Comments on: Who Will I Be When I Grow Up?

By: » Grown-up Table: The Abstinence Teacher, Tom Perrotta Parenthetical.net: Musings and snark about YA lit, libraries, and geekdom, from an overly opinionated middle school librarian.

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:52:43 +0000

[...] Abstinence Teacher, Tom Perrotta Posted in April 14th, 2008 by Sam in Grown-up table, Reviews In a recent post I set myself a challenge to read one grown-up book for every 2 or 3 YA books I read this year, to [...]

By: allen

allen — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:52:24 +0000

Ok, I’m not the best person to ask for examples out of YA novels, especially around here. But, as examples of personal descriptions that exist now that didn’t exist 15+ years ago, how about: kicker (fine, blogger), thug, teen internet entrepreneur, riot grrrl (ok, maybe), gangsta… And that’s not even getting into characters like well-adjusted homosexual or transgenerdered teen.

By: Deborah

Deborah — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:43:07 +0000

Last was unemployed and a rule for myself that every time I went to the library I had to get at least one book off the classics/modern classics shelf (think trade paperbacks published by Vintage). Many of them I returned unfinished but I adored Remains of the Day.

By: Sam

Sam — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:25:41 +0000

Allen –

That’s an interesting idea! Do you have any examples of new YA books with these new vocabularies?

There are definitely new ways to be an adult. Douglas Coupland is sort of the canonical example (since he coined “Generation X” and all), but there are oodles of books about being a thirty-something without a spouse and kids that didn’t exist when I was a kid.

By: Sam

Sam — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:28:56 +0000

Michael, bloodstones, and Tish -- I have read Time-Traveler's Wife, Water for Elephants, and Kavalier and Clay! And I loved all of them! Apparently I've read everything that's good for adults. I can go back to reading YA with a clean conscience. :)

By: allen

allen — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 15:08:54 +0000

I don’t think that you’re necessarily stagnating yourself by reading primarily young adult fiction, as long as you’re not sticking with books written when you were a young adult. We as a culture are constantly developing new vocabularies that we can use to describe ourselves. There are a lot of new ways to grow up, new paths opening up all the time that have been made possible by these new vocabularies. So I think that it’s unfair to say that reading today’s young adult books is reading the same types of things you read when you were a teenager. They’re not.

Ok, to be fair, I suppose there are also new ways to be an adult that are being created that are more likely to show up in “grown-up” books than in YA….

By: Aatish

Aatish — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:43:17 +0000

That last comment was me btw. :-)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 04:47:07 +0000

Ok but here’s the deal – you have to respond to this comment and recommend some YA books for me. I’ve just finished Flora Segunda and Peeps and am looking for my next fix.

Set This House in Order – Matt Ruff

A beautiful, haunting, compelling story about multiple personality disorder that will leave you wondering what sanity really is.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon

…made me believe in super-heroes all over again.

Gentlemen of the Road – Michael Chabon

…was almost titled “Jews with Swords” ‘Nuff said. Fun, easy read.

Eros: The Bittersweet – Anne Carson

Dense, hard, complex, gorgeous reading about the nature of desire and love as seen through Sappho’s poetry. Her language is as rich and textured as Sappho’s poetry. One of my very favorite books. When I first read it I would get through five pages at a time before I was exhausted and filled with the need to write.

Nine Horses – Billy Collins

Contains this poem: http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=239
He is my favorite contemporary poet.

Night & Horses & The Desert – Robert Irwin

A history of Arabic literature told easily and colloquially with lots of well-translated excerpts. We’ve become so inundated with this notion of Arabs and Islam as barbaric terrorists – this book reminded me what a sophisticated and beautiful culture they come from.

Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer

You will love this book. I promise. Even if you ignore everything else on this list, read this one.

If you can’t handily find any of these in yon library and are interested, I’d be delighted to lend them to you.

By: bloodstones

bloodstones — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 04:03:13 +0000

Water For Elephants – It’s the only novel I’ve read in a sitting for a really long.

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:18:59 +0000

I just spent four trying (heh) days in a building with a staircase that winds around an empty cage in the middle (where some staircases have a many-stories-tall empty space instead). It reminded me of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, which you should read if you haven't.