Liz and Gianna are two of a dying breed--traveling sales reps for book publishers--who sell books in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and the Deep South. Since we're constantly on the road hawking books, we must find ways to amuse ourselves. So here we've decided to share our anecdotes, adventures, favorite books, and efforts in making the world (or at least these few states) a more literate place to inhabit.
Every now and then a book sings to me. I like a lot of books, but a few rise into a different category, the books that make me happy that I get to work with books everyday. Here are a few of the books that mean the most to me.
25. The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine, originally published in 2008. Part retelling of The Arabian Nights, part history of Lebanon, part family story, all twisting and turning into a narrative that spins into stories within stories within stories. Pigeon wars in the skies of Beirut, hellish imps and the hand of Fatima, and a son returning home to see his dying father--these are just a few of the things I love about The Hakawati. "Hakawati" means "storyteller," the term for the Scheherazade-type entertainers in the tea houses of Lebanon, spinning yarns each afternoon that end with cliffhangers that keep people coming back every day for more. The Hakawati is particularly significant for me because I read it (and then sold it) in the year I started working for Random House and became a focal point of how I could find my place in this job.
26. Wild by Cheryl Strayed, originally published in 2012. Cheryl Strayed's memoir of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail hit several nerves for me. I have always liked memoirs about strong women. I'm a huge national parks fan and particularly love the Sierra Nevada mountains. Strayed's memoir is about struggling with the devastating loss of her mother to cancer and the downward spiral that death created. I read Wild before it was published (like most books, we read them in advance), while on a plane in April, 2011, on my way to Yosemite National Park. At the time my mother was dying from terminal cancer. While my relationship with my mother differed from Strayed's, my mother was an English teacher and did foster my love of books. This book became a marker for that period of my life.
27. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter, originally published in 1963. I didn't expect to be a History major in college. I expected to be an English major and successfully channel my love of books and lack of career aspirations into....little. I expected to die young, but well-read. There was an American History professor at my university, though, that was the finest teacher I've encountered. She inspired me and challenged me and scared me and called bullshit when I was being an asshole, and because her classes were so great, I ended up with a double major. One of the works she introduced to me was Hofstadter's classic Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (she introduced me to a lot of great books, but they aren't all on the Knopf list). Hofstadter looked at the rise of "practical" American life and with it the dying of philosophy, looking at the effects in culture, education, politics, and business. For his efforts, this book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964. I think about this book quite a bit, particularly when watching election cycles play out. The smartest person doesn't win an election most of the time; it's the guy who is "relatable." Didn't Americans want to have a beer with George W. Bush, folksy former playboy? Didn't Rick Perry run an "oops" campaign? Yeah.
28. The Trial by Franz Kafka, originally published in 1937. Okay, so as much as I loved the history classes I took in college, that's how much I hated the foreign language requirement. I could passably translate on paper the German I slogged through for four semesters, but the speaking part still gives me nightmares. Sprechen Sie Deutsch? NEIN. (I don't even know anymore if that's proper German grammar.) Anyway, in the third and fourth semesters we began reading texts that were pulled from actual German books. The one I remember most vividly was a section of The Trial by Franz Kafka. There was this guy at this door and he couldn't go through the door or wouldn't? Try making sense of this story when you aren't even sure you know the words. I went back and read the English translation of the novel to figure out what the hell was happening. Kafka's work is one of those classics you should read in order to understand the futility of bureaucracy and also so you sound intelligent in parties...not that I attend parties.
Right about now, I'm trying to figure out what Gianna is giving me for Christmas. I am sure she's debating between Zorro related first aid accessories and a trip to Banff National Park. It's a tough choice. Anyway, here are a few more of our favorite books of the year.
Gianna:
Full Body Burden: Growing up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky
Flats by Kristen Iversen
Kristen Iversen
The term "full body burden" refers to the amount of
radioactivity which can be safely tolerated by a human body through its
lifetime. These are the things you learn when you live downwind from a top secret
nuclear weapons plant, as Iversen did. This is a fascinating account of Rocky
Flats, the plutonium factory just outside of Denver.
