Beans and Birthdays

I have rarely been able to discuss the books with the people who chose them, so this week I was delighted to share breakfast with the guy who tried to abuse my poor math skills and get eight books onto the list. We negotiated down to three, with one to be read at a later date. His taste hews to non-fiction, but beyond that, it was very eclectic. Let's see what is of interest to one of my husband's oldest friends. 

#53 – Into the Wild – Jon Krakauer
Recommended by: KS

In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,00 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter.

The text on the front cover of the book sums it up succinctly. What you think about the book will be based on what you think of the McCandless. Is he a saint or a savant? The book explains what led him to the fateful trip to Alaska, what could have caused his death, and throws in a few other stories of people who died under similar circumstances to give you a broader view. The author also interjects himself in to the story, a year before he did so much more spectacularly in Into Thin Air.

It is an interesting book. I remember, years ago, talking to a friend about surfer culture and how surfers spend time making money, then time just riding the waves, and I remember snarking that, “their parents must be so proud of them.” Age and experience have taught me that maybe taking time to do what you love is something to be proud of, and as long as you are supporting yourself, and not hurting others, to each his own. Therein lies the rub. His death hurt a lot of people. Should he still have taken his journey? It’s so hard to say. I think this book will stay with me for a very long time because it didn’t provide an easy answer to one of life’s most fundamental questions – Does making oneself happy override the happiness of others? I urge those of you who have not read it to do so and try to come up with your own answer.

#54 – Founding Brothers – Joseph Ellis
Recommended by: KS

No event in American history, which was so improbable at the time has seemed so inevitable in retrospect as the American Revolution.

The book then shows us why, using several moments in time that changed America. This sounds like an awesome read in theory, not so much in practice. This book was dry as toast. It wasn’t boring; it was just devoid of any emotion other than rabid interest. Imagine being stuck in a room with a gaggle of history nerds while they discussed the minutia of a dinner party that happened two hundred years ago and was filled with people who all seemed completely interchangeable. That is what reading this book was like. People did not have conversations; they had ongoing dialogue or intense discourse. The preface alone nearly killed me. The author never used one word when he could use fourteen. His use of grammar was excellent as I’ve never seen commas used to such great effect in extending a sentence so that it had the weight and heft of a full paragraph. I thought the history of Lincoln would be the most unwieldy of the books on the list, but this one was by far much harder to digest. It was just so wordy. (Coming from a blogger, I understand the irony of that statement.) I admit that there was some (gasp!) skimming involved. I just couldn’t really dive into this book without drowning in a sea of vocabulary on topics that the author rendered so colorless. A chapter on the infamous duel between Hamilton and Burr was as thrilling as the goblin wars as told by Professor Binns. I think the author got in his own way quite a bit by over-explaining, over-analyzing, and just overwriting to the point of lunacy. If this part of history is your thing, then by all means, dive in. For the rest of us, here there be dragons.

#55 – What is the What – Dave Eggers
Recommended by: KS

                I have no reason not to answer the door so I answer the door.

Thus begins what I can only refer to as the Story of Job as lived by a Sudanese Lost Boy. The prologue makes it very clear that Dave Eggers is not the author. This is a true life account; an only barely fictionalized, horrifying, unbelievable, yet utterly realistic account of what Valentino Dominic Achak Deng lived through. It is occasionally funny in ways that are both sad and ridiculous, but it is never anything less than memorable.

There is a section in the book where Achak visits Nairobi for the first time and this visit happens to coincide with the death of Princess Diana. As people mourn in the street and his hosts are visibly traumatized, Achak, not understanding the customs of death outside of Sudan, wonders if this is how everyone is mourned when they pass. Only much later does he realize that it was her fame that made anyone care, but that when an anonymous man is killed, or thousands of men, women, and children are slaughtered in what can only be termed genocide, that people are oddly unaffected. Considering how the entire Internet seems to have lost its damn mind over Cecil the Lion this week, I think his observation still stands.

