Top of the Rock

I've had trouble focusing lately with my allergies and while I've still been reading, it's mainly been young adult or lighter books that aren't really worth reviewing. They were good. They kept me turning pages. I have nothing else to say. I'm feeling better though and hope to get some better quality reading done over the holiday weekend. I want to clear out some of my library books and half-finished books before turning my attention to the Victorians for a while!

While I was in my weird reading mood, I picked up a book called Top of the Rock by Warren Littlefield at the library. He was the president of NBC television during the 90s and worked their during the 80s as well. After creating Must See TV, he was fired. And now we have nothing but reality TV. The book focuses on NBC shows of the late 80s and 90s and how they built a powerhouse station. I watched so many of the shows he focuses on, and it was interesting to learn the same people were involved in the development of many of them. They had Cheers, Seinfeld, Mad About You, ER, Frasier, the Cosby Show, and of course, Friends. Getting the behind the scene stories about the creative process and business side of developing these shows was fun. He doesn't focus on the actors and gossip, although he shares a few things when they're relevant.

The book definitely made me nostalgic for the days when TV actually had sitcoms and shows everyone watched. It gave us something to talk about and a way to connect. Now we have an army of crappy reality shows and special interest shows (which I like, but don't give that same feeling of connection or usually, laughter). There's not a lot of funny on TV these days. It made me want to re-watch Cheers, especially since I was so young (i.e. I didn't know there was someone other than Kirstie Alley as the main female until a few years ago) during it that I know I missed a lot of what made it funny. I'm thankful for Netflix and their streaming TV shows so do have options when the current lineup sucks.

The other fun yet depressing thing about the book was the info on how many of these shows didn't test that well or didn't do well their first season. Despite that, they were given a chance and not only had a full first season, they got a chance at a second season! I had heard about that happening with Seinfeld, but it happened with some of the others as well. And some of them started out differently in the initial writing and changed based on the actors or other things, and it was weird to think about what might have happened and how close the shows came not to being what they were. Today, shows are pulled after just a few episodes and aren't given a chance to gain traction. How many of those shows could have been the next Friends but ended up gone after three shows?

However, I understand why it's that way today. Viewership is splintered with so many cable, on demand, and online options. A show that did badly in the ratings back in the day still had enough viewers to carry it on for a little while longer. TV advertising was more effective, but now there are so many better options for most advertisers. But at the same time, it just made me miss the shows of my childhood, when Thursday night was spent watching Must See TV and Fridays watching the TGIF block. Although there is one benefit - I watch a lot less TV overall than I used to!

The Girl Who Was on Fire

Allie mentioned The Girl Who Was on Fire in her post about the unit she taught on The Hunger Games, and I thought it would be fun to read. It's a collection of essays from young adult authors about The Hunger Games. It's worth reading if you're a hardcore fan or if, like in Allie's case, you're planning on teaching it.

One of the themes through several of the essays is that it's not about the love story. The main conversation shouldn't center on Team Gale vs. Team Peeta. Personally, I don't feel like the conversation has centered on that, which is what these essays seem to imply. Although, I don't usually talk about them with teenage girls either, so perhaps they're having different conversations than I am! However, at the same time, several stories veered off into an argument defending Katniss's choice at the end. This annoyed me, especially since I disagree. :)

A lot of the essays focused on politics, freedom and reality TV. That's what interested me the most in the series, being able see how Collins took real issues from today's society and showed how they could turn into this crazy world of the future. That's why I love dystopian fiction. I also hate reality TV, so a whole series about how terrible the genre is makes me happy.

On that note, it reminded me of how horrified I was at the audience reaction at some of the scenes. People cheered and laughed at several violent death scenes. It was bad enough that Ryan and I actually turned to each other and said, "did that just happen???" I was appalled to be in the same theatre as these people and couldn't believe they were not only entirely missing the point, they were sadist crazy people disguised as normal human beings. It completely creeped me out. It made it seem more feasible that our society would allow something like The Hunger Games to actually happen.

While I enjoyed this, it really made me crave more academic literary criticism. I may have to take advantage of Ryan's access to a college library to check out some books along those lines. Because I don't already have a million books checked out from the public library and towering in my TBR stacks. :)

Lost to Time

Lost in Time by Martin Sandler is a book about unforgettable bits of history that time has managed to forget. It read like a manifesto for the importance of PR, although admittedly I'm biased to see that since that's my field. Most of the stories are similar to famous stories that we know well, but for whatever reason those other stories got more publicity and stuck in the public's mind.

For example, one of the stories about two people who completed longer, more dangerous rides than Paul Revere to warn the Americans about the British  during the American Revolution, yet neither of them are remembered while people flock to Revere's house to celebrate him. One of those riders was a 16-year-old girl who rode through the woods in the middle of the night, warning more people than Revere and saving hundreds of lives. But she and the other rider didn't have Longfellow as a friend to write a poem about them.

A similar story is the tale of Gustave Whitehead, who built and flew an airplane two years before the Wright brothers. Yet Whitehead didn't seek out media attention, and despite receiving a few articles about him, has faded from memory and the Wright brothers are credited with the first flight. Part of this is attributed to the fact that Whitehead was a German immigrant and as the World War approached, nobody wanted to credit him with the achievement over two American-born men. It also appears that the Wright brothers touted themselves as the first, even though they visited with Whitehead and saw one of his flights!

One of the other stories that stuck out was about a massive fire in Peshtigo, WI. Everyone's heard of the Chicago Fire, but few have heard of Pestigo even though it was much more destructive. Over 1.5 million acres burned and at least 1,200 people died, although many think it was probably nearly twice that. Whole families died trying to flee. People had to try to make it to the river and just stay there for hours until the fired died out. The excerpts from some of the first-hand accounts were horrific.

Finally, a man decided to start building a subway in NYC in the 1860s - secretly, at night! He knew the leaders at Tammany Hall wouldn't go for it, so he got approval to build a mail carrying system. Instead, he secretly began building the subway. By the time he was caught, he had nearly completed the first phase. He was allowed to finish that part and riders were able to use it temporarily, until the corrupt government and an economic slump that cut off private funding and it was shut down. It wasn't until about 25 years later that there was a terrible blizzard and many people died trying to travel in the city. They decided to build a subway at that point, which opened in the early twentieth century.

