If you write "English Literature [sic]" about a supposed classic, I will love you forever

I went to the library last night (...) and checked out three books. Two were on my Goodreads TBR list and ONE was a delightful surprise find in the literary criticism section (I was there looking for the recommended-by-Jenny Madwoman in the Attic, only to find it was missing from the shelf -- DAMN YOU PATRONS).

It's taken me some time to realize that not every awesome book gets reprinted, which is yet ANOTHER reason we need independent used bookstores and libraries. Because they have old shit. So this book I randomly found is Fifty Works of English Literature We Could Do Without, and it's by a lady and two gentlemen, printed in 1967 in the UK, and I've decided -- INDEPENDENT OF ANY RESEARCH -- that they're all 22-year-old besties who got money from their parents to publish a book because they could.

I've read a few of the essays (they're each two to three pages and hilarious) and will be quoting from them AD NAUSEAM when I have the book with me, but as with all literary criticism, it has to be tempered by knowledge of the writer's time period, SOMETHING of their background, and other mitigating factors like "Maybe they were just young people with some education who wanted to impress by sneering at commonly accepted classics." Mayyyybe.

And they are TOTAL DICKS. Like, the entire time. But really, really amusing total dicks. I would hang out with them. They talk about how Hamlet is overrated, which is such a dick move because at least part of it is "Yeah, that thing you think is totally amazing? Piece. of. shit. Good job being taken in, though." Except they make a really good case for it. So. Hm.

When I was an undergrad, I was roaming the stacks one day at our main library (the University of Illinois library stacks are IN.SANE and contain five MILLION volumes on ten levels) and found Hunting the Highbrow by Leonard Woolf, aka husband of Virginia, and it's a hilarious little booklet about how nobody ever actually enjoys things like The Iliad and if you say you did you are a dirty dirty liar.

Books where obviously intelligent people tell you that the book you're trying to make it through because it's a Classic is just hard to make it through because it sucks are my FAVORITE. I shall report more on this one soon. Ish. Soonish.

Things of a Semi-Political Nature But Really It's Just Pictures

I was up. I was up late last night. Watching this lady:

LEAD US, WENDY

And then there was the figuring out if the filibuster worked. And that went until 3. And then I had to juice. And then I kind of puttered. And then it was 4 and I went "Ahahahahahaha I am waking up in two hours and they're deciding on DOMA in five." And so then I made this just in case:

WHICH I GOT TO USE. So things are spiffy, but my bankrupt, end of the marathon brain cannot handle anything right now. So my day has mainly been staring at my computer blankly, answering the phone, and updating my OKCupid profile (THIS SHOULD TURN OUT WELL METHINKS).

There's been too much going on, between the Blackhawks winning, then the Texas thing, my DRY CLEANING PLACE NOT BEING OPEN, and then DOMA/Prop 8. But for serious, I need my dresses. I'm in a wedding this weekend. Why would you close at 6:30 and not 7, that doesn't even make sense. 

Days like this, I just want to be a medieval peasant girl named Strudegard whose job it is to keep the damn pigs from tunneling under the fence. "NEIN, SCHWEIN," I would yell. Then I'd make a quilt and have a dalliance with the blacksmith's son before being cruelly jilted for Ingela, who only gets him because her family has two stupid cows instead of one. In conclusion, COWS RUIN EVERYTHING AND NOW ALL I HAVE IS THIS QUILT.

I bought more books and you are not allowed to hit me

The summer solstice is past! Summer continues, but begins to fade, and we press on, wending our weary way toward ever shorter days and the inevitable dreariness of winter and its dark dark darkness.

...I went to a book sale! Twice.

I know. I KNOW, OKAY? But I donated books BOTH TIMES I WENT. Because it was Open Books. And they are the best bookstore in Chicago and operate as a not-for-profit and all their books are donated so they are sold CHEAPLY and this was their annual half-price sale and I CAN'T NOT GO TO THAT.

