I was having this IM conversation a couple of weeks ago with a guy we’ll call Greg, because that is his name. It ended up being about whether or not certain books are hot, for example, “If you saw a girl reading a Homeric epic, would that be hot?” or “Pablo Neruda: hot or too obvious?” 1 That sort of thing. It started when Greg told me that he had fallen in love with a woman sitting nearby who was reading a book with such intense fascination that her mouth was hanging open. “Like a carp,” he said, and I never knew that carp-mouth was hot either, but as they say, to each his own. And then Greg fell out of love with the woman when he noticed that she was reading one of those books in the Left Behind series. Love, so fleeting. Ever was it so.
I can’t say that I’ve been thinking about the hotness of certain books since then, because if I were to say such a thing, I’d be lying. My brain is a busy place, and I think about a lot of things. But sometimes I would look at a book or think about book subject matter and evaluate hotness. (Like I was watching this thing on the History Channel about Lincoln — shut up, it was really interesting — and I thought “Are Lincoln biographies hot?” 2)
So anyway, since I am apparently never getting hired for anything ever 3, I have decided to turn my obvious brilliance toward altruism. I am hereby announcing myself as the world’s only living authority on the hotness of reading material. You want to know if what you’re reading is hot? (I mean, why else do you read?) I’m here to help.
To prove that I am actually an authority on the subject at hand, and not just some hack making things up for the purpose of amusing myself, though that is also a fair activity, I’m going to provide you with an arbitrary list of books and tell you whether or not they are hot. I figure that’s the way people become authorities: they declare themselves authorities and then they back themselves up by being authoritative. My goodness, can I ever be authoritative.
Let’s sally forth, like we’re in Don Quixote 4 or something:
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
This is not hot. As I wrote here: 5 “…and Heathcliff? Well, yes, he was dark and brooding, but less in a hot way and more in a total asshole way. It’s like, listen dude, I understand that you’re dark and brooding and really busy brooding darkly about your dark pain, or something, but do you really have to be such a dick about it? For fuck’s sake, go have some ice cream and a nap, Sparky. Good lord.”
So, you know, obviously not hot.
Slowness – Milan Kundera
Hot. I didn’t think it was hot at first. In fact, I was kind of annoyed through about two-thirds of the book, but then I was like, “Oh snap!” The thing about Milan Kundera books is that they kind of seem to be entirely tangential and then everything falls into place and then it’s like “Oh, you sly bastard.” Plus, this book is about sex, so, you know. I think it’s probably especially hot if a guy is reading it, which I’m not going to explain, but just trust me.
French symbolist poetry
This depends. I mean, I was never hit on while I was reading A Season in Hell, for instance, so there’s that. I’m sure I was wearing black and everything. Probably even those reading glasses. Dammit, what do I have to do, anyway? Maybe it’s because I was reading it in Denny’s. What was I writing about? I don’t know. I haven’t had a Grand Slam in ages. 6
Ulysses – James Joyce
I grudgingly admit this is hot. But only if someone is actually reading it and not just pretending to read it because gosh, isn’t it impressive to sit somewhere holding Ulysses and looking smart? I’m not really sure how you’d tell the difference between someone who was actually reading and someone who was only pretending to read, however, because while you usually can tell if someone’s faking by whether or not that person ever turns any pages, with Ulysses sometimes it takes awhile to get through a page, because you have to read it, think “Wait, what?” and read it again, and then have your brain sidetrack you into some stupid tangent for several minutes, and then start over again. So it could conceivably take an hour to get to the next page in that book, is what I’m saying.
Books by Dan Brown
Only if the person is smirking. And possibly also cooking chili in his/her shoes. 7
Textbooks
No. Just no. 8
Novels by Chuck Palahniuk
My own opinion of Chuck Palahniuk novels is that they seem like a series of clever phrases that would work on bumper stickers and t-shirts strung together into book form, so I can’t say that I’m really a fan. I haven’t read everything he’s ever written, so maybe I’m not being entirely fair, as it’s really just one book (Diary) and the short story “Guts,” 9 which is apparently so shocking that people have been known to pass out at readings. It gives them the vapors, y’all! I don’t know. I suppose I’m just a jaded jerk, but I don’t shock easily, and instead of being surprised or disgusted, I would spot the places where I was supposed to be so surprised and disgusted and just feel irritated that the writing was trying to manipulate me. Badassery isn’t badass if it’s all “I’m so badass!” So anyway, I’m going to look beyond my own personal distaste and decide that this is only hot if you’re under the age of 25. After then and it’s like being that guy in his 30s who keeps showing up at high school parties, which is, you know, sad.
