Healthier Substitutes

Since graduating from college in a down-turned economy that takes every opportunity to laugh maniacally in the bewildered face of my Bachelor of Arts in English, I’ve served several stints in retail in an attempt to at least seem like a functioning member of society. Most recently, I sold over-priced shoes to women who not only have enough money to fly from out of state for the sole purpose of shopping at this one store, but also have enough leisure time to do this in the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday. I soon learned that minimum wage simply wasn’t worth my laboring in the womb of the antichrist; that, and that the world is, unfortunately, full of idiots.

My current job as a bookseller, thankfully, has me surrounded day-in and day-out by witty, mild-mannered, bookish folk; it is, in fact, a lot like what I imagine being called home by a mother ship would feel like, if I were E.T. But when the business man in the double-breasted jacket walks up to the cash register with an enormous stack of magazines because he’s hoping I won’t notice the one he really came in to buy (the one suspiciously wrapped in tinted plastic so that the only things that peek out are the words “GIRLS,” “RED-HOT,” and “OH YES” scattered around the face of a long-haired jail-bait who stares salaciously with her mouth open like a half-dead fish), or when the middle-aged woman in the velour tracksuit hands me a romance novel with some Fabio look-alike dressed in leather breeches on the cover, a silent but shattering cry erupts from somewhere deep within my hollow, tin chest and I know that if I had a soul, it would be throwing a tantrum. I can let it slide when idiots are being idiots with shoes. But idiots being idiots with books? This is my battlefield, people.

And so, to battle the likes of the occasional porn-magazine-buyer, the romance novel addict, and the unfortunate victims of that god-awful Twilight saga, I give you my list of healthier substitutes to help make your reading year idiot-free.

If you like fairytales:

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter is an excellent collection of reimagined fairytales from a writer who walks in the footsteps of the genre’s master, Charles Perrault. “The Company of Wolves,” Carter’s retelling of the classic Little Red Riding Hood, is my particular favorite – especially for its feminist inclinations.

You should also check out We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. It’s magical in prose and plot, and has just the right amount of darkness and foreboding to make it a truly intriguing read.

If you like romance:

Juliet, Naked is the latest release from About A Boy author, Nick Hornby and shows that entertainment can go hand-in-hand with merit.

If you like the mysterious, strange, and inexplicable:

The Girl on the Fridge by Etgar Keret is, simply put, one of the best short story collections I have ever read. It’s easy to take his stories for their face value, but be warned: they each pack a punch.

For something a bit more psychological but still off-kilter, go for Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

If you like music, films, and/or a certain open-endedness in life:

Pick up A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Even if you’re not into any of these things, pick it up anyway, because more likely than not, you’ll still find something for you. It’s layered, it’s kaleidoscopic, it’s epic – it’s a story about time told in the only way a story about time can be told: non-linearly, through multiple perspectives and points-of-view, with no real beginning and no real end. Egan is more than an inventive writer; she’s a smart writer, a risk-taking writer who has the prose-style to pull off everything she attempts.

If you like science fiction:

Neil Gaiman is the jedi master. His novel, Neverwhere is my personal favorite and a true thing of beauty.

If you like soap operas, dramas, intrigue, tears, and/or tragic bromances {yes, bromances}:

You need not look any further than the grand-daddy of rap, William Shakespeare and my favorite of his tragedies, The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. Iago is perhaps the greatest villain ever written, and I will forever resent Walt Disney for spitting on his memory by naming that mindless parrot in Aladdin after him.

If you like ahem, sexy reads:

You’ll definitely enjoy the misadventures of the hero in Chad Kultgen’s The Average American Male. Kultgen is a conceited writer, but he’s got style and definitely appears to be a trustworthy expert in his subject. Expect to laugh, to be a little uncomfortable, and to finish the book in one go.

If you like Vampires, the occult, fantasy, and/or {god forbid} Twilight:

Stick to the staples: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft, everything by J.R.R. Tolkien and his best bro, C.S. Lewis, and, hell, let’s throw in Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale just for kicks.

If you like James Franco:

Don’t. And don’t even think about picking up his short story collection, which is so abysmal it doesn’t even deserve to be named here. My advice in this case would be to go with who does it better. If you were going read it, you’d be in for two hundred and eight pages of monotonous, noncommittal prose on teen angst – a subject J.D. Salinger already explored brilliantly in my favorite book of all time, The Catcher in the Rye. Suck it, James.

Jayne Wilson wrote her first short story when she was six-years-old – it was god-awful, but she’s never looked back. She graduated from the University of California, Davis where she studied English with a Creative Writing emphasis. She shall kill no albatross.