I have arrived in New York City. The weather here is awful: Drizzly and muggy and sticky and generally everything that displeases me about the east coast. But I’m in a friend’s lovely West Village apartment and excited to finally hit up Book Expo America. The first and only official event today is an introductory press conference, but I’m also going to a party thrown by the literary magazine Granta tonight.
But before I begin my reportage of the day’s events, in order to get everybody in a bookish mood, I would like to share this photo of a tattoo, which came from this blog, and was pointed out by Slog tipper Jocelyn via Facebook:
Sometimes, we book editors need to see this sort of thing to remind us why we’re in the business in the first place, you know? Tattoos like that really make it all worthwhile.
CHOKE?! Oh COME ON. Brave New World and 1984? This person likes both? That’s fucking blasphemy. What’s next? Being a fan of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd?
Dear Paul Constant,
I would like to point out that I sent this to you because it is bad. Bad bad bad. I assume “Perks” stands for “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, which is a book nobody should ever get tattooed on themselves. Same goes for The Fountainhead. Srsly.
Love, Jocelyn.
My god. You are so pathetic. “we book editors”? Give me a break.
Hey, some of us like both Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, although I’d choose Floyd before Zeppelin.
I’d have chosen Pride and Prejudice, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Things Fall Apart, As I lay Dying, To Kill a Mocking Bird, and Light in August.
re: Huxley vs Orwel
You might really like this comparison which is profound as fuck.
Who do you agree with, Poe?
http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2…
StillNon – That link made me sad. I am going to recover by playing with Facebook.
Kim – Floyd over Zeppelin? Really?!
Also, To Kill a Mocking Bird is a great book. Atticus Finch is the only dad ever who rivals my dad in awesomeness and badassery.
@5 Great link. I’m feeling depressed now, but good stuff.
“A Separate Peace” (Knowles) – too many words for a tat?
Ah, nothing like a little Neil Postman in the middle of the day.
Brave New World is probably the only one that I’d keep in a tattoo – I’d sub 1984 with Animal Farm, and agree that Mockingbird should be included, and probably Watership Down, as well.
@9 Watership Down…good call.
Love Mockingbird, keep 1984, throw in Tales of A Fourth Grade Nothing, keep one blank and I’m set.
I like this game.
that tattoo is making me nauseous with rage.
Huh. I’m surprised that so many folks really like 1984 and Brave New World. I mean, they’re awesome and important, but 1984 got really slow in the middle (before an amazing ending), and Brave New World just kind of died as Mustapha and John bantered.
Now, take Fahrenheit 451… perhaps not as conceptually deep or important, but man, Bradbury tells a gripping story. I’d get a tattoo of that.
The Snark Out Boys and the Baconburg Horror might deserve some ink as well.
I’d get “Holy Bible” in between “Tropic of Cancer” and “The Rainbow”
Ya know… just to fuck with people.
Ayn Rand’s legacy is a cancer on this nation.
More importantly, those are all books that are going to be embarrassing when you finish college.
With so much ridicule and hate in this one person’s favorites/opinion, makes me think she could eventually please all had she just left the bindings blank and written in marker a set of rotating title picks for the week or day.
Heh. I volunteered to give Atlas Shrugged to the Slog staff a couple of years ago so they could set it on fire, and everybody was all “burning books – oh noes.”
The offer still stands.
@11
You mean nauseated. Obviously you don’t read books, because you don’t know what “nauseous” actually means.
I would so love to apply a nice indian burn right between “Fountainhead” and “Catcher In The Rye”.
@5
Orwell.
@4
Double foul. If I didn’t know you were nice, and if I didn’t think arguing about music (or even reviewing it as if you know better than anyone else) is ludicrous, I’d ream you with obscenities.
@9 & 10
Watership Down is my favorite book ever. I love you both.
@16 – I think the problem is that this person’s favorites are exactly what all the official douchebag handbook says all douchebags should like. The likelihood that he (or she) actually picked these books because of his (or her) own personal taste is pretty small. In reality, he (or she) probably picked them because they would look cool to other douchebags.
@20,
Thank you for your mercy.
