road trip wednesday is a "blog carnival," where ya highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question. they then ask their readers to answer it on our own blogs.
this week's question: what else do you do with your books?
answer: I give them to prisoners!
over spring break, I went on a service trip to boston along a group of college students. twice that week, we spent our nights volunteering in the basement of a church in quincy for the prison books program.
this is how the program works:
prisoners write snail mail letters c/o of a local bookstore stating a little bit about themselves and requesting a certain type of book (most of them request dictionaries, also there's a lot of requests for history books).
volunteers read the letters and go through a library of donated books to pick out one or two that best fit the prisoner's request.
other volunteers (like me!) read the letter again to make sure the request matches the book pulled, pack it up media mail-style, and get it ready to ship.
I'd never heard of a program like this until the service trip, and since then I keep most of my read books in a "donate pile." the next time I'm down in austin I'll take them to the inside books project, which gives books to texas prisoners specifically.
without sounding too corny, the work these types of programs do remind me what kind of power books have. their content is powerful, and the act of ownership is powerful. it is an immensely beautiful thing to say, THIS BOOK IS MINE.
in one of the letters I read, a prisoner asked for a dictionary because he was studying for his GED. the volunteers pulled him a dictionary, as requested, but also a bonus book: aldous huxley's brave new world. brave new world! as an english teacher, I almost broke into tears. brave new world was one of those books I read in high school that made me love, love stories and helped me understand sadness and that the world is larger than myself. I couldn't help thinking as I packed it up what this novel might spur in the mind of a total stranger.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Thursday, April 12, 2012
everything was beautiful and nothing hurt
flashback! it's the fall of 1993. dallas. I'm 12 years old and in the seventh grade. my mom has taken me to see pearl jam. they are my favorite band in the WHOLE world. at some point during the set (toward the end I think), eddie vedder has the crowd sing "happy birthday" to a writer who I have never heard of so that he can tape it and mail it to him later. that writer's name was kurt vonnegut.
being the impressionable seventh grader I was, I quickly went out and bought a novel by kurt vonnegut: cat's cradle. now I don't know if that novel, and by extension that concert, and by extension that band, caused me to be an english major and, later, a writer, but I don't think that's too big of leap.
I was floored. cat's cradle was the first domino tipping over. I've read at least fifteen of vonnegut's novels since then. I remember many of the lines: we laid together. together we laid like spoons! everything was beautiful and nothing hurt! I have some signed, leather bound books of his - my dad bought them for me because he knew I was a fan of "kurt vonnergurt." in high school art class I tried to sculpt his head out of clay (a bit much, I know). it was very hard, and I gave up. his head is complicated.
but. I give credit to kurt vonnegut for helping me love the strangeness of stories and language. his novels were the first things I really connected with on a literary level. since seventh grade, my tastes have morphed and shifted, and now that I'm writing, my writing is nothing like his. but. I give that paperback copy of cat's cradle a huge amount of credit. and I give credit to people like e.v. who led me and who knows who else in that venue that evening to something wonderful and unexpected that landed and has stayed in our hearts.
kurt vonnegut died five years ago yesterday.
being the impressionable seventh grader I was, I quickly went out and bought a novel by kurt vonnegut: cat's cradle. now I don't know if that novel, and by extension that concert, and by extension that band, caused me to be an english major and, later, a writer, but I don't think that's too big of leap.
I was floored. cat's cradle was the first domino tipping over. I've read at least fifteen of vonnegut's novels since then. I remember many of the lines: we laid together. together we laid like spoons! everything was beautiful and nothing hurt! I have some signed, leather bound books of his - my dad bought them for me because he knew I was a fan of "kurt vonnergurt." in high school art class I tried to sculpt his head out of clay (a bit much, I know). it was very hard, and I gave up. his head is complicated.
but. I give credit to kurt vonnegut for helping me love the strangeness of stories and language. his novels were the first things I really connected with on a literary level. since seventh grade, my tastes have morphed and shifted, and now that I'm writing, my writing is nothing like his. but. I give that paperback copy of cat's cradle a huge amount of credit. and I give credit to people like e.v. who led me and who knows who else in that venue that evening to something wonderful and unexpected that landed and has stayed in our hearts.
kurt vonnegut died five years ago yesterday.
Friday, March 30, 2012
book review - wanderlove
this review of kirsten hubbard's wanderlove goes along with tracey neithercott's ya book club. after the club chose wanderlove (which is set in guatemala and belize) tracey asked us to perhaps focus our comments on kirsten's use of setting specifically - how crucial a role we felt it played, how we as writers could learn from her descriptions. I'm sort of going to do that in this post, but I should also say here that kirsten and I share an agent, so I'm predisposed to adoring her and everything she writes.
first, there is this story about the buddha: when he finally came back to his home after many years of meditating under the bodhi tree, his wife asked him why he had to leave his family in order to become enlightened. the buddha replied that he never actually had to leave to become enlightened, but he would have never known that had he not left.
