Unruly Reader

I heart NY

2012-01-27T06:00:00.000-06:00

Blue Blood by Edward Conlon

Edward Conlon: This guy can write.

He’s the guy who wrote the amazing novel Red on Red last year, and now I’ve gone back and read his 2004 memoir.

And guys, he’s got the goods. He’s written Blue Blood in his own wonderfully distinctive voice, and it’sfabulous. It’s a memoir of his first decade or so with the New York PoliceDepartment, and the guy’s got stories. And he’s good at telling them.

The stuff I really love is the detail he provides about what it’sreally like being a cop: the grittiness, the cold and the drudgery, and theadrenaline.

And in both his memoir and his novel, he’s captured thecamaraderie of the police. “Partners in a squad car could almost seem married,in their devotions and divisions, in the conversations they could pick up frommonths before, as if they had never stopped talking.” (p. 152)

And this: “We didn’t develop a herd mentality as much as a hivementality, instantly known to each other by temperament and task, but adroning, indistinguishable whole to an outside observer. That’s probably whatit sounded like, too, if you heard us argue over which diner to go to forbreakfast.” (p. 184)

So that stuff is lighter in tone, but there are also some scenesthat make a person catch her breath, and others that make her blink her eyesreally fast to avoid tearing up.

Example: Conlon was part of a team assigned tosift through the debris from Ground Zero, which had been brought to a landfill.They would find personal effects and bones and sections of the airplanes. Hewrites, “Firemen arrived, with vanloads of hot food—pizza, lasagna,sandwiches—and we looked at each other with gratitude and pity: they were sorryfor us, because we had to dig, and we were sorry for them, because of what wedug out. The firemen laid out the food for us and left the tent with theirgear, tenderly cradling recovered boots and helmets as if they were infants.”(p. 508)

[blinking fast here]

I’m a sucker for workplace memoirs (also for workplace TV shows: Mary Tyler Moore, The West Wing, Sports Night, The Office), and this is one of thebest.

It also fits into a reading/viewing pattern a friend recentlyidentified in me: I like books about the good guy/hero types.

One more thing. I recently read thatConlon's retired from the police force to write full-time. This, my friends, is goodnews for the reading public.

"Suddenly, all hell broke loose!"

2012-01-22T15:48:00.000-06:00

Yesterday by chance I caught a bit of an interview with Elmore Leonard.

And apparently I've been librarianing with my eyes closed, because I was completely unaware that the great man had published a book in 2007 called Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing. (I ask you: How do these things get by me?! Of course, I only discovered his greatness in 2009, when I listened to his amazing Western/mystery The Hot Kid. Better late than never, eh?)

During the interview, they alluded to a couple of Leonard's rules, including, "Never use the words 'suddenly' or 'all hell broke loose.' This rule doesn't require an explanation."

There are various sites out there on the interwebs that list his rules, and this one is the one I like best.

So, yeah, I've placed a hold on that 96-page book of his, because I adore that man's writing style.

Under the cover of darkness...

2012-01-21T07:39:00.000-06:00

...this is what happens in libraries and bookstores.

Amish memoir

2012-01-20T06:00:00.000-06:00

Growing Up Amish byIra Wagler

What a fine book.

Ira Wagler was born Amish, and Amish he remained, off and on, foryears upon years. Even though, from his teen years on, he’d escape to the otherworld (the one the rest of us live in) to get some breathing room. And thenhe’d return to his roots.

It’s utterly interesting to hear about his not feeling like he fitin either world completely, and the way his family and his Amish origins tuggedhim back, even though he knew it wasn’t the right fit for him.

From the start of the book, we know that he’s left the Amish, butI tell you, there were moments in his life when I didn’t know how he could havegotten from there to here. He just seemed so torn.

And that’s the kind of story that, in the hands of a gifted writer(and he is one), is more riveting than one would expect.

And there are some wonderful lines, such as this:

“My father was a man of many gifts and skills. Farming was not oneof them.” (p. 43)

OK, so that’s pretty funny (or maybe not so funny, if you werehim), especially when farming’s the big thing they were supposed to be doing.

Turns out, his father was a writer, and a good one, who was widelyknown among the Amish nationwide. So, if this was next statement was true, I’m willing to give theman a pass: “We didn’t realize it then, but our farm was just plaintrashy.” (p. 43) That made me smile.

But the overall tone of the book is actually somber, sinceit’s largely about the author's feelings of not-belonging-here-or-there. There's a lot of heart-wrenching stuff here.

The fellow has a blog, and you can see examples of his finewriting there.

Also, during his youth, he lived in southern Iowa for a time, so that thrilled me to no end.Small-town Iowa’sa rare thing to find in a book, and it’s almost pathetic how excited I get whenI discover it there.

If you’re a fan of memoirs about ordinary lives told beautifullywell, or if you like subculture memoirs, this is a very fine example of both ofthose things.

One of the most reliable mystery series on the planet

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000-06:00

Umpteen books intothis series (she’s on “V” now, however many books that is), Sue Grafton’s still got it. I marvel at her with each new bookthat emerges, because usually, in my experience, authors go kind of flatsomewhere around book 11.

But not Sue Grafton. No, she’s just getting better.

Dang.

How’s she do it?

Well, whatever magic she’s working, it’s all happening in thisbook.

One thing I love about this series is that the author has stuckwith the original timeframe to keep the chronology true. So this book is set in1988. (Retro, baby.)

And there’s a loveliness to that.

The other thing that really works in this series is that KinseyMillhone is likeable yet a bit ornery, and that makes her very real.

And I love the affection she has for her landlord Henry, theretired baker. In this book, he’s out of town due to a family emergency, andshe misses him.

And one other thing, and it’s small but significant. KinseyMillhone cleans her home and office, and that stuff’s included in the book. Forsome reason, I really like this. I guess because in so many books, it seemslike people are living in a bubble that doesn’t include housecleaning.

Anyway.

This story is one of those classic PI situations, in which someonehires the detective to look into something, then changes his mind—but the PI istoo far in to let it go, so she keeps investigating on her own time (and herown dime). And havoc ensues.

Oh, it’s just all too good.

If we believe the alphabet, there’re only 4 more of these puppiescoming down the line. The only consolation is that at least this series isre-readable.

Nerds of the world: Unite!

2012-01-06T06:00:00.000-06:00

Into the Wild NerdYonder: My Life on the Dork Side byJulie Halpern

A friend who’s a middle school librarian told me about this book,and I’m so glad she did.

It’s the story of a girl who falls from Popularhood to Geekdom.(Hello, and welcome to my world!*)

Jessie’s a high school sophomore, and she’s always hung out with acouple of friends who are on the verge of being popular. And now, it’s allgoing to crap. Her best friend has stolen the boy Jessie’s got a wild crush on,and both of her friends have gone punk.

Meanwhile, here’s Jessie: “It’s funny how some of Barrett’sfriends think I’m his punky kid sister, when really I’m just some mathletewho’d rather be sewing Thanksgiving skirts in her bedroom while listening to anaudiobook.” (p. 6)

Everyone out there, raise your hand if Jessie’s part of yourtribe.

Yeah, she practically is me,and also my friend who recommended the book. We used to spend weekend nights incollege watching movies in our dorm room and cross-stitching. Those were some crazy times!

(Really—could it get any better than that? I don’t think so,either.)

Anyway, Jessie’s sewn a skirt for each day of the school year, andshe’s even planned some theme weeks: movie week, sports week, that kind ofthing. We’re talking novelty fabrics here.

So it’s really no wonder when she falls in with a new crowd thatlives on D&D and Renaissance-Fair-esque events. They are her people. Andthere’s even a cute boy in that “nerd herd” (as Jessie’s brother so sweetlyterms them).

Meanwhile, her old best friend is going way too far with Jessie’sold crush; Jessie’s brother has morphed from punk to preppy and gotten himselfa new girlfriend; and Jessie continues to earn non-stop A’s.

Jessie’s engagingly nerdy-yet-not, and her very believablehigh-school-girl voice is darn charming.

Recommended for any former/current nerds. Highly recommended for any craftyformer/current nerds. This book’s about us, and that is a rare and lovelything.

* I planned to illustrate this post with a terrifyingly dorkyphoto of myself at that age, but it appears that I successfully destroyed allsuch evidence in my possession.

Year-end reading challenge recap

2011-12-31T06:00:00.000-06:00

Well, I kind of sucked at reading challenges this year, and I’mactually kind of OK with that.

