Texts from Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg

What if your favorite literary characters had cellphones? Would they use emojis? Would they Lol and use other texting lingo?

Ortberg’s book is hilarious. I originally thought she only reworked classics of British Literature like Jane Eyre but she does a wide variety of books. She’s witty and clever and includes all of the inside jokes of each piece she plays on. This  is one of my favorites:

“JANE
MY LITTLE SUNBEAM
WHERE ARE YOU
I NEED YOU BY MY SIDE
I’m taking a walk
be back for dinner
AH YES MY CAGED SPRITE
COMMUNE WITH NATURE AND UPON YOUR RETURN
RELATE TO ME THE VAGRANT GLORIES OF THE RUINED WOODS
do you really want me to describe my walk to you
MORE THAN ANYTHING YOU POCKET WITCH
it is fairly cloudy out
looks like rain soon
AHHH TO THINK THAT MY LITTLE STARLING JANE
SHOULD RETURN
TO PERCH ON MY BROKEN MALFORMED SHOULDER
SINGING A SONG OF THE GREY AND WRACKING SKIES
MAKES MY HEART SWELL TO BURST
all right
JANE
JANE I BOUGHT YOU A DRESS MADE OF TEN THOUSAND PEARLS AS A BRIDAL PRESENT
where on earth would I wear that
YOU COULD WEAR IT ON THE MOON
that seems impractical
how would i even breathe on the moon?
I WOULD BREATHE FOR YOU MY JANE

JANE WHERE HAVE YOU GONE
I AM BEREFT AND WITHOUT MY JANE I SHALL SINK INTO ROGUERY
i am with my cousins
WHICH COUSIN
IS IT THE SEXY ONE
Please don’t try to talk to me again
IT IS YOUR SEXY COUSIN
“ST. JOHN”
WHAT KIND OF A NAME IS ST. JOHN
I’m not going to answer that
I KNEW IT
DID YOU LEAVE BECAUSE OF MY ATTIC WIFE
IS THAT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT
yes
absolutely”

My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff

I saw Joanna Rakoff speak about My Salinger Year at Brookline Booksmith months back and it took me far too long to read it. As someone who works in publishing I was especially interested in seeing the portrayal of New York City publishing in the 90’s, a pretty crucial time with the changes in technology and economic downturn, but also enjoyed her witty writing and the insights into J. D. Salinger. Looking back at publishing in the 90’s it is interesting to note the radical changes, technology was just beginning to affect the industry whereas now Amazon and the ebook have completely changed the nature of publishing and book selling. Rakoff’s work has inspired me to read other books that shed a light on the publishing industry during its different stages.

Review: Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

I’ve always admired Quirk Books and am so happy that they’ve had such success with Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children and now with Hollow City. It’s a quick but interesting read and builds on the unique characters of the first book. I would recommend it for anyone that enjoyed the first book. My only other recommendation would be to read it in print. I read it in ebook version and I think the reading experience would have been preferable in print with the images.

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan 

Crazy Rich Asians was forcefully placed on my book pile with the phrase that it was “like Pride and Prejudice” which it is. . . if Pride and Prejudice was set in modern day Hong Kong. It’s an interesting mix and I laughed out loud at some points in the book. I appreciated that Kwan wasn’t afraid to include a lot of inside jokes, sections of Mandarin, etc. in order to appease a more mainstream audience. It was authentically funny and a joy to read. My only complaint? I think it wrapped up too quickly and I really wanted more from the ending. But maybe I just wanted more?

Cinderland by Amy Jo Burns

Louise DeSalvo writes of Cinderland that Burns has, “charted new territory for the memoir by substituting the “I” narrative with the choral “We” and in so doing has brilliantly demonstrated how the harm done to one of us reverberates with us all.” DeSalvo accurately pinpoints the singularity of Burns’s memoir but there is more to Cinderland than the simple change of “I” to “We.” The  memoir is riveting and powerful, delving into the steel collapse and its affects on a small town and the ultimate cost of keeping such terrible secrets.

Discussion Questions are available here: http://www.beacon.org/Cinderland-P1050.aspx (By yours truly)

Amy Jo Burns grew up in Mercury, Pennsylvania, an industrial town humbled by the steel collapse of the 1980s. Instead of the construction booms and twelve-hour shifts her parents’ generation had known, the Mercury Amy Jo knew was marred by empty houses, old strip mines, and vacant lots. It wasn’t quite a ghost town—only because many people had no choice but to stay.

The year Burns turned ten, this sleepy town suddenly woke up. Howard Lotte, its beloved piano teacher, was accused of sexually assaulting his female students. Among the countless girls questioned, only seven came forward. For telling the truth, the town ostracized these girls and accused them of trying to smear a good man’s reputation. As for the remaining girls—well, they were smarter. They lied. Burns was one of them.

But such a lie has its own consequences. Against a backdrop of fire and steel, shame and redemption, Burns tells of the boys she ran from and toward, the friends she abandoned, and the endless performances she gave to please a town that never trusted girls in the first place.

This is the story of growing up in a town that both worshipped and sacrificed its youth—a town that believed being a good girl meant being a quiet one—and the long road Burns took toward forgiving her ten-year-old self. Cinderland is an elegy to that young girl’s innocence, as well as a praise song to the curative powers of breaking a long silence.

The Bees by Laline Paull

Orwell meets entomology. How could you go wrong?

I loved this book, from its cover to its intimate bee hierarchies, and carefully hidden subtexts. You are immediately thrown into this puzzling and complex world with Flora, a lowly sanitation bee, who commits the ultimate sin against the hive by laying an egg when only the queen may lay.