Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

I was extremely excited to read this book based on its title. I was expecting a fun "fish out of water" type memoir. Instead, Rhoda Janzan's book is more serious. Raised as a Mennonite, Janzan had been living a secular life as an academic, married to a atheist. When her troubled marriage abruptly ends (as her husband leaves her for a man he met online and then sinks into depression) and she is seriously injured in a car accident, she returns home to her Mennonite family. Janzan has a clear eye for both her own foibles and those of her parents and siblings. Although the book has moments of humor (describing her cheerfully daffy mother), she also seriously examines why she stayed in such a bad marriage, why she chose to step away from the Mennonite faith and why her brothers did not. The book jumps from topic to topic and could be more clearly organized. Although it's a decent read, the title is still the best part.

Running With Scissors

Augusten Burroughs has had the weirdest life of all time, if half of this memoir is true. (which it may not be as I think he recently settled a defamation lawsuit, part of the terms being he would no longer refer to it as memoir.) Born to a distant alcoholic dad and a manic depressive mother, Augusten lives in his imagination, pretending to be a talk show host and cleaning and polishing things. Then his parents separate and he is sent to live with his mother's therapist and his family who are crazy themselves. The children play with an electroshock set kept under the stairs, the mom eats dog snacks and no one cares about housework or school or the fact that 13 year old Augusten is having sex with the family's other surrogate son, a man in his 20s. The book is shocking, engrossing and darkly humorous. I listened to this on audio, which was great except when ever I had to pay the parking garage attendant the book was always in the middle of something sexual or a string of profanity. Recommended for people who aren't easily shocked.

Lucky

The Lucky Bones, a book club favorite, is Alice Sebold's best known book, but I found this to be more affecting. A memoir of the rape Sebold suffers as a college freshman and the aftermath both short and long term, Lucky is a book the pulls you in until the last page. The title refers to Sebold's being told by a police officer that she was lucky, as another girl had been murdered in a similar attack. Luck is clearly relative, as Sebold's world is turned upside down and her friends and family feel the after effects. She suffers from post traumatic stress and and engages in destructive behavior including drug use and years after the attack is still trying to regain her equilibrium. A moving, well written book and Sebold's strength is inspirational.

Why I'm like this

This book is a collection of essays following Kaplan from childhood to her own experiences as a mother. She is quite funny and covers a number of different topics, from her summer camp experiences to her struggles as an actor/waitress to putting her grandmother, who was suffering from Alzheimer's into a nursing home. Towards the end of the book, where she began writing about her struggles with infertility, the book became a little more clunky, but still a very worthwhile and entertaining read.

The Mango Trees

Sorry, another late post. This memoir covers actress and author Madhur Jaffrey's childhood in India. There is a pleasant wistfulness to the stories of her childhood surrounded by extended family. There is also an emphasis on the many influences on Jaffrey and her family from all elements of Indian society--Hindu, Muslim, and English. But above all, it is about the food from her childhood and the many memories of preparing and eating everything from traditional meals to the treats from street vendors. There are also many family recipes included in the back.

Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress

This memoir is a collection of humorous autobiographical essays loosely arranged in chronological sections--childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. While I enjoyed her high school encounter with Mick Jagger, on the whole, the later sections stood out for me. In particular, I was touched by her experience covering a teenage group trip to the Polish concentration camps for a Jewish newspaper. A cynical non observer, Gilman is forced to put away the jokes and look anew at her heritage. The highlight for me, though, is the title piece. The author is a committed feminist, but when she tries on a wedding dress in a bridal salon she is faced with the contradictions of the princess fantasy wedding and her previously held ideas of a less traditionally gender-proscribed marriage ideal. Although a few pieces are a little too self-absorbed, on the whole, this was a funny, fast read.

Can I Keep My Jersey?

