Jelly

Lee Durkee wrote in some time ago to observe that I truly appear to have stopped "blogging" as I constantly and accurately claim to have done. It is the indisputable case that May was my least "bloggy" month ever in all my months and years of "blogging." Why, I even took a trip to Los Angeles in May, and brought along my special jotting book and jotted down some of my special jottings, but I did not "blog" them out. Lee speculated that maybe owls have been scarce. There was, in fact, a second owl in the Roy Blount Jr. book, and not a metaphorical one, either, but as you know, I am not required to tell you about EVERY owl in every book, just one owl per book. I'm glad we have cleared that up. Occasionally I notice jelly in books as well. Like in this Orson Welles biography Megan and I are reading. It's Simon Callow's multi-volume biography, which we are reading out of order for reasons that need not concern you. Anyway, now we're on Volume Two, and James Agee, in a contemporary review, describes Orson in JANE EYRE as having eyes like "side-orders of jelly."

Discussing Literature

Our friend J. was passing through town. I believe it is okay to mention him without permission on the "blog" as I am protecting his anonymity to some extent. I happened to run into him at Square Books. He was with his friend Cary, who directed a movie version of JANE EYRE that I liked a lot. J. mentioned that he and Cary were having dinner with Wright Thompson later in the evening. Well, then I went to City Grocery Bar to meet Ace Atkins and Bill Boyle, where we, uh, discussed literature. It was just after four, "Megan Abbott Time" as we call it around here. Ace left at one point and walked next door to Square Books and bought each of us a different Travis McGee novel tailor-made to our individual tastes. Square Books has sold so many books to drunk people! You sit up there at the Grocery and get excited talking about some book you love and next thing you know you're somewhere else and the old cash register is ringing. Not to say that Ace was drunk. In fact he was in more of a sipping mood. Sipping and contemplative. My own mood was somewhat different. I got home and told Dr. Theresa about J. being in town - they once bonded over the horrific experience of going to see COWBOYS AND ALIENS together, and really it has united them in a way that few can fathom - so she wanted me to bring him a little note saying how sorry she was to miss him. So I went to the restaurant with the note in my pocket but no one was there so I had no choice but to drink some more. We have reached 8:30 in the evening in our tale. Wright showed up and politely asked me whether I'd like to join the table, and I impolitely - boorishly, even - accepted the invitation. Then I babbled about JANE EYRE to the director for a million hours without managing to produce a single insight. Stuff like, "You did a great job!" At a lull in the babbling, J. said, "Hey, Jack? Did you know he directed a version of JANE EYRE?" A chuckle was enjoyed by all. Why, only that day I had seen Kaitlyn at Off Square Books and one of the books there reminded me of the sad death of Meriwether Lewis, which I started babbling about, and Kaitlyn said, "I heard it might have been murder!" And then she realized, "Oh, I think it was you who told me that." And I realized that I have only two or three topics of conversation, one of them being the sad death of Meriwether Lewis. Another is crows, as I discovered at a dinner party when everyone gently hinted that I should shut up about crows. Wow, I'm learning a lot of miserable things about myself as I type this. And yet I have no feeling that I might ever become a better person. Things reached such a state at the dinner last night, the JANE EYRE dinner, that we decided to drunk dial Jerry Lewis. I think it was Wright's idea. So Wright called Dr. Theresa to ask her to read him Jerry Lewis's phone number, which I have taped to my office wall, natch, but luckily Dr. Theresa did not pick up the phone because Dr. Theresa never picks up the phone, so we didn't call Jerry Lewis. Oh my God! That was a close one.

Remember to Have the Marble Scratched

Something Natasha Allegri just tweeted ("SILKY CHICKENS" read the entirety of her tweet) made me think of some phrases from ABSALOM, ABSALOM!: "a cloud of chickens" and many pages later "a cloudy swirl of chickens." I had an actual vision of William Faulkner standing in his yard watching somebody (Estelle? Would she feed the chickens?) feeding the chickens, and thinking, "Wow! Those chickens are like a cloud. That is like a cloud of chickens." Old Faulkner! He is Shakespeare one minute and Beckett the next. "... all of a sudden it's all over and all you have left is a block of stone with scratches on it provided there was someone to remember to have the marble scratched and set up or had time to, and it rains on it and the sun shines on it and after a while they dont even remember the name and what the scratches were trying to tell, and it doesn't matter." Just twenty or so pages later here he is on the same subject (mortality) describing a man's whole life in a succinct deadpan that anticipates Beckett's later innovations: "Yes. One day he was not. Then he was. Then he was not." You know, I almost thought this book had an owl in it, like every other book, but it was "huge fowl," my eyes tricked me, "the trees along the road not rising soaring as trees should but squatting like huge fowl." I have high hopes for an owl, though: there has already been a metaphorical bat ("He was the light-blinded bat-like image of his own torment" - ouch!) and as we have seen in DRACULA and as we have seen in JANE EYRE, bats and owls are cheeks by jowls - ha ha! that's a little rhyme I just made up - in your fancier literature. In conclusion, I am glad Faulkner did not have to bring ABSALOM, ABSALOM! to a fiction-writing workshop nor attend much college at all. "Hey, so this guy's dad is talking to him on the porch for like 25 pages? And then out of nowhere the dad goes into the voice of this other dude he never met? And like gives a whole long complicated monologue from the point of view of GOD in this other guy's voice he never even met?" And Faulkner would have been like, "Yeah?" That part made me think of Barry Hannah's story "Nicodemus Bluff" when the narrator's father "when he played chess, became the personality of a woman, a lady of the court born in the eighteenth century... The woman would 'invest' Dad and he would win at chess with her character, not his own man's person at all... The chess game, as it went on, changed him more and more into a woman, a crafty woman."

