gabrielle zevin writes

friday nonsense, no. 10: my parents’ pre-oscar dinner menu...

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:44:00 -0500

friday nonsense, no. 10: my parents’ pre-oscar dinner menu with puns. Having seen The Help, I’m a bit worried about the dessert. Mom and Dad have been making awesomely bad food puns for years.

Hello Fellow Cinemaphiles,

Please join us for Pre-Oscar Dinner on Friday, February 25^th.

Nominations are:

Appetizer:

Eggstremely good and incredible caviar

Entrée:

Scallops are better than War Horse meat

Side Dish:

The Descendants ate pineapple and rice

Dessert:

Just say no to The Help’s Pie

Please let The punny Artist know whether the envelope will say “yes, we’re coming, but no more bad puns please” or “no way”

Mom and Dad

monday obsessions no. 4: The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman is...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:25:56 -0500

monday obsessions no. 4: The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman is just plain wonderful.

friday nonsense, no. 9: my dog, nico, would rather not pose with...

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:19:49 -0500

friday nonsense, no. 9: my dog, nico, would rather not pose with my mom’s portrait of him.

wednesday narcissism, no. 7: anya on...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:00:05 -0500

wednesday narcissism, no. 7: anya on tragedy

hipsterbookquotes:

Submitted by notesfromagloe.

tuesday hijinks, no. 6: brief synopsis of Because It is My...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:00:00 -0500

tuesday hijinks, no. 6: brief synopsis of Because It is My Blood, the sequel to All These Things I’ve Done, which comes out September 18, 2012. The story takes place partially in Oaxaca — isn’t Oaxaca pretty?

Because It Is My Blood

Every time I think I’m out, they pull me back in.”- Michael Corleone, The Godfather

Since her release from Liberty Children’s Facility, Anya Balanchine is determined to follow the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, her criminal record is making it hard for her to do that. No high school wants her with a gun possession charge on her rap sheet. Plus, all the people in her life have moved on: Natty has skipped two grades at Holy Trinity, Scarlet and Gable seem closer than ever, and even Win is in a new relationship. But when old friends return demanding that certain debts be paid, Anya is thrown right back into the criminal world that she had been determined to escape. It’s a journey that will take her across the ocean and straight into the heart of the birthplace of chocolate where her resolve—and her heart—will be tested as never before.

firsttimeuser:

tismark:

Street Scenes from Oaxaca

We were in Oaxaca about two days, but significant days, Dec 31st and Jan 1st. Pretty much all of my walking around the city photos are from New Year’s Day. I don’t know what the atmosphere of Oaxaca is like any other time of the year but I’m sure it’s a beautiful city no matter what. Looking back at my photos of Mexico, I very nearly booked a flight to see Oaxaca for New Years AGAIN - that would have been two years in a row. I went another direction but I still feel sure I’ll visit Oaxaca again one day.

About: Website / Photography Site / Travels / Twitter

monday obsessions no. 3: Another Earth. Loved the writing and...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:02:00 -0500

monday obsessions no. 3: Another Earth. Loved the writing and the performances in this 2011 Sundance winner, which you can now see on DVD, etc.

friday nonsense no. 8: anthropomorphized dogs. Elsewhere readers...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:27:34 -0500

friday nonsense no. 8: anthropomorphized dogs. Elsewhere readers will know that anthropomodogs are my weakness.

firsttimeuser:

William Wegman at Work © Madeleine de Sinéty

thursday chocolate, no. 8: this one’s about coffee, which...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:35:37 -0500

thursday chocolate, no. 8: this one’s about coffee, which frequent readers of my various ramblings will know I prefer to chocolate anyway. According to this piece on NPR, Sultan Murad IV, a ruler of the Ottoman Empire, used to decapitate people for drinking coffee!

Other interesting bits:

“If you look at the rhetoric about drugs that we’re dealing with now — like, say, crack — it’s very similar to what was said about coffee,” Stewart Allen, author of The Devil’s Cup: Coffee, the Driving Force in History, tells The Salt. In Murad’s Istanbul, religious leaders preached on street corners that coffee would inspire indecent behavior. As the bean moved west into Europe, physicians rallied against it, claiming that coffee would “dry up the cerebrospinal fluid” and cause paralysis.

But apparently the motivation was really political:

Monarchs and tyrants publicly argued that coffee was poison for the bodies and souls of their subjects, but Mark Pendergrast — author of Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World — says their real concern was political.

“Coffee has a tendency to loosen people’s imaginations … and mouths,” he tells The Salt.

And inventive, chatty citizens scare dictators.

According to one story, an Ottoman Grand Vizier secretly visited a coffeehouse in Istanbul.

“He observed that the people drinking alcohol would just get drunk and sing and be jolly, whereas the people drinking coffee remained sober and plotted against the government,” says Allen.

British anti-coffee manifesto from the 17th century:

npr:

Drink Coffee? Off With Your Head!

Most folks who resolved to cut down on coffee this year are driven by the simple desire for self-improvement.

But for coffee drinkers in 17th-century Turkey, there was a much more concrete motivating force: a big guy with a sword.

Sultan Murad IV, a ruler of the Ottoman Empire, would not have been a fan of Starbucks. Under his rule, the consumption of coffee was a capital offense.

