Quarter Life Crisis (Literary Coping Mechanisms)

New Year’s Day found me watching football with my husband, sister, and parents in my aunt’s (recently renovated) basement. Surfing 2013 best of/worst of lists on the web brought me to this reading list for your quarter-life crisis . At 29 I may be a little late for my crisis, but I’d hate to miss it. And of the 29 books on the list I’ve already read (and liked or loved) seven. Seven!! How random, no? So I added the whole lot to my goodreads list and jumped in. Here’s progress as of the last day of January:

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayer  Loved this. Strayer is the no-longer-anonymous “Sugar”, advice columnist atThe Rumpus. The book is a collection of her articles slash sort of a memoir? Anyway, she totally reaffirmed my faith in humanity, in myself, in the kindness of strangers and the possibility of transcendence. But, like, without being too squishy about it. Basically it made me feel like the movie I Heart Huckabees makes me feel which is really nice. A super lucky first pick from the list, it made me hungry for more.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn  Captivating. Everything and everyone in this novel is so f*cked up. I think I’d been held back a little in my fiction consumption, sticking to older classics and favorites from younger years. The brutal description of grown people with grown (granted highly unlikely) problems was refreshing and reassuring. I’ve got a sense now what the “quarter-life crisis” book list is bringing to the table and I like it.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri  Pretty good read about a first-gen American with Indian parents straddling old world expectations and new world dreams. Spoke to my need to please my family in a sort of blind, subconscious loyalty way. Apparently teen rebellion is just a detour on the way to still not establishing your own identity. Or maybe that’s just me? I don’t know, blame it on the quarter-life crisis.

In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut  Memoir about a perpetual traveler’s early adventures. The author speaks about himself in both the first and third person in a way that really added to the narrative – how he both identifies with his younger self and also doesn’t even recognize that young man. I didn’t love this one, but the suspense in the last third of the book pulled me through it. The author’s struggles to save a suicidal friend cut pretty close to home, and made the book feel really honest to me. Maybe too honest? A bit painful really.

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke  Literally a handful of letters Rilke wrote to a young poet who struck up a correspondence with him in 1903. Loved, loved this collection. Rilke is like the mentor you’d always want. Distant and objective but almost unbelievably compassionate. A strong proponent of solitude. Which I think I could use more of. The introduction was probably 20% of the book, but valuable to set the scene. I read the whole book in an evening and am considering putting it into some kind of annual rotation. Maybe a nice book to read every New Year’s Day? Or a birthday tradition? After 15+ years of watching Sixteen Candles on my birthday it may be time to step it up. 

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollingsworth  Enjoyable novel about a young, middle class gay man in London in the early 80′s. He’s found lodging in the home of a wealthy MP, the father of a school friend. The book intimately follows his first romances, his inevitable spiral into the coke-fueled, secretive gay life of the young and rich at that time. Then AIDS. Because that’s the 80′s. In a way it was all a bit predictable, but the up-close experience of the protagonist keeps it from feeling stale. I liked the book, but I was kind of depressed by the end. Which did not put me in the right frame of mind for…

Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book by Walker Percy  The blurb made this sound like a sort of self-help book spoof full of surprisingly helpful insights. Unfortunately it seems to be… philosophy. Not my genre. Like, at all. I’m about 2 chapters (not that it seems to have chapters?) and I’m going to put it to the side. On principle I want to finish the entire list honestly, but this one might have to provide filler in half-hour segments between the rest of the selections. Unless it really turns around. I think I may not be deep enough for this kind of self-evaluation. Or perhaps I just haven’t had enough therapy. Regardless this one isn’t doing it for me.

And so, onward!

p.s. I’ve previously read Hyperbole and a Half, Let’s Pretend this Never Happened, The Marriage Plot, Love is a Mix Tape, Of Human Bondage, The Good Earth, and The Joy Luck Club. Interestingly the first three in the last 18 months, the fourth and fifth roughly seven years ago and last two over ten years ago. If I’m still enjoying the quarter-life crisis project after I’ve finished the others I may reread the last four with older eyes more wisdom.

p.p.s Full disclosure, this entire thing was also posted at Go Mighty. With which I've finally initiated contact after 4 months of thinking about it.

I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle

I know what you're thinking. "I thought Abby was dead or struck illiterate or something. Isn't she a workaholic who's busy neglecting her family and friends? Where does she find time to read?!?!"

Good question. I blame Meg of A Practical Wedding. I went to her book talk (for a completely different book, obviously) last Thursday in Atlanta and took the following day off work. Thus I had an entire Friday with nothing to do other than nurse a hangover. And read as it turns out.

Now, if you've ever consumed more Jack Daniels than is strictly advisable, you know that heavy thinking is not on the agenda for the following day. I wandered around the house avoiding eye contact with my Kindle (home of 2/3rds finished The Count of Monte Cristo) and hoping to find a copy of People Magazine. Instead I snuck up to the "To-Read" shelf and noticed I Love You, Beth Cooper. My husband had purchased and enjoyed it some years ago and I have been not reading it ever since.

So I read it in a day while sipping Perrier and eating an entire loaf of dry french bread. (What? That's a doctor recommended hangover diet.) A quick googling reveals that the author, Larry Doyle is a former writer for both Beavis & Butthead and The Simpsons. This comes as no surprise. The book is quite funny and the teen characters are both angsty and awkward in the best way. Ever chapter starts with a sketch of the protaganist, Dennis Cooverman (The Coove!), who becomes more beaten and brutalized with every scene, and a quote from a classic teen movie. Any book that quotes Lloyd Dobler is okay by me.

It's beyond easy to see why this book was made into a movie. Doyle's television sensibility comes through with vivid action sequences that I imagine translate well to film. I'll definitely be adding this to my Netflix queue. After I saw the movie poster I remembered that the movie stars Hayden Panettiere, but while I was reading I couldn't stop picturing Dianna Agron. Same diff?

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent:

Snippet of Amazon's summary: Writing with both wit and historical acuity, Okrent reveals how Prohibition marked a confluence of diverse forces: the growing political power of the women’s suffrage movement, which allied itself with the antiliquor campaign; the fear of small-town, native-stock Protestants that they were losing control of their country to the immigrants of the large cities; the anti-German sentiment stoked by World War I; and a variety of other unlikely factors, ranging from the rise of the automobile to the advent of the income tax.

That should give you an idea of the range of this book. Okrent leaves no rock unturned in this detailed history of the Prohibition era. The book starts with the political manueverings and personalities that got the 18th amendment passed. All fascinating. It moves on to describe the legal, political, judicial, economic and social impacts of Prohibition's enactment and enforcement, not just in the United States but in Canada, the Caribbean and Europe. Finally it tackles the rather fast fall from favor and repeal of Prohibition and closes with a short reflection on how the movers and shakers of the time have been essentially erased from our cultural memory.

In individual paragraphs and sections, the book is great. The stories are carefully researched and detailed and the individuals and events are really interesting. When taken in portions of more than a couple of pages however, it's just dense. Especially the first half where the movement is kind of gelling from different sections of society. There's no overarching narrative, so it's hard to stay engaged. I ended up reading it in 15 minute stints on my lunch break (thus, it took 4 months to finish). The actual Prohibition-era sections were much more fun, a lot of Baptists & Bootleggers type stuff.

Fans of history will enjoy this book, especially those that are amazed by the power of lobbyists (hint: Prohibitionists invented modern lobbying). It may be dense, but the individual stories are fascinating and often amusing. I recommend the book and intend to check out the PBS miniseries that is it's companion.

How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

The blurb on the back of the book is so apt I'm just going to copy it here.

1913 – Suffragette throws herself under the King’s horse.
1969 – Feminists storm Miss World.
NOW – Caitlin Moran rewrites The Female Eunuch from a bar stool and demands to know why pants are getting smaller.

There’s never been a better time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill, and we haven’t been burnt as witches since 1727. However, a few nagging questions do remain…

Why are we supposed to get Brazilians? Should you get Botox? Do men secretly hate us? What should you call your vagina? Why does your bra hurt? And why does everyone ask you when you’re going to have a baby?

Part memoir, part rant, Caitlin Moran answers these questions and more in How To Be A Woman – following her from her terrible 13th birthday (‘I am 13 stone, have no friends, and boys throw gravel at me when they see me’) through adolescence, the workplace, strip-clubs, love, fat, abortion, TopShop, motherhood and beyond.

So there's that. I picked up this book as part of the A Practical Wedding Book Club and loooooved it. Moran talks about feminism the same way I feel about it. And she's fiercely feminist without giving up the fun things about being a girl (bitching, dressing up, sleeping with musicians).

