(Audio)Book Talk: SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS, by Aisha Tyler

Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation
Aisha Tyler (Twitter) (Facebook)
Audiobook read by the author
It Books/Dey Street Books (July 2013), Hardcover (ISBN 0062223771 / 9780062223777)
Nonfiction (memoir/essays/humor), 256 pages
Source: Purchased audiobook (Harper Audio, July 2013, ISBN 9780062263322; Audible ASIN B00D98KXPW)

“They say” that when you look back over your life, you’ll have more regrets over what you didn’t do than what you did. I don’t completely agree–if what you’ve done was immoral, illegal, and/or caused irreparable damage, I think some regrets are entirely appropriate. But for the many decisions and opportunities that don’t fall into any of those categories, I think it could be a good argument in favor of taking big chances. I’m trying to keep it in mind more, as I’ve reached a point where there’s (probably) more of my life to look back over than waiting ahead of me.

Aisha Tyler’s Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation would argue in favor of the “doing and not regretting.” Her collection of comedic essays drawn from many of her own learning experiences also seems to be offered in the spirit of “Let someone else make the mistakes, so you don’t have to make them all yourself.”

Tyler notes in an introductory passage that Self-Inflicted Wounds is not autobiography, although it is autobiographical. That’s accurate, but Tyler’s personal details—child of divorced, hippie-influenced parents in the San Francisco Bay Area; hard-working student and unexpected Ivy Leaguer; self-made comedian, TV/podcast host, actor, and writer; voracious reader and champion of nerdery, comedy, and profanity—give readers a good sense of the perspective her unique background has given her. Elements of that background obviously influenced her choices, but they also clearly nourished the intelligence, drive, clear-headedness, and positivity that have enabled her to–as she references a motto from her days at Dartmouth–“boot, then rally,” reassessing and moving forward from the setbacks, over and over again. Tyler’s experience as a stand-up comic seems to have influenced some of the “tales of epic humiliation” she chooses to share—there are a lot of drinking-related stories—but she holds on to the common thread.

The ability to laugh at yourself is another factor in recovering and learning from what goes wrong, and Tyler is pretty comfortable with doing that. That comfort level gives Self-Inflicted Wounds a genuinely encouraging tone; it’s not “self-help,” but it comes across as helpful in a similar way to Patty Chang Anker’s Some Nerve: Lessons Learned While Becoming Brave. The tone is enhanced by Tyler’s reading of the audiobook; her voice has the authority and directness that Archer fans know from her character of Lana Kane, but softened and more approachable, and I would absolutely recommend reading this one by ear. Self-Inflicted Wounds is fast, funny, and frequently insightful.

Rating: Book and audio, 3.75 of 5
Other opinions, via the Book Blogs Search Engine

Book description, from the publisher’s website

In Self-Inflicted Wounds, Aisha Tyler, comedian, actress, and cohost of CBS’s daytime hit show The Talk, recounts a series of epic mistakes and hilarious stories of crushing personal humiliation, and the personal insights and authentic wisdom she gathered along the way. 

The essays in Self-Inflicted Wounds are refreshingly and sometimes brutally honest, surprising, and laugh-out-loud funny, vividly translating the brand of humor Tyler has cultivated through her successful standup career, as well as the strong voice and unique point of view she expresses on her taste-making comedy podcast Girl on Guy. 

Riotous, revealing, and wonderfully relatable, Aisha Tyler’s Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation is about the power of calamity to shape life, learning, and success.

Opening lines (from the Introduction–note that this book also has a Preface and a Prologue):

"I am not a psychologist, but I do know some shit about people.

"This is not a boast. This is just the truth.

"If you were to question why the hell I think I can write a book about human failure and its power to transform people with the strength of its sheer awesomeness, I would have to plead no contest. I am uniquely unqualified to pontificate on the behavior of others and its significance.
My undergraduate degree is not in psychology, or human behavior, or sociology, or even anthropology. My undergraduate degree is in government, with a double minor in environmental studies and drinking shit.

“I have no letters after my name. (Other than H.N.I.C., which is a very easy degree to get.)”

 

Read More

(Audio)Book Talk: CALL THE MIDWIFE, by Jennifer Worth

Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times
Jennifer Worth
Audiobook read by Nicola Barber
Penguin Books (2012), Trade Paperback (ISBN 1611749247 / 9781611749243)
Nonfiction: autobiography/memoir, 352 pages
Source: purchased audiobook (Highbridge Audio, 2012, ISBN 9781611749250, Audible ASIN B009899R76)

I don’t often buy audiobooks on a whim, but after I finished listening to The Cuckoo’s Calling I was craving more British narration, and when Call the Midwife popped up as a suggestion on Audible, I decided to take them up on it.

Written several decades after Jennifer Worth’s experiences as an in-home nurse/midwife in 1950s London, Call the Midwife felt like old-school memoir to me—that is, the kind of book produced by someone going about “writing their memoirs,” because they have all these great stories to tell. In fact, given that this is the first of three volumes, Worth literally did “write her memoirs,” and she does have plenty of stories. The book feels more like a collection of anecdotes than a structured narrative, and as such, it was easy for me to see why it became the source material for a very popular British TV series.

Worth’s experiences as a young midwife in the downtrodden East End of post-World War II London brought her into contact with many families—some large, some small, most poor—and a slew of colorful characters, whose lives she portrays sympathetically and vividly. She gives readers a real feel for the 1950s in the London docklands, a time and place that feel much further away than they really are, and what she says about mid-twentieth-century women’s healthcare offers new perspectives on some current debates. However, while Worth includes generous amounts of historical and social context, Call the Midwife is ultimately a personal story…and in that respect, I found it a little disappointing.
There are a few lengthy sections in which she narrates the personal histories of patients—stories from before she knew these women. While those stories are interesting on their own merits, they engaged me less than those of births that she attended and the families whose lives more directly affected hers, and I didn’t find enough of her own story here to satisfy me. I still have too many questions about the person who should have been at the center of this.