The Record ofShame

U.S.

Presidents Reading Project – Nota single additional title read all yearlong. I valiantly checked out a biography of James Madison at the 11^thhour, but I very unvaliantly did not read it. Ah well.

eBook Challenge – Read10/12, so we gotta chalk this one up as a "nice try, but no dice." What I've learned: eBooks are nice, but book books are nicer.

The Record ofGlory

Reading Madly – Completed! I'd said I'd read 7 books, and I read 8.This reading challenge helped me through the dark days of no-new-Mad-Men-episodes.

Whisper Stories in My Ear – I just barely pulled this one off, listening to(and reviewing) 12 audiobooks.

100+ Reading Challenge - Read 114 books. (Shelfari keeps taunting me with the fact that I read more books last year, and I sneer right back at it.)

Library Challenge – Read 105 library books.

Plus, the ones I finished earlier:

Nonfiction Challenge

Historical Fiction Challenge

Pub Challenge

I Want More Challenge

3Rs Challenge

In 2012, I’m going easier on the reading challenges. I’m keepingit a little more free-form, a little more… unruly.

Happy New Year, people!

Dreadful people

2011-12-30T06:00:00.000-06:00

Laura Rider’sMasterpiece by Jane Hamilton

Man, I hated every blasted character in this book. And for areader who reads for character, that could have been sheer agony. On the upside, I was interested to see how the debacle created by the characters turnedout (badly. very badly), so the plot pulled me through, despite the horrid wretchednessof the people in this novel.

This was a book club book, and everyone else hated the characters,too, so it wasn’t just me being cranky or something. And it proved to be agreat book club book because there’s plenty here to discuss.

Here’s the basic rundown: Laura Rider’s done with sex, and herhusband Charlie is rather sad about that. They own a garden center in Wisconsin, and Laura hasa secret dream of becoming an author.

Things implode when Laura’s idol, a public radio host named Jenna(something-or-other; I returned the book without making a note of her lastname) moves to their small town and the Riders meet her and Charlie begins anaffair with Jenna—more or less with his wife as an accomplice, which frankly,dudes, freaked me out. Basically, Laura’s using the episode as inspiration forher novel.

At this point, I’m screaming, Get me the hell out of here!!

Yet I read on.

Because there’s got to be some kind of resolution (explosion? agentle simmering down? I’ll never tell…)

NPR, I adore you, but...

2011-12-29T06:00:00.000-06:00

… I simply cannot abide your book choices.

Why is this?

Day after day, I’ll hear book reviews on NPR, and they’re neverbooks I want to read. It’s puzzled me for years.

And their “best novels of 2011” list contains not a single thingthat I even liked.

I read only one of these books (State of Wonder by Ann Patchett), and it was not my favorite thing. And three of these books I started and was not in the mood tofinish (The Marriage Plot, The Art ofFielding, and The Submission).

So I was just about to renounce all NPR book choices for all time,when this little gem popped up on Facebook: NPR’s list of 2011’s best celebrity tell-alls.

Now that’s my kind oflist.

I’ve read only one of them so far (Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe), but I’ve just addedsome of the others to my TBR.

Low brow at all?

Guilty as charged.

Best books of 2011

2011-12-26T06:00:00.000-06:00

2011: a good reading year

Here's my list of the best books I read this year, listed in no particular order. All were published in 2011 except for those with a year in parentheses after them.

They nicely turned out to be 50% fiction and 50% nonfiction all on their own, without any wrangling required on my part.

Click on any book title to read all about it.

The fiction

Red on Red by Edward Conlon

Hell Is Empty by Craig Johnson

English Creek byIvan Doig (1984)

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall (2010)

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

The nonfiction

What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes

Life byKeith Richards (2010)

Bossypants byTina Fey

Flourish byMartin Seligman

Packing for Mars byMary Roach (2010)

2012, you have a lot to live up to. That's all I'm saying.

Merry Christmas! Let's talk about the Nixons...

2011-12-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

Mrs. Nixon byAnn Beattie

If you like your books to be all one thing, cut and dried (perfectlyfictional, or perfectly nonfictional), then this book will drive you straightup the wall.

For the rest of us, who maybe are intrigued by the occasionalmash-up: Splendor!

(Though. If I owned a copy of this book, I’d have to put it innonfiction for 6 months of the year, and then move it to fiction for theremaining 6 months. There’s a small element of literary/shelving stress here.)

Beattie does some zany stuff in this book, including writing anentire chapter in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s style, about two characters who haven’tappeared before in the Nixon narrative. The man is writing a love letter to thewoman. Turns out, we learn at the end of the chapter that the text of the loveletter was the actual text of a letter Richard Nixon wrote to Pat. The rest ofit is all made up, characters and all.

This book is interesting,guys.

You turn the page, and you don’t know if you’re going to get aliterary interpretation of the short story “The Necklace” or social commentaryin Pat Nixon’s voice or the author’s musings on why she felt drawn to writeabout Pat Nixon of all people. (Sheeven writes a false version of events to explain why she chose this subject.Then confesses immediately that the previous chapter was A Lie.)

And it all ties together.

There were several moments while reading this book that I gavethanks to my 18-year-old self, who knew that majoring in English would havebeen a bad idea for me. There was just enough literary analysis in this book toremind me that I just don’t like doing that stuff. (Hello, readers! You ain’t gonna find nothing deep on this here book blog.)

Anyway. Pat Nixon. She’s one of thoseso-placid-she’s-nearly-invisible political wives. So that’s actually prettyintriguing, because you know she was having secretthoughts inside that perfectly-coiffed head of hers. So why not have anovelist imagine what those thoughts were? And also, she was married to Richard Nixon! So there’s some built-intragedy there.

I’ll say it again: This book is interesting.

Thanksto NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC.

Wise warrior

2011-12-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

What It Is Like toGo to War by Karl Marlantes

He’s tough, and he’s also smart as hell.

Karl Marlantes was a Marine who served in Vietnam—acombat veteran who earned the Navy Cross and lots of other commendations. Alsograduated from Yale and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. No schlump, this guy.

So he’s tough, he’s smart, and he’s also unblinkingly honestand—that rarest of things—wise. He’s been figuring things about for the past 40years about his own experience, and the experience of other warriors. And theresult is this remarkable book, which I want to thrust into people’s handseverywhere I go. I especially want to hand out copies the next time I’m onCapitol Hill. Those people need to read Marlantes’ words and take them toheart. Hell, we all do.

It’s only 256 pages in length, but it’s packed with ideas, andthey’re thoughtful and hard-won truths. This book demands to be read with care,not because the writing is difficult (it’s not), but because the content is sodamn important. Also, it’s sobering, and often it’s just plain sad-making toread this book. But people—all kinds of people, and lots of people—really, really, really should read it. It’s thestuff we need to know before we send people to war. It’s the stuff we need toknow when they return.

Listen to this:

“There is a correct way to welcome your warriors back… Cheering is inappropriate and immature.Combat veterans, more than anyone else, know how much pain and evil have beenwrought. To cheer them for what they’ve just done would be like cheering thesurgeon when he amputates a leg to save someone’s life. It’s childish, and it’sdemeaning to those who have fallen on both sides. A quiet grateful handshake iswhat you give the surgeon, while you mourn the lost leg. There should beparades, but they should be solemn processionals, rifles upside down, symbol ofthe sword sheathed once again. They should be conducted with all the dignity ofa military funeral, mourning for those lost on both sides, giving thanks forthose returned.” (p. 195)

So, yes, he is sad, but he’s also frank about the ecstasy heexperienced during battle. And then the horrible aftermath of killing.

He tells it true.

It’s an extraordinary book.

And perhaps the best doggone book I’ve read all year. Definitelythe most important.

(Considered writing Karl Marlantes a thank you letter. Probablyshould do that. [Note: I don't write fan mail to authors, so this is a weird inclination on my part.])

For a preview of the book, here’s a half-hour interviewwith the author that aired on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation.”

And here's an interview that aired on C-SPAN:

But good as these interviews are, the book’s The Thing.

Highly recommended.

Noir. Worldwide Noir.

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

In the wake of watching the entire 5-season run of The Wire in less than 2 monthsflat—during the period of withdrawal—I diagnosed for myself the Reading of Noir.

(Guys, there’s a whole series of this stuff!)

I started with DC Noir,for two reasons. No, three.

