Kaling, Mindy. Is Everyone Hanging out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). New York: Crown Archetype, 2011.
Lest you think I'm a major doofus, since Kaling clearly states at the beginning of this book that the cover is mostly pink and it should take two days to read, I started reading Is that a Fish in Your Ear?, which was pretty interesting, but then due back to the library, so since I hadn't read enough to write about I switched over to this book. I'll get back to the fish-book (really about translation) eventually, because I think my parents have a copy. Kaling was right--I finished most of the book while I was waiting for a doctor's appointment.
Look, nobody thinks this is War and Peace. It's a funny (pink-covered) collection of essays and musings by the comedy writer who plays Kelly Kapoor on The Office. It's an entertaining read on a lazy afternoon or at the doctor's office. If you think Kelly is super annoying, Kaling wants you to know that's not actually her, and convinces you through a number of charming passages that you might actually want to be friends with the actress, if not the character. She's merciless with her chubby, androgynous child self, doting on her parents, and humorously opinionated on topics such as boys versus men, what should happen at her funeral, and romantic comedies. And that's about all I needed out of the book.
Rating: **
February 2, 2012
January 22, 2012
A game at least as long as Monopoly
Martin, George R.R. A Game of Thrones. New York: Bantam Books, 2011.
My apologies for the length of time since the last post. I haven't been gallivanting: I've been working my way through the epic adventure (wait, make that the first leg of an epic adventure) in A Game of Thrones. At over 800 pages of small print, crammed with detail that makes it a no-brainer that a TV series or movie would result, the book requires a serious investment of time.
I could have done without the extensive set-dressing description of garments, sigils, and houses of this imaginary world. A shorter book without all that might have meant a week's reading over a few hundred pages. As long as that version retains what I really liked about the story--the careful development of a handful of characters that grab the reader's interest (the plucky tomboy Arya, the outcast bastard Jon, the crafty and undervalued dwarf Tyrion, the ever-strengthening exiled heiress Daenerys, and a few others) and the sheer magnitude of the world invented by Martin--I would recommend it in a heartbeat.
This version? It's a cliffhanger, and I do want to see how things turn out (and if my Big Theory is correct), so I imagine I'll read the rest of the series. I may just need to read another book alongside each so I don't have a posting blackout every time.
Rating: **1/2
My apologies for the length of time since the last post. I haven't been gallivanting: I've been working my way through the epic adventure (wait, make that the first leg of an epic adventure) in A Game of Thrones. At over 800 pages of small print, crammed with detail that makes it a no-brainer that a TV series or movie would result, the book requires a serious investment of time.
I could have done without the extensive set-dressing description of garments, sigils, and houses of this imaginary world. A shorter book without all that might have meant a week's reading over a few hundred pages. As long as that version retains what I really liked about the story--the careful development of a handful of characters that grab the reader's interest (the plucky tomboy Arya, the outcast bastard Jon, the crafty and undervalued dwarf Tyrion, the ever-strengthening exiled heiress Daenerys, and a few others) and the sheer magnitude of the world invented by Martin--I would recommend it in a heartbeat.
This version? It's a cliffhanger, and I do want to see how things turn out (and if my Big Theory is correct), so I imagine I'll read the rest of the series. I may just need to read another book alongside each so I don't have a posting blackout every time.
Rating: **1/2
January 7, 2012
He was also in things called "plays"
Lithgow, John. Drama: An Actor's Education. New York: Harper, 2011.
I don't read many celebrity memoirs (I think the last was Rob Lowe's), so it's always a little hard for me to gauge if one is good. What sort of lasting value should a such a book have? Should I feel compelled to reread it? Is learning something necessary? What about just enjoying the ride?
John Lithgow's new memoir succeeds on at least the second and third parts. It's a quick read and full of enough interesting glimpses into worlds I'll probably never join (Harvard, London in the 60s, the New York theater scene) that it kept my attention quite well. (Writing that sentence made me wonder how I would react if transplanted into one of those environments, unmoored like the characters in 3rd Rock from the Sun. Too much Lithgow this week?)
Four things make this book worth the time I spent on it:
Rating: **1/2
I don't read many celebrity memoirs (I think the last was Rob Lowe's), so it's always a little hard for me to gauge if one is good. What sort of lasting value should a such a book have? Should I feel compelled to reread it? Is learning something necessary? What about just enjoying the ride?