I love talking about this book; it's an absolute page turner and
completely riveting. It's what I like to call a ‘holy shit’ book. "Wait, there
were barrels of plutonium sitting outside the plant for years and years…and
they were leaking? Holy shit! Wait, there is literally tons of plutonium
missing? Holy shit!" See? [Look! Gianna bought Liz a first edition of Mrs. Dalloway, signed by Virginia Woolf in her signature purple ink? HOLY SHIT!]
This book has everything: government cover ups, nuclear
accidents, plant fires, poisoned water, birth defects, and cancer. Don’t worry
though, all ends well; Rocky Flats is now a wildlife refuge. You can camp
there. Have fun.
The Plain
in Flames by Juan Rulfo
Juan Rulfo
While not a new book by any stretch of the imagination, it is a
new translation with two original stories restored in this version.
I’ve written about this book a bit, but I think it's worth
repeating that I had never read Rulfo before, but this short collection is one
of the best I have read in years. This book immediately went on my all time
favorite list.
Sometimes good things happen to good people. The Random House world was buzzing about Cheryl Strayed's memoir of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail--the anti-Eat Pray Love--months before it was released, and booksellers seconded our enthusiasm. What we didn't know at that time was that Cheryl had been writing the "Dear Sugar" advice column for The Rumpus anonymously, and that what started as a standard advice column would become wise, compassionate ruminations on love. We didn't know that Sugar would be revealed as Cheryl, that Vintage would publish the "Dear Sugar" essays as Tiny, Beautiful Things, and we didn't know that Oprah would restart her book club and select Wild as her first pick. We certainly didn't know, either, that Cheryl would be relentless in her desire to meet readers and sign books. I think she toured for about a year, all told, and she's hitting the road again when Wild comes out in paperback in 2013.
Cheryl Strayed
What we didn't know is Cheryl, but many of us had the opportunity to meet her in person, and many, many more readers had the opportunity to meet her through her writing. As detailed in Wild, Cheryl hit rock bottom after her mother's sudden death (a rapid decline from cancer), the break-up of her family support, dead-end jobs, dead-end relationships, and self-medicating. On a bit of a whim, she decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from Arizona to Oregon, alone. Through mishaps and pains and the drudgery of placing one foot in front of the other, she begins to pull herself back from the edge. Along the way, she sees beautiful landscapes and meets other hikers and comes to terms with her demons. And the Cheryl in Wild is, from what I can tell, the real Cheryl--tough, wise, compassionate, and an author for whom we all cheer. She's good people.
In Between Days by Andrew Porter
I love this novel. I love this novel so much that I've written about it, like, three times before on our little blog. Here's what I said one of those times:
Set in Houston (how often can you say that about literary fiction?), Porter's novel is the story of a family imploding. Long married parents have split, the older son--a recent college graduate who wants to be a poet--is working food service and attending reckless parties at night, and the younger daughter, Chloe, has been asked to leave her college under mysterious circumstances. The story gets rolling with Chloe coming home and refusing to discuss why she's no longer welcome at school. Here is a classically told, great novel along the lines of a Raymond Carver or John Cheever, and I'm willing to state it here: one day Andrew Porter will win a Pulitzer or National Book Award.
Andrew Porter
Andrew Porter is a literary writer on the ascent, and my fervent hope is that he'll continue writing so that I can continue raving about his work. I also sort of hope that he wins major awards so that reputable sources of information discover that we harassed him with our Generally Horrible Questions. I want a writer to give an interview with Barbara Walters and state that his/her biggest regret wasn't the sex tape, it was the foolish decision to choose between Liz and Gianna (and the correct answer is still "Liz").
Since we've dedicated the rest of March to the ballsy dames of women's history, I think it's only right to call attention to a modern day woman of courage. As I've mentioned before, I'm a fan of memoirs. I'm also--as Gianna pointed out in an earlier post, a national park junky. Last spring I started reading books that would be coming out this spring, and there was one book that had the sales force buzzing. I kept hearing "Have you read Wild yet?" Alternately, I kept hearing, "It may be tough for you to read Wild." The people talking to me knew that I loved great narratives, but the ones who really knew me also knew that my mother was, at the time, dying of cancer. The book isn't an impersonal read.
