Lillian Builds a Library

I'm here to curate my very own grown-up library. Join me in sniffing Penguin Classics.

[literarylil]

I Recommend: 

A Piece of Cake: A Memoir by Cupcake Brown.

Startlingly funny, down-to-earth and oftentimes really groovy, I finished this hefty memoir in a few slow days of dogsitting. This is not a normal memoir, people. Cupcake Brown stunned me with her candor and humor about a life full of horrific circumstances and resilience. Eat it up, eat it up.

[literarylil]

Wah, hey!

Hey, I’m back! What year is it? Building a library took a backseat to building a future. I’m preparing to graduate from university and I realized that my library hasn’t really grown all that much. I’ve been reading here and there, though. Time to get back on the literary Oregon trail.

[literarylil]

Just about finished with this week's read- review to follow #ToniMorrison #bookreview

[bookishcompendium]

Book photo challenge Day 3: Quote.

[writerswritecompany]

TBR

[literarylil]

TBR

[literarylil]

What Your Favorite Children's Books Say About You

Little House on the Prairie: you were definitely a Brownie and you played too much Oregon Trail. Field trips to frontier settlements were your greatest thrill and you still have a doll made of a corn husk in your closet.

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle: you were probably a fat kid and you liked the way Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle accepted all kinds. You craved adventure and liked playing hide and seek with your neighborhood pals. Also, you wanted to taste the gemstones described in her books because they sounded delicious (i.e. Lapiz Lazuli).

Harry Potter:

A. You could have been a kid in the gifted program with progressive parents. You probably participated in Mechanics Club or community theatre.

B. You had hyper-religious parents so you had to read the books at sleepovers with friends. You are now an adult fanatic.

Magic Tree House: you liked animals. You were precocious and frequently regurgitated facts gathered from this series.

Junie B. Jones: definitely class clown material. Your mom was cool with letting you watch Judge Judy and you brought sugary snacks to school. You had the hots for a kid with spiky hair. You probably still do.

Charlotte's Web: you had glasses in the first grade and read big books in the bean-bag chairs toward the back of the classroom. You could be trusted with the class pet over long weekends.

Madeline: you probably played tennis and made fun of those of us who liked Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. You had shiny, shiny hair.

[thebeginningwriter]

bookstore (via Pin by Lorena Garcia on Comedy | Pinterest)

[creativemornings]

"Art became a way for me to reclaim my humanity."

— Favianna Rodriguez. Watch the talk.

[littledallilasbookshelf]

YES!!!!!

[literarylil]

Ah yisssss

[literarylil]

Review: She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb

It took me a week to polish off Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone. This was not a pleasant read. Riveting, yes. Uplifting, no. Lamb tells the story of Dolores Price, beginning with her childhood that crumbles at 13 with a brutal rape from a handsome upstairs neighbor. The rape defines her life and Dolores turns to food and television, becoming morbidly obese and bitterly angry. Lamb follows Dolores into her thirties as she tries to turn her life around and works with the cards she is dealt.

The book's triumphant ending was, for me, almost enough to make up for its continuous onslaught of painful content. Character development is so-ho-ho spot-on.  Good on you, Wally Lamb. Identifying with Dolores was easy for me, which I found a little scary; she is foul and angry, and I found her to represent that part of myself that I never want anyone to see after a long day. Dolores is full of shame and self-loathing for most of the book and it's infuriating to watch her hold herself back, but you find yourself cheering for her all the same. She makes an unlikely hero.

Verdict: She's Come Undone was harsh. It dealt with all the bad things: rape, mental instability, sickness, death, betrayal. But the light that peeked through from time to time was refreshing. I fell so in love with some of Lamb's characters. The book made me wary, but also hopeful.

[creativesomething]

“I don’t know.”

Those are three very powerful words. They help us to explore new territory, push past boundaries, and face our fears.

Admitting that you “don’t know” allows you to be more creative than those who do. The naivety of not knowing makes it easier to overcome difficult…

[literarylil]

The List

Below is my ever-growing list of Books to Read or Buy.  Some of them I’ve read but want to revisit.  My birthday’s in September. Ahem.

Achebe, Chinua: Things Fall Apart

Adams, Douglas: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Agee, James: A Death in the Family

Alvarez, Julia: In the Time of the Butterflies

Ambrose, Stephen: Undaunted Courage

Amis, Martin: The Rachel Papers

Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid’s Tale

Atwood, Margaret: The Edible Woman

Austen, Jane: Pride & Prejudice

Bourdain, Anthony: Kitchen Confidential

Bradbury, Ray: Fahrenheit 451

Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre

Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights

Bryson, Bill: A Short History of Nearly Everything

Capote, Truman: In Cold Blood

Child, Julia: The Joy of Cooking

Chopin, Kate: The Awakening

Christie, Agatha: Murder on the Orient Express

Cisneros, Sandra: The House on Mango Street

Cisneros, Sandra: Loose Woman

Clarkson, Lorna Jane: Move. Nourish. Believe.

