The Suckies (because they can't all be winners)

Reading is an experience, and not all experiences are good ones. Hence, The Suckies:

Dumbest Character :
Isabel Bookbinder, The Glamourous (Double) Life of Isabel Bookbinder. This book is purportedly chick lit, though it was more like chick sh*t. Chick-lit heroines are supposed to be funny and relatable: am I supposed to be able to relate to an idiot like Isabel? If so, I'm offended on behalf of myself and womankind. There's flawed, as chick-lit heroines always are, and there's so stupid that you think that Balkan means someone is from a place called Balka. Stupid, stupid Isabel believes that the key duties of a novelist are wearing cashmere track-suits and gazing out the window. She proves herself too dumb to live on multiple occasions, and yet the book implies that I am supposed to be pulling for her. I think not. Isabel is a pathetic rip-off the inimitable Bridget Jones, and for that, she is my Dummy of the Year.

Most Loathsome Protagonist

• Hate. Hate. HATE!!! Damn Leo from damn Random Acts of Heroic Love. Worst. Character. Ever. Loathsome like nobody's business. I can't even get into the specifics of it again, so please click the link if you need a reminder of how awful this douchebag is: http://readblogadmire.blogspot.com/2009/02/random-acts-continued.html

Book You Should Use if You Run Out of Toilet Paper

• The Journal of Mortifying Moments, by Robyn Harding. Pointless, just pointless. If you read one crappy, bland, paint-by-numbers piece of chick-lit trash this year, don't make it this one.

The Great, Now I'm Bored and Depressed Award

• Precious, by Sandra Novack: Bleak, bland, blah.
  
  Least Worthy Nonfiction Book of the Year
• You're a Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren't So Bad, Either): 14 Secrets to Finding Happiness between Super Mom and Slacker Mom, by Jennifer Singer: A book full of stuff I either already knew or don't care about. Thanks.
  
  Worst Reading Experience of the Year

It's a three-way tie! The Glamourous (Double) Life of Isabel Bookbinder made me roll my eyes until I think I pulled something; The Journal of Mortifying Moments made me wonder why I ever learned to read; and the Leo-centric half of effing Random Acts of Heroic Love made me want to rip out each page and paper-cut myself to death. It may be lonely at the top, but there's loads of company at the bottom. Congratulations--you suck!

The 2009 Bookie Awards!

Rather than compile a list of my favorite and least favorite books from the past year (not all of which I have blogged about, contrary to my original intentions), I'm having a glamourous awards ceremony to recognize those that entertained or enlightened me and to give a big old swirlie to those that wasted my time. Of course, the glamour and the ceremony are all in my head, but allow me my delusions. Feel free to picture me in a fantastic red-carpet gown...or the Björk swan dress. It's all good.

So here we have the Oscars of my reading from the past year. Publication dates mean nothing! Ladies and gentleman, it's the Bookie Awards (and coming soon, my reading Razzies, the Suckies)!

The Bookies!

Favorite Character in a Novel

• Judd Foxman, This is Where I Leave You. Judd is funny and believable, and his narrative voice is one reason that I loved This is Where I Leave You so much.
• Runner-up: Beatrice Hempel, The Ms. Hempel Chronicles. I could relate to her in so many ways, and sometimes that's what you want in a book.

No, this is just a hot-pink edition of War and Peace: Guilty Pleasure of the Year

• The Mating Habits of the North American WASP, by Lauren Lipton. Was this by the book chick-lit? Yes, ma'am! Hot pink details on the cover? Check. Hip urban lady with man troubles? Check. Arrogant, maddening, gorgeous man? Check! Dislike turns into love? You better believe it! Everything about this book was predictable, but the writing was smart, the characters were likeable, and it was just fun. I love a fun book, so there ya go.

Can I Offer You a Cuppa, Dear? Comfiest Book of the Year

• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I pictured a young Julie Andrews as the main character in this book. It was so British and retro--the perfect rainy-day read.

Lifetime Achievement (in Entertaining Me)

• This prestigious award goes to the delightful Maeve Binchy. I first read Circle of Friends in high school, and I've loved ol' Maeve ever since. The Glass Lake and Echoes are my other two favorites of hers; I just love how Irish and old-school they are. Heart and Soul, which I read this year, is not my favorite of her novels, but it still entertained me. She keeps churning out the books, and I keep reading them. Congrats, Maeve Binchy, for 15 years of entertaining me. Many have tried; most have failed.

Pluckiest Heroine

• I expected it to be Eilis from Brooklyn, but I ended up without much love for her. Instead, my Pluckiest Heroine of the year is Leila of The Nightingale. She is so courageous that other plucky heroines pale in comparison. She is strong and admirable, and I really enjoyed reading about her.
• Runner-up: Crystal Renn, Hungry. Okay, so Crystal is real rather than fictional; that shouldn't disqualify her from this category. Before she's even out of her teens, Crystal takes on the fashion industry and forges a brand-new path. Love her.

Best Nonfiction Reading Experience of the Year

• How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time, by Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer. I loved Sassy. Now I know the truth about what happened to it. Thanks, Jesella and Meltzer.
• Runner-up: The Wordy Shipmates, by Sara Vowell. Who knew that a book about the Puritans could be so hilarious?

Best Book of the Year
The competition was fierce for this one. I read a lot of enjoyable stuff this year, but only two really blew me away: Jonathan Tropper's This is Where I Leave You and Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. They both moved me like nobody's business, but only one could come out on top. And the Bookie goes to...

...The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao! I think the epic nature of the book gave it the edge over Tropper's funny, wrenching, fabulous novel. Diaz's book just killed me dead. That is all.

Meet me at the afterparty for champagne with Diddy, and look out for the Suckies.

So behind, but who cares?

So my plan to blog about every single book I read this year has clearly, as my mother's former coworker would say, fallen by the waistline. Some books, like Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, were hard to write about due to their sheer awesomeness. How do you write about such an amazing book? It has catapulted onto my list of all-time favorites, and I know I'll come back to it again and again. Some books, on the other hand, are guilty pleasures that I really don't feel like admitting to the world that I read. Some aren't even pleasure; they're just guilty. It just shows the mix of crap and gold that is my literary diet. It's like foie gras and Hamburger Helper. (And, yeah, the Ulysses thing was a total nonstarter. I still haven't returned it to the library, though.)