Perhaps those questions are addressed in the other two volumes of Worth’s memoirs—and if they’re also available on audiobook and read by Nicola Barber, I just might decide to find out. Listening to Barber’s voice work was an absolute delight, and I’d love to hear more of it. Call the Midwife was a fine audiobook experience, and an often fascinating glimpse of recent history.

Rating: Book, 3.5 of 5; Audio, 4 of 5

Another Take: Capricious Reader

Book description, from the publisher’s website:

At the age of twenty-two, Jennifer Worth leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in post war London’s East End slums. The colorful characters she meets while delivering babies all over London—from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lives to the woman with twenty-four children who can’t speak English to the prostitutes and dockers of the city’s seedier side—illuminate a fascinating time in history. Beautifully written and utterly moving, Call The Midwife will touch the hearts of anyone who is, and everyone who has, a mother.

From Chapter One:

"Why did I ever start this? I must have been mad! There were dozens of other things I could have been–a model, air hostess, or ship’s stewardess. The ideas run through my head, all glamorous, highly-paid jobs. Only an idiot would choose to be a nurse. And now a midwife…
“Two-thirty in the morning! I struggle, half asleep, into my uniform. Only three hours sleep after a seventeen-hour working day. Who would do such a job? It is bitterly cold and raining outside. Nonnatus House itself is cold enough, and the bicycle shed even colder. In the dark I wrench at a bicycle and crack my shin. Through blind force of habit, I fit my delivery bag on to the bicycle, and push it out into the deserted street.”

Posted with Blogsy

Read More

Book Talk: NEW LIFE, NO INSTRUCTIONS, by Gail Caldwell

New Life, No Instructions: A Memoir

Gail Caldwell (Facebook)

Random House (April 2014), Hardcover (ISBN 1400069548 / 9781400069545)

Nonfiction/memoir, 176 pages

A version of this review was previously published in Shelf Awareness for Readers (April 15, 2014). Shelf Awareness provided me with a publisher-furnished galley to facilitate the review, and compensated me for the review they received and posted.

Gail Caldwell's 2010 memoir, Let's Take the Long Way Home, explored the losses that defined her fifth decade: her parents, her best friend and her beloved Samoyed, Clementine. She came into her 60s determined to move on, including starting over with a new puppy. But living with and training an active young dog forced Caldwell to confront just how difficult "moving on" was becoming for her, in aphysical sense. Caldwell had been compensating for the effects of polio her entire life, and this was getting harder every day. New Life, No Instructions is the story of how she learned she didn't have to continue to compensate, and of how a common medical procedure enabled her to see her life, literally, from a new perspective.

Caldwell's medical history led her and her caregivers to an exotic explanation for her painful limp, poor balance, fatigue, and other symptoms; for years, they had been trying to address her issues as manifestations of the relatively rare Post-Polio Syndrome. In 2011, a new doctor identified her problem as something far more ordinary: her right hip had completely deteriorated--perhaps due to post-polio complications, but perhaps for completely unrelated reasons; she needed surgery to replace it, and which would also make both of her legs the same length for the first time in her life.

New Life, No Instructions is an affirming and hopeful reminder that sometimes the stories that we tell ourselves turn out to be wrong, but they can lead us to something very right. Caldwell's brief (under 200 pages) memoir of a year of unexpected midlife transformation is clear-eyed and plainspoken. She vividly conveys her sense of wonder and possibility at being in such a new place at such an unexpected time, and it's hard to resist being caught up in that feeling.

I read this memoir in the weeks leading up to my 50th birthday, and while I'm inclined to think it will especially resonate with Caldwell's midlife contemporaries (and fellow dog people), it's a worthwhile read for anyone who appreciates good writing...and the idea that change is always possible.

Book description, from the publisher's website

The Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author of Let’s Take the Long Way Home now gives us a stunning, exquisitely written memoir about a dramatic turning point in her life, which unexpectedly opened up a world of understanding, possibility, and connection. New Life, No Instructions is about the surprising way life can begin again, at any age.

Opening Lines

"Cambridge 2011 

"My first tip-off that the world had shifted was that the dogs looked lower to the ground. I dismissed the perception as a visual misread: Because I was on crutches and couldn't bend down to touch them, of course they seemed further away. Then a friend came to visit, a striking woman whom I'd always considered tall. She was standing across the living room, and I was smiling, happy to have her there, and I thought, Tink is small! And I never realized it before."

Read More

(Audio)Book Talk: A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING, by Bill Bryson

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Bill Bryson (Facebook)

Abridged audiobook read by the author / Unabridged audio read by Richard Matthews

Broadway Books (2004), trade paper (ISBN 076790818X / 9780275980528)

Nonfiction: science, 544 pages

Source: Purchased audiobook (Random House Audio, 2003, ISBN 9780739302958; Audible ASIN B00009OYYM)

My first experience with Bill Bryson was 2010's Home: A Short History of Private Life, and I knew it wouldn't be my last. I also knew it wasn't Bryson's first experience with "short history," and when I took my long-overdue first steps into the land of audiobooks a few months later, his own reading of his 2003 work A Short History of Nearly Everything was one of my earliest purchases. Audiobooks don't tend to languish in TBR Purgatory for as long as print and ebooks do, as a rule, but it took me almost two and a half years to get around to that one. Honestly, the premise seemed just a bit intimidating, as you might imagine from that title--"nearly everything" covers a LOT.

However, once I finally dove in, I was disappointed and chagrined--not by the book, but by the discovery that, as an audiobook noob, I'd purchased an abridged version. I was so not disappointed and chagrined by the book itself that I remedied the situation in the most appropriate manner: I downloaded the full, unabridged version, and began listening to it immediately after I finished the short one. The full version is not read by the author--which may be another reason I passed it up originally--but that turned out not to be all that much of a drawback, as it allowed me to focus more on Bryson as a writer. (I have to admit that Bryson's voice as an audio narrator is a bit unexpected and something of an acquired taste, and although I'm mostly on board with it, I appreciated hearing his words read by Richard Matthews--more than I expected to, if I'm being honest.)