These are the books from the second trip, as I was more restrained and bought little ones:

Yeah. So. The best edition of The Horse and His Boy (which I have read precisely once in my lifetime); What Now? by Ann Patchett, which is really only worth buying if you can get it for a dollar, because it takes half an hour to read; Are Women Human? by Dorothy L. Sayers, which I pretty much got because 1) hard to find, and 2) 75 cents; and then the second and third Amelia Peabody books because they didn't have the first one, and OKAY YOU GUYS. 

Two of you have suggested I would like these books. I started the second in the series while in a pretty ready mood to like it, and she immediately is like "Oh, so I'm married to this guy and we're exciting archaeologists, and I had a baby and then we left him at home and went to Egypt, which is ALSO exciting, and then we came home and the baby's all right I guess, but I super-want to go back to Egypt so ugh, this baby" and I AM NOT LIKING THIS. 

It was written in the '80s, which was very "What? You shouldn't have to stay at home and raise your kid -- you're a smart and talented woman and why should that go into raising the next generation" and this is a super-prickly subject and I have a very specifically-tied-to-it background (book my mother co-wrote) but if you're not even acting like you want to be AROUND your kid because you'd rather be off digging things up, this is an awful introduction to you. And I get that it's the second book. But even so. She better reveal other, delightful parts of her personality pretty damn quick.

So the FIRST time I went on Saturday, I got these:

Love Story
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Good Soldier
At Swim-Two-Birds
Seattle 2010
The Hippopotamus

Love Story was a pop culture phenomenon, okay? And SOMEtimes it's important to read those. Not when it's some piece of sex-purposed garbage like 50 Shades, but if it causes enough references in OTHER pieces of pop culture and everyone knows about it, then sure. Like, I KNOW about Love Story because of things like there being a "Love means never having to say you're sorry" joke in the 1972 Barbra Streisand film What's Up, Doc? (which you should see). So they had a 1970s copy in paperback for like a dollar and I grabbed it.

Someone just told me to read One Hundred Years, and all right. Fine. I haven't read any Marquez and I GUESS I should change that. Or at least try. I suspect he will not be my cup of tea. BUT THEN there's The Good Soldier, which I've been trying to read for years, but always as an eBook, and I don't think I can read it as an eBook, so I finally just bought a copy.

At Swim-Two-Birds is a classic and apparently really weird, but one of my brothers likes it (albeit the one who likes weird things), so I am Making an Effort. The Seattle guide is OBVS because I'm going to Seattle next month and need a guidebook to get all planny. Mmmm plans.

And then The Hippopotamus, which I've been meaning to read for forever, and I laughed out loud on the first page and therefore considered it worth buying. Good job, Stephen Fry.

I did not include the books I bought as presents for people, but there are...maybe four of them? At least one is for someone I'm not really speaking to at the moment, but if I see a book I think you would like, this conquers all possible Issues we might currently have (but will go back to having after the book has been given). This reached the point of me asking my friend Katie:

me: "Can I buy this book for [ex I had a really nasty breakup with and was then hung up on for a year and should probably just never talk to again]?"
Katie: "Is that a real question?"

So! More books. I have them. But I got through some of my adorable copy of Vindication of the Rights of Woman and mainly wrote notes like "She's so sassy here" in it, which she IS:

But, alas! husbands, as well as their helpmates, are often only overgrown children; nay, thanks to early debauchery, scarcely men in their outward form—and if the blind lead the blind, one need not come from heaven to tell us the consequence.

So I'm reading things I own. I will finish things by the end of June. Yes. That will happen. 

Harry Potter Readalong Wrap-Up: "Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn't it?"

This is just where we put our leftover GIFs, right?

I mean...

What am I....

Supposed to....

NO. Um. Okay. This readalong has been going on since the dawn of time, i.e. January. And we are DONE now. But I talk to almost all you suckahs all the time anyway, so it's not AS sad as it could be. Our first few readalongs it was like "BUT I AM SO USED TO YOU NOW" but then we all got on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Gchat and now it's like "Oh. Hey. It's you."

