The Midwife by Jennifer Worth

Lets just call this the Summer of the nurse.  I seem to keep picking up books about the caring profession.  This time the memoirs of Jennifer Worth who was a nurse-midwife in the east end of London in the 1950's.  A remarkable account of the life and times of a particularly hard time in a hard neighborhood. I picked it up mostly because I am captivated by the series Call the Midwife that has been airing on PBS for two seasons and which is based on this series (there are two more) of memoirs.

Anyway, if you are a fan of the series the memoir adds enough extra material that you will find it interesting; it really explains things a lot more fully, and if you have not watched the series, it is really a fascinating read in the memoir genre. Very different from everything else out there.  It was written in 2002. Ms Worth died a few years ago.

Easily picked up, in paperback, at Barnes and Nobles or you can borrow my copy.

Drinking with Men by Rosie Schaap

I heard Ms Schaap interviewed on NPR a few weeks ago and her take on life-- by the bars she frequents--seemed an interesting way to approach a memoir.  She takes readers through her life from the bar car on the train as a teenager, to an Irish bar, college bar, grad school bar and various dives she has known and loved throughout the years.

Drinking With Men (because she finds women are often uninterested in bar culture) is a valentine to bars.  She writes so poetically about what it means to be a regular patron of a bar in a city that I actually found myself envious that I have never been a regular in a bar.  I am not even sure I have ever been in the kind of bar she frequents and has written about.  Maybe, I thought, I should even consider opening my own bar.

So yes, I enjoyed this book.  It was fun to read and enjoy her observations of life in the bar and watch her grow up in bars and with their patrons.  I did observe early on, that she really did not seem like my kind of person.  That for all her romance about bars and drinking, I didn't really like her. (Although on NPR she sounded quite likable.) I feel torn: interesting book, good writing, unlikeable narrator.

The biggest criticism I have of her memoir is that she unfairly dodged, what I would consider the central question of the book.  About half way through the memoir, in a chapter about skipping all her classes in grad school to hang out at her current bar of choice, she is one day reading her roommate's journal and reads her roommate's observations that she, Rosie, is an alcoholic. It never occurred to her that she was an alcoholic, and she begins to consider the question.  It is a moment for me that the memoir began to quicken and picked up my interest.  I read it in rapt attention, how would this realization change her life?

But suddenly, she changes the subject, and meanders off to another topic, even though it seemed she was about to conclude she had a big problem. She never went back to the question again.  So, although I certainly loved her stories in bars and her love of even the divey-est of them, I wonder if she will ever consider the big question again.

A good book, worth the read, available at your public library.

I want to lick this book I loved it so much

After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story by Michael Hainey, I found by accident when a friend posted a short article on fb about it. I requested my library purchase it. (I love doing that!)

Michael Hainey's father died when he was 6 and afterward he felt he could not talk about it.  His mother and family, in their grief, had a kind of conspiracy of silence about that night and about the man. So for years he lived with this wonder of who his father was and how he died that night in 1972.  When Michael finally begins to seek out answers, he delves deep into the Chicago newspaper world of the 1960's and 1970's: a fascinating time and a fascinating place.

His work takes him to hospitals and morgues and all over the city. It takes him back to his father's hometown in Nebraska and to a small town in Ohio.  It takes him to San Francisco and he even meets a few people in Kentucky, New York and Wisconsin.  He meets long forgotten family members and newspaper colleagues of his fathers. He meets the sadness of a life cut way too short.

It is beautiful writing and an amazing tribute to a time, a place, a family, and a person or rather several people. I loved everything about this book: the writer's pacing and sensibility. His honesty and his self-revelation. I loved how much he loved his mother and family and how much getting to know his father after all these years meant to him. All the passages about his childhood and adulthood and his unraveling the past felt poignant and purposeful.  He wove all the stories of his life and his parents' lives together quite skillfully. I read it in two days.  His last line in the book was the ultimate:  "I went searching for my father and I found my mother."

I am pretty sure I heard him interviewed on Fresh Air about this book as well, and here is the original article from the Chicago Reader that got me started.  I highly recommend this memoir.

