Citizen Reader

I've got no problem with indie and self-published books...

...but come on, authors, you've got to try harder than this.

For me, "book discoverability" (discussion about "book discoverability," and how to help people discover books, is all the rage right now in publishing and library circles) has never really been all that much of a problem. I discover books wherever I go; for me the problem is getting through even one-tenth or so of all the books I want to read or have lying around at any one time. A large part of how I find nonfiction books, for instance, is that I merely browse the list of all new nonfiction that my local public library system publishes every month. Whatever title piques my interest, I request.

I tell you that long-winded story because that is how I stumbled across the title Mad City Eats: Food Adventures in Madison, Wisconsin, by Adam Vincent Powell. That is a title that is certain to grab my interest on many levels: I like food, and foodie books. I'm always interested in local subjects and authors. And I'm always vaguely curious who these local authors are (if they are truly "local") and what they're out there doing.

But when I brought this book home, I was disappointed. I have no idea who this Adam Vincent Powell* is, and the book includes no introduction, preface, or really any kind of clue to enlighten me. The book literally just launches into its subject matter, which is a compendium of short chapters on restaurant reviews, thoughts on local food production, and topics like "where to hunker down in Madison if the zombie apocalypse comes." As far as I can tell, there is no organizing principle here--the restaurant reviews are not listed alphabetically or geographically, and they are just all mixed in with related chapters like the zombie apocalypse one. At the end of the book and on the back cover, there isn't even any sort of "About the Author" blurb! I'm a believer in modesty, but come on, Mr. Powell, that's ridiculous.

I read through the book over the course of several mornings while CRjr lovingly took his time over his breakfast, and I actually did enjoy it. The reviews are engagingly written and even the more esoteric chapters are not without their charm (where to hide during aforementioned zombie attack: "Jenifer St. Market: This neighborhood grocery standby would be a pretty good place to hole up in the event of a zombie outbreak, as it's small enough to defend but also has loads of beer, wine, and food, all key to dealing with Armageddon."). But in the end I never could get past the disconcerting nature of just being launched into a series of disparate chapters without any understanding of who was writing or publishing this book, and why.

*Evidently he's written a lot of food articles in local newspapers and The Onion.

Downer Book Week: Astonished

Astonished: A Story of Evil, Blessings, Grace, and Solace
by Beverly Donofrio

I thought I'd end this very special Downer Book Week with a book that, in a surprise twist, really wasn't all that much of a downer. It certainly seemed like it was going to be, though, in the beginning:

"Even though I do know the important question is not why this happened to me but what I'm going to do now; and even though I was fifty-five and the attacker was a serial rapist in a small town, raping gringo women between fifty and sixty; and even though I, along with the entire town, felt like evil had come for a visit and it was not personal; and even though this little round-faced pervert with a big-billed baseball cap woke me in the middle of the night in the middle of a deep sleep in my own bed with a knife inches from my face, I was absolutely shocked that he chose me. This was not supposed to happen; I was supposed to have escaped: I had hot flashes and liver spots and was finally in the final stretch. I'd survived all these decades without experiencing this thing I dreaded as much as death--and had just been looking for a monastery to join, for Christ's sake."

I have always been weirdly fond of Beverly Donofrio. It has been so long since I read Riding in Cars with Boys that it's probably just time for me to read it again, but I do remember enjoying Looking for Mary: Or, the Blessed Mother and Me. The thing about Ms. Donofrio is, I would bet that she and I are just opposite personalities. This woman doesn't seem afraid of anything, and I'm afraid of a ton. Likewise, she has made some other personal choices (as described in her memoirs, of course, I don't really know her) that I most likely wouldn't have made. And yet I really enjoy her, and her writing voice.

In this book, Astonished: A Story of Evil, Blessings, Grace, and Solace, she makes pilgrimages of sorts to various monasteries and religious/spiritual communities, looking for a plan for spending the rest of her life, and of course, trying to come to terms with, or simply move on from, the rape, thoughts and mention of which are never far from the story. So it can certainly be a downer book in that sense. And it's a bit meandering--there is not so much a narrative here as a stream-of-consciousness report; reading it is like hearing someone talking to themselves and trying to work something out (and in between that Donofrio intersperses quotes from other spiritual writers and books).

I'm describing it poorly*, but I would like to say that by the end of it I was really quite touched. That sounds twee, which I did not feel at all. Rather I felt even more affection for Donofrio (who seems spiritual, and thoughtful, but not really sentimental), and wonder at the human race in general. It was not a downer feeling at all.

*Read this review for a better synopsis.

One way out of a reading slump.

Detroit: An American Autopsy
by Charlie Leduff

As the Great Reading Slump of 2013 continues, I find the only thing that pulls me out of it, even temporarily, is to read books on subjects which are fascinating to me. And I don't mean merely "fascinating"--I find a lot of things fascinating, which is why I usually plow through a lot of nonfiction (and fiction) on a lot of different subjects. I mean fascinating in the sense that I literally cannot look away from a book's subject, much like some people cannot look away from car accidents.

This was the case with the last such really fascinating book I read, David Quammen's Spillover. Learning about viruses and pandemics and monkeys and bats was really, really fascinating. And it happened again last week when I read Charlie LeDuff's new book Detroit: An American Autopsy.

Geographically, I am not all that far from Detroit. But sociologically, I just cannot wrap my mind around Detroit. I read every book I can find on the subject, and for the most part I have found them all unputdownable. So you're telling me there's this huge American city where grass and wildlife are just taking back whole blocks? There's this huge formerly industrial powerhouse where factories have just been left to stand rot, some for fifty years or more? And 700,000 people still live in the middle of all of that? How is it possible?

