Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life by Sandra Beasley

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Summary: A woman's recounting of life and food allergies.

Initial thoughts after reading this book: I'm so glad we're not Catholic. Also, could my prenatal vitamins have caused my daughter's wheat allergy?

Sandra Beasley is lucky to be alive. Given the types of food she's allergic to (egg, beef, shrimp, milk (even goat's milk), soy, pine nuts, cucumbers, cantaloupe, honeydew, mango, macadamias, pistachios, cashews, swordfish and mustard) she takes many risks with her diet and constantly recounts her allergic attacks in this book. She doesn't ask what's in drinks, preferring instead to be a good sport, then vomits and spends the night huddled on the couch in a Benadryl-induced haze. Her reluctance to manage her significant food allergies annoyed me, as if she kept trying to prove how normal she was and how she's suffers, just by bravely going along.

But Beasley, along with many people with food allergies, doesn't use her epi-pen, because she doesn't want to be a freak. She also doesn't want to automatically go to the E.R. It also made me wonder if perhaps Beasley's symptoms are psychosomatic, that she enjoys drawing attention from whomever is the star of the day - a new bride, an engaged friend, a birthday girl. It's so unsympathetic, I know, but her reactions, combined with her food allergies and her reluctance to use effective medicine, makes me suspicious.

As Dr. Phil would ask, "How's that working for ya?" It works quite well, because Beasley simply does NOT take care of herself, instead preferring the coddling and special attention she gets.  My daughter does have allergies, and we are VERY careful to avoid exposure, bringing instead special cupcakes to birthday parties and always providing safe, fun snacks. But Beasley will take "one bite" pretending that she's being polite, but then undergoing a reaction.

I thought the book lacked structure, hopping from subject and time period, with little cohesiveness. We are introduced to her childhood allergies, then college, years, then her current boyfriend, then a previous boyfriend, with an unclear narrative direction. It surprised me to find out that Beasley was actually a writer, since this book was not an easy read. Perhaps her food reviews (yes, we all appreciate the irony of an allergic food writer) require only a few words, and not the smooth transitions required in a book.

I did like the part on wheat allergies and the Catholic Church's stand on the gluten in the communion wafer the best. Apparently, the body of Christ can only be found in wheat wafers, and the Catholic church suggests taking only part of the wafer as gluten-free wafer, are not acceptable according to the Catholic Church. This was the part that made me glad we're not Catholic.

The other fascinating part of the book, for me, focused on Beasley's visit to a food allergy conference. She encounters charts displays, diagrams and giveaways. I wanted more discussion about the link between the increase of prenatal folic acid and allergies, or the Hygiene Hypothesis or other suggested causes of food allergies. Case studies of adult she knows, and how they manage their  own food allergies with their children in the house did redeem the book slightly, but seemed thrown in at the end. I wish I could recommend this book, but the poor writing and the author's self-abuse by eating allergenic foods bothered me too much.

Parentonomics: An Economist Dad Looks at Parenting by Joshua Gans

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Summary: A blog expanded into book form by an Australian economist professor, who tries to explain economic principles through parenting examples. 

This is an odd parenting memoir. It's not quite an economics books, but more or a parenting memoir. Joshua Gans refers to his children as Child No. 1, Child No. 2 and Child No. 3. I can't tell if his "children's mother" is his current wife, an ex-wife, an unmarried domestic partner or if this is some social experiment or Australian cultural norm. Names, even pseudonyms, would have humanized this book a little more. I was especially turned off when Gans explores the incentives to parents of letting a child "cry it out" and the economic principles that child is exploring by night waking.

Gans touches on toilet training, labor and delivery, breast-feeding, kids birthday parties, car seats and safety, and punishment. His unique take on each of the situations is sometimes funny, sometimes disturbing (Is it cultural or a different style of parenting? - I don't know) but always thought-provoking. Am I glad I read it? Yes. Would I read more by him? Doubtful. As a writer, his style may be better suited to his blog, as I found it a hard book to get through.

Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair by Laurie Perry

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Summary: One woman's memoir of her divorce and eventual recovery.

Just the title alone is fun (and accurate), but the book was a feel-good read, despite being about divorce. Laurie comes home from work, expecting to share a silly story about how her underwear broke at work, and her husband announced he was leaving. Laurie is devastated and is left with an expensive house and her husband's four cats.

Laurie, with the long-distance help of her supportive parents, moves into a smaller house right before Christmas. She spends most of her time drinking wine while the cats circle around her. She goes through many of the stages of grief, anger, bargaining, drinking, isolation, and even tries to give herself bangs, which her hairdresser sternly forbids.

Laurie's patient and supportive friends stick with her through her depression, perhaps longer than I would have. One of them encourages her to try knitting and when Laurie finally leaves the house and ventures into a knitting store, it changes her life. She knits crazy creations for her cats, scarves (in LA!) and lots of sassy knit wear while being nurtured by her local Stitch-n-Bitch group.

