SOUTH OF THE BORDER, WEST OF THE SUN
Just finished this book by Murakami. If anyone wants to discuss..let me know..because my feelings about it are a confused mess of envelopes and strange diseases
Just finished this book, literally five minutes ago. Upon finishing it, I ate a sesame cracker dipped in almond butter and then jetted over to my laptop to try and record some semblance of cohesive thought on the memoir.
To give you some background, I first read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand in my senior year of high school, I believe. Like so many impressionable, soul-searching, and ambitious teenagers who read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged (which, interestingly enough, apparently was voted second only to the Bible as people’s “most influential book I’ve ever read” winner, according to a Library of Congress survey), I was completely swept away by the novel and the principles it championed. I remember finishing the book, and not even pausing for breath, turning right back to the first page to start re-reading it all again, this time armed with a pencil and highlighter to make notes in the margins and highlight passes that really spoke to me. Some months after re-reading The Fountainhead, I read Atlas Shrugged and was similarly blown away. It took me some time, at least a year, to realize that Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism, must be taken with a grain of salt. At least one grain, if not two.
I will spare you the long-winded review, as there is TONS of literature on this subject. It can’t be denied that Ayn Rand was a genius and an inspiration to millions. However, any reasonable person who is in touch with their emotions should be able to realize that Objectivism simply cannot be executed rigidly without eventually becoming harmful to someone at some point in time. Why? Because emotions ARE valid. You can’t reason your emotions away. You can reason why you shouldn’t feel the way that you do, but (to quote Bianca, who often has said this to me when giving me advice on personal problems) your feelings are valid simply because they are your feelings.
A couple weeks ago, I found this memoir of Ayn Rand in a used bookstore in Berkeley. Ayn’s books have influenced me so much, and I have so much respect for her as one of the greatest minds of the century, that there was obviously no way I wasn’t going to read this memoir. Nathaniel Branden was Ayn Rand’s much younger lover, and at one point Atlas Shrugged was dedicated to him, as Ayn had declared him to be her “intellectual heir”. In the memoir, Branden outlines his first impressions of Rand, how he came to be involved so intimately in her life, his own struggles with the Objectivist philosophy, how he came to build an empire on the Objectivist philosophy, and how that empire was eventually destroyed by Ayn’s (human) character flaws - flaws and oversights that she (and her followers), tragically, would not and could not recognize due to her (their) fanatical dedication to Objectivism. The subculture of Objectivism has even been described as an “intellectual cult”. It is NOTHING SHORT OF FASCINATING to read this insider perspective on the group of people who helped bring the subject and philosophy of Objectivism to the level of publicity which it enjoys today. It is FUCKING FASCINATING to observe the psychological character and flaws of Ayn Rand, this rational, reasonable, driven, ambitious, incredibly intellectual woman.
If you’ve ever cared about any of Ayn’s fiction books - maybe you haven’t gotten through The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged yet, but you’ve been able to appreciate We the Living or Anthem - I would highly recommend this to you. I’m not saying that Branden is a flawless and totally unbiased writer, but he is a very gifted and enjoyable writer, and the story of Ayn Rand that only he can tell is riveting. I found it to be a truly pleasurable experience.
BOOK SUGGESTION LIST FROM EARLY 2010
I’m going through my google docs and deleting unnecessary ones, and I found this one from early 2010 that a few friends and I collaborated on with book suggestions for each other. I rather like it :)
V.
Song of Solomon
Handmaid’s Tale
Vanity Fair
We the Living
Anthem
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The English Patient
Grendel
A Confederacy of Dunces - Yes! I’ve heard this is good
Hopscotch
When You Are Engulfed in Flames - I didn’t know David Sedaris had a new book!!!!
Mary’s Ideas:
Snow Country
The Alchemist
Ishmael
Gabriela Clove and Cinnamon (for Bianca)Mary’s Ideas:
Snow Country
The Alchemist
Ishmael
Love in the Time of Cholera
Wuthering Heights
The Fountainhead
The Book of Secrets
White Teeth
On Beauty
Predictably Irrational
More Ideas:
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
I’ve read On the Road (highly recommend it). I believe Sonya’s read Wuthering Heights. I’ve also read Love in the Time of Cholera (again, highly recommend). The rest I’m open to.
