Why I Can't Be Trusted

So despite the stated aim of this blog being to broaden our literary horizons, I have to cop to slacking: I have now started the third book that was entirely my choice, rather than a recommendation from Jac.  I have picked them all from the recommendations y'all have sent in, so I'm not a total degenerate, but To the Lighthouse is still hanging over my head, and in the meantime I've picked up This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin.  This was another of Tim's suggestions, and like my two previous reads was selected as much on the basis of accessibility (it was sitting on Tim's shelf) as my interest in it.

I'm only a couple of chapters in, not even enough for an interim review yet, so I won't talk much about it.  I will say that it's a bit drier than I'd expected, but I think that's because Levitin's introducing the music theory and science on which everything subsequent will be based, and it's hard to jazz up (no pun intended) information that dense.

As for To the Lighthouse, I am committing here and now to reading that while I'm in Boston, i.e. in the next three weeks.  It's the least I can do, and it'll keep me from tearing through my Christmas books too quickly.  I hit up Amazon for a bunch of books, and I'm wicked excited:

* Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby and Sarah Vowell

* Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World by Sarah Vowell

* Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell

* Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's Humor Category

* Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Libralism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show by Geoffrey Nunberg

Apart from the last one, which is by the author of the recently-read and -reviewed Going Nucular, it's a bit of a McSweeney's fest.  I mostly hate Dave Eggars (in a really annoying way, because I fully respect a lot of things he's done with his life, but there's just something about him that's crying out for a good kicking.  See also Butler, John.), but I do love a lot of what comes out of McSweeney's, especially from the folks who manage not to take themselves too seriously.  The extracts I've read from Created... about killed me, and I think I'm going to have to fight not to devour it the second it arrives ('I'm ravenous, Fran.').

Shakespeare... is the last installment in Nick Hornby's Polysyllabic Spree collection, and if you like the idea behind this blog, I would urge you to check them out: there were two previous books, The Polysyllabic Spree and Housekeeping vs. the Dirt, which were also published together as The Complete Polysyllabic Spree.  Over a few years, Hornby had a regular column in the Believer, the McSweeney's magazine, in which he would talk about the books he'd bought and the books he'd read in the last month.  The interesting wrinkle, though, was that the Believer has a strict no-meanies policy, so if he didn't like a book, he couldn't talk about it by name.  (This policy was designed to ensure that the Believer would remain a safe space for writers, where they could discuss and contribute without feeling at risk of an attack.  I'm not entirely convinced of the validity of this policy - it's a bit touchy-feely for my liking - but it seems to work just fine for them, so whatever.)  As a result, his column was much more a conversation than a critique, and over time became an interesting discussion of why we like what we like.  Hornby has no time for the pretentious literati, and that's surprisingly refreshing.  And he's a complete riot to boot, which always helps.  Not being a regular subscriber to the Believer, I had thought that his column had finished, and I was thrilled to see that there was a new collection.

Sarah Vowell features prominently on the list as well, and I'm pretty excited about that.  I've been meaning to read her books for ages, but I don't think she's particularly well-known in Australia (the McSweeney's cabal doesn't seem to have much distribution there, which surprises me a bit): you'd be more likely to know her as the voice of Violet in the movie 'The Incredibles' than for her writing or NPR (radio) work.  I'm happy to finally have my hands on a couple of them.

While none of these were recommended, and therefore don't qualify for the full review treatment, I will let you know if any of them is particularly spectacular.  I don't intend to make a habit of discussing 'outside reading' on this blog, but I also feel that good books are worth making noise about.  There's far too much ordinary in the world to ignore the good bits.

XOXO