Moran is terribly funny and the book is a very well put-together memoir/manifesto. Each chapter starts with a (usually traumatizing) episode on Moran's road to womanhood (getting her period, falling in love, having a baby) and segues into a discussion of the effect of the kyriarchy on modern women. Only not as boring as I made that sound. It hilarious. I lol'ed out loud. Several times.

I'm trying to think of a particularly funny passage to share, but it's hard to pin one thing down. The time Moran and a friend were thrown out of a strip club accused of being hookers? Her night with Gaga in a BDSM club? Discovering that even with professional stylists and designer duds, she still didn't look like a model in 98 out of 100 photos? Life's tough out there for a girl.

As a warning, Moran writes very conversationally and is British. I had a bit of difficulty following some of the celebrity references (other than those about Jennifer Aniston) and I had no idea what TopShop is. Not a big deal really, the context comes across. Additionally the book was only published in Britain so Amazon shipping is slow and $$$. I bought my copy used on alibris.com and got it faster and cheaper.

So basically everyone should read this book. Its amusing, affirming, it made me fall in love with Lady Gaga and finally, finally gave me a simple litmus test for detecting sexist bullshit - "Is it polite? Are the boys doing it?" Yay for feminists having fun :)

Peep Show by Joshua Braff

Braff's Peep Show is a strange read. I didn't love it, it left a bit too much unresolved. Not in that "it makes you think" way but in a "and then he stopped writing" way. But it is an interesting story full of bizarre, flawed characters and it definitely dropped me into unfamiliar territory. I think this one sentence from Amazon's summary pretty much sums it up: In the mid 1970s, 16-year-old David Arbus is caught between his mother, whose Hasidic faith is becoming more and more central to her life, and his father, who runs a Times Square porn theatre.

So basically young David is thrashed back and forth between these two strange and polar opposite worlds, neither of which seems like a healthy environment for a young man. He's essentially unwelcome in his mother's life because he's refused to join the Hasidic faith, but he's not sinner enough to want to jump into the family business on dad's side either. David and his father cause a bit of a rukus and David is unceremoniously ousted from his mother and sister's new life and forced to take up with his father and his father's stripper/former porn star girlfriend. The book sticks pretty closely to the major events in the father's life over a 3-year period, but only as they're experienced by David, which feels odd. There's a lot of insight into changes in the porn industry in the mid-70s and also into the lives of Hasidic Jews. A jarring comparison to say the least, and an interesting one.

I was disappointed with the ending which resolved nothing (even negative resolution would have been more satisfying), but it's an interesting read from a young author. Braff has a good voice and an enjoyable writing style. His characters are well-developed and believable in their strengths and flaws. I'm thinking of picking up his first novel, The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green.

The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant - Dan Savage

So on APW's recommendation I read The Commitment. And I hearted it (though it seems I never blogged about it). So like any obsessive reader I had to pick up more books by the same author.



I loved The Kid just as much. Savage is great at weaving his personal story with politics, humor and stats. Basically, Savage and his partner decide to become parents via open adoption and the book tells that story while educating the reader on adoption law, gay rights and Savage's relationship with his own family.

The story starts with Savage in the mire of negotiations to donate sperm to various lesbians. When things fall apart he and his partner go down the rabbit hole of adoption. It's an expensive hole full of paperwork. And straight people dealing with infertility. They end up matched with a homeless, pregnant street kid and finally, finally go home with a baby. Its an emotional experience but also a tedious legal proceding and a rather dull wait. Such is adoption, apparently. There's a lot to take in, and it's totally worth it.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in adoption, thinking about having kids or is passionate about social justice and finding homes for kids. Totally amusing and educational. My favorite combination.

rose: love in violent times - inga muscio

Can I just say, I love Inga Muscio? I think I can, because it's unquestionably true. I loved cunt so much I've already read it twice.

rose is a kind of sequel to cunt. cunt was specific (specifically about cunts), microfeminism. rose is macro, the philosophy of cunt splashed worldwide. Muscio talks about violence, not just the kicking and shooting people kind, but the passive violence that seeps into every aspect of our lives, from deforestation to racism to celebrity. We are a violent people.

I'm still processing the book, I tore through it in two sittings so I'm still marinating. The way Muscio can transform a mildly awkward interaction with a neighbor into it's violent core and then contexualize that in both the culture of modern America and our collective history of colonization and war is amazing. In her world, feeding the goats that live behind her house becomes a radical act of love.

