More Reading: Fall Book List

I work as an administrator for a bunch of faculty and each spring I make sure their course goes off without a hitch.  This includes attending weekly meeting on the upcoming classes.  While I order catering for these meetings, I always supplement with some homemade baked goodies.  It's really just an excuse to bake for the cookie blog and then get the calories out of the house (and not into Dave or I).  As a thank you, I received a very generous Amazon gift certificate which I put towards buying myself a Kindle Fire 7", LCD Display, Wi-Fi, 8 GB.  I picked it up over the summer and was in love.  I've literally plowed through books (most of them free!) by reading on the train, on the cardio equipment at the gym, and instead of watching the crap TV that was on over the summer.  I also love that because there are so many free books (and the Lending Library through Amazon Prime), I've exposed myself to different genres and if I don't like a book, I don't feel committed to finish reading it.  I just delete it and move on to something else.

There are too many books here to do a review on each, so I've broken it down into how much I liked it.  The "Definitely Read" books are ones that I could not put down and am so glad I downloaded.  The "Good If You're Bored" books were fun, mostly quick, reads that are a good one to grab while your waiting for something from the wait list at the library or waiting for a new month to begin to get something new from the Lending Library.  And for the record, I consider "chick-lit" fun, sexy stories about young women still finding their way in the world and "women's fiction" to be a more mature look on being an adult and the life they lead.  In no particular order, here's what I've been reading.

Definitely Read

• Swimby Jennifer Weiner--short story, chick lit; a prequel to her new novel, The Next Best Thing
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins--fantasy, science fiction, teen fiction (finally on board and I loved it)
• Summer of Firefly Memories by Joan Gables--women's fiction, family relationships
• Golden Lies by Barbara Freethy--women's fiction, mystery, romance, family relationships
• I Think I Love You (a humorous romantic mystery) by Stephanie Bond--chick-lit, mystery, family relationships (Stephanie Bond may be one of my new favorites)
• Crossroads Road: A Novel by Jeff Kay--(disfunctional) family relationships, humor
• Never Buried (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series) by Edie Claire--mystery, slightly chick-lit (and it's set it Pittsburgh!)
• Tales from the Crib by Jennifer Coburn--women's fiction, humor

Good If You're Bored

• Charlie In Love by LC Zingera--chick-lit; romance (I did not expect this to turn into the new generation of Harlequin romance, but it wasn't awful)
• The Enemy's Son by Kristen James--chick-lit, mystery, romance
• The Secret Desires of a Soccer Mom by Robyn Harding--women's fiction, mystery
• More by Heidi Marshall--chick-lit, romance, Christian fiction (but in the slightest sense)
• Whispering Hills (Whispering Hills, #1) by Taryn Browning--mystery, teen paranormal fiction (I had no idea, I swear!)
• Sleeping with Paris by Juilette Sobanet--chick-lit, romance
• Welcome to Scranton by Greg Halpin--coming of age
• Chop, Chop (Chop, Chop Series - Book 1) by LN Cronk--Christian fiction, coming of age (I really wanted this book to be more, so I read it through the end but was left unfulfilled.  But it could be good for the right person.)

I can lend most of these books once--leave me a comment with your email address and I'll hook you up!

Let's Just Move On: Summer Reading Volume 2

Hi.

Well that was awkward, but let's just move on. It's been hot, busy, but generally unexciting.  As evidenced by the fact that I read the following books.  I actually thought I'd read more, but I don't remember what titles those would have been.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Young Adult fiction but super funny and a little bit of a social commentary on the commercialization of everything, including ourselves.  The contestants for a teen beauty contest are in a plane crash that leaves only a few of the young ladies survive and suddenly their talents for baton and dance are the only skills they have to keep them alive on the island.  A quick read, like a funny version of Lord of the Flies with girls, glitter and lip gloss.

Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison by Piper Kerman

I was skeptical because I didn't want this to turn into a social commentary of the prison system--I was truly interested in the day to day of what it's like for a white woman of privilege to experience prison.  While Kerman does acknowledge her experience is unlike that of her peers because of her skin tone and the support (and money) she has from her outside world, her time in prison was by no means easy and it certainly wasn't puppies and rainbows despite her stay of about 15 months (far shorter than many of the women she introduces in the book).  I appreciated that Kerman took the time to talk about the good and bad of the system (and those employed to run it), but didn't dwell on any of those things at the expense of telling the story of the experience.

Maine (Vintage Contemporaries) by J. Courtney Sullivan

I loved this book.  Four women spanning three generations of one family tell their tale of how they view their family and relationships, all centering around the time they spend at the family beach house in Maine.  The story is told from various Catholic points of view (both religion and guilt) and the matriarch story alone is enough to keep you reading.  Sullivan writes beautifully and gives just enough of a hint at why each woman became the adult she is without giving it all away at once.  Definitely a good read.

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

Wow.  Supposedly fictional, but read the author blurb on the book jacket and you'll wonder if Kwok simply changed names and minor details about her own life.  A young girl and her mother immigrate to New York City with literally the clothes on their back and what fits in a suitcase.  It's never specified, but I suspect the time frame is the late 70s to early 80s.  The mother's sister makes arrangements for their immigration, thus leaving them indebted to her while their work in her sweatshop.  The protagonist, Kimberly, struggles to learn in school despite her limited English (her mother speaks none).  It's a beautiful tale about being different, being poor, and being unable to give up the traditions of one's heritage.  It's also a harrowing tale of the same things.  You will be moved by this book.

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb

This book moved me like nothing I've read since the last time I read a book by Lamb, She's Come Undone.  Seriously, I can't describe the emotion involved in reading this book.  A married couple employed at Columbine High School in April 1999 is separated on the one day that changed their lives.  Caelum flies to the East Coast to tend to a sick relative less than 48 hours before his wife is forced to hide in the library of the school when two students go on the attack.  But aside from the emotional impact of that attack on this couple, the story is full of a history of family and secrets and how you move on in the face of the unexpected.  This is not a happy story, but I will likely ponder this story often and anticipate I'll read it--and cry in the same places--again.

Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson

What happens when you make a promise to never go home?  Ten years after Arlene makes that promise, she's faced with going back home to deal with secrets she's been hiding ever since.  I really liked this book. It was a quick read and really went into family dynamics (read: family misunderstandings) and the struggle to be independent but still tied to family.  Great beach read.

Barefoot: A Novelby Elin Hilderbrand

I went to the library looking for another book by Hilderbrand but since they didn't have it, I picked up this one.  Such a good choice!  Three women, two sisters and a friend, flee to the family summer home on Nantucket to spend the summer escaping each of their own demons.  A young college student enters their life and he helps them through their various struggles while they unknowingly help him with his own.  There is one story line that is a bit far-fetched, but the rest of the book is so good it's easy to let that hyperbole go.  It makes those parts a little more fun and ridiculous which makes up for the couple pages that leave you crying.

Then Came You: A Novel by Jennifer Weiner

Yay, more Jennifer Weiner!  Loved it.  Another tale of four women (seriously, I hit a goldmine of the intermingled lives of women).  This time it's the story of how a little girl is born through the help of an egg donor, a surrogate, the twenty-something half-sister and the gold-digger who would be mother.  No the ending I expected, but in hindsight, it is the perfect ending.

True Confections: A Novel by Katharine Weber

Totally fun.  The whole story is a deposition from the Christian woman who married into the Jewish family candy business and felt more at home (despite the challenges of fitting in with the family) there than in her old life with her own family.  Alice tells it like it is, doesn't filter or hold back, and even puts details in her deposition that she probably shouldn't.  And she definitely tells the story of the family and it's business wildly.  From arson to family secrets, the story unfolds as Alice explains why she is more entitled to the business than any blood-born family.  It's clever, although parts a little long in the tooth. But you'll keep reading because it's fun and Alice will hint to things that you want to know more about.

