Quote de jour
"The book is a fragile creature. It suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, clumsy hands."
                                                                                                                                    ~Umberto Eco
"A bad book is as much labor to write as a good one, it comes as sincerely from the author's soul."
                                                                                                                                                          ~Aldous Huxley

I post what I read from the library as virtual record but I read and re-read books of my own. There are book shelves in just about every room in my house. Every so often I randomly select a book and read a passage. If it grabs me, I read the whole thing like The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley. It didn't take long the whiz through the scant 78 pages. At first I was afraid to crack open the fragile, original 1954 edition with brittle, yellowed paper. There were lines I'd underlined God knows when, stains of a mysterious nature, and for some reason I thought of a book-loving ex-boyfriend who considered my rough handling of books grounds for breaking up. While I would never scribble in a library book, I do scribble, underline, use high lighter, tear, fold, spindle and mutilate my own. That doesn't mean that I love my books any less. To me, they aren't sacred cows but as beloved as a worn pair of favorite slippers.
I had no time to pick up the usual pile of magazines from the library this week but I'm never empty handed.  There are hubby's New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly and my mother sent me her favorite gossip rag, the Canadian version of Hello.
Books:
I haven't cracked open the memoir Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg about his fifteen-year-old daughter's descent into madness. I have mixed feelings about the recent spate of books written by parents who delve into their troubled children's lives. Is it courageous or opportunistic? I am endlessly fascinated by the human condition and look forward to this book.


This is first book I've read by Elizabeth Nunez and it's a good choice for October and Breast Awareness Month. Anna In-Between is about a woman from Trinidad who successful editor in new York. She shuttles back and forth between her American life and that of her island roots but feels caught in between both worlds when she discovers her mother has breast cancer. Lyrical writing but a wee preachy about racism and class distinctions.

I've half way through current best seller Best Friends Forever by the American queen of chick lit Jennifer Weiner. She was the first chick lit writer who inspired me to write in that genre. I can do this, yes I can. That seems so long ago now. In fact, it was so long ago that in the past year chick lit died and reincarnated as Women's Fiction. Whatever you want to call it, it's writing that speaks to women and their collective experience. There are some designer pastel-colored fluff of cocktails and shopping books out but women have largely moved on to deeper themes, and it's about time.

I continue to be in awe of Ms. Weiner for the juggernaut that she is. She writes best selling books year after year, while popping out babies, doing book tours and living a jam-packed life, while I'm still querying agents and writing, re-writing at a snails-on-Valium pace. Three years ago, Jen sat beside me at my step-son's Bar Mitzvah doing research for her novel Certain Girls. That feels like a several lifetimes ago. Jen, if you're reading this: I need a very big kick in the pants, please.