BUT BACK TO HARRY POTTER. 

The only thing this series has been compared to in popularity is Dickens, when people in America would MEET THE BOAT carrying the new volumes and be like "OMG WHAT'S HAPPENING? IS NELL ALIVE TELL US NOW ONLY DON'T BECAUSE SPOILEEEERS." People can talk about Twilight and 50 Shades of Fucking Grey, but those are literary fads. They're not going to last. 

They might inspire older women to revive their sexual relationships or make teen girls FEEL things, but nothing has caused an audience to love characters as much as Harry Potter. If someone insults Neville Longbottom, YOU PUNCH THEM. These books are not transitory. They're staying. 

Being with them and with you all for six months has been, dare I say, a ride. Thanks for the discussions and the slightly-changing-my-mind on some things (like MAYBE SIRIUS A LITTLE BIT) and making me notice parts of the book I would have missed on my own. You're my favorite readalong group. It was great sticking it out with you.

Mid-Year Review of Hastily Put-Togetherness

Sometimes I sit at my computer in the morning, staring at the blank post screen and just think 'All right. Pick a topic.' Okay, I do that EVERY time I update. Because who's got time for planning, amirite? I'll plan a trip to Seattle a month out and come up with a spreadsheet itinerary, but when it comes to writing, BY THE SEAT OF MY PANTS I SHALL FLY.

It's basically halfway through the year. So how's it been going? Getting things read? Thank God for Goodreads, 'cause otherwise I would be lost in a sea of forgetfulness.

All right. Here's the dealie-o. I have read 35 books so far this year. It's not AMAZING but it's not shit, so no sass, thank you. Of those 35 (and we're counting Scott Pilgrim volumes as individual books even though they take half an hour and also are counting them as YA do not question me), 16 are YA. I feel OKAY about this. Because some are grownass lady books and sometimes you need a break from that, y'know? And also to read about MAGIC THINGS that don't involve real world adultness.

Of the 35, five have been non-fiction. Okay. So that's not great. But y'know what would have been worse? NO non-fiction. So compared to that I am more than infinity times better. Because of something I don't understand involving zero and multiplication.

I read that history of romantic friendship in literature AND my beloved Diana Victrix, which are still my favorite reads of the year (despite the former's horrible title of awfulness). Which led to me being able to smile knowingly/weirdly condescendingly when reading references to Lillian Faderman in an article on Urania, a British radical feminist magazine published from 1916 to 1940. Basically the area of lesbian studies in Victorian to Edwardian lit is UNSURPRISINGLY small and so the same academics' names crop up all the time and eventually you feel like you're reading The Baby-Sitters Club except with a lot more references to 'heteronormativity.' And also no babysitting.

I hope they interact like this

And I read two Neil Gaimans I liked! I mean, they're both for children, but that's what he's good at writing. Coraline and The Graveyard Book are both excellent. American Gods and Stardust are not. 

I'm in the middle of....let's count...15 books. Some of which I've been working on since January. Plus I have my 28 books checked out from the library but ALL WILL BE WELL I'M FINE DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT. Part of the reason I am so perilously close to the Chicago Public Library's checkout limit of 30 is that getting books from the library satisfies the shopper's urge, but it is free. I leave the library having acquired something and I didn't spend $15 that I could have very happily spent on Indian food (have I mentioned I love Indian food? I LOVE IT SO HARD).

We'll see how the rest of the year goes. I'm extremely close to beating the giant slump that was last year, but not so much to the first year I had this blog, when ZOOM went my reading, because everyone was recommending things and book blogs were new and exciting and one must keep up with the literary trends only not so much now because I am old and jaded.

YA: Can We Move Past Twilight and Juno?

I'm not going to say YA is broken -- it's flourishing in too many ways for that -- but then why is it annoying the shit out of me?

