a must read for all music lovers. While the writing is way to flowery at times, the history is so very important that the silly pretty prose is over-lookable....it makes me believe that I was born to late.

I must also post concerning my suprise that the Robot has never read anything by David Foster Wallace. I do believe that these creepy people would be utterly shocked.

I was up until 3:30 this morning, watching our guitarist get tones and do takes for our demo, and in between sneaking in pages of The Honey Thief, a score from the popular fiction rack at Highland Park Public Library. It's a coming of age story about an 11-year-old from New York city who moves to the country and befriends a lonely beekeeper. Hhhhmm, There seems to be a trend of bee books out lately.

Anyhow. I'm a bit of a library fanatic.

If you didn't know this already, most libraries offer reciprical borrowing privileges, where you can get free access to everything from just books (like at the Highland Park) or books, CDs and and books-on-CD (like at Schaumburg Township District Library, source of Shark Trouble and where I am taking a class about business reference). As an aside to my aside, STDL pretty much takes your breath away. It comprises two floors of its own building in a strip mall, and makes the drive out to the burbs worth it, for a change. Anyhow, if you work out in the suburbs, might be fun to visit your local library and get a card.

You know, I'm supposed to be a wry-brarian, but today I sound very earnest indeed. This is what you get on no sleep, I suppose.

hey y'all. i just received robotic rachel's invitation to join wrylibrarian and wanted to post straight-away.

i'm home from work today and heard an interview with two authors on Fresh Air and i really want to read both of these books:

Poker Nation: A High-Stakes, Low-Life Adventure into the Heart of a Gambling Country by Andy Bellin. evidently the boy dropped out of graduate school and developed a bit of a gambling habit. he was pretty funny in the interview so i can only hope the book comes off as well as he did.

Stud by Kevin Conley. pony sex! pony sex! pony sex! actually, i'm guessing it isn't very sexy at all, but whatever. it has ponies in it!

Hello and welcome to wrybrarian.com!

I put this up so all of my geeky friends and all of their geeky friends can post all about the books they check out, zines they read and libraries they visit, as well as other guilty pleasures (i.e. my guilty pleasure of the week, the audio version of Shark Trouble, True Stories about Sharks and the Sea by Peter Benchley, author of Jaws. It's so cool! Sharks are scary!)