Reading Muscio is so inspiring, it (again) makes me put my life and my interactions with my world under the microscope. I can quiet the violence around me. I can walk away from hate and I can unconditionally love the assholes of the world. And now I'm gushing. I have no shame.

Everyone should read Muscio. The End.

In other news - next I'm picking up The Sicilian by Mario Puzo. I've been a little intense lately with the nonfiction so I'm returning to the saga of the Godfather. Still picking up pages here an there in Acid Dreams, but it's a little dry. (Which seems impossible, right? How do you make a story about the CIA experimenting with LSD boring? Maybe by overuse of the word "ironic".)

I love you, internet. And Miranda.

Agent Zigzag - Ben Macintyre

Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal

and so it is. Agent Zigzag is the story of Eddie Chapman, an English gentleman thief who talked his way out of prison in German-occupied France by becoming a German spy then immediately turned double-agent for Britain.

I quite enjoyed this book. Macintyre found most of the story in recently declassified documents, which gives this outrageous story a strong anchor. It's a deep look at WWII espionage, counterespionage, technology and psychology, but never dull. Chapman is truly a character made for movies - explosives, bank robbery, beautiful women, expensive taste, cover stories and sabotage. And yet often Chapman is restless and bored.

For anybody who likes a spy story (or the tv show Alias) or WWII trivia, this is a must-read. The story is well-written and most of the auxiliary characters are really well fleshed out. Plus there's a certain schadenfreude for the reader as upstanding government employees are compelled to provide a valuable spy with "loose women". The English are appropriately scandalized.

Chapman provided an astounding amount of valuable intelligence to the English at a crucial time in the war and was able to provide just as much valuable misinformation to the Germans, directing bombs away from central London and misleading them about the Allies technological capabilities.

Despite his amazing contribution to the war effort, Chapman was a con man and he was never fully trusted by his British handlers. Macintyre kind of obsesses over Chapman as a psychological study (as did the Germans and the Brits in their time), a man who will "look you straight in the eye while picking your pocket". He's an opportunist, for sure, but at a time of great need he was a patriot. His story is one worth reading, and it seems that Chapman himself would strongly agree.

Macintyre published another book about WWII last year called Operation Mincemeat which made Amazon.com's Top 100 Books of 2010. When I get through the backlog I'll definitely pick that up. At the moment I'm in the middle of Personal History, Katherine Graham's autobiography, two chapters into Acid Dreams, the complete social history of LSD, and I'm quickly consuming Rose by Inga Muscio. Clearly, I lack focus.

The Graduate - Charles Webb

I picked up this classic several months ago at an antique store. I think I paid $2 for the 1963 hardcover edition. It has an inscription To Susie ~ xmas 1969 ~ From Katie Yeatts. I love inscriptions. Note to self, write shit on the first page of all those books you give as gifts.

So! It's a classic, I think everyone is familiar with the plot either from the book, the film or the Simon & Garfunkel song. No need to dwell on it.

Charles Webb's style is distinctive, very minimalist. Not Hemingway-sparse, but the language isn't flowery and he doesn't waste pages on the touchy-feely bits. In fact the story is told from a 3rd-person objective point of view and the narration only follows our dubious protagonist Benjamin Braddock. The effect, for me at least, lent to the idea that young Ben has no idea what the hell he's doing with his life. He's never able to properly explain himself to anyone and he acts with seeming disregard for, or possibly unawareness of, his relationship to his world.

The cover advertises hilarity, which I think is an overstatement as most of the humor is quite understated. Actually some of it felt really stale, but I imagine it's because it's been frequently copied. Not to spoil the story, but somebody's gonna break up a wedding. It is funny though, and easily worth the short 191 pages that it sets you back. One of my favorite funny things is the fact that months into their affair Braddock is still addressing to his lover as Mrs. Robinson. Hee.

The theme though is a bit dark in a quaint "what does it all mean" way, which I'm inclined to appreciate. The characters all seem weighed down by their upper middle class lifestyles and intellectual boredom, but that stiffness in no way drags on the story. I also like Webb's resistance to judging his characters for their actions. Though he certainly suffers the inevitable consequences of his decisions, Braddock is never written off as a villain or a boy in need of saving. He just is who he is.

