Top Ten Authors I Would DIE to meet (living or dead)

July 12, 2011 5 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten Authors I Would DIE to meet (living or dead). Now DIE seems a little strong ;) Maybe more like, would shove people out of the way…and flip a baby carriage over for…

LIVING
1) Donna Tartt — Well I think I’ve mentioned elsewhere that if I could have my pick of any writer!mentor, it would certainly be Ms Tartt. Gotta meet her first though, ya know?
2) Martin Amis — Has he moved to Brooklyn yet? Cause I’m already halfway there.
3) Zadie Smith — you know technically I’ve had opportunities to meet her but the one event I really wanted to attend ended up being filled up, so I had hauled my ass down to NYU for no reason. That was incredibly frustrating. There was an event following that, but it cost $25, and I didn’t really want to pay
4) Talitha Stevenson — She is not my favorite author (though I like her a lot obviously), but I think I can safely claim the title of BIGGEST TALITHA STEVENSON FAN LIVING IN THE US.
5) Kelly Braffet — So I’ve only read Josie and Jack, one of my favorite books, but her website is kind of funny, as is her ABOUT section on Facebook, which makes me think she’d be a blast to have a conversation with.

DEAD
6) J.D. Salinger — if you are somehow surprised by this, then this is probably your first time here. In which case, WELCOME! Oh what I wouldn’t give to be told GET OFF MY LAWN! by J.D. Salinger. ;)
7) Vladimir Nabokov — I’m sure I’d come off sounding like a complete ASSHAT to Nabokov. I mean he’s just so damned intelligent and clever (or was at least). Still, can I bask in the glory a lil’ bit? Can we talk about how there are huge sections of Ada, or Ardor that are just indecipherable to me but that it’s one of my favorite book anyway? Yes, let’s.
8) Edith Wharton — I’m gonna go ahead and blame Edith Wharton for my fascination with upper crust New York Society. And I’m pretty much okay with that.
9) F. Scott Fitzgerald + Zelda Fitzgerald — yes I’d like to meet them together, as a pair. I’ve always been strangely fascinated by them (whether because they epitomize the literary Jazz Age in my mind or because their mutually self-destructive ways are like watching the proverbial train wreck, I can’t be sure)
10) Sylvia Plath — yeah, I’m one of those….except not really. I’ve never read Plath’s poetry (well, ok I’ve read “Daddy” and “Mad Girl’s Love Song” because who the hell hasn’t?), but I have read The Bell Jar, which is right up there with The Virgin Suicides for me… i.e. books I liked a lot, but which did not convert me into a cult follower like they seem to do to other people. So it’s weird that she’s on this list in a way. But I keep coming across stuff about her (Rereading Women, Nom de Plume, Seducing the Demon), and yeah, you know what? I am kind of fascinated. I’m also fascinated by the fact that Ted Hughes lover (Assia Wevill) gassed herself in the same way. Maybe I should just have all three of them over for dinner in an afterlife….

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10 Books I Want to Reread

May 18, 2011 6 Comments

I got this idea from Sarcastic Female Literary Circle (what a great name for a blog btw!) and thought I’d do 10 of my own. So, here we go!

1) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: As I have probably mentioned before, I first read TKAM in 6th grade. After literally spending months analyzing this damn book, I think I can safely say that more than a few of us were sick and tired of it. Still, I consider it to be a masterpiece, but I’d definitely like to give it a try without all the analysis.

2) A Separate Peace by John Knowles: I read this the summer before high school, not expecting to like it very much, but I ended up loving it. I also ended up crying because of what happens to Finny. I had cried over books before this but this was the first time I cried over a human character (that’s right…all previous sob-fests had involved an animal). Recently bought this at Housing Works so I could eventually reread it (also, because I actually didn’t own it).

3) The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton For whatever reason I did not like this book quite as much as I thought I was going to or as much as other people do. I’d picked it up a few years after reading The Custom of the Country but found that I liked the underappreciated work a lot more. Last year, I bought the Modern Library edition with the express intention of eventually rereading it.

4) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald As I mentioned in the 30 Day Book Meme, I really loved Gatsby when I first read it but recently came to the random and unsubstantiated conclusion that this book is overrated. I’d definitely like to give it another shot.

5) Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews You didn’t think I was only going to name classics did you? Yes, sometimes I really do feel like revisiting this (as well as the rest of the series). But I also feel like some things are better left alone.

6) After Dark by Haruki Murakami It has not been that long since I’ve read this book, but I read it SO quickly, and on my computer surprisingly enough! It just flew by. I loved it, but now I can’t remember very much of it. So definitely need to revisit in the future.

7) Wayside School Is Falling Down by Louis Sachar Gotta revisit my favorite children’s book, c’mon son!

8) Arcadia by Tom Stoppard The one and only book I did not finish in my ILS (Integrated Liberal Studies) class in high school. We didn’t have to know it for the oral exam and so I never actually read the end myself (I think I looked it up later on or gleaned the ending from class discussions) and all I remember thinking was shit! I should’ve finished that, it sounds so good!

9 & 10) The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer A two for one special! Nah, but seriously, I’d love to read both of these again, especially The Iliad… oh Achilles, you’re so sexy when you’re ragey!

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30 Day Book Meme: Days 23 and 24

April 22, 2011 Leave a Comment

Day 23 – A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t
Oh my, I’ve fallen behind! This is what happens when you read too many books in one week. Time to play catchup a bit. To answer the question, The Blind Assassin. I keep having these false starts where I know I simply don’t have the time / energy to give the book my all so I put it aside even though I’m enjoying it. I want to give Ms Atwood my full, undivided attention. She deserves that much at least.

Day 24 – A book that you wish more people would’ve read
This feels a little bit like the underrated book question. Hmm. More shenanigans from the good folks at 30 Day Book Meme I see. I’m going to go with something else though: The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton. Most people end up reading The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth and/or Ethan Frome, but The Custom of the Country is truly fantastic, in the tradition of the first two (i.e. NYC upper crust society, rather than country life as with Ethan Frome and Summer). I think Wharton excels at the former type.

Previously on the 30 Day Book Meme →

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30 Day Book Meme: Day 17

April 13, 2011 12 Comments

Day 17 – Favorite quote from your favorite book

I like how this question comes before the question of what’s your all time favorite book. Smooth 30 Day Meme…smoooooth. I’m just going to go with a few of my favorite quotes which may or may not be from my favorite book(s), you’ll just have to wait til Day 30 to find out, nyah! :P

A stone has been cast into the reliable immutable pond of the past, and as the ripples subside everything appears different. The reflections are quite other; everything has swung and shattered, it is all beyond recovery.

–Penelope Lively, The Photograph

…it is dangerous to ignore the existence of the irrational. The more cultivated a person is, the more intelligent, the more repressed, then the more he needs some method of channeling the primitive impulses he’s worked so hard to subdue.

–Donna Tartt, The Secret History

In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.

–Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

Previously on the 30 Day Book Meme →

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30 Day Book Meme: Days 13 and 14

April 10, 2011 15 Comments

Day 13 – Your favorite writer

This is actually a lot more difficult than it seems. For starters, I tend to separate favorite dead/classic authors from favorite living/contemporary authors because it somehow doesn’t seem fair to lump them into the same category. J.D. Salinger, Edith Wharton, and Vladimir Nabokov are among my favorite classic authors. I also have a few contemporary favorites as well but I’m going to go with the one author I’d kill love to have as my writing mentor: Donna Tartt.

Day 14 – Favorite book of your favorite writer

And with only two books under her belt, it’s easy enough for me to pick a favorite, The Secret History:

Previously on the 30 Day Book Meme →

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