Holllaaaa
100 Notable Books of 2008 - The New York Times
(this is when the holiday season starts getting real good)
I’ve decided that mixing is a key term. It’s better than suggestion, which is one-sided. It explains what people rarely talk about, because we define ourselves as isolated, closed bodies who bump up against each other but stay shut. Descartes was wrong. It isn’t: I think, therefore I am. It’s: I am, because you are. That’s Hegel – well, the short version.
What I Loved, Siri Hustvedt
The romanticism of poverty is a luxury idea, possible only to slummers from above, like Rousseau’s concept of the noble savage; the poor are too busy keeping alive to feel romantic or, except occasionally, to realize fully the horror of their lives. Rarely does an observer come along who is neither a tourist nor a detached sociologist and who is able to submerge himself in the actual existence on the bottom without losing his bearings….Such was Orwell.
The Book Design Review - Favorite Book Covers of 2008
This is the one I’d probably choose if I had written something. Sadly, Gawker has made me know way too much about Keith Gessen to take his writing seriously. Blogs = evil?
I really wanna read the book about obsession! I feel like, if I were enterprising enough, I should write a book about hysteria, contextualise it within Asian societies, and then dedicate to my mother and other mothers I know of.
He’s so gonna win
So let’s not worry too much and think of other things … such as, what should I bring to read on my Bali holiday? (which I spent about 10 minutes worrying about in bed this morning … a historical moment, because I’ve never really had any real fears about planes and bombs and stuff … yikes)
But anyway, the tickets are paid for, and the leave has been approved and seriously, with my mother in the mood that she’s in, why not take a risk and fly somewhere with lovely beaches and a travel advisory from the Australian government, eh?
So. Back to wondering what my vacation reading should be. I was thinking maybe I shouldn’t talk about this, because the last time I did, I chose the right book, but ended up leaving it behind on the bus. Fuck.
Choices:
The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa - Vacation books should necessarily be exotic, yes? I’ve read the first few chapters - very promising.
Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, who recently wrote a very illuminating and vaguely hilarious blurb on Laura Bush in the NYT recently. It’s a very white book, though, and “white” books are usually bad for vacations. Like the time I brought Michael Chabon’s Summerland (it was about baseball and magic and fairies or something) for a chalet and I picked it up so many times and got through it halfway without really reading it properly. Hrm.
There are some other books in my room, but these two are the main choices, and you know what? I’ll probably just devour my Vogue and Elle magazines anyway … unless they are taken away from me at the Bali airport under Indonesia’s indecency laws or whatever!!