On a slightly different note, I'm finding that a lot of "modern literature" is starting to feel really dated to me. Benji Braddock watches TV until the stations stop broadcasting. Anything that happened before the invention of infomercials seems like it would have little bearing on my life.

The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir

Barnes & Noble's 'buy 2 get the third half price' rack provided me with several fun reads recently. For someone with a kind of weird obsession with medieval European royalty this book did not disappoint.

Weir tells a well-known story from a fresh perspective. The exploits of Henry VIII and his six wives and the rein of his eventual heir, Queen Elizabeth, are well-documented in film and television. The childhoods and relationships between Henry's three children, however are less common knowledge.

The book chronicles the childhoods of Anne, Edward and Elizabeth as well as their cousin Jane Grey. It follows the lives of each child and their tenuous relationships with each other from the time of Henry's death through Elizabeth's ascension to the throne.

What fascinated me is the sense of isolation - even when each was on the throne they were without true, loyal friends. Everybody around them was constantly trying to manipulate and control them for their own ends. There was never a time when they really knew who they could trust. Those in line for the throne feared for their lives constantly (and with good reason - Jane Grey was put to death and Anne's advisors lobbied strongly for Elizabeth to meet the same end). The crazy religious upheaval of the time, the youth of the prince and princesses, and the lack of trust between them all make for compelling drama.

The book is an entertaining read, Weir has lots of first-hand accounts and quotes which bring the characters to life and humanize them. And at the end of the day it reminds you how lucky we are to have modern medicine, video and religious freedom. The fate of the British Empire would most certainly have changed if they only had the information we get by peeing on a stick.

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

In 1993, climber and slacker Greg Mortenson attempted and failed to climb K2, the world's deadliest peak. He found himself lost and weak in the Himalayas of Pakistan, where he was cared for and befriended in the impoverished remote village of Korphe. In Korphe, far from the government center of Pakistan, 84 children took their lessons outdoors on a frosty ledge. They shared a teacher with a neighboring village and scratched their lessons into the dirt with sticks. Mortenson made a promise to build the people of Korphe a proper school and he's been building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan ever since. That first school cost $12,000 and a teacher cost a dollar a day.


Mortenson's story is amazing. He lived out of a storage unit and his car in Berkley working odd shifts as an ER nurse when he was saving money for the Korphe school. All he really had was a little luck and an indefatigable will to help the children of Pakistan. He fell ass-backwards into some money, getting a wealthy benefactor and later some much deserved press. He shook a lot of hands and drank a lot of tea in Pakistan and figured out how to get things done in some of the most inaccessible parts of the world (hint: let the locals tell you how it's done). Basically, Mortenson is my new personal hero.


The writing in the book leans towards the overly sentimental, towards hero-worship, and does that thing where the writer tries to tie two things together unnecessarily. I barely noticed any of that because I was really busy crying and worshiping. The plight of children and especially girls in these remote, poor, and often violent areas is deplorable. And as Americans, we basically just make it worse all the time. "Dr. Greg" might be the only purely positive force coming from the U.S. so we all owe him one.


So, the book was really educational for me since I have really no knowledge of the area outside of what I see The Daily Beast headlines and the personal stories of the people of Pakistan are heart-breaking. The best bits of the book break down the way that the Taliban uses education and the shortfalls of Middle Eastern governments to recruit entire generations of extremists. Secular education really looks like the only way to win the war on terror. Books not bombs people.


I really recommend the book and beg the critics and naysayers to judge the content, not the style. And then go give Mortenson and the Central Asia Institute all of your moneys.

Fun Home - Review II

Miranda already reviewed Fun Home.

I loved this book. I've not been a graphic novel (or comics) reader, aside from the odd Doonesbury, but this was so accessible. The drawings add so much nuance to an emotionally heavy story.

Fun Home feels like a cathartic exercise Bechdel went through in order to reconcile her complicated relationship with her father. Alison Bechdel is the renowned author of the comic (and website) "Dykes to Watch Out For". The story paints the disconnect between Bechdel's 70's/80's awareness and openness about her sexuality against her father's lifelong secrecy surrounding his own homosexuality.

You feel for Bechdel, she's so obviously torn between this "otherness" she and her father share, this common experience and shared heritage and the cold reality that her father was a philandering husband and a distant parent. She wants to connect with her father, and does in some ways, but she cannot escape the heartbreak, the lifetime of disappointment he put her mother through.

And then he dies. Bechdel never resolves these feelings about her father. He's gone, and she's young, though she seems older than her years in the context of the story.

