From the Stacks Update: Higher and higher.

"So, Ellen, how's that From the Stacks challenge you signed up for going?"

Erm... not so well. As usual, I had the best of intentions, but other stacks (most notably my to-review stack and from-the-library stack) got in the way. Since I'm about to start the Great Un-Bookening, this worries me a little; I'm going to have to use words like "discipline" and "no" on myself.

At least one of the books I won't be finishing at all; I picked up Lesley Lokko's SAFFRON SKIES, read about 50 pages, and was so bored I couldn't bear to go on. So here's what my list looks like now:

1. Michael Gross, 740 PARK
2. Mark Helprin, FREDDY AND FREDERICKA
3. Alexandra Potter, ME AND MR. DARCY Read all about it!
4. Laurie Graham, THE FUTURE HOMEMAKERS OF AMERICA
5. Martha Moody, BEST FRIENDS
NO LONGER IN CHALLENGE: 6. Lesley Lokko, SAFFRON SKIES

My realistic goal by January 31st is to finish 740 PARK and maybe one of the other books. Disappointing, I know, but I also have a few library books to finish in that time. But please check out all the great reviews coming in from the challenge! I know I'm about to go on a major commenting spree over them.

Me, Mr. Darcy and a lot of silliness.

Over Thanksgiving I finished the first book in the From the Stacks challenge, Alexandra Potter's ME AND MR. DARCY. Unfortunately, I have to say I do not recommend this book.

Our heroine, Emily, opts to join an Austen-themed bus trip through England over Christmas instead of joining her single friend for a Spring Break-style boozefest. Once she arrives in England, though, the bed and breakfasts are unbearable, each site the same as the last, and the other members of the tour are all old ladies except for an annoying laddie journalist who misses his model girlfriend. Emily's just starting to enjoy herself when, lagging behind on a tour, she is visited by a man who claims to be Mr. Darcy. Yes, the fictional one.

Pretty much any book that references Jane Austen has the opportunity to tap into the themes and common narratives of her work, and her characters, inclined as they are towards marriage, could potentially be read as chick-lit heroines in the making. Unfortunately, this book went out of its way to brand Emily as a nerdy shut-in, and then has her do a series of very stupid things. As the plot threads of her life begin to resemble PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, she seems to be the last one to know it. (I must interject here -- I am an Austen fan, but not a fanatic, and you don't have to be a completist to pick up these references.) And the semi-supernatural elements of the book (I'm wording this carefully so as not to spoil anything) seem to add up to a lesson that is dissonant with the rest of the story. Certainly it doesn't really explain the ending.

There's better chick lit out there than this book. And hey, if you haven't read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE yet... it's not too late.

Next up: Martha Moody's BEST FRIENDS.

The Stacks Strike Back

Early this morning (before I went to bed last night) I had my first instance of NaBloPoMo panic. I couldn't remember if I'd posted at all on Wednesday, and I thought, "Oh no, I failed! I couldn't post every day!" I guess that last entry was sort of a sleeper. (Har.)

At any rate, I've made it halfway through November, and even though the hardest is yet to come (Thanksgiving, when I'll probably be separated from my laptop) I will continue to forge ahead. Everyone is writing about the National Book Awards today, but I don't have a lot to add about that. Instead, I'm signing up for the From the Stacks Challenge for the second year.

Longtime readers might remember I didn't do so well on the challenge last year. I finished three out of my five self-assigned books, but I haven't ever gone back and read those other two. The good news is that I enjoyed the books I did read and enjoyed two of them so much that they have joined my permanent library. So I'm hoping that this year I will actually read all my books and discover some new favorites as well. That said, I'm cheating a little; the first three books on my list are books I started and have been sitting on my nightstand for at least three months. Will I have to start them over? It's possible, but they do give me a wee leg up, so there you go.

Here's my list:

1. Michael Gross, 740 PARK
2. Mark Helprin, FREDDY AND FREDERICKA
3. Alexandra Potter, ME AND MR. DARCY Read all about it!
4. Laurie Graham, THE FUTURE HOMEMAKERS OF AMERICA
5. Martha Moody, BEST FRIENDS
6. Lesley Lokko, SAFFRON SKIES

I almost put Vikram Seth's SACRED GAMES on the list, because it looks amazing and the person who lent it to me loved it, but then I remembered it was a thousand-page hardcover. So we'll see on that one.

Actually, this could not come at a more inconvenient time as I was planning to go book shopping at the Strand this weekend with a very special weekend guest, but maybe I can pick out early Christmas presents instead of splurging on myself. On the other hand, BookMooch is down for a few days as the wizard behind the curtain tinkers with it, so I can focus on reading the books I have instead of mooching new ones.

From The Stacks Update: Erica Jong, FEAR OF FLYING, Not A Self-Help Book

Naturally, I didn't think this book was a self-help book when I picked it up -- but I think the people on the bus to New York this weekend who saw me reading my first From the Stacks book might have thought I was self-medicating on the way to Newark Airport. Rest easy, people, I love planes.

No, FEAR OF FLYING is, according to the back copy on my 25-cent paperback, an erotic novel extraordinaire which is supposed to scare guys who think women don't think about sex. And given that it was published in 1973, the novel is groundbreaking for how frank it is. Isadora Wing is in Vienna with her second husband who is great in bed and eerily quiet the rest of the time, tempted and seduced by a British psychologist she meets at a conference, trying to sort out how her sex life got to be such a mess. As Isadora gets deeper into the affair she goes backwards to her first marriage and her first sexual experiences to guide her in the present.

I liked this book first of all because it avoided that cliche of dramatic independent movies and lazy authors, the Infidelity-As-Necessity plot. Or rather, as Isadora decides to be unfaithful to her husband, she recognizes that what she's doing is wrong, what she's doing will hurt him and that her affair won't fix anything. Maybe it's because I'm in a relationship right now, but I feel like I'm always pushing away books or movies in which Character has an affair because she or he just had to, and the book or movie seems to support that kind of necessity. I'm not saying Isadora and her type should go down like Madame Bovary for her infidelities, but enough of the pretense that cheating on your spouse is fun and glamorous and not at all hurtful, eh?

But another reason I liked it is that Isadora's voice is just so well done. I related to her own long-winded explanations far more than I expected to, because she's just so blatantly honest. Too late I realize, there's a reason this book became a ridiculous success -- not because Isadora is written like Everywoman, because she's placed very specifically in 1970s upper-middle-class educated New York City, but because she has universal appeal.

Here's the new list, although no guarantees I'll go in order:

1. Erica Jong, FEAR OF FLYING
2. Herman Wouk, MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR
3. Ben Yagoda, ABOUT TOWN: THE NEW YORKER AND THE WORLD IT MADE
4. Kirsten Lobe, PARIS HANGOVER
5. Adrian Nicole Leblanc, RANDOM FAMILY

Learn more about the From the Stacks Challenge here.