I miss that feeling when the late-afternoon sunlight is flooding the desert and you’ve just flown past a sign warning, “last gas for 100 miles” with a quarter of a tank left, and you’re with your sister and you’re singing along to that band that changed your life in high school, and you know you’ll never catch up to the horizon, try as you might.
That’s the type of moment I live for.
This is how Tom gives me tickets to see the Black Keys for my birthday. HE’S SO CLEVER. And good at DMA. And being an awesome boyfriend.
YAAAAAY BLACK KEYS. Oh, and did I mention they are sharing a stage with The Shins? YAAAYYYY!
The problem that needs to be fixed is not kick all the girls out of YA, it’s teach boys that stories featuring female protagonists or written by female authors also apply to them. Boys fall in love. Boys want to be important. Boys have hopes and fears and dreams and ambitions. What boys also have is a sexist society in which they are belittled for “liking girl stuff.” Male is neutral, female is specific.
I heard someone mention that Sarah Rees Brennan’s THE DEMON’S LEXICON would be great for boys, but they’d never read it with that cover. Friends, then the problem is NOT with the book. It’s with the society that’s raising that boy. It’s with the community who inculcated that boy with the idea that he can’t read a book with an attractive guy on the cover.
Here’s how we solve the OMG SO MANY GIRLS IN YA problem: quit treating women like secondary appendages. Quit treating women’s art like it’s a niche, novelty creation only for girls. Quit teaching boys to fear the feminine, quit insisting that it’s a hardship for men to have to relate to anything that doesn’t specifically cater to them.
Because if I can watch Raiders of the Lost Ark and want to grow up to be an archaeologist, there’s no reason at all that a boy shouldn’t be able to read THE DEMON’S LEXICON with its cover on. My friends, sexism doesn’t just hurt women, and our young men’s abysmal rate of attraction to literacy is the proof of it.
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Forget bed time… 3 a.m. is obviously breaking-out-the-guitar-and-pretending-to-be-Neil-Young time :) (Taken with instagram)
I hate going to sleep alone, curling up inside my bed with no warm body to press my back against. So I find myself still up at 2:30, searching for anything to keep me occupied. I iron a skirt, check Facebook for the millionth time (when did it become so boring?), clip my nails. Anything but crawl into my cold, empty bed. It’s too quiet here without him, too still. I’m too tired for this.
Last night I was pleased to attend a reading by Ellis Avery, author of “The Teahouse Fire” and the recently released “The Last Nude,” at my favorite independent bookstore, Talking Leaves in Buffalo, NY.
Although only a small group of people turned up for the reading (myself, two Canisius professors and two UB professors), it was a very enjoyable and intimate event. Avery, wearing a brown dress over jeans and a lilac scarf draped over her slim shoulders, began her talk with an introduction to her book.
Set in 1927 Paris, “The Last Nude” is inspired by Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka’s famous work, “Beautiful Rafaela,” which Avery was first exposed to in London while she was working on her first novel, “The Teahouse Fire.” She said she was completely struck by the painting and the information she read on the placard next to it. She was intrigued to learn the piece is one of many paintings of de Lempicka’s lover and surprised that two women would have had this type of relationship during the time period. She knew she wanted her next novel to explore this relationship.
Read the rest on my lit blog, Books Speak Volumes!
I was introduced to The Broke and the Bookish’s ‘Top Ten Tuesday’ meme last week by Jillian over at A Room of One’s Own. It seems like a fun little weekly segment to do! I know it’s not technically Tuesday anymore, but it’s been a busy day and it still counts if I haven’t gone to bed yet, right?
This week bloggers are asked to list the top ten books they would save if their homes were to be abducted by aliens, destroyed by a natural disaster, etc. Here’s my list, in no particular order.
1. “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” by JK Rowling. This book was given to me by my aunt Bettie for my ninth birthday, in 1999. She worked in a school, and she encouraged my reading by buying me a book of my choice each year, to add to my little library. That year, I picked out “Mary Kate & Ashley and the Case of the Blue Ribbon Horse,” much to Aunt Bettie’s dismay. However, she also insisted upon buying me a copy of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” as she had heard great things about it. I was slightly less than enthused — why would I want to read a book about a boy wizard? But after a month or two I read it… and the rest is history. I grew up reading Harry Potter and my copies of some of the books are in tatters from reading them so many times. Although I love all of them, my copy of “Sorcerer’s Stone” has a special place in my heart as the book that started it all.
2. “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath. I first read this book my freshman year of college, and I simply fell in love with it. The semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of Esther Greenwood’s descent into mental illness. The bright young woman gains an internship at a prominent magazine in New York City, but her time in the city — and the glamour and superficiality of the girls she works with — disturbs her and sends her spiraling into depression. The novel is written with such reality that for a few days after reading it, I walked around feeling as if I were half crazy myself.
3. “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut. Another one of my favorite books, this classic tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, a strange character who survived the Battle of Dresden, has the odd characteristic of becoming occasionally “unstuck” from time, and was once abducted by aliens and kept in a zoo exhibit on their home planet of Tralfamadore. I don’t have any particular sentimental attachment to my paperback, but I love the book and would definitely rescue it.
4. “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky. It may be cliche, but this coming-of-age story was one of my best friends in high school. How well I identified with shy, awkward Charlie, who had to struggle to participate in his own life! It’s still one of my favorites, and I am definitely attached to my copy.
5. “The Will to Whatevs: A Guide to Modern Life” by Eugene Mirman. Eugene Mirman is one of my favorite comedians. He played the landlord on Flight of the Conchords, and he is just hilarious. If you feel like dying laughing, watch this video of his stand up. Anyway, my boyfriend and I are big Conchords fans, and one day a few months into our relationship we spent hours watching Mirman’s stand-up videos on YouTube. For Christmas that year, he bought me this book. Not only is it hilarious and contains “super fun” date ideas such as building a fort and camping out in it, robbing a bank, and going to a museum dressed as Nancy Reagan (“both of you”), but it has some mad sentimental value.
Read the rest on Books Speak Volumes!
So much for a nice, relaxing long weekend of reading. Instead of taking my two days off to immerse myself in a new book, I’ve been searching for a job. It’s exhausting and scary and I really have no idea what I’m doing. Can I please be a freshman again, when all I had to worry about was my borderline psychotic roommate and getting busted by the RA for drinking in the dorm?
I mean, I’m excited to get out in the real world and have meaningful work instead of the pointless assignments for required core classes, but the whole process of getting there is really stressful.
Of course, it would probably be easier if I didn’t really love Buffalo and want to stay here, because there are 800 times more jobs ANYWHERE else. Stupid Buffalo and your lack of job opportunities.
I love that he can tell when my joking suggestions are actually half serious, like “we should go to that GWAR concert and get blood thrown on us.”
Alter? When the hills do.
Falter? When the sun
Question if his glory
Be the perfect one.
Surfeit? When the daffodil
Doth of the dew:
Even as herself, O friend!
I will of you!
Emily Dickinson
My favorite little love poem for Valentine’s Day :)
I'm Leah. 21, college kid.
I love nature adventures, snuggling with my boyfriend, hot tea, ice cream, good books. Classic rock and folk with a little indie thrown in.
I was lucky enough to study abroad in London a year ago, got to see some of Europe, and fell in love with travel. I also recently went on a road trip from my home in Western NY across the country to California!
Recreating Masterpieces with Flower Petals by Qi Wei
follow me on my new healthy living blog! I’m so excited to share my journey of clean eating,...