A Short History of Nearly Everything does not misrepresent itself; it ranges from theories on the origin of the universe and how long ago that (probably) really happened, to the structure of atoms and cells and the most basic, essential foundations of life and its evolution on Earth (which is all we Earthlings are really able to study at this point.) The book was originally published in 2003 and is therefore missing a decade of scientific developments, including the identification of the Higgs boson and the demotion of Pluto from "planet" rank. However, I think that's an inherent hazard of writing history on any topic, let alone science, without confining the discussion to "historical" time periods, and I don't think that the book suffers for it. Bryson's emphasis on the often obscure people and personalities who have developed and documented our understanding of the physical world, and his meanders down narrative sidetracks for further exploration, make it all work.

Having now spent more time with A Short History of Nearly Everything than just about any audiobook I've read yet, I would actually recommend the approach I took by accident. While Bryson is not a scientist and his work is very approachable, the abridged audio serves nicely as a highlight reel, introducing most of the key names, events, and ideas that are explored more fully in the long version. Even in plain language, there are some complicated concepts here, and if you're more oriented to processing information visually, there's an added level of challenge to reading this by ear; keeping the first listen in mind as a detailed outline for the second reading helped me a lot. (It also helped that there's overlap in the material here with Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which premiered while I was listening toA Short History of Nearly Everything, and which we're still watching; you could make a nice little self-instruction course out of this combination.)

I've now read Bryson on a variety of subjects, It seems to me that he's one of our best contemporary storytellers...and he can make an engaging, compelling story out of just about anything. It's a rare gift. The way that A Short History of Nearly Everything made me recognize, appreciate, and rejoice over just how remarkable it is to be alive--in this here and now, with the knowledge we have and the potential for so much more--may be an even rarer one.

Rating: Book and Audio, 4 of 5

Other reviews, via the Book Blogs Search Engine

Book description, from the publisher's website

In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail -- well, most of it. In In A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand -- and, if possible, answer -- the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.

From Chapter One:

"NO MATTER HOW hard you try you will never be able to grasp just how tiny, how spatially unassuming, is a proton. It is just way too small. 

"A proton is an infinitesimal part of an atom, which is itself of course an insubstantial thing. Protons are so small that a little dib of ink like the dot on this i can hold something in the region of 500,000,000,000 of them, rather more than the number of seconds contained in half a million years. So protons are exceedingly microscopic, to say the very least. 

"Now imagine if you can (and of course you can't) shrinking one of those protons down to a billionth of its normal size into a space so small that it would make a proton look enormous. Now pack into that tiny, tiny space about an ounce of matter. Excellent. You are ready to start a universe."

Read More

Book Talk: EXODUS, by Deborah Feldman

Exodus: A Memoir
Deborah Feldman
Blue Rider Press (2014), Hardcover (March 25, 2014), ISBN 0399162771 / 9780399162770
Memoir, 304 pages

A version of this review was previously published in Shelf Awareness for Readers (4/8/2014). Shelf Awareness provided me with a publisher-furnished galley to facilitate the review, and compensated me for the review they received and posted.

In her 2012 memoir, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, Deborah Feldman chronicled her upbringing in the insular, fundamentalist Satmar sect of Orthodox Judaism and her flight from its practices with her young son. Twenty-three years old at the time she left her Brooklyn community, Feldman had a long new life ahead of her–and very little idea of what it would look like, or who she would be within it. In Exodus, she explores where the first few years of that journey have taken her, and the perspective she has acquired since it began.

While no longer considering herself Orthodox–and some responses to her earlier book suggest that the “rejection” is reciprocated–Feldman continues to identify herself as Jewish. However, she must work out what that will look like for her as she moves forward, and she decides that moving backward needs to be part of that process. Much of Exodus follows Feldman as she travels through Europe along the path of her Hungarian-born grandmother, a survivor of the concentration camps, working at coming to terms with the ways in which she herself could be called a survivor.

Exodus is a companion piece to Unorthodox, and while it’s not necessary to read both memoirs in chronological order, those who have read one will likely want to read the other, as they clearly inform each other. Exodus has the feel of a coming-of-age story, tracing the protagonist’s steps toward self-discovery. It meanders at times and feels somewhat unresolved in the end, leaving the reader with a sense that Feldman is still at the beginning of things, still searching and sorting out…but she’s not yet thirty, and that seems right.

Book description, via the publisher’s website:

In 2009, at the age of twenty-three, Deborah Feldman packed up her young son and their few possessions and walked away from her insular Hasidic roots. She was determined to forge a better life for herself, away from the rampant oppression, abuse, and isolation of her Satmar upbringing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Out of her experience came the incendiary, bestselling memoir Unorthodox and now, just a few years later, Feldman has embarked on a triumphant journey of self-discovery—a journey in which she begins life anew as a single mother, an independent woman, and a religious refugee.

In her travels, and at home, Feldman redefines her sense of identity—no longer Orthodox, she comes to terms with her Jewishness by discovering a world of like-minded outcasts and misfits committed to self-acceptance and healing. Inwardly, Feldman has navigated remarkable experiences: raising her son in the “real” world, finding solace and solitude in a writing career, and searching for love. Culminating in an unforgettable trip across Europe to retrace her grandmother’s life during the Holocaust, Exodus is a deeply moving exploration of the mysterious bonds that tie us to family and religion, the bonds we must sometimes break to find our true selves.

From Chapter One:

"There she is, just across the street, sulking on the stoop. Seven years old, skin pale almost to the point of translucence, lips pursed into a sullen pout. She stares gloomily at the silver Mary Janes on her feet, the tips of which catch the last rays of sunlight quickly fading behind the three-story brownstone. 

"She has been scrubbed and primped in preparation for Passover, soon to arrive. Her hair hurts where it’s been pulled too tight into a bun at the top of her head. She feels each strand stretching from its inflamed follicle, especially at the nape of her neck, where an early-spring breeze raises goose bumps on the exposed skin. Her hands are folded into the lap of her brand-new purple dress, with peonies and violets splashed wildly on the fabric, smocking at the chest, and a sash tied around the waist. There are new white tights stretched over her thin legs. 