Things by Samuel Beckett
Only if it’s not Waiting for Godot, which, while very good, is kind of the obvious pick. 10 Anyway, reading Samuel Beckett is kind of hot, mainly because you just have to have a sense of the absurd.
Any book with a unicorn on the cover
Obviously not.
Jane Austen
I’m sure it’s perfectly obvious that I would say that reading Jane Austen is hot. But it’s also obvious that reading Jane Austen really is hot. Because come on, her books are the perfect combination of smart and funny, which is of course the deadliest combination of all time when it comes to sex appeal. 11
Anyway, there you go, with a few choices. Any questions? Go ahead and ask. I am an authority, after all.
________________________________________________________
1. Homeric epic: yes, hot. Pablo Neruda: depends entirely on context. Apparently reading Pablo Neruda in a coffee shop is obvious, but reading Pablo Neruda on the bus, say, is hot. Just so you know, the real estate rule of “Location, location, location,” holds true with the sex appeal of your reading choices as well.
2. Yes. This is not to say, however, that watching things about Lincoln on the History Channel is also hot, because what do I look like? The world’s only living authority on the hotness of television watching habits? Please.
3. I had a thought yesterday about this unemployment thing. I’m still looking, though I can’t say with any honesty that my heart is in it anymore. I mean, fuck, if you want to try out some reading material guaranteed to depress you, skip The Sorrows of Young Werther and just read through some classified ads and think about how you’d be all set if only you were qualified at everything you don’t know how to do, because it’s not like those typing test people are going to get back to you before you stick your head in an oven. I kid. Sort of. I’m not sticking my head in an oven, but looking for a job sucks so hard its eyes may pop out of its head.
4. You can be Sancho Panza, if you want. Also, Don Quixote? Not hot. Neither is singing songs from Man of La Mancha. It is amusing, however. Duuuulcineeeeaaaaaa.
5. As Part One of my own personal Brontepalooza, which concluded with Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte, which also isn’t hot, by the way. I did quite enjoy Jane Eyre, which is possibly hot. Mainly the thing I remember about this book is reading it for a class and everyone in the class kind of agreed that Jane was kind of a tease, which subsequently blew the professor’s mind. Here’s something on which we can certainly agree: being a tease is only hot in small doses.
6. NOT A EUPHEMISM.
7. John Travolta is dead. Long live John Travolta. (That’s just for Caryn.)
8. Obvious exception: physics.
9. The one about the boy in the pool? Is that what it’s called?
10. Endgame is better, anyhow.
11. You know, I remember reading a stereotype of single women once. There are the ones who end up alone except for about 47 cats, and then there are the ones who end up alone except for Jane Austen books. Jane Austen books won’t shed on you, which is definitely something to consider. If I’m going to end up a crazy old spinster, I will definitely be one of the Austen-reading variety, which is totally fine with me, because I’m looking forward to getting one of those wacky beaded glasses chains (it’s all in the details, people). And besides, I read in Time magazine recently that getting married increases your chances of being obese by something like 230%, so BACK OFF, GRANDMA. Ahem.
Oh man… so much to say, so few shoes in which I can cook up that chili. Which, by the way, is hot. Really fuckin’ hot if you ask DH Lawrence. Yet again, you prove that there are so many reasons to admire you. I can’t even imagine thinking a book or the reading thereof is hot. But you make me believe that it is possible… somewhere.
Posted by Caryn | June 29, 2009, 7:00 pmI forgot — does Henry James chili have beans?
Posted by jamelah | June 29, 2009, 8:48 pmOkay, well, since you’re the only one vying for it, I’ll grant you the title of Arbiter of the Hotness of Reading Material. The question I have is, if reading certain titles by certain authors is an activity which causes one to appear appealing to another human, how do we evaluate the majority of people who don’t or can’t read? When I was sitting in the jury assembly room a few weeks ago, I noticed that there was an extreme lack of book reading. Will you please rate the various magazines and newspapers for us so that we can know, for example, if reading the Society Page of the Los Angeles Times is hot. Obviously, sitting in a chair with your head resting on the desk in front of you whilst snoring is not hot. I can figure that much out for myself. I will leave the rest up to you.
