Sunday, March 30, 2008
Goodbye to some memorable books
I’ve been thinning out my books - I don’t want to grow into one of those old women who end up surrounded by stacks of books, cats, papers, and piles of “stuff” - and had to admit that there were a couple of books that I knew I probably wouldn’t read again but that I enjoyed immensely the first time around. A lot of the time, these books are picked up during my travels because I finished the book I took with me and needed something to read on the flight home, or because the topic was something I was curious about and a book came up on the topic, or because the title was just too good to walk by.
Here are a few of my faves:
Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods---My Mother’s, My Father’s, and Mine by Noelle Howey - An autobiography by a teen who goes through her adolescence (an awkward time at best) at the same time her father goes through his own form of style adolescence as he prepares for trans-gender surgery. Told with a wry sense of humour that lets you in on her adolescent angst without too much earnestness.
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman - The first premise of the book is that someone will eventually ask him if he’ll now recant something he wrote years ago, that no woman could ever satisfy him, and he’s say, of course, because he’s now married. But of course, no one would ever know if he’s telling the truth because there is public pressure to say the right thing. The whole Emo angst (hmmm, there’s that word again) about fake love drew me in, and then the titles of various chapters made me curious. Lise Loeb and Ice Planet Hoth ... Toby over Moby - OK, I kind of knew who Moby was ... I felt I needed to get out of the middle-aged closet, at least a little bit. I now read way more blogs and watch a lot less TV.
Black Rubber Dress, by Lauren Henderson - A whodunnit set in London where the protagonist is a low-rent, edgy sculptor of gigantic mobiles. She’s a bit of an anti-hero, so has the usual accoutrements like a male nickname and, if I’m not mistaken, tattoos and promiscuity, not to mention recreational drug use - the better the contrast to be able to critique the well-heeled crowd that make up the rest of the crowd in the book. A refreshing airplane read.
Genderqueer, edited by Joan Nestle, Clare Howell, and Riki Wilchins - I picked up this book because it’s subtitled “beyond the sexual binary” and discusses transgendered and intersexed issues intelligently, as well as the usual gay, lesbian, bisexual, and even quirkyalone, in a way. I bought it in Baltimore, where I was speaking at a conference, and used the book to describe situations where we except binaries and are made to stretch our minds when presented with more options. I was surprised at how many feedback forms involved a comment about how the presenter talked about (gasp!) sex! Really ... the inability to relate concepts ... but I digress.
Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson - I couldn’t put this book down. It’s been a couple of years now since I read it, but I still remember the characters vividly. For weeks afterwards, I would wonder what happened to Ivy, Cayce, and Parkaboy. I wanted a sequel. That reminds me to check out Gibson’s latest.
The other two boxes of books will go into the donation box without fanfare. Some are well-loved, like Ann Marie MacDonald’s books, that I hope will be equally enjoyed by their next owner, and others I hope will be better enjoyed by the new owners.