No one belongs here more than you. by Miranda July

Or "Live The Dream, Potato."

Hey, Andy? Remember when you said these things about this book? I don't want to discount your feelings in any way, but I think you may have been biased as a result of having small or perhaps even a large crush on this lady, the book's author. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame you. I, in fact, am also drawn to her quirky adorableness - that fearless creative spirit, those huge eyes, that curly puff of hair, that bold rejection of quotation marks as an indicator of spoken dialogue. I would say that 95% of the charm of No One Belongs Here More Than You is, in fact, the charm of Miranda July. Her voice as a writer is, as you might imagine, quirky and adorable. It is not, I would say, a versatile voice. The stories in this collection from the point of view of, say, a teenaged girl or a sixty year old man are utterly unconvincing. The stories about a kind of weird woman living alone and thinking about life? Magic. My favorite one of all was "The Swim Team."

I think if this exact same short story collection was penned by someone other than Miranda July I wouldn't have liked it. But she is an appealing person and so the stories have an appealing quality, even though the more I think about them I didn't like very many of the individual stories that much. Still, because of Madamoiselle July, there was something appealing about the experience. Strange how that happens. I also think I might have found these stories to be more compelling if I read them separately in a lot of magazines over a period of time, instead of all back to back where they all sound a lot a like and that quirky adorableness starts to feel redundant instead of imaginative.

It is, however, such a pleasant moment in time, to be sitting on the bus, or on the couch, or in a coffee shop, and pull this volume out of a tattered satchel, clutch this cover and having a quirky, adorable woman remind you, on a backdrop of highlighter pink so there is no mistaking the urgency, that no one belongs here more than you. Affirm, affirm, affirm.

Karen.......

Why have you not yet posted your review of "Freedom"? I've been waiting and waiting and waiting. (I'm reading it now. Fantabulous book!)

Hope Beneath Our Feet by A Whole Bunch of People

Or "The Perfect Antidote to The Story of Stuff."

Hope Beneath Our Feet: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World is a thoughtfully collected anthology of essays all centering around one question: If our world is facing an imminent environmental catastrophe, how do I live my life right now? Dozens of writers, poets, CEOs, activists, scientists, from Alice Walker to Michael Pollan to Howard Zinn and everyone in between, weigh in on the topic.

The result is an inspiring, humbling, thought-provoking tool kit. It is an unflinching look at the ways in which humanity needs to change in order to not completely destroy ourselves and everything all around us, but it always bursting of hope, optimism, and a celebration of the amazing world that we are fortunate enough to live in. The voices included in the anthology are extremely diverse - some I agreed with, some I did not, but all provide a unique and thoughtful perspective on an all-pervading problem. Regardless of you personal or political values, there is a voice in here for you.

Hope Beneath Our Feet is a book that I will undoubtedly visit and re-visit and re-re-visit. I already can't wait to read it again, this time attacking it with a highlighter, circling passages, and jotting down notes and ideas. It's the kind of book that makes you want to get up and do something, and then actually gives you a wide range of tools to follow that urge. Plus, beyond just being helpful and inspiring in its own right, each essay has a short paragraph biography about the person writing it, opening the door to follow up, read more on the topics you connected with the most, and in some cases even directly contact that individual.

This book is indispensable. I hope you all read it.

Two Davids embark on a road trip...

One David is a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine. The other David has just written this magnum opus of a novel called Infinite Jest. The Davids hang out in airports, drive through midwestern sludge and ice, eat terrible food from Denny's and McDonalds, argue about music, and movies, and literature, and what it might be like to sit down for five minutes with Alanis Morisette and a cup of tea.

Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself is an almost straight up five-day transcript of the time shared between David Lipsky and David Foster Wallace. And it's the story of two fundamentally different writers trying to understand each other. It's a story about friendship, and about two humans attempting to let down their guards.

And it's so sad in retrospect. Here is David Foster Wallace, bright eyed, optimistic, surprised, nervous, just this brilliant and kind of normal-sounding midwestern guy in an unexpected moment in his life. He doesn't know what happens 12 years later. But we do. Lipsky writes, "Suicide is such a powerful end, it reaches back and scrambles the beginning. It has an event gravity: Eventually, every memory and impression gets tugged in its direction." But for this brief five-day snapshot, we get to experience David Foster Wallace in that happy afterglow, chewing tobacco, hugging his dogs, reading Cosmo magazine, planning for the rest of his life.