Anyway, I'm trying to get back on track, so here are the memorable things I've read recently:

• The aforementioned Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz: I read his short-story collection, Drown, in my Latino lit class, and it was okay. Nothing against Diaz; I'm just not the biggest fan of short stories. I want a big fat novel that I can really get into and stick with. (Into which I can really get, and with which I can stick.) The buzz on Wao was so overwhelming that I had to give it a shot, and thank God I did. This book is so good that it turns me into one of those inane chicks from the yogurt commercial: "It's massage good. It's snow day good." I love the characters; I love the voice. It's just bloody amazing, and everyone in the world should read it. The descriptions of the characters are brilliant; this one, about Belicia, really stuck with me:

"Beli at thirteen believed in love like a seventy-year-old widow who's been abandoned by family, husband, children, and fortune believes in God. Belicia was, if it was possible, even more susceptible to the Casanova Wave than many of her peers. Our girl was straight boycrazy. (To be called boycrazy in Santo Domingo is a singular distinction; it means that you can sustain infatuations that would reduce your average northamericana to cinders.)" (Diaz 88)

• Hungry, by Crystal Renn and Marjorie Ingall: Yes, I was intrigued by the idea of Renn's transformation from anorexic wannabe to zaftig goddess, but when I learned that Margie Ingall (from Sassy!!!) was the cowriter, I really got on board. I loved the book, and I came away from it with a ton of respect for Renn. It's incredible that, at such a young age, she was so determined to be herself and blaze a trail for others. This is a book that will make you feel good about yourself. I beat myself up over my weight for years, when honestly, it was never that much of an issue. I look at pictures of myself in high school, when I thought I was so disgusting-looking that no one would ever love me, and it makes me want to scream. If I could have had a role model like Crystal Renn back then, it would have made a huge difference. I'm so glad that my daughter will be able to read her story in those crucial years. Even if you think that a model's story could never be your thing, give this book a chance. Renn is smart and funny (once describing her typical lunch as "lettuce with a side of batshit"), and she gives a lot of insight into modeling. Turns out there's more to it than just standing there and looking bitchy!

Right now I'm reading The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. So far it's great; more later.

The Second Coming, plus an addition to my Must List

I will admit that I am terrible about declaring a book amazing and wonderful based on a good first chapter or so. Oftentimes the rest of the book doesn't merit the gushing I did about the beginning, and I feel bad about recommending it to everyone I know. However, I refuse to believe that this is the case with Jonathan Tropper's This is Where I Leave You. Holy crap, this book is amazing. The way Tropper writes is better than just about anything I have ever encountered. Of course, I am only on page 44, but I don't think I've ever read a better 44 pages. I've heard critics describe a book as searing, but I've never thought that myself until I read Tropper's description of Judd Foxman walking in on his wife in bed with his boss. The entire chapter is wrenching and heartbreaking, but also laugh-out-loud funny in places. Chapter 3 begins, "My marriage ended the way these things do: with paramedics and cheesecake." Please read it so you can find out the purpose for the cheesecake (heartbreaking) and where it ended up (hilarious). Also: flaming testicles. What more can I say?

[Here's what more I can say: Judd's brother is described as "the Paul McCartney of our family: better-looking than the rest of us, always facing a different direction in pictures, and occasionally rumored to be dead" (Tropper 4).]

Oh, and my Must List: I have to add Hoyt from True Blood. On a show that often goes too far for me (Bill and Lorena's '20s tryst? Gag, vomit, shudder), his sweet manner with Jessica is a nice counterbalance. His relationship with his wicked-witch mother is great, too. I loved the scene in the last episode in which he goes through the laundry list of everyone she hates: "You hate African Americans!" "Shh! That's a secret!" I almost fell off the couch.

Catching up, yet again

It's a red-letter day: I picked up three books I had requested at the library today. Yay! So my reading menu in the next couple of weeks will include Jennifer Weiner's Best Friends Forever (Weiner is the queen of brainy-yet-breezy chick lit), Jonathan Tropper's This is Where I Leave You (good buzz on that one), and Trenton Lee Stewart's The Mysterious Benedict Society (a kid's book, but it seems interesting). In addition to those, my fantastic almost-lawyer friend lent me Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Pulitzer Prize winner) and Jen Lancaster's Bright Lights, Big Ass (doesn't the title just say it all?). I'm thrilled to have a packed shelf, but this means that my Ulysses project might have to fall by the waistline (as a former colleague of my mother's would say). I still want to read it a bit at a time (unless it just grabs me and I can't put it down), but with so much highly anticipated reading at my fingertips, I just don't know how that's going to work out. I'm still going to read it, though--I mean it!

Wow, I think I OD'd on parentheses in that last paragraph. (Such a shame.) Anyway, I've finished the following books in the last week or so:

• Miss Harper Can Do It, by Jane Berentson: As I mentioned in my last post, the first half of this book is fan-freaking-tastic. Annie Harper is a young elementary school teacher who is attempting to write a memoir during her boyfriend's deployment. Her voice is so engaging, and I could really relate to her. She does not feel like an army girlfriend; I never really felt like an army wife. On p. 8, she describes the day that David, her boyfriend, left:

"That morning there had been this big flag-waving, yellow-ribbon, send-off hoopla. I hated it. I hated the other women waving yellow ribbons and white handkerchiefs. Actual cloth handkerchiefs! Who even uses those anymore?"

When Mark left for Iraq, I went through something similar. Someone was walking around passing out tiny flags, and I remember thinking, "Please don't give me one of those." I'm just not a flag waver. Anyway, I could see that Annie and I had a lot in common. As the book continues, though, it takes a turn toward the conventional. It's still enjoyable, but it doesn't live up to the promise of the first half of the book.

• In Her Own Sweet Time, by Rachel Lehmann-Haupt: This is part-journalism, part-memoir detailing Lehmann-Haupt's quest for possible motherhood. Definitely interesting, and it gives you a lot to think about. For example, Dr. Eleonora Porcu, the Italian doctor who pioneered egg-freezing technology, doesn't feel that women should actually use it. She believes that society should change to allow women to have children young without derailing their careers. Like I said, interesting. However, like that supermom/slacker mom book I wrote about a while back, it really details a problem mostly encountered by the affluent.
• Twenties Girl, by Sophie Kinsella: It's still summer--don't judge me!

A challenge (to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield!)

According to the inimitable Mark Twain (actually, he is imitable, since Hal Holbrooke's been doing it for decades, but--already!--I digress), "A classic is something everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read." I laughed when I first saw that quotation, because I had recently had that exact thought about James Joyce's Ulysses. I really want to be a person who has read it, but I've never necessarily wanted to put in the work to make that happen. Well, I have decided that, no matter how long it takes or how crazy it drives me, I am going to be a person who has read Ulysses. My attitude toward this project can be summed up by those inspirational words from the other "Ulysses," hence the title of this post. I am not going to yield, no matter how loopy the stream-of-consciousness narration gets, and I will post here about the experience.

So far, I have checked the book out of the library. I'm afraid the easy part is over.

