Bookstorm

Norman Mailer: not even his much-publicized death gets him off the hook.

For your weekend imbibement, try a Hemingway Special:

1 1/2 ounces of light rum
1/4 ounce of maraschino liquor
3/4 ounces of lime juice
1/4 ounce of grapefruit juice

Squeeze the lime juice into a shaker, add the remaining ingredients, and shake briefly with a glassful of crushed ice. Serve the Special in a frosted cocktail glass. Drink several. Pass out.

I finished Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf late last night, and I scribbled a long essay about it before realizing that I'm absolutely sick of this book--so sick, in fact, that I junked the essay and decided that I'm not going to write about it anymore. But maybe I just need to calm down: I spent seven or eight months slogging through this racist political tract and finished with barely a sigh of relief (actually, I think I muttered, "Fuck you, Addie") and a healthy dose of anger. Increasingly, I was hurling the book across the room, cursing Hitler and his bombastic writing style. But I knew things had gotten really bad when I found myself laughing at certain sections of the book (most notably Hitler's shout-out to Henry Ford).

Just thinking about Mein Kampf is enough to have me seething with contempt towards fascists and racists. I need some democracy: The Federalist Papers (recommended to me by Adam) should do nicely.

Norman Mailer: dead at eighty-four.

This is why I love my name: it's forever linked with little boys getting up to no good. Or, in this case, all the good this country could use right now.

It's true: women who read Jane Austen novels are sexy.

I'm probably in the minority when I write this, but there's something attractive about a woman reading Sense and Sensibility. Despite an entire generation of women proclaiming her as the embodiment of chick lit, Austen's novels exude intelligence, humor, and good taste--three attributes which last far longer than a flawless complexion and a great pair of breasts. But I'd be more moved to attempt some flirtatious banter with a woman reading Pride and Prejudice: the irony of the opening line hopefully wouldn't be lost on her, and it might even make for an interesting conversation. At the very least, we might exchange a few witty barbs before she informs me, with twinkling eyes, that she has a gay friend who just happens to be single and, coincidentally, also loves Jane Austen.