These are just a few of the interesting stories found in the book. I really enjoyed the book overall, but I will admit there were a few less interesting chapters and something about the writing overall didn't really grab me, but it was easy to skim through the stories that weren't of as much interest to me and I liked the knowledge I gained overall, so I still recommend it. It was definetly one of those books that made me stop and read out random facts to my husband while he was trying to play video games!

Bird by Bird - Writing Advice

I recently went to a Ragan Communications/Great Place to Work conference and attended a story telling workshop while I was there. Although the conference was work focused, the speaker in this workshop had experience both in internal communications at Microsoft and as a young adult novelist, and her session focused on writing in general. It was nice to get to attend something that gave me great advice for work writing but also for novel writing, since I'm trying to finally finish writing a full novel. During her session, she mentioned a few writing books that she recommends, and one of those was Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.

I honestly think Bird by Bird is the best book on writing I've read. Too many writing books are sadly dull and boring, not exactly great selling points for the advice they're trying to give. Many of the writing books I've read tend to give an example of what another writer wrote and then they analyze it. While that can be helpful, it usually comes across as very technical and doesn't make for good writing in and of itself.

What Lamott does differently is tell stories. She sprinkles stories of her own writing experience and gives his examples of what she means through these stories. Her stories are all interesting and memorable, making them much more effective for sharing her writing advice. A lot of her advice is the same thing every writing book focuses on - write every day, just get a first draft down and then revise like crazy, have someone review your work, etc. What makes her different is that she's effective at convincing you that you do need to actually do these things. You are not the exception; you are not special. Sorry. She also provides a lot of advice about more technical aspects, such as character development and plot structure, but she shares examples of writing prompts she gives her classes and uses those to show you how to do this instead of just telling you, following the most important writing rule of all - show, don't tell.

Lamott also offers realistic advice on publishing. She talks about how in every workshop or class she teaches, everyone just wants to know about being published and thinks they will become rich and happy once they are published. She quickly dispels these beliefs. She emphasizes that you should focus on writing, not on being published, as that will make your writing better. Then, you really must get an agent. Finally, if you finally do get published, it might be for a a hill of a beans, you may have to deal with bad reviews, bad reviews in your local paper that everyone you know reads, or worse, no reviews or attention at all.

I'm not usually a big quote person, but there were many great quotes in this book. One that I particularly enjoyed was "You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do," Anne's prist friend Tom.

"Nothing is important as a likeable narrator. Nothing holds a story together better," Ethan Canin. I liked this one, partly because whether or not characters need to be likeable tends to get discussed quite a bit by book bloggers. I like this answer. Lamott explains that you don't have to want to hang out with them, but they do have to be likeable in some way.

"Characters should not, conversely, serve as pawns for some plot you've dreamed up. Any plot you impose on your characters will be onomatopoetic: PLOT." I think this is why I prefer literary fiction to genre fiction most of the time. I don't usually like it when characters exist only to carry the plot forward

"Faulkner's books work because they focus on character - they are compelling." Again, she really drives home the importance of character, and has some writing exercises to help you learn more about your characters and further develop them.

If you're looking for ways to improve your writing, I definitely recommend this one. I'm now interested in reading some of her novels, although since I don't own any of them I guess I'll be waiting until April for that, once the TBR Double Dare is finished. I'd be interested in learning the best writing advice others have ever received if anyone wants to share!

How to Read a Novel

Not quite sure why I picked up a book called How to Read a Novel when I haven't even had time to read lately, but I did. The new job is going well, but I've got a longer commute I'm adjusting to and I'm simultaneously trying to start a new marketing focused blog and co-launch a leadership blog and write a book. And my high school reunion was last night. So it's been a little crazy, and I've clearly lost my mind. I think it's because I have so much more energy since quitting my old job and so I'm going crazy starting new projects but not actually finishing anything. I've even started a half dozen new books instead of finishing the ones I was already reading. Being able to walk to the library on my lunch break isn't helping in that area either. I can walk to our large downtown library and browse and read. Unfortunately I've been doing too much browsing and not enough reading.
One book I did manage to finish this week is How to Read a Novel by John Sutherland. I did enjoy this book, but let me tell you, the title is all wrong. It should be How to Buy a Novel or How to Try to Select Novels or something. Since I flipped through it before checking it out at the library I knew what I was getting, but I can see that being off putting to people if you didn't look inside a little more closely.
Sutherland gives suggestions on what to look for in a novel when you're browsing so you can decide if it's worth devoting your limited reading time too. My favorite tip was to turn to page 69 and read it and if you like it, you'll probably like the whole book. People tend to bring their A game to page 1, and by page 69 they've probably burned out if they're going to or hit their stride.
I'll be honest, most of the rest of the advice was kind of not helpful. He mainly said that you can't really trust anything - not the flap, certainly not the quotes, not reviews, not best seller lists. So, to be honest, I didn't really feel like this book was overly helpful in doing what it was supposed to do - tell me how to select novels I'll enjoy reading. And he seems rather anti-Harry Potter so I hold that against him.
However, I liked the book. Sutherland was at his best when he just rambled about books. He packed in a ton of examples of various books, and I enjoyed reading those portions, getting his take on different things. It made me think I would enjoy reading his book reviews. I think that's really where he is strength is. And I was quite happy to note that his one book he would take to a deserted island (excluding the Bible or Shakespeare) would be Vanity Fair. That's one of my all-time favorite books! I was a little surprised because his book tastes seem to run to the more recent, uber-literary types, so I was excited about his choice and explanation.
I found it interesting that during one of his ramblings, he said he thinks all fiction readers fall into one of two camps: you like either Thackeray or Dickens. He admits you can like both (which I indeed do) but that you'll tend to read books that are more like one or the other. He said Thackeray is more conversational, as though the author is telling you a story. Dickens is more theatrical, where you sit and watch the action unfold. That probably does explain why I do prefer Thackeray, and thinking about it, I do prefer books that are more conversational, like the author is sitting next to you telling a story. Swift does this, and Picoult, and Austen, and the Brontes. Those are some of my favorite authors. The Great Gatsby. I like narrators. With Dickens, you feel a little removed from the story. It's more like watching a play/TV show/movie. That may be why a lot of people don't enjoy him as much these days. I felt that way about the works I've read (which isn't much!) of Faulkner and Woolf.
Well, I feel like this blog post was rather a nice tribute to Sutherland since it rather rambles on as well. I'm not sure if this post is helpful in determining if you'll like this book or not. Maybe if you liked the post you'll like the book and vice versa. Regardless, I hope you find great books to read this week! And let me know what you think about the Dickens vs. Thackeray issue. I'm interested to know what you think!