Can it be not recommended day? I tend to feature most of the books I finish reading upon completion. Usually if I make it to the end, there is at least something to recommend it, albeit sometimes with reservations that I usually try to note. It's much easier to profile a book while it's still fresh in my mind and I still remember what it is exactly I liked about it. Or in this case, didn't. I just finished Paul Shirley's memoir of the first four years of his professional basketball career--a career that includes stints (usually very brief) at a few NBA teams as well as ABA, CBA, and European ones. Shirley grew up in small town Kansas and I saw him play in high school once, as well as in college at Iowa State (on TV). Other than him being 6'10'', I don't think many people would have pegged him for a future NBA player. NBA general managers would seemingly agree. There are glimpses of an interesting book here--about the business of professional sports, about the itinerant nature of the not-quite-good-enough player, some musings on athletes and religion (apparently in the NBA, you're more likely to be invited to a Bible study than a strip joint). Unfortunately, those glimpses are too few and too completely focused on Paul Shirley himself. Really, this is the most narcissistic memoir I think I've ever read--you would think during a career in professional athletics and long stints in foreign countries you would bump up against some pretty interesting characters. But, though we are treated to frightening levels of detail concerning a catheter, none of Shirley's fellow players get more than a paragraph or so mention. It doesn't help that the book is told almost exclusively with a self-deprecating, sarcastic humor, which normally I like. But along about the 500th time Shirley says, "I'm such an ass!", I really found myself quite agreeing with him. Despite his small town origins and long odds, Paul Shirley is no "Rudy" like figure. If he possessed any love for the game or competitive desire whatsoever, it does not come across in this book. The book came about from a blog he wrote for the Suns and for ESPN that developed a following and I had read once or twice. Toned down and in much smaller doses, I'd probably like this a lot more. It's worth a glance at a bookstore to read a small section or two, but not very tolerable in large doses.

Paris to the Moon

Sorry this wasn't up yesterday. Paris to the Moon was a book club pick and in the spirit of full disclosure, some people found it boring, but I really enjoyed it. The book is memoir of the years the author, his wife, and preschool age son spent in Paris. The book does not try delve into the lives of the French, but merely recounts how the differences between French and American culture and society effected them. His essay about the crush his son develops on a little girl he meets in the Ritz swimming pool is very memorable as are his misadventures with French electronics, particularly Christmas tree lights. I am not sure why the reviews are so hostile on Amazon, but I disagree with the readers who find him self centered. To me it seemed like he was writing about what he knew, which was his own experience. This book inspired the author of Ella in Europe, who writes about taking his dog to many of the places Gopnik visits in the book.

A Girl Named Zippy

This memoir of growing up poor in small town Indiana in the 60's and 70's is by turns hilarous and heartbreaking. Zippy has terrible health problems and doesn't speak until she is three, and so is a bit of a miracle child. Her parents and older brother and sister love her dearly, but her world is also filled with mean teachers, dangerous situations and a crazy lady across the street. It's told with a child's perspective and is a very quick read. Zippy's story continues in She Got Up Off the Couch.

The Tender Bar

J. R. Moehringer grew up in Manhasset, New York. His mother has big dreams for him while watching her own die repeatedly, forcing her to move in with her miserly parents and other relatives. J. R.'s DJ father left when he was young, leaving him nothing but his voice on the radio. J. R. fills the male void through his uncle Chas, a bartender at Dickens. As J. R. gets older, the bar becomes his second home, too, and more of the male regulars become part of his family. J. R. recalls this formative period in his memoir. The men at the bar share their stories, their wisdom, and their advice as they nurture him through the highs and lows of college, his first love, and his first job. Reading this book felt like pulling up a stool at the bar of Dickens and listening to one guy's life story, complete with asides and commentary from his buddies down the way.

