A few books in a few weeks

I am stricken with some blogatory obligation to write something new. Either I haven't been reading much at all lately, or I have just failed to be enthralled by my recent reading material. I started reading The Archivist by Martha Cooley some weeks ago and was slightly put off by way in which the author decided it was a good idea to fuse past and present. I get the point of doing so--we are all haunted by our pasts. But it felt tedious to read. Then I picked up Alice Munro's The Runaway and Beth Lisick's This Too Can Be Yours. I enjoy Alice Munro's old fashioned style and astute sense of both place and humanity. But when I picked up Lisick's book, I couldn't quite take the humor. I really enjoyed her memoirs, but this book of short stories was just too over the top for me at the time I picked it up. I can certainly appreciate her use of humor, but it is so out of sync with my own imagination that it is difficult to accept at certain times. But I finished her collection of brief stories and decided I needed to go to the bookstore. Actually, before my trip to the bookstore, I started reading Queen of the Oddballs, a typical memoir written by a woman who grew up in the 70s and found her childhood experience unique enough to write it up and market it to women who like to read about what other women did while growing up female. It was amusing, but I still thought it was necessary to buy some new books that I chose myself rather than picked up for free at work. I came home with Weight by Jeanette Winterson, which is slightly less glorious than I had hoped, and The Lipshitz Six, by T Cooper, because I went to a book reading for this novel a few weeks ago and thought it might be worth reading.

We Don't Need Another Wave tours San Francisco

My friend Melody is the illustrious editor of the new feminist anthology, We Don't Need Another Wave. She unfortunately doesn't live in San Francisco, but being the East Coaster that she is, recently made the big jump to New York City where she is in the process of becoming the queerest straight girl in the metropolis and co-habitating (platonically) with renowned feminist pornographers (it sounds rather exciting, really). Fortunately for those of us in San Francisco, she came to visit our city where she pedaled her wares this past weekend. I went to the readings she held at Modern Times bookstore and the Anarchist Bookfair, but really only heard the contents of the first. Most of the essays contributors read at the events were rather heavy. They deal with death and abuse and occasionally with the simple contradictions of growing up female. Despite (and because of) the weighty nature of some of the essays, the collection is really good. The book deals with serious things via the vehicle of the personal voice (which, I have to say, is quintessentially feminist).

Various Musings on a few weeks' reading material

I got tired of reading, and frankly, before the Jonathan Ames book that I just finished last night, I can't remember what I read. I probably didn't read much of anything the past few weeks. I did carry around this wonderful book of poems called Wideawake Field for a while. This was something that I did read. But given that it was filled with poems, it didn't take too long to read. It was surprisingly good--poignant, subtle, and occasionally sad.

Then, last Sunday, I started a book of stories/essays/columns by Jonathan Ames. It was hilarious. I read his book Wake Up Sir a few years ago and this one was just as funny and revealed some of the inspirations for the novel. When I borrowed the book from my sister, she recommended that the funniest pieces were "The Mangina" and another one that I can't recall at the moment. I found it difficult to determine which pieces were funniest, because they were all over-the-top.

Since beginning to write this post, I have attempted to start a few more books. I was not too successful in reading The Archivist by Martha Cooley. There was something strange about the way the author treated time. I was not particularly keen on the way the story jumped from past to present quite chaotically. The story is also about the relationship between an older man and a younger woman which I often find to be an unsavory subject.

Then this weekend, I picked up The Runaway by Alice Munro and had much better success in reading a large portion of the book. Actually, I spent the majority of yesterday afternoon on my bed reading said book, and I did find it rather pleasant in an odd sort of way. I did enjoy Open Secrets better, but I always like the close examinations Munro has of individuals and the progression of history in families, and small towns.

Best New Fiction

Yesterday evening, after finishing Jenny Hoyston's (of Erase Errata) new zine and eating my dinner, I discovered that I had misplaced my copy of The Best New Fiction of 2007 (I actually don't think that this is the real title). I couldn't get into most of the stories in the book (cancer seemed to be the dominant theme). But yesterday, while eating my lunch outside in the sun, I started in on a story about a young Vietnamese refugee who fled to San Francisco in the 1970s. The story was promising. But I never managed to finish it. Even now, I have no idea if I left it in the park, or if it is hiding somewhere under a mess in my bedroom.

Wideawake Field by Eliza Griswold

It is difficult to trust a review copy of a poetry book, that is until it has proven itself not to be unmanageably hideous. I write poetry myself and often I do not understand how much of the published variety even manages to get published. I would be embarrassed if I published a volume that doesn't exceed the average book of poetry. This book proved not to be average in any way. First of all, it is written by an investigative journalist, thus records a set of experiences that are anything but average. It's about love and war and tragedy and poverty. Most good poetry, I would argue, is about these broad subjects of human experience. If I had my copy of the book on hand, I'd copy a few verses just to prove to you that this poetry is out of the ordinary( or otherwise, extraordinary).