I just read an article in Good Magazine by Anne Trubek called Why We Shouldn’t Still Be Learning Catcher In The Rye.

Trubek believes that Catcher In The Rye lacks the “shock value” it once had.  And she suggests a new list of shocking books to introduce to High School students.

I can’t disagree that contemporary fiction written about contemporary problems with contemporary main characters could benefit today’s youth.  But I think that Trubek is off when she suggests that Salinger’s classic gets ripped out of the hands of today’s High School students.  Primarily, I disagree with Trubek because I think that a book should never get ripped out of a kid’s hands.  It is tough enough to get kids to read anything in a world where T.V. has grown to slow for children, and they now prefer three-minute YouTube clips.

Any book that has the ability to get kids excited about reading should be praised - but not too loudly, because we wouldn’t want any of those angsty teens to know that we approve.

There is a bit of irony in Trubek’s article that I’m not sure she is entirely aware of.  The success of Catcher is directly related to stuffy adults (like her) complaining about the content of the book.  Novels on banned book lists receive more attention than they would have before getting banned.

I am not too old to remember reading Catcher as a High School Senior.  At the time I thought that I was reading something much more edgy that it really was.  I remember being thrilled by the thought that a teacher had not only allowed me to read a book that talked about erections and contained cuss words, but she actually assigned it.  In retrospect, Catcher wasn’t as profound as my 18-year-old brain thought it was.  Nor was this book as life-altering as other books I’d soon come across.  But this book did successfully get me excited about literature, and helped me see that I could find books written from perspectives I could relate to.

So ultimately, I disagree with Trubek…but I also think that as long as she doesn’t win, her old-person bitching does nothing but help get kids excited about books.

And on the same topic, the American Library Association has a list of the most challenged books from 2007.  It makes me want to read each and every one.

I’ve made this confession before, but I’ll repeat it here: every once in a while I read John Grisham books.

I know that he’s been criticized for pumping out half-assed stories that have no lasting impact.  I know that he’s an airport author - one that is known for writing books that can be picked up at the airport by people that don’t usually read.  I know.  I know.

But I like him.

I just finished reading The Innocent Man which is a non-fiction novel he wrote about a few innocent guys that were convicted of murder and how the dealt with life on death row. [Amazon]

I’ll admit that Grisham is much better at writing courtroom fiction.  The Innocent Man was a bit dry and lacked the suspense and surpise that his fictional novels have.

What I’m Reading Next: The Human Stain by Philip Roth

This weekend I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. [Amazon]  And it’s no wonder he won the Pulitzer for this book.  I know some people that don’t read books if Oprah suggests them, but I’d recommend you pick up this one despite the Oprah backing.

I went into this book expecting something great - McCarthy wrote No Country For Old Men, and that was pretty good.  And the premise of this story sounded pretty interesting: A dude and his son live in a postapocalyptic America where the line between good and bad becomes incredibly apparent.

McCarthy’s style included no direct quotations, which at first was difficult to read, but got easier and easier as I got deeper into it.  Here’s an example:

Did you have any friends?
Yes.  I did.
Lots of them?
Yes.
Do you remember them?
Yes.  I remember them.
What happened to them?
They died.
All of them?
Yes.  All of them.
Do you miss them?
Yes.  I do.
Where are we going?
We’re going south.
Okay.

McCarthy writes a story where the characters ask themselves daily, “Why go on?”  And how many of us have asked ourselves that very question?  Just imagine if our world was as hellish as that of The Road - a world where every day is a struggle for food and safety - would you have the courage to continue walking down the road?

I know that Amazon Wish Lists were cool about five years ago when the feature was first released on Amazon.com…but I’m a guy that’s always behind the trends.  Hello, I just started twittering a couple of months ago.

Well now I’m super-obsessed with my Amazon.com wish list.

What is an Amazon.com Wish List?
Perhaps you are behind the times too?  Well, you create a list of items that you want for yourself using the Amazon.com/wishlist page.  Then your friends and family can purchase you gifts from this list, and they will get shipped to the correct address.  This page is also smart enough to take items off the list when they are purchased for you so you don’t receive two of the same thing (like a wedding registry).

Why I use Amazon.com Wish Lists:
I have about 30 books on my wish list right now.  I don’t think that people are going to buy these books for me as gifts.  I use this page as a reminder of books that I wish to read.  In the past I would think, “Oh, I should read that book next” and then when I was browsing the bookstore, I couldn’t remember any titles.

You Don’t Need To Use Amazon
I’m not really an Amazon.com shopper.  I prefer getting my books at an actual bookstore.  I like reading the first page or two before buying.  I like the instant gratification of starting on a book the minute I walk out of the store.  And I don’t have to use Amazon to purchase these books…I just have to remember to take a title off of my list after I purchase it.