Her by Christina Parravani

My latest memoir read and early review installment is the captivating tale of Christa Parravani, one half of a set of identical twins.

Her book tells the narrative of two girls who go through life together and when one of them dies tragically, the other is left to discover what it means to be alone. I have never understood so thoroughly what being a twin must be like, and I found that the parts of the narrative that discuss the power of identity and the ties of love specifically between twins to be the most interesting part of this memoir.  I felt real pain for Christa as she attempted to navigate life without her other half.

Reader's should be warned that there is a horrifying rape scene in the early chapters of the book, that was written by the rape survivor, Cara, the twin who died (by drug overdose).  The author of this memoir included several excerpts from the deceased twin's journals to illustrate many points of their lives together.  Among those excerpts is the description of the rape that led Cara to the circumstances of her eventual death.  I loved the extra point of view of the twin's lives together.  Cara had a captivating voice as well and it is a tragedy that her life ended early.

This book is scheduled to be released in March.  I am thrilled to have an early copy and will certainly be glad to lend it to anyone with interest.  This story is sad, beautiful and worthwhile reading. The message, corny as it sounds, rang clear and true:  Love always wins over death.

100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do by Kim Stafford

A few weeks ago I expressed my love and appreciation for this book on the elegant art of listening.  I was so impressed by the author's love of words and writing that I thought I would check out his new memoir  100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do: How My Brother Disappeared.  It was not readily available at the bookstore, so I asked my public library if they would order it, and it showed up in about two weeks.  (Love the public library!)

This is such a fine and exceptional book that I can't stop thinking about it.  Stafford makes everything seem effortless yet profound. His writing is smooth and creamy and makes me want to eat it at every meal.  He is writing about his beloved brother who committed suicide 20 years earlier.  Mr Stafford remembers his brother in a series of stories from their youth together, their short adulthood together and the aftermath of living with such a tragic end to someone you loved.

Every week I sit in the company of great writers who pour their hearts out in short poems, and memoirs of their lives.  Word upon word, each writer is building a series of stories and vignettes not unlike these.  I loved this work.  All the stories individually and as a collective quilt of stories, were without question true and beautiful: honesty that cut to the bone of life.  My fellow writers and I can and do easily write this beautifully and could piece our pieces together to form a grand story, but something about the way he did it seemed profound and unreachable.  He has left something tugging at my heart. Writing that is worth emulating in its candor and vulnerability.

God Bless my library for buying this for me, but  I will have to buy my own copy.  There are many writing lessons to be learned here.

For my reader that lives in Portland. This man runs the Northwest Writing Institute.  You should check it out and take a class from him.  Better yet, I'll come visit and we can both take a course from him.

Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman

A fascinating memoir about life in an Hasidic Jewish sect from Brooklyn, New York.  Deborah Feldman is born to an Hasidic couple who for a variety of reasons do not raise their daughter.  Instead, she is raised by her ultra conservative grandparents, and at age 17 is married to a man she has met only briefly.  Deborah tells about the orthodox rituals and rites that she must obey to be a good daughter and wife.  Throughout her life Deborah feels like she does not quite fit in and shortly after the girth of her son manages to start college and eventually gain the skills, means and courage to divorce her husband and leave the sect with her child.

For such a young writer, she astutely wrote and depicted her humiliating oppression as a girl and young woman. I raced to read to find out how she would escape her circumstances.  In the meantime, I noted lots of intriguing details like how she had to sneak books to read because they were forbidden and how sad she was when her husband forced her to throw all her books away, claiming they were the cause of their unconsummated marriage.  I will remember her description of the ritual baths women are supposed to take to purify themselves every month.  Her rendering of events was clear and unsentimental, but vivid.  All she needed to do was describe what was happening-no editorial necessary. 

The drawback to this fine fine piece was that after such a great build up to leaving her home and family, she leaves many many posed and provocative questions unanswered.  She says that she would never be allowed to leave her son, yet she is able to leave with her son.  She writes briefly of a mother that abandons her and in the prologue we know she has re-established contact with her, but we never see how her mother figures into her liberation.  We never know how her husband and family reacts when she leaves.  She escapes to a new apartment--with a bed, but we don't know how she got that.  One assumes that writing of these customs and rituals has left her permanently shunned, yet she does not mention the aftermath at all. (On her blog she writes of death threats from her grandparents.)

