Big week

So there was a lot going on this week, besides me being up really late and getting sick. Again (cold!)!  Earlier this week, I brought Nate to the gym with me. The gym has daycare as one of the ammenities. Basically, they have two or three grandmotherly types in a daycare type of room, with lots of toys and music. I sign him in and out and only I can do that. He can stay there for up to two hours while I work out in eithe ra class or on the floor. This wasn’t the first time that I attempted to do this with Nate. I did it once when Nate was probably around 6 or 7 months old – he wasn’t really all that mobile yet – and I had brought him to another one of the franchises and I wasn’t too impressed by it. It got crowded quickly and the lady that was in charge seemed really overwhelmed really easily. 

I was pretty nervous about dropping Nate off, also, because during the last few weeks, he’s been really clingy and suffering from a lot of separation anxiety when I dropped him off at daycare. And daycare is where he’s supposed to be comfortable, so why would he be settled in when dropping him off at the gym daycare?  I thought he would freak out and I wouldn’t be able to leave him or get on a piece of equipment or I would be able to leave him but the daycare folks would be paging me within minutes.  But neither happened!! He totally took off running when I put him down – he saw a bunch of toys that he really wanted to play with and it’s as if I was chopped liver.  I got to work out – no problems.

So, after having Nate, I had Mirena put in as birth control. And I got it removed last week also.  It was easier to have taken out then to have it put in, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, this means dealing with a monthly visitor again. ::sigh::

I have a few new reviews up for your enjoyment:

1. The Moment Between by Nicole Baart can be found here.
2. Jack’s Shop by James Herndon can be found here.
3. The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith can be found here.

Enjoy!

Three Special Books for Adoptive Families

I’ve recently had three children’s books cross my desk, two of them about adoption.

The first, “Ten Days and Nine Nights” by Yumi Heo (Random), is for families with older children who are awaiting the adoption of a younger sibling (in this case, from Korea). Ms. Yumi — who was born and grew up in Korea — writes with simple charm, and her illustrations are especially beautiful.

Ms. Yumi writes: “The first time I met a child who had been adopted from Korea — where I was born and lived until I was 24 years old — was eighteen years ago on a ski trip to Massachusetts. I was cautiously learning to step with my long skis, and he was my teenage ski instructor. It was strange to see someone from my country who was so adept at a Western sport, but is also made me feel proud of him. He had come such a long way, without his birth parents, and was thriving . . . ” She wrote this book for the many Asian children she’s known who were adopted as children; having adopted the United States as her own home, Ms. Yumi says, “I’ve always felt a kinship with these children.”

The second book, while not specifically about adoption, is nonetheless a beautiful book entitled simply “Beginnings,” by Lori Ann Watson and Shennen Bersani (Pauline Books and Media). With the eye of an adoptive parent, I was especially touched by one passage near the end of the book, which reads:

“And in the beginning — in YOUR beginning –

God thought of you, and he loved you.

He loved you so much that, at just the right time,

he chose the perfect place for you,

inside the safe, warm shelter of your mother’s womb . . .”

Though like many adoptive parents I like to tell my children that they grew inside my heart long before I laid eyes on them, acknowledging the gift of their birth — and affirming that, whatever circumstances led to the adoption, their birth mothers indeed loved them from the beginning — is an important part of helping a child make sense of his own family story. Because the truth is that, no matter how our children came to us, they were known and loved by God from the very beginning.

The third book I’d like to review today is entitled Red in the Flower Bed, by Andrea Nepa (Tribute Books). Andrea is an adoptive mother of a little girl from Vietnam, and I had the pleasure of asking her a few questions about her book:

1.  Tell me a bit about your international adoption story.

Our adoption journey began when we went to Vietnam to get our daughter when she was 4 months old.  We stayed there for 2 weeks, which was an incredible way to get to know a little bit about her place of birth.  We loved watching her spunky personality emerge as she grew.  Our biggest challenge so far was when she was diagnosed with Ewings sarcoma, a rare pediatric bone cancer, at the age of 5.  (After major surgery and 8 months of chemo, she has now been in remission for 2 years). 

She understood from an early age that she was adopted and sometimes would cry that she missed her birth mother.  Her mourning and my inability to answer her questions about her adoption (we were not given any info. as to who her biological parents were or even the circumstances of her being given up) was part of my inspiration to write this story.  Plus, I felt that somehow perhaps she was meant to be with us, since we live only 20 minutes away from the best children’s hospital in the country, if not the world.

 2.  What advice would you give parents who adopt an older child, and run into difficulties parenting that child — if the “flower” has difficulty fitting in their particular garden?

You have to acknowledge and respect the child’s cultural heritage no matter what age they are adopted at.  The idea isn’t necessarily for the flower to have to fit in to the garden, but for the flower and garden to complement each other with their differences.  It is no doubt much harder for an older child to adjust to a new family in a new culture than for a very young child.  Ideally, the child should be accepted by their family unconditionally for who they are and not have to live up to expectations for the kind of person they “should” be.  The garden flowers accepted the seed for who she was before they knew what kind of flower she would be.  Also, I believe that parents need to be flexible in adapting to the personality of their child (whether or not they are adopted, but of course this is just my opinion!).

3.  The image of “seed” can be a loaded one for some adoptive families, especially those whose children come from neglectful or abusive backgrounds. The suggestion is that — no matter what you do to raise the child, all he is and will ever be is already determined in the “seed.” How would you respond to this?

The seed retains its identity no matter where it lands, since its heritage can’t be denied and shouldn’t be ignored.  Looking different is not something to be ashamed of.  In the story the seed thrived and blossomed into a healthy, beautiful flower because it was given the love and care it needed.  Superficially the poppy looks like her birth flower, but also in a good environment she is allowed to reach her full potential. Likewise, a child who experiences an abusive home will likely be influenced in a negative way. This is one good reason to adopt a needy child!  All children deserve a loving home.

 4.  What do you say to grown international adoptees who long to know more about their roots, but don’t know how to begin?

I don’t have direct experience with this, but from an adoptive parent’s perspective I will say that it is important to be honest with your child as much as possible even if this means saying “I don’t know”.  The child should not be made to feel guilty about asking questions about their past; it’s their right to know.  The only question that my daughter asks that I can honestly answer with some confidence is when she wants to know what her birth mother looks like.  She loves to hear “she looks like you”.  This is another reason why I made the seed turn out as a red poppy like its mother flower.  In terms of dealing with adoption issues, it is important for adoptees to have contact with other adoptees.

Thursday Chat

Converting Blogs to Books

I was really excited  to find out there are several ways to convert a blog into a book  (click here  and go to suggestion #3.  This article also has some great ideals on  how to save your kid’s art and other projects. ) I’d love to customize and create a book for each of my boys from my blog posts and it’s spurred me on to post more about our daily lives.  BTW ~ stop on over and visit  Renae ; her blog is great!

A Neat Find

I found a really neat offer from Sam’s Club and Kraft  Foods ~ a two week menu plan meals and for Sam’s Club member’s…a chance to create your own cookbook for FREE!

The Saga of a Tween and Pre-Tween

Our boys have shared a bedroom for years and normally they get along great. Lately though,  with my oldest son progressing to being a tween and our youngest, wishing he was a tween ~ they’ve been having a little friction.  We had a family meeting last night and we all decided it was time for them to have their own space.  I thought it would be the weekend when we moved everything but the boys were so excited they wanted to do it last night.

What did we do for family night last night?  

We cleaned, organized and moved furniture. We arranged and re-arranged furniture and left the boys to dream of how they are going to “create” their own spaces.  Both boys are tickled purple!   It’s great to see them finding out who they are and expressing their own individuality.  Still, it’s a little scary….Aaron and I aren’t sure yet that we’re ready for the tween/teen years!

Another Great Book for Summer…

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

(click on the book title to read the book review)

This is a really good book and I urge you to put it on your summer reading lists.   This book is very well written, an excellent read and it left me with a lot of questions and unsettled feelings (which personally tells me it was a very good book!). I’ll definitely be researching that period of our US history to learn more about it and it’s effects on our American Japanese citizens.

Not the ordinary soldier's story!

Imagine you are born into a culture entrenched in a strict cast system and you are from the lowest possible circumstances. Your only hope to  advance beyond your lowly birth is to join the military and hopefully prove your self worthy. After years of service as little more than a prison guard your day comes to show what you can do in graduating field exercises. The problem is the judges will never overlook your origins, so you must do far better than any other soldier to even hope to be passed.

