It's Time for a BOOK CLUB, y'all. But for discussing trash, masterpieces and trashterpieces.
By which I mean, it's summer, let's heat things up a bit by reading some Shopping & Fucking Classics, inspired by Chris Haines's Salon Article on the Shopping & Fucking Canon:
"Although the Times tends to trumpet its cultural epiphanies, there is nothing “new” about the Jacqueline Susann Zeitgeist. Stories about horny, drug-addled women never stopped fueling the mass market paperback industry. What exactly does the paper of record think we’ve been reading at the beach and on planes for the past 15 years? Ben Bradlee? If the reissue of “Valley of the Dolls” signifies anything, it is the canonization of the great unsung literary genre of the late 20th century: the Shopping and Fucking Novel."
What *have* we been reading on beaches and airplanes?
So the first question is - what on earth should be our first book?
Let me know and keep in mind one or several of Chris Haines's rules:
"6) The story reads the same whether you start at the beginning, middle or end. Which means that you can pick ’em up and put ’em down without conscious design, just like the broads do with their men — and their credit cards.
By which I mean, it's summer, let's heat things up a bit by reading some Shopping & Fucking Classics, inspired by Chris Haines's Salon Article on the Shopping & Fucking Canon:
"Although the Times tends to trumpet its cultural epiphanies, there is nothing “new” about the Jacqueline Susann Zeitgeist. Stories about horny, drug-addled women never stopped fueling the mass market paperback industry. What exactly does the paper of record think we’ve been reading at the beach and on planes for the past 15 years? Ben Bradlee? If the reissue of “Valley of the Dolls” signifies anything, it is the canonization of the great unsung literary genre of the late 20th century: the Shopping and Fucking Novel."
What *have* we been reading on beaches and airplanes?
So the first question is - what on earth should be our first book?
Let me know and keep in mind one or several of Chris Haines's rules:
"6) The story reads the same whether you start at the beginning, middle or end. Which means that you can pick ’em up and put ’em down without conscious design, just like the broads do with their men — and their credit cards.
7) The cover, featuring a gauzy shot of semi-clad female anatomy, must look like a soft-core Hallmark card. And, after one sweaty-palmed reading, it must fall off. Not only does this appropriately allude to the unveiling that happens within, it disguises the book for subway reading.
8) The sacred and the profane. These stories inevitably focus on celebrities — world-famous actresses, designers, screenwriters and psychoanalysts. Yet they always maintain the flavor of small-town gossip, where the coveted piece of ass is thy neighbor’s wife, who just happens to be an international superstar model.
9) There must be a cavalier attitude toward drugs. According to Silverberg, Susann and her rainbow-colored dolls led the way: “I think that Jackie opened the door to all of those people. She introduced middle-class drug addiction.” By the time Gael Greene came along, her Upper West Side mavens were practically expected to sit around in caftans smoking a joint."
So, crowdsourcing, where do we begin?
Should we begin at the beginning, with 'valley of the dolls'?
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