Nigella's Library

When I grow up, I want to be Nigella.  Say no to Kindles! No to Nooks!

Everything Matters!

“Everything ends, and Everything matters.
Everything matters not in spite of the end of you and all that you love, but because of it. Everything is all you’ve got…and after Everything is nothing. So you were wise to welcome Everything, the good and the bad alike, and cling to it all. Gather it in. Seek the meaning in sorrow and don’t ever turn away, not once, from here until the end. Because it is all the same, it is all unfathomable, and it is all infinitely preferable to the one dreadful alternative."
-Ron Currie Jr, Everything Matters!

Everything Matters! is the story of Junior, a man who knows from his inception that the world will end via comet in 36 years. Part scrappy prose, part science fiction, the narrative tumbles from there-- a terrifying premise told through the ordinary lens of the struggling family of a man holding the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Braced with this understanding Junior coils and fears, worries and waits. He realizes quickly and ferociously that in a world ending before we can save the dolphins or cure cancer or watch the next generation accomplish anything at all, NOTHING MATTERS. Nothing matters! Nothing matters.

The trick-- dear reader-- is a shared understanding that Currie wouldn't hand us a book with such a grandiose (and perfect!) title without promising us an explanation. And with about 40 pages to go, he hands us our prize for trudging through Junior's resentment and fear. As Junior is offered a second chance, we are handed a much greater understanding of both Currie's motives and, well, life! I felt physically shaken by the last few pages. Shaken and enlightened, if I may be so bold.

READ IT. This book was quite literally shoved into my fingers by the booksellers at The Strand, and here is your written push. This book has taken me days to process and I'd love to discuss it with you.


Next up: Zeroville.

The History of Love

“The first language humans had was gestures. There was nothing primitive about this language that flowed from people’s hands, nothing we say now that could not be said in the endless array of movements possible with the fine bones of the fingers and wrists. The gestures were complex and subtle, involving a delicacy of motion that has since been lost completely.

During the Age of Silence, people communicated more, not less. Basic survival demanded that the hands were almost never still, and so it was only during sleep (and sometimes not even then) that people were not saying something or other. No distinction was made between the gestures of language and the gestures of life. The labor of building a house, say, or preparing a meal was no less an expression than making the sign for I love you or I feel serious. When a hand was used to shield one’s face when frightened by a loud noise something was being said, and when fingers were used to pick up what someone else had dropped something was being said; and even when the hands were at rest, that, too, was saying something. Naturally, there were misunderstandings. There were times when a finger might have been lifted to scratch a nose, and if casual eye contact was made with one’s lover just then, the lover might accidentally take it to be the gesture, not at all dissimilar, for Now I realize I was wrong to love you. These mistakes were heartbreaking. And yet, because people knew how easily they could happen, because they didn’t go round with the illusion that they understood perfectly the things other people said, they were used to interrupting each other to ask if they’d understood correctly. Sometimes these misunderstandings were even desirable, since they gave people a reason to say, Forgive me, I was only scratching my nose. Of course I know I’ve always been right to love you. Because of the frequency of these mistakes, over time the gesture for asking forgiveness evolved into the simplest form. Just to open your palm was to say: Forgive me."

"If at large gatherings or parties, or around people with whom you feel distant, your hands sometimes hang awkwardly at the ends of your arms – if you find yourself at a loss for what to do with them, overcome with sadness that comes when you recognize the foreignness of your own body – it’s because your hands remember a time when the division between mind and body, brain and heart, what’s inside and what’s outside, was so much less. It’s not that we’ve forgotten the language of gestures entirely. The habit of moving our hands while we speak is left over from it. Clapping, pointing, giving the thumbs-up, for example, is a way to remember how it feels to say nothing together. And at night, when it’s too dark to see, we find it necessary to gesture on each other’s bodies to make ourselves understood.”
- Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

Happy Valentines, my sweets! Take it easy. Keep it sleazy.

The Hunger Games

Alison and I have a book-buying problem. We simultaneously lecture ourselves and encourage each other on our book-buying on a weekly basis (usually on lazy Sundays when we find ourselves wandering to Greenlight or BookCourt, or god forbid, separately at that airport bookstore at LaGuardia.)