As for the medium, I found one aspect particularly effective. In various chapters, Bechdel revisits some of the same scenes and events. In some cases we're shown the same scene, or room or character from a different angle, we get a more complete visual. In others Bechdel uses the same frame, the same graphic and caption, but the context gives us deeper insight. In both cases we are given a second chance to experience the event and it gives these episodes from Bechdel's life so much weight. You feel all the conflicting emotions, the history that makes a moment personal. It's fantastic.

This is a powerful story, certainly worth reading and revisiting.

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach

Bonk is our second Roach book. It does not disappoint. Excessively foot-noted with tidbits like "nasal congestion is actually an erection in your nose", Bonk is hilarious and educational. As it turns out, after centuries of scientific study, we don't know that much about something totally fundamental to the future of our species.

The researchers Roach encounters (and whose experiments she and her husband participate in) are kind of a strange lot. But you have to value the work they do. I'm glad someone is out there studying how to have better sex.

Roach reviews the research done into human (and often animal) sexuality as far back as records are kept. Some of her juicier finds are at the U.S. Patent office, and others are in the strange opinions of Victorians, Catholic dogma, urologists' offices, and doodles in Leonardo DaVinci's engineering drawings.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys science, history or (God forbid) sex. Mary Roach is a great author who makes sense of scientific jargon and puts herself into all kinds of strange, potentially humiliating situations for her reader's benefit.

Bombay Time by Thrity Umrigar

Bombay Time is a novel about a group of old friends who live in the same apartment in Bombay. It's sort of a coming of age novel, not just for the characters, but for their city. The city is growing and changing, it's more violent more impoverished than when the residents of Wadia Baug were young.

The story is told through a series of flashbacks. Each chapter is presented from the point of view of a different character. In the present, the group is gathering for the wedding of one neighbor's son. In the flashbacks, characters are taken back to a pivotal moment in their life, generally when they were in their teens or twenties. For some characters we are taken through a many years and others just a few traumatic months. The juxtaposition of these wide-eyed, ambitious youths with their faded, wrinkled present day ghosts is paralleled in the changes in the city from a bustling, hopeful place to a violent, dirty, dangerous city. The shine is certainly off of both.

The character development and relationships of this group is certainly Umrigar's strength. She investigates the tense and difficult moments that change the trajectory of each life. The style is good, each character has their own voice, their own perceptions which are confirmed or shown to be false in other chapters. I found the only disappointment was in the ending, which was narrated by the same character as the first chapter. He is the only person who finds closure or redemption. I was left feeling a bit unfinished, I wanted that final resolution for each Wadia Baug resident. But possibly the author's point is that the second look isn't necessary. The old men and women are set in their ways. The emotion of the wedding and the brief brush with violence they see there leaves them unchanged. We know the characters well enough to know what they'll be doing in the morning.

Umrigar does an excellent job bringing Bombay to life for an outsider. Made me want to see more into India.

Eating the Dinosaur - Chuck Klosterman

I heart Klosterman. This is a geek I'd get along with. For one thing, his writing style sounds like my inner monologue. He's sarcastic and obsessive about things that less geeky people couldn't care less about.

This particular tome definitely skews into the metaphysical. Klosterman seems quite hung up on the construction of reality. Or the impossibility of reality. On irony and our inability to communicate with genuine people (like Canadians). It sounds complicated and boring, but it isn't. It's like me making every life event relate to Sienfeld or Friends.

His essay on how progressive the NFL is left me a little cold (even with extremely detailed foot-notes, there's only so much you can absorb if you haven't spent the last 2 decades watching SportsCenter daily). The essay on time-travel was equally detailed, to the point of being almost unfollowable, but if you love Back To the Future (and seriously, who doesn't?) the first three-quarters is priceless.

Also notable - interviews with documentarians, tales from Klosterman's days in Fargo and what may be enough evidence to arrest him for being a peeping tom. Lengthy commentary on how much we've failed to learn from the Unabomber (hint: he's crazy, but not wrong).

As with all his books, I enjoyed this immensely and recommend it to anyone who suspects that their reality is a figment of their imagination.

Going In Circles by Pamela Ribon

pamie's third book!!

This is a novel about Charlotte Goodman whose marriage is breaking up after only a few months. She's moved out and become unhinged. She's so detached from her life that she internally narrarates the action. And then she makes a new friend and discovers roller derby and is able to eventually start living again.