There must also be something about having Detroit as a hometown that really affects you, because LeDuff is a Detroit native who, after a very successful stint working for the New York Times, returned to the city with his wife and daughter to work for the failing Detroit News. This book, in addition to being a somewhat personal investigation of the city (where much of his family still lives), is primarily a collection of stories that he first told as newspaper articles--the dead man frozen in several feet of ice in the bottom of an elevator shaft in an abandoned building; numerous run-ins with the city's corrupt politicians, including mayor Kwame Kilpatrick; city police detectives and firefighters who keep going to work in hopeless situations; and relentless crime and poverty of all types. It's a lot to take in...and yet, once you start reading, you can't stop. Mr. CR blew through it in a couple of nights, and I did the same over the following week.

LeDuff is not a particularly subtle author, but there is something forthright about him and his writing that I enjoy. I also really enjoyed his personal take on the subject, as in an early chapter when he talks about his generation's parents working in factories, and how his generation thought they could make a quicker buck somewhere else (while still thinking, in the backs of their minds, the factories would always be there for them): 

"Still, we had all gotten a taste of it, summer jobs sweeping the floor or working the press. It was horrible. The yellow lights, the stink of grease and oil and acid. The unblinking time clock. You walked in the door and the first thing you're trying to figure out is how to get out. If you don't know that about factory work, you don't know anything.

What our generation failed to learn was the nobility of work. An honest day's labor...Instead of working, we figured we could be hustlers and salesmen and gamblers and partiers. Work was for suckers. If anybody had told us such a thing existed, we probably would have tried to become New York bankers and stockbrokers. And I have no doubt we would have been good at it too." (p. 33.)

And what I love about this book is that you can see the honesty of what he's saying, particularly because he himself does seem like a hustler. At several points in the book he references particular news stories he was tracking as ones that would be good to move copies of the sluggishly selling newspaper for which he worked (which strikes me as a bit of a hustling viewpoint). He seems to move through the city like that, hustling a bit here for access and interviews, getting hustled a little bit there by his interview subjects. It's genius. You'll just have to read it to see what I mean.

I thought it was a great book. I was excited earlier this spring when I saw it was coming out, and, rarity of rarities, I was not disappointed. I'd particularly love to see people use it for reading and book groups--there wasn't a single chapter that Mr. CR and I didn't bring up when we discussed it: "Could you believe that part? What about this part?" I love it when a book does that to you.

I still enjoy a good down-to-earth memoir.

Midwife's Here!: The Enchanting True Story of Britain's Longest Serving Midwife
by Linda Fairley

A while back I noted that I might finally be going off memoirs. But every now and then, if I find the right one on the right subject, and it's not too long, I still enjoy munching through them the way you might enjoy crunching through a bowl of popcorn (or, if you have a sweet tooth like me, Easter candy) while relaxing.

I found this was the case with Linda Fairley's jauntily titled The Midwife's Here!: The Enchanting True Story of Britain's Longest Serving Midwife, which is billed on its cover as "the enchanting true story of one of Britain's longest-serving midwives." Now, normally I run away from the word "enchanting" the way other people might run away from the words "dark" or "bitter," but I've always had a little soft spot for midwife stories (and health narratives in general).

Here Fairley relates the story of her three years' of nursing training, followed by her midwife training, all of which took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She drops in enough period details to make it fun--miniskirts, fashions by Mary Quant, and go-go boots all make an appearance--but overall she was a serious student and was energized when she discovered her true vocation in life was to be a midwife. Her revelations regarding birthing and parenting trends of that time were fascinating--nobody made you feel bad for not breastfeeding in the sixties, that's for sure--and she tells a brisk little narrative full up with enough real characters to really keep you reading. One of my favorite anecdotes was about her and her mentor, midwife May Tattersall, attending a birth in a more rural area near Manchester, England, and how Mrs. Tattersall had to yell at the husband to get the chickens out of the room where his wife was giving birth (although she let the two dogs stay):

"'Well,' she said in a voice laden with prudence, 'it's like this. When you're a community midwife, you have to fit in with the community...If she wants her dogs there, then it's best to try to accommodate her, as far as possible.'

'But...not hens?'

'Not hens, no, never hens,' Mrs. Tattersall said firmly.

I expected some pearls of wisdom about the dangers of toxoplasmosis or even salmonella poisoning, but Mrs. Tattersall simply said with a rasp, 'I flamin' well hate birds!'" (p. 219.)

Ha! I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the whole book. Ms. Fairley is clearly the optimistic, can-do, no-nonsense sort who might frighten me in real life, but she's written a book that's, well, okay, I guess I can go along with the publisher: enchanting.*

*Be warned: there are some sad stories too. Not all childbirth experiences end enchantingly, after all.

Book reviews that actually make me want to read.

More Baths Less Talking: Notes from the Reading Life of a Celebrated Author Locked in Battle with Football, Family, and Time Itself
by Nick Hornby

Here's a little confession: I don't read book reviews.

Okay, I used to read them, in the good old days, when I thought I could afford a subscription to Publishers' Weekly. I was down with the PW book reviews--short, and pretty much universally chipper, although every now and then someone would rip a forthcoming book up one side and down the other. But I honestly don't think I've ever made it all the way through a New York Times book review. Why not? Well, for the most part, they never really make me want to read the books. This is why, I think, I enjoy book blogs as much as I do. The less "review-y," the better--I like to hear what someone really thought of a book, even if they didn't like it.