"Ughghhgh I want this but I have so many books to read at home."
"I know, but it's a good beach read and since you're going to Florida with your mom..."
"Totally, right?"
"Yeah, get it. Plus, you're supporting your local neighborhood book dealer."
"I know but I do have that stack of books at home. I suck."
"I know, me too. We both suck."
"Should we get some wine?"
"Yeah, totally."
"K, I'm going to first buy this book though."

Every weekend! Granted, it's not the worst problem to have. We both love reading. We read lots of books, all the time. But for this reason we can't quite keep up. I have a phenomenal stack of books sitting next to my bed right now, waiting for my attention. Henry VII is waiting patiently for me to finish Everything Matters!. So is The Marriage Plot, right there next to The Paris Wife about Mrs. Hemingway herself. I'm trying!, I shout at them as I browse the windows at Book Court on my way home from work.

My sister Emily also has this problem. Hers is so bad that she actually made a rule for herself last January that she wasn't buying another book until she had conquered her tall stack of unread material. A year later, having finishing absolutely zero of the books in the stack, she decided that the more productive solution was to donate them to her local library and move on. She then bought more books and stopped the silly self imposed guilt for not having read the old ones. This is one of the many reasons I love and admire Emily-- she's an action girl.

So, you understand that when I refused to purchase Emily's recommendation for winter reading-- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins-- it wasn't out of disinterest or lack of trust. I had too many books seeking my attention! Poor little dears crying out to me for their turn. I didn't have TIME for the Hunger Games, I told her, there at The Strand on 12th and Broadway during her visit last October. Fine!, she said, don't read it! But you're the one missing out.

Well, obviously my sister-- the action girl-- took action. A few weeks later I received a package in the mail for my 28th birthday including not one but ALL THREE books from The Hunger Games Trilogy. Sorry! She said in her cheeky little birthday greeting. No excuses-- read them and let me know what you think.

And read them I did. I read them quickly and in big gulps over the next couple of months and then pressed them into John's hands upon completion. He caught up with me while on vacation in Florida and we raced to finish the series together. I finished the third and final book twenty pages ahead of him and cried out in honest-to-goodness grief at the ending. He then banished me to the hotel's hot tub--true story!-- to calm myself down lest I spoil the ending for him. I sat in that hot tub crying for Prim and for Buttercup; for Gale and for Peeta. I cried for Katniss and for Panem and then before it got too ridiculous I cured my tears with an ice cream. I even shared it with John.

I'm sure you've read these books or at least read about them, so I'll spare you further details. What I will say is this: if you want to fall deep into a story, into a world and a new way of understanding, read these books. It's not the best literature you'll ever read, but you aren't reading the best literature anyway, now are you? Hmmm? That Jane Austin that's been sitting on your side table for two years? Skip that. At least for now. Then let me know what you think.

Books & Books

Boo! I'm still here!

Back three weeks later, it seems, but with a worthy round up of summer book recs, all licked up and passed along to a lucky few of you. I highly recommend any and all of these titles. HIGHLY. I toted them along with me this summer to the beach, on the plane, in grassy parks, to coffee shops, and in my bed on Sunday mornings when sleeping in once again failed me. All summer, I've been chattering away about Patti Smith and Bennie Salazar, Robert Cohn and Lady Brett Ashely with friends and with strangers with excitement and urgency. MMMmmm, a delicious summer it has been indeed.

"Yet you could feel a vibration in the air, a sense of hastening. It had started with the moon, inaccessible poem that it was. Now men had walked upon it, rubber treads on a pearl of the gods. Perhaps it was an awareness of time passing, the last summer of the decade. Sometimes I just wanted to raise my hands and stop. But stop what? Maybe just growing up."

Out of everything I picked up this summer, this book was my favorite.
I loved this book. If you've been in my presence in the past few months, you're more than aware of this, and perhaps writing this down will temper my constant gushing.