Near the end of training, you find yourself in a cave where the missing child of an important official has been taken hostage. What happens in that cave ensures your place as a soldier but also leaves you with a dark secret that will follow you from that day forward. Not long after joining your first field unit, its commanding officer volunteers for a mission to provide security for, of all things, engineers. Little could your unit know what this simple and potentially boring mission will mean for you or the entire world.

Now imagine this all happens on a distant planet whose history is shrouded in the Dread, a gnawing fear that discourages its inhabitants from digging too deeply into their past. Only a few have faith in who they believe to be the one true creator while most, like you, believe in nothing but themselves and the Karn Empire. You are a simple solider who will face extraordinary situations, enemies, and decisions you never imagined (except in your dreams). Oh did I mention? You are a Yanguch of the planet Saurin. You are eleven feet tall, eighteen feet long and have skin that is blue-green with maroon speckles.

Stockton has spent much of his life building the mythos of the Starfire world and it shows in the richness of its characters and story of his debut novel. To be honest, I haven’t read fantasy or this kind of Science fiction in many years but Stockton has wet my appetite for more.

Ohenro

In my continuing series of reviews of travelogues set in Japan, the next book is Japanese Pilgrimage by Oliver Statler. The book is about the circular pilgrimage to eight eight temples on the island of Shikoku: Ohenro. Legend has it that the pilgrimage was founded by ancient Japan’s own superhero, Kobo Daishi. It is still popular today, though more and more pilgrims complete the journey by automobile these days.

Oliver Statler walked it. He relates interesting tidbits from his trip, as well as from his previous trips along the same route, along with some history and folklore to give it depth. The text held my interest; and I enjoyed the tale from beginning to end. Along the way, Statler paints engrossing images of the kinds of figures who made Japanese folk Buddhism, which is epitomized by Ohenro. He also brings up bits from diaries left by pilgrims in bygone ages.

I have to admit that I had an interest in the topic, which may have contributed to my enjoyment of this book. I used to live on Shikoku, have visited several of the pilgrimage sites, and had contemplated going on the same pilgrimage even before that. Mrs. Wang did it, years before I met her. It remains a goal of mine to do so someday.

Anyway, I thought it was a good read. It is a good story about a journey, and gives an interesting perspective on Japanese folk religion.

Twice Born by Leela Soma

by Suzan Abrams *Twice Born a debut novel by Leela Soma and the first work of fiction to feature a story on Indian emigration to Scotland, will be officially launched at Borders, Glasgow on Thursday, 4th June 2009 from 6.30pm.

 

Twice Born, a broad and glossy 3-layered colour plus 240-page paperback, by Glasgow academic turned high-spirited writer, Leela Soma – photograph provided in link – and beautifully produced by YouWriteOn.com in London; may tickle your senses to the alluring idea of an etheral beauty lived and not imagined.

And why not when this reader on long closing the last page to the unexpected novel, would wistfully be reminded of shiny brassware and gold earrings, the close rustling of silks and lingering scents or otherwise too, of a frangipani whiff, exotic Indian sweetmeats and long graceful sarees enough to rainbow up a musty wardrobe somewhere in the middle of a cold, grey and rainy Scotland. It is after all fitting that Soma herself a stalwart emigrant to Glasgow while still in her exuberant twenties in the Seventies; and now recent winner of the Scottish Margaret Thompson Davis prize for the submission of the first 10,000 words of a novel, continues to weave with deft clarity, in her gentle cordial style as one would subject a vintage handloom to the creation of a painstaking garment. The riveting story of medical student, Sita who arrives in 70’s Glasgow, with her new husband, Ram a medical practitioner, tempts the reader on a challenging head-to-head emigrant journey of rows of   slightly ramshackle old housing estates in Glasgow, before the city’s eventual and fashionable facelift would beckon the tourist.

Throughout the whimsical tale that traces Sita’s birth in a respectable Brahmin household in hot dusty Madras (now Chennai) to her happy if not questioning childhood and later, an arranged marriage, the determined voluble Sita will pursue the risky vulnerabilities of a rightful romantic endeavour that appears sadly elusive even if she is determined that it must stay liberal, when measured against the dour silence of her politically motivated husband, whom Soma moulds as a distinctly likeable character.

For this supplementary plot alone, the reader is encouraged to soldier on an emigrant’s emotional and sometimes painful if not vibrant journey seen for the first time through Soma’s own eyes of Glasgow’s sadder face, apparent three decades ago. Here is a story written by no fledgling who rolls up her sleeves for armfuls of research to an imagined past but rather the voracious gathering of a life lived, learnt and considered priceless by Soma herself. In a web interview, she will talk for instance, of her shock at seeing clumps of butter being rolled up in sheets of paper at the grocery store when first moving to the Glasgow suburbs and this in alignment with a fictitious episode in the book.

However, even a romantic affair and the security of a stable Indian marriage carefully arranged by the respective families back in India and accompanied by the usual colourful protocol that decorates tradition; must now take second place to, the picture of the ambitious professional couple in Scotland whose every cantankerous personality trait and domestic upheaval are traced like the imminent lines to a watchful painting, pressing humorous and adaptation skills in a foreign setting. And then that too, that must play second fiddle to Soma’s more important message which is that of Scotland’s unsettling emigrant history and tradition.

How cleverly as only an experienced veteran is capable of rightful observation, are the temperance of social cultural and interactions skills delicately balanced into a superb waltz and this too, while the tune is conjured up by Soma’s capable hands, how gracefully indeed do each of her characters tiptoe the risky tightrope all the way to the end of the plot without crashing on the trampoline or losing focus of their rightful roles while dipping into social interaction formalities that may bear happiness or contentment.

There is Sita’s daughter, a diaspora Indian of the UK, her dutiful parents, relatives and servants back home and shaded by a life of heavy rituals and easy living. Plus, there is the vital expatriate Indian community which consist of her best friends and also the disruptive gossips, tragic skeletons in the closet and rivalries which ardently match tooth for a tooth and eye for an eye. There’s no denying that Soma asks all the sharp pertaining questions that lends itself to the curious idea of an arranged marriage and comes up with intriguing viewpoints.

Soma masterminds every adventurous chapter with a honeyed smoothness for swift detail and explanation.

She is expert at shifting a reader’s mind between two continents at the blink of an eye and then with equal devotion, blending history with the present or commanding one character’s life to be intricately webbed with the other. Soma holds a clear talent for turning Twice Born into a kaleidescope series of film reels that may akin the entire book to an enthralling screenplay bearing exoticism or one that may heighten the reader’s imagination to the the surreal from what may have otherwise been nothing more than ordinary detail. Throughout, Soma stays adept at a case of show-and-not-tell that depicts the struggle of many authors. Her easy manouvering of a character’s vivid personality traits may later be recounted as memorable. For instance, Sita’s husband, Ram who is an excellent cook and possesses eccentric habits with the preparation of his mealtimes, allows Soma to turn the tables onto Indian cuisine with appearing patronizing to the reader. She is also brilliant at using present-day images like the sound of a crashing plate or a nostalgic turn of a photo album page to shift the reader’s mind into an exposition scene featuring an earlier time and a different place. Lest this appears predictable, she then reveals her competence at drumming up minor dramas that may surround the crashed plate or photos like Ram’s sulkiness in not wanting to share his memories as he hurriedly returns the photo albums to their rightful corners. This reader, particular enjoyed another execution aspect of show-and-not-tell where on first arriving in Glasgow Sita turns on her radio channel to Radio 4 and is straightaway amused at the prospect of a talk show on ferrets which recounts how British a programme it is. She immediately compares this to a scene in India which clearly marks cultural differences and labels her foreign territory with ease. Like an accomplished travelogue, rich and rustic pictures are painted of tradition and ritual, of customs and celebrations of lands, town, cities and villages in India. And then too with the same slick acumen, the kind and darker sides of Glasgow are captured with no less a celebration. The only weaknesses were minor and could be easily adjusted, in case a reprint is ever called for. Where characterization is concerned, perhaps if Sita’s husband Ram had demonstrated in the early chapters an intense emotional relationship with his aunt who would later die, the reader might have been allowed to mourn with the character…instead of having to recount scenes as sterile. Another older Pakistani character, Dr. Faraz who abandons his young cousin whom he was forced to marry in Scotland for another young Scots nurse reflects a clear stereotype or rather facade of a predictable and by now after so much media entertainment in the UK, slightly stale portrayal of a muslim story, when thousands of modern muslims are easily far more liberal than Dr. Faraz. In the end, the reader felt the gossip’s lesbian daughter to be another thorn in the flesh as this character too, easily appeared as an additional separate stereotype. In this way, the ambitious Soma appeared overly-eager in  tackling one too many controversial issues at the same time. Also, a final proof-read and edit check would have been apt as there were several conjunctions and prepositions missing and these topped with words often written in the colloqial rather than with the spit’n polish attributed to a professional slant that makes for any sophisticated prose. Of course,  these prove minor in comparison to the real knowledge that Soma had attempted a major feat with her storytelling and passed with flying colours. She is a delightful promising raconteur, a considerate entertainer and has with keen industrious fortitude shaped Twice Born to be a valuable contribution to Scotland’s immigration history and too, a slice of its recorded memory. Twice Born if pursued with the right awareness and publicity, will most likely be hallmarked someday as an elegant symbol of Scotland’s immigration story with a view to history, heritage and a diverse cultural belonging important and necessary to all the new generations that follow. Here then by Leela Soma and served so deliciously for you in  the warm evening glow of a room,  as a nightcap or an ornament for the bedside table is Twice Born, the real thing. Be warned that you may just as well catch the sudden smell of camphor at the turn of  a page or hear the  lashing rain  and long low whistle of a mischevious Glasgow gale while caught up in a flamboyant dance outside the window pane.

Exceptional New Books Available in May

With the weather warming up at the end of spring and beginning of summer, many people feel a spirit of discovery and adventure stirring. Whether you want to discover a new place, a new topic, or something new about yourself, we have the book for you. North Atlantic Books is proud to introduce our diverse new titles for May. Ranging from France to crop circles to Shamanic teachings to Gandhi, these books will instruct, intrigue and inspire.

To order, please visit www.northatlanticbooks.com.

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Green Earth Guide: Traveling Naturally in France

By Dorian Yates

Green Earth Guide is a one-stop reference that provides travelers in France with tips to stay green and healthy even when traveling. This guide contains current, comprehensive listings of health food stores and farmers’ markets, public transit information, alternative health care facilities, green businesses, organic vineyards, renewable energy resources, yoga and spiritual centers, national parks, and other green places of interest. Written in a friendly, accessible style with personal anecdotes, how-to travel tips, and practical information, the book offers an insider’s guide to healthy living on the road. Green Earth Guide helps travelers have a wonderful, fulfilling vacation while leaving a smaller footprint wherever they venture in France.

$14.95/$18.95

Trade Paper

978-1-55643-806-6

160 pages, 5 x 9

On sale May 5, 2009

Click HERE to visit the author’s website.

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Discovering Your Spirit Animal: The Wisdom of the Shamans

By Lucy Harmer

Shamanic healer Lucy Harmer presents a practical approach to understanding spirit animals and applying their power to specific situations in daily life. The book explains what a spirit animal is, describes its purpose, and shows that understanding the “medicine” of one’s spirit animal—assimilating its qualities and characteristics—allows one to apply the lessons and messages they convey and use them for personal transformation. Discovering Your Spirit Animal provides guidance for meeting and getting to know one’s spirit animal through easy exercises and shamanic techniques.

$12.95/$15.99

Trade Paper

978-1-55643-796-0

100 pages, 5 x 8

On sale May 12, 2009

Click HERE to view the author’s website.

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Centered and Connected: A Therapeutic Approach to Mind-Body Awareness

By Thea Rytz

Centered and Connected presents body-based techniques that integrate practices of self-reflection and non-judgmental awareness in order to foster healing, build self-esteem, and develop a stronger connection to one’s body. Author Rytz explores the disconnection between the mind and body, which can create alienation, lack of self-acceptance, and more serious emotional problems. Some of the body areas explored include the head, heart, hands, feet, stomach, and pelvis, as well as body-related phenomena such as the breath, gravity, and the voice. Each topic is followed by four simple and enjoyable activities meant to improve the body-mind relationship. There are 128 activities in all. More than 250 photographs and illustrations help readers visualize and utilize the exercises described.

$17.95/$22.00

Trade Paper

978-1-55643-798-4

200 pages, 8-3/4 x 7-7/8

On sale May 12, 2009

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Crop Circles: The Bones of God

By Michael Glickman

An intensive study of the crop-circle phenomenon in the region of its most important appearances—the English countryside—has given Glickman extraordinary personal insight into a subject usually known only through second-hand reports and speculation. More than eight years in the writing, Crop Circles: The Bones of God is unique among books on this modern enigma in that it combines the author’s firsthand field encounters and some of the most famous crop-circle formations with an intricate and dazzling analysis of the structure and content of those formations. This beautifully illustrated mix of personal narrative with detailed study informs a larger discussion of the role of crop circles in the modern world and their unprecedented promise of new chapters in the history of consciousness.

$15.95/$18.95

Trade Paper

978-1-58394-228-4

160 pages, 7 x 9-1/4

On sale May 12, 2009

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The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi

By Mahatma Gandhi, Edited by John Strohmeier

The Bhagavad Gita, also called The Song of the Lord, is a 700- line section of a much longer Sanskrit war epic, the Mahabharata, about the legendary conflict between two branches of an Indian ruling family. Framed as a conversation between Krishna, an incarnation of the god Vishnu, and a general of one of the armies, the Gita is written in powerful poetic language meant to be chanted. This book is based on talks given by Gandhi between February and November 1926 at the Satyagraha Ashram in Ahmedabad, India. During this time—a period when Gandhi had withdrawn from mass political activity–he met with his followers almost daily, after morning prayer sessions, to discuss the Gita’s contents and meaning as it unfolded before him. This book is the transcription of those daily sessions.

$13.95/$17.95

Trade Paper

978-1-55643-800-4

248 pages, 5-1/2 x 8-1/2

On sale May 19, 2009

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That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals: A Book about Vegans, Vegetarians, and All Living Things

By Ruby Roth

That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals uses colorful artwork and lively text to introduce vegetarianism and veganism to early readers (ages six to ten). Written and illustrated by Ruby Roth, the book features an endearing animal cast of pigs, turkeys, cows, quail, turtles, and dolphins. The book also describes the negative effects eating meat has on the environment. A separate section entitled “What Else Can We Do?” suggests ways children can learn more about the vegetarian and vegan lifestyles, such as: “Celebrate Thanksgiving with a vegan feast” or “Buy clothes, shoes, belts, and bags that are not made from leather or other animal skins or fur.” This compassionate, informative book offers both an entertaining read and a resource to inspire parents and children to talk about a timely, increasingly important subject.

$16.95/$19.95 in Canada

Hardcover

978-1-55643-785-4

48 pages, 11 x 9

On sale May 26, 2009

Click HERE to visit the author’s website.

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Double Book Review: Ex-Girlfriends United by Matt Dunn

Being a sequel to previous best seller ‘The Ex-Boyfriends Handbook’, the book picks up again with main character Dan Davis and Ed Middleton and their escapades with the women of Brighton.

Ed is still happy with personal trainer girlfriend Sam, but Dan is suffering a bit of a woman drought. He quickly finds out that all of his ex-girlfriends have been rating him on website SlateYourDate.com. Dan’s determined to rectify these poor ratings, and Ed decides to help him change his caddish ways.

But just as Ed is finally settling down, a blast from the past makes their way back into Ed’s life to disrupt everything…

As I mentioned, I absolutely adored this book’s prequel, and consequently it got a glowing review from me! I recommended it to a few people who also loved it, so I’m glad it wasn’t just me! I was really hoping for the standard writing to be the same, and the relationships between the main two characters of Ed and Dan to be the same once more. Luckily for me, I was thrilled to discover that it was and within the first couple of pages I was hooked again! Despite it being a few months between reading this book and its predecessor, I found I got into the characters so quickly because of Dunn’s writing, and it was like getting back with old friends.

The previous book chose to focus mainly on Ed’s character and Dan was more of a subsiduary one, albeit most definitely the comic relief throughout the book. This book however follows more of Dan’s life, his disastrous lovelife being the main plot. The idea of a website being created to rate awful men after dates is fantastic, and the way it is done in the book is brilliant! Dan’s got such a bad reputation its not surprising no woman will touch him with a bargepole and his discovery of these reviews is simply hilarious. It’s nice to see the womaniser being taken down a peg or two, btu despite his awful behaviour I just can’t help but love Dan! He’s such a prat but he’s great for it lol!

It was nice to see some old familiar characters come back, from the main pair to Wendy the barmaid and as I said a face from Ed’s past even makes an appearance which throws an interesting twist onto the book and an element we didn’t really get from the first book. Dunn seems to have a really natural way of putting men’s feelings onto paper, yet making it incredibly funny and appealing for women to read as well. Because of this, I can easily see that this is going to be a book that both men and women can read and both enjoy. Women will probably be glad they don’t know any men like Dan and men will be glad that they aren’t Dan! Being written again from Ed’s perspective, you get right into the story and the characters, and just get so absorbed into it, you can’t put it down!

As you probably tell from my glowing review of yet another Matt Dunn book, I just can’t recommend this book enough to anyone who enjoys a fun and easy read that is 100% guaranteed to make you laugh! I would say that you should read the two books in order, so read ‘The Ex-Boyfriends Handbook’ before you read this to set the scene and get to know the characters and why they are like they are in this book. So that’s 3 out of 4 books of Dunn’s I have loved, and I’ll be getting the first of his books from the library soon enough and I can’t wait! It’s a brilliant read, with an easy to read writing style, great characters, great plot and is just brilliant. I loved it!

Rating: 5/5

For a review of the book’s prequel The Ex-Boyfriend’s Handbook, please click here

HERO: Becoming the Man She Desires

During our Re:Married series I mentioned the book Every Man’s Battle by Fred Stoeker and Mike Yorkey. It covers sexual purity for a man and is very good. Their lastest book, HERO: Becoming the Man She Desires, includes Fred’s son Jasen in the writings.

Written primarily for single men, this book can be read in two or three nights because the 16 chapters are captivating and fast moving. This doesn’t mean though that married guys can’t learn from this book…the guys give very practical examples from their lives and others in how to become the not just man, but man of God that will make you desirable to a woman. Essentially the book looks at 9 modern day myths that guys believe about marriage, dating, relationships and sex. Written in many ways to tell the story of Jasen growing up, then meeting his wife Rose and doing it all in a pure way, this book is a full of ideas that will challenge your thinking. I also liked that Rose from time to time writes a little to give the female perspective on what’s being discussed.

Released just last month, this book would make an excellent gift for graduates or any guy who has the rest of the Every Man series. Highly recommended.

Ambition 10, Fame 3 -- Nancy Balbirer’s 'Take Your Shirt Off and Cry,' a Memoir of Near-Misses as an Actor in Hollywood and New York

Did she miss out on fame because Hollywood is ruthless or because she consulted wackos like the psychic who spoke in the voice of an ovary?

Take Your Shirt Off and Cry: A Memoir of Near-Fame Experiences. By Nancy Balbirer. Bloombsbury USA, 256 pp., $16, paperback.

By Janice Harayda

Nancy Balbirer updates the saying that acting is a hard way to earn an easy living in this uneven memoir of two decades of near-misses in show business. Balbirer tells lively stories about how she landed modest roles on Seinfeld and MTV while paying her rent through jobs like cocktail-waitressing and blow-drying friends’ hair for $20, all the while yearning for stardom that came neither in New York nor Hollywood.

But it’s unclear how much of her book you can believe, and not just because an author’s note warns – here we go again – that some facts have been changed “for literary reasons.” Balbirer takes her title and theme from a warning she says she got during a private conversation with the playwright David Mamet, one of her acting teachers at the Tisch School of the Arts. As she tells it, Mamet said that as a woman in show business, she’d be asked to do two things in every role she played:

“Take your shirt off and cry. Still, there’s no reason that you can’t do those things and do them with dignity and the scene properly analyzed.”

Did Mamet really say those lines as written? Good writers tend to keep related words together unless they have reason to split them up, and you wonder if Mamet said, “Take your shirt off” instead of the more graceful “Take off your shirt.” And his “still” seems stilted for a conversation between two people walking toward a Seventh Avenue subway stop.

In the years that followed her talk with Mamet, Balbirer took her shirt off – literally and figuratively — more than once. Yet her willingness to expose herself may have had more to do with a lack of self-awareness than with the raw exploitation envisioned by Mamet. On the evidence of Take Your Shirt Off and Cry, Balbirer has that paradoxical combination so often found in actors: enough intelligence to welcome complex Shakespearean and other roles but too little of it to stay away from con artists, whether they take form of tarot card readers or manipulative lovers. She’s hardly alone among would-be stars in having found an eviction notice taped to her door before she earned redemption (which came, in her case, from writing and starring in the solo show I Slept With Jack Kerouac). But you wonder if she might have avoided some disasters if she’d given less money to people like “a psychic in Tennessee” who spoke to her in the voice of one of her ovaries.

“Wacky, yes, and even wackier that my ‘ovary’ had a thick Southern accent,” she admits, “and still … I believed.”

Best line: Two of the “the enormous angry placards” Balbirer saw in the waiting areas of casting offices: “ACTORS MAY NOT EAT IN THIS AREA!!!” and “ACTORS: CLEAN UP YOUR GARBAGE!!” See also the quote posted earlier on May 20.

Worst line: No. 1: Some parts of Take Your Shirt Off and Cry are so neat, they leave you wondering if they include made-up scenes, dialogue, or characters. Balbirer doesn’t clarify the issue in a vague author’s note that says that she has “in some instances, compressed or expanded time, or otherwise altered events for literary reasons, while remaining faithful to the essential truth of the stories.” No. 2: Balbirer likes cute words (such as “humonguous,” “bazillion” and “suckiest”) that at times work against the serious points she is trying to make.

Published: April 2009

About the author: Balbirer co-owns the Manhattan restaurant Pasita.

One-Book Reviews is for people who like to read but dislike hype and review inflation.

© 2009 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

www.twitter.com/janiceharayda

New Favorite Chapter Book: Rumblewick's Diary!

Everyone likes a good cat book, and we all love a touch of magical hijinx.  So what’s not to love about Rumblewick’s Diary?

Newly imported from England, Rumblewick’s Diary by Hiawyn Oram is a series revolving around witchcraft and mischief.  Rumblewick is a cat – a witch’s familliar – who can’t keep his witch in line.  Haggy Aggy would sooner dress up in fancy clothes and drive a pink car than scare children, stir potions, or ride a broom.  She’s so naughty that she’s even sold Rumblewick’s PERSONAL diaries to a publisher.  Too bad for Rumblewick, but perfect for you and me – now we get to read about Haggy Aggy’s misadventures and Rumblewick’s trouble with the High Hags!  With Quentin-Blake style illustrations by Sarah Warburton, goofy humor, and a fundiary format, these books will be a hit with early readers and parents alike!

The first book in the series is already on BookKids shelves, with the second on its way later this summer.  Don’t miss out, come in and snag a copy!

The Chicago Tribune review request for "Strapped Into An American Dream"

My publisher just received a request for a review copy of my book, “Strapped Into An American Dream,” from the Chicago Tribune, which has “Resourceful Traveler” within its Sunday Travel section.  This Travel book review column would do wonders for my book, so I am very much hoping that they will do the review, but they could not guarantee it. I can guaratee that I will be thrilled if the Chicago Tribune reviews “Strapped Into An American Dream.” 

MIA

I know that I have totally been MIA and I’m totally sorry.  Work the last week has really pushed me but not in the bad way. Yes, I have been stressed out and yes it’s been a lot of work but I feel like I came out on this end of things having learned something and being a little more confidant about things. And I get to put the new skills into work next week.

On the family front, Izzy and I pretty much spent the weekend fighting. It never seems to end. He doesn’t feel like I do enough, even though he’s on his way out the door to the movies right now and I’m at home alone with Nate.  I don’t feel like he appreciates everything that I HAVE done and takes advantage of me, so we end up resenting each other and fighting about the building resentments. There are times that I know he’s upset but he won’t be respectful in telling me that he’s upset, instead he attacks and that’s not how I operate. If I get attacked, I go into attack mode myself – that’s my default position, especially considering my training.  Now, I have to step back and remind myself to say “Ooook, that’s not really what you meant is it because this is how I’m taking it.” And so far, it’s seemed to work. I can see him thinking about how to say things and trying to be more respectful. Let’s hope that this works.

On a brighter note:

I have completed another book in my goal!  It’s:

The review can be found here. Please enjoy!