1. George Pelecanos edited it, and he’s a producer and writer on The Wire. Also, he’s a big-name mysteryauthor I’d never read and wanted to.

2. Washington, DC, baby!

3. It was available as an eBook, and I’m making a last-ditcheffort to redeem myself in the eBook reading challenge. (Can she read 5 more eBooks by year’s end? CAN SHE?)

And man, I had a moment of complete and total bliss when I beganreading this book, sitting at a café in front of a fireplace with my Nook and amocha. And the book was all noir-y and grim, and horrid things happened to thecharacters, and/or they did horrid things to others, and I was oh-so-happy. Andsome of these things were happening in DC places I’ve visited, so that made it even better.

Next, I read Boston Noir—edited by my very own favoriteDennis Lehane. And dear Dennis, I’m sorry, but I liked your buddy’s (edited)book better. There was something about the stories in DC Noir that just had that certain je ne sais quoi. And some ofthem had some killer plot twists.

Next up: Baltimore Noir. I’ve never been there, butthat’s where The Wire’s set, so I’veseen it on TV. And Baltimore’sthe world I’m missing during the withdrawal phase from all that TV watching.

Normally I’m not too much of a short story reader, but thesereally work for me. Though I find that I’m only interested in the books set inplaces I find interesting. (Last VegasNoir? Naaaa-uhhhh.)

My other withdrawal remedy: ReadingBlue Blood by Edward Conlon

Dogs. They are amazing.

2011-12-02T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Dogs of War: TheCourage, Love, and Loyalty of Military Working Dogs by LisaRogak

In the dog person/cat person question, I’m unquestionably a dogperson. Seeing a dog hanging out of a car window, grinning, slays me everytime. They’re made happy so easily, it almost breaks my heart. (Note: No, thereare no dogs at Casa Unruly. We’re still trying to keep houseplants fromperishing. [mixed results there] We haveour limits.)

Normally I have a “no dog books” rule, because dog books almostalways make me cry. (Or, in the case of Marleyand Me, hurl.) The dogs are always dying in those books, and why would anyone read such a thing?!

But when I saw the ARC of this book available at NetGalley fromMacmillan (thanks, guys!) I thought, That’s a dog book I could handle. ProbablyI’ll end up emotionally overwhelmed by the very goodness of dogs—especiallydogs as heroes during wartime—but that’s the way it goes.

Yes, that’s how it went.

And this thing starts out with a serious bang. The first sectionwas so darn riveting I read it three times. And I just keep thinking about it.

That first section’s about the dog that took part in the NavySEALs raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. HolyToledo!

OK, so that’s crazy-amazing. The parts that get me are that thedog wore specially-made night-vision goggles and a flak jacket, had a cameramounted on his back, and had an earbud that allowed his handler to communicatewith him.

I just can’t get over the fact that there was a dog on that mission.

Anyway.

The rest of the book describes the unique relationship between militarydogs and their handlers. The dogs are given a military rank, and they actuallyoutrank their handler. (This makes me smile.)

Now, there was one part of me that thought: Those poor puppies,being thrown into harm’s way and not knowing the risks. (Kind of like how Iused to feel sorry for sled dogs, who had to pull all that weight through thesnow.) But then I thought: The dogs they’re choosing to train for these missionsare dogs that are suited to do this work. They’re not training up lapdogs, forpete’s sake. And clearly, the dogs often are treated better than the humans.

The best part of this book is the quotes from the dog handlers,whose words clearly show the bond they’ve developed with their dog. Here’sRobert Moore, whose Weimaraner partner, Wisky, served with him in

Iraq

:“‘You talk to them just like anybody else. It’s just like if you’re withsomebody every day, like your squad mates or people who are on your team thatyou’ve worked with for a whole year, it’s a very strong bond.’” (p. 180 of theARC eBook)

The eBook numbers 268 pages, which makes it feel a little too longfor what I’m about to say: This book feels like it could be read by youngerreaders (maybe middle school on up). The subject matter is high-interest stuff,and the writing doesn’t seem like it would be too complex for younger readers.

But it works for grown-ups, too. I, for one, found it fascinating.

While we're talking about the Kennedys...

2011-11-28T08:59:00.001-06:00

Here's a 6-minute video created by the New York Times about "The Umbrella Man"--the guy standing under an umbrella near the site of JFK's assassination.

Interesting.

And it does my enough-with-the-conspiracy-theories heart good to see such a thing debunked.

(Just placed a hold on the Warren Commission report. It's 888 pages, so probably I'm gonna be skimming.)

She never wrote a memoir, but she did do this...

2011-11-25T06:00:00.000-06:00

Jacqueline Kennedy:Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy: Interviews with Arthur M.Schlesinger, Jr., 1964

(photo credit: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

It’s a book, it’s an audiobook, it’s one of the coolest things ever.

This is exactly the kind of historic record that I’ve been know topray will appear on the scene duringmy lifetime. And it’s fabulous.

Arthur Schlesinger was part of JFK’s brain trust, and it soundsfrom these recordings, like Jackie was reasonably comfortable with him. At anyrate, she’s rather candid, and there are things she talked about that later shesaid she didn’t want to have shared.

Of course, these are the goodthings.

Such as: There were kids’ bath toys lined up along the edge of thebathtub in JFK’s bathroom—the one their visitors to the family quarters woulduse—because John, Jr., would hang out in there while his dad was in the tub.

And, of course, when she speaks of her husband, Jackie idealizeshim completely unrealistically. Of coursethis is what a wife would do. It was up to her to set the tone for hislegacy. And besides, the man had just been assassinated mere months before. Soof course she’s going to make him sound like a saint.

But, beyond the perfected version of things that she presents, thereare some little glimpses of both of them as real humans, such as when she sayshe’d sometimes call her “Kid,” and when she describes how he wept after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. And that he ate breakfast in at-shirt and underwear, on a tray in his bedroom.

These tapes are also completely fascinating as a relic of the-way-(some)-marriages-were.She provides a very clear view of how she saw her role as a wife, and it’sold-fashioned-y stuff: Don’t ask your husband about his work day unless heoffers information; Make sure the children are in a good mood when your husbandgets home; First and foremost, provide a comfortable home life for yourhusband.

The intimacy of listening to the actual interviews is pretty darnamazing—of course, there’s her famously breathy voice, but there’s all kinds ofwonderful background noise, too: ice cubes clinking in a glass, cigarettesbeing lit, airplanes overhead, and John, Jr., tearing into the room.

This is good enough stuff that probably even the Normal (non-Kennedy-obsessed) out there willfind it worth a listen.

Also—it comes with a book that has helpful footnotes (to remind uswho Douglas Dillon was) and some good photos.

(Coincidence? Or not? Today is the 51st anniversary of John, Jr.'s birth. Just realized that when I looked at the date.)

Well, I liked it, anyway.

2011-11-18T19:41:00.000-06:00

After This by AliceMcDermott

This was one of my book club selections, and I was the only onewho got all the way through it (and one of only two who wished to).

The criticism was that nothing much really happened in this book.And I can see that.

But I really rather liked it anyway.

Now, if we apply the test, Would I have finished the book had itnot been assigned? ...well, prob’ly not.But I’m glad I read it.

I’m also glad it qualified for my Reading Madlychallenge, particularly since it evoked that time period very clearly for me. Thesecharacters could live across town from the Drapers (not quite across the tracksfrom them, but not next door, either).

There are certain scenes that I keep thinking about, such as whenJacob springs his little sister from school so they can drive around and look athis old haunts the day he leaves for

Vietnam

. And the moment when hissister is called to the school office, and she knows it’s because her brotherhas died in the war. And the moment, years before, when their parents first meteach other as strangers in a diner in Manhattan.

It’s a fairly quiet family story, and it’s told invignettes—almost like a short story collection. Each chapter / vignette / story hasa particular family member at its heart, and by focusing on one character at atime, we get to see the others in a different light.

It’s all about the characters here. If you read for character, andyou’re looking for a slice of life in the 1950s-1960s, here’s one to try.

Literature abuser?

2011-11-15T06:00:00.000-06:00

I saw this somewhere on the interwebs, and if you're reading this blog, probably you, too, are a Literature Abuser.

Take the quiz.

Best sellers for a reason

2011-11-11T06:00:00.000-06:00

Killing Floor by LeeChild

For years now—and I mean years—I’vebeen looking up Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books for others. I’vebeen placing holds, finding out the proper order of the series, all that stuff.And all the while, I was thinking, Not the books for me.

