New Blog Series: Moving Memoirs

There is nothing like a good memoir. Whether it’s a trashy tell-all from a Real Housewife of Wherever or a story of someone who beat seemingly insurmountable odds to come through victorious on the other side, there’s just something really powerful about someone telling their own story.

That said, I’m starting a new series of posts here on The Voracious Bibliophile called Moving Memoirs. I’ve already got a list started of some of my favorites so you can expect the first installment soon. Have a great weekend.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Red (Taylor’s Version)

“Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street.” — *Red*

Yes, I know this is supposed to be a blog about books. But it’s also about whatever I want to talk about. And if we’re getting technical, our Reverend Mother Taylor Alison Swift has contributed at least as much (if not more) to American song craft as Bob Dylan, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016 by the Swedish Academy. I rest my case.

I am LIVING for this era of Taylor Swift. In 2020, she brought us not one but two full-length studio albums (folklore and evermore). With folklore, Taylor made history, becoming the first woman in the history of the Grammy Awards to take home THREE Album of the Year Awards, for Fearless, 1989, and now folklore. (Note: I’m not linking to the original versions of Fearless and 1989 because Taylor has asked her fans not to support the versions of her music released under the Big Machine Label Group. For more about how to make those pesky older versions disappear, please check out this awesome article in Variety.

“This path is reckless.” *— Treacher*ous

And yesterday, Taylor announced that the next album she’ll be releasing will be a re-recording of 2012’s iconic Red, which brought us masterpieces like “Red”, “All Too Well”, and “I Knew You Were Trouble” (which in hindsight sounds like the strongest hint about the upcoming 1989-era on the entire record). The large and fiercely devoted community of Swifties is blowing up social media with theories, speculations, and forensic analyses about Taylor’s Easter eggs, which if you follow the trails, led to Red (Taylor’s Version) the WHOLE TIME!

The large and fiercely devoted community of Swifties is blowing up social media with theories, speculations, and forensic analyses about Taylor’s Easter eggs, which if you follow the trails, led to Red (Taylor’s Version) the WHOLE TIME!

“And the saddest fear comes creeping in. That you never loved me or her, or anyone, or anything…” — *I Knew You Were Trouble*

The fact that she made the announcement on Scooter Braun’s birthday makes the whole thing glimmer with the iridescence of her haters’ tears, imbuing the whole affair with a sense of righteous indignation and utter pettiness that I aspire to. Drag him, Taylor! November 19th cannot get here fast enough.

The fact that she made the announcement on Scooter Braun’s birthday makes the whole thing glimmer with the iridescence of her haters’ tears, imbuing the whole affair with a sense of righteous indignation and utter pettiness that I aspire to.

What are you most excited to hear in Red (Taylor’s Version)? Personally, I am dying to hear the re-recorded version of “All Too Well”, but the fact that the album will feature all 30 of the originally-intended tracks is almost too much for my heart to stand.

In the meantime, I would not be a bit surprised if Taylor drops another album with all-new material in the interim before Red (Taylor’s Version) releases in November. She’s set a whole new standard when it comes to providing one’s fans with fresh material. It’s getting to the point where I’m going to have to make “New Taylor Swift Music and Merchandise” a line item in my monthly budget. Oh well. She can take my money. She already has my heart.

You can preorder Red (Taylor’s Version) here.

First Shot

On Wednesday, I got the first shot of my COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer, of course. I’m not going to lie, with as much hysteria, confusion, and proliferation of false information surrounding the vaccine, I was a little nervous about getting it.

I believe the science. I have always believed the science. But I also know it is impossible to live in a world with so many unknowns and be certain about anything.

I thought about it a lot before I made my decision. My final impetus was my dad going to get his first shot on Tuesday. So on Wednesday, I called and made my appointment, and they had an opening for 5:30 that day.

When I got to Walgreens, I had to pee really bad. Their bathrooms were out of order and I didn’t want to miss my appointment, so I held it. There’s something about having to hold yourself that makes anxiety worse. I can’t really explain it, but anyone with generalized anxiety disorder like myself can affirm the truth of that statement.

Then my brain went into overdrive. I actually thought to myself, What if holding urine in my bladder can actually make the vaccine ineffective or cause some weird side effect? Is this something I can ask Google or WebMD about?