A Gospel Primer

“This book is offered as a handy guide to help Christians experience the gospel more fully by preaching it to themselves each day. It is also offered as a correction to a costly mistake made by Christians who view the gospel as something that has fully served out its purpose the moment they believed in Jesus for salvation. Not knowing what to do with the gospel once they are saved, they lay it aside soon after conversion so they can move on to “bigger and better” things (even Scriptural things). …God did not give us His gospel so we could embrace it and be converted. Actually, He offers it to us every day as a gift that keeps on giving to us everything we need for life and godliness” (5).

That statement from the introduction of Milton Vincent’s short book, A Gospel Primer for Christians: Learning to See the Glories of God’s Love (2008), was only an appetizer to the gospel feast he prepared in the following four chapters. The first provides thirty-one brief (paragraph-sized) meditations on the gospel, paying special attention to its present effect for life, joy, godliness, the pursuit of holiness, etc. The second provides a brief-though-sweeping narrative of the gospel followed by the same narrative retold in a poem. Both of these chapters serve as memorization tools to help store up within our hearts all that God is for us in Jesus, so that these truths might be used mightily by the Spirit throughout our daily walk. Scripture verses also appear as footnotes on each page. In the final chapter he gives his testimony of God’s triumph in suprising him with the power of grace in the gospel.

What I appreciated and thought was rather unique was that Vincent uses the first person (”I,” “my,” “me”) throughout the first three chapters, so helping his readers already to preach to themselves the infinite riches of God’s love. Overall, Vincent’s book serves as a very practical tool that cultivates ongoing love for the gospel itself and fruitful reflection on the gospel’s effects. Young believers and seasoned believers would do well to read through this book (or at least carry out the preaching found in its pages). If more Christians lived out what Vincent encourages, the gospel would cease to be viewed as merely a class to get through, and instead be seen as the school we enter as Christ’s disciples.

Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision in the Blogosphere

N. T. Wright’s new book has gotten plenty of attention in the blogosphere over the past few months.  Here’s a list of links to all of the reviews/discussions of the book that I’ve come across.  NB that I am not including posts that just mention the book in passing or perhaps offer a quote or two.  These are all reviews/reflections/discussions.

Ken Schenck:

• Tom Wright: Justification 1
• Tom Wright: Justification 2
• Tom Wright: Justification 3
• Tom Wright: Justification 4
• Tom Wright: Justification 5
• Tom Wright: Justification 6
• Tom Wright: Justification 7.1
• Tom Wright: Justification 7.2
• Tom Wright: Justification 7.3
• Tom Wright: Justification 7.4
• Tom Wright: Justification 7.5–7.6
• Tom Wright: Justification, The End

Douglas Wilson:

• The Hinge Upon Which All Turns
• Festooned with Ribbons
• Remember that Paul Hops from Foot to Foot
• So Bildad is a Skunk
• That Glorious Word Imputation
• Just a Skosh More on Imputation
• Thought Forms to Rescue
• Walk According to this Rule
• Torah Torah Torah
• And Lots Have
• Like Scarsdale
• Chief of Sinners, Really
• He Doesn’t Just Take the Dirty One Away
• A Jedi-Knight Mastery of Pauline Theology
• At Least Not in Paul
• Part of the Temple Belonged to Them
• No Need to Replace the Furniture
• Tea Kettle Charges of Heresy
• Hans Brinker and the Text
• An Adam is Never Off the Clock
• Tom, Bishop of Durham

Scot McKnight:

• Justification and New Perspective 1
• Justification and New Perspective 2
• Justification and New Perspective 3
• Justification and New Perspective 4
• Justification and New Perspective 5
• Justification and New Perspective 6

Nijay K. Gupta:

• Review of Bishop Tom’s Justification Book

Michael Bird:

• SBTS Wright Review Panel

Celucien Joseph:

• The Future of Justification: Is N. T. Wright Really Wrong?

Daniel J. Doleys:

• Some Thoughts on Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision by Tom Wright
• Response to SBTS/Boyce College Forum on Tom Wright’s Justification

Denny Burke:

• Schreiner, Seifrid, and Vickers Assess Piper-Wright Debate at Boyce College (w/ audio from SBTS/Boyce College Forum)

Guy Waters:

• N.T. Wright’s Doctrine of Justification, Part 1 (audio)
• N.T. Wright’s Doctrine of Justification, Part 2 (audio)

B”H

Book Review: Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Great books are not in short supply in our world. Great books that touch the deepest part of our souls…? Well, I can’t really speak for the world. I didn’t do my research. But I do know that finding that great and meaningful book can be merited as a great accomplishment in one’s life.

I discovered Jerry Spinelli’s masterpiece, Stargirl, when I was in my third year of university. Past the young adult bracket, I defied categories and labels and read the book. After the first chapter, I devoured it. It was that amazing.

The book was named after the heroine Stargirl Caraway. She’s this out-of-the-box, crazy, weird, unreal girl who escapes all definitions. Her new schoolmates at Mica High School, Arizona couldn’t quite figure her out. They even went so far as to call her “a plant by the school administration to promote school spirit.” But really, she was just a girl who has discovered that there is something beyond herself and the world we lived in.

Leo Borlock, a student at Mica High, was fascinated by Stargirl. He wanted to know what went on in her head. He got close to her and got to know her, alright. But he wasn’t prepared for Stargirl. She was too different. He couldn’t fathom the way she thought, acted, and felt. She did good things that people wouldn’t normally do like not keeping change, or remembering strangers’ birthdays, or leaving anonymous gifts. She meditated. She had a pet mouse. She wore the weirdest, most outdated clothes.

She was not one of us.

Like Leo, I was fascinated by Stargirl’s character. She was, and is, definitely the most refreshing character I’ve ever encountered in the world of fiction. The book itself was also wonderful. The story was well thought of and the narration was flawless. The other characters were crafted quite well; they had their own story to tell. But their stories didn’t overshadow Stargirl’s story. Rather, they complemented and highlighted.

As a proof of the book’s well written content, one will find numerous quotes and quotable lines inside. They range from the funny to the sad to the enraging. Let’s not forget the individual and personal lessons that can be picked up and learned from the story. The book also promotes, as I see it, individualism, nonconformity, and spirituality.

I’ve read the book over and over again but I still find myself learning something from it over and over again. I can say that opening myself up to this book is one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.

The Patriot's Bible: Initial Impression

My full review is a while away but here are my initial thoughts…

Aesthetics

Initially I have to say that it’s an attractive Bible.  Nothing too flashy on the inside.  The colors used are what I’d describe as muted and they really look nice.  The paper is nice and thick so there’s no bleed-through.  There’s a bunch of nice color photos throughout.  I don’t like that they went with a dust jacket though.  It would have been nicer to just print directly on the hardcover which is just plain navy blue.

Front Matters

There’s a number of commemorative pages in the front:

• Presentation page
• Marriage Certification page
• Family Records page(s)
• Church Record page
• Family History page
• Ancestors of Interest page
• Map of the USA
• Fifty States page
• Military and Public Service page
• Deaths of Family Members page

Honestly, it’s a bit much.  I never saw the need for anything past the presentation page which is nice for when you’re giving a Bible as a gift.  Other than that I wouldn’t think to record all that other info in a Bible. 

There’s also a 4 page spread on “The Seven Principles of the Judeo-Christian Ethic.”  They’re listed as:

1. The Dignity of Human Life
2. The Traditional Monogamous Family
3. A National Work Ethic
4. The Right to a God-Centered Education
5. The Abrahamic Covenant
6. Common Decency
7. Our Personal Accountability to God

I’d think that a Muslim could affirm pretty much everything on that list save #2 (and they’d have a radically different understanding of #5).

Then there’s a page called “A Call to Action” where it talks about prayer, the processes for bringing about change, participating with those processes, and perseverance.  The most odd bit is in the section on perseverance since it says:

When fighting for the right, we must never cease until we prevail. The battle is not always won by the strongest, the smartest, or the most elite, but ultimately it comes to those who persist and persevere. When soon-to-be President George Washington led his troops into battle during the Revolutionary War, he lost most of those battles, but through perseverance he ultimately won the war. As a result, we won our independence from the British and became a free people. Our Lord taught us that when we put our hands to the plow of a righteous cause, we are never to look back, but to persevere and prevail. (F-16*)

But Jesus isn’t talking about perseverance here (is he?), he’s talking about loyalty to him.  When you flip over to Luke 9:57-62 in this Bible the section heading even reads “The Cost of Discipleship.”  This is a strange application of the verse and I pray that it doesn’t represent the overall use of Scripture throughout this Bible.  If so then I’m in for a lot of head scratching. 