John Lithgow's new memoir succeeds on at least the second and third parts. It's a quick read and full of enough interesting glimpses into worlds I'll probably never join (Harvard, London in the 60s, the New York theater scene) that it kept my attention quite well. (Writing that sentence made me wonder how I would react if transplanted into one of those environments, unmoored like the characters in 3rd Rock from the Sun. Too much Lithgow this week?)
Four things make this book worth the time I spent on it:
- Lithgow offers the useful insight (from his nude-drawing teacher, of all people) that facility in some area can be both a great asset and a great drawback, allowing him "to get by with glib, hasty, lazy work." He observes that "[t]hings came easy for me, so too often [he] was perfectly willing to skip over difficult tasks." Ouch. It's a good reminder for me, and maybe others.
- He has another insight later, when a bad professional choice took his personal life on a wonderful path that he would have missed completely otherwise. This is good to remember when we feel like we're making mistakes.
- He got me quite interested in the book Tellers of Tales, which he loved as a child and which basically brought his ailing father back to life. If I can ever find a copy for (significantly) less than $75, I'm buying it.
- He used one of the best materials-engineering-related metaphors I've seen in a long time, when referring to the effects of his infidelity: "Each time, my marriage would lose a little more tensile strength."
Rating: **1/2
December 26, 2011
How to grip a reader (and how not to)
Fish, Stanley. How to Write a Sentence: and How to Read One. New York: Harper, 2011.
Before I had finished, I knew this was a book I wouldn't write much about. In How to Write a Sentence, Stanley Fish describes the overall concept of a sentence without burdensome grammatical detail (something performs some action on something else), then goes through a few classifications of sentences with examples from his favorite literature. Problem is, I'm not a big fan of many of his favorites (especially droning passages from centuries-old writers), so I didn't learn too much. The only part I marked was the multi-clause sentence from Letter from a Birmingham Jail, which we actually did imitate with our own clumsy constructions in high school, much like the practice Fish recommends. (That first sentence? It's another of the imitations Fish suggests we could try, though I may have bungled it because I didn't go back and look.) It's not a bad book, especially read along with others in a concerted effort to improve one's writing, but not one I'll likely refer to again.
Rating: *1/2
Before I had finished, I knew this was a book I wouldn't write much about. In How to Write a Sentence, Stanley Fish describes the overall concept of a sentence without burdensome grammatical detail (something performs some action on something else), then goes through a few classifications of sentences with examples from his favorite literature. Problem is, I'm not a big fan of many of his favorites (especially droning passages from centuries-old writers), so I didn't learn too much. The only part I marked was the multi-clause sentence from Letter from a Birmingham Jail, which we actually did imitate with our own clumsy constructions in high school, much like the practice Fish recommends. (That first sentence? It's another of the imitations Fish suggests we could try, though I may have bungled it because I didn't go back and look.) It's not a bad book, especially read along with others in a concerted effort to improve one's writing, but not one I'll likely refer to again.
Rating: *1/2
December 16, 2011
A font of knowledge
Garfield, Simon. Just My Type: A Book About Fonts. New York: Gotham Books, 2011.
Blogger offers seven fonts:
Luckily, I can comfortably forget most of this stuff after having been amused once, since a key point in the book is that the best fonts are those that just work and don't make you pay attention. NO NEED TO SHOUT!
Rating: **
Blogger offers seven fonts:
- Arial, for a blog post that should remind you of work
- Courier, in case you are a typewriter person at heart
- Times (the default), for that traditional serif feel
- Georgia, designed "as a modern take on ... Times New Roman"
- Helvetica, one of the most popular fonts in the world (e.g., New York subway signs) and the title of a movie about fonts (oh, no, there isn't just a book)
- Trebuchet, created by the person who gave us the much-maligned Comic Sans--and is apparently a choice font for helping dyslexic children to read
- Verdana, the font that caused a stir when IKEA changed all of its signs in their SMOLSVIK-y glory to it from Futura
Luckily, I can comfortably forget most of this stuff after having been amused once, since a key point in the book is that the best fonts are those that just work and don't make you pay attention. NO NEED TO SHOUT!