It's entirely possible I just had a sheltered reading life, but I honestly don't remember there being Books for Teens when I was a teenager. And this wasn't like 1974, thank you, it was the turn of the millennium. And it's GOOD that we have these books now. Whether naturally occurring or formed by society, the concept of teenagerdom is real and it's a group that needs a literature to relate to. And not a Bobbsey twins-type literature (good Lord, I love the Bobbsey twins). Teenagers are full of hormones and weirdass feelings and a sense of being constantly misunderstood and are starting to become who they'll be (BUT, I caution any teens reading this, they are still light years from that person). They need books that reflect and help with that.

But. When your primary themes are supernatural romance (okay) or two smartasses who like really obscure music, I want to punch you right in the face. Let's make some sweeping generalizations and say that supernatural romance is for the dumber teens and the smartass kids are for the smartasses. I'm not saying one never reads the other, but overall, yes? Okay. So the dumber ones have their stupid ideas about male/female roles reinforced (the man is so brooding! what? no, he has a right to be an asshole, because he has MANPAIN he's dealing with, or it's all for her protection -- he's upset because she's trying to be too independent and he can't protect her WHY WON'T SHE LET HIM PROTECT HER). 

And the smartasses become even more annoying by having their notions reinforced that they're 1) smarter than all the adults in their lives (occasionally true, but they're still teenagers with zero life experience) and that 2) if they use elevated language and wry humor, they are being awesome. EHHHH. WRONG. You are fulfilling a trope, and it's an exasperating one by now.

Can someone write realistic teens? I know it's being done in some corners, but overall it's JUST. THESE. TWO. OPTIONS. Someone give me teenagers who don't know what the fuck they're doing, because that's teenagerdom. Here's what was going on when I was a teen: I was ridiculously insecure. I fought with my parents all the time. I thought I knew everything. Which sounds like a cliche because it's true for almost every teenager ever. But with these books -- ESPECIALLY the smartass books, it's rarely "They think they know everything, but of course it's really painfully evident they don't."

I remember being embarrassed for my high school history teacher because he couldn't remember the correct date for Elizabeth I's coronation. But then I remembered 'Oh yeah, he knows more about EVERY OTHER AREA OF HISTORY THAN I DO.' Teenagers suck. I'm not saying the literature should be saying they suck, but it definitely shouldn't be validating their feelings of smug awesomeness.

So. Realistic teen lit. It exists. It should be written more. Stop using the John Green and Stephenie Meyer models. It's annoying as hell.

Harry Potter Readalong, Deathly Hallows IV: Omg wait are we done?

"Hogwarts is threatened!" shouted Professor McGonagall. "Man the boundaries, protect us, do your duty to our school!"

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KEEP THIS CONCISE HOW.

The Battle of Hogwarts is probably one of my favorite things in literature. The entire last quarter of the book is brilliant, and J.K. Rowling deserves her damn place in the twinkly literary firmament.  Did you notice she actually started trying with her prose? Like, her normal writing is just awesome because of the way she makes you care about characters and how she sets up a world, but then we fucking get stuff like:

As they turned a corner the flames chased them as though they were alive, sentient, intent upon killing them. Now the fire was mutating, forming a gigantic pack of fiery beasts: Flaming serpents, chimaeras, and dragons rose and fell and rose again, and the detritus of centuries on which they were feeding was thrown up into the air into their fanged mouths, tossed high on clawed feet, before being consumed by the inferno.

There's so much isolation in book seven as they search for Horcruxes, and so then it's almost as jarring for you as for them when it's just suddenly BOOM they're at Hogwarts, and from Hogwarts it just goes and goes and goes and you can't stop because OMG SO MUCH IS HAPPENING and people are dying and you don't have time to mourn them because HORCRUXES and then Snape's history with Lily which good LORD how does she manage to make their relationship in 20 pages a hundred times more meaningful and believable than Ron and Hermione's when they had SEVEN BOOKS?