How Reading Changed My Life

How Reading Changed My Life is a collection of essays by Anna Quindlen, one of my favorite contemporary writers. I love reading about other people reading, so I jumped at the chance to read this book. I enjoyed all of the essays and seeing similarities between myself and someone I admire. If you enjoy reading about other readers and fell in love with Francie Nolan because she loves the library and makes plans to read through the whole thing alphabetically, this book’s for you. (Quindlen wrote an introduction to a recent edition of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the wonderful book featuring Francie, which is one of my all-time favorite books and made me like Quindlen all the more.)

This book made me think about my own experience with reading. My first memories are of learning to read (although my very first memory is of me jumping of the counter and splitting my chin on a metal Carebears trash can). I remember realizing that the black marks on the pages meant something, that they were telling my mom what to say. And so since I wanted to be independent even at three, I begged my mom to teach me how to understand them. She thought it would be fun to teach me a little bit of the alphabet, expecting to get to about D and give up for the day, but I learned the entire alphabet that day. And then immediately began putting the new information into practice with Dr. Suess and a few other simple picture books. And I’ve never looked back! (And if you’re a mom reading this and you’re a bit jealous of my mom, don’t worry, she got major payback from my brother. And he still turned out just fine despite learning to read much later and never learning to enjoy it.)

I, on the other hand, can’t really remember not loving to read. In first grade when we had a reading contest, I won by hundreds of books. We got Easter eggs to put on the wall for every book we read, and the poor teacher could barely keep up with me. I read twice as many books as the rest of the class combined. Fortunately for me and my social standing for the rest of my schooling, when teased about my nerdiness I was rather quick with my fist and good at insulting people. This saved me from really getting slapped with the nerd label. Ironically, it was that mouth and stubborn streak that caused a huge a fight with a friend later on in elementary school that left me turning to books for comfort, befriending all of the girls in the Baby-Sitters Club series. And they stuck with me much longer the friend who I eventually made up with.

The first really literary book I read that wasn’t some sort of abridged kid’s version of Huck Finn was Wuthering Heights. Their moodiness struck a chord with me in junior high and introduced me to a whole new world of books: classics and books that don’t end with happily ever after. And I still love to read books that my mom always deems depressing. But they allow me to feel something I may not otherwise (hopefully never in some cases) feel. They teach us how different people react to things, guiding us in how we react when faced with something similar. They allow us to travel the world, experience other cultures, and try new things from the comfort of our arm chairs. Quindlen makes a similar comment in the book, and notes that actually traveling this way is many times preferable to actual travel. I think that’s one of the reasons why I wasn’t too disappointed when we decided to postpone our trip to London that we were supposed to take at the end of last year. With the crazy economy and uncertainty and layoffs happening at work, we decided it would be better to get a refund and have that cash on hand in case something happened on go later. A part of me was actually relieved because I’m afraid that the real London can’t possibly hold a candle to the one in my head. Especially since the one in my head is fairly Victorian only with a better sewage and trash system and air conditioning. Modern London, with teenagers in jeans with iPhones and business people hurrying to their next meeting, isn’t what I’m envisioning. I’ll still go someday, probably sooner than later, but until then I’ll always have my books.

NYC Reading

My huge work event and trip to Scranton, PA, and NYC is now over! We hosted the big work-related event in Scranton (our office there won a contest, and we connected the event to The Office and had one of the actors from the show be the emcee), and then I attended a conference in NYC. Thus I'm a bit behind in my reading and blogging. And less important things like laundry, grocery shopping, and house cleaning. I did do some reading while I was away and decided to do a summary post. I also need to write posts of a few books I finished before I left, but I decided to start with the summary to hopefully help get back in thr groove, and to feel like I'm less behind.



That's my husband Ryan and me in Central Park. He flew up and joined me over the weekend. Since we were traveling to NYC, I did some NYC-related reading. I started off by re-reading Shopaholic Takes Manhattan by Sophie Kinsella. I figured it would have some good shopping suggestions. I should have remembered that it is written by a Londoner, not a New Yorker though, and so the NYC descriptions were actually very negligible. Oh well. It did get me prepared for walking down Fifth Avenue and it was a nice read while I was still in Scranton and was exhausted from work. I do find the whole Shopaholic series fun, light, and enjoyable though.


Next it was on to re-reading The Cricket in Times Square, hence the photo of Times Square. The Crowne Plaza you can see on the front right of the photo is where we stayed. Pretty nice! I enjoyed this re-read, although I have to say I don't love this book for itself. The reason I read it the first time was because it was Charlotte Johanssen's favorite book, and she was the favorite charge of my favorite baby-sitter in the Baby-Sitters Club books. And Stacey McGill was my main reason for wanting to see NYC at all. That should probably be really sad for a 28-year-old, but I'm actually a bit proud of my still all-encompassing love for the BSC. I made a point to go to Bloomie's and eat at the Hard Rock for Stacey.



Next comes a triumvirate of NYC travel guides: Lonely Planet - NYC Guide, National Geographic New York, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to NYC. If you know surprising very little about NYC, The Complete Idiot's Guide to NYC is a great place to start. It always confused me how there's NYC, but then the buroughs, and this explained simple things like that for me. It also had a good overview on how the streets run and highlights of NYC. Then it talked more about planning a trip rather than what to do when you get there. This is more of a read before you go, check it out from the library kind of book.

Next up was Lonely Planet - NYC Guide, which I think was the best of the three overall. It expects you to already of a bit of a basic understanding of NYC, which I know did from the other book. It had great maps, and I was able to basically memorize the map of Manhattan and didn't need to carry this around with me and look like a tourist, which was nice (although I'm sure I looked like a tourist in other ways, my lack of skinny jeans, which seemed to be part of some dress code, being the first clue). It has a TON of stuff packed into this book, with lots of info about the boroughs outside of Manhattan, which tended to get overlooked a bit in the other two. But, the informatio on each item was very short, just 1-2 sentences, so you had to look elsewhere if you saw something you weren't sure about.

