a ridiculous raw youth: Summer Reading

If I were a snotty liberal in my mid-to-late forties and generally thought of myself as the "cool uncle," I would just link to NPR's special book section on summer reading. I would probably make some sort of comments about how some of the books are entertaining, and then make a disparaging remark about whatever book Oprah is shilling that month, even though she's listed a few books that I've always meant to read and there's one or two that seem interesting that I haven't heard of, and mutter to myself because now all of the books are going to have that awful sticker on them and I'll feel like everyone thinks I do what Oprah tells me to do.

But I'm not the cool uncle, so I won't do anything like that. I will probably end up being the "I'm still cool, right? Do the kids say cool anymore?" relative at some point, but not yet. And if I do end up growing up that way, chances are I will outgrow the habit of photoshopping the cover of books I've recently read and enjoyed onto pictures of men I enjoy naked in an attempt to straddle the line between SFW and NSFW. But that won't be for a long time.

America, America by Ethan Canin