“This little side street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, usually bustling with black-clad men carrying prayer books, is momentarily silent and empty, its residents indoors making preparations for the evening.”

Read More

Book Talk: THE PERFECT SCORE PROJECT, by Debbie Stier

The Perfect Score Project: Uncovering the Secrets of the SAT
Debbie Stier (Twitter) (Facebook)
Harmony (February 25, 2014), Hardcover (ISBN 0307956679 / 9780307956675)
Nonfiction: memoir/self-help/education, 304 pages

A version of this review was previously published in Shelf Awareness for Readers (March 4, 2014). Shelf Awareness provided me with a publisher-furnished galley to facilitate the review, and compensated me for the review they received and posted.

The Perfect Score Project chronicles Debbie Stier’s year of exploring a variety of test preparation strategies as she sat for the SAT seven times, with the goal of learning how to help her son Ethan prepare for his own college-entrance exams. Stier knew that Ethan’s ability to obtain merit-based financial aid would depend on high scores on the standardized tests, but she didn’t know how to help him prepare for them. Her last experience with the SAT had been nearly thirty years earlier, and an extensive test-prep industry had sprouted since then. Ethan’s mom was going to have to do a lot of homework herself before Ethan got anywhere near the SAT.

Stier tried a different study method before each test, from personal tutoring to online learning to self-directed practice using official College Board materials. The Perfect Score Project discusses the pros and cons of them all, with the verdict on each method's effectiveness rendered by the test scores she got after using it. The book offers many helpful insights about the testing process to parents of the college-bound—few of whom are likely to go to Stier’s lengths, honestly—as well as to prospective test-takers themselves.

Stier’s own evaluation of her SAT experience weighs its effects on her personal growth and relationship with her son at least as heavily as her test scores, and the story in The Perfect Score Project rests in that. While what she did comes across at times as a particularly intense example of “helicopter parenting” and readers might not agree with either her tactics or her conclusions, she offers them some very useful information in a rather unusual package.

A more enthusiastic review of The Perfect Score Project from Vasilly at 1330v

Book description, from the publisher's website

The Perfect Score Project is both a toolbox of fresh college-prep tips and an amusing snapshot of parental love and wisdom colliding with teenage apathy.

It all began as an attempt by Debbie Stier to help her high-school age son, Ethan, who would shortly be studying for the SAT. Aware that Ethan was a typical teenager (i.e., completely uninterested in any test) and that a mind-boggling menu of test-prep options existed, she decided – on his behalf -- to sample as many as she could to create the perfect SAT test-prep recipe.

Debbie’s quest turned out to be an exercise in both hilarity and heartbreak as she took the SAT seven times in one year and in-between “went to school” on standardized testing. Here, she reveals why the SAT has become so important, the cottage industries it has spawned, what really works in preparing for the test and what is a waste of time.

From Chapter One:

"I’m a forty-eight-year-old mother of two teenagers, and this whole crazy 'perfect score project' started out as a scheme to rescue my kid from . . . sliding by. I thought maybe I could motivate Ethan to care about the SAT, just a little, if I climbed into the trenches myself.

"Initially, though, the number of test-prep options left me agog (over a million on Google). My original idea was to try out twelve different methods of test prep the year before Ethan would be taking his first SAT. But as I saw how vast and complicated the realm of SAT prep appeared to be, I kept adding layers to the idea. What was at first simply the notion of taking an official SAT at school with the kids mushroomed into a vow to take the test every time it was offered in 2011 (seven times in all). And I’d try out different locations for each test, which turned out to be a total of five. (I didn’t anticipate the issue of test centers booking up early and ended up having to repeat a few). I wanted to see if the location played any role in the test experience, so I chose schools ranging from an elite private school in the suburbs to an urban public school in the Bronx.

"My journey would start with the first SAT of 2011, on January 22, and Ethan would take his first SAT exactly one year after me--in January of 2012. We’d overlap in our preparation about halfway through the year because (a) juniors take the PSAT in the fall (October of 2011 for Ethan; SAT No. 5 for me), so he’d need to study; and (b) I know my son well enough to realize he does better with some spare runway to build momentum.

"In spite of the escalating nature of the project, I was excited about the 'study together' part and assumed that by halfway through the year, with four SAT experiences under my belt, I’d have my bearings and be able to adroitly show my son 'the SAT ropes.'"

Read More

Book Talk: THE RACE UNDERGROUND, by Doug Most

The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway
Doug Most (Facebook) (Twitter)
St. Martin's Press (February 2014), Hardcover (ISBN 0312591322 / 9780312591328)
Nonfiction: history, 416 pages

A version of this post was previously published as a Starred Review in Shelf Awareness for Readers (February 18, 2014). Shelf Awareness provided me with a publisher-furnished galley to facilitate the review, and compensated me for the review they received and posted.

As industrial innovation and waves of immigration drove the dramatic 19th-century growth of New York and Boston, both cities needed to find new ways to move people around. Constrained by geography, they were running out of space for pedestrians, horses, carriages and street railways to coexist, and eventually, they looked in the same direction: below street level. In The Race Underground, Boston Globe editor Doug Most recounts the remarkable achievements in civil engineering that transformed two cities, along with the political and financial intrigues that accompanied them.

The Race Underground shifts its narrative between Boston and New York from one chapter to the next, and while Most doesn’t minimize the technological developments that made the subway possible, he’s more interested in the people responsible for bringing it to each city—and, sometimes, in the ones who stood in its way. The human-interest angle allows him to play up the competitive relationship between the Northeast’s two anchor cities as each tries to be first to take its transportation problems underground. (Spoiler: Boston does it sooner, but New York does it on a much bigger scale.)

As challenging as it can be to get around New York, Boston, and other major American cities where mass transit is part of everyday 21st-century life, it’s staggering to imagine what it might be like without it. (Actually, if you live in Los Angeles, you don't have to imagine very hard.) The Race Underground tells the story of how we got there, and it’s an enlightening—and surprisingly exciting—ride.

