At Julie's Kitchen, one of the best salad bar's in town (I had sushi, beets, an egg roll, squash, and a salad made with a pasta that was a little larger than couscous. It's sort of pricey. The "free" sign in the background is only if you guess the correct price for lunch. Mine was--gasp--over $12.)
Reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers. She's reading it out of support for the author, who founded 826 Valencia--it's a storefront that sells pirate supplies. In the back, volunteers teach writing workshops to children, teenagers and adults. Her twenty-year-old son took a screenplay writing class there. What's his screenplay about? Demons and angels, she said, then expressed confusion as to how, as they are lapsed Quakers, he came up with it.
Her favorite book of all time--Depending on if she's looking to beat her head against a wall (I think that's how she put it) or just for a gripping read, it's Finnegan's Wake, by James Joyce or Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie.
What books do you like to read if you want to beat your head against the wall?
8 Comments:
Want to beat my head against the wall? I don't read those. (:
I tried to read Ulysses when I was in college. Note the use of the verb "tried." That experience left major bruises on my forehead!
the Master and Margarita (Bulgakov?)left me utterly confused and exausted. i never finished it, plan to go back some day. My wife loved it though.
And, is she enjoying the book she is reading? I have it; tried starting it and didn't get to it again. Now, I'm having a hard time bringing it to the top of my list. I'd love to hear I should.
If banging means the sadness of the human condition, I hated (and loved) A Separate Peace. I just hated Lord of the Flies because it shows what humans can do to eachother....same with Call of the Wild but because it shows where dogs can go back to. I'm a weak soul.
Ms. B -- Thank you for making me feel less alone for hating Lord of the Flies! Everyone in my class loved the book. I could not stand it. I've tried reading it since high school, but it's still frustrates me.
Keeorp, I had to teach it, thank goodness, only once. I've never forgotten how sad I felt thinking humans could be that way. To this day, when I see ugliness in the world, I can think of that book.
Now, someone else mentioned Night in a comment I just read. That too is so... I use intense with my students ... but it also shows how humans can persevere, even in the midst of such awfulness. That's an incredible book.
I would read "The Long Emergency" by James Howard Kunstler again. It's not the type of book that you just can't get through and therefore hit your head on the wall; I felt more like, "what the heck are we doing to ourselves." NOt that I haven't felt this before, but Kunstler such a doomsday attitude about everything. That certainly doesn't help anyone!
The Bible! hahahaha... :-)
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