Davies, Robertson: The Deptford Trilogy

De Cervantes, Miguel: Don Quixote

Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe

De Sainte-Expury, Antoine: The Little Prince

Diaz, Junot: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Didion, Joan: Play it as it Lays

Dostoevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment

Egan, Timothy: The Worst Hard Time

Eggers, Dave: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Eggers, Dave: Zeitoun

Ellis, Bret Easton: American Psycho

Ellis, Bret Easton: Lunar Park

Ellison, Ralph: Invisible Man

Ephron, Nora: Heartburn

Eugenides, Jeffrey: Middlesex

Fitch, Janet: White Oleander

Flaubert, Gustave: Madame Bovary

Follett, Ken: Pillars of the Earth

Gaarder, Jostein: Sophie’s World

Gaines, Ernest: A Lesson Before Dying

Green, John: The Fault in our Stars

Green, John: Looking for Alaska

Green, John: Paper Towns

Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttimes

Hall, Sarah: Daughters of the North

Hawking, Stephen: A Brief History of Time

Heller, Joseph: Catch 22

Herbert, Frank: Dune

Hosseini, Khaled: The Kite Runner

Hosseini, Khaled: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Hurston, Zora Neale: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Huxley, Aldous: Brave New World

Ishiguro, Kazuo: Never Let Me Go

Kafka, Franz: Metamorphosis

Kaling, Mindy: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Kerouac, Jack: On the Road

Kincaid, Jamaica: Lucy

King, Stephen: It

Kingsolver, Barbara: The Prodigal Summer

Kundera, Milan: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Larsen, Nella: Quicksand

Larsen, Nella: Passing

Lewis, Sinclair: Main Street

Lord, Audre: The Complete Poems of Audre Lord

Lowry, Lois: The Giver

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia: One Hundred Years of Solitude

McCarthy, Mary: The Group

McInerney, Jay: Bright Lights, Big City

Messud, Claire: The Emperor’s Children

Milton, John: Paradise Lost

Moran, Caitlin: How to be a Woman

Morrison, Toni: Beloved

Murakami, Haruki: Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita

Nabokov, Vladimir: Ada, or Ardor

Neruda, Pablo: The Essential Neruda

Palahniuk, Chuck: Invisible Monsters

Parker, Dorothy: The Portable Dorothy Parker

Percy, Walker: The Moviegoer

Plath, Sylvia: The Bell Jar

Pullman, Phillip: His Dark Materials

Robbins, Tom: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Robinson, Marilynne: Housekeeping

Rosenfeld, Lucinda: What She Saw

Saunders, George: Pastoralia

Sedaris, David: Me Talk Pretty One Day

Sexton, Anne: The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton

Simenon, Georges: The Train

Smith, Zadie: White Teeth

Vonnegut, Kurt: Cat’s Cradle

Vonnegut, Kurt: Slaughterhouse Five

Wallace, David Foster: Infinite Jest

Woolf, Virginia: Mrs. Dalloway

Young, Toby: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

[literarylil]

This ain't your Mama's book blog

I started this blog last semester for a Multimedia Writing course.  You'll find a few leftover posts behind this one.  I kept them because I like them, but I've decided to revive this blog with a new purpose: tracking, reviewing, and discussing the books that I'm steadily adding to my collection.

I want to have a hefty library full of well-loved, dog-eared books that I can show to my kids, looking the other way as they learn the facts of life from books containing mature material like I did. Nothing trashy will taint my bookshelves- my children will secretly read Atonement with its salacious beauty, and that'll be just fine.

I have a book list that keeps growing.  Sometimes I have to drag myself away from an afternoon of Netflix because it's easy to get lost in mindless entertainment.  This blog is meant to keep me grounded in something I've loved since my grandma was reading Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters to me at age 2. Join me if you like.

[literarylil]

Books are a uniquely portable magic.

Stephen King

[literarylil]

Im a graphic design minor, and it’s not all clickin’. We draw, too. These are a few from my drawing class this semester.

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[literarylil]

Happy Friday.

[creativesomething]

Ideas aren’t to be trusted. They need to be wrung dry, ripped apart…to do our job properly, we must disassemble our promising ideas and make them into something better.

Letter to a junior designer but sound advice for any creative field. (via creativesomething)