Rating: **
December 5, 2011
Team baby-care in Dublin
Binchy, Maeve. Minding Frankie. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.
Whenever I see a new Maeve Binchy book in the library, I jump on it like it's a life raft. Binchy has a knack for drawing the reader in to the lives of a huge number of characters in her Dublin world without overwhelming the brain or diluting the emotional connection to any individual one. I don't know how she does it.
In Minding Frankie, readers of previous books will recognize many of the characters and smile at the situations they get themselves into. There's a little bit of struggle and a few sad moments, but overall we can be assured of a heartwarming tale with a happy ending. Frankie is a newborn girl who transforms everyone around her as they band together in a "takes-a-village" approach to her care. Because she's a little baby, she doesn't get a lot of character development, but her minders certainly do, from the take-charge cousin from America (what would they have done without her?) to the recovering-alcoholic father to the unlucky-in-love graphic designer. Even the "villains" like the driven but lonely social worker and the self-centered chef aren't all bad.
It won't teach you a ton, and it's not a revolution in the art of novels, but Minding Frankie is a solidly enjoyable read that nobody would mind picking up.
Rating: ***
Whenever I see a new Maeve Binchy book in the library, I jump on it like it's a life raft. Binchy has a knack for drawing the reader in to the lives of a huge number of characters in her Dublin world without overwhelming the brain or diluting the emotional connection to any individual one. I don't know how she does it.
In Minding Frankie, readers of previous books will recognize many of the characters and smile at the situations they get themselves into. There's a little bit of struggle and a few sad moments, but overall we can be assured of a heartwarming tale with a happy ending. Frankie is a newborn girl who transforms everyone around her as they band together in a "takes-a-village" approach to her care. Because she's a little baby, she doesn't get a lot of character development, but her minders certainly do, from the take-charge cousin from America (what would they have done without her?) to the recovering-alcoholic father to the unlucky-in-love graphic designer. Even the "villains" like the driven but lonely social worker and the self-centered chef aren't all bad.
It won't teach you a ton, and it's not a revolution in the art of novels, but Minding Frankie is a solidly enjoyable read that nobody would mind picking up.
Rating: ***
November 27, 2011
Another brain book--but bear with me!
Aamodt, Sandra, Ph.D. and Sam Wang, Ph.D. Welcome to Your Child's Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College. New York: Bloomsbury, 2011.
Instead of whining this time about hearing yet another synopsis of the Iowa Gambling or marshmallow tests (both of which do appear in this book), I'm intrigued. In Welcome to Your Child's Brain, the authors use clear examples, interesting asides (such as busted myths, "did you know?" stories, and theories), and even cartoons to make detailed discussions of brain function and child development manageable for the masses. I found it extremely useful to know that at certain ages, a child's brain just doesn't allow him to suppress impulses or detect causation. That opens the door to appropriate behavior modification rather than reactive anger and punishment. I don't punish my cat for getting hairballs, after all.
While I wasn't quite riveted enough by the book (it's fairly technical, after all) to tab a bunch of exciting passages, there's more than enough here to make it worth a read whether you're a parent or not. If you don't have kids, you'll probably remember being one and some of the material will ring a bell. If you do, there are very practical tips that you could put in action tonight. It may be all in your head, but the results are real.
Rating: ***
Instead of whining this time about hearing yet another synopsis of the Iowa Gambling or marshmallow tests (both of which do appear in this book), I'm intrigued. In Welcome to Your Child's Brain, the authors use clear examples, interesting asides (such as busted myths, "did you know?" stories, and theories), and even cartoons to make detailed discussions of brain function and child development manageable for the masses. I found it extremely useful to know that at certain ages, a child's brain just doesn't allow him to suppress impulses or detect causation. That opens the door to appropriate behavior modification rather than reactive anger and punishment. I don't punish my cat for getting hairballs, after all.
While I wasn't quite riveted enough by the book (it's fairly technical, after all) to tab a bunch of exciting passages, there's more than enough here to make it worth a read whether you're a parent or not. If you don't have kids, you'll probably remember being one and some of the material will ring a bell. If you do, there are very practical tips that you could put in action tonight. It may be all in your head, but the results are real.