Cheryl Strayed
What am I talking about? Cheryl Strayed's memoir is the story of her breakdown after the sudden loss of her mother to cancer, a loss that ripped apart her family and left her reeling. She had a failed marriage, she was abusing alcohol and drugs, she worked as a waitress, and didn't see a way out of the hole into which she'd sunk. One day, walking through a REI in Minnesota, she saw a hiking guide that called to her. Months later she set out--almost broke, woefully under-prepared, and completely alone--to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. The PCT is the West Coast equivalent to the more famous Appalachian Trail, running from Mexico to Canada, from 100 degree deserts to snow covered mountains, traversing some of the most beautiful and dangerous wilderness on the planet. Hell, Gianna freaks out when she's driving alone on a back road; can you imagine her hiking it?
Cheryl wasn't a hiker when she set off in the California Desert, walking north toward her endpoint, the Columbia River Gorge separating Oregon and Washington, a thousand miles away. She crammed 80 lbs of gear into her backpack, dubbed 'Monster,' and then she couldn't actually lift that backpack. She lost her hiking boot off the side of a mountain, for crying out loud. Along the way she lives with the fear of bears and snakes and mountain lions, and strangers on the trail, and storms. Her feet hurt--really fucking hurt--and she's trudging 20+ miles a day on them. The hike is her test.
Along the way, Cheryl meets an amazing group of fellow hikers, and they form a community winding in and out of her story and helping her continue her journey. She doesn't so much contemplate the state of her life as hike her way out of her head. Nothing really appears as she had imagined it when she was still in the Midwest, but that's not the point. The point, of course, is the journey. The point is survival.
Last spring, while hiking in Yosemite National Park, I took this picture--the place where my trail intersects the Pacific Crest Trail. I hesitated...why not just keep hiking? I finally had to turn back. Maybe someday....
Last fall my sister went to the Smokey Mountains for a friend's birthday party trip. We had lost my mother, and we were all (and still are) working through our grief. My sister, like me, loves national parks, and she planned to hike in the mountains and break away for awhile from her group of friends. I had given her an advance reader's copy of Wild to read on the plane. Her reading tastes and mine aren't always the same--I read more international and literary fiction and she reads more adventure fiction and nonfiction. This book, though, affected both of us. It's a story that's about what to do when the pieces of your life break apart, and it's also the damn funny account of how to sort of cram them back together and lug them 1,000 miles in a too big backpack.
I've been waiting for this week for almost a year now, the week that Wild finally goes on sale. Now I can encourage everyone--men and women, memoir fans and nature fans, fish out of water book fans, and even people like Gianna--to read this book. This isn't Eat, Pray, Love--this is Cheryl Strayed, who packed a box of condoms for the trail, you know, just in case. This is Cheryl who fantasizes about Snapple. This is Cheryl who was just revealed as "Dear Sugar," the advice columnist for The Rumpus. This is Cheryl, warts and beauty marks and all.
Hey guess what! We made ourselves a FaceSpace page for our little blog. You should "like" it and follow along. There's a greater chance of seeing Gianna in compromising poses there.
Day 7: Books Inspired By Our Favorite Places
Gianna:
I am not adventurous.
In general I am a rule follower due to my overwhelming fear of the ol' strip search. Having said all that…. I once entered a country illegally (totally kidding). If I had, let's just pretend that country was say…Cuba (it wasn’t, I never went). If I had gone, I bet I would have had a really truly amazing time. The highlight of course was the Cubans. I would imagine.
Two books that reflect what I saw (or may be making up) are National Geographic’s Cuba: Island at a Crossroad, photographs by David Alan Harvey, and Cuba – Going Back by Tony Mendoza, published by the University of Texas Press. What these books have in common is that they are basically photograph books with heavy text. Had I been to Cuba (which I absolutely have not because that would be illegal) I would say that it's no mistake that these are my favorite books about my favorite place. Cuba is so beautiful--the people, the architecture, the land--photographs are essential. I mean I’ve heard…I wouldn’t know for sure.
