The girl gave him a look

“The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.” 

-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

Books you can buy for 77 cents on the dollar

“Art makes nothing happen in a way that makes something happen.”

-Ali Smith, How to be Both

Holy cats on a car hood it’s been a good year for books so far. Not, like, books that have been written so far I don’t know what those are but books that I’ve read. This year. I believe I’ve discovered more new authors in the last two and a half months than I had in the last five years. Frankly I haven’t been so excited about literature since I was studying it in college.

What has changed? Well. I made a conscious decision towards the end of last year to change the way I was reading. If you glance at my Goodreads list on the right (go ahead and add me, we should be friends) you’ll see that before November 13, 2014 I listed 36 books. Of those only 9 were written by women. Since then I’ve read 21, 11 of which were by women authors. I’ve gone from roughly 25% to over 50% and wow, you guys.

Last year I found a TIME article entitled “These Are The 21 Female Authors You Should Be Reading” somewhere and realized that aside from Donna Tartt I hadn’t heard of a single one. Honestly I think that’s ridiculous. Did I think that while women were absolutely crushing it in the young adult scene what with their Hermione Grangers and Peetas they somehow couldn’t be dominating in the Capital L Literature scene? If I did, I was soon proven hilariously wrong.

In one trip to the library, I picked up The Rehearsal, The Luminaries, and Salvage the Bones. Sweet lil’ babies in a handbasket, you guys! I’ve written about them, and as you can see by clicking the above links I just thought they were delectable little morsels (haha at The Luminaries being called “little”) to be just savored like a normal-sized Caramello you need to make last for your whole work shift.

So now I’ve just finished How to be Both, by Ali Smith, and even though I have so many more books to write about in the backlog I just have to talk about this one right now. I finished it last night while enjoying a pleasant spring evening outside, my kids playing some bizarre modification of croquet in the background, and closed it with such a sigh of satisfaction.

Like the aforementioned The Rehearsal, there’s essentially two novels in here. In fact, depending on which copy you find, you’ll either read Eyes, or Camera first. My hunch is reading them in the opposite order than I did would give you a completely different insight into the second story, as they overlap in a very clever way. One of the stories we follow a grammar-obsessed teen girl coping with a recent family tragedy. The other follows a 15th century artist about whom very little is known aside from the fact that he felt underpaid for his contributions to a famous fresco.

You know, I read that description, too, and said HA NOT FOR ME and checked it out anyway. It was for me, you guys.

“Cause nobody's the slightest idea who we are, or who we were, not even we ourselves
- except, that is, in the glimmer of a moment of fair business between strangers, or the nod of knowing and agreement between friends.
Other than these, we go out anonymous into the insect air and all we are is the dust of colour, brief engineerings of wings towards a glint of light on a blade of grass or a leaf in a summer dark.”

I hadn't even realized it but I was bored with books. How dumb is that? I wasn't bored with books, I was bored with the books I'd been reading. There are people out there who are redefining what a novel even is anymore. Lady people. Read more books by lady people, people.

Is people a word? Is that how people is spelled? How do those letters say "people"?

And yet we couldn't leave

“And yet we couldn't leave--it was if the rocks were holding us there. I mean, they were only rocks. But for some reason, those rocks made lonely feel good.”

-Cynthia Kadohata, The Thing About Luck

A Very Difficult Title to Search for in the Library

There's a special joy associated with making a good book recommendation. It's almost like setting up your friends on a date and having it actually go OK but without the worry of eventually imagining two of your good friends making out with each other. It's also almost as rare. Books, like your friends, are complex individuals. Pairing them isn't as easy as pairing food with a good soda, (clear, citrusy sodas when it's fish - dark sodas for carby meals like pizza or pasta, fruity soda with steak) but it's worth it.

One could argue that this whole blog is just book recommendations. One could argue that it's nothing at all. One could, in fact, argue that the entirety of our social system is a construct. That these words I send across the internet's complex system of wires are but random flotsam in an ocean that is but meaningless ideas. That we are not readers and thinkers; a self-aggrandized species instead dimly interpreting the universe as effectively as an eyeless cave fish.

OK yeah these are mostly book recommendations.

The one I'm recommending today is Patrick deWitt's The Sisters Brothers. So far I've told several people about it and they have gone out of their way to tell me how much they enjoyed it. It's like my friends coming up to me in public places and kissing each other with all kinds of tongue and stuff in front of me and saying thank you for this. But it's hard for them to say thank you with their lips all tangled up like that. I nod patiently. Get a room, I say kindly.

Eli Sisters is our narrator. And what a likable individual he is. He's a killer for hire, of course. And his brother Charlie Sisters is as well. Charlie is a little scarier. Where Charlie seems to delight in his work, Eli is more philosophical. "Our blood is the same," Eli says. "We just use it differently."

They work for The Commodore and are sent to off one Hermann Kermit Warm. The Commodore has a flair for the dramatic that Eli finds tiresome:

Returning his pen to its holder, he told us, 'I will have him gutted with that scythe. I will hang him by his own intestines.' At this piece of dramatic exposition, I could not help but roll my eyes. A length of intestines would not carry the weight of a child, much less a full grown man.

Above all, poor Eli is a romantic man. "I saw my bulky person in the windows of the passing storefronts and wondered, when will that man there find himself to be loved?"

We love you, Eli.

There is adventure to be had within these pages. And also it made me laugh out loud more than once. I will spoil it no more.

When you look for it in the library's system, you'll find lots of books about sisters and brothers getting along. These are also in the fiction section ZING!

working in the hot fields from can to can't

“The men came to mind as mostly idle between nights of running wild or time in the pen, cooking moon and gathering around the spout, with ears chewed, fingers chopped, arms shot away, and no apologies grunted ever. The women came to mind bigger, closer, with their lonely eyes and homely yellow teeth, mouths clamped against smiles, working in the hot fields from can to can't, hands tattered rough as dry cobs, lips cracked all winter, a white dress for marrying, a black dress for burying, and Ree nodded yup. Yup.” 

-Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone

Old, thin blood

Most people are chained to their own fear and stupidity and haven't the sense to level a cold eye at just what is wrong with their lives. Most people will continue on, dissatisfied but never attempting to understand why, or how they might change things for the better, and they die with nothing in their hearts but dirt and old, thin blood - weak blood, diluted - and their memories aren't worth a goddamned thing, you will see what I mean. 

-Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers