The Tightwad Gazette

As a rule, I like to save money. However, I am not quite as intense about it as Amy Dacyczyn, the author/editor of the three volumes of the Tightwad Gazette. These books are a font of cheap ideas- essentially three collections of a newsletter sent out over a period of years. They include recipes, articles on such topics as tightwad valentines ( a cherry pie with a heart cut in it, a coupon for a massage), as well as calculations as to how much money things like energy saving light bulbs will save over the course of decade. There are some crazy ideas (magazine holders from cereal boxes) but learning how much per ounce soda (or pop as we say in the mid- west) is from the movie theater, a restaurant, the grocery store and versus good old water is quite an eye opener. Also, the author's viewpoint about "spending for the sake of spending" is a good reminder for anyone. Fun and helpful, even if you don't adopt all her ideas.

At Large and at Small

I read Anne Fadiman's excellent collection of essays on books and reading, Ex Libris, several years ago after shuttsie recommended it. This book is a collection of what Fadiman calls familiar essays--more personal than a critical essay but more expansive than a personal, navel-gazing one. The scope of these essays range from the everyday subjects of coffee and ice cream to the more highbrow--Charles Lamb and Samuel Coleridge. The standout for me was probably the last essay about a canoing trip gone wrong. It is probably the shortest essay in the book, but for me the most resonant. They are all well-written and even the ones I had no interest in (Charles Lamb, say) have an insight or sentence that stands out. But while Ex Libris was the perfect marriage of an excellent writer and a subject I care passionately about (books!) this one was a bit more one-sided.

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.

Our Guys: the Glen Ridge rape and the secret life of the perfect suburb

The community of Glen Ridge, New Jersey is shocked by a rape scandal in Bernard Lefkowitz's book. Leslie, a 17 year old retarded girl, is lured by a group of football players into a basement where she is raped with a broomstick and baseball bat. Leftkowitz explores the aftermath of this shocking incident in the perfect suburban community. His sociological study of the community explores the town's affluence and white male jock culture and how the confluence of both contributed to the boys' actions and the community response. The same factors that created the sense of entitlement in these "golden boys" lead many in the community to defend them and condemn the victim. The result is a fascinating study of privilege, gender, and athletics that eclipses the story of the rape itself.

Money: A Memoir

I read a really good review of this when it came out, but I think the reviewer must have either read a different book or lived a different life than I do. It is a memoir that deals somewhat with the author's personal experiences with money, including a divorce that leads to a drastic change in her financial situation. It also has some financial advice for women and explores some of the complexities of women's relationships with money. The problem is it tries to be three different books and ends up doing none of them very well at all. The advice part was pretty basic and the memoir and anecdotal sections I could not relate to at all. The other women she talks to all seem to be a random polling of her friends who grew up with mostly the same backgrounds and all with the attitude that a man would take care of them, an attitude that is pretty alien to me and the women I know. And the women "struggling" financially all seemed to be making $200,000 a year and living in million dollar homes. Sorry if it didn't really resonate when I read it on my secondhand couch in my rented apartment in between my two jobs. But maybe it's just me.

Into Thin Air

I didn't really think this book was going to be for me but a friend of mine really loved it so I ended up giving it a chance. I started it just before a long drive cross-state with my family and never has a car ride gone by so fast. Instead of refrains of "Are we there yet?" I would glance up and think the miles were going by too quickly--I wanted to have more time to finish the book. Krakauer's book is the story of his climb of Mount Everest in 1996 with a group of climbers led by Rob Hall. Tragically, eight climbers from two expeditions would not make it back. Krakauer's account is filled with examples of both heroism and bad judgment. His story is laced with his guilt as a survivor and questioning of motives and actions that contributed to the fateful trip. I found this book to be completely gripping and suspenseful.

In Spite of the Gods

I have read a few books in the past couple of years that are either set in India or tell the story of Indian immigrants to the United States. I wish I had read this book before then, because it filled in a lot of gaps I had in beginning to understand the history and current situation in India. Luce is obviously an admirer of Indian culture and sees its potential as a major player on the international stage, but he also illuminates many of the obstacles standing in the way of progress, most notably corruption and intense poverty. It is a story of contradiction--where secularism is ensconced but religious strife and caste still persists, where in some parts of India only 80 girls are born for every 100 boys due to selective abortion but a country which has elected several female leaders, including one of the former untouchable class. I was especially interested in the complex relationships India has with both China and the United States. This is really intended to be a sort of introductory primer on the current role of India, and I gained a lot of information to put any further readings on India in a much better context.

Mountains Beyond Mountains

Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains is a book so beautifully written, so gripping, and so informative that this hypochondriac was able to read an entire book about drug resistant TB without having a panic attack. Dr. Paul Farmer is one of those people who does so much good in the world its hard to believe he's real. As a young man he traveled to Haiti, fell in love wth the country and devoted himself to becoming a doctor and helping the people there. He became one of the founders of Partners in Health, and spends half of his time in Boston, raising money and teaching, and the other half in Haiti, practicing medicine and working to improve the heath care system there. In his spare time (ha) he tries to assist Russia, Cuba and other countries with health care problems and writes books about Haiti and medicine. I learned so much from this book, about Haiti and about international health, particularly TB, HIV and how the two intertwine. Because of Kidder's masterfully touch in portraying three demensional people, Farmer seems human and real, and the book doesn't seek to judge the reader for not following Farmer's example, even though maybe it should. Kidder also wrote Old Friends and Among Schoolchildren, two other non-fiction books I loved, along with several others I haven't read yet.