Referring to Harry and Voldemort and Snape as "the abandoned boys" got me this time in a way it didn't the first time through. Those three and how they all responded differently to their abandonment. Voldemort's complete lack of love, Snape's redemption through knowing Lily, and Harry's improbable normalcy, brought about let's just say for defense of the book's sake through Lily's sacrificial love for him.

The abandoned boys are the center of the series, and Lily Potter is the center of them. 

The thing that stuck out the most to me the first time I read it, and which I read with scarcely any less delight the second time through, was the Malfoy family. 

Look, I started this series when I was 14, and my brain was as soft as very stupid cheese, so I hated whomever Rowling seemed to want me to hate. The Malfoys seemed terrible, so they were terrible. But then when Narcissa leaned in and asked the apparently-dead Harry IN FRONT OF VOLDEMORT AND ALL HIS FOLLOWERS if Draco was still alive, that did it. The Malfoys became one of my favorite parts of the entire series. 

...and Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy running through the crowd, not even attempting to fight, screaming for their son.

When my friend and I first read this, she pointed out that when Lucius and Narcissa first sided with the Death Eaters, they wouldn't have had a son. Draco changed everything for them, especially when it became apparent that Voldemort had no loyalty whatsoever to his followers or the people they cared for. (it's probably worth noting that this trait is also what caused Snape to defect)

Rowling just continually amazes me with how she can present you with one side of a character, make you HATE them, and then by giving you one other trait, completely flip it. She's good — she's SO good — at seeing the redeeming bit of humanity in everyone.

Our readalong-as-a-whole wrap-up post is next week, so I won't comment on the entire series. But barring the epilogue — which I decided to ignore this time around, as it's not canon, I'm sorry — this is all I could've asked for from JKR. She did such a good job. Can you believe we have something like this in our generation? 

Damn, you guys. Thanks for doing this.

First 50 Pages: A Thing I Do Here Every So Often

I've started more books. Like. A lot more books. But obviously haven't gotten very far in any of them because WHO WOULD WANT TO FINISH A BOOK THAT'S CRAZY. So it's time for First 50 Pages, where I review books based on the small amount I've actually gotten through.

The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl. Whenever I go through a reading slump, I pick up some YA so I can feel accomplished and like "BOOM look how quickly that went I AM A READING GOD." So I checked this out from the library because hey I'd like to see a fanboy get together with a goth girl; that sounds mightily fun. HOWEVER. As of the first 50 pages, it is veering in a direction that is worrisome to me. Worrisome. If this turns into a giant bummer of a book, I will be alas-ing a lot.

Desert of the Heart. I reviewed this movie a while back. It's a lady book for ladies. It's set in the 1950s, about a lady professor who's getting a divorce -- I'm actually just gonna quote the first paragraph, because I am a fan of it and READ ALL OF IT DAMNIT:

Conventions, like cliches, have a way of surviving their own usefulness. They are then excused or defended as the idioms of living. For everyone, foreign by birth or by nature, convention is a mark of fluency. That is why, for any woman, marriage is the idiom of life. And she does not give it up out of scorn or indifference but only when she is forced to admit that she has never been able to pronounce it properly and has committed continually its grossest grammatical errors. For such a woman marriage remains a foreign tongue, an alien landscape, and, since she cannot become naturalized, she finally chooses voluntary exile.

A Woman's Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot. This book is the best and I'm eventually going to tell you all to read it. For now, let's talk about that Boy Scout incident, because it's the cutest. In 1913, suffragists had a parade in D.C. to bring more attention to their cause (said parade was organized by the awesome Alice Paul). The police were very, very, very concerned about security, because men + threat of change = not the Zen monks you might expect.

