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A couple weeks back, we held an impromptu book club meeting. This was quite a party. So let’s play a little more in that area, with a twist.
For the latest installment in our Friday series, I want to hear you rave. But not long, gushing reviews. Book jacket blurbs. Pretend your favorite author has come to you, arms outstretched, looking for a few kind words. You’ve only got a sentence or two. What would you say?
This Friday Happy Hour has a slightly higher barrier to entry, like the elaborate costume parties held on dates I pretend I’m busy. But I have faith. In case you were book clubbed out last time around, let’s open it up outside the publishing world. Rave about a movie or TV show. A food or restaurant. Or write a blurb about a blog.
Maybe your favorite author (or director, farmer, chef or blogger) will use your pithy praise. You know, sometimes they just make those quotes up.
I am all praise for Vikram Seth. His novel A Suitable Boy was a delight to read and the best accidental find in a library for me. This book is so good, that even though it’s about 1474 pages, I still re-read it almost every summer. One of my most favorite book, I love it!
posted by Humaira on 8-3-2007 at 9:02 am
My quotes to go on book jackets or DVD covers are as follows (apply ellipses where appropriate):
_Everything is Illuminated_ by Jonathan Safran Foer is, quite possibly, the best non-Harry Potter piece of fiction I’ve ever read. It literally had me laughing and crying at the same time!
As for TV, Futurama was an incredibly smart and funny–and incredibly underrated–show. This show, by the creator of the Simpsons, was actually better than the Simpsons in many ways!
If you’re female and in your 20’s (and even a lot of men that age), you have to see (and love) Amelie. It sets the standard for good movies, in my opinion!
Desert Trading Co.’s Pinto Bean Dip is so addictively good that it’s probably actually made from crack. Every bit worth it’s $3.99 price tag!
posted by Cynthia on 8-3-2007 at 9:36 am
“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is hilarious, so insanely funny in fact, that I turn to FX by choice.
posted by natlynn on 8-3-2007 at 11:37 am
The mental_floss books (Condensed Knowledge, Forbidden Knowledge, Scatterbrained, Cocktail Party Cheat Sheets, etc) should replace all current school textbooks. I especially hated studying history when I was in school, but these books retell the stories with such interest and smart humor that I almost wish I had another chance at the final exam.
posted by JHaydon on 8-3-2007 at 12:02 pm
Elizabeth Kostova’s “The Historian” has all the spine-tingling excitement of “The Da Vinci Code” plus an added bonus: The writing is actually palatable from a literary perspective. Indeed, it’s remarkably good.
posted by Allison on 8-3-2007 at 12:09 pm
I just watched the film version of “Everything is Illuminated” - a brilliant piece of cinema that is as hilarious as it is tearjerking. Plus Eugene Hutz from the amazing Gogol Bordello co-stars along Elijah wood(The new GB record “Super Taranta” is also killer, btw…).
posted by Jordan on 8-3-2007 at 12:23 pm
A feast of words is Jane Alison’s forte. In both The Love-Artist and The Marriage of the Sea, she sates the pickiest feaster with sumptuous images before inducing the Roman vomitarium-like purging, necessary to an feast, with the starkest of writing.
posted by Kate on 8-3-2007 at 1:24 pm
Rachel,
I agree with you wholeheartedly. “A Seperate Peace” is the worst book I ever read. I think that any teacher that forces children to read this drivel should be fired immediately, tenured or not.
posted by Nick on 8-3-2007 at 1:42 pm
Nick,
Never mind that in some districts it is required and that even if the teachers hate it (and I wouldn’t teach it in my class), there is very little they can do to have it removed from the required curriculum. In case you haven’t noticed, teachers have very little say in what is taught and the pendulum is only swinging further away from teacher input and choice.
posted by Kate on 8-3-2007 at 5:00 pm
Sorry, I’m late for the party. Any bean dip left? Has anyone heard from n2y2? He always has something interesting to add. I just discovered Roger Crais and his Elvis Cole books. Fun stuff. I get tired reading stuff that is good for me.
And isn’t it a “separate” peace?
posted by JaneB on 8-3-2007 at 5:27 pm
Marilynne Robinson is among the select group of writers (which also includes two others mentioned here, Seth and Foer) who bring me to teeth-gnashing wails of admiration and envy. She may “only” have written two novels so far, but she is still my favorite candidate for Nobel Prize in Literature. Every perfectly chosen word in “Housekeeping” and “Gideon” is worth shelves full of works by most other writers.
posted by Rosemary on 8-3-2007 at 6:08 pm
Correction: with the lame excuse that it is two in the morning and I am wrecked, Robinson’s second novel is called “Gilead,” not “Gideon.” And that should be “the” Nobel Prize. Sorry!
posted by Rosemary on 8-3-2007 at 6:14 pm
The most imaginative, creative, funny and inspiring author that I have ever encountered is Jasper Fforde. He has two different series - one is about a fiction detective named Thursday Next. She actually goes into books to solve mysteries. In her world, they have home cloning kits for pet dodos. The other series is about detectives Jack Spratt and Mary Mary. Their first nursery crime scene is the murder of Humpty Dumpty (The Big Over Easy). It is agony waiting for his next book.
posted by Melissa on 8-3-2007 at 10:30 pm
OK, Jason…I’ll take you up on a cool movie suggestion, should some of our late partyers still linger.
Just watched “District B13″, a French film set in the near Orwellian future where a partition of Paris is cordoned off, and Escape From New York themes are present. This great gem features parkour chases, visually stimulating characters, souped up race cares, all kinds of machine gun tomfoolery, and a nice plot you can kinda follow.
I recommend this flick for not only the heart-stopping Parkour, but also the fight sequences that hearken back to the days when Jackie Chan was cool.
Great Saturday night flick, if you can find it.
posted by Johnny Cat on 8-3-2007 at 11:59 pm
The old Twilight Zone episodes; they’re on DVD in several volumes..never fail to entertain
posted by bones on 8-6-2007 at 12:17 pm