OK.

I’m wrong so often it’s almost a hobby.

After hearing a presentation by Karin Slaughter, in which she saidsome really nice things about Lee Child, I stewed on that for a while and thendecided to check out the eBook of his first Jack Reacher novel.

I was not able to put it down.

Despite these facts:

1. Early on, there’s a prison scene. (Usually this is a no-go for me.Cannot.handle.prison scenes.)

2. Reacher kills without remorse. (That is not normal human behavior. Yet the fellow’s likeable! How’s LeeChild do this?!)

Whilst I was falling in serious like with this series, two thingswere happening in the wider world:

1. Lee Child’s latest book TheAffair was released, and it tells Jack Reacher’s back story. (love this!)

2. It was announced that Tom Cruise is slated to portray JackReacher in a forthcoming movie, and that ain’t nothing but wrong, wrong, wrong. First of all: height! I mean,seriously!

Meanwhile, back in my own little world, I was checking out the eBook of book 2 inthis series. (BTW, these puppies are custom-written for eBook reading, becausethey go fast and I get all caught upin the story and keep turning [swiping] the pages.)

Happy 236th Birthday

2011-11-10T06:00:00.002-06:00

Last Men Out: The True Story of America’s Heroic Final Hours in Vietnam by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin

It’s the Marine Corps birthday today, so today we’re talking Marines around here.

The essence of this book is clear from page 31:

“…the Major added his own addendum.

‘Every Marine a rifleman,’ he said, repeating the essential philosophy of the Corps, drilled into a grunt from the first day of boot camp. He jerked his chin in the direction of the embassy’s front gate. ‘I don’t know what’s coming over those walls. Or how it’s coming. Or when it’s coming. But I can promise you one thing. When it does come, we will fight like Marines.’

He paused to study the stony faces staring back at him. ‘And if it comes to it, we will not only fight like Marines; if we have to, we will die like Marines.’

An ear-splitting roar filled the room.” (pp. 31-32)

So that’s what we got here: the final Marines remaining in

Vietnam

at the end of the war, guarding the American embassy.

Which means: This book is nerve-wracking.

Even though we know early on the names of the two young Marines who are the last to die in Vietnam (those poor young fellows), which means we know that the other guys are going to live.

Still! Nerve-wracking!

Now. I have an uneasy relationship with the Vietnam War. I mean, really, doesn’t our whole society? But I’m trying to read more about it, since it seems important to try to understand what was going on there. (But really: What in the name of all that is holy was going on there?!) This reading of mine, it’s done cautiously. I approach it from an angle, very slowly. (It literally took me years before I felt ready to tackle The Things They Carried.)

And this book’s focus on the final hours of the war… that seemed like a remarkable topic that was precise enough that I could handle it.

The authors interviewed many of the Marines and others who were present, and they read the primary accounts. Their book is hard to put down, because they allow the Marines and their story to be front and center.

There are some amazing stories here, such as the Marine helicopter pilot who had to coerce the ambassador into leaving the embassy. And the ways they all had to improvise their way through a situation that was often all too unclear. And there are parts that are horrible, like when the final helicopters arrived, and they had to leave behind many South Vietnamese people who had helped them and to whom they had promised rescue. There was nothing easy about what they had to do.

Still, this book leaves a person—at least this person—with a sense of appreciation for the Marines who were there, under horrific conditions, doing their jobs as well as they could. Remarkable humans.

The Marine Corps: First to fight. Also, in this case: Last to leave.

Semper fi.

Ain't gonna finish this thing

2011-11-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Night Circus by ErinMorgenstern

Everyone on earth is reading and loving this book, and I thoughtit would also happen to me.

It didn’t.

I bailed at page 106 out of sheer not-wanting-to-read-on.

But not before finding a line I’ve got to keep:
“Tara and Lainiedo a little bit of everything. Sometimes dancers, sometimes actresses. Oncethey were librarians, but that is a subject they will only discuss if heavilyintoxicated.” (p. 58)

Now, that is funny.

Hired guns of the old West

2011-11-04T18:00:00.000-05:00

The Sisters Brothers by PatrickDeWitt

My first book of the fall Read-a-Thon, and it was a doozy.

Ann of Books on the Nightstand positively raved about this book,which is what helped me get past a couple of things that otherwise would’ve preventedme from reading it: This is historical fiction, and it’s got a horrible cover.

Yes, I know I’m doing that Historical Fiction reading challenge,but that’s only because I’m in a genre study these days, so I’m reading thestuff by prescription already. Otherwise, I don’t really favor it.

Then a book like this comes along, and I have to wonder if are-think is in order.

The Sisters brothers are hired killers, and these dudes killpeople the way the rest of us swat mosquitoes: without mercy and without remorse.

…Until Eli, who narrates the story, starts to think he’s ready tobe All Done with killing. He’s kinda thinking he’d like to open a trading post.

Well, his brother Charlie doesn’t plan to quit his day job anytime soon, buthe’s OK with Eli taking off as soon as they finish their current job. And ofcourse, the current job’s a nightmare and a half.

Plenty of things about this book put me in mind of True Grit, and that’s high praise. It's a Western that's got all kinds of good stuff going on. Theonly thing that’s missing is the tough girl character; this book’s mainlygrown-up boys.

And they are boys.Here’s evidence:

“‘What’s that? You’re not smiling, are you? We’re in a quarrel andyou mustn’t under any circumstances smile.’ I was not smiling, but then beganto, slightly. ‘No,’ said Charlie, ‘you mustn’t smile when quarreling. It’swrong, and I dare say you know it’s wrong. You must stew and hate and revisitall the slights I offered you in childhood.’” (p. 46)

Guys, that’s funny. Thetone of the whole book is like that, which, combined with the endless string ofkillings, is what makes it possible/desirable to read this book all in one biggulp.

Books that go bump in the night

2011-10-31T06:00:00.005-05:00

In my reading life, I can trace a long tradition of my scaring myself witless by reading nonfiction alone late at night.

And the weird thing is, some of my favorite books have had this effect on me.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

Exhibit A: High-school-age me, reading a biography of Edith Cavell, an English nurse executed by the Germans for having aided the escape of Allied soldiers during WWI. It’s late at night, and I’m alone in my room, the only person awake in the house. And I’m completely freaked out, thinking that if I turn out the lights to go to sleep, the ghost of the executed Edith Cavell will materialize.

(I don’t believe in ghosts. Didn’t believe in them then, either.)

Exhibit B: High-school-age me, reading a book about the sinking of the Titanic. Again, it’s late at night, and I’m the only one awake. I’m utterly terrified as I climb the stairs, because I’m convinced that the spirit of Captain Smith will be walking along the upstairs hallway banister, as though he’s patrolling the bridge of the ship. As though my reading had conjured him.

Exhibit C: College-age me, reading a book about the battle of Gettysburg. Same staircase, late at night. I’m quite certain I’m walking through a foggy field of ghost soldiers as I ascend the stairs. (I recall thinking of the book title In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead and nearly snorting when I realized that maybe that’s where the “fogginess” came from. Then I thought, James Lee Burke, you’re in trouble for making this vision worse than it already was. Because even laughing at myself did not particularly relieve the terror.)

Exhibit D (oh, yes, there’s more): Librarian-age me, reading Young Men and Fire for the first time. I stayed up reading after Mr. UR had gone to sleep, because I could not put that book down. And this time the thing happened at the top of the stairs. (Different house, different staircase, same freak-out.) I swear, I was really scared that if I looked out of the corner of my eye, I’d see those men sidehilling down the hallway, to their deaths.

Exhibit E: Year-2011-age me, reading Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper. I knew, I knew! it was a dumb idea to keep reading this book after Mr. UR went to sleep. I was downstairs, all alone, and I (true-crime-o-phobe) was reading a book about a master criminal. Not a good idea, lady. So as I headed upstairs, I turned on every light in every room as I walked through it, and I made it up the stairs without incident. I was thinking maybe I’d conquered that old thing. Didn’t completely have the full freak-out effect until I was getting into bed. Then, out of nowhere, had the same fear that I’d had as a child (which used to cause me to leap—and I mean leap—across my room into my bed) that someone/something would reach out from under the bed and grab my ankle. D.B. Cooper might grab my ankle! I surprised myself with the crazed little hop I did as I got (let's be honest: launched myself) into bed.