There was a threat of mice being released along the parade route (I know), and despite refusals of help from some other law authorities, THE BOY SCOUTS WERE THERE. They stationed Boy Scouts along the parade route to keep an eye out for assholes and protect the suffragettes. WHICH IS THE CUTEST. But it gets better. Because obviously, men started getting rowdy. And pushed their way onto the route. And blocked the women from marching. AND THE POLICE DID NOTHING. Except tell the marchers they should've stayed home. So.

Some four hundred Boy Scouts stationed along the Avenue to thwart mice-toting pranksters instead wielded their staffs to press back the hordes...A male marcher wrote that the Boy Scouts were 'active and determined.' 'You could see the little fellows were red in the face from perspiring.'

 BOY SCOUTS FOREVER. That is just the best.

What Maisie Knew. I was given this to review. I started it yesterday. The first sentence INFURIATED me, because Henry James's M.O. is to decide what he's going to say, then shroud it all in a dense, nebulous fog from which only the barest shred of meaning can be discerned. 

I abandoned The Golden Bowl two-thirds of the way through (admittedly when I was 14) because I realized I had no idea what any of the characters were doing and it'd been like 300 pages. "Are they having an affair? Is she married to him? WHO IS THIS OTHER LADY." But after the stupidly-worded opener of this book ("but by the decision on the appeal the judgement of the divorce-court was confirmed as to the assignment of the child.") it seems to get wayyy way better and I was reading it in the shower last night and found it immensely difficult to put down, so well done, James. I hate you slightly less now.

but that's for The Ambassadors

Festivals are way more fun than they are NOT fun

Summer in Chicago is a time of fests. We have a lot of them. And they are everywhere. Without planning it, my Saturday turned into an encapsulation of what I want in my life, so BOOM, crushed it, thanks, Saturday.

I had a Gilbert & Sullivan audition. Then I went to a LADY festival in Andersonville, which is technically called Midsommarfest, but is really just Ladyfest. Andersonville is known for being Swedish and for being populated with lesbians. 

yes.

Those are the only two things you need to know about Andersonville. Also that it is delightful and has a bookshop called Women and Children First that you should support if you're ever in Chicago.

FROM THERE, I discovered that the Printers Row Lit Fest was happening downtown by the library, which I did not even know. Shame, shame on my face. Printers Row Lit Fest is where booksellers from all around (from the far reaches of Illinois, they came! I see you there, Rockford Books) set up little booths and sell books and you maybe get in a slightly uncomfortable fundraising discussion with the revolution bookshop over on Ashland, but it's all fine, because they have a $3 Lillian Faderman book.

I got the Feminist Reader at Women and Children First, then Sealskin Trousers at the fest because, um, how am I NOT going to have that on my bookshelf, then the Faderman book, THEN an 1885 bio of George Eliot which was HALF-PRICE which made it $15, and as the wily bookseller told me, "That's really only five dollars a book." I'm onto you, bookseller. But I will still buy your wares.

I flipped through the George Eliot when I got home (p.s. the bookseller was like "What is it with you young ladies and George Eliot! I've sold almost all of the books I had of hers!", so, George Eliot revival happening, pass it on) and I found this HILARIOUSLY VICTORIAN sentence:

The intimate life was the core of the root from which sprung the fairest flowers of her inspiration.

Later it calls fame "in truth a rose with many thorns," so I think this guy just super-liked plants. IN A TOTALLY PLATONIC WAY, jeez, you guys.

THEN I napped. Because I walked all the above in heels and it had been like five hours, and let me tell you, when I got home and was able to take off my shoes, it was, in truth, amazeballs.

BUT THEN. I met up with my friend at Second City and we went to the Women's Funny Festival. After which I got drunk. So it was a rich day of fullness. And now I have more books and that is not cool because MY SHELVES they can only hold so much weight, but I have a loose plan involving being yelled at by someone while I sob and put books into a 'to donate' box. I'm sure that'll work out well.