This is another book that I think should be required reading. Yes, it is violent. Yes, it is heartbreaking. But it is necessary for people to understand what they stories they see on the news don’t end when they change the channel. Those stories continue, but no one seems to care about them anymore. Achak talks about refugee camps being built in the most desolate, unwanted, unlivable places and then being stuck in them not for month, but for years. Years! Think about your worst night of camping, take away all of your camping supplies, and multiple the length of time past the point of all logic and reason – that is what his life was like – and that was after he survived so many other traumatic events that I am not even sure how he was still able to think or speak, let alone tell such a clear story in such a cohesive manner. The worst part is that I just checked out his website and everything he talked about in the books is still happening! It isn’t ancient history, or even the recent past. This is now. Read this book. Please. I dare you not to look at the world differently afterward. 

Humble Pie

#51 – The Help –Kathryn Stockton
Recommended by: AS

Remember a few weeks ago, how I talked about books like they were food? Some books are a five course meal, others are dessert, while some are dessert with secret veggies baked inside? This book is a granola bar that has healthy packaging but is filled with sugar.

Here is my problem with this book in a nutshell – the entire story of the oppression of working class blacks was told from the point of view of a rich white girl. It is fantasy, not fiction. We can all pat ourselves on the back that we would never act like that toward someone of a different race, but last week, greater than 50 years after this book was set, we JUST got rid of the Confederate flag, a symbol of black oppression if there ever was one. So, don’t go breaking your arm or anything. There is still a long way to go.

Was the book well-written? Yes? Was it fun to read and did it keep my attention? Yes. Has everyone in the world read this book or seen the movie? Yes, though I admit I actually haven’t seen the movie because if I did that, I’d have to add on another month to this project. Look, it is a cute book and all, but it isn’t half of what is has been made out to be. 

The Freedom to Despair

Fun fact, I once won a first-edition, signed copy of a Jennifer Wiener book by posting a picture of her books trying to guillotine one of his books. Odd, right? I also posted a blog about winning the contest on Twitter because it gave me a much needed dose of self-worth after a really shitty day. 

#48 – Freedom – Jonathan Franzen
Recommended by: SR

The news about Walter Berglund wasn’t picked up locally – he and Patty had moved away to Washington two years earlier and meant nothing to St. Paul now – but the urban gentry of Ramsey Hill were not so loyal to their city as not to read the New York Times.

I am not a fan of Franzen. I hated The Corrections. Sadly, I am not a much bigger fan of Freedom. I think it has the same two problems as his first book – all the characters are low-grade assholes that are impossible to care about in any meaningful way and nothing really happens. I can get behind a good villain or a really complex character that is neither good nor bad. In fact, I think that is what makes Gone Girl such a good book because if you take two minutes to think about the plot, it falls apart entirely. But you are willing to overlook the basic stupidity of the plot and the ludicrous ending because the characters are so fascinating. In this book, the characters are exactly the type of people you wouldn’t want to get stuck talking to at a cocktail party. They just exist in a vacuum of self-absorption and poor decision making. As a reader, we have to be told that characters are interesting because the author can never prove it on the page. I’m glad I read it because I can continue my active dislike for his novels with a perfect record, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone else suffer through it.

#50 – Despair – Vlaidmir Nabokov
Recommended by: LR

If I were not perfectly sure of my power to write and of my marvelous ability to express ideas with the utmost grace and vividness . . . So, more or less, I had thought of beginning my tale.

I didn’t get it. I can’t even pretend that I did. In fact, I can honestly state that if I didn’t go online and read the Wikipedia synopsis, I’d have literally no idea what happened in this book. I know this is a classic of literature, and Russian literature in particular, but I’d be damned if I had to explain why. It might as well have been written in Russian for all I understood of the characters, their motivation, and the plot. I can only be thankful that this was a very brief book and that my feeling of complete stupidity was short-lived. 

The Post-Birthday World

#49 - The Post-Birthday World – Lionel Shriver
Recommended by: SR

What began as coincidence had crystalized into tradition: on the sixth of July, they would have dinner with Ramsey Acton on his birthday.

Thus begins one of my favorite books of all time. I have recommended this book over and over again. I’ve made two different book clubs read it. I put a copy out in my Little Free library on the very first day it was open for business. I cannot emphasize how much I think every woman should read this book.

However, I’d be remiss in saying that half of the people who read it hated it.