So it is always very refreshing to read Nick Hornby's collections of book-reading essays (collected from The Believer magazine, where they originally appear). The latest such book of his is titled More Baths Less Talking: Notes from the Reading Life of a Celebrated Author Locked in Battle with Football, Family, and Time Itself, and I devoured it over the course of a couple of nights. Hornby opens each essay with a list of the books he bought that month, and the books he actually read, which is a lovely way to admit that what we pick out to read and what we end up reading are not always directly related. And then he proceeds to discuss what he read in approachable, and often very funny, prose. And you often learn something along the way, like this, when he talks about the book Austerity Britain: 1945-51, by David Kynaston):

"While I was reading about the birth of our* National Health Service, President Obama was winning his battle to extend health care in America;** it's salutary, then, to listen to the recollections of the doctors who treated working-class Britons in those early days. 'I certainly found when the Health Service started on the 5th July '48 that for the first six months I had as many as twenty or thirty ladies come to me who had the most unbelievable gynaecological conditions--I mean, of that twenty or thirty there would be at least ten who had complete prolapse of the womb, and they had to hold it up with a towel as if they had a large nappy on.'" (p. 25.)

I don't know what it says about me that that TOTALLY makes me want to get and read the Kynaston book, but kudos to Hornby on his quote-selecting skills. I also know this about Hornby: he's the only reviewer who has ever, EVER made me want to read Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea (although I know I should have read this one before now).

So: looking to get excited about a wide range of fiction and nonfiction? Try this and Hornby's other such collections, including The Polysyllabic Spree, Housekeeping vs. the Dirt, and Shakespeare Wrote for Money.

*Hornby is British, so he speaks of the British National Health Service.

**I don't know that Obama's health-care plan is actually going to make health care more accessible to anyone, but that's a small quibble with Hornby's writing.

A somewhat misleading title.

The Art of the Epigraph: How Great Books Begin
by Rosemary Ahern (com)

I have always been interested in epigraphs--those quotes and blurbs that writers include in the beginnings (mostly) of their books. So when I saw the title The Art of the Epigraph: How Great Books Begin, well, you can excuse me for getting a huge nerdy thrill, can't you?

But it wasn't quite what I wanted. I was looking forward to a consideration of how authors find and choose such epigraphs--I know you come across a lot of things as you read, and most writers do a lot of reading, but how do they remember the perfect quotes they eventually want to use for their books? Do they collect such quotes? Do they go looking for them AFTER they've written their books, or have them in mind before they start? Or what?

This book is still interesting, but disappointingly, mainly consists of 23 categories (such as "Life," "Love," "Rebels and Outsiders," etc.) that include the epigraphs from various books. On the first page of the "Life" chapter, for instance, is a quote from Ecclesiastes that Hemingway opened The Sun Also Rises with. And that's it. A few of the examples include a bit more explanatory material, but never quite enough to satisfy me. For example:

"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. --G.K. Chesterton, in Coraline (2002) by Neil Gaiman.

Although widely viewed as a Catholic reactionary, Chesterton is credited with inspiring Mohandas Gandhi to take up the fight for Indian independence from British rule. A column Chesterton wrote in 1909 so impressed Gandhi that he translated it into Gujarati and then proceeded to write his own book addressing the problems of colonialism and how to achieve reform through civil disobedience." (p. 16.)

Now, that is all very interesting, but it is not really what I want to know. What I want to know is, is Neil Gaiman sitting around reading G.K. Chesterton? Or did he just leaf through a quote book until he found this one? And how did he remember it to use for his book?

Finishing up Fahrenheit 451.

I finished my re-read of Fahrenheit 451 this week, and I must say I found it just as interesting as I did when I first read it in junior high school. I hope to be able to read it again in a couple of decades or so and see how it hits me then.

In the meantime, I was blown away (no pun intended) by the following paragraph, in which Bradbury describes the (nuclear? maybe) bombing of a city:

"The concussion knocked the air across and down the river, turning the men over like dominos in a line, blew the water in lifting sprays, and blew the dust and made the trees above them mourn with a great wind passing away south. Montag crushed himself down, squeezing himself small, eyes tight. He blinked once. And in that instant, saw the city, instead of the bombs, in the air. They had displaced each other. For another of those impossible instants, the city stood, rebuilt and unrecognizable, taller than it had ever hoped or strived to be, taller than man had built it, erected at last in grouts of shattered concrete and sparkles of torn metal into a mural hung like a reversed avalanche, a million colors, a million oddities, a door where a window should be, a top for a bottom, a side for a back, and then the city rolled over and fell down dead." (p. 160.)

Can't you just SEE that? For my money Bradbury's the most vivid descriptive writer out there. I also enjoyed the interview questions with Bradbury that were included in the 50th anniversary edition paperback that I read--made me want to revisit Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews. For a guy who seemed to write a lot about the dark sides of human nature he sure did love life. It makes you think.

A tragic shipwreck.

So you've all heard the song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, right?

Well, of course, I had too. And I'd always been, somewhere in the back of my mind, intrigued by the story of the ship's sinking in Lake Superior. But here's the embarrassing thing--I'd always had in mind it was something that happened in the 1920s or 1930s.

Did you know that the huge iron ore carrier sank in November, 1975?

Mighty Fitz: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald
by Michael Schumacher

You're right, I really should have known that myself. And it's one of many reasons I'm glad that I saw Michael Schumacher's book Mighty Fitz: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald listed as one of the new nonfiction books in my library's catalog, and brought it home.

It's a succinct little history, telling the story of the Edmund Fitzgerald's last tragic voyage on stormy seas, as well as a bit about the ensuing investigations of the wreck. It's only 187 pages long (although appendixes include a list of the names of the 29 men who died aboard, notes, a comprehensive bibliography, and an index. It was just what I wanted; a quickly paced account that covered the basics but never got too technical*, although I might have liked to see a bit more information on the sailors who died and their families. The most interesting thing about the story is how it is resolved--or not--you'll just have to read the book to see what I mean.

*I'd actually love to see William Langewiesche take a whack at this subject, or maybe Great Lakes shipwrecks in general. I know he doesn't write history, really, but he does a great job of making the technical interesting, I always think.

Roll me up and smoke me when I die.

Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings from the Road
by Willie Nelson

You know, Willie Nelson is just a fun person with whom to spend some time.

And that's exactly what you feel like you're doing when you read Nelson's autobiographical collection Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings from the Road. The book is truly that--musings--but meatier than you might realize at first. It includes excerpts from Nelson's writings while on the road, interspersed with commentary from family and band members, and friends. Subjects range from Farm Aid to guns to writing music to jokes (of which there are very many good ones here, although some are a bit raunchier than others). I'd quote one here but I think it's more fun to read them in Willie's book.

One of my favorite things to learn about Willie came from his son Micah (whose illustrations are also featured throughout the book): "there has never been any pressure from him to be anything but a decent person" (p. 75.) That seemed about right, and I hope it is something CRjr might be able to say about me some day.

If you enjoy Nelson's music, I think you'll enjoy this book too. (I think you might even enjoy it if you're not a fan of his music--he's just that likable.) Although I guess I would not suggest it to people who are not fans of casual marijuana use. It's also a particularly nice laid-back little read if you are GOING CRAZY FROM CABIN FEVER, which I would guess just about everyone in Wisconsin (and perhaps in other parts? are you having an early or late spring where you are?) is by now.

Jonesing for more Downton Abbey?

Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants
by Alison Maloney

Well, I said I wasn't going to do it, I didn't watch much of the first two seasons, but I did get sucked into the third (and most recent season) of Downton Abbey on PBS. I think maybe it was because I read about the huge (do I still have to say this? SPOILER WARNING for following link) season-ending spoiler before the episodes even started playing here, and I thought, hell, now I might as well see how it gets there.*

I feel a bit dirty now that I've watched it and I still say that 1. Lady Mary  is the most boring, annoying female character in the history of BBC productions, and 2. She and Matthew Crawley are the least sparky couple I've ever seen. But let's face it, I'm a sucker for all things British, and particularly all things Edwardian. And not so much the upstairs Edwardians, but rather the servants. I cannot believe how house servants got worked all day long, for such little pay. Perhaps, on a very small scale, it is my farm upbringing that makes me sympathize with people who probably desired very little else but to have a moment here and there to sit down.

I do have a nonfiction point here. In one of my trolls through the "New at the Library" nonfiction lists, I found Alison Maloney's title Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants, and a few weeks ago blew through it in the course of about two days. It's quite slight and I'm not sure it's worth its $23.99 cover price, but It still was an informative, entertaining read. The author explores several aspects of servants lives, including the backgrounds from which they came, their hierarchies within a household, typical days and tasks, pay and conditions, hiring and firing, and many more. The text includes many citations from primary sources, which really give a feel for the period:

"Most servants were given just one afternoon off a week, on Sunday, so that they could attend church. In addition, if the mistress was a benevolent one, they might have had an extra day off a month.

Cassell's Household Guide suggested the generous extra day did away with the necessity for a maid's friends to call on her at the house. 'At the same time, a mistress should be careful not to bind herself to spare her servant on a certain day in every month, as is sometimes demanded,' it advised." (p. 84.)

Goddamn servants. Always demanding the same one day off per month. You can see how the upstairs ladies of these houses just had their hands full.

Overall: a good book. And it might just help tide you over a bit until Season 4.

*Also because Sesame Street did a lovely Upside Downton parody. Good old Sesame Street.

Imperfect in so many ways.

The Imperfect Mom: Candid Confessions of Mothers Living in the Real World
by Therese Jo Borchard

The slim book The Imperfect Mom: Candid Confessions of Mothers Living in the Real World has been sitting on my table for at least a month now, which indicates, I think, a lot about the imperfections going on in the house of this mom. Procrastination? Check. Poor cleaning routines? Check. (I promise you this book hasn't been moved or touched, even to dust around, in at least four weeks.) Poor time management and lack of regular blogging? Check.

I don't see that big picture turning around any time soon, but it is time to get this book out of here. I got it from the library, of course, because of the title, and it turned out to be a collection of mostly engaging essays on the practice of imperfect mothering (which I am perfecting over here). I see it's got a bunch of bookmarks in it--let's see what I thought was interesting enough, at least a month ago, to bookmark, shall we?

The entire chapter by Jenny Rosenstrach, titled "Take Back Your Stereo," about the inanity of "children's music," and how to get around it: "We'd listen to our music with two sets of ears asking ourselves, 'Would this make a good Phoebe song?' It was amazing to discover and in some cases rediscover the songs that did. Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits had probably been in the CD case for ten years without airtime when Andy decided to play track 14 in the car. It was love at first listen. For three months straight we'd barely be out of the driveway before the rapid-fire questioning would begin:

'Cecelia, Daddy?'" (p. 75.)