Harry Potter Readalong: But this is gonna hurt more than when Snape killed Dumbledore

We're not even gonna get into how far behind I am here, so this post is going to be about how back when the movie version of Deathly Hallows was first released, this happened:

And I was just in the theater being like

And then they became the only HP couple I've read fic for as a grownass adult lady and IT'S NOT MY FAULT. THE FILM MADE ME. IT WAS A WEIRD SCENE. And there's no way you make an enormous film like one of the Harry Potters and DON'T realize there's weird sexual tension in your torture scene. Someone points it out to the director. Or to ANYONE. And then -- AND THEN -- Emma Watson and Helena Bonham Carter do not-okay shit like this:

Wtf is that? I don't even know what to do with that. Except maybe write a story where Bellatrix changes her ways after finding the brilliant young witch who challenges her someone for whom she can abandon her sordid past and maybe they live in a little cottage off the main road in Hogsmeade and raise chickens while Hermione studies to become a professor and Bellatrix studies to become slightly less batshit insane/evil. YOU KNOW SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

Re the Dobby scene — did the film CHANGE it to make it even sadder? Because I think it did. Damn, y'know, I don't rewatch the movies, except for DH part I, because it is the awesomest.

Now that we're past most spoilers, and only have one post left for the actual book (it's ok, it'll be okay), it feels like the right time to post this video. My friend and I cried about this basically all day before going to the midnight opening of DH part II. It is fantastic.

The Tale of Bessie Bueller and the Postal Service

Back in December, I saw a show. You might have heard of it, it's called THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. This caused me to descend into a spiral of Dickensianity, which involved reading about him, Nell Ternan, and LGBT subtext in Victorian literature, because I was 92% positive the Drood characters Helena Landless and Rosa Bud were doin' it.

In February, I mailed my very marked-up copy of Edwin Drood to the Broadway theatre where the show was playing (along with a return envelope, because I'm not an ANIMAL), and more specifically, I mailed it to the actress playing Helena Landless, whom for the purpose of hiding from Google searches we will call "Bessie Bueller."

I asked her to sign it and write her favorite quote, and to please if possible get the actress playing Rosa Bud ("Wetsy Bolfe") to do the same. Because then my copy would be LEGIT AWESOME.

it was already kind of awesome

So I sent it. And I waited. And I waited some more. And then the show closed. And I went 'Hm. Ok. Well. She can still send it back to me.' THEN SHE STARTED ANOTHER SHOW. And NOTHING. So finally, fearing for my book, as I had notes like the above and this in it:

I wrote a letter that essentially said "Hahaha no but seriously, send my book back."

AND A WEEK LATER SO IT CAME TO PASS. I got the book in the mail. And I was obviously very excited. And I opened it up, and saw -- nothing. Except a card saying "To Alice, All the best, Bessie."

Well. I was flummoxed. And took to gchat, where Alley and Megs helped me try to make sense of the situation. 

 me: clearly I just wanted to show her a book
and then have it mailed back to me
Alley: hahaha OBVIOUSLY
oh man, what if that's what she thinks
me: "There's a book based on your play!"
Alley: she gets the package and is like "why'd this lady mail me this
book" then later she gets a threatening letter asking for it back and
she's like "oh so NOW that chick wants the book back? i thought this
was a gift. what the hell"
me: '"Letters? I don't read letters."
"Why'd she mark this book up?"
"That's not nice to do to presents"
Alley: As she's mailing the book back she's like "I didn't want your
stupid, drawn all over book anyway!" 

 After I'd stated my confusion over the book on twitter: 

me: also I totally wrote her name like B. Bueller on twitter so that
hopefully internet searches will not turn it up
Megs: Very wise.
Then she would be REALLY confused.
"I SENT IT BACK. WHAT MORE DOES SHE WANT?"

Alley: what if she insulted you
actually it would be pretty great if she signed "Alice, here's your
damn book back. I never wanted it anyway."

The end of this story is that I bought a ticket to the show she's in now, and was determined to stage door and DAMNIT FINALLY GET MY BOOK SIGNED. So I bring the book to New York, and the first night I'm there, I get it out of my suitcase and start idly flipping through it. And WTF I SEE THIS: 

I mean. I don't. It. Yeah. 