Emblem of My Heart

Finally finished THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL. It had none of the demented strangeness I prize so much in JANE EYRE and especially WUTHERING HEIGHTS... almost none. I mean, the hero did fly into a rage once and beat in an innocent man's skull with the silver horse-head handle of his whip, so that was pretty okay, had a little Heathcliff to it. But that was it. Mostly it was a plain old domestic melodrama. A good one! The ending was just beautiful, though, I have to say. I don't think this will be a spoiler - you will certainly be able to guess within the first few chapters - but consider it a spoiler just in case: if you keep would-be lovers apart for almost 500 pages, it is VERY SATISFYING when they get together. That is a good trick for writers to know! I thought of the blizzard-crushed roses in JANE EYRE when I read this more hopeful image at the end of WILDFELL HALL: a "beautiful half-blown Christmas rose that grew upon the little shrub... This rose is not as fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood through hardships none of them could bear; the cold rain of winter has sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak winds have not blanched it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has not blighted it... it is still fresh and blooming as a flower can be, with the cold snow even now on its petals." And in case we don't get it, our heroine says about a page later, "The rose I gave you was an emblem of my heart." Aw!

My Life in the Arts

The satellite receiver fizzled out and died so I watched some of EIGHT ON THE LAM on the "streaming video" last night. You remember when Phyllis Diller squirted mustard on some cops, don't you? Well, this time she fed an unsuspecting cop some dog food! Wow! I didn't know Phyllis Diller hated cops so much. Somebody should write an academic paper about it. (Cops were referred to as "fuzz" here, just as in the previous [?] Hope/Diller vehicle BOY, DID I GET A WRONG NUMBER. There was a distasteful and protracted joke in EIGHT ON THE LAM - I sort of couldn't believe what I was seeing - when a baby tries rather forcefully to nurse on Phyllis Diller [!], causing her to exclaim, "Boy, did YOU get a wrong number!" An almost Cronenberg-like, uh, I don't know what I'm talking about.) The dog-food-eating cop, her love interest, was played by Jonathan Winters. EIGHT ON THE LAM is not a fitting tribute to Winters, who died the other day. He never appeared in a film role worthy of his genius. EIGHT ON THE LAM is a "family picture," I guess. There's this one tyke who looks so proud of himself for remembering his lines. He's kind of cute about it so it's hard to begrudge him. He'll say, for example, "Ooh, you said a dirty word!" And then the camera lingers while he kind of smirks because he knows he really delivered the goods. I couldn't help but notice that one of the kids listed in the opening credits was played by "Robert Hope," who must be Bob Hope's son, right? I tried to figure out which one he was. I looked for telltale signs of the famous "Hope nose" to no avail. I suppose this is something I could "google" if I weren't so weary of life all the time. What else? I saw Joe York yesterday. He mentioned reading TREASURE ISLAND on an airplane. SUDDENLY MY PROBLEMS WERE SOLVED BY JOE YORK! Somehow I have never read TREASURE ISLAND and I have been trying to think of something to read on the airplane. I was thinking of picking up VILLETTE again, but I was also resisting that idea. I had such a good time reading JANE EYRE on an airplane, but I feel that VILLETTE might be setting me up for airplane disappointment reminiscent of the second lobster scene in ANNIE HALL. I believe Jimmy once called TREASURE ISLAND his favorite book... did he say Stevenson should have cut the last page? Last paragraph? Or did he love the last paragraph? I can't remember. Gosh, this is boring. I am boring myself typing it. I would like to excuse myself from my own company. So let's liven things up. Remember when Blair Hobbs made Dr. Theresa a Lizzie Borden-themed cheese ball to celebrate her doctorate? Just feast your eyes on this Cheese Jake she made to celebrate the recent visit of the ADVENTURE TIME boys! "I know he doesn't have hair, but I thought he needed some," she said. "Plus, I like chow mein noodles." Late in the evening, she took what was left of Jake and remolded him into a snarling, demonic unicorn. At least that's the way I remember it. Exciting! (Photo by Pendleton Ward.)

An Uncomfortable Crisis

I was going around saying this line from VILLETTE out loud last night, "This was an uncomfortable crisis," trying to figure out how I would read it if they asked me to do the audio book, because when they do an audio book of VILLETTE I will probably be the first person they ask. I was saying stuff like "THIS was an uncomfortable crisis" and "This WAS an uncomfortable crisis" and many other variations. The trick is to keep that cool head so essential to a Charlotte Brontë narrator (young Lucy Snowe is dropped off alone in the dead of night among pushy thugs at the wharf - in fact she compares herself to "a dripping roast" [!] and says "This was an uncomfortable crisis"), the cool head being so admirable and pleasantly astringent and yet also what keeps JANE EYRE, for example, from being as insane as I like, as insane as WUTHERING HEIGHTS, you know. I will say that VILLETTE starts off with an uncanny doll-like kid who displays the self-possession of an adult and you almost suspect you've picked up a horror novel. I am reading VILLETTE for myself and feel bad because I'm going to have to put it aside and start rereading ON THE ROAD for my class that starts soon. Nothing against Mr. Kerouac! In fact, I just read BIG SUR and VANITY OF DULUOZ "for myself," though they ended up coming in handy as prep. VANITY is a prequel to ON THE ROAD and BIG SUR shows the downside to ON THE ROAD's success, focusing a great deal on Kerouac's oozing hatred of beatniks, especially the ones who scared his poor old mother so much that she piled furniture in front of the door so they couldn't get in. Though his obsessions are Dracula and The Shadow, Kerouac is more like Dr. Frankenstein, come to think of it!

Jack Kerouac Is a Little Mixed Up

So I finished reading JANE EYRE and started reading BIG SUR and to my perhaps unwarranted amazement here at the beginning of BIG SUR seems to be a mixed-up JANE EYRE allusion unless I am crazy, and what is more, the BEGINNING of BIG SUR alludes to the END of JANE EYRE, so that the two books are like two elephants marching along, one elephant holding onto the other elephant's tail with its trunk, yes, I will let that image stand. So I will tell you this allusion, which may count as a JANE EYRE spoiler, though as I say it is a little mixed up: "one of these days a big Orson Welles tragedy with screaming ghosts a woman in a white nightgown'll go flying down that sheer cliff" and you know Orson Welles played Rochester in the old movie and you see what I'm getting at, right?

