I finished Ardashir Vakil's Beach Boy, memoir of a holy terror growing up in Bombay, this morning at 7:30, when I was awakened by a crew of workmen hammering away at our roof.

It was fantastic and beautifully written, with just one exception--the narrator is supposed to be eight. Witness the following and typical passage--which is supposed to be quoted from the pages of eight-year-old Cyrus' diary--and you'll understand my skeptism.

The woman below me arches her head for an instant, wriggles furiously; she pulls at the man's hair. The sweet sickly smell of rotten garbage blows in our direction. Ajay leans over the wall brazenly. He shines his torch at them; in the triangle of light, I catch sight of the woman's bare belly. The couple stare blankly into the torch beam. Then the man smothers the woman with his body as if to continue. I notice she is fastening the hooks at the front of her blouse. I'm amazed by their docility.

"Brazenly," "docility," "wriggle furiously..." Hell, I wish I'd had that command of vocabulary when I was eight. Not to mention grammar--it took me until 16 to figure out how to use semicolons.

And one more thing. Whatever you do, don't read the back of the book if you get it, or you'll get hit with a rotten plot spoiler.

Arggghh, I'm sorry again that it's taken me so long to blog.
 
The shit has been hitting the fan around here--my author and the book he's been writing (which I have been volunteering over the past year for as a researcher) is almost to the publisher, and my work is almost done. Which means I no longer have to keep it secret. Horray!
 
I am also working as a copy editor for Venus, and their next issue is going to print in a matter of weeks, as well.
 
So I've been doing lots of fun research and reading, but not a whole lot for my WryB readers. And for that, I apologize.
 
However, I did manage to finish a kickass read, which I'd been meaning to get around to for months, Motherless Brooklyn. It's the story of kind of bumbling detective--with Tourette's Syndrome--who sets out to solve the case of his life. I can't recommend it enough. Even if you've read other books by Lethem and hated them, i.e. Girl in Landscape. Ahem.

I have to agree with Rachel's endorsement of Houdini Girl. I was hooked after about 2 pages. So hooked, in fact, that I'm considering blowing off my lovely Rachel this evening so I can stay home and finish the book. No, wait... oh babygirl, I didn't mean it. Anyway, read it.

As an aside, the Rachel is an excellent cat/plant/house sitter. I got back from a week in Colorado and the container garden grew all huge and the cats were fat(ter) and happy and were all quite content to just ignore my stupid ass because they were waiting for their Rachel to come over.

oh, books.

um, I went to the Sulzer Regional Library yesterday and just about lost it. Every.Single.Book. I tried to find on the shelves was missing - the damn online catalog said they were present and accounted for, but not a one was where it was supposed to be.
To the Shelvers of the world: for the love of god, numbers are your friends. Follow the numbers. The numbers are the way and the light and the glory. Please do not just shove things any which way on the shelf. Also, the alphabet is your friend. They made up that song for a reason. If you get confused about the order of the letters, sing it quietly to yourself and all will become clear.

I'm mostly just mad because I was thwarted in my attempt to obtain The Miocene Arrow - Book 2 in the Greatwinter Series by Sean McMullen, my primary reason for going to the library in the first place. I finished up Book 1 (Souls in the Great Machine) yesterday and was dying to move along to the next one. It's set 2000 years in the future in a post-apocalyptic Australia and most of the main characters are librarians and there's a bunch of duels and lots of sex and such and the characters are all really vivid and it's so good. I am doing it absolutely NO justice. Perhaps I should go home now.

I am now switching between two books:

Loser Goes First, a collection of essays and diary entries detailing the pathetic but hilarious life of Dan Kennedy, is the ultimate in toilet reading. No matter what your needs (as far as in-bathroom time goes), you'll finish at least one mini-story in this humiliatingly honest collection at each sitting.

Fat Bald Jeff, story of a National Library Association copy editor living in Chicago who unleashes a nefarious plan on her pretentious, condescending empoyers (in cahoots with her fat, bald tech support colleague, of course), is overly dramatic, snide, annoying, but kinda hilarious ...in other words, no relation to me.

Believe it or not, it took me over a week to finish The Quick and the Dead, and it was worth every second. A collection of vignettes about or related to three motherless teenage girls (not related), Quick and the Dead was intricate, ineresting, funny, tragic.... Read it! I command thee!

It's 3am and I can't sleep. Have been reading The Quick and the Dead by Joy Williams (not the movie!), which got edged out for the 2001 Pulitzer by Kavalier and Clay. It's pretty great so far.