Laurie Perry writes with Southern wit, much like Celia Rivenbark, whom I adore. Laurie's sadness and misery is written with such honesty and humor that I was identifying with the author and laughing at the same time. It's not a complex book, you won't get veiled metaphors or run on sentences that go for a page, but you will laugh and you will feel hope.

Not only are the discussion questions at the back of the book helpful and thought provoking, but Laurie provides knitting patterns and pictures of her creations. I've tried knitting and I understand how intense and excited the knitting community gets, but knitting's not for me. I'm also not divorced, and will never have cats.  Despite what we don't have in common, this book was worth breaking my "no divorce memoirs!" vow.

Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back Again by Norah Vincent

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Summary: A woman goes undercover disguised as a man and does her best to infiltrate male society.

Well, of course, if you're gonna live like a man for over a year, totally immersing yourself in male culture, acting, working and dating like a man, it helps if you're a lesbian.

I just thought the concept was cool, but didn't think too hard about the details until the author dedicated the book to her wife, Lisa. Gulp! Oh, yeah, that makes more sense. I'm pretty straight, and might be hesitant about intercourse with a woman while having her believe I was a man.

I'm not sure exactly what inspired writer Norah Vincent to decide to live as Ned for a year, except for the fact that she thought it would make a great book. And it is a good book, just not a great one.

Ned joins a bowling team and explores the tentative rules of male friendship. Her friendship with Jim and the encouragement of Ned to succeed at bowling so the men have the pleasure of beating a skilled players was wonderful. The chapter on strip clubs disturbed me in a sad way and makes me uncomfortable. The dating part got a little icky, but seemed to prove Vincent's point that women are really looking for more of an emotional connection than "what goes where" sex games. I forced myself to continue this book when Ned joins a monastery and worked for Red Bull selling entertainment books.



The freedom that Norah has to speak her mind as a woman is not available to Ned. Ned is instead trapped under the burden and weight of the expectations of him. The most tender part of the book is when Ned attends a men's retreat. The men there draw pictures of their heroes and it's painful to read about everything that's expected of men. In nearly every chapter in the book, Norah feels bad for Ned because Ned didn't grow up knowing all the unspoken male rules of behavior and the restrictive guidelines of behavior. I was disappointed because I felt there was nothing new added to the ongoing conversation about how men and women are different or how to bridge those gaps.

Give It Up!: My Year of Learning to Live Better with Less by Mary Carlomagno

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Summary: A woman gives up one vice or indulgence a month for one year in this memoir.

Mary Carlomagno is literally hit over the head by a box of  her expensive shoes. That's it, she's had enough. She decides to give up one thing she considers indispensable for one month at a time, challenging what she thinks she needs and what she actually needs.

In January, it's alcohol, and she discovers how many of her plans revolve around alcohol and drinking just because others are. She also talks about how uncomfortable it is to be the one person not drinking when everyone else is, and how frequently and quickly the conversation turns bitchy.

Yes, I fully recognize that most of the people who write wacky memoirs do not have kids (A.J. Jacobs may be the exception) so Mary's sacrifices didn't seem that difficult or impractical. Until she helps her boyfriend move in with her during the month when she's not allowed to use any cell phones. She's also able to work out more if she gains weight, or take a freelance job if she needs more money, options not available to a stay-at-home mom.

Her list of indispensable items are somewhat similar to mine (chocolate, coffee, shopping) but others are not. I could give up alcohol and taxis no problem. This was a quick read, and is one of my favorite memoirs. It's thought provoking, light, random and easy to pick up and put down. Read it today.

I Know I Am, But What Are You? by Samantha Bee

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Summary: A memoir of her childhood from comic Samantha Bee.

Canada is much wilder than I ever imagined. Samantha Bee's memoir as a child growing up in Canada is full of escapades that make me cringe, both as a mother, and as someone who thought Canada was normal but boring. Drug use, severely underage drinking, late night concerts. If it wasn't so funny, I would be horrified.

As a memoir, it felt more like I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley - a collection of narratives, rather than a linear story of childhood. That's not to say it was bad, just that it was not quite a memoir.

Parts are very funny and certain chapters just didn't work for me at all.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

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Summary: A memoir of a Chinese mother raising her decidedly American kids.

Read the whole book. Don't just read the excerpts you find online; read the whole book. I found this a funny, touching and encouraging memoir, not an insulting treatise on Western parenting.

Amy Chua is ambitious and driven. So naturally, that applies to her parenting as well. Her first daughter Sophia is a natural at the Suzuki piano lessons she takes and soon becomes a young gifted prodigy. Amy decides that it's not enough for both girls to be good at piano and chooses an instrument for her younger daughter Lulu - the violin.