Needle Factory Heiress

Yes, yes, just as I predicted, there is an owl in Jack Kerouac's novel BIG SUR, and in fact there is more than one owl, by page 14, multiple owls, no waiting. So now I don't have to stop "blogging" forever as I swore to do if there were no owls in BIG SUR. So relax! I finished JANE EYRE and it was really great, despite this big dud character St. John Rivers who comes in pretty near the end (not near enough!) and walks around being pious and silent for what seems like a couple of hundred pages. And for some reason - no reason! - the last two paragraphs of the whole book are about him! He is like Frank Sinatra in that other guy's obituary I was telling you about, only St. John Rivers is nothing like Frank Sinatra. I could have used lots more Rosamond Oliver, the beauteous needle factory heiress who slips out of the novel and never returns. I am not sure I would have missed St. John Rivers had he been left out altogether, though I might have missed Jane Eyre's hilariously passive aside after she zings him with one of her zingers: "I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the feeling that accompanied it."

Research Party!

Prompted by JANE EYRE and WUTHERING HEIGHTS, Tom Franklin and Jimmy and Paul (I don't believe you know Paul) and I started talking ignorantly of moors and bogs and fens at the party and started doing research at the party.

Yes, Sur

Hey remember when I decided to read THE REIVERS because the bad guys on the TV show FIREFLY were called Reavers? Ha ha what an idiot. Well last night I was watching David Letterman and Anne Hathaway said she got married in Big Sur and my brain informed me that once I finish reading JANE EYRE I am going to read BIG SUR by Jack Kerouac and that is what I am going to do. I like telling you everything I do and think and think I'll do! And you are powerless to stop me.

