Book reviews have been light around these parts because I have been reading a lot of bad books.

You don’t have to call them bad books if you don’t want to. You could call them “fun reading” or “trashy books.” You could call them “books that just weren’t for me.” If you are a librarian, you could call them “books for readers that aren’t me.”

I’m just going to call them bad books because they don’t meet my (arbitrary) standards for literature. Characters that are well-drawn and multifaceted. A plot that is no more than 25% completely predictable. Language that is deliberate, clear, and inventive. Some distinguishing feature – voice, perspective, setting, whatever, anything that sets a book apart from the rest of books-like-that-book.

I used to think my standards were pretty low, but maybe years and years of reading wide + deep develops your palate a little, subconsciously.  Read more about that in this post. It’s not necessarily a good thing for me, as a reader: I don’t fall for books as easily as I once did, I don’t get hyped up about new authors, I don’t take “reading risks” as often.

And it makes reading bad books feel worse. Question to the masses: is there such thing as “hate reading?” I brought this up on Twitter and apparently “hate watching” is a common TV phenomenon; you watch a television program not because you find it to be good entertainment, not because you find it fun in a campy, awful kind of way (see: Glee, Gray’s Anatomy, American Idol), but because you actually despise the show and everything it represents (see: Real Housewives of Anywhere, 16 & Pregnant, any other reality show that is somewhat exploitative of the lower class or exalts/exposes the upper class) (there is a good Marxist thesis idea somewhere in there) (I am getting distracted).

Anyway, I read bad books sometimes, but I don’t like it. I roll my eyes. I sigh. I read awful passages out loud to whoever is nearby. I think wistful thoughts about the books I wish I was reading instead. But I keep reading for a particular professional purpose, or to keep abreast with trends, or to see what some controversy is really about. I don’t like it. I am watching the upswing of self-published books in certain sub-genres, and while I think that the rise of eReaders has made the 99 cent downloadable romance an easy and cheap choice for readers, if you keep coming back, then it’s possible you like reading bad books in a way that I do not.

Do these readers deserve some shitty books to read? Librarian Jessica says, I suppose so.

But that doesn’t mean they are “good books.”

That doesn’t mean that I have to say something nice about them.

I guess I should restrain myself and not start a blog devoted entirely to compiling first-person descriptions of kissing that gross me out. Is there any way to describe a good kiss other than “He/she kissed me.” Maybe one optional adjective to follow. Maybe. If you follow it with a metaphor, I will roll my eyes and what kills the mood faster than an eye-roll (See: Girls season 2 episode 1). If you describe it in great detail, I will likely gag because the physical description of kissing is kind of gross. There should be no mention of passions burning bright as the sun, a choir of angels singing. I wish I was making this up for effect and not looking through my latest bad book, I really do.

This is a line I walk as a reader/reviewer/librarian – between exploring books and shutting them out, description and judgment, personal taste and literary merit. I don’t always land on the professional side of the fence, but I try. And I think it’s important to stand up for books that are excellent, books that make all the other books want to try harder, books that are so great and different that they mix up the paradigm. I read for me, yes, I read for fun and for a number of other reasons, but I also read so I can share what I find. That’s just the kind of reader I am.

If that’s the case, I should probably start reading some good books sometime soon, no? More on that tomorrow…

So I had this string of truly awful airplane luck, beginning in January of 2011 with this wild ride back to Boston and ending in June of that same year, when I spent 8 hours in the BWI airport only to have my flight cancelled at 9pm and end up stranded for the night. It was traumatic. I’ve written about it multiple times on this here blog even though it is not even a good story, just one of those awful wincing things that makes you want the person telling to shut up so you can, instead, tell your own story of agony.

Anywaaaaaay, I ignored any opportunities to fly anywhere for the next year and a half and stuck to ground transportation. Fortunately/unfortunately, we got rid of our ground transportation about six months ago. While I don’t necessarily notice our lack of vehicle on a day to day basis (unless, of course, our laundry cart breaks an axle a quarter mile from our apartment, but you really don’t want to hear that story, it’s too depressing), it does seem strange to miss out on so many cross-country, Boston to Michigan drives. We used to trek it two or three times a year, and this year – a year during which we actually must be in Michigan from time to time to, oh, plan a wedding – we have no such options.

