Personally, I don’t take that many long flights anymore. When I was a huge movie star in Moldova it was back and forth from Chisinau to L.A. every week, but now that I’m a pathological liar in Northeast DC, I kind of kick it local. Anyway, next week I’ll have the pleasure of flying to the exotic locale of Toronto, Canada and I plan on not having any of the following four books with me:
Crush-Tastic
Beth Beechwood
For those of you who don’t know, Hannah Montana is a television show on the Disney channel. The Hannah empire has expanded to include made-from-TV books, and the reason I know this is because an ironic friend of mine with too much money to spare actually dropped eight dollars to buy me a copy of Crush-Tastic, which recounts - in about 10,000 words - not one but two episodes of the TV show. I won’t go into too much detail about why I happened to have that very copy of Crush-Tastic in my purse when I was on a flight from Vancouver to DC but I will tell you that I was seated in between two suits when I pulled it out of my bag and proceeded to read. And I will tell you that when one of them started talking to me I felt the need to defend myself for reading a book designed for reluctant second-grade readers by explaining that “Hannah is a rock god who plays to sold out arenas all over the country who pretends to be a regular girl at her fictional high school, and Miley Cyrus is rock royalty who plays to sold out arenas all over the country and pretends to be a regular girl on Oprah, which makes the whole thing so meta.”
Which was totally embarrassing because I had spinach in my teeth the whole time. As a side note, I’d love to know who Beth Beechwood really is, because I have this fantasy that she’s a struggling video installation artist in L.A. who took a ghostwriting job with Disney when she couldn’t pay the bills but still wanted to keep her Silverlake bungalow.
Story of the Eye
George Batailles
On the suggestion of one of our readers, I picked up a copy of this book. I’m going to admit straight off that I didn’t finish it, but as far as I could tell it’s about a couple of horny french teens who do it just about everywhere, have orgies, use hard boiled eggs as sex toys, and pee on themselves a lot. Eventually all this crazy sex drives one of their friends mad and she ends up in an institution. Anyone who catches you reading this on a flight is either going to assume that you’re creepy, or want to talk about it and be creepy themselves. Or they’re an English professor. Or all three. Should this ever happen, I recommend repeating the following mantra over and over again for the remaining hours of your flight: Bataille is nothing but a protest against the signification of his own discourse, Bataille is nothing but a protest against the signification of his own discourse.
For anyone interested and unashamed, a free electronic version of the novella is available here: http://supervert.com/elibrary/georges_bataille
Garfield Goes Bananas
Jim Davis
The only reason you don’t want to namedrop this on a six-hour flight is because the person beside you might not have read it, and then you would make them feel pretty ignorant, and that would be uncomfortable, let alone in poor taste, you overeducated hump.
The O’Reilly Factor For Kids: A Survival Guide for America’s Families
Bill O’Reilly and Charles Flowers
Did you know that co-author Charles Flowers and O’Reilly both went to Harvard and that jowl-to-jowl their writing level appears to be on par with a third grader’s? Check it out. I’ve transcribed this directly from the hardcover edition. The punctuation and grammar are all theirs:
“By not wasting any more time with him, I went on to make real friends, many of whom I hang around with to this day, I’m that kind of guy: once I become friends with you, I’m in for life unless you do something bad to me. Even though I am now famous and successful, I still keep my old friends. And believe me, none of them looks like Jennifer Aniston: It would not be hard being her friend.”
I betcha Jen’s leaving a message right now. In this engaging and thrilling guide to being a good O’Reilly, Bill shares wisdom on topics like friendship, money, dating, and…wait for it, wait for it… bullies! Personally, I was surprised to learn that Bill was so in touch with today’s youth and also that he knows how to use instant messaging. But the best thing about this book, ultimately, are the tags that Amazon.com customers have associated with it. Five people tagged it under the word “Propaganda,” five people tagged it with “Falafel” and yet only two customers tagged it with “Authors who did not win Peabody award.”
Speaking of falafel, when’s Nancy Grace coming out with her Girls’ Guide to Etiquette? I want to be first in line for that.
NEXT WEEK: HIPSTER AUTHORS TO NAMEDROP WHEN YOU’RE A HIPSTER, TOO
Hilarious! That bookshelf I bought from you nearly killed me by the way.
December 28, 2007 at 3:45 pmEvery time I read Sarah’s column (before anyone else does!) I wish I had my own book column.
But then I realize it probably would not be this cool.
cant wait til next week!
December 29, 2007 at 3:35 amsorry about that bookshelf pedro. i should’ve told you it was murderous. anyway, it was pissed because it found out that we’re not leaving the country anymore, and it probably thought the party was an intricate plot to get rid of it. self-absorbed thing that it is.
December 30, 2007 at 5:59 pm
What is it with the French and Golden Showers anyway?
December 28, 2007 at 12:11 pm