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Plath. Austen. Didion. O'Connor. Snooki.

By Courtney Enlow | Posted Under Celebrities Are Better than You | Comments (94)

Snooki.jpg

Seriously, where the fuck are the rest of the horsemen already? Just take us and be done with it.

That Jersey Shore show’s Snooki monster, whose real name I’m 95 percent certain is Enrico Pallazzo, the one who looks like a shaved bear cub who uses oily Alli poo as spray tan, has signed a book deal. Her book will be called A Shore Thing, it will sell a shitload of copies, and then I will take a leisurely bath with my clock radio.

The precedent has already been set. Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, and Lauren Conrad from that The Hills mess that did that Speidi thing to us are all bestselling authors. In the case of Richie and Conrad, bestselling authors twice over.

This is a line from the Pulitzer-eligible tome LA Candy by Lauren Conrad.

She couldn’t wait to begin enjoying her new job, new boys, new adventures, new everything. She and Scarlett were going to have so much fun. … Moving to LA, putting off college for the Fiona Chen internship… all of it was meant to shake things up, to make room for something new and amazing in her life.

The book also includes the terms WTF, bff and the word “Soooo.” It’s a Massengil kind of book.

Look, somewhere around Twilight I lost my ability to say, “Well, at least people are reading.” Because while they are literally looking at pages, combining letter sounds together and developing words with their brains, they are not, in any way, thinking. I refuse to believe that Snickers thing knows how to read (in an interview, she stated she’s only read two books - Twilight and Dear John. This means one of two things: she’s lying to sound stupid cute, or The Notebook was just too smart for her.)

I’m not saying we all need to read the collected works of Dostoevsky every time we have a lunch break or hop on a plane, but Jesus, do we have to actively dumb down reading? One of the few things smart people are supposed to have left in the world?

The stupidfication of womankind should not be celebrated by the literary community. It is no longer okay to think “better they read this than nothing.” There is no A for effort here. Given the choice, fuck it, just watch MTV. You’ll probably come out smarter.


Follow Courtney Enlow on Twitter, and read her other stuff at HoboTrashcan.com.









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Comments

Don't forget all the people who will read the book with heartfelt hipster irony.

I have a reference book on my shelf called Latin for the Illiterati that could well need a companion called Literature for the Illiterati. It could be a compendium of books like this plus all those written by and about ever more tangentially-related people associated with the famous, e.g. Hitler's barber, Lincoln's hatter, Nero's fiddle stringer.

Posted by: Mrs. Julien at September 30, 2010 2:14 PM

Please don't insult Massengil.

Posted by: meh at September 30, 2010 2:14 PM

I want to smack that orange-skinned idiot upside the head.

Posted by: mswas (proudly from NJ and nothing like Snooki) at September 30, 2010 2:15 PM

'Look, somewhere around Twilight I lost my ability to say, “Well, at least people are reading".'

Internet brain hug.

Posted by: PyD at September 30, 2010 2:16 PM

Silly, Courtney, you don't ever have to read books. You don't even read them in public school. That's what the Internet is for. You search Wikipedia for the book summary and write your paper based off of what you find.

That is why I cry when I have students ask me to read their papers during rehearsal and tell them what I think. Oh, how highly I praise the ones smart enough to actually read a novel and draw their own conclusions and smite those who dare wave Wikipedia in my face. Oh, how I smite them. I'm lucky to still be employable in after school activities after I'm done with them.

Then there are those who write their paper based off the movie summary page on Wikipedia. That's when I start crying and they back away slowly.

Posted by: Robert at September 30, 2010 2:18 PM

(Sigh)

Everyone and their brother will proceed to talk about this book and libraries across the country will purchase copies because they rationalize that anyone reading anything is better than everyone reading nothing...

But nobody ever talks about good contemporary literary fiction being published right now. So fuck it, I'm going to do something about it. I'm hijacking this thread. Here are a half dozen books that are far more worthy of your attention.

enjoy:

Posted by: Yossarian at September 30, 2010 2:24 PM

The Four Fingers of Death: A Novel
Author: Rick Moody

Book Description:
Montese Crandall is a downtrodden writer whose rare collection of baseball cards won't sustain him, financially or emotionally, through the grave illness of his wife. Luckily, he swindles himself a job churning out a novelization of the 2025 remake of a 1963 horror classic, "The Crawling Hand." Crandall tells therein of the United States, in a bid to regain global eminence, launching at last its doomed manned mission to the desolation of Mars. Three space pods with nine Americans on board travel three months, expecting to spend three years as the planet's first colonists. When a secret mission to retrieve a flesh-eating bacterium for use in bio-warfare is uncovered, mayhem ensues.

Only a lonely human arm (missing its middle finger) returns to earth, crash-landing in the vast Sonoran Desert of Arizona. The arm may hold the secret to reanimation or it may simply be an infectious killing machine. In the ensuing days, it crawls through the heartbroken wasteland of a civilization at its breaking point, economically and culturally--a dystopia of lowlife, emigration from America, and laughable lifestyle alternatives.

The Four Fingers of Death is a stunningly inventive, sometimes hilarious, monumental novel. It will delight admirers of comic masterpieces like Slaughterhouse-Five, The Crying of Lot 49, and Catch-22.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316118915

Posted by: Yossarian at September 30, 2010 2:24 PM

Enrico Pallazzo

HEY LOOK! IT'S ENRICO PALLAZZO!

And a Snooki-penned book. Somewhere Johanes Gutenberg is rolling in his grave.

Posted by: Fredo at September 30, 2010 2:25 PM

Super Sad True Love Story
Author: Gary Shteyngart

Book Description:

The dollar has been pegged to the yuan, the American Restoration Authority is on high security alert, and Lenny Abramov, the middle-aged possessor of a decent credit score but an absurdly low--and embarrassingly public--Male Hotness rating, is in love with the young Eunice Park.

Like many of the clients of his employer, the Post-Human Services division of the Staatling-Wapachung Corporation, he'd also like to live forever, but all he really wants is to love Eunice. And for a time, despite the traditional challenges of their gaps in age and ethnicity and the more modern hurdle of an oppressively networked culture that makes your most private identity as transparent as the Onionskin jeans that are all the rage, he does. Super Sad True Love Story is as corrosively hilarious as you'd expect from the satirist of Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante's Handbook, but what may surprise you are the moments when the satire hits bedrock and the story becomes--no air quotes required--sad, true, and very much a love story. --Tom Nissley

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400066409

Posted by: Yossarian at September 30, 2010 2:25 PM

How I Became a Nun
Author: Cesar Aira

Book Description:
A sinisterly funny modern-day Through the Looking Glass that begins with cyanide poisoning and ends in strawberry ice cream.

"My story, the story of 'how I became a nun,' began very early in my life; I had just turned six. The beginning is marked by a vivid memory, which I can reconstruct down to the last detail. Before, there is nothing, and after, everything is an extension of the same vivid memory, continuous and unbroken, including the intervals of sleep, up to the point where I took the veil…." So starts César Aira's astounding "autobiographical" novel. Intense and perfect, this invented narrative of childhood experience bristles with dramatic humor at each stage of growing up: a first ice cream, school, reading, games, friendship. The novel begins in Aira's hometown, Coronel Pringles. As self-awareness grows, the story rushes forward in a torrent of anecdotes which transform a world of uneventful happiness into something else: the anecdote becomes adventure, and adventure, fable, and then legend. Between memory and oblivion, reality and fiction, César Aira's How I Became a Nun retains childhood's main treasures: the reality of fable and the delirium of invention.

A few days after his fiftieth birthday, Aira noticed the thin rim of the moon, visible despite the rising sun. When his wife explained the phenomenon to him he was shocked that for fifty years he had known nothing about "something so obvious, so visible." This epiphany led him to write How I Became a Nun. With a subtle and melancholic sense of humor he reflects on his failures, on the meaning of life and the importance of literature.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0811216314

Posted by: Yossarian at September 30, 2010 2:26 PM

Little Hands Clapping
Author: Dan Rhodes

Book Description:
In a room above a bizarre German museum, and far from the prying eyes of strangers, lives the Old Man. Caretaker of the museum by day, by night he enjoys the sound of silence, broken by the occasional crunch of a spider between his blackened teeth. Little Hands Clapping brings together the Old Man with the respectable Doctor Ernst Frohlicher, his greedy dog Hans and a cast of grotesque and hilarious townsfolk, all of whose lives are thrown together as the town uncovers a crime so outrageous that it will shock the world. From its sinister opening to its explosive denouement, Little Hands Clapping blends lavishly entertaining storytelling with Rhodes's macabre imagination, entrancing originality and magical touch.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1847675298

Posted by: Yossarian at September 30, 2010 2:26 PM

Ten Walks/Two Talks
Author: Jon Cotner, Andy Fitch

Book Description:

"It's difficult to describe, even harder to explain how Cotner and Fitch's reverence for the small miracles of life in a city is so remarkable, so comforting and revelatory and, in spite of the authors' humility, profound. I've noticed more since I read it. I've listened more. It's made me feel better. But all that is hard to explain, and I don't know if I even can or will be able to anytime soon, so I'll just say that this is a gift, a beautiful book, and nothing in it is forgettable." -Michael Schaub, Bookslut [Five-Star Review]

"Fantastic... A deceptively simple book, TEN WALKS/TWO TALKS demands little but offers much. Cotner and Fitch invite us to experience our city with fresh pleasure and renewed awe." -Justin Taylor, Time Out New York


"Cotner and Fitch's conversations zigzag between the philosophic and the comedic." -Paper Magazine

"TEN WALKS/TWO TALKS is an associative journey where scents, noises, people, and buildings are meticulously described through the eyes of intensely attentive explorers." -The Architect's Newspaper

Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. TEN WALKS/TWO TALKS combines a series of sixty-minute, sixty-sentence walks around Manhattan with a pair of dialogues about walking--one of which takes place during a late-night "philosophical" ramble through Central Park. Mapping 21st-century New York, Cotner and Fitch update the meandering and meditative form of Basho's travel diaries to construct a descriptive/dialogic fugue. (edited by author)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/193325467X

Posted by: Yossarian at September 30, 2010 2:28 PM

Seriously, where the fuck are the rest of the horsemen already? Just take us and be done with it.

The four horsemen called and told me to tell you they were preparing to all swallow shotguns after this "book" deal news. They won't be coming. We're on our own.

Posted by: PaulterA at September 30, 2010 2:29 PM

Big Machine: A Novel
Author: Victor LaValle

Book Description:
A fiendishly imaginative comic novel about doubt, faith, and the monsters we carry within us.


Ricky Rice was as good as invisible: a middling hustler, recovering dope fiend, and traumatized suicide cult survivor running out the string of his life as a porter at a bus depot in Utica, New York. Until one day a letter appears, summoning him to the frozen woods of Vermont. There, Ricky is inducted into a band of paranormal investigators comprised of former addicts and petty criminals, all of whom had at some point in their wasted lives heard The Voice: a mysterious murmur on the wind, a disembodied shout, or a whisper in an empty room that may or may not be from God.

Evoking the disorienting wonder of writers like Haruki Murakami and Kevin Brockmeier, but driven by Victor LaValle's perfectly pitched comic sensibility Big Machine is a mind-rattling literary adventure about sex, race, and the eternal struggle between faith and doubt.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385527993

Posted by: Yossarian at September 30, 2010 2:29 PM

Godtopus bless you, Yossarian.

I'm just going to wait until they make a movie out of it.

Posted by: admin at September 30, 2010 2:31 PM

Shouldn't the minimum intelligence level for getting a book published be that the author knows how to read?

