Do you guys have recommendations of books that feature multiple teenage girl characters who are all pretty interesting? Stuff I might not have heard of. I’ve been thinking a lot about female friendship in the wake of Frances Ha and am curious about looking at a few things.
Grazie!
bacarat replied to your post: alwaysalreadyangry replied to your post: top 5…
I picked up Revolutionary Road right before the film came out, like, really, how tragic can this little suburban thing be. AND IT WAS. SO MUCH. ATGiB forever and ever.
I saw RR before reading it (I do this all the time, because I am a blasphemer apparently) and was not into the movie, but read the book because I’d heard how good it was, and GOD FUCKING DAMN, it did not disappoint. It was one of those things where it was just so exquisitely perfect, as a work of art, that I didn’t find it as depressing as I necessarily should have because I was just basking in the prose. Plus I really like people fighting in fiction? I mean in a realistic way like that, because in my family nobody fought about anything real ever, which is fucked up and really bad! For everyone! WASPs, man.
I was in a bookstore with a friend this weekend and we saw a copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and she said she’d never read it despite her mom telling her to repeatedly, and I totally freaked out and told her “THAT BOOK TAUGHT ME HOW TO BE A PERSON,” which is sadly not an exaggeration.
alwaysalreadyangry replied to your post: top 5 funny books
hahhaaa, okay. top 5 tragic novels, then?? this reminds me that there was a girl in my fiction class last term who didn’t “find books funny”. like, she didn’t understand how they could be funny.
Hahaha oh, I know books can be funny, I just… never read them…? Apparently. (I would totally do better with movies, though even there my bias is strongly to the tragic side of things.)
Okay, TRAGIC BOOKS:
Runner-up: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which is not on the whole a tragedy, but which has got easily one of the most tragic moments I can think of in anything, which is, of course - SPOILER! - Francie’s father dying on their stoop. I read the book when I was thirteen and had to put it down at that point because I was crying so hard, and I never cry about anything because I am a robot, so. That was pretty traumatic.
1. Favorite childhood book: Gosh, this is hard! Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and The Golden Compass, probably. The childhood book I still read regularly is Fire & Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones, though I read it for the first time at around 13.
11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone? I don’t know that I really have a “comfort zone,” per se. I read a lot of different kinds of books. The one thing I really wish I did more was read more international literature, which I am not great about - I tend to read a lot of British Isles stuff, with some American books thrown in, although some of my favorite books are things I read in translation (or in French, which is also something I need to get back to speed on - I am a total nut for French literature, UNLIKE YOURSELF, heh).
12. What is your reading comfort zone? Insofar as I have one: English & Irish literature, typically more on the literary fiction end of the spectrum, with a soft spot for the 19th century and certain pockets of the 20th century.
32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you chose? Well, I can read French quite well but haven’t been doing it recently, so really: French, fluently. And, secondarily, Spanish, primarily for Bolaño and Paz and Neruda.
39. Favourite fictional villain? GILBERT OSMOND. I will never be as frightened of any character as I am of Gilbert Osmond. I bow down to Henry James’ genius in creating him. I also have a soft spot for Mrs. Coulter.
14. Favorite place to read: I don’t know that I really have one! I will read anywhere, anytime. I like reading outside on vacation, and I used to sit in the cafe in the bookstore in Oxford and read all afternoon.
15. What is your policy on book lending? ANYTHING AT ANY TIME. So long as people give them back. I have a million books, so it feels appropriate to me to make more use of them out of just me reading something once or twice and mostly not touching it. (Possible exception for my Victorian novels that are marked up to the point of insanity, and that I will be using a lot in future for academic purposes, and really cannot live without.)
23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did): Mystery novels. I love me a good mystery novel, but it’s an effort to find the really good ones (and I hate the bad ones), so I rarely do. But then I get totally into them when I do make the effort.
The Basement Stacks (by Wary Meyers)
I think I just saw my future flash before my eyes.
(Source: from89, via cucumberbatchin)
As Valentine’s Day approaches, may we suggest some Drop Caps for that special someone in your life?
Now THIS is a Valentine’s Day I can get behind.
