Best American Short Stories 1998

Book: Best American Short Stories 1998
Editor: Garrison Keillor
Where I read it: See, this is another one of those books that I know I read, but can't remember. So, for the sake of argument, let's just say that I read this one at home with dinner, probably a grilled cheese sandwich or maybe ham and cheese.

What I thought: The hardest part of this entry is that I honestly remember none of the stories in this collection. That's not to say that the works weren't memorable or that the talent was non-existent, as that is certainly not the case. How do I know this? Because if I hate a book, I won't finish it. I have no problem dropping it like a rotten potato dipped in sheep dip. I know most people working with me here at the library feel that it is necessary to treat every book, even ones they don't necessarily like, as if they were god's snowflakes. I, however, know that while books are ultimately better than people in most respects, they do not have feelings, and will not spend a month trash talking me to their shitheaded friends in some dive bar if I take them home with me after work, try to get into them and just can't. They won't mind if I drop them in the book drop unread. This is why I love them so. And it says right here on my list that I finished this one, and not being the kind of person who feels the need to lie to herself about her accomplishments, I can't imagine that I would have made that up. And so, this book was read cover to cover, and then promptly forgotten. Oh, well.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

Book: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
Author: The illustrious DFW
Where I read it: on the couch, curled up with the cat, and also on my lunch breaks, which consisted of me eating from a huge tub of cottage cheese, an untoasted bagel, an apple, a roma tomato, and sometimes a banana.

What I thought: See, now this is a good collection of shit. My two favorite essays of all time are included in this book, and a hilarious breakdown of David Lynch as well. The title essay is a postcard snapshot of DFW's trip on a cruise ship, paid for by Harper's magazine, and is long long long. Unbelievable in it's length, considering that the author is a severe agoraphobe, and can barely muster the strength daily to leave his tiny cabin. And the detail. Oh the detail. My god, it's so nice to read something written by someone with the observational talents of Sherlock Holmes. My other favorite is a piece written in the same way about the Illinois State Fair.

Really, these essays are so funny that I can't reread them while I'm eating for fear of shooting partially masticated food bits and/or liquid all over the table. And I already know what's going to happen.

This book is in my personal top ten, along with the other Davids: Sedaris and Eggers. It's one of the rare tomes that have tons of underlining in the first half, and then I realized that I was underlining more than I was leaving blank, and so I stopped.

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men

Book: Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
Author: David Foster Wallace
Where I read it: In the car on the way home from the bookstore after purchasing, and then well into the evening at home, wrapped up in bed, trying to digest it all in one sitting

What I thought:
Hmm...as DFW has often occupied a place in my intellectual fantasies as the sexiest man alive, it came as a shock to me that he could have written such a completely disjointed, incomprehensible collection of stories. Most of them were difficult to get through, not what you'd call easy listening, more like the Throbbing Gristle of literature.

I personally still find his long, rambling footnotes quite funny, at least most of the time, although sometimes his twisting, parenthetical references can just go on and on to the point of grammatical incorrectness.

There were a few stories, the title piece, and Forever Overhead, that were less irritating and just plain funny, which is what I'm looking for in a sexy intellectual. I don't like it when he goes over everyone's head just because he can. Nobody likes a show off, and frankly, why show off if like, 2 people on the planet are going to get your joke?

But as a disciple of his magnum opus, Infinite Jest, I will continue to try to crack the code he writes, even if it means getting a headache.

(sic)

Book: (sic)
Author: Sean Landers
Where I read it: A little here, a little there. Didn't quite finish the whole thing, if you must know.
File under: Artsy and clever, for the sake of
What I thought:
Whoa, what a solipsistic guy! If it weren't for his large, possibly affected vocabulary, you might think he was like, 10. Evidently, this book is now out of print, and used copies are selling from $50 and up. So, in my decision to ditch the copy I bought for $2.99 by giving it to Goodwill several years ago, I made a poor financial decision. Who knew that one man's desire to see if he could handwrite 1000 pages in a month in a sloppy, stream of consciousness manner that is almost too scripted to really be totally random would generate so much demand?

The worst part for me was where he was so tired of writing everyday that he had to come up with elaborate little fantasies to keep going. For instance, he pretended that his mother was kidnapped and the abductors' ransom was that Sean write 1000 pages in a month, or else they'd kill her. Based on the dysfunctional relationship most people seem to have with their mothers, is this really an incentive?

There was also much pontification about his sex life, and sexual acts, past, present, future, and imagined.

His fights with his girlfriend seemed pretty petty.

There was one funny bit where he drew his penis, full size, and then rambled on about how he realized that when the book was published, that the legal pad he was writing on would be necessarily shrunk to fit the size of the book page, and that it would appear that his dick was like, half as big as it was in real life and the implications of that.

Overall, just too much like what I fear the inside of any man's head looks like.

Handy Physics Answer Book

Book: Handy Physics Answer Book
Author: P. Erik Gunderson
Where I read it: Bend Library, escaping from the goddamned juniper pollen that infiltrated every cubic inch of breathing space.

What I thought:
Again, I was going through this phase where I thought that if I read a bunch of popular science books geared towards the layman, that I might be considered smart. And sure, I actually learned some stuff, as I circumvented physics and chemistry in high school by volunteering to take a new curriculum that centered on human physiology and environmental studies. Basically I wanted to skip the safety goggles and the stinky Bunsen burner experiments in favor of field trips to national forests and tests where all you had to do was fill in the labels for the muscles of the body. Much easier than doing math. Whah ha!

So, there I was, reading, and understanding, this played down physics book. It was great. If only it would have been the text book in high school, I might not have opted out of the class.

And whenever people go by their middle name but leave the first initial on, like P. Erik Gunderson has done here with his fantastic book, well, I can't decide if it's totally hot or totally irritating. What does he think, that he's a character on Dynasty? Is his first name really that bad? What could it be? Something too banal/common for him to like, like Peter or Paul? Or is it a twisted example of his parent's latent sadism? Pumpernickle or Pumice? Hmmm. I thought about this long and hard, right after I absorbed the implications of an inclined plane working together with a pulley and a screw.

Best American Essays 1995

Again, I can't remember reading this, although I know I did. Perhaps this was the volume I bought because it had a David Foster Wallace story that I hadn't read in it. The cover might have been purple?

Oh, well.

Best American Essays 1994

Wow, I can't remember reading this one, like, at all.

Hmm...

The cover might have been yellow?