And honestly, I'd rather see someone playing in Jane Austen's sandbox than see another book by or about Larry the Cable Guy, or The Big Book of Bathroom Humor.
I suppose I'm bad because I'd rather see the demise of both. Actually, I much prefer something like The Jane Austen Bookclub, which used the construct of the book club reading her novels with which to draw parallels in the characters' lives. Tough book to read in some ways, though-- odd writing style. Good, though.
I'm indifferent to Oscar-- I know that Junot wrote it basically for the audience of himself and for that, I admire him hugely, but I couldn't connect with the book in any meaningful way.
In college, I went to Olsen's and saw him read and was transfixed.
I was first introduced to him at a reading seven years ago. He was really funny, and I always meant to read something by him but only just got around to it.
His poetry is marvelous.
I'm not really a poetry person, but I'll give it a looksee. Neil Gaiman makes me skeptical of author/poets because while I like his writing, his poems do absolutely nothing for me.
P-C, your LJ post really sums up the trouble I'm having with it.
I'm glad it was helpful!
And ha ha ha, A Softer World weighs in on the Austen craze.
Alexie studied with Alex Kuo whose poetry is awesome and Alexie's first books (the ones that he won an NEA grant for) were poetry. So I guess I think of him as a poet first who later became a novelist.
One of my favorites of his poems.
OH! and Poets.org has him listed which I never noticed before: [link]
I liked "Oscar Wao" and, like Kat G,am a big Alexie fangirl.
Unfortunately, imitating him only *looks* easy...it's actually not.
I've liked/kept up with Alexie since my early Salon.com TT days (1995 or so), where he was a regular poster.
My favorite was when he said in re the Bering Strait landshelf deal:
"No, we're really first. Neener."
Or something adult like that.
But it almost really made me rotfl, with my two drops of native blood and all that.
We go back to the Trail of Tears in four easy generations.
But I still can't be real Indian, though.
No jump shot.
My family (OK, one great-grandmother's family) somehow skipped the whole Trail of Tears trip. Not sure how they managed it, but they ended up in North Carolina.
Kate Beaton on the recent Austen re-visionings. Golly, I love Hark, A Vagrant!
