5. Confessions of a Guidette – Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi. Boys are not fans of celebrity memoirs. Besides, Jersey Shore kids are meant to be watched, not read. So let’s just hide that under the stack of Vanity Fairs, where it should be.

4. Eat, Love, Pray – Elizabeth Gilbert. Not only is this book unrealistic – she gets a book advance large enough to fund a year’s worth of travel and introspection – but we have to watch Julia Roberts in the movie adaptation.

3. A Room of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf. Yes, she is making a timely (written in 1928) and important point about women’s place in fiction, as writers, and the public sphere. But does she have to take so long to say it? I would like to see her and Hemmingway together for coffee.

2. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen. Girls read this because they all want a Mr. Darcy. Unfortunately, this puts too much pressure on us boys. The reality is: Colin Firth is not really Mr. Darcy, and most men are not good ballroom dancers. So, please stop asking us to take lessons. 

1. Any Play by Shakespeare – Shakespeare. To be perfectly frank: we can barely understand a sonnet, let alone be able to memorize one and recite it to you under the next pale moon.

Recently I read this article on the Paris Review blog: What Books Impress a Girl.

Rather than add to the conversation, I figured I would add my top 5 books that will never impress a girl. In fact, I’ve received more eye-rolling than amorous adulation from girls when they spotted these titles on my bookshelf:

5. The Death and Life of Superman – Roger Stern. Yes, it’s a book. Yes, I bought this in 92, when he actually “died”. I was quite sad when it happened. Despite that, my partner says, “you’re in your thirties, move on!”

4. Moby Dick – Herman Melville.“Have you seen the great white whale?” Boys like tales of the high-seas,  high-adventure, and revenge. Girls… well, they don’t.

3. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson. A story about drugs, excess, and finding the American dream? Blegh. Girls do not go Gonzo for Gonzo Journalism.

2. Tropic of Cancer or Tropic of Capricorn — Henry Miller. Isn’t he a misogynist? And, aren’t his female characters mere fabrications of a thirteen year-old boy’s dream? Yes. And, sigh, yes.

1. The Twilight series — Stephenie Meyer. What are those doing on your shelf, next to the movies? And what’s with the Robert Pattinson action figure… I think we should talk…

“In my opinion if I could write all my work again, I am convinced that I would do it better, which is the healthiest condition for an artist. That’s why he keeps on working, trying again; he believes each time that this time he will do it, bring it off. Of course he won’t, which is why this condition is healthy. Once he did it, once he matched the work to the image, the dream, nothing would remain but to cut his throat, jump off the other side of that pinnacle of perfection into suicide…”

Well… Here’s to imperfections, and the hope that we’ll always try to do better…

“It is not so very hard to judge a story after it is written, but after many years, to start a story still scares me to death. I will go so far as to say that the writer who is not scared is happily unaware of the remote and tantalizing majesty of the medium. “

I’m always heartened when I learn that even my heroes got scared, even late in their career.

If you’ld like to, read the whole letter here. Letters of Note is a fantastic site.

It’s been a long time since my last post, so I thought I would give a quick update to let everyone know what I’ve been doing.

I’m currently working on my final project for the Master of Publishing program at SFU. Without going into too much detail, I’m writing about Poetry and eBooks, and the myriad problems publishers face when putting these two things together.

If you would like to know more about the topic – this article from The Poetry Foundation sums up the problems on which I’m working.

So far I’ve been in contact with many great poets, programmers, designers and publishers. I’ll let you know more as the project progresses. Until then, I hope you’re all well, and if you have any questions, or know of anyone that would be interested in talking to me about this topic, then write me a comment below.

The strength of the Canadian dollar (or is it the weakness of the American dollar?) has finally reached the American book trade.

I recently bought-in to all the Pearl Jam twentieth-anniversary hype and bought PEARL JAM twenty, the commemorative book. What I found most surprising — other than the realization of just how much these once vehemently anti-capitalist musicians are actually cashing-in on their twenty years as a band — is that the American and Canadian prices are equal!

I wonder how long this has been happening. Perhaps Canadian book publishers were noticing Canadian consumers were heading south to buy their books at a cheaper price, thanks to parity, and complained. Or American publisher noticed their Canadian book sales were down.