Just Kids is Patti Smith's telling of her early days in New York with Robert Mapplethorpe before she became Patti Smith, the rock and roll queen with the hard edges and poetic superiority. In fact, that she even becomes that gritty rocker seems far fetched, up until those last few chapters. Her voice and her telling of this story was surprisingly soft, loving, and protective-- you'll notice it right away.

It's also a love story to New York (choc full of passion, lust, heartbreak, and tragedy) and an homage to the late 60s and early 70s spent here on these streets. She allows us entry to that electric time spent at the Chelsea Hotel, Max's Kansas City, and CBGBs. She started out in Clinton Hill, did you know that? My heart skipped a bit when I read her cross streets-- just blocks from my first real apartment in this city.


Old news, (what, with the Pulitzer) but this one's worth your time! A Visit From The Goon Squad opens with one of the best first chapters of all time then snatches the main character out from under us to tell a story that spans 50 years and three continents, jumping through time and voice. It's about rock-and-roll and dreams and what becomes of us all eventually. It's also a relatively quick read, choc full of wit and intelligence.

Fun fact: Egan found out about the Pulitzer while lunching at Olea in Fort Greene-- my favorite!

My cover doesn't look like this, because I bought my copy at Powell's in Portland, and it's probably a first edition or something. Jealous, much?

I think I've ragged on enough about Hemingway and his short stories on this bloggy, so just trust me that they are GOOD, RELEVANT, and not all about hunting and wars!

Remember GATZ? Well, shortly after finishing The Sun Also Rises, I was offered a plus-one ticket to see the Elevator Repair Services' The Select (The Sun Also Rises.) Such a treat! If only this pattern followed suit in the rest of my life! (Oh, you liked Just Kids? Here's a free front row seat to see Patti Smith. Oh, you liked Harry Potter? Welcome to Hogwarts!)

And if you really want to enter the world of Hemingway's Lost Generation, read this one with a liquor cabinet nearby. So boozy! (So awesome.)

This is my current read, compliments of one Miss Lo Ashley Hoffman. I should be done with it by now, as I sat staring at a pool for what must have been a grand total of 20 hours in the past few days. But my brain apparently turned to mush in Miami and all I could possibly bring myself to read was the cocktail menu. ("Four Falanghinas please. No, that's just for me. Yes, all at once, thank you.")

Nevertheless, I'm finally entering the world of Fillory and I look forward to sharing more. Anyone want to join me for the ride? Two person book club? I hear the last sentence tops all.

The Dog Days

We're in the thick of it, New York. The Dog Days are here and I'm beginning to feel those first twitches of wanting it all behind me. I'm (almost!) ready to leap into fall. This heat! But as John so rightly reminded me over cocktails on Saturday in a sticky restaurant on Canal street-- on days like this, it's helpful to think about The Great Gatsby:

We had luncheon in the dining-room, darkened too against the heat, and drank down nervous gayety with the cold ale.

"What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon?" cried Daisy, "and the day after that, and the next thirty years?"

"Don't be morbid," Jordan said. "Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall."

Anyway. In that crazy heat, in the thickest imaginable post-rain humidity, before the cocktails on Canal Street, I found myself at a party at this apartment on Saturday evening. The man doesn't have any possessions! I obviously found the whole thing a little odd, but at the same time........ inspiring. Can you imagine? It must be somewhat freeing. I like people who live in the extreme and Klaus does it well.

For the 'purpose of appreciation and categorization": The Book Cover Archive.

I finished Just Kids over the weekend and have so much to say about it. I've been trying to nail down exactly why I liked this book so much, and I think it has to do with amount of unashamed love leaking onto the pages. Patti Smith is generous, kind, loving, protective, and INTERESTING to boot. This book is anti-snark in a world we've all imagined to be tainted with egos. I think you should read it.

Have you hear the new Bon Iver album? Stunning. They are playing a show in Prospect Park Wednesday night and I will be there*.

And Breakfast at Tiffany's is playing on Thursday in Brooklyn Bridge Park and there will be protesters! Come!

And finally, my friend Brian wrote this piece about Ryan Trecartin's crazy PS1 show. Well said, Brian.




