activities of daily living

oh i am so glad you liked it. it was funny and sad and wonderful.

we will talk about it lots on monday, and now i am motivated to look for the new yorker with the family punctuation story in it. i know it's around here somewhere (as i rifle through every old new yorker i've recieved here, with the exception of the one i gave to meena)

Hi Josh and Ellen,

Thanks a lot for recommending Everything is Illuminated. I just finished it last night, and I must say that I really dug it. I was a bit hesitant when I first started, because after the first few chapters I was beginning to worry that Alex might only be there so that the reader could laugh at this Stupid Foreigner Who Writes With Non-Standard English. (Maybe I'm a little overly sensitive here, I guess it might have something to do with the fact that to most North Americans, I'm a not-too-bright foreigner who writes and speaks non-standard English). But yeah, I ended up loving and feeling the novel.

Have you guys read Dogwalker, by Arthur Bradford? I was just browsing during my lunch hour one day and when I picked up the book, I noticed it had quotes from David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith and Dave Eggers (all praising Bradford and his work). I figured that was good enough for me, and took the rest of the day off work to read it. I dunno, maybe I missed something, but I found it somewhat unsatisfying. Maybe I was just expecting too much.

Apparently, I'm getting an advance copy of the Autograph Man next week (for review purposes). Man, I can barely wait.

Well, thanks again for the recommendation, Josh and Ellen. If you read any other stuff that you think is definitely worth checking out, I'd love to hear about it. Cheers.

I've heard about Dogwalker, but to Autograph Man. What is that?

YOU are neat.

an excerpt from Zadie Smith's upcoming novel, The Autograph Man, was in the summer fiction issue of The New Yorker.

I'm not sure if I can be appropriately critical of Dogwalker. It is hard for me to imagine not thinking it was super-fantastic, but that might be because (1) I've seen Arthur Bradford reading some of the selections, (2) he signed my copy of the book with "stay cool," (3) most of the stories were read to me on a road trip through with an old friend through pretty gorgeous terrain. she's a first-grade teacher = good story reading skills, (4) the cover is gorgeous. So yeah, I have a bit of a full-blown crush on the book.

You are ever so lucky to be getting a copy of the new Zadie Smith book! The excerpt in the New Yorker left me ready for October 1 (?).