Irreverent. Curious. Vaginas.

Our good friend David Farley recently held a launch party for his book An Irreverent Curiosity. The book is about Farley's adventures in and around Calcata, Italy, a bizarre village famous for once housing a holy relic: the foreskin of Jesus. In the mid-80s, the Holy Foreskin mysteriously disappeared. Farley spent a year in Italy searching for the story behind its disappearance. (It's an amazing book, by the way. It tore me away from Infinite Jest, which is not easy to do these days.)

Anyway. Back to the party! Farley and his wife Jessie—who, incidentally, was my friend way before Farley entered the scene—are friendly with Paulina Porizkova, the supermodel/writer/lovely human being, and she was also at the party. If you've been reading Finslippy for any length of time, you might remember my mentioning that Paulina's mom had been one of my midwives and had, in fact, delivered Henry. The last time I met Paulina, a few years ago, I shared this information with her. Then I got tongue-tied and couldn't think of anything else to talk about, so I backed away, waving and apologizing.

This time I felt a little more confident. Maybe it was all the wine? Hard to say. I suggested to Scott that we talk to her, and he turned this beautiful shade of lavender-gray. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but his mouth was moving frantically. I leaned in. He seemed to be pleading with me not to make him go over there.
"Aw," I said. "You're adorable! Let's go—I'll ask her if I can get her picture with you."
"No no no no," he whisper-shrieked. So cute!
"Oh, come now. At least we can say hello! Remember, her mom was my midwife. It's like we're related."
"I am not talking to Paulina. I had her poster on my bedroom wall. I… no. I will not talk to her."

But we were pushed inexorably forward by the party-tide, and soon we were abutting her circle. Then Paulina turned to us. And said hello.

Before I knew what I was doing I was reminding her that her mother had delivered my son Henry, and then I was showing her my iPhone pictures of Henry, and she was appreciating the pictures in a way that someone who has kids knows they're supposed to do. Scott was smiling and smiling some more. Also waving. But at least not apologizing, which I thought was a step forward for us as a couple. We're learning to socialize! It's never too late, kids!

I decided I was going to regale her with our favorite midwife story, which was when Scott accompanied me to a visit and I complained of yeast infections and Paulina's mom directed me never to wash my vagina with soap. (It was funny at the time.) (You had to be there.) As I was talking I realized that in order to communicate the hilarity of this story, which was not all that funny in the retelling of it, I had to 1) impersonate Paulina's mother, and 2) use the word "vagina" an awful lot. And then I became increasingly self-conscious at how much I was saying "vagina" and how the Czech/Swedish/Vampire accent I was affecting sounded a lot like I was just imitating Paulina, and not in a flattering way. I was horrified for me. Paulina looked concerned, but to her credit, she was not scanning the room for possible exits. I don't think Scott noticed what was happening, because while I yammered on he was sketching Paulina on a napkin.

To my credit, I ended the story quickly and also kept myself from telling Paulina how many stitches her mom had put in my hoo-ha. (That's polite code for "vagina.") Actually I never would have done that, because I don't really know. Maybe Paulina knew? Damn it, I should have asked her.

Miraculously, our new best friend managed to steer the conversation over to a more socially acceptable subject, for which I will be forever grateful. For the next twenty minutes or so we talked about our favorite books. The specific question she asked, which I think is kind of brilliant as a party conversation-topic-when-the-other-people-are-definitely-insane, is a three-parter. 1)What's the book you wish you had written? 2) What book do you read when you want something comforting and familiar? And 3) What book do you think everyone should read?

In response, Scott squeaked something about Noam Chomsky, and then he pulled his shirt over his head and flailed his arms about, shouting, "I'm a headless robot!" Or was that something Henry did this morning? At any rate, Noam Chomsky was mentioned. My responses were 1) To the Lighthouse, because I wanted to impress Paulina, 2) Anything by Laurie Colwin, because it's the truth, and 3) The Master and Margarita, because I wanted to impress Paulina. I'm going to have to think about what my real answers to 1 and 3 would be. The impressing-Paulina choices weren't far off, I think. I'm just glad I didn't say "The Big Book of Vaginas!" or "O, Vagina" or something equally off-kilter.

So. What would your books be?

Comments

[Badger]

But was Ric Ocasek there? Are they still married? Can you get him to sign my 45 of "Shake It Up"? Wait, what year is this?

Okay. #1 Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters. #2 Madeleine L'Engle's A Ring of Endless Light. #3 Christopher Moore's Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal.

I am a very spiritual vagina. I mean PERSON.

