My favorite reads of 2009

"Books" print by Jessica over at pinestreetmakery. Check out her awesome work!

"Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed. I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book's autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books."

- Kanye West

Oh, 2009. What a year you were. The year that introduced us to "pulling a Kanye" and regretsy.com (one of my very favorite websites). 

This was a year of growth for me - mentally, personally, professionally - though unfortunately not physically, as I still remain just a little over five feet. Happily,  my library grew by leaps and bounds! 

So here, dear readers, is weelittleactress' (drumroll please) Top Ten Books That I Read in 2009 (in no particular order)!

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 

 Okay, please don't judge me for not having read this earlier. I've always been a Wuthering Heights kind of gal, so I had always assumed that Jane Eyre wouldn't really be my style. That is, until my friend Lindsey challenged me with the words "Whatever, Charlotte's better." 


SO, I pulled my copy of Jane Eyre (which had never been opened) off of the shelf and decided to give it a try. 

WOW! Just when I thought that no book could be better than Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre... um... was. Just when I thought that Elizabeth was the strongest of the strong, Mr. Darcy the drooliest of the drool-worthy, Jane kicked Elizabeth in the shin and Mr. Rochester induced a river of droolage. Their complete, gorgeous humanity - their flaws, their honesty, their mistakes - made me fall in love with them. Jane was not only strong and admirable, but relatable. We watch her grow stronger, learn to speak her mind, learn how to get what she really wants from the world. And we watch her do the most difficult thing - walk away from the love of her live - in order to maintain her dignity and her honor. 

Also, I think that the scene where (SPOILER ALERT!) Jane comes back to Mr. Rochester after he has lost his sight is one of the most beautiful scenes ever written - along with the scene where Mr. Rochester disguises himself as a gypsy fortune-teller. A billion bajillion stars!

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

If you are one of the few people in the world who didn't read this book this year, go buy a copy and read it now. It is the definition of "unputdownable,"  the best of the best of young adult literature. The Hunger Games takes place in the future, in a world where every year a child from each district is picked at random to participate in a fight to the death. The children are dropped into what is basically a large wooded pit, where their fight for survival is filmed and watched by the rest of the world. The one survivor remaining at the end of it all wins. Go read it!

• The Death of the Moth and Other Essays by Virginia Woolf

Of all of her works, I think that The Death of the Moth is my favorite piece by Virginia. The image of the moth, using Virginia's paintbrush, is the best little picture of mortality, of the fight for life, that I've ever seen. 

"He flew vigorously to one corner of his compartment, and, after waiting there a second, flew across to the other. What remained for him but to fly to a third corner and then to a fourth? That was all he could do, in spite of the size of the downs, the width of the sky, the far-off smoke of  houses, and the romantic voice, now and then, of a steamer out at sea. What he could do he did. Watching him, it seemed as if a fibre, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body. As often as he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible. He was little or nothing but life."

 We're all moths, fluttering in our little windows, struggling to understand the greatness of the world around us.

• It's Always Something by Gilda Radner

I have been wanting to write a post about how much I loved this book for awhile. Gilda has been one of my heroes since I was a child. I always admired her bravery onstage - there was nothing that she was too embarrassed to do. I didn't realize what a strong person she was until I read her book which, rather than being an autobiography, is mostly about her long battle with cancer. It was painfully honest, sometimes even painful to read, but that's what was always the most beautiful thing about her - her willingness to share, to expose all of life's funny and tragic facets. 

•  Columbine by Dave Cullen

Now, I've already written a whole post about how much I loved this book, but I can't emphasize its greatness enough. Back to the honesty thing, Dave Cullen seems to understand that we can't really face a tragedy until we've faced it honestly. He debunks so many of the myths and stigmas that go hand in hand with the word "Columbine," and reveals how dangerous, how powerful the media and word-of-mouth can be. I read the whole thing in one sitting. 

• The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

Alright, there is something very important that you should know about me. I friggin' LOVE Sarah Dessen. I own all of her books and a signed hardcover first-edition of her newest book. She is one of my favorite authors. And guess what? I hadn't read any of her books until this year. Guess what else? Her books are young adult books. The Truth About Forever was the first of Sarah Dessen's books that I read, and it is still my favorite (even though all of her books are excellent and they all deserve a read - especially Someone Like You). Her imagery is lovely, her themes run deep, and her characters are so beautifully human. I wish so much that I could have had her books when I was a teenager, but they're so wonderful that they teach me and move me even in my twenties. Forever deals with grieving, facing loss, taking risks, letting your heart heal and feel after it has experienced the worst that life can offer.

• The Song is You by Arthur Phillips

The second that I saw this book on the shelf, I knew that I had to read it and I knew that I would love it. Another one that I read in one sitting. It's a story about music, about love, and about a love that exists because of and exclusively through music. The two main characters use music to communicate and to speak, revealing their hearts nakedly to each other before they're even able to have a conversation. I was surprised when I didn't see the copies flying off of the shelves at the bookstore. Pick it up - you won't regret it! 

• The Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

I expected to hate this book, to tell you the truth. I read it reluctantly as it was chosen for the book club that I was a member of. For some reason, this book carries some kind of repellant stigma. I, however, was completely absorbed. The characters were complex, the story compelling. I expected to find fluff but this book has a gutsy heart. 

• Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Of all the great books that I have read this year, this is definitely the greatest and has become one of my favorite books of all time. The dialogue in this book is art, pure and simple, as are the characters. It seems, from the outside, to be a book exposing the realities of suburban disenchantment in the 1950's. While this is definitely true, there is so much more to this book. The opening scene in the theatre is worth the price of the book alone. 

• Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir by Bigfoot (and Graham Roumieu)

Never thought you would see Richard Yates, Charlotte Bronte, Virginia Woolf, and Bigfoot in the same book list, did you? What can I say? I like funny things - and this book is definitely, definitely a funny thing. Bigfoot's autobiography (with an introduction written by the Lochness monster) is handwritten and illustrated by Bigfoot himself. Go along for the ride as Bigfoot rises to magnificent heights and then learns that fame is a fickle, fickle friend indeed. 

Here is a particularly touching selection:

"I am not Chewbacca. Me think Chewbacca jerk. He no can act. He ride Bigfoot coat tails. he think he cool, but he not. He phoney loser with no class. He all messed up on crack me think. People think me Chewbacca sometimes. No! Me have job. Bad wookie. Bad." 

And there are no words more appropriate to ring in 2010.

Here's to a whole new, book-filled year!

The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance & Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride

"Believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is making a decision. Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon."

- Donald Miller

 
Recommended tea: Celestial Seasoning's Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride

I remember the moment that I fell in  love with God.

I was born and raised in the South, which means that I was also born and raised in the church. A Southern Baptist church, to be precise. Believing in God was like believing in the sun - it's always there, why question it? 

Then, as the story always goes, I grew up. I moved away from the safe, cozy bubble that never asked questions into a world where questions filled every second of every day - (dun dun duuuun) college!

It didn't help that one of my very first college courses was centered around examining and questioning images of Jesus Christ in the Gospels, in cinema, in art, and in our cultural makeup. 


I remember the first paper that I wrote for that class. One sentence, and I quote, said, "My God is bigger than facts!"


To which my professor replied, in red ink, "um...what!?" 


In a matter of weeks, my faith went from being the center of who I was to being virtually nonexistent. I had trouble justifying everything that I used to believe with everything that I was starting to learn in class. It felt like a knife, stabbing me over and over again, slowly chipping away at the thing that had made me... me.


But then, one day in class, we read Matthew 22:37-40:

Jesus replied:  "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

"Mind" - that tiny little word made all the difference in the world. Could it be that this examining, this questioning, was exactly what I was called, as a Christian, to do? Could it be that God wanted me to ask questions? To use the mind that he gave me? To reason and to think?


All of this time, I had thought that examining my faith under a microscope was wrong. Turns out, it's what I was called to do all along.

That's when I fell in love with God.

Elna Baker writes about all of this in her new autobiography The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance. Now, I have been looking forward to this book for awhile. Last year, after coming home from a grueling day at the bookstore, I sat down to listen to NPR with my husband and happened to catch one of Elna's stories, Babies Buying Babies. This story follows Elna's journey as a recently graduated theatre major who takes a retail job in a kids' store in order to support herself.

"Holy shnikes," I thought. "That's...um... me."

So I went to Elna's website, where it said something a long the lines of "Hey! Elna has a book coming out soon and the title is a really long, complicated one that you won't be able to remember when you get to the bookstore, and also one that booksellers will hate you for not being able to remember."

I searched, using all the high-tech (ba-dum-bum-CHING!) bookstore tools that were available to me as a bookseller.

"Um...New York...Mormon...Dance...Singles"

"Search Results: 0"

"Mormons... in New York... Dancing"

"Search Results: 0"

Needless to say, I jumped for joy when, about a year later, I found Elna's book on the shelf and realized that it was, in fact, real and not something that I had dreamed or hallucinated. It took me about a millisecond to buy it and about a few hours to read the whole thing.

Not only is Elna a recently graduated theatre major who takes a retail job in a kids' store in order to support herself, but she is also a Mormon living in New York City.

And I thought being a Christian at an Episcopalian university was hard.

I loved this book even more than I thought I would (which was a lot). Elna's honesty is enlightening and refreshing, and I found myself wanting to be her best friend so that we could write shows and plays and be actors and Christians and friends and, ya know, cool stuff like that.

But what I liked most about her book was how empowering it was. She loses 80 pounds, she goes on adventures, she stands up for herself, she makes out with a Hollywood star that she calls "Warren Beatty" but who isn't actually "Warren Beatty" (and, for the record, I think it's Sam Shepard... hey Elna if you read this and you want to be my friend you could TOTALLY tell me who it really was. Cool? Cool).

Elna is someone who loves her life and lives it - truly lives it. She seizes opportunities, she says what she thinks, she takes risks. And she does all of these things because of - not IN SPITE of - her faith.

In spite of all of the white noise, all the madness, there is that still, small voice inside. The voice that encourages you to seek, to ask questions, to strive for the best, to strive for the truth. To love your life, to love the world, to love others. The voice that says, "I'm here, and I understand."

It always makes me think of Sylvia Plath's words (as out of context as they may be),

"I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am."

Hey! Look at this!

• Elna Baker's website
• This American Life
• Blue Like Jazz