Instead, I have become a jet-setter. Back on the air-travel wagon. That is a confusing metaphor.

I hate it a lot more than I used to because I know how awful it can get, how quickly your plans can disintegrate, how awful your concourse food choices are at 9:00 p.m. when you haven’t eaten all day because you’ve been taxiing around the runway for hours without AC. And how much a bowl of Pinkberry costs. It’s sickening. I stress out the night before, sleep fitfully, wake up feeling ill, and clutch my armrests during take-off. It’s awful. But such is my over-privileged, first-world life.

But there are three things that always please me about air travel:

 

1) The sleeping on your early morning flight, followed by an airport Starbucks on your layover.

2) Taking pictures of oneself in airplanes and airport terminals

3) Plane books. Plane books. Plane books!!

In December, I flew from Boston to Columbus and I read Eric Greiten’s The Warrior’s Heart. I thought about Navy SEALs for the entire trip; at dinner one night, I asked my sister if she could ever be a Navy SEAL and she said no, because one time a Navy SEAL did a motivational presentation at her place of employment and she read his memoir and it was really intense. And yeah, that Navy SEAL that came to visit was Eric Greiten. I find this kind of reading kismet endlessly amusing.

I flew back from Columbus to Boston and read Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, which I liked a lot more than I thought I would, and which led me to read Tiny Beautiful Things, which I liked a lot more than most other books I’ve read in my life.

In February, I flew from Boston to Detroit to do some wedding planning. I read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, which in case you missed it, I loved, loved, loved, loved, loved x 1000 loved. There may have been plane-crying, which I think is one of the more dignified types of public-transit-weeping. Crying in a taxi is probably the best. Crying on the 66 bus is probably the worst.

On the leg home, I read Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly, which was a hard one to stick to, but sometimes that’s the point of a plane-read: you are trapped, you must finish the task, you must keep reading until you are done reading. Yes, it was dense, but yes, it was rewarding, and I still think about it often.

Next week, I am doing another Boston -> Detroit jaunt, for wedding planning, a wedding shower, and my smallest sister’s GRADUATION FROM HIGH SCHOOL. SERIOUSLY. HOW IS THIS HAPPENING. I’m thinking Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising for the purposes of potentially attending a book club once I return (assuming all flight plans go as… um… planned and also that I am not dead to the world), and finishing up Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins (assuming I haven’t devoured it in its entirety before then; I’d give it a fifty-fifty chance). I just picked up Her: A Memoir – that might be hard to avoid.

At the end of June, I am headed to Chicago and back again.

Shortly thereafter, back to Michigan in July for this thing called Getting Married.

Once that small life detail is taken care of, back to Boston, then on a plane to… oh… Italy.

How many books can one read on the way to Italy and back? How many books can I justify bringing with me in my luggage? Maybe it would be a good time to tackle Infinite Jest on my Kindle? Who gets slightly excited about reading a 1000 page book on her honeymoon?

These are all very unimportant questions with unimportant answers, but the moral of this story – as is the moral of most of my stories – is this: books and coffee. Coffee and books.

I wonder how many people in the world are reading The Great Gatsby this week. I finished my re-read last week. It was the first time I’ve read it since I pretended to read it in eleventh grade English. I mean, I tried. I’m sure I tried. I liked books in high school, liked them in college, but there was just something about the Required Reading book that turned me off. Now that I am a semi-professional reader and a grown-up adult, I can read in ways high school Jessica wasn’t interested in reading. I can read slowly, I can read for language and subtext rather than just plot, I can read stories that don’t fit my personal tastes without skimming, giving up, or pretending. I can read and enjoy books that at earlier points in my reading history, I didn’t enjoy. Like The Great Gatsby.

The book stays the same, but the reader changes. Eleven years since eleventh grade. I am no longer in school (FINALLY) and I get a lot of sleep: I can free up a little time to read that dense first chapter slowly and with care, properly orient myself to the book. I know more about the 1920s and have developed a bit of a soft spot for 20th century period fiction, so it’s not so foreign.

And most importantly, I realized that this book is 75% drunk people talking, partying, and cheating on one another. When I was in 11th grade, I had never been a drunk person nor encountered any in large groups. I have since attended a four-year state university. I am not sure that one can really grasp this novel without having encountered social groups bound by regular inebriation.