Women About Town  by Laura Jacobs

I picked this up on whim (like I did successfully with True Confections).  I really didn't like it.  I should have stopped after the second chapter, but I didn't.  Then I got so far into it that I felt I had to finish or the boredom of the book would win.  The story centers on two women in New York City, with chapters alternating the protagonist.  But it takes until the last few chapters for the women's lives to cross, so I felt like I was just reading two books a the same time, and one of the characters was far more interesting than the other.  I won't write off Jacobs, but I would suggest putting this one back on the shelf.

Summer Reading Volume 1

Summer time usually means lazy days, perhaps some time off and enjoying the pleasures of doing things you normally don't get to do.  One of the things I picked up as the weather got warmer was reading again.  It's just too hot to crochet.  Working with yarn on the train is not something I'm interested in doing on a 90 degree day.  So I got a library card and started sorting through their fiction, hoping to find some good stuff.  I lucked out that whatever my local library doesn't have, they can usually get pretty quickly from one of the local branches.

I typically read chick-lit, general women's fiction, and humor.  So I started there and am sharing some reviews for you.  You can click the links at the bottom of this post to get any of these books on Amazon.




Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner

I'm a huge fan of Jennifer Weiner and have read nearly everything she's written.  Unfortunately, this was not my favorite of her books.  It's good, just not her best book as far as I'm concerned. I appreciated that she stretched to a different kind of humor, but the back story was heartbreaking and I couldn't get the humorous parts to match up given the heart ache in the rest of the story.  It's well written though, easy to read, and the characters are likeable, but after reading her other work, it just doesn't seem congruous.  It's a look at the lives of two former best friends, torn apart by some terrible choices when they were teenagers and how their lives bring them back to each other, and how they move forward given their past.




Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner

Now this is the Jennifer Weiner I know and love.  And as a follow up to Good In Bed, I was in seventh heaven getting that extra story of the characters.  You don't need to have read Good In Bed to enjoy Certain Girls as Weiner does a wonderful job weaving in the parts of that story that are important.  A look at the relationships between mothers and daughters, a struggle with family secrets and how hard a stubborn teenager will work to find out the truth, this book is really enjoyable.  A great story, the beauty and humor that Weiner is known for, and a special way of pulling the protagonists into your heart, making you love them and wanting them to be happy are all wrapped up in a neat package with this one.  I definitely recommend this one.



The Bed Wetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee by Sarah Silverman

I know Sarah Silverman is kind of polarizing, and truthfully I'm not a huge fan of her stand-up.  But I was drawn in, thinking I might get a laugh or two.  I actually laughed through most of this book.  It's an honest look at how Silverman grew up always wanting to be in the spotlight, but yet dealt with depression and other issues in her adolescents and eventually came through the ranks to make it as a comedienne.  It's very funny and accounts for the beginning of her stand up career, her stint at SNL and the beginnings of her show on Comedy Central. Toward the end it started to drag, (it was right about that spot that Dave stopped reading it, although he enjoyed it to that point), but it was predominately funny.  It's full of toilet humor (if you couldn't figure that out from the title, you probably don't want to read this), but it also casts a light on how society really needs to understand that sometimes you need to laugh at a fart joke so your don't stab your own eyeballs out.



Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson

I'm not even going to review this book.  You know I love this blog.  I'm just going to tell you that you need to read it.  It will bring a smile to your facing, you will laugh hysterically out loud in public with tears streaming down your face while other people on the train look at you like you forgot to take your medication (wait, that last bit just might be me).  If you are in a funk, need a laugh, or are so stressed out you might inflict bodily harm on yourself or others, you need this book in your life.  It'll make you happy that your life isn't that jacked up, but it will also make you wonder which parts are "mostly true" (and make you secretly hope it's all true because learning that something that funny was made up will make a piece of you die).

Meeting The Bloggess

Last Friday night I had the opportunity to meet the woman behind my favorite non-food blog.  Remember last year when I introduced you to The Bloggess by linking to her story on picking your battles and Beyonce the giant metal chicken?  Well, Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess herself wrote a book and visited Boston last week for a reading, Q&A and book signing.

My friend Rachel picked me up from work and we headed to the Brookline Booksmith.  Let me just say, as friendly as the staff are there, they really had no idea what they were in for.  Half of them didn't know who The Bloggess was or what her blog is about (duh, taxidermied animals, the zombie apocalypse and fighting mental illness), but they also had no idea how popular she was, the size crowd to expect, or how to spell her name.

Her name as The Bloggess is actually written on the cover of her book.  That they sell in this store.

I'd called the week before to see if tickets were needed (they weren't) and then asked when I should arrive for seating/getting in line.  The event started at 7 pm, so the clerk said they typically start seating between 6:30 and 6:45 pm.  This sounds like a bit of insanity to me, so I made a note to suggest to Rachel we try getting there around 6 pm.

Rachel and I did some window shopping, got some food (followed by some ice cream) and then met her husband John who had come from work.  We headed back to the bookstore to get seats.  There were about 25 seats set up in a small area when Rachel and I first got there around 4 pm.  When we came back at 6 pm, there were about 75 seats and the front rows were already filled.  We grabbed seats for ourselves and saved one for Dave, who was coming from work later.  We spent the next hour watching people trickle in, doing some serious people-watching in general and also being totally jealous of the woman who walked in carrying her own 3 foot replica of Beyonce.

The place got mobbed, but I must say the crowd (by and large) were friendly, nice and not stereotypical Boston-style irritating.  (Note: I say by and large because later when we got in line for the signing the guy behind us was a total douche to his wife.  But at least he wasn't being douchy to everyone else in line.)

Dave came in while people were standing in the aisles, sitting on the floor and mobbing the stairs (the room was in the basement level of the bookstore).  The crowd was so nice they didn't even give him a glare when he took the seat I saved for him (and surprisingly, no one asked if they could sit there or gave me a hairy eyeball for saving it). 

At one point I turned to Rachel and said I really had to pee and I kind of wanted to go to the bathroom to see if Jenny was hiding in there (she has anxiety and tells stories of how she'll often avoid crowds by hanging out in the bathroom all night).  But then the moment came and Jenny made her way through the crowd to begin the reading. 

She was totally adorable, humble, sweet and very, very funny.  She read from the book (complete with side notes which were even more funny stories) and took questions from the audience.  It was hilarious.  I started to record a portion, but knew I wouldn't be able to keep the camera steady what with the buckled over laughs and wiping the tears from my eyes from laughing so hard. 

There were easily over 150 people there and after all was said and done, we got in line for the signing.    She was signing upstairs, so those of us with seats actually ended up in the back of the line and the people on the stairs got to go first.  But it was still fabulous and then a manager announced that Jenny would stay until they closed to sign every last book or stuffed mouse, so a lot of people left the line and headed out to get food and whatnot, so that actually made the line move rather quickly.

Rachel, John and I waited (Dave went to get food--it was now past 8 and he hadn't had dinner), continued people watching and eventually wound our way to the front of the line where I got my book signed, a card for Amy (who had bought me the book in the first place), and got my picture taken with Jenny and Copernicus.  It was so much fun.

And Jenny totally signed the card to Amy "Knock, knock, mofo."

Reading for Fun and Profit

Last month I read a book that was not only funny, but made me think:

• Wow, this woman hates people more than I do
• Wow, this woman is crazy
• Wow, I wonder what would happen if I did that?

The book was I See Rude People: One Woman's Battle to Beat Some Manners Into Impolite Society by Amy Alkon. Alkon takes on the idea that people who are publicly rude (talking loudly on their cell phones in close quarters, complete disregard for the people around them, complete disregard for manners and common courtesy) and tries to teach them a lesson. She's not picky abut who she battles, whether it be telemarketers, cafe cell-talkers, the guy who stole her car or big businesses. It's funny and really makes you think twice about how you'll react when someone imposes their rude behavior on you.

