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.

The Ultimates 2 Vol 2: Grand Theft America

The Ultimates, written by Mark Millar and and drawn by Bryan Hitch, is a reboot of the traditional and somewhat stodgy Marvel Comics Avengers series. Millar take on the Ultimates is far more adult and politically grounded than the original Avengers series. Inspired very much by the modern American culture of paranoia concerning terrorism and WMDs, this more realistic (for superhero comics that is ;-) ) series has the U.S. Government creating their own super-powered team, the Ultimates, in response to the increasing dangerous world they found themselves in.

The Ultimates, between finding themselves dealing with the occasional alien invasion and and superpowered acts of terrorism (Hulk Smash!), find themselves being used to invade and disarm a middle eastern country developing WMDs. In the collection Grand Theft America, rogue elements from several countries are concerned that they may find themselves a target of the U.S. government sponsored super-beings. In response to this threat, they secretly develop super-powered team of their own and decide to pre-emptively invade the U.S. to head off any attack on their own homelands. What ensues is a very entertaining knockdown, drag out fight between the invading super-team the Liberators and the Ultimates.

Aside from the fantastic action in the series, Millar managed to create what feel like fleshed out, fully 3-dimensional characters. Beyond the outlandish comic-book powers and action, most of the characters come off as real people who have with very real problems, and I really felt for them when bad things happen to them. Millar is one of my favorite comic book writers these days, and the Ultimates series is a good example of why that is.

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.

I Sailed With Magellan

Hello all. I figured a book by one of my favorite authors would be appropriate considering Stuart Dybek has been in the news this past week. Dybek is a Chicago native who is currently in residence at Northwestern University. He was in the papers because he received one of those MacArthur "Genius" Grants. Basically, for being a talented and awesome writer he gets $500,000 with no strings attached. Where do I sign up?

Dybek is far from prolific. "Magellan" is only his third collection of short stories. His first two, "Childhood And Other Neighborhoods", and "Coast of Chicago" were both excellent but I think "Magellan" is his best. The primary character in the stories is Perry Katzek, a Polish-American boy growing up on Chicago's south side. The tales are populated by the colorful members of Perry's family as well as local gangsters, drunks and others that make these stories breezy and compelling reads. Its definitely worth a read at the very least to satisfy your curiosity at just what the $500K fuss is about.

Bridge of Sighs

Loyal Dailybookbuddy readers may remember the ridiculous level of anticipation I had for this book. While I did enjoy and highly recommend it, I'm afraid it didn't quite live up to my impossibly high expectations for a Richard Russo book. After winning the Pulitzer for Empire Falls, it appears that Russo felt the need to write a Very Important Book. Bridge of Sighs tackles lots of issues of class, race, what it means to be an American, how much choice we have over our life's direction. I wouldn't characterize Russo as a subtle writer anyway, but his characters are constantly asking themselves series of rhetorical questions about the Big Issues. To Russo's credit, he never supplies the reader with easy answers. The story basically revolves around two boys--Lucy Lynch, the likable optimist who is content to live in Thomaston all his life and his counterpart, Bobby Noonan, who leaves Thomaston and never looks back, eventually settling in as a famous painter in Venice. Lucy's wife, Sarah, loved them both but chooses Lucy in the end. The three lives threaten to converge once more when the Lynches plan a trip to Venice thirty years later. The story is primarily told in Lucy's memoir of his childhood and adolescence, and this conceit is sometimes a bit awkward. If you're new to Russo, I wouldn't start with this book (I'd go with The Risk Pool or Straight Man). But it's still filled with great writing and vivid characters (this book probably has his best-written female characters). It may not be quite as funny or seamless as some of his previous work, but I still don't think I've read a better book this year.

The Book Of Illusions

This book was a public library book club choice. The protagonist David Zimmer is a college professor whose wife and two sons die in a plane crash. Struggling to find something to help him reconnect to the world the living, he spots a silent film clip on late night tv. Surprised to find himself actually laughing he seeks out information on the clip's actor and learns he is Hector Mann a silent film star who disappeared completely just as sound entered movies. Zimmer seeks out prints of his movies which have been appearing anonymously in the mail in various film archives and writes a book about Mann's art. Zimmer is shocked by first letters and then a late night visitor who claim Mann is still alive. He travels to New Mexico and learns the story of Mann's disappearance. The book takes a turn for the strange at several points but serves as an interesting study of how survivor's guilt can manifest itself.

A Heckuva Job:more of the Bush Administration in Rhyme

Every week Calvin Trillin's political poetry appears in The Nation. Works such as "George W. Bush's Approval Rating Sinks to 34 Percent", "A Member of Congress tries to Recall Jack Abramhoff" and "Watching Dick Cheney in Debate" (I must say this, in studying Dick Cheney:/ The man betrays no impulse to be zany,/ Resembling in his scowl and condescendence/ The stern vice principal who takes attendance.) Trillin skewers Washington and the White House house in particular. This is the third volume of his political poetry, following Deadline Poet, and Obliviously On he Sails: The Bush Administration in Rhyme.