This, my friends, this is why you won’t be reading any horror reviews here. Plain old nonfiction is scary enough for this one.

Happy Halloween, y'all.

Brave new portable world

2011-10-30T00:02:00.001-05:00

Supposedly now I can blog from my phone. We'll see.

(Droid X2, you just *think* you're smarter than me. We'll see.)

OK. Those few words just took 5 minutes to peck out. I mean, *really.*

Look book, with presidents

2011-10-28T06:00:00.000-05:00

The President’sPhotographer: Fifty Years Inside the Oval Office by JohnBredar

Oh, this is so much mykind of book. There’s presidents and there’s pictures and there’sbehind-the-scenes info. Oooo oooo ooooooooo!

Going in, I expected this thing to have an introductory essay,followed by nothing but photos and captions. But it’s got a full-on text goingon. And it’s a great thing to read. (So often, these look books don’t haveinteresting texts accompanying them. It’s tragic.)

The other thing that might make one suspicious that this bookwould not be up to snuff is that it’s a companion book to a NationalGeographic/PBS video. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been sadly disappointedin the past by those companion books.

But this one… This one could stand alone just fine. The writing is zippy and what it conveys is fascinating.

So the book’s good on its own, but the PBS program is pretty darn fabulous, too. And it’s available to watch online for free!

But the interesting thing is that the book itself describes whystill photography, rather than video, is vital to capturing the essence of apresidency—because a photographer can be in a room to take a photo without alsocapturing the conversation that is taking place. So the photographer is grantedgreater access. Plus, there’s something about a photograph—the way it capturesa single moment in time—that somehow speaks to us differently than a videodoes.

This scene took place in Decorah, Iowa - I know that place!
(photo credit: White House; photo by Pete Souza)

The book’s primary focus is Pete Souza, the current White Housephotographer, but it also includes plenty of photos of previous presidents, asthe role of the White House photographer has evolved.

(Pete Souza’s the photographer who took that famous photo of then-Senator Obama running up the steps of the Capitol)

One of my favorite lines in the book is this one, which follows a photo of the Fords at the breakfast table at theirhome in Alexandria,in the days before they moved into the White House. Betty Ford’s wearing ashower cap and robe, and their dining room looks so much like the (hideous) 1970s decor I remember from my younger days. (They were real people, the Fords!) Anyway, here’s John Bredar’s brilliantaccompanying text:

“This is about as pedestrian an image as you can imagine, anutterly American morning, right down to the round wooden dining table, with acondiment-jammed lazy Susan at its center. When will the teenager drag in andbegin grazing? The idea of substituting Richard and Pat Nixon into this tableauisn’t just weird, it’s a little scary.” (pp. 135)

I like it when photographybooks make me laugh.

(photo credit: White House; photo by Pete Souza)

If you, too, are a suckerfor the historic photos as they happen,here’s a nifty little thing— if you “Like” The White House on The Face, you’ll get the Photo of the Day tossed your way daily. It’s actually kind ofamazing.

OK, here's one more for the road.

That's the president blocking a shot by Reggie Love, his body man. And given Mr. Love's background, that's nothing short of impressive.

I love this stuff.

Read-a-Thon: Sleep. Now.

2011-10-23T04:06:00.001-05:00

Read-a-Thon day, you've been a delight.

And now I'm utterly wiped and am headed off to sleep.

Feeling very good about finishing 5 books this time around. All = mysteries. Apparently that's a magic Read-a-Thon formula for me.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who visited and cheered. It's wildly encouraging.

Here's the final update:

What else I’ve been doing: just reading since the last update

Where I’ve been reading: in the kitchen

How long I’ve been reading: 14 hours

How many books I’ve finished reading: 5 (woo-hoo!)

Chairs I’ve sat in: every darn chair/sofa in the entire downstairs over the course of the day. Usually I stick with only about 3 of them, so this gave some new perspectives to the day.

Now it's 4 a.m. (the latest I've been awake since probably college), and I am so ready to sleep.

Happy reading to those who are rounding out these final few hours of the Read-a-Thon. I salute your fortitude!

Good night, all.

Read-a-Thon: Book 4. Do I hear 5?

2011-10-23T03:11:00.001-05:00

Book 4: Completed! I went tearing through the latest Berger and Mitry mystery, The Blood Red Indian Summer by David Handler. I like that series, and this book was a quick thing to read.

Now I'm halfway through Steal the Show by Thomas Kaufman, the second in the Willis Gidney series. Given that it's just about 3 a.m. here, I'm not sure I'm going to finish this one before I lose steam. These eyes are getting tired, and I haven't drunk any coffee in 12 hours. But the book makes me want to stay awake to finish it, so I just might finish Book 5...

Usually it's around this time of night (morning!) that I get to feeling like I'm the only awake human on earth. But this book's characters are keeping me company, so that lonely feeling is greatly diminished this time around.

What else I’ve been doing: checking The Face; visiting some blogs; eating a banana, some chocolate, and some crackers; drinking more water

Where I’ve been reading: reading room, kitchen

How long I’ve been reading: 13 hours

How many books I’ve finished reading: 4

Chairs I’ve sat in: comfy little chair, kitchen chair (I'm sticking with the kitchen chair for the rest of the night -- those cushy chairs make me sleepy)

Read-a-Thon: Facebook cheering section

2011-10-23T00:40:00.000-05:00

Oh, people are lovely. A dear friend (thank you!) just sent me this YouTube video via Facebook.

Words of encouragement for sleepy book bloggers everywhere...

Read-a-Thon: Book 3

2011-10-22T22:23:00.001-05:00

Wow. Just read a wonderful mystery novel in just over 2 hours. (Yeah, OK, so it was only 250 pages long.)

Book 3 was The Last Striptease by Michael Wiley. A rip-roaring good PI novel set in Chicago. I literally read it straight through from start to finish (without even any snack breaks!)

And the good news for me is that it's the first book in a series. I think there are three books in the series thus far, so that's happy times ahead. Wishing I had book 2 here because I would read that thing right now, but no.such.luck.

So -- reading's all I've been doing, except for sipping water and moving between the sofa and the cozy little reading chair. (That's it there in the picture, with the ottoman that's not really an ottoman because it's really a storage bin with a floor pillow flumped on the top of it.)

So far today, there have been murders and more murders in every book I've read. And probably the next book up: more murders in there! The reason I think this is working so well for me today is that mysteries and thrillers make you want to go tearing through them at breakneck speed, and that's Read-a-Thon style. Those introspective quiet novels about family relationships... on Read-a-Thon day, No.

Since it's still hella early (only 10:20 p.m.!) I'm wondering if I might make it through 2 more books...? We Shall See.

Read-a-Thon: Mid-point

2011-10-22T19:39:00.001-05:00

Hooray! I've finally finished Book 2!

Although I liked The Black Echo by Michael Connelly very much, by page 375, I was getting a little squirrelly. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have happened if I'd read it normally (rather than all in one big stretch).

I just now read the descriptions of two of the books I checked out (a children's book and a young adult book, each by an author that wrote another book I read and loved) and neither one of them sounds like my cuppa tea, plot-wise.

So I'm staying in the mystery genre. I think. I'm only on page 3 of my next (possible) pick, so it's still too early to declare a winner in the Book 3 sweepstakes. [This is the part of past Read-a-Thons when I've gotten hyper-finicky about books.]

What else I’ve been doing: went to a local cafe with Mr. UR; visited the Read-a-Thon page; visited some blogs; ate dinner while watching a couple of TV shows on Hulu; drank some coffee in the afternoon; ate an apple, a chocolate toffee thing, and some pizza. Oh -- and I had pasta for lunch. I'm a hungry thing.

Where I’ve been reading: kitchen, reading room, living room, cafe

How long I’ve been reading: 7 hours

How many books I’ve finished reading: 2

Chairs I’ve sat in: all 4 kitchen chairs (one of which has a surprisingly pleasant view [I never sit in that chair]), the library table chair, the wingback chair, the west end of the sofa, and both living room chairs (only 1 chair and 1 end of the sofa remain -- and both have strategically placed reading lamps nearby, so they're perfect for night reading)

Other stuff: Got terribly sleepy during the sofa phase. Also gave myself a weird shoulder cramp from how I was holding the book. This reading is dangerous work.

Read-a-Thon: Mid-day check-in

2011-10-22T15:46:00.002-05:00

All the president's men jump the shark from time to time.

