Memoirist, Quaker, long-distance swimmer, profoundly unmusical lover of music and musicians, committed to my Somerville Union Square community and to matters of equality and social justice.
Coffee and wine. And conversation. I write for many reasons. Because without poetry (in the broadest sense) there is no joy. Because words can inspire personal, social, and political transformation. Because I soon will not have to have an actual conversation, merely assign reading when someone asks me a question (just kidding).
Oh, too many to mention. Old standbys like Flannery O'Conner, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, of course. Recent books I've read and adored: Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles, Personal Days by Joshua Ferris, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson, Unfriendly Fire by Nathaniel Rich (dense but eminently worthwhile), Netherland by Joseph O'Neill, A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (until Kaplan left the story!). Damn, haven't I read anything by a woman lately? Oh, yes, Little Chapel on the River by Gwendolyn Bounds. I read that right after Netherland, and I have to confess that it suffered by comparison (niggling complaint against the book: At one point, someone calls her a "pip," and she actually goes to look up the word, instead of taking the social and contextual cues to determine what it means - where is the poetry in your soul, girl?).
Yes but those are just my favorites--I read everything, especially new fiction.
I very much like that you mentioned both Dear American Airlines and Tunneling to the Center of the Earth. That's right on the mark.
Yes but those are just my favorites--I read everything, especially new fiction.
I very much like that you mentioned both Dear American Airlines and Tunneling to the Center of the Earth. That's right on the mark.