Book description, from the publisher's website: 

In the late nineteenth century, as cities like Boston and New York grew more congested, the streets became clogged with plodding, horse-drawn carts. When the great blizzard of 1888 crippled the entire northeast, a solution had to be found. Two brothers from one of the nation's great families—Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York—pursued the dream of his city digging America's first subway, and the great race was on. The competition between Boston and New York played out in an era not unlike our own, one of economic upheaval, life-changing innovations, class warfare, bitter political tensions, and the question of America’s place in the world. 

The Race Underground is peopled with the famous, like Boss Tweed, Grover Cleveland and Thomas Edison, and the not-so-famous, from brilliant engineers to the countless "sandhogs" who shoveled, hoisted　and blasted their way into the earth’s crust, sometimes losing their lives in the construction of the tunnels. Doug Most chronicles the science of the subway, looks at the centuries of fears people overcame about traveling underground and tells a story as exciting as any ever ripped from the pages of U.S. history. The Race Undergroundis a great American saga of two rival American cities, their rich, powerful and sometimes corrupt interests, and an invention that changed the lives of millions.

From the Introduction:

"In the second half of the nineteenth century, the horse-pulled streetcar, clip-clopping along at five miles per hour and filled with an unbearable stench, slowly began to cripple two great American cities. In Boston and New York, there were too many people and no safe, reliable way for them to move from one neighborhood to the next. In the summer heat, carriages inched forward until the animals reared up their legs in frustration, and police had to come out swinging their clubs to restore peace. During the winter it was no better. Horses struggled to get their footing in the snow and ice and were driven to exhaustion or sometimes death. When a solution to the problem finally emerged--a subway--it was rejected time and again, either by corrupt politicians, selfish businessmen, or terrified citizens."

Read More

(Audio)Book Talk: GOING CLEAR, by Lawrence Wright

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief

Lawrence Wright

Audiobook read by Morton Sellers
Vintage (November 2013), Paperback (ISBN 0385393040 / 9780385393041)
Nonfiction, 560 pages
Source: Purchased audiobook (Random House Audio, January 2013, ISBN 9780385393058; Audible ASIN B00AYLFLCM)

I've spent about 40% of my life in places where the Church of Scientology's presence is hard to ignore: the obvious one is here in Los Angeles, and the other one is Tampa Bay. (The fact I haven't lived there for over 25 years is probably why I'd forgotten that the organization's "spiritual headquarters" is in Clearwater, Florida.) But I work just a few blocks away from several Scientology centers in Hollywood, which makes it a lot harder to forget their presence here, and it's such a significant presence it seems important to understand it. Lawrence Wright's Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief was on a lot of best-nonfiction-of-2013 lists, so I decided I'd see what I could learn from it.

What I Learned, in bullet points:

• Scientology bears little resemblance to what most people think of as a "religion," despite an official (and controversial) determination from the IRS that it is one;
• The rigidity of Scientology's practices, its attitude toward dissenters, and the power of its dangerously charismatic leaders suggest that those who see it as more like a cult than a "church" may not be wrong;
• Scientology has a caste system of sorts which places entertainment-industry members at the top, catering to them with its "Celebrity Centers," and its own clergy somewhere near the bottom;
• The ongoing, long-term coursework required to progress "up the bridge" makes it quite costly to be a Scientologist;
• Some of the things Scientology teaches its members, particularly in the early stages, are surprisingly useful and sensible. The "surprise" comes because they resemble some of the ideas and practices of pyschology, which Scientology considers a thoroughly evil discipline. Scientology's origins in founder L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health and its antipathy to the mental-health profession are, to put it charitably, difficult to reconcile.

Going Clear's subtitle defines the book's structure. The first section pretty well covers "Everything you ever wanted to know about Scientology (and quite a lot you'd never have thought to ask)," and that begins with the rather colorful biography of its founder, the exceedingly prolific writer L. Ron Hubbard. Everything in Scientology's belief system comes directly from Hubbard's texts, some of which seem to be strongly influenced by his earlier science-fiction writing. That said, Hubbard grasped the human need for explanations and answers, and he devised some that have made sense to a huge number of people for over six decades.

Another thing Hubbard grasped was that Scientology's teachings could be particularly appealing to "artistic" types, and from early on, they were pitched toward a specific type of artist above all others--those in the Hollywood-based entertainment industry. A list of entertainers associated with Scientology would contain a lot of familiar names; you can Google them yourself, but you'll find Tom Cruise at the top of the list. For over a decade, Cruise has probably been the most-recognized Scientologist in the world, let alone in Hollywood, and he's prominently featured in the latter sections of Wright's book (along with numerous footnotes citing denials and "no comments" from his attorneys).

It's Wright's revelations regarding Scientology's "prison of belief" that made news when the book was originally published, particularly those concerning the "billion-year contracts" signed by members of its clergy, the Sea Org (often at very young ages), and the extreme, sometimes abusive conditions under which those members work. Many of his primary sources were once high-ranking executives within the Sea Org or other Scientology divisions. In some cases, their departures were more like escapes, and much of the information they've given the author was closely guarded by--and within--the church. Most of this material is made public for the first time in Going Clear...and much of it is may still remain unknown by current, committed church members, who will likely be directed to ignore or denounce the book (if they have access to it at all).

While these revelations are one of the main reasons to read Going Clear, they're also the source of my primary issue with it; pardon another church analogy, but I feel that Wright's preaching to the choir. The book's most likely readers are those who are already suspicious or skeptical about Scientology (and yes, I'd count myself among them); there's not much here that will dispel that, and a good amount that will reinforce it. That said, I was impressed with this as a piece of journalism. Wright had unusual access to Scientology insiders--departed and/or disaffected insiders, granted--but is able to relate their stories with an outsider's sense of perspective and a reporter's mandate to check with other sources (as documented by more of the previously-mentioned footnotes, frequently citing attorneys).

