Bar Belle

After a day at the LACMA for the Vanity Fair Portraits exhibit (and other choice exhibits) my friend and I decided to grab a few beers at The Little Bar on La Brea and Wilshire. (The place just isn't the same since my buddy, Bryan, left for the Peace Corps). Place was rather empty with just a few guys watching football. Once we paid our tab I noticed the girl on one of the bar stools, pint in one hand and an open book in front of her. Rare occurence for me, if I may say so.

Misty is reading Half Broken Things by Morag Joss. She really didn't know anything about this book when she got it - just randomly picked it out in one of those "Buy 2 Get 1 Free" sales at the bookstore. But she's liking the book so far. It's about a lonely old woman in England who's house-sitting at a manor. The woman is a bit deranged and starts to think the house is hers. My ears perked up at this because I feel like I've heard something about this at some point.


Misty is a big fan of novels...any fiction, really. Her current fave book at the moment is The Magus by John Fowles. "I couldn't even begin to summarize the book but you should definitely read it."

Growing up Misty loved The Phantom Tollbooth. I got really excited when she said this because this happens to be one of my favourite childhood books! We started to geek out about how amazing it is, how it's a children's book but a great read for adults. The book is rittled with play on words and all the double entendres. A boy, who's rather apathetic about school, comes home to find a new toy in his room. He builds it and it's a tollbooth so he gets into his toy car and drives thru it, leading him to a magical land of words. It's like Alice in Wonderland meets a grammar book! If you haven't read this book yet you've got to pick it up!

As a teenager Misty read anything and everything Tom Robbins. Her favourite of all is Still Life with Woodpecker. At this point, my friend and another guy at the bar were chiming in because they, too, are/were Tom Robbins fans and were talking about their own favourites. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (a book I own but haven't read yet) came up but the consensus was Still Life with Woodpecker.

Another book Misty confesses to reading as a teen was the biography of Jim Morrison. She read it like 100 times, she says! This was the point when everyone started to share their own Jim Morrison obsession phases - making the bead necklaces and everything!

If she were to write her own book? Oh, she knew the answer real quick to this one! There is a rare condition recently discovered where people don't experience pain. Misty would love to have a book about the psychological repercussions of this condition.

Another easy answer to one of my questions? Which book she would like to adapt into a movie! It would have to be Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. (He also happens to be the author of Everything is Illuminated). "It is the most beautiful book I've ever read!" and that is why she would love to adapt it into a movie. It's about a precoscious little boy whose dad was killed in 9/11. Misty highly recommends it. "It will change your life! It's just absolutely gorgeous!"

So, why was Misty readin in a bar of all places? She likes to read when she is by herself. It doesn't make sitting alone seem so awkward. She can sit at that bar, for example, or wherever, and not feel obligated to talk to someone. She can just be on her own in her own world, lost in her book. And it also gives her a "reason" to be alone. Plus, why not drink at a bar? Beer...book...what more could you ask for?


Misty hasn't been in LA long so we started to share different bars, or places, that she could read outdoors and in public. Cafes, parks, restaurants, bars....quite fun to start thinking about my different haunts and suggest parking myself there and get lost in my book. But yes, put Misty anywhere and she will read even with tons of hullabaloo going on around her.

Where is an 'unusual' place you like to read? I like to read when I am eating alone but have you ever read at a bar?