I'll never complain about long airport security lines again

Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper by Geoffrey Gray

Smiling, I am smiling. Because I’ve found a true crime book I can love.

And this is it.

Normally, true crime either freaks me out completely or makes me irritated because it’s all about some miscreant who doesn’t deserve the honor of having a whole book about them. (not so wild about criminal types)

But this book, from page 1, just worked.

And here’s why. The author is part of the story from the start. Sometimes this is a technique that fails spectacularly, and sometimes it’s a genius move. This was one of them genius examples.

Gray tells the story of how he learned about the (apparently famous, though I’d never heard of it) 1971 skyjacking case from a PI who was certain he had a solid lead on D.B. Cooper’s (the skyjacker’s) identity.

And then we’re off to the races. Gray senses a blockbuster story, and he chases it for three years, only to end up drinking the Kool-Aid himself by the end. (Cooper Curse, anyone?)

So, no, he didn’t discover the guy’s identity, but his search for information is filled with all kinds of wonderfully strange folks—suspects, families of suspects, and the people who have become obsessed with the search for the skyjacker and his loot. It’s a fabulous story, plus Gray’s writing is fun to read.

By the book’s end, I was kind of glad we don’t know who D.B. Cooper really was. Sometimes it’s kind of nice to just let the bogeyman roam.

100 best nonfiction books. Hmmm...

Since I’ve become a nonfiction fanatic, I was thrilled beyond speech to see the announcement, on Red Room Library, that Time magazine had published a list of the all-time best nonfiction books.

Then I wondered, What kind of list is this gonna be? One of those horrible “books you should read” lists, or one of the lists of books a person actually would want to read.

And I’m thinking it’s a little of both.

Turns out, I’ve read only 10 of the books on the list (shown in bold font in the list below). I’ve perused/skimmed 3 more (in bold italics).

There are 8 books on the list that I’m interested in reading (shown in ALL CAPS ITALICS).

Autobiography / Memoir

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

Black Boy by Richard Wright

Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown

Maus by Art Spiegelman

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

On Writing by Stephen King

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Biography

The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill by William Manchester

The Power Broker by Robert Caro

Business

Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

The General Theory by John Maynard Keynes

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

No Logo by Naomi Klein

Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader

What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles

Culture

The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris

A CHILD OF THE CENTURY BY BEN HECHT

Within the Context of No Context by George W.S. Trow

MYSTERY TRAIN BY GREIL MARCUS

The Story of Art by E.H. Gombrich

Essays

Against Interpretation, and Other Essays by Susan Sontag

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace

Food Writing

How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher

Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Health

And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts

The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Dr. Benjamin Spock

The Joy of Sex by Dr. Alex Comfort

The Kinsey Reports by Alfred Kinsey

Our Bodies, Ourselves by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective

History

THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST BY DAVID HALBERSTAM

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown

Carry Me Home by Diane McWhorter

The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes

The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer

Ideas

The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom

The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama

Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson

The Nature and Destiny of Man by Reinhold Niebuhr

Orientalism by Edward Said

Syntactic Structures by Noam Chomsky

A Theory of Justice by John Rawls

Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

Nonfiction Novels

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

OUT OF AFRICA BY ISAK DINESEN

Politics

All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington

Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater

God & Man at Yale by William F. Buckley Jr.

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT BY THEODORE WHITE

The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt

THE PARANOID STYLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS BY RICHARD HOFSTADTER

What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer

Science

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead

The Double Helix by James Watson

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

The Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas

The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris

On Human Nature by Edward O. Wilson

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn

Self-Help / Instructional

The Big Book by Alcoholics Anonymous

Elements of Style by Strunk and White

Social History

The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford

Animal Liberation by Peter Singer

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf

The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

The Other America by Michael Harrington

Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King Jr.

Working by Studs Terkel

Sports

BALL FOUR BY JIM BOUTON

The Sweet Science by A.J. Liebling

War

The Civil War by Shelby Foote

DISPATCHES BY MICHAEL HERR

The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell

Hiroshima by John Hersey

The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

What do you think of this list?

Read-a-Thon on the horizon

Every time I walk past a little cafe in my town, I think of the Read-a-Thon--because usually I go there on Read-a-Thon day, twice a year. I sit outside at a charming little table and drink coffee and eat something lovely, and I bring my book and sort of read a little bit. But basically, let's just say it: I'm playing hooky.

Now I'm starting to add books to my Read-a-Thon reading list, because that sucker is coming up fast!

Yes, it's true. Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-Thon is coming to an interweb near you just one month from now.

Saturday, October 22.

Guys, mark your calendar and cancel everything else that day. We gots reading to do.

Yeah, sports again

An Accidental Sportswriter: A Memoir by Robert Lipsyte

I’ll say it once again: I am no sports fan.

But sports writing sometimes just gets to me. It’s often just so beautiful.

So the title of this book kind of grabbed me, and then I saw something in a review about the book’s description of an “encounter” with Mickey Mantle.

So it was no longer a choice—I had to place a hold.

And, like the best books, the thing I went in for wasn’t even the very best it had to offer.

It has descriptions of covering Muhammad Ali back when he was still Cassius Clay—when Clay beat Sonny Liston, here’s Lipsyte: “I began thinking of a lede. Then Liston sat down on his stool and wouldn’t get up, and it was over. Clay capered on the ring apron, yelling at the press, ‘Eat your words!’ And then it was my turn, minutes to deadline, banging out a paragraph on my little Olivetti, ripping out the page, handing it to the telegrapher at my side…” (p. 67)

Man, that’s exciting. (I’m a total sucker for stories of journalists under tight deadline.)

In between the anecdotes, there’s also a very real, very personal analysis of what it means to be a sportswriter. It’s more complex and interesting than it appears at first glance. For example, was Lipsyte right or wrong to point out—right after Mickey Mantle’s death—that Mantle probably jumped ahead in line for a new kidney, even though he was dying of cancer and should not have received a kidney at all?

People want to think well of their heroes, but what if their heroes are doing crappy things? What’s a sportswriter to do?

So this is a fine memoir. It’s personal in the best ways—Lipsyte’s describing his own journey, and it includes some great moments.

One of my favorite parts was when he was assigned to cover NASCAR for the New York Times. All it took was a ride around the track with Mark Martin, and Lipsyte was hooked. He became a NASCAR junkie, and he wanted to drive one of them cars. So it got all arranged so he could drive a Petty car around the track a few times. It’s perfectly wonderful to read how the staid sportswriter turned into an animal behind the wheel. He writes that as he drove his rental car later that evening, he was feeling calm. “… I felt amused at and offended by road hogs, ragers, and show-offs. They couldn’t get to me anymore. I had driven at speed.” (pp. 193-194) That just makes me smile.

So I love the deadpan wording, and I also love the way he describes how he learned that driving a race car is not as simple as pressing your foot to the floor and turning left.

The book’s final chapter, about his dad, is re-readable. This is just a lovely book. When I read the last page, I stood up and just tried not to cry.

Cops and more cops

I really should listen to my friends better than I do. Sometimes it takes several iterations before things sink in to this brain here.

So, two friends raved about The Wire, and finally--finally!--I checked out season 1. And season 2. And season 3...

And yeah, I'm not really wanting to watch anything else now. And it's even cut into this person's reading time. I don't let that happen without some serious provocation.

Oh, and get this! Dennis Lehane--yes, the actual author guy--writes for The Wire sometimes. Dennis Lehane!

T. suggested The Wire after I reviewed Red on Red by Edward Conlon. And M. had been raving about The Wire for some time before that.

Why don't I take their word for things before I do? What's my problem, really?

Anyway... it hit me again today, because the book Red on Red is shelved at the end of a row at the library, and every time I pass that shelf, it catches my eye and I get a good feeling... so happy there are books in this world that are just that good. And then it gets me started thinking about The Wire and by that point, man, I am one jolly librarian.

So: Thanks, ladies. I'm keeping my ears open from now on.

Laurie Colwin-esque

Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close

Here’s some seriously high praise: This book reminded me of Laurie Colwin’s writing. And I love Laurie Colwin. The characters here are a little less quirky than Colwin’s, but they’re still charming.

