My Books of 2009: A High of 70, with a Chance of Eye Strain

I'm sending out 2009 with 70 books read.

This was my second year keeping track, and last year's book total was 61. My tally as of this Tuesday: 69 books. It was too close to 70 -- and too close to nerd dirty jokes -- for me to stop there. As we say around the holidays, "Why stop eating now?" So when 2010's breathing down my neck, "Why stop reading now?" Books!

This year I considered rejiggering the spreadsheet. Adding more categories, potentially some formulas, maybe a 3D rotating representation of the data. People weighed in with questions and comments throughout the year: Does a reread count? Was I going to add literary journals? Poetry collections? Anthologies? Encyclopedias, a la A.J. Jacobs?

Alas, I come from the Avril Lavigne school of thought: Whydja have to go and make things so complicated? Also I do not read encyclopedias. So once again, I counted only books that I read all the way through, in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, and young adult novels.*

We may also consult Lavigne on the issue of choosing books. She posits: HEY HEY YOU YOU I DON'T LIKE YOUR GIRLFRIEND; the girlfriend in question's offense being that, quote, She's like, so whatever, unquote. From this we can surmise that issues of taste influence our basest needs and desires, and are not to be trifled with, lest a Sk8tr Grrl engage you in a round of mini-golf bullying.** In other words, different people like different things, often for reasons they cannot articulate. OK.


And now it's time for the breakdown:
-29 novels, 20 nonfiction (11 memoirs), 13 young adult, 8 short story collections
-31 books by women, 39 by men
-High: 11 books in December, 10 apiece in May and July
-Low: Once again, November, 1 book read atop a whole lotta grading.

Power of the spoken word: Some of my favorite books this year were by people whose readings I attended. The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (at the AWP Conference in Chicago), Paper Towns by John Green (at the Second Story fundraiser - a great nonprofit, should you wish to contribute), Space by Jesse Lee Kercheval and The Florist's Daughter by Patricia Hampl (both on campus. Joe Bonomo gave another great reading, and I'm eager to finish his book Sweat in 2010.)

Location, location: I read Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge, set on the Maine coast, at the beach. Years ago, my friend Barney recommended Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn; I read the Boston-based memoir on the flight to his wedding there (Barney's, not Nick Flynn's). Far more books were read on my porch for as long as the weather allowed. In the winter I retreated to the couch with my homemade Snuggie. (Wanna make something of it? Do not anger the Snuggie.)

Word of mouth: still my favorite way to learn about books. Students, friends, family, the mailman -- everybody's got a suggestion. And this year I was able to recommend something new to Walt, our literary letter carrier: Mailman by J. Robert Lennon, also a rec from the aforementioned Barney, set in my old stomping grounds of Central New York. I had to warn Walt: the title character besmirches the occupation's name. He was interested nonetheless.

I finished Middlemarch -- a hefty book that I actually started the year before -- the same day Michael Jackson died. I have no idea what this means. Except for this (spoiler alert) from the book's last page: "...For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

Thanks, George Eliot. I needed that.



Notes on the note
*Also comparing '08 and '09 is easier using the same categories. Apples to apples, rather than oranges to Runts candy shaped like oranges. And I did make note of poetry collections (11), because why not? I am officially reporting two rereads this year, for the stringent book auditors among us: Which Brings Me to You by Elinor Lipman, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Though I'd read and loved both in 2008, it was like opening brand-new books. Way to go, retention. Slow it up already.

**Notice that the bookish/nerdy Girlfriend who is mocked in this video is played by Lavigne herself. The singer's divided persona*** clearly shows her competing desires to be loved for her brains (as indicated by plaid skirt, glasses, and do-you-smell-bleu-cheese facial expressions) as well as her Sk8tr Grrl looks. But watch who indirectly sends whom into the pond. And then a Port-a-Potty. Just sayin'.

***There are really three versions of Lavigne in the video, two of which get the same guy. It's practically Jane Austen, save for the skirt hems and (dramatic pause, sharp intake of breath, Gwyn-brit accent) utter lack of honor.

Unburdening

The research is clear: people are happier when they unburden themselves to others, whether it's face-to-face or written communication.

In this spirit of sharing, allow me to unburden myself of this creepy-yet-compelling photo of Vladimir Putin.



