WHAT WE’RE READING
Thursday, October 5, 2006
Here on the Sleep Number Bed, my intellectual companions—Coco and Gus—have convened a literary salon. Oh, you can keep your entertainment centers and theme parks. If we weren’t so sleepy, we’d be feeling very superior in a Luddite sort of way. What do we do for kicks when we’re not scratching ourselves, or a dog? We read! It can’t be beat! What could be more nostalgic than the smell of a plastic library book cover? Here are our recommendations for the autumn reading season:
Gus Dexheimer, girl, age 8: There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom, by Louis Sachar. “A really good counselor helping a bad boy. It’s a little bit funny and yeah, it’s serious.”
Coco Dexheimer, girl, age 16: “I’m not reading anything. I finished reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the best book I ever read, and it’s moving and everyone should read it. I lost The Lovely Bones, which I would like to finish, but you won’t buy me another one at the grocery store and I hate you.”
Robin Chotzinoff: Ten Points, by William Strickland. It’s an uncorrected galley at this point, but it comes out from Hyperion in July 2007 and you should buy it. In the tradition of the best literature, it concerns a subject I don’t care about at all (bicycle racing) and made it so crucial to my existence that I’ve been crossing against traffic with my nose in this book. Also, Strickland’s horrific childhood is riveting.