I enjoyed that because we just listened to that song the other day and CRjr rocked out. It's a good question: is there anyone who doesn't like the song "Cecelia"?

And this, from the opening essay:

"I should have eliminated caffeine completely from my diet during the first trimester of my pregnancy with Katherine. Maybe that was the cause of her irregular heartbeat. And why did I fly with her when she was a wee two months old? Did I really think her immune system could fight off the nasty bacterial infection she caught on the plane, which almost had her hospitalized?" (p. 4.)

Whenever I hear women saying their pregnancies made them feel stronger, I just marvel at them. Have you seen the list of what pregnant women either flat-out can't eat or "should avoid"? It's ridiculous. Being pregnant made me feel like one huge crisis waiting to happen.

And this, from an essay on a woman's pre-term labor, particularly her reactions to her husband's and doctor's reactions:

[After feeling her water break and trying to rouse her husband] "'Don't pregnant women have bladder issues? Maybe that's what it is,' he said.

'I think I would know if I had only wet my pants,' I growled, my irritation increasing exponentially.

'Yeah, but I remember reading something about...'

He noticed my hands moving to wrap around his neck.

'I'll get ready to go."

Just then the phone rang. It was my doctor. As I was explaining what happened, he interrupted me and asked to remind him how far along I was.

'Thirty-two weeks.'

'Are you sure?'

Oh, gee, now that you ask, ha, ha, silly me, I thought it was December, not February--of course I'm sure, are you kidding me?

'Yes, I'm sure,' I said with great restraint." (p. 24.)

I really got a kick out of that, because CRjr was a high-risk pregnancy, and trust me, you are not only counting weeks, you are counting days. Days to being closer to being full-term, days to being closer to bringing that baby in "safe." And how many mothers HAVEN'T had these conversations with doctors? Honestly, doctors. I know they care and try and we need them and all that jazz, but it feels like I have had to stop myself from saying, "Look, asshole," in more of my conversations than not with doctors.

So: I found a lot to relate to in this one, and I enjoyed it. I liked the variety of viewpoints, and it was refreshing to hear other mothers tell stories about how they had muffed things (and yet everything turned out fine, or at least workable). I always think this is the sort of gift, along with perhaps The Three-Martini Playdate: A Practical Guide to Happy Parenting, that someone should get for mothers-to-be at baby showers, just for a change of pace.

Have I maxed out on memoirs?

Drinking with Men: A Memoir
by Rosie Schaap

Over the course of the past month I've slowly been munching my way through Rosie Schaap's well-received memoir Drinking with Men: A Memoir.

I never really got to the point where I had to keep reading it, but for a while it seems I haven't been finding much at the library and I couldn't find much other nonfiction around the house I was interested in, so when I needed to read, I'd just go back to it and read another chapter. I don't know why, really. It's not a bad book, and it's certainly not bad as far as memoirs (which can, I find, vary widely in quality) go. Feeling pretty ambivalent about it both during and after reading it has left me with just the one question:

Am I done reading memoirs?

Could be. For a long time I read a lot of them. For a long time a lot of them have been published. But for whatever reasons, it's also been a long time since I found one that really lit me up.

This is all not really fair to Schaap's book. There's nothing earth-shattering here, but the author seems to know her way around a sentence and is also likable enough, although I almost didn't make it past her early chapters, wherein she described dropping out of high school and following the Grateful Dead around.* In later chapters she settles into a nice pattern of describing bars she has loved and the drinking companions (almost exclusively male) whom she has loved within them. Perhaps one reason it left me cold-ish was because her descriptions of the bars themselves are much more vivid and loving than her descriptions, really, of her drinking companions (which even include a man whose friendship affected her life very deeply). I really do think "Bars I've Loved" would have been a more accurate, if not a catchier, title.

There's some insight into her friendships with men, and with bar culture, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. I have my own history of getting along well with guys**, which is a painful history, because once you become an old married lady with a kid, guy friends are impossible to come by. I miss them and rather thought this memoir would have more to say on the actual dynamics of such friendships, but it didn't. Perhaps when I find a memoir that does that I'll have found one that once again makes me want to read more memoirs.

*Here she is describing her experiences following the Dead around: "We were mostly decent if slightly wayward kids who, for a variety of reasons, needed to leave the people who had raised us and who, many of us felt, had failed to understand us, and make a family of our own...We drank and danced, bartered bootlegs, got high and hung out, lived in vans and slept in cars under piles of stripy Mexican blankets in need of a good washing; we gave one another scabies and sometimes worse, and sometimes money, and often pot, and really whatever we had, sold trinkets and tofu stew, and for the most part, though not always, looked after one another." (p. 29.) It's vivid writing, but just the thought of getting scabies and sleeping in cars with strangers, oh my lord, it is NOT for me.

**A guy friend in high school once told me that gossiping and eating candy with me made him feel like he was back in fifth grade again, in the best possible way (we had a total joke class called "Media Film" together, we just shared candy and talked through the entire semester while ostensibly watching and critiquing movies). I still think it's one of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me.

Odd jobs indeed.

I am a total sucker for any variety of "save more money now!" magazine articles and books. I even eagerly pounced on the Parade magazine in last Sunday's newspaper because there was an article in it about saving more money in the new year (and Parade magazine is not usually something I pounce on with any great anticipation).