He appears to have a deep interest in this baby's nutrition. (Oh, I know he can't really see the baby. Or CAN he?) Will the spoonful reach the mouth, will some of the brown mush dribble out? Stay tuned, World Watchers, just like Putin. It seems like yesterday when he was kissing a little boy's stomach, wanting to touch him "like a kitten," but really that was 2006. And this week it will be 2010. Oy.

Unrelated, but also intriguing:



I doubt I need to say anything more about this newsmaker; I'm interested in the image/text combo. Here's how I read it: "I Have Let My Family Down. HEEEYAAAAAA!" Sort of a primal Howard Dean-esque scream (a scream for which Dean took much flak, a scream sent forth while he was seeking the 2004 Democratic party nomination. While hilarious, the criticism of him was overdone: the burst of excitement was touching. Humans being human, you know?) The above photo is not touching, and it's only quasi-human -- a photo of a celebrity on a Nike poster that appeared in a newspaper and has been scanned in and which is now viewable on a multitude of different computer screens. It's pretty far removed from the situation. HEEEYAAAAAA!

Recently I read Lia Purpura's wonderful book of essays, "On Looking." Poetic and lovely, it's a meditation on seeing, watching. She uses a glacial metaphor -- dropped rocks and detritus and so on -- to explain how we sort out details and eventually, after much time, make sense of what we see. "Poor sorting" is one term the glaciologists use.

In nature and among people, looking is among my favorite occupations. It's different at a remove. TV, news, interweb, seemingly unreal celebrities and politicians -- we're burdened by it, all the sorting and sifting required as part of existence in the electronic age. Sometimes I think it's a good burden, a mental exercise. Sometimes I'd rather just go for a walk. Maybe I will. And later today I will drive a car for the first time since I was T-boned last week. A rental; my own car is unavailable for comment. This is the longest I've gone without driving since I was a teenager. I'm scared. Unburdening. Maybe I should bring along a small television for the car so Big Brother Putin can keep an eye on me. Heeeyaaaaaa.

I, too, am a strange loop

I don't expect to be amazed in the doctor's office,* reading the magazines. I don't expect to be amazed by a magazine I actually subscribe to, but haven't read yet. (I will, promise, even if they are stacked up accusingly with all the rest.).

Yet: amazed. This interview Matt Gonzalez did with IU prof Douglas Hofstadter in Indy Monthly took up a single page. I can't stop thinking of it.

Short excerpt: "We copy. We absorb. We are so profoundly influenced by other people that we become partly another person. A part of that person remains inside other people after the brain of that person has perished."
Read the rest here. He wrote a book called "I Am a Strange Loop." Which I must now find and read.

I have tried to write about this. I have tried to write about memory and loss and the brain's desire to recreate the missing, the brain's often inaccurate rendering of people/places/events. I have felt the presence of those whose physical presence is impossibly gone, whether by death or distance. I have mimicked and copied and absorbed into my brain. I don't know how successful I've been, but I've tried to write it down nonetheless.

Hofstadter's words linked my ideas together in a new way. Not unlike when I read Don Quixote, which took approximately 8 million years,** and I came across the line that would become an epigraph for my novel. I actually sat up in my chair and said, "Ha HA!" I thought to myself, THAT is why I've been reading this book. To find that line.*** Which makes me think books are a way to copy and absorb and become what has perished, which is the past. And we read and write through the filter of the present. For the future. Loop-de-loop.



*A wrist X-ray for what is likely tendonitis. Waste of a day off.
**Two.
***I fear you'll be disappointed, here in this context-free setting. Read Cervantes yourself and find the line that does the same for you. When you find it, you may not say "Ha HA!" Perhaps you will harumph quietly, or a single tear will trickle down your cheek. Maybe you will sit silently in shock. But the moment will be yours, and that is the worthwhile thing.

Highway of Vice Presidents

This is the title of your next story or poem. Any length, any style. And...GO.

I was just talking about how I get distract--

There are many things I could be doing, and in fact should be doing. But this is the time of year when I find myself...

