wager

Is it a spoiler to guess at the ending of a book you have no intention of reading?

Bear with me momentarily: Here is S. Krishna's review of the young adult book Choker.

And here is my wager the book concludes with the childhood friend being a figment of the protagonist's imagination, sort of like Fight Club for teenage girls.

That's a second spoiler, isn't it? Huh.... But Fight Club (the movie) came out more than 10 years ago, peeps, so don't hate me. Prove me wrong.

Back to essay-writing.... Oh! And strong recommendations you read this book. I haven't read more than a chapter yet (for a class on media representation), but it's on my list.

baby apps

For academic reasons, I'm reading a lot about the iPad today.... (I'm taking a course called ICTs and Everyday Life, which I think of as Awesome Science I Can Use When I'm Back At Work In Newspapers.... even though we study mostly the history of information and communications technologies as opposed to, well, science)

Anyway, I came upon this story, mom friends: Baby books gone digital. Weird? Cool? Perfect way to occupy baby on the Tube/in the car/in the grocery store? I really don't know enough about kids to know whether this is workable.... I feel like the mechanics would be problematic, as it's not like you could just leave them to be occupied, you would have to hold the hardware for them and ensure they don't gnaw through your iPhone.... Yeah, I really, clearly don't know enough about babies. But look! A bonus picture of Cute Baby K!

memoirs 2011

I've never skipped a whole month of blogging on this site before. And I don't know whether to apologize -- because, really, I'm sure your lives were perfectly complete without my thoughts on books -- or haphazardly list the novels I've had a chance to read since last posting (Garbo Laughs; Starter for Ten; The Fire-Dwellers; Story House; A Bird in the House).

So, instead, let's move forward. Let's call it 2011 and talk about one of my book obsessions: Memoirs written by people who live with one toe in the "modern" world and one toe in an "orthodox" world. (Is this a terrible way of describing the central conflict in books like The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance?) So, adding to my '11 wish list: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress.

Other memoirs on the reading list? Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses. Even if The Telegraph didn't like it and dragged poor Jennifer Aniston into the mix.

things that are pretty

I currently live in a country that has never seen a modern comfort it couldn't wrinkle its nose at.

And so, I'm really missing central heating this week as London enters a "deep freeze" (highs of 2C) that makes for vaguely chilly days outside but seriously freaking cold evenings inside.

What does this have to do with books?

Well, since I'm already whining about my humble abode, thought I'd throw in a random "I miss the ability to properly decorate" complaint. Which brings me to this link.

Other book news.... on the weekend I went to Greenwich Market, where I found super cheap used copies of David Nicholls's Starter for Ten (bound to be a good read, if One Day is anything to go by) and Andrea Levy's Small Island (anyone heard of it? is it good? it was a two-fer).

Why yes I am stocking up on Christmas break reading as I write my final essay of the term.

when did Travel Writing become boys-only?

I was perusing the Travel Writing section of Foyles today (because, of course, I should have been at home doing readings and preparing for a presentation) when I was struck by all the male authors. Paul Theroux, Bill Bryson, lots of dudes named David.... and I started wondering why this genre of writing -- the adventure -- is dominated by men almost to the exclusion of women.

Worse, I started thinking about the travel books I've read or encountered that have been written by women, and it donned on me they fit into a handful of Harlequin-inspired sub-categories within the travel genre. Where men's stories are all raw adventure, hiking boots in-hand, jump-on-a-boat, ride-a-motorcycle, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants deals, women's travel stories can be.... well, I was going to say "girly," but then thought better of it. Let's say, intensely focused on the self, the home, and sex.

For example, Around the World in 80 Dates? Let's call that the Sex and the City sub-category. Under the Tuscan Sun -- if the movie is anything to go by -- is a "find yourself away from it all and, cross your fingers, love too!" book. Eat, Pray, Love straddles the "find yourself" and the "find your taste buds" categories. Then you have something like Out of Africa, which rounds things out a little, but dwells less on adventure and more on the contrived and not-so-contrived differences between the writer/European audience and the "other"/African residents, tribespeople and servants.

You can see I got myself a titch worked up. Then I came home and searched through the Chapters database for "travel" and "adventure and literary travel." Things got better from there, actually. There's more of a diversity of women's writing on travel, and it isn't all of the Sand in My Bra/humour fold or the "Paris! Men! Shopping!" genre.

Still, some questions carrying forward:

Do women who write about travel slip into the natural style of women's magazine writing because that's what women want to read about? Would we prefer to read about "a woman alone in (insert country here) overcomes cultural differences" than "a woman startlingly begins hitch-hiking through the Middle East, then hops onto a train across much of Asia, a boat across the Pacific, and a motorcycle through the Canadian west coast"?

Do popular women's travel titles simply reflect a high interest in the memoirs of those who have lived "happily ever after" in our Oprah-inspired age of "buy shit, live the dream?" And what is the male counterpart to "buy shit, live the dream" if they are busy reading travel stories about guys retracing the steps of Genghis Khan?

Finally, am I being terribly humorless about all this, and should I really set my mind to school work?