Finally, the National Geographic New York book had a lot more details. It would have 1-2 pages about an entry, and had a lot of glossy photos. But, it doesn't cover as much as the Lonely Planet since it goes into more depth on each item. But, the sight-seeing portion of my trip was rather short, so this hit most of what I wanted to see anyway, and worked well for me. It would probably be a good book if you're thinking about a trip to NYC but aren't sure yet, and the Lonely Planet book is a better guide for planning out iternaries.

And finally, while I was in NYC I couldn't resist a trip to The Strand, home of 18 miles of books, a pretty impressive feat in Manhattan. I picked up The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar. The cover looked fun and the story, about a group of Scottish fairies who come to NYC, sounded intriguing. However, I should have paid more attention to the fact that the introduction was by Neil Gaiman, whose The Graveyard Book just disappointed me. And this book followed suit. It was a bit vulgar in unnecessary ways, like a brother and sister fairy having sex because that doesn't matter to fairies, and a phone sex infomercial constantly playing in the background. Those elements were distracting. I also felt like the writing was very strong, and I got a bit bored with the story. I'm glad a picked up two NYC-themed books there so I can keep the other one as a souvenier and sell this one to Half Price Books. However, since I clearly missed the appeal of Gaiman (although I could at least recognize his lyrical writing style), if you're a fan of his you might enjoy this book.

What about you? Do you have any travel guides you prefer? What book related stories do you like about NYC?

100 Worst Bosses

So, I have been a wee bit neglectful of this dear old blog lately. This is not due to a lack of wanting to blog, but from an I've been spending way too much time at work lately and the last thing I want to do is get on the computer when I get home kind of thing. Work is going well, and I actually just had two people moved onto my team and had my role expanded, which I'm excited about, but I've been a little stressed as a result.

Also, we have a huge campaign that I'm managing at work right now and I've been frantically trying to answer phone calls and e-mails about it all day while trying to actually do the work of planning and implementing the thing! As part of the campaign, we're having a simulcast that will have over 230 event sites participating throughout the U.S. and Canada on May 5. I'm planning the content and marketing of the event, which could have 14,000 attendees. So I'm going a bit crazy at work right now.

This does have something to do with a book, and I'm getting to that. Last year, best-selling author Jim Stovall contacted my company to partner with him in writing his next book. Jim wrote The Ultimate Gift, which was made into a movie starring James Gardner and Abigail Breslin. He was working on a book called 100 Worst Bosses and wanted to work with my company to gather stories for the book. (Not because we have a lot of bad bosses at my company. :) I work for a staffing company, and we put over 350,000 people to work each year, so we have a lot of people to ask for stories about bad bosses they've had over the years.) So last year I led a campaign to collect those stories, and then we ended up with the book this year. And I got to be the ghostwriter on the foreword of the book for our CEO, which is fun. Jim will be speaking as part of the simulcast, and the whole thing is centered around some of the content of the book.

You can check out our website for the campaign at MyLeadershipInstinct.com. There are some really funny videos we created as part of the campaign that you can view on the site, and a quiz to determine your leadership instinct. Two of the videos will air on Fox News, CNN, CBC News (in Canada), Comedy Central (during the Daily Show), and Fox (during Fox News Sunday)! It's kind of crazy that I came up with an idea that's going to end up airing on national television.

So you can see why I'm a bit behind on my blogging. And why I'm not quite on track with my reading goals for the year. I'm hoping to catch up on blogging this weekend since I have finished several good books recently and to catch up on my reading during the 24-hour readathon, although I don't plan on reading the full 24 hours. I get real grumpy if I don't get enough sleep.



As for the 100 Worst Bosses, even if business books aren't your thing, it's a really great book. The stories are horrifying! You will be thankful for your boss after reading it. Unless your boss has ever thrown a stapler at you or pulled a gun on you. Or is completely wasted by noon every day. Then you might just get a little motivation to leave already! And if you've ever had a bad co-worker or employee, you can submit your story to WorstEmployees.com and get a chance to see your story in his next book and win an autographed book! And if you want more of an actual book review of the 100 Worst Bosses, you can check out the blog post on my company's leadership blog.

Oh, and for any Office fans out there, we got Andy Buckley, who plays David Wallace, Michael's ex-boss, to emcee our event! I have his cell phone number! And no you cannot have it. :) Isn't that crazy? I'm going to have to actually buck up and watch the show before the event since I'll meet him.

Enchanted

After reading High Society by Donald Spoto and loving it, I picked up Enchantment by him at the library. Enchantment is a biography of Audrey Hepburn, my favorite actress. Since I like Hepburn even more than I like Grace Kelly and I enjoyed Spoto's work, I expected to love Enchantment. But I didn't. Maybe I set it up for failure by expecting too much, or maybe I just lost interest because I was already familiar with Hepburn's life.
My now husband, then boyfriend bought me a book on Hepburn for my birthday the first year we were dating. It's full of beautiful photos and her basic life story. Since it was more about photos, I expected to find out more information from Spoto's book, but I don't feel like I learned much new information, and most of what was new to me was negative. I knew Hepburn had relationships with a few costars such as William Holden, but the book was rather full of affairs and failed relationships. Those were discussed in a rather unflattering manner. I felt like Spoto put Grace Kelly up on a pedestal and tried to knock Hepburn down a bit.
I did enjoy the first few chapters about her childhood. I knew she had suffered as a child during WWII, but this gave many more details than my glossy coffee table book did.
I surprisingly didn't enjoy reading about her movies as much. I think Spoto focused too much on some of the details around the movies that had nothing to do with Audrey to the point where my mind would wander and I would lose interest. I like getting a bit of behind the scenes info, but I felt like he just got off track a few too many times.
I am glad he praised my all-time favorite Hepburn movie, Paris When It Sizzles. It's hilarious, and it's the movie that made me fall in love with her. It doesn't get much press, and when it does it seems like people don't get that it's supposed to campy. She's wonderfully funny in the movie and encourage you to check it out if you haven't seen it.
But for this book, I think there are probably better biographies of Hepburn out there. Spoto has written a ton of old Hollywood biographies, and I will still pick up some of his about people he likes more, such as Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock came up frequently in both the Spoto books I read and you can tell Spoto worships him, so I think that would be a stronger book, as well as his biography of Marilyn Monroe. So, I still plan to pick those up some day.