B”H

*The front pages aren’t numbered so I’ve designated them F = front. 

Zoe Strauss - AMERICA

 Copyright 2009 Zoe Strauss, courtesy AMMO

There are photographic projects that become evidient of when the photographer is just a visitor, dropping in to take a photo-op, collect some photo-trophies and then soon back home for the evening to spend time with their spouses and kids. With Zoe Strauss recent project, America by Zoe Strauss, published by AMMO, I quickly understand that these rough and tumble neighborhoods of South Philly is where she lives.  She is not a stranger, but a local, calling this area home.

Although there is an emphasis on the South Philadelphia region, Strauss has moved beyond her local borders into other parts of America. Her photographs are predominately of the people she meets, there are the indirect inclusions of the rest of humanity by way of the signs (textual photographs) and broader urban landscapes. We are rarely provided sweeping vistas, but instead we are brought up close and many time uncomfortable. And many of her photographs do make me feel uncomfortable.

I also come away with the feeling that the locations on her journy that she gravitated to and the people she ended up spending time with is where her comfort zone resides.  She seems to have a strong empathy for those who are on the edges of society, as she often states that she is not of the mainline straight world. She seems to be able to make personal connections that allow folks to reveal themselves, sometimes graphically such as the women (below) who unzips her pants and pulls up her blouse to reveal a long surgical scar, while yet standing openly in the street. People seem to relate to her and allow her to come closer, whether to show a tattoo abover their breast or a fresh tattoo on their arm.

I am so unnerved by the photograph of the women, below, who is using a smashed pencil to provide an eye line. For me, the fact that she probably knows the alarming condition of the pencil, but continues to use it is just so unsettling for me. I can only think that this smashed pencil is probably a good metaphor for a difficult life, but this woman has the fortitude, resilance and tenacity to make the best of it and carry on. This might be best way to describe most of Strauss’s intimate portraits, that of  a testimony to perseverance and survival.

I also find in Strauss’s photographs a caustic undertone but equally realistic, such as the juxtaposition of the tribute to fallen soldiers which happens to be near some lottery drawing (below). Although these two events are not related, Strauss quickly realized that the combination of these random events creates an even stronger message. The ending text for the next drawing sign really brings it together; Good Luck.

The inclusion of her photographs of text within the book are on many occasions is shear comic relief. The traces of words removed, crossed out or painted over continue to tell her story. But for these photographs, I do find some subtle humor that reveals our own humanity. This is carried over with her textual captions which take advantage of random textual juxtapositions that occur in everyday life, such as the erased sign “satisfaction guaranteed” that was removed off the side of a building, which the photograhs caption states, Satisfaction Guaranteed Removed. Or the sign “Together We Make Dreams Come True” which the sign itself is beat up, worn and dirty on the edges, showing decay and run down at the edges. Is the sign itself symbolic of the problems with this ensuing proclamation?

Strass’s photographs show us a sad portrayal of America, although often gritty, such as the Christmas house, provided below, or confrontational. I still find traces of hope and aspiration, with real people and real situations dealing with the hand that were dealt to them.

What I like about this book are the intimate and revealing photographs of people who have allowed us to meet them, on their own terms, perhaps for just this one moment.

The horizontal book is 11 1/4 x 8 1/4″, with 304 pages (unpageated) and 165 color photographs, published by AMMO in 2008. The book was was printed and bound in China with average halftone quality. An intereting interview of Zoe Strauss by Steve Crist is provided by means of an introduction, with subsequent vinettes provided by Strauss through the book.

 

By Douglas Stockdale

BOOK REVIEW: The Back Passage by James Lear

The Back Passage has multiple meanings, beyond the obvious, in this gay send-up/homage to the British Manor house mystery genre; the obvious reference to m/m sex, the servant’s stairs in manors, and in this case, hidden passages.  James Lear writes a funny, fascinating, mystery with a sexually graphic gay twist to it.  I am no fan of m/m books, so this was new territory for me and I wasn’t at all sure I’d like it, especially since it dared to trifle with a favorite genre of mine – British manor house mysteries.  This book was published back in 2006, but I’d never even been aware of it till last year when my foray into erotic romance and lifelong affinity for the British cozy caused Amazon to pop this title in their never ending list ‘might also enjoy’ books.  The reviews were so good I decided I’d give it a try.

The book is written in the first person by Edward ‘Mitch’ Mitchell, an American doing post-graduate studies for a year at Cambridge in 1925.  Mitch is a lively, observant, exuberant, sexually promiscuous, supremely horny narrator the way a 23 year old can be.  In his case, he’s also a totally gay one.  It is the tone that Mitch strikes that makes the story work for me.  I’m not entirely sure how Lear pulled it off, but for all the very explicit m/m sex, I wasn’t offended and the story held my interest.

The cast includes:

Hosts for the weekend: Sir James, an MP, and his wife, Lady Caroline, their daughter Belinda, son and heir Rex

Guests:  Leonard Eagle, the dissolute, unsavory brother of Sir James; Harry ’Boy’ Morgan- Belinda’s fiancée;  Edward ‘Mitch’ Mitchell – Boy’s university chum, narrator and would be sleuth;  Reginald Walworth – guest of Sir James and victim

Late arrivals: Diane Hunt, Rex’s would be fiancée;

Staff: Meeks – an innocent footman accused and arrested for the murder; Burroughs, a butler and voyeur; Hibbert, the handsome chauffeur; Mrs. Rampage, the truly formidable housekeeper

As the story opens, Mitch and the object of Mitch’s lust, rower Harry “Boy” Morgan, have hidden themselves in a small cupboard under the stairs as part of a house party game called ‘sardines.’  Not a bad place to be with the object of your desires.  Even better, he too is feeling frisky and somewhat uninhibited thanks to the combination of heat and alcohol.  Alas, the moment of first consummation is lost when screams are heard.  Belinda, Boy’s fiancée, found a body.

Amazingly, the constabulary is on the spot immediately – and Mitch takes note of a handsome lad in uniform.  Mitch might be lusting for Boy, but he has quite the roving eye – not to mention other body parts.  Another weekend guest, Reginald Walworth is dead in Sir James’ study.  Even Mitch, amateur that he is, wonders at the number of policemen who showed up from all directions at once – within minutes of Belinda’s scream.  He even likens it to the way things happen in a farce on stage.

Now Mitch has always wanted to try his hand at solving a mystery and here’s his chance.  He’s read G. K. Chesterton, Wilkie Collins, even that new writer, Agatha Christie and he thinks he’d be a good sleuth.  Just as he’s in place to eavesdrop on Sir James and the police, Leonard sees them and draws Mitch away for a tryst of their own, promptly ignoring him afterwards.  Mitch is completely at a loss for Leonard’s behavior.  It isn’t until much later that he realizes it was just a way to keep him from learning anything about what’s going on.

When Meeks is thrown to the wolves as an all too pat solution to the murder and Rex makes a very hasty exit of the estate, Mitch becomes determined to see what’s really happening.  The answer is, a lot, from corrupt police, to blackmail, to all manner of hanky panky.  And to think all this happened before Viagra.  The butler is a voyeur with a thing for watching young men (the scene where Mitch questions Burroughs with Boy’s enthusiastic help is unique, funny and not one you’ll find in any Hercule Poirot mystery); the housekeeper will keep the family from scandal at any cost; the chauffeur provides other services – for a fee; a personal secretary that knows more than he can say; hidden passages with spy holes; and then there’s those hidden back passages.

So between seducing Boy – who is actually quite willing to be seduced – digging into areas of his hosts’ lives best left untouched, getting to know that handsome policeman and a few others while he’s at it, including a tabloid writer who trades information for clothing, Mitch keeps up quite an exhausting pace in both sexual antics and the investigation.  Some of his best information comes from a tabloid reporter that trades facts for bits of clothing.  Mitch loses, but gets what he wants anyway.  Yes, THAT too.