Invariably, of course, I am let down. All of the saving tips seem to be of the "don't get cable" or "find a cell phone plan that doesn't charge for individual texts" variety, and since I already don't get cable or text (I have a cell phone for emergency purposes only that I still haven't figured out how to answer, which is okay because I haven't given anyone the number, because I don't like to talk on cell phones), those don't really help me. Invariably Mr. CR points out I should skip reading that stuff, because as someone who hasn't bought new socks for at least five years*, I'm really not their target audience.

So now I have moved on to "make extra money in your spare time!" books.

Odd Jobs: How to Have Fun and Make Money in a Bad Economy
by Abigail R. Gehring

And that's how I found Abigail Gehring's Odd Jobs: How to Have Fun and Make Money in a Bad Economy. I thought I'd just look it over and see if there was anything suitably freelancey that I could try out from home, but it turned out to be not that kind of book. What it is, which actually turned out to be a lot more entertaining to read, is a compendium of, well, truly ODD jobs.

Some of the jobs explored? Escort. "Closet Exorcist." Street Furniture Sales. Lipstick Reading. Motivational Dancer. Human Scarecrow. Christmas Tree Farmer. Dog Handler in Alaska. Soap Maker. Body Part Model.

It's really quite the awesome recreational read (which I was not expecting). Each job is covered in about two to three pages, which is really all the more you want to read about these jobs. Gehring describes what you do, what you get paid, what it costs to get started, what you need to start, perks, downsides, and a few Internet sites to check out. And, bless her heart, she's a pragmatic writer, our Abigail. Here's my favorite bit from the "Escort" description:

"If you're thinking this job sounds too good to be true, it's because in most cases it is. Don't be naive. The majority of men paying $1,000 for an evening are expecting something more than arm candy." (p. 17.) Perhaps former Olympic athlete Suzy Favor Hamilton was not aware of this.

I really enjoyed this book. It didn't make me want to work any of the jobs, but let's face it, I like thinking about working and making money much more than I actually have any skills at working and making money.

*I think. The socks I'm wearing were already oldish when CRjr arrived, years ago.

Why aren't librarians allowed to love books?

When I worked in the public library I was frustrated by many things. Mainly, I'll admit, by the rudeness* of the general public, which remains the number-one reason I am still relieved not to be working a public-service desk job right now (although I'm sure I'll have to go back to one sometime, and will just be damn glad if I'm able to get one). But a slightly more esoteric annoyance I had with the system was how librarians are often told (in library school, or in training) that to be good "readers' advisors"--people who help readers find things they might enjoy reading--they must focus solely on what the reader wants. "It's not about you," we librarians are told, "Readers' Advisory is not about pushing your opinions on readers."

Read This!: Handpicked Favorites from America's Indie Bookstores
by Hans Weyandt (edt)

Well, okay. I get it. When you're helping a reader find something to read it is of course vital that you focus on their interests. Likewise, if someone is, say, a Jodi Picoult or Nicholas Sparks reader, it is probably nicest if the librarian doesn't say (although they might be dying to): "So, you like hack authors, huh?"

But at the same time, I think that attitude does everyone a vast misservice. It hurts librarians, who are made to feel they can't speak about any books too enthustiastically--that they cannot "recommend," they must only ever "suggest," and strive never to allow their own opinions a part in the conversation. And I think eventually it hurts readers--who might be looking for, not only some assistance, but also a good book conversation with someone who also loves reading--not someone who is desperately trying not to have any opinions on any books whatsoever during the encounter.

Now, all of that is a very long-winded way to say I loved, absolutely loved, a little book I checked out at the end of last year titled Read This!: Handpicked Favorites from America's Indie Bookstores.** God love independent booksellers. They don't dick around with any "don't bring your own opinions or loves" edicts. This book consists of twenty-five indie bestsellers' lists of their favorite 50 books--each chapter provides some information on the bookstore where the contributor works, the list, some paragraphs about a few of the titles listed more specifically, and a short q-and-a about bookstores and readers with the contributor. And they don't list their 50 best-selling titles, or 50 "sure bets" (a term which always annoys the shit out of me, since I figure my sure bet is bound to be someone else's can't stand)--they list their 50 FAVORITES. It's awesome. Straightforward and very, very pleasing. I read it a chapter at a time last month, always at bedtime, and it was a very satisfying and settling read.

The short interviews with the booksellers were almost my favorite part; and the following is my favorite response to the question "Who is your most trusted source for book recommendations?" (by bookseller Emma Straub): "There are reviewers I trust, and friends I trust, and booksellers I trust. Really, my problem is that I have too many smart people recommending books to me all the time. My backlog is so enormous that often by the time I actually read a book, I've forgotten who told me they loved it or which newspaper gave it a rave. Then it's just up to me and the book to see if we can get along." (p. 16.)

Look at those words: Trust. Recommending. Smart. Love. Now THOSE are the words you should always bring to talking with other readers. So join me in the revolution, librarians: get rid of that wishy-washy word "suggest" once and for all.

*Not to mention general scariness and sometimes flat-out violence.

**If you buy it new the royalties go to the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE).

A little bit of perspective goes a long way.

Always Put in a Recipe and Other Tips for Living from Iowa's Best-Known Homemaker
by Evelyn Birkby

Where I live got more than 18 inches of snow today.

That's right. Just today. Because one of my phobias is driving in snow (and worrying about those I love driving in snow), you can imagine this was a bit upsetting. But a book I'm reading gave me a little perspective.