Also, I’m happy to know that I’m not the only one who is unable to find gainful, interesting employment. If things keep going the way there are now, I will have to get another mind-killing security job. That would be okay, but instead of letting me do something else while I am guarding the empty building, they expect me to just stand there and look attentive. I’ve decided that security guards didn’t start out stupid, the job made them that way.
Posted by Brett | June 29, 2009, 8:58 pmIf she really is the authority, and if all of this is true…Kindle owners are screwed.
Posted by xphaqtor | June 30, 2009, 12:49 amI was prepared to accept your authority rather than think for myself, but then you dissed Don Quixote. Sorry, but smart and funny and older totally trumps smart and funny and just a bit old. (I say older, because I need to leave room for Homer et al.) Besides, anyone reading anything that predates English novels gets hotness points in my book.
I’m with you on the unicorns, and I skipped the part about Chuck Palahniuk because I’ve never heard of him. I guess that makes me old.
If you need me, I’ll be over in the corner reading Anne Carson.
Posted by Andy C | June 30, 2009, 2:36 amBrett — You know, considering the plight of the modern newspaper, I’m inclined to grant hotness points to people who read them. As for the job thing — good luck, man. I feel your pain.
xphaqtor — Yeah, I didn’t even think about it (I’m so old-fashioned that I didn’t consider the Kindle), but reading an e-book on some kind of reader makes it nearly impossible to judge people based on their choices in reading material. (Unless maybe you were to get all creepy-close.) And I think we can agree that judging people based on the reading material they bring with them into public spaces is one of the hallmarks of society. I fear for future generations.
Andy — Andy, Andy, Andy. I didn’t dis Don Quixote. I just said it wasn’t hot. I personally believe that a book can be worthwhile without being hot, like Agnes Grey, which I mentioned in my extensive and impressive footnotes. Liked the book, but it isn’t hot. You do bring up a good point, though, about books that predate English novels. Especially if we look at Robinson Crusoe as the genesis of the English novel, and man, that book is the antithesis of hot. Obviously. Anyway, I think Don Quixote is one of those books people rarely actually read and/or finish, so I tend to be skeptical. Besides, I’ve had “The Impossible Dream” stuck in my head since yesterday, thanks so much, Peter O’Toole.
Also, you probably have heard of Chuck Palahniuk without knowing that you’ve heard of him. He’s most famous for Fight Club, though the movie may be more famous than the book, thanks in part, I’m sure, to Brad Pitt’s abs.
Posted by jamelah | June 30, 2009, 8:41 amSort of long time reader, if 3 weeks is long time, first time poster.
But, had to say: you’re on fire today!
Posted by Mel | June 30, 2009, 8:41 amHi Mel. Welcome, and thanks!
Posted by jamelah | June 30, 2009, 8:44 amOh, that Chuck Palahniuk. Never been a fan of Fight Club, or of anything where the point is the fighting. The Iliad, on the other hand…
I was forced to suffer through Pamela on the claim that it was the first English novel. Definitely not hot.
Posted by Andy C | June 30, 2009, 10:04 amthis is a vital science, and i have to thank you for your service to humanity.
this makes me wonder: if person a is reading a twilight book, and person b checks out person a with serious intent, does that make person b a literary pedophile? because i kind of feel like all those folks reading twilight books in public are announcing to the world “i am emotionally immature!”
just curious, oh arbiter of literary hotness.
Posted by kelsi | June 30, 2009, 10:11 amIf I saw someone sitting in a bookstore attempting to read Ulysses I’d walk up, slap the book out of their hands, and yell, ‘STOP IT!’, because the book is unreadable and they’re lying to others and themselves when they attempt to do so in public. And there’s just no call for that kind of behavior.
Also, I’ve read that getting married vastly increases one’s chances of ending up divorced. The cards are really stacked against the second oldest institution concerning human companionship (the first being prostitution, of course).
Also also, if I saw a woman reading Dave Eggers or David Foster Wallace, I’d be tempted to go all Moonstruck on her ass and start pointing at her and yelling, ‘GET IN MY BED!’
Posted by You can call me, 'Sir' | June 30, 2009, 11:11 amUm what? No.
Ulysses, not hot. Not even luke warm. Ulysses is for people who want other people to think that they are elitist. ‘Nuff said on this one.
