Currently Reading

The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders

I've only read his fiction, but I'm really enjoying his non-fiction. Just funny and absurd and honest. He's definitely one of my favorite modern authors. Everyone should read this book.
He has this essay about reading Johnny Tremain, one of my kind of embarassing childhood favorites (because it was a book for boys, duh) and how it totally changed the way he viewed writing.

"A sentence, Forbes seemed to believe, not only had to say something, it had to say it uniquely, with verve. A sentence was more than just a fact-conveyer; it also made a certain sound, and could have a thrilling quality of being over-full, saying more than its length should permit it to say. A sequence of such sentences exploding in the brain made the invented world almost unbearably real, each sentence serving as a kind of proof."

There is also an essay made up of letters to an advice columnist "Ask the Optimist" where he suggests to a man who has turned into a turkey ("I am a man trapped in a turkey's body. I have dim memories of my life as a human. But then I look down, and there are my wattles!") to meet him on Christmas Day by the "waiting spot," a tree stump with an ax leaning against it.

Love this man.