It's not until she struggles with getting Lulu to practice that the disadvantages of the Tiger Mother or Chinese method of parenting become apparent. With Sophia, Amy could nag, browbeat, threaten and cajole. With Lulu, none of the threats worked. Amy finds herself more and more frustrated even as Lulu becomes an incredibly talented violinist accepted to study with world famous musicians and tutors. The insults fly and the ultimatums become greater and greater.

Amy's a tough cookie, but Lulu is even tougher. Amy rejects the poorly-drawn handwritten birthday cards scribbled for her at the last minute because she's seen their previous work and know that her kids can do much better. It doesn't show the love and respect that Amy deserves when she gets a scrap of paper with no thought put into it. So when Amy is explaining why she has rejected her kids' cards, you get it. She expects the best and knows what her kids are capable of. One day Lulu decides to cut her own hair, as an act of defiance against her mother. I wish that Amy would have let her daughter go around with a self-inflicted raggedy haircut, to let her live with the consequences, but since I couldn't even do that when my own daughter cut her hair, I immediately laughed and understood.

This is ultimately a memoir about love, as Amy's love for her children drive her to push them to be not just good but excellent. She believes in them so strongly that she pushes them until they do actually succeed. That's really what a Tiger Mother does - she believes her children are capable of great things and will help them reach goals that lesser parents would let their kids fall short of. I need to assume the best of my children and not coddle them, and this book brought me more into balance. Some mothers I know never allow their kids to suffer a moment of discomfort, pain or stress. Amy Chua is often the source of stress for her children, but they are leading far richer and deeper lives than my children ever will.

 Once a week, while my own kids were being taken care of by paid teachers, I'd sneak off to the bookstore and read this on my Nook in a Barnes & Noble and laugh out loud about Amy and her parenting tactics. I loved this book, and wish I were more of a Tiger Mother.

Falling Apart in One Piece: One Optimist's Journey Through the Hell of Divorce by Stacy Morrison

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Summary: A memoir of one woman's divorce.

It's my fault. I love memoirs, and a friend is going through an unpleasant divorce right now. So when I got an opportunity to read a memoir on divorce, I was excited. (IF one can be excited about divorce.)

But this is not an optimistic book, despite the fact that the author calls herself an optimist. Out of the blue, her husband leaves her. There's no affair or a huge blow-up fight; he "just can't do this anymore." I think Morrison was such an overachiever that it wasn't so much the loss of her husband she was mourning, but the failure of her marriage. It's still incredibly sad, but the author comes to realize how little she and her husband had in common, just assuming that he would adopt her dreams and her plans for their life. That also made Morrison's frequent break-downs surprising. She seemed so sad, but for the wrong reasons, I thought.

It's not a book about being optimistic in the face of a divorce, devastating or not. It's more a book on self-reliance, as the author keeps her pain in. Hidden from her coworkers at her new job, hidden from her young son, hidden from her family (mostly), she learns that she can get through anything through prayer, exercise and a project. She also has a lot of wonderful people pass through her life, who give her what she needs at the moment.

"I didn't find answers. Instead what I found was me." 

Or as Dory says in Finding Nemo, "Keep swimming. Just keep swimming." Good advice for all of us, actually.

Today Morrison and her husband have a cordial, friendly relationship and Morrison is still editor at Redbook magazine. But I'm not ready to read another book by her. I think I'm also done with reading books about kidnapping and divorce for a while. Whew!

Practically Perfect in Every Way: My Misadventures Through the World of Self-help - and Back by Jennifer Niesslein

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Summary: A magazine editor refers to the experts to try and live her best life.

I had heard about this book five years ago, when I was a reader of Brain, Child magazine. The cover art was off-putting, (who wants to be a 1970s housewife?) and I really couldn't understand the concept of the book. Then after I read Gretchen Rubin's recent book The Happiness Project, I got enthused about the idea of another self-improvement memoir, so I picked up Practically Perfect.

Jennifer Niesslein is the editor of Brain, Child magazine, mother to seven year-old Caleb and husband to Brandon and she's not as happy as she could be.

The best way I can describe it is this: My body is a glove and my hand - my mind - can't get itself into the glove right. As if one of the gloves' fingers got twisted funny in the wash. On these days I'm in a low-grade funk.

I know people who feel like this and some days, when it's freezing cold and I can't stand the four walls of my house anymore, I feel like this, too.

It started out hysterically funny, and I was kicking myself for not reading this book sooner. She sits down with Real Simple magazine one evening. :

The clutter-busting section begins with a quote from Tina Turner: "Whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you'll find out that when you're free, your true creativity, your true self comes out." Spice cabinet, I don't care who's right or wrong - I don't really wanna fight no more.

I laughed aloud during the clutter section, especially since she refers to and reads the same authors (Karen Kingston, The Fly Lady, etc) that I do.

