August 2008 - Page 7 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

EW’s Best 100 books/last 25 years

I almost said, “Why bother?” since I just don’t read that many novels. I read mostly non-fiction – way too much Bob Woodward, and quite a bit of religious material – and older stuff and this list is mostly fiction. But what the heck.

*I read it

1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000) – my wife started reading Harry Potter just this year. My 17-year-old niece devours them in a day or two. I haven’t read a single page. (I did see the first movie.)
*3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987) – quite moving.
4. The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997) – I’ve read Roth, but not this.
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001) – didn’t see the movie, either.
*7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991) – transcendent.
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996) – I’ve read some of this.
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997) – no and didn’t see the movie either, though I have the soundtrack.
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997) – my wife owns this; have read some.
12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)
*13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87) – quite good.
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992). Have read Oates, but not this.
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)
*16. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986) – I belonged to a book club in the 1980s and early 1990s. Read 10 books a year in different categories. That’s the only reason I got to read this, which I found quite engrossing, in a depressing ay.
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988)
18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990). Read Updike, not this.
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)
20. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding (1998) – saw the movie.
21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000). Actually have never read Stephen King (except various columns, such as the one in EW.)
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985) – saw the miniseries. Read something of his.
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989) – my wife owns the book; saw the movie.
26. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)
28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)
29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001)
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)
31. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien (1990)
32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988)
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005)
34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
*36. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996) – AND saw the movie. Bleak.
*37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003) – will see the movie.
38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)
39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988)
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988)
*46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996) – well, at least big chunks of it.
47. World’s Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985) – read Ragtime, but not this.
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998) – started this.
49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)
50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001)
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)
52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992) – read excerpts of it; saw the movie.
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000) – borrowed this book THREE years ago, started, got busy, never got back to it.
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)
55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)
57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987) – I start LOTS of books.
58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)
60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001) – had meant to read.
61. Money, Martin Amis (1985)
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994) – this I should read.
63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)
65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003) – my wife saw the movie.
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)
69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)
70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)
73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989)
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998)
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) – saw the movie.
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000) – read some of this
80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)
81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002) – saw the movie
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998) – saw the movie.
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987) – read chunks of this.
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)
88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995) – saw the movie.
89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999) – read some of this.
*90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001) – only because my wife was reading.
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987) – saw the movie
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991) – started this.
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001) – started this.
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998)
96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003) and didn’t see the movie, either.
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)
98. The Predators’ Ball, Connie Bruck (1988)
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)
100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004) – own this, have read parts of it.

So what ought I read first from this list?
ROG

1000 Cuts

Have a feeling that we just don’t understand.

On a business librarians listserv I’m on, someone was seeking information about the expenditure of single women – the “Carrie Bradshaw” types. (That’s a reference to the lead character in Sex in the City for you guys who poo-pooed the series’ social significance.) Unbidden came these testimonials of women who went shopping for a new car or other large purchase with their father/husband/boyfriend, made it clear that the woman is the customer, and yet all the customer service people directed their attention to the man. In fact, one of the storyteller was the father, who notes that his daughter is the car nut and all he knows how to do is open the hood and sigh when something’s not working. To a person, the purchase was not made.

There was a Snicker’s ad in the UK that got axed as potentially homophobic. I can only imagine some people crying out, “it’s only an advert,” and that people are being “politically correct” or “don’t have a sense of humor” or “how to you even know thee protagonist is supposed to be gay?” Well, I remember the Snickers Super Bowl ad where they toy with a “Brokeback moment”, so I tend to be suspicious. The ad did bother me, especially the tagline, “get some nuts.”

Disney is working on its first black princess. Imagine my ambivalence about THAT. But the vitriol that shows up in the comments, especially those of the “get over it, it’s only a cartoon” variety, as though images don’t matter I found profoundly disturbing and annoying.

I guess what I wish for is that people try to see things from a perspective that’s not their own.
***
Someone on a Methodist listserv wrote this: “I get so much junk email from so-called ‘friends’ that I am a frequent user of snopes.com and truthorfiction.com. Unfortunately, when I confront these ‘friends’ with what I found out about the emails they have forwarded me, they act as if I have insulted their religion. Which
makes sense, because I have. The emails that they forward have become their religion.
Junk email has replaced whispering as the means of spreading false rumors. It is time for the Church to take a stand against this sort of thing. Sermon anyone?”
***
From my spam e-mail folder: “New reports show men are sex hungry”.
21

ROG

Three Questions: the Veep, et al.

OK, sports fans.

1. Who does Obama pick to be his Vice-Presidential running mate?
I say NOT Hillary, because of Bill.
Not another woman, because it would be an insult to Hillary. Besides which, he couldn’t pick the Arizona governor because, as Mo Rocca noted, it sounds funny: “Obama-Napolitano sounds too much like a coffee drink.”
Not Bill Richardson, because I don’t think having a black and Hispanic on the same ticket will play.
Which leaves us with, as Cokie Roberts said on ABC This Week last week, “some boring white guy.”
While I think a governor is desirable, I’m not feeling Tim Kaine of Virginia. Nobody knows who he is. A more likely candidate would be Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania.
Ultimately, though, he may pick someone like Senator Joe Biden or Jack Reed, whose been involved in foreign policy issues for many years. Can Evan Bayh help Obama win Indiana?

2. Who does John McCain pick to be his Vice-Presidential running mate?
The idle speculation about someone in the Bush White House (Rob Portman, Condi Rice) I think is crazy.
He too needs a governor or former governor.
Lots of folks are hot on Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty, but I found him unimpressive on a Sunday morning talk show; still, McCain likes him personally.. Others have suggested Mark Sanford (South Carolina), Sarah Palin of Alaska and the far too tanned Charlie Crist of Florida, among many others. Don’t discounts former governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, whose Michigan roots may help, even with that Mormon thing.

3. What traditional red state might turn blue, or vice versa?
My guess is Georgia, and there’s only one reason: Bob Barr, a native son running as the Libertarian. If he gets 5 or 6% of the vote, it’ll come out of the McCain column, and if the black voters come out, Obama could win. Much less likely: Alaska, where Barr should also do well, and disgust with an indicated Republican senator, Ted Stevens, may dampen the GOP turnout.

Snake in the Garden

Back in the early days of this blog, before I knew any better, I would write a “state of the blog” piece every month, on the first of the month. Now that I’m a more “mature” blogger, I tend to do this only on the anniversary of the blog, which is May 2. So consider this a (temporary) reversion to form.

There was a point in June when I seriously considered quitting doing the blog. not only were my numbers down, I was having this dispute with this other blogger that I didn’t understand over things on that person’s blog,

But then I started having dreams. Vivid dreams. Disturbing dreams. Dreams that pointed out my mortality to a degree that would wake me up and not allow me back to sleep. At the same time, it seemed to help answer unresolved questions that were lurking just beyond my conscious awareness. Sometimes, essays would come nearly fully formed. A couple became blog posts.

Another factor mitigating in favor of continuing – or maybe it’s the same factor – is that I realize I have more to say, whether anyone’s reading it or not. And occasionally, when someone like Shirlee Taylor Haizlip or Glenn Weiser, who thanked me for this piece (and in return, I corrected the misspelling of his name), write, it makes it worthwhile. As did a 13-year-old girl writing in response to my piece on my vitiligo.

I got a Twitter account on July 11. That would be July 11, 2007, made one post, then not again until this past week, when I wrote: “Saw a piece on ABC News about how some companies such as Comcast, JetBlue and Dell track Twitter for customer complaints. Very cool indeed.” So, I’m trying it on for size. Don’t want to have a “300 days ago” notation on it, so I’ll see.

I also finally added SamuraiFrog to my links. One of the curses of being in a cubicle is that pretty much anyone can see your computer, and sometimes, when I’m checking websites at lunch time, there are materials that don’t disturb me but probably would disturb others. So I just check him at home, where my wife can be disturbed instead.

Coming up this month: four or five posts that I started weeks or months ago that I never finished – it’ll be cathartic, at least for me; a feature I was doing regularly, but somehow dropped; on August 28, my annual FantaCo publication piece, already written in my head, but alas, not electronically; plus all the usual nonsense (yikes, I have to take more pictures of Lydia).
***
Me and Johnny B.

You are an Airbender!

The Sky Bison taught the first airbenders how to bend the air around them. While they cannot fly, airbenders can soar in the air for long distances by using a glider. Most important to airbenders is the concept of non-aggression. When they fight, they do not attack but defend themselves through circular movements that confuse their opponents.

Which Element do you Bend?

(Photo by Mary Hoffman, July 2008.)
ROG