Monday, April 27, 2009

Stuff I've Been Reading: All The Time Between Then and Now

I haven't done a Stuff I've Been Reading since December, when I covered what I'd read in August-->October. I'm no Nick Hornby, that's for sure! So this time it'll be:

November
December
January
February
March
Some of April
Oh boy!

If you've ever felt jealous of how much I read, this six-month period will quell your envy.

Howevs, it's occurred to me that since I read a ton of stuff online in addition to about 20 magazines cover-to-cover every month, it's not that I don't read enough, it's that I don't read enough books.



Probs I'm basically illiterate at this point. Where do I begin? I hope at least 2-3 people will read this blog post and maybe if just one comments I will feel good about life & literature. Hey have you seen Autostraddle? It's so cool! We had a team meeting on Sunday. It was awesome. Right now actually I'm reading Keeping You a Secret for a feature Green & I are working on about YA novels for lesbians.

Everyone's talking about this book Wetlands . It reminds me of how people talked about 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed , which was about a teenaged girl in Europe who has a lot of "erotic adventures." Wetlands is also the work of an anonymous European girl who talks explicitly about sex, but more explicitly about her bodily fluids, and my number one feeling Sam Anderson is leading a book club on the topic over at New York Mag . In fact Sam says you can participate without having read the book. Here's a slice:

"For those who have managed to steer clear of the hype, Wetlands is an international bazillion-seller about an 18-year-old girl named Helen who is obsessed, above all, with her sexuality and bodily fluids. It's hard to describe the full mind-blowing extent of its raunchiness: Helen puts, among many other things, dirty barbecue tongs, avocado pits, and a hard-boiled egg in her vagina; she leaves a used homemade tampon in an elevator; and once a week she gets her entire body shaved, with a straight razor, by a total stranger she met at a fruit cart."


Have you had your period? Had an orgasm? Experienced female ejaculation? Urinated? Wouldn't it be funny if I suddenly started talking about that stuff on here? Maybe? Anyhow participate!

Speaking of my book club, um, I will update you soon. Brooklyn Boy will be the first to know. Autumn & Brooklyn Boy have both already gotten the book I want to do (Reborn) so we will definitely do it. Possibly looking at a late May deadline.


In March, Tao Lin mailed me some books: eee eee eee (short stories), you are a little bit happier than i am (poems), and bed (novel) and Ellen Kennedy's sometimes my heart pushes my ribs . Before I got these books I liked the idea of Tao Lin and even said to facebook that I wanted to read all of Tao Lin's books but I hadn't made any steps towards doing so besides putting "eee eee eee" on my amazon wishlist which my Mother ignored and probably thought "what a strange name for a book, what is wrong with my daughter" which is actually a thought she has all the time so it's not a big deal. I saved the package in case I can sell it on ebay one day, thought 'i bet everyone does this when tao lin sends them packages' and then i 'felt like everyone else' and then I sat on my bed and stared at my hands until I fell asleep.

The voice got into my head and I felt I 'identified' with the 'loneliness and isolation,' also that they're inventing a 'new literary style' as the critics have said. Tao Lin feels very honest, but sometimes when you read stuff about him it's almost like he's daring you to dislike him. Also he googles himself all the time so he will read this. It's like when I said I stole prescription medication from my mother's medicine cabinet and she called me that very afternoon. I was kidding obvs/maybe.

Ellen Kennedy feels like Tao Lin, but also in a way that is not exactly like Tao Lin, but like the IRL acting out of "Better Together - Customers Also Purchased." After reading Tao Lin & Ellen Kennedy's poetry I felt like all my 'thoughts & feelings' were very important, including my g-chats and my meals.

Before I got these books from Tao Lin I was reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. So I have about 25% of this book left to go. So far there has been a mute who I am pretty sure is gay. Actually I think they're all gay, and I am progressively confused when various characters turn out NOT to be gay.

Before starting The Heart is a Lonely Hunter I read On the Road: The Original Scroll by Jack Keroauc, which Crystal gave me for my birthday because I love her. Or because she loves me ... you decide.

On the Road TOS has about 100 pages of critical essays in the front. Because I'm obsessive about books like that (I don' t think you can say you've read a book when you've actually only read part of the book) I had to read all of them before I started but once I got past that stuff I was on a roll.

The first time I read this book I was 12, it was confusing, I remember only the part when he had sex with a Mexican girl and said he loved love and I thought one day I'd like someone to love me like that.

