Valentine's Day, Liz Style

Even Jane Seymour's incredibly
tacky jewelry is more appropriate
for Valentine's Day
than these (admittedly great) books.

Ah, love. When talking about what we would post this week, Gianna suggested that we feature our publishers' best-selling titles for the lovers' holiday. After hanging up the phone, though, I realized that, having hugged two different people over the weekend (old friends visiting), I am emotionally spent and have little to offer you lovers. I'm going to sit here in my lonely house with my box of Little Debbie Nutty Bars and think about books that tell that special someone that you really, really (don't) care.

Ten Books You'd Be an Idiot to Give to Your Sweetheart for Valentine's Day (But Are Nonetheless Really, Really Good)

1. Revolutionary Road. I love this book and I was even the token fan of the movie, but seriously, if you gave this book to your wife, she'd probably take the dog and move in with her sister that night. Frank and April Wheeler have high aspirations of creative genius until they move to the suburbs, sell out for Frank's boring job and Mad Men-esque two kids, and April loses her acting career and will to live. This book blows a 1.7 blood/alcohol level, and, yeah, (spoiler alert) there's a botched abortion.

2. The White Hotel. D.M. Thomas wrote an erotic tale full of illicit love...between Sigmund Freud's son and a hysterical woman. Freud is the woman's therapist, she may be making the whole thing up, and really it's about the horrors of the Holocaust.

3. The Bottle Factory Outing. I love Beryl Bainbridge, and particularly this book. Brenda and Frida work in a factory that bottles Italian wine. The company has a picnic, and while one of the women is a born victim, the other is a brash fighter who wants to find romance and love. But instead she's killed and stuffed in a wine barrel. (Yeah, that's a spoiler too.)

4. Sophie's Choice. First: Holocaust. Second: A mother has to choose which of her children will survive. Need I say more?

5. The Virgin Suicides. What's creepier--the parents who smother their daughters so much that they begin to kill themselves one by one, or the boys watching across the street who silently witness the family's demise?

Oh my god!
They shot Bambi!

6. The Road. I think The Road is the standard bearer for bleak reads. Cormac McCarthy is one dark dude, so his version of the post-apocalyptic future involves a man and his son walking down a road, hiding from cannibals, and saving the bullets in that gun for the right moment.

7. Where the Red Fern Grows, The Yearling, Old Yeller. Nothing says "I'm not getting laid tonight" like giving your sweetie one of these classics about losing the family pet(s).

8. The Handmaid's Tale. Saunter up to your lady, wrap your arm around her, and then...read her the scene in Margaret Atwood's feminist dystopian novel in which the protagonist, Offred, fulfills her handmaid duty by having sex with Fred and his barren wife. Guess who's sleeping alone tonight! You are, hot shot!

9. American Psycho. Patrick Bateman? He gets off by admiring himself, fixating on the mass consumerism of 80's culture, and, you know, killing women. On the other hand, Christian Bale is naked in the movie version.

The cover is red!
It's perfect for V Day!
(No, it is not.)

10. Push. Sapphire's novel which became the movie Precious is all about an inner city girl learning to read. Also, she was sexually abused by both parents, has a child with Down Symdrome she named Mongo (short for "mongoloid"), and is pregnant with another child. She's on welfare and her mother beats her. And when she finally escapes...yeah, she has AIDS.

What's crazy about this list is that I really like these books (except for American Psycho, which isn't my preferred version of depressing). They are great reads (as long as the date isn't February 14th).

And yes, I'm still single.

Happy St. George's Day!

What do you get on Shakespeare's birthday?  You get two blog posts in a single day!  It's like getting a round on the house, but without the soothing properties of alcohol that would make this blog, you know, quality reading.  Or quality anything.  Here's the deal--we've supported the idea of St. George's Day for years and couldn't pass up the opportunity to promote this tradition.  In Spain, on St. George's Day you're supposed to give a favorite book and a rose to a loved one.  That's beautiful.  So I suggested to Gianna that we write about the books we could/would/will exchange.  We're bookish soul mates, after all...except for Gianna's taste for "mommy porn" S&M.

Gianna:

Today is the day you give a book to someone you love. I wondered how I would narrow it down. I mean, I love so many people. I know...who am I kidding, no one comes close to the way I absolutely love Liz Sullivan. So much so that it leaves zero room for me to love anyone else. I’m not complaining, trust me (don’t leave me Liz!), it's just that it's an all-consuming, unconsummated love because of a certain cat named Zorro. I’m not jealous, really. It’s just that it’s an uneven relationship at best. Liz seems to dote on Zorro and Zorro seems to … well Liz recently got six stitches in her foot. I’m certainly not saying that Liz should give up on the relationship; really I’m not. She’s put a lot of years in, a lot of blood (literally), sweat (from picking him up – he’s huge) and tears (I mentioned the stitches right?), and you can’t just walk away from that.

Well, I have found the perfect book for their imperfect relationship ("dysfunctional relationship" is so ugly to say). What I am suggesting is learning how to have a relationship, how to “play” without anyone getting hurt. Liz Sullivan, I give you  Ira Alterman’s classic instruction manual.

Enjoy yourself. 

Liz:

All these years, Gianna has been trying to find me a mate, and all these years she's been looking at institutions of higher incarceration, at bus stops and stop signs (usually at the guys urinating)...she even once suggested I chase after the mentally ill man escorted by security out of an Astros game.  And really, I just love Gianna.  It's unrequited because she refuses to rub my feet.  Zorro, he rubs my feet.  Still, I wanted to find the perfect gift for Gianna that both expresses my feelings for her and the uncomfortable position in which I find myself.  Love Gianna, or love Zorro?  I must choose...and that's why I choose Sophie's Choice.

By the way, this is the book that Gianna suggested I pick for her:

What's wrong with Gianna?