Friday, February 17, 2006

Begin to Begin

So why am I jumping on the blogging bandwagon? Well, why not? I am too lazy to keep a journal. Not lazy--more like too busy. And I should be too busy to keep a blog. But maybe having some semi-public forum will force me to write a bit more. About my life, my passions (books, writing, film, TV, magazine, men).

The Folded Leaf? What's in a blog name? The Folded Leaf by William Maxwell is one of my favorite books by one of my favorite writers. I'ts sweet, tender, smart, sad, and a little bit gay. Like me!

I'll start with what i'm reading these days:
For work purposes, The Tricky Part by Martin Moran. Very good, a memoir about "sexual trespass." AKA molestation. But it's well done and not at all an exercise in victimology. The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber, a foodietype memoir, which is also fantastic. The rest of my work reading list is insanely long and includes Chasing the Sea by Tom Bissell. Love this guy--both him and his writing. I'm working on his current book, the cracker-jack collection of stories called God Lives in St. Petersburg. Chasing is his first book, an oddly appealing and super-fun and super-smart travelogue about Central Asia. Trust me, it rocks.

For fun: Jane Eyre by Bronte. Nope, never read it before. I am trying to catch up on "classics" that I should have read by now. Like almost everything by the Russians. Some Edith Wharton and Henry James. Madame Bovary by Flaubert.

Wonderful short story collection, Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones. Jones wrote the Pulitzer-Prize-Winner The Uknown World, but this is his first book. They are really gritty stories of urban African American life set in Washington, DC. But his style is very straightforward and traditional, very appealing. His newest stories have been popping up in The New Yorker is recent years, and those are fantastic as well. I think his new collection comes out this year. Here's hoping!

Melville by Andrew Delbanco--love it so far. I try and read one literary bio at all times, and it usually takes me many months to do so.