[Heather]

1. A History of God, by Karen Armstrong-- because I wish I knew that much about anything
2. Bridget Jones Diary-- oh god, I wish that wasn't true
3. Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood-- because everyone should love her like I do

[Adrienne]

1. Time Traveler's Wife - not only because of the movie option (cha-ching!) but because it was one of the most complex love stories I've ever read.
2. Anything by Barbara Kingsolver, but particularly Prodigal Summer. Love the way she ties disparate story lines together.
3. The Tipping Point. And The Omnivore's Dilemma. And The Mole People. And The Overacheivers. Apparently, I think people should read more non fiction.

These are totally awesome questions, btw.

[chiquita]

2.
Diana Gabaldon, Outlander series

2. and 3. Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott

[Elizabeth]

1. Prep
2. Little House on the Prairie
and
3.Charlotte's Web

[Kelly]

I wish I had written, Written On The Body by Jeannette Winterson.

I turn to Catcher in The Rye for comfort.

And everyone should read

The Cave, by Jose Saramago

Great questions.

[Susie]

I love this post, and I love this question... without thinking as hard as I want to:

1. The Poisonwood Bible (Kingsolver)
2. East of Eden (Steinbeck)
3. East of Eden again. Or All the King's Men. Or Animal Farm. Oh god, I wasn't supposed to think about it this hard...

[Accidental Olympian]

1. Barbara Kingsolver's, POISONWOOD BIBLE.

2. Wow... I don't even know. I don't tend to ever reread books. Except now that I think of it, BLACK BEAUTY by Anna Sewell. I did read that book about 7 times growing up. Maybe a reread would bring me comfort.

3. BLINK, by Malcolm Gladwell to learn something interesting about that wild brain of ours, and Toni Morrison's BELOVED because it changed my life.

Wow... lengthy answers. Someone over here gets a little too excited about books.

[Girl Friday]

1) Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
2) Harry Potter or anything Jane Austen
3) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

[Sarah]

I wished I'd written any of the books in Beverly Cleary's Ramona Quimby series. (Ramona Quimby, Age 8 is my favorite for this one sentence: "Go away, blue oatmeal.")

My favorite book to reread The Waterboy, by Gary Reiswig. My description can't do it justice. It's the first - and only - book I've ever read. When I first read it, I had a borrowed copy. I wouldn't have returned it had I known that I'd be spending the next 15 years scouring used book stores and yard sales to find it. (I finally found it on Abe's Books website.) I don't know why I think this, but I believe a mother who has sons, or woman who is the only girl among lots of brothers, would enjoy reading it.

Everyone should read the Amelia Bedelia books. My experience is that no matter how dated they are (her uniform! her hairpins!), they are always funny. And enjoying truly funny writing is one of the best parts of reading, I think.

[Sarah]

oops. The Waterboy isn't the first and only book I've ever read. It's the first book I've read and actually spent years looking for, so that I could reread it. Gahh. The typos. They haunt me.

[Tahlia]

1) The Harry Potter series, mostly because I would really love to inspire kids to read.

2) I don't tend to reread books much, actually, so I don't think I have one here.

3) Can I choose three? Well, no one's stopping me.

The Girls - Lori Lansens -- just really great character development and great writing and one of my favourite books, which is saying a lot

Crisis - Mitchell Gold -- it's a series of stories written by people who are gay in America and whether you agree or disagree with being gay, you should read it because it really makes you think

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand -- if you can make it through. it totally changed my political views and made me much smarter.

[wonderer]

Great questions!

1) Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold
2) Anne of Green Gables
3) Pippi Longstocking, for the same reason as Sarah cited Amelia Bedelia above. Silly, funny, joyous, and unapologetic.

[Carol]

1) All of the "Friday Next" series, by Jaspar Fforde
Funny, weird, smart stuff. For bookaholics.

2) "The Clan of the Cave Bear" series, by Jean Auel
I don't think it would be particularly comforting for everyone, but I know it so well it's like visiting an old friend. I don't even read every page now, I just read every other page. (And skip all the stuff about plants. I don't need to read all the medicinal properties of Foxglove, again.)

3) Neal Stephenson's "Quicksilver"/"Confusion"/"System of the World" trilogy. Very densely written historical fiction, but full of really cool historical stuff that you would never have believed could have been made cool. ... That sentence really sucked, but I hope you get what I mean. :)

[Yolanda]

1. Anything by TC Boyle, but especially Talk, Talk

2. I don't re-read, usually. But I recently re-read Charlotte's Web and I loved it.

3. One Hundred Years of Solitude, it's one of the few books that I purposely stopped reading for a day about 20 pages from the end, because I was devastatingly sad that I wouldn't get to read it forever.

[MomVee]

Badger, I am reading Lamb right now--well, I started it, and I'm supposed to be reading Infinite Jest, so my son stole it from me.

1. The Fountain Overflows, Rebecca West
2. Maggie-Now, Betty Smith
3. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck. I'm pretty sure I would have said that even if Susie hadn't already.

[highlyirritable]

What's the book you wish you had written?