*Sitting right outside the fence where we can drink wine and where it is free.

Portland V: Books I Found at Powell's

You all told me that I would love Powell's books, but honestly I had no idea. I live in New York City where I frequent bookstores almost daily and was skeptical that a used bookstore in Portland would effect me any more than it's New York couterparts. My favorite bookstore is McNally Jackson-- just two blocks away from my office-- but I also spend a lot of time in Housing Works, or I'll trot up to The Strand, and then there is BookCourt, in my neighborhood. (I like BookCourt, but sometimes I wish they were friendlier.) You know where they ARE friendly!? Greenlight.

But Powell's is the bookstore to beat all bookstores. It's humungo and it's organized by color and it's exhaustive in it's inventory. I loved everything about it and I thoroughly enjoyed my time there.

These are some of the books that I found:

First off, please ignore my chipped manicure. I moved and unpacked like 35 boxes the day before. The nail polish, however, does match this pretty Maugham cover. Have you read it? I've only read one of his-- For Cakes and Ale-- and I loved it.

Anais Nin makes me feel a little crazy. I'm always tempted to buy this one, but in the end after flipping through a few chapters I know it wouldn't be good for me or for anyone around me. Sorry, Ninny!


I almost bought this one for the cover alone but then I read a few sample pages and noted the blatant racist language. Ernest! Come on.

This book is randomly super expensive. It's like $38 for a normal sized book. I always look for it anyway, hoping to find a cheap used version as I don't really cook that much anyway. No dice.

Speaking of Spain! Cute cover, no?

This one took forever to find. It was in the 'oversized' section of the City and Urban Planning Section in the Pearl Room (although I was initially told Rose.) Hilary read aloud from it at the beach one day, peaking my interest, but she had the slightly smaller paperback. This one was a hard cover and 1200 pages and it was just too heavy.

See? Oversized.


Lots of Hemingway.


Demain! One of the books that affected me most in High School. It's like the grownup's Giver. Have you read it?


The aforementioned Cakes and Ale with the best opening sentence ever.



I saw a play about this in the Village this winter.


Katherine Hepburn later starred in the movie version of this novel. I found it in the Westerns.


But Lonesome Dove was found in the literary section. Go figure! (Maybe because it won a Pulizer? Still the quintessential Western novel, amiright?)


Are you still reading this post? Is it boring? Isn't this a cute cookbook cover?


I remember my Grandpa Red reading this book in his camper. It was always in this basket by the passenger's seat.


So big! I was transfixed by the idea as a child that anyone could read this much.


Our Editor wrote this!

City Life is a really interesting compilation of essays that I found by the Moses book about 'every major city in America.'


But over half of it was about New York. HA.

One of the best things about used books is that someone else owned it before you did. Willy got that Basque Cookbook as a birthday gift one year from someone named Rose.

The end.

Cakes and Ale

One of the better openings in modern lit, don't you think? So well observed! (Click on the photo, it gets bigger.) I get you, William. People are predictable and annoying.

Cheers.

Summer Book Recs

Several people within the last few weeks have asked me for a list of summer book recommendations. The reason they ask, mind you, isn't because I have stellar taste or any real literary connections, knowledge, or insight. In fact-- my taste of often borders on questionable as I read WHATEVER is set in front of me. This, this, and this included. But I do love books, and I love talking about them with people who care. I'm asked for recommendations because I have an opinion, that's all. The books below are those that I am reading, have read, or intend to read in the coming months. And unlike many of the quacky new aged voyeuristic titles that I've picked up as of late, I think you'll like these too.

