Thoughts on Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

I had mentioned the other day about my train ride, how absorbed I was in Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson upon the recommendation of Beth Kephart. When I sat down to write about the book, I didn't know how to begin. The arc of Winterson's tale and, by virtue of the fact that it is memoir, the arc of Winterson's life, is, in a way, linear but, like any life, it meanders through back roads and tramples over thick brush.

It's an easy book to read (I flew through it) but not an easy book to take apart.  So, if I were to give you directions to this book's home, I would not be able to give you street names.  I would not be able to point you North, then West, because it's not as simple as that.

And that's what I loved about this book.  As Winterson reaches through memory to understand her 'real' mother, her adopted mother, her 'real' self, and the self she has assumed (in the way you might assume an identity) she doesn't take a straight and narrow path.  But it reads as if she has.  She might look for answers. But she doesn't claim to have them.  And all of this makes perfect sense while I'm making none.

What I mean to say is: read this book.    

My favorite moment:

A tough life needs a tough language -- and that is what poetry is.  That is what literature offers -- a language powerful enough to say how it is.
It isn't a hiding place.  It is a finding place.

I think, at the heart of it, this book is about navigating the story of our lives, as well as the stories we read or write, and seeing it all through.

The Best Friends, The Best Books, and Libba Bray!

After a night spent with two of my favorite friends and beautiful Batman baby (see below) in Stamford, CT, I ended up having a terrible commute home. I narrowly missed two express trains, construction forced me to switch subway lines twice, and after all that, the F train decided not to stop at my stop so I was forced on to a shuttle bus. It took me an additional hour and a half to get home.

The reason I tell you all this is that I was frustrated but happily distracted.  I was completely absorbed in a book I have fallen in love with: Jeanette Winterson's Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal and all this delay allowed me to finish it in its entirety (more on this book soon.)

I woke up knowing I would see two other favorite friends who were in town from Boston for a quick breakfast. Not wanting to risk public transportation, I biked over the amazing Brooklyn bridge on a day that could only be called amazing too.  

In the afternoon, at the Brooklyn Book Festival, more friends, more books.  I met a writer I admire very much, the famously funny, insanely smart and talented Libba Bray.  Fangirl that I was, I stumbled over words and babbled endlessly about being called Michelle and the spelling of my name (and, really, you guys, there is absolutely nothing interesting about the spelling of my name) but Libba did not seem to mind.  She signed my copy of The Diviners. She told me someone once called her Library.  See, that's interesting.  

Sadly, I don't get to see my faraway friends from Stamford and Boston all that often. So I treasure time spent with them and time spent with books.  And Libba Bray!

How was your weekend?

Batman Baby

Brooklyn Bridge

Me, happy

Read it, Read it, You Have To

There is no more room in our bookshelves so I haven't been purchasing books (but I'm rethinking this, one more can't hurt right?)  I wait, impatiently, for new titles from the New York Public Library. Specifically, Richard Ford's Canada, Laura Moriarty's The Chaperone, and Jeanette Winterson's Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?  I don't think I'll get them any time soon.  It's more likely, I'll be reading them 6 months from now.  There are a few others on hold but no word... (I feel as if I'm in a library blackhole.  Where are the books!?)

I'm currently reading a book that I've stopped and started five times.  It was clutched in every palm on the New York City subway two years ago. I'm drowning in it, wondering how on earth I'll ever get through.

I have an epic long to-read list and I just feel it's failing me, over and over. I have read so many books these past few weeks where I close the last page and think quick, on to the next one.  I just haven't fallen in love.  Sometimes I haven't even fallen in like.

I'm reading book blogs, book reviews, feeling meh, about everything.  Feeling that I can never quite understand how the reviewer truly feels.   Where are the books where there is no logic, no rhyme, no reason?  It's different than like.  It's different than, oh, yes, that was a good book.  It's even different than that was well written.  I'm talking about pure, inarticulate, head over heels in love books where you just scream Read it!  Read it!  YOU HAVE TO.

So I'm reaching out to all of you.  What's your Read It, Read It, You Have To recommendation?  What's your I will pay you to read this book book?

Since it's only fair I reciprocate, here's three off the top of my head, without thinking: Three Junes by Julia Glass, Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

So, what say you?