Surprisingly sympathetic

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

When a midlife crisis hits a man with 4 wives… Watch Out.

This is gonna be messy.

And yes, my friends, it certainly is.

While I felt rather sorry for poor Golden Richards (he of the 4 wives), this book was entertaining beyond all possible expectation, which made me almost grateful that he was having such a difficult time of it. Because, man, what a story.

There's even a diaper-wearing dog. And a hearse that's the family car.

Several times I laughed out loud, right as I was driving and listening to the audiobook. And once I got a bit teary. It’s a wonderful mix of the terrors (and comforts) of family life, the lies people live, their secret longings, the people who help us through the day (and some of the dumb little things that help a person through the day), and the ridiculousness that sometimes shapes a person’s life.

So Golden, husband to 4, falls in love with a woman not his wife. A bit of a complication, eh? Meanwhile, his wives are fomenting discontent, which causes the umpteen zillion children to get testy with each other, and then Golden—who wants only to avoid conflict—has to try to deal with the whole mess, which he attempts to do by dodging it. (When he hides in the children’s closed-up playhouse, sipping mescal, that’s when you know things have really hit the skids.)

We get to see Golden’s point of view, as well as those of his 4^th wife (“Mother #4”) and one of his sons (Rusty, the “bad” one, who’s always in trouble, whose viewpoint made me laugh more than anything). And then there’s an omniscient view that pops in occasionally to give a wider perspective.

These people just come to life.

Who’d’a thunk I’d have sympathy for an adulterous polygamist? Brady Udall, you literary wonder, you’ve done this amazing thing.

(Additional note: This was one of those audiobooks that's so good, it spoils other audiobooks for a person for a while. I had to test-drive two of them before I could settle on my next audiobook.)

The audiobook: 23.25 hours, read by David Aaron Baker

An offer we couldn't refuse

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

One of us book club ladies was born in the year The Godfather was published. So we ladies, we read it.

And we were surprised—all of us—by how much we liked the thing.

I liked the writing style, I liked the storyline, and I liked the way the story was constructed.

As I was reading, the word “potboiler” kept popping into my head. But then I thought, No, this is too well-done to be such a thing.

Then I read the Afterword, which told me that, Guess what? Puzo needed money to pay off his (gambling and other) debts, so he wrote The Godfather specifically as a money-maker. He wrote it to be a bestseller, and he succeeded.

So, yeah, it’s a potboiler. But it’s a darn good one.

The key thing we (book club ladies) didn’t like was the way Puzo represented female characters. The stereotypes are really quite something. So we got a little bit animated about that, which is always fun.

Anyway: excellent book club book. We had a zippy little discussion and we ate pasta and drank wine. It was good times, I’m telling you.

Presidential vacational reading

OK, so my first thought upon hearing President Obama was going on vacation was:

I wonder what he's gonna read?

During his vacation last year, word got out that he was reading an ARC of Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, and I was all happy to know about his reading life.

So this little piece from the Daily Beast was well-timed. It's a list of all the books President Obama has read since he was elected.

It's a pretty good list. I was glad to see a few novels in there--a guy in a high-pressure job needs a little bit of a break.

And stumbling across the Daily Beast list made me Google to find out what he's reading this year, and yes, guys, it's out there!

So, yes, I'm a snoop. The man's trying to be vacationing, and I'm all scrutinizing his reading material. But it's interesting, you know?

Sinfully good

Original Sin by Beth McMullen

By far, this is the funnest book I’ve read all year. It’s even got zippy cover art and everything.

Lucy Parks Hamilton isn’t really named Lucy Parks Hamilton. Neither is she really named Sally Sin, but that really was her code name when she worked as a spy for a CIA-like agency that tracked down weapons of mass destruction.

And now she’s a stay-at-home mom.

…who drops her 3-year-old son Theo at preschool, only to keep the preschool under surveillance the entire time he’s there. Apparently old habits die hard.

And so do rogue spies who turned.

Lucy/Sally’s old nemesis, Ian Blackford, was a master spy until he went to the dark side and became a deadly arms dealer. (Dude’s also deadly handsome. And has a habit of kidnapping Sally for kicks.)

And now he’s resurrected himself from the dead, so Sally’s old boss visits her to recruit her to lure Blackford. And it ain’t so very easy to balance motherhood and espionage…

Lucy/Sally can kick some serious you-know-what, and she’s also a darn good mom. It’s a charming combo.