Shakespeare Wrote for Money

Shakespeare Wrote for Money made me fall a little bit in love with Nick Hornby. I knew nothing about him before reading this, but for some reason I had the impression he would be rather pretentious and literary in an annoying way, like he's trying to hard. Instead, I loved it! He wasn't like that at all. This is actually what I thought I would feel about Ex Libris, which is I was really looking forward reading, and I almost took this back to the library unread. I am so glad I didn't!
Shakespeare Wrote for Money is a collection of essays from Hornby's Stuff I'm Reading column in Believer magazine. Hornby is not at all stuck up and was actually quite funny and entertaining. And he likes books that are also entertaining. They may also be literary, but he prefers the non-boring books. My favorite part of the book was when he talks about the Alex Awards, which are awarded to the top 10 books each year that were written for adults but that would appeal to young adults. In Hornby's words, they are therefore not-boring books. And shouldn't everyone want to read those? Then he rattled off some titles of his own favorite not-boring books, and he included I Capture the Castle, one of my all-time favorites.
I also enjoyed the first essay, where he talks about his desire to move to Oxford, MS, and sit on a veranda and walk to Faulkner's house. My advisor for my undergrad degree specialized in Faulkner and studied at Ole Miss, so with that and the picture of this Londoner wanting to move to Mississippi was quite funny.
The good and not-so-good part of this book was that I kept adding more and more books to my want-to-read list, which is already stuffed full at the moment. And I want to read them all RIGHT NOW. I think that's why I tend to read so many books at once, because I want to eat them all up and make sure I don't miss one and it makes me feel like I'm making more progress.
Hornby mentions a friend of his who takes a few days between finishing books to let the book sink in. I was immediately horrified - think of all the wasted time! Apparently Hornby agrees: "Those of us who read neurotically, however - to ward off boredom, and the fear of our own ignorance, and our impending deaths - can't afford the time."
I think that explains my need to read so many books at once - what if I need that random fact on page 34 of the book about the Tolkien tomorrow, and I make myself finish The Lacuna first? What if I die tomorrow without having read a word of Hilary Mantel? Shouldn't I at least start Wolf Hall so I have at least read a little bit? What if there's something better out there than the book I'm reading right now and I miss it because I'm struggling through this one? And so I end up reading 10 books at once. I have done a much better job of this so far this year though. Until last week I was limiting myself to two at once, but I couldn't seem to focus last week and kept hopping around. It's mainly non-fiction so it's not a big deal, but I'm still trying to not let myself reach double digits. It got so out of control at one point last year that I stopped to count how many books I was currently reading (and had read something of in the last six weeks) and once I reached 20 I stopped counting. I made myself sit down and go through one at a time to finish them all quickly and get that calmed down a bit. Since I finished Shakespeare Wrote for Money this morning, I'm only in the middle of three right now - Plum Bun, Enchanted (about Audrey Hepburn), and Orlando. Oh. And Inventing English. So four. I guess I got up to five yesterday, but I'm finishing Plum Bun tonight so I can review it tomorrow for the Classics Circuit and then I'll be back down to three.
Anyway, I adored Shakespeare Wrote for Money and look forward to reading many of the books he discussed and more Hornby.

Ex Libris

I expected to love Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman. I think that I assumed that since she loves reading enough to write a book about it, I would feel an immediate affinity with her. But I just didn't connect with her. Something about her writing made me feel like I was being held at arm's length.
I did enjoy a few things, for example, when she talks about people who treat books as precious objects never to be marred in any way (courtly lovers) versus people who physically love their books, making notes in them, leaving them on pause by placing them open, face-down until you return (carnal lovers), I am like her and am a carnal book lover. Spines, in the case of books, are meant to be broken. You can tell my favorite paperbacks by their well worn spines. And until recently I never used real bookmarks. I'd leave the book open or grab whatever was at hand, usually a tissue, a scrap of paper, a pen, another book.
I also enjoyed how she talked about owning books, and was good at creating images of houses overflowing with books. That's how I want my house to be.
I also appreciated having a book of essays to read this week. I've been slammed at work, preparing for my company's annual conference in two weeks and shooting four commercials on top of my regular duties. I've been too drained to concentrate on much at a time at home because my mind keeps flickering to all I need to do. I'm hoping to spend the day reading tomorrow to help relax and be refreshed.
But despite this, I found myself skimming some of the essays and feeling disconnected.

