The Misadventures of a Native New Yorker

I just finished the newest Dresden Files book, Changes.

I just. What. I don't even. *flails* *runs in circles*

Anyone who has read it so far is invited to further discuss this spoiler-laden tome in the comments. If you're waiting to read it? Avoid the comments. Okay? Okay.

Jim Behrle on ebooks:

I am SO proud of Phil Hughes. So, so very proud. I knew you could do it!! I had faith in you!! All those scoreless innings!!! And, you had lots of nice offensive support, too. That's what I'm talking about. I'm hoping that "Firewater" Chamberlain will get his act together tonight and we can show the world that home grown Yankee talent is the best there is.

In other news, I got an annoying work problem out of the way nice and early. This is, of course, after I got ELBOWED IN THE FACE on my way off the train this morning. It was an accident, not on purpose, and the woman looked genuinely horrified, but still, ow. My browbone is still sore.

I'm reading the new Dresden Files book Turn Coat (a birthday gift from teany & selftoken - THANK YOUU!!!). That's been really holding my interest better than Neal "Off the Rails" Stephenson's The Diamond Age. I don't get it. Snow Crash was SO brilliant, and it just feels like he's so busy playing with his proto-steampunk tropes that he has no concept of plot pacing. And don't get me wrong, the steampunk stuff is fun, but I'm still not drawn in. J claims there's a payoff, I may try to get through it after Dresden.

HIMYM and Gossip Girl were made of win this week, too.

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

( Because I can't resist a book meme )

As my facebook newsline says, I did something to my right shoulder this weekend that's been causing normal activities (like bending over to get my lip balm out of my bag) to become very, very painful ones. I have no clue what I did, but I took my mom's advice to skip the gym. When putting on your coat brings tears to your eyes and there's no painful goodbye involved, something is wrong. It's better today, though, so hopefully it'll pass.

Instead, I went home last night and finished reading How Sassy Changed My Life. Though the book reads more like someone's graduate thesis about Sassy than anything else, it was still an interesting read. Hearing about how it was all starting to go wrong at the end was the hardest thing to read. I still remember how bitterly I regarded the "Stepford Sassy" that happened after Jane was fired and they brought the new gang of idiots in. I remember the nasty letter from the editorial staff to the old fans. I remember my nasty letter to them, asking for a refund. I think I still have that somewhere. More than that, though, I remember the good times.

I was 11 or 12 when I first started reading Sassy. I'm kind of sad that I wasn't old enough to start from the beginning, but the first issue was in 1988, and I was very much not up to teen magazines at 8 years old. (I'm sure some of you were already having letters published in Scientific American and Psychology Today when you were 8, but I'm talking about me, here.) A friend's aunt had gotten her a subscription to Sassy when we were in 5th grade or so, but the magazine went so far above my head it was practically skywriting. It wasn't until I was much older that I encountered the magazine - I'm fairly certain that my first issue was the November 1992 issue with Mayim Bialyk on the cover. I was obsessed with Blossom at the time, and asked my mom to get it for me, which she gladly did. According to the book, the magazine was already on its way down at that point. But to me? It was glorious. Magnificent, even. Mom liked it, too. I asked for and received a subscription, and my love was cemented over time. I also read Seventeen and YM, but Sassy was the one that I devoured every month, cover to cover. I didn't always agree with the fashion advice, but the features were peerless. I wanted to be one of those girls. The magazine is how I found out about so many books and movies and bands that are now very important to me. If Sassy liked it, I had to seek it out.

Reading the book brought a lot of that back. I have a folder of some clippings, but my Sassy collection is long gone. They'd been cut up anyway - one of the "Working Our Nerves" columns featuring dopey fashion poses was on the back of my door for a long time - but as I read through them to decide what to keep and what to throw away, I realized that what I wanted to save was already gone. I liked Jane well enough, but like any sequel, it didn't really touch the original. But reading this book reminded me of listening to tapes of Belly and Sonic Youth and R.E.M's Out of Time over and over again, wondering if I really wanted to dye my hair that color, and felt myself starting to pay attention to and long for things you just couldn't get in Marine Park (basically anything artsy or sophisticated). Mostly, it was some small comfort knowing that I wasn't the only girl my age getting asked why I was reading. (A constant question all through my young years. By adults and kids. "Why are you reading? Are you doing homework? Did someone make you? Waddaya mean you enjoy it?")