The book in question is Evelyn Birkby's Always Put in a Recipe and Other Tips for Living from Iowa's Best-Known Homemaker, published by the University of Iowa Press. It's a compilation of newspaper columns written over the past sixty years by Birkby, who is lauded on the cover as "Iowa's best-known homemaker." The columns range in topic from Birkby's marriage to her husband Robert, their years in farming, the raising of their children, their vacations, involvement in boy scouts, and many other subjects. The part that gave me perspective was the chapter in which she discussed living through winters in less-than-cozy homes:

"The small white house was uninsulated, and when the temperature got down to freezing in the winter, frost formed on the inside of the windows...when chill winds blew tenaciously through the walls of the house and up from under the floor boards.

I remember using the playpen to provide a warm place for the children. I put a blanket on the bottom of the pen, which was about four inches above the floor. Then I hung another blanket on three sides. I placed the pen with the fourth side open toward the oil burning stove in the living room -- the only heat source in our house. The children would get inside the playpen to read, color, play with their toys, and stay warm." (p. 66.)

Holy crap. Our sixty-year-old house isn't the warmest thing in the world, but we don't have breezes coming up between the floor boards, for the love of pete.

It's really a pretty interesting book. Birkby is nothing if not upbeat* and the stories range from tragic to mundane to heartwarming. If you know any readers who like "cozier" nonfiction, particularly with a rural bent, they might really enjoy this.**

*For some reason this book tickled me this week--I must have been in the right mood. In real life optimistic and wholesome people who "never say die" tend to make me a bit uneasy.

**Although it's not a perfect book. It would be better if the columns included the date they were first published; sometimes the date can be figured out from the context, but it would be easier if it was just there. I also think it might benefit from an index.

Ascent of the A-Word.

Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years
by Geoffrey Nunberg

Who isn't intrigued by that title?*

I only read about half of Geoffrey Nunberg's Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years, but that was mainly because it wasn't quite what I was expecting. It's interesting; it's basically a look at the linguistic and cultural history of the word "asshole" and its related concept, assholism.** I was amused for a while, but then couldn't stick with it. At least it's better than Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit, but still, only good if you're looking for an (at times dry) cultural history. Some particular assholes are mentioned, but not enough to keep me interested. I can give you a flavor of the text:

"Obtuseness is the true measure of the asshole. We calibrate how much of a prick or bastard or fucker someone is by the amount of harm he's willing to inflict. But we reckon the degree of someone's assholeness not by the actual hurtfulness of his behavior but by the breadth of his self-delusion, the discrepancy between his perceptions and the reality before his eyes, the energy of his denials and rationalizations. The greater the gulf, the more of an asshole he is." (p. 152.)

Does that intrigue you? Then you might like this book. (Or you could try Aaron James's Assholes: A Theory--looks like we have a new mini-genre starting!***)

*At least I was. But I am a big believer in swearing. I think it's one of the few perks of adulthood. Unfortunately, since CRjr repeated his first swear word the other day (the big one, after me, of course), I'm going to have to start to watch it. Or, CRjr could just learn what he should and shouldn't repeat!

**Mr. CR pointed out that our go-to pejorative terms around here tend to be "tool" or "dick," so perhaps that's another reason I wasn't drawn into this one.

***Or even Robert Sutton's older The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't, which I read and enjoyed when it first came out.

Blogs, Wikis, Facebook, and More.

I don't remember why I actually checked out the book Blogs, Wikis, Facebook, and More from the library, but I'm sure it had something to do with me trying to learn something, anything, about technology. Other than that I hate it, of course.

Blogs, Wikis, Facebook, and More: Everything You Want to Know about Using Today's Internet But Are Afraid to Ask
by Terry Burrows

I think the subtitle is terrible: "Everything You Want to Know About Using Today's Internet but Are Afraid to Ask," but this is actually a very handy little guide for anyone seeking an intro primer to lots of online and tech services with which they're not familiar. Each subject is covered in about four to ten pages--just enough for an overview, a discussion of top tools, and a very briefly how-to on getting started in them. In alphabetical order, the subjects covered are:

Blogging, Bookmarks and Tagging, Cloud Storage, Communications, Design, E-Commerce, Education and Knowledge, Games and Virtual Worlds, Kids' Sites, Mapping, Music, News, Peer-to-peer Sharing, Personal Management Tools, Photographs and Videos, Podcasts, Portals, Security Issues, Search Engines, Social Networking, Web-based Office Software, and Wikis and Collaboration.

If you're a librarian training new reference staff, you could do worse things than assign this book to new hires as required reading. Sure, most new hires and youngsters today already know all this stuff, but everyone has their favorite service or platform (mine is blogging), as well as services they despise (for me, Twitter and Facebook). But love them or hate them, it's good to know a little bit about them, and this book is a nice quick little read (and is infinitely more helpful than the "For Dummies" guides on the same subjects).

Fiction Interlude: The Silver Linings Playbook

Last month I spent quite a bit of time on an indexing work project, which I really enjoyed (I'll tell you more about the book when it's published--it was a good one!). When I do that, I find I just don't have the energy left over at night to read nonfiction. So one of the novels I read was Matthew Quick's The Silver Linings Playbook.

The Silver Linings Playbook
by Matthew Quick

How did I find this novel? Well, in one of my regular jaunts through the Internet Movie Database,* I saw a trailer for the movie of the same title, based on this novel, and starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.