Readers of Janet Evanovich will find that Original Sin is not as over-the-top with the humor or bizarro situations, but it has the same light touch.

And I suggest this nonfiction pairing, which, to me, feels like an even better read-alike: Lindsay Moran's Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy. Moran worked for the CIA, and her book is a hoot.

The good news for us is that Original Sin feels like it’s going to be the first of a series. I can’t wait for more.

Broken reader: fixed

A weird thing was going on recently: I was not really reading very much.

It was disturbing as all hell (almost as scary as losing my appetite, which truly freaks me out).

I thought maybe I was broken as a reader and needed fixing, and who actually knows how to fix such a thing?

So I decided to just pick up a book from my TBR pile and test-drive it (it was recommended by a librarian I trust, and I got all hooked on the story right away), and then some "new book" holds came in from the library so they needed attention, and pretty soon I was back to normal: 6 books in progress.

It's mildly embarrassing to feel so relieved by such a thing. But I am.

And now that I'm back to normal, I'm wanting to make sure I have tricks stowed away for the next time this horrid thing happens.

So, tell me, people:

How do you end a reading drought?

BAND August Discussion

The Bloggers' Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees topic for this month is:

How did you get into nonfiction? Do you remember your first nonfiction book or subject? If so, do you still read those subjects?

Who: Unruly

What: got hooked on nonfiction

Where: in small town Iowa

When: in 3^rd grade

Why: because of biographies.

Yes, biography was the gateway, and I remember it vividly.

First, there were the biographies of the Presidents and First Ladies. There’re whole sets of biographies of all of them, written just for kids, and I just may have read them all. (Type A 3^rd grader? Yes.)

Beginning that year, anything that was a biography—I would read it.

Yes, I’m talking biographies of Evel Knievel, Harriet Tubman, Leif Garrett (though that was serious research, because I intended to marry him), Eli Whitney, Amelia Earhart, Thomas Edison, and Barry Manilow.

This biography thing has stuck. I’ve branched out into other nonfiction reading, but the biographies maintain their stronghold. Of the nonfiction books I own (because I can’t live without them—that’s my criterion for book-buying) the biggest category is biography.

You know how they say that looking at a child at age 7 is the best predictor of the adult that child will become? Well, a wide swath of the reading I do now is freakishly similar to the stuff I was reading way back at age 9 or so: biographies of presidents, aviators, and the occasional celebrity.

We’re gonna hope that’s because the die was cast and I am who I am. (Either that, or I’m just stuck at age 9 for life. Though I have gone off Leif Garrett. Sorry, Leif. I had to go and change on you.)

What do Rob Lowe and Dwight Eisenhower have in common?

Answer: Book titles

Here's Ike's:

At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends

Here's Lowe's:

Stories I Only Tell My Friends

I read the Rob Lowe book during my Summer of Reading Decadence.

And truly, reading this book is like eating a whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s. There’s no nutritional value, but you just don’t really even care.

Partly because I was facing a genre study deadline I was dodging and a book club book I also was dodging, and partly because I knew I wouldn’t be able to renew this book because of the waiting list, but mainly because it’s a wonderfully addictive little thing, I read this book whenever I had a free moment to read.

And this, from me, who doesn’t even particularly like Rob Lowe (except when he’s being Sam Seaborn on The West Wing).

Because here’s the thing: this book’s got all kinds of good celebrity memoir stuff going on: name-dropping extraordinaire, the fall from grace and the recovery, and lots of good photos.

I gotta say: the names he drops are really quite something. And darn near every one of them works into the story nicely (and doesn’t feel forced), because often he’s meeting a famous person before their star has risen (Daryl Hannah, Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise). And he met Bill Murray in a hotel when Murray opened his door and invited him in while Lowe was wandering the halls.

As long as it’s done right (and here it is), I really can’t resist admiring a good name-drop.

Lowe also describes his love of acting, from the time he was a kid. And I really got the sense that he’s serious about his work and that it gives meaning to his life. That was the other good stuff in this book.

Of course, if this is “stories I tell my friends,” then probably you’re not going to dwell on the dirt, right?

Yeah, he alludes to that sex tape scandal, but doesn’t give it much time. And the nanny scandal (I had to Google it to make sure that was him [it was]) wasn’t even mentioned. And while he describes the way rehab changed his life, there weren’t too many bottom-of-the-pit stories that show how bad things had gotten for him. Not that I’m all wanting to hear the ugly stuff, but this felt like a glossing-over deal.