Maybe Baby

I'm wading through To the Lighthouse (which I am not enjoying) and Drood (which I am enjoying, I just can't read for very long for some reason) right now, and am having trouble making much progress in either one at the moment, despite the snow today we're having in Oklahoma today. I can't believe we've had two snow/ice storms this winter. I can only remember having snow days two, maybe three times in the entire time I was in school, and school has been cancelled several times this year. Global warming my ass.
So, I decided to try reading some of the books I have checked out from library and am supposed to return this weekend, if the library doesn't stay closed. First up, Maybe Baby, a collection of personal essays about their choices to have or not have children.
I randomly saw this book on Amazon, and decided to pick it up at the library. As a 28-year-old in a southern/midwestern state where most people start popping out babies right after they get married, the issue of whether to have kids comes up a lot. And most people assume that I will have kids, and if I'm meeting them for the first time they assume I already have them. And I've noticed that for most people, having kids doesn't seem to be a choice - it's just something you do once you get married, or occasionally accidentally before hand.
But for me, it is a choice. One that I don't understand how people don't agonize over more. I often wonder how people decide to have kids, and it's just recently that I've realized that they aren't making the choice if they will have kids, but when. Not so for me. And I realized, that it's only been recently in history that we've actually had that choice. Not long ago, not having sex was pretty much the only way to avoid it, and for married couples you just started having babies. But I don't have to go that direction if I decide not to. And right now, I'm leaning heavily to the not wanting to side. But part of me wonders if I'll regret when I'm too old to biologically have a child, or when I disappoint my parents for depriving them of becoming grandparents, or when I grow old alone (based on the statistics that men typically die younger than women). But I simply can't imagine being pregnant, or giving birth, or raising a child. I've never held a baby. I get panic attacks just thinking about it. I'm not really fond of children. I like being in control. I like being free. I don't want to have something tying me down. I want to live life on my terms.
But this type of thinking typically gets you evil looks, with people thinking you're selfish and that you just don't understand how wonderful parenthood is, and that I'll change my mind and have them and then I'll get it. And maybe I will. I still have time. But right now, I don't want them. And I just wanted someone to understand that.
And that's part of what this book does. The first essay in the book was the one I identified with the most. She's happily married, and loves her husband and her life so much that she doesn't want to mess with that. She doesn't want to share her husband. She doesn't want to do little more than share a house with him for several years while they devote themselves to a baby. And then oddly, my second favorite essay was actually from one of the mothers. Even though she decided to have kids, she talked a lot about why that decision isn't for everyone and that's okay. She says it's not rational to have children. It's an emotional decision, based on guts and feelings. And that's a big part of my problem - I only look at the situation rationally, and from that perspective I can't understand why someone would have them. I don't have a biological clock ticking inside me. I don't see babies and want to hold them and have one. I see them and freak out, and praise the Lord that that's not me. I cringe when I see pregnant women, terrified for them. I don't think I can ever be brave enough to handle that.
Anyway, that was a lot more personal info than I normally share, but it's a personal book. I guess this is sort of my own personal essay on the topic, rather than actual review of the book. If you're weighing this decision though, or no someone who is, this is a great book to look into. The essays are all well written and entertaining on their own as well, and some would probably be good to read if you're in the stages of parenthood where you're trying to remember why the hell you had them in the first place. :) It actually tends a little more to that side of things actually, to having them over not having them, but for me it was nice to simply read about it being a decision, not a given.

Modern Fiction

My reading of Mrs. Dalloway and my plan to continue with the Woolf in Winter read-a-long inspired me to look up Ms. Woolf in my trusty Norton anthology. I read the introduction and overview, and then read her essay Modern Fiction. In it, she explains her thoughts on, obviously, modern fiction. She talks about her writing style and the progress of writing fiction. In what written in 1925, the same year as Mrs. Dalloway. I don't normally post quotes, because I'm not really a quote person for some reason, but there were a few passages I found especially interesting.

"Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impressions - trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel." That's a perfect little summary of what she does in Mrs. Dalloway.

"[I]f he could write what he chose, not what he must, if he could base his work upon his own feeling and not upon convention, there would be no plot, no comedy, no tragedy, no lover interest or catastrophe in the accepted style...Is it not the task of the novelist to convey this varying, this unknown and uncircumscribed spirit, whatever aberration or complexity it may display, with as little mixture of the alien and external as possible?" Again, she gives a good description of what she's trying to do with Mrs. Dalloway, and what I have heard she goes even further with in To the Lighthouse. Mrs. Dalloway doesn't have a plot in the traditional sense, and Woolf does convey the story through a series of thoughts, allowing us to judge and connect with the characters based on their thoughts, instead of their actions alone. I think that's part of why there are such strong reactions on both ends of the spectrum for the various characters. You are in their heads, you know their thoughts, so that helps you understand why someone does something you don't like, and you can justify liking someone whose actions you don't care for because you know where they are coming from. Conversely, a character might not do anything you don't like, but you may not like them from their thoughts.

"Mr. Joyce is spiritual; he is concerned at all costs to reveal the flickerings of that innermost flame which flashes its messages through the brain, and in order to preserve it he disregards with complete courage whatever seems to him adventitious, whether it be probability, or coherence, or any other of these signposts which for generations have served to support the imagination of a reader when called upon to imagine what he can neither touch nor see." Well, that explains why Joyce is difficult to read! I've read The Portrait of the Artist as a Young man twice, once in high school where I hated it and once in college. The first time, it was the first modernist piece of literature I had read. The lack of "signposts" challenged me greatly, and I couldn't understand why someone would write that way. The second time around, my college professor did a much better job of setting up modernism and as I already knew what to expect and was a more experienced reader, I actually ended up enjoying it. I plan to attempt Ulysses at some point, but haven't been brave enough yet. It's funny that Woolf mentions having read Portrait, and that his latest work, Ulysses, "promises to be a far more interesting work."

"'The proper stuff of fiction' does not exist; everything is the proper stuff of fiction, every feeling, every thought; every quality of brain and spirit is drawn upon; no perception comes amiss." I am glad that I read Mrs. Dalloway for the first time after having come to accept this, because I think that allowed me to enjoy it more. It also made me more likely to read other modernists, because it gave me a focal point other than Joyce and Nathanael West (who I'm not sure is technically a modernist).

Biblioholism

If you love books, and have ever been accused of owning too many, Biblioholism by Tom Raabe is for you. Although it's a little uneven, I really the good parts were worth it.
Why I say it's uneven is because I loved the first five chapters, but then lost interest in the next several. Then it picks up again around chapter 10. So, it's two-thirds awesome, which is still pretty good. And it's easy to just skim the middle if you'd like.
Now for the good stuff. I am definitely a book collector. Not in a rare book kind of way, but in a lots and lots of books kind of way. I completely identified with the book. I have a tendency to come out of bookstores with more books than I can carry. I wonder why book stores don't have shopping carts. I attend library book sales with multiple bags to stuff full. I have an entire room devoted to books, my own personal library. And shelves in other rooms too. Yeah, it's bad. I've even done the whole accidentally buy a second copy of a book you already own thing. I ignore household chores in favor of reading. I have books strewn all over the house, in every room. I have the tell-tell head tilt to the right symptom. That cracked me up because I've had people point out that I do that frequently, and the book says that because we spend so much time browsing books and have to tilt it to the right to read the spines better.
I also thought the part about reading while traveling was funny. I always travel with multiple books. Even if I'm just going away for a few days. For a four-day trip, I often take six books. The book said it takes most people a couple of hours to pack their clothes, and minutes to throw in a couple of books. It takes biblioholics a few minutes to throw in clothes and several hours to pack books! That's totally me. And I even try to trick myself. I'll promise myself that I'll only pack three books, but then an hour or so later, I sneak in another one that doesn't really count because it's a book for work. And then another because I might be really tired at night and just want a romance novel. And then I think about what if my first flight gets delayed and I end up missing my second flight and have to hang out in the airport forever. So I sneak another one in to a side pocket just in case. I'm not sure why I always end up doing it that way, but I do. And sadly I pack that many books even when I just take a carry on, which I usually try to do. My coworkers all stand in amazement and awe of me for my mad packing skills. Although they think I'm slightly insane for packing so many books.
So, in the end, it was nice to read about someone as crazy about books as me. But, I'm glad I got this from the library since it was a little uneven, so I'm glad I I'm trying to cure my book buying habit with library usage!