My poor neglected blog

You would think that summer would be the perfect time to catch up on my blog, and yet that has not been the case. I have been reading like a fiend, but I've been too sorry to write about it. Oh, well. Just for the sake of keeping tabs, this is what I've read lately:

• The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters: A good read, but I got really frustrated with the main character.
• Heart and Soul, by Mave Binchy: I love Maeve Binchy! She's probably my favorite guilty pleasure author. There's something so comforting about her books, and I love how everyone is always "mad" or "desperate."
• The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff: My Big Love addiction leads me to read anything I can about polygamy and the FLDS. See, TV is not bad for you.
• The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros: I assigned it to my students for summer reading, so I figured I should read it myself.
• The Mating Habits of the North American WASP, by Lauren Lipton: Chick lit at its finest. I seriously did have a hard time putting it down; not much got done the day I read this.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling (like I needed to tell you that): I just saw The Half-Blood Prince, and I couldn't remember what came next. It was my first re-read of a Harry Potter book, and it turns out they are just as addictive the second time around.
• Living La Vida Lola, by Misa Ramirez: I read Janet Evanovich. Misa Ramirez, you're no Janet Evanovich.
• The Local News, by Miriam Gershow: A high school student deals with her brother's disappearance. This is all complicated by the fact that she doesn't really like her brother.
• Miss Harper Can Do It, by Jane Berentson: I just started it this morning, and already I am in love. The main character is me. Can't wait to read more!

I think that's it. I've been doing a horrible job of keeping track.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Seth Grahame-Smith (Guest Post!)

Yes, I've gotten so sorry at keeping up with this blog that I now have to farm it out to other people. No, really, I am quite honored that my former student (not that I actually taught her anything) and one of Massey Hill's finest graduates, the frightfully smart and delightfully droll Caroline Thomas, agreed to write a guest post on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which I haven't quite finished yet. I now hand it over to her with my greatest appreciation:



Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a new literary masterpiece. It will be read by schoolchildren for centuries to come. Author Seth Grahame-Smith uses a lot of Jane Austen's original text (Pride and Prejudice) and adds a zombie subplot and makes a few changes. It's amazing. To start on a serious note, it has been a while since I read the real book; for the last few years, I've been living off movie versions of it (Colin Firth's 1995 gift to women everywhere [amen to that, Sister--JMC], and Keira Knightley's respectable 2005 attempt), spoofs of it (UK miniseries "Lost in Austen"), and things based on it (The Jane Austen Book Club, Bridget Jones's Diary) so much that I had forgotten that there are so many things you can only get from reading the book. So I'm grateful to Seth Grahame-Smith for giving me a chance and a reason to read Austen's text again, albeit slightly altered. It still makes me smile like a little girl.

The characters in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies are a little edgier than in the original; obviously, some of them slay zombies, and others vomit occasionally, but, aside from the obvious, they do and say things that readers have always wanted them to do and say, but propriety always got in the way. For example, Darcy is meaner to Caroline Bingley, which readers know she totally deserves:
Caroline: You write uncommonly fast.
Darcy: And you prattle uncommonly much ... Miss Bingley, the groans of a hundred unmentionables would be more pleasing to my ears than one more word from your mouth. Were you not otherwise agreeable, I should be forced to remove your tongue with my saber. (40)
There's obviously body humor that comes naturally with zombies and the slaying thereof: blood, brains, "soiling", vomiting. Even Elizabeth vomits a bit when, at the Collinses' home, one of the skin sores on zombie Charlotte's face bursts, and blood drips down into her mouth, which she apparently finds delicious. And that's where another aspect of humor comes from—watching poor Charlotte Lucas's transformation from regular old maid to a nine-tenths dead zombie married to such an odious man as Mr. Collins. Poor Charlotte. What did she ever do to Seth Grahame-Smith? It is hilarious but a little painful and sad to see her deteriorating, mumbling incoherently through conversations, and coming very close to copping a squat and being really sick in Lady Catherine's drawing room (she is rescued by Lizzie, seemingly the only one aware of Charlotte's undead condition, who takes her to the restroom).

Another refreshing addition to the dialogue is ball jokes. Yes, jokes about balls. Darcy makes one to Caroline Bingley that she is totally oblivious to, but Elizabeth catches it and is pleasantly surprised at "his flirtation with impropriety" (45). When Elizabeth later visits Pemberley and encounters Mr. Darcy, he gives her a gun to defend herself and her party on their walk. At the end of the visit, he reclaims the weapon. Then she "remembered the lead ammunition in her pocket and offered it to him. 'Your balls, Mr. Darcy?' He reached out and closed her hand around them, and offered, 'They belong to you, Miss Bennet'" (205). When her sister Jane asks how long she has loved Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth replies, "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing the way his trousers clung to those most English parts" (305).

It is this kind of juvenile humor (balls, zombies, barfing) that makes these characters and this novel endearing and real for a 21st Century audience, and it keeps the material light: when Darcy first proposes in that ungentlemanlike manner, Lizzie delivers a blow that sends him crashing into the mantelpiece. Right after they finally declare their love for one another, they come across a group of zombies "crawling on their hands and knees, biting into ripe heads of cauliflower, which they had mistaken for stray brains" (302). Whenever Austen's original contains moments that border on serious or important, Grahame-Smith throws in some fighting or zombies or ninjas (yes, there are ninjas, too).

The book is chockfull of other goodies as well. There are more than ten graphic and hilarious illustrations, including the one on the front cover, which depicts a woman (Lizzie?) missing half of her face and with blood on her dress. There are ten discussion questions at the end to help guide your deeply philosophical conversations about this novel:

6. Some critics have suggested that the zombies represent the authors' views toward marriage—an endless curse that sucks the life out of you and just won't die. Do you agree, or do you have another opinion about the symbolism of the unmentionables?
7. Does Mrs. Bennet have a single redeeming quality?
8. Vomit plays an important role in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Mrs. Bennet frequently vomits when she's nervous, coachmen vomit in disgust when they witness zombies feasting on corpses, even the steady Elizabeth can't help but vomit at the sight of Charlotte lapping up her own bloody pus. Do the authors mean for this regurgitation to symbolize something greater, or is it a cheap device to get laughs?

The book is a lot of fun. It's probably best for those who have read the original, but it's good fun either way. I've heard rumors that Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is on deck, and we may be able to expect Persuasion and Poltergeist after that.

My Must List

I'm taking a cue from one of my favorite publications, Entertainment Weekly, and writing my own Must List: everything in entertainment that is making me happy right now. Most of it isn't reading-related, but who cares?

