Devouring Films: Waitress

Ah, Waitress. I love this film so much that I actually can't bear to send it back to love film, and for there to be a time when it's not in my possession (yeah, I know I can just buy it on Amazon for like £4. But I like to be dramatic, kay?) I almost don't want to ruin it with some over-the-top, crazy gushing review even though it so deserves one almost more than any review I've written. Probably my favourite new (to me) film I've seen this year, and definitely one that I'm going to watch again and again when I need a little Southern-accent in my life, and can't deal with the four hours of Gone With the Wind. Again.

So, instead of making you sit through a review that uses thoroughly too many positive adjectives, I'm going to give it to you in the form of a pie recipe, the inclusion of which in the the film made it literally delicious and, trust me, I don't even like pie. So, deep breath, here goes!

Take: One unhappily married, unhappily pregnant diner waitress, and her two plucky waitress friends. Add to the mix a series of complex relationships, including one with a dashing new doctor who can be seduced with pie. Allow to settle for a while. When problems with the asshole husband arise, try and smooth them out as much as you can so that the mixture doesn't blow up in your face, and you don't get hurt. Stir in a co-worker's unconventional romance, amazing southern accents, and the adorable/cranky owner of the diner. Add into a piecrust made up of around 8 months in the south, pour in the filling, and cook for around 108 minutes. Enjoy a slice of heartwarming drama comedy with a nice slice of actual pie!

For other, more sane sounding pie recipes, Waitress is excellent source material for them. It's also an amazing example of female written/directed/acted filmmaking, which makes me very happy, and I think is really reflected in the film itself (i.e. there is more than one woman! And she has friends who she talks to about stuff! It's really amazing to see...) Also, pie. Again. If you want anything more from a film then you may be crazy, so go! Seek out Waitress! And I promise to make you a pie if you're disappointed...

Top Ten Tuesday

Aren't you just so ready for another list? This weeks Top Ten Tuesday, as always hosted by the fab The Broke and the Bookish, is really fun, and lets me tell you a little bit about the blogs I like to read, as well as the books that get my attention! It is going to be a mixture, of books that I have already read after their recommendation, as well as books that I fully intend to read sometime but just haven't gotten around to yet! This weeks topic is in honour of BBAW, an event that I'm fully aware of but haven't yet participated in- yesterday's topic was a bit similar to this post I did for Armchair BEA, so I'm pretty comfortable just not posting about it- but I can still participate in my own teeny way with this weeks TTT (which I totally voted for as my favourite meme for BBAW. Obviously!)

Top Ten Books I Read/Intend to Read Because of Another Blogger


1. Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen, because of Jenn from Booksessed- Jenn is basically my blogging bff, so when she said that Water for Elephants was one of her favourite books I thought, hey, I think I'll give that a go! I'm glad I did- I liked it a lot, although maybe not quite as much as Jenn- but still, a lot!

2. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, because of Alley from What Red Read- I haven't quite got round to reading this yet, but I have gotten it out of the library, which is a good start! Allie's blog is possibly my favourite in the entire universe, and when she says a book is great, I've gotta believe her, so once I read her review of this, I immediately put this on my wish list.

3. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, because of Adam from Roof Beam Reader- I'm not sure that Adam has even formally reviewed this book on his (amazing) blog, but I do know that he talks about it a lot. Wondering what all the fuss was about, I bought Perks on a whim, and I'm so glad I read it- My favourite book of the year so far, probably one of my favourite books of my life,  so I'm really grateful that he likes to sing its graces a lot!

4. Pet Semetary by Stephen King, because of Kayleigh from Nylon Admiral- Ok, so obviously I'm reading all the Stephen King books anyway, so Kayleigh didn't strictly make me hurry out to buy Pet Semetary, since I already had it. BUT- her review of Pet Semetary did make me all edgy and hurrying along of myself so that I could get to it on my list because it sounds awesome. And so it had better be...

5. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, because of Amanda from Dead White Guys- I adore Dead White Guys, which I found before I was even a blogger, and when Amanda said on twitter that she was going to be reading Anna Karenina, I thought, yeah, I've had it for about a million years, I might as well read it too. It is SO amazing that I was really happy for my sheep-like actions that day. Even if it did take me about 20 years to finish (or, you know, 2 months or something. Whatever!)