Books are food for the soul. Some are light and airy, like lemon meringue pie. Others only seem shallow, but wind up being dense and thick, like brownies cooked with spinach or bread made with zucchini. Some are appetizers, others desserts. Many books are a meaty, loaded down with carbs and gravy, dates and details, so that when you finally finish, your brain is thick and sluggish.

The Post-Birthday World is a five-course meal. The first chapter is the amuse bouche – it sets the ground work for the entire story. Irina is in love with Lawrence, her fine, upstanding, somewhat boring partner of ten years. One night, she finds herself at dinner with Ramsey Acton, the rakish, dashing, snooker player. At the end of the night she has to make a choice – does she kiss him or not?

The rest of the book proceeds in alternating chapters. In one set, she kisses him. In the other set, she doesn’t. What is fantastic is how small decisions reap large changes and how perception is so different than reality. Choice is a common subject in my house and I’m always telling the kids to make good choices. But, really, what is a good choice? Which choice of Irina’s was the “right” one?

The first time I read this book, I thought one way. On this, my second reading, I feel completely different. I could talk about this book for hours and I will admit that I have thought about it frequently over the years. To me, this is a perfect book. The alternating chapters are like enjoying a tasting menu at a five-star restaurant. Each one is perfectly balanced against the one before it and the one next to it, but each could stand easily on its own. There is however, no sweet ending. This book eschews the traditional dessert course and goes for the cheese plate with multiple textures and smells.

The language is lush. The author is a master of simile and metaphor. You don’t skip sentences in this book; you allow them to wash over you word by word. There are no misspent words here, careless commas, or unnecessary asides. Every word has a purpose. It is really just a fantastic rendering of what could be and what was. 

Supersize It

The problem with most sequels is that you already got everything you wanted out of the first movie. The perfect movie always leaves you wanting more – but the sequels tend to give you way too much. In the case of Magic Mike, the first movie sucked so badly that the sequel could only get better, and ladies, believe me when I say this, Magic Mike XXL was EXACTLY the stripper movie we all wanted.

This is what I said I wanted in the first movie:

I didn't go into a stripper movie expecting much. In fact, I was pretty clear that I wasn't interested in the "talky bits." I wanted hot, naked men dancing for my amusement without the hassle of a two-drink minimum and a handful of dollar bills that I am supposed to stick into dirty, sweaty, spangled thongs. I wanted a movie made for women - sweet romance with a hot lead, swoon-worthy secondary characters for comic relief, and at least one really good sex scene.

Check. Check. And while there wasn’t a sex scene, I am pretty damn sure that the finale was much, much dirtier than 50 Shades. Much.

The second movie had it all. I’ve been to my fair share of stripper shows (don’t ask), and I was always amazed at how ridiculous the men looked. There is nothing remotely sexy about spangled thongs. In, most women prefer nothing more than a man in pair of tight jeans hanging low off a set of tanned abs. Nothing is hotter than a man who can make us laugh, or a man who can sing, or a man who knows how to wear a tux. Check. Check. And Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, double check.

This movie was fun. It was a good time. I was once again accompanied by a wonderful set of women and we laughed, not at the movie, but WITH the movie. There was spontaneous applause, not once, but often. (Yes, I totally clapped like a child presented with candy when Matt Bomer busted out Bryan Adam’s “Heaven.”) The audience was involved, entertained, and delighted with what was on screen. Yes, it was a dumb stripper movie, but it was a perfect dumb stripper movie in that it didn’t try to be anything else. Did the men strip? You betcha! But in between, there wasn’t a lot of dead space. Each character had a chance to shine a bit, to be more than a cardboard cut-out with a six-pack, and to dance like no one was watching. Trust me, we were watching. Oh hell yes, we were watching.

While I may never be able to listen to the Backstreet Boys with the same level of innocence, I will also never see Michael Strahan the same way. And I’m pretty sure that Joe Manganiello just bumped himself straight up to the top of my list. Good lord. He wore a tux and made a really, really well-timed vampire joke? Hey baby, I think I want to marry you.  

Last time, I told the friend who was unable to attend that I’d buy the popcorn for the next movie because I wasn’t going back to see the first one. This time, I am ready, willing, and able to go back to see it with any one of you who did not make opening night. And ladies, let’s be clear – leave the men and the kids at home. This is one is for the girls.