And I will breathe into you, and you shall live again.

God takes the mortal human form of a young Dinka woman in Sudan and ends up dying in the desert of Darfur.

The short stories that follow ask one simple question: and then what happens? It's a pretty cool premise to explore, and the first few stories are great good fun, especially Indian Summer (set in the post-God world where a group of savage boys take turns bursting each other's faces with open with handguns in their dark parent-less house) and Interview with the Last Remaining Member of the Feral Dog Pack Which Fed on God's Corpse (pretty self-explanatory, right?), but it slowly grows pedantic, and unfunny, and a tiny bit pretentious. Ron Currie is a good writer, and his new book, Everything Matters!, about the world ending on the narrator's 36th birthday, looks much more intriguing. So, eh, I don't know, if the God is Dead premise tickles you, you might want to check it out. Otherwise, skip ahead.

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Or "Dead Mothers, Domestic Abuse, Murder, and Other Ennui."

I couldn't put this book down. Not because I enjoyed it. Au contraire, mes amis. I couldn't put it down because I simply could not wait to be finished with it so I didn't have to read it anymore. But I guess it's real famous and won a Nobel Prize for Literature and all that, so maybe if you're really into reading about the pointlessness of human existence, The Stranger would trip your trigger in a big way.

Meursault's mother dies. He is tired. It's too hot. His friend beats a woman up. He kills a man. He has a love affair with a woman named Marie. He's put on trial. He's still tired. It's still too hot.

I guess French absurdism/nihilism/existentialism just isn't my cup of tea. I'm sure none of you are surprised by this fact. Life is arbitrary, I get it. But I also think there's room -- and a need -- for hope and optimism.

The Glass Castle- Jeanette Walls

The Glass Castle is a Can't-put-down memior by Jeanette Walls. In it, Walls chronicles her and her siblings childhood with their restless, alcoholic father and depressed, unmaternal mother. It is a story that often seems too crazy to be true, and I could not tear myself away.

As the family moves from place to place (often in the middle of the night) and her parents become more and more mentally ill, Walls amazingly does not portray her parents as villians. They are her family and her memior portrays the complicated feelings of anger, frustration, and love that one feels toward a troubled family member.

This is a great quick read for all those bloggers out there pushing to 50!

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives.

This collection of short stories is really "sum"thing special.

I swear I don't have a writer. I come up with these gems all by myself.

I know this has been reviewed before so I will keep it short and sweet (just like this book). It is lovely and imaginative and will be a quick addition to the 50!

Dead-tossed waves=dead (of boredom)

I love teen books and I love zombies, so most combos of the two are delightful. This one was not.

and yes, the title was the best joke I could come up with. It's been a long day.

Room by Emma Donoghue

"Room" is the story of Jack and his mother, held captive in an 11' square room, locked in, never permitted outside. Jack is 5 years old and is the narrator of this story. His mother (Ma) was kidnapped 7 years ago, when she was 19, and held inside Room ever since, having given birth to Jack 2 years in. Jack only knows this life, what he experiences inside Room, what his mother teaches him, and what he see on TV. Though this is a terrifying story, it is also a story of hope and heroes and maternal love. Jack's is a voice you won't soon forget. I highly recommend this one!

The Tent by Margaret Atwood

Or "Margaret Atwood Can Do No Wrong."

I love Margaret Atwood the way Andy Lampl loves The Corrections. Every sentence is so rich and beautiful. It's like sitting down to a perfect meal and savoring every bite.

A related-but-not-related-anecdote. Recently, we had our auditions for Filament's 2010-11 season. Instead of monologues, we asked the actors to perform a poem, and suggested Margaret Atwood as a good poet to check out. The result was marvelous and so I'll just toss out to you all: Margaret Atwood poems can make for some really amazing audition monologues.

The Tent is a collection of not-really-short-stories. Prose-poems? Fiction essays? Hard to define, but marvelous to read. Because Margaret Atwood's writing speaks for itself much better than I could, I will just excerpt one of my favorite ones here. It's called "Faster."