Jocelyn,
Yes, Floyd over Zeppelin. It is all about playing the music with me. I appreciate both the mastery of Page and Gilmore. But, I adore Gilmour’s blues influenced, but not exactly true bluesy tone, Stratocaster playing on Dark Side of the Moon. Wish You Were Here, is my favorite Floyd song to play right now. But, I like playing Zeppelin’s, Over the Hills and Far Away, the Stones’ Dead Flowers, Wild Horses, and Sister Morphine as well. Oh, and XTC’s Dear God, simply beautiful on my acoustic electric Martin. Maybe, Mr. Poe should make fun of my taste in music playing?
It’s like MySpace/Facebook for your arm!
I bet the other arm has music, one leg has films and the other leg tv shows…
I just think that, you know, Pink Floyd never made a solid album. Ever. And that 99% of their songs fucking suck. That’s all.
Horrified that not one single moron on here has listed The Great Gatsby, the Great American Novel…
@26
After The Squid and the Whale it became something to keep to yourself.
Kim – fair enough.
Poe – sort of true. Their songs do suck, which is why nobody should ever cover Pink Floyd, but they have a way of performing them themselves that kind of makes them sound good. Certainly they made much better albums than songs.
As for my favorite books… they’d be The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, which is why I will never get my favorite books tattooed on myself. I do, however, dream of getting a tattoo that says “DON’T PANIC”.
There’s no such book as “Catcher in the Rye” or “Fountainhead” or “To Kill a Mocking Bird” for that matter. Try “The Catcher in the Rye”, “The Fountainhead” and “To Kill a Mockingbird”. These things matter.
Looks like a nice Junior High reading list, though.
@29
That’s exactly what it is. Brave New World, 1984, and The Catcher in the Rye are all required reading before High School. I honestly believe these are the only books this person has read, save The Fountainhead. They haven’t read that, they just put it there because they thought it would make them look smart. And I bet out of all of them, Choke is their favorite. (“It’s so edgy!”)
Naw, their favorite is The Perks of Being a Wallflower, as they are familiar enough with it to call it by its annoying nickname. Plus it probably speaks to their miserable, suburban soul or something.
I would consider a Shampoo Planet tattoo.
25, Fair enough. But, I can’t help love the unresolved tension in the chords of Wish You Were Here.
29, Thanks for the typo correction.
Ayn Rand? Fuck whoever the fuck this is.
@24 – That was my thought exactly. Getting a tattoo of the names of your six favorite bands or movies would be just as stupid as your six favorite books. Was there something in particular that spoke to you about a particular book or books? Get a tattoo of an image or a quote. The only purpose of a Myspace-style list would be to attempt to tell other people how cool or well-read you are. Creativity fail.
I’m just going to throw this out there knowing full well I’m going to get burned. There is a lot of Ayn Rand Hate out there, but what if you look at her work as historical fiction? I don’t have time to get into it, but Atlas Shrugged is a panegyric to capitalism, written in the 1950’s. Of course its ideology is outdated and almost simplistic, it’s half a century old.
And I don’t give a fuck what you think, we the living is a great book.
Flame on!
I’ve never been able to have a full conversation with someone who liked The Fountainhead enough to keep it on their shelf. I suspect talking to someone with it tattooed on their arm would lead to a hasty and distressed exit.
I don’t care what the books are, I just think it’s sexy when somebody loves books. So I’d totally lick that tattoo. Juuuust sayin’.
I loved The Fountainhead! Rand’s other stuff is fine too, but it’s all sorta the same and fountainhead was the first one I read.
I think the difference is, I treat it like it should be: A fiction novel. It’s the leotards who think it’s The Way Things Should Really Be that are missing the point.
It’s a good story, a hero figure who has to fight superior forces to win in the end. Like Star Wars. But it’s fiction and should be left that way.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
A Separate Peace
The Great Gatsby
Lysistrata
The Princess Bride
The Count of Monte Cristo
look at that fucking hipster
@ 40,
I agree, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is an excellent choice.
It would be kind of cool to have just the blank book spines tattooed on, and then every week or so you could take a Sharpie and title them. This guy’s going to regret his list as soon as he graduates from high school.
My first Sharpie list:
Philoktetes
The Hobbit
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
Robinson Crusoe
The Fermata
The Time Traveler’s Wife
This is why I have a bibliophile tattoo. Covers everything.
Maybe I’ll get a tattoo that says “Mostly, I read non-fiction.”
Tropic Of Cancer
Lolita
Journey To The End Of The Night
Ham On Rye
The Killer Inside Me
Ubik
Ham On Rye is a great book.