Pictures of my bookshelves:

The Well-Educated Mind

I've noticed that quite a few bloggers are talking about reading deliberately is one of their goals for this year. When I started Mrs. Dalloway, I was rushing through it and realized I seemed to be missing something, and decided to refresh my memory about modernism and stream of consciousness to see if that helped me read below the surface a bit. When I did, one of the books I pulled all my shelf was The Well-Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer. I realized this is a great book for anyone wanting to read more deliberately.
Bauer is a professor at the College of William and Mary, homeschools her kids, and writes a ton of books. She's writing a whole history of the world series, the latest book of which I'll review in a few weeks. She's insanely smart. Anyway, this book focuses on how to read different types of works - novel, history/political, poetry, drama, and autobiography/memoir. She has tips on questions to ask yourself, things to look for, and journaling. She has very specific steps for each type of work. Plus, it has background info on each genre, and information on reading in general. The end of the book has an annotated bibliography, with suggestions for the best edition of the work. It's a great reference book, and I find myself pulling it out fairly often. So, if you're one of the people who made it a goal to read more deliberately this year, I highly recommend picking up a copy of it!

High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly

Even just knowing the basics about Grace Kelly's life - that she was a movie star who became a princess - you know she had one interesting life. So when I saw High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly by Donald Spoto on display at the library, I had to pick it up.
I don't normally read biographies, although I read a few last year and discovered I enjoy them. The only Grace Kelly movie I've seen is Rear Window, which is wonderful. You can't take your eyes off her when she's onscreen, even though Jimmy Stewart is also wonderful. So, I was excited about learning more about her life, and I wasn't disappointed.
This biography had all of the details I wanted, but not a lot of fluff. It's to the point, and is shorter than a lot of biographies appear to be, at 273 pages. It covers her entire life, although it focuses primarily on her time in Hollywood.
One of the things I was most surprised by was her battle against the movie studio. She had a contract with MGM, but fought them constantly about roles they were trying to force her to do, or not allow her to do, and her salary. Initially, she actually made a lot less than she did as a model, but became a very well paid actress by the end, compared to other actresses (although not well paid when compared to the actors she was working with). She seems like a very strong, determined woman who knew what she want and didn't want the studio controlling her. There's actually a lot of information in the book about how the studios worked back then, which I also found interesting. They were really in complete control of the actors, even dictating marriages and what they could wear off the set. Grace usually managed to get her way though, which is quite impressive. Spoto has written numerous old Hollywood biographies, and he seems to have a very good grasp on how everything worked back then, and he knew Grace personally, along with others who he interviewed about her, so his story seems very believable and accurate.
I also enjoyed reading about her relationship with Prince Ranier. They met as part of a ploy by the magazines to get stories and photos to sell of the Cannes film festival in 1955. They had just a 30-minute conversation, but that led to a seven-month letter writing relationship. They fell in love through these letters, then he came to the states to propose. How romantic is that? And very not Hollywood, even in those days. She then left everything here to go to Monaco and be a princess, which isn't as easy as it sounds. She had to adjust to living in a foreign country where she didn't speak the language and was viewed as an outsider. Most citizens didn't feel like a Hollywood actress was appropriate for a princess, and she didn't like many of the traditions they had, such as all women who came to visit her having to wear a hat, which she promptly changed.
I highly recommend this book if you like biographies, this period of history in Hollywood, or if you're just interested in a quick read about an interesting woman. It made me want to go watch her other movies right away, along with some of Spoto's other books.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers

I really enjoy the Politically Incorrect Guide series. Unlike a lot of nonfiction books, they do a good job of breaking up the copy with section headers and sidebars. Most nonfiction books have really long chapters with no sort of breaks, and while that doesn't bug me in fiction, I can usually only read a little nonfiction at a time.
The PIG Guide to the Founding Fathers is, obviously, about about the founding fathers. Since little about most of the founding fathers is actually taught in schools these days, most people don't really know that much about even the biggest of them, and no nothing about many of the less prominent founders. This book starts with a good foundation of the myths currently told about the founders, the issues they focused on, and the revolution. Then it goes into mini-biographies of the "big 6" founders and 14 other founders.
Despite feeling like I knew a fairly decent amount of about the founders, I learned a lot, especially about the 14 other founders. I had never even heard of some of them, and yet they played large roles in the creation of my country. Some of them, like John Hancock, I had obviously heard of, but other than his famous signature I didn't know anything about him. Apparently he almost single-handedly financed the revolution. When Paul Revere made his midnight ride, he was going to warn Hancock and Patrick Henry specifically because the British were coming after them. The British believed that capturing just those two men would stop the revolution by removing their source of funding and their greatest orator. That's pretty impressive.
So historically, I highly recommend this book as a great foundation of the time. Another reason I like the PIG series is they recommend other books throughout the book, so now I have a great list of biographies of all of the founders and other books.
The other part I enjoyed about this book was that it focused heavily on the founders belief in states' rights and limited government. What so many people today don't realize is that our federal government was never supposed to be bigger or more important that the state government. Most of the founders wouldn't sign the Constitution without the Bill of Rights, most specifically the 10th amendment that guarantees the states' sovereignty in all things not listed in the Constitution, and that the federal government is limited to only the items listed in the Constitution. They would be appalled that the federal government controls the states now in almost everything. It would work so much better the way the founders wanted it to work. Then, if you had a state that wanted something like gay marriage, that state could make it legal. If a state didn't want it to be legal there, they wouldn't have to. And if a state, like Massachusetts, wants to provide healthcare to everyone, then they can. As long as they follow the laws of their state, then go right ahead. But the federal government has no right to force any state to participate in a healthcare program (or punish those who don't participate) or tell them they have to make gay marriage legal or illegal. That's why I'm a libertarian. Both parties have serious issues with this. Both of them have pushed various issues at the federal level when they shouldn't. Using the two examples I've mentioned, the Democrats are pushing federal healthcare right now, and Republicans have pushed for a national marriage amendment to outlaw gay marriage. Regardless of how I feel about either of those things, both are wrong at the federal level. At the state level it's different.
Sorry to get on a political tangent there, but I just get so frustrated with all of our politicians today, and it was both enjoyable and frustrating to read about a whole book of people I actually agree with. It made me feel like I was born in the wrong time period, except for the whole electricity and indoor plumbing and birth control thing!