Walking was not fast enough, so we ran. Running was not fast enough, so we galloped. Galloping was not fast enough, so we sailed. Sailing was not fast enough, so we rolled merrily along on the long metal tracks. Long metal tracks were not fast enough, so we drove. Driving was not fast enough, so we flew.

Flying isn't fast enough, not fast enough for us. We want to get there faster. Get where? Wherever we are not. But a human soul can only go as fast as a man can walk, they used to say. In that case, where are all the souls? Left behind. They wander here and there, slowly, dim lights flickering in the marshes at night, looking for us. But they're not nearly fast enough, not for us, we're way ahead of them, they'll never catch up. That's why we can go so fast: our souls don't weigh us down.

The New Kings of Nonfiction by Various Authors

Or "If Ira Glass Says 'Read' I Say 'How Much?'"

Everybody's favorite NPR host compiled together a lot of his favorite bits of literary non-fiction (which he refuses to call it); excerpts of journalism that are innovative, captivating, and told as interesting stories. Full disclosure: the David Foster Wallace essay "HOST" was in this collection, and since I'd already read-and-not-loved-it in Consider the Lobster, I skipped it. But since this book was nearly 400 pages long (not counting HOST), I'm still counting it.

This collection was tremendous fun to read, if not a bit uneven. I loved the following essays: "The American Man, Age Ten" by Susan Orlean, "Crazy Things Seem Normal, Normal Things Seem Crazy" by Chuck Klosterman, "Losing the War" by Lee Sandlin, "My Republican Journey" by Dan Savage, and "Power Steer" by Michael Pollan. There were a number of essays, however, that I did not love, and one about being a hostess at a New York hot spot that, while enjoyable, seemed to belong in a different essay collection. Still, it's a great carry-in-your-bag book for something fun and substantial to read in transit.

The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey

Or "A Canadian Farm in the '70s? What's Not To Love!?!"

This is a lovely play. Just lovely. It's one of those that is tender and delicate, and I can imagine being produced very poorly but I can also imagine being a sincere and moving evening of theatre. I might want to direct it someday.

It's based on an actual theatrical project from the 1970s, where a theatre company went to a bunch of farms and interviewed the farmers and then made a play out of it called "The Farm Show." Apparently the show ended up being a really powerful movement in Canadian theatre. Beyond the little mentions of it in The Drawer Boy, I don't know much about the project, although now I would sure like to. The Drawer Boy - whose original production contained several people who were involved with "The Farm Show" - is a play inspired by that event.

A young actor from Toronto, Miles, goes to Angus and Morgan's farm (two salty, middle aged farmers) to stay with them, help out, and collect information to bring back to his rehearsals. What follows is some typical but charming conflict between city and country life. What follows after that is the slow unfolding of Morgan and Angus's history and relationship. This is where the play is at its loveliest.

It's a story about the power of story, a love letter to art. It's also wonderful to see a play that shows two adult male life-long friends who care for each other with extreme affection and tenderness. Definitely worth a read.

The Long Walk

Ok, so I have been sooo overwhelmed with trying to read, I have neglected posting any reviews. I am going to try to catch up!

The Long Walk by Stephen King (written under Richard Bauchman) was really enjoyable. It's the first Stephen King book I have ever read. In it, these teenage boys elect to participate in the "Long Walk" a contest watched by the world where boys walk until only one of them is still walking. The winner is given riches beyond his wildest dreams. The losers all die. (remind you of any recent amazing trilogies Julie?)

Normally I read books while working out, but any movement during this book made me nauseous. The pace, pain, and monotony of the walking really messes with you as you read. I felt exhausted while reading it. Plus it was semi-dystopic future-ish. Which I loved. Many more to come.....

Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese

What a wonderful book! Karen already reviewed this one so I won't need to repeat everything that she said about it. I would like to say that I'm tempted to email the author and congratulate him on his amazingly creative skills as a story-teller. I love a good story and this is one not to be missed. It's long yet worth every word. Briefly, it's about twin brothers, born to a beautiful Indian nun and a British surgeon. They're orphaned when their mother dies during childbirth and their father flees the country (Ethiopia) immediately following their birth. What follows is a rich story told by one of the twins, Marion Stone, of their lives and the bond that holds them together. A stunning novel and a gifted author. These characters will stick with me for a long time.

Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko

My favorite character from Twelve Bar Blues is not nearly as cool in this story. This book tried really hard to be both absurdly funny and telling but ended up evoking the same amount of enthusiasm that caused me to leave it on the floor of my bedroom until I temporarily moved away from a library. A lazy, white, British 18-year-old leading an African revolution against an Oxford-educated dictator with no testicles while smoking flatulent marijuana is just too much. Plus this whole story feels like the author's fantasy for his own life. I never like when this happens.

I got this book immediately after finishing Twelve Bar Blues for $0.58 plus shipping on Amazon. I'm pretty sure it is autographed by the author on the title page. Maybe I should have taken the hint.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Or "Anne Lamott Really Loves The Word 'Mewling.'"


Try walking around with a child who's going, "Wow, wow! Look at that dirty dog! Look at that burned-down house! Look at that red sky!" And the child points and you look, and you see, and you start going, "Wow! Look at that huge crazy hedge! Look at that teeny little baby! Look at the scary dark cloud!" I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world -- present and in awe.

Attention all dog lovers..........

A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron

Oh how I loved this book! You might think "Hmmmmm..another sappy dog book. Another Marley and Me (i.e. sappy dog book)" but you'd be mistaken. This is one of the truest books I've read about the human/canine connection, told by the point of view of a dog that's been reincarnated 4 times and has served his/her humans the only way a dog can: pure and unending devotion and love. Cameron serves up this tale with humor and yes, some sadness too but he gives us a very sweet story of man's best friend that any dog lover should and will devour and understand well. I've already told all the humans at the dog park to treat themselves to a copy, ASAP, and Gertie and Sammie Lampl enjoyed many of the escapades described in the book. Next time you gaze adoringly into those deep brown eyes, you'll understand the unspoken words so much better after reading this story. 5...no, 6...no, 10 stars!! At least!

I'm tired a livin' and scared a dyin'

I have stumbled upon a great new way to read, inspired by this blog!

So, I have about twenty books to read before November. Possible, not probable. First I decided to start reading shorter books that I already own but haven't read. I started with The House on Mango Street, the beautiful book by Sandra Cisneros. It was a much quicker read than I'd anticipated, and I found myself one day with the book finished and me stranded downtown with nothing to read.

SO, I went into that weird used bookstore east of the Belmont red line stop. I scoured the fiction section and left with a pile of four books for $13. They are all books I've always wanted to read, all short-ish. This is GREAT! I am going to try to finish this challenge, and I'm going to do it by reading books I've always wanted to read, and I'm going to find them at used bookstores for cheap.

Woo hoo! I'm very excited about this plan.

Unfortunately, it took me long enough to read Show Boat that I'm guessing I will fall short of the 50-book goal. Unless I quit my job. Wait! I could/should be reading right now!

Anyway. Show Boat.

It's always been one of my favorite musicals. The book is by Edna Ferber, who also wrote Giant (another book on my list...so far used copies have been a bit too expensive). It follows the life of Magnolia Hawks Ravenal, a child raised on the river, on her father's show boat. Something about this book really hit me. The bond Magnolia feels with her childhood on the river, the river itself, and the ramshackle theatrical world of the Cotton Blossom is something I identify with. (Filled-to-the-brim summers at a barnlike summer theatre near the beach = similar feelings of longing.)

I have loved these old musicals since I was a toddler. They are woven through my being, at the risk of sounding silly. It's not something that I've been able to share with anyone, really. Show Boat is about this very thing - growing up, becoming an adult, and being lucky (or cursed) enough to come from a place so specific and magical that you never really get over it and always feel a little separate because of it.

ANYWAY! It's been great to read the books my favorite musicals were based on. Show Boat, Tales of the South Pacific (SO GOOD, I can't wait to read it again). The adaptation is fascinating, and there's a built-in soundtrack.