I was less impressed with Going Clear as a piece of writing than as reporting, and I didn't feel that the audiobook's narrator, Morton Sellers, brought much to the material--then again, this isn't material that lends itself to audio-performance embellishment very easily.

The story of the Church of Scientology isn't over; what Wright does here takes it out of Scientology's hands, exposes it more widely and broadly than perhaps ever before, and may change its future direction. I was fascinated, sometimes frightened, and occasionally flabbergasted by what I learned from Going Clear--it wasn't entirely satisfying reading, but I do think it's important reading.

Rating: Book, 3.75 of 5; Audio, 3.25 of 5

From the publisher's website:

A clear-sighted revelation, a deep penetration into the world of Scientology by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower, the now-classic study of al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack. Based on more than two hundred personal interviews with current and former Scientologists—both famous and less well known—and years of archival research, Lawrence Wright uses his extraordinary investigative ability to uncover for us the inner workings of the Church of Scientology.

At the book’s center, two men whom Wright brings vividly to life, showing how they have made Scientology what it is today: The darkly brilliant science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, whose restless, expansive mind invented a new religion. And his successor, David Miscavige—tough and driven, with the unenviable task of preserving the church after the death of Hubbard.

We learn about Scientology’s complicated cosmology and special language. We see the ways in which the church pursues celebrities, such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, and how such stars are used to advance the church’s goals. And we meet the young idealists who have joined the Sea Org, the church’s clergy, signing up with a billion-year contract.

In Going Clear, Wright examines what fundamentally makes a religion a religion, and whether Scientology is, in fact, deserving of this constitutional protection. Employing all his exceptional journalistic skills of observation, understanding, and shaping a story into a compelling narrative, Lawrence Wright has given us an evenhanded yet keenly incisive book that reveals the very essence of what makes Scientology the institution it is.

From Chapter One:

"London, Ontario, is a middling manufacturing town halfway between Toronto and Detroit, once known for its cigars and breweries. In a tribute to its famous namesake, London has its own Covent Garden, Piccadilly Street, and even a Thames River that forks around the modest, economically stressed downtown. The city, which sits in a humid basin, is remarked upon for its unpleasant weather. Summers are unusually hot, winters brutally cold, the springs and falls fine but fleeting. The most notable native son was the bandleader Guy Lombardo, who was honored in a local museum, until it closed for lack of visitors. London was a difficult place for an artist looking to find himself.

"Paul Haggis was twenty-one years old in 1975. He was walking toward a record store in downtown London when he encountered a fast-talking, long-haired young man with piercing eyes standing on the corner of Dundas and Waterloo Streets. There was something keen and strangely adamant in his manner. His name was Jim Logan. He pressed a book into Haggis’s hands. 'You have a mind,' Logan said. 'This is the owner’s manual.' Then he demanded, 'Give me two dollars.'

"The book was Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, by L. Ron Hubbard, which was published in 1950. By the time Logan pushed it on Haggis, the book had sold more than two million copies throughout the world. Haggis opened the book and saw a page stamped with the words 'Church of Scientology.'

“'Take me there,' he said to Logan."

Read More

(Audio)Book Talk: ONE SUMMER, by Bill Bryson

One Summer: America, 1927
Bill Bryson (Facebook)
Audiobook read by the author
Doubleday (October 2013), hardcover (ISBN 0767919408 / 9780767919401)
Nonfiction: History, 528 pages
Source: Purchased audiobook (Random House Audio, October 2013, ISBN 9780739315309; Audible ASIN B00EF9PJU8)

It's hard for those of us who came in late to grasp this fully, but the pace of change may never have been faster than it was in the 1900s in the United States. As a child of the 1960s and 1970s, I marveled that my parents had grown up without television; my youngest has a hard time grasping that his parents grew up without the Internet. At the same time, it can be surprising to realize that some things we consider recent, not exactly welcome developments in modern life--celebrity-obsessed popular culture, casual disregard of social conventions and morality, technological progress the complex mix of hope and fear that accompanies it--aren't as new as we think they are.

In One Summer: America, 1927, Bill Bryson provides a snapshot of several months that captures a country on the verge of advancing to a level that would allow it to dominate the century. Bryson's approach to history is both focused and rambling, and won't be new to those who have read his work before. In a leisurely chronological progression from April to October of 1927, he views the era's most significant themes and developments via singular events. Some examples:

• Charles Lindbergh's successful solo flight from New York to Paris is the focal point for a discussion of the engineering innovations that led to it and the commercial aviation industry that grew as a result of it
• The temporary shutdown and retooling of Ford auto plants for the switch from the Model T to the Model A frames the rise of car culture
• The unstoppable 1927 Yankees, led by the home-run streaks of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, illustrate the rise of "America's pastime" and fascination with sport and celebrity
• Prohibition and capital punishment bookend the conversation about crime
• The rise of radio networks, the birth of television, and the struggles of the newspapers for dominance over both (as well as over each other) show that the only thing new about the 21st-century "media wars" are some of the forms (which have not yet completely killed off the ones that were around in 1927)

Bryson is his own audio narrator here, and the impression of him I got from listening to One Summer was that of an informative yet folksy raconteur--he has a lot of facts to convey, but he does it while mining them for entertainment value and without losing the thread of story. I've read him in print before, but this was my first experience with him in audio, and I doubt it will be my last. I find the scope of social and technological change from one end of the twentieth century to the other endlessly fascinating, and every time I listened to a One Summer, I was dropped right into a piece of it. Like all summers, it had to end, and I was sorry to see it go.