The Back Passage is another of those hard to define books that functions at several levels at once.  Its lasciviously good natured narrator keeps things surprisingly entertaining and intelligently written, even though the sex is frequent, raunchy and frankly hard core with a cheekiness that makes it all palatable.  For all its excesses, you could actually feel the characters and their many kinks.  It is the strength of the characters and the fact there’s a real story that keeps this book from becoming nothing but gay porn.  Mr. Lear wrote with a real feel for the period and the class divides and a wry and rather, ah, unique perspective on the sex lives of the time through peepholes and blackmail.  I’d say Lear’s historical slips were far fewer than many historical romance novels when comes to period language, dress, social mores, etc.  There is even a rather unexpected happily ever after of sorts, just not the one Mitch expected.  Finally, the ‘mystery’ part has a surprising solution and hero.  Certainly an unusual book and profoundly not for everyone, but a remarkable read.

My Grade: B- (3.7*)

Who would enjoy this book:  Those unoffended by frequent, explicit, raunchy m/m sex with an interesting mystery in a period piece.  My rating is xxx.

Hipchicks went to war

Guest Editor, Emma Andrews

I was on my way home from Hawaii on a 10 hour flight when I first picked up this little gem When the Hipchicks went to war by Pamela Rushby.  I must admit, I was a little chuffed to be reading the work of an Australian children’s book Author.  I absolutely love Australian children’s literature.  Pamela did not disappoint me with her poignant and thoughtful book about a young girl who is thrust from her adolescent life in Brisbane to the deadly and violent scenes of the Vietnam War.

Kathy is a vibrant 16 year old girl who attends a Catholic convent school with her best friend Cheryl.  While Cheryl is smart and on her way to becoming the school captain, Kathy is not the academic kind and leaves school to pursue a career as a hairdresser.  She soon becomes disenchanted with her life and is keen to break free from her large chaotic family and boring job.

Kathy hears about an audition for an entertainment troupe and before she knows it, she’s chosen as part of a performing trio to entertain Australian troops in Vietnam.  Kathy’s world takes a nasty turn as her best friend Cheryl turns on her for supporting the war.  She feels betrayed, but knows that the adventure she is about to go on will breathe new life into her.  She might even run into her brother who’s off fighting in the war.

Kathy, Gaynor and Layla are innocent girls who soon become accustomed to the horrors of war.  They must not only support each other but also find the courage within themselves to hold the hands of dying soldiers.  The girls learn to survive in this harsh landscape, and love eventually shines through the ever present scent of death. It is only when tragedy strikes that Kathy’s life comes crashing down.

I loved the way Pamela brought together the real experiences of women who had performed in Vietnam and her own travel experiences to develop this wonderfully descriptive teenage novel.  I felt touched by her ability to take you into the lives of young women, the soldiers and the realities of war through the perspective of a 16 year old girl.  I highly recommend When the Hipchicks went to War if you want a quick and easy read and one that will make you feel fulfilled.  Make sure you pass this one on to your teenage niece or daughter!

Pamela Rushby was born in Queensland, and has worked in advertising, as a pre-school teacher, and as a writer and producer of educational television, audio and multimedia. She now freelances as a writer, scriptwriting and multimedia writing/designing. Pamela has had over 100 books published. She has two children and two grandchildren, and lives in Brisbane with her husband.

Available now: Hachette Australia RRP: $16.99

Love,

Sassi

Your Pop Culture Gossip Girl

Book Review: Shoe Addicts Anonymous by Beth Harbison

Lorna, Helene, Sandra and Joss all love shoes. But behind the addiction, all the women hide various secrets threatening to ruin their lives in different ways. Lorna has enormous debts, but just can’t resist the latest Jimmy Choo’s, piling them on yet another credit card. Helene is married to a politician, but behind the public face lies a very unhappy marriage, and secrets Helene is hiding from her own husband that she doesn’t want to get out.

Sandra has a double life, she works as phone-sex operator called Penelope to get some easy cash, and this is how she funds her shoe addiction. Finally, Joss is a nanny for the most awful family and is so desperate to get out of the house she’s willing to join any group.

The ladies meet at ‘Shoe Addicts Anonymous’, and realise they are all going to be friends for a very long time…

As you can probably tell from the plot-line and its cartoony-style cover, this book is pretty fluffy chick-lit, and probably not one for those who dislike this genre purely because you probably won’t enjoy it. However, I did find this to be better than some of the books I have read belonging to this genre, and the book did have some more serious notes weaved in the ’shoes addicts’ storyline, which gave the book a bit of an edge. The book was very enjoyable, and mainly because of the author’s really enjoyable writing style, it was a fun and easy going read with likeable characters whose world you quickly get absorbed into.

For me, it was the characters which made this book enjoyable for me. Although they all had their problems, they were all really normal and likeable sounding people and you quickly found yourself being absorbed into their different worlds. Although its centred on four different women, you never find yourself getting their stories confused because they are so different. All of their personal lives are equally interesting and fun to read, and Harbison’s writing style adapts to each of the characters with ease, letting the story flow seamlessly, and develop in a natural path. With a story involving so many characters and plot-lines, there’s a danger the reader could lose interest or become confused (as I have done with books in the past) with all the people you’re reading about, but this definitely doesn’t happen in this well constructed story.

Lorna’s struggles with money is something that is quite a problem these days, although your electricity being cut off is pretty bad and I wouldn’t let it get that far! Lorna was definitely the most likeable of the bunch, and I looked forward to her part of the story as I read about each of the others, she seemed like someone I’d want to be friends with myself! Helene’s story was intriguing, you could tell there was more to it that met the eye and the way the story unfolded was good, and kept you wanting to find out more. She’s a bit of an oppressed woman, and Harbison tackled the issue of her struggling relationship and Helene being paraded around very well, with real emotion and understanding. Sandra’s life was amusing yet at the same time quite sad because she has bad agoraphobia, and I think the author tackled this issue very well, with realistic descriptions of Sandra’s feelings and a few therapies she goes through as well. She was clearly the one you were meant to sympathise with, starting off as a quite tragic figure but by the end I had really warmed to her. Finally, Joss was probably my least favourite character, she seemed too weak to me compared to the other 3 and didn’t seem to fit in properly. I got irritated with her quite a lot, and I actually think the book would have been fine without her in it to be honest!

This book was really enjoyable, and I thoroughly loved reading it. In fact, once I got into the story, which didn’t take very long at all, I couldn’t put it down as I was desperate to find out how it was all going to end! The story had a good momentum, not leaving any part of the story going too long so that reader doesn’t get bored, and it was this which kept me reading as much as I did! The book is written in the third person, which works best for this type of story because of the multiple characters, and Harbison’s writing style is easy to read and enjoy. For fans of chick-lit, this is definitely a must read, and I would thoroughly recommend you get hold of a copy. This is author Beth Harbison’s debut novel, and I look forward to reading more of her books in the future!

Rating: 5/5

Awesome New Contest!

I just received this email from the wonderful Jennifer E. Smith who’s sophmore novel, You Are Here, will be released May 19. I haven’t read it yet but I *adored* her first novel. (You can read my review here and my interview with Jennifer here.

Here’s what the email said:

In honor of the release of my new book, You Are Here, I’m running a contest to see who can put together the ultimate road trip mix.  In the book, Emma and Peter drive from New York all the way down to North Carolina.  What would you have listened to along the way?  You don’t have to make an actual mix or send in any music; just list the twelve songs you think would be the most fun to listen to while driving, and I’ll draw the winners randomly.  

 Prizes include: the very first signed copy of You Are Here, a signed copy of my first book, The Comeback Season, and, in honor of the road trip theme, audio books of Twilight, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and The Lightning Thief.  

 Send all entries to thecomebackseason@gmail.com by Friday, May 15th.

–

There ya go. I’m definitely entering this one and so should you!

What I'm reading: The Dud Avocado, by Elaine Dundy

Ok, I’m only halfway through, but this book is certainly something to have on one’s summer reading list. Sally Jay Gorce, the main character of the novel, is like the polar opposite of Esther Greenwood, the main character of Rhys’s Good Morning, Midnight, and Dorothy Parker on Ritalin. Dundy’s characterization is wonderful, and the dialogue is effortless. And the situations Sally gets into are well worth reading. In between all the shenanigans, there is cutting social and cultural critique, as well as a view into the Paris of the late 1950s.

Sally’s thoughts on getting onto the bar at the Ritz:

“Very jeune fille I was, jewelless and all [...] and as full of safety pins as ever.  I probably had one safety pin to every two of those gorgeous creatures’ tiny, gleaming, well-sewn, well-hidden hooks-and-eyes.  But what the hell, I told myself, it wasn’t as if I were one of them or even competing with them, for heaven’s sake, I was merely a disinterested spectator at the Banquet of Life.  The scientist dropping into the zoo at feeding time.  That is what I told myself.”

