$2 Radio & Vroman's Bookstore

When I went to the Book Expo America this past May, I was thrilled to see some old friends (Eliza, Eric, Alissa!) and really happy to meet a new one (Patrick Brown of Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, CA). Imagine my surprise and delight to have stumbled upon this blog entry, written by Patrick for the Vroman's site, starring Eliza & Eric of $2 Radio!

Independent publishing houses are able to publish works that you might not ordinarily come across while browsing through Barnes & Noble's bestseller displays; independent bookstores are inspirational and inspired places where you can find all sorts of reading material to feed your brain.

I am so excited to be a part of all this in my own small way--perhaps this time next year I'll be ready to say that I've assumed an even bigger role!

save bitch!

My #1 band has the #1 record!

Check this out. My new Paste arrived today, and The National's album Boxer got best album of the year. The online article is here. I'm very excited for them. Earlier this year, I saw them in Paris for free with Sweet (the story there is pretty exciting--if I've not told you it already, please encourage me to do so). Sigh. That was my first time seeing them up close. I'd seen them just three weeks or so beforehand when they opened up for The Arcade Fire in Atlanta, but my seats were far back and I missed part of the show (that story's not so happy).

Upon my return to the States post-Paris, I saw them in Atlanta in June with the Crackbaby Mack and then again in September with Nancy.

If you're one of the folks who've not heard them, buy their record. You can even do that emusic.com thing where you sign up and get 25 downloads + an audiobook for free (no gimmicks--even I did it). Make your downloads a couple of albums by The National.

If you're a folk who's heard 'em but not seen them, buy tickets to a show--IN ADVANCE, mind you.

Okay, bye.

Love,
moi!

Marilyn Monroe

I was never really intrigued by Marilyn Monroe. Not like most people tend to be, that is. Her life didn't intrigue me, and neither did her tragic death. Sure, dying alone was heartbreaking and sad. What I heard of her life was vaguely interesting, but not enough to even, say, watch an A&E Biography on her.

Reading Joyce Carol Oates's Blonde changed everything for me. Granted, it's a fictionalized version of her life. JCO described it as a project she hoped to make psychologically accurate despite its not being historically accurate--writing a biography was never her goal. (The book is excellent, by the way.) Since finishing the book a year or more ago, I've wanted to read an actual and factual account of Marilyn's life. And there are many to be had.

Upon investigation, I discovered that Donald Spoto's biography of Marilyn Monroe was the most well-revered and supposedly the most accurate. Reviewers claimed it was well-written, to boot. I'm only 52 pages in--it's dense and, understandably, it's filled with information that I don't want to glean over. But it is good! And I continue be intrigued.

Each time I've mentioned my reading this book, Amy has said, "I want to read Jenna Jamison's biography. I've heard it's really good." So since she doesn't comment on my blog, I'll comment on her behalf. There you go, Amy.

some books

I was snooping around Liz's blog and came across a website she recommended, a friend's blog. I don't know this friend, but the girl's most recent posting (one she claims to have taken from another girl's site) piqued my interest. So I, in turn, am taking it upon myself to steal it again!

What you do is take the following list of books (the top 106 marked most often as 'unread' by LibraryThing’s users) bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you started but couldn’t finish, strike through the ones you really sort of hated, put an asterisk next to the ones you’ve read more than once, and mark in green the ones on your own personal To Be Read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey*
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius* (didn't like it as much the second time around)
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (I read the first little bit while staying with someone, as I always need to read before bed and hadn't brought a book. I really liked it and wanted to hold onto it. This reminds me that I must start it again!)
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex*
Quicksilver
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales (We just read excerpts in high school and in my English lit classes in college)
The Historian : A Novel
A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man
Love In the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead (I started this 2-3 times when I was in high school and college. It never stuck.)
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables (I tried to read this in French. Noble goal and all, but it took longer than I thought to get through a few pages. I gave up.)
The Corrections*
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved*
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake (I can't remember if I read this or not! I think not.)
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road (to Jim's dismay, I recently reported to him that I did not like this book when I attempted it several years back. Maybe I'd like it more now? I'm thinking not.)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : A True Account of A Multiple Murder and Its Consequence
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

another jannygirl! + a book recommendation

I know that Jannygirl is not an uncommon nickname for anyone whose name starts with Jan. (Jan, Janet, Janice, Janise, Janiqua, Janith, Janicia, you name it...) But I just came across a girl who had a blog with a web address that almost matches mine. Hers is jannygirl.livejournal.com--and obviously you know mine if you're here. Two people with the same nickname, chronicling their lives day by day. Interesting. Or not. Somehow I feel infinitely more boring now that there's another one out there.



I finished Anne Lamott's book on writing, Bird by Bird. If you've ever written anything, or thought about writing anything, or thought maybe you could be a pretty decent writer if only you'd put your mind to it, or have been told that you had talent but were too lazy to do anything about it, I highly recommend that you read this book. It is, by far, my favorite book I've read that focuses on the writing process itself. Lamott is really funny, really personable, and completely realistic about the entire enterprise. I had hoped to quote a few excerpts here, but I already returned the book to the handy-dandy Athens Regional Library.

Most sincerely yours,
The other Jannygirl

cursed internet!

My quality of life would be much improved without the internet.

I can no longer scoff in silent judgment at others who watch TV, for I am an active TV watcher. True that only a couple shows hold my true interest--this season, Grey's Anatomy, my old standby, is frustrating me with its plot lines while a newbie, Pushing Daisies, is charming me to death, so to speak. (Oh, I didn't mean to be punny! But surely my subconscious did.)

In my senior year high school English class, Mr. Friedman gave us daily allusions--references to literature, film, culture, etc. Once in awhile, someone in the class recognized the source, but usually he would have to tell us what it was from. We would have tests over our daily allusions and study so much for these tests that the allusions became ingrained in our day-to-day speech. Friedman scholars, as he liked to call us (but none of us called ourselves), took with us to our respective schools an army of allusions, ready to wow our professors in our papers and essay tests. And it worked. I understood references the most lofty thinkers made to ancient Roman history; I knew what a double-edged sword was and could quote from many of Shakespeare's speeches.

Back to the point. There was one afternoon when Mr. Friedman had an allusion that read, "Demon box! Thief of time! I forsake you!" It was from this comic, which I've also posted below.


This internet has become to me what the TV seems to be for many. I need to impose a time limit for myself. I use the excuses that I'm writing, or reading news, or catching up on this weekend's goings-on. But then, twenty minutes later, I find myself looking through the photo album of a high school friend I've not talked to (other than through facebook or myspace) since 1998 graduation. For no reason. I know what she looks like. Do I really need to see how her vacation to her the Bahamas with a bunch of friends I've never met went? NO!!!

Demon box! Thief of time!

Just now I played ANOTHER game of solitaire Scrabble, when what I really wanted to do was write a thank-you note to my neighbor, who made me some Halloween cookies the other day.

So I'm off to do just that. NOW.

No more excuses, you little thief.

Happy weekend!

1/23/06 - book club? no thanks.

January 23, 2006 - Monday

5:47 PM - book club? no thanks. My eyes can't help but widen in anticipation when I see an ad for a book club in spite of two key things: 1. I don't want to be in a book club. 2. Being in a book club consisting of anything more than talking with key friends (Brooke, Nancy,my sister, & Tamara, for instance) about recommendations sounds like too much to handle. All the same, I perked up and, within 2 milliseconds, knew this book club wasn't for me. Here's the key excerpt from the ad: "Our club don't have any sort of theme." The end. Currently reading : Mother of Pearl (Oprah's Book Club) By Melinda Haynes Release date: 01 June, 2000