Book: 3.75 of 5, Audio: 4 of 5

Book description, from the publisher's website:

The summer of 1927 began with one of the signature events of the twentieth century: on May 21, Charles Lindbergh became the first man to cross the Atlantic by plane nonstop, and when he landed in Le Bourget airfield near Paris, he ignited an explosion of worldwide rapture and instantly became the most famous person on the planet. Meanwhile, the titanically-talented Babe Ruth was beginning his assault on the home run record, which would culminate on September 30 with his sixtieth blast, one of the most resonant and durable records in sports history. In between those dates a Queens housewife named Ruth Snyder and her corset-salesman lover garroted her husband, leading to a murder trial that became a huge tabloid sensation. Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly sat atop a flagpole in Newark, New Jersey, for twelve days—a new record. The American South was clobbered by unprecedented rain and by flooding of the Mississippi basin, a great human disaster, the relief efforts for which were guided by the uncannily able and insufferably pompous Herbert Hoover. Calvin Coolidge interrupted an already leisurely presidency for an even more relaxing three-month vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The gangster Al Capone tightened his grip on the illegal booze business through a gaudy and murderous reign of terror and municipal corruption. The first true “talking picture,” Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, was filmed and forever changed the motion picture industry. The four most powerful central bankers on earth met in secret session on a Long Island estate and made a fateful decision that virtually guaranteed a future crash and depression. 

All this and much, much more transpired in that epochal summer of 1927, and Bill Bryson captures its outsized personalities, exciting events, and occasional just plain weirdness with his trademark vividness, eye for telling detail, and delicious humor. In that year America stepped out onto the world stage as the main event, and One Summer transforms it all into narrative nonfiction of the highest order.

From Chapter One:

TEN DAYS BEFORE he became so famous that crowds would form around any building that contained him and waiters would fight over a corncob left on his dinner plate, no one had heard of Charles Lindbergh. The New York Times had mentioned him once, in the context of the coming Atlantic flights. It had misspelled his name. 

The news that transfixed the nation as spring gave way to summer in 1927 was of a gruesome murder in a modest family home on Long Island, coincidentally quite close to Roosevelt Field, where the Atlantic flyers were now gathering. The newspapers, much excited, called it the Sash Weight Murder Case. The story was this:

Late on the night of March 20, 1927, as Mr. and Mrs. Albert Snyder slept side by side in twin beds in their house on 222nd Street in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood of Queens Village, Mrs. Snyder heard noises in the upstairs hallway. Going to investigate, she found a large man – a ‘giant’, she told police – just outside her bedroom door. He was speaking in a foreign accent to another man, whom she could not see. Before Mrs. Snyder could react, the giant seized her and beat her so roughly that she was left unconscious for six hours. Then he and his confederate went to Mr, Snyder’s bed, strangled the poor man with picture wire and stove in his head with a sash weight from a window. It was the sash weight that fired the public’s imagination and gave the case its name. The two villains then turned out drawers all over the house and fled with Mrs. Snyder’s jewels, but they left a clue to their identity in the form of an Italian-language newspaper on a table downstairs.

The New York Times the next day was fascinated but confused.

Read More

Book Talk: I WANT MY MTV, by Rob Tannenbaum and Craig Marks

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution

Rob Tannenbaum and Craig Marks

Penguin Plume (2012), trade paper (ISBN 0452298563 / 9780452298569)

Nonfiction: pop culture (oral history), 592 pages

Source: Purchased ebook (iBooks ISBN 9781101562415)

Reason for reading: Personal

The popular music of my lifetime is divided, in my mind, between “before MTV” and “after MTV.” I first saw Music Television in the fall of 1982--my boyfriend’s family had cable--and was fascinated by the channel and the new music it showcased. I lost track of it for a few years--the boyfriend became a husband, we became parents, and we didn’t have cable--and when I caught back up with it again, we had both changed. MTV came to define the 1980s...but in reading about its first decade in the oral history I Want My MTV, it occurred to me, and not for the first time, that its 1980s weren’t exactly my 1980s.

The 1980s are sometimes dismissed as an era when style trumped substance, and MTV and its influence are a big part of why it has that reputation. In its early years, MTV was radio with an enormous potential reach, and as the book notes, it reached audiences that hadn’t had the chance to be exposed to cutting-edge popular culture--many smaller, more isolated markets had cable television well before the big coastal cities did. (MTV was produced in New York City, but it actually wasn’t available for New Yorkers to watch it for a while.) But the “television” part of Music Television was what made the difference--the channel’s reach was amplified by the visual images that accompanied the music, and presented us with style and attitude that soon seeped into the mainstream.

I Want My MTV delivers on the style and attitude. I thought it resembled the channel’s early, all-music-video years in the way it kept me reading, eager to see what would come along next--but it also mimicked the exhaustion that would set in after watching MTV for hours, seeing some videos half a dozen times while the ones you were waiting to see never turned up at all. The book includes quotes from hundreds of people who were involved with MTV during its first decade in both its business and creative operations, and result is rarely dull, but it’s often scattered and not particularly insightful. It’s not at all difficult to imagine a multi-part TV documentary based on this--the talking-head clips are already here, and there’s certainly plenty of suitable video footage to edit in among them.

I might watch that documentary, to be honest, and I’d probably find it more satisfying than the book. I really did hope for more substance from I Want My MTV, and maybe that was my mistake. Maybe those years I lost touch with MTV are part of it too; I missed much of the channel’s transition from “modern rock” to “hair metal,” so I was less interested in the behind-the-scenes dirt on many of the videos discussed in the book. Don’t get me wrong--it was fun to read all the insider stories here, but I find that I don’t really need to hear as many tales of excess and decadence as I Want My MTV offers. I think MTV’s influence on late-20th-century popular culture is undeniable, but I think I’d like to read a history of it that’s a little more analytical and a little less personal.

Rating: 3.25 of 5

Book description, from the publisher’s website:
It was a pretty radical idea-a channel for teenagers, showing nothing but music videos. It was such a radical idea that almost no one thought it would actually succeed, much less become a force in the worlds of music, television, film, fashion, sports, and even politics. But it did work. MTV became more than anyone had ever imagined. 

I Want My MTV tells the story of the first decade of MTV, the golden era when MTV's programming was all videos, all the time, and kids watched religiously to see their favorite bands, learn about new music, and have something to talk about at parties. From its start in 1981 with a small cache of videos by mostly unknown British new wave acts to the launch of the reality-television craze with The Real World in 1992, MTV grew into a tastemaker, a career maker, and a mammoth business.

Featuring interviews with nearly four hundred artists, directors, VJs, and television and music executives, I Want My MTV is a testament to the channel that changed popular culture forever.