The Chuckster. . . unfortunately he kind of lost his way over his last few books. Guts is only shock (schlock?) value. Haunted, where Guts appeared is bad Chuck. Read Fight Club, Stranger than Fiction or Invisible Monsters for good Chuck.
Bret Easton Ellis – “warm it up Chris, I’m about to!”
Posted by Dave/singlemalt/whatever | June 30, 2009, 11:53 amAndy — Is Pamela the first English novel? I thought it was Robinson Crusoe, but I’m perfectly prepared to be wrong about that. I managed to avoid reading Pamela (yay, me!) so I don’t know much about it, except someone wrote a response to it cleverly titled Shamela. Really, all I remember about Robinson Crusoe is that I wanted to punch RC in the throat, and that Defoe hadn’t worked out chapters yet. Anyway, the Iliad? Yes.
Kelsi — You know, I don’t know anything at all about the Twilight books except I am absolutely not interested in them, and that vampire dude from the movie is about as attractive as moldy shower walls. He looks like he probably also smells like moldy shower walls. So my point is that reading any of the Twilight books is decidedly not hot, and also perhaps displays a predilection for fungus.
Sir — Well, Ulysses isn’t unreadable, BECAUSE I READ IT. So there. I can’t help it that I’m just so awesome and brilliant all the time. And even though Ulysses is way too damn long, I think it’s unfairly maligned. I can’t say I would necessarily call it a must-read, but I wouldn’t begrudge anyone else the experience if they wanted to give it a shot.
Malty Dave — Yo. I find it odd that I’m standing by Ulysses so much, considering the fact that I called it, and I quote, “just another book” on LitKicks and was called ridiculous in return. (Note: Ulysses is just a book. If it just sits there on the nightstand being a collection of printed words on paper, without ever showing some initiative, by, say, getting up sometime and making me some coffee, then I say it is a book.) For my part, I read it to see if I could read it, and discovered that it’s not so bad (though I was also told I didn’t get it because I didn’t read some study guides while I read it, because obviously the book can’t stand on its own — don’t book snobs see that they’re not doing the literature they love any favors with statements like that? Oh, hello, tangent). I can’t say I ever want to read it again, but it’s not the most difficult thing I’ve ever read. There’s enough of the bawdy and joyous within it for it to get a pass from me. I think it’s impressive when people attempt it, so I’m standing by my original statement.
As for Palah-whatsits, I think we have discussed him a lot in the past. I may read Fight Club someday, but you know, probably not.
Also (this is turning into the longest comment ever), I sort of lump Bret Easton Ellis together with Palahniuk, which may not be fair. But then, I’ve only ever read American Psycho, which was so graphic that eventually I became numb to the gore. Though I think that may have been the point. I’m torn about that book.
Posted by jamelah | June 30, 2009, 1:57 pmI think my sister would beg to differ about Man-of-La-Mancha-singing not being hot. But that’s because she’s in love with Sbakula.
Posted by srah | June 30, 2009, 2:11 pmI feel like the same people who think Rochester is “romantic” instead of “a creepy stalking asshole creep” are probably the same people who think a sparkly vampire sniffing people is “romantic.”
Posted by srah | June 30, 2009, 2:12 pmYou missed nothing by not reading Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. It’s one of those rich-man-tries-to-seduce-servant-girl-who-resists-virtuously-until-he-proposes novels, with the added tediousness of having originally being planned as a how-to-behave-properly book. On top of that, it’s written as a series of letters. But it was the pop culture hit of its day.
As for whether it was the first novel, there’s some debate on that, largely due to the vague definition of “novel.”
Posted by Andy C | June 30, 2009, 2:36 pmYeah, American Psycho was the most graphic book I read in terms of violence. But the end of the book (spoiler warning) made me wonder if the violence ever really happened, or only happened in the protagonist’s mind.
Ellis also wrote Less Than Zero which is almost like a “Lost Generation” book and it smacks of Hemingway. You don’t really care about the characters because they are all scumbags. But his writing style is so lean that it’s very interesting.