The Road from Coorain

This is one of the books that touched off the memoir craze. Jill Ker Conway grew up on a isolated sheep station in the Australian outback during the 1950's, eventually growing up become the president of Smith college and later MIT. Her family life was less than ideal, in part because as a brilliant and intellectual girl, her family and particularly her mother, had no idea of how handle her. Conway is deeply isolated both on the Coorain, and later in Sydney where she eventually attends school. Beautifully written and a nice corrective to too much 1950's nostalgia. There are two sequels, True North, and A Woman's Education.

My Detachment

This is the second Tracy Kidder book I have blogged about, but I felt it was so different from his other work it was really worth mentioning. My Detachment is a memoir that tells a little of his childhood and college years, but mainly focuses on his year in Vietnam as a Lieutenant in a intelligence unit. He talks about the usual "war" stuff, the interaction of the men in his unit, the genuine fear they all felt a few times (being in the rear boredom was much closer to their daily experience) but most significant is his unflinching criticism of himself. He recounts lies told to his family in letters about the (non-existent) Vietnamese children he was befriending, how he manipulated his childhood sweetheart into dating him again by playing the "I'm going to Vietnam" card, and how he congratulated himself heartily for the things he should do automatically, like treat his men well. In the conclusion, Kidder talks about how he is accused of making the real people he writes about sound too perfect, and how he is so conscious of his own short comings he does not feel comfortable drawing attention to those of others. Very interesting but also very dark.

An American Voter: My Love Affair with Presidential Politics

In my honors US politics class in college, we had to read this, a book about Congress' attempt at tax reform legislation. Yes, it was as boring as it sounds, as I'm sure Shuttsie would confirm. Along with a few naps, I came away with a huge respect for former New Jersey Senator and failed presidential candidate Bill Bradley, though I no longer remember exactly why, other than he was basically the only political figure profiled in the book I ended up liking. When he ran against Gore for the Democratic nomination in 2000, it was the first time I ever closely followed a campaign. Joan Sullivan chronicles her experience working as a volunteer for the Bradley campaign in this memoir. Until signing up to work for Bradley's advance team, she had little interest and experience in politics. After her father's death from cancer, she finds solace in the relentless days on the campaign and a sort of substitute father figure in Bradley. She exposes the insulation of life on the campaign trail, where details like the height of a podium seem so important. While such an experience could easily lead to cynicism, Sullivan ends her experience with her idealism for the political process and for Bradley mostly intact. I was reminded of this memoir now that Bill Bradley is making the round promoting his own book, which I haven't had a chance to look at yet.

Jarhead

Anthony Swofford is bracingly honest in this memoir of "the first Gulf War", as my copy calls it. He talks about all the emotions he passes through as part of a spotter-sniper unit in the Marine Corp, from fearful to bored to stir-crazy. He also is honest about the behavior of the Marines, which like any group run the gamut. He talks about how many Marines (at least the male marines of his acquaintance) cheat wildly on the women at home whenever given the opportunity, and are obsessed with thoughts of the wives and girlfriends cheating on them (sometimes with reason, sometimes not). He talks about the good and bad sides of life as a Marine (don't call them soldiers, they are Marines) and how his father's service during Vietnam shaped his own life and choices. A well written memoir that is better than the movie.

Born on a Blue Day

Daniel Tammet is an autistic savant. He possesses an amazing facility with numbers and languages but encounters difficulties with abstract ideas, communication, and empathy with others. His memoir contains fascinating descriptions about how his brain works. Daniel has synesthesia and therefore experiences some words and especially numbers as colors, shapes, and/or textures. For example, he is able to visually differentiate prime numbers and performs large calculations by fitting one number "shape" with another to form a new shape, or the solution. Tammet was the subject of a documentary "Brainman" that showed some of his abilities, including setting a record by memorizing and reciting pi to its 22,514th digit and learning Icelandic in a week. Partly due to his autism, presumably, some parts of the book are a bit flat and lack emotional resonance and the book does a much better job of conveying Daniel's extraordinary abilities and does a poorer job of detailing his limitations. On the whole, though, this was a fun glimpse into someone else's brain, one that works completely different than my own.