(Closing note: I can only hope and pray that one day, if I am a very good girl and God is kind, that I too will have a book club meeting like the one in the movie. You are all invited. Promise.) 

The Odds Have it

This is a long one. I managed to fly through a couple of books, but this post is unusual in that I spend most of it recommending other, better versions of the topics at hand. 

#42 – After Camelot – J. Randy Taraborrelli
Recommended by: MK

             

          It was a gray, dreary, and unremarkable Saturday afternoon in Hyannis Port.

I never really cared about Camelot. My parents were of the Kennedy generation and I never once heard them mention that family, good or bad. As such, I didn’t have much of an interest in them or their lives. I knew the basics, I mean, I am American, but I couldn’t have drawn a family tree or named more than a few of them off the top of my head. So an entire book about them post-JFK and RFK was not high on my reading list.

Unfortunately, after reading it, I don’t think it should be high on yours either. My first problem was the author wrote a book about the Kennedy family pre-1968 and seemed to think that if you read this one, you must have read that one. I didn’t. Which means the assassination of JFK and the murder of RFK are just breezed past. It was an terrible editorial misstep that informed the entire rest of the book because you cannot base an entire family history on how they overcome grief, how they based their lives on service, and how they always, always, always were in the shadow of those great men without actually talking about those great men and how they died! A chapter on each of them, with their terrible deaths included, would have gone a long way toward filling the emotional center of the book, which I found sorely missing.

My other problem with the book was the “Oh, woe is them!” feeling. Yes, many people in the family died of cancer. When your family is as big as the Kennedy clan, and when cancer is so prevalent, statistically, I think they were about average. Yes, many of them died in small plane crashes – which, by the way, they flew in constantly. Again, statistically, when you fly in a small airplane 10 times more often than average, your death in a plane crash will increase. It is still sad. It is still terrible. There was no Kennedy curse. There was only the law of averages. 

The central theme of the book seemed to be that everyone was always grieving, trying to just survive, bonding as a family, and trying to be of service. There was no dirt. It does not appear that anyone very close to the family actually sat down to be interviewed for this book, including any Kennedy. The author pulled all of his punches. He didn’t disclose anything that wasn’t already public knowledge. It was all very polite, which also, unfortunately, made it all rather boring.

If you really want to know what being in the Kennedy clan was like, I highly suggest you read Carole Radziwell’s memoir, What Remains. It is about the death of her beloved husband and while I normally avoid cancer books, like, well cancer, this is quite honestly one of the best books, let alone memoirs, I have ever read. It’s beautiful and fascinating and interesting and really gives you a sense of what losing a loved one is like. It also gives incredible insight into the Kennedy family because Carol and her husband were best friends with John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Caroline Bessette Kennedy. It is dishy, but not in an invasive way and it presents everyone in real lighting, not in the most flattering one.   

#44 Wifey – Judy Blume
Recommended by: BD

                

           Sandy sat up in bed and looked at the clock.

As a child, I read every Judy Blume book I could get my hands on – and my child has done the same. As a tween, she taught me all sorts of things. I learned about masturbation in Deenie, about sex in Forever, and about grief in Tiger Eyes. In fact, I loved the last book so much I wore tiger eye jewelry for years. I haven’t let my kid near those books yet, but when the time comes, I can only hope she learns that sort of stuff in a compassionate, understanding way – but probably not from Judy.

Look, some books age well. Others don’t. I’m sure Super Fudge is still relevant, but in this day and age, Wifey reads like a down market episode of Mad Men. A frustrated housewife in the early 70s has a few affairs during one summer when her kids are away at camp as she tries to figure out how she wound in a loveless marriage with a man who expects the same weekly meals, the same weekly sex, and values beauty before substance. Yawn. Maybe it was the stilted language, or maybe it the paper thin characterizations, but this book left me cold. Every man was made of straw. Every woman was a harpy.

Have you heard of the Bechdel test? Passing it requires two female characters sharing a scene (in a movie, but I think it is equally relevant in a book), talking about anything other than a man. The book failed that test. Miserably. Even worse, I don’t think anyone in the book every talked to anyone else openly and honestly. It was just so depressing. But worst of all, it was really dated. This book is not a classic. It is of a very specific time and place and that place is, unfortunately, the 70s. No one wants to go back to the 70s, least of all with the writer of Freckle Juice. There are literally dozens of books about this same exact type of life, written by much better authors. I'd start with Jennifer Weiner and work your way outward from there. 