6. On Beauty by Zadie Smith, because of Breana from Literary Musings- I already owned On Beauty before I read Breana's review of it, but now I want to read it so much that I also have Howard's End out of the library, which I apparently have to read beforehand to fully understand On Beauty. It sounds like a lot of work to me, but I trust Breana when she says it's important, so I'm a gonna do it anyway!

7. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D H Lawrence, because of Allie from A Literary Odyssey- I should really say that I re-read Lady Chatterley's lover because of Allie's readalong way back in April, which I probably wouldn't have done without this encouragement- what I found was a book that was much better than the one I remembered, so I've really got to thank Allie for this one!

8. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta, because of Ashley from Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing- I know next to nothing about this book, which I think is mostly the best way to go into books, other than that it is one of Ashley's favourite books, she personally recommended it to me on twitter, and when I like someone's blog and they say a book is their favourite, believe me, I pay attention.

9. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, because of Kit from Books are my Boyfriends- Honestly, I want to read everything Kit has ever reviewed because she is hilarious and brilliant and oh my gosh everyone should just read her blog right now! Eating Animals is just one example because I'm on a bit of a Foer kick these days, but really, everything she's reviewed, I just want to read.

10. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, because of various mysterious bloggers- Yeah, so I really don't know why I read Middlesex, other than it must have been because of other bloggers because I really disliked The Virgin Suicides, and I surely can't have just decided on my own to read another Eugenides book? So thanks guys, whoever you are- it was completely awesome, and definitely another one of those favourite books of the year for me.

So, who influenced you to read various books? Were they successes or not? Did you want to throttle your recommender because they were so awful? Let me know in the comments guys!

Devouring Stephen King: Different Seasons

Different Seasons is also known as 'that collection of novellas Stephen King has that includes The Shawshank Redemption', the story in this book that really shines for me as being the best in the book, but probably only because I love the film so much, and I read the entire thing in Morgan Freeman's voice in my head. Or, actually, because it's the best written story in the book! I've tried to review short stories before and I find it sort of impossible, but these are technically novellas, so I guess I can just mini-review each of the stories, since there are only four of them. So, here goes!

Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption- I think we've all seen this film, and if you haven't, what have you been doing with your life?! The novella is more or less identical to the film, chronicling the struggles of Andy Dufresne, an innocent man in prison through the eyes of Red, his best friend there (although, really, I guess, it's more Red's story if you really want to get into it), sans a few inspirational quotes, and that bit where Andy plays the opera music that I love so much because of all the symbolism of hope and stuff. (Fun fact: I literally never listen to opera music, but whenever they use it in a film as a dramatic device it makes me all weepy/happy-sad. It's weird.) So yeah, there's not too much I can say about this novella, except that I love it, and you should definitely read it, and then see the film. Or vice-versa. When something's this good, it really doesn't matter.

Apt Pupil- I wasn't so keen on this novella- it seemed to drag a bit, and nothing much really happened- admittedly there was a great deal of tension building up to the really dramatic climax, and if you want to read about a teenager mentally unravelling, then this will probably entertain you. In a way, though, for me, it was almost too dark- in it, a 12 year old boy has found a commandant from a Nazi Concentration Camp, and instead of turning him in, he wants to find out everything he can about the death camps in a sick, voyeuristic way. Stephen King says in the Afterword of this book that there isn't much horror in it, but the idea of the existence of such a person (in fact, of both of these people), realistic as it undoubtedly is, it's also horrifying- I always find realistic horrors scarier than the ones that I find less plausible. So, yeah- when this story isn't veering on the side of boredom, it's going to far in the other direction and making me want to spiritually puke. I would probably recommend skipping it if you were to get this book. Ooh, one fun fact about it though- the ex-commandant, Dussander, had a banker who invested his money into stocks and thing and meant he had a comfortable amount to live on, and his name? Andy Dufresne. I love stuff like that.

The Body- A coming of age story about four twelve year old boys (only two of whom are really significant to the story), this was also made into a pretty successful film, Stand by Me, which I'm always meaning to see but the opportunity never comes up (I once videoed it off the TV but it got videoed over by mistake by someone evil, so I'm clearly cursed against watching it). It's called The Body because they ostensibly set out to find the body of this kid about their age who has been killed, but it's really what they learn about themselves and each other on the journey that is really important. I like it a lot, but it does trail off a little bit at the end, and goes on longer than you might expect it to. This doesn't matter quite as much to me as it might normally do, because it also includes things like this:

"The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them-words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out"

I mean, yes. Just yes. I'm sure everyone has experienced this at least at some point in their lives, and also the feeling that things that are so important to you, may mean next to nothing to the next person, and it's the loneliest feeling in the world. Just when people want to write Stephen King off, he writes something that is so true that you can't help but sit up and pay attention.
What I also liked about The Body were the inserted stories written by Gordie (the main character) because really that shows dedication to one's craft- he had to think up two other stories just to write this one novella. There are also further references to the Stephen King canon, mainly to Cujo, since the story is set in Castle Rock, but also to The Shining, and again to Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption.