For people who don't know the musical? This is an historical novel with a lot about southern river towns right after the Civil War, and about early blossoming Chicago. And theatre. Lots of great, highly specific characters, some sadness, some humor, great description, and a satisfying arc.

Read it!

Push by Sapphire

Or "What Dorothy Said."

Dorothy reviewed this one way back at the beginning of YMR 2.0. I looked back at what she wrote before sitting down to do my own write up, and I couldn't agree more with what she said. Everything from "very quick read" to "disturbing" to "makes you realize what cushy lives so many of us lead" to "want to pick up something light and airy to read next" just gets an AMEN across the board.

I can't remember the last time I had such a hard time reading a book. I didn't see Precious and although I'd heard through the grapevine what a sad movie it was, I really didn't know what to expect. There were passages where it was difficult for me to even look at the words, the story was so visceral and graphic and devastating. The true elegance of Push, however, was that even in the midst of the sorrow and violence and pain, it was full of hope.

Although by no means an enjoyable read, Push is an important one. It is profoundly sad and disturbing and forces its readers to confront realities of the world and of the people in the world that we would rather pretend don't exist. It's an agonizing experience, but a worthwhile one.

Perfect, Perfect, and Perfect

Or "Three Very Different Reasons To Love Young Adult Fiction."

What began as procrastination ended up as a fortuitous examining of three different approaches to one of my favorite genres: young adult fiction. Yes, of course, I had initially intended to write about each book separately. But once I was about halfway through the third, I was quite glad that I hadn't because they complement each other while simultaneously being vastly different in every single qualifying trait except that they are all written for the pre-adolescent set.

The books in question are Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods, Suzanne Collins's Mockingjay, and E.L. Konigsburg's The View from Saturday. What I can't get over is how marvelously each of these books interacts with their intended readers. Little House is not only light and lovely, but it also paints a vivid picture of what life in the late-1800s was like for a child. Mockingjay is profoundly respectful of its audience with its unflinching, uncompromising look at the impact on violence. The View from Saturday barely even reads like young adult fiction; instead, it's just like regular ol' grown up fiction with seventh grade protagonists. So we've got history, we've got social commentary, we've got sophisticated language - these are exactly the kinds of books that turn ten-year-olds into life-long lovers of literature.

Little House in the Big Woods was a delight beyond my wildest expectations. I hadn't read it since childhood, so my only memory of it was the cousin who got stung hundreds of times by the hornets because holy hell that scared the bejeezus out of me when I was little. But although that episode took up 100% of my Little House memory, it actually only lasts about a page and a half. The other 210 non-hornet-related pages are reflective and admiring of a bygone era without ever crossing into that irritating, cloying Little Women territory. It feels important in its simplicity, illustrating The Way Things Used To Be to a whole readership of plugged-in technology kids. Almost nothing at all happens - it's just a season to season description the life of five-year-old Laura Ingalls - but the end still had me all heart-clenched and weeping, excited to plow through the rest of the series (which I am embarrassed to say I have never read).

Mockingjay is the third and final book of Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games series. Please do yourselves the favor of reading this trilogy. I love it as an adult, and also deeply appreciate it for what Collins is giving to her intended audience. She is fearless in her exploration of violence, never shying away from the grisly side of human nature. She, unlike a lot of young adult fiction authors, has no qualms about gray areas: everything is morally ambiguous, the characters are complex, their relationships are complex. She shows a dark, difficult side of real life, interspersed with moments of real beauty, and I am so grateful for the respect she has for her readers. Plus the characters have great names (Peeta Mellark, Finnick Odair, Katniss Everdeen, just to name a few), it's white-knuckle-sweat-on-your-brow-edge-of-your-seat exciting, and a more-than-satisfying cap to the first two books (which are no easy acts to follow).

The View from Saturday is the charming - charming, I tell you! - story of four misfit seventh graders competing in a knowledge bowl tournament. The format of the book is that a question is posed in the tournament, one of the kids buzzes in to answer the question, and the following chapter is the story of how that particular student knows the answer to the question. It. Is. Charming. One flaw that's a little hard to get past: the portrayal of two Indian characters, one of the students and his father, is a bit...questionable. It borders too close to Johnny-Quest-"Hadji" country for me to be totally comfortable. Still, the story is woven together delightfully, and it is written with extreme sophistication and gentleness. I mean, it's the lady who wrote From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler -- what's not to love?!

