Books I gave this year

For my smartass sister who could yet use a little picking up from time to time: Samantha Irby, MEATY. I hope Irby's 2014 is twice as good as her 2013, because her book of essays (springing forth from her excellent blog Bitches Gotta Eat) warmed my heart and made me realize how cold and coal-like it was.
For my other sister, the dreamer with the ridiculous MCAT score: Brandon Stanton's HUMANS OF NEW YORK coffee-table book, to reassure her that fascination can be found in the most mundane of places.
For my brother, who lurks on Twitter but doth not tweet: Rob Delaney's MOTHER. WIFE. SISTER. HUMAN. WARRIOR. FALCON. YARDSTICK. TURBAN. CABBAGE. Even with Twitter's popularity, fandom of its darlings can still feel like an insiders' club, and so it is with Delaney. I could never actually see him with my brother because we would both die of WASPy shame, but at least this way we can share in it together. (Only 7 more gifting opportunities before I'll be able to type that whole title without looking it up!)
For my dad, who gave me my love of movies for better or worse: Budd Schulberg's MOVING PICTURES and Debra Ann Pawlak's BRINGING UP OSCAR, two true stories about Old Hollywood. And the James Ellroy-edited BEST AMERICAN NOIR OF THE CENTURY, to spot the next big thing.
For my boyfriend who bears the 'nerd' label with pride: Tim Leong's SUPER GRAPHIC, a collection of charts and infographics related to superheroes. Then I can secretly study it to make sure I fully understand what he's talking about (Hi! Also, sorry!)

Reading on the Road: Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow

This is my 2,300th post on this blog! So it seems a fitting platform to announce that today I'm flying to Wisconsin where I will go into a cabin in the woods with no WiFi and never come out again, seriously. Okay, my parents' house is not that remote, but I am facing major burnout and lucky to be looking forward to a little unplugged time over the holidays.

I'm bringing Lionel Shriver's SO MUCH FOR THAT, Sara Paretsky's BREAKDOWN and Maria Semple's WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE, recently picked for Tournament of Books '13. These seem too cheerful so I'll pack this Kurt Vonnegut bio AND SO IT GOES that I got from my grandparents last Christmas. Seems like the perfect thing to read in the warm glow of my parents' flatscreen while my brother plays video games, one sister grades papers and the other one dozes off. My family is just so crazy this time of year.

Whether you are going away or celebrating at home, holidays or not, I hope you are happy and among those you love.

The shades of Dickens

This weekend I went to Housing Works' third annual reading of A CHRISTMAS CAROL. I haven't been to the play in years, but since Housing Works started doing this three years ago, I find it a welcome substitute.

I wasn't able to arrive until midway through the visit of the Ghost of Christmas Present, but I felt lucky to see Mike Albo act out one of the people who came to loot Scrooge's belongings and put names to faces with two authors whose work I have recently enjoyed, David Goodwillie and Teddy Wayne. Simon Van Booy was the closer (with bonus appropriate accent -- he grew up in Wales after all) and said a few very nice things at the end tying the message of the book to the help that Housing Works is able to give, through donations, to people who are homeless and HIV-positive. (Next year, guys, use that opportunity to pass around a festive hat! Free idea.)

But I don't think I was the only one to find particularly evocative the stretch of "The Last Of The Spirits" in which the Cratchits mourn Tiny Tim together, as read sensitively by Times drinking columnist Rosie Schaap. Prepare to be boarded by feelings:

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her face.
"The colour hurts my eyes," she said.
The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim.
"They're better now again," said Cratchit's wife. "It makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It must be near his time."
"Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting up his book. "But I think he's walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother."
They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once:
"I have known him walk with -- I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed."
"And so have I," cried Peter. "Often."
"And so have I," exclaimed another. So had all.
"But he was very light to carry," she resumed, intent upon her work, "and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble -- no trouble. And there is your father at the door!"
She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter -- he had need of it, poor fellow -- came in. His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against his face, as if they said, "Don't mind it, father. Don't be grieved."
Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long before Sunday, he said.
"Sunday. You went to-day, then, Robert?" said his wife.
"Yes, my dear," returned Bob. "I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!" cried Bob. "My little child!"

Here are some books I gave (sorry, Santa)

For the lucky study-abroad-bound. I know, it's a regressive piece of techology, but WiFi isn't quite as widespread as we'd all like to think.

And for one of my own 2012 travel buddies.

I like everything about this paperback except that cover line. Hork. So undeniably cheesy.

Because some people are actually into books that sound like Dr. Seuss books but aren't!

Crossover recommendation: If you're in New York City or planning to go soon, check out the de Kooning retrospective at the MoMA.

From the coauthors of 2 Birds 1 Blog... then I turned around and bought it on Kindle for myself. I mean, I've been fairly good this year.

As good a man as the good old city knew

This weekend I atoned for some of the jokes I've made at Charles Dickens' expense at the Housing Works CHRISTMAS CAROL marathon. I missed Scott Adsit (Pete Hornberger on "30 Rock") and Francine Prose but caught a lot of the celebrity readers, including Kurt Andersen ("Studio 360"/ HEYDAY, formerly of "Spy," "New York," etc), Justin Taylor (EVERYTHING HERE IS THE BEST THING EVER -- good gravy he looks so young) and Mary Gaitskill (VERONICA -- best dressed of all the readers). I wish I remembered who the guy who kept apologizing for his Cockney accent, saying he sounded like Dick Van Dyke in "Mary Poppins" -- anyone?