Either way, I would like to have been in the board meeting at Simon and Schuster (the publisher of PJ20) when they made that decision. I guess that kind of makes me boring.

Anyway, Happy Anniversary PJ!

Oh, and Lukin is the best song in PJ’s catalogue.

“I’m going to Lukin’s…”

Gradually things began to change. It started with a dot. I would take a pencil and put a small, barely visible, point at the start of a poignant passage, then another at the end. To mark the page, I would tear up small pieces of paper, newsprint, post-it notes, whatever was nearby, and use that to save the place. My rational was that I could always erase the pencil mark, and the paper could always be removed.

Then, as time went on and I read more, I had a kind of epiphany. It may seem obvious to many, but to me it shook me harder than my older brother when I was seven. A book’s value isn’t in it’s form. Its value is in the ideas, stories and characters it contains. So long I harboured the illusion that my books were like trading cards, the more “mint” they were the higher their value.

Then I realized that a book’s value can only be reaped by harvesting its fruit (not to sound trite), and to do that you have to till the field. And that means, marking the pages, writing in the margins, underlining passages, and even taking the corner of a page and folding it inward.

Despite my inner struggle, I started “defacing” my books, even brand new ones. It was hard, but liberating. And the value was: it allowed me to engage with the book more. I reread passages. I noted my thoughts, even reflected on life. In a way, I was able to understand myself better by putting myself – my thoughts, ideas, and marks – in my books.

Now, my books have more marked pages than a New York phone-booth’s Yellow Pages in the 70’s.

The best part is,  now I quite often revisit books and look through my reading trail. This not only helps remind me of why I liked the book, but it also helps me to understand why I connected with the ideas, characters and story.

Basically, in order for me to evolve as a reader I had to get past the idea that a book, as an object, is sacred and should be left untouched. To really understand a book you have to interact with it. Just like the author, you have to take your pencil and put it to paper – then you’ll have a real conversation with the writer, the book, and yourself – and then you’ll find the true value of a book. 

Lucy was one of the first true comediennes. Star of the hit sitcom, I Love Lucy, and her own self-titled TV show, The Lucy Show, Lucille Ball was a force in the 50’s and 60’s. Her body of work is obviously still appreciated today.

So, in honour of Lucille Ball’s 100th Birthday, here are some of my favourite quotes from her:

“I think knowing what you cannot do is more important than knowing what you can.”
–Lucille Ball

“I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.”
–Lucille Ball

“Luck? I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work – and realizing what is opportunity and what isn’t.”
–Lucille Ball

Happy Birthday Lucy!

Steadman and Thompson had a strained relationship throughout their time working together. Thompson often tormented Steadman, giving the Englishman constant grief. He also brought Steadman along on many pranks, including a time when they went to spray paint “fuck the pope” on the side of one of the boats in The Americas Cup.

In this exchange Hunter is upset because Steadman sent Rolling Stone magazine some of his illustrations of Thompson, and Rolling Stone are considering printing the illustrations.

Thompson is so enraged he threatens to end their friendship: “you and I have had our last Scotch together,” Thompson writes. “Thanx for the laughs. “

Steadman, who usually tolerates Thompson’s antics and abuse, obviously was not going to take anymore:

“…don’t get pompous with me. I am not one of your goddamn sychophants or acolytes. I am the one you needed when you needed someone to say what cannot be said in words.”

Anyway, the link is below if you want to read the whole exchange. Enjoy.
Letters of Note: Don’t get pompous with me.

Among other things, Hemingway discusses his process, when he likes to write, and the value of editing. It’s highly readable and informative, despite his apparent boredom for most of the questions: “I see I am getting away from the question, but the question was not very interesting.” And, “when you ask someone old, tired questions you are apt to receive old, tired answers.”

Two highlights from the interview:

One, his confirmation of a writer needing space to create: “You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you.”

Two, his answer to a question regarding an author’s training:

INTERVIEWER: What would you consider the best intellectual training for the would-be writer?

HEMINGWAY: Let’s say that he should go out and hang himself because he finds that writing well is impossibly difficult. Then he should be cut down without mercy and forced by his own self to write as well as he can for the rest of his life. At least he will have the story of the hanging to commence with.

Anyway, it’s a great interview. I urge anyone interested in a writer’s process or cantankerous literary icons to read the full interview.