Eleven years later, I still don’t think I was picking up everything Fitzgerald was laying down. I’m sure it’s all symbols and metaphors and timeless commentary on high society, but high society is not exactly something I’m familiar with. Tonight, I made soup for dinner using a sauce pan without a handle. Not high class.

But will I watch a Baz Luhrmann movie about high society parties full of drunk people who love and hate and kill each other? Oh yes, yes I will.

This is self-torture because I am still days away from the end of my reading deprivation, even then I have three review books on the docket. It will be awhile until I pick up any of these titles… but here are some choices for reading once all that dust settles.

The other day I was thinking about how hard it is for one person to adequately understand another person’s particular existence. This is the kind of exciting thing you think about when you aren’t reading books or watching TV and the enormity of the human experience on this planet is suddenly on your mind much more often. Also, the last book you read before the drought was Frankie Landau-Banks. Anywaaay, that’s what I was thinking about, and then I remembered oh, that’s exactly what Paper Towns is about! I think I’ve only read Paper Towns once, which is unusual for me and a John Green book, so I could go for a quick re-read.

Speaking of quick reads, I have had Beverley Brenna’s Wild Orchid checked out for months now. Wild Orchid is the first book in the series that includes the Printz-honor winning The White Bicycle, and I am one of those people who refuse to betray the sanctity of the series 9 times out of 10. I want to read book three, I must first read books one and two. That’s just the way it works.

Speaking of books I’ve had checked out for months, I am on my last renew with Amor Towles’s Rules of Civility. I could read this one real quick – I started it once and I liked what I read, so I think I could muscle through with the proper motivation!

And the final option… I could read a book about Rome because I checked out like 6 of them and haven’t read a single one yet. I am actually going to be in Rome in 3 months. I will also be married. Equally bizarre situations. I could read a marriage book, yes, but I’ve read books about marriage before. I have not read books about Rome. I could read Rome and a Villa by Eleanor Clark – it is a series of memoir-ish sketches about living in Rome while on a Guggenheim fellowship in 1945. Can you imagine being a woman in 1945 on a Guggenheim fellowship living abroad? I at least want to give this one a taste.

I read 34 books between January 1st and March 31st. The first quarter of 2013 is over, and I’m pleased with my reading progress. If I keep this up for the rest of the year, I will be extra pleased. I feel like I’m reading a lot and liking a lot of what I read.

For fun, here is a list of my 2013 Q1 reading sorted by my Goodreads ranking. I reserve the right to change my mind about any ratings at any moment, since I sometimes hate a book one week and love it the next. Or give a book 5 stars in 2008 and then change it to 2 stars in 2013. Or give 4 stars in 2008 to a book that, in 2013, you realize you never actually finish reading *cough* Great Gatsby *cough*.

(Speaking of Gatsby, I am actually reading it, and actually enjoying it.)

(At least I was, until I stopped reading books for the week)

(What is wrong with me?)

(Also, if you are wondering what bizarre activities remain if you cut out reading/TV/blogs/podcasts, you are about to find out…)

 

Two Stars

34 Pieces of You by Carmen Rodrigues

Meant to Be by Lauren Morrill

 

Three Stars

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

The Impostor’s Daughter by Laurie Sandell

Dead Cat Bounce by Nic Bennett

The Dinner by Herman Koch

S. E. C. R. E T. by L. Marie Adeline

Monkey Mind by Daniel B. Smith

The Story of X by A. J. Molloy

Nantucket Blue by Leila Howland

Wonder by R. J. Palacio

The Book of Broken Hearts by Sarah Ockler

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban

Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham

 

Four Stars

Daring Greatly by Brene Brown

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz [review here]

The Little Book of Talent by Daniel Coyle

Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman [review here]

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell [review here]

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

You’re Not Doing It Right by Michael Ian Black

The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr

Marbles by Ellen Forney

The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones [review here]

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith [review here]

Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Sat Sugar Fat by Michael Moss [review here]

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

Always Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach

Ask the Passengers by A. S. King [review here]

After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey

The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg

Five Stars

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed [review here]

This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

 

 

 

 

 

I am four weeks into Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way program.

This feels like a confession, a dirty secret, something embarrassingly woo-woo and desperate. Something that normal people don’t do, normal people don’t need, and especially not a person like myself!

But four weeks ago I was just at a loss, so here I am, writing morning pages again, taking myself on Artist Dates, and repeating affirmations. Yes, affirmations.

