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.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I finished The Book Thief on Saturday, and I've been trying to figure out how to write about it ever since. I enjoyed the audiobook immensely. Allan Corduner's performance is fantastic, and listening to his performance may actually have made me more emotional than had I read the paper version of the book.

I wanted to include some quotations from the book in my review, because Markus Zusak's writing is very lyrical. Some could argue that it's overly-flowery, but I think it works, especially considering our narrator. However, since I listened to the audiobook, it's hard to actually remember the quotes I liked, since it's not like I can just bookmark the page and come back to it later. I tried googling for quotes, but most of the good quotes I found were all super spoilery. So you'll just have to live without examples of Zusak's prose.

The Book Thief is told from the perspective of Death. An appropriate narrator for a book that takes place in Germany during World War II. Death is a compassionate and actually quite witty narrator. Death tells the story of Leisel Meminger, the titular book thief. The first book Leisel steals is The Gravedigger's Handbook, which she finds in the snow next to her little brother's grave. She later goes on to steal a book out of a fire at a Nazi book burning, and a bunch of books from the wealthy mayor. Books are the most important things in Leisel's life, next to her best friend and next-door-neighbor Rudy, and her foster parents Hans and Rosa.

I don't want to spoil any of the plot of the book, but should you choose to read The Book Thief, I would recommend keeping a box of kleenex nearby. I'm just saying. I know it's hard to believe, but a book narrated by Death in Nazi Germany has some sad parts.

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 :)

Bossypants by Tina Fey (audiobook)

I know what you're thinking. "Wait a tick, hasn't Miranda already reviewed Bossypants? What is this, a 'Best of UBC' week?"

Yes, I already reviewed Bossypants. No, this is not a "Best of" thing, because that would pretty much consist of this because it lead to this. This is actually a review of the audiobook version of Bossypants. It was just as good as the print version, maybe even better if you take into account the fact that included is the actual audio of the Sarah Palin/Hilary Clinton SNL bit.

The only problem I had with the audiobook was with sound quality. This is the first time I've tried a downloadable audiobook from the library, so I don't know if it was this specific book or if this is how all downloaded audiobooks sound. Or maybe it's my iPod, which is almost 6 years old. Or maybe it's my car stereo, which is 10 years old. At times during the book Tina would say things sort of under her breath, which didn't really work in my situation because I was listening while driving down a loud interstate in a car whose stereo has basically no volume control. And the whole time Tina sounded a little muffled. But the book itself was great.

There was one section that I had forgot about from the print book that apparently I didn't talk about in my first review. It's the only part of the book I don't like. It's a part where Tina responds to her online critics. This section is not nearly as clever as the rest of the book and really seems kind of unnecessary.

But, all in all, this is still one of my favorite memoirs. I recommend the audiobook just as highly as I recommended the print version.

If You Ask Me by Betty White

So I still haven't gotten the audiobook copy of The Warmth of Other Suns that I ordered from another library. Hopefully it'll get here next week after I get back from my Georgia vacation. I needed something that I could listen to on my way to and from class last night, but not something that was going to be more than a couple of discs, because I don't want to have to put off listening to Warmth (I have to read it for school, and I'd really just like to get it over with). So I looked over the list of audiobooks I had on hold, and one of them happened to be just two discs (about 2 hours and 15 minutes) long: If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't) by Betty White.

If You Ask Me is a collection of stories from Betty's life. Did you realize that Betty White is 89 years old? I mean, I knew she was old, but I didn't know she was almost ninety. I guess I didn't realize she was so old because my great aunt Betty B. was about Betty W.'s age when she died, and Betty B. wasn't nearly as fun or spunky as Betty W. One of my favorite stories in the book was when Betty is talking about how she doesn't want to be a cougar. She often meets men she finds interesting but she doesn't want to go out with them because usually they're all younger than she is. "He might be only 80!"

This is the first time I've listened to an audiobook read by the author. For a memoir like this, it really adds to the story because you feel like Betty White is just talking to you, telling you stories about Saturday Night Live and her pets. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who needs a quick, fun read.

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Read by Debra Wiseman and Joel Johnstone

After my last audiobook, which was violent and difficult to listen to, I decided to pick a cheerier subject for my next listen. I picked Thirteen Reasons Why, which is about a teenage girl who commits suicide. I'm awesome at picking books.

