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Happy Thanksgiving!
2010 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
What the hell does this photo have to do with Thanksgiving?
It beats me, but I was searching for a fun image to put here, and this was the second return when I googled “crazy Thanksgiving.” The second. Is the big G losing its touch, or does it just know me all too well at this point? I’m not ready to find out, but I figured, hey, why not put the crazy lady on the blog post? At least it will stand out on a day when everyone else is posting turkeys and pilgrims and motherfu@#king cornucopias. (Can I tell you how tired I am of those?)
Anyway, I hope those of you in the U.S. are enjoying a wonderful day of food and quality time with the ones you love (or the ones you tolerate during the holiday season with the help of a lot of wine). It’s been a year of big changes at The Book Lady’s Blog since last Thanksgiving, and while I don’t want to get all squishy on you, I do want to say thank you for reading, subscribing, tweeting with me, and making it so much fun. I’m thankful for the amazing literary community we have, and I’m humbled to be a part of it. I learn something every single day, and that’s a thing to be treasured.
Happy Turkey Day, y’all. And if you’re planning to buy books tomorrow, don’t miss my Black Friday book guide.
The Book Lady’s Black Friday Buying Guide
2010 at 12pm Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Okay, so you probably won’t be standing in line at 4am outside your local indie bookstore, but I just have to believe that in a world where people camp out for DAYS before Thanksgiving in order to save a couple hundred bucks on the latest gadget, there are still people who include books in their Black Friday shopping. Right?
Just nod your heads, people.
I mean, I’ll be spending Friday in a haze of pie-for-breakfast and quick-we-have-to-get-to-the-airport craziness, but I’d be at the bookstore if I could. Since I can’t be, you’ll just have to buy extras, okay? (When your partner gets that questioning look in his or her eye like, “Really? You’re buying more books?” you can just blame it on me. See how nice that is?)
If you’re kicking off your holiday shopping with book purchases (and what better way, really), here are some you won’t want to miss. I’ve bolded the ones you really shouldn’t pass up.
2009 Favorites, Now in Paperback
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon: A quiet, creepy thriller that is ostensibly about technology and identity theft but is *really* about the meaning and flexibility of identity, the search for connection, and the desire to be known…or to become entirely unknown. Great for people who loved Emily St. John Mandel’s The Singer’s Gun (and vice-versa).
Beowulf on the Beach by Jack Murnighan: Okay, so it was out in paperback when I reviewed, but hello, this book is fantastic. Murnighan tackles fifty classics and explains what makes them awesome and why we should care about them. This book is fun, funny, a little bit sexy, and a fabulous gift for anyone who wants to make the classics relevant to modern life.
Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich: Perfect for the “I’m not a skeptic, I’m a realist” in every crowd, Ehrenreich attacks the mythical “power of positive thinking” and backs her argument with intimidatingly solid research. And she’s snarky and hilarious. What’s not to love?
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese: The first book to render me inarticulate with its luminous prose and sweeping story, Verghese has written a masterpiece, and we’re going to be talking about it for a very long time to come. This is an ideal gift for anyone who loves literary fiction and isn’t in a book club because, well, all the smart book clubs have chosen it by now.
Life’s That Way by Jim Beaver: When Beaver’s wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, he began sending nightly email dispatches to a growing list of friends and family. The emails, collected in this volume, capture a remarkable love story and a family’s struggle to make meaning out of an experience that does not make sense. It is unforgettable, emotionally gripping, and sure to have you sobbing your way through the last twenty pages. But totally worth the tears.
More recommendations after the jump. Read more
Bookrageous Episode 8: Our Literary Lovefest
2010 at 6pm Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Just in time for Thanksgiving, Josh, Jenn, and I finally got the old gang together to chat about, well, pretty much everything we love about books. This is the opposite of last week’s Ranty McRanterson whinefest, and it just feels so right. So behold. Enjoy. Join Team Bookrageous in being thankful for having so freaking many good books to love.
Seriously. As Jenn said, we talked about a “floppity jillion” books in this one, so the show notes are long, but hey, we’re making the whole holiday-wish-list thing easy for you. And if you prefer ye old iTunes, just clickity here to subscribe.
Super long show notes with links to EVERY LAST BOOK we discuss after the jump. Read more
You know those dreams that haunt your whole day?
2010 at 6am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Or the ones you don’t really even remember until you’re going about your day and they just pop back into your mind?
I’ll be having the former today, as I had a bizarre and vivid dream last night that someone contaminated the water supply and it rained goldfish in my shower. I swear, when I went to wash my face this morning, I was bracing myself for fish to come falling out of the faucet. Convinced that this is just further evidence of the weird place that is my brain, I checked out some dream interpretation sites—okay, I used my googler and went to the first one that popped up—and this is what it says:
To see a goldfish in your dream signifies wealth, success, and pleasant adventures. Alternatively, goldfish represents some emotional matter or valuable insight.
So, I should go buy a lottery ticket? This can’t be right. That dream was MESSED UP. Let’s try again.
To dream about goldfish predicts that you will come into prosperity and many wonderful and thrilling escapades.
Okay. I still think it should be weirder, but I like this one for “wonderful and thrilling escapades.” Whaddya suppose that means? That I’ll make it through security tomorrow without being fondled by a TSA agent? Or that THIS will be the year that no one dares to utter that they believe Sarah Palin will be the next president during Thanksgiving dinner? (Can we just pause for a collective shudder there?)
How am I supposed to read today when all I can think about is goldfish plopping out of my shower head? That is NOT the kind of atmosphere I was hoping to create for some time spent with Flannery O’Connor. Perhaps I should give in and buy one of these bad boys?
Let it out folks: weirdest dreams (and your interpretations of them, if you feel like it) to make me feel like (slightly) less of a crazy woman?
The Sunday Salon 11.21.10
2010 at 9am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Hello there, Sunday friends!
This morning finds me relaxing with a cup of coffee and the company of my sister and her husband, who are visiting from Raleigh, NC this weekend, so I’ll keep this brief. Last week I confessed to an embarrassing new addiction, and I can report that it is still going strong. It was one of those weeks where I was constantly busy with blog- and book-related projects, which means it was, conversely, light on reading. I’m hoping to make up for that during my trip to St. Louis for Thanksgiving later this week. Nothing like crowded airports on holiday weekends to ensure delays and reading time, right?
This week I officially began the hunt for an e-reader—and I’m still taking suggestions, so if you have one, please share—and I celebrated the release of Siddhartha Mukherjee’s breathtaking “biography of cancer” The Emperor of All Maladies. Team Bookrageous dropped the podcast episode all about our literary pet peeves, and I adopted a few endangered words. I also asked you to tell me about the literary devices and themes you love in preparation for the next podcast, and even though we’ve finished recording, I’d still love to hear about them.
It was a good solid week, even if it wasn’t very heavy on book reviews, and it wrapped up with the exciting announcement that The Book Lady’s Blog is now the official blog of partner FridayReads, which has taken Twitter by storm. If you’re on Twitter or Facebook, I hope you’ll share what you’re reading each week, and if you’re not, you can share your weekly selections here. Bloggers who direct their non-tweeting readers to do so will be entered in special weekly contests as well in order to support the goal of moving FridayReads beyond the limits of Twitter and Facebook and reaching a wider audience to promote reading.
And that’s pretty much it. I started my very first Flannery O’Connor book this week (I’ve read her short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” but never a full collection) after some not-so-subtle nudging from a few friends, and it’s nice to be finally experiencing this writer I’ve heard so much about. It’s also a pleasant change to be reading backlist instead of juggling galleys for review, and it’s made me consider devoting the rest of the year to reading books that have been languishing on the pile for far too long. I don’t *really* need to read into the 2011 stacks before the year even starts, do I?
We’ll see how well I stick to that resolution when I start packing books for travel next week—my galley of The Tiger’s Wife has been eyeballing me pretty heavily for a few months now, and I think it needs some attention—but whether I succeed in resisting the forthcoming releases or not, it will be very satisfying to add more backlist into the mix.
For now, I’m off to enjoy some more quality time with my sister and think about actually unpacking the suitcase that’s been sitting in our front room since Mexico. I don’t think I’m going to need those bikinis in St. Louis, after all.
What are you up to this Sunday? Anything exciting planned for Thanksgiving?