Anything by Canadian author Alice Munro. Google her. She's incredible.

I'll wait for you....

See? Didn't I tell ya? Now go tell someone else.

What book do you read when you want something comforting and familiar? And

"The Color Purple."

What book do you think everyone should read?

"The Grapes of Wrath." You will never look at the American poor, farming, or capitalism the same way. Seriously - this book will make you volunteer for shit.

[PB Rippey/sleepless mama]

1. Jane Eyre
2. Jane Eyre
3. I used to think "Daniel Martin" by Fowles because of the intricacy and truth of the relationships in that book--but I don't feel that way anymore after another rereading. "Poisonwood Bible" is pretty amazing. Oh--I know. Of course! Doh. Lessing's, "The Golden Notebook".

[Jenn (dish)]

I have to steal Tahlia's answer for #1 (but since it's true for me, too, it's not really stealing, right?). I wish I had written the Harry Potter series not for the fame but for the pleasure and imaginative thinking it brings to kids and adults alike. Fun is a good thing!

#2: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the whole series, but especially book #1)

#3: Hmmm, lots of possiblities. I was always drawn to Roald Dahl's books as a kid, so I would probably have to say Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a must read for all.

[Randa @ Honestly Crazy]

Gaaah, don't you hate it when you're trying to be all suave and smart and you just trip all over yourself?
Thanks all for the fodder for my next library trip.
I wish I had written: The Giving Tree
Comforting: Me too, Anne of Green Gables
Everyone should read: Jane Eyre

[Nicole]

Cue NoDoubt's early 90's song, "Paulina," and you can flashback in more that one era simultaneously. I am proud that you held it together so much better than I could have.

1) Wish I had written: Anything by Mark Leyner or Donald Barthelme.
2) Find comfort in The Secret History, by Donna Tartt. Read over summer break in college and felt every molecule of the setting and story giving the finger to my life at the time.
3) Everyone should read: What is the What? by Dave Eggers, if only for gnawing sense that art can better where humans do poorly.

[Shnerfle]

1. I wish I had written the Bible. It would have been so much clearer. And shorter. And possibly funnier.
2. I always return to Pride and Prejudice for comfort. I long to walk the shades of Pemberly.
3. And everyone should read The Hero With A Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell. There is more that binds us together than separates us.

[Barb @ getupandplay]

I am LOVING all these book suggestions. I am in love with reading but I have pretty much limited myself to only reading books that are recommended to me- otherwise I end up wasting good reading time on mediocre books!

I wish I had written the Twilight books because they aren't that complex or contain particularly clever writing so I think I COULD HAVE DONE THAT and then I would be a MILLIONAIRE Mormon SAHM instead of just a Mormon SAHM. :)

I love reading and rereading Coming Home by Rosamunde Pilcher. I just love it, it is comfy to me.

Everyone should read The People's History of the United States (well, if you live in the U.S.)

[darcie]

why? why is this so funny? answer: overuse of the word vagina. because i am fourteen.

[Elizabeth_K]

1. Moo, Baa, La, La, La by Sandra Boynton
2. Saint Maybe, Anne Tyler
3. Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather

Hoo-ha, such a gentle way of saying vagina! :)

[Tess]

1. a) Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. b) Boys of My Youth by Jo-Ann Beard c) Motherless Brooklyn.

2. A Prayer for Owen Meany, Animal Dreams, Good-bye Without Leaving/Happy All the Time/Home Cooking, Paris to the Moon. Also Robert Parker mysteries. And mail-order catalogs. Oh jeez and Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott. That could be (1) or (2).

3. I don't really know about this one. I thought it was great when New York had Native Speaker as its city-wide reading project, but that's because it's both well-written and sociologically unusual, not because I think it's the one book everyone should read. My husband thinks everyone should read The Metaphysical Club, but I didn't get past page 13 (sorry, Louis) so I can't really claim to think it's a universal maxim. OK. I'm going to say Lonesome Dove. And I defend my response with the observation that I don't know anyone who didn't love it, and it's good to know you can love to read like that.

[Elizabeth]

Alice!

My answer to # 2 is the same as your answer to # 2! I adore Laurie Colwin!

You rock.

[Elizabeth]

What did Polina's mother suggest washing the vagina with (to avoid yeast infections)?

I ask in all seriousness.

Thank you. That is all.

[Candace]

1) "Skinny Legs and All" by Tom Robbins.
2) The Lord of the Rings series by J. R. R. Tolkien, I don't know why this is comforting but I used to read the whole series every year.
3) "The Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan.

[Alice]

Elizabeth: Just water. "Don' use soap," she said, over and over. "Only water."

[Jen]

Gigglegigglegiggle. About you and soap and vaginas and about Sarah at 5:20 confessing she's only read one book, which was really, really funny once I was already laughing.

