There Isn't A Word For Everything

Reading now: The History of Love: A Novel by Nicole Krauss

"Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering. When they were ten he asked her to marry him. When they were eleven he kissed her for the first time. When they were thirteen they got into a fight and for three weeks they didn't talk. When they were fifteen she showed him the scar on her left breast. Their love was a secret they told no one. He promised her he would never love another girl as long as he lived. What if I die? she asked. Even then, he said. For her sixteenth birthday he gave her an English dictionary and together they learned the words. What's this? he'd ask, tracing his finger around her ankle, and she'd look it up. And this? he'd ask, kissing her elbow. Elbow! What kind of word is that? and then he'd lick it, making her giggle. What about this? he asked, touching the soft skin behind her ear. I don't know, she said, turning off the flashlight and rolling over, with a sigh, onto her back. When they were seventeen they made love for the first time, on a bed of straw in a shed. Later - when things happened that they could never have imagined - she wrote him a letter that said: When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?

All These New Platforms - I Can't Keep Up!

"Publishing is turning into a high-speed spectator sport, and the major houses (let alone the small ones) are really poorly resourced to fight fires on all fronts and innovate at the same time." - Peter Collingridge

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

I think I would have liked this book more if I read it when I was 10. The novel started off strong but as I kept reading the story became very repetitive and kept rehashing the same morals and ideas. Not to mention the simplistic prose lent little to the story - maybe a result of the translation from Portuguese to English.


I couldn't help but think that the entire story would function better as a bedtime story than it does as a book written for adults.

The World's Greatest Lie

Reading now: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

'What's the world's greatest lie?' The boy asked, completely surprised.

'It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie.'

Barnes and Noble nook Commercial

I've got mixed feelings about e-readers. I've always been an I-want-to-touch, hold, read, and-love-tangible-books type of girl. And then I went and swooned over the iPad the first time I saw it but told myself it was ok - I didn't like it because it was an e-reader, I liked it because it was so much more than that. (Not to mention it's like a great big version of my beloved iPhone and a smaller version of my even more beloved MacBook.) So, the universe was still intact; I didn't like nor want an e-reader (because an iPad isn't just an e-reader) and I still wanted to touch and hold real books.

And then I saw this commercial - the first commercial for Barnes and Noble's nook. I am starting to doubt whether or not I have any bibliophilic integrity or if I am just a victim of a genius marketing scheme because surprise surprise; I want a nook. Kudos to the Barnes and Noble marketing department.

Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

I was at a bookstore a few weeks ago with a friend and asked her if she had ever read Dreams from My Father after I saw it as a staff recommendation. "Yes" she said, "read it. It's Really good." I"m ashamed to say I haven't read anything about or by Obama and I felt a patriotic obligation - I mean I voted for him so why shouldn't I read his memoir? So I did and it's basically amazing.

Firstly, if it wasn't written before Obama decided to run for president (it was first published in 1995) I would question how much of the book was written by him and how much was written by a ghost writer because honestly, the writing is that good. Obama has this way of conveying his thoughts with an emotional eloquence that seems reserved for the president's speech writers - not the presidents themselves.

Secondly, regardless of if you like Obama or not you should read this book. It doesn't focus on the political and doesn't promote our president as the most intelligent man in America or a flawless leader (although the writing does speak for itself). Rather, he exposes his doubts and confusion; Barack Obama's story tells of his struggles with identity, race, and class. Republican or democrat, black or white, you will relate to this memoir. It has a great balance of personal anecdotes and real-world theorizing that reveals how Obama's self-doubt and struggles with self-identity contribute to his greater sense of hope and optimism. He is not a fully-realized man but rather someone who can use his own struggles to inspire himself to change the world for the better.

"What is a family? Is it a genetic chain, parents and offspring, people like me? Or is it a social construct, an economic unit, optimal for child rearing and divisions of labor? Or is it something else entirely: a store of shared memories, say? An Ambit of love? A reach across the void?

I could list various possibilities. But I'd never arrived at a definite answer, aware early on that, given my circumstances, such an effort was bound to fail. Instead, I drew a series of circles around myself, with boarders and shifted as time passed and faces changed but that nevertheless offered the illusion of control. An inner circle, where love was constant and claims unquestioned. Then a second circle, a realm of negotiated love, commitments freely chosen. And then a circle for colleagues, acquaintances; the cheerful grey-haired lady who rang up my groceries back in Chicago. Until the circle finally widened to embrace a nation or a race, or a particular moral course, and the commitments were no longer tied to a face or a name but were actual commitments I'd made myself"

After I finished this book I couldn't help but be deeply honored that this man is my president - and also make it my life's mission to find a way to shake his hand.

Shhhh...

Enjoying a quiet afternoon at the office.

Quotables: C.S. Lewis

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'indefinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. 

-CS Lewis