July 2010
22 posts
Infinite Jest, day 5
Pages: 283-317 (plus world’s longest endnote, 110, pages 1005-1022)
Feelings toward book: Still finding myself muttering “just one more section” to myself when my eyelids start getting heavy
Feelings toward fact that there are endnotes rather than footnotes: Neutralized
Word to use more often (hopefully): afflatus (284)
Small list of recognizably odd phrases being repeated a...
On Why The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Might not... →
I agree. My main complaint (possible spoiler ahead?) is that, by starting each section with a statistic about violence against women, he’s obviously trying to make a point about how even in a liberal wonderland like Sweden, violence against women is pervasive and something society at large should be concerned with. The numbers, as in the US, are such that it is practically a statistical...
2 tags
Infinite Jest, day 4
Pages: 219-283
Feelings toward book: Continued enjoyment, continued fear that my enjoyment is about to be challenged
Feelings toward fact that there are endnotes rather than footnotes: Petulant complacence
A word that might describe me when I go to the extreme end of my natural tendencies: scopophobic (226)
A beautiful repurposing of an already beautiful word: caroms (243)
Small word that...
2 tags
Infinite Jest, day 3
Pages read: 142-219
Feelings toward book: Continued enjoyment, fear that I am just about to hit the part of the book that everybody tells me is where they stopped liking the book
Feelings toward fact that there are endnotes rather than footnotes: Am learning to manage annoyance with elaborate page-folding system
Invented phrase that made me think DFW foresaw the elaborate construction of online...
5 tags
E-books article drinking game
With sincere apologies if this has been done before, but I think this is the only way I can read another one of these. Maybe I might be cranky today!
“Will e-books wipe out/kill/decimate/pulverize/HULKSMASH/angry verb real books?” — one drink
Above question is lede — one drink
Every use of phrase “real book” — one drink
Expert you’ve never heard...
2 tags
Infinite Jest, day 2
Pages read: 60-142
Feelings toward book: Overall enjoyment
Feelings toward fact that there are endnotes rather than footnotes: Heightened annoyance (although I can almost see why it was necessary for Incandenza’s filmography)
Words I am pretty sure DFW made up, or at least gave a new usage: synclinical, pedalferrous, kurtwanging, murated
Favorite word of the section: prolix (meaning...
2 tags
Infinite Jest, day 1
Pages read: 1-60
Feelings toward book: Overall enjoyment
Feelings toward fact that there are endnotes rather than footnotes: Mild annoyance
Word that was most surprising: twitter, because it was used in its traditional sense, and because I wish DFW was still around to write an essay about its new existence
Words that I had to look up, some to no avail: pleurisy, magisculed, phylacteryish,...
The best thing I read last week (26 July)
Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord (Small Beer Press, out now). I’ve had a copy for awhile, but finally picked it up thanks to an ad that quoted the starred Booklist review in which it was said: “One of those literary works of which is can be said that not a word should be changed.” And that is quite true. A crisp voice and a marvelous gift for storytelling. It has that rare...
Lunch Tip
AGREED. Add raw corn to everything while you still can, in fact.
italicsmine:
Raw corn in salad. Do it. Love it. Combine with the spicy tinge of raw radishes, and you’ll be delighted.
Avoiding the tin cup strategy →
I like this post a lot, and not just because my store gets a name-check.
“Even before Amazon’s spectacular rise, many (not all) indie booksellers have taken what can only be described as a whiny approach in appealing to customers. We hear pitches like, ‘We’re special so we deserve your support’; ‘The competition is undercutting our prices’; and...
1 tag
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The best thing I read last week (7/19)
(My new plan to combat killer book piles all over the apartment!)
The best thing I read last week:
“To this remark, several senators hissed.
“‘Geese!’ Heyburn shot back. ‘Geese! Hiss! Don’t try that with me. I’m too old to be scared by that process.’”
—-The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America, Timothy Egan (HMH),...
Who wants to be a bookseller? (part 8)
Continuing a series from the old blog…
Sitting here eating watermelon and Brie and drinking beer with my little sister. She says:
“I just tried to read this book because like eight people told me to read it, but I hated it.”
I ask what it is. (Here it is appropriate to mention that she and I couldn’t have differenter taste in books if you paid us, so I never tire of...
“I really feel that people who consume culture they hate deserve to be unhappy.”
– Chuck Klosterman, in re: how he felt about the last episode of LOST and the kerfuffle surrounding it, in conversation with Rob Sheffield at Coco 66, 13 July 2010 