Photo I may or may not have taken in Cuba.
Liz:
When I feel like running away, one place always lurking in my head as a potential destination is Yosemite National Park. 1. It's beautiful and has the terrain features--mountains, tall trees, waterfalls, rivers and streams, big rocks--that calm me. 2. It's not illegal to visit unless you shoot a bear or something. I've been there four times and never seen a bear. I don't think bears exist. I did see a wolf there, but I didn't shoot at it. I love Yosemite Valley except for all of the other people there, but when I rule the planet I will throw everyone else out of the park and make it my private sanctum.
Cheryl Strayed
During my last trip to Yosemite, I read Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor. Talking about Yosemite and not mentioning the writings of naturalist John Muir seems criminal.
The book I want to feature, though, is one coming out next March. Wild, a memoir by Cheryl Strayed, is in many ways the anti-Eat, Pray, Love. The author was a young woman when her mother died from cancer and her world shattered. Cheryl's family dispersed and she alternated between bad jobs and bad men, and even sought solace in illegal substances. Cheryl happened to see a book about the Pacific Crest Trail (the West Coast's version of the Appalachian Trail), though, and decided that in order to regain control of her life she would hike from Southern California to the Oregon/Washington border. Cheryl has no idea what she's doing. She can't lift her backpack, she's never made a long hike before, and she has no money. Oh, and she loses her hiking boots off the side of a mountain. Nonetheless, Cheryl seeks her peace in the wilderness that I love and I understand her desire to choose that path when searching for meaning. In April, I stood at the connection to the John Muir Trail (which links to the PCT) and I thought about hiking down that path too.
25. The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine, originally published in 2008. Part retelling of The Arabian Nights, part history of Lebanon, part family story, all twisting and turning into a narrative that spins into stories within stories within stories. Pigeon wars in the skies of Beirut, hellish imps and the hand of Fatima, and a son returning home to see his dying father--these are just a few of the things I love about The Hakawati. "Hakawati" means "storyteller," the term for the Scheherazade-type entertainers in the tea houses of Lebanon, spinning yarns each afternoon that end with cliffhangers that keep people coming back every day for more. The Hakawati is particularly significant for me because I read it (and then sold it) in the year I started working for Random House and became a focal point of how I could find my place in this job.
26. Wild by Cheryl Strayed, originally published in 2012. Cheryl Strayed's memoir of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail hit several nerves for me. I have always liked memoirs about strong women. I'm a huge national parks fan and particularly love the Sierra Nevada mountains. Strayed's memoir is about struggling with the devastating loss of her mother to cancer and the downward spiral that death created. I read Wild before it was published (like most books, we read them in advance), while on a plane in April, 2011, on my way to Yosemite National Park. At the time my mother was dying from terminal cancer. While my relationship with my mother differed from Strayed's, my mother was an English teacher and did foster my love of books. This book became a marker for that period of my life.
27. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter, originally published in 1963. I didn't expect to be a History major in college. I expected to be an English major and successfully channel my love of books and lack of career aspirations into....little. I expected to die young, but well-read. There was an American History professor at my university, though, that was the finest teacher I've encountered. She inspired me and challenged me and scared me and called bullshit when I was being an asshole, and because her classes were so great, I ended up with a double major. One of the works she introduced to me was Hofstadter's classic Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (she introduced me to a lot of great books, but they aren't all on the Knopf list). Hofstadter looked at the rise of "practical" American life and with it the dying of philosophy, looking at the effects in culture, education, politics, and business. For his efforts, this book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964. I think about this book quite a bit, particularly when watching election cycles play out. The smartest person doesn't win an election most of the time; it's the guy who is "relatable." Didn't Americans want to have a beer with George W. Bush, folksy former playboy? Didn't Rick Perry run an "oops" campaign? Yeah.