Posted by: , at September 30, 2010 2:33 PM

I love you. This piece is amazing and sums up exactly what so many of us are thinking. Every article you've written actually--from the Christina Hendricks, to the Paris Hilton, to this one, have been amazing! Keep it up, please!

Posted by: Pru-Gertie at September 30, 2010 2:35 PM

@Yossarian:
1. for whatever reason, my husband and i have this silly thing where we give personalities to our hands, and pretend they're alive, very similar to the disembodied hand in the Addams Family and, apparently, also similar to the Four Fingers of Death. and so, i'm intrigued...though not sure if you're serious...though judging from your other selections, i think you are...
2. i *just* finished reading fahrenheit 451 and strongly recommend to those who haven't read it and who have an interest in how it could be possible to go to hell in a hand basket if we abandon literature
3. it sounds like you may enjoy A Boy's Life if you haven't already

@article picture: my first reaction was to gasp in horror...the second reaction when i reloaded the page was still the same...

Posted by: Sinnh at September 30, 2010 2:36 PM

Thanks Yossarian for the book suggestions!

I love this place! What other website mentioning the Snooki-booki would have such thoughtful, and helpful, comments?

Posted by: mswas at September 30, 2010 2:40 PM

Robert: "Silly, Courtney, you don't ever have to read books. You don't even read them in public school. That's what the Internet is for. You search Wikipedia for the book summary and write your paper based off of what you find. "

I hate to say this but . . .

Back when I was in high school in the 1970's (cough, wheeze), long before the internets, I had to write book reviews of novels for my English Lit class. I picked books I truly enjoyed, and never received anything higher than a B on my reviews. For some reason I picked Lord Jim, which I detested, so I just read the first chapter, the last chapter, and the first sentence of the remaining chapters, and wrote my book review from that. I received an A+ on my book review along with a written comment from the teacher, "Congratulations on reading such a big book." I gave up after that.

I now am the proud owner of my own library which contains books I like, and screw what's popular.

Posted by: BWeaves at September 30, 2010 2:48 PM

Now that I'm done adding Yossarian's suggestions to my Goodreads "to-read" list, here's one I've recently read and HIGHLY recommend.

Darling Jim
Author: Christian Moerk

When two sisters and their aunt are found dead in their suburban Dublin home, it seems that the secret behind their untimely demise will never be known. But then Niall, a young mailman, finds a mysterious diary in the post office's dead-letter bin. From beyond the grave, Fiona Walsh shares the most tragic love story he's ever heard---and her tale has only just begun.

http://www.amazon.com/Darling-Jim-Novel-Christian-Moerk/dp/0805089470

(also many thanks to those of you who in the past recommended The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery - another wonderful book)

Posted by: mswas at September 30, 2010 2:53 PM

I now am the proud owner of my own library which contains books I like, and screw what's popular.

BWeaves Wins.
(as she so often does)

Posted by: Rykker at September 30, 2010 2:57 PM

Yossarian Has Finally Snapped
Author: Joseph Heller

In his amazing sequel to the ground-breaking novel, Catch 22, Joseph Heller's conflicted character Yossarian comes back from his self-imposed exile to overthrow the American Government and enforce the new law of "The God Octopus," a demonic elder being from beyond the ethereal planes, onto an unwitting population of retards. Suffering from both religious brainwashing and a drug-addled mind, Yossarian flies into a murderous, vengeful rage when word finally reaches him that the newly elected American President, Nicole "Snooki" Pollizi has enacted a controvercial and idiotic new social-work program, "Soilent Oompa Loompa."

Yossarian struggles come to a climactic finish when he finally clashes with his old cohort, Major Major Major Major (elevated to the rank of General Major Major Major after a dramatic return from behind enemy lines) in an epic battle which will determine the fate of the U.S.A, the Planet Earth, and the souls of humanity!

Joseph Heller's imaginative sequel is a return to form for the once-deceased author. His tale is one of mystery, enlightenment, and the powers of intelligence over the forces of the fucking-absurd.

http://www.amazon.com/Funko-Snooki-Talking-Wacky-Wobbler

Posted by: superasente at September 30, 2010 2:59 PM

We can still be smart enough not to read any of her crap. It's not like it'll be a Cannonball read...unless it's actually shot out of a cannon. Throw the Snookster in there with it too. I'll bring popcorn!