Greatest Airplane Cookie

Hey I have not "blogged" at you for a few days and you are probably crying about it. All it usually means is that I have gone on a little trip and that's what it means this time too. I went to Los Angeles to do some of my ADVENTURE TIME work. As usual, I thought about you the whole time and jotted down some little jottings in my precious little notebook for your pleasure and entertainment upon my return, and as a way of making amends for all the wrongs I have done you. I would now like to present you with those very jottings. 1) It has been a long time since I flew Delta Airlines and I had almost forgotten the Biscoff - the world's greatest airplane cookie, which is handed out on Delta flights. I love it so much that I wrote a paean to it on the McSweeney's "web" site many years ago. I guess if you dig around very hard you might be able to find my paean to the Biscoff buried somewhere in those archives, but I won't blame you if you decide there are more important things to do with your life. 2) Reading JANE EYRE on the airplane. Or should I say Eyreplane? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Mr. Rochester threatens to send Jane to work for "Mrs. Dionysius O'Gall of Bitternut Lodge." That sounds like a terrible place to work! Turns out Mr. Rochester is just goofing around anyway. 3) At Cartoon Network I met two nice people named Natasha and Patrick who had just bought a little package of caviar from "the caviar vending machine in the mall"! 4) Joey Lauren Adams and I accidentally stumbled upon the best bar in Los Angeles! I am not going to tell you the name because it is going to be our secret! But I brought a book of matches home with me so if you ever come over you can snoop around for clues, I guess. It was a very dark bar and one of the murals on the walls featured a unicorn - nor was this the final unicorn I encountered in Los Angeles, as you will soon discover. But that's for later! Right now I will tell you that when I ordered a Manhattan with rye, the bartender took a little slice of orange peel and alchemically passed a lit match over it and under it before dropping it in the drink as a final touch. And then I will tell you that as we sipped our drinks in the atmospheric dimness, Joey told me about the time she almost went hunting ghosts with Dan Aykroyd and Dan Aykroyd's brother! They really believe in ghosts and invited her along on one of their missions. Joey jumped at the opportunity! But as the brothers started gathering their equipment and giving her a terrifying list of rules NOT TO VIOLATE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, she started freaking out even though she did not believe in ghosts and therefore, to quote the words of Ray Parker, Jr., was under most circumstances not "afraid of no ghost." So anyway Joey missed her one chance to go ghostbusting with an actual ghostbuster from GHOSTBUSTERS. 5) Talked to my mom on the phone. She had taken my aunt to a movie for her birthday. I was surprised. Mom never goes to the movies! I asked what movie they went to see. "RED DAWN," said Mom, by which she meant the recent remake, of course. "It was awful," said Mom. I guess for this to be really funny or interesting you would have to know my mom and aunt, but you know what? I just don't care about your problems. 6) It was in a Burbank hotel room that I confirmed JANE EYRE does have owls in it, just as I always suspected! "I dreamt another dream, sir: that Thornfield Hall was a dreary ruin, the retreat of bats and owls." 7) Speaking of owls, the great M. Emmett Walsh does the voice of The Cosmic Owl, a deity on ADVENTURE TIME. Kent told me that when M. Emmett Walsh came in to record his lines, he handed everybody pictures of himself, along with two-dollar bills! Kent gave me his photo of M. Emmett Walsh, which unfortunately is not quite - though frustratingly close to - wallet-sized. I would love to have a photo of M. Emmett Walsh in my wallet. 8) Speaking of Kent Osborne, his brother Mark - like Kent, a beloved old friend - was in town for one night only and I got to see him! Mark had coincidentally flown in from Paris, where he is living now. Mark is directing a feature film based on THE LITTLE PRINCE, and he was in town to meet with a CERTAIN FAMED ACTOR about being in his movie. No hints! I think it would be okay to hint, but I don't want to take any chances. 9) Party at the home of Pendleton Ward, creator of ADVENTURE TIME. The wallpaper in his kitchen had unicorns and cyclopes on it, and yes, that is the correct spelling of the plural of cyclops. So you would think Pendleton Ward might have unicorns and cyclopes on his kitchen wallpaper but get this! There were already unicorns and cyclopes on the wallpaper WHEN HE MOVED IN. At the bottom of this "post" I will place a photograph taken by Kent Osborne, in which I seem to be gesturing with consternation at the kitchen wallpaper of Pendleton Ward. 10) Saturday morning I went across the street to Starbucks to get coffee and noticed the guy from Tenacious D in line in front of me - not Jack Black, the other guy. Part of me was thinking I could blow his mind by saying, "You were great in CRADLE WILL ROCK." But I said nothing! And that was the best decision of all. Really I was just cracking myself up inside, kind of pretending to believe I could blow his mind by doing that. I could not blow his mind by doing that. 11) When I went to the counter to get my refill, I was staring at the back of a guy in an extremely nice WEIRD SCIENCE jacket, like a crew jacket, with leather and everything. I thought, "I bet he was on the crew of WEIRD SCIENCE!" The barista asked his name so she could tell him when his order was ready and he said, "Todd." So I made a secret vow that when I got home I would look up on imdb what Todds, if any, worked on WEIRD SCIENCE. As I left the Starbucks, I noted that the name "Todd" was fancily stitched on the breast of his WEIRD SCIENCE jacket. Okay, I just looked it up and the only Todd I see is Todd Hoffman, who played one of "The Weenies" in WEIRD SCIENCE but I have not seen WEIRD SCIENCE since it came out and I don't remember what "The Weenies" might be, so I can neither confirm nor deny that I have found the correct Todd. 12) There was a pet store next to the place where I ate breakfast with my brother and my nephews. On the window of the pet store was a poster for a book called HARRIET'S JOURNAL. The cover of the book was a photo of a possum apparently drinking a cup of coffee. I don't know what this book is, but I assume it is the amazing true story of one woman and her unlikely encounter with a possum that changed her life, but I don't know. I went in the pet store and looked around and didn't see the book and left quickly because pet stores bum me out, although the staff of this one seemed particularly attentive and kind to the animals. Photo of the photo of a possum drinking coffee (above) by my brother. 13) I think I met the nicest bank teller in the world, or maybe that's just the way the bank tellers of California are, maybe that's their thing, maybe they're trained for it. I was in the middle of performing a very simple transaction (depositing a check) and he said, "May I offer you a bottle of water?" He is the first - and I am sure, only - bank teller to ever offer me a bottle of water. 14) My brother and nephews and I went to a car wash. It looked like the car wash from the movie CAR WASH. But my brother, who was paying from his spot in the driver's seat and was thus in the perfect position, REFUSED TO ASK! 15) We went to a cool vintage toy shop to which one of my nephews had been wanting to go for a long time. Turned out to be next to The Scarlet Lady Saloon and The Tattle Tale Room. I met a man who was wearing sleigh bells around his neck. He said he had fallen off a roof onto his head at the age of three. He seemed like a nice person who had had some bad luck. 16) I saw Josie from the movie version of JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS doing some holiday shopping (not near The Scarlet Lady Saloon! Somewhere else entirely). I don't think Ace Atkins would mind me telling you that he likes that movie. I have heard him say so in public. We were at dinner once with a large group. And down the table he said, "Jack likes that movie, too. Hey, Jack, didn't you tell me you like that movie, too?" Yet like St. Peter I denied him thrice. 17) It was at this point in my jottings that I realized (and jotted) that if I "posted" everything I had jotted so far, the "post," if "labeled" "correctly," would require more than the maximum amount of "allowed" labels. 18) Dinner with Laraine Newman! She looked like a kid! (And her husband, by his own - accurate! - assessment, looked like Anthony Michael Hall.) But she really looked like a kid. Laraine Newman and I have been pen pals for a while but it was my first time meeting her. When I called Mom to let her know I had made it back to Mississippi okay, I told her about dinner with Laraine Newman and Mom said, "Don't you wish you could go back in time and tell your 12-year-old self that story?" And Mom was right! It is impossible to overstate the impact - the salvation! - of that original season of Saturday Night Live on a 12-year-old boy in rural Alabama. 19) As I sat at the bar waiting for Laraine Newman (!) and drinking a Manhattan, I thought, "Here I am waiting for Laraine Newman! And this time tomorrow I will be grading finals." And then I sighed like Charlie Brown. 20) Speaking of which, I need to thank Dr. Theresa and Bill Boyle for proctoring my finals while I was strutting around Hollywood acting like a big shot. 21) The restaurant, which Laraine had described to me beforehand as a "genuine Rat Pack hangout," had a photo of Frank Sinatra on the men's room door. Over the urinal: a photo of Sinatra and Tony Curtis peeing against a wall. I felt I had to check who was on the door of the women's room. Marilyn Monroe. I love Marilyn, but I was hoping for Shirley MacLaine. 22) The owner of the restaurant came over and told us we were sitting at Dean Martin's old table! He also told us that Dean Martin had driven him to his high school prom. (You can read more about that in an article Laraine Newman wrote. "Click" here. She sent it to me this morning. Laraine's article also contains - spoiler alert! - the unforgettable image of Frank Sinatra shooting bullets into stacks of money.) 23) JANE EYRE: "The crisis was perilous; but not without its charm." 24) "... the moon was setting in the waves, broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball..." That's more JANE EYRE. By the way, a glance at the stats tells me our "blog"trospective on the moon is by far the least popular "blog"trospective. What's the matter with you people? Don't you like the moon? 25) I just realized I skipped an entire page of jottings from much earlier. It starts with another JANE EYRE passage, of course, describing an emotional (not literal) landscape: "A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hay-field and corn-field lay a frozen shroud." 26) First sentence of an L.A. Times article: "Donny and Marie Osmond hit the stage at the Pantages Theater in a cloud of nearly palpable pizazz." I tried to figure out what I found so troubling yet compelling: was it that "nearly palpable" pizazz is no pizazz at all? Was it the idea that pizazz comes in cloud form? 27) Waiting in the lobby for my brother and the boys. The hotel lobby is decorated with actual books, all different books, but in identical, blank white covers. The effect is disorienting for a lover of books. You just have to take them off the shelves and see what they are. I opened one at random to page 329 and read about "a penumbra of unfamiliar shapes obscured in the dim owl-light," whatever that is, and that's how I know THE FINAL CLUB by Geoffrey Wolff is a book with an owl in it. 28) I see on another page that I forgot to tell you about something else! Between The Scarlet Lady Saloon and The Tattle Tale Room (see above) was an aquarium supply store, where my brother and nephews and I saw something called a "glass catfish." It was a real fish, a real transparent fish, and it looked like a fish skeleton swimming around. Goodness, what else important have I neglected to tell you? 29) I read in a magazine at the airport that Dan Aykroyd has webbed toes and I thought, "Did I already know that?" 30) Flying back, I was seated next to the SAME GUY who had been sitting next to me on the way to L.A.! Weird! He flies a lot and says it has never happened to him before. He said he lived in Oxford and I said, "Me too!" He said he teaches at the university and I said, "Me too!" He said he had flown out for business but stayed an extra day so he could visit his brother. ME TOO ON ALL COUNTS! It was starting to feel like the beginning of that Ionesco play, I think it's THE BALD SOPRANO, I might be wrong. Both of us are bad fliers! Both of our wives love Hong Kong action movies! And so on. 31) A dog got on the plane! A German shepherd. He or she (no, he, I heard a guy with him say, "Good boy") just got on the plane and trotted down the aisle like anybody else. Maybe he sat in a seat! I lost track. 32) In the magazine, Albert Brooks talked about Steven Spielberg directing from a young age: "He put his dog in a certain position and made him eat at four o'clock." Why did that simple sentence make me laugh so hard on the airplane? It shares a quality with certain sentences I like by Jerry Lewis. Why do I keep calling it "the magazine"? So irritatingly vague on my part. It's the VANITY FAIR comedy issue and there are tons of good stuff in it. 32) A guy in one of the seats in front of me on the airplane had a particular kind of bald spot that made it look as if the FRONT of someone's head was sticking up just a bit over the headrest, like maybe his head was on backwards. 33) VANITY FAIR: Elaine May used to be a private eye. 34) "Tombstone Blues" came on the iPod and it reminded me of something I haven't thought about in decades: an itinerant evangelist I saw in a church service as a kid. He theorized in great detail that the lyrics to "Tombstone Blues" (of all songs to pick as the centerpiece of your sermon!) formed an elaborate anti-Christian parable. I had never heard of "Tombstone Blues" and in fact it is almost a certainty I had never heard of Bob Dylan. But the lyrics the preacher quoted struck me as awesome and I guess that's when I got interested in Bob Dylan for the first time. Missionary fail!

