Chicago: customers are advised to allow extra travel time

I really wish I could read at my desk. That would be great.

The guys on Sound Opinions do this a lot. They'll be talking about some band from New York, but they can't NOT mention that the triangle player grew up in Chicago.

Kr likened the issue in TTW to when authors go over the top in giving a lengthy physical description of the characters, what they're wearing, etc. -- it's just sort of distracting to the narrative.

Although, I am kinda into this reading the bible thing & I would attract the wrong kind of attention for reading that at my desk. On the other hand, I would probably bring the Kingsolver book & actually finish it.

i know what you mean, john. if i'm reading a thorough description of a character's outfit or hairstyle I immediately think, "this is so Sweet Valley Twins/High.

what i remember about the description of jessica & elizabeth that was ALWAYS mentioned in EVERY book is that they were a "perfect size 6" and their eyes were blue like the ocean.

...because in a never-ending series, since their pictures were always on the cover I might have mistakenly thought that elizabeth puffed up to a perfect size 8 her senior year or something.

Which Kingsolver book, Kels?? I missed that conversation.

The cover of the last book was them lying on a bean bag chair with their guts hanging out of their cute little tops, surrounded in ding dong wrappers.

The title is "Too Good To Be Chewed"

(xposts) Kenan, I would wager that people do that everywhere in the U.S., except maybe for New York and Los Angeles. And even in New York, I bet it's talked about on the neighborhood level.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Laurel. I started it, couldn't stop talking about how wonderful it is, and then I put it down. WTF?
Reading that book made me rush out to find the freshest asparagus & fall in love with asparagus in a way I had never ever before.

Jessica loved the color purple. Elizabeth was the smart one.

I LOVED Time Traveler's Wife.

right! purple!

Elizabeth also loved horses.

I do not feel like working today!

Oh cool, Kels, I think my mom got that on tape! I will convert Momma to a Kingsolver fan if it's the last thing I do... I really really love BK's Small Wonders too, if you haven't read it yet -- it's a book of short essays that completely undo me no matter how many times I re-read them.

I honestly haven't read all that many of her books. In 2002 I read the Bean Trees & Pigs (I forget the name) & was so thirsty for her at that time. I will totally read Small Wonders (eventually, if I'm being honest!).

Oh, I saw Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in a bookstore recently and was intrigued, esp. as it seems to tie into other stuff I've been reading about the politics of food lately (Michael Pollan, etc.).

I have 4 of her books on my shelf to read. John, you can borrow one if you want (or whoever).

It's totally tied into that. I started Pollan's book but now it's sitting on my nightstand b/c Kingsolver is so much more up my alley.

I guess I didn't realize until recently that Kingsolver was so well-respected. I remember girls reading The Poisonwood Bible in college and me assuming it was chick-lit.

http://www.meloncorp.com/arch/0088/Ali2.jpg
RESPEK!

It's sort of New Age Post-Feminist Lit, only of course what was sort of weird and marginal and "New Age" in 1996 is now considered sensible use of resources and "voting with your capitalist dollars" and "having a social conscience". So basically Kingsolver wins.

I read The Poisonwood Bible a long time ago, it was good.

That is my contribution to this discussion.

Er not post-feminist, 3rd wave.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like maybe Kingsolver is like Joyce Carol Oates in that she sort of straddles the line between literary and popular/mainstream writing? Like Oates gets mad props for her short stories or big ambitious experiments like Blonde but then churns stuff out like We Were the Mulvaneys for the Oprah crowd.

NB: I have never actually read Oates, either.

Jordan can our band be called "Joyce Carol Oates" yes/no?

I dunno, I never read any JCO. I think if BK gets lauded by the Oprah crowd it would be incidental to her goals of putting out responsible stuff that she feels genuinely moved to write...? I have pretty high respect for her priorities/sensibilities/writership/you know.

I think JCO just writes a shitton b/c she is compelled.

perhaps "shitton" is actually two words.

maybe even hypenated!

Define "responsible stuff" -- that notion sort of makes me cringe.

Before reading BK, I thought of her as an author heavily influenced by the southwest and now I think of her as someone who is just heavily influenced by the land/earth.

cast-iron metric fuck-ton

I'm taking "responsible stuff" to mean, especially in the context of AVM, that one is obligated to take care of the earth and the land they live on. in the intro to AVM she talks about how she has thought about these things for most of her life but had not been compelled to do anything drastic about it (move to TN, for example) before. she talks about how everything must be imported to arizona, including the water, and though she loves it there, it was time to explore how one could be more responsible with their resources.

In 2002, Winfrey suspended the book club and revived it the following year, with the format shifted. In the new format, Winfrey would no longer be selecting a new book each month, but would instead select books on a more limited basis.

Check out the Oprah book selections since the format change:

January 2002 Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
April 2002 Sula by Toni Morrison
June 2003 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
September 2003 Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
January 2004 One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
April 2004 The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
May 2004 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
September 2004 The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
June 2005 The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Light in August, by William Faulkner
September 2005 A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
January 2006 Night by Elie Wiesel
January 2007 The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography by Sidney Poitier
March 2007 The Road by Cormac McCarthy
June 2007 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Well she's really big big big on social causes -- environmental concerns, water conservation, land rights, safe/slow/sustainable foods, racial injustice, Chicano & Native Southwestern rights, human rights across the board actually, living thoughtfully & joyfully -- that kind of thing. I don't think she could write a book that played false with any of those values, or didn't do some heavy lifting to advance them just by virtue of being HER work, and those values showing in everything she does.

I don't really have a point with the Oprah thing, I just thought it was interesting.

Jordan can our band be called "Joyce Carol Oates" yes/no?

Haha. It works because J-Co is my rap name.

you do not have a rap name

unrelated: i think i'm going to go to the FF show tonight. i'm staying a few shot blocks away from the bottle. anyone else going?

Yeah, Nick, that's basically the reading list of every yuppie/Brooklynite/literarily defined/McWhatever that zine is called-reading person anyway.

Goddamnit, what IS that zine called? It's not really a zine anymore, they do actual books w/ really high production values and stuff, it's more of a boutique publisher now...Mc Something!

McSweeney's

otm

ty

xp