I’m thinking, however, that it might be easier to use Amazon to purchase books in the future (this is how they suck you in!!) now that I’ve created this list.  I’ll just have to start ordering books before I need to read them.

Does anyone else still use Amazon wish lists?  Any cool features I’m missing out on?

If you want to see my list, go here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/WUF5SA3CIRE5

I breezed through Alasdair Duncan’s Dance Recover Repeat this past weekend.  [Amazon]

The book was classifed as “Young Adult” and I went into it expecting to read a book that was written for teens…but it was dirtier than a few of the Chuck Palahniuk I’ve read.

The story is about a high school kid and all the gay sex that he has.  And all the weed that he smokes.  And all the E he drops.

ZZZZZZZ.

It’s a quick read, but not really worth your time.  The main reason I thought this book had some promise is because it was published by MTV and shares that publisher with pretty decent reads like Arthur Nersessian’s The Fuck Up {Amazon] and Stephen Chobosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower [Amazon].

There was so much potential for this book; Duncan used emails, internet chats, fantasies and notbook entries of his main character’s.  Yet it never really did the job of telling anything more than the superficial story of a teenager with angst and a high sex drive.

I’d try to point out the positives here, but unfortunately for Duncan, his novel Dance Recover Repeat (which is a title, btw, that is screaming, “PUNCTUATE ME!!!”) does not have enough positives to fill a paragraph.
If you’re really desperate to read this book, I’d say don’t buy it.  Just give me a ring and I’ll let you borrow it.

What I’m Reading Next: Not sure.

I sped through Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club this week. [Amazon]   And I’m glad that I decided to pick it up and give it a try.  For me, this book was on the long “I should really read that, but I don’t think I’ll enjoy it” list.

What’s funny is that when I was an SAT Tutor I spent many hours reading and dissecting a Joy Luck Club passage with High School kids.  Anyone remember this:

What tone is Waverly expressing when she says, “I mean, really, June.”

No matter how sarcastically you said, “I mean, really, June” when you read the question to the kids, they always picked “sympathetic.”  WTF?  Puberty.

Anyway, if you didn’t know, this book is written in the form of eight vignettes: four from the perspective of Chinese-born mothers, and four from the perspective of their American-born daughters.  There are tons of themes that can be pulled out of this book (and easily analyzed to death - which is why this is a popular pick for High School English departments).  I found the stories of assimilation and adaptation to the American life the most interesting.  As an American, I can only hear stories like this second hand, and I find the stories of the sacrifices families make to reach the American dream so rewarding.

[Reading from a fortune cookie] “Do not fight and air your dirty laundry in public.  To the victor go the soils.”  Then she translated in Chinese: “You shouldn’t fight and do your laundry at the same time.  If you win, your clothes will get dirty.”

I still did not know what she meant.  So she picked up another and read in English: “Money is the root of all evil.  Look around you and dig deep.”  And then in Chinese: “Money is a bad influence.  You become restless and rob graves.”

“What is this nonsense?” I asked her, putting the strips of paper in my pocket, thinking I should study these classical American sayings.

“They are fortunes,” she explained.  “American people think Chinese people write these sayings.”

“But we never say such things!” I said.  “These things don’t make sense.  These are not fortunes, they are bad instructions.”

What I’m reading next: Dance, Recover, Repeat by Alasdair Duncan.

I just finished reading James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On The Mountain. [Amazon]

A good portion of this book takes place in a church, and Baldwin plays with the idea of salvation - and we wonder how many people that have been “saved” have been saved because of true revelation or mere blindness.

I believe that devout religious folks would get something entirely different out of this book.  They’d read a story of poisoned family love and how Christianity can bring everyone together.

As an atheist I read a story about corrupt people hiding behind their religion.  About evil men playing the role of holy men.  And the way that religion attempts to confuse a young child’s logic.

It’s a quick read.  I’d recommend it.

What I’m Reading Next: Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.

This past weekend I finished How I Paid For College: A novel of sex, theft, friendship & musical theater by Marc Acito. [Amazon]

Acito did an excellent job of capturing the angst and sexual confusion of a “bisexual” high school senior.  The book deals with all things us homos like to read about: sex, gay piano bars, sex, and one-upping our parents.

The main character experiences a rough family life - and ultimately figures out an alternate family in his nonconformist friends, the “play people.”  It’s like if Catcher In The Rye had sex with The Perks Of Being A Wallflower and their love child was a bisexual teen that loved musical theater.