Luckily, my phone gets terrible service so I was unable to use the Internet to perpetuate my growing paranoia. So what do I do to pass the time? Judge other people, of course. If the pandemic has given us one thing, it has helped to shed all guilt involved in basking in one’s own self-righteousness.

I love judging other people. And if you want to judge me for that, tell your minister or your higher power or a stranger at the grocery store, because while I am myself self-righteous, I do not condone other people being self-righteous about my self-righteousness. Does that make sense?

I love judging other people.

Back to Walgreens. As I’m waiting to get shot (poor choice of words?), I look around at all the other people in Walgreens and allow myself to loathe the ones I see who are unmasked. Now, I know the CDC has said that people who are fully vaccinated don’t have to wear masks anymore. However, no one is monitoring this. You just have to take people at their word when they say they’ve been vaccinated and want to breathe near (or even on) you. And I don’t know if you know this or not, but people are liars. They lie.

After what felt like an eternity of condemning my fellow community members for their selfishness, I was finally called back for my shot. The gentleman who penetrated…umm…vaccinated me was very nice and assured me that I would not in fact die. He was wearing a mask but he had kind eyes, and at least half of all human evil can be detected through eyes, so I felt momentarily reassured.

When the Moment of Truth finally came, I braced myself for an Experience. Now, I wasn’t sure if it would be akin to taking a nightmarish ride down a river of chocolate with Gene Wilder and some snakes, or more like when Dorothy realized she always had the power to go back to Kansas and became nearly catatonic with joy and irritation that Glinda the Good Witch didn’t bother telling her that before she was nearly murdered.

Now, I wasn’t sure if it would be akin to taking a nightmarish ride down a river of chocolate with Gene Wilder and some snakes, or more like when Dorothy realized she always had the power to go back to Kansas and became nearly catatonic with joy and irritation that Glinda the Good Witch didn’t bother telling her that before she was nearly murdered.

Friends and readers, it was painless. While I had expected Excalibur or Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, in truth I barely even felt it. In fact, when it was over I was unsure if anything had happened at all. And now I’m looking forward to my second shot.

Long story short: go get vaccinated!

Favorite Quotes: Hybrida: Poems by Tina Chang

I come from the broad birds and the day demons, the ash from a childhood burn, tin cans of dried pens, newspaper, seashells, a phoenix fixed in a souvenir bottle. Every bit saved as if discard were memory itself.

Cheryl Strayed says that quotes are like “mini instruction manuals for the soul”. I love that. It’s always rang true for me. If I’m feeling morose, despondent, angry, or even hopeless, coming across the right quote at the right time can make all the difference.

I keep a series of Google documents filled with quotes from not only the books I read, but the films I watch, articles I read in newspapers and magazines, and even profound things I hear people I know in real life say when I’m with them.

Hybrida: Poems is available wherever books are sold.

Currently Reading: With Teeth: A Novel by Kristen Arnett

While reviewing books is fun, I also derive a considerable amount of joy from talking about the books on my #CurrentlyReading shelf.

Right now, the book I can’t put down is Kristen Arnett’s new novel, With Teeth. Domestic fiction has been all the rage since Gillian Flynn stormed onto the scene with Gone Girl, and Kristen Arnett gives a deliciously queer twist on the traditional marriage-gone-sour tale.

The best part of this book is I can’t figure out what’s going to happen. I’m avoiding spoilers online and even trying to be careful with what I see on Kristen’s Twitter page (@Kristen_Arnett) because it is rare that I’ve made it this far in a novel without figuring out the dark secret(s) gurgling beneath the surface.

What are you #CurrentlyReading? Let me know!

With Teeth is now available to buy in hardcover wherever books are sold.

All Aboard the ARC: What to Miss When: Poems by Leigh Stein

***Note: I received a digital ARC of Stein’s forthcoming poetry collection, What to Miss When, from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review***

I’m late to the Leigh Stein party. She made a huge splash with her 2020 release Self Care, and even though I eyed it often, I never picked it up. I probably will now.

In her dazzling new collection, Leigh Stein has managed to create art from the mess of modern life, with poems both elegiac and flippant in equal measure.

Whether she’s commenting on the pervasiveness of social media and its effect on our collective psyche or the vagaries of human behavior amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, she manages to imbue each poem with just enough levity to keep the reader from losing hope. I cannot recommend this collection highly enough.