It has been good, though. I am not a particularly spiritual-woo-woo-creative-muse-come-to-me kind of person, but I AM a person who likes a plan. A program. A syllabus. Doing my weekly reading, my daily writing, my creative exercises has been satisfying. I have gamely completed a number of silly exercises as Ms. Cameron has presented them to me.

Until last night, when I read my marching orders for the upcoming week and halfway through the chapter Ms. Cameron presented a thing called reading deprivation. Just don’t read. Anything. For a week.

The following negative emotions coursed through me: fear, panic, disgust, anxiety, horror, incredulity, disdain. Me, not read? Well, that’s just not an option. Reading is my self-assigned job, my livelihood, my world. And did you know, Ms. Cameron, that I am on a book review deadline right now? Simply impossible.

Of course, Ms. Cameron responded with this, the next line in the chapter:

At least one student always explains to me – pointedly, in no uncertain terms – that he or she is a very important and busy person with duties and obligations that include reading. […] When the rage has been vented, when all the assigned reading for college courses and jobs has been mentioned, I point out that […] in my experience I had many times wriggled out of reading for a week due to procrastination. […] I ask my class to turn their creativity into wriggling into not reading.

Ahem.

And although I am skeptical, anxious, cynical and horrified, I also believe fairly firmly that the things I try the hardest to avoid doing are exactly the things I should be doing. When I start to do mental back-flips to get out of a task, when I have 100 excuses at the ready, then I take that as a sign that I should just do that thing.

Dammit.

And it gets worse. Ms. Cameron equates television with reading, which is understandable and not too hard for me to handle – I could go a week without TV, easy. But that means no movies, either, which is something that The Boy and I enjoy every week or two, and he’s home for Spring Break. I may need to fend him off. Okay. I can do that too.

But what will I do instead of read or watch TV or watch a movie? I could just read more things on the Internet! But that seems the opposite of what I’m supposed to be doing. Or I could run more, or do more spring cleaning… while I listen to my audiobook? No, no books. While I listen to a podcast? That seems strangely similar to an audiobook. So, what exactly IS this? Reading deprivation, or media deprivation, or self-torture??

[Insert a thousand excuses here]

[Insert Jessica’s Better Self. Even if Her Better Self is a bit woo-woo sometimes]

So I’m doing it, with one small reservation: I need to write these damn reviews and I can’t take a week off. So, today is the first of seven days with

• no books (except for the three specific titles I must read)
• no television
• no movies
• no audiobooks
• no podcasts
• no blogs
• no Twitter or Facebook
• no mindless internet reading
• no magazines
• no news

I think it’s actually the last one that makes me feel better about this. Given the circumstances  of my poor city, I could do without news for a little while.

Since this is a blog that is mostly about books, it seems like I should say “sayonara!” for the week… but if I’m not reading, I will probably have time to write here MORE often. Funny how that works. I’m nervous about this, yes, but also kind of excited to see what I end up doing with my time. Finish learning how to knit? Fold origami? Do a thousand crossword puzzles? Have a clean kitchen every day for seven days? Get into unnecessary arguments with The Boy to kill time? Sleep more? Drink more? Plan the rest of my wedding in a seven day marathon? WHO KNOWS!? It’s a great mystery! I just hope that I won’t come back next week a changed woman, enthusiastic about her life without books, because then I might have a bigger identity problem to tend to…

I did not mean to come home from work today and sit on the couch and read all night. It must be fate. I went to use the bathroom at work today and the toilet wouldn’t flush. Then I tried to wash my hands and no water came out of the faucet. Thirty minutes later, I was on my way home – broken water main, building closing, come back tomorrow. I left in such a hurry (an excited, yay-we-are-leaving-at-3 hurry, not a “my library is filling with water” hurry) that I forgot the book I was reading. So when I got home and my apartment was sunny and it was only 3:30, I had to read the OTHER book I was reading. First-world-nerd problems, I know.

But then I couldn’t stop reading. Jami Attenberg’s The Middlesteins was all over the Best of 2012 lists, but in case you missed it, add it to your TBR. Unless the last forty pages go completely awry, this is a damn good read. Maybe I’ll let you know tomorrow – I’m doubting my ability not to stay up past my 9 o’clock bedtime to finish off the rest.