#46 – High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
Recommended by: BD

          

      My desert island, all-time, top five most memorable split-ups, in chronological order:

This was a re-read and I liked it exactly the same amount the second as I did the first time. It’s a very cute, very British book. The guy is sort of a wanker, the whole vintage record shop (this was set during the time of vinyl and mix tapes) is all rather twee, and honestly, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about him or his girlfriend or their problems. Sure, it was generally amusing, but if you want to read a book about a wanker who finds a way to screw up his life through apathy, then read About a Boy by the same author.  Or if you want to read a book with endless musical references, mix tapes, and lost love, then I recommend Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffeld. Both books are superior to this one.  

#47 – Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban
Recommended by: BD

Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways.

This is the best of the Potter books in terms of smart, tight storytelling, clear characters, and a great plot. If you haven’t read Harry Potter yet, well, what on earth is wrong with you? And if you tell me you have only seen the movies, I will cease being your friend. These aren’t children’s books. They just happen to be books that children enjoy. Rowling is a master of setting up far-reaching events. A throwaway line about a vanishing cabinet in the second book becomes a major plot point in the sixth book. A casual mention of a sporting event in the third becomes a major set piece for the fourth. Characters make choices you can believe because they aren’t made in a vacuum. These books may be about magic, but in the end, Rowling always shows you how the rabbit got into the hat. My daughter is addicted to them. She has destroyed all of my first printings. She plays Harry Potter trivia games like it is her job and if she ever finds out about the Harry Potter theme parks, she will be out hawking lemonade at every major, minor, and rookie event at the local high school to earn the money to go. I actively encourage her addition. I mean hell, it’s better than Twilight, right? If you haven’t dived into the Harry Potter universe yet, I highly recommend that you get right on it. If you prefer audio books, the Jim Dale versions are superb.  Hogwarts is waiting! 

Unsolved Mysteries

Do you know how some people are just effortlessly cool? Always really into odd, esoteric stuff, can always seem to find the most random, yet perfect quotes and references, and is always ready with a suggestion of something you have never, ever once heard of and yet, immediately must read/watch/buy? He had an odd predilection in high school to practically inhale full bags of Stella D’Oro breakfast treats and a love of Bob Ross that could not be explained (and yet made cool somehow), the person who recommended this book is that guy. I haven’t seen him in oh, about twenty years, but when he e-mails me with a suggestion for something, I always, always pay attention. You should do so now.  

#41 – My Dark Places – James Ellroy
Recommended by: JS

                Some kids found her.

This book was so hard boiled you could have dyed it for Easter. There are few adjectives or adverbs. The language is brutally simplistic and the sentence structure is that of a Dick and Jane book, if you like your primary reading to be about murder. The paragraphs are short. The sentences are shorter. There was almost no dialogue. The language, like the subject matter, is intense and vulgar. This is a dark book about dark people who did dark things.

I sort of loved it.

I haven’t read Ellroy’s well-known fiction such as LA Confidential or The Black Dahlia so I never would have picked up his autobiography. However, I think it is safe to say that this isn’t your typical navel-gazing. When he was ten, his mother was murdered. By his teens, he was on his own entirely, and by his 20s, he was a homeless drug addict. He spent all his time concocting stories in his head. Eventually, he cleaned up his act and turned the stories into books. The stories were his salvation. The stories were his best self, his only way out. In his 40s, he focused on trying to solve his mother’s murder.

It’s a hell of a book. Did I mention it was dark? Every sentence is blunt and hits you in the gut. There is no flowery language to soften the blows. The topic is hard so the language is hard. Yet the insights into character, while brief, were excellent. The location is described with few words, but all of them are well placed. You know where you are, you know who you are with, and you know why they are acting in such a way – all with the fewest descriptive phrases possible. It’s quite an achievement. This book reads like fiction, so if you like your books pulpy, full of crime, seedy streets, and the scum of the earth, then this book has your name all over it. (That last sentence is even more bizarre if you read it in a Levar Burton-Reading Rainbow voice.)