Welcome Back!

The IMC recieved a TON of new books- I cannot wait to get started reading the new fall releases. The problem will be what to read first. Please come on in to say HELLO and let me know what YOU read over the summer as well as what you plan on reading next.

Girlfriend Material-Wheatley Graduate

Summer is a perfect time to read about...summer romance on Cape Cod. Melissa Kantor, Wheatley graduate and author of many YA (that is short for young adult) books has hit a sweet note with her latest, Girlfirend Material. The plot may be a bit breezy, but the characters who struggle with first love, new friendships, awkward family situations, are all believable and compelling. I found myself caring what was going to happen and I was convinced I had met these teens before. This is a strong recommendation for a great read under a beach umbrella on a warm summer day.. or during the winter under your comforter counting down the days until summer!

A Summerry Summer Literary Blast Thingymabobber

I am thinking of having control over holding extreme exuberance. This might not help my case, but I know it's less risk than exuberance and talking about books I only read up to thirty pages of.

My school's summer reading is still a task for me. The AP Core reading involves a select work of fiction, a select work of nonfiction, Habits of Empire, about American expansionism and imperialism, and the reading of newspaper articles and the creation of an annotated bibliography. I have read Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye which was her first novel and is an engrossing piece of the most extreme of emotions concentrated into poetic narrative and the sharpest of prose. I have also read Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, the second of his three internationally bestselling works of social science, this one focusing on the formation of snap judgements, and how the exterior and interior, and conscious and unconscious parts of the mind, create snap judgements. At times I felt Gladwell might be pushing it a bit with his personal and highly casual narrative of describing events and people, pinning down his core points, and pointing out the significance of a few things with some Steinbeckian repetition, but he is nevertheless convincing for his ability to point out that things DO work out without such certain focuses that have been so passionately developed.

My AP American, which is the third book, is hard to come along with. It's like picking up the thousand-some page Palmer & Colton Euro textbook again (People who have known my pains, hear me!) and reading a chapter each day. As for the newspaper articles, I've read two and must read three more... I have reached exuberance.

This has not slowed down my immersion in reading. I have been dilligent in finding things to read, and I have been successful. One novel I read was Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which many of you should know about for its attack on the working conditions for the workingman and capitalism, and its last minute, hasty advocacy of socialism at the very end. Over a hundred years old, it is still a shocking masterpiece, and a classic by many means, exposing the terminal illness that afflicts the person in any position of the work of corrupted capitalism. This I read in a Barnes & Noble Classic edition. Another book I bought in B&NC was Kafka short stories, including 'The Metamorphosis,' which I found to be the utmost attack of the world at large with all the absurdities that this story was able to afford, including a man turned cockroach and other uncomfortable degradations.

Another book I remember now is Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, which surprised me with how Hemingway stuck to the same narrative in his posthumous Paris memoirs as was present in all of his other works. I was stunned by all the characters surrounding him in his budding literary career, including haughty Gertrude Stein, Ford Madox Ford, T.S. Eliot, for whom Ernest and some other friends create a fund for bailing him out of his sad little wage job so he could write all his famous poems, his wife and baby, and F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda. I swear that when I read each descriptive and mellow scene, I could imagine all of his work assembling together over the years, being ready to be produced. In short, I was blown away.

Next comes to mind Knut Hamsun, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1920. I read Hunger, a semi-autobiographical novel about a young Norwegian writer struggling to produce work and live decently, failing to do so, wandering the streets of present day Oslo, pawning his clothes and other things, undergoing spells of madness, talking about death, and scorning till the very end, inwhich he sees the city he is leaving in all its glorious light. It is based on his ten years spent in squalor, compressed into a few months of fictitious first-person narrative. The strange diversity of the subject at hand was what manged to catch my attention. The crazes he goes through are some of the most disturbing events in literature.

My present project is Ishiguro, yes, the man who wrote Never Let Me Go. I am reading his 1995 Kafkaesque social epic The Unconsoled, which I have found to be as highly disturbing and almost as absurd as Kafka himself. (Then again, all Ishiguro writes about is social drama). I read about 20 pages a day, and so over 200 pages will be done in less than another 14 days.

I am quite confident that things will work out in the weeks that follow, including the first of school. It'll be crazy, but I know that I have my cushions and my umbrella.

