01.24.15

FOOD. Sylvia [Plath] was earthy and welded to the sensual world. Toasted cream cheese and olive sandwiches. Late-summer feasts of steak, swiss chard, corn on the cob, and peaches with cream poured over them. Fanta. Sugar Babies.

GAMES. Go Fish.

HOT DOG. On Friday the 13, 1945, Sylvia had a nightmare that she was being chased by a marshmallow and a hot dog—which she illustrated in the margin of her diary the following day.

(elizabeth winder, from pain, parties, work: sylvia plath in new york, summer 1953)

01.19.15

THINGS YOUR CLOTHES SAY ABOUT YOU

You’re like the sister they never had.
Your too-animated conversation with Count Vronsky in Princess Betsy’s drawing room was peculiar and improper.
They’d never have expected you to have kids, but now that it’s happening it makes a crazy kind of sense.
Your husband made more than 5,000 edits to a pre-publication draft of Frankenstein.
You quietly removed the charitable-donation option from your online registry a month before your wedding.
You don’t reciprocate Bobby Kennedy’s feelings, though you care deeply for and maintain a sexual relationship with him; you imagine yourself as a future First Lady.
That summer of fancy sleepaway camp was just cover for your nose job.
You were able to get a doctorate in quantum chemistry in Berlin because you accommodated the East German system through active participation in the Free German Youth.
You’d be pretty if you stopped wearing so much makeup.
You and Anthony Babington are conspiring to assassinate Queen Elizabeth on your behalf and reestablish Catholicism in England.
You remind them of themselves at your age.
You abduct local peasant girls and perform unspeakable acts on them in your castle’s secret torture chamber because you believe that bathing in the blood of human virgins will keep you beautiful and gloriously strong.
You put out for college guys.

01.14.15

conversations with doctor omnibus* {better living through chemistry edition}

doc: anything new?
LMO: well, i got laid off!
doc: that's a good thing.
LMO: i mean, i think so.

[...]

doc: why wouldn't i be comfortable with xanax?
LMO: i have friends whose doctors are uncomfortable with prescribing it.
doc: are you comfortable with vulgarity?
LMO: sure.
doc: fuck 'em.

*he might be eighty now.

01.07.15

i spent the afternoon at ye olde charity bookstore cafe brodarting donated rare books—that is, sandwiching their dust jackets between trimmed clear plastic and acid-free paper as libraries do. it's even more satisfying than heat sealing, a process my borders coworkers and i loved so much c. 1999 that we shrink-wrapped a guy's head (he was into it; summer jobs, i salute you). i brodart thanks to V, a beautiful german arts journalist who walked me through the craftiness on one of our shifts in december. she's waiting to hear if she's been selected as a finalist in a memoir competition; her manuscript, now in the semifinals, is about her time as the owner of a cinema in the british virgin islands. as we worked our way down our stack today, i showed her a fancy second edition of gabriel garcía márquez stories. V went to mexico to interview him in the '80s, she said; "it was right after he won the nobel prize and he decided he wasn't in the mood to be interviewed after all. at the last minute, he said fine, he would speak to me, but only in french." not a problem; V speaks french. afterward he drew a flower for her in the copy of one hundred years of solitude she'd brought along: una flor por V. an hour later i started working on a joyce carol oates book with an outlandishly foxy, '60s-era ponytailed author photo: "joyce! who knew?" V interviewed her, too, at home beside her giant white piano. V worked for an art and architecture magazine and would spend three weeks at the chateau marmont developing story ideas and collecting polaroids of los angeles for her editors. she has yet to see juergen teller's photo of joan didion in giant céline sunglasses. "my friends and i worry about her when things like superstorm sandy happen," i said. "what if she just blew away?"

01.05.15

2015: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

i ate pizza at a chinese restaurant.
i finished the girls from corona del mar.
i poured fireball into a dunkin’ donuts coffee and drank it in front of the literature/needlecraft holiday window at bergdorf's.
i told my sister not to have a baby because the apocalypse is coming and it’s our fault.
my sister told me “the terrible ‘blank space’ song that’s always on at fine fare” is, in fact, taylor swift.
i ran 3.1 miles.
i bought 6 pouches of cat food.
i sneezed 8 times in under a minute.
i called my mom.

01.04.15

50 BOOKS I READ IN 2014, IN ORDER OF HOW INTERESTED I WAS IN SLEEPING WITH THEM BENEATH MY PILLOW (STRONGEST CANDIDATES FIRST), AND HAIKU DISCUSSION

01 little failure (gary shteyngart). this memoir is boss: / it's funny, bitter, tender, / and features short pants.
02 mr. fox (helen oyeyemi). demure helen o. / has magnificent monsters / at her fingertips.
03 all creatures great and small (james herriot). i cried on the train / as i read this. why wasn't / i a vet, again?
04 the thin man (dashiell hammett). glorious old sots, / nick and nora. their new york's / got its own logic.
05 five came back: a story of hollywood and the second world war (mark harris). directors' wartime / experiences traced through / their careers. brilliant.
06 white is for witching (helen oyeyemi.) helen has nightmares / as she writes her books. that makes / a lot of sense here.
07 updike (adam begley). biographies this / good are dangerous: i went / on to read couples.
08 daughter of smoke & bone [daughter of smoke & bone trilogy #1] (laini taylor). art student collects / teeth for her foster demons. / YA at its best.
09 days of blood & starlight [daughter of smoke & bone trilogy #2] (laini taylor). taylor doubles down / on smoke & bone's heartbreak; i'll / save this for nieces.
10 dreams of gods & monsters [daughter of smoke & bone trilogy #3] (laini taylor). the romance...is, but / the rest of this finale / doesn't disappoint.
11 gone to new york (ian frazier). jamaica kincaid / loves frazier more than i do, / if that's possible.
12 the fault in our stars (john green). fine, i sniffle when / i see an "ok? ok." / shirt on the subway.
13 the secret history (donna tartt). this is why she's loved! / clean, confident, well-structured / fucked-up privilege.
14 the magician's land (lev grossman). atoned for book 2's / sins, sort of; quentin still bugs, / but this arc ends well.
15 on such a full sea (chang-rae lee). sly dystopian / fic narrated by a "we" / closer than most "i"s.
16 the art of fielding (chad harbach). an un-baseball book / lyricizes corpse-dumping. / i was deeply moved.
17 astonish me (maggie shipstead). black swan + freedom? / a strong, well-researched saga.
/ not canadian.
18 cooking with fernet branca (james hamilton-paterson). a goddamn brilliant / comedy of manners: take / note, ye food writers.
19 new jersey (betsy andrews). a book-length poem / of the turnpike, the city, / and their detritus.
20 NW (zadie smith). white teeth with veneers. / still waiting for zadie smith / to wow me again.
21 annihilation [southern reach trilogy #1] (jeff vandermeer). if lovecraft's your jam, / this trilogy's a great read / (NOT AT BEDTIME, CHRIST).
22 authority [southern reach trilogy #2] (jeff vandermeer). a mysterious / zone eats research teams, psyches, / and bureaucracies.
23 acceptance [southern reach trilogy #3] (jeff vandermeer). little is explained; / much is made permanently / creepy. no mean feat.
24 couples (john updike). updike terrifies / '60s america with / tales of his sex life.
25 california (edan lepucki). post-apocalypse, / siblings and spouses dirty / each other with fear.
26 the changeling (kenzaburo oe). i was with oe / 'til weird cannonball torture, / which lost me, sadly.
27 the goldfinch (donna tartt). this is highbrow doge: / much dickens...so overwrite... / drug reference; wow
28 all things bright and beautiful formulaic, but / a formula i'll read all / day. like a warm bath.
29 the dinner (herman koch). fancy dinners are / always rotten at the core, / right? i trust the cheap stuff.
30 adiós hemingway (leonardo padura fuentes). atmospheric noir / (hemingway in cuba!) with / an older man's pulse.
31 MFA vs. NYC (chad harbach ed.) not sure how it is / that i've no dog in that fight, / but here i, L, am.
32 happy all the time (laurie colwin). generous and twee / thirty years before twee was; / a calm, safe new york.
33 tender at the bone (ruth reichl). so much nicer than / RR's novel! personal / stuff i'll read all day.
34 comfort me with apples (ruth reichl). ruth r. the daughter / is as honest as ruth r. / the critic. lovely.
35 my misspent youth (meghan daum). she's great, but her more / recent essays pack more punch / for me. here's to...time?
36 friendship (emily gould). i prefer essays / from emily, but i liked / this, and wish it well.
37 the last days of california (mary miller). these teens are vivid, / this apocalypse well-drawn. / a good road trip book.
38 all things wise and wonderful (james herriot). i wish he'd written / more about his war service, / but i forgive him.
39 pretty in ink (lindsey palmer). former colleagues write / the most disturbing accounts / of our world! deep sigh. 40 what i talk about when i talk about running (haruki murakami). i started writing / an essay about running / that should surpass this.
41 the o'briens (peter behrens). CANADA SAGA / ALERT: trees will fall, hearts freeze. / reader lids will droop.
42 why have kids? (jessica valenti). when i pitch you my / tepid womb-related book, / sock me in the spleen.
43 delicious! (ruth reichl). the tale's pivotal / cake recipe is...not great, / which weirded me out.
44 a dangerous liaison: one woman's journey into a world of aristocracy, depravity, and obsessive love (sheri de borchgrave). most fascinating / memoirist i've crossed greenland / beside, for damn sure.
45 the bear went over the mountain (william kotzwinkle). this satire's targets / (publishing et al.) deserve / a better takedown.
46 joss whedon: the biography (amy pascale). a coronation / so bald i turned on whedon / for balance's sake.
47 subtle bodies (norman rush). middle-aged coitus / in smug, nightmarish detail. / what an awful book.
48 the book of life (deborah harkness). worst use of nazis / since frankenstein's army. oof, / deborah harkness. oof.
49 medium raw (anthony bourdain). bourdain's posturing / remains wheezy, unwinning, / and super-lazy.
50 half bad (sally green). YA's getting weird; / this race-y tale of witches / is somehow tone-deaf.

(previous list here.)


imaginary reading group discussion questions

01 what was the best book you read last year?
02 would you be willing to help exhume a corpse, if circumstances called for it?
03 could you recommend a sweeping canadian saga that won't bore the crap out of me?
04 do you enjoy nonfiction about whether one should or shouldn't have children?
05 if you were to write a post-apocalyptic novel, what would cause the apocalypse in your story?
06 who's the most interesting stranger you've ever sat beside on a plane?