BOOKS BOUGHT TODAY
Stopped by Pegasus Bookstore in Berkeley tonight (right before watching Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows - which I fully recommend).. Walked out with L’Assommoir by Emile Zola, Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust, My Years with Ayn Rand by Nathaniel Branden, and another one that I can’t list here because it is B’s Christmas present :)
Currently reading A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Howard Zinn. It’s truly fascinating. I’d forgotten just how much of the American “history” that I learned in my elementary/middle/high school textbooks is just straight propaganda. I believe that this is required reading in some AP US History classes, so possibly you’ve already read it, but if not..I would pick it up over the holidays. I like that Zinn doesn’t assume that his readers are total beginners; he doesn’t waste time/space defining terms that anyone with a basic knowledge of history should already know. E.g..he’ll describe people as Federalist or anti-Federalist without explaining what a Federalist was. It really helps keep the pace of the book going. The book definitely doesn’t paint the pretty self-portrait of the US that our school history books do, but that’s because we have a pretty vile track record of protecting the interests of the wealthy, steamrolling less powerful (or less violent) social groups/races, and telling straight up blatant lies, over and over again. Certain kinds of people might call this anti-governmental, but honestly it’s just a hell of a lot more truthful than the pretty patriotic stories that we’re used to getting fed. A+
Well, I know what I’m doing tonight :-)
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
So I just finished reading the book We Need to Talk about Kevin, kindly loaned to me by Maddy :-) I started reading it Tuesday morning before my 11 am class and got so engrossed that I skipped my last class (which only happens once a week oops) to come home and read. I read without stopping until it was 2 am and I’d finished. I did stop once when Joey came over to bother me and I threw together a salad. I don’t have time to write in extensive detail about the book but you can find everything you need to know in the reviews on Goodreads.
The book is about a kid named Kevin who goes on a shooting spree at his high school one day. Except he isn’t using a gun. Dun dun dun. And it’s written in the form of his mother, post-catastrophe, writing letters to his father (you assume he’s estranged) detailing the early life of their relationship, her pregnancy with Kevin, and Kevin’s childhood.
The book was fantastic, if a little bit too wordy at times. Shriver has a remarkable ability to think of events that make your skin crawl, and to describe those tiny, back-of-your-head feelings that all of us have at one time or another, with remarkable clarity. She basically pinpoints all those little nagging feelings of despair you get when faced with certain characteristics of your life or of human socialization in general, and she expounds on them. It’s simultaneously dazzling and horrifying. I definitely highly recommend this book, but maybe not all in one night. I’m sure my dreams were terrible that night. And now I definitely never want to have a child.
Anonymous asked: trying to compile a summer reading list that covers all my areas... spirituality, music, history, fiction, non-fiction, whatever... what books do you recommend?
I’m so bad at coming up with book names from scratch, and I’m not at home so I don’t have my bookshelves in front of me! I will do my best though - sorry that this isn’t that great, and please ask me more questions whenever you have them!
Spirituality - Awakening the Buddha Within
Music - Honestly, couldn’t give you too good of an opinion here, but from my boyfriend I know that he likes John Lennon’s biography a lot, and a book about the music industry in general called All You Need To Know About The Music Industry
History - Does it have to be American history? Both War and Peace and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy are excellent. The former is more technical (about war) and less character-based plots, the latter is a much smoother read and tells you more of how Russian high society worked back in those days.
Fiction - I know I must sound like a broken record but really, I think everyone should read Ayn Rand’s books Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. I was just reminded of this because I was looking at movie reviews for Atlas Shrugged. And take it all with a grain of salt but there’s no way you can read those and not feel some kind of inspired. I also highly recommend The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen. It’s about a fucked up super dysfunctional family and it’s gritty and real and good.
Non-Fiction: Biased because I just re-read it, but definitely try Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?, both autobiographies of Richard Feynman, a genius physicist. They’re really hilarious, interesting, and inspiring.
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING
- King, Queen, Knave, by Vladimir Nabokov (author of Lolita). Incredible. Tore through it in less than 24 hours, even taking a break from a party to hide in John’s room and read another chapter. Although love triangles are normally typical of trashy checkout line romance novels, when you combine a love triangle with Nabokov’s outstanding descriptive powers, the result is outstanding. I must say that overall, I do prefer Lolita, but I have read that a few times over, so that may be why.
- The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. My 10 year-old sister is reading this in class, and I’ve always known it to be a childhood classic, but I never had the chance to read it. So I read it this week. Like other childrens’ books, such as Alice in Wonderland, it’s a little bit trippy. To quote Wikipedia, “The text is full of puns, and many events, such as Milo’s jump to the Island of Conclusions, exemplify literal meanings of English language idioms.” Despite its low challenge level, it’s a very fun, playful, and thought-provoking read.