Summer Reading

By the time the summer rolls around, I have a stack of books by my bedside and a cue of titles on my Kindle to read. I have just finished listening to Impossible by Nancy Werlin which I highly recommend. The story is a tale of generations of women who are cursed... the curse they bear is that they will become pregnant at the age of 18, give birth to a daughter and then go crazy. But what if the curse can be broken? Is it impossible? Although the tasks that need to be accomplished seem insurmountable, true love and cleverness may be enough to break the curse. I have also read The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks which was a page turner. I am almost finished with Lowboy which is about a schizophrenic young man who runs away from home and does not take his meds. The main character,Will Heller, allows us into his brain in such a way that you cannot help but feel confused and empathetic. The book is like a bad accident- you are afraid to look, but cannot turn away.I am not sure this is a book for everyone- it requires patience and attention, but it is well worth the effort. Another book that I am currently reading is The Soloist which is also a movie playing in the theaters. This is the story of a brilliant violinist, who also suffers from mental illness. He is discovered living on the streets by the author, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, who can't help but be drawn into this talented and troubled mans life. The writing style is pure newspaper reporting- bare and to the point, but the story more than makes up for the lack of literary accomplishment. I think I will go read right now... what are YOU reading?
UPDATE: Finished The Soloist- very readable, heartbreaking... here is a blogpost from ALA online( American Library Association)-Steve Lopez, the author, spoke at the summer ALA conference ALA Blog

Book Expo America

Well, I had a thrilling day meeting book publishers, listening to authors and editors, and grabbing galley copies of books for The Wheatley School IMC. My shoulders are killing me from lugging around a thousand pounds of books and catalogs, but it was well worth it. Once I conquered the traffic of the Long Island Expressway, and I mean conquered, I entered the cavernous Javits Center in NYC. Two huge floors of books- I was like a kid in a candy store. At my first stop, I met a librarian from Cleveland and we shared our top titles that we are dying to read. This was while we were waiting to hear Charles McGrath of the New York Times moderate a discussion between John Irving (The World According to Garp) and Richard Russo (Empire Falls), They discussed their writing styles, both storytellers, and if they write to please others- no, they write to please themselves. It takes them about 5 years to write a book, so they both commented on how important it is to care about their characters- after all, they will be living with them for quite some time. Both authors also commented on their love for Charles Dickens as a storyteller. Neither man reads many other current authors, only for lack of time due to their focus on writing both their novels and screenplays. Then it was off to scour the shelves to see what forthcoming titles I MUST order for the IMC. Later in the afternoon, I attended an YA editors BUZZ session. Six top editors book talked their newest most favorite book due out in Fall 2009. It was spectacular. I was able to snag the galleys for three of the books mentioned, The Maze Runner by James Dashner, which sounds like a perfect book for all us Hunger Games fans, as well as those who love The Giver and The Uglies. In addition, I snagged Viola in Reel Life by bestselling author Adriana Triiani, which focuses on a girl from Brooklyn New York who has to attend boarding school in the small town of South Bend Indiana while her documentary filmmaker parents are shooting in Afghanistan for a year. Finally, I got a hold of The Sweetheart of Prosper County by Jill S. Alexander and I cannot wait to read it. Set in Texas, it is the story of a 15 year old girl who is tired of waiting on the sidelines of life and wants to ride on the hood of the shiny pickup truck in the annual parade in Proper County. Becoming the Sweetheart also involves participation in the Future Farmers club and our protagonist becomes involved with her lovable Rooster, Charles Dickens!
I have a bunch of other titles, so come into the IMC and check out my haul!

Claudia Gray and I at Barnes and Noble

This evening I went to Barnes and Noble in Manhasset to meet and listen to Claudia Gray, the author of Evernight the first book in a series of 4. She was very funny, honest, and easy to talk to. She autographed her newest book,Stargazer, for The Wheatley School IMC.

KINDLE 2.0

I am so in love with my new Kindle, V. 2.0 that there could not be enough snow days to satisfy me. For those not in the know, a Kindle is an electronic E-book reader which is available exclusively through Amazon.com. Essentially, you "order" a book through the Kindle store and within minutes the content is delivered to your reader. The Kindle is the size of a small paperback book, is extremely lightweight and user friendly. Bestsellers run about $9.99 for each title. Available content includes newspapers and blogs and many other applications. ( I just got mine this weekend so I am not a user expert). I do know that I can change the font so I can read without my glasses, bookmark text I find interesting and carry a whole library around with me in my bag. A book lovers dream.