Sometimes I read books for grown-ups, too. But then I tend to gravitate towards non-fiction. I'm realizing that it's because the protagonists of adult fiction books are usually horrible people doing horrible things, and I see enough of that in real life. At least in young adult fiction there are still lessons to be learned, morals to be formed, jouneys to embark upon - the whole world is ours to explore.

We cannot tell what the weather will be tomorrow because we do not know accurately enough what the weather is right now.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, rewritten by Haruki Murakami, along with one of the most seductive black & white author photos I've ever seen in a flap jacket (the other being Jonathan Franzen's smoldering gaze in The Corrections) and we have Atmospheric Disturbances. It begins like this: Last December a woman entered my apartment who looked exactly like my wife. It ends like this: I'll at least know the purpose of the rest of my life. In the middle: a therapist named Leo attempts to locate his wife, who's gone missing and been replaced with an almost exact replica, a near perfect doppleganger, of his wife. He stays in blackberry contact with a dead meteorologist, flies to Buenos Aires, learns about the 49 Quantum Fathers, drinks copious amounts of herbal tea. He also may or may not be losing his mind to Capgras Delusion, a disorder in which a person believes a friend, spouse, parent, or close family member has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor. Or, but, no, Leo's pretty sure he knows the nuances of his wife. And this woman, this simulacrum, isn't quite her. So Leo must set off in search of his wife. He must find his real wife.

Little Alden.

Ross Alden [silent Brendlinger] gave me this book.

It's all about beating your resistance

and calling on angels.

I read most of it on the toilet.

The first 30 years should be spent living life, and the last 40 years should be spent understanding it.

The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead is David Shields' attempt to understand the smile on his 97-year-old father's face. Part memoir, part biology lesson, riddled with quotes and thoughts and the musings of other human beings who also had to grow up and die, Shields basically prepares for what's going to happen next. The effects of 70 years of gravity.

What are you doing nowadays?

I'm busy growing older.

This book simply asks that we pay attention. That we think about the inevitable. That we realize we're just animals roaming the earth for a brief time, and that all of life, essentially, is a failure in the end, and the thing to do is to get sport out of trying. Shields asks that we appreciate what we have now, at 25, at 35, at 65, and know that someday we won't have it anymore.

Twisty Turny

Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay

I've never read anything by this author but I trust Jesse Kornbluth of headbutler.com (check it out) when he raves about a book so I purchased this one after reading his review and was absolutely NOT disappointed. This is a tense, nail-biting thriller (time for a manicure after this one!). Without giving too much away, David Harwood, his wife, Jan, and 4 year old son, Ethan, visit an amusement park together and one of them disappears. What happens afterwards sets off a chain of reactions which, though a little unbelievable, still keeps you on the edge of your seat and anxious to finish to see how it all wraps up. The gist of the story? How well do you really know your loved ones? On that note, go find this book. It will provide you with a good escape for awhile, if you're in need of one.

Play The Piano Drunk Like A Percussion Instrument Until The Fingers Begin To Bleed A Bit

the night I was going to die

I was sweating on the bed

and I could hear the crickets

and there was a cat fight outside

and I could feel my soul dropping down through the

mattress

and just before it hit the floor I jumped up

I was almost too weak to walk

but I walked around and turned on all the lights

then made it back to the bed

and again my soul dropped down through the mattress

and I leaped up

just before it hit the floor

I walked around and turned on all the lights

and then I went back to bed

and down it dropped again and

I was up

turning on all the lights

I had a 7 year old daughter

and I felt sure she didn't want me dead

otherwise it wouldn't have

mattered

but all that night

nobody phoned

nobody came by with a beer

my girlfriend didn't phone

all I could hear were the crickets and it was

hot

and I kept working at it

getting up and down

until the first of the sun came through the window

through the bushes

and then I got on the bed

and the soul stayed

inside at last and

I slept.

now people come by

beating on the doors and windows

the phone rings

the phone rings again and again

I get great letters in the mail

hate letters and love letters.

everything is the same again.