The Breathing Method- This story is three things- the shortest in the book, the most outright horror story in the book, and the biggest surprise in the book. It's so different to King's normal style, that it comes as a bit of a shock, but it's so clever in its style that it's also pretty cool. What King has basically done with this story is written it like a typical Victorian ghost story, and there are two levels of scariness in the narrative. It's basically completely inspired, and I don't want to say too much more about it because any more information about it might ruin it for you. But it's totally creepy and cool.

So yeah, it's pretty fair to say that I liked Different Seasons a lot. I could have done without Apt Pupil, but, ignoring that, it's a great collection of stories. I also just want to rebut something King says in the Afterword, which is this:
"My stuff, which is fairly plain, not very literary, and sometimes (although it hurts like hell to admit it) downright clumsy... I am able to recognise elegant prose and to respond to it, but have found it difficult or impossible to write it myself." To which I can only say 'nooooo!', but then also maybe 'yes, a bit, sometimes', but also, just see above, to The Body, to see the kind of things you can do with prose. I mean, yeah, he may not always be the best writer in the world, but he always creates characters that you know so well they could be members of your family, and sometimes comes up with such stunning truths that you are left basically speechless. Sometimes you just have to ask yourself which is better?

As well as moving my Stephen King Challenge along, this is the first of my posts for the R.I.P. Challenge. Scary times leading up to Hallowe'en here...

Revisiting Films: Donnie Darko (The Director's Cut)

Donnie Darko is one of those films where, the more I think about it, the more confused I get, until I just want to curl up in a ball and whimper until someone explains the damn thing to me! This last time of watching, though, I finally got a lot of things, and then, upon turning to the internet (something which I could and should have done much sooner because has it ever failed me?!) the final pieces of the whole horrible/wonderful puzzle slotted into place for me, and it was like the most giant relief ever. I felt at peace with Donnie and Frank, the giant bunny rabbit, and just about everything felt pretty groovy. I still have my moments, mostly late at night, where I get confused all over again, but then I think about it carefully and come out with the right answer again. Most of the time.

Have you seen Donnie Darko? If not, this review/explainy-thing is probably not going to mean that much to you, and even if you watch the non-director's cut version of the film, it probably still won't make that much sense. What you should probably do now is go away, find a friend with a copy of the Director's Cut (probably some weird friend you don't see that much of because they're always watching weird movies or reading graphic novels or something), and revel in this cinematic excellence for the first time. Then, come back here and I'll explain it to you. Probably. Sort of. If you're already well-versed in the goings on of Darko, sit back, grab a drink, and I'll try and make clearer to you something that may have been pretty obscure. You can thank me at the end.

So, the original Donnie Darko is relatively obscure- boy makes friends with a giant bunny rabbit, who tells him the world is going to end in 28 days (and some hours and stuff), he meets a girl, falls in love, weird, seemingly unconnected things happen, and then he dies but that means everything's ok. I think. I was so confused and shaken up, and just like 'huh?!' at the film when I first watched it, and although I knew I liked it, I wasn't sure exactly what it was I liked. The Director's Cut is a lot more explicit- it provides a lot more information, and clarifies everyone's roles in the context of time travel (I know, it sounds mental still, but at least it makes sense. Sort of.) like Donnie is the living receiver, who has this whole divine job to do, and everyone in the movie is the manipulated living, whose entire subconscious task is to help Donnie do what he needs to do. This explains weird behaviour like his family not being really worried that he might have died when the jet engine falls through the roof, and Drew Barrymore's telling Gretchen to sit next to the boy she finds the cutest (because he needs to love her so that he can be really upset that she's dead and definitely do what he has to do. Also because he's Jake Gyllenhaal, so obviously we'd all sit next to him anyway!)