At the end she does spend a great deal of time discussing how much she values her freedom and how much she loves making her own decisions.  I assume that the above questions may be answered in her next book, which is due out in 2013.

Still, it is a lovely story, full of surprises and honesty and insight.  I loved it all and await the next chapter. It works well like the Jeannette Walls memoir Glass Castles.  Get it from the library or your local bookstore. There may be a wait at the library.

Adventures of a One Breasted Woman by Susan Cummings

This was my latest Early Review.  Fifteen chapters of interrelated essays about coping in the aftermath of breast cancer.  The author reminds me of many of the women in my writing circle who write exclusively on one subject and have many personal points of view and interesting side angles to a single topic.

I was worried it would be a rehash of all the events leading up to and during her ordeal, but it was as described in the title: reclaiming her moxie after cancer.

Some of the chapters were more interesting and better written then others, but overall it was satisfying, and Susan Cummings does write some lovely prose.  I specifically liked the chapter on faith which deals with signs and symbols and feelings that some otherworldly presence is looking out for her (or are they?) and a great chapter on a specific friendship in four parts, which had a bittersweet ending.

Overall I began to feel sorry for  Susan because the sadnesses in her life (not even related to cancer) seemed to build up and build up, but she saved her good news for last and the memoir had a satisfying, upbeat ending.  A small coda at the end had her planning for her own funeral and death which seemed slightly macabre, but it was interesting food for thought.

I am lending this book to a few one breasted friends I know, but I am sure it is available on Amazon and will definitely save it for anyone who would like to read it.

January First

Wow!  Captivating story of a father whose small child exhibits symptoms and is eventually diagnosed as schizophrenic.  Michael Schofield takes us through about three years in the life of his family as they grapple with his severely disturbed daughter and all the ups and downs of caring for someone you love who causes you so much pain. 

I could not put this story down. I turned the pages to find out if they ever felt relief, if they ever got a correct diagnosis, or if they adjusted her medication so that she could be calm and stop hearing voices.  I turned pages to make sure Michael and his wife stayed married and if their son Bodhi survived the onslaught of sister malice.

It was a raw energetic work, and yes, it was written too soon.  The girl in the story January "Jani" Schofield is probably not even 10 years old yet, so I know there is a lot more to this story and I do think given time, a different story might be written.  But in this instance, the recentness of the story, works.  There is a real immediacy that makes my pulse quicken.  This tale needed to be told.  January is one of the youngest children to be diagnosed as schizophrenic.  It does not normally present in children so young.

The author has produced a blog so that interested readers can follow along with  the progress his daughter makes and how is family is coping.  

This is a stunning, gut wrenching, draining story of a father's struggle to maintain his own sanity, keep his family safe and try to do right by his little girl.  I can't recommend it enough.  It was out in print on August 7th so you can probably find it on-line or at your local bookseller.  I am glad to lend mine as well.

All gone: a memoir with refreshments

There is a scene somewhere in the middle of this book that I can't quite shake.  The author is a teenager-frustrated with math homework, and stands up and makes a gesture at the skies as if to say, "I give up."  The author's father mistakenly thinks his daughter is going to hit him and punches her in the face.  She retreats to her room and her mother comes in and demands that she go apologize, "your father thought you were going to hit him first," she says.

I recount the scene because it is shocking and because it illustrates a bit about what was off about this memoir.  All Gone, a memoir ostensibly about Alex Witchel's mother's descent into depression and dementia, had this strange undercurrent of a story about her relationship with her father that was only hinted at and seemed the true story of this memoir.

Ms Witchel clearly loves her mother beyond all measure and is devastated to watch her formerly strong, independent, educated mother fall into mental disarray.  It is a very true story to which many of us can relate.  Her writing is clear and unadorned and when she finally settles down to tell the story, during the last half of the book, it comes through quite sadly and clearly.

But up until then the book seemed to be all over the place, a bit about childhood, a bit about nana, a bit about how she got to be a writer, some food writing,  and little stories and anecdotes about her horrible relationship with her father.