• The supporting cast of Nurse Jackie: Of course Edie Falco is wonderful; who had any doubts about that? But I am really loving (most of) the rest of the cast, especially the adorable Merritt Wever, who plays the loopy, sincere, kindhearted nursing student Zoey. I'm also liking Peter Facinelli as Dr. "Call Me Coop!" Cooper, who mindlessly grabs the nearest boob when he's nervous. His offer to treat pharmacist Eddie to Quizno's made me laugh like a lunatic. An offer of Quizno's doesn't sound funny? It's not, really. That's Facinelli's gift.
• Lady Gaga: She opened for my beloved NKOTB when I saw them back in the fall, and I really liked her delightfully weird set. I never imagined that she would blow up like she has, though. Each of her three singles has found a home on my iPod. Should I feel guilty about my daughter's hearing "I want to take a ride on your disco stick" fairly often in the car? Yes. Do I? No.
• Bound South, by Susan Rebecca White: I picked this up after a quick scan of the back cover when I was desperate for a beach read, so my expectations weren't terribly high. However, I was floored by this book. I'm serious; I absolutely loved it. The characters were fantastic: relatable and not at all stereotypical (always a concern when an author writes about the south). I also like they way that White plays with chronology: the book jumps ahead in time fairly often, and it just works. Bound South is the perfect blend of entertainment and literary quality, and I think that everyone should read it.
• Daisy of Love: Awesomely bad trashy "reality" TV. If only they could bring back Weasel and his tingly yam. I've missed him since his second-episode elimination.

Cocktails for Three, by Madeleine Wickham

Does it matter what this book is about, or whether it is any good? I read it with my toes in the ocean; therefore, it was delightful.

Haiku Reviews

In honor of the three finest student jornalists [sic] I have ever known (and because I have been seriously slacking), here are 17-syllable reviews of what I've read in the last two weeks:

Brooklyn: A Novel, by Colm Tóibín

Eilis? Pretty bland.
Interesting, but not great,
So why all the fuss?

Angels, by Marian Keyes

Charming and funny,/ Keyes is at her best when she/ Writes of the Walshes.

Precious, by Sandra Novack

Lit'ry? But of course./ Bleak seventies story of/ Gypsies and a perv.

What I Did for Love, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Conventional? Yes./ But hey, it entertained me. /That counts for something.

The Late, Lamented Molly Marx, by Sally Koslow

Total page-turner, /Poignant tale of afterlife./ Did I cry? Maybe.

Sleepwalking in Daylight, by Elizabeth Flock

This was an interesting yet bleak look at a family that appears catalog-perfect (except for the troublesome goth daughter) but is disintegrating. Did I say it's bleak? Because oh my god. I will give Flock credit, though; she does not cop out. This book went places I absolutely did not expect it to.

Additions to the Summer Reading List

• The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters: I heard about this on NPR this morning, and it sounds good. Ghosts, postwar insanity, big English gothic mansions--I'm there.
• Best Friends Forever, by Jennifer Weiner: I choose to believe that the title is ironic. Anyway, I've loved J-Wein since Good in Bed, so again--I'm there.
• Brooklyn: A Novel, by Colm Tóibín: A plucky Irish immigrant navigates NYC. Do I even have to say it?

Buffalo Lockjaw, by Greg Ames

This book is so depressing. James, a 28-year-old "sensitive artist" type, comes home to Buffalo for Thanksgiving and to possibly kill his mother. That sounds pretty bad until you consider that his mother, once a brilliant, vivacious nurse, is a 56-year-old victim of Alzheimer's. She was an advocate of assisted suicide and once confided to her son that she wanted to kill herself before the disease made her incapable of doing so, but he talked her out of it. Now he feels that it's his responsibility to end her suffering.

The business with his mother is bad enough, but he just sleepwalks through life, hanging out with his friends from high school who are living pathetic, faux-Bohemian (faux-hemian?) lives. James sees this now; he describes these people as artists who create no art and musicians who never play anywhere. Their lives just make me sad. I think the book is well-written, and I don't dislike James. He's self-aware enough to know he's a loser (as he says on p. 263, "I can't figure out why no single women are talking to me: I'm a balding twenty-eight-year-old making archaic political references to myself. I'm a catch"), and the scenes with his mother are touching. I don't know...the book just makes me feel bad. I'm going to finish it, but it's really not my cup of tea.

I do have to add this quotation for my sister-in-law, who I think will appreciate it:

"I understand that this is heroism. How can it be anything else? No matador in the world shows that much courage. Give me a good RN over a fireman or police officer any day. Every day a nurse sees truths that would crush a weaker person. And a good nurse resists the urge to lie, cheat, and steal her way out of reality. She just stands in the ring and fights" (Ames 276).

Playing Catch-Up

I've been seriously slack in posting about what I've been reading lately, so this will just have to do.

• We Thought You'd be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive, by Laurie Notaro

The dorkiest girl alive? I thought that was me! Notaro's essays are laugh-out-loud funny and completely relatable (inner-thigh chub rub, anyone?). She has a gift for finding humor in everyday situations and annoyances: attempting to capture a rat in her house (only to discover that he's really a cute little mousie once he's immobilized on a glue trap), being locked out of the house, trying to find boots that fit her calves (been there). I definitely plan to read more of Notaro's work.

• The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien

Most of my reading diet is pretty lighthearted, so every once in a while I try to remedy that with a book like this semi-fictional, semi-true tale of O'Brien's experiences in Vietnam. The story in which he describes his aborted attempt to escape the draft by fleeing to Canada is heart-wrenching. An excellent companion piece to this would be Keith Walker's A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of 26 American Women Who Served in Vietnam.

• Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do, by Wednesday Martin

This was an interesting read. In some ways, Martin's message is a downer: unless you encounter exactly the right conditions (age of stepchildren, situation with parents pre-divorce), chances are good that the whole stepfamily thing isn't going to go well. However, her main message is that it isn't your fault, and that everyone experiences this. The anecdotes in the book made me appreciate my step-situation, which really is pretty mild. I was lucky enough to get most of the right conditions.

• The Year of Fog, by Michelle Richmond

It was interesting to read this in conjunction with Stepmonster. The protagonist, Abby, is out for a day at the beach with her soon-to-be stepdaughter Emma when the girl disappears. As the weeks pass with no clues, the police and even Emma's father start to believe that she drowned in the ocean. Abby never gives up hope, though, and searches obsessively for almost a year. It was odd to read of a woman who claims to love the little girl more than she loves the girl's father when Stepmonster goes to great pains to establish that this sort of love between stepparents and stepchildren rarely happens. Also, after reading Martin's book, I was surprised that more people, especially the general public, didn't blame Abby for what happened (though she blames herself enough, and so does Jake). The book is pretty good, though--a real page-turner. It also serves as a fantastic advertisement for both San Francisco and Holga cameras. Seriously, who would not want a camera that takes pictures like this? http://microsites.lomography.com/holga/galleries

How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time, by Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer

I got this in the mail yesterday (having finally accepted that I would never find it at my usually well-stocked library) and have about three pages left. Yet I can't wait to begin writing about it, so here goes. How Sassy Changed My Life is pure nostalgia in paper form. I was an avid Sassy reader from seventh grade until the awful, much-reviled "Stepford Sassy" appeared in 1995 (the year of my high-school graduation--I came so close to having Sassy for my entire adolescence!), and this book just brought it all back. The magazine was so smart, so different, so witty, so aware; it represented everything I wanted to be. It spoke to me in a language I understood. I have always loved magazines, but now I put them in the recycling bin once they've been read. My Sassys, on the other hand, were lovingly archived in pink milk crates in my room for years. I read and re-read them to the point that I had much of the content unintentionally memorized. Sadly, I have no idea what happened to them. I guess I got rid of them, but I can't imagine what would have made me do that. I would dearly love to have them again.