-Answering telemarketer calls
-Completing annoying online surveys
-Scrubbing the stove
-Checking e-mail and Facebook 8 million times (but somehow not summoning the energy required to respond. I'm sorry: I probably owe you one. I'm sorry but I'm just thinking of the right words to say (I promise) I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be (I promise) But if I had to walk the world I'd make you something something, I promise you, I promise you. There: When in Rome just handily proved my point.)
-Watching for the mail truck
-Wandering aimlessly around the house
-Letting the kettle scream too long
-Dusting (!)

You know it's desperate when I start dusting. My students would find my procrastination hilarious -- that is, if they weren't so eager to know their grades. I'm exaggerating a little (really, Sarah? you?), since I seem to be on track: breaking the work down into small, manageable chunks. But I'm all out of my grading go-to energy source, candy corn, which could necessitate a trip to the store. Where maybe I should do some Christmas shopping. And buy a gift for my adorable new niece. And her big sis, so she won't feel left out. Also need more coffee filters. And is there an aisle that sells sleep?

Escape (not the pina colada song)

Last week I was in France, England, D.C., Vermont, and South Carolina. Or maybe just one of those places, where I landed on a very comfy couch and watched many movies that took me elsewhere. If there is a vicarious experience I enjoy more than reading books, it is watching movies. Sometimes I wonder if I should be troubled by the fact that escapism is my primary mode of entertainment. Still, I am not guzzling books or shooting films into my veins, or believing Dungeons & Dragons is real life, like the kid in that extremely scary 1980s after-school special, where -- maybe I dreamed this? -- he prowls around the sewer system in a trench coat, years before trench coats on young people were ominous. So there's that.

Let me simplify by combining all the films into one: an old maid (at age 27!) has been persuaded not to marry an unsuitable man, who of course returns to show her what she's missing (plus honor, valor, rank and status, etc. etc.), then the sister comes home from prison but we don't know what she's done until nearly halfway through, and everybody is gathered for their friend's funeral and some kitchen dancing, and a semi-mysterious corpse is buried, dug up, buried, dug up, and so on, for a variety of reasons that mostly serve to complicate the plot.

Now I am returned to the Unironic Heartland, where we wear our earnestness on our rolled-up sleeves. We (that would be me, royally) are probably better served by avoiding the DVD extras where actors and directors sit in their canvas-backed chairs and talk about how splendid everyone was to work with. Know what would be more splendid? If only we'd maintained the illusion that the world on the screen was real. If only we'd stayed in that dream state a little longer. A place where, venturing out between movies, my thoughts resembled something like this:

New fiction for the reading

My new short story, "Marv's 11 Steps," is now up at anderbo.com.

Anderbo.com is edited by Rick Rofihe, who was generous with his time and comments on this piece. I cannot vouch for whether he is like an owl, as this interview attests, but if that means wise, then yes.

This character, Marv, appeared last summer during the Advanced Institute of the Hoosier Writing Project. I spent a week with other writing teachers, and each day we wrote, discussed writing and teaching, and learned a million and one new things. And we wrote. Whatever we wanted. For hours on end. Which to some may sound like pulling teeth, but to me is like getting to eat candy all day, every day, with no dental repercussions.

The squirrels mean business

This happened a few weeks ago. I am apprehensive about mentioning it, even now: the squirrels bogart the wireless from out back, up high in the trees that may soon crash through the roof. They hack my e-mail and agree to transfer funds to BANK OF LAGOS. They have grown as big as cats. They slam into the storm door, scrambling upwards to the decorative gourd display. They stash dirty magazines in their obscene nests. Sometimes they look pretty at sunset, silhouettes balancing along a branch as they scurry home. They look pretty until I remember the pumpkin dragged from the porch and halfway down the walk, seeds everywhere, stringy guts tangling around my shoe. The squirrels are preparing a list of demands. I keep looking for the note.

Sarah Layden is not the first person to speak in third person, you know

Sarah Layden thinks there are compelling reasons to speak of yourself in the third person. In terms of point of view, it's a distancing mechanism, a means to evaluate and take a breath outside of the self and turn the subjective into something objective. In third person, one need not take any sort of real ownership over a statement. After all, Sarah Layden said the thing. Not "I," said the fly. But you still get credit, even if you're quoting a song or a movie, even if you're getting messy and incorporating second person, which you and your second cousin know can bring a reader close while pushing him away; bit of a tease, second person.

Sarah Layden will stir fry you in her wok.