Alkon does two things I really enjoy. The first is what she calls blogslapping. Alkon has a blog and basically whenever she sees rude behavior (cars cutting people off or a business that gives poor service, for example) she snaps a picture and loads it to her blog or relays the bad service story. Then everyone know who the offender is and can harass en masse. Sort of like what I did when the Ann Taylor clerk lost the ability to communicate regarding coupons. The other thing is that she bills offenders for her time. Alkon actually has posted on her blog her rates for being interrupted by telemarketers. And when one calls (despite her being on the Do Not Call list), she sends them a bill for her time. She's actually sent a lot of people bills for making her take time to sort out a situation they were responsible for. Her claim is that her time is valuable and they need to recognize that either by not wasting it in the first place or paying her for it.

Which brings me to my third bullet point, what would happen if I did that. Recently I was shopping in BJ's and had a reasonably sized order. It was a Saturday afternoon, so it was very busy and I opted to use the self-scanner. I usually use the self-scanner because I find I'm faster than the check-out clerks. But this day it was a situation of--hey there's no one in that line.

I scanned all my items, and began scanning my coupons. However, the coupon box wouldn't register that my coupon had been inserted and wouldn't let me proceed. A check-out clerk came by to clear the machine, but after trying everything she knew how, it wouldn't work. She called over a second clerk. He tried many different things to no avail. Apparently the entire machine just froze. His response, "Well, just get in line and we'll scan it for you."

Me: No, you can open up a register and scan it for me because I'm not waiting in line. I've already been here an extra 10 minutes because your machine failed.

Male Clerk: Um, yeah. Um, ok. Lemme see. (Calls the first clerk over to open a register. She says ok, but as I follow her to the register, she keeps stopping to help other customers. Um, Hello!) Don't worry about it. I got this.

Female Clerk: Ok (Still helping other customers)

Me: (Confused look on face) Seriously?

Male Clerk: I got this. I got this. Go ring her up.

Female Clerk: Oh, Ok (finally walks to the register)

She scans my purchases, takes my coupons and my payment. And then I make the big ask:

Me: Thank you so much. Who can I speak to about getting reimbursed for my time since I was inconvenienced here today?

Female Clerk: Um, you can talk to Male Clerk about it.

Me: Thank you. Have a great day. (Walking over to Male Clerk) Thank you for helping me. Now, who can I speak to about getting reimbursed for my time since I was inconvenienced here today?

Male Clerk: I can call a manager for you.

Me: Thank you, I appreciate that. (Manager comes over and I explain the situation and make my request, telling her that my time is valuable. At this point, I'm thinking that a $10 or $20 store gift card would be fine. Basically I just wanted an acknowledgment that there was a customer service FAIL on their part.)

Manager: Well, she rang up your order, right. It only took another minute.

Me: No, it took another 10 minutes until they figured out they couldn't fix the machine. My time is valuable and I want to know how you're going to reimburse me for my time.

Manager: Well the machines break and we aren't responsible for that.

Me: You're not responsible? I understand that machines break, but it's certainly not my fault. Even though...

Manager: (Oh no, she didn't just interrupt me.) I'm just saying there's nothing we can do if the machines break.

Me: Excuse me. I'm still talking and I would appreciate it if you let me finish. (Manager closes her mouth and nods). Thank you. Even though the machines have problems, I shouldn't have to be inconvenienced by it. My time is valuable and I want to know how you're going to compensate me for that.

Manager: Go to the front desk and she'll extend your membership for a year. (Walks away)

Me: Thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

Who knew? I really felt justified that I shouldn't just sit back and idly let something impact my day and my plans. All I had to do what ask. And by staying calm and rational, I got a free year's membership, worth $45. Not to shabby.