|
YENNIE CHEUNG
HBC Editor
1. I
Feel Sick #1 and #2 by Jhonen Vasquez and Rosearik
Rikki Simons
A few years ago, I was too physically, mentally, and spiritually
drained from my day job in journalism to write anything of
my own. Even tiny, wholly discountable articles were nitpicked
until I thought I would give up writing completely. I found
my literary soul sister in Devi, I Feel Sick's protagonist,
whose day job hell took the form of a publishing company critiquing
the book covers she created. The books served as a reminder
that while paying the bills is important, the free expression
of creativity is what keeps an artist sane.
[Read the review]
 2.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice's protagonist Lizzy Bennet—along
with her creator, Jane Austen—is the literary heroine
of every woman in the original HBC. If it weren't so long,
this quote would be our battle cry: "I am only resolved to
act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute
my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so
wholly unconnected with me." I recommend this book whenever
possible, I use it to bond with other women, and I automatically
respect men a little more when they praise it.
3. The
Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
When I first read this at the age of nine, I was already set
on becoming a writer when I grew up, and The Phantom Tollbooth
played into my budding love of words and wordplay. I would
read the book, finish it, and then immediately read it again.
The story stands up beautifully to adult eyes, and simply
seeing it in my bookshelf, nestled among all of my grown-up
books, instills me with an ineffable sense of happiness.
4. The
Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition by the University
of Chicago Press Staff
I'm the editor of this cyber-rag, and I usually know what
I'm doing in terms of style and grammar. When I don't, this
is my bible.
5. My
purple journal
One of my students gave this to me three Christmases ago.
When my father was dying, this was the journal I brought with
me to the hospital; and in the weeks following his death,
this was the journal in which I recorded all my grief. About
two months ago, it was the journal I dug up and reread in
order to write my first feature article for this website.
[Read
the feature article]
 ZENITHBLUE
From the HBC Livejournal community
Infinite
Jest by David Foster Wallace
Wallace, 100%. David Foster Wallace, in spite of being a hip
writer, is not a gimmick-driven "cool" writer. Wallace combines
high comedy with low in a way that leaves me laughing hysterically
out loud. He is deeply philosophical and abstract, but also
incredibly humane. There's a tightrope walk in his stuff between
his unbelievably huge brain, and his compassion—sometimes
he falters or even fails, but his successes are such a payoff,
I don't even care about the failures. Infinite Jest
changed my life, changed the way I read, changed the way I
think about community and compassion. That book is the heavyweight
of all my most beloved books.
[Read more
about David Foster Wallace and Infinite Jest]
VIRGINIA VITZTHUM
1. The
Andy Warhol Diaries by Andy Warhol
I don't have a TV, and I know that's an obnoxious thing to
brag about, so let me assure you, I have as much appetite
for brainless consumption as the next person. So when I'm
in a mood where I'd watch TV, I reread the Warhol diaries.
I can even make myself a little sick binging on it. There's
something deeply-yet-shallowly satisfying about how Warhol
reduces everything to surface. And he's just as hard on himself
as he is on everyone else. He seems not to find himself special
in any way; he really is the anti-diva. I feel like I have
something to learn from Andy's democratic embrace of business
and money and fame and art as all the same.
2. A
Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David
Foster Wallace
It contains three of the most brilliant essays ever written:
the county fair one, the cruise ship one, and the irony/TV/writers-under-40
one, "E Unibus Pluram." I've reread that last one countless
times; it is an inspiring piece of nonfiction writing that
helped me know what I think.
 3.
Veronica by Mary Gaitskill
This book undid me. I wept through much of my first reading,
then said, "OK, time to go back and see exactly how she did
that." And I cried again the second time through! I've written
all kinds of feminist rants about unrealistic body image derived
from media barrage, blah, blah, and Gaitskill just cuts right
into the heart of beauty and its social capital and how it
changes and what it has to do with why people bond. This book
is somehow both pitiless and hugely compassionate.
I also
love love love Tess of the D'urbervilles by Thomas
Hardy; Portrait of a Lady by Henry James; Beloved by
Toni Morrison (actually love most everything of those three
writers); The Hours by Michael Cunningham; Motherless
Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem; Second Sex by Simone
de Beauvoir; Backlash by Susan Faludi and Beauty
Myth by Naomi Wolf; Pauline Kael's movie reviews; Anna
Karenina; The Thin Place by Kathryn Davis; Mrs.
Dalloway and Orlando by Virginia Woolf; Samuel
Beckett plays (bailed on Molloy, to my great shame);
Middlemarch; Infinite Jest; Phillip Roth's Portnoy's
Complaint and most of the Zuckerman novels; most Nicholson
Baker; White Noise and the first 50 pages of Underworld;
Confessions of Felix Krull by Thomas Mann; Lolita
and Pale Fire; and The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn by Mark Twain.
Virginia
Vitzthum is the author of I Love You, Let's Meet: Adventures
in Online Dating, published by Little, Brown and Company,
2007. Her blog is http://virginiavitzthum.com/ilylm
|