"Okay, babe!" I say cheerfully and perhaps frighteningly. "We're going to pick up twenty-seven things that we don't want anymore and get rid of them. We'll fling them in this bag!" Christ Almighty. I just used "fling" in an unself-conscious manner with my child. "One. Two. Three. Go!"

Caleb, armed with a plastic grocery sack, races around downstairs, showing off his counting skills.

"What do we do now?" he asks.

"We just throw it in the trash!" I say. "We don't need it!"

He starts crying. "You didn't tell me I was supposed to pick up garbage!" It occurs to me later that Caleb finds nothing unusual in the idea of garbage lying around our house.

The following chapters focus on money, marriage, neighbors, health, religion and charity. Jennifer goes from book to book and chapter to chapter trying to find an expert who makes sense to her. With money, she explores advice from Suze Orman and David Bach. With marriage, she reads Dr. Laura Schlesinger and Dr. Phil McGraw. She really struggles with the marriage advice section, which surprised me, since her marriage seems the strongest part of her life. But her book choices are where she goes wrong. She picks books from people she can't possibly respect, simply because of who she is.  One of the best pieces of advice I got from Rubin's Happiness Project is her advice to "Be Gretchen" which really means be true to who you are and what makes you you. When Jennifer picks a book that speaks to her - Authentic Happiness - her enthusiasm for both the subject and the author is so appealing to read.

Until she gets to the health section. When I found out that she was an active smoker, I was upset. It seemed hypocritical to me that she lets her seven-year-old son sleep in bed with her and her husband, all while she's reeking of cigarette smoke. That b*llsh*t might have been acceptable 20 years ago, but certainly not in 2005. I simply couldn't respect her as a parent any more and all the things we had in common felt so different once I knew she was such a heavy smoker. Based on the author photo, Niesslein is seriously overweight and suffers panic attacks. She gets her exercise regime from an article in Oprah's magazine and refuses to see a therapist about her crippling panic attacks while driving. Instead, she sells her car. Once I saw how uncommitted she was to getting herself healthy, I gave up on the book, kinda like she gave up on herself. This book went from 5 stars to 4 stars to 3 stars as I finally finished the book.

Please note: I picked up the hardcover version of the book with that terrible cover art, but there is a paperback version with a much more appealing cover that I think will sell much better.

After such a funny promising beginning, I was disappointed about half-way through this book. In this way, I feel like Jennifer is a typical American in that she knows what she needs to do, but feels like she's okay enough not to do what she should. Of course, it's boring to do what you know you should do, instead what feels good. Contributing to this is the fact that her project spans almost two years. The more modern gimmicky memoirs do something for one year, but I think that Niesslein got burnt out by all the self-improvement jobs she had to do.

Sh*t My Dad Says Justin Halpern

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Summary: After he moves back home, a grown son shares his father's comments with the Twitter community.

The actual blog Sh*t My Dad Says is far too vulgar for me, but the book is much better than I expected.

Justin Halpern moves back home with his parents after breaking up with his girlfriend and losing his apartment. His father has now retired and Justin starts posting his dad's comments on his Facebook page.

The book is like a mini-memoir of Justin's, interspersed with his father's quotes. But to me, the quotes only enhanced the story and the character of Sam Halpern, Justin's dad. Sam is a no-nonsense (or no-b*llsh*t) kind of guy with limited patience. In that way, he reminds me of my husband.

Each chapter focuses on a childhood or adult memory of Justin's, with some quotes that make sense in the context and some that are funny for their absurdity. Most stories focus on insecure Justin, but there are both tender and cringe-worthy moments.

Sam Halpern is an old-fashioned guy, who's utterly loyal to his wife, his kids, and his family with a strong sense of work ethic. He's a charmer, too, and a good tipper, which makes me like him more. He says to his son when Justin gets this book deal,

"Maybe I'm not the warmest human being on the f*cking planet, but I love the sh*t out of you."

Surprisingly good, but maybe that's because I had such low expectations.

This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness by Laura Munson

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Summary: When Laura Munson's husband asks for a divorce, she refuses.

This was a terrible book. Why did I finish it? The same reason why people rubberneck at gruesome accidents on the side of the road.

I requested this book from the library after the husband of a friend of mine told her he wanted to move out. Was there any way she could avoid a divorce? This woman did. Maybe her ideas would work for my friend.

Aspiring author Laura Munson and her husband live in the wilds of Montana struggling with money, raising two tweens and relying on their elderly parents for money, vacations and trips to find themselves. Then one day:

“I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.”

His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, “I don’t buy it.” Because I didn’t.

He drew back in surprise. Apparently he’d expected me to burst into tears, to rage at him, to threaten him with a custody battle. Or beg him to change his mind….I really wanted to fight. To rage. To cry. But I didn’t.

Instead, a shroud of calm enveloped me, and I repeated those words: “I don’t buy it.”

You see, I’d recently committed to a non-negotiable understanding with myself. I’d committed to “The End of Suffering.” I’d…decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it.