A Washy Draught Indeed

"Feeling without judgement is a washy draught indeed; but judgement untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition." I like everything Jane Eyre says! Especially "deglutition"! Speaking of bitterness, here I am sitting under a sign that says BITTER, yes, I am always sitting under a sign that says BITTER. In this case I am flanked by Bill Boyle and Ace Atkins, and hey, look, I have explained this over and over: now that I am off facebook, here is where you will find the vomitous dregs of my facebookian self-regard. I can't even feel sorry for it. I have no feelings left! Lest anyone misinterpret the conjunction of title and photo, never would I suggest that the City Grocery Bar sells washy draughts if I am understanding any of those words correctly, which almost certainly I am not.

Nice Try

"Lord Ingram... seems to have more length of limb than vivacity of blood or vigour of brain." Ha ha ha! Jane Eyre calls 'em like she sees 'em! I guess that's why I love her! What else can I tell you? The novel - like the John Wayne movie EL DORADO and at least one translation of THE IDIOT - contains the word "charivari." I still haven't come across the expected owl, though "the widest-winged condor on the Andes" makes a metaphorical appearance. Nice try, but not good enough, Jayne Eyre! Also, it's getting pretty crazy now. Still not WUTHERING HEIGHTS crazy, but kind of crazy. SPOILER! If you are my sister, don't read this next part. One dude says, "She sucked the blood: she said she'd drain my heart," and he ain't kidding! Pictured, the climactic scene from JANE EYRE. Not really! It's from the live-action Disney film CONDORMAN. My deepest apologies to Jane Eyre and everyone else, everybody in the world.

Brink

I like Jane Eyre's reflection on her relationship with Mr. Rochester: "I knew the pleasure of vexing him and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure instinct always prevented me from going too far: beyond the verge of provocation I never ventured; on the extreme brink I liked well to try my skill."

Spoony

I was delighted while reading JANE EYRE to discover that Mr. Rochester refers to himself as a "spoony" - a word with which I was previously unacquainted: "I began the process of ruining myself in the received style, like any other spoony... I had - as I deserved to have - the fate of all other spoonies." Still, I cannot help but recall what Philip Marlowe's friend Terry Lennox said about the gimlet: that it "beats the martini hollow." And likewise I must say that so far - so far! - WUTHERING HEIGHTS certainly beats JANE EYRE hollow. Not that it's a competition! (See also.)

Solitary Ways

Hey I am reading JANE EYRE now. Hey there are no owls in it yet. But there is "a North-of-England spirit, called a 'Gytrash'; which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways." (See also.)