So yes, this is a novel about young women in New York, dating the wrong men and occasionally finding a vaguely right one, working in jobs they don’t necessarily love, as their friends marry off, one by one by one. And sometimes their own relationships seem doomed, but then they somehow resolve themselves. I actually was surprised in a couple of cases. For example: Usually, from what I’ve been given to understand, marrying a mama’s boy don’t go so very well.

Each chapter could be read as a short story, since each has its own arc. But the whole thing also hangs together beautifully, because the main characters’ friendship ties the story lines together.

It’s two parts Laurie Colwin, one part The Best of Everything, one part Sex and the City, and three parts all its own thing.

I was well pleased.

Then it all came tumbling down

This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman

This book, along with Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, cured me of my recent non-reading bout.

Both of them—could not put down. (I love it when that happens.)

This Beautiful Life has a house of cards on the cover, and that was a smart choice. Things start out lovely for Liz, her husband Richard, and their kids Jake and Coco. Then Jake’s stupid, stupid, stupid decision to forward an email of a sex video he received from a girl basically derails the whole family’s happiness.

Because their beautiful life? House of cards!!

(And seriously, isn’t it that way for everyone? Things are going along swimmingly, and then disease or some crap strikes and it all goes to hell. I’m just saying.)

Anyway, this book reminded me of Testimony by Anita Shreve (though Testimony was much more unsettling).

This Beautiful Life does the multiple viewpoints thing I like/dislike in equal parts—starting with Liz, then Jake, then Richard.

Multiple viewpoints—I like this technique because it shows you the same episode from different perspectives, and that’s interesting. I dislike this technique because when the viewpoint changes, I always feel wrenched away from the character I’ve just been hanging out with. There’s a tiny bit of whiplash and I feel a bit irritated for a page or two until I settle back in.

This is one of those books you can just sink into on a Saturday. I just kinda wish I’d saved it for the Read-a-Thon, since it’s one of those rare books that I read nearly straight through.

BBAW: Blogging

Doesn't Book Blogger Appreciation Week go fast?

Here it is, Friday already.

It's been a great week.

Here's our topic for today:

The world of blogging is continually changing. Share 3 things you are essential tried and true practices for every blogger and 1-3 new trends or tools you’ve adapted recently or would like to in the future.

OK, I'm no expert, so this is pretty basic stuff. Here goes...

Recommended practices

1. Read other blogs and comment on them!

2. Write posts in advance, and schedule them. Then if you go on vacation or get the flu or have exciting plans, you don’t have to worry about the blog staying up to date, because that thing is on auto-pilot.

3. Under-promise and over-deliver. Actually, this is one of my general life credos. What it means for blogging: Set a blogging schedule and stick to it. If you want to post more often, do it.

New trends or tools:

Yeah, so these trends and tools ain’t new. They’re just things I’m liking.

1. Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees (actually, this is new)

2. Hosting a reading challenge

3. Reading maps (my first attempt needs some work. in my ample spare time) : )

Thanks to everyone who's stopped by this week. It's wonderful to meet you and visit your blogs, too!

BBAW - Readers

Today's Book Blogger Appreciation Week topic:

Book bloggers blog because we love reading. Has book blogging changed the way you read? Have you discovered books you never would have apart from book blogging? How has book blogging affected your book acquisition habits? Have you made new connections with other readers because of book blogging? Choose any one of these topics and share your thoughts today!

Pretty much, I’m the same old book geek I’ve always been.

The main thing book blogging has done is made me more aware of the patterns in my reading. (“Wow—I’m reading nothing but journalist memoirs these days!”)

And reading others blogs definitely has alerted me to books I wouldn’t’ve read otherwise. Thanks to Bybee for writing about The Best of Everything and thanks to Gary for writing about The Nobodies Album. They’re books I like well enough that I’m still thinking about them.

And sometimes reading another blogger's review gives me the OK to skip a book I wanted to skip anyway, even though everyone else on the earth is reading it.

BBAW - Community, Part II

It's day 3 of Book Blogger Appreciation Week, and we've got a topic for today:

The world of book blogging has grown enormously and sometimes it can be hard to find a place. Share your tips for finding and keeping community in book blogging despite the hectic demands made on your time and the overwhelming number of blogs out there. If you’re struggling with finding a community, share your concerns and explain what you’re looking for–this is the week to connect!

