My Strand Splurge

My name is Jacki, and I am incapable of leaving a bookstore without purchasing something.

**Hi, Jacki**

Last night, I went to Strand to hear Tea Obreht in conversation with Charles Simic (more on that tomorrow), and besides finally purchasing a copy of The Tiger's Wife, which Ms. Obreht signed (!!!), I ended up leaving with:

1. The Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland, and Selected Writings by Charlotte Perkins Gilman   I've wanted to re-read The Yellow Wallpaper, and Herland has an intriguing premise.  $6.50.

2. The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy   I had to return this to the library before I could finish it, and at $6.95, I'm all about buying my own copy.

3.  Great Expectations by Charles Dickens   It's on my list of classics I should really read, and at $4.95, I'm not going to say no.

4.  Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh   Loved it when I read it and have wanted my own copy. Can't beat $5.95.

5.  To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf   On the PW list of most difficult books that I am determined to conquer.  I LOVED Mrs. Dalloway (and I will share my thoughts with you soon!  Promise!) so I figured this was worth owning.  $6.95.

I love Strand's prices :)  

Bought any good books lately?

Review: Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins

title:  Battleborn [purchase here]

author:  Claire Vaye Watkins

pages: 287

genre: short stories

published: August 2012

source: I received an advanced reader's copy from Riverhead via 

LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.

    "'Dudes,' Danny says, 'that was fucking beautiful.'
     A laugh spreads across Jules's big bright face, ravenous the way a wildfire is.  'I know, right?'
     I laugh too.  These are my friends.  These are the funny, empty things we do so we can be the kind of funny, empty people who do them." (page 257-258, Virginia City)

Battleborn has been my constant companion during my commutes for the past few weeks, and I'm actually pretty disappointed that I finished the book.  I was floored by how talented Claire Vaye Watkins is...her short stories are practically flawless!  Tight, incredibly thoughtfully crafted, richly descriptive...I have a feeling this is a collection I will read and reread for years to come.  

A few standout stories (and it was hard to choose just a few!!!):

The Archivist  The moving account of a woman as she, post-breakup, preserves her past and imagines her future.  Raw and delicate at the same time.

The Past Perfect, The Past Continuous, The Simple Past     An Italian tourist visits a brothel as police comb the desert for his missing traveling companion. The way Watkins chose to end this story was unbelievably perfect.

The Diggings    Imagines two brothers as they travel West at the height of the California Gold Rush, and how their relationship changes when they fail to strike it rich.  Watkins imagery and use of subtle metaphor in this piece was particularly striking.  

Ghosts, Cowboys    Addresses her own family history, which is a big a part of the history of the contemporary American West (her biological father, Paul Watkins, was an early member of the Manson Family, but never participated in the murders and ultimately testified against Manson).  

This marks the first time I have ever said this:  GO BUY THIS BOOK.  NOW.  WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING AT THE MOMENT CAN WAIT.  BUY IT.  You will thank me.  Or wait until I buy it for you.  Chances are, if we're friends, and you're a lit nerd like me, I'll be buying you a copy.  But buy it anyway.  Then you'll have two.  So when you lend it to someone, and they fall in love with it as well and "forget" to give it back, you have a backup copy.

Rubric rating:  8.95  I can't give her a nine, because this is her debut collection...but you bet I will be keeping an eye out for more of her genius.

Literary Armchair Traveling: Parisian Reads

Due to my lack of, ahem, disposable income, most of my traveling is of the armchair persuasion.  This week's Literary Armchair Traveling destination is one place I've actually been:  Paris, France. 

1.  Stuff Parisians Like by Olivier Magny

"A wine connoisseur, teacher and Parisian explains how to fit in and be truly cool in the City of Lights including walking with a folded copy of the newspaper Le Monde under your arm and always ordering a San Pellegrino." (courtesy of the Strand website)

2. The Most Beautiful Walk In The World by John Baxter

"In this breathtaking guided tour of the most beautiful walks through Paris, including the favorite walking routes of the many acclaimed artists and writers who have called this magical city home, the author recalls his many encounters and adventures in the City of Lights." (courtesy of the Strand website)

3. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

"The much anticipated new translation of the novel that 'redefined the novel as an art form.' It was only seven years ago that Lydia Davis produced an award-winning, rapturously reviewed new translation of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way. Here, in this landmark publication of MADAME BOVARY, she gives new life to the novel's Flaubertian nuances and particulars, as originally intended, without compromising this first masterpiece of realist fiction." (courtesy of the Strand website)

4.  The Last Nude by Ellis Avery

"A stunning story of love, sexual obsession, treachery, and tragedy, about an artist and her most famous muse in Paris between the world wars...Inspired by real events in [Tamara] de Lempicka's history, The Last Nude is a tour de force of historical imagination. Ellis Avery gives the reader a tantalizing window into a lost Paris, an age already vanishing as the inexorable forces of history close in on two tangled lives. Spellbinding and provocative, this is a novel about genius and craft, love and desire, regret and, most of all, hope that can transcend time and circumstance." (courtesy of Amazon.com)