Last night, I dreamed that someone handed me an awkwardly wrapped book-sized package, and said, "Here. This is for you." I hefted the package for a bit, trying to imagine what might be in there. I prayed, "Oh God. Let it be THE SUM ANDTOTALOF NOW." I was just untying the twine on the package when I woke up. I fought to return to sleep and the dream so I could see the title of the book, but it didn't happen.
The way I've been lulling myself to sleep is by doing books and authors by the alphabet. So far, I've just done novels, to make it more challenging. Here's an example:A: Arrowsmith B: Bleak House C: Cry The Beloved Country D: David Copperfield...and so on.
Or:A: Margaret AtwoodB: BalzacC: Joyce Cary ...and so on.
If I get stuck on a letter, I can't move on. I have to concentrate until I come up with an author or a title. That's when I usually wear out and fall asleep. Last night, playing "titles", the last letter I remember was I. I finally settled for THE ICEMAN COMETH, which pissed me off because it's a play. Later in the night, I woke up for a short annoyed moment and thought: IRONWEED!
Oh, my. Make that FOUR books I've got going right now! I am being such a book slut. The fourth book is JIM THE BOY by Tony Earley. Even if the epigram at the front of the book wasn't from CHARLOTTE'S WEB, I'd still detect an E.B. White influence. I really like it; yesterday consisted of repeated attempts to slip into a reading coma, but EVERYONE -- even the dog -- conspired to keep me from totally disappearing between the lines of ink into the heart of the story.
Late last evening, Manfred, Jr. was giving me pertinent information about the new DVD/VCR. JIM THE BOY was in a greased-pole contest in Aliceville, North Carolina, and all I could hear was that sound that you hear when you put a seashell up to your ear. The sound went on and on. Finally, I realized that it was someone trying to tell me something. I disentangled myself from the book and exclaimed, "What? What?! What are you saying to me?"
1. LUCY CROWN by Irwin Shaw. Written in 1955 or 1956. So far, it seems a little arch, a little too John Cheever-ish, but I'm hoping it'll improve.
2. FACING THE WIND by Julie Salamon. This is a true crime book, but reads much better than the usual prose in that genre.
3. THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN by Paul Elie. Elie writes about 4 Catholic writers from mid-20th century: Flannery O'Connor, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton and Walker Percy. So far, their lives haven't yet intersected.
I'm still slightly bitter towards the manager at the bookstore because she didn't hire me, but I'm starting to love what she's done with the bookstore. She set up a nice big (3 sections of shelves) area of half-price books. Some of this stuff just came out last year!
[Side note: Manfred, Jr. is not pleased with the way she eliminated the True Crime section and integrated all those books into nonfiction.]
While perusing this section of the store, I made an excellent find Thursday evening: THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN. It's a biography of sorts about 4 American Catholic writers in the mid-20th century: Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor. They all knew each other and corresponded, so the book has that as well. I've read Merton, Day and O'Connor, and I know who Percy is.
It's a nice thick hardcover, and the front cover still has a bit of creak when it's opened. I've gotten picky about that since I read a book called BOOK FINDS. I realized I'm not really a collector, but I did like the bit about listening for that book cover creak.
Best of all: The cover price for the book was originally twenty seven dollars. It rang up at their register for eleven dollars and thirty cents! I felt so wonderful, toting out a hefty book like that for less that fifteen dollars.
Of course the frugal part of me is telling the crazy book addict part of me that I should have taken that eleven dollars and thirty cents and put it towards the eventual purchase of THE SUM AND TOTAL OF NOW. I am still seriously jonesing about that book! When Manfred, Jr. asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day, that title was almost on it's way out of my mouth. I pulled it back though and mentioned PLAINSONG and GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING.
$122.00. I wish I knew why. Does this happen very often, that one of the books in a trilogy fetches an obscenely higher price than the others?
Part of me wants to give up and jump into that abyss that I think of as my Lost Weekend book shopping. I want to log on to abebooks, pull out my credit card, click and wake up the next morning, wondering how it all happened. I'm better than I was a few years ago. At Manfred, Jr.'s age, I would've said something to the equivalent of "to hell with the bills" and spent the money on the book, feeling, no knowing, that it was the better choice.
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I have this blog, and I have a job-hunting blog. Yesterday, these two crucial parts of my life intersected.
Friday afternoon. Job interview at one-thirty pm. I'm sitting there, cooling my heels. At five till two, the interviewer emerges from her office to let me know she's running 20 minutes behind and can I wait a little longer? No problem, I said. I have a book in my car and I'll just read until you're ready for me.
I was 3-4 pages from the end of the book when she called me in to interview. I left my book in the waiting area. I didn't want to carry it into the interview because, well, I didn't really think it was her business what I'm reading. [It was DRY by Augusten Burroughs] I usually stuff paperbacks in my purse, but the purse was too crammed on this day to fit the book.
To make a long story a little shorter, I got the job. Problem is, I was so stunned (rejection feels more normal when you've been out of work nearly a year) that I walked right past the waiting area and past my book.
I'm going to peek in and see if it's still there today, but I have my doubts. The reading section in that waiting area was putrid: A Holy Bible (okay, that wasn't putrid) 2 magazines from October 2003 and 1 from December 2003. Putting myself in another's shoes, if I had to sit in a waiting area with that kind of reading selection, and I saw a nice paperback copy of a book in great condition with an interesting, slightly edgy cover, I'd be all over it like it was Godiva chocolate during PMS.
Maybe I should just let it go. I could read those last 3-4 pages quickly the next time I'm in a bookstore. But for some reason, it makes me a little crazy to part with a book so abruptly. I have to go back and look for it. I need closure.
Even if the book's not there, I'm going to bring in my latest issue of BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS [What am I doing with a subscription to BH&G? An 8th grader was selling subscriptions last year at school; I'm a notoriously soft touch.] and leave it for others to read. It inflames me that a business can have a waiting area and think they can get away with crap like 7 month old magazines! Do I really want to work there?
Somewhere between disaster movies (THE TOWERING INFERNO, AIRPORT '75) and disco, there was a small pocket of time in which novels and memoirs came out about teenagers dying of some disease, usually cancer. I was a teenager at the time, so after I read a few of these books, I figured that it was just a matter of time until I, too, was toast.
Here are some of the books:
SUNSHINE (novel) by Norma Klein. This novel was based on the real-life tapes and journals of Jacquelyn Helton, a 20-year-old mother who died of bone cancer.
ERIC by Doris Lund. This was a memoir of a young man by his mother. He was diagnosed when he was 17 or so, and valiantly fought the disease, finally sucumbing to it at 21 or 22.
ELLEN: A SHORT LIFE REMEMBERED. Another memoir. Written by the girl's mother, don't remember her name.
ECHOES OF A SUMMER. This was a novelization of a movie starring Jodie Foster. Jodie is a young teen with a disease. Her parents and friends are falling apart, but she is stoic. She sets them straight by her example of dignity and courage.
A SUMMER TO DIE. A novel by Lois (THE GIVER) Lowry. 2 sisters, one's popular, the other is quite eclipsed by the popular one & a little jealous. Guess what? The popular sister gets leukemia.
After devouring all these books, I was terrified but wanted more. Somehow, I found John Gunther's DEATH BE NOT PROUD at the library. Another memoir, dead (15) teenager, chronicled by his famous journalist father.
I can't believe that this is my first blog post for April. Would you believe that I was busy reading? I got off to a rocky start with BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: AN AMERICANLIFE. I checked it out from the library & took way too long to finish it. I kept being distracted by books like BROTHEL, understandably so. I'd like to think Mr. Franklin would've understood.
When I went back to check it out again for the second time, I was told by the sympathetic clerk that there was a waitlist. Adding to my guilt was the fact that I had snatched up the large-print version in my impatience to read about old Ben.
The clerk put me on the waitlist when I brought the book back the next day. She's so nice! I bet she doesn't like to read. Non-reading extroverts seem to work well in libraries. During my brief stints as a library clerk, I was always grabbing books for myself, and glaring at the patrons that got to them before me. I bit my lip more than once when patrons would come back in and criticize a book I'd liked, and vice versa, when they burbled enthusiastically about something I considered a waste of ink, glue and paper.
I meant to remember what page I'm on, but already forgot! I do know that Franklin is sloooowly beginning to realize that the English do not want to play ball with the colonies; they do not want the colonies to have a voice in Parliament. They're being Friday turds at Saturday market, and they're about to piss Ben off once and for all.
But Ben can take his time.
Right now, I'm all achy and inconsolable because I want the book I cannot have. Again. This time it's the novel THE SUM AND TOTAL OF NOW by Don Robertson, who wrote THE GREATEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD. I just finished SLICED BREAD; I polished it off as quickly as a loaf of the real thing during one of my reading comas, in which people tried to speak with me, and I could only respond irritably and fretfully to the shadow of their bodies blocking the light on the page.
I'm ripe and revved to read THE SUM AND TOTAL OF NOW because it's the sequel to SLICED BREAD. In fitful protest, I didn't even start a book today, which added to my irritability. So why don't I take care of this problem? Why don't I hunt up a copy of THE SUM AND TOTAL OF NOW?
I've got my reasons. One hundred and twenty two of them.
After procuring THE GREATEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD in the happy fashion described in last month's blog, I set out to complete the trilogy. Book #3, THE GREATEST THING THAT ALMOST HAPPENED can easily be had for around 25 dollars. Book #2 is a different story: I searched the internet & THE SUMAND TOTAL OF NOW can be purchased for $122.00 at the cheapest.
Ow. Looks like I'll be reading an interlibrary loan copy for now.
One hundred and twenty two dollars. Dang.
Now, don't get me wrong; I'm not above spending a lot of money on books. I love to wander into a bookstore and come out hours later in a blur, holding a really really really oh-my-carpal-tunnel-is acting-up-again heavy sack full of books -- sort of like Ray Milland having THE LOST WEEKEND. But $122.00 for one book? I didn't even pay that for my leatherbound copy of RABBIT, RUN, and that book looks better than many expensive cars.
In addition, the sellers aren't promising a nice clean copy with a nicely creaking front cover. No, they're offering ex-library copies some without a dustjacket.
Gnash, grind. Why is the middle book so damn expensive? There's got to be some logical reason, but I'm baffled for now.