Rating: ***
November 20, 2011
Two imaginary lives, many important points
Brooks, David. The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement. New York: Random House, 2011.
If you only know David Brooks as one of the resident arguers on the PBS NewsHour Weekly Political Wrap, as I did, you might be pleasantly surprised by this wide-ranging, thoughtful, and frequently entertaining book about life, the brain, and what success really means. Near the end, for example, there's a nuanced discussion of how people adapt their views to a selected political party and how compromise is impossible when politics becomes a contest among identity groups, more like religion than opinion. This is an important concept today. Plus, the book is well written, with enough irreverence to lighten up what could be hefty.
If, however, you happen to have recently read some popular-science books on the brain such as Incognito, Moonwalking with Einstein, and How We Decide, and Outliers (as I have), you might find the material a little less fresh. There are only so many times in a year that I need to see the examples of practice leading to skill, chicken sexing, the rigged card decks that your brain figures out before you do, the marshmallow test, artificial rivalries at summer camp, and optical illusions (which are presented in an amusingly mocking passage on neuromapping, so I suppose that's a little different). What's new about this book is how the material is presented. Brooks uses the lives of two characters, Harold and Erica, whose superior social skills and drive gave them the success that raw IQ or upbringing might not have, to frame a broad discussion of the brain, culture, and social ties. The two characters make the topic especially approachable. It feels weird to see such finely developed characters in a non-fiction book, but it works.
My main complaint (since it's not Brooks's fault that I had read those other books) is that that the breadth of the stories means that the book seems to lack focus. Early in the story, Harold takes weeks to research and frame a term paper, sleeping on ideas and distilling thoughts until he has a narrow thesis. The Social Animal could have similarly sacrificed a bit of its breadth for a tighter point of view. Of course, this is a level of care that I don't apply to these blog posts (even if I should), so I can't whine too much.
Rating: **1/2
If you only know David Brooks as one of the resident arguers on the PBS NewsHour Weekly Political Wrap, as I did, you might be pleasantly surprised by this wide-ranging, thoughtful, and frequently entertaining book about life, the brain, and what success really means. Near the end, for example, there's a nuanced discussion of how people adapt their views to a selected political party and how compromise is impossible when politics becomes a contest among identity groups, more like religion than opinion. This is an important concept today. Plus, the book is well written, with enough irreverence to lighten up what could be hefty.
If, however, you happen to have recently read some popular-science books on the brain such as Incognito, Moonwalking with Einstein, and How We Decide, and Outliers (as I have), you might find the material a little less fresh. There are only so many times in a year that I need to see the examples of practice leading to skill, chicken sexing, the rigged card decks that your brain figures out before you do, the marshmallow test, artificial rivalries at summer camp, and optical illusions (which are presented in an amusingly mocking passage on neuromapping, so I suppose that's a little different). What's new about this book is how the material is presented. Brooks uses the lives of two characters, Harold and Erica, whose superior social skills and drive gave them the success that raw IQ or upbringing might not have, to frame a broad discussion of the brain, culture, and social ties. The two characters make the topic especially approachable. It feels weird to see such finely developed characters in a non-fiction book, but it works.
My main complaint (since it's not Brooks's fault that I had read those other books) is that that the breadth of the stories means that the book seems to lack focus. Early in the story, Harold takes weeks to research and frame a term paper, sleeping on ideas and distilling thoughts until he has a narrow thesis. The Social Animal could have similarly sacrificed a bit of its breadth for a tighter point of view. Of course, this is a level of care that I don't apply to these blog posts (even if I should), so I can't whine too much.
Rating: **1/2
November 14, 2011
Don't worry, the rabbit doesn't talk *much*
Winman, Sarah. When God Was a Rabbit. New York: Bloomsbury, 2011.
When God Was a Rabbit is the weird, wonderful, moving story of a girl who would name her pet rabbit "god" and the family who would let her and love her. The reader follows main character Elly through a slightly jumpy but relatively thorough (like a hungry rabbit?) narrative of her life, from girlhood with trauma that maybe didn't feel traumatic to new friends in adolescence to a halting approach to adulthood. The rabbit isn't always around, but a sense of mystery and hope remains, right up to the last few pages when I was convinced at least three times that there was no way things would turn out well.
