New Glarkware: Dewey the Decimal

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I ended up staying home Tuesday because of a sick day due to a suspected missed dosage of medicine. All my own damned fault, but inexorable nonetheless.

What book's up on my list to be read once I'm actually well enough to be reading? Libba Bray's Rebel Angels. Not exactly the right book to read after a day spent experiencing the pain brought on by a missed dose of morphine. Still, strong narrative, and even though I really want to slap all the girls for ignoring EVERY SINGLE CLUE, a compelling story.

I don't suppose the library system will be handing me the third for a while now.

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I just finished The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (I think that's it), by Junot Diaz, and I definitely recommend it, but only if you speak at least some spanish and at least some geek. There's a lot of each, and you can kind of slide by assuming what he means by things, but it goes a lot easier if you actually know what he's talking about.

It's a book nominally about this one guy, but really about the last 50 years of history of the Domincan Republic (a LOT about Trujillo) and the Dominican diaspora.

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Random book note, especially of interest to erika the Alexie lover and to Kate P and beth and any other YA librarians (though you probably already know all about this and I'm just horribly late): At my mom's recommendation (really, more her near-tearful urging), I just read Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (with cartoons by Ellen Forney), and it utterly fucking rocked the house. Full of gorgeous comic-painful details and so endlessly quotable that I can't even really talk about any specifics without spoiling something, so all I'll say is: fucking rocked the house.

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JZ, I just read that too! Isn't it brilliant?

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Utterly so.

Weirdest conversation with my mother as a result of that book:

Mom: It taught me so much about what it means for a boy to become a man in our culture. I was sobbing by the end.

Me: Wow. I really need to read it.

Mom: And I learned some slang, too! I never knew before that boys call their erections "boners."

Me: ......

Mom: I thought I knew what they meant from the context, but I had to look it up to make sure.

Me: ::hurls self from moving car::

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That's actually kinda cute...

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Love him...making him laugh was one of my life's highlights.(I went to his reading in a pow wow t-shirt that he thought was funny.) Glad to hear he's at work again.

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You know, my favourite euphemism for the youknow is "unsponsored wood." I about bust a gut laughing when I first heard that term.

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I just finished The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (I think that's it), by Junot Diaz, and I definitely recommend it, but only if you speak at least some spanish and at least some geek. There's a lot of each, and you can kind of slide by assuming what he means by things, but it goes a lot easier if you actually know what he's talking about.

I just met him! He was one of the speakers at the Key West Literary Conference, and he addressed the geek/Spanish thing directly. He said that one of the reasons that he wrote the book the way he did was to force the reader into one essential aspect of the immigrant experience: never quite understanding everything going on around you. He wanted to create some level of discomfort with the narrative. Fascinating speaker (cute, too).

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