"Let me just exist with you..."

8 May 2025: This morning, I finished reading (well, listening to) Pageboy, Elliot Page's memoir. It's really a terrific book--smart, searing, sad, and, ultimately, uplifting. It's also structurally fascinating--non-linear, with some chapters that are just vingettes and others that stretch into deep dives. Ultimately, I just found myself rooting for him again and again, wanting him to find peace, love, and comfort, a set of wishes for him that extend so effortlessly (because of his artistry) to everyone else who struggles with their identity. 

Just a couple of powerful passages:

About the life-sustaining and indeed life-saving importance of representation and visibility: "My heart aches for my younger self. A tiny bug running to the rim of an upside-down juice glass. What a difference it would have been to sit with queer and trans pals and have them say, 'I feel that way, too. I felt that way, too. We don't have to feel that way. You don't have to feel that way.' Not a magic eraser of shame, but it would have undoubtedly quickened things up.”

And, towards the end: “Let me just exist with you, happier than ever.” Such a simple plea--"Let me just exist with you"--but one that is somehow controversial today.  

Back After This

23 March 2025: Our little book club read Linda Holmes's Back After This for this month and all three of us loved it. I could go on and on about all the ways it made me feel seen (sometimes almost uncomfortably!), but maybe just one (fun) quotation for now--from a part that made my toes curl: “His ear had worked like mine” (186). Cecily realizing that Will listened to that recording--more than once--and closely? And he hears what she hears? Baby, that's a keeper!

I have loved so much of what she written. She's just the best.

Work Cited

Holmes, Linda. Back After This: A Novel, Penguin Random House, 2025.

Book club night...

23 February 2025: Grateful today (and every month) for our little book club (me, Cory, and Kaitlyn). This month's pick was The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan, which we all enjoyed. I love that the club gets me reading something non-work-related every month and, even more so, that I get to talk with my friends about it. 

The Butterfly

22 October 2023: Our little book club discussed James M. Cain's The Butterfly this evening. I am glad to have read it, but it's strange and disturbing little book. Living in West Virginia since 2007 also no doubt shaped my response to it. Cain depicts the potential for violence that runs through masculinity and religious zealotry, especially when it intersects with poverty and social marginalization. But most of the characters seem underdrawn.

I like this little excerpt from Paul Skenaz (which I found on Wikipedia) that says better than I could my own feelings about it: "The Butterfly confirms the way that Cain himself is a victim of, as much as a writer who profits from, the stereotypical forms of social understanding and visions of gender that dominate the American mind." 

Anyway, like I said, glad to have read it. 

Book Club

6 August 2023: This month's book club met in person at Cory and Hannah's house (to discuss this book). It really was a great time--not just the book discussion, but spending time at their lovely home and with Leigh and Kaitlyn. 

Birnam Wood

25 June 2023: I ended up really enjoying Birnam Wood, my book club's selection for this month. It's a slow (not in a bad way) start, really focused on character building. Then the plot starts to take off. Then--really close to the end--it really takes off. And all that character-building earlier pays off even more. I also enjoyed how Eleanor Catton creates these characters who made me cringe, made me mad, but also made me really feel for them. 

Of course, the really wonderful pay-off was the fun discussion and get-together I had with Cory and Kaitlyn this afternoon, a visit that stretched into dinner. 

I Capture the Castle

12 February 2023: “When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing a book as well as reading it - or rather, it is like living it.” --Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

So glad to have finally read this book, which I have heard so many praise over the years. And excited to talk about it with my little book club in about ten minutes. Not a bad way to spend a chilly, rainy Sunday night. 

Creeping back in...

20 December 2021: My goodness, the combination of regular holiday anxiety, the weird inter-semester time, and (most importantly) Omicron has my anxiety creeping back in so hard. Trying to stay busy, stay cozy, and stay away from too much Twitter and news. 

Also glad to have lots of books on my mind today: two novels by Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton (working on my entry about her for my book), A Piece of the World, which I just finished yesterday (possible Common Reading selection), and Pregnant Girl, which I just started (another possible Common Reading selection). 

American War

22 December 2019: "They didn't understand, they just didn't understand. You fight the war with guns, you fight the peace with stories." --Omar El Akkad, American War

Finished up this interesting book today. I am inclined to agree with this Guardian review. It's a powerful book, though its ultimate pessimism left me cold. (That probably says as much about me as it does about the book.)

Break reading...

16 December 2019: Started two very different books today. The first, American War, is the title I am reading as a possible Common Reader for next year. Honestly, the description alone didn't appeal to me at all--seemed too depressing when I need light--but it appealed to me more than anything else on the list. I'm about 40 pages in and find it really fascinating so far.

The second, My Life as a Goddess, has moved from my coffee table to my dining room table to my night stand and back again since early November, at least. (I want to use it in my Gender and Women's Studies seminar this spring.) But I finally got into it today. A gosh darn delight so far.

National Book Festival, 2018

[Catch-up post]

1 September 2018: Some lines that stood out to me at this year's Book Festival:

Tayari Jones:

• "Who am I now versus who I was seven years ago?" 
• "What happens when people are forced to make choices they should never have to make?"
• "How much of yourself do you devote to a relationship and how much do you hold back for your dreams?"

Min Jin Lee:

• "I had no intention of writing this book." 
• "What is it like to forgive people who hated you?"

Tracy K. Smith:

• "Poems bring unlikely language to things deep within us."
• Poets "go to the wrong context to get the right feeling."

Robert Hass:

• "Poetry is the place where you wake up to yourself."

Celeste Ng:

• We should be "advocates for empathy."
• Books "open spaces for ambiguity."

And I got to hang with this great crew again. 