Here’s an excerpt:

I suppose I’m  not bad-looking in my own way.  My body’s a little softer than I’d like it to be - my ratio of Twinkies to dance classes being unequal - but I look all right as long as I keep my shirt untucked; and girls have always liked to play with my curly hair and complain they’re jealous of my eyelashes, which are long and thick, like a camel’s or Liza Minnelli’s.  But still, Kelly is everything a high-school boy wants in a girl - she’s thin, she’s blond, and, most important, she likes to mess around.  She was even a cheerleader back in junior high, but had some kind of falling out with the Rah-Rah’s the summer before sophomore year and sought refuge with the Play People instead.  Still, there’s something kind of WASP-y about Kelly, despite her actually being Irish Catholic on both sides.  After all, she does live in Wallingford Heights, a neighborhood so exclusive you practically need a blood test to get in or, perhaps I should say, a blue-blood test.  I watch her do the Hand Jive and wonder wheather we’ll have time later for a hand job.

The chorus struggles with Revolting Renee’s bizarrely Byzantine choreography, each frigging syllable accompanied by a supposedly appropriate hand gesture, the overall effect being less like a  dance and more like a simultaneous sign-language interpretation for the hearing impaired, but I applaud loudly when they finish.  It’s important to encourage these chorus people.

My next read: Go Tell It On A Mountain by James Baldwin

Yesterday afternoon I finished reading The Kid by Dan Savage. [Amazon Link]  The book, which is the story of sex-advice columnist Dan Savage’s journey into parenthood as a gay man in a committed relationship, brought me closer to the idea of starting my own family…then pushed me away…then brought me back…and I don’t know where I stand right now.

From the teaser:

In The Kid, Dan Savage shares his views on what it means to be gay and raising a child in America today.  In the process, he takes his usual scathingly funny potshots at everything from growing up gay to committing to a younger man, from the gay left to the religious right, homophobia…love…getting fat…getting married…getting older…and the very human desire to have a family.

And that “desire” mentioned above really hits the nail on the head.  Ever since I age 17/18 when I really put a name on my sexuality and accepted myself for what I truly am, I’ve kind of thought that the idea of my own family was out of question…but now homos all over are adopting and surrogating, and that “desire” is something that I could truly fulfill one day.

If you’re a gay, and you’ve thought about starting a family, I recommend this book.  Savage is one of the few people out there that is articulating those feelings we all have but can’t figure out how to say.

A quick excerpt:

Sometimes, late at night, I’d sit up and worry that we might be adopting to prove a point.  Were we doing this because we could?  On some level, I think, we were.  It wasn’t the sole reason, but even if we were only doing this to prove something to the world or to ourselves, there are worse reasons to have kids.  Straight people all over the world have kids for those much worse reasons every day.  They fall down drunk and get up pregnant.

The same impulse that drives grown gay men to walk around holding hands could be pushing us toward this.  For same-sex couples, taking a lover’s hand is almost never an unself-conscious choice.  You have to think about where you are, whether you’re safe, and you have to look.  By the time you determine you’re safe, you’re not even sure you want to hold hands anymore.  The genuine moment has passed, but you’ve invested so much energy and angst that you can’t not take your lover’s hand.  You wind up holding and the only reason you take your lover’s hand is to prove that you can.

Wondering whether we were doing this “just to prove we can,” made us wonder about our motives.  In that hesitation, the decision to adopt become more than “Let’s have kids.”  Public displays of affection for gays and lesbians are political acts, and what could be a larger display of affection than two of us adopting a kid together.

I just finished the new David Sedaris book When You Are Engulfed In Flames.

I think that my love for books is similar to other people’s love of music. When I start reading a novel by one of my favorite authors, I just kinda feel comfortable and good.

This new Sedaris is not nearly as good as Me Talk Pretty One Day, but it still had some good stories in it.

From the story “Solutions to Saturday’s Puzzle”

On the flight to Raleigh, I sneezed, and the cough drop I’d been sucking on shot from my mouth, ricocheted off my folded tray table, and landed, as I remember it, on the lap of the woman beside me, who was asleep and had her arms folded across her chest. I’m surprised the force didn’t wake her–that’s how hard it hit–but all she did was flutter her eyelids and let out a tiny sigh, the kind you might hear from a baby.

Under normal circumstances, I’d have had three choices, the first being to do nothing. The woman would wake in her own time and notice what looked like a shiny new button sewn to the crotch of her jeans. This was a small plane, with one seat per row on aisle A, and two seats per row on aisle B. We were on B, so should she go searching for answers I would be the first person on her list. “Is this yours?” she’d ask, and I’d look dumbly into her lap.

“Is what mine?”

Option number two was to reach over and pluck it from her pants, and number three was to wake her up and turn the tables, saying, “I’m sorry, but I think you have something that belongs to me.” Then she’d hand the lozenge back and maybe even apologize, confused into thinking that she’d somehow stolen it.

If you want to borrow this good read, let me know.