I know the smart and efficient thing to do is to use an RSS reader, but I don’t wanna. Here’s why: I like actually visiting the blogs on my blogroll so I can have the full experience of visiting those blogs. I like to see the background and the colors and the design. I like to feel like I’m there.

So, usually the thing I do is visit each blog on my blogroll once a week. And once I’m at those other blogs, I’ll occasionally click on a blog on their blogroll to check it out.

And I’m trying to comment whenever I have something to say, instead of introverting about it and writing nothing.

And whenever someone comments on my blog, I pop over to their blog to check it out. I’ve discovered some great blogs that way.

BBAW - Blogger Interviews

Shanyn of Chick Loves Lit has an amazing young adult book blog, and I had the good fortune to interview her!

She's actually the master of the art of the interview, as you'll see on the Fun Five interviews on her blog. And she even asked me Fun Five questions when she interviewed me!

Here's what she had to say during our interview:

1. On your blog, you write about young adult books. As a teen, what books did you like to read?

I was very fortunate to live near a library most of my childhood. We moved several times but we always were very close to our town's library. This allowed me to read a LOT because I was within walking distance :) I loved Roald Dahl, The Babysitter's Club (I met Ann M. Martin this year at BEA - it was my favorite author experience ever!), Goosebumps, Sweet Valley, Boxcar Children - as you can see, I really loved series. I can still visualize the section of my library that housed all of these series and remember the thrill I would get when looking to see if a new book was in for any of them.

2. What book have you re-read the most times? (How many times?)

I have a confession: I'm not a re-reader. So I guess the books I've reread the most are The Babysitter's Club, but only because I once tried to read the entire series in a summer (just a few years ago).

3. What are your top 5 favorite books of all time?

Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling - easily always my top. The rest change and shift, but for now:

Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers

Divergent by Veronica Roth

The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney (I had a lot of trouble with this last one, many books were fighting for this spot!)

4. I love your Fun Five Interviews. How do you think of the questions? What is your favorite answer you’ve received from an author?

The questions stem from my time as staff at a summer camp. I met hundreds of kids every week and found I had the most fun when I asked kids random questions - and I also learned a lot more than if I were to ask traditional things. I try to change the Who/What/Where/When/Why/How for each question, and then just go from there. There are days I don't feel the Fun Five magic, so I just wait until I'm feeling it before sending out questions :)

My favorite answer? This one is really hard because I've had so many authors on - I think the count is over 50 now! I always love when we get stories from the authors - it lets us see their personality. I recently had Kendare Blake (author of Anna Dressed in Blood) on, and I loved this question/answer:

5. Invent a new cereal cartoon spokesperson and tell us his/her name and characteristics.
For this question, I am going to invent a new spokesperson for Frosted Flakes. As you know, Frosted Flakes is delicious. And Tony the Tiger has done it justice for years. But he just isn’t brand specific enough. So, I give to you, his niece, Miss Tonya Tigress. Preliminary sketches portray her as slinky and sassy, with four inch spiked claws and bleached out stripes. She’s also a tad on the skinny side. Tonya spends most of her time finding new boys to buy her more diamonds, which she wears constantly. That’s right folks, she’s frosted. And flaky. She would be voiced by….Hannah Montana.

5. Speaking of Fun Five… You asked Ron Koertge this question, and now I’m asking you: Tell us a weird fact about yourself.

You're turning my own Fun Five on me! :) A weird fact... hmmmm. I actually just revealed this in a vlog for Interrobang YA, but I really really love reality TV. These past few weeks I've been watching full seasons of Survivor so that I can say I've seen every season. I'm not sure why I love it so much, but I do.

Shanyn, thank you for the great answers! Seriously, check out her blog. There is so much good stuff there.

2011 Title Meme

This has been going around the interwebs, and I'm jumping on the bandwagon.

The deal is: Finish each statement with the title of a book you've read in 2011.

One time on vacation: The Right Stuff (Tom Wolfe)

Weekends at my house are: Keeping the House (Ellen Baker)

My superhero secret identity is: Bossypants (Tina Fey)

You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry because: True Grit (Charles Portis)

I’d win a gold medal in: Forbidden Falls (Robyn Carr)

I’d pay good money for: This Beautiful Life (Helen Schulman)

If I were President, I would: Flourish (Martin Seligman)

When I don’t have good books, I am: Packing for Mars (Mary Roach)

Loud talkers at the movie theater should be: Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)

BBAW - Community

Good morning, blogosphere!