From the way she describes their marriage and early courtship, Laura Munson was obviously the pursuer and a spoiled little rich kid accustomed to getting whatever she wanted. Then her husband tells her they're moving to Montana. She goes along with it, because she doesn't want to upset him.

Yet when her husband says he wants a divorce, she refuses and doesn't engage him in his temper tantrum, as she equates it, insisting that she knows what he needs better than he does. Instead of allowing him to leave their marriage, she gets him helicopter lessons and suggests that he go on an Australian walkabout.  She seemed so smug and condescending, staying at home and keeping the home fires burning while her husband goes out drinking and comes home late, if he even comes back at all.

I think I'm a friggin' rock. I want to be married to me. 

My biggest complaint about this book is that she is living a lie, daily, but instead calls it being reasonable. While she's thinking,

"Grow the fuck up. These are problems of privilege. You're lucky you even have a family to play around with. A house to want to leave. A wife not to love. Skiing, my ass. Fuck off. This is a time to practice gratitude. Not to stay out all night, partying your ass off like a twenty-year-old. Grow up!" But instead I say, "Take a vacation. Go somewhere. Take care of yourself."

The dichotomy between how she says she feels and what she actually says seem like the worst kind of self-delusion, not happiness. I feel so bad for her kids, who watch their mother lie to herself and to them and their father abandon her and them.

I am not in denial if I keep my mouth shut, as long as I sweep those thoughts off the front porch of my mind.

She says she loves her husband, but I honestly didn't understand why. He seems like a lazy, neglectful asshole with a Peter Pan complex. Even her therapist asks for clarity. Her husband is NEVER mentioned by name, he's only referred to as "he" or "my husband."

I accept that most memoir authors take a certain amount of liberty with their truth, seeing their world and retelling it through their eyes, but I found actual contradictions within the same chapter. On fourth of July, her family's biggest holiday, she calls her husband at three o'clock to plan buying fireworks together. She tries for the next fifteen minutes with no answer and so they all go home.

We spend the next few hours playing a dice game called Farkle on the screen porch. ... At four o'clock, on our way out the door, my husband calls.

There simply cannot be several hours and 45 minutes in the same time period. And this is her strongest memory, the example she uses to prove how patient she is and understanding. In the end, her husband decides to stay in the marriage, and tells her by getting satellite cable installed. No big declaration like, "I've been a jerk and I'm sorry." No, he gets satellite cable.

Laura Munson had 14 unpublished novels before she published this one. I've read other published novels by worse writers, and other memoirs by much better ones. I appreciate her need to be published, but the tale of a doormat who stays married to a jerk is not worth my time.

A Mountain of Crumbs: A Memoir by Elena Gorokhova

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Summary: The memoir of a young girl growing up in World War II Russia. 

Memoirs always fascinate me, sometimes because I can't ever imagine my life being the way the author describes, and sometimes because I wonder if I could describe all the intricacies, rituals and secret pains of my own childhood as well as the author.

Elena Gorokhova begins her memoir the way many memoirists do, writing about her mother's early childhood and life. The 'mountain of crumbs' refers to a trick Elena's grandmother played on Elena's uncle as a child. During the food shortages in 1920, Elena's grandmother would crumble a slice of bread or a lump of sugar into small bits, piling it high on the table and then challenging her son to eat that entire mountain of crumbs. He was fooled into thinking himself blessed with bounty, and eating each crumb one by one also took time, as well.

Elena then goes on to describe her mother's first jobs as a doctor and then an obstetrician, and her three marriages. Unfortunately, once Elena starts describing her own life and childhood, I was bored. Elena has the typical childhood selfishness and nightmares, and I wished the book had shared more of her mother's life.

The most fascinating scene of Elena's life comes when she is studying English and comes across the following sentence:

"Helen and her new husband lost their privacy when her mother moved across the street." After consulting my English-Russian dictionary, I figured out that it had to do with the word "private," as in the "private property" that plagues all capitalist countries, according to our third-grade history book. Perhaps they lost some money, I thought, some essential part of their private property, but it was still unclear how it was caused by the mother's move. 

After struggling with the dictionary, Elena and her tutor decide that "privacy" is a word that doesn't exist in Russian. More fun with the Russian language comes when her class is sent into the dentist in alphabetical order:

My name is at the front of the alphabet, G being the fourth letter, after A, B and V.

This book offered amusing glimpses into Russian life and culture - once people see a line, they get in it, because at the end must be something worth waiting for - but the poverty, deprivation, and opposite world view still didn't make this memoir memorable.

Assisted Loving: True Tales of Double Dating with My Dad by Bob Morris

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Summary: A widowed father asks his adult gay son to set him up on dates with women his father might like.