Sarah Layden observes that the social networks are like the high school auditoriums of nightsweat dreams, where everyone you've ever met is in the same echoey chamber, commenting on various aspects of your life as presented by you or others. Sarah Layden considers the addictive quality of this experience. Like. Dislike. Become a fan. Start a war.

Sarah Layden wants to throw all the cell phones in the river.

Sarah Layden didn't mean your phone, silly. She knows you need it in order to text important messages to God in a desperate prayer to save you from an inevitable car accident while swerving into her lane. Hello! That was close. Sarah Layden currently contributes to the public record with full knowledge that someone, a reporter, will dredge this blargh up when she is maimed or killed by a driver who is texting. Or WORSE: Sarah Layden will text while driving.

Sarah Layden rages against her own machine.

Sarah Layden's parents tell her things about herself she never knew.

Sarah Layden does and does not want to tell you things. About herself, but also her observations about you. Big things, little things, medium-sized things. Mountain-sized things. Some nights, she thinks about the next morning's coffee. She has had some houseplants for a decade. Facts can take the place of feeling. We all need help; we don't all get it.

Sarah Layden drove her car into the navy yard just to prove that she was sorry.

Sarah Layden should give Sufjan Stevens credit for the above line, a line which runs through her head often, o the beauty of music. O the beauty of distance, words on a screen, the power to push the button that turns off the power.

Pete Yorn is not my boyfriend

My ears are getting old, my hearing a little, well, what?, but I still go to rock concerts. And at most of the shows I attend, a good chunk of the crowd is in my demographic, wearing earplugs and supporting whatever band is trafficking the latest brand of reunion nostalgia. It's a racket, but I fully participate. Sometimes I even buy the T-shirt.

I am, however, a little old and a lot married for crushes on the bands. Isn't that the domain of teenyboppers, of Tiger Beat and Bop? (Do they still make those magazines? Somebody ask the computer. Or I could just, you know, run to the newsstand for a sec...) Still, I love so many bands and singers. Tears of joy at the Pixies reunion in '05, same at my first Feist show in '08.

I may not plaster the walls with posters these days, but that's simply a design decision, not a statement about lack of feeling. Music can still transport me back to the age and mood when I first heard it, a sometimes awkward space to inhabit. Or the best place in the world to inhabit. You know how it is.

I've always wondered why music can have such an emotional hold. In the height of the nostalgia tours, Daniel J. Levitin's book This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession was released at an opportune time. I wound up listening to his book on CD in the car, which was great for the musical examples (less so for technical descriptions, at least for this visual learner. Narrator/actor Edward Hermann, recently of Gilmore Girls, rocked the house nonetheless.) The science folk speculate that the part of the brain that makes memory is closely tied to the part of the brain that understands music. Music discovered in adolescence makes such an impact because the brain and self are in a period of insane change, another reason adolescent experiences stand out so strongly in memory.

Which may be why, in the most time-crunched part of my week, I decided to see Pete Yorn in concert Monday after teaching my night class. He graduated from Syracuse University one year ahead of me, and I didn't discover his music until I was in my mid-20s, living and working in Syracuse several years after college. My friend and co-worker Glenn passed on Pete's first album, Musicforthemorningafter, knowing we shared similar taste in music. I was, and remain, hooked. Pete's now promoting his fourth album, and while he's too young to be on a nostalgia tour, something in his music makes me feel nostalgic: it reminds me of being in college, it reminds me of Syracuse, it reminds me of people I miss.

Because of the brain's weird emo-circuitry, I have to remind myself that it's my own memories I'm associating with and projecting onto the artist. Pete Yorn and I don't know each other, though he was very kind when I met him briefly a couple years ago at an in-store show & signing. That sweltering summer day, he covered The Ramones song "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" in a packed record shop. The crowd swooned. (Why pretend? I did, too.) In between songs, he recognized a young woman in the crowd. "You don't live anywhere near here," he laughed, and she stammered some reason for her appearance at yet another show.

Monday was my third Pete Yorn concert, though I've yet to travel far to see him play. But why wouldn't that young woman, or anybody, really, drive out of her way? Certainly it's for the artist and the quality of the music, maybe even the Almost Famous dream. But I think the power of memory moves us, too. We're driving closer to ourselves.