Multiple times as the story builds, Winman drives the narrative on with flashes of the future. In a description of an afternoon Elly spends with her brother, the reader is told "he would be gone by the following year, to finish his schooling in London, a sudden decision taken on a whim." I liked having these glimpses, confidence-builders that the characters were living their lives even when they weren't watching. Even more interesting is that when such foreshadowing isn't explicitly given, when the reader jumps to his own conclusions--as is nearly impossible when a tale drifts toward New York in September 2001--that guess is likely to be wrong. I loved this lack of cliche. Winman knows her readers deserve more.
I think the only thing that is keeping me from giving four stars to this book is the time it took me to read. I'm not sure if it's the book's fault or mine, but I think a four-star book would have gripped me just a bit more, driven me to the finish line quicker. In ounces of tears shed and millimeters of tentative, hopeful smiles, though, When God Was a Rabbit certainly measures up.
Rating: ***1/2
When God Was a Rabbit is the weird, wonderful, moving story of a girl who would name her pet rabbit "god" and the family who would let her and love her. The reader follows main character Elly through a slightly jumpy but relatively thorough (like a hungry rabbit?) narrative of her life, from girlhood with trauma that maybe didn't feel traumatic to new friends in adolescence to a halting approach to adulthood. The rabbit isn't always around, but a sense of mystery and hope remains, right up to the last few pages when I was convinced at least three times that there was no way things would turn out well.
Multiple times as the story builds, Winman drives the narrative on with flashes of the future. In a description of an afternoon Elly spends with her brother, the reader is told "he would be gone by the following year, to finish his schooling in London, a sudden decision taken on a whim." I liked having these glimpses, confidence-builders that the characters were living their lives even when they weren't watching. Even more interesting is that when such foreshadowing isn't explicitly given, when the reader jumps to his own conclusions--as is nearly impossible when a tale drifts toward New York in September 2001--that guess is likely to be wrong. I loved this lack of cliche. Winman knows her readers deserve more.
I think the only thing that is keeping me from giving four stars to this book is the time it took me to read. I'm not sure if it's the book's fault or mine, but I think a four-star book would have gripped me just a bit more, driven me to the finish line quicker. In ounces of tears shed and millimeters of tentative, hopeful smiles, though, When God Was a Rabbit certainly measures up.
Rating: ***1/2
November 3, 2011
A lonely walk
Keegan, Claire. Walk the Blue Fields. New York: Black Cat, 2007.
"Margaret Flusk had neither hat nor rubber boots nor a man." This sentence from the last short story in Walk the Blue Fields demonstrates the spare, practical, possibly harsh style of Keegan's collection. The Ireland she describes, vividly but calmly, is not the cliched character-of-its-own that appears in some stories. There aren't leprechauns or glistening green fields; rather, there's farm life, tough times, secrets, and love lost. That could happen anywhere; it happens to happen in Ireland.
I'm not usually much for short stories, preferring a larger investment for larger reward, but these seem complete somehow. Characters experience conflict and resolution before their pages end. It's just too bad (for them, at least) that the conclusions are often pretty grim: she still doesn't love you, she left you anyway, you escaped the home but likely not how it affected you. Don't dip into this book if you're looking for a jolly clog in a peat-smoke-filled pub. If you want stories that feel real, and more so because of the conviction of setting, go for it.
Rating: **1/2
"Margaret Flusk had neither hat nor rubber boots nor a man." This sentence from the last short story in Walk the Blue Fields demonstrates the spare, practical, possibly harsh style of Keegan's collection. The Ireland she describes, vividly but calmly, is not the cliched character-of-its-own that appears in some stories. There aren't leprechauns or glistening green fields; rather, there's farm life, tough times, secrets, and love lost. That could happen anywhere; it happens to happen in Ireland.
I'm not usually much for short stories, preferring a larger investment for larger reward, but these seem complete somehow. Characters experience conflict and resolution before their pages end. It's just too bad (for them, at least) that the conclusions are often pretty grim: she still doesn't love you, she left you anyway, you escaped the home but likely not how it affected you. Don't dip into this book if you're looking for a jolly clog in a peat-smoke-filled pub. If you want stories that feel real, and more so because of the conviction of setting, go for it.
Rating: **1/2
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