Thing of the Day: Literature

I have decided that starting this summer and continuing over the next few years, I want to read every novel that has won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize. Three very important events sparked this lofty goal:

1. My roommates have started a book club for next semester. We are reading Franny & Zooey for our first meeting, which will take place on the Sunday we get back to school and continue taking place every other Sunday, pending that more than half of us can rouse ourselves from Saturday night hangovers. Maybe they will take place every third Sunday. Or maybe we should just aim for Mondays. Guys?

2. When driving home from LBI on Sunday night, I dug Are You There Vodka? It's Me Chelsea out of my roommate's back seat and proceeded to read 100 pages on the way home. This would all be fine, since Chelsea Handler is my personal hero and I aspire to be just like her when I grow up (Why, you may ask? The woman has managed to write a best-selling novel based entirely on her love of drinking AND star in a popular television series based entirely on her disdain of stupid shit. And she has a pet midget. What I would do for a pet midget! Except I think I'd want an Asian one)--but, I have already read Are You There Vodka. Thrice. Four times if you count the re-read in the car. And despite necessary re-reads to learn how to behave exactly and precisely like Chelsea, I find it silly to read the same book more than once or twice at most. Nonetheless, I find myself doing this all the time.

3. J.K Rowling is not planning on writing any more Harry Potter books. When I Googled "8th Harry Potter book" the most reputable source I got reporting possible developments was The Gryffindor Gazette. I plan on contacting The Gryffindor Gazette ASAP to inquire about any potential need for guest columnists, but future post-graduation job if being Chelsea Handler's second in command doesn't work out aside, this is bad news.

These three combined facts, plus my desire to be able to tell people that I have read every Pulitzer and Booker book and then have them revel my intellectual superiority, has led me to print out a list of the books in question (40 Booker and 60 Pulitzer, a sweet O.C.D-friendly 100 books), cross off the ones I have already read (10.5. I started Disgrace by J.M Coetzee and hated it) decide which one I am going to read next (Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout), and plan a trip to my favorite bookstore, Strand, today before yoga.

Intellectualness(Intellectuality? Spellcheck, why are you telling me this isn't a wordddd?), here we come.

Thing of the Day: The Kindle

This morning on the subway, among the company of your usual batch of commuting crazies (aggressive Asian lady ready to push you into the tracks for a seat, African man singingly intensely to himself under his breath, couple that makes out at his stop so aggressively that I am pretty convinced he was leaving for the army rather than the office, thirteen year olds sharing I-pod headphones and texting each other ("OMG do u thnk ppl know we r txting each otha?" "Hehe obvi bcuz we keep riting stuffz + looking @ each otha + LMAOing" "ROFL")), I looked over at the seemingly normal girl with cute shoes sitting next to me and found her to be using an overly large mobile device. My Blackberry 8830 is pretty large, but this thing was the size of my head. Upon second glance, I saw that it was not an iPhone on steriods after all--it was a Kindle.

I am normally technology's number one fan. I read the Apple blog regularly, nearly peed my pants when this baby came out, can name my favorite ten iPhone apps quicker than I can name my favorite ten friends, and will respond to any message sent to my Blackberry--text, email, or BBM--within ten minutes. But the Kindle is absolutely where I draw the line. This electronic reading device angers me for several reasons, the most important of which I will list here:

1. I love books. I love the feel of cracking open a new book, rifling through the crisp pages, reading the front panel for a summary, checking the back to see if the author is hot. I love folding down pages of the book where a sentiment rings particularly true or a ridiculous thing occurs. I love organizing my books in order of like on my bookshelf. This impostor robot book can be used for none of the above purposes.

2. It looks dumb. Kindles look really stupid. They are ugly and gray and nobody can judge you on the subway based on your choice of New Moon vs. Freakonomics.

3. It costs $359! Thus the only reason one would purchase one--for convenience and to save money on books--is eliminated. According to the Washington Post, the median number of books read by Americans last year was 9. (27% of Americans hadn't read a single book last year. America--WTF). At 9 books per year and an average of $15 per book, it would take the average American 2.5 years just to pay for the Kindle. You will probably drop and break that shit before it pays for itself. And that's not even counting the cost of books--Kindle books cost approximately $10, so you would have to read over 60 books for the cost to make up for what you are "saving." 6 and a half years of looking like a douche, here you come!

Looking away from the girl with cute shoes, I noticed TWO more people in my subway cart with Kindles, and immediately proceeded to judge them. I would rather sit next to the African singer, beating an invisible drum on his knees and shaking his head to his muttered melody, participate in a three way text session with the 13 year olds ("OMG! Kindle sux" "Ugh tot" "WTF who r u?!"), risk death by beating the Asian grandmother to a seat, and be the Deanna to the makeouters' Jon+Kate than sit next to the Kindle user.

And she WAS reading New Moon. Judged.

P.S: Whoever said sex sells was right. Or maybe my its just my friends--I know you sluts read this, I post one picture of a burger blow job and all of a sudden you're all commenting? I better see equal enthusiasm on my posts about books. Oh and, ADJ, you're right as usual--Wikipedia places the average at 5.1-5.9.