Going in Circles is, I think, a departure from Ribon's previous novels. It still has that very personal aspect, the reader is fully inside the neurosis of the protagonist. It's believable in the details and well-written in that signature Ribon style. It lacked the hilarity though. I think this book was sadder. Not sad like Why Girls are Weird with the death of a parent that left me sobbing in the backseat of my parent's SUV as we roadtripped to Iowa. But, gloomy.

Charlotte is really Broken, just like her derby name - Hard Broken. And it's sad. And you feel for her. There are some scenes sprinkled with humor, the dark scenario lighened with some silliness, but overall this is a much more somber look at someone's life. Alternatively, Charlotte is a grown-up. She doesn't seem petulant or irresponsible or moody. She seems like she's been run over by a Mac truck. She also isn't as insecure as previous Ribon characters, possibly because her circumstances are so much more dire. I think this story shows growth from Ribon.

Totally enjoyable reading (contrary to what I just wrote about it being sad). I read it in a day and I learned about roller derby and I laughed out loud once and cried a little, and what more do you really want in a book? I heart pamie, and as always look forward to her next endeavor.

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

So, Abraham Lincoln was the man. Apparently there was a reason we spent so much time talking about him in middle school social studies, and it wasn't because I went to public school in Illinois. Well, not completely.

First of all, I should mention that I read this on my Kindle. The print version must weigh 80lbs. This is a long one.

Secondly, I have to say that Lincoln has become my favorite president and the Civil War has become my favorite war. I want to read more about the war and the leaders involved and the Confederacy. This is clearly a compliment to Goodwin. This book pretty much rocks.

For one thing it isn't a biography, but a quadruple biography. Goodwin traces not only the life and career of our 16th prez, but those of the other 3 Republican presidential hopefuls. All three men joined Lincoln's cabinet creating his "team of rivals". See? It's a clever title.

Anyway, the book is freaking fantastic. It's the best kind of history book, excruciatingly well researched but not bogged down in the facts. It really focuses on the personalities of the important people of the time and draws the reader into life in war-time D.C. Did you know they had to get messages from the front by easily sliced telegraph lines? Yeah, life before texting sucked. The book also does the opposite of that thing that made high school history super boring, which is presenting the events as inevitable. Even with my public-school education I knew that (spoiler alert!!) the North won the war and Lincoln was assassinated, but Goodwin weaves together the dry facts of the war with the colorful emotions and impossible decisions Lincoln was faced with in such a way that I was on the edge of my seat thinking "What's gonna happen?!?!?"

One thing that particularly got me was the racial climate at the time. Probably the recent read of Uncle Tom's Cabin served as a comparison. As a Northerner (or "winner") we're sort of taught that the Union was all abolitionists, who (obviously) were for equality. So not true. Pretty much no one wanted freed slaves to be citizens, vote, mix with white folks or have any rights whatever. Some people thought we should ship them back to Africa or South America where they could eradicate a native population, colonize and start their own civil war. Classy, America. Even Lincoln didn't think mixed races could coexist. It's the most bizarre thing. In context, it wasn't that long ago that this-the most racially diverse country in the world-thought the only way to have two races in one place is to enslave one of them. People wanted to keep the Irish out.

The other stunning thing to me is the evolution of the American attention span. Y'know those "American-style" debates they are trying out in Britain? Think back to the last one you saw. Each person gets something like two minutes to make their argument and one gets a 30-second rebuttle. In those actual Lincoln-Douglass debates (for Senate) they each spoke for two hours. No soundbite. No 4 second blip. Two hours of nuanced, detailed discussion of issues people care about. Farmers came in and stood in the hot sun the whole day to observe this. Can you imagine? I haven't sat through anything longer than 2 hours since "LOTR: Return of the King" opened. We live in a sad world. It's no wonder we're stupid.

I can't recommend this book highly enough to people with an interest in American history and strong arms (or an e-reader).

Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger

This is the second UBC book from Niffenegger. This chick is into the supernatural.

Her Fearful Symmetry is sort of a mystery books. It features two sets of twins, American twenty-somethings Julia and Valentina and their English mother and aunt, Edie and Elspeth. At the opening Elspeth dies and leaves her apartment in London to the younger twins. Edie and Elspeth are estranged, haven't seen each other in decades, and Edie is forbidden from visiting Elspeth's apartment if the girls move in.