It's Hour 9, and things are good.

First off, Midnight Book Girl is hosting a challenge: Use books you have on hand to form a sentence out of their titles. My contribution appears in that photo there. (Thanks to Mr. UR for suggesting "Jump the Shark" in place of "Rise and Shine." Way better sentence.)

After starting the book What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes, I stopped reading on page 6. I determined that this was not a book to gulp down during a Read-a-Thon, so I'm saving it for another day soon.

Then I picked up The Black Echo by Michael Connelly, an author I've only been meaning to read for 15 years now. Darn good mystery -- I'm liking it. I'm only halfway through -- it's a 475-page paperback. Big books are a silly choice for a Read-a-Thon, but it's the first Harry Bosch novel, so I'm starting from the very beginning... a very good place to start...

I'll be back with some stats either when I finish The Black Echo or when I decide to take a reading break.

(Chair-sitting update: I've sat in 2 additional chairs since last time. More ahead...
I know: The suspense is killing you.)

Read-a-Thon: 1st book

2011-10-22T12:06:00.005-05:00

I've finished reading my first book of the day, and it was a great choice. I'll probably 4-star The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt when I add it to my Shelfari list. And I'll write all about it later. I got stuff to say.

But for now, I'm getting ready to launch into Book 2. I'm not going to announce what it is, because I don't want to hex it. Let's just say, it's one of these.

Also -- My book line-up today is filled with lots of murder and mayhem. In part, that's by design, because I've included a couple of mystery authors I've been wanting to read for a long time. And I intentionally added some faster-paced stuff to the mix. But man, there's a lot of violent death in my TBR today. That's jolly!

What else I’ve been doing: Visited the Read-a-Thon page; visited a few blogs; ate oatmeal, drank coffee, and then ate some almond cake (true to form, the Read-a-Thon makes me ravenous); put on daytime clothes

Where I’ve been reading: my chair at the kitchen table; rocking chair in the living room (the best room in the house during the morning hours -- and we have bright sunshine today!)

I think I might try to read from every seat in the house today. Why not?

How long I’ve been reading: 2.75 hours

How many books I’ve finished reading: 1

Book 2, I hope I like you.

Read-a-Thon: I'm awake

2011-10-22T08:39:00.000-05:00

Good morning, good people of the Read-a-Thon!

We're a little more than 1 hour in, and I've been reading since 7:30 a.m. (even though the Midwest's start time was 7:00. I am a lazy son-of-a-gun in the morning).

I just popped over to the Read-a-Thon mother ship, and here's the first thing on the to-do list for the day (other than: Read):

1)Where are youreading from today?

my cozy little home in the Midwest

2)Three random facts about me…

1. I like things to be organized.

2. I'm vaguely pigeon-toed.

3. I like driving fast.

3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?

There are 9 books in my Read-a-Thon pile, and I expect to read 4 of them. I've also got about 15 other TBRs scattered around the place, so if that first group of 9 doesn't trip my trigger, I got back-up.

4)Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number ofpages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?
I'd like to finish 4 books and read until the 3 a.m. hour. (Usually that's when I start conking out.)

5)If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for thefirst time?

If you're not liking any given book, bail out. Eat as needed. Visit other Read-a-Thon-ers' sites and cheer them on.

My first book of the day is The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt. Ann of Books on the Nightstand raved about it in a recent podcast, and I believe she said she'd been reading the book when Hurricane Irene swept through her area. Her home lost power, so she bought a second copy of the book as an eBook, so she could keep reading it on her iPad. That's a sign of a good book. (Also -- score one point for the back-lit eReaders that allow reading-in-the-dark.)

I'm on page 83 of The Sisters Brothers, and I'm liking it lots. It's got a first-person narrator, and the guys are gruff and brotherly (in the sense that there's always rivalry, and they insult one another at every opportunity. Since they insult with very few words, it's entertaining as all heck).

OK. Back to the book. (I love Read-a-Thon day.)

Just stoic enough

2011-10-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

English Creek by IvanDoig

I’m a total sucker for a first-person narrative told in a reallyengaging voice. And in this book—the voice is perfection.

For years now—years—I’vebeen thinking someday I’d read something by Ivan Doig.

Why did I wait so long? (for more about me being a numbskull, here you go)

(photo credit: Library of Congress)

Fourteen-year-old Jick McCaskill narrates this story, and he is acompletely likeable young fellow. And the world sometimes mystifies him, theway the world does when a person’s fourteen. His older brother is defying theirparents by working at a land baron’s ranch and then getting himself engaged,and that’s stirring things up. Plus Jick is starting to get the sense that hisparents are actual people, and thatthey had lives before he showed up on the scene. And that’s always arevelation.

So there in Montana,in the midst of the Great Depression, Jick is growing up. “Frankly, high amongmy hopes about the business of growing up was that I would get a considerablymore substantial horse out of it.” (pp. 14-15)

But he also finds himself wanting to ask his parentsquestions—about his brother and the new tension in the family, about how hisparents met, about their younger years, about the forest ranger who precededhis father in the job and why he fell from grace—and he hardly knows how toask.

As I read, I kept noting pages that contained stuff I reallyliked. Here are two examples:

“We tell ourselves whatever is needed to go from one scene of lifeto the next.” (p. 40) Man, if that ain’t true.

And this scene, in which Jick’s dad is calling the dance at thetown fest:

“I stepped away from Ray, soldiered myself in front of my mother,and said:

‘Mrs. McCaskill, I don’t talk through my nose as pretty as the guyyou usually gallivant around with. But suppose I could have this dance with youanyway?’

Her face underwent that rinse of surprise that my father sometimesshowed about her. She cast a look toward the top of my head as if justrealizing my height. Then came her sidelong smile, and her announcement:

‘I never could resist you McCaskill galoots.’” (pp. 204-205)

How can you not like that boy and his family?

Jick’s narrative voice is so lovely, and the voices of the othercharacters are just plain interesting,too.

When I read the final section of the reader’s guide in the book, Ifound out part of the reason why: Doig says that he found it easy to write inJick’s voice, and he mentions that he had decades’ worth of file cards ofphrasing and dialogue. In the Acknowledgments, he writes, “Thus it is verynearly forty years now that I have been listening to Montanans.” (p. 337)

And guys, he listened well. And by writing well, he lets us listento their voices, too. The results are splendid.

So much not-my-thing

2011-10-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

Master and Commander by PatrickO’Brian

I honestly don’t recall the last time a book made me this darnannoyed. (Every time I looked at it, I was tempted to snarl. Eventually, I gavein; this was not pretty.)

I was railing so much about having to read it thatfinally Mr. UR said—wonderfully gently—that maybe I could find a summary onlineand just stop reading it. I tell you, I was sorely tempted.

The only reason I persevered (sort of) was that this book wasassigned for a genre study. And I agree that it’s the right book to representthis military/adventure subgenre of historical fiction.

But damn, I hated it.

(hated it, hated it, hated it!!)

And I’m telling you, I’m just plain flummoxed. I have talked withreaders over the years who positively love this book and this series. ForPete’s sake, Keith Richards lovesthis series!

I could barely even read it.

I shall now open the book to a random page and type the first twosentences upon which my eyes land:

“Merriment, roaring high spirits before this: then some chanceconcatenation, or some hidden predilection (or rather inherent bias) workingthrough, and the main is in the road he cannot leave but must go on, making itdeeper and deeper (a groove, or channel), until he is lost in his merecharacter—persona—no longer human, but an accretion of qualities belonging tothis character. James Dillon was a delightful being.” (p. 181)

See?! This is what I’m talking about!

(Poor Mr. UR, who survived two separate episodes of “I’m now goingto open this book to a random page and read aloud…”)

I tried to skim it, and it’s impossible to skim. But it’s alsoimpossible to read. (See two-sentence excerpt above.)

In this book, I think there were some battles. And for some reason, at the end,Jack Aubrey appears to be getting court-martialed, and I have no earthly idea why.(I know why I don’t know why: because I was skimmingthe unskimmable!)

Patrick O’Brian, we are not going to be spending any more timetogether.

Goodbye, Aubrey and Maturin.Go and do your thing.

I’m going to go and do mine. (Probably it will involve readingsomething plain, stark, and pure. I’m sorely in need of an antidote.)

Read-a-Thon: The countdown

2011-10-16T15:00:00.000-05:00

It's less than a week till the Read-a-Thon, so the stockpiling has begun!