The sultan was so intent on eradicating coffee that he would disguise himself as a commoner and stalk the streets of Istanbul with a hundred-pound broadsword. Unfortunate coffee drinkers were decapitated as they sipped.

Murad IV’s successor was more lenient. The punishment for a first offense was a light cudgeling. Caught with coffee a second time, the perpetrator was sewn into a leather bag and tossed in the river.

But people still drank coffee. Even with the sultan at the front door with a sword and the executioner at the back door with a sewing kit, they still wanted their daily cup of joe. And that’s the history of coffee in a bean skin: Old habits die hard. —Adam Cole

thursday chocolate no. 7: the prettiest petit four of the day...

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:46:00 -0500

thursday chocolate no. 7: the prettiest petit four of the day accompanied by a Dorothy Parker poem to temper the sweetness:

Cherry White

I never see that prettiest thing-
A cherry bough gone white with Spring-
But what I think, “How gay ‘twould be
To hang me from a flowering tree.”

Poor Mrs. Parker and her suicidal tendencies. For further explorations in Mrs. Parker, I recommend The Portable Dorothy Parker. I loved Dorothy Parker when I was a teenager.

Wondering whether this poem is too depressing to post. Then again, literature is dark, people. I don’t think I even knew what depression was until I read The Catcher in the Rye at age 12.

Tuesday Hijinks, No. 4: An interview with me about the...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:09:00 -0500

Tuesday Hijinks, No. 4: An interview with me about the paperback version of All These Things I’ve Done and title reveal for the second book.

Something I wanted to put in the interview but didn’t. All the titles of the books in the series add up to form a synopsis of the series. At this point, you have half the sentence: All these things I’ve done because it is my blood… etc.

P.S. The jacket on my tumblr is - I believe - the final version; it’s a little bit different than the one on BookPage.

I love you. Any advice for someone writing three books at the same time in their head, one half-typed up on a computer, the other just beginning in a notebook, and the last one a plan ages ago with half the details forgotten? And again, I love you.

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:41:00 -0500

Saturday Wisdom, No. 4: Have you ever noticed that debut novelists seem to have the most advice about novel writing? I was like that once. The more books I’ve written, the less advice I have to give. Each time out has been a unique — and usually, uniquely painful — experience for me. After six books, what I know — what I know for certain — is how little I know about writing, about readers, about the vagaries of the publishing process. So, that is to say, you probably ought to ignore my advice and keep your own counsel. And yet, my deeply flawed opinion is that it is beyond difficult to write more than one book at a time, to be the servant of two masters. You at some point have to choose one idea and pour all of yourself into it. You have to be all in. The question of how to choose is an entirely different matter of course.

P.S. I thank you for the love.

Thursday Chocolate, no. 6: minimalist mustache cake. Aside:...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:55:42 -0500

Thursday Chocolate, no. 6: minimalist mustache cake. Aside: Mustaches are everywhere these days. It’s starting to seem a bit sinister to me.

Wednesday Narcissism no. 6: What higher honor can a book receive...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:11:00 -0500

Wednesday Narcissism no. 6: What higher honor can a book receive than to be gosling-ized? Yes, we are amused.

ryangoslingyoungadult:

Thank you, Bookphilia!

Book Reference: All These Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin.

Friday Nonsense #4: My new boyfriend is one-dimensional and he...

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:47:00 -0500

Friday Nonsense #4: My new boyfriend is one-dimensional and he doesn’t look all that into me.

Wednesday Narcissism #5 The camera throwing scene in...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:00:06 -0500

Wednesday Narcissism #5

The camera throwing scene in Memoirs.

this-grayunicorn-is-an-art-geek:

errrr. i cannot afford to this with my camera :) hahhaha but anyway this photography trick is insane and it produces more insanity when printed :)

HAHAHA :)

Thursday Chocolate, No. 5: Makes me think of “You’re...

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:16:06 -0500

Thursday Chocolate, No. 5: Makes me think of “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon.

Wednesday Narcissism #4: Re: that line down there: I liked it...

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:02:05 -0500

Wednesday Narcissism #4:

Re: that line down there: I liked it when I wrote it; I still like it; I still think it’s true.

devlynmc:

“The illusion of effortlessness requires a great effort indeed.”

"The lie, of course, is more interesting."

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 10:03:05 -0500

“The lie, of course, is more interesting.”

- John Irving (via theparisreview)

Saturday Wisdom #3: a rich interview with John Irving. I liked this part:

Titles are important; I have them before I have books that belong to them. I have last chapters in my mind before I see first chapters, too. I usually begin with endings, with a sense of aftermath, of dust settling, of epilogue. I love plot, and how can you plot a novel if you don’t know the ending first? How do you know how to introduce a character if you don’t know how he ends up? You might say I back into a novel.

Thursday Chocolate #3 joliive: That dress is made of...

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 10:00:05 -0500

Thursday Chocolate #3

joliive:

That dress is made of chocolate.

Now that is truly a delicious…

Wednesday Narcissism #3: A reader sent me an e-mail saying I had...

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 12:08:00 -0500

Wednesday Narcissism #3: A reader sent me an e-mail saying I had inspired this tattoo. This is a first for me. It’s nice to be reminded that my books have meant something to someone.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends & readers!