Posted by: melisseh at September 30, 2010 3:01 PM

Sinnh

Very serious, about all of them. The description may sound crazy but it is a actually a legitimate and critically praised work of literary fiction. There is an absurdly dystopic vision of the future and some postmodern story-within-a-story elements (It is both a story about the novelization of the 2025 remake of a 1963 horror classic, "The Crawling Hand." and it also includes that story) but it is a book that has received some positive attention from the few websites that talk about books not written by reality show characters.

It sounds crazy and it's not for everyone but it also seems like the kind of thing some Pajiba folk would like.

Posted by: Yossarian at September 30, 2010 3:02 PM

Ha! I love it, superasente. I even clicked on the link.

...unfortunately:

"Looking for something?
We're sorry. The Web address you entered is not a functioning page on our site

Go to Amazon.com's Home Page "

Posted by: Yossarian at September 30, 2010 3:06 PM

Simply Magnificent! Snooki's hair looks like sheep shit on a dusty road

Posted by: John at September 30, 2010 3:12 PM

mswas

Two more for you, because I am worried that my previous suggestions might be too 'off-the-wall post-modern pretentious boy books' for you (and that is meant as a knock on my, not an underestimation of the scope and breadth of your interests).

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
Seabrook College is an all-boys Catholic prep school in contemporary Dublin, where the founding Fathers flounder under a new administration obsessed with the school's "brand" and teachers vacillate between fear and apathy when faced with rooms full of texting, hyper-tense, hormone-fueled boys. It's the boys--and one boy in particular--that give this raucous, tender novel its emotional kick. Daniel "Skippy" Juster is a breed apart from his friends, more sensitive than any of them, but never visibly reactive to the pressures that weigh heavily on him. The events that lead to his untimely (though tragicomic) death unfold scene by scene, in a chorus of perfectly executed moments that are powerful enough to make you laugh and weep at once. When you read Skippy Dies, you won't necessarily feel like a teenager again--and in fact, may realize you'd never want to--but you'll certainly appreciate how painful, exhilarating, and confusing it still is to grow up. --Anne Bartholomew

http://www.amazon.com/Skippy-Dies-Novel-Paul-Murray/dp/0865479437

13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers
One of the best Young Adult fantasy novels I've ever seen. Stands up to Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, Hitchhikers Guide, Roald Dhal and Kurt Vonnegut. Translated from the German and criminally underrated in this hemisphere I reccomend this book to everyone I know who reads and is not put off by a large, blue-furred protagonist.

http://www.amazon.com/Lives-Captain-Bluebear-Walter-Moers/dp/1585678449

Posted by: Yossarian at September 30, 2010 3:16 PM

Stands up to Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, Hitchhikers Guide, Roald Dhal and Kurt Vonnegut

Now wait just a minute - that's a pretty strong claim there. Are you sure you want to go that far?

Posted by: mswas at September 30, 2010 3:25 PM

It absolutely deserves to share a shelf with that esteemed company.

Check it out. If you don't want to read the whole Zamonia series... If you don't immediately compile a short list of friends to recommend it to... If you don't feel the urge to go down to the local middle school and start handing out copies like Gideon Bibles then I will personally refund the $12 it costs on Amazon. I am confident you will enjoy it.

Yossarian, I get my comments via email and Gmail has decided your comments are spam, but I am diligently de-spamifying them and checking out every book you suggest. - CE

Posted by: Yossarian at September 30, 2010 3:30 PM

@yossarian: 'jiba love! each of those sound great and so bizarrely creative that for a second, I thought you were making them up.

@superasente: your book sounded so awesome I clicked on the link too, pretending you weren't making it up.

I almost didn't read this article, since i have only the vaguest awareness of who any of these celebrities are. it does make me sad that we chop trees for printing up the random keystrokes of celebrity nobodies.

here's the question:

would an infinite number of paris hiltons sitting at typewriters eventually produce a shakespeare?

nope, you'd need to upgrade to monkeys

Posted by: idleprimate at September 30, 2010 3:31 PM

Is Michael Chabon gonna have to choke a bitch?

Posted by: Parker Jammstein at September 30, 2010 3:33 PM

Yossarian ok ok, I'll read it, but YOU have to read Darling Jim

Posted by: mswas at September 30, 2010 3:41 PM

and don't forget that other illiterati "author", Olivia Munn, whose book has the word "suck" in the title, and chronicles her hilarious offbeat adventures in LA! as a geek girl! in her underwear, or some of it.

I'll retire to bedlam.

Posted by: miri at September 30, 2010 3:49 PM

Yossarian >> You are a credit to this community.

Posted by: DarthCorleone at September 30, 2010 3:58 PM

Snooki should do a sextape instead..
That´s more fitting than this little hubris-trip she´s on right now.
She is insulting me with this project, so I can insult her if I want(?).
She is a fat little drunken midgetslut.

You see, I read, therefore I can make up these creative insults/ramblings...or not

Carry on..

Posted by: Blackie L at September 30, 2010 4:47 PM

BWeaves, that first chapter, last chapter, back cover strategy got me through Honors English when I was doing 8+ hours of rehearsals every day in the height of theater season. Now, I'd normally do it on books I already read, but I'm still amazed at some of the apt observations I made on big old books I only read a fraction of. I'm not proud of it, but at least I picked up the book.

No. These are kids that are writing papers off of Wikipedia in front of me during rehearsals. Like I'm not going to rat them out to the director when they sass me for telling them to put away the blackberry and pick up their sheet music.

Posted by: Robert at September 30, 2010 4:52 PM

So... like... were all those ellipses... um... in the original text...?

One set - the other was me skipping a boring part. Well, more boring. More boring than vapid, at least. - CE

'Cause if so, what self-respecting editor would allow that? It's not a voice or a style, it's an inability to even string a compound sentene together. Not even a complex one, just compound!

Oh, and Yossarian, as much as I appreciate your book listings, since when was Kurt Vonnegut a children's or young adult novelist? (Regardless, I think I may be ordering Bluebear tonight...)

Posted by: RobP at September 30, 2010 5:11 PM

I know Kurt Vonnegut isn't exactly writing for young adults (maybe young-at-heart adults) and I don't mean to imply there is anything childish about his stories, but in my mind the best time to be introduced to Vonnegut is somewhere between 13 and 19 years old, depending on the reader. I will always love him and re-read him but I recommend him most strongly to young adult readers. Something about the Vonnegut worldview, the simplicity of what he says and how his says it, the irreverence and the goodness and the cynical yet idealistic brand of humanism... I don't know, it is the kind of thing that is just perfect for young readers.

Posted by: Yossarian at September 30, 2010 5:24 PM

I'm with Yossarian. My friends and I started reading Vonnegut in high school by way of teacher recommendation and loved Slaughterhouse-Five. Then again, the teacher also permitted me to do a 40 minute presentation on The Sound and the Fury that was supposed to be 10 minutes long because she liked the book so much and thought nothing was wrong with renting out films to students for extra credit. Films like The Birds and Psycho.

Posted by: Robert at September 30, 2010 5:36 PM

Am I the only one who is choking that Kat Von D or whatever her name is has 2 books? I applaud Amazon for letting authors self publish these days. I have no faith in publishing houses anymore.

Posted by: DeckOfficer!! at September 30, 2010 6:03 PM

All the vonnegut i ever read was consumed before I finished my teens. was i reading inappropriately? christ that makes me wonder about the William Burroughs not to mention Walt Whitman and Thoreau, and god, now that i think of it the tolstoy.

god, maybe I could blame the low station i have achieved in life on all the books I must have read underage? up until now, I thought the problem had been underage drinking. Screw you literacy!

