Jenny Check

Recommended Reading Hand-Me-Downs

Every time my old writing professor comes to town, I ask him to recommend a book or an author.  This last time, he recommended Brian Morton.  I got A Window Across the River, and I couldn't put it down.  It was so sharp and funny, the characters were interesting and in trouble and the story flowed really naturally... I went out and got the rest of Brian Morton's oevre yesterday. Previous recommendations from this esteemed prof include: Gish Jen's Mona in the Promised Land (very funny, loved it), Geoff Ryman's Was (very impressive and creepy at the end- poor Dorothy!), Stephen Wright's Going Native (very creepy- makes you paranoid that someone random is going to kill you for no good reason), Lydia Davis's The End of the Story (turns around on itself a lot, funny, but makes you a little crazy), Alan Lightman's The Diagnosis (depressing, but beautifully written- makes you feel like you're seeing the world with your eyes dialated).

Good Food Writing

I just read Calvin Trillin's "Feeding a Yen."  I've already seen some of his essays in the New Yorker; my friend, Emily, really liked the article on Shopsin's ("Don't Mention It").  If I could be invisible, I'd want to go to the new Shopsin's and meet Kenny, but as a non-local-non-invisible, I am justly afraid.  My favorite in the book was the essay on red and white wine and "the Test." Like Trillin, I am heavily influenced by wine bottle labels, so it was fun to watch wine experts squirm for a bit, though they have their day in the end. I'd like to say Trillin reminds me of Steingarten because I read Steingarten before I read Trillin, but I think it should be the other way around.