It's sad that something like that can't exist. The book placed most of the blame on the sponsors constantly trying to dictate the content (quel suprise), as well as the religious reich once again getting their granny panties in a twist at the very notion that a young woman could have a working mind, a full and working sexual education, and most of all, the knowledge that they could seek independence from patriarchal, oppressive. misogynistic values inherent in the Judeo-Christian Religion System. They were deeply offended (to the point of trying to destroy the magazine ) at Sassy's suggestion that you could be gay, or single, or have an abortion, or have regular, old-fashioned happy and healthy (protected!!) sex outside of marriage and be a well-adjusted person. That part made me so angry I had to put the book down a couple of times. That's what mystifies me about the Christian Right - why can't they just ignore what they don't like and go about their lives? IF they're so secure that what they believe and how is the best there is, then why are they so paranoid about being threatened? I never got that.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Sassy's fall led to the rise of so many important things and shaped so many voices that its impact will be felt for a long time. Everytime I read Jezebel, I know that Sassy lives on in all of us.

Enough proselytizing. I need lunch.

One of my goals for this year (notice how I'm avoiding the "r" word) is to read more. Between 3-4 books a month, at least. All across genres, and maybe some more nonfiction, if I can find things that appeal to me. (Please leave any recommendations for consideration in the comments). Since I was starting this big initiative where I'd even keep track of what I was reading in some place somewhere (like here, even though I could even use my poor, poor neglected Vox account or even my Blogspot for it. But first things first.)

In terms of reading, 2006 was a great year. I ran across some things that I consider to be classics, and aside from those, there were some things I just really, really loved. Reading Like A Writer (one of the best writing-related books I've ever, ever read.). Motherless Brooklyn. To Kill a Mockingbird. Strangers in Paradise (I just finished Pocket Book #3, and am running out of excuses as to why I shouldn't run out RIGHT RIGHT NOW and get #4). Those were simply the best of the best - I know there were quite a few others that were up there as well. And it ended well, too - the last book I finished in 2006 was The Ghost at the Table, which I recommend to all and sundry - it was a really compelling narrative, and even though I wasn't completely thrilled with the ending, I admired the way that the author got me there, and how all of the minutiae of the days leading up into this Thanksgiving dinner and all of the tension that was riding just beneath the surface was so engrossing.

I wanted the first read of 2007 to grab me as much. I had a few titles up for consideration, all of which will get read soon. I decided to go about what to read democratically - I'd sample a portion of each, and whichever held more of my attention would be the winner. To be honest, I completely expected this winner to have been More Home Cooking by Lori Colwin. I'd read Home Cooking a few years ago and loved it (it's a terrific collection of recipes and essays about food). Instead, More Home Cooking came in a fairly distant second to a book that YA Librarian Extroadinaire alcestis thrust into my hands before Christmas and practically demanded I read immediately: Just Listen by Sarah Dessen.

I was a bit dubious. Although I frequently read and enjoy many YA titles, many of the ones I'd read recently were disappointing. The description of the heroine and the things she was to encounter sounded like the writer aimed for Season 1 Veronica Mars (minus the whodunit murder plot), but missed and landed in a big pile of after school special. Oh, how wrong I was. 10 pages in, I was intrigued. 20 pages in, I was interested. And now at 64 pages, I'm pretty sure it's not going to take me long to finish the remaining 320. More on that when I get to the end.

Oh, and even though this is a smidge late, many happy returns to the fabulous infinitehippo, celebrating a birthday today. Hope it's terrific, and thanks again for a terrific party on New Year's Eve.