I read OTR again at 18. I was depressed cause the boy I was dating wanted to date someone else, and my BFF Ryan told me I was wasting valuable brainpower on such things and instead should be focusing on enlightenment. I could begin my journey, he said, by reading On the Road.

So I walked to the Border's Bookstore from our apartment and bought it and read it and Ryan was right, I felt better right away and remembered that the stupid boy would never understand me anyway because he only read Tom Clancy books and had no sense of "IT."

It's one of the only books I've read more than once. The voice gets in your head. The original scroll is even better, and it has more gay raunch in it, and you feel crazy too, but in a good way. This time I read it as a Sancho story. I read it knowing Neal was manic, and wondering if he would've been better off on Depakote, wondering about the children and the wives and if they'd put up with that now, and then that made me think about how people like Neal would be on Depakote now, which is better for his potential wives and neglected children and other discarded children but not as good for literature, and how that's fucked up, and I couldn't really reach a definitive conclusion on that.

I don't know if other people spend time thinking about these kinds of things.


Before that I read AM Homes' This Book Will Save Your Life , which a. told me to read and I didn't really want to 'cause C. said she wasn't that into it, although I love AM Homes (fun fact: she wrote for the l word before it started to suck). At first I was bored like "oh, it's another book about a rich guy who suddenly has an epiphany etc etc --" you know like American Beauty and Fight Club.

But after the first 50 pages or so I just got into it. Like I started to like the guy in a real way, and care and turn the pages in excitement. I can't explain it really, it just became awfully lovely by the end. I read it on my way to Michigan and back on the airplane and stuff. The voice was good, 'cause it made me write good, like the best voices will do for you.

Just like Music for Torching, could've done for a better ending. But it's a good book, read it!

I also read Two or Three Things I Know For Sure by Dorothy Allison, which my brother gave me for Hannukah (I asked for it). It was short and full of goodness. Dorothy Allison is a very magical writer and I love everything she's ever written. Interesting w/r/t sexuality & storytelling & "honesty," three of my favorite topics.

Then Cool for You by Eileen Myles, 'cause she's my favorite poet and I think I ordered it off Amazon 'cause I needed to hear one of my favorite writers talk to me again. It was cool to read two tough lesbians back to back, with all their hard experience and coarse shell surrounding poems & near-insanities. Cool for You has a really embarrassing book cover so I had to hold it special on the subway so no-one would see. I quoted Cool for You when I wrote that letter for my Dad in December. About how not all of us are put here to work.

Before that I read The Best Nonrequired Reading of 2007 , edited by Dave Eggers. Again as per ushe I forced myself to read the entire anthology, and this was generally a rewarding experience. I felt smarter afterwards, and had read a lot of stuff about the Middle East.

Before that An Invisible Sign of my Own by Aimee Bender, which I picked up on a reader recommendation for inspirational books I could read during National Novel Writing Month (I wrote over 30K words, but as publishing began to collapse, I began losing steam on it) and though I did like the voice in a Lorrie-Mooreish way ... it seemed sort of small. Like I don't think it grasped anything larger outside itself. I liked it, I did, and I would recommend it to me too, but I've been thinking a lot about timelessness of literature -- like what of all this will last? What's been cast to the wayside from prior generations?

I don't know if other people think about those kinds of things.

34 comments:

MoonKiller said...

I've been a complete shit lately with books. I've got about 10 books that i haven't finished, i keep starting one and then just rereading Killing Yourself to Live (Mr Klosterman) or rereading On The Road.

I'm supposed to be writing an essay on Jane Eyre right now, by right now I mean 'it's over a month late and i still ca't birng myself to do it', but I haven't even read it yet cause every time I try to it makes me want to tear my eyes out and play ping pong with them.

It's coming up to my annual big book buy but i've bought nearly every book I want to buy in last years annual big book buy that actually lasted over a couple of months and has left me with no money. But anyway, the point of this paragraph was Dave Eggers: has one read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius? It's had fairly mixed reviews so I don't know whether or not to read it.

On a scale of one to ten this comment is complete and utter nonsense, ramblings, whatevs. Anyway, I thoroughly adore your 'Stuff I've Been Reading' posts much like I adore the smell of new books.

MoonKiller said...

oh the typos.
i'm not even drunk.

riese said...

Yay! I got a comment! You are the master of re-reading,didn't you read Fight Club 10 times.

I had to read Jane Eyre in three days for a women in lit class I added a few days late into the semester, I felt like I was sticking my head into a snowdrift.

I read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius right when it came out,before the hype -- 'cause it was about a dude who'd lost his parents and had a yonger brother and also was almost on The Real World, I had a friend who read it, knew it'd be up my alley, and recommended it to me. And I loved it. La-la-la- loved it. I think it's a great book. I think you'd like it and should read it!

Thank you for adoring my Stuff I've Been Reading!

MoonKiller said...

I've read Fight Club a few times, watched the film every night for about half a year though.

Jane Eyre (the first couple of pages I've actually read, anyway) is probably the most boring book I've ever (partly) read.

I shall invest in it, maybe I could get it for 1p, Jane Eyre cost me 1p, which is probably how much it is actually worth.

I think maybe half the books I've bought in the past two years are from some sort of recommendation of yours aha. and the other half are recommendations from the guy in Border's who is the spitting image of Robert Smith from The Cure.

And you are so very welcome.

bee said...

i would just like to start this out by saying that i feel much better in general for having more of your words on my computer screen (it feels like it has been a while...)
1. carson mccullers is one of my favorite authors of all time and heart is one of my favorite books, but i have never finished it. i'm just worried that if i read the end i'm going to get upset or disappointed by something and i don't want to ruin the relationship i have with it. wow that sounds like a dysfunctional statement.
2. hurry up on the susan sontag because it's going to make you feel inadequate and excited and amazed and inspired, etc and i want to hear what you have to say about it

mimi said...

i wish i got on the road. i feel like i would be a better person if i could appreciate it. but the best i could ever do was lay in bed in san francisco and read ginsberg's and cassady's letters. whenever i read on the road i just end up thinking about their wives and girlfriends and mothers and all the shit they went through for a mediocre artistic movement.

mon said...

yes!! i think a lot about what makes literature (and music, probably more) stand the test of time, whether it'll number in the literary canon. and there are so many things i don't know which would make a difference, like, were books that are great classics now bestsellers in their time? or did it come down to critical reception? because these days those two factors are not necessarily compatible, hello twilight. i shudder to think that that or like the da vinci code would be remembered.

p.s. hi, i like your blog a lot, i do a happy dance in my head when you update. also, also, love what you guys are doing with autostraddle, it makes me feel somewhat in-the-know.

jess said...

this graphic novel is fantastic and right up your alley, riese: The Alcohoic by Jonathan Ames

e. c. said...

I finally read No One Belongs Here More Than You and thought it was beautiful (especially the story about Pip..) though I'm not sure I understood a single word of it.

Also I'm going out on a limb and reading this book my friend lent me called Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. It's supposed to be one of those life changing books but so far, nothing.

Meghan said...

I felt the same way about This Book Will Save Your Life. I became very involved and wanted to read read read to find out what would happen. Even when I think there are various flaws with a book, I really value this effect because not many books do this to me any more (c.f. I seem to remember feeling it a lot more as a child). I want to call books that do this to me 'page-turners' even though they are never the books that reviewers call 'page-turners.'

I read Wetlands, it made me feel physically uncomfortable with my fluids and orifices and simultaneously more accepting of them. Weird effect. I didn't think it was very well written (translation of course, so who knows) and the plot/characterization was relatively thin. Like I was not interested and skimmed. I actually don't know how I 'feel' about the book in the end.

I read Mary Gaitskill's new stories, some of which I loved. Especially the last (title) one, "Don't Cry." After that I re-read Veronica. Right now I'm reading the Dune series again, for fun, and I just got Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which is kind of kickass. Oh, also, also, Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson which I loved.

I heart Stuff I've Been Reading, like I'm going to find some Kerouac and look up this Dorothy Allison book which I've never heard of and so on. Sometimes I feel like reading is an alternate existence, a universe that contains only me, and I value that feeling but I also love it when other people show up in that universe, it's like, hey, you're here too, you speak the language and everything, that is exciting.

autumn m said...

my name was mentioned in this post. you know that??
i did buy that book. i look at it everyday and think about how i should probably read it. but then i walk away. for reasons.
ive never heard of any of these books. but i bet they rock. i should buy them all. but..... i dont.
i havent been reading as much lately. i miss normalcy...

elliB said...

I have a list of queer 'ya' novels I've wanted to buy for a bit now (inc. Wetlands) but have kinda been embarrassed about. I'm interested in what you thought about Keeping You A Secret- I want to chuck it in the cart and buy the lot.

caitlinmae said...

I had several false starts to On the Road in high school. I should have known that my college was a fit, because it was on that trip that I finally devoured the book, in between poughkeepsie, syracuse and ithaca.
But it got under my skin... in ways i'm just realizing now.
Let's bookclub soon yo! my commute just doubled in length so I've had beautiful opportunities to digest books- most enjoyably Anagrams, In the Cut, You Shall Know Our Velocity, and currently The Ice Storm. I'm raiding friends' bookshelves, but I plan on spending my entire $75 tax refund on books, or film festivals.
What's good and gay for the YA crowd?

Bren said...

Is Chuck Palahniuk any good/worth reading?

His name has come up a few times in various ways in my life recently and I’m intrigued. In fact I read an interesting interview with him this weekend. But I have this thing/mental disorder where I resist buying books by super famous people. I feel like they already have enough readers and I should spread the love around to lesser known authors.

I’m the same way with music. If a radio station plays the same song over and over and over because people love it I will soon hate the song and then the whole band and ban them from my music library indefinitely.

caitlinmae said...

@Bren-
I feel like Chuck Palahniuk is to a certain taste. I devoured everything he wrote within a few years, rabid for any new work, and then after having some space from him, realized his particular cadence no longer struck me as edgy and absurd. It almost seemed like he was having a pissing contest with his own literary stylings- trying to out chuck chuck.
But when i was reading everything, my favorite was Invisible Monsters.

The Brooklyn Boy said...

Riese - Hi.

I enjoy that you mostly read things by people I'm not familiar with.

I find it motivating.

Rumors of my purchase have been greatly exaggerated...

But I have time now!

Bren - Yes. Dip your toe in; Fight Club is probably the easiest due to familiarity. Explore from there. Caitlinmae makes a pretty fair point, though being a boy, I dig Chuck out-Chucking Chuck. Invisible Monsters was also my favorite for a long time, though Choke's hold (get it? I'm funny sometimes ...) has grown on me.

Also, I have a fake severed leg he autographed at a book signing. He gave it to me for asking a question that he also answered -- verbatim -- in this month's Playboy Interview. He is an interesting person.

Bren said...

Brooklyn Boy - That’s so cool! Which question was it?

That was a good interview I thought. He didn’t come off as a huge asshole which is how I pictured him in my mind.

caitlinmae said...

@Brooklyn Boy-
was this at the Strand reading a few years ago? Where he did the short story about the strippers with serious birth defects? In which case, HI i was there, an adorable undergrad spending her first summer in the city. I still have the roses he passed out.
if not, you're WAY cooler than i am. Sweet prize from Chuck.

The Brooklyn Boy said...

Bren - Right? I was like, 'Ooh! Ooh! I've retold this to people already, and here's proof I'm not a crazy!'

The one about people telling him crazy stories that launched into the anecdote about the orgasming Brownies.

I quite enjoyed it -- I subscribe to that mag for the interviews and fiction. (Proof: I never would have recommended Fareed Zakaria's upcoming book to my old man or known about Gary Kasparov's role in the current Russian political climate.) I'd previously seen Chuck interviewed in print, and was thusly looking forward to the merger.

caitlinmae - A few years back, yes, but at the Strand, no. It was at UNC, the second time he visited campus during my time there, touring for "Haunted." He read "Guts" about the pool masturbation ... incident, and someone fainted. The scene played out exactly as described in Playboy.

Since acquiring it, I always leave the leg poking out from underneath my bed because it entertains me to watch reactions the first time people come into the room. The best is when it takes repeated entry. Then they really bug.

Also, I do what I can. And you can always say hi another time. I'm sure yer still adorable ;)

Bren said...

Brooklyn Boy - They do have good interviews…not that they compare to what they have going on over at autostraddle.com, but still...pretty good. I have gained and lost respect for many a person through those interviews.

Have you noticed a shift in the magazine over the last few months? It’s not really an ideological change. It’s more of a change in tone - especially in some of the monthly columns. It seems a little more flippant and youthful…less serious. I’m wonder if the sons are taking more of an active role.

Natazzz said...

There can never be enoug blog posts about "stuff I've been reading"...

Vikki said...

I love Dorothy Allison and Two or Three Things is one of my favorites.

eric mathew said...

are you going to the indigo girls in central park? if not... i'll cover it for you.

xoxo

Anonymous said...

awesome list...once i get my paycheck, i'm going to the bookstore and it's on!

ps i'm so thankful for you introducing everyone to these contemporary, kickass female authors. the world could certainly use more powerful women voices.

-katie

The Brooklyn Boy said...

Bren - Yeah, def. And I'll second you re: Autostraddle. I enjoy that part of the WebberNets.

The shift you speak of has been noticed ... also seems like the pictorials are becoming less of a focus (maybe they can't pay like they used to?)

a. said...

Success!

I'm sure I have more to add but it's 2:30 in the morning, and I should probably sleep. There are also a lot of feelings on this page that I just can not compete with.

Glad you enjoyed the book.

DH said...

I'm glad you mentioned that On The Road TOS has more gay raunch in it. I thought it did, but then I also considered that I may in fact be getting a little more crazy each time I read it and have more or less stopped trusting my observations or instincts. I love the way that book makes me shake, it's like no other. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it's even better than Less Than Zero. And 85% of Shantaram. You've heard of Shantaram, right? I think you own it.

I'm loving the Chuck Palahniuk conversation going on. Bren, I recommend Chuck as well. I think Caitlinmae is spot on about Chuck out-Chucking Chuck, but similar to TBB, I dig that. Although I'm not a boy. Invisible Monsters is also my favourite novel of his. Choke at close second.

The Brooklyn Boy said...

Crystal - I should clarify: I didn't meant to insinuate girls couldn't dig it; I just personally know many boys around my age to have read Chuck, and I can't think of a single (straight?) one who's been turned off or gotten bored with him.

DH said...

The Brooklyn Boy - I should clarify: I knew what you meant about being a boy, I was just kidding ;)

riese said...

One thing I love about wordpress is that I can individually respond to thingssss. okay here's part A!

moonkiller It picks up around page 300, if I remember correctly. I'm glad you read the books I reccommend then I feel like I am making the world a better place, one welsh girl at a time.

bee: Crystal does the same thing. She always recommends books to me and then admits she never read the end. I actually sometimes do that with magazine articles for no reason, I don't know, I get to the last two paragraphs and just stop, it's an instinct I have to fight. I recommended an article once to everyone and then my friend told me she didnt like the end and i was like oh urm never read the end.

Rachel: there was something very misoginystic about it that i noticed this time, but i dunno what to do with that -- it was the times, and it was proggressive in and of itself at the time that these guys were even willing to see women as independent creatures, as beautiful humans who had all kinds of dimensions, but likewise sometimes treated them like objects of sexual lust -- but also even being able to do that at that time was kinda progressive, as opposed to what they were supposed to do which was see them as potential wives and mothers who lost their appeal when no longer virginal. if that makes sense.

mon: Yay! I also think the DaVinci Code will probs fade into obsolesence, as will Twighlight. It seems genre fiction rarely stands the test of time ... and I wonder what makes things last, i think it has something to do with capturing the historical moment/mood of a generation, being the "voice of a new generation" or movement of some kind, and a big scope that takes 500 pages to talk about everyone's family histroy. Like will Lorrie Moore last? She's amazing, perfect I would say, but I wonder if she'll be tought in books in the same way that like "The Corrections" and "Middlesex" probs will be.

jessica: Ooo i read his book of essays. I tried to get Lozo to read it but I don't know if I succeeded.

saint modesto: I read the story about Pip in the new yorker and was totally enchanted & drawn in by it. I re-read it in No One Belongs here More than you and I think I re-read it again in another anthology. It's very beautiful and perfect.

Everyone's told me to read Ishmael too. I dunno.

Meghan: Yeah everything I've read about Wetlands has confused me but I'm going to read it 'cause I told Sam Anderson I would read it, I will probably skim it and read it out loud to Alex to gross her out, is my theory.

Mary Gaitskill hasn't arrived in my mailbox yet. One of the stories I've read -- The New Yorker published one -- but I can't wait. It's almost like I am afraid that if I get it I will eat the whole thing at once. Then I might have to re-read Veronica again. I've been re-reading Beacause They Wanted To in pieces, 'cause I realized natalie had it and so I could, cuz my copy has disappeared. I wish she cold write and write forever.