I'm reminded of that story when I read other stories about travel. the travel narrative is well-worn ground. but most of the travel narratives that come quickly to my mind are about boys/young guys (the adventures of huckleberry finn, into the wild, on the road). there are less narratives about girls/women finding themselves through travel and an exploration of place, and those stories tend to be less entrenched in the collective popular mind - I'm thinking pilgrim at tinker creek by annie dillard, in country by bobbie ann mason, the land of little rain by mary austin, or more recently wild by cheryl strayed).
it is as if travel (either alone or in a duo, if you're huck and jim) is a boy thing. for rowan in wanderlove, that's what travel was - an act of coming to terms with oneself through accumulating anklets and cutoff shorts, growing a ponytail and being generally a rugged dude. over the course of the novel, that changes a bit. but we also have bria, who embarks on a strange journey to a strange place to try to come to terms with herself, and part of her reinvention also involves clothes and a hair alteration (among other things more profound things, of course).
stay with me: there is this other saying attributed to buddha: “no one saves us but ourselves. no one can and no one may. we ourselves must walk the path.” however, one of the great things about kirsten's characters is that both of them learn through each other, through strangers, through friends as well as independently, proving there is not just one proverbial path.
as much as I love my collection of buddha quotes, I have to remember that his story is that of a boy, siddhartha, going on a solo journey to find himself - and thus it is typical. stories about girls traveling can take a different shape and be no less significant. there can be the taking of literal and figurative "plunges" and rides along "bumpy" roads, and while they are capable of saving themselves, girls aren't so arrogant to deny a little help along the way. kirsten gives us a bria that starts out stubborn and hard-line, but then transforms remarkably.
by the way, this is my favorite line from the novel: "so jack concocts several pitchers of mocktails, which taste like watermelon smoothie mixed with cough syrup and agony." so funny. the ghost of a terrible hangover creeps up my throat just reading that sentence.
first, there is this story about the buddha: when he finally came back to his home after many years of meditating under the bodhi tree, his wife asked him why he had to leave his family in order to become enlightened. the buddha replied that he never actually had to leave to become enlightened, but he would have never known that had he not left. I'm reminded of that story when I read other stories about travel. the travel narrative is well-worn ground. but most of the travel narratives that come quickly to my mind are about boys/young guys (the adventures of huckleberry finn, into the wild, on the road). there are less narratives about girls/women finding themselves through travel and an exploration of place, and those stories tend to be less entrenched in the collective popular mind - I'm thinking pilgrim at tinker creek by annie dillard, in country by bobbie ann mason, the land of little rain by mary austin, or more recently wild by cheryl strayed).
it is as if travel (either alone or in a duo, if you're huck and jim) is a boy thing. for rowan in wanderlove, that's what travel was - an act of coming to terms with oneself through accumulating anklets and cutoff shorts, growing a ponytail and being generally a rugged dude. over the course of the novel, that changes a bit. but we also have bria, who embarks on a strange journey to a strange place to try to come to terms with herself, and part of her reinvention also involves clothes and a hair alteration (among other things more profound things, of course).
stay with me: there is this other saying attributed to buddha: “no one saves us but ourselves. no one can and no one may. we ourselves must walk the path.” however, one of the great things about kirsten's characters is that both of them learn through each other, through strangers, through friends as well as independently, proving there is not just one proverbial path.
as much as I love my collection of buddha quotes, I have to remember that his story is that of a boy, siddhartha, going on a solo journey to find himself - and thus it is typical. stories about girls traveling can take a different shape and be no less significant. there can be the taking of literal and figurative "plunges" and rides along "bumpy" roads, and while they are capable of saving themselves, girls aren't so arrogant to deny a little help along the way. kirsten gives us a bria that starts out stubborn and hard-line, but then transforms remarkably.
by the way, this is my favorite line from the novel: "so jack concocts several pitchers of mocktails, which taste like watermelon smoothie mixed with cough syrup and agony." so funny. the ghost of a terrible hangover creeps up my throat just reading that sentence.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
adrienne rich (1929-2012)
I foolishly assumed she was ageless because my students and I talk about her in the literary present.
"I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail."
from "Diving Into the Wreck" by Adrienne Rich
"I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail."
from "Diving Into the Wreck" by Adrienne Rich
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
road trip wendesday - favorite literary moment (vamp edition)
road trip wednesday is a "blog carnival," where ya highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question. they then ask their readers to answer it on our own blogs.
this week's question: what is your favorite literary moment?
this question will be answered via non-twilight stories involving vampires.
one of my very favorite literary moments is the climax of the 2004 swedish horror novel, let the right one in. for those of you who haven't read the book or seen the american movie version titled let me in, the story centers around oskar, a twelve year-old who is the victim of merciless bullying and the relationship he forms with eli, a centuries-old vampire with the body of a child.
like dracula, eli can't enter a place unless she is invited (hence, let me in) - well, she technically can enter, but something gross happens if she does.
oksar and eli (from the swedish version of the film)
eli and oskar's relationship is touching and...difficult, and they bond over being alienated outsiders (seriously, this is a really great book). at the end, there is this nail-biter scene where oskar is being held under water by the bullies (who are drawn by the author with such spooky, vast indifference), and eli comes to try and rescue him. will she make it in time?eep! what will she do to the bullies? the scene unfolds at night: there's a swimming pool and a touch of dismemberment: awesome. the things young people do for love, right?
moving on to the passage. this gigantic novel about the vampire apocalypse has many stand out moments, the most outrageously bad-ass one for me takes place in this arena out in the middle of nowhere, where this group of people gather to sacrifice others to one of the twelve, who one of the mega-vampires who basically caused the end of civilization. (this is vague, I know. this novel takes A LOT of explaining, and I'm doing it little justice. sarah enni knows what I'm talking about. suffice it to say this novel will stick to you like a stubborn child).
bram stoker's dracula: when Van Helsing and Co. drive a stake through Lucy's heart!
and finally, interview with the vampire: when louis tells whoever christian slater's character was about the moment lestat turned him into a vampire. so hot!
Thursday, March 1, 2012
the horror (in praise of challenging books)
on this, world book day, I would like to pay tribute to a novel that I recently read that made me want, on several occasions, to sit in the closet and cry: in the lake of the woods by tim o'brien. I'm also thinking that this post will expand to a general discussion on how books like this (what does "this" mean? we shall see) rule.
I find great joy in a novel that ends ambiguously and makes me massively uncomfortable throughout the course of reading it. it's like the story has little ragged fingernails that scrape at my heart and my brain. I tell friends and loved ones seemingly contradictory things about the novel, such as, "you have to read it. it's so horrifying. it's ruining my life - in a good way. it will change your life. it's so disturbing that it's life-affirming" - those kinds of things. there were times when was reading this book while thinking, "please make it stop. please make it stop."
in the lake of the woods is a magnificent book about horrors of war, magic, the impact of the past on the present, the inability to understand another person, disappearances, and love. when it came out in 1994 it was touted by many as the best book of the year.
however, it has characters that are unbelievably unlikeable, a non-linear plot with footnotes and an unresolved story line. I know from reading reviews of other novels that this type of stuff rubs many people the wrong way. they do not like the little ragged fingernails. they do not like their fiction to make them cry in an "oh! the humanity!" type of way. but, it is my understanding, as an english teacher by training and trade, that great works of fiction are great because they challenge our concepts of right and wrong and thus can help us develop empathy and tools to live in a world filled with incomprehensible people and unresolved ends.
so, that means these "horrifying" stories are freaking brilliant, right? in the lake of the woods did not whisk me away to a place where I could escape from this crazy world. there are books that do this, and those books are great. in the lake of the woods is not one of them.
you may say, "samantha, there are enough bad things that go on in the world every day. why would I want to read stories that highlight the dark, incomprehensible aspects of people?" to which I would answer, "is it not honest and wonderful to have an author attempt to make sense of these dark and incomprehensible aspects in a beautifully-written way (really, the style and structure of this book are so good it's unreal), and then humbly admit that sometimes those aspects must remain dark and incomprehensible?" is there not beauty in that, too?
I find great joy in a novel that ends ambiguously and makes me massively uncomfortable throughout the course of reading it. it's like the story has little ragged fingernails that scrape at my heart and my brain. I tell friends and loved ones seemingly contradictory things about the novel, such as, "you have to read it. it's so horrifying. it's ruining my life - in a good way. it will change your life. it's so disturbing that it's life-affirming" - those kinds of things. there were times when was reading this book while thinking, "please make it stop. please make it stop."
in the lake of the woods is a magnificent book about horrors of war, magic, the impact of the past on the present, the inability to understand another person, disappearances, and love. when it came out in 1994 it was touted by many as the best book of the year.
however, it has characters that are unbelievably unlikeable, a non-linear plot with footnotes and an unresolved story line. I know from reading reviews of other novels that this type of stuff rubs many people the wrong way. they do not like the little ragged fingernails. they do not like their fiction to make them cry in an "oh! the humanity!" type of way. but, it is my understanding, as an english teacher by training and trade, that great works of fiction are great because they challenge our concepts of right and wrong and thus can help us develop empathy and tools to live in a world filled with incomprehensible people and unresolved ends.
so, that means these "horrifying" stories are freaking brilliant, right? in the lake of the woods did not whisk me away to a place where I could escape from this crazy world. there are books that do this, and those books are great. in the lake of the woods is not one of them.
you may say, "samantha, there are enough bad things that go on in the world every day. why would I want to read stories that highlight the dark, incomprehensible aspects of people?" to which I would answer, "is it not honest and wonderful to have an author attempt to make sense of these dark and incomprehensible aspects in a beautifully-written way (really, the style and structure of this book are so good it's unreal), and then humbly admit that sometimes those aspects must remain dark and incomprehensible?" is there not beauty in that, too?