In Thirteen Reasons Why, our protagonist is Clay Jensen. Two weeks after one of his friends, Hannah Baker, commits suicide, he receives a package in the mail (no return address) with 7 cassette tapes. When he plays the first tape he is shocked to hear the voice of Hannah Baker. Hannah made these tapes as a sort of suicide note. Each side of each cassette is about one person who directly or indirectly contributed to her decision to shuffle off this mortal coil. The first person mentioned on the tapes was the first to receive them, and when he's done he sends them on to the next person. Basically, if you receive the tapes, it's partially your fault. Well, sort of. Clay receives the tapes, but he didn't really do anything bad to Hannah. I was wondering how Jay Asher was going to keep the protagonist of his novel sympathetic after we find out how he contributed to a teenage girl's suicide. But since this is a YA novel, I wasn't really surprised to find out that Clay is a super good guy instead of an anti-hero.

It's an interesting book that focuses a lot on bullying, rumors, peer pressure, that sort of thing. There's a short discussion about what is or isn't rape that I found interesting. The phrase "victim blamer" is used at one point, which was awesome. My biggest problem with the book was the performance of Debra Wiseman, who performs Hannah's tapes in the audiobook version.

I'm not sure how it comes across while reading the book, but for several discs I had myself convinced that Hannah was punking everyone and didn't really commit suicide. I mean, it's specifically mentioned that there wasn't a funeral, so it wasn't impossible for her to have faked her death. (Yes, I was raised on Soap Operas, why do you ask?) The whole theme of rumors getting out of control actually could have contributed to my version of the story. But, no, Hannah really did die. Debra performs Hannah as being damn near cheerful on the first few "tapes," which was disconcerting when you consider that you're supposed to be listening to the voice of a girl who commits suicide just after finishing the recordings. The performance just didn't fit into what I imagine a depressed, suicidal teen sounds like. Also, she sounds kind of old. Maybe they wanted Hannah to sound like an old soul, I don't know. And she says "repercussions" in a way that sounds weird to me, and as you can imagine in a novel like this, "repercussions" is said quite often.

In case you're wondering: Audiobooks are pretty much going to dominate my posts for the foreseeable future. I'm in grad school, so all my reading time is dominated by book-learnin'. But, since I have a little over an hour commute each way to class, I can use that time to power through audiobooks for fun. I can pretty much knock out one disc each way. It's great.

Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer

The full title for this book is Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, and I really feel that the subtitle is the least superfluous subtitle in the history of books. Or at least in the history of books that I have read. If I had to choose one word to describe this book, I would have to go with "violent."

Under the Banner of Heaven tells the story of a double murder committed by two fundamentalist Mormons because, essentially, God told them to. But instead of just focusing on the murder and the trial, Krakauer delves into the violent history of Mormonism. The short history (the religion was founded under 200 years ago) of Mormonism has been colored by bloodshed, both committed by and against Mormons. I am not a Mormon, so the history of the religion was new to me. I had read the memoir of a former polygamist before, but she didn't really go in to the history of the church the way Krakauer does. I picked up this book after seeing it recommended several times in the comments section on Jezebel articles about the trial and conviction of Warren Jeffs.

Well, I didn't pick up the book. I picked up the audiobook, and that may have been a mistake. I've been in the car a lot the last few weeks, so I grabbed the audiobook to listen to during my drives. Now, I am no stranger to violent fiction. I started reading Stephen King novels when I was in 9th grade. However, listening to the description of how an 18 month old had her throat slashed to the point that she was nearly decapitated.... I almost vomited in my car. I'm not sure if it was the fact that this is a true story or if it was actually hearing the words out loud.... but it was very unsettling. I guess if I was reading the physical book I could have just skimmed that paragraph, but in the car I didn't have that option. I just turned the radio off and drove in silence until I had worked up the courage to turn it back on.

If you're not so much interested in all the blood and guts, but you are interested in legal proceedings, I would check out this book in order to read about the trials of the murderers. They truly believed they were acting out the word of God (one of the foundations of Mormon beliefs is that all believers have the ability to communicate directly with God). There is a really interesting debate on whether this kind of belief is a delusion. If the belief is a delusion, is the believer then incompetent to stand trial? Does this mean that all religious zealots would automatically be ruled incompetent? Could no person of faith be held responsible for their own actions?

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith is a great book. Check it out if it's something you're interested, but you've been forewarned: it's definitely not for the faint of heart.