Anyway, back to the book. It's a history of Sassy's brilliant rise and tragic (to its readers, at least) fall as well as a look at its impact on culture. The authors argue that today's girl culture was started by Sassy, and I believe it. That aspect of the book is valuable and feels like a vindication for those of us who feel a little weird about being so devoted to a teen magazine. However, the best part is all of the references to the fantastic articles that appeared in Sassy. Jesella and Meltzer are my heroes for including an excerpt from "Our First Annual Junk Food Taste-Off." (I remember "orange" being a category, along with the usual sweet, crunchy, etc.) Andrea (remember all of the writers and editors with whom we truly felt we were on a first-name basis?) describes pork rinds as having "the texture of sunburned skin." How do you not love that? The Taste-Off was one of my all-time favorite articles, along with the one about why you should date the exchange student, how to have a great crying fit (keep a picture of your ex-boyfriend or recently deceased dog on hand in case you start to lose steam), the road trip (including a stop at South of the Border!), and "How to Make Him Want You...Bad!", which mocks the catch-a-man tactics offered by other popular magazines.

So now I finally have the real story of what happened to Sassy (F you, Dale Lang and Petersen Publishing). It's like finally finding out why you were mysteriously dumped by the best boyfriend ever and realizing that it really wasn't you, it was him. I'm off to eBay now to see if I can score some vintage Sassys. Wish me luck!

Illiteracy vs. Innumeracy

Apparently, math people are mad that the rest of us think they're really smart. Yesterday I was reading Slate's Dear Prudence column, and someone with a heavy-duty math job wrote in complaining that when she reveals her occupation, people always make self-deprecating remarks about how they could never do something so complicated. The writer made the comment that it's acceptable to talk about being bad at math, but it's unacceptable to say that you can't read. This echoes an interview with Neil Degrasse Tyson that I read (in Time, I think) a while back. He made the same point: in our society, innumeracy is okay, while illiteracy is not. I took issue with Tyson when I read that, for this simple reason: When people say they are bad at math, they are not saying that they can't count or do simple four-function math. They are saying that calculus scares the bejeezus out of them. That's not innumeracy; that's just the way it is.

Do you know what happens when people find out that you have an English degree or, God forbid, teach English? They almost always disparage their own grammatical skills or confess to reading something like Twilight with a sheepishness better suited to farting in an elevator. That sounds a lot like the same thing Dr. Tyson complains about. Do I dismiss those people as illiterate? Of course not. They can read the paper, magazines, websites--every crucial thing that gets them through life, but they feel intimidated by Shakespeare and diagramming. That's only a problem if you are, in fact, an English teacher.

So in my opinion, this illiteracy vs. innumeracy argument isn't even comparing apples and oranges. It's comparing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to Noix de St. Jacques Pôelées au Champagne at Les Halles prepared by Anthony Bourdain himself. Comparing basic literacy with fluency in algebra and beyond? Shouldn't these big-brains be smarter than that?

The Journal of Mortifying Moments, by Robyn Harding

Will someone tell me why I read this garbage again?

Summer Reading

I'm a little disappointed by the number of books I've read and posted about this year, but I'm not too worried--summer is on the way! In exactly five weeks, I will have some serious free time on my hands, which is bound to be filled with lovely, lovely books. Here are some of the ones on my list of possibilities:

• The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien: I've always been intrigued by this book, but I've never made the time to read it. That ends now. Besides, the AP students at my school are assigned this book every year. Am I going to allow myself to be outread by high schoolers?
• The Help, by Kathryn Stockett: This got a great review in Entertainment Weekly. Sometimes that's all it takes.
• Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, ... With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory, by Roy Blount, Jr.: How do you not love that subtitle? I'm a big fan of RBJ on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me (remember, I'm an NPR geek), and I imagine his take on English will be delicious.
• When I Grow Up: A Memoir, by Juliana Hatfield: Sometimes I get a case of '90s nostalgia, and this looks like the tonic.
• How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time, by Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer: See above. Sassy kind of defined me in the early to mid '90s. Back then, you were either a girl who read Sassy or a girl who read Teen. The girls who read Sassy were fewer in number and felt far superior.
• Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald: As much as I love The Great Gatsby, it's high time I read something else by Fitzgerald.

Any suggestions?

You're a Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren't So Bad, Either): 14 Secrets to Finding Happiness between Super Mom and Slacker Mom, by Jennifer Singer

I was drawn to the title of this book; with all of the alarmist parenting tomes out there, it sounded so soothing and sensible. Singer's message is a good one: parent from the middle. Don't hover and overschedule; don't be Amy Poehler in Mean Girls; and you'll be fine. As I read it, though, I realized that it has no bearing on my life whatsoever. The don't-be-a-supermom half of the book is pretty much a lighter take on Judith Warner's Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety. I read that while on maternity leave, and it too had nothing to do with me. These books focus on problems of wealthy women. Warner's book describes the highly educated, successful career woman whose family will do just fine on the husband's salary. She feels guilty over working when she doesn't have to, so she stays home, putting all of her drive and desire for recognition into raising her kids. Well, I do need to work (at least, if we want to maintain our current lifestyle of thoughtless Wal-Mart runs and Thai food--which we emphatically do), so I don't have to feel guilty about the fact that, for the most part, I like to work. I will never have to dazzle the soccer moms with my mad parenting skillz, mainly because I gave up overachieving years ago, but also because I just don't have time. I have a job.

Like Perfect Madness, the supermom section of You're a Good Mom is only relevant to wealthy women in wealthy communities. According to Singer, youth sports are being ruined by parents who have their kids on four separate soccer teams, send their kids to special sports camps in the summer, and hire personal trainers and coaches for their kids to keep them ahead of the competition and prep them for the scholarship they'll compete for in twelve years. What, asks Singer, does that mean for a kid who just wants to have fun kicking a ball around? She has a point--that's a bad thing. But is this a problem in your town? I don't think it's a big issue in mine. Her example of sensible parenting is to get her kids five private lessons with a woman whose son swims in national competitions prior to the beginnning of swim-team season. Problem solved! I'm sure that this is totally reasonable in Singer's community, but I'm not stressing about anything like that out here in the land of the solidly middle class. To sum up, I'm in no danger of becoming a supermom.