"Blog"trospective 9: Books With Owls In Them

I'm rereading DAY OUT OF DAYS by Sam Shepard because I'm "teaching" it this semester - happy to be reminded there is an owl in it, once again confirming my famous "Owl Theory of Literature." Writes Shepard, "A barn owl looked straight down at me from the rafters with his big white bib." The owl turns out to be "a dummy, planted to scare away mice and varmints," but I say it counts, especially as Shepard includes some general commentary on actual owls: "A Tibetan monk once told me that the owl was a portent of death but I've never felt that way about owls." It seems to me that it is time for "Books With Owls In Them" to become the subject of one of our famed "blog"trospectives, which, when completed, will represent all the learning of humankind. Previous subjects include TOM FRANKLIN, PHIL OPPENHEIM, MOVIES, THE MOON, SANDWICHES, THE UNITED STATES, THE BEACH BOYS, and ARNOLD STANG. And now we invite you to enjoy BOOKS WITH OWLS IN THEM: a by Andy Warhol---ABOUT THREE BRICKS SHY OF A LOAD by Roy Blount Jr.---THE ACCIDENTAL LIFE by Terry McDonell---THE ACCURSED by Joyce Carol Oates---ADVENTURE TIME: THE ART OF OOO by Chris McDonnell---AGAINST NATURE by Joris-Karl Huysmans---AGUA VIVA by Clarice Lispector---ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll---ALPHABET JUICE by Roy Blount Jr.---ALWAYS HAPPY HOUR by Mary Miller---AMERICAN FANTASTIC TALES: 1940s TO NOW---THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY by Robert Burton---AND WHEN SHE WAS GOOD by Laura Lippman---THE ANDY WARHOL DIARIES---APOSTLE by Tom Bissell---ARTHURIAN ROMANCES by Chretien de Troyes---AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS by Flann O'Brien---BAG OF BONES by Stephen King---THE BEHAVIOR GUIDE TO AFRICAN MAMMALS: INCLUDING HOOFED MAMMALS, CARNIVORES, PRIMATES by Richard Despard Estes---BELOVED by Toni Morrison---BEST POEMS by Stevie Smith---BETWEEN THE ACTS by Virginia Woolf---BEYOND EXPLANATION? REMARKABLE ACCOUNTS ABOUT CELEBRITIES WHO HAVE WITNESSED THE SUPERNATURAL! by Jenny Randles---THE BIBLE---BIG SUR by Jack Kerouac---THE BLACK COUNTRY by Alex Grecian---THE BLIND OWL by Sadegh Hedayat---THE BOOK OF LEGENDARY LANDS by Umberto Eco---THE BOOK OF MAGIC, edited by Brian Copenhaver---THE BOOK OF SYMBOLS, edited by Ami Ronnberg and Kathleen Martin---BOY WITH LOADED GUN by Lewis Nordan---THE BOYS by Ron Howard and Clint Howard---THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD by Joe Kubert and others---BRICKTOP by Bricktop, with James Haskins---BRIGHT ORANGE FOR THE SHROUD by John D. MacDonald---A BRIGHT RAY OF DARKNESS by Ethan Hawke---BRIGHTON ROCK by Graham Greene---BUDDHIST MEDITATION, translated by Kurtis R. Schaeffer---CAJUN AND CREOLE FOLKTALES: THE FRENCH ORAL TRADITION OF SOUTH LOUISIANA collected and annotated by Barry Jean Ancelet---THE CANTOS by Ezra Pound---CARIBOU TRAVELER by Harold McCracken---CELEBRITY CHEKHOV by Ben Greenman---CHOCTAW TALES, compiled by Tom Mould and Rae Nell Vaughn---CIGARETTES by Harry Mathews---CITRUS COUNTY by John Brandon---COMING INTO THE COUNTRY by John McPhee---THE COMPLETE POEMS OF WILLIAM BLAKE---THE COMPLETE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON---THE CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS by Attar---COUNT MAGNUS AND OTHER GHOST STORIES by M.R. James---COUNTERFEIT WIFE by Brett Halliday---COUNTRY DARK by Chris Offutt---COUNTRY WISDOM & LORE---A COUPLE OF COMEDIANS by Don Carpenter---THE CRY OF THE OWL by Patricia Highsmith---CUBA LIBRE by Elmore Leonard---THE DAIN CURSE by Dashiell Hammett---DARE ME by Megan Abbott---DAREDEVIL by Stan Lee, Bill Everett and Jack Kirby---DARKER THAN AMBER by John D. MacDonald---THE DAY OF THE OWL by George Scialabba---DAY OUT OF DAYS by Sam Shepard---DEAR WEATHER GHOST by Melissa Ginsburg---DEATH ON THE INSTALLMENT PLAN by Celine---THE DEMON by Jack Kirby---DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING by Susan Seidelman---DEVILWOOD by Tom Franklin---THE DHARMA BUMS by Jack Kerouac---DHARMA-SHASTRA by Manu---DIARIES of Lady Anne Clifford---DIARIES of Franz Kafka---DIARY by Witold Gombrowicz---DIARY OF A MAD PLAYWRIGHT by James Kirkwood---DICTIONARY OF ANCIENT DEITIES by Patricia Turner and Charles Russell Coulter---DICTIONARY OF SYMBOLISM by Hans Biedermann---THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling---DILLA TIME by Dan Charnas---THE DISASTER ARTIST by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell---DOCTOR FAUSTUS by Thomas Mann---DR. SAX by Jack Kerouac---DOCTOR SLEEP by Stephen King---THE DOG OF THE SOUTH by Charles Portis---DOLCE VITA CONFIDENTIAL by Shawn Levy---DON'T LET THE DEVIL RIDE by Ace Atkins---DRACULA by Bram Stoker---DREAM CABINET by Ann Fisher-Wirth---DRESS HER IN INDIGO by John D. MacDonald---DUCKS, NEWBURYPORT by Lucy Ellmann---THE DUD AVOCADO by Elaine Dundy---DUNE by Frank Herbert---DUNGEON MASTER: BOOK ONE by Joe Daly---THE DYING ANIMAL by Philip Roth---THE DYING GRASS by William T. Vollmann---EARLY HAVOC by June Havoc---EL DORADO DRIVE by Megan Abbott---THE ELEMENTALS by Michael McDowell---ELVIS AND GLADYS by Elaine Dundy---THE ENCHANTERS by James Ellroy---THE EPODES by Horace---ESCAPE VELOCITY: A CHARLES PORTIS MISCELLANY---ETHEL MERMAN by Brian Kellow---EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD by Ace Atkins---EVERYTHING IS NOW by J. Hoberman---FABLES FOR OUR TIME by James Thurber---THE FAEIRE QUEENE by Edmund Spenser---FAIRY LAMPS: EVENING'S GLOW OF YESTERYEAR by Amelia