Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing by Mignon Fogarty (NF/209p) 2.21.12

  Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau (NF/48p) 2.19.12

  The Maine Woods by Henry David Thoreau (NF/391p) 2.19.12

Songs of Unreason by Jim Harrison (F/141p) 2.15.12

This was a Valentine's gift from my loving Vicky. Jim has such a way with poetry...I'm a happy man. I just read that this book is a finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize in poetry, all right Jim. This has become a go-to book for me—I keep it near, and dip into it repeatedly.   

The Man Within My Head by Pico Iyer (NF/238p) 2.11.12
This is a strange book to describe. It's a memoir by Iyer, and there is much about his life, his father, and his upbringing...but there is also another man in his head...the author Graham Greene has had a grip on his thoughts for many years. 

Like Shaking Hands With God: A Conversation About Writing by Kurt Vonnegut & Lee Stringer (NF/78p) 2.10.12
   At less than 80 pages, this is a small, little conversation of a book, but there are some humorous and moving words within. The event recorded took place in October of 1998, after the publication of Vonnegut's Timequake and Stringer's nonfiction Grand Central Winter. Stringer wrote of the homeless, drug-addled people that lived beneath Grand Central Station. He had been one of them, until one day when he started using the resin-covered pencil that he used in his crack pipe, to write with. He wrote for the Street News newspaper, which was the very first American newspaper sold by the homeless. Eventually he ended up as its editor-in-chief, and solved his homelessness by sleeping on the couch in his office.
   Vonnegut is very supportive of Stringer throughout the conversation, as he was for Stringer's writing, comparing him to Jack London, and otherwise helping to promote the book and the man. Often times with Vonnegut, it's hard to take him too seriously when he's seemingly shooting from the hip in a conversation. When those same words are spread out permanently on the page, one sees that there is much more than a funny rift or some clever word play involved. Though the late Vonnegut's unpublished works are still coming out, as well as several biographies, I miss the man. And, if I were to come across Grand Central Winter, I would give a serious look, he's impressive. I found this book as a $4 remainder at Moe's Books and I'm very glad that I did.

Here are a few quotes taken at from their conversation:

KURT: "The common ground? We have written out of our own lives, and being writers was easier for us because we had something to write about. Thank God I was in Dresden when it burned down." [Laughter]

"Joe Heller said to me one time that if it weren't for World War II he'd be in the dry-cleaning business."

KURT, on why write: "Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don't care about them. You are not alone."
"People will continue to write novels, or maybe short stories, because they discover that they are treating their own neuroses. And I have said about the practice of the arts that practicing any art—be it painting, music, drama, literature, or whatever—is not a way to make money or become famous. It's a way to make your soul grow. So you should do it anyway."

LEE, on if he helps old friends still on the streets: "You know I barely rescued myself. And one thing I noticed from being on the street is that, looking the other way, all of us are really—everybody in the room—is really just groping their way around in life. We grab things that tell us we've got it all figured our, but if I ask for a show of hands of people who have just the littlest bit of doubt that they don't have it all figured out, I bet you everybody would raise their hands. So in that context it would be kind of presumptuous to know you could save the next person—at least for me. This may surprise a lot of people to hear me say it, but it's an honest answer.... Saving myself is going to be a lifetime job, so I don't know what's right for you. And I wouldn't presume to tell you right now."

Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America by Nick Rosen
(NF/292p) 2.9.12
   It's called a growing movement that's going on across the country and around the world. In this book, it quickly becomes quite obvious that there is little coordination and structure to this "movement." Possibly calling it a movement is overstating it. A good argument could be made that many of these people arrived at living off-the-grid simply because the situations of their lives pushed them there. Many of the others in the book, really went out of their way to live out of the way, in a way not connected to our ever-consuming society.

    The writing of this book bothered me. The author is involved in living part-time off the grid himself, but in his book, he seems to always be inserting himself into the middle of many of the stories he is relating about some very interesting people. That's not interesting. Not that all the people he meets are interesting either. The author also doesn't seem to be able to discern who to concentrate on and who to briefly mention. The book is filled with some very different people, people you aren't going to be running into at the grocery store tomorrow. Some of them are very serious off-gridders, some are part-timers, and some I honestly had no idea why they were in the book. The politics, philosophies, and lifestyles are all over the map—that I found very interesting.

    Here are a couple of Thoreau quotes that were highlighted in the book.

"Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new."

"Things do not change; we change."

And one to ponder from Dr. Seuss, "America is a society of obsolete children."

   I will leave you with some thoughts I do quite like from the author.
"Most of the people I met on my tour of America are losing faith in the grid, in both its literal and metaphysical sense. They don't feel a sufficient advantage to being inside the fabric of society. This led me to conclude that living off the grid is more than a lifestyle choice. It is a political act, with benefits way beyond the individual off-gridders."

We Wanted To Be Writers: Life, Love and Literature at the Iowa Writers' Workshop by Eric Olsen & Glenn Schaeffer (NF/305p) 2.6.12
   I am a sucker for just about anything on writers. That condition has brought me to this very interesting collection of observations on the Iowa Writers' Workshop, by the people who taught and learned many things there. There's a lot of name-dropping, but that comes with the territory when you're discussing the top banana of writing programs in the country. So let me drop some of the writers that have gone the Iowa way: John Irving, John Cheever, John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, E.L. Doctorow, Norman Mailer, Raymond Carver, Jorge Luis Borges, Stanley Elkins, John Hawkes, Donald Justice, and on, and on, and on. Many times the program, the university, and the state, where not big enough to handle the egos.

    The book is made up of sections on a general topic, and then the writers are quoted in segments about their personal experiences. There does seem to be a general consensus that much, to most of the learning, was brought about by their fellow students. According to many of the students, the people running the workshops and classes, often seemed less than helpful, to entirely drunk (John Cheever's name is mentioned). Jane Smiley said of her time there, "Our teachers were writers, not teachers. They knew a lot about writing, but hadn't given a lot of thought to how to communicate what they knew."

    The time covered by the book was a time of numerous drugs, plenty of alcohol, and quite a bit of sexual activity. A fun time was not had by all. Some people look back on the experience as not helpful or healthy, but most were impressed by the quality of the people involved. Simply getting this much talent together was a learning experience in itself.

   The insights into the personal styles, lives, and works of these major literary names was a thrill to me. Reading about John Irving telling his students everything about how he writes and to be writing The World According to Garp while he was there, is pretty cool. 

    I will leave you for now with the following from Sandra Cisneros, "What's the worst mistake a writer can make? Thinking too much. Don't think. It's not a bout thinking. You think when you edit. When you create, say yes, yes to everything. When the bell rings and it's the Jehovah's Witness folk, answer the door and say yes. The guy at the door might be in your story."

    Oh, and another gem, from a stoned séance that was held with Jane Smiley, Leonard Michaels, Brenda Hillman and possibly others that nobody could remember, and passed on by Doug Unger, "...we determined that writing poetry tends to make you more physically beautiful, and that writing fiction would tend to make you ugly."

   This was a fun book to read. Don't expect a great deal of structure, or certainly any lessons of how to write or get published, but it's a book full of great quotes (I filled up many pages of my book journal) and stories about the many moments that these fine writers involved—will always remember.