i fuel my attention span shortage (can you fuel a shortage?) every time i walk into borders, or barnes -- or waldenbooks, where i have a crummy 10 percent discount that i never use -- and buy new books despite the dozen or so unfinished books sitting on my shelf at home. lots of ray bradbury, even some anne tyler. also have a new book of george orwell essays (i've read one, about gandhi -- it was very good) and a collection of eudora welty which i bought because 1) it was on sale 2) i read an article about her writing and all the reasons the author thought she was so wonderful and 3) she's dead now and for some reason it feels like i should have read more eudora welty than what was in my american lit anthology, even though i despise most southern fiction. i also have a collection of flannery o'connor stories and i hate flannery o'connor more than i hate southern literature, but got the book the day i got my letter in the mail which included the results of my english hon project, in which my creative writing advisor called me a prodigy and other nice things. because of him i graduated with high honors even though i'm a dunce and failed geology 101. anyway, he loves flannery o'connor. so i thought i could learn to like her, too, or at least try. also, i still have the bell jar and 'tis to finish, and i just borrowed something wicked this way comes from d.

but somewhere in the mess that is my bookshelf lie a few books i've not only finished, but finished several times -- forward, backward, upside down. some just hold so much truth in their fiction that reading them is like reading some appropriate equivalent of the bible; most contain incredible stories; all are models of prose that i would die for the ability to match. these books include all anne tyler novels except searching for caleb and if morning ever comes, all amy tan books except bonesetter's daughter (once was enough), and the following, my top 5 desert island books:

#5: gone with the wind

my favorite semi-historical romance ever. i don't even know if margaret mitchell wrote anything else. i love it from the wilkes' barbeque to rhett's infuriating departure (i broke down and read scarlett just so i could imagine scarlett and rhett living happily ever after.) i hate some parts of the story, i.e. how could scarlett be in love with someone as watery and devoid of personality as ashley? ... but i love the pre-war backdrop and post-war transformations. and i love, love, LOVE scarlett o'hara.

also, it's damn long. what better a way to wile away the hours, marooned on a desert island?

#4: usagi yojimbo, book one

my experience with graphic novels is limited to usagi yojimbo and the maus books by arthur spiegelman, and maybe some batman i once picked up from d's dusty pile. but the first time i read book one -- picked it up from the library one otherwise boring day -- i went back to the library for the rest of the collection. the story kicks ass -- as does the bunny, who manages to be simultaneously cute and lethal. and always honorable.

#3: sesame street unpaved: scripts, stories, secrets and songs

back in the day, before elmo and zoe and that dang baby bear were conceived, sesame street was ernie, bert, oscar, big bird, snuffy, telly, cookie monster, grover, and their human friends. unpaved does include a profile of elmo, but it mostly talks about the history of sesame street, the visions behind its creation, and takes you back to the BESTEST sketches, such as ernie, bert, and the banana in ernie's ear; the adventures of supergrover; oscar's bowling alley and pet elephant named fluffy. they went to a crayon factory, showed us how saxophones are made, gave us culture with cookie's monsterpiece theater, kept us informed with kermit's fast-breaking news. you don't know how much i'd pay for sesame street complete: from the beginning up to the introduction of elmo. till that DVD becomes available, there's unpaved.

#2: the annotated alice

contains not only the full original texts and illustrations of "alice's adventures in wonderland" and "through the looking glass," but comprehensive notes and an intro by martin gardner. there are explanations (and/or interpretations and/or running commentary) for nearly all obscure references (and pretty much all references are obscure, as it's a very old and very british text.) it explores the politics of the story and of the author, as well as the significance of the mathematical puzzles, poems and jokes. unadulterated alice is not for children (i believe) -- there's too much that would go unnoticed and wasted. or, as the intro says, "it is only because adults -- scientists and mathematicians in particular -- continue to relish the alice books that they are assured of immortality."

the book was a gift to me, and the inscription reads: "to my favorite english major -- best of luck in all your academic adventures. hopefully this book will aid you on your way to literary know-it-all-dom. ..."

and come to think of it, it did win me a few british lit arguments with the department chair.

#1: patchwork planet

anne tyler is my favorite, and patchwork planet is my favorite anne tyler. barnaby is a former juvenile delinquent, a divorce' who fumbles his weekend visits with his daughter, and the object of his mother's hypocrisy and neurotic obsession with martyrdom. somewhere around the story's crux he sets his house on fire and throws a chair through the window, and this is when you realize you're in love with him. or maybe it's just me. anyway, despite his misfortunes and proclivities toward odd crimes, he's a good -- no, a wonderful -- person.

the story exhilarates me every time -- which is to say nothing of the prose.

that's it. oh, if i were going to be exiled to a desert island i might actually take amy tan's hundred secret senses instead of usagi yojimbo, 1) because it's my favorite amy tan novel and one of my favorite novels, period, and 2) because having only book one of UY would piss me off.