Book Festival

2 September 2017: "I just hate seeing women give up on themselves, even when they aren't real." --Roxane Gay, at the Library of Congress Book Festival yesterday, discussing her frustration with women (both real and fictional) who give up too easily. And I am so with her on this one.

Folks: the Book Festival is a wonderful event--free and fantastic. And it was even better this year with four of my good friends.

Tim's birthday...

6 July 2014: Last year I posted about my first visit to Daedalus Books in Maryland. On Sunday, I went back again with Tim and some other friends to once again celebrate his birthday. I spent less this time, but still brought home a nice stack of books. More than that, though, it was great to see Tim and my other friends.

Okay, I get it now...

Just finished The Hunger Games. If you haven't read it, believe the hype. I am trying to decide how long I can go without buying the second one. I have a feeling that diving into it could get in the way of finishing that intimidating list of things due by April 1.

But I will talk some folks into seeing the movie with me.

Yeah, The Giving Tree sucks...

Over at the Dish, readers take on one of the most messed-up books for kids, with an assist from Sassy Gay Friend. I actually meant to post the Sassy Gay clip eons ago.

Friday afternoon link-dumping...

I am giving myself a ten-minute break to clean up the bookmarks a bit and drop some links, this time all (more or less) related to books, writin', and learnin' in general.

1) What the heck, faculty at the University of Regina? Is this a fight you really want to have? (The short version: sixteen members of the faculty are objecting to scholarships for the children of soldiers killed in action on the grounds that such scholarships glorify war.) In theory, I suppose I can see where they are coming from, but come on...

2) Okay, okay, I still haven't read a single Twilight book (although I did try to make it through the movie...emphasis on "tried"), but this piece from NPR cracked me up. My favorite part (about Bella): "She's like a Smiths song without the humor." Classic. I saw enough of the movie to agree wholeheartedly with these assessments.

3) Literature scholars descend on Research Triangle Park and discuss the future of the profession. Sound thrilling, right?

4) American Book Review's piece about 40 bad books is fun to read through, even as you find yourself arguing back to the various contributors.

5) The University of Wisconsin at Green Bay has decided that switching their default font from Arial to Century Gothic will help them use 30% less ink. I love this story, but only because, cheapskate that I am, I have obsessed a bit over which fonts use more ink and thought I was strange for doing so. Now I know I am not strange (for that reason, anyway)...either that or I am just a Wisconsinite*-in-training. For the record, the best way I've found to save ink? Change your printer setting to "draft." Works just fine.

6) My alma mater, Dear Ole Roanoke, has made it to the Sweet 16 of Tough Graders. That is something to be proud of.

7) A story that just can't be true: according to a study by the fine folks at Boston University, binge-drinking the night before your GREs won't necessarily bring your score down.

*I wanted to type "Wisconsonian," but spell-check tells me that's wrong. Too bad. Wisconsonian sounds cooler than Wisconsinite.

Forgotten Bookmarks...

A great new must-read for me: Forgotten Bookmarks. If you like Found Magazine, you'll want to add this one to your bookmark list, too.

Awful Library Books

A new favorite blog! (Read about the above book here.)

Some more favorites: here and here (a companion to the first one, of course), and here.

And then there's this.

Now I have to say that the historian in me (or at least the literary historian...ugh, that sounds pretentious) doesn't believe any book is really without value. And, importantly, that isn't really the argument these bloggers are making. Check it out here.

San Francisco, Part III

Saturday was another great day. We did attend the conference a bit, but also hit some more highlights in the city.


Again, we rode a cable car down to Fisherman's Wharf. When we got off, the driver offered to take our picture. Then he said that because we were the last off, he'd take it from two angles. By the way, check out Kari's pose in this picture. Like she's a professional model or something!



Here's the second shot the driver took. Too bad my hair is in my face!

Our main destination at the Wharf was Ghirardelli Square. Vogel had been telling us that if you went to Ghirardelli Chocolate, you could tour the place and get a free piece of chocolate. She insisted that this was true, and it sounded pretty darn awesome to Kari and me. But then the woman at the information booth looked at us like we were crazy. She told us that there hadn't been any factory there since the 60s. (True: you can read about it here.) "But you get a free piece of chocolate!" Vogel kept insisting. She even kept holding out one hand and tapping it with the other. "They put it in your hand!" Kari and I told her she must have been confusing this place with Hershey Park. From personal experience, I know that's true about Hershey. The information booth lady did tell us that in the ice-cream parlor, you could see some of the old machines. We decided that was good enough and set off to the parlor.

Imagine our surprise, then, when at the door of the store, a worker handed us a piece of chocolate. And then imagine our further surprise when, in the parlor, the old machines weren't just on display, but actually working, making batches of delicious chocolate. So--much to her delight--Vogel was vindicated. The information booth lady, meanwhile, should be more well, informed about the place where she works.


Vogel and Kari pointing to the chocolate machines.

Kari studying a pool of chocolate. We wanted to ask the workers if they ever felt the urge to jump in, but they looked pretty busy.

A happy Kari waiting for our order to arrive.

And here it is--a hot fudge sundae that we split. Yummy.

After our ice-cream, we walked down to the water. Along this way, I took this picture of Alcatraz. Kari and I really wanted to visit the Rock, but it turns out you have to reserve your spot in advance, and we hadn't done that. Maybe next time...

Looking back towards Ghirardelli Square.

Kari and I down by the water.

Later that night, after some conferencing and such, we went to North Beach and walked around a bit before having dinner at this yummy Italian place. We were sure to visit City Lights Books, where I picked up this book and a couple of postcards.

The next day, sadly, it was time to head home. But all in all, an awesome trip!

Two books to buy...

1) The Boatloads, a collection of poems by Dan Albergotti, who I've already blogged about here. Check out a review here.

2) Flannery, a new biography of Flannery O'Connor by Brad Gooch. Here's a piece about it from the New York Times.