Take the Flavorwire 30 Before 30 Challenge, If You Dare

It's been at least 15 minutes since we've contended with one of those must-read lists, so let the games begin! Flavorwire just posted a "30 Books to Read Before You are 30" list, responding to a similar Divine Caroline piece. Conveniently, I still have a year and change to do something about these lists, so it's not too late to really make an impact. But should I bother?

Notes on the Flavorwire list:

• 20.5 out of 30 isn't bad (the half-point is for reading THE ODYSSEY, but not THE ILIAD). 
• Seeing somewhat of an emphasis on graphic novels between MAUS and GHOST WORLD.Two books out of thirty is significant -- not that I'm complaining,
• It's a shame that the author had to point out that PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is important to read "even for guys." As if there's some kind of mythic Lady List out there. (No boys can like Jane Austen! Back in the clubhouse!)
• I had no idea CAT'S CRADLE was Kurt Vonnegut's thesis. What an eternal badass.
• The described "best book in the Western canon" is -- a stretch. 
• All this said, I am surprised when I meet someone around my age who hasn't read 1984, THE SUN ALSO RISES, ON THE ROAD, THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, THE GREAT GATSBY, LORD OF THE FLIES, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and FAHRENHEIT 451. (There are certainly

And as for the Divine Caroline piece:

• I did slightly worse on this - 18/30 - attributed to the works of classic nonfiction whose excerpts I didn't count as having read the whole book.
• I had to look up FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS to figure out whether I had read it. Not an encouraging sign. (Although, once I did, I realized I had read it while I was in Spain and on a spree of "books about Spain.") 
• THE MASTER AND MARGARITA was the book my old (as in previous) Russian teacher said was the essential volume of Russian lit. Take it as you will. (I still never got to it, because I was busy swooning over EUGENE ONEGIN because that's how I roll.)
• But seriously: has anyone here actually read all of ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES? Elizabeth, this is your category to lose, I think!

"Listen, I'm going to be honest here: half the books in my apartment (WALLFLOWER AT THE ORGY; I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK; anything Sloane Crosley has written; THE BRIEF AND WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO; the Old Testament) have names written in them that aren't mine."

-Jessie Malle at Nerve.com on the rewards and risks of lending books to lovers. Once I lent a guy MIDDLEMARCH after he heard me gushing about it, only to have him sheepishly return it some months later because he couldn't see himself actually reading it. I guess I could have been mad, but it's worked out pretty well so far.

Important "Carrots." news

A Canadian production company is working on a new ANNE OF GREEN GABLES TV series. It won't be shooting till next summer, though, so if you happen to have a red-headed daughter with a flair for the dramatic...

 

(This is a blog about my childhood literary obsessions now that I've grown up, apparently. We owned the 1985 original series on VHS! It must have been 2 or even 3 tapes!)

Important Madeleine L'Engle news

Your weekend, should you choose to accept it, is watching the 2002 Disney Channel original movie of "A Ring of Endless Light" starring Mischa Barton as Vicky Austin (no. no no no no no) and that dude from "Supernatural" as Zachery, a character I probably still have a crush on. Apparently in this version, there is no Leo (?!) and according to Wikipedia, Zachery is shown "involved in positive activities." Well, there goes that crush, am I right, people who cop to having crushes on fictional characters?

Nine installments on YouTube, starting here.

Old gossip

On Tuesday night I went to a lecture sponsored by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation about gay writers in Greenwich Village. The speaker, Christopher Bram, just wrote a collective biography of several gay writers including Truman Capote, Allen Ginsberg and James Baldwin, and he led us on a virtual walking tour of the Village by the places where these writers lived and socialized.

One of the sites he singled out was the bar where Gore Vidal and Jack Kerouac met before their maybe-one night stand uptown at the Chelsea Hotel. The confusion, as Bram explained, lies in the fact that Vidal wrote three different versions of that night - in his diary, in his memoir, and in fiction. And for his part, Kerouac told Allen Ginsberg one version (possibly to make Ginsberg jealous) and William S. Burroughs, Vidal's friend, another.

Writers are famous for their indiscretion in print, but maybe dating one of them is a way to maintain discretion. After all, only you know the real story. Seems like a way to cultivate the mystery without doing much work.

It was a great lecture and I'm looking forward to checking out EMINENT OUTLAWS, particularly for writers like James Baldwin who I didn't have much exposure to in my education. (Same with Vidal, actually; he seems to be one of the writers most referenced by the ones I read, that I haven't actually read.) The night ended with several men in the crowd volunteering their memories of the old Stonewall Inn, which for all its historic importance was apparently a little stuffy with a high cover charge for the neighborhood.