It hit me that I really should take a picture of the stash thus far. It hit me while I was cleaning the house, which is no surprise. I mean, why dust when you can be piling up books and photographing them?

Though the dusting was actually bookish, too. I'm hosting the book club this week, and while the ladies (being in the inner circle and all) have seen this house in a state of disaster, it seems polite to at least whip a dust rag around the rooms before book club night.

So yeah, it's gonna be a good week ahead: book club night, then Read-a-Thon day. Things are good around here.

Glamour

2011-10-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

OK, I admit it: It was the gorgeous cover that made me need to read this book. Plus, it was getting splashed all over EarlyWord as one of the hot books of the fall. But guys, I started reading it in my pjs one morning, and I’m not going to tell you what time I put on daytime clothes. I’m just not telling.

This is one of those glorious lost-love books, and I love lost-love books. And also, it’s a New York City book, and I love those, too. Plus, it’s one of those blast-from-the-past books (also something I love), in which the narrator starts out in the now (1966 in this instance) and then reflects back on then (1937 and 1938, the heyday of her youth). And there are love triangles, and there is grand ambition and social climbing and the loss of innocence, and all I can say is Wow.

The narrator, Katey Kontent, is a young woman of meager means who gets a job in the city and falls in with a stylish crowd. And we know that in 1966 she’s married and seems to be having a very fine life, but back in the ’30s… she’s falling in love, and then getting her heart broken, and you really don’t know if things are going to go well for her.

This book begs to have its plot told, but I’m not gonna do it because sometimes that just ruins everything. So that’s all I’m gonna say.

Except…

Here’s what I found out, after finishing the book: The author is a man! (All along, I’d been thinking, "Maybe I’ll look at the author photo…" But I don’t always do that, and then it turns out this one’s male.) It surprised me at first, because the narrator is female, but then I realized that I could believe it. Maybe because of the Fitzgerald-esque feel of the book… I really can’t lay a finger on it.

In addition to a fantastic plot, the writing is stylish. Here's a nice passage that gives a sense:

"Bitsy looked impressed.

—I’ve never been in a car wreck.

Though from the way she said it, you got the sense she had been in other kinds of wrecks—like in an airplane or motorcycle or submarine." (p. 183)

OK. So I’m strongly recommending this book. I 5-starred it on Shelfari and everything. If it sounds at all like your kind of thing, place a hold at the library and then wait for the lovely day when it arrives especially for you.

Just for us

2011-10-11T06:00:00.001-05:00

The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs

This is a wee, jolly book, my reading friends. It’s 150 pages of Our Kind of Talk.

Yes, it’s a book about the joys of reading.

And the author is a thoroughly amiable fellow. Here’s what he says: “Read at Whim.”

Yes, really! And he’s even an English professor, saying this!

Basically, he’s giving us permission to read what we want to read. We can—yes, we can—ignore those odious lists of Best Books. Unless we happen to want to read some of the books on those lists. Otherwise, it’s OK to read what we love. Because reading books just to check them off a list, that isn’t really reading for the very best reason.

This is so much my belief. It was pure pleasure to read it so beautifully argued.

Here’s one of my favorite sentences of the book. He’s describing his junior year in high school. “At that age I would have been an absolute sucker for any authoritative register of Books One Must Read, and I thank God that I never came across any of them.” (p. 131)

(I myself got hold of such a list in college, and it took a library school class on popular fiction to set me free.)

Jacobs also addresses the difficulties of our wired age. He brings in Nicholas Carr’s ideas from The Shallows to describe how tempting our electronic devices can be, even to those of us who know the delight of being fully absorbed in a book.

Here’s Jacobs: “To be lost in a book is genuinely addictive: someone who has had it a few times wants it again, and wants it enough, perhaps, to beg a friend to hide the damned BlackBerry for a couple of hours, please.” (p. 88)

There are too many delightful sentences here for me to include, but here’s what my favorite sections are about: the importance of allowing ourselves to re-read books when we want to (yeehaw!) and the importance of serendipity in our reading lives. Pretty much what I was railing about a short while ago.

We need those things, and we know we need those things, and we need to make sure we get those things.

A lovely little book. Lovely.

Definitely the Right Stuff

2011-10-07T06:00:00.000-05:00

Amidst the book geek's ravings, this post also includes 3 quizzes. Here's the first...

Quiz 1: Name these Mercury 7 astronauts.*

(photo credit: NASA)

Recently I spent a weekend re-reading Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff, forsaking all other books.

It was one of the best reading experiences of my adult life.

’Twas my second time reading The Right Stuff, and I think it was even better this time around. Last time I read it, it launched me (ha! space pun!) on a space reading kick that’s lasted ever since. But when I first read it, back in 2007, I didn’t know much about most of the people in the book. Pete Conrad, Gus Grissom… who were they?

Well, now I’ve read about those fellows, and I’ve read John Glenn’s autobiography (and I just bought a copy of Chuck Yeager’s, but I haven’t cracked it yet—thus bolstering one of Wolfe’s points about the astronauts getting all the glory while the other pilots were treated more or less like chopped liver) and lots of other space books.

But this one… this one is the Thing.

The first time I read it, and the second time I read it, this book had me at page 11. Here’s the sentence that just killed me: “And the bridge coats came out and they sang about those in peril in the air and the bridge coats were put away, and the little Indians remarked that the departed was a swell guy and a brilliant student of flying; a little too much of a student, in fact; he hadn’t bothered to look out the window at the real world soon enough.” (p. 11)

It’s the third time the bridge coats are evoked, and those fine bridge coats mean death. They’re funeral clothes, and the image of those young pilots hauling out their best uniform coats and then storing them again, then pulling them out again… it gets a person, you know?

Wolfe is a gorgeous stylist—an utter genius at putting together a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter. This book is a masterpiece.

And the thing is, it’s so darn readable!

Often, when people speak of a writer’s gorgeous writing, it seems they’re talking about writing that is all lush and overblown and complicated and hard to read. This book is not like that. It’s easy to read, it’s a pleasure to read, and it just flows. But it’s not at all simple…

While the writing is stunning, the thing about this book that makes me love it is the sense of heroism. And the way the actual pilots and astronauts were horrified by such a word.

For example: After Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, journalists descended upon Muroc Field. “The real problem was that reporters violated the invisible walls of the fraternity. They blurted out questions and spoke boorish words about… all the unspoken things!—about fear and bravery (they would say the words!) and how you felt at such-and-such a moment! It was obscene!” (p. 47)

I love and adore this.

Quiz 2: Who is in the cockpit of the P-51 Mustang in the picture on the left? Hint: He's the guy wearing the tan shirt and white cap in the picture on the right.**

(photo credit: My dad, who took the pictures because he's hella tall. But I was there, too, back in 1992, and saw, with my very own eyes, Chuck Yeager flying an airplane and then riding down the flight line in a convertible!! I know: Lucky, right?)

(Oops. Just gave away the answer to Quiz 2 in its photo credit)

So we'll try another one...

Quiz 3: The Mercury 7 again! Name 'em!***

(photo credit: NASA)

And now, just because he makes my heart throb:

Gratuitous photo of John Glenn, after being picked up by the USS Noa after splashdown in Friendship 7

(photo credit: NASA)

Wolfe also describes the way grown men—hardened men: police officers along the parade route—would weep upon seeing John Glenn after his successful Earth orbit. Wolfe (correctly, I think) chalks it up to the notion of the single combat warrior: the designation of a single man to represent his tribe in a fight to the death against a single warrior from another tribe. We simple beings tend to get overwhelmed by such things.

And I get it. I still get choked up every single time I hear Scott Carpenter say, “Godspeed, John Glenn,” as the countdown begins. (I actually can’t even think of those words without my face crumpling up.)

The only other things that can create the same feeling of ecstasy are visiting the National Air & Space Museum (where I have been known to do the following: a) stand with my mouth hanging open in sheer awe; b) blink rapidly and look at the floor in order to avoid embarrassing crying-for-joy episodes; and c) smile so broadly my face nearly cracks) and the spectacular documentary In the Shadow of the Moon (to which Mr. UR and I are fully addicted. We’ve watched it at least 1o times, and we’ve only just begun.)

So, here it is. A book with that kind of power, it’s going on my Top 10 list. And now I own a copy, so I can rest easy, knowing it’s under my roof and available to re-read at a moment’s notice.