This is not just because I'm not rich. Even if we were rolling in dough, I'd have no problem reading a book while my daughter does a puzzle or watches "Dora the Explorer." Apparently I am unlike most mothers, because I do not feel that relaxing is a sin. Singer tells mothers that they should be more like fathers, who don't feel that they have to fill every spare second with a chore. She recounts a situation in which her husband, having a few minutes to spare before he has to leave for work, flips through a magazine instead of finding a job to do. She's stunned, but I'm not--why on earth would I fill ten precious minutes of free time with crumb-wiping or dishwasher-emptying when I can relax with a delightful magazine? (Note: I love magazines.)

The slacker-mom section of the book was equally irrelevant to me. Anyone with little enough common sense to wear trampy t-shirts and show horror movies to toddlers isn't going to be reading a book anyway. I did have one problem with this section, though: Singer seems kind of homophobic. According to a chart, the "Cool but still in charge mom" takes the kids to see High School Musical. The slacker mom takes them to see Rent, which is all about--turn your eyes away, Junior--gays!!! Heaven forfend! There are reasons you might not want a sixth grader to see Rent, but I don't think that the fact that some characters are gay is one of them. Similarly, she complains about a teacher showing Brokeback Mountain to a class. Yes, that is one major lapse in judgment, but it's because of the sexual content, not the homosexual content. From the way Singer phrases her complaint, it's clear that the gay stuff ooks her out. I wouldn't let a child watch Brokeback, either, but I wouldn't let her watch any movie with explicit content. Gay people live in the world; it's silly to pretend they don't and that gayness is some evil thing we must protect the little innocents from. Remember, Homophobic Mom and Dad: your little darling might grow up to be one of them.

Everyone is Beautiful, by Katherine Center, and Family Acts, by Louise Shaffer

I really enjoyed Center's The Bright Side of Disaster, so I snapped this one up when I saw it at the library. I related to Lainie quite a bit as she suffered from the post-baby frump-out. I should have posted about this weeks ago when I read it, but honestly, it's been a while. I don't have too much to say.

Sadly, I must say the same thing for Family Acts, another family drama with a showbiz background (like Serendipity). It was a page-turner, though. Shaffer seems to be a reliable source for rainy afternoon or beach reading.

Serendipity, by Louise Shaffer

I read this in a couple of days. It's not earth-shattering, but it had a couple of elements I find really appealing. First, some chapters are present-day, while some are flashbacks. I usually like that kind of time-shifting. Also, the setting for many of the flashbacks is Broadway in the '60s, which gives it a retro-glam sheen. It won't change your life, but it would be a good beach read.

Kid Lit

After reading this article (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/11/13/MN100771.DTL), I got to thinking about my own personal list of favorite childhood books. I have a current set of favorites that I read with my daughter, and of course, I have a beloved list of books that I read over and over when I was kid. Anyway, here are some of them:

Current Favorites:

• A Lot of Otters, by Barbara Helen Berger. I love the illustrations of the otters, especially their facial expressions.
• No, David, by David Shannon.
• Alice the Fairy, also by David Shannon. She has magic: she turns her dad's cookies into hers.
• Dragon Naps, by Lynne Bertrand. This one is so funny. The dragons can't sleep at naptime, so they give each other compliments and listen to Italian pop songs about werewolves, among other things.
• The Runaway Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown. I love the art, even though the mother bunny is codependent and creepy.
• I am a Bunny, by Richard Scarry. This one has beautiful illustrations, and what is cuter than a little bunny in overalls?

My Childhood Favorites

• Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing, by Judy Blume. My family still says, "Eat it or wear it."
• Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, also by the fabulous Ms. Blume. What can I say about this book that hasn't already been said?
• The Ramona series, by Beverly Cleary
• Pippi Longstocking, by Astrid Lindgren
• Daphne's Book, by Mary Downing Hahn. This book is one of the first truly emotional things that I ever read. The grocery store scene (if you've read it, you know what I mean--it's burned into your brain)--wow. It hurt my little fifth-grade heart.
• The Mister Men and Little Miss series, by Roger Hargreaves
• The Value Tales series, by Spencer and Ann Donegan Johnson. These are the best groovy-'70s books. Diversity, feminism--they had it all! These make me suspect that my mom was a secret hippie under the surface.
• The Boxcar Children, by Gertrude Chandler Warner. My first-grade teacher, Mrs. Ammons, read this to us one chapter at a time. I really admired the ingenuity and resourcefulness that the kids had. They made being orphans living in an abandoned boxcar in the woods seem like a fun adventure, rather than a total nightmare.

The Devil in the Junior League, by Linda Francis Lee

I'm almost finished with this one, and I'm really enjoying it. It's a silly trifle, but that's definitely preferable to pretentious crap that is way too impressed with its own importance (I'm looking at you, Random Acts of Heroic Love!). This is the story of Frede Ware (pronounced "Freddie," though my internal narrator keeps calling her "Freed"), a high-society Texas belle who is all about appearances. When her husband leaves her (and steals her money! And secretly divorces her! All because she was too stupid to read papers she was signing!), she has to hire her neighbor, an NC (no class) lawyer with a sweet, sincere, adorable wife who dresses like a total floozy. She doesn't have to pay the lawyer with money, of which she now has none--she has to get Nikki (said floozy) into the Junior League. Which, obviously, is a Sisyphean task.

It's looking like Frede won't get Nikki into the Junior League, and clearly I care too much about fictional characters, because THANK GOD. Nikki is good-hearted and true to herself (at least, until Freed gets her hands on her), and it looks like Frede is going to be more like Nikki rather than the other way around. Honestly, who could wear that much beige? I would never want to live in a world where wearing red marks you as totally NC and inappropriate, and heaven forfend you wear a shoe with more than a one-inch heel. I have my fingers crossed that Frede will leave the Junior League in some Scarlett O'Hara-level high drama--as God is my witness!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

I was of two minds when I began this book. There was excitement over the subject matter (post World War II England, which has been interesting to me lately), yet there was also apprehension. First of all, it was written by two authors, which is just weird to me. How do people write together? (Turns out that Shaffer started the book but was sidelined by health problems, so Barrows, her niece, continued her work. I now feel like a jerk for my unkind thoughts toward dual authorship.) Also, it is written is a series of letters, which could run to the gimmicky side. Fortunately, all of my apprehension was unwarranted. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a sweet, engaging read, the kind that is best enjoyed on a rainy weekend. (You know: couch, blanket, hot chocolate, maybe a baked good or three or ten....) Seriously, it's the literary equivalent of comfort food, kind of like Circle of Friends. It's also educational if you're not as well-versed in history as you ought to be. Honestly, I had no idea that Germany occupied part of Britain during the war. Should I be embarrassed? The Guernsey residents who write to Juliet (Our Heroine, who is smart, funny, independent, and pretty much awesome) tell stories of the occupation that run the gamut from funny to heartbreaking. Some plot points are pretty predictable, but that's okay--the predictability lends to the comfy-coziness of the book. Anyway, it's not too predictable; quite a few things I expected to happen didn't. (I was waiting for a big reveal that Dawsey and Elizabeth once had a thing, and fortunately, they didn't go there. It would have been creepy considering that Juliet and Elizabeth are very similar.) So, enjoyed it a lot and would definitely recommend it.