It felt not quite ready to be written.  This is a complaint I have made frequently about memoirs, and I think this is a perfect example.  At the time of this writing it appears that her mother and her father are still alive. The story feels like it is still in full swing to me and not over yet. It also explains why she may not have explored as much about her relationship with her father as she should have.  The missing stories about him could fill another chapter or two.

The author is a food writer by trade and includes food memories and recipes throughout which I always love. I am definitely going to try her potato latkes.

I recommend this book if you have a parent going through end of life issues related to dementia or if you love food memories and recipes wound up in the narrative. It is an early review book and I would be glad to share it with anyone who asks.

Eyes Right: Confessions of a Woman Marine

Oh I had big plans this month. I had three memoirs on my stack about life in the military.  August was going to be the month of the soldier.  The plan sounded great, the books looked fabulous, but life got a bit nuts this month.  Sleep took priority over reading.  Just putting one foot in front of the other took priority over reading.

Last night though I finally finished this slim little volume, confessions of a woman marine.  Tracy Crow waited the right amount of time to tell her story of life in the 70's and 80's as a member of the largely male marine corps.  She became a member of the public affairs office and spent her 10 year career snapping photos and writing stories of war and the preparations for war during the Reagan era.  Some of what she put herself through was truly harrowing.  She has a journalists sensibility for telling the stories of how she came to enlist, marine corps training, and how she broke into certain places to get her story (cause she was a woman and wouldn't normally be allowed in).  The narrative was lean and spare (just the facts m'am.)

The framing device was the story of how she was fired and almost court-martialed because of an affair she had with a colonel.  The affair was short and happened during a separation with her husband and the colonel himself was single, but the Marines considered her indiscretions conduct unbecoming an officer.  So on the same day she was promoted, she was also fired and had to pack her bags and move out on a distinguished 10 year career.

I was impressed by the order in which she told her story and the focus she gave the actual affair.  After alluding to it, dancing around the edges of it, telling us how she initially met the colonel, about packing her desk and her harrowing interview with the attorney where she refused to confirm or deny the allegations (what, you can do that?), she told the story of the affair in a few short paragraphs at the very end.  The sad tale of a very short time with a man she clearly loved and said good-bye to. She never saw him again.  He died 11 years later.

I can't get over how skillfully she ended the story and did not need to dwell on the actual affair.  It was the story but still it wasn't.  What the story was about was that she had a glorious career and it ended because of this affair.  She managed a little poker trick to avoid court martial and further avoid the colonel from being court-martialed.  Did he know what she did and how she saved them?

I think some readers might be dismayed not to get more of the salacious details of love, but truly she pitched it perfectly with respect to the man he was and what they may have shared for a short time.  Her telling of the tale felt unique and spot on. It will give me something to think about when choosing how to unveil a personal story. Available at the library.

So what did you prioritize this month?

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

One hot afternoon during the era in which you've gotten yourself ridiculously tangled up in heroin, you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She'll offer you one of the balloons, but you won't take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You're wrong.  You do.  --Cheryl Strayed

I have always been an avid reader of advice columns.  I came of age reading Dear Abby and Ann Landers, loved the dry wit of Miss Manners, found special wisdom in consumer help columns and most recently, fell in love with the modern practical humor and wisdom of Dear Prudence.

I read them religiously, pose my own questions (in my head) frequently, and curiously wait to see what their responses will be. What will mine be?  What set of moral values do they set their standards by and do they follow them?  Advice columns are an endless source of story and inspiration.

As you may recall, a few months back, I read a great travel memoir by a new writer named Cheryl Strayed.  Her voice was clear and compelling as she told her story of backpacking on the Pacific Coast Trail, and I looked forward to her next writing.  I stumbled upon it this week in the bookstore and bought it without question.  (This is how much I like her writing.  I knew I would want to own it and keep it.)