E. MacSwiggan---FATALE by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips---FEBRUARY HOUSE by Sherill Tippins---THE FINAL CLUB by Geoffrey Wolff---FINAL CUT by Steven Bach---FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce---THE FIRST FOLIO of William Shakespeare---FLAUBERT'S PARROT by Julian Barnes---FLYING SHOES by Lisa Howorth---FOOL FOR LOVE by Sam Shepard---FOR A LITTLE WHILE by Rick Bass---FORGIVE US OUR DIGRESSIONS by Jim and Henny Backus---FRANK: THE VOICE by James Kaplan---FRIDAYS AT ENRICO'S by Don Carpenter (finished by Jonathan Lethem)---FUNNY MAN by Patrick McGilligan---GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL by Francois Rabelais---GAZETTEER OF BRITISH GHOSTS by Peter Underwood---GHOST STORY by Peter Straub---GHOSTS by Cesar Aira---GIANT: THE MAKING OF A LEGENDARY AMERICAN FILM by Don Graham---GILGAMESH---THE GLASS HARMONICA by Barbara Ninde Byfield---THE GO-BETWEEN by L.P. Hartley---GOLDELINE by Jimmy Cajoleas---GONE WITH THE MIND by Mark Leyner---GRAVESEND by William Boyle---GRAVITY'S RAINBOW by Thomas Pynchon---GREAT DREAM OF HEAVEN by Sam Shepard---THE GREAT GATSBY---THE GREAT HUNT by Robert Jordan---GREEN'S DICTIONARY OF SLANG---GRINGOS by Charles Portis---GUNSIGHTS by Elmore Leonard---HAMLET by William Shakespeare---HARLOT'S GHOST by Norman Mailer---THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson---HENRY VI Part 1 by William Shakespeare---HENRY VI Part 2 by William Shakespeare---HENRY VI Part 3 by William Shakespeare---THE HINDUS: AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY by Wendy Doniger---HISTORY, MYTHS, AND SACRED FORMULAS OF THE CHEROKEES by James Mooney---HOLLYWOOD: THE ORAL HISTORY edited by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson---HOPE: ENTERTAINER OF THE CENTURY by Richard Zoglin---THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR by Anne Rivers Siddons---THE HOUSE ON THE STRAND by Daphne Du Maurier---HOW TO BUILD A GIRL by Caitlin Moran---HOWARD HUGHES: HIS LIFE AND MADNESS by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele---HUNGER by Knut Hamsun---HUSH HUSH by Laura Lippman---I OWE RUSSIA $1200 by Bob Hope---IF IT BLEEDS by Stephen King---THE ILIAD---ILLUSTRATED ANTHOLOGY OF SORCERY, MAGIC AND ALCHEMY by Emile Grillot de Givry---IN A GLASS DARKLY by Sheridan Le Fanu---IN MY OWN FASHION by Oleg Cassini---IN THE LAND OF TIME by Lord Dunsany---INDIGNATION by Philip Roth---INTO THE WEEDS by Lydia Davis---THE INVISIBLES by Grant Morrison---IVORY SHOALS by John Brandon---J R by William Gaddis---JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte---JOHN AUBREY: MY OWN LIFE by Ruth Scurr---JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS by Thomas Mann---JULIUS CAESAR by William Shakespeare---JUNIOR MISS by Sally Benson---JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL---KALILA WA-DIMNA---KID COLT OUTLAW---KILLSHOT by Elmore Leonard---KING LEAR by William Shakespeare---KING SORROW by Joe Hill---THE KINGDOM OF SPEECH by Tom Wolfe---LABRAVA by Elmore Leonard---LAKOTA AMERICA by Pekka Hämäläinen---THE LEOPARD by Giuseppe di Lampedusa---LETTERS FROM AN ACTOR by William Redfield---LIBRA by Don DeLillo---THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF ALEXANDER WILSON---THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON by James Boswell---LIFE'S WORK by David Milch---LINCOLN IN THE BARDO by George Saunders---LITTLE DORRIT by Charles Dickens---LITTLE SISTER DEATH by William Gay---LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS by William Godwin---LO! by Charles Fort---THE LORE AND LANGUAGE OF SCHOOLCHILDREN by Iona and Peter Opie---LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST by William Shakespeare---LULU IN HOLLYWOOD by Louise Brooks---LUSH LIFE: A BIOGRAPHY OF BILLY STRAYHORN by David Hajdu---MACBETH by William Shakespeare---MADAM by Debby Applegate---MAGIC: A HISTORY by Chris Gosden---THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN by Thomas Mann---MAGPIE MURDERS by Anthony Horowitz---THE MAN WHO COULD CALL DOWN OWLS by Eve Bunting---THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES by Robert Musil---A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN by Lucia Berlin---MARBLE HALL MURDERS by Anthony Horowitz---MARK TWAIN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1910-2010 by Michael Kupperman---MASTERS OF ATLANTIS by Charles Portis---MCSWEENEY'S #36---THE MESSENGERS: OWLS, SYNCHRONICITY AND THE UFO ABDUCTEE by Mike Clelland---MESSIAEN by Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone---METAMORPHOSES by Ovid---A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM by William Shakespeare---MILTON CROSS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC---A MIRACLE OF CATFISH by Larry Brown---MISCELLANIES by John Aubrey---MONKEYS by Susan Minot---MOONFLOWER MURDERS by Anthony Horowitz---THE MOST DANGEROUS THING by Laura Lippman---THE MOVIE MUSICAL! by Jeanine Basinger---MURDERLAND by Caroline Fraser---MUSIC OF THE SWAMP by Lewis Nordan---MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather---MY FATHER, THE PORNOGRAPHER by Chris Offutt----MY LUCKY STARS by Shirley MacLaine---MY NAME IS BARBRA by Barbra Streisand---MY SIDE by Ruth Gordon---MY WICKED, WICKED WAYS by Errol Flynn---THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer---THE NAME OF THE GAME IS DEATH by Dan J. Marlowe---NANCY: A COMIC COLLECTION by Olivia Jaimes---NATIVE AMERICAN FOOD PLANTS: AN ETHNOBOTANICAL DICTIONARY by Daniel E. Moerman---NATURAL HISTORY by