friday august 29
Michigan's Upper Peninsula, aka "the U.P.", is one of those marvelous geographical locations that has an identity all its own. More a part of Wisconsin than Michigan, with a definite Canadian influence, this relatively remote piece of land contains some magnificent natural beauty. It takes extra effort for anyone to get there - by road, bridge, or ferry - which adds to the mystique of the place. Authors Joseph Heywood and Steve Hamilton have found the U.P. to be the perfect setting for mystery stories - with all of the woods and snow and those interminably long dark nights.
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thursday august 28
The best way to entertain my six-month-old daughter is to let her watch the fish in our aquarium. Sometimes she’ll sit in her bouncer for an hour or more and watch them flit by. She also loves to be read to, so Louis Ehlert’s Fish Eyes: A Book You Can Count On is next on her reading list.
Neon colored, cut paper fish with intricate patterns swim against a midnight blue background and introduce counting and basic addition in this beautiful concept book. One day my daughter will count fish, but for now, I can only imagine what she is thinking as she looks at the aquarium. Perhaps a line from Fish Eyes: “If I could put on a suit of scales, / add some fins and one of these tails, / I’d close my eyes and then I’d wish / that I’d turn into a beautiful fish.”
wednesday august 20
Okay, here's one you probably haven't read. It's in a genre you may not have read in a while, either, the New York City satire of glittering literati and bright lights/big city excess. It's Kurt Wenzel's punningly titled 2001 debut, Lit Life.
Seven years before, Kyle Clayton was the latest Bret Easton Ellis, a hip, young, party-going, literary superstar. But he hasn't written a word to follow up his megabestseller, and he has just about hit bottom in drunken celebrity.
Richard Whitehurst is almost totally his opposite, a disciplined, prolific, literary writer who has achieved almost no recognition for his substantial oeuvre.
When the two meet at a disastrous PEN reception, Richard invites Kyle to stay at his house in the Hamptoms. Richard hopes Kyle will be his literary heir and will write a scathing roman a clef to punish the New York literary establishment that has rejected them both.
Kyle, his imagination sparked by Richard's suggestion, hope to prove that he really does have what it takes. But both pay a rather painful price for another go-round on the New York literary carousel.
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monday august 18
In the autobiographical Running With Scissors, we were fascinated and amazed at Augusten Burroughs' life with his family. His largely absent brother, John Elder Robison, wrote the absorbing Look Me In The Eye, which tinted the view through Asperger's Syndrome.
In Wolf at the Table, Burroughs talks about his young life with his parents, starting with a protective run to Mexico where his mother took him to hide from his father. As his story unwinds, we discover that his mother suffered from depression and paranoia, and his father suffered from alcoholism and painful skin disease.
While this sounds like a very grim book, somehow it left me feeling hopeful. This wonderful successful man, this literate and well-spoken man, this man with so much compassion for his older brother, emerged from that dysfunctional and even scary home.
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wednesday august 13
The subtitle of Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein’s Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar is Understanding Philosophy through Jokes. If you’ve ever regretted skipping (or taking!) Philosophy 101, this little book’s for you.
Cathcart and Klein explain the whole history of western philosophy in ten mini chapters and a hundred or so illustrative jokes. Not exactly clean and politically correct (neither the philosophy nor the jokes, be forewarned), but admirably clear and concise.
From essentialism to elephant jokes, from Karl Marx to Groucho Marx, you’ll be surprised at how much fun philosophy can be. So if life has been seeming unusually nasty, brutish, and short to you lately, pick up this short book.
tuesday august 12
In two posts last fall, found
here and
here, I detailed great reads for kids (or parents) facing the day they have dreamed of/dreaded all summer- the first day of school. As we once again approach the time of year when some dream of bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils, let’s take a look at what’s new in the back to school genre.
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monday august 11
I love the ocean more than most people love the ocean. I am happiest on a little sandy island, surrounded by the ocean as far as the eye can see.
Somehow, in Duma Key Stephen King brought alive all the magic of being on an island in the ocean. Granted, Duma Key is creepy, and some of the ordeals of the main characters' lives are difficult at best to read about, but the underlying presence of the ocean permeates the book.
Edgar Freemantle discovers that he has the gift of art; he is terribly injured in an accident, and when he goes to Duma Key to rest and recuperate in beautiful seclusion, he suddenly starts producing amazing artwork. He develops close friends on the island, but the inevitable course their lives follow is sinister and threatening. I will not give away the terrible secret of Duma Key; I will only say that it is not what you expect it to be.
Just listen to the surf. Listen to the shells. They are warning you...
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