The Six Wives of Henry VIII

I normally read Alison Weir's book quickly, but it took me a while to get into The Six Wives of Henry VIII. I think I was just Tudored out. I've read a lot of books about Anne Boleyn over the last two years, watched the Tudors and a bunch of movies, read about Catherine of Aragon. So it took me a while to get through the first part of the book, the part about Catherine and Anne because I wasn't learning anything new. I wanted to finish all of my books I'm in the process of reading before the new year. I'm setting a goal to only read two books at a time next year, so I wanted to wrap up everything I'm in the middle of now.
Once I got the part of the book about Jane Seymour, my interest renewed. I'm really not that familiar with his later wives, so I enjoyed reaading about them and later part of Henry's life. I especially enjoyed reading about Anne of Cleves and Katherine Parr.
Anne of Cleves was his fourth wife, and his luckiest one. He simply divorced her, rather than beheading her or imprisoning her. Henry actually gave her three homes and plenty of money as part of the divorce. Anne was able to live in comfort and freedom for the rest of her life. Henry apparently thought she was ugly and wanted to get rid of her, but she was so amiable and well liked he did it nicely. He had heard of her great beauty and by the time he met her it was too late to back out. Apparently being nice and unattractive comes in handy once in a while. The most beautiful of his wives didn't fare so well.
I liked Katherine Parr because she was considered his most intelligent wife, and one of the most intelligent women of the time. She was Henry's last wife, and she was lucky in that he died before tiring of her. She was a very good stepmother to Mary and Elizabeth, more of a friend to Mary really since they were the same age (although they had a falling out later over religion). Weir notes that two of the finest minds of the time were molded by Katherine - Elizabeth I and Lady Jane Grey. Katherine was also instrumental in making it preferable for women to be educated. She promoted learning and scholarly pursuits in her court.
It's also interesting that out of his six wives, three were named Catherine. Makes it a little easier to remember. And two were named Anne. And his other wife and two daughters rounded out the names available - Jane, Mary and Elizabeth. It seems like pretty much every female had one of those names. And all of the men were Henry, Edward, or James. Makes it a bit confusing. It must be difficult to learn history in England. We Americans just have a few hundred years to learn of our country's history. English schoolkids have to learn 1500 years of history just of their country, with hundreds of people with all of the same names. It must be hard to try to remember if it was Henry the IV or V that did such and such. It just makes it that much sadder that most Americans don't know our own history, when it's not even that much stuff.

Arguing with Idiots

I know most people in the book blogging world probably aren't Glenn Beck fans, but I love the guy. And I loved his Arguing with Idiots too. Glenn is a libertarian, and the book is about exposing big government and trying to get people to go back to wanting small government. It's about personal responsibility and not expecting the government to take care of you. Grow up.
I like that Glenn shows how both Democrats and Republicans are wrong and need to be stopped. He's not just complaining about one party while the other party does the exact same thing, just to a greater or lesser extent than the other. All of his arguments come down to the Constitution - if it's in there then okay, if not, then it's not okay. The Constitution gives the federal government very few rights - so they should not be doing 90% of what they're doing. On the other hand, if a state wants to do something, it can go right ahead as long as they're following their state constitution. For example, the Constitution definitely doesn't give the federal government the right to create a national healthcare program. But if a state wants to screw themselves (like Massachusetts), then go right ahead. It's crazy how involved the government is with every aspect of our lives. It's none of their business where I send my child to school or if I homeschool. It's none of their business if I wear a seatbelt. Or if I buy health insurance. But, I don't expect the government to take care of me if I get in a wreck and am seriously injured because I was stupid and didn't wear a seatbelt. That's on me to fix, not them. I will stop there because this isn't a political blog, it's a book blog, but if you're interested in libertarian beliefs, this is a great book to pick up.
Also, it's a fun book. I liked how the book was laid out. It it very colorful and makes a lot of use out of sideboxes and pictures or illustrations. That made it a much more entertaining read than many nonfiction books are.

British Kings and Queens

Mike Ashley's British Kings and Queens provides a great overview of all of the kings and queens of Britain. I feel like I have a better overall grounding of the subject now, and can better place them in history now. Before, I had read about various monarchs, but not in sequence, so I would often get confused about who went where. There are far too many to remember them all, but this gives me a better chronology at least. It was also neat to follow the genealogy and think about the current royal family descending from all of these other people.
I was also struck by the fact that the two best times in England's history were when Elizabeth and Victoria reigned. I knew that before reading this, but it's really striking when you read about them in conjunction with all of the other ones. Both of them ruled over great empires, the two biggest points in England's history. Both also ruled over a united Britain, which was rare. There was also great literary and scientific movements during both times.
On the other hand, it's surprising how many of the monarchs were somewhat crazy. Maybe that shouldn't really be surprising. They all either were raised to believe they were better than everyone and were coddled and spoiled, or weren't raised expecting to rule and were thrown in to it unexpectedly and didn't know how to handle it. And there's the fact that they married their cousins and once you do that a few times you're bound to get a few crazies.
Since Ashley is British, it was interesting to get his take on George III, the king during the American Revolution. George III was apparently one of the crazies, although they now think that was due to a blood disease, not actual madness. The war is covered pretty quickly since that's not the point of the book, but it renewed my interest in finding a British history book about that time period. I'd love to see how they teach that war in England.
Overall, if you're looking for a great overview of the British monarchs, this is a great choice.