The Ask was recommended to me by two people whose taste I trust for completely different reasons. The first rec came from someone who tends towards solid, thoughtful, and well written material. The other came from a bit more indulgent and demanding reader who enjoys absolute entertainment above all else. I have a few chapters left of this novel and can say in all honesty that it's the best book I've read in a very long time. Lipsyte clearly has fun with language and gets off on deconstructing sentences so that they clamor along like the ideas themselves. He tells a story of squirming middle class woes, right here in New York with a sick sense of humor and rare brilliance. I love this book and look forward to reading more of his work. (Actually, if you want a taste, try this.)
The Best of Everything popped into my head last week when talking with a friend about the lack of Mad Men in our lives. I read this book several years ago and then again last summer. It's a story about secretaries in 1950's New York, although written after the Sexual Revolution, a decade later. It is therefore a very specific narrative that pokes and prods at feminism without dismissing the indulgence and excitement of an era of typewriters, martinis, driving gloves, and pillbox hats. If you miss Don, Roger, Peggy, Bette and Joan, well here ya go. Handed to you on a platter, I swear.
I've been unknowingly reading Gabrielle Hamilton for years, in essay form in various publications. When Blood, Bones, and Butter debuted a few months ago, I finally put it together that this, this, and this(!) were all written by the same snappy, heartfelt lady. I WILL love this book, I can already tell, and look forward to the sunny day in the near future that I can lay outside and dig into it. (I don't however, like the title or the cover of this book. WHY, Gabrielle!? Those are three of my least favorite words, an unsettling illustration, and not my favorite color.)
I was blown sideways by this book. Never have a read a more dysfunctional, dynamic, and obsessive love story. This is the book that will stay with you, all wide eyed and surprisingly fulfilled by two characters living on raw emotion and little else. Charlie Smith's writing is wild and sprawling and his narrator, Billy, is an unforgettable loser--much like The Ask's Milo but with a less tasteful ego, if you can believe that. READ IT, then let's talk about it.

Hemingway crept into my life a few weeks ago without sufficient warning. I always shied away from his novels with a naive distaste for what I only assumed was overly masculine prose and content. However, this essay caught my interest for its cinematic accuracy, and then a bartender in Chicago (of all places, of all people) recommended The Sun Also Rises as somewhere to start. I later spent an entire Saturday dragging John from used bookstore to used bookstore on the west side before getting my hands on my own copy. It's a STUNNING read, so outrageously contemporary that I find myself underlining like a mad woman. This is the story of a group of American and British expats lounging around in Parisian cafes just like those cliched black and white photos from the same era. I haven't finished it yet, and while i don't look forward to the bull fighting portion, the Spanish nightlife and saucy romances will surely push me through.

A better way of finding essays like The Hills are Like White Elephants than my current tactic of searching 'full text Hemingway' online. These little stories are packed with-- I'll say it again-- outrageously contemporary dialogue. Hemingway is blowing me away and I cannot get enough of these little cafe conversations taking place in Paris, Barcelona, Switzerland, Africa, Cuba, and Florida. This is the quintessential 'summer get-away' package, if I may be so cliche.
Alison lent me this book months ago with the most glowing of recommendations, yet I haven't picked it up. It's currently mocking me on my nightstand. Soon, Ali, I promise. It's on my summer list.

One of my favorite New York novels, I read this book the first month I lived here. I had a habit of reading books like this that year-- The Bell Jar, The Best of Everything, Goodbye to All That, The Dud Avocado, The Women's Room, The Women, Captoe's Breakfast at Tiffany's-- books about young girls moving to New York and usually getting really messed up over it. I LOVED books like this-- they solidified my motives and kept me company duing those first few months when I didn't know a soul. Next up? THE GROUP!
As perfect but slightly less iconic than Gatsby, Tender is the Night is an easy, escapist, intelligent book about Paris in the 20's. (Not unlike Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, I'm suddenly realizing while typing this.) This is also his most autobiographical novel-- all tragedy and glorious heartbreak. As Fitzgerald himself wrote, "Gatsby was a tour de force, but this is a confession of faith."
Let's all read this, why not. Bossypants is the book that I will stay up all night finishing, I swear to you. It falls in line with my habit of reading self-indulgent-memoirs-written-by-strong-and-intelligent-women, but this one will be funny! Can't wait.

NY Art Week

New York Art Week has come and gone. I'm so glad I'm not the person in charge or orchestrating the tear-down process. Can you imagine all of those needy egos trying to ship their (very expensive!) works back to wherever they came from at the same time as everyone else? That pier will be cleared within 24 hours. Seriously, can you imagine?! So glad I was merely an ad man in that mix.