Cheryl Strayed writes an on-line advice column under the name Dear Sugar.  Dear Sugar writes clear compelling advice to her readers (in response to letters of course) but also writes her own memoirs and tiny stories as a way of illustrating life lessons.  Nothing here is boring.  All her responses feel spot on and you sense her empathy and conviction through the power of her words.  I loved every letter and every response.  She eclipses any other advice columnist in beauty and compelling argument.  I am going to buy these by the bundle and give them as gifts for all occasions.  Marriage, baby, job crisis, death in the family, middle age crazies...it is all right here. Look no further. These are real letters from real writers and her responses are her own: a collection of columns that is both help, self help and memoir.  Look no further for a great summer read.

This is the best book I have read this summer, and I put Ms. Strayed on my list of writers to see if I am ever able. She is so honest and forthright about her own failings and grief that you cannot help but love her.  The epigraph at the top of the page--written in second person--is her own story.

 You can borrow this from me but if you wait long enough, I might buy it for you.

Brooklyn Zoo by Darcy Lockman

This is the second ER book I have been asked to review written about a NYC mental hospital.  I think I rolled my eyes a bit when I got it in the mail.  This one took place in a less toni hospital in Brooklyn that was over taxed, under staffed, and generally scruffy.  The writer, a psychology intern, tries to make sense of her year of experiences: the good, the bad and the ugly.

Darcy Lockman seems largely unlikable to me. Her peers apparently agree as she shares the horrifying moment when her supervisor tells her that while she is an adequate therapist, no one particularly likes her.  That section of the book endeared me to her.   Can you imagine, building up a sort of hatred for a memoirist, wondering why she got into this field of work because she clearly has disdain for everyone and everything and then having her confess that everyone feels the same way?  I kind of loved that angle.  You are redeemable Darcy Lockwood.  Really!

Ms Lockwood profiles many encounters with patients, the ups and down of working in the most notorious mental hospital in NYC, the supervisory struggles she has, the definite conflict between psychologists and psychiatrists (Guess which group of people looks down their noses at the other?), and the often backwards approaches to therapy many well meaning professionals take when the setting is less then ideal.

I both loved and hated this book.  It did get a little dull at times, but she did have some interesting observations and insights into psychology and mental hospitals.  Her own story was the most compelling and had sort of a sweet ending. The year she learned to love and now loves to learn from.  I recommend this if you are at all interested in a career in therapy or the ins and outs of a mental health professional.  It is more personal that the first one I reviewed.

I'd love to loan it to anyone.

Most Talkative by Andy Cohen

This early review book that I got chosen to read seemed to be written solely to gossip about the Read Housewives series of shows produced and aired by Bravo Network.  Andy Cohen is the executive producer of many of these shows and has some sort of staring role in part of the shows.  Although I have seen teasers for them on Bravo (probably while watching re-runs of the West Wing) I have never watched any of them or been interested in any of them.

The first 3/4 of the book is about Andy's coming of age in real life and in the television industry.  Most of the book is funny and heartwarming.  He came of age in the 80's, about the same time I did, and he also came out at that time. His memoir concerning these early years and his rise through the ranks and his coming to understand his sexuality was really quite moving and powerful.  I have a close friend from this time who I imagine was also thinking and going through some of the same things as he came out.  I loved it.  I laughed aloud many times. I really felt a kinship with Mr Cohen.  

Of course, as you might imagine, the last couple of chapters, all about shows that I have never seen (nor do I want to after reading this) was not very interesting to me at all.  It might be to you if you watch them yourself or have seen Mr Cohen on a late night show he emcees.  I do recommend it, mostly for the for first parts of the book in which he grapples with his own life and how he plans to live it.

Once Upon a Secret by Mimi Alford

I needed some light reading before my trip home from Scotland.  I bought this book to keep me company, and it was so interesting I finished it before I even got onto the plane.

Mimi Beardsley, 19 years old, gets a job as an intern in the White House Press office. Within a few days of starting this prestigious job, she become JFK's lover. This affair lasts for over 18 months and ends when JFK is assassinated.

The story of Mimi's ringside seat to history is interesting enough, but the second half of the story, how she kept this secret for more than 30 years, is also very compelling.  It is testament again, to how telling our truth, our own story, is powerful and healing and of course how keeping secrets can nearly destroy us.