From the Introduction:

“Hardly anyone thought it would succeed.

“Upon hearing of the plan to launch a TV channel that would show music videos around the clock, businessmen of wealth and experience--wealthy men who ran record companies and partied with rock stars, and visionary men who made fortunes by anticipating the explosion of cable TV--scoffed and snickered. Who would watch this channel? Even if it proved popular, who would advertise there? Why would FM or Anheuser-Busch want to reach this channel’s audience, consisting mostly of fourteen- to twenty-four-year-olds? Where’s the money in that?

“Prior to the launch of this channel on August 1, 1981, only a few dozen people believed it would succeed, and all of them worked at the channel. The start-up staff was a coterie of misfits, inexperienced and determined, and included two one-eyed executives who were later hailed as visionaries. Which is not to say everyone who worked at the channel believed it would succeed. ‘It sounded like an asinine idea,’ Bob Pittman (one of the one-eyed executives) admitted five years after the launch, when the channel was the centerpiece of a $525-million bidding war. It’s easy to imagine this as the theme of one of the network’s early advertising campaigns, which were usually brash and self-mocking: ‘MTV: It sounds like an asinine idea.’”

Read More

Book Talk: SOME NERVE, by Patty Chang Anker

Some Nerve: Lessons Learned While Becoming Brave

Patty Chang Anker (Twitter) (Facebook) (blog)

Riverhead (October 2013), hardcover (ISBN 1594486050 / 9781594486050)

Nonfiction (memoir/self-help), 368 pages

Source: ARC from publisher

Reason for reading: Personal

I don’t usually quote more than the opening passage when I write about books here, but Patty Chang Anker captured something that smacked me in the face on page 161 (ARC) of Some Nerve: Lessons Learned While Becoming Brave (emphasis added):

"The girls and I have something in common. We've been told all our lives that we're smart…(T)here are two problems with this. One is that, if you actually are smart in some areas (which most people are), and things come easily to you there, you don't get in the habit of working hard to figure things out. The second is that if you really are gifted in *every* area (and no one I know is), being told you're smart makes looking or feeling dumb intolerable. We're not supposed to fail. If we fail, it's the activity that's dumb, not us. Of course, underneath it all is the ever-present fear that we're not really smart or capable at all, but we have to keep the world believing we are."

Physical and emotional traumas are commonly accepted as underlying roots of crippling fears, but “Impostor Syndrome”? Fear of screwups that could undermine your entire self-image? If I wrote in books, this bit would be highlighted with “story of my life” written in the margin alongside it. I’ve been working on changing that story since I officially entered “midlife” a decade ago. That was Anker’s milestone as well, and Some Nerve--a book born on her blog Facing Forty Upside Down--talks about how she, and others, changed their stories by doing what they feared.

As the mother of two young daughters, Anker realized that she didn’t want to be a “do as I say, not as I do” parent, and that she’d have a lot more credibility getting her kids to try intimidating new things if she was willing to as well. She wanted the girls to learn to swim, but she’d need to overcome her own fear of water in order to join them (and not be deterred by the broken foot she suffered during a trip to the beach with a friend); she took lessons in diving and surfing. A lifelong city girl, she learned to ride a bicycle so she could help teach her daughters how to do the same.

As she began facing her fears, and writing about her experiences while doing it, Anker came into contact with people who could help--and with people who wanted help to do what she was doing. Anker’s biggest fears concerned activities requiring physical skill, and while she didn’t experience some other common fears--such as flying, heights, and public speaking--she believed that they could be addressed with a similar combination of coaching, instruction, exposure, and gradual experience doing the scary thing. In moving from blog to book, Anker expanded her scope beyond her own efforts to include the stories of others who wanted to get out of their narrow, uncomfortable “comfort zones,” and were willing to share the process of doing so.

Some Nerve is a hard-to-pigeonhole book, and I think that may work to its advantage. As an account of one woman’s efforts to become a braver, better role model for her children by learning to do things that scared her, it’s memoir in subject and form. As an account of the specific steps that she, and others, took to overcome their particular fears, it’s inspirational and encouraging in the manner of self-help books, but because it takes a storytelling rather than instructive approach, it avoids “how-to” territory. Anker’s earnest, conversational style and good humor made it easy for me to connect with her as a reader, and she came across as someone I’d like to know better as a person. I hope she’ll continue talking about this--I’ve managed to conquer my own fear of highway driving, but I’m still apprehensive about plenty of other things, and I could certainly use the support.

Rating: 3.75 / 5

Book description, via the publisher's website:
Patty Chang Anker grew up eager to please and afraid to fail. But after thirty-nine years, she decided it was time to stop being a chicken. 

Motivated initially to become a better role model for her two young daughters, she vowed to face the fears that had taken root like weeds, choking the fun and spontaneity out of life. She learned to dive into a swimming pool, ride a bike, do a handstand, and surf. As she shared her experiences, she discovered that most people suffer from their own secret terrors—of driving, flying, heights, public speaking, and more. It became her mission to help others do what they thought they couldn’t, and to feel for themselves the powerful sense of being alive that is the true reward of becoming brave.

Inspired and inspiring, Some Nerve draws on Anker’s interviews with teachers, therapists, coaches, and clergy to impart both practical advice and profound wisdom. Through her own journey and the stories of dozens of others who have triumphed over common fears, she conveys with humor and infectious exhilaration the most vital lesson of all: Fear isn’t an end point, but the point of entry to a life of incomparable joy.

Opening lines:

"I’m in a bathing suit, and people are laughing. Oh, this can’t be good.

"The sun was a spotlight on the diving board. It must be 20 degrees hotter up here, I thought. My forehead was sweaty, and, come to think of it, so was everything else. 

"I bent over. The image of Tiffany Chin skating her 1987 U.S. Nationals long program with a wedgie in her blue Lycra costume flitted through my head. I dug my toes into the nubby wet board and tried to get a grip on my own situation.

"Do I have a wedgie? I don’t think so."

Read More