The girls are sort of a codependent dichotomy, Julia is strong, healthy and forceful and Valentina is ill and weak-spirited, but longs for independence. Elspeth the ghost is ever-present in the apartment and Niffenegger spends more time than you'd expect on the science side of the afterlife. She explains it from Elspeth's perspective as Elspeth discovers her ghostly nature.

As the story develops, there's an expected rift between the twins as Valentina falls in love with Elspeth's depressed boyfriend who lives in the apartment below and Julia befriends the obsessive compulsive that lives in the apartment above. Eventually, the story takes a bizarre supernatural twist and the truth behind the Edie/Elspeth rift is revealed.

I am not really a mystery-reader, so I'm not totally familiar with the usual plot devices, but I was pleasantly surprised by this book. There were some obvious red herrings and some leading foreshadowing, but the twist was still a surprise. While I had guessed the truth, I hadn't guessed the whole truth, nor did I see the ghostly hijinks coming. It was fun and I was amused by all of it.

As with The Time Traveler's Wife, Niffenegger gives the characters what they want and then makes them suffer for it a bit. The ending was far from happy, but when I finished I realized I wasn't sure who the protagonist was. The characters are each flawed, but their actions often belied their character so it was hard to root for anyone in particular.

I definitely recommend this book, it's a quick read but has a lot of interesting perspectives on death and truth and hurting the ones you love.

If they decide to make this into a craptacular movie like they did with Time Traveler, I'm hoping they cast the Olsen twins as Julia and Valentina. They are the right age and look and it would be an awesome way for them to reunite on screen. In what would definitely be a horrible movie.

The Petticoat Commando by Johanna Brandt

Interestingly, all of Amazon doesn't have a summary of this book. Which is unfortunate because my tenuous relationship with historical facts is going to make it hard for me. I didn't pay attention to the details while I was reading and it seems like a lot of work to look them up now.

Okay, so in the early 1900's there was this war, right? in the Boer region of South Africa. It seems to have been between the Boer (who may have been Danish settlers) and the British. Whatever, all the historical context is pretty much irrelevant because the story is about this young woman, Hansie and her mom who were badass spies.

Hansie and Mrs. Van Warmelo were living out in the country, their house is totally surrounded by British encampments and they spend a few years of the war sending out secret correspondence to Europe and harboring spies and stealing shipping information. The book is largely sourced from Hansie's secret diary that she kept during this time, written entirely in invisible ink. Which is cool.

Unfortunately, Brandt doesn't just quote the diary (for reasons unexplained) and instead covers the entire story in short anecdotes. There is basically no narrative arc, or plot to speak of. Now, it's nonfiction so I understand that there's only so much you can do, but it was a little hard to follow. Also, she seems to have reported these anecdotes slightly out of chronology, favoring to group some stories because they involve the same characters or the same type of missions. Not terrible, but it kind of leaves you hanging.

Brandt also writes like an excitable, emotional woman who faints all the time. Lots of extraneous exclamations over the suffering of others and lots of exclamation points. This seems to be a trend with women writing non-fiction in the pre-women's lib days. Not a fan. It's like Lifetime Original Programming for Books. Stories about Women, For Women, By Women.

Anyway, I liked this book and it covered places and events with which I was completely unfamiliar (thanks public school!) so I feel like I learned something. I'd consider reading more about the Boer war because it was interesting how closely controlled information was. Censors read all incoming and outgoing mail so the events of the war were largely unknown in Europe, even though the fighting sides were both European.

If it tilts your opinion, you can download this book for free on Kindle.

Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading - Lizzie Skurnick

Skurnick is a blogger for Jezebel.com and has a literary blog called Old Hag. This bodes well for me enjoying her work. Shelf Discovery is essentially a curated collection of "book reports" about all the books we all read way too many times.

Personal favorites include every book Madeline L'Engle ever wrote for teens and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

The style of the book is very bloggy - conversational, shortish chapters, inside jokes. Skurnick also manages to refocus my old favorites through a generous feminist lens. Most fun, she shows how silly parents, teachers and general alarmists are when they worry about the influence of television and Lindsay Lohan. There's more hormone-filled sex-ed in your average Judy Blume novel than I got in 12 years of public schooling!

This book is sort of a nostalgic love-letter to my early teen years and I nostalgically loved every page of it. I highly recommend this if you spent age 11 with your nose buried in a book.