What to Miss When is out on August 10th and is available to preorder wherever books are sold.

New Blog Series: All Aboard the ARC!

I hope you’ll forgive my play on words. If you don’t or can’t, I understand.

One of the big parts of my job and my life in general is recommending books to people, and sometimes I receive ARCs (advance reader copies) of to-be-released titles so I can review them and be able to hand-sell them when they first come out.

I’m really excited about this series and I hope it’ll introduce you to books you’ll love and cherish for years to come.

So This Is Happening

Most of the time, the decisions I make seem hasty. But they’re not. I marinate in my desires long before I decide to throw them on the grill.

I’ve wanted a free-form creative outlet for a long time. A place where I can riff and talk about whatever I want to. I decided to call this blog “The Voracious Bibliophile” because my life revolves around books.

I loved books as a child and I love them even more now. I worked for nearly four years in a public library as a circulation clerk (though that title doesn’t do justice to the full range of what I did there) and I’ve been the assistant manager at a chain bookstore for over three years now.

I’m also a writer. I’ve had a few pieces published in non-paying markets and that’s still something I’d like to do in the future, but right now I need something that belongs (nearly) exclusively to me. I’m sure you can relate.

So begins this blog. I’ll mainly be talking about books and topics relevant to the literary scene, but there also may be times I want to talk about something else and I am giving myself permission to do that.

I’m glad you’re on this journey with me and I hope you get something positive from reading my blog. Let’s do this.

Audiobooks Are Book-Books

This is the hill I’m willing to die on: audiobooks are book-books.

Every now and again on Twitter, I’ll see friends of mine reacting to a viral tweet in which some idiotic blowhard claims that audiobooks are cheating.

It’s always a lot to unpack. First of all, reading is not a competition, which precludes the possibility of cheating. In fact, if these naysayers want to get technical, audiobooks (or at least their predecessors) are older than print books. Before the printed word existed, stories were passed down orally from one generation to the next. This is why policing what counts or doesn’t count as “reading” makes no sense to me.

Before the printed word existed, stories were passed down orally from one generation to the next. This is why policing what counts or doesn’t count as “reading” makes no sense to me.

My own relationship with audiobooks had a fraught beginning. As someone who has ADHD, let’s just say my attention varies. Sometimes, I can focus on the same thing for hours at a time and at other times, I struggle to stay with one task for more than two or three sequential minutes.

That said, I never liked audiobooks as a child. I preferred print. Now, part of this can be chalked up to access. Every other child who grew up in the early aughts knows how difficult it was to follow along with the audiobook narrators chosen to spin the yarns on the infamous classroom cassette player.

Every other child who grew up in the early aughts knows how difficult it was to follow along with the audiobook narrators chosen to spin the yarns on the infamous classroom cassette player.

The other part has to do with the way my brain operates. You see, no one ever told me that to really enjoy an audiobook, you have to have (A) a good narrator; and (B) be able to adjust your “ear reading” speed to more closely match your “eye reading” speed. Now before I make anyone angry, I am speaking of my own personal experience. That’s just the way it works for me.

Because of the way my brain works, I can’t listen to audiobooks on CD. I’ve tried it. For a long time, I said audiobooks weren’t for me because I’d only ever tried them on CD (or cassette). Even my first tentative forays into digital audiobooks were challenging. Once I figured out how much adjusting my listening speed heightened the pleasure of the experience, I was hooked.

The first audiobook I listened to (and enjoyed) was Born With Teeth, the dazzling memoir by Kate Mulgrew (of Star Trek and Orange is the New Black fame). Kate Mulgrew showed me how audiobooks are an art form all their own, and that a story well told is its own reward.

Now, audiobooks are part of my everyday life. I have an Audible account, but there’s no way I could afford every single audiobook I want to listen to, so I use OverDrive. With OverDrive, you can access thousands of ebooks, digital audiobooks, and other media with your public library card. Since OverDrive simply takes back your borrowed items when they’re due, you never have to worry about late fees or replacement costs.

Now, every time I see someone dissing audiobooks on my timeline, I’m quick to join the fray. Stories are stories are stories, and books are books are books. So, whether you’re reading a favorite paperback in bed, on your phone at the airport, on your Kindle at the beach, or in your car as you drive down a lone stretch of highway, you are a reader. You are valid. Read (and listen) on.

Thanks for reading The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.