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English, by John McWhorter

This book is boring the stuffings out of me. I guess I'm just not the person I thought I was.

Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume, edited by Jennifer O'Connell

I've been in a bit of a reading dry spell lately. I can't get into anything I've picked up lately. The only one that looked promising--An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, by Elizabeth McCracken--is a no-go, just because I can't handle reading about any more dead children. The first couple of chapters were really good, but I'm just not doing that to myself anymore. I can't handle it.

Anyway, I was definitely anticipating the one-two punch of books that I requested from the library: Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, by John McWhorter (because I am fascinated by the history of English), and the essay collection Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume. My mood dictated that I start Everything first, and so far it's been slightly underwhelming.

When I first learned about this book, I was thrilled. Judy Blume was my favorite author from elementary through middle school. I had no idea that she wrote adult novels (and man, were they adult!). When I spotted my aunt Suzanne with a copy of Wifey at the beach, I excitedly asked her, "Have you read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing?" She hadn't, but she thought it was a pretty funny question. Judy Blume books started off as entertainment (Fourth Grade Nothing, Superfudge, Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great) and became highly informational (Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret). I'm pretty sure that Judy Blume books are the reason that my childhood aspiration was to live in a New York City apartment and be Jewish. JB affected me so much that, I swear, I almost titled a grad-school paper "Are You There, God? It's Me, John Donne." Suffice to say, I am the target audience for this book.

It's not bad; in fact, I really enjoyed Meg Cabot's (yes, as in The Princess Diaries) take on Blubber, "Cry, Linda, Cry." Her mom bought the book for her when a human Bratz doll named Shoshona started making her life hell, and she used its lessons to stand up for herself. I thought it was a great story, and it's what I expected from the book--women my age talking about how Judy Blume's books shaped their worldview as kids. The rest of the essays aren't as successful. A few of them read like successful authors sharing their awkward girlhood stories and then adding, "Oh, yeah, here's a relevant Judy Blume quote." The great JB deserves better than that!

I must note that I have only read five or six of the essays; things might improve. Even if it doesn't, though, the Cabot piece is worth a read. If my kid ever gets bullied (and God help the kid who does it), I will not only give her Blubber but a copy of "Cry, Linda, Cry."

The Nightingale, by Morgana Gallaway

As The Continental would say, "Wowie wow wow." This book is such a great read. It has a little bit of everything: a smart, relatable heroine; an intriguing setting; a twisty, turny plot; death and destruction; and an emotional yet chaste love story. Oh, and a military-industrial complex conspiracy. How can you go wrong?

The Nightingale is the story of Leila, a 23-year-old Iraqi woman who dreams of being a doctor. Her dreams should have been within her reach: she comes from a modern family and already has an undergrad degree. However, the events of the war in Iraq changed her father from a forward-thinking judge to a radical terrorist. In order to further her career, Leila begins working as a surgical assistant and translator at an army base. You can imagine how well that would go over with her father, who is very much a "death to America" type, so she sneaks and lies. Compounding matters, she finds herself drawn to James, an American captain. He's kind of a Byronic hero--broody and conflicted about his job in intelligence. Also, he's a writer, and you know how the ladies love writers. They're sensitive! I kid, I kid. The love story aspect of the novel reminds me of what makes Twilight (the first book, not the whole series) such a satisfying read, but with the addition of a heroine who is a far better role model for young women than Bella Swan could ever hope to be. (Also, the writing is head and shoulders above the guilty pleasure that is Twilight. No one chortles or chuckles in The Nightingale.)

Twilight isn't the only book that The Nightingale made me think of; in a way, the book is like a tragic Pride and Prejudice. Like Elizabeth Bennet, Leila has a sweet, supportive older sister and a mother who is obsessed with marrying her off to a repulsive cousin. Also like Elizabeth, Leila is not interested with conforming to her society's expectations of women. Elizabeth Bennet is one of my all-time favorite literary characters, so maybe that's why I found Leila so appealing.

I'd love to go on and on about the plot, but I'd hate to give anything away. In a plot-driven page turner like this one, the joy comes from wondering what will happen next. The appeal of The Nightingale goes deeper than that, though; it's a thoughtful look at a conflict in which there are no easy answers.

The Gatecrasher, by Madeleine Wickham

I'm not as much of a chick-lit devotee as I used to be, but I still enjoy a hot pink book every once in a while. The Gatecrasher was written by Madeleine Wickham, a.k.a. Sophie Kinsella of Shopaholic fame. This book is exactly what I expected it to be: a fizzy, pink mental cocktail. There's really not a lot to say about it. But I will say this: the titular character, Fleur Daxeny (awesome name, by the way), crashes funerals in order to prey on grieving millionaires. Revolting behavior, and yet she still manages to be more sympathetic (though not by much) than poor bereaved Leo from the last book I read.

Random Acts, continued

Oh, goodness. It turns out that my early enthusiasm for this book was at least partially unwarranted. Random Acts of Heroic Love is a novel made up of two stories, which is the only reason why I'm still reading it. One story is told by Moritz, an Austrian World War I POW who is valiantly trekking across Russia (uphill, both ways) back to his love, Lotte. The other is told by Leo, a whiny jackass. Said jackass has lost his beloved Eleni while traveling in South America. His grief is compounded by guilt; he believes (and he has a point) that something he innocently requested was directly responsible for Eleni's death. The early scenes, in which he appoints himself guardian over Eleni's body as it is prepared for burial and flown back to her native Greece, are really heart-wrenching (hence the near-tears on p. 14). The problem starts after he returns home to England and starts acting like, well, a total dick. He rudely rebuffs his father's attempts to relate his own story of grieving (I'm convinced that Leo's father is Moritz's son; I'm also convinced that this is supposed to be some sort of big reveal later in the book--nice try), and in the oddest display of jerkitude, he attacks a truck driver, since apparently all truck drivers are now responsible for Eleni's death. Fortunately, the truck driver delivers a beat-down; that was pretty satisfying.

The worst of all is how Leo treats his patient, self-sacrificing friend, Hannah. He pours his heart out to her, which reminds her of her mother's death of cancer when Hannah was only ten. She kindly chooses to quash her own feelings of grief rather than hijack the moment from Leo, and he decides that her awkwardness means that she is falling in love with him. This might be amusing or sweet if Leo weren't such a douche. When she reveals the real reason behind her behavior, this is Prince Charming's response:

"But I've poured my heart out to you and the very least you could do is reciprocate...you've been patronizing me. It should be equal. I've given so much time, so much of myself to you, and you're giving me nothing in return" (Scheinmann 187).