I'm going to have to think about these questions. I began Infinite Jest this summer and at 100 pages in my husband made the mistake of saying that he felt I was far enough into it that it wouldn't meet the Vanity Fair fate (I've started that book a million times, brought it on trips, but a new edition and still never gotten past a chapter or two).

Obviously that was the kiss of death. Only picked it up once since then.

But, the family was begging me to finally read all the Harry Potters, so I've been having a summer like I remember from long, long ago, reading while eating, reading while reading the paper, reading while walking up to get the laundry... I've finished 3 and 4 (next step, remembering titles rather than numbers) and am halfway through 5. So it's time to get off the internet and knock off another hundred (FOOTNOTE FREE) pages.

[Sue M.]

1) Infinite Jest, 2) Infinite Jest, and 3) Infinite Jest (until September 21, anyway, GAHHH!!)

[Heather G]

1) "Jane Eyre"
2) Any Bill Bryson book or "Tender to the Bone" by Ruth Reichel.
3) "Cloudstreet" by Tim Winton. He's Australian and I love him.

[Mrs. Kennedy]

OMG you're reading Infinite Jest?! ME TOO!!!

[janatig]

Yes, GREAT questions!

1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Bill Bryson's entire canon. The Narnia series.
3. The Brothers K by David James Duncan; Real Food by Nina Planck

[binkytowne]

I don't even know but man I needed this after a day of reading about bloggy bloggy blog drama and stuff. Vaginas are better. Thanks.

[Laura]

1. Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson
2. The Ten Thousand Things, Maria Dermout (not well enough known, but like your berries in the microwave, DO IT NOW)
3. Moby-Dick, Melville

[Miss B]

(1) The Elegance of the Hedgehog -- it is Just So. Stunning and breathtaking and devastating and wonderful.

(2) Through the Looking Glass (and What Alice Found There); American Gods (by Neil Gaiman); anything by J.D. Salinger or William Saroyan

(3) This isn't technically a book, but I think everyone should read "Tracy's Tiger", a short piece by William Saroyan. It is one of my favorite pieces of writing ever, period.

[Megsie]

Love the questions :)

1. The Pillars of the Earth

2. I don't reread books either, but I think A Wrinkle in Time fits the bill.

3. Hmmmm. This is a big responsibility. It has to be really GOOD, and it has to change a perspective, or teach something, or make some sort of DIFFERENCE. Well, there you have it: To Kill a Mockingbird.

Thanks for letting me play along!

[Lori]

laurie colwin is my comfort read as well. so many people haven't heard of her.

[momtrolfreak]

1) The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Except I could not have written it because I am not Indian, and it's one of those "you have to know it" kinda books.
2) I never ever re-read. That is all. If I want comfort I do magazines: Cookie, Real Simple. Brainless brain-nothinged brained0out mindcandy. or if i want something in between, the New Yorker.
3) "The Road" by Cormac Macarthy. The bleakest damn book that ever made me love humanity.

p.s. Vagina.

[jen]

skipping 1 and 3 for now. But, #2 is definitely Laurie Colwin. Yay for Laurie Colwin. And also Patrick O'Brian's Jack & Stephen series. (really. Try them!) And also John Le Carré's Smiley trilogy. Spies, and domesticity, and 18th-c naval warfare. they're all comforting.

[Karen Dietrich]

1. The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard
2. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (yes, I am weird...I'm comforted by a story about a dead teenage girl)
3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

[Megan]

Aw, I love Laurie Colwin - she's one of the few authors both my mom and I both enjoy. I keep a book of hers in my car to read in between work appointments, even though I've read the passages a dozen times.

Ok, some other favorites:

- The Giver
- Traveling Mercies

[Nate]

Never have I been so entertained by the word vagina - it's amazing how a little Porizkova can spice things up. You have now become a must read! (I'm sure you already were but hey - I live under a rock from Monday-Friday.)

To answer your questions:
1. Ulysses by James Joyce but only because it's so damn convoluted it'd make me look interesting.
2. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
3. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

[Elizabeth]

I wish I had written Atonement.

I am comforted by Pride and Prejudice

Everyone should read Cloudstreet.

[Jamie]

Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery)
Pride & Prejudice (Austen)
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Kingsolver)
Henderson the Rain King (Bellow)
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Dillard)
Animals in Translation (Grandin)

[Dana]

1) Where the Wild Things Are - Sendak
2) A Prayer for Owen Meany - Irving
3) Of Mice and Men - Steinbeck

[TexasDeb]

Wish I'd written: Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy
Comforted by: To Kill A Mockingbird
Everyone (especially all the Kingsolver fans out there) should read: The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea

[L]

1. I loved, I lost, I made spaghetti - Giulia Melucci
2. Skinny Legs and All - Tom Robbins
3. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman