ma's pretty sharp with the cleavers

sunday short stack

"The trouble with being poor is it takes up all your time." - Willem de Kooning

• In honor of Mother's Day: 21 Creepy Babies in TV and Film and...
• ’90s Alternative Kids: Where Are They Now?
• David Mitchell on historical fiction: "...if History is the family tree of Now, a historical novel may illuminate the contemporary world in ways that straight history may not."
• The 20 Most Shocking TV Deaths
• Flannery O'Connor in a bizarre video from 1932 about backwards-walking animals
• Bill Murray reads poetry to construction workers
• Famous Philosophers and How They Were First Discovered
• Paste: 10 Indie Films We're Looking Forward to This Summer
• I'm not be a student anymore, but you may be - 31 Travel Scholarships, Fellowships, and Grants to Fund Your Next Trip Abroad

52 books in 52 weeks

I'm only five books shy of being on target. Not bad...

5. Free: The Future of a Radical Priceby Chris Anderson

My friend often talks about how much the internet loves him because it gives him all this free stuff. Ha ha, I would say, not actually understanding the real explanation. Now, thanks to Chris Anderson and his concise explanation of the multiple "free" models that structure much web commerce, I get it. I know there was some controversy when this book was published, but I don't remember what it was.

6. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin

When I first started reading this short story collection, I was taken aback that it had won so many awards because three of the first four stories have basically the same plot. A pretty, poor girl is taken in by a more wealthy landowner/official who denies/abandons her shortly before his death. It was startling and a little surreal. However, the plots and characters vary much more as the collection continues and no doubt, Mueenuddin is a writer to watch.

7. A Dark Matterby Peter Straub

About once a year, I break from my typical reading material and pick up a popular, recently released horror novel with great hopes for spooking. Last year, I read Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box, which was pretty entertaining. This year, it was Straub and I sadly, snobbily found the whole production a little silly. I was not spooked and thought all the characters - especially this Eel chick - were a bit insufferable.

8. We Have Always Lived in the Castleby Shirley Jackson

Now, this was spooky and great fun. Just look at the cover of this recent edition! Creepy! Jackson's classic tale of these recluse sisters - whose family was taken by arsenic poisoning years before, for which the oldest sister was tried and acquitted - is suspenseful and richly drawn. The narrator is delightfully unreliable. When their cad of a cousin arrives on the scene, all hell breaks loose.

9. The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University by Louis Menand

I'm not sure who the audience is for this book. I would think it would be me, but I felt I was hearing a lot of what I already knew/could guess. So if it was written for a more non-academic audience, I'm just not sure they'd be all that interested. Beyond that, it's a brief, accessible overview of four different aspects of the current university climate.

10. Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life: A Book by and for the Fanatics Among Us (with Bitchin' Soundtrack)by Steve Almond

I reviewed this for the LA Times on April 29th. Check it out here.

11. Just Kidsby Patti Smith

I did not expect to love this book as much as I did. I thought I'd like to support Smith's writing and learn more about Mapplethorpe. I did not suspect that I would not be able to put this book down, reading every evocative detail with a hunger for that time period in New York that I didn't know I had. I certainly did not know I would finish the book sobbing. Beautiful and moving.

12. Fun with Problemsby Robert Stone

I'm still hungover from Stone's latest story collection. It took me about four attempts to get into the title story, but once I got past that, the remaining stories were lively and pleasantly uncomfortable - full of messy drunks causing messes.

13. Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House by Meghan Daum

I reviewed this for the LA Times on May 9th (yes, in the future). Check it out here.

sunday short stack

"The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf." - Shakti Gawain

• Aimee Semple McPherson's Arabian castle in Lake Elsinore is for sale.
• 17 Films About Getting in Way Over Your Head in the Big, Bad City
• 1977: Tom Waits makes a boozy appearance on Fernwood Tonight.
• The 50 Best Book People to Follow on Twitter and 40 Bloggers Who Really Count (as opposed to all those other pesky bloggers, but what is Naomi Klein doing under Food?)
• They did not like Roget's Thesaurus in 1854. At all.
• Were the "mad" heroines of literature really sane?
• I promise to be vigilant against these top 20 most annoying reviewer clichés.
• Historians have long concurred in identifying professional authors as the occupational group most prone to habitual tobacco use (with awesome photos).