Posted by: idleprimate at September 30, 2010 6:17 PM

Snooki should do a sextape

I'd rather be forced to watch A Serbian Film.

Posted by: PaulterA at September 30, 2010 6:24 PM

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. Very nice combo. Only semi-recent book I've read due to me reading 1000 page textbooks for school.

Posted by: Verve at September 30, 2010 6:38 PM

Ok I'll fess up.




I've never read any Vonnegut.


Posted by: mswas at September 30, 2010 7:10 PM

@ DeckOfficer

Nothing wrong with self publishing (except the lack of quality control) but if you get anything from my ranting above it should be that lots of publishing houses are doing a wonderful job of putting out truly excellent contemporary literary fiction.

There is absolutely no shortage of quality American novels right now and some smaller publishers (Dalky, New Directions, Melville House being some of my favorites) are working their asses off to publish great translated fiction here, too. It frustrates me to no end to hear people bemoan the current state of publishing due to the publicity given to stupid, gimmicky, ghost-written celebrity nonfiction without even bothering to look at what else might be out there.

It isn't the publishers fault, it's the public. Even if they don't respect it people will be talking about the Snookie book on blogs and on television for weeks leading up to it's release. The authors I mentioned might get 5 minutes on NPR if they're lucky. Even the people who do read have a tendency to stick to genre fiction or airport bookstore authors, and when asked for book recommendations most people just go for modern classics that have been around for 50 years. (Not that there's anything wrong with that but it barely scratches the surface of what's out there).

And there is really no excuse for it. We have the internet, people. Find a book blog you trust, or just friend me on Facebook and I'll tell you myself. I promise I can give you more quality book suggestions than you can ever hope to read.

Buy good books. And if you can't buy them, just ask for them at the library. And if your library doesn't have them, just talk about them on occasion. Because the biggest problem with contemporary American literature is that 95% of Americans don't know it exists.

(Uh, don't take all that personally DO, I just got carried away on a larger rant.)


Posted by: Yossarian at September 30, 2010 7:28 PM

Yossarian, you really need to put away that inner critic that tries to edit you. Let the fuck loose, when you do it is very awesome.

and as someone who still spends himself into bankruptcy on books, I like the recommendations.

I also like your commentary.

someday i will finish school and no one will be able to stop me from reading as many books of my choosing as i wish! I have a stack next to my bed that i keep trying to find ways to work into my homework/research. it only works about 20% of the time.

Posted by: idleprimate at September 30, 2010 7:35 PM

Books are crack. I end up spending money I don't have to feed my addiction.
But, I have to confess to reading ANYTHING I can get my hands on for free. Even crap. Just to give myself some guidelines on things to NOT read in the future.
Also, I confess to reading EVERY book in our shitty little library. Even the car manuals.

Posted by: DeckOfficer!! at September 30, 2010 7:46 PM

just ask for them at the library.

YES, do! Lots of libraries have lending agreements with other libraries so you can get books through inter-library loans.

Posted by: mswas at September 30, 2010 8:33 PM

Agree 1000% with Yossarian on "4 Fingers", and would also recommend "The Dream of Perpetual Motion" by Dexter Palmer. And agree 2000% with Courtney.Thanks for the post.

Posted by: jdigriz at September 30, 2010 9:39 PM

@BWeaves "Congratulations on reading such a big book."

Oh, Fuck me running! He/she must have been a founding member of the Too Stupid to Live Club.

Wow, you guys are great! I've enjoyed the comments almost as much as the original review.

Posted by: Lei at October 1, 2010 12:12 AM

Hunter S. Thompson

Posted by: , at October 1, 2010 1:42 AM

Thanks for this info. Very well timed post. I'm discovering that a lot more people are turning to these "emergency" sources of money just to get by each month. That, of course, not a good thing. Hopefully we're coming out of this slowdown (which i guess ended in June 2009 according to the economists). The worldwide economic machine is just too interconnected for any one computer model, much less an expert to accurately predict.Thank you very much for sharing your expertise..

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