Discussion of Black Swan Green begins. Honestly? Mitchell departing from previous form makes me want to read the book even more. I'm weird that way.
Speaking of mixups, WWD, the magazine pictured in your article isn't the New Yorker. It's New York magazine. Totally different, unless you count the occasional intersection of "Table for Two" and Adam Platt's restaurant reviews. Let the intern slaughter continue!
In my mind, this restaurant is just begging for someone to write a short story about it.
So yesterday, I mentioned that I'd picked up two library books. The other one was Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I read the first few pages, it seemed like it'd be short attention span friendly, so I tossed it into the bathroom reading basket.
Biiiiig mistake.
My husband wakes up in the morning before I do, and he usually has a little quality time in the bathroom. He has this thing about keeping his books in perfect humidity-free condition, so the only reading material he'll put in the basket are his Weekly Standards. If he's read the current issue? He's stuck with whatever I have in there, and he hates a lot of what I read. If my husband hates a book, unlike me, he will sometimes continue reading it. Then at some point -- it might be a day, a week, a month later -- he'll tell me he hated it. Or thought it was boring, or whatever. That said, the basket is also the process by which Bill Bryson became one of his favorite authors.
Yesterday my husband woke me up early to tell me how much Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close annoyed him. "There's no way that kid is nine," he said. "No way."
"He's supposed to be a precocious nine," I told him, trying to decide whether to continue this discussion of literature or throw the blankets over my head and try to go back to sleep. "I thought the jujitsu part was funny."
"Eh, it was all right." he shrugged. "The kid is more like fifteen, though."
"Okay," I closed my eyes again. "Whatever."
"The dead dad and 9/11 -- it all reminded me of that, you know, Are You There God..."
Another book he only knows from the bathroom. "Judy Blume?"
"Yeah, her."
I threw the blankets over my head and wondered if anyone has ever compared Jonathan Safran Foer to Judy Blume before. It's a tough call, frankly.
My husband says he doesn't need to read any more of the book, but I suspect if I leave it in the basket? He'll be able to tell me what happens. Just not at seven in the morning, please. Gah.
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