“There’s always a bit of suspense about the particular way in which a given school year will get off to a bad start.”
― Frank Portman, King Dork
I learned the following things at Ann Patchett’s event tonight:
Ann Patchett sometimes describes State of Wonder as “Heart of Darkness for women,” but she was actually heavily influenced by Henry James’ The Ambassadors and curiously enough, Pinnochio.
Ann Patchett gets annoyed when, at age 48, people still ask her if she and her husband are ever going to have kids.
Ann Patchett’s luscious descriptions of the rainforest came from watching Werner Herzog movies.
Meryl Streep once called Ann Patchett at home to ask if she could please do the film for Bel Canto. Ann Patchett was forced to turn her down and said disappointing Meryl Streep was one of the most terrible things she’s ever had to do.
Ann Patchett believes spending more at a local bookstore than you would on that terrible website that rhymes with Glamazon will make everyone, even the cosumer who spent more, richer in the long run.
When Madeleine Miller won the Orange Prize today, Ann Patchett would like you to know that she was wearing a dress that she borrowed from Ann.
Ann Patchett thinks Rihanna is pretty.
Basically, Ann Patchett and I would be best friends.
(via seabois)
I just spent a while putting books on the bookshelves Caleb built for me last night, and now I feel calmer than I have in years.
While I was alphabetizing them, an insert from The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk floated out. It read:
If the riches of
the Indies
or the crowns of
all the kingdoms of Europe
were laid at my feet
in exchange
for my love of reading,
I would spurn them all.
—Francois FenelonI think that most of you who read this blog have the same sentiments. I certainly do. Books are the great love of my life.
A few friends emailed me asking for book suggestions this week, which is coincidental. They are going on vacation. One is coming down from Middlemarch, and wants something just as delightful. The other is going to some paradise in Florida (I hate you), and doesn’t want to read scripts.
Given those parameters, here are my suggestions for the two of you:
1. Tana French’s mystery novels, starting with In The Woods.
2. Laurence Durrell’s Alexandria series, starting with Justine, because they weave poetry out of Egypt. I read them in Borneo, with a group of famous scientists studying orangutans. “Huh, so you’re not dumb?” one of them said to me, puzzled, when he saw me reading it.
3. JFK: Reckless Youth by Nigel Hamiliton. One word: salacious.
4. The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazard, because it’s beautifully written.
5. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, because his words fly, and it’s post-apocalyptic science fiction.
6. The Leopard by Giuseppi Tomasi di Lampedusa, just because.
7. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren, which I read on the beach of Hualtulco, feeling bowled over by unrequited love.
8. Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow, because it’s easy, and fun. I read it on the Jersey Shore.
9. Do The Window’s Open by Julie Hecht, because she is fucking neurotic and hilarious.
10.Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, because it’s a book about English aristocracy written by one of the most sneering, judgmental, romantic, and brilliant voices in 20th century literature.
My hands smell like old paper now, and I fucking love it.
Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest…
