by be. aaron

I forgot to add two Melville books to my original list: Omoo + Typee. Now I have to go back and re-think the whole living/dead male/female rotation thing.

by be.aaron

If anyone out there read my previous post re: fall reading, I needed someone good and dead to read before Lorrie Moore– and I just got the answer from Lorrie Moore herself. In a current interview she mentions Clarice Lispector in the same context as Alice Munro, the living, breathing goddess of story. Now I am wondering if I need to alternate between genders as well.

by be.aaron

David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

2666, Bolano

Portrait of a Lady, Henry James

Olive Kittredge, Elizabeth Strout

A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore

* I like to alternate dead + living authors so I will need something to please the Eng. Lit. major in me to go between Strout and Moore. Suggestions???

by be. aaron, Eng.Lit. major

I just moved and have been unpacking the boxes of books which have survived the purges of perhaps fifteen previous moves. I’ve been in a prolonged nomadic period and have learned to shelve my books alphabetically and to label the boxes according to which shelf on which bookcase and in which room they will come to rest for the time being.  I am hoping to stay put in this perch for a few years because for the first time, I have an actual study, something that’s always been high on my list of things to attain in life. Next on my list of lifetime achievements will be to have a study with built-in bookshelves. This will require one more move.

In the process of unpacking the books, I’ve leafed through some that belonged to my father in his childhood- one has a pencil drawing of Popeye and a note scribbled in the back which says, “Do we have any English homework?” My father would definitely have done his English homework. I trace the Eng. Lit. major gene, the curly hair gene, and an undiluted pool of genes for which I am not thankful, to him. I   found a place of prominence for a book from my own childhood and a resting area for a pile of classic kids’ books that I plan to read for  the procrastination phase of a project.

I  gave away some books in the process of this move– mostly required reading for NYU courses on Fundraising + Philanthropy. I now know how to write a grant, though thanks to Bernie Madoff and the current economy, it’s become a less relevant skill. In the time I spent walking my dog around the block, all of the books were spirited away from the sidewalk, except for “Ethics  in Fundraising”.

Even though my bookshelves are stuffed to capacity, I just ordered another pile,used, from abe books, for my summer reading, which is in addition to my reading for purposes of procrastination.

I just finished Jill Bolte Taylor’s “My Stroke of Insight”, a must read. You can learn to reduce anger, sadness, grouchiness to an experience that lasts ninety seconds rather than a whole weekend, season or year.

I am now reading Colm Toibin’s “The Master” about Henry James. It’s a must read for Eng. Lit. majors. I was reading it in bed last night and this found poem, written on a slip of memo paper from “THE POD HOTEL” slipped out:

Melissa you are neat

And I can’t stand the heat

You are so fine

I want to make you mine

Sweet and gentle

You make me mental

From Leslie M. 5-29-08 12:09 a.m.

It’s the best bookmark I’ve ever had.

Also on my summer reading list– Jonah Lehrer’s, “How We Decide,” and delicious fiction which I haven’t been of a mind to devour for ages: Ian McEwan’s “Saturday,” and Mary Gaitskill’s story collection, “Don’t Cry.”

I wonder which of these books will make the cut next time I move.

by carole jardins, delighted

SUMMER: Dahlias + Lemon Italian ices.

by be.aaron, aggrieved

LANDLORDS: Except for my friends Jon and Ada, check-cashing cockroaches.

by be.aaron, housekeeping mostly for the purpose of procrastination

HOUSEWIFE: When chosen as primary occupation in life, an early predictor of mild, to severe, cognitive impairment.

by be.aaron, made miserable in her teen years by the moniker, “surfboard,” in reference to her  appearance in a bikini top

HELL: An afternoon of bra shopping, including fitting and innumerable try-ons, with, and for, one’s 83 year old mother and a perky southern Californian  saleswoman,  “I was named after Claudette Colbert.”

by be.aaron, archivist

Memory: Imagination.

See also

neuroscience,

the past.

by be.aaron, editor-in-chief

Transparency: I am an open book, as long I’m the one who has written it.