Don’t throw out Anais Nin, it breaks my heart

Yesterday, I tried to be good and read a book about the Common Core. If you don’t know what the Common Core is you probably live under a rock, don’t have any children/teens or work with children/teens, or both. Actually, you should know what the Common Core standards are just because you’re an American and it’s becoming a part of American culture and education. So get on that! (Here’s some FAQs.) Basically, It’s the new national standards for schools. Very exciting reading, right? Indeed . . . but instead I lounged around eating chocolate and reading Anais Nin.

I was reading Anais Nin because I remembered I had a novel of hers I started about a year ago then got distracted some something else and never finished. Then the other day at work I was shocked, SHOCKED! to find Vol. I of Anais Nin’s diaries in our recycling bin at the library, the poor paperback having been weeded. My first thought was, “Oh my gosh! How can we throw this out? What a waste! Nin is a genius!” Then I realized with horror – I sounded like a patron! What’s worse is that I could probably say why we were getting rid it of it: not in high demand, not a lot of space, and probably hadn’t circulated in years. If you’ve been reading this blog since the beginning you know that I LOVE weeding, so I should have been able to handle the fact that one of my favorite authors was being weeded. It can be painful though, and I know that the reference librarians must have agonized other getting rid of dear Anais. It is necessary and maybe I should feel bad snatching it form the recycling bin, but I really don’t.

So yes, I saved it – the library may not be needing it but I do. It can sit next to Vol. IV of her journals on my shelf and across from the first book in her continuous novel, Ladders to Fire, which is amazing by the way. In my mind I keep referring it to “In Search of Lost Time for Ladies,” but that’s probably not fair to Proust or Nin. I realized there’s probably nothing more decadent (and probably pretentious) than laying on my bed reading Anais Nin and eating chocolate. I’m ok with that. For fun, check out this amazing blog post about what your favorite author says about you. It’s really long but great. Here’s what the author says about Anais Nin:

There are more, often acerbic, gems in there: “Jackie Collins: Your drunk stepmother;” “Edgar Allan Poe: People who live in their mother’s basements. Or goth seventh graders;” “Pearl S. Buck: Women whose favorite president was Harry S. Truman;” and perhaps my favorite, “Richard Dawkins: People who have their significant other grab them under the table in order to shut them up whenever someone else at a dinner says something absolutely ridiculous and wrong.” Well, the Thomas Aquinas one is also pretty great, too (“Premature ejaculators”).

This post was supposed to be about me reading about the Common Core. But I didn’t really get too far on that, and it’s really just devolved into decadence and pot-shots at Thomas Aquinas. That’s a sign that I should probably stop.

But I am curious. Who is your favorite author and the corresponding delightful quip from Lauren Leto’s post?