Real Housewives of William Shakespeare

The Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, MN imagines Lady Macbeth, Titania, Goneril, Juliet and Gertrude all hanging out and talking trash about each other. So much more relevant than those other "Real" housewives.

"I don't even know what a ringlet is."

Onion News Network: Shadows Meet The Clouds, Gray On Gray, Like Dusty Charcoal On An Ashen Brow, Nation's Poets Report

Shadows Meet The Clouds, Gray On Gray, Like Dusty Charcoal On An Ashen Brow, Nation's Poets Report

According to that one woman on YouTube, "the greatest scifi writer in history"

Ray Bradbury has died at 91. Favorite Bradbury work... go!

Filmbook-to-Be: "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" (2012)

The actor who plays Kevin from "We Need To Talk About Kevin" is in this movie and I spent the entire trailer waiting for him to get scary. (Spoiler alert, doesn't happen.)

May Unbookening

No progress to see here.

Checked out 7 from library
Bought 3
Received 3 for review, 2 as gifts
15 in

Returned 7 to library
Donated 3
10 out

Now begins the summer of reading what I have around and not indiscriminately shopping for more. Must make shelf space!

On Oprah and parting being all we need of hell

Oprah is the Jay-Z of book clubs. She can't leave books alone, but also, the game needs her. The first Oprah's Book Club "ending" was in 2002, after the Franzen kerfuffle (aw, remember?) After that, Winfrey publicly chose to focus on "classics" -- the second close, in 2010, with Charles Dickens, who would not have turned down an Oprah appearance had he been alive at the appropriate time. And now we're back in 2012, with Friday's announcement that the book club will return with Cheryl Strayed's memoir WILD. It's being pitched as "2.0," with Facebook and Twitter avenues through which Oprah fans can discuss the book, but there are many similarities: Strayed and Winfrey will now make webisodes, but their above-the-fold interview will air July 22 across every outlet Oprah has available, which is a lot.

The question is, why even go through the formality of ending the club in the first place? Even her critics can probably agree that Winfrey could do whatever the hell she wants at this point (except have the #1 cable network in the country, but that is outside scope for now). She could feature books whenever without any kind of commitment to her audience, and while some momentum would be lost, it wouldn't really be a big deal. Instead, her reading efforts follow the same two-steps-forward-one-step-back progression of her health initiatives, as if between the book clubs Winfrey doesn't read at all (highly unlikely in my view, but I have no insider info).

On the other hand, Winfrey sells a lot of books, and you have to be pretty short-sighted to see that as a bad thing. During the previous book-club "endings" there were varying amounts of hand-wringing over what her programming choices would "mean," a little unnecessary given the big implication. Her selection of WILD will undoubtedly take the already successful memoir to EAT, PRAY, LOVE levels, and the book, from what I know about it, echoes a lot of the themes of early book-club selections, only in nonfictional form. Female protagonist on an improbable journey? Check. Death, abuse and unluckiness clouding the way? Check. Uplifting spin on a life-changing moment? Check, I think (the many of you who have read it, feel free to weigh in).

By chance, I picked up my library-reserve copy of WILD on Friday, just hours before the news hit. I've been waiting since March to get it. I would have read it anyway, thanks to the somewhat unusual circumstances surrounding the author and her formerly anonymous advice column, the revelation of which happened appropriately close to the memoir's release. (I don't like Dear Sugar, the column on The Rumpus that Cheryl Strayed writes, but had heard hype about the memoir before Strayed was revealed as "Sugar" and think the whole thing was very well handled.) I'll probably read it differently knowing that thousands will be seeking it out just for the endorsement, but that's my burden, not hers. Over at Knopf they're opening the champagne, and it is good.

Michael Chabon's essay collection MAPS AND LEGENDS is $1.99 on Kindle today.

NYC: Two great book-related events tomorrow

In SoHo, Housing Works Bookstore is having its semiannual Open Air Street Fair from 10 to 4 at Houston and Crosby. As if the lure of $1 books isn't enough, I hear the Coolhaus build-your-own ice cream sandwich truck will be there.

And in Brooklyn, speaking of birthday boy Walt Whitman, there's a public reading of "Song Of Myself" at Brooklyn Bridge Park from 3 to 5:30.

This week, in spectacular cover design: Rob Grom (SMP)

THE LEFTOVERS, hardcover:

THE LEFTOVERS, paperback:

It's clever, it's evocative, and the match is perfect.

Appropriately summery: Listen to Allegra Goodman reading John Updike's short-story classic "A&P."