And in these ways, I know life is good.

---------------------

* Quiz 1 answers—Back row, l-r: Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper; Front row, l-r: Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter

** Quiz 2 answer—Just in case you missed the way I spoiled the quiz by answering it in the photo credit note, that dude is Chuck Yeager himself!

*** Quiz 3 answers—l-r: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, Deke Slayton

If you named ’em all, you have earned serious bragging rights. Truly. Also: Welcome to my club; you're now a certified space geek.

I know authors.

2011-10-05T22:07:00.002-05:00

So, as I mentioned, at Casa Unruly, we're tearing through seasons of The Wire like it's assigned viewing and the test is approaching fast (except that we're enjoying the hell out of it, which usually doesn't exactly happen with assigned/tested stuff).

And twice now, the librarian in the room has hollered out the name of an author who's appeared on the screen.

(It goes like this: Suddenly sits up straight. Hollers: "That's Dennis Lehane!")

Yes, one time, it was really Dennis Lehane! Seeing him on the screen, in a bit part as a police officer in season 3, I became nearly as unhinged as the time I saw him in real life. (We had to watch it a couple of times while I did some gazing-in-delight at the fella.)

And then, at the beginning of season 5, Laura Lippman showed up.

Mr. UR claims to have a knack for spotting librarians from 50 yards away (and actually, I think he might be right; he's pretty good at it).

But I... I can spot authors. Even when they're mixed in with actors, I can spot 'em. Man, it makes me feel librarian-ish. In the best possible way.

Serendipitous discovery

2011-10-04T06:00:00.000-05:00

Corn Flakes with John Lennon: And Other Tales from a Rock ’n’ Roll Life by Robert Hilburn

Bono introduces this book, and I’ve fallen in love with him because of the way he writes. My land, what a gorgeous introduction. And the thing is, Bono’s intro makes you crave hearing about Hilburn-the-elusive-journalist’s story just as much as hearing Bono’s, Lennon’s, Dylan’s, Cash’s…

And then Hilburn’s voice starts, and man. How did I almost never read this book?!

I only checked it out from the library because I ran across a copy while browsing books at a secondhand record store we visited only because our visiting-from-out-of-town friend likes secondhand record stores. Which makes me wonder how many other great things I am—right this very second—missing out on, because some random turn of events has not yet led me to them.

Hilburn was a music critic at the Los Angeles Times, and over the years he got to talk to darn near everyone significant in rock. And it seems he had a skill at developing a rapport with most of them, because the interviews often turned into real conversations.

So, as the title suggests, Hilburn has eaten Corn Flakes with John Lennon, and he’s also caught him sneaking bites of a candy bar when Yoko wasn’t looking. (Lennon was supposed to be on this uber-healthful diet.) And Bob Dylan played part of Hilburn’s recommended set list at a concert in Israel. This book is filled with good stuff like that.

He’s interviewed Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Kurt Cobain, and oodles of other big names over the years.

I handed the book to Mr. UR so he could read about U2 (even though, I know, they should have hung it up after The Joshua Tree), and at one point he looked up and said, “This guy can really write.”

That’s the beauty of this book. Great writing and an interesting personal narrative, interwoven with stories about rock stars. Fabulous.

3rd Quarter Challenge Update

2011-10-01T06:00:00.002-05:00

Yeah, it’s crunch time in the reading challenge world. The final 3 months of the year approach, and we darn well better be wrapping up the challenge reading.

Here’s where I am:

Challenges still underway:

Reading Madly—6/7. I’m gonna be fine here, especially since I picked a book club book for October that has some sort of Mad Men connection.

U.S. Presidents Reading Project—OK, either I suck it up and read a biography of Grover Cleveland yet this year, or I just pretend to be satisfied that I’m still at 22/44. For nearly a year now, that’s been the number. Goal for year-end: Bring that number up to 23. (Pitiful.)

100+ Reading Challenge—90/100. Feeling good.

eBook Challenge—6/12. Not gonna make it. Nook Color, I have forsaken you. I’ve neglected your eReaderliness and used you as a quasi-tablet/smartphone substitution so’s I can read the interwebs from my purse. There’s the horrible truth, and I am sore ashamed.

Whisper Stories in My Ear—11/12. Almost there! (I’ve listened to more than 12 audiobooks, but I don’t feel like writing about all of them. And this challenge requires reviews.)

Library Challenge—84/100. No problem.

Completed Challenges

Thank you. Thank you... [curtsies]

Nonfiction Challenge

Historical Fiction Challenge

Pub Challenge

I Want More Challenge

3Rs Challenge

So my own true challenge is clear: Read some doggone eBooks about Presidents. I'm off to seek out this exact thing...

I'll never complain about long airport security lines again

2011-09-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

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...

2011-09-27T18:00:00.005-05:00

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

2011-09-24T18:00:00.002-05:00

Every time I walk past a little cafe in our town, I think of the Read-a-Thon--because usually I go there on Read-a-Thon day, twice a year. Mr. UR and 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

2011-09-23T18:00:00.006-05:00

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

2011-09-22T19:31:00.003-05:00

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, Mr. UR and I are 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

2011-09-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

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

2011-09-16T18:00:00.001-05:00

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

2011-09-16T06:00:00.000-05:00

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

2011-09-15T06:00:00.002-05:00

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

2011-09-14T06:00:00.002-05:00

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

2011-09-13T06:00:00.004-05:00

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

2011-09-12T23:05:00.000-05:00

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

2011-09-12T06:00:00.004-05:00

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

2011-09-11T16:29:00.002-05:00

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

2011-09-09T18:00:00.002-05:00

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.

2011-09-07T20:00:00.000-05:00

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.

So apparently my blog has Mr. UR’s personality. He’s charming as all hell, so I think that’s OK.

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

2011-09-04T13:00:00.003-05:00

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

2011-09-02T18:00:00.001-05:00

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

Surprisingly sympathetic

2011-08-26T18:00:00.000-05:00

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

2011-08-23T18:00:00.001-05:00

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

2011-08-21T13:00:00.003-05:00

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

2011-08-19T18:00:00.002-05:00

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

2011-08-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

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

2011-08-13T19:00:00.000-05:00

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?

2011-08-12T18:01:00.003-05:00

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

2011-08-09T18:00:00.002-05:00

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

2011-08-05T18:00:00.000-05:00

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.

Unruly Reader

I heart NY

"Suddenly, all hell broke loose!"

Under the cover of darkness...

Amish memoir

One of the most reliable mystery series on the planet

Nerds of the world: Unite!

Year-end reading challenge recap

Dreadful people

NPR, I adore you, but...

Best books of 2011

Merry Christmas! Let's talk about the Nixons...

Wise warrior

Noir. Worldwide Noir.

Dogs. They are amazing.

While we're talking about the Kennedys...

She never wrote a memoir, but she did do this...

Well, I liked it, anyway.

Literature abuser?

Best sellers for a reason

Happy 236th Birthday

Ain't gonna finish this thing

Hired guns of the old West

Books that go bump in the night

Brave new portable world

Look book, with presidents

Read-a-Thon: Sleep. Now.

Read-a-Thon: Book 4. Do I hear 5?

Read-a-Thon: Facebook cheering section

Read-a-Thon: Book 3

Read-a-Thon: Mid-point

Read-a-Thon: Mid-day check-in

Read-a-Thon: 1st book

Read-a-Thon: I'm awake

Just stoic enough

So *much* not-my-thing

Read-a-Thon: The countdown

Glamour

Just for us

Definitely the Right Stuff

I know authors.

Serendipitous discovery

3rd Quarter Challenge Update

I'll never complain about long airport security lines again

100 best nonfiction books. Hmmm...

Read-a-Thon on the horizon

Yeah, sports again

Cops and more cops

Laurie Colwin-esque

Then it all came tumbling down

BBAW: Blogging

BBAW - Readers

BBAW - Community, Part II

BBAW - Blogger Interviews

2011 Title Meme

BBAW - Community

September 11

Couldn't put it down

Split personality. Yikes.

ESFP - The Performers

Scary math leads to drastic measures

The interviewer

Surprisingly sympathetic

An offer we couldn't refuse

Presidential vacational reading

Sinfully good

Broken reader: fixed

BAND August Discussion

What do Rob Lowe and Dwight Eisenhower have in common?

One of the things I can't read about

Worthy of all the hype

So much not-my-thing