This made me just about as happy as anything I read all day: "Sometimes I feel like reading is an alternate existence, a universe that contains only me, and I value that feeling but I also love it when other people show up in that universe, it's like, hey, you're here too, you speak the language and everything, that is exciting."


autumn m: I did know that your name was mentioned in this post because I put it there.
Normalcy is dull, weirdos 4-ever! You will be motivated to read the book when I start yelling at everyone to read it. That might happen in 4-6 weeks or so.


elliB: Oooo you'll find out all about it on friday/saturday or whenever we get it together. I read it in one day. Now I'm reading something similar but not as good. I'm going to keep that a secret.

caitlinmae: Yeah I feel like it's one of those books that sticks to your ribs even if you don't realize it at the time, you know? I just re-read Anagrams, maybe I mentioned that. I heart The Ice Storm, it also stuck to my ribs. We will book club soon. I'll do it w/AS too maybe. I've read a lot this week bc I've had to go to MIdtown East every day (an hour there and an hour back) which is funny, like, HOW much more I read now.

As for what's good & gay for the YAs ... you'll have to wait for the article!

Bren: Moonkiller likes CP and I like Moonkiller. All I've read was Choke. I liked it, I think, but also I have a bizarre fascination with historical anachronism and villages and such? But I remember Choke really vividly, so it must've stuck to me somehow. I'm the same way about popular authors -- but actually only popular authors who've sold film rights. There's not much money in novel-writing unless you sell film rights. He sold lots of film rights and should be okay, so I recommend the lie-bah-rare-eeeee. That's how I pronounced it when I was a kid.

OK! I am going to post this comment response and then I am going to respond to the intriguing conversation and comments that follow a little later/tomorrow/later. Whazoo!

riese said...

caitlinmae That is a really good way to describe Chuckie P. Well done.

the brooklyn boy: yes, but you will be and that excites me! I'll let you know when I have a chance to crack in to mine, as self-created rumors about my dedicaion to the cause of handling this in a reasonable time period have been greatly exaggerated.

(skipping some where you are talking to each other, which I love!!) for reals!

Natazzz: Thank you that makes me feel good, for real, thank you.

Vikki: I've already quoted it so much. Bastard out of Carolina is on my top ten ever. She's reliably awesome I Find.

Eric mathew: Once again eric mathew comes in, goes totally off topic, and then makes a fey gay joke. Eric Mathew you are amazing and special. You cover me, you be my blanket. I don't know anything about this concert.

katie: Yeay! Go bookstores and people with actual paychecks! Rock on! And yes I will continue to do what I can to promote kickass contemproary female authors and i hope to one day maybe even be one. fingers crossed. it's tough 'cause men so rarely read women-penned books, i think as women we have to read twice as much to compensate. that might be a weird thing to say but i am a weirdo.

a. I am so glad that you can comment that you are glad I enjoyed the book instead of commenting that I need to read the book like i've made great strides.

crystal: well the gay raunch was actually a focal point of the essays in the front of the book. Also Brooke is reading Shantaram right now, which is funny. It's like people keep telling me I need to read it rightnow.

this: I also considered that I may in fact be getting a little more crazy each time I read it and have more or less stopped trusting my observations or instincts. makes perfect sense to me.

DH said...

Oh yeah? Maybe that's another reason why I thought there was gay raunch, because the front of the book told me so. My memory is ace.

I hope you follow Brooke's lead. Just don't tell me how it ends.

Anonymous said...

update: so i went to the lgbt center at ucla for the first time in my life yesterday (for some reason never got around to it before i graduated). i dragged my girlfriend along to a meeting about what to do when the CA supreme court makes its decision on prop 8 (probably not in our favor, probably gonna protest in weho again, le sigh).

ANYWAY (there is a point i promise), i discovered that the ucla lgbt center has within its walls a gay library. that's right...4 walls, floor to ceiling, books that are all gaygaygay...so naturally i got really excited and upon perusing i found acker, allison, williams, wilde, waters (one of my favs), etc etc etc...almost immediately

so now i'm really happy because i can rent a bunch of books for free and do a whole lotta catching up before i decide what to buy for my own shelves. just thought i'd share, figured you'd appreciate the story :)

-katie

Anonymous said...

I read extracts from Wetlands in an interview with the author and it seemed badly written and crude. It got a lot of press attention though, probably because the narrator is female and so mastbatory adventures and so on are going to be more shocking and titlating.