A gay adult son – writer Bob Morris - is asked by his widowed father to set him up on dates with women his father might like. Hard to tell who’s pickier, the father or son. Bob feels burdened by his father's craziness yet offended if women he picks don’t like his father.


But it’s no wonder that Joe is having trouble finding a second wife to spend his golden years with – the son is as picky as the father and won't consider potential women who answer the phone in perky or silly ways.

“I just need someone with a good figure who doesn’t smoke. Preferably Jewish. Republican a plus. I’m going to hold you to your promise to make those calls for me.”

We said goodbye and I hand up the phone. What is going on here? Am I really going to be pimping for my father?

Along the way, we meet some of the women that Bob vets and go on a few of the dates Joe makes with these women. Bob is also struggling to find someone to spend the rest of his life with. Bob resents how much time he has to spend catering to the whims of his demanding father, and wondering how in the world his sainted mother stood living with his father for so long, when Bob finds almost every interaction - from childhood, adolescence and even adulthood - painful.

Bob never recognizes his own selfishness and personality quirks and spends most of the book complaining about his father and wondering why other hot gay men don't want a cuddly overweight graying writer who's perpetually grumpy. Gee, I wonder.

Still the book has a happy ending for both father and son in a rewarding scene that makes up for the whining of the book.
At the end of the book, father and son revisit their childhood home together.

“Why did I dislike it so much?" I ask. "Why was I so unhappy here?”

Dad doesn’t know. And I can’t say I’ll ever know either. I’ve always been insecure, and I’ve always liked to complain. And without anything important to complain about, I guess I needed something, anything, to pick on for all those years. But now I think I’m finally tired of my unhappiness. Maybe all it takes is an adjustment, a decision, like when you stop looking for perfection in a mate and finally fall in love."

I tend not to read blogs or books by or hang around people who complain, so this book required a big effor for me to finish. It was amusing, but not gut-achingly funny.

The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden by William Alexander

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Summary: A father notes the process of building and growing his ideal garden.

The idea of how delicious a $64 tomato would taste makes me swoon a little in anticipation, so of course I had to read this book.

It’s quite funny. I found myself laughing in almost every chapter, as Alexander shares the joys, triumphs and frustrations of establishing a home garden.

Having grown up gardening and growing my own (award-winning) food as a child, I now find gardening books about as interesting as a book on dental work. Been there, done that and now will you please shut up about it since I had the sense to stop and you didn’t? I know how obsessive people get about their gardens, but hearing people talk about their gardens is, for me, like hearing old people talk about their ailments. They find it interesting but don’t know when to stop.

“People – all people, including me – have no objectivity when it comes to their driving, their cooking, or their gardens.”

Yet, despite their obliviousness, there is something special about a garden.

Alexander calls it correctly when he says,

“It seemed to say, “Come, bring me your seeds and water, and I will reward you.” And it would. And also humble me, and teach me, and become a place of solace, a battleground, a source of pride, a source of frustration, a time sink, a respite.”

Alexander chronicles his struggles with growing apples:

“Not only was I still trying to live up to the exemplar of my father’s organic apple orchard, but I am a natural-fibers, NPR-supporting, recycling, compost-making, left-of-center environmentalist, and I put my money where my mouth is, supporting local groups like Scenic Hudson to clean our rivers and curb development. Yet I was an environmentalist with a problem: I wanted to grow apples.

So when the serpent offered me the pesticide-sprayed apple,… I accepted it.”

Roses, herbs, his battles with a groundhog he calls Superchuck (think Caddyshack) and his beautiful $64 Brandywine tomatoes.

Way better than Coop but not as good as Animal Vegetable Miracle, this book is a nice companion for people who still wistfully look over the Burpee seed catalog, but sigh and instead head to the co-op or their CSA pick-up.

Saving Face: My Victory over Skin Cancer by Carolyn Shuck

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Summary: A woman chronicles her battle and victory over skin cancer in the 1970s.

I’m dealing with my own skin cancer and Carolyn Shuck’s story of diagnosis, treatment, recovery and struggles with facial skin cancer in the early 1970s, while not quite “inspirational,” was encouraging and helpful.

I was taken aback by the contrast in our styles to our skin cancer despite our similar personalities and life stories. Her skin cancer was diagnosed in the 1970s and she mentions using sunscreen once. Once! Only years after her skin cancer diagnosis, does she give up playing golf, because she doesn’t want to damage her skin even more. She was living in Minneapolis, where I live now. She also has three children, as do I.

It helps that Carolyn Shuck is enormously wealthy and can make monthly plan trips to Madison, WI from La Jolla, CA. Of course, she is seeing the world’s finest skin cancer doctor. If you had the money, wouldn’t you pay to see the best doctor?

Dr. Mohs cuts and removes only the cancerous cells, but his cutting has left her without both sides of her nose and with damage to her forehead and cheek.

