Books = bliss

What's on my bookshelf these days? Well, a lot of things. What's on my nightstand, rather? I'm just picking up after a bit of a slump. I finished Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, which was eccentric and manic and luminous and intricate and a head-scratcher at times. I have no idea how the lovely John Krasinski will ever manage to adapt it into something filmworthy. (Maybe a series of vignettes like Nine Lives?)

Once I finished that, I took my time getting through Christopher Buckley's No Way To Treat A First Lady, which surprisingly dragged for me after I'd devoured another book of his, Thank You For Smoking. I think it was because I didn't get behind the protagonist in First Lady the same way I had embraced Nick Naylor from TYFS. At any rate, I finally finished it yesterday.

Then I took a few hours to speed through Alamo House, which I'd picked up at Book People in Austin. It was a quirky little read, breezy and fun. A good book to read quickly in order to get back on the book horse.

Now I'm looking forward to starting My Kind of Place, a book of travel stories by Susan Orlean (The Orchid Thief). I've just read the introduction, and it looks like something I'll really enjoy. I'm a big travel reader (if you can't do it yourself, why not transport yourself somewhere else mentally?) and I appreciate Orlean's perspective on the value of the type of writing she does.

At a travel writing conference just after 9/11, she said: "At the most elemental level, the world's troubles are the result of people turning inward and turning away from whatever and whoever is different and unfamiliar. If a writer can make even one reader feel more open to someone or someplace new, I think he or she has accomplished something well worth doing." That's an insight I wouldn't have thought of, but that I completely agree with. I liked this line as well: "At a time when the world feels chaotic and frightening, writers who go out to see it and describe it seem more important, not less." It just resonates with me.

On the non-fiction front, I'm also absolutely digging The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, which I got for my birthday. (Thanks, Veltmans!) It is both informative and colorful, offering the standard dry facts one would expect along with opinionated, eccentric descriptions that feel like they're being delivered by one who's seen (and done) it all in Hollywood. And so articulate!

Observe this from the entry on Michelle Pfeiffer: For a few years (around 1990), she was beautiful, mysterious, and potent. People guessed she could do anything -- but then anything turned into so many forlorn choices. She still carries the rather stunned, obedient air of an ex-checkout girl at the El Toro Vons supermarket, as well as the luster of an Orange County beauty pageant winner.

Or this, from Harvey Keitel's entry: There are few American actors whose careers are so intriguing--or so touching. Imagine a film about Harvey Keitel, the actor so good, so persistent, yet so regularly denied at the highest table; ceaseless in his fury, his bitterness, forever hurtling forwarding in that cold, determined aura that is a mix of menace and resentment. What a role! And probably De Niro would get it."

So much fun. Phil, this is a book for you.