Only Thing the VMA's Were Good For

I'm preparing to re-read The Hunger Games trilogy, not just in anticipation of next year's movie, but for the fun of it. I said it: reading is fun. At the MTV Video Music Awards last weekend a teaser trailer was revealed featuring Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, and it was all I could do to now chuck the book I'm currently reading and launch right into the tale of a girl, her family, two guys, and a seriously fucked up dystopian vision of the United States. Check out the teaser:

Suzanne Collins' books (Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay) are technically for teens. When and if you read them, you'll realize that not only is this a serious misconception, but book critics who pooh-pooh younger-skewing novels are big jerks, and Katniss Everdeen is as real, as fleshed out, as compelling a character as anyone Dave Eggers or Jonathan Franzen ever cobbled together from letters. More so, because those writers and their fancypants brethren (while infinitely skilled, amazing, auteurs, blah blah) are also a bit on the unrelatable side. They tend towards the overly-wrought. Collins writes like a punch in the stomach, direct and unflinching, with no handwringing. Perfect.

In reality there are dozens of books being published right now under the Young Adult banner that are superbly crafted novels, period. YA stuff gets a bad rap from serious literati types because, well, the characters are primarily teenagers. Teenagers in real life are messy and horny and not always possessed of introspection into the human condition. Teenagers in fiction are created by adults, though, and thus have the ability to distill their chaotic hormone-soaked feelings into logical action. They are relatable to us as adults now, and to the inner teen we all still carry. Messy, horny, chaotic.
If you've read and liked Hunger Games, try a few of the other sci-fi/fantasy/post-apocalyptic books that have come out of the woodwork recently: Delirium by Lauren Oliver; Divergent by Veronica Roth; Matched by Ally Condie; and Incarceron by Catherine Fisher.

I Like Them Book Things I Keep Hearing About

Reading fiction has been a constant in my life since I was four years old. I started reading and never looked back, immersing myself in worlds I didn't inhabit myself-- ones with dragons and fairies and rich people and nuclear families. I've been an amass-er of books since then, also. My ideal room is a library full of ceiling high bookcases, with a fireplace and a spot for my pipe and smoking jacket. And a pullout sofa. And a ladder so I can reach the books at the top, because of course I would have read them all.

And I consider myself a smarter person because I read a lot. There's no way today's kids will come close to having a full understanding of the universe with just the internet and Wikipedia to guide them. They have no perspective. But "literature" and books are two different things, and I am afraid I'm just not cool enough to pull of the snooty air of a "literature" fan.

My favorite books of all time: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley; The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger; Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell; American Gods by Neil Gaiman; and the Harry Potter series. More mainstream, mostly with a fantastical twist, and definitely NOT Vonnegut or Faulkner. Or Upton Sinclair. Or Dave Eggers. I've never read A Confederacy of Dunces. Or The Corrections. I don't read poetry all that often, I find it pretentious and overwrought. I don't like Hemingway, but at least I've read enough to know that for myself. And I'm not a complete philistine, either-- I like Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Steinbeck, Socrates...but if you breath even one word of Camus' The Stranger I will stick you with something sharp.

I guess my point is that I feel safe with my books, I like to show off my books, and I like people to think I'm smart, so I keep a lot of books around. But can an old dog learn new tricks? Can I learn to like Vonnegut if I give him a chance? What about Marquez? Murakami? I don't know. Send me some books and I'll let you know. In the meantime, don't judge me.

Originally written 1.08