At times it seems as if her husband is deliberately sabotaging her efforts:

“How I wanted him to hold me and tell me he loved me now and he’d always love me. That no matter what happened, I’d always be beautiful to him and that he couldn’t bear to be away from me either.

But few men have scripts in their hands for a scene like this. I’m sure he didn’t know what to say. He gently pushed me away, fixed me a drink, and brought me up on the new details of our California move.”

In addition, they move to La Jolla, California, go on trips to Singapore and walk along the beach. I don’t know if the extremely wealthy see no reason why their lives have to change when tragedy strikes, but she didn’t seem as active with preventative measures as I am now. Granted, I am struggling with skin cancer 30 years later. The world has changed a lot since then. However, the topical chemotherapy cream 5FU, which Carolyn tested back in the 1970s, is still in use today. (Yes, the cream does F-yoU.)

Carolyn naively thinks that she’ll just get a little extra work done on her plastic surgery but instead encounters an arrogant prick of a different doctor at the Mayo Clinic. He has no idea what he is doing, but his arrogance comes across as confidence and Carolyn so wants to believe that she can have a normal nose again and doesn't bother to ask the right questions. After six botched surgeries on her nose by the Mayo Clinic doctor, she gives up and gets a prosthetic nose. Her husband, DeWitt, thinks she should be happy, but Carolyn still struggles with the daily struggle of putting her fake nose (a third one, after she rejected the ill-fitting and racially mismatched noses another doctor created for her) on and off every day.

“After eleven failed attempts at a nose, why was I asking for more?” Carolyn perfectly expresses her challenges of trying to get healthy and trying to be a good wife and mother.

Carolyn Shuck encountered a lot of people who said incredibly stupid things to a woman with a severe facial disfigurement. “I was glad I’d taken Psychology 101 and knew intelligence isn’t distributed equally: for each very bright person there is one very stupid person.” While I don’t have any facial disfigurement, I did and do feel very self-conscious about my face after treatment.

"I’m an extrovert, always have been. I both enjoy and need closeness to other people; need to hear what’s happening in their lives and to tell them what’s happening in mine. And all the communication isn’t verbal – with my face I’ve laughed with my friends and cried with them, expressed sympathy for them and enlisted their sympathy in return

Would they be uncomfortable, now, in my presence? Not know what to say or where to look? With a glaring defect in the middle of my face, would I find their attention focused on that instead of on me? Would they pity me??

I couldn’t stand that."

This so perfectly captures the sentiment I feel that I may re-read this book, just so I don’t feel alone or when I feel like hiding my face from others.

The writing is simplistic, but well-told with a few scattered narrative leaps. Great story and helpful for anyone dealing with any stage of skin cancer.

I Was Told There'd be Cake by Sloane Crosley

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Summary: Essays from a recent college graduate about growing up Jewish but not practicing, dating and sex, work and friendship. 

Sloane Crosley writes of her first publishing job after college graduation:

“The hours I logged in there were some of the more useless of my life. Which is really saying something. I remember almost nothing of my experience except for the tray of inexplicably unwrapped cherry frosted Pop-Tarts in the office kitchen and the one article they allowed me to write all summer: a two-hundred word reportage masterpiece on a teen fashion show at Macy’s. In it, I attempted to explore the seedy underbelly of thirteen-year-old runway models, all of whom had better skins and better social lives than I did. What came out went something like: Shoulder pads. All bad?”

The minutes I logged trying to get through the painfully dull and self-absorbed stories of another whiny New York college grad can never be repaid.

Now I know why so many other aimless twenty-something have novels out, because this ridiculous book got published. Do you know who’s reading it? All the other aimless twenty-somethings who have no jobs but think they are brilliant. This is what helicopter parenting leads to, folks: liberal art majors who think they can write and are owed a novel about how awkward it is to have sex or date or play band or have any other NORMAL experience people have.

Funny title, but even though this was a collection of essays, I couldn’t bring myself to finish even half of them.

Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Fight to Bring her Home by Laura Ling and Lisa Ling

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Summary: Lisa Ling recounts her struggle to bring home her sister Laura Ling from North Korea while Laura narrates her time under North Korean jailers.

I was given a copy of this book by the publisher. 

North Koreans guards dragged these two injured frightened women back across a frozen river onto North Korean soil. Laura and Euna tried to grab bushes, rocks, ice anything to keep them on Chinese soil. Finally, all they could hold onto was each other, but they were soon forced apart.

I called my sister tonight just to confirm that she would do everything she could to bring me home if I'm ever in a North Korean jail.

The love between these two sisters is amazing. Lisa Ling's powerful love for her sister is expressed through everything Lisa did to bring her sister Laura home, navigating the tricky world of American politics as well. When a homeless man calls out to Lisa, "I'm praying for your sister!" I teared up.

