The Onion got it right: Girlfriend Stops Reading David Foster Wallace Breakup Letter At Page 20
This is a late notice, thanks to the time-shifting properties of TiVo: a recent episode of Sex and the City featured a copy of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, by David Foster Wallace. Fuckin' Dave is fuckin' everywhere. Fuck.

Moving sucks. Meanwhile, I've finally gotten hold of a copy of the Da Vinci Code, which already gets points for a super Web tie-in. I'll let you know what I think after I'm all settled in to the new pad.

micro-review: Captain Nemo by K.J. Anderson
I picked up this book in the beach-side bookstore while on vacation recently, because the Dave Eggers story in McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales was just boring me to tears. It turned out to be the perfect beach read, delivering all the thrills and action promised by but not found in McSweeney's (though now that I'm home and have put the Eggers story mercifully behind me, it's improving). The premise: all of Jules Verne's novels are based in fact, being the retellings of the exploits of his friend André Nemo, with the names changed to protect the innocent. So most of the plot is familiar, if not to say foretold by some books written 125 years ago: Nemo lands on a mysterious island, goes to the center of the earth, crosses Africa in a baloon, witnesses a voyage to the moon, builds and pilots a mighty submarine, helps out a guy on his way around the world quickly, and generally has some fantastic voyages. Alexander Dumas, Napoleon III, Florence Nightingale, and a few other real historical figures pop into the mix. K.J. Anderson adds to the Verne pastiche what old Frenchy was always missing--a little romance. The love triangle between Nemo, Verne (himself a captivating character as an endearing wimp), and Captain Hatteras's wife is the solid, classical frame on which the flights of fancy are hung.
This is some swash-buckling postmodernism, with no intellectual strutting about, just some damn thrilling adventures based on a made-up history. It's straightforward and fun.

Finished last night: This month's bookclub choice, Revenge of the Cootie Girls, part of a series of mysteries written by Sparkle Hayter, ex-foreign new correspondent. Take this silly murder mystery with you on vacation. Fun stuff.

I cannot shirk my wrybrarian duties. As such, I must inform you all that last night, I stayed up until midnight reading yet another bosom-ripper. That's two in as many weeks! This whole unemployment thing is getting to me. I am turning into a stereotypical librarian. Applique holiday sweater vests to follow.

Here's an article about holes in Google's search engine worth checking out (hehehe. Note librarian pun).

Another thing, check out Carrie's review of "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" on the Rogue Librarian. I don't know Carrie personally, but I am an admirer from afar. Not the creepy cyber-stalker kind, of course, simply the self-proclaimed sisterhood of the hip librarian kind.

Last night, or rather at about 2:30 this morning, after playing a rock show, I snuggled up with My Life in Heavy Metal by Steve Almond. As a testament to its "goodness," I decided to stay awake until 3 reading the first story, despite my 7:30 alarm setting. Music and sex, written in clean, eloquent and hip prose. I'm predicting that My Life in Heavy Metal is going to knock McSweeney's amazing tales right out of the stadium cum rock arena.

(hehehehe. That was a pretty clever pun for somebody on just four hours of sleep)

"The role of a librarian is to make sense of the world of information. If that's not a qualification for superhero-dom, what is?" That's right, it's the librarian action figure!

It's been a while since i've posted, but since i'm firmly ensconced in unemployment land i've had lots of time for reading (instead of doing pesky things like work on a resume and look for a job.) anyhoo.

i just finished reading The Ticket Out by Helen Knode. she's married to the "Devil Dog" himself (the ever lovely James Ellroy - yeah, Liam, the nickname is no good. no good at all.) i still love him though - except he somewhat creeps me out because he looks just like my stepdad. weird. anyway, it's a detectivey-type story set in LA. the main character is a movie reviewer for an alternative weekly paper and she finds a dead blonde in her bathtub. mayhem ensues - along with a little Hollywood history lesson, and a romance with a hunky LAPD Detective. i was sort of disappointed with this book - probably because the ending isn't tidy and i'm not good with ambiguity. it's worth reading though.

It's as if I'm immersed in the collective minds of 14 to 40-year-old males everywhere. Or maybe James Bond crossed with the Neal Stephenson crossed with Hunter S. Thompson--on acid. Wait, isn't Hunter S. Thompson already on acid?

Watch out!

Mark Leyner's Et Tu, Babe is not only pretty sharp, but also in the word's of a Washington Post reviewer, "very very weird." Thanks, Erik, for this very strange and bizzarre, but very wrybrarian birthday gift.

xoxo-rachel

In honor of Dancing Queen, I painted my toenails pink, put on my leopard-print flip flops and went to the laundromat to read this bosom ripper, about a young, headstrong American suffragette whose stepfather takes control of her money and sends her to live secretly as a housekeeper with his nephew, a Scottish laird in need of a wife. You can only imagine what ensues.

In searching for a link to Temptation, I found a link to the coolest site! Bookcrossing is this exchangew where you drop off a book anywhere, then leave a posting for somebody to find it. So cool. I'm gonna leave one on the train this afternoon.

Lisa Carver's Dancing Queen is my first Wrybrarian loaner--thanks Krissy! It's also the first book that has transcribed my childhood literary masturbatory fantasties, a la Harlequin romance, Judith Holt and V.C. Andrews. teehee. Lisa forgot to include all the horse books, but I suppose she'll need something to write about in Dancing Queen Two!

Anyhoo, a celebration of bad taste and white trash, Dancing Queen is quick and hilarious and includes a chapter that compares Lawrence Welk to Hitler. Could it get any better than this?

I'm sorry, being unemployed and all, I have been way too busy sleeping in and studying for business reference exams to tell ya'll about this book, the latest novel by crime author Robert Ferrigno. Like the reviewer said, while I really wanted to love this book, and while I finished it in just a few hours, something just didn't work for me. Ah well, on to something new...

The book I'm reading now is the first of the "reccomended by Wrybrarian" sort for me.....Bringing Down The House, the story of these kids from MIT fucking-ay screwing Las Vegas out of tons of money is a kick ass must read. These thumbs up! It makes me want to hit the casino. Being that I barely scraped by a second year of high school algebra (and I'm not even going to pretend that the passing grade I recieved didn't have anything to do with the fact that the teacher was one of my best friends Aunt and she thought that there was some sort of savante-ism going on RE: the hyper-intense mural that I scratched on the desk, which took me over 4 months to complete), I'm not going to cash my savings account.....but shit, I love a good "liitle guy totally raping the big guys wallet" sort of story.....