Reading is Sexy: Sales Conference Edition
1 April 2007I’ve made it through another sales conference alive and without incident (to my knowledge, anyway. Fingers crossed that they don’t call me into HR on monday for a viewing of the conference center’s security tape) even in the presence of several open bars and a live anteater (Not kidding. Anteater. In our meeting sessions, on purpose, and for no reason. It was phenomenal). I’ve learned a lot about myself, such as how much I enjoy hearing the sentence “and here’s your minibar key” and that I shouldn’t OnDemand Children of Men all alone in my hotel room. I also spent a lot of time wondering how one would handle a situation like this if you didn’t have a job you loved madly where you were surrounded by people you genuinely liked. I love everyone I work with, and yet having us all locked together for a week made everyone a little punchy. I was trying to describe the levels of oddness and discomfot to The Boyfriend and the best I could come up with was “Imaging staying at Thanksgiving dinner for 80 straight hours. And also, imagine that all the furniture is covered in sandpaper. That’s how weird it feels.” Anyway, during one session, the presenting Editor closed with a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle quote and WorkFriend Kara and I immediately looked at each other and almost started crying upon hearing it:
“It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.”
which pretty much explains why we’re all doing this, and why I also want to cry whenever people start talking about this program which, were it to somehow involve puppies, would become everything I ever wanted in a nonprofit. As it stands, it’s pretty damn close. In light of all of this, it seems like a good time to force my opinions about what I’ve read recently upon you, or, as I like to call it, “opinions expressed herewith are my own and in no way related to those of my employer.”
Listen, kids, this is going to be massive. Our subtitle for all of conference was basically If You Haven’t Read Golden Compass Yet I Seriously Pity You, which is a sentiment I’m happy to extend to people outside my office building. The movie’s out in December with a bigger budget than LOTR and Mr New James Bond and even though we’ve seen the teaser footage a thousand times it still gives me goosebumps (nerd alert!). Considering we’re all going to sink into a serious period of mourning come July 21st, this could be your quick and easy remedy. On top of that, it’s a ridiculously beautiful trilogy that will make you question pretty much everything in your life. (A Boy Wizard sidebar– the Thursday after the book comes out {July 26}, we’re putting together HP Happy Hour so we can get all of the serious nerds in one place to hash out everything that happens in VII and come to terms with it. This gives you 6 days to read the book and 4 months to save the date and start rounding up everyone who’ll need some kind of closure. Also, I made it through these two sentences without making ANY muggle or butterbeer jokes, but it was really, REALLY hard). The amazon link is to Golden Compass but that cover image is our three volume bindup which is beeeautiful. (Jeremy, I’m getting you a set of the paperbacks so you can have three that match. I know how important this is. I have the british version of HPII and the asymmetry is killing me).
The Fee gave me this book almost a year ago with promises that it was supremely awesome. Because I am stupid, I ignored her and didn’t immediately read it. Also, I read the cover copy about a city deep under the surface of the earth and thought Wait, I already read this one. I threw this in my bag on the way to the airport last week and then found myself ignoring coworkers that I could have beeb having pleasant pre-Before We All Went Slightly Mad At Conference chatter with at the terminal in favor of reading it. Chapter one confused me a little bit (probably because part of my mind was devoted to listing the teen magazines I wanted to buy, as it always does before I get on a plane) and after that I spent every page thinking “holy god, she is amazing.” Kirsten Miller, I heart you. You will love this book if: you enjoy dry humor, you cheated your way through Girl Scouts (as I did), you live in new york or have any passing interest in Manhattan geography/ the history of New York/ the seedy underbelly of girls private schools, you’ve ever described an academic type as being “a perpetual student,” you’ve ever crashed a party or wanted to, you’ve stared in rapt fascination at the enormous track rabbits down in the subway, you enjoy reading books that are awesome. The Amazon link is to the hardcover, which (it looks like) is being cleared out to make way for the paperback in May. Buy it as a present to yourself, then write yourself a thank you card on nice stationary. The Fee also tells me that there’s another book (!!!) coming soon (!!!).
Related sidebar: Kids Book people– send me your fall galleys. I want to read all of them. I mean it. Jordan, you already promised.
Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out Of A Tree– reminded me a tiny bit of this gal (perhaps trees are about to replace Oddly Cropped Headless People as the book jacket go-to image). I loved watching Emma-Jean try to apply practical solutions to the problems created by the students in her middle school where, as we all know, there is very little practicality, and I loved loved loved the kind of greek chorus that the author created out of 3 girls devoted to practicing dance moves during lunch time who are constantly chirping things like “you’re so pretty!” to their fearless leader. I thought this was perfect.
Look! Sometimes I actually read above a 5th grade reading level! This one is new-ish from our adult divison and I grabbed it intending to give it to The Peej, but instead I read it myself and justified that by saying that he’s in a Jame Joyce seminar this semester and he has plenty of stuff on his plate. Also, I am selfish. But it paid off, because I got to read a memoir in the style of “what if Rob from High Fidelity decided to use mix tapes to tell the story of losing the love of his life” AND it justified this Z100 holdover I’ve had since high school (“In some circles, admitting you love Top 40 radio is tantamount to bragging you gave your grandmother the clap, in church, in the front row at your aunt’s funeral, but those are the circles I avoid like the plague, or, for that matter, the clap“) and was, as you can tell, full of lines that I thought warranted post-it flagging (“Liz Phair was asking, ‘Whatever happened to a boyfriend?’ and I would think, Well, some of us turn into husbands, and then nobody writes songs about us except Carly Simon“) and it has one of the best dog adoption stories I’ve ever heard. And it made me cry.
I was pointed to this one by WorkFriend Jen (Jen! Holla! Jen will also wonder why I’m not using Insight for these book covers. I am still not cool enough to get this to work. Someday, though, I’ll figure out this widget business and this blog will become a veritable widget festival) and every way I’ve tried to describe how funny and captivating and well done it is falls short, so hopefully you’ll just trust me on this one when it goes on sale in July.
SSE, I’m mailing these last two to you because I know you will read and love them and then send them along to someone else who will read and love them who will hopefully continue the pattern. Like a chain letter, only, you know, actually cool.
One Response to “Reading is Sexy: Sales Conference Edition”
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:06 am
yay! kiki strike shout-out! it IS super great. the second i have an ARC of the next one it will be on the way to you!
also, if possible, i’d lurve to borrow love is a mix tape. i heart mixed tapes. as we all know from a little awesome project i like to call the cd mega-mix game.