So, all this stuff about the manipulated living and the living receiver and whatnot I kind of understood after watching the Director's Cut, but then I thought, but if all that needs to happen is for Donnie to die, then why does Frank call him out of his bed before the jet engine comes through his bedroom and make him do all that stuff before him eventually having to die anyway? So, I looked it up. Turns out, more or less the entire film happens in a tangent universe. The engine falls through Donnie's room after the tangent universe is created, so if he dies there and then, he never gets the opportunity to do what he needs to do (send a jet engine back into the primary universe) so that everyone is safe again and the primary universe won't collapse, and everyone, except Donnie, gets to live happily ever after. It pleases me to know this, as it pleases me to know that Frank, because he dies within the 28 days of the tangent universe, gets to travel among those 28 days, helping Donnie out and making sure he does everything he's supposed to so that the universe can be saved. One other interesting thing to know about the film is that, although when they return to the primary universe, everyone forgets about the tangent universe and what happens within it, but they may remember it in their dreams.

This basically explains everything- the weird bit at the end where everyone wakes up and looks freaked out/happy/sleeps soundly, because we're back in the real world, and that feeling that everything was collapsing around them is wonderfully gone. It explains Donnie so much better, and this line "Donnie Darko? What the hell kind of name is that? It's like some sort of superhero or something" "What makes you think I'm not?" because, as we now know, he sort of is a superhero. Also, having just had a quick scan of IMDb quotes from the film, so so much more of the dialogue makes sense, and those seemingly random exchanges are so much less random- in fact, they're not random at all. Don't we all feel more at peace with the world now that we know (the not at all simple) explanations for things? I know that I do.

There are, of course, alternative explanations for what is going on in this simply fascinating film, but they apply more to thinking about the original movie rather than The Director's Cut, which definitely seems to pick just the one narrative to go with. The most popular of these, I think, is that Donnie has paranoid schizophrenia, basically the entire movie is happening in his head, and all the things he sees but no one else does don't really exist. I never really bought this as an explanation for Donnie Darko (although as an explanation for American Psycho I really like it, because it dramatically lowers the death count in that book and leaves you inside the imaginings of this very disturbed man who, nonetheless, doesn't actually kill anyone) because it's a bit of a cop-out in the style of "and then I woke up and it was all a dream", and actually leaves a lot more loose ends than the whole time travel-tangent universe explanation does, so I like it a lot less. Never did I think I'd say that tangent universes and pre-ordained destinies make more sense than mental illness, but there you go, I just said it. Hopefully I've made a little more sense of the wonderful and intricate world of Donnie Darko for you, and if not, then let's just forget this whole thing ever happened, like the manipulated living do in the film. If you'd like to read a probably far more coherent explanation of the happenstances in Donnie Darko, I suggest you go here, but just don't be afraid of the Frank voice that happens without warning like I definitely wasn't...

Devouring Books: Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates

The problem with having a book blog is that I only write one post for each book, which isn't necessarily the best way to express the impact that a book has had on me. East of Eden is one such book whose impact can't really be summed up in a single post, and Blonde is another. Ostensibly a fictionalised auto/biography of Marilyn Monroe's life, this book literally had me enthralled for a week- if I wasn't reading it then I was thinking about it, wondering about the real Marilyn Monroe, and reading up about the real people behind the, at times extremely, fictionalised Hollywood that Oates has created. So yes, Blonde has had an impact on me that I can't really successfully sum up here, but I'll have a go at expressing just a tiny bit how amazing I found it.

I think it's really important to keep in mind, when reading Blonde, just how fictionalised it is. If one is expecting a clear account of every action Monroe made in her life, the people she met and the places she lived and whatnot, then they're going to be disappointed (and they should probably be reading a more conventional biography of Monroe). What you get instead, however, is so much better- a projection of what Oates thinks Monroe might have been thinking and feeling at different points in her life, and also what the people around her think and feel about her. In one way, I know this can be seen as almost exploitative, and not necessarily a fair representation of the actress, but in another, it almost doesn't matter who the subject of the novel is- it's so beautifully written, heartbreaking and joyful, and so much an overall representation of what life is like, that it could be about anyone and you would still find it as amazing as you do when it is about Monroe.

Or, I suppose, I shouldn't really be calling her Monroe, but rather Norma Jeane, as our heroine always refers to herself throughout the book, considering Marilyn to be just another character she plays, albeit her greatest. And while Marilyn is something of a one trick pony, Norma Jeane is amazing- so vulnerable and sweet, and just wanting so badly to be loved that you just want her to succeed, to find her man, and her baby, and just to be happy- something which it seems like she never is. Even as you know how the story ends (at least, I'm assuming we all know how this story ends) you're still wishing, until the very end, for her happiness, and for her to find a place in the world where she can finally be free.