I was reading The Rules of Attraction, also by Ellis, and I ended up leaving it on an airplane (not on purpose). So I read about 2/3 of it and don’t know what happens at the end. In that book, the homosexuality didn’t do anything for me, but I finally started to get into it (the whole concept of the book – not the homosexuality (not that there is anything wrong with that)) when I left it on the plane. Again, the prose was very lean. But the plot finally started to take hold and I was starting to get into it and now someone in Albuquerque probably has my book. But I guess that I didn’t like it that much because I never made an attempt to buy or borrow the book to finish it.
I like Ellis’s style more than his plots or characters. Zero and Rules, from what I could tell, had very little by way of a plot. And all the characters were just pieces of garbage. But his style is oh so good.
Posted by Dave/singlemalt/whatever | June 30, 2009, 3:16 pmI actually did research on this once. Real, pseudo-scientific research involving surveys and fieldwork and stuff. So, however apprehensively, I feel reasonably well equipped to claim some level of authority approaching yours.
The result of my research (which admittedly dates from almost twenty years ago, and therefore excludes some of the writers and texts cited above) was used (by me) in a(n as yet unpublished) novel in which the protagonists cruised the London underground system ostentatiously reading “hot” texts in order to pick people up. The two texts which proved the most successful (with both sexes) were “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” and “Love in the Time of Cholera”. In a delightfully self-referential twist, a man reading “Anna Karenina” also appealed particularly to women.
I can also confirm that reading Samuel Beckett is hot, though that is based not on scientific research, but on the fact that my ex-wife was reading “Molloy” when I first spied her.
I’m not sure about “location, location, location” as far as Neruda goes, but I was (metaphorically, then, shortly afterwards, literally) seduced by someone on Flickr whose stream first caught my attention when she posted an image of a page of one of his love poems.
Finally, I can guarantee that I would have hit on you had I spotted you reading French Symbolist poetry in Denny’s, or anywhere else for that matter. This is because the doctoral thesis I never wrote (a story for another day) was on, well, French Symbolist poetry, and as you can imagine, having not written my thesis, I have a lot of unwritten thoughts I would like to share with someone one day.
That is all.
Posted by Tom | June 30, 2009, 6:25 pmSrah — I have a feeling I’m going to be singing “I am I, Don Quixote! The man of La Mancha!” to myself for, oh, hours. This is okay, however, since I have already declared this sort of activity to be amusing. My memory of Jane Eyre is kind of weak since I last read it when I was 18, and we somehow ended up talking about vampirism a lot even though there really aren’t any vampires in Jane Eyre, so, yeah. Or are there? Is Rochester a vampire like creepy mold-smelling Twilight dude? (He also sparkles?) I don’t know if any of that makes sense or not; it has been a long, tiring day.
Andy — You know, considering how much conduct literature from that era I have actually read (never let it be said that I don’t know how to have a good time), it may almost be surprising that I never came across Pamela. In regards to that list of novels bearing the claim of being the first novel in English, Robinson Crusoe clearly pre-dates Pamela, but now I’m thinking about Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko (which I happen to have read twice… once for the class in which I was forced to read Robinson Crusoe, and once just because… I don’t know, I hate myself?), because Oroonoko is also on the list of first novels, and yet I’m pretty sure it was in this class where I thought I learned that Robinson Crusoe was the first English novel; furthermore, that class was all about race and gender in the 18th century (though a somewhat loosely-defined 18th century, which began with the tail end of the interregnum/beginning of the Restoration and ended with Jane Austen and I told you that I know how to have a good time) so it seems odd that we wouldn’t have given Aphra Behn her due, unless we were defining a novel by length, in which case Oroonoko is clearly a novella. Was that not a hell of a sentence? My goodness, yes. I’m tired now.
Dave — Interesting point regarding the ending of American Psycho. I guess I always just assumed that it was real and everyone was so shallow that nobody gave a shit that Bateman was a murderer. I will admit that my problem with Ellis isn’t his writing ability, but rather the fact that I just didn’t like anybody in the book so by the time I got to the end, I also didn’t give a shit. But again, I sort of wonder if that wasn’t exactly the way I was supposed to feel.
Tom — Hi. I can’t believe that I am no longer the world’s only living authority on the hotness of reading material. My reign was so brief. Maybe I can live with being America’s only living authority on the hotness of reading material. I’ll have to think about that.