It's at this point that we have to talk about another of my more annoying bad habits. I love movie trailers. I love movie trailers almost more than the movies themselves. I think they're such wonderful little 2-4 minute distillations of stories, and they almost always contain the best music from the entire film itself. You know how some people chew their fingernails, or drink, or deal with mental and physical stresses in a variety of unhealthy ways? Well, I watch movie trailers. If I'm having a stressful day and I get a few free minutes with my computer and the Internet, I invariably search out movie trailers. If I told you how often I've watched the trailer for the latest James Bond film, Skyfall, you would be shocked and appalled.** I have always been this way. Even when I only saw trailers on TV, something about them always stuck in my memory. For a period there in the 1990s and early 2000s I could have told you who starred in almost any movie released, even when I hadn't seen the movie. That's just how my memory works. Movie trailers and nonfiction titles? Check. Appointments I have this week and any of my numerical passwords? Not so much.

So. This is all a way too longwinded way of saying, I really loved The Silver Linings Playbook trailer. It made me want to read the book. So I got it from the library, and I must say, I thought it was a good read (and a fast read, which was fun too). It's the story of Pat Peoples, a man who has been in a mental health facility for much longer than he realizes, for a reason that is eventually revealed toward the end of the book. For the duration of this book he lives with his parents, attends therapy sessions with a doctor he seems to get along with, and spends most of his time getting fit (so that his wife will eventually take him back) and being a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan.

The book seems darker than the movie (with a real undercurrent of violence), with Pat's father being (to me) a somewhat frighteningly non-communicative husband and father (DeNiro seems to say more in the movie trailer than the same character does in the entire book). But who knows? I most likely won't see it until it comes out on DVD. I'm also annoyed that they cast a 22-year-old woman in the role of a woman who's in her mid- to late-30s in the book, but that's just me. Typical Hollywood, I suppose, but I preferred the author's portrayal of her as a more mature woman.

*For whatever reason I seem to use IMDB.com almost more than Google. Along with my habit of visiting OMGYahoo.com, this is not a habit of which I'm very proud.

**I know this because I am shocked and appalled. At least it's not an expensive bad habit, but it is a real time-waster.

Behind the magic that is Citizen Reader.*

Normally when I talk about books here, I do try to put my thoughts in some sort of coherent order. When I had more time on my hands, this was a lot easier--not only because I had more time to write in general, but also because I could do so in a more timely manner. Lately, I keep coming up against the Overdue Wall--even when I have books laying around for three four-week loan periods (almost three months, which is REALLY long enough for anyone to keep a book from the library), I still don't get them read and then written about before they have to go back to the library. This just happened to me with Pat Conroy's quite interesting book-about-books, titled My Reading Life. I read this one over the course of two months or so, and then left it around for a month thinking I would write about it here, and then, boom, it's overdue and I had to take it back.

My Reading Life
by Pat Conroy

So what I do lately is type a few brief notes about the books into my blog software (so I can take them back to the library), and then later I come back and try to make sense out of them. But today I'm even running out of time** to form the notes into coherence, so I thought I'd just let you see my initial jottings about it, which are below. If I ever get more organized I promise this sort of slapdash blogging will stop.

Here's the jottings:

Too sappy and sentimental for me, but he's sappy about books and reading, which I can forgive.

At least talks about all aspects of books and reading--being introduced to books by his mother and some favorite teachers; teaching books; writing books; selling books.

Was kind of a nice comforting read to dip into at night--not real challenging.

Am not interested in his fiction (Prince of Tides, etc.)--will probably be too sentimental, too Southern, neither of which appeal to me?

p. 84: "I grew up a word-haunted boy. I felt words inside me and stored them wondrous as pearls. I mouthed them and fingered them and rolled them around my tongue. My mother filled my bedtime hour with poetry that rang like Sanctus bells as she praised the ineffable loveliness of the English language with her Georgia-scented voice. I found that hive of words beautiful beyond all conveyance." Now that's a little much for me, taken all at once, but read chapter by chapter it was actually a little something different.

Now, if you'd like to read an actual review of this book, this might be more helpful to you.

*This title, obviously, is meant ironically.

**And I'm really not a very busy person. How do people with multiple jobs and multiple kids and houses they actually clean and health problems and god knows what else do it?

Fiction Interlude: Tepper Isn't Going Out

Well, I said I was probably going to re-read Tepper Isn't Going Out, when Calvin Trillin won the 2012 Thurber Prize for Humor, and I did. This marks the third or fourth time I've read this novel, and it never fails to make me smile.*

Murray Tepper is a simple man**, who asks simply to be left alone as he sits in his parked car and reads the paper. After all, he's in a legal spot and he's put money in the meter. So how does he become a magnet for the city's citizens, who start to show up wanting to discuss their problems and life in general with him? How does he become the target of the city's megalomaniac mayor? It'll only take you 213 pages to find out, and I think you'll enjoy the ride. Do give it a try; here's a quote from the first page to give you the flavor of the thing:

"Murray Tepper looked up from his newspaper to see what was happening. Tepper was sitting behind the wheel of a dark blue Chevrolet Malibu that was parked on the uptown side of Forty-third street, between Fifth and Sixth. Across the street, an argument was going on between an intense young man in a suit and the peddler who set up a stand on Forty-third Street every day to sell apples and bananas and peaches to office workers. Tepper had seen them go at it before. The young man was complaining about the price that the peddler charged for a single banana. The peddler was defending himself in an accent that Tepper couldn't place even by continent." (p. 3.)

This year I'm thankful for great paragraphs like that. And a great many other things besides, including my many friends to converse with here. Happy Thanksgiving, all.

*And also to make me hungry for New York deli food, not to mention hungry to visit New York City again in general. Although I am aware (and sad that) they are having a rough autumn in New York.

**Or is he? Read the book to find out.