Oh, Snap!

"The truth is that a former colleague accused me of sexual harassment and Penguin terminated my employment." - David Davidar, former president of Penguin Canada, revealing that he did not in fact leave Penguin to pursue writing, as he claimed last week. Read more here.

Sunshine Award

A big thanks to Lisa at bibliophiliac for the sunshine award! Lisa gave this award to 12 book bloggers and states, "What I look for in a blog is a distinct voice, or a distinctive aesthetic or ethos--and that voice or aesthetic doesn't necessarily have to match mine.  I continue to find interesting and unique voices as I explore the bookish blogosphere, and the twelve blogs above are just a few I have stumbled on in recent weeks."

Thanks again, Lisa! What a great way to start my week! 

A Few Things I'm Excited About

1. I know I've mentioned it before but I can not WAIT for The Night Bookmobile to be published in book form. It was a serialized graphic novel that was in the Guardian, but as of September 1st I'll be able to read the whole thing in a book. Did I mention it's by the one-and-only Audrey Niffenegger?

2. NPR Books Podcasts: This week I discovered that you can subscribe to the NPR book reviews and author interviews - All Things Considered - and upload them to your iPod. I've always kind of turned on NPR and hoped I would stumble across it, which didn't always work so well. Subcription? Yes please!


3. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. I've read a couple of reviews here and there and it sounds like this book has the potential to be amazing. I've got to track it down soon!

4. Eclipse on June 30th. I'm sorry I had to say it.

5. The Harry Potter Theme Park that opens this Friday, June 18th. Not that I'm planning to be in Orlando anytime soon, but at least I know I've got the option!

Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Wow. I loved this book. I'm not sure I can even call it a book because it's five chapters and 115 pages but it is considered a book... and I loved it. I love it in that weird way that I love Lolita. But actually, I don't love it the same way I love Lolita. I suppose I am ashamed to love it in the way I am ashamed to love Lolita. Because it's great, but has a disturbing premise.

Ok - enough of my cryptic elusiveness. This novel is about an old man who has never been in love and on his 90th birthday decides the one thing he would like to gift himself is an underage virgin. Said virgin turns out to be 14 and said 90-year-old falls in love with her before he ever makes love to her. Creepy preface, I know (hello comparison to Lolita!) but this mans love for the young girl, who he begins to call Delgadina, prompts him to reconsider and evaluate the conflict of growing old but feeling young, death, love and beauty. Ultimately the old man is forever changed by his love for Delgadina.

But then, I'm not sure if he even loved her at all. I'm not sure if we're meant to believe he did. Maybe he did, or maybe it was just the idea of her. After all, the title of the book is Memories of My Meloncholy Whores and I think thats what this man feel in love with; his memories of this girl. The fact that in his own mind she was whatever he wanted her to be. He romanticized the idea of her and didn't really get to know her at all. Upon the girl's 15th birthday the old man comments, "It troubled me that she was real enough to have birthdays". And later:

"From then on I had her in my memory with so much clarity that I could do what I wanted with her. I changed the color of her eyes according to my state of mind: the color of water when she woke, the color of syrup when she laughed, the color of light when she was annoyed. I dressed her according to the age and condition that suited my changes of mood... Today I know it was not a hallucination but one more miracle of the first love of my life at the age of ninety.

Which of course, lends itself to the idea that the very thought of someone and how you make them out to be in your head can actually become an ideal version of that perons. That maybe you have fallen in love with the idea of someone, or the person that you create them to be, rather than the actual soul behind the pretty face. Again, while the premise itself is a bit disturbing, the ideas and feelings behind this novel are very real and very relatable. In a strange way that I can't describe Marquez invited me into this sick and twisted love story and left me thinking "oh my God... this is soooo fantasic". We are never meant to understand the old man as unbalanced or dangerous - he is simply a man who has never been in love and has found it in this girl.So, I recommend this book to anyone who can get passed the 90-year-old obessed with a 14 year-old girl.

Published by: Vintage

Year of First Edition: 2004

Barbara Kingsolver - Orange Prize Winner

Barbara Kingsolver won the Orange Prize this year for The Lacuna - her first published novel in nine years.

"We chose 'The Lacuna' because it is a book of breathtaking scale and shattering moments of poignancy. We had very different tastes on the panel, but in the end we went for passion, not compromise." -Daisy Goodwin, chair of the judges

Have any of you read this? What did you think?

Greedy for Life

Reading now: Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Today I know I was right, and I know why. The adolescents of my generation, greedy for life, forgot in body and soul about their hopes and dreams until reality taught them that tomorrow was not what they had dreamed, and they discovered nostalgia."

Premio Dardos

"The Premio Dardos is a way to acknowledge the importance of bloggers committed to spreading cultural, ethical, literary and personal values, showing their letters and words." 

Thanks so much to Kate at Kate's Library for giving me this award! I'm really excited about it!

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Let me start off by saying this book is a depressing yet highly realistic view into a tragic love story that viscously and contemptuously destroys almost every character in this novel. I want to say it's more a story about dispair and self-distruction than it is a love story, but it's not; it's both. It's a novel that highlights obsession and tormented love at it's finest.

The main characters of Wuthering Heights are both complex and compelling. Once you think you may have one figured out it becomes apparent that you really don't. Catherine Earnshaw is a crazy, selfish brat who I loved to hate (she is seriously BANANAS) and Heathcliff is a tortured and displaced soul who I hated to love. I would like to believe Heathcliff is misunderstood and deep down has a kind heart, but after finishing the novel it becomes clear he is truly malicious. But I still couldn't hate him. Rather, I felt bad for him. I wanted him to be happy or at least find a sliver of kindness in his body, but it never happened. He was a tortured soul until the end. I also really liked the structure of the novel. Told through Mr. Lockwood's diary as narrated from Nelly, the servant who has witnessed the novel's events unfold - genius.

For me, this was very much a departure from the bittersweet, everything-is-rainbows-and-butterflies type of love story and I liked that. I liked it a lot. It's like when I'm really upset about something and for one whole day I allow myself to be completly useless and embrace my sadness; eat pizza, drink wine, don't work out, watch tv, embrace it. That's what this book was like for me. It was a look into a world where nothing is happy and everyone hates each other and they die miserable.

That being said, those of you who haven't read this probably won't want to. But you should. Really. It's worth it. You can't help but relate to the tortured characters. Even crazy Cathy when she complains, "Oh, I am burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them!"

Publisher: Barnes and Noble Classics

Year of First Edition: 1847