Norma Jeane does, of course, encounter other people in her life, and Oates manages to draw them out as successfully as she does her main focus. It is quite clear that she has a fair bit of contempt towards Norma Jeane's three husbands, especially poor Arthur Miller, who she seems to think treats Norma Jeane as a sort of symbol rather than an actual person. I don't know if this critical attitude towards him comes from the fact that he is a fellow writer (although Oates doesn't seem to hold his work to very high esteem- she describes him as lacking poetry, which seems a tiny bit harsh) and she maybe believes that he should have been the one to save Norma Jeane, even as she is unable to save herself. She does allow him one bit of insight into the newly formed notion of fame, however, "Was this some new lurid development in the history of mankind? Public hysteria in the presence of someone known to be famous?" to which, as someone living in the twenty-first century, I can only YES, and it's much worse that you ever would have believed it could be now.

Much of the novel is devoted to men, or, more specifically, the way Norma Jeane reacts to the attention of men. Her actions seem to be classically Freudian, in that, by lacking a father, she attempts to make up for that void in her life by receiving the love she missed from him from other men. Unfortunately, the men she loves, while she calls them 'Daddy', can't provide the kind of love she really needs- they offer her sexual love, rather than affectionate, unconditional love. It's something she is willing to take, however, because "to be the object of make desire is to know I exist! The expression of the eyes. Hardening of the cock. Though worthless, you're wanted." What is really tragic about Norma Jeane's story (aside from the obvious) is that second-wave feminism hasn't really happened- there is a sense in which, if it had, Norma Jeane might have been a lot happier in herself, because she would be secure in the knowledge that she did have worth in the world by herself, and that she wouldn't have needed a man to affirm that. In spite of her attachment to men in this way, as it is said in the closing stages of the book "she was the most alone person I ever knew", and this is all part of her tragicness.

If I was going to criticise this book in any way (which I sort of don't even want to, but I feel like this has to be said) is that Oates doesn't allow Norma Jeane a single moment of breathing space to just be, and be happy. This isn't really even a criticism because, sadly, I feel like this might actually be true of the real Norma Jeane, but the fact is, since this is a fictionalised biography, it wouldn't necessarily hurt to suggest that Norma Jeane didn't hate Marilyn, but in fact embraced her as a way to reach out to the world, or that she was happy in her relationship with Miller, and didn't lose interest in him immediately after losing his baby. I can, of course, choose to believe that Norma Jeane did have some happiness in her life, since I have as might insight into her mental state as Oates does, but I fear that such a conclusion made by myself would just be wishful thinking.

But, apart from that tiny complaint that has more to do with my own wishes rather than any fault with the book, I love love loved Blonde. If I was the kind of blogger who gave stars, I'd give it fifty bazillion stars, and I would recommend it to you if you are interested in Marilyn Monroe, films, biographical writing, or if you just enjoy reading really amazing prose and you want to spend a week of your life consumed within a book (which you definitely do) then Blonde is definitely suitable for you. Read it, love it, then preserve the memory of its fabulousness within you forevermore.

Literary Blog Hop, September 8-11

The Literary Blog Hop is back! Yay! The trusty internetness tells me that I haven't participated since the start of July, so it's good to be back. Hosted as ever by the fab The Blue Bookcase, this week they ask:


Must all literary writing be difficult? Can you think of examples of literary writing that wasn't difficult?


I think the answer to this question depends on your definition of difficult, and your definition of literary. I would consider, for example, childrens books like His Dark Materials trilogy to be pretty literary (I'll fight you about that one, seriously) but in terms of language, it's not very difficult to read, although I suppose it is conceptually pretty complex.

In fact, maybe it's not difficulty that people are talking about when they talk about literary works at all, but rather complexity, which is a completely different thing- just because you have to pay a lot of attention and apply a lot of analysis to a book yourself, that isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just a sign of how complex the book is, or, in other words, how good it is. In terms of what I read, the books I find the most difficult to read are not necessarily the most complex (East of Eden, for example, is pretty complex, but it's so easy to just sail through-or at least that's what I find) but rather the ones that use the most 'clunky' language- Dickens is my ultimate nightmare, because he uses about 20 words to say what Steinbeck could achieve in about two. Difficulty for me, then, comes when someone rambles for no good reason, rather than when they use the sparsest amount of words to have the biggest impact, and nothing is superfluous to the story- a kind of complexity that doesn't at all have to be difficult.