A Woman at the Washington Zoo

Marjorie Williams was a Washington political writer for a variety of publications, most notably Vanity Fair. This is a collection of her writings compiled posthumously by her husband after her death of liver cancer. The book is divided into three sections--one part political profiles, one shorter essays, and the final third more personal writings. I had read and admired many of the political pieces before without noting the author, including a scary profile of Barbara Bush and the great piece "Scenes from a Marriage" depicting the troubled relationship between Al Gore and Bill Clinton during Gore's campaign. Williams managed to get to the core of many powerful people and their motivations and find new angles on over covered stories like Princess Diana's death. As great as these pieces are, however, the real gems are contained in the last third of the book. Williams writes movingly of her complicated relationship with her alcoholic mother and of living with the diagnosis of cancer. She expresses gratitude for the privileges she has--connections, insurance, etc--to fight the disease while also lamenting the dehumanizing aspects of dealing with the medical system. There is a heartbreaking scene where Williams is helping her daughter get ready for Halloween while imagining her in the prom dress she probably won't live to see her in. Whether you come for the politics or the memoir aspect, you won't be disappointed.

Love is a Mix Tape

Above all, they loved music. Rob Sheffield and his wife, Renee, met over a conversation about a song and music was a central part of their relationship. So Rob begins each chapter with a mix tape that he and Renee listened to as he describes their marriage and her sudden death from a pulmonary embolism. Renee does not come across as a saint but as a complex, lively woman and the best chapters are how Rob copes after her death, when that spark is gone from his life. Music both soothes him and causes more pain, as he realizes there are songs he will never again be able to share with Renee. Be prepared to take a trip down memory lane at the songs on each mix tape and the popular culture references thrown in. (This was a couple that loved The Cutting Edge as much as I irrationally do--Toe-pick!). Though Rob is a music critic by trade, he is not a music snob and his and Renee's eclectic tastes will have you jotting down lots of songs to check out.

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

I stayed up way too late last night to finish Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower. I picked it up after seeing it on practically every best of the year list, and it certainly deserves all those accolades. Wright has constructed a compulsively readable narrative about the history of Islamic radicalism and two of its chief architects, Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden. There is also some focus on the U. S. fight to combat terrorism, particularly focusing on John O'Neill, and some of the bureaucratic lack of cooperation between the FBI and CIA. While the build-up and plan for 9/11 is touched upon, Looming Tower primarily describes the origins and shifting philosophies of Al-Qaeda and how they came to be focused upon the United States.

My Life in France

My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'Homme is a terrific read for your quarter (or one third) life crisis. At age 36, Julia Child moved to France with her new husband Paul, speaking no French and newly retired from the O.S.S.. In looking for a way to occupy her time, she turned her new found love of French cuisine into first a hobby, then a job teaching cooking and then a career, publishing cooking books, staring in her first PBS series and becoming Julia Child, cooking celebrity. Refeshingly, Julia doesn't hesitate to say what she thinks, she remains unrepentingly critical of her father through out the book, and recounts her differences with Simone Beck, one of her co-authors on Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The book was written shortly before her death with the assistance of her nephew, Alex Prud'Homme and I was shocked it wasn't on any of the best of the year book lists.

Coming of Age In Mississippi

First of all, Happy Birthday to my co-blogger! Today's book is a call back to our days as undergrad American Studies majors, Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody. This memoir, written before the memoir craze, tells the of the author's childhood and in the 40's and 50's and her participation in the civil rights movement. She is unflinchingly honest about how facing racism shapes not just the events of her life but also her personality. This book woke me out a deep sleep, and actually made me want to take action. Unfortunatly I was several decades too late for Freedom Summer, but hopefully the effect of this book has remained with me, at least a little bit.

1968: The Year that Rocked the World

1968 was a monumental year in US and world history, from the assassinations of RFK and MLK to the Tet Offensive to the Democratic convention in Chicago. A friend I work with is fascinated by all things 1968 and has read a lot of books on that year. His favorite is Mark Kurlansky's 1968: The Year that Rocked the World, which he calls "the most definitive book on the social, cultural, and political history" of 1968. My friend also collects all things 1968, most notably pennies (6919 and counting!). If you want to add to his collection, go here.

Cross-X

My first recommendation, Cross-X by Joe Miller, has been generating a lot of local (KS) buzz because it follows a high school debate team from Kansas City's Central High School. Central is an inner city school that has been deemed "academically deficient" yet its debate team is competitive at the highest national levels. Miller follows two teams of African American debaters as they confront stereotypes about the Urban Debate League and even attempt to change the structure of debate itself. It falls off a little in the last part as the book shifts to Miller's increasing role with the debate squad and his views on the democratic world of debate. On the whole, though, it is a highly suspenseful and engaging read. I only wish it was also a documentary so that I could watch some of the debate rounds described. Also check out this NPR interview with the author and Marcus and Ebony, two of the Central debaters.