Listening to Dickens aloud is such a fundamentally different experience from reading him. I had to read A CHRISTMAS CAROL in seventh grade I think [private school! Christmas lit for everyone!] and I remember boredly skimming it; I haven't seen the stage version in a handful of years. But maybe this Dickens is meant to be read aloud; even his lists have poetry to them.

Anyway, the New Yorker Book Bench has a nice write-up and a photo in which you can just barely see me. Unrelated, one of the $1 carts has a full set of A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME in paperback (4 volumes), so if you need those books you should buy them. It was only with extremity that I pried them out of my own hands.

Live from Whoville

• I didn't do a proper Reading On The Road list because it was unclear, once again, if the weather would ever allow me to leave New York. On that account I got really lucky, because I can't claim to have foreseen the tiny window left by Eastern and Midwestern weather patterns and pitched myself through it. If you need that luck now, consider it my gift to you.
• Waiting for my mom to finish THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST is the new waiting for Santa.
• I went to Best Buy yesterday and was surprised to see they (now?) sell books there. Most of it expected -- the new John Grisham stories, Glenn Beck, THE LOST SYMBOL, teen vampires -- but they also have UP IN THE AIR and THE BLIND SIDE, in case you're marooned somewhere without spare reading material. They also had THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE in stock, and it's hard to not see that as some sort of ironic comment.
• We crashed my cousins' early Christmas and watching my 12-year-old cousin open the Kindle she had begged and done extra chores for all year, well, you'd have to be a Luddite not to light up a little. She'll get years and years of use out of it. (Or else, Amazon. Or else.)

City sidewalks, busy sidewalks dressed in holiday style

It's the official Curmudgeons Admit The Start Of The Christmas Season day. I can't lie, I love the trappings, looking in windows of stores where I never shop and inhaling peppermint bark and watching the Claymation Christmas Special for the 475th time (and doing the latter two things sacked out on the couch with my siblings, reminiscing about the year the twins were young enough to fit into their stockings, or the year my sister got sick and begged for a Chia Pet, or the year my dad kept pulling relatives aside during dinner to watch "A Special Christmas Box").

One of the holiday chores we would typically be doing the day after Thanksgiving is getting out the box of Christmas movies and books. I try to re-read David Sedaris' HOLIDAYS ON ICE and the first two chapters of LITTLE WOMEN every year. For picture books you can't go wrong with HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS (best read aloud in Boris Karloff voice), THE POLAR EXPRESS or the edition of THE NUTCRACKER with the almost-too-scary Sendak illustrations in it. What's your favorite holiday book?

(Sorry this list is so Christmas-centric; despite working in a hillel I don't know of any Hanukkah books. Please pitch in and correct my ignorance.)

Since today is also Buy Nothing Day, here are the free full texts of "The Gift of the Magi" and A CHRISTMAS CAROL; you can also listen to Sedaris' "Santaland Diaries" radio pieces (my first ever exposure to him) here.

Still from "Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas": GeekUSA

Santa Special: Books I'm giving for Christmas.

Are you done with your holiday shopping yet? I hope so. (Especially if you're buying Hanukkah presents... that ship, I fear, has sailed. Sorry, friends of mine who celebrate Hanukkah and haven't gotten their cards yet!) In case you need a few last-minute ideas, here are some books I'm giving this year. If you are related to me, TURN BACK NOW. Here be spoilers.

For Grandma: Francine du Plessix Gray, THEM: A MEMOIR OF PARENTS. My maternal grandmother loves it when we recommend books to her, so while she's visiting us this December I hope she'll enjoy this memoir of Russian expatriates in Paris and New York which I so loved earlier this year. The author's mother had an affair with the man who would be her stepfather in wartime Paris, and later they moved to New York City and joined the cultural elite through his job at the Condé Nast Corporation. What I loved about this book was the way the author both described these lives, so full of boldface names and fancy parties, and her own experiences on the margins of all that excitement, never fully understanding her mother and stepfather until she started working on the book.

For my traveling aunt: I drew Aunt Mel in this year's family gift swap and my other aunt clued me in that she was going to Vancouver this year, so I picked her out two books about Vancouver: Douglas Coupland's CITY OF GLASS, a series of short nonfiction sketches about his home city, and M. Wylie Blanchet's THE CURVE OF TIME, about a single mom raising her kids on an island outside Vancouver. I hope in '08 they inspire her to have a great trip (even if they're not proper guidebooks).

For my mom, who has everything: Mom's kind of infamous for buying things we had been planning to get her during the holidays, but I'm pretty sure she hasn't had time to get into THE MITFORDS: LETTERS BETWEEN SIX SISTERS, edited by Charlotte Mosley. She went through a Mitfords phase a few years ago (and recommended me a few books from it which I haven't gotten around to... sorry, Mom!) and this ought to occupy her nightstand for at least a few nights.

What books are you giving for the holidays, if any?