A Valentine's Day Letter to Liz

Dear Liz,

My sweet jovial friend…of course I haven’t given up on helping you find love.  Why would I? You aren’t at all picky and have what I would call an almost dangerously positive outlook on life and humanity. Of course I haven’t given up on being part of making all (well, nearly all) of your romantic dreams and nightmares come true, but with Valentine’s Day fast upon us and each hour we let pass is one less hour you could be spending in a state owned trailer enjoying a romantic conjugal visit, we must hurry.

No Touching!

I’ve signed you up for what I think are two excellent dating sites. Both suit your desire for someone who will be your best friend, truest confident, and life partner. Well, I didn’t write any of that in your profile but maybe you’ll luck out.

The first dating site, and trust me it wasn’t easy to get in this one, it’s very competitive, is PrisonTalk.com.  I really wanted to keep these gentlemen guessing, so I only provided your full name, address,  a photo of you sleeping, and a request that  “shorties need not reply.” Hope that’s okay. I also used your work email; let me know if you get any takers. 

The second dating site, and start writing that thank you note to me now, is called Tribe Of Singles, a really great online meeting place which is marketed as “exclusively for resilient optimist who believe in great love.” The only way that could have been more perfect for you, Liz, is if it was for Yankee fans only! Anyway this site clearly combines two of your passions: Optimism and social gatherings.

All I can say is … start looking for a wedding dress!

All this talk of you and romance got me thinking about several books that remind me of your tenacity to love and take risks at any cost. Let me list a few that our readers may want to read in order to get a better understanding of what it might be like to love Liz.

How the French Invented Love by Marilyn Yalom

This book completely captures Liz’s unbridled passion for everything/one she does. She also enjoys throwing her head back when men kiss her palm.

Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano

This novel really speaks to Liz’s boundless capacity to trust people. It’s no secret that Liz is an emotional open book; it’s completely inspiring. It also speaks to Liz’s love of Italians.

 

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers

“A time when men sold their souls for gold and women sold their bodies for a place to sleep.” I don’t want to give too much away but Liz was living at my house for an entire month.

Labor Day by Joyce Maynard

A handsome (and physically fit) man escapes prison and kinda sorta takes a woman hostage and they fall in love. And also, he does a lot of housework. Uhh…Joyce Maynard get out of Liz’s head!!!

 

Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert

If you spent even five minutes with Liz from 2005 to 2009, all she did was talk about Eat, Pray, Love. Liz found the book transformative on every level, so it’s no surprise that Gilbert’s follow up just blew Liz away. Now all she talks about is her profound desire to marry and have babies (four: three boys and a little sister they can protect!).  

And finally...

100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda

I once saw Liz whisper this to a man she barely knew, but fancied. She had to get down real low to actually whisper in his ear, but this is what I heard:

The sky folds its wings over you,

lifting you, carrying you to my arms

with its punctual, mysterious courtesy.

--from Love Sonnets

It was then and only then did I realize how very romantic Liz was. And how very, very tall. 

With every last bit of my love and dedication to your love,
Gianna

A Valentine's Day Letter to Gianna

Dear Gianna,

Gianna, where has our love gone?

It's that time of year again when your girlfriend texts me looking for gift ideas for you on that day for lovers and then refuses to accept "Zorro, gift wrapped" as a legitimate suggestion. It's also a time to reflect on my state of loneliness in this cruel world. You used to at least fake-attempt to find me a companion to suffer through the world's miseries together. You don't seem to care at all anymore. And I'm so lonely! I should just give away the cat and end this struggle against my existential angst. Gianna, I know that your girlfriend says that you wouldn't want a cat for Valentine's Day, but he's a special cat.

Since you want me to suffer alone, I decided that I should embrace my solitude with the appropriate Friday night, Valentine's Day reading. I'd watch a Girls marathon on TV, but those ladies have friends. Sigh. I'm a ship adrift. Gianna, I thought you were going to set up an OKCupid profile for me. Maybe this will help inspire you.

Five books to read on Valentine's Day if you're as pathetic as Liz:

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Here's the story of a kid who graduates college, gives away all of his possessions, and wanders around the country in search of authenticity. He ends up in a broken down bus in Denali National Park. Spoiler: he dies. Happy Valentine's Day!

I loved Hotel World by Ali Smith. One reason I loved it is because the main character falls to her death in the dumb waiter shaft at the hotel where she works. Yep, she's dead for the whole book. It's similar to The Lovely Bones, but better written.

Sometimes it's good to keep things in perspective. At least this isn't a post-apocalyptic world in which it's just you and your kid wandering down a road and trying to avoid the gangs of cannibals roaming for meat (you). Thanks Cormac McCarthy. You always know how to cheer me up. For one thing, at least I don't have a kid. The Road is a feel good read if ever there was one.

Gianna, why can't you find me a soul mate like the couple in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go? Their love is timeless, beautiful, and even though they are clones being harvested for their organs in a near future dystopia (spoiler!), they never stop loving each other.

You know what book I love? Revolutionary Road. This is the story of a perfect match. There are so many broken dreams and mounting disappointments, much like our relationship, dear Gianna, that I don't know where to start. Remember when we were happy, before you forced me to settle for motherhood and thought that one more kid, the one I didn't want, would make us happy? I am the Kate to your Leonardo, or something.

Happy Valentine's Day, dear friend.

Love,

liz

Valentine's Day, Gianna Style

I have often thought I should have been a relationship therapist…a love doctor.  You have a love condition? Honey, I’ve got the medicine.

At the University of Texas Press, we have many excellent choices for Valentine’s Day. Let me list a few, giving you an opportunity to really suss out which of our books speaks from your heart directly to your true love.

Naked Truth is a really fantastic choice of your love is a stripper. It is also an excellent choice if you’re a stripper, or you enjoy strippers and view them as artists. I guess what I am saying is, “Who can’t you give this book to?”

Go Down, Old Hannah is a really sweet and certainly safe choice if your relationship is just beginning to bloom romantically. It says, “I want you, but not all the way.”

Sex Work in the City just puts a smile on my face. Certainly a more realistic version of HBO not at all lauded Sex in the City, this little ditty is set in the other city that never sleeps, Tijuana!

Intimate Commerce might seem like a daring choice for such a pure holiday, but I don’t think I am too far off base when I say that there really is nothing better than a monetary exchange when dealing with matters of the heart.

The Concubine, the Princess, and the Teacher. Well, you won’t find a more perfect book for the triad relationship whose members also enjoy a little role-playing. Obviously this book is also good if you’re married to a teacher.

The Art of Friction. Yes, that’s right, it’s an art, and it’s about time that someone has written a well researched book about it.

Witches, Whores, and Sorcerers is a no brainer for the Harry Potter fan that you are currently sleeping with. Also the perfect last minute gift if you’re the type to sleep with a whore on Valentine’s Day.

 

Manhood in Hollywood from Bush to Bush is a classic Valentine choice year in and year out for the film buff that you’re porking.

Psycho Sexual might be the perfect book choice for the man or woman you are trying to get rid of, or a Valentine that you actually broke up with over a year ago but who you occasionally still find hiding behind shrubbery in your backyard taking pictures of you through your kitchen window while you make dinner for your new lover. This is one of our bestselling titles this time of year.

 

And one more for you totally vanilla, completely lame book lovers out there. Our bestselling Valentine’s Day book of all time…

One Hundred Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda. It's pink and bilingual, bitches!

Just as one final note, I hope its clear that I don't have a clue as to what any of the above books are actually  about (with the exception of Neruda). You know, pretty much same deal as every single blog I post. Its my motto, know as little as possible. 

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.