I avidly followed the story of two journalists -Laura Ling and Euna Lee- working for Al Gore's network Current and cried when they made it home safe and alive. I'm always a little suspicious when Americans are captured on foreign soil and then claim they didn't know the boundaries. (The hikers currently imprisoned in Iran are from Minnesota). But that's more because I'm a conspiracy theorist and believe that the CIA and NSA are smart and tricky. Plus journalists tend to have free access and are nosier, so who better to be a spy than a journalist? It sickens me a little to think that I have the same train of thought as a North Korean interrogator.

Laura will narrate her version of one event and then Lisa will narrate the same event from her perspective. In addition to have each sister's voice be a different font, this style lets them tell a complicated story with ease. It didn't annoy me the way it did others; it helped me.

Carefully spoken messages and scanned letters simply don't tell Laura's friends and family what is happening. Laura's health issues prevent her from being sent to the hard labor camps, but she's suffering from such ill health, they can't send her. Laura's retelling of her un-anesthetized endoscopy made me wince. Plus Laura has to try to give the North Koreans a public apology by some established American and make that American publicly apologize. Meanwhile Lisa is juggling the offices of John Kerry, Bill Richardson, Hillary Clinton (who made the first public apology and then was mocked and insulted by the North Korean government), Al Gore, Bill Clinton and the White House.

I'm so grateful that we are the land of the free and the home of the brave. I also plan to read The World Is Bigger Now: An American Journalist's Release from Captivity in North Korea by Euna Lee and Lisa Dickey. Euna was separated from her husband and young daughter and kept in a separate area from Laura Ling.

Dog House: A Love Story by Carol Prisant

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I was given a copy of this book by the publisher.

Summary: A woman tracks her marriage and family life using pets as guideposts.

Good, but dull. That’s how the author describes her own life, and since this is a rambling memoir, that’s also an apt description of the book.

Parts of the book were hysterically funny, and in other parts, I wondered why she would write what she did.

This book was almost like a tell-all from an aging, long-ago famous Hollywood starlet, saying, “These are the men (dogs) in my life. Some I loved, some I didn’t.”

It’s supposed to be a love story about the dogs in her life, but instead it seemed just sad and pitiful. Carol’s mother didn’t like dogs, but Carol tried to bring home three. Then, in preparation for her child, she adopts a monkey (!), who she eventually gives back.

And that’s a general idea of how the book went.

I adopted a pet.

I gave it up. (or it died.)

Good but dull.  I also think that Carol married an undemonstrative man, and she instead poured all that love and affection and attention into her son. They eventually start a business together but have to sell it to save their mother-son relationship.  And when Carol and her husband Millard do find a dog, you get the feeling that Millard loves the dog more than he loves Carol. Just sad.

While reading this, I wondered, “What’s the point here? What’s the message? What’s the theme? There didn’t seem to be any kind of unifying element, except that they had dogs in their lives at varying points. Okay.

I’m not supposed to quote from an uncopyedited manuscript, but so I won’t here. There are parts in this book that will make you shout with laughter, but with an unsatisfying ending, I’m not sure how polished this book is yet. 

Lois on the Loose: One Woman, One Motorcycle, 20,000 Miles Across the Americas by Lois Pryce

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Summary: A British journalist diaries about her solo motorcycle ride from Alaska to the southernmost tip of South America.


Lois Price writes in what I consider a very British voice, not quite the sly British humor I love, but the understated yet complicated language that people mock today.

“Despite this sudden influx of ursine furry friends I was still keen to carry on camping, although the reality of having one set of clothes and no washing facilities was beginning to make itself known to me, and probably anyone else who had the misfortune to come into contact with me.”

Lois on the Loose tracks one woman’s motorcycle ride from Alaska to Ushuaia, the southernmost tip of South America. It chronicles her misadventures, language difficulties and bike mechanical issues in a cheerful and hopeful voice with normal grumbling. My main grumble - I thought she was supposed to do the bike ride solo, yet she has a companion for much of the way.
The best scene is when she and her companion are crossing borders from one Central American country to another.

“Then the questioning would begin:
Where are you from?
England.
Where are you going?
La Paz.
Where is your husband?
No husband.
You have children?
No children.

This summary of our domestic situation would elicit a look that hovered somewhere between confusion and irritation, followed by the final question.
Drogas? Drugs. You have drugs?
No. No drugs.

With the inquisition at its end, the bemused boy soldiers would send us on our way, the unspoken question written all over their faces: Well… if they haven’t got husbands or children or drugs, then what can they possibly be up to?” ‘ 

This book highlights the journey, not just the destination, but the writing wasn't very approachable, in my mind. 

Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia by Chris Stewart

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Summary: An American buys a house in South America and wants to live there while maintaining American standards. 


Lacking the charm and delight that A Year in Provence had, this book seemed comically stupid. I couldn't finish it because I didn't care enough about the author to hope anything turned out for him. The last thing we need is an American buffoon mocking the traditions and slower-paced life of other countries.