Anyway, in regards to your (as yet unpublished) novel, I can agree that both The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Love in the Time of Cholera are hot. I think Kundera and Marquez are hot, at least in terms of reading material, which reminds me that I need to stop being daunted by my copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude in Spanish and just read it. Also, once, back when I was first reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being, some guy approached me and said “Oh, that’s a great book,” and I barely looked up and said “Yep.” It wasn’t until hours later that I realized that maybe he was trying to start a conversation with me and I AM SO HOPELESS.
Alas. At least I have all of Jane Austen’s books.
And finally, because I have been going on for quite awhile, reading Rimbaud (in translation, of course) made me wish I could read French. Haven’t gotten around to learning French, though, because I have enough other languages rattling around my head as it is.
Posted by jamelah | June 30, 2009, 7:54 pmJamelah – Yes! I don’t think anyone could like the characters in Ellis’s books. They are scum and Ellis knows it which is why a lot of his stuff is referred to as “black comedy.” The thing about Psycho is that no one could remember anyone’s name. The whole purpose of the characters is to get into a great restaurant. Nothing else seems to matter. The fact that Patrick Bateman is more concerned about a girl accidentially touching his Rolex than he is with getting her blood all over his sheets is, I suppose, where the black comedy comes in.
I dunno. I love his style. I liken him to Hemingway. Great style, but sometimes they really bore me.
Bah, I need a new book anyway because Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon is boring the hell out of me. That dude uses way, way too many words.
Posted by Dave | June 30, 2009, 11:43 pmI would absolutely agree that Pamela wasn’t the first English novel if it weren’t for the back of my paperback copy saying it was.
On the other hand, I fear disagreeing with you, because you’ll write another of those long sentences at me.
Posted by Andy C | June 30, 2009, 11:58 pmDave — It’s been a long time since I’ve read it, but I remember parts of the book that made me laugh. Whitney Houston as a jazz singer, for instance. And I think I remember a scene in a department store being funny though I don’t quite remember the particulars. If I’m to believe the movie version (have you seen it?) then the violence is almost cartoon-like, but when I was reading, I had to desensitize myself in order to get through certain parts (such as the dead girl sausage bit). So I could see it from a different perspective when I watched the movie, but when I was reading, it was sometimes just too much.
Andy — Yay, I win!
Posted by jamelah | July 1, 2009, 9:13 amOops, I meant Heathcliff, not Rochester. Some Bronte-hero!
Posted by srah | July 1, 2009, 12:07 pmFirst, in my defense let me just say that I don’t find ‘carp mouth’ necessarily appealing but…and this is a very important but…I am totally smitten by the sort of reading intensity that will allow somebody to sit in public and go all carp-mouthy. I love that sort of passion.
Second, I wouldn’t have lost my infatuation for her quite so suddenly had she been reading the first book of the Left Behind series. I figure at some point I’ll read that book my ownself, just to see what the fuss is/was about. But it was one of the later books, which suggests to me she was either a True Believer or one of those compulsive people who insist on reading every book in a series in order, even if they’re horrible.
Finally, although I’m not an authority on hotness of any sort, I would suggest that Russian literature is not hot. I’d rather have my stomach pumped than read Russian literature. I swear, it’s like each individual word in Russian literature weighs more than the same word written by a non-Russian. I can barely pick up a book of Russian literature, the words weigh so much. And that’s in translation; imagine how much ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ would weigh in the original Russian.
I’m willing to bet nobody ever made a carp mouth while reading Solzhenitsyn.
Posted by greg | July 1, 2009, 4:51 pmSrah — Ha. In any case, we agree: Heathcliff is totally not hot.
Greg — I picked a copy of One Day in the Life of Ivan whatever I’m tired of typing this title out of a dumpster once. Mainly just because I think that throwing books in a dumpster is wrong. I would’ve left it if the book had been coated in grossness, but it was just sitting on top of some cardboard. It’s been sitting on a shelf ever since. Totally not interested in reading it.
I might disagree with you about all Russian literature. I might be willing to give Dostoevsky a pass. You know who is totally not hot though? TOLSTOY. I HATE TOLSTOY. Reading Anna Karenina made me want to throw MYSELF under a train.
Posted by jamelah | July 1, 2009, 5:05 pmI read One Day in the Life of Whatshisname in winter, on a seemingly unheated, slow midnight train from Montreal to Toronto with no food or drink service. Given that the book is about shivering and starving in Siberia, it made all sorts of painful sense. But A Moveable Feast would have made me much happier.
Posted by Andy C | July 1, 2009, 5:54 pm