Here we get to see Rob Lowe as he wants to be seen. But hey—it’s his book.

And it's a perfect summer read.

One of the things I can't read about

The Jackdaws by Ken Follett

Here’s what I was wondering throughout this audiobook: Can I really count it, in good faith, as a “book I’ve read” if I skipped about 5 tracks of the CDs? Because I had to skip 5 whole tracks in order to avoid hearing scenes of torture (which I completely can’t handle as a reader/listener*). That’s a lot of torture, guys.

If I’d’ve known, I’d’ve picked a different book for the genre study, but I got partway in (and this already was my 2^nd choice book, so time was a-wasting) and then discovered that one of the main characters was a Nazi who specialized in “interrogation.”

Yeah.

The plot: A team of women spies have to sneak into a Nazi stronghold to take out the phone system in the days before D-Day. A tough, but (of course) beautiful, woman named Flick leads the team, which runs into all kinds of horrible obstacles. Blah blah blah.

So I already knew I couldn’t handle torture scenes, but I’ve learned from this book that I really just don’t like Ken Follett. His characters seem flat to me, and I’m not all that jazzed by the plot.

Same thing with Night over Water, which I read some years ago.

Yeah, I know The Pillars of the Earth is said to be his best work, but you won’t find me reading it. I am moving on…

* Other things I can't read about: prison, mental institutions, medical procedures, cruelty -- especially cruelty to children (the first time I started a Harry Potter book, I had to put it down -- that cupboard under the stairs was too much), and animals dying. I also detest "heartwarming."

Worthy of all the hype

Red on Red by Edward Conlon

I just kept reading things like “the cop book of the year” and such stuff about Red on Red. And that made me go, Hmmm. And so I had to read it.

And, guys, the rave reviews are warranted.

I’m intrigued by the whole male psyche thing, and I’ve been puzzled and in a state of wonderment about it ever since I was a wee girl.

This book is filled with the brotherhood of the cop world. And specifically the close bond between cops who are partners. There’s male psyche just oozing out of this thing. I was entranced.

The main character, NYPD Detective Nick Meehan, is at a very bad turning point in his life—his marriage is ending, he’s disengaged from his work, and he’s depressed as all heck.

And he’s just been assigned to work with a new partner, Esposito, and to report on him to Internal Affairs. Seems that Esposito’s a loose cannon, and Meehan’s supposed to find out just how far he’s strayed from the usual rules governing police behavior. So there’s a built-in betrayal here, in addition to all the big and little betrayals that happen daily in their world. Excellent.

Beyond the fascination of getting inside the heads of the cops, there’s an amazing plot here. These guys see all kinds of ugliness, and lots of it is pretty darn dramatic. The story goes places I didn’t expect, and in a good way. It’s gritty. There ain’t a lot of beauty, joy, and happiness in this book. There’s not meant to be.

While I was reading Red on Red, I came across a great article about it on BookBeast, which tells some really interesting stuff about the author (who anonymously wrote a New Yorker column called “Cop Diary” some years ago).

So glad there are people out there who can write like he does, even as he continues to do his day job. A remarkable thing, that.

It's good to be wrong

The Alienist by Caleb Carr

I’m ornery sometimes when it comes to choosing books. So if everyone’s raving about something, I’d apt to avoid it. At all costs.

This was the deal with The Alienist back in the mid-90s. It was all the rage among mystery readers and even non-mystery readers. So I said no, no, no. (Oh, Amy Winehouse. What a crummy deal.)

Just last week, I also saw a rave review on Entomology of a Bookworm. (I read only the first paragraph before I finished the book, then went back after I was done with the book to read the full review. I'm skittish that way.)

The only reason I read The Alienist now is that it was assigned for a genre study. And I was all not wanting to read it.

OK. So I was wrong.

Turns out, this is a darn good little (big!) mystery.

It’s got a neato team of unconventional detectives who are trying to determine who is killing boys in New York City in the 1890s. And they’re interesting, and so are their methods. It’s still early days for things like fingerprinting. And psychological profiling (which is what they end up doing) is pretty much unheard of. So as you’re reading, it feels like you’re witnessing something new that’s just coming into being.

And the way people rave about how Carr captures the place and time period? True.

My best recommendation is: Read a copy that was published since 2006. There’s an amazing Afterword by Carr, written in 2006, in the paperback I read. And reading the Afterword like attending the best kind of author presentation—where the author tells you the story behind the story. And this one is a really, really good one. It gladdened my heart.