grading key

note: this grading key applies only to my summer reading list.

A

imagine that Jack Kerouac and Ernest Hemingway have a child, but abandon it at birth on the doorstep of Gabriel García Marquez. Márquez, in turn, hires Vladimir Nabokov to babysit. after reaching sexual maturity, the child pens a novel inspired by his crib memories, vows never to write again, and promptly travels to Paris to make a documentary about Chris Marker.

B

imagine that Allen Ginsberg and Fyodor Dostoevsky were lovers in 19th century St. Petersburg. the two men spend frigid Russian nights conspiring to strangle their landlord and picking the lice and nits out of one another's beards. ultimately, they decide to write a self-help book for couples about what they have learned. a new philosophical movement is born from these nights of passion – sexistentialism.

C

imagine that James Frey and Elizabeth Gilbert meet, fall in love, and escape to an exotic tropical island somewhere in Minnesota. they laugh, they cry, they take long walks in the surf. they come to experience a profound affection – the likes of which the upper Midwest has never known before – and write a book of poetry to share their love with the world.

D

imagine that John Grisham, Tom Clancy, and Dan Brown are locked in a room with stainless steel walls, one set of Encyclopedia Britannica missing the "R" volume, a television tuned exclusively to Fox News, and the complete archives of the Toledo Blade. once they manage to get their gums to stop bleeding, the three men reach an agreement, stop trying gnaw their way out of the room, and commence to pen a work of non-fiction.

F

imagine that our 43rd president learned to read, decided to write his memoirs, and then hired Paris Hilton as his ghost writer. the tome grows to more than eight hundred pages and is released to rave reviews. in a final act of NAFTA-inspired kindness, the 43rd president agrees to record an audio version of the book and read it himself –

in Spanish.