- “What Do You Care What Other People Think?” Further Adventures of a Curious Character, by Richard P. Feynman. This is the second autobiography (the first being “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”) by Richard Feynman, a GENIUS physicist. I put genius in all caps because I really fucking mean it. You should read his two autobiographies - they’re full of both hilarious and awe-inspiring and meaningful anecdotes from his life, and are incredibly interesting. This is my probably tenth or eleventh time reading this particular autobiography, but every time I do reread either of them, I find new things that I like. I’ll leave you with a quote from this one (it’s a reference to his work investigating the reason for the NASA Challenger explosion) that makes me giggle a little:
“I could give you an analog of that. You know those signs that appear in the back windows of automobiles - those little yellow diamonds that say BABY ON BOARD, and things like that? You don’t have to tell me there’s a baby on board; I’m gonna drive carefully anyway! What am I supposed to do when I see there’s a baby on board: act differently? As if I’m suddenly gonna drive more carefully and not hit the car because there’s a baby on board, when all I’m trying to do is not hit it anyways!
So NASA was trying to get the shuttle up anyway: you don’t have to say there’s a baby on board, or there’s a teacher on board, or it’s important to get this one up for the President.”
DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA (PT.II)
I finished this book on the plane up to Northern California. The woman next to me started asking me about it and after answering several of her questions and seeing that she was truly interested in bettering our world through vegetarianism, I decided to pass on the inspiration and give my book to her. I hope it helps her make some earth- and animal-friendly decisions! Before that though, I was thinking about how I wanted to buy a bunch of copies on Amazon (they are super f’in cheap.. books ain’t worth shiet these days) and give them to some of my friends. However, if you are down to take the initiative to read it on your own, know that the book is split into three parts, in this order:
1) The horrific crimes committed against animals that are raised for our consumption
2) The surplus of health dangers that arise from eating animal products
3) How we are encouraging world hunger by eating meat
I recommend that you read the parts in this order: 2, 3, 1. And if you do read it, lemme know whatchu think.
Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto (by 001FJ)
fucking Canadians have the best shit. best women, best libraries, best maple syrup…
I’m Canadian - I think I should go back to Toronto now..
(via everyoneandtheirmother)
DIRTY GIRL
You know that Atmosphere song, Dirty Girl? “I love you like a rap kid loves breaks.. Dirty, dirty, you’re such a dirty girl”? Well I think it should be rewritten about me with the word ‘thirsty’ instead of ‘dirty’. Those who know me intimately have long made fun of how much I fucking drink (no I’m not trying to be a tool here - I mean non-alcoholic beverages). I seem to be CONSTANTLY thirsty. I think I may just be permanently dehydrated. I’m only posting about this because yesterday I noticed that it was 1 PM and I had already drank a large bottle of Tropicana orange juice, two thermoses filled with tea, a styrofoam cup of coffee, and a water bottle - and I was still “that girl who has to leave the class to fill up her water bottle because she’s that thirsty”.
Also, I just finished reading Jude the Obscure, the last of Thomas Hardy’s novels. As Victorian literature goes, it wasn’t my favorite, but I love Victorian literature, so I still enjoyed it. It has pretty dark and oppressive vibes, and you never feel fulfilled, because nobody is ever happy. I wouldn’t recommend it to casual beach readers. At all.
In 12th grade, my English class came down hard on either side of this debate: half were in favor of the Kindle, and half were against.
I was against.
You can compare the Kindle to the Ipod, but it’s a poor analogy. To access vinyls, tapes, and compact discs, one has always needed some sort of…
It’s really fucking sad that Borders has been faulted because they can’t adapt to people reading books digitally. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again - I love technology, but the act of physically reading a book, being able to crack the spine, dog-earing the pages, highlighting, penciling in comments, inhaling the scents of different kinds of paper and inks… Those are traditions that should not be taken away by a little glowing screen. (As an aside - qts, where is that nice blurb you wrote about the Kindle?)
And goodbye to the New Orleans Borders that’s hosted in a renovated funeral home. (On Louisiana & St. Charles)
BBC’s 100 Most Read Books List
BBC thinks most people will have only read six of the 100 books listed here. They are stupid. I’ve bolded the ones I’ve read.
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (I need to get on this)
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (one of my favorite books, ever)
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot (embarassing. I was in middle school.)
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
Okay so I’ve only read slightly more than half. But that’s just off BBC’s list. Many of these books I’ve been meaning to read over the years and others I haven’t even heard of. My book consumption level (with the exception of living in Paris for the last four months) is normally exceptionally high, so I’m not too worried about it..or worried at all. I used to read chess strategy books in 5th and 6th grade, why aren’t those on this list??