Pliny the Elder---NAVAHO WITCHCRAFT by Clyde Kluckhohn---THE NEW LAROUSSE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ANIMAL LIFE, consultant editor Maurice Burton---THE NIGHT MANAGER by John le Carré---NIGHT SIDE OF THE RIVER by Jeanette Winterson---NIGHTMARE IN PINK by John D. MacDonald---NIGHTWOOD by Djuna Barnes---NO HEROES by Chris Offutt---NORMAN MAILER: A DOUBLE LIFE by J. Michael Lennon---NORWOOD by Charles Portis---NUTSHELL by Ian McEwan---THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT by José Donoso*---THE ODYSSEY---OF A FIRE ON THE MOON by Norman Mailer---OMINOUS WHOOSH by John Thorne---ON RARE BIRDS by Anita Albus---ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac---THE ONE INSIDE by Sam Shepard---ORSON WELLES, VOLUME 1: THE ROAD TO XANADU by Simon Callow---OSCAR WILDE by Richard Ellmann---THE OTHER by Thomas Tryon---OUR STRANGERS by Lydia Davis---OUT OF THE WOODS by Chris Offutt---OUTLAWS OF THE MARSH by Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong, translated by Sidney Shapiro---THE OWL by Siegel & Gill (?)---OWLS IN FOLKLORE AND NATURAL HISTORY by Virginia C. Holmgren---A PARISIAN AFFAIR AND OTHER STORIES by Guy de Maupassant---THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ by L. Frank Baum---THE PENGUIN BOOK OF SPIRITUAL VERSE, edited by Kaveh Akbar---THE PEREGRINE by J. A. Baker---THE PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF ULYSSES S. GRANT---THE PICKWICK PAPERS by Charles Dickens---PINOCCHIO by Carlo Collodi---THE POEMS AND PLAYS OF ROBERT BROWNING---THE QUICK by Lauren Owen---RAGE FOR FAME: THE ASCENT OF CLARE BOOTHE LUCE by Sylvia Jukes Morris---RAMAYANA, adapted by William Buck---THE RAT ON FIRE by George V. Higgins---REBELLION by Peter Ackroyd---RED SHEET by James Ellroy---THE REDEEMERS by Ace Atkins---REPROBATES: THE CAVALIERS OF THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR by John Stubbs---RICHARD II by William Shakespeare---RIDES OF THE MIDWAY by Lee Durkee---ROTH UNBOUND by Claudia Roth Pierpont---RUM PUNCH by Elmore Leonard---RUN MAN RUN by Chester Himes---SAINT OF THE NARROWS STREET by William Boyle---'SALEM'S LOT by Stephen King---THE SCARLET RUSE by John D. MacDonald---SELECTED CRONICAS by Clarice Lispector---SELECTED POEMS by Christopher Smart---SELECTED POEMS of Lord Byron---SELECTED PROSE AND DRAMATIC WORK by John Lyly---SHADOW BOX by George Plimpton---SHAKESPEARE by Mark Van Doren---SHAKESPEARE: MAN AND ARTIST by Edgar I. Fripp---SHAKESPEARE'S SISTERS by Ramie Targoff---SHIRLEY JACKSON: A RATHER HAUNTED LIFE by Ruth Franklin---SHOOT THE MOONLIGHT OUT by William Boyle---SHOOTING MIDNIGHT COWBOY by Glenn Frankel---SHY by Mary Rodgers---THE SIDNEY PSALTER, translated by Mary and Philip Sidney---THE SINNERS by Ace Atkins---SIX TRAGEDIES by Seneca---640 OF MY COLLECTIONS by Dr. Harold Wallman---SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW by William Maxwell---SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO LIE by Leslie Brody---THE SONG OF THE LARK by Willa Cather---THE SOT-WEED FACTOR by John Barth---SOUR BLUEBERRIES---SOUTHERN LADY CODE by Helen Ellis---SPACE ODYSSEY by Michael Benson---SPY OF THE FIRST PERSON by Sam Shepard---STANLEY KUBRICK: A BIOGRAPHY by Vincent LoBrutto---STROHEIM by Arthur Lennig---THE SUMMA THEOLOGICA of Thomas Aquinas---THE SUMMER BOOK by Tove Jansson---SWAMP THING by Alan Moore---SWEET BANANAS---SWEETHEARTS by Sharon Rich---TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE, VOL. 1 by Michael Kupperman---TECHNICIANS OF THE SACRED, edited by Jerome Rothenberg---THE TEMPEST by William Shakespeare---THE TEMPTATION OF SAINT ANTONY by Gustave Flaubert---A TERRIBLE LIAR by Hume Cronyn---THAT AWFUL MESS ON THE VIA MERULANA by Carlo Emilio Gadda---THAT IS ALL by John Hodgman---THE THREE MUSKETEERS by Alexandre Dumas---TILL EULENSPIEGEL---TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY by John le Carre---TOM STOPPARD: A LIFE by Hermione Lee---TRAVELS OF WILLIAM BARTRAM---TREASURE ISLAND by Robert Louis Stevenson---TRUE GRIT by Charles Portis---THE TURQUOISE LAMENT by John D. MacDonald---TWELFTH NIGHT by William Shakespeare---THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare---TWO-GUN KID by Larry Lieber and Dick Ayers---ULYSSES by James Joyce---UNCLE SILAS by Sheridan Le Fanu---THE UNFORTUNATE TRAVELLER AND OTHER WORKS by Thomas Nashe---THE UNSPEAKABLE CONFESSIONS OF SALVADOR DALI---VISIONS OF GERARD by Jack Kerouac---A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD by Jennifer Egan---THE VOYAGE OUT by Virginia Woolf---VULGAR ERRORS by Sir Thomas Browne---THE VULGAR TONGUE: GREEN'S HISTORY OF SLANG by Jonathon Green---WALT DISNEY: THE TRIUMPH OF THE AMERICAN IMAGINATION by Neal Gabler---WARHOL by Blake Gopnik---WEIRD WESTERN TALES by Cary Bates and Neal Adams (and others)---THE WHITE PEOPLE AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES by Arthur Machen*---THE WILD BUNCH by W.K. Stratton---WILD MINDS by Reid Mitenbuler---WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: A COMPACT DOCUMENTARY LIFE by S. Schoenbaum---WISE BLOOD by Flannery O'Connor---THE WITCHING HOUR by Bob Haney, Pat Boyette, and others---WITHOUT FEATHERS by Woody Allen.---THE WOMAN WARRIOR by Maxine Hong Kingston---THE WONDERFUL YEAR by Thomas Dekker---WORLD'S FINEST COMICS---THE YEAR OF LEAR by James Shapiro---YEVONDE: LIFE AND COLOUR by Clare Freestone---YOKO by David Sheff---YOU WILL KNOW ME by Megan Abbott---YOUR BODY IS CHANGING. And that is every book with an owl in it.