Really? Wow. All of the sympathy I had for Leo in the early pages of the book has evaporated. However, the story of Moritz's journey is still pretty good, so I'll keep reading to see where that ends up (though I'm pretty sure I already know).

Random Acts of Heroic Love, by Danny Scheinmann

I've just started this one. The title is gagworthy, but the first 28 pages are fantastic! When an author can get you to the brink of tears on page 14, you know he has a gift. I'll post more as things develop.

Still Alice, by Lisa Genova

Still Alice is the story of a 50-year-old Harvard professor who is stricken with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Though it's told in third person, the novel is Alice's story and reflects the degradation of her memory. Her husband, John, seems like a jerk at times, but that's probably because the reader is seeing things through Alice's eyes, and she is the ultimate unreliable narrator (though she's not really the narrator--you know what I mean). I'd love to read the same story from John's point of view; I'm sure it would be heartbreaking.

Lisa Genova is an Alzheimer's researcher, so I worried that this book would be more of a public service announcement than a work of literature. Fortunately, I was wrong. In addition to being informative, the book is very well written; this is far from a Lifetime disease-of-the-week movie. Alice's story is compelling without being saccharine, and Genova never spoon-feeds the reader. In one scene after her diagnosis, Alice enters a classrooms, sits down, and waits for the professor to show up. Eventually all the students leave, and the reader is left wondering: Is this Alice's own class that she has forgotten she is teaching? Is this a memory of Alice as a student? Is this a seminar she is attending? Much later in the book, we learn almost in passing that Alice went into her own class and sat down as though she were a student and not the professor. The reveal is almost an afterthought.

So anyway, this book is sad but sweet and well worth your time.

The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell

You may wonder why I chose to read a historical account of the Puritans. If so, that's because you aren't familiar with Sarah Vowell. I became aware of her through NPR's This American Life and her Daily Show appearances. (You may also know her as the voice of Violet in The Incredibles.) She is that best possible combination--a hilarious nerd. As much as I like her, I figured it was time I read one of her books.

Also, though the Puritans are not my favorite people, I do have to give them a lot of thought each semester. Between actual Puritan literature (Anne Bradstreet, Jonathan Edwards), Nathaniel Hawthorne, and The Crucible, I end up spending quite a bit of time thinking and talking about this grim bunch. It certainly couldn't hurt me to get to know more about them.

I'm only halfway through the book now, but I'm really enjoying it. I actually laughed out loud at several parts of it, like her description of a speech by Puritan minister John Cotton:

"He begins with one of the loveliest passages from the book of Second Samuel, an otherwise R-rated chronicle of King David's serial-killer years. [There's a nice verse about the people of Israel finding a home.] Sounds so homey, like that column in the real estate section of The New York Times about how people found their apartments. Until I remember that talk like this is the match still lighting the fuses of a thousand car bombs" (Vowell 2).

That's what I like about Sarah Vowell. She's funny but also incredibly insightful. I already feel more knowledgeable--and more prepared to teach students about the Puritans--than when I started the book. I have a much better grasp on the concept of predestination than I did before. In the past, when my students started asking too many questions about that, I flailed a bit. No more!

And even if the rest of the book were crap--which it most emphatically is not--I would love it to pieces anyway for this:

"So the colonists dispersed south, breaking off into various settlements such as Roxbury and Dorchester, Boston neighborhoods famous in the twentieth century for race riots and the boy band New Kids on the Block" (Vowell 89).

An NKOTB shout-out? Vowell can do no wrong.

Ms. Hempel Chronicles, by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum

Ms. Hempel Chronicles is a story collection centered around Beatrice Hempel, a middle-school English teacher. I'm an English teacher, so I was excited to get someone else's perspective on what I do every day. What I really liked about Ms. Hempel Chronicles is that she isn't like Mr. Keating from Dead Poets Society or Mr. Holland (you know, with the opus). Too often, books about teachers make them into these mythical inspirational figures. And while they can be--we all have memories of teachers who have made an impact on us--most of us just aren't having these earth-shattering moments every day in the classroom. (Maybe that's a good thing--look at what happened to Mr. Keating.) Ms. Hempel is an ordinary teacher: she loves her kids and her subject; she tries hard, but not always hard enough. She says things that any teacher can relate to, like this bit from the first story, "Talent":

"Ms. Hempel was actively developing her sensitivity to the appropriate and the inappropriate. She still had difficulty distinguishing between the two: was it appropriate for her to laugh when a kid farted in class? Was it appropriate for her to wear stretchy fabrics? Ms. Hempel was not, she knew, a very good teacher...She bribed them with miniature chocolate bars. She extracted compliments from them. She promised herself that she would decorate her classroom with photographs of great women writers, but she never did" (Bynum 5).

She sells herself short, though; in the last story, after she has left the profession (that's not a spoiler, as the book really has no plot to speak of), she encounters a former student and learns that she actually did teach the kids something. They remember her fondly, and while this gratifies her, she has no desire to go back.

As I mentioned, this book really has no plot, but that isn't a bad thing. It just chronicles the thoughts of an everyday teacher who seems to feel that she is both better than and not good enough for her chosen profession. Bynum's writing is gorgeous. My favorite part is at the end, when Ms. Hempel (who is no longer known as Ms. Hempel, but we never get her new name) recounts a dream she has had of her soon-to-be-born baby's first day of school:

"Together they were walking down the hallway, headed toward some bright, severe place where they didn't really want to go. It was her role to take the child there and then return....But for now she was alone with the child she loved, walking farther down the hall, deeper into the silence, the strange glow ahead of them, the child slipping his hand into hers and holding it lightly, the whole dream filling with her wish that their steps would grow slower, and the passage grow longer, so that they might never have to reach the place where they were supposed to arrive" (Bynum 193).

Coming next: The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell.

An introduction

A couple of years ago, I did a grad-school presentation based on that NEA study bemoaning the state of reading in America. The study grouped readers into categories like "light" (1-5 books a year), "moderate" (6-11 books a year), "frequent" (12-49), and "avid" (50 or more). I've always considered myself an avid reader, but I don't know if I actually manage to read 50 or more books every year. All of my life, I've consistently been two things: a reader, and competitive. I need to be in the avid group, dammit! I can't be in the second tier of American readers. That just won't do.

That's where this blog comes in. It's my attempt to document my reading habits, as well as sort of a one-person book club. I don't mean that to sound asocial--I welcome feedback from anyone who would like to join me in my quest for NEA-approved avid readerdom.

The title of this blog is inspired by, of all people, Laura Bush. If you know me, you know how improbable it is that she would inspire anything but bewilderment over her choice of husband, but I am quite taken with a story I once heard about her. Apparently, in response to her future mother-in-law's query about what she did for a living, she answered, "I read. I smoke. I admire." Yes, smoking is vile, but that is a pretty badass thing to say to an imposing dowager like Barbara Bush. I like it, and so it is my title.