So it was there the whole time. THE WHOLE TIME. And I must have just like, kinda vaguely flipped through the front pages and then gone "NOPE NOT HERE THIS IS BULLSHIT." 

 So the moral of this story is that I am an idiot. And thank God I didn't confront her at the stage door. And you should all know that she's a brilliant singer/actress and if you can see her perform, you are fortunate. FORTUNATE INDEED. Jessie Mueller

New York City, where I basically just stalked a dead woman. Wasn't too hard.

I AM RETURNED. Having walked the Brooklyn Bridge! Seen the sights of Broadway! Drank two grande iced mochas in a Starbucks while reading Where'd You Go, Bernadette! Oh, it was a glorious time.

As I did not attend BEA proper, you will have to refer to BookRiot or Emily's blog (when she writes about it) for posts on that. I am sure it was swell. I'm sad I missed Grumpy Cat. ALSO MICHELLE TEA. Because I'll bet she's kind of crazy. But in a fun way. And I wanted to hear about her new mermaid book. Mermaids. So hot right now.

But I was BUSY getting closure on my Bessie Bueller story (to be told later this week) and stalking Emma Goldman's apartment like the most non-threatening stalker of all time. And meeting book bloggers!

From L-R, Rayna, Emily, Amanda, meee, Alley

Rest assured, they are all awesome. And a delightful time was had and they let me talk about women's suffrage for an allotted period and then we MOVED ON (eventually to Harry Potter and slash fiction, but that is neither here nor there). Oh, book bloggers. I do enjoy meeting you. Jenny couldn't make it, but we brunched the next day and talked about how Elizabeth I was awesome and Mary, Queen of Scots was a moron (truth). So everything was the best.

In terms of actual books, I read part of Shine by the New York Supreme Court, which is where sooo many lovely arguments in Law & Order: SVU happen. On the steps! After Alex Cabot couldn't get an injunction or some other lawyery word and she's all "I did my job! You do yours!" and then she walks away with her scarf waving in the wind as Elliot and Olivia look at each other before the "DUN DUN!" and scene cut.

I read Where'd You Go, Bernadette in the aforementioned Starbucks off Union Square, TWO BLOCKS from Emma Goldman's apartment. That book doesn't really go with Emma Goldman, but it DOES go with Seattle, which I've been obsessed with visiting lately. I WILL GAZE UPON YOUR CLEAR WATERS AND BASK IN YOUR RAININESS.

I brought Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot to the Imperial Theatre where I saw Bessie Bueller (sekrit code name) in Nice Work If You Can Get It. Unfortunately, most of the important sites for women's suffrage in the U.S. happened in DC. So. Couldn't really read it in a meaningful spot. I will say, though, as of like 80 pages in, this is a book everyone should read and go put it on your TBR list GO DO IT NOW it is so readable and all sorts of EXCITING things happen, like the Boy Scouts being called in as reinforcements to push back the rude men trying to ruin the Women's Suffrage parade.

men had a bit of a hard time accepting
women's suffrage in 1913

Remember when there was all that stuff about cultural doxa, and things you just "know" are right? Like no one now would be like "Hah, women shouldn't have the vote; it'll ruin everything. How're they supposed to vote when they should be spiffing up my boots? I LIKE 'EM SHINY."

Because that would be ridiculous.

But one hundred years ago WHICH WAS NOT EVEN THAT LONG AGO THEY HAD TELEPHONES AND SALT WATER TAFFY that was a totally legitimate position. In 1913, when it was going state by state, only five states had given the vote to women. And Alice Paul was like "Fuck that, we're getting a constitutional amendment." And soooo it came to pass.

Basically, book bloggers are lovely, I look forward to meeting more of you, NYC is exhausting and I love Chicago, but yay all the stuff it has.