Maus and Maus II

The link above is to the first of these graphic novels by Art Speigelman. I am not a huge graphic novel fan (though I do want to sample some of Angstrat's picks) but these two are amazing. Speigelman depicts his parents. experiences through the holocaust (and some of the aftermath) in cartoon form. The Jews are mice, Germans are cats, Pole ares pigs, French are frogs, Americans are Dogs. This works particularly well in Maus where they are trying to escape being sent to the camps and assume various disguises--the mice wearing pig masks when pretending to be Poles and so on. These novels also explore Speigalman's tortured relationship with his parents and how his father telling him the story of their holocaust experiences changes how he sees him. Speigelman's father, who kept himself and his wife alive in Auschwitz through sheer tenacity is an amazing man, though he can be infuriating to his son. A brilliant portrait of the holocaust and one family's story.

Tender at the Bone

One interesting thing about doing this blog is that looking over our choices, patterns start to develop. Apparently I am completely obsessed with books about cooking and food, because here is yet another food related choice. Tender at the Bone is the first of three excellent memoirs about former New York Times restaurant critic and current Gourmet editor in chief, Ruth Reichl. The book describes her childhood and her early adult years, showing how she came to love not only good food, but the meaning of cooking and serving a particular dish. From a some what privileged background, Reichl learns about food from the various excellent cooks in her life (housekeepers, family, friends) but also learns much from from her mother, who is maniac depressive and prone to serving guests spoiled food. Overall, this is a great memoir of an unusual life, as are the next two volumes, Comfort Me With Apples and Garlic and Sapphires.

The Tummy Trilogy

This book is actually three separate books by Calvin Trillin, --Alice, Let's Eat, Second Helpings, and American Fried-- in one volume. I love Calvin Trillin's books about his family and particularly this volume which focuses on food. Trillin touts the pleasures of barbecue (particularly Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City), good fried chicken joints, and Chinese food authentic as he can find it. He is horrified by the "continental cuisine" that was popular when the books were written (the '70s and '80s) and bland food in general. When his daughter asks him how come the bagels in Kansas City "taste like round bread?", I knew just what she meant. A lot of the book has his wife Alice, playing straight man, limiting him to three meals a day, and suggesting his views on food might be, oh, just a bit extreme. For a corrective of that check out his memoir, About Alice. These are funny and sweet, a good pick me up on a bad day.

Miriam's Kitchen

Miriam's Kitchen by Elizabeth Erlich is another former book club pick. I think I liked it better than most, but then again, observant readers will note I have some sort of "food memoir" obsession. The story weaves together the author's family history, focusing on Jewish identity or lack thereof, with tales of learning to cook various kosher recipes from the author's mother-in-law, Miriam. From the author's perspective embracing her identity as a Jew is about how she chooses to act, ie, keeping kosher as an adult when her family never had before. The book also explains the challenges of a kosher kitchen, such as many sets of dishes and how one goes about "purifying" the dishwasher. It also drives home how, for better or worse, the rules of keeping kosher are resting primarily on women.

Lipstick Jihad

In Azadeh Moaveni's memoir, she details life returning to Iran, the country her parents fled during the Islamic revolution. Moaveni was raised in California but has always felt a tug toward the country of her ancestry. She returns as a journalist for Time hoping to find more about her country and herself. She finds that, just like in America, she doesn't quite fit in. She writes of her experiences moving among the youth of Iran and how they both conform and defy the strictures placed upon them by their religion and government. The presence of the veil is especially important and Moaveni talks of the hypocritical male Muslim officials who insist on the veil while harassing and propositioning young women and practicing "temporary marriage" in order to sleep with them. The increasing fear of outsiders is apparent by the shady figures who follow Moaveni and other journalists to make sure they don't go too far afield in their reporting. Lipstick Jihad is a moving account of a young woman's pull between two cultures.