Writing is pretty good and it did keep my attention.  It is most likely available at the public library.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail by Cheryl Strayed

I chose this book to bring with me on my Scotland adventure this week.  There was something about reading a woman's travel adventure while I had my own adventure that was comforting and exciting.  My adventure involved hot baths and a good nights sleep and thankfully, no rattlesnakes.

I first read Strayed in her essay about grief that got published in an anthology of the best non-fiction.  Her essay was a memoir of her grieving over her mother's death by shooting up heroin and sleeping with as many men as she could.  Both activities led to her divorce from a man she loved very much.  In the essay,  she alludes
to deciding to hike the Pacific Coast Trail as an antidote to her grief. She saves money, plans, buys equipment, and heads out for a 100 day journey through California and Oregon--through the high sierras-- where she quickly learns that though she planned and packed she probably should have trained as well.

Strayed voice is honest and humbled. She goes from novice to seasoned hiker. She grieves, she parties, she experiences solitude and companionship on the trail, kindnesses, and the aforementioned rattlesnakes.  Never in my wildest dreams, even when I was young and fit, could I have ever dreamed of this sort of solo adventure.  I probably enjoyed it so much knowing that she did something that I could never hope to do.

I loved this book and read it quickly on the plane and within 4 days of starting the trip.  I found Strayed's voice to be truly compelling.  I cared about her and wanted to see her complete her magnificent journey.

As a side note, I took this in e-book format and felt sort of guilty and slovenly.  I would love to hand it to a fellow traveler to read or at least leave it in a B & B. But alas cannot.  Also, I discovered halfway through the trip that a fellow traveler is reading the exact same book.   I never would have known had she not mentioned it.  I guess I am realizing that books are a shared experience for me, and that e-readers, don't allow for the sharing of story or the discovering of other people's story journeys.

But you should discover this journey and an important new voice in literature.

Why be Happy When you Could be Normal?

Years ago I was captivated by Jeannette Winterson's second novel The Passion. I remember her being a magical story teller, so I was intrigued and excited that she had a memoir published this year.  Apparently, her first novel, the wildly popular Oranges are Not the Only Fruit was semi-autobiographical, so this memoir slightly resembles the early novel.  Winterson was adopted as a baby and raised by an evangelical Christian who had a hard time expressing love.  Winterson became estranged from her mother as a teen when she came out as a lesbian.

Jeannette Winterson has an amazing voice.  It feels utterly unique.  I can't compare her to anyone.  The narrative did not follow a normal chronological order.  There was a loose idea of time but mostly the memoir was organized on themes: church, literature, her home town.  Within each chapter she would tell a story about her childhood but also talk about art or religion or literature and how it changed or affected her.  I found a profound moment when she waxed philosophical about the necessity for poetry:  tough language for tough times.

The memoir is laced with Winterson's feelings of abandonment and loss and adoption, as well as, her struggles and inability to love that she blames on the childhood she had which was devoid of real love. We also see how literature and poetry in particular is what saves her.  During the last third of the book, Winterson makes her way through the British legal system to find out the name of her biological mother and finally, after 50 years, meet her.

If you like memoir or just want to read a different voice...Check this out.  Oh, and what  great title, eh?

Mirror Mirror by Stephanie Hart

Early review of memoirs and stories about just an average woman coming of age in the 50's and 60's.  Ms Hart's writing is lovely and sweet.  Short bursts of observation about leaving home at 7 to attend boarding school when her parents divorced, her mother's alternating rage and undying love, her late life love, and her life in NYC.  These short stories and memories remind me why I love to write and also show me that really everyone has a story to tell.  All of us.  And it is within our power to tell it.

The book is divided into 4 parts and the first three parts are the memoirs. The last part is the most interesting for a writer to read.  She had memories of parents and grandparents and great grandparents that have been told to her as stories.  She has taken these stories and imagined them: place, street, people, smells and feelings and painted them into true tales. This writing and this ability to recreate what has been a part of family lore is especially exciting to read and think about.  Some of the stories in this last part seem a little disjointed. The flow is disrupted now and then, but overall, I loved the exercise and the writing.  They are smart and truly felt.

I don't think this book will get a lot of attention, but would be writer's should take note.  Write it! I would also be happy to lend it to anyone who wants to take a look.