Anyway. Despite my busy week/weekend, the world kept spinning.

A few non-art fair related notes:

I recently finished a book of truly exquisite short stories, all (but one) of which brought me to a greater understanding of human interaction. Highly recommend!

I re-watched two films that I loved last year, and loved them both again. Especially Please, Give. I can't get it out of my head.

Each week I read “Shouts & Murmurs” in the New Yorker and often wonder why it isn’t very funny. However, this week's didn't disappoint.

Speaking of the NYer, Tina Fey is back this week with a fantastic piece I read online this morning in bed. I didn't really like her last contribution, which made me feel a little unsettled. Who doesn't love Tina Fey? Luckily this one cured my weird guilt issue.

This illustrator's work made me audibly gasp.

Miss Moss' comparisons of runway fashion to paintings are some of the coolest things I've seen online in a while.

Oh, and I finally saw The King's Speech and I get it now.

I know I just mentioned this, but I want to recommend Miss Moss' notes on art, in general. Not just the fashion comparisons. Seriously smart lady.

Zadie Smith: Changing My Mind

Holy smokes, this book is good. I've known about it for quite some time (ask John how many times I've carried it around in a bookstore before longingly putting it back in favor of the tall stack next to my bed at home) but finally bit the bullet and purchased a copy before my two super long travel days last weekend.

Smith opens with a quote by none other than Tracy Lord, 'The time to make your mind up about people is never!' and then has an entire chapter on Katherine Hepburn. Swoon! AND E.M. Forester, and Keats, and Chekhov, and her dad, and George Clooney. And D.F.W. (Using initials like that now makes me feel like a Scientologist. Did you all read this article!? Yikes!)

Changing My Mind is a refreshingly unique form of non-fiction writing. It's a collection of essays about, well, things Smith wanted to write about, without the obligatory connective lens haphazardly found in so many non fiction essay collections out there. The randomness works for Smith because we trust her. She's smarter than we are, and has every right to do so.

Smith is good for girls like me. She gives us a backbone and an energy for critical thinking. She never halts for sentiment, but instead powers through the clutter of bad content and poor writing out there, demanding something better from each of us. In 2008, she refused to award a prize for her annual essay contest, crying mediocrity in each entry. (Seriously, read this, it's amazing.)

She is also, along with my lover, teaching courses just up the street at NYU as a recently tenured professor. Props, Z.S. Let's do lunch.

Redheads by Joel Meyerowitz

Super Labo recently reissued a book of Joel Meyerowitz's 1991 collection of portraits, 'Redheads.' All of his subjects are redheads (clearly) and they really are quite something. From the book,

"Photographing redheads was so compelling that I cast my net even wider. I ran an ad in the local paper, the Provincetown Advocate: "REMARKABLE PEOPLE! If you are a redhead or know someone who is, I'd like to make your portrait, call…." They began coming to my deck, bringing with them their courage and their shyness, their curiosity and their dreams, and also their stories of what it is like to be redheaded. There were the painful remembrances of childhood, the violations of privacy—"Hey, 'Red'," "freckle face," "carrot head." They also shared with me their sense of personal victory at having overcome this early celebrity, how like giants or dwarfs or athletes they had grown into their specialness and, by surviving, had been ennobled by it. You could say that they had been baptized by their fire and that their shared experience had formed a "blood knot" among them. I had begun making portraits with the intention of photographing ordinary people. But redheads are both ordinary and special."

I never really had the painful redheaded experiences like those above, but I am interested in any bond--physical or otherwise-- that brings random people together in a general understanding. These little bonds are what make our silly New York world tick, leveling the playing field when we realize that, 'Oh! We both summer at the cape!' 'Seriously!? I grew up 10 miles from there!' 'Don't you hate shopping for pants with such a long inseam!? It's so frustrating!' It's a rare loveliness, isn't it? Watching those 'blood knots' form?

The book is worth your time, both for the conceptual insight from a group of people who make up less than 2% of the worlds population(!) and also for the sheer talent of Meyerowitz at capturing the human spirit so generously. More here.