The Dud Avocado, by Elaine Dundy

NYRB press, ISBN 978-1-59017-232-2

260pp.

<em>That Hideous Strength</em> by C. S. Lewis

This book is the third book of C. S. Lewis’s Space Triology (which has, as I’ve noted in my reviews of the previous books in the Trilogy, less to do with Space, and more to do with Christian Theology); but while the first book took us to Malacandra (Mars), and the second book took us to Perelandra (Venus), this book essentially splits the difference and remains right here on Planet Earth, where an apocalyptic struggle is going on between Good and Evil.

For several (rather slow) beginning chapters in this present book, we are introduced to the lives of Mark Studdock, a young university don at Bracton College at the University of Edgestowe (who has just, to his joy, entered the “inner circle”), and his young wife Jane Studdock (nee Tudor). They have been married a scant six months, but already are dissatisfied with their relationship with each other (they have also determined to not have children yet, because she wished to concentrate on her post-graduate work, and to basically be her own person separate from her husband). Bracton College administers Bragdon Wood, a very old wood with a very old well in the center, known far and wide as “Merlin’s Well”. The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments (the “N.I.C.E”, headquarterd in nearby Belbury), manages to purchase the wood with the connivance of the “inner circle” of Bracton College, and a Lord Feverstone (who is highly connected both with the College and the N.I.C.E.) convinces Marck Studdock to join the N.I.C.E. Meanwhile, Jane Studdock has been having very disturbing dreams, and is advised by some old friends to see a Miss Ironwood at the nearby estate of St. Anne’s.

It does not take long to see that Mark Studdock is becoming involved with the powers of Evil, and that Jane Studdock is becoming involved with the powers of Good; in the course of the book we are re-introduced to Elwin Ransom (from the first two books) and to Dick Devine (from the second book). At issue is not just which side will gain the invaluable assistance of Merlin (who is not dead, but only sleeping beneath his well), but the final disposition of this Planet. And once the players and the basic situation has been set, the book moves quite well to its apocalypic conclusion.

This book is quite a fitting ending to the Trilogy; it is not that the planets or their place in the heavens determine our future (as astrology would have it), but that the edila, the spiritual beings that are the nominal rulers of the planets, can, to a certain degree, impact doings on this earth, but only via the cooperation of those of us on earth who choose to work with them.

Book Review: Fern Michaels Hide & Seek

Hide and Seek is a continuation of the Sisterhood series that took the 7 sisterhood members and created a vigilante group of women who are working to right the wrong of the people who beat the system.

This sisterhood book pick up at the Spain Mountain top retreat where the sisters have been forced to go after the last mission went a Little haywire. They are on the run and hiding out. These women can’t sit still for long, and when they find out one of their own is in trouble back in the states they decide to take the risk to come home and save her.

Just like all the sisterhood books, this one keeps you turning pages so fast that you don’t even realized you are finished reading the book. With an ending that is sisterhood worthy these girls have once again pulled off a revenge that is beyond compare.

Sisterhood lovers won’t be disappointed!

Love: A User's Guide by Clare Naylor

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book this bad. And when I say bad I mean stinky bad- filled with clunky writing, unrealistic characters, stupid plot. So I’m lying a bit when I count it as a book I’ve actually read- mostly I skimmed.

Amy works for Vogue in London. She’s beautiful and smart and funny and quirky and perfect and fashionable and and and. Orlando Rock is a movie star. He’s gorgeous and perfect and kind and hot and not even remotely stuck on himself.

Amy and Orlando meet on a beach (shortly after Amy has her first sexual encounter of the lesbian kind with someone who happens to be a dear friend of Orlando’s). He’s smitten. So is she.

What followes is a completely ridiculous courtship followed by even more ridiculous plot machinations aka tabloids which drive a temporary wedge between our lovers. Every once and a while the author speaks  about the characters as if she’s some sort of benevolent angel watching over their love affair.

“…we have to make allowances for love and hope that the lesson they learn won’t be too painful.” (170)

Yeah okay- what about the pain you’re causing your readers, Ms. Naylor?

This book was so bad, I had to make a new tag category: really bad books.

Read a Review

What is Valuable in Humankind?

I have asked myself this question several times now.  Sometimes it seems that the majority of our kind inhabiting the surface of this planet are in fact:  undereducated, illogical, given to group thought, riotous, rebellious, cynical, gluttonous, lusting, hating, little misanthropes who only love themselves.  And that is on a Sunday.

Then you see acts of altruism and heroism and courage and intellectual fortitude and vast kindness and sacrifice and all the virtues that make man the most noble creature in the known universe.

My first question is “What is Valuable in Humankind” would be about characteristics and attributes.  What do we value in ourselves?  What do we value in other species?  Some of them we keep around because they taste good to us.  Some are cute.  All fall under that old biblical dictum.

It is:  Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

Is it right to say?  Well man has in his own heart and mind bent the world to his will.  There are some species that we have gorged ourselves upon so much that they are no longer extant.  We even picked our teeth clean with their bones, and moved on to others.  No problem here.

So, what gives us the right to do that?  The Bible?  A book?  Do all intelligent species eventually overwhelm their planet with their biomass?  What makes us valuable?  Are we valuable to ourselves?

My next work of fiction attempts to answer all these puzzling questions.  It even has a working name.  It is going at 300 plus pages right now.  Again, I will not publish it in a traditional manner, because I want to help in killing these old sacred cows off.  I mean I want to garrote them, like one would a cow on Eid al Fitr.  Bleed them out into the gutter where they belong.  And we all could get fat and happy off of their carcass, but I would rather stay wiry and fast.  That is the dictate of nature, no matter what the Bible tells us is so.

Someone answer me.  Maybe there is a democritization of attributes that are held to be valuable and worth maintaining in our species.  I don’t see it.  I see us becoming a species unfit for life.  It will be the environment which decides though.  We don’t decide anything about it.  I am sorry, but those are the choices we are confronted with.

Review: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a compelling YA novella that opens on Melinda’s first day of high school.  That’s typically an anxiety filled day for anybody, but it’s excruciating for the girl who called the cops at an end of summer party, getting a lot of kids in trouble.  Shunned by her friends and taunted by everyone, Melinda goes through the day and the entire school year mostly alone inside her own head.  

Something has happened that has traumatized Melinda and transformed her from a good student with close friends into a withdrawn selective mute- she speaks only when absolutely necessary. Melinda keeps everything inside and it eats her alive.  Harassed and tormented by her classmates and mostly ignored by her busy parents, she falls deeper into a depression; cutting class, forgetting to wash her hair, spacing out, gnawing on her lips until they are cracked and bleeding.  Even her one friend, a cheery transplant from another school who is desperate to fit in somewhere, finally gives up on her, saying she is always negative and calling her a freak.  But no one knows the torment Melinda is going through.  As her grades slip and her social status plummets, she finds solace in art class.  Her year-long art project is something she can get lost in and ultimately something that helps her heal. 

Speak is an excellent portrayal of high school alienation - nothing is sugar coated here.  This is an intimate look into teenage depression; emotional, painful, honest, raw.  I’d heard the book was great and yet I wasn’t prepared for all the emotions I would go through while reading it. The mom in me was so frustrated with Melinda’s situation and just wanted to hold her and help her.  I worried that the book would end with a suicide (it did not) and was grateful when Melinda began to show signs of getting better, becoming empowered through a confrontation with another classmate, and ultimately finding her voice.  

The subject matter is dark but it isn’t graphic in any way.  Speak came out in 1999 and it is my understanding that it is taught in high schools throughout the country, which I think is great.  Laurie Halse Anderson got Melinda’s voice just right- it does not sound like an adult trying to write like a kid.  It’s a powerful read; one I would strongly recommend for teens, parents, and teachers alike. 

I was fortunate enough to see Laurie Halse Anderson speak on a panel last weekend at the Festival of Books, and she said that many critics are calling her latest book, Wintergirls, her best novel since Speak, or better than Speak.  She said it’s a challenge for an author when your first book is your best known work, and she said she was “Miss Crankypants” about that for a long time, but now she is grateful and feels so fortunate to be able to wake up and listen to the voices in her head each day and write down what they say.   She is frequently asked what impact Speak has had on her life, and she said it changed everything- in writing Speak she found her voice and she found her “people”. 

Thanks to Jill at Fizzy Thoughts for sharing this book with me!  I loved it.