Bookish

My book club is divided into two groups: the girly-girls who choose clever chick lit (sugary dating stories, mostly), and those of us who enjoy a darker, biting read. Lit noir, how I love thee.

United, we all just read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and, collectively, loved it. It’s more of a chick book than not, a memoir whose character is so strong, calm, blithe and alarmingly unaffected that she creeps into your consciousness like a true friend. Her childhood makes Running with Scissors read like nothing more than an insipid story on a cereal box.

She begins her tale cooking hotdogs over a stove, aged three, and her dress catches fire. From there the book is difficult to put down. Her parents let her and her 3 siblings raise themselves, basically, offering only cool shrugs for guidance.

She’s now a journalist and contributor for MSNBC and, at least in book club, she’s our hero. Her childhood was nothing but struggle and strife, and she never once complains. There is no “constant sorrow,” only lessons learned and picked-up boot straps.

Currently I’m reading Herzog by Saul Bellow, a Canuck (I swear I didn’t know!) and master of winding redemption. Herzog is self-tortured, Nabokovian, deep and dark…just the way I like my read (but not the way I like my men – okay, maybe just a little).

I love book suggestions so please feel free to e-mail me yours. Keep it dark, will ya? My friend Anne (talk about a struggling life: a cool pad in Fiona Apple’s backyard, daily walks in Venice, yoga and a new boyfriend, “Dexter,” a true Showtime original; poor Anne) and I have traded books since high school, and if I had a nickel…

I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.