It's Book Blogger Appreciation Week, and we shall be appreciative!

Each day's got its own topic, and today's is "Community." Here're the details:

"While the awards are a fun part of BBAW, they can never accurately represent the depth and breadth of diversity in the book blogging community. Today you are encouraged to highlight a couple of bloggers that have made book blogging a unique experience for you. They can be your mentors, a blogger that encouraged you to try a different kind of book, opened your eyes to a new issue, made you laugh when you needed it, or left the first comment you ever got on your blog. Stay positive and give back to the people who make the community work for you!"

For me, the bloggers who provide the greatest sense of community feel like “people in my neighborhood.”

“Hi, neighbor. Glad to be with you.” I mean, really, Could it get any more comforting than that?

(Seriously: When I read The World According to Mister Rogers, I had to keep putting it down because I kept getting weepy. He’s just so kind, I can hardly stand it.)

So, here are some of my neighbors:

Bybee of Naked Without Books! – who regularly makes me laugh at her own posts and also at her comments here. And sometimes she writes something that just makes a person feel happy and sad all at once. And really, there’s nothing better than that. Bybee—so glad you’re my neighbor.

Citizen Reader – who reads and blogs about nonfiction like no one else on the planet. She’s smart and funny and frank. And she’s a darn nice person! (I got to meet her in real life, so I know it’s true.)

Kim of Sophisticated Dorkiness – who always delights me with what she’s writing. I swing by her place, and I know I’m going to read something fun and interesting.

Wonderful neighbors. Wonderful.

September 11

It's the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, and I'm reading books about it.

Today I started reading the 9/11 report (The 9/11 Commission Report), which is said to be actually readable (a remarkable achievement for a gov doc). It's a huge book, and I realized early on (because I always do that "What is this book made up of?" flip-through thing with nonfiction) that its final 175 pages are appendices, notes, and an index. (That index is also a rare thing in a gov doc.) I've been meaning to read this book for a while now, and today seemed like the right day to begin.

Yesterday I began reading The Submission by Amy Waldman, which also is September 11-related. It's a novel about a (fictional) 9/11 memorial. The premise is that a committee selected a plan for a memorial, only to discover it had been submitted by a Muslim. Hubbub ensues.

Today I've also read some more of English Creek by Ivan Doig, which is a wonderfully comforting novel about a boy in the American West during the Great Depression. There's something about that book that just makes me feel OK about the world. A person needs some of that.

Couldn't put it down

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

I was told I would love this book. Sometimes I get nervous when told such things, but I had this on good authority, from a smart librarian who has a sense of my reading tastes.

The woman was right.

I also now understand why she’s chosen it for a book discussion. Because it’s filled with moments that make you want to get another person’s reaction.

Here’s what: The narrator, Camille, is flawed. And as you read on, the flaws continue to accumulate. And the story just gets grimmer and grimmer. Now that’s fascinating.

Camille is a reporter who is sent back to her Missouri hometown, where young girls are getting murdered.

And we learn why Camille’s been away for years upon years: Her family is messed up like you wouldn’t even believe. And she’s living with her freaky family as she investigates the story.

And the whole thing is vaguely Southern gothic, even though it’s only as far south as Missouri (and that’s next door to Iowa, so really—we’re not talking Spanish moss-infused scenery here, but it’s got a northern Southern feel to it). It’s also got that returning-to-your-tiny-hometown stuff going on.

This thing’s a thriller in all the best ways. It’s unsettling and kinda disturbing but not in the way that makes you startled at your own shadow. (I always appreciate writers who can balance that fine line. For me, anyway, it’s a fine line. I’m skittish.)

A darn smart book that keeps you guessing.

Split personality. Yikes.

It's been kind of a surprising week. Here's the latest.


Mental Foodie is on the BBAW awards short list for nonfiction, so I popped over there earlier to check out the blog. And her latest post is about a site, Typealyzer, that applies Myers-Briggs personality types to blogs.

