2/28/2007

Reading The No-Nonsense Guide to World History, by Chris Brazler. She bought it at Modern Times (Valencia and 20th Street) after checking out ten (TEN!) other books at the library.

Reading The International, A Novel About A Labor Union, by Alfred Maund.

At Big Mouth Burger in the Mission. Sometimes you just really need a hamburger. My (mostly vegetarian) housemate was telling me how her mother needed one after she'd spent two days in the hospital donating bone marrow. I hadn't quite been through those extremes, though I had gone to work all day....

Her favorite books--Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell. (Check out the link to Black Swan Green--the graphics (and content) are beautiful.) After working at a publishing house and reading A LOT of books, she had gotten bored with reading and Cloud Atlas was the first book she'd picked up that didn't have that "Iowa Writers Workshop" voice. She didn't want it to end. It's a complex group of stories, all building up, though not clear on how they're building until it all connects, in a way that does not seem contrived, in the end.

His favorite book--Downstream, or À Vau-l'eau, by J.K. Huysmans, a French author. It's about a clerk trying to find a decent dinner in Paris. He could relate to this--a kindred Big Mouth spirit. Though, the clerk had a harder time of it. He said the style was very spare and modest.

He always carries a book with him. Why? He's afraid of being bored. It's a security blanket. Recently he read a book about San Francisco real estate. He works for a security officers' union and this, he said, was helpful in understanding the property management companies that employ the officers he works with.

Thanks for letting me join you for dinner!