merely talk

So that whole book new years resolution thing? Didn't happen this month. I'm actually about half way through Vanity Fair right now, but all my other holds started to come in at the library and people keep giving me books to read, so I put it down and forgot to pick it up. Also I'm busy, yo.

So instead of reading Vanity Fair I made my way through a series of memoirs about drug abuse. Cheery, no? I started with A Million Little Pieces, followed by Dry by Augusten Burroughs, and am about halfway through Junky by William S. Burroughs. I also read Smashed, by some woman who's name is escaping me at the moment. I liked Smashed for the female perspective. In a lot of the other memoirs I read, women were more accessories or contrived plot points, instead of actually people, (James Frey I'm looking at you), and it was refreshing to see that drug addiction is not the sole domain of men. Us women too can become addicted to controlled substances! But as a whole I have to say I'm enjoying Junky the most. If only because of the time period. William S. Burroughs became addicted to morphine and heroin in 1944. Long before crack addict was the new chic look, and everyone and their dog had some sort of habit. The best part though, is how he explains all the drug slang to his poor reader. For example on page 21 "I was learning to hide my stuff carefully - 'stash it' as they say in the trade - so Roy and Herman couldn't find and take some. Taking junk hidden by another junky is known as 'making him for his stash'." Cool huh?

Other than the drug books, I've also gone back to the fairy tales. I had a great need to re-read Howl's Moving Castle by Dianne Wynn Jones after I heard the movie (which I've yet to see) was nominated for an Oscar. Such a good book. I also got into some more Neil Gaimen reading a more grown up fairy tale called Stardust. It's about a boy venturing off to discover his heart's desire and discovering a fallen star. I very much enjoyed that.

On the Non-fiction front* I'm slowly making my way through Freakonomics having gotten it from the library. And I have a book recommended by a co-worker called The Rebel Sell, about how counterculture and rebelling against consumerism and the status quo, is just the creation of a new product. That anti-establishment thinking is another way of selling. I've also recently finished reading a book called Nickel and Dimed, which a prof told me to read last term and that I found on a shelf at my store. The writer decided to enter the minimum wage work force and see if she could make ends meet, since, at the time Welfare reform in the US proposed that any job is supposed to be better than being on welfare. But she found it impossible to find affordable housing, and the jobs difficult and demeaning. Her co-workers worked with injuries for little pay, dealt with horrible people and many were still homeless despite working full time. Overall I don't think this was a good book for me to be reading on my breaks at work. If only because I feel incredibly disgruntle about my present station in life.

Also waiting with Vanity Fair beside my bed is Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Middlesex and Maus. And I just was informed by the library that two more of my books have arrived. Seriously where does all the time go?

Oh I know! I've been spending the majority of my free time these days packing. That's right kids I'm moving. I signed a lease yesterday, paid rent, and picked up my keys. I'm now the proud renter of a cute little bachelor apartment overlooking the river valley. I have bribed and cajoled a few lovely friends to help and I will be living there as of Saturday. Of course some God above decided to dump a foot or two of snow on Edmonton last night, so the actual moving of objects from one apartment to another is going to be mildly more treacherous than if the snow had held off for a few more days. But c'est la vie!

I'm sure a housewarming party will be announced soon! Also alert! HAWKSLEY WORKMANS NEW CD COMES OUT TODAY!!! I must scrounge up $15 to buy it! Who needs to eat?

* as in not 'memoirs'. I don't really count those as non-fiction. Which is not a shot at James Frey at all. I'm one of those people who feels pretty horrible for him. I don't really buy a lot of what Augusten Burroughs wrote either. Both of these guys cast themselves as tortured romantic hero's. And yay for them if they are, I love being the hero in my own life as well, but I don't fool my self in their interpretations of their realities as actually being reality. But at the core of both those books I believe there was an element of truth about the horror of drug/alcohol addiction. So the hero/martyr like moments are mostly forgiven by me.

Labels: Books