So I just had to check out my blog’s personality. (How could I not?)


And guys? My blog is exactly the opposite of my actual personality type!


Yes, I am an INTJ in real life. And my blog’s an ESFP.

I really don’t know quite what to think about this. It’s a bit strange. Especially since a couple of longtime friends have said that the blog sounds like me.


Here's the official scoop from Typealyzer:


"The analysis indicates that the author of http://unrulyreader.blogspot.com is of the type:

ESFP - The Performers

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don’t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

They enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions."

So, yeah. This is weird.

Anyone else have this experience -- the actual personality/blog personality mis-match? If so, I really would love to hear about it.

Scary math leads to drastic measures

I had a startling revelation the other day, when I did some math.

Here was the calculation: Each year, I read approximately 12 books for book club, 3 books for the book discussion at work, and about 15 books for a genre study.

Guys, that's 30 assigned books a year. (Check out that reader doing math!)

That's full-on 23% of the total number of books I read last year. (That's some advanced math there.)

We're talking nearly one quarter of the books. Assigned!

How in the name of all-that-is-decent am I supposed to read all unruly-like, with such numbers staring me in the face?

So I did something rash, oh yes, I did.

I wrote into my planner for a Saturday: "Read 3 hours."

And I knew what book I was gonna read, too.

It was going to be wild and crazy stuff.

I was gonna read a book I now own (after plotting for months to buy it). A book I've read once before. A book with no due date. A book I've been aching to re-read.

And I did that assigned reading. (Ha! That's what I'm saying to assigned reading. You want assigned reading, I'll give you assigned reading!)

Sidetrack story of how I got the loot:

Recently I was at a book event (grateful to the person who invited me!) and I found a signed paperback of The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe.

And here's the best part: $10.

Cheaper than I could pick it up new on Amazon!

Plus, when you open it up, you see this:

And yes, it cost only $10, so I can use it as a reading copy, guilt-free.

I really am not all that books-as-relics in my home collection, anyway. So the autograph is a neat-o little bonus, but I am so about the text.

Back to what I was saying:

I'll write about the book later. (I've written about it before, but I gots new stuff to say.)

But for now, I'll just say: Who needs a vacation, when you can assign yourself to read exactly what you want?

I've never exerted myself enough to experience a runner's high, but I tell you: I had a reader's high that day.

The interviewer

Truth Be Told: Off the Record about Favorite Guests, Memorable Moments, Funniest Jokes, and a Half Century of Asking Questions by Larry King

Despite the things I didn’t love about this book, I liked it plenty.

I’ll lead with the negatives: This is not a well-thought-out memoir. (It wasn't meant to be.) This is a collection of anecdotes, strung together rather loosely. Probably it should have been called Stories I Tell My Friends.

But still I liked it. And I’m not even a big Larry King fan. (If I’m in a cable TV environment [oh, hotel rooms!] I’m watching junk like HGTV and What Not to Wear and those scary-intense shows about wedding planning. So I haven’t actually watched Larry King so very often.)

But the guy’s met darn near everyone interesting and important, and he tells great stories about them.

For example -- I like envisioning Larry King and Colin Powell leading off the dancing every year at Ben Bradlee’s big soiree. That’s excellent stuff. Who’da thunk?

My favorite part of the book, though, is this: I like the way he writes about his life’s work. Turns out, I’m a complete sucker for books about people’s work, when they really, really love their work.

Here’s a sentence from page 1, when he’s describing how conscious he is of time: “When you’ve repeatedly got to slide into a commercial break, you understand exactly how long five seconds lasts.”

He also tells a hilarious story about his first radio job and his first time on the air, when he completely froze up and ended up playing the theme song 3 times to cover his silence when “the station manager kicked open the control room door and screamed: ‘This is a communications business!’” (p. 3)

I love that. I love it because it’s fabulous that the guy kicked in the door and screamed exactly that, and I love it because it shows that even a Great once was a scared kid. It’s wonderfully human, and you gotta like that.

So yes, I didn’t love this book, but I liked it plenty.

And then The Onion told me what truly was involved in a Larry King interview, from the other side of the table...

NASA Simulator Prepares Astronauts For Rigors Of An Interview With Larry King