The Time Together by Carol Burnett

I'm so glad we had this time together

Just to have a laugh and sing a song

Seems we just get started and before you know it

Comes the time we have to say, "So Long!"

                  -from the Carol Burnett show

As a kid, I loved watching the Carol Burnett show on Saturday nights with my parents.  I was old enough to appreciate the zany humor of Carol and friends, especially the talented Tim Conway.  I laughed aloud along with my parents at Carol when she made fun of Gone with the Wind.  Her dress was made of curtains with the curtain rod still inserted.  The dress was  the classic television funny moment, and no one else but Carol could pull it off.  The dress now resides at the Smithsonian, testament to the wacky days of the Carol Burnett Show and her brilliant costume designer Bob Mackie.  

Carol tells many many tales of coming of age in the entertainment industry and all the people she met on the way up the ladder.  These stories are not literary feats or a great philosophy on life, rather just funny moments behind the scenes with some of America's most beloved entertainers and actors.  

It took me on a trip down memory lane.  Many of the sketches she writes about you can relive on youtube.  If you enjoy Carol Burnett, and want to take out a quick evening for some fun stories and funny reminiscences of a great comic lady, this would be a good book to pick up at the library.  I wonder if we could get her to host Saturday Night Live?

Meanwhile enjoy this old Carol Burnett sketch:

India Becoming by Akash Kapur

I have vivid and a bit disjointed memories of my one very short trip to India many years ago.  I visited what was then called Madras and is now called Chennai as part of a student group that was sailing the world.  Since that amazing trip, I have had many encounters with Indian Culture and have always been fascinated by the country, its people, food, religion and place in world history.

Akash Kapur was raised in Southern India near Chennai, leaves for the West for many years, and then returns with his family to live and work.  He has written a memoir/literary journal/portrait of the new modern India which seeks to explore all the beauty and beastliness of this ancient and provocative nation.

He paints many individual character portraits of men and women caught in the crosshairs of change:  a young gay man struggling with his identity, a young woman who divorces and then chooses to live with her boyfriend and not marry, another young woman who moves to the city to take advantage of all the amazing work opportunities, but chooses to retain a very traditional lifestyle regarding dating, a man from the dalit caste who defies local customs, a farmer and his wife living apart: country mouse and city mouse.  All these stories he follows over several years. 

Part II of this book is kind of character study of India itself: a painting of the price of progress.  He profiles the immense poverty that still exists in the cities that sits on the backs of the new Indian elite, the huge problem with waste and pollution that plagues even him and his family, the disorganized state of the police and the vast contempt for the rule of law, and finally the state of India once hard times hit the newly prosperous nation.

All of the stories are varied, interesting, often disturbing, and well written. I felt that he could have spent some more research time on some of his topics. He seemed to rely almost solely on anecdotes told by friends, and friends of friends, to make points about poverty and pollution.  A few facts and figures could go a long way to bolstering some of the portraits of people and problems.

All in all, a great read.  Mr Kapur reminded me somewhat of an Indian Malcolm Gladwell.  This was enjoyable.  I plan to share it widely. 

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

I have not survived against all odds.
I have not lived to tell.
I have not witnessed the extraordinary.
This is my story.

I found a pristine copy of this book at a used book fair about a year or two ago and eyed it on the pile for a long time.  Amy Krouse Rosenthal had an interesting idea:  write about your life as a series of entries in an encyclopedia, alphabetically.

I approached it warily, thinking it would be annoying and uninteresting, but I found quite the opposite.  Ms Rosenthal is funny and observant and has a unique sense style.  Parts made me laugh out loud; other parts were thoughtful and bittersweet.  An ordinary life can be interesting and even at times profound.

Also,  she poses some interesting interactions between writer and author via the website she sets up.  She simply asks you write her and let her know you read the book and she will thank you.  Since the book was published in 2005, she is not as fast about responding--not even sure she will respond.  I was hoping I would hear from her before I wrote this, but at press time, e-mail silence.

Still it is a nice idea, thanking your readers.

I found a lot of the entries would prompt my own writing.  What entries would I choose for my list of an ordinary life?  Would you?