toastykitten

This comic zine about "Library Police" who solve rare book crimes for the Oakland Public Library is the most adorable thing I've ever read.

Total number of books I've owned: Right now, about a couple hundred. It would be more if I had the money for Japanese comic books, or more space, and also, if I weren't so completely addicted to magazines.

Last book I bought: Zora Neale Hurston's Every Tongue Got to Confess. Hurston is one of my favorite writers ever - there are very few books as perfect as Their Eyes Were Watching God, and I just love her way with language. As an anthropologist, she went out and collected stories from black people out in the South, but it was never completed at the time of her life. The book's title is taken from one of the stories, where a preacher says something like, "Every tongue got to confess, every soul got..." to something about not asking too much from god. Then a woman stands up and says, "Lord, make my ass bigger." It's really, really funny, and kind of wrong in places, too. I loved the turn of the century - there was so much happening in creative circles - art movements, Harlem Renaissance, the first modern writers.

Last book I read: Does a zine count? I finished Cometbus: Chicago Stories. Or maybe Cheeky Angel, manga #5. Zines are pretty much hit-or-miss with me - they are either too short with not enough writing, or too full of writing that is precious or stilted. Cometbus was ok, but I don't know, I didn't feel like I was really with the writer. Cheeky Angel is an okay manga with a contrived premise about gender issues. I prefer the artist's first manga, about two normal guys who one day change their haircuts and decide to be bad boys in order to get respect.

Last book I finished: Cometbus. See above comments.

Five books that mean a lot to me:

Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, by Maxine Hong Kingston - Nothing I've read from her since ever topped this book. I relate to this book, but Kingston's imagination and writing are so powerful that every time I pick up this book, I get lost in it. I first read this around sixth grade, I think, and then I picked up Joy Luck Club afterwards and thought, damn, Amy Tan's writing doesn't even hold a candle to Kingston, no matter how mysterious she tried to make Chinese culture sound.

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston - Like I said, perfect book. It takes a while for you to get used to the language, but once you figure it out, you just get caught up in Janie's awakening, or coming-of-age, however you prefer to view it. I guess what makes it appeal to me is the non-judgmental way Hurston reveals Janie's self-realization. Also, Hurston writes so beautifully sometimes it hurts.

The Blue Castle, by L.M. Montgomery - This is total wish-fulfillment fantasy, by the way. It's written by the same person who wrote the Anne of Green Gable series, and The Blue Castle is one of her lesser-known works. It's notable for having a strong female protagonist who decides to say what she thinks (this is right before the first World War) and being critical of Victorian social strictures, as well as bringing up unsavory topics, such as out-of-wedlock pregnancies. It's kind of hard to find a copy in bookstores, but you can get it online at the Australian Gutenberg site. (The American Gutenberg site doesn't have it because of stupid American copyright issues.)

The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury - Before I found out that Bradbury was a racist, bitter, stupid Bush-voting man, I read this, and found it really touching. Later I would read more of Bradbury's works, and realize that all his writerly faults show up first in here, and that he's more of a fantasist than a science-fiction writer. The writing in this one is still very powerful.

Any of the colored Fairy Books by Andrew Lang - I LOVE fairy tales. These collections really appealed to me as a kid, and I would just get utterly lost in them. I reread some of them last year, and just realized how WRONG some of these fairy tales were. Also, Disney sanitized everything. But whatever, I like reading about princesses and fairies and fighting monsters and dumb princes.