If that made any sense then that's a bit of a miracle- I am a little bit rusty on attempting to talk intelligently about anything. I guess my point is though, that while a literary work is always complex, it doesn't, as an extension of this automatically have to be difficult. That's just my opinion- what do you have to say on the matter? Think 'literary' works are just awful, difficult pieces of trash? Let me know in the comments and I'll tell you why you're wrong...

Devouring Books: How to Leave Twitter by Grace Dent

I sort of knew of Grace Dent a little before I read this book as a woman who sometimes writes stuff in magazines (I think she has a column in British Marie Claire, but don't quote me on it) and I'd heard about this book and thought it might be a useful thing for me to read because of my twitter... if not addiction, then slight dependence. Now that I've read How to Leave Twitter, I've decided 2 things:
1) I don't have to leave Twitter because I don't really have the problems outlined in the book, and, to be honest, Dent has a far bigger twitter problem than me (although I do still suffer from Desktop Multi-Application Spiralling Circle of Hell Syndrome!), and
2) I completely love Grace Dent!

I mean, seriously love her. Because, much as I appreciated the analysis of all the little twitter foibles, and the characterisation of the different twitter personalities, without Dent's witty and hilarious observations, this book could have been really dry and boring. It manages to be so fabulous because Dent herself is a great writer- so so funny and cutting, and yet not really mean at all (unless I'm just immune to the mean because my own sense of humour can be like that... But I really think she manages to just be funny and not cruel!), and if I could write as well as her, I would definitely have some kind of paid writing job going on. Obviously. Because I'd be Grace Dent.

Anyway... Dent basically goes through the stages of twitter, starting with twitter denial ('oh no, I don't want to join twitter, it's for losers!') moving swiftly on to full blown addiction, where "you wake up in the morning and check twitter before checking whether your kids have been stolen in the night by raiders", and have to face the basic twitter archetypes (celebrity who brags about their life, person who makes their life sound more interesting than it actually is etc etc), and then moves onto the awkward business of unfollowing people, and justifications for doing so, and finally gives some precious advice on how to leave twitter (at the time of writing, Grace Dent is still on twitter, and in fact tweeted 15 minutes ago. So I don't know how closely you want to follow her advice if you want to leave twitter...)

But basically, it's just awesome and funny and you should really really read it even if you don't want to leave twitter (but probably not if you've never been on twitter because you will have not a clue what she's talking about). My favourite observation about twitter? "It's a form of 'going out' for the tremendously sociable who, in truth, can't be arsed to leave the house." So so true. I can completely use twitter as justification for staying in because I'm still 'being sociable'- I am, in fact, talking to my very good twitter friends in Australia and the US- it's amazing! Another reason to love Dent is that she says this: "To my mind there is a scene in Friends which can explain every emotion known to man." This is SO TRUE! I am forever using examples from Friends in my everyday life, with the encyclopaedic knowledge I have of the programme, so I'm always saying 'this is like the time Joey and Phoebe...' and so on. If I'm with someone who has never seen Friends I'm a tiny bit stuck, because it forms, I swear, about 90% of my conversational skills. Also I'm a bit stuck because I don't know why I am with such a person! But anyway...

This book did, as well as entertaining me enough to read it in a day, provide me with great justification as to why I'm allowed to stay on twitter. The fact is, using Dent as a benchpost, I'm a much more sensible twitter user than she is. I only follow 149 people (right now!) and most of those are other bloggers, newspapers, interesting celebrities and book related things. What I essentially use twitter for is to find links to interesting things I can read on the internet, rather than competitively trying to find new followers for no real reason, meaning that I fall well short of the pitfalls of having 3,000 followers which, apparently, makes one feel like they're queen of the Universe. I'm ok with just being queen in my own brain, and not spending my entire life on twitter. I guess using twitter in this way shuts off a lot of amazing people in the world to me, but that's sort of ok- I can deal with not knowing who they are. Yet.

So, twitter's where it's at everyone. As Grace Dent says, "Facebook feels like having a part-time admin job at the National Institute of Ass-hats," and, let's face it, is full of people you know but wish you didn't. Twitter, on the other hand, allows you to find your interest sharing internet soulmates, who you probably have a lot more in common with than people you have once met in your life. This book, also, is where it's at. Definitely go and buy it, and look out for this one section on feminism and twitter that couldn't help but rock my socks off (and confirm some of my suspicions about the women's magazine industry). What more can I say? Off you go!