Book Talk: THE STORIED LIFE OF A.J. FIKRY, by Gabrielle Zevin

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry: A Novel
Gabrielle Zevin (Twitter) (Facebook)
Algonquin Books (April 2014), Hardcover (ISBN 1616203218 / 9781616203214)
Fiction, 272 pages
Source: Purchased e-book (iBooks)

Gabrielle Zevin is better known as a YA author, but her novel for adults, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, has been getting a lot of attention from the Book People since its publication in the spring. It’s understandable. Book People are often drawn to stories about Book People, and a novel about the owner of a small independent bookstore, a publisher’s sales rep, and what’s found in the wake of the loss of a rare and valuable book of poems wasn’t likely to escape their notice. It didn’t escape mine, although it was the attention more than the story itself that spurred me to read it.

I know many readers who have been thoroughly charmed by this novel. It’s understandable. But I have to confess that although I found The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry pleasant enough reading, its charms didn’t seem to work on me.

That said, there are passages in the novel that, as a Book Person, I quite appreciated, including this one that could sum up my overall response to it:

“Who are these people who think a book comes with a guarantee that they will like it?”

Others reminded me of conversations and correspondence with other Book People:

“They had only ever discussed books but what, in this life, is more personal than books?” 

“You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?” 

“(T)he only thing worse than a world with big chain bookstores was a world with NO big chain bookstores.” 

“A place is not really a place without a bookstore.”

My point is that I get the Book People appeal. My regret is that I didn’t find enough other appealing elements in The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry. Perhaps I misinterpreted the title, which had me expecting more direct, deeper connections to be made between familiar literature and the lives of Zevin’s characters. I’m pretty sure I expected more depth and insight, period.

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry could be a fine choice for a Book Person’s summer-reading list. It’s quick, it’s light, and offers many enjoyable tidbits for those who love the reading life, but I don’t feel that it adds up to much more than the tidbits, and I was hoping for a little more substance.

Rating: 3 of 5

Other opinions, via the Book Blogs Search Engine

Book description, from the publisher’s website:

A.J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. His wife has died; his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history; and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. Slowly but surely, he is isolating himself from all the people of Alice Island—from Chief Lambiase, the well-intentioned police officer who’s always felt kindly toward him; from Ismay, his sister-in-law, who is hell-bent on saving A.J. from his dreary self; from Amelia, the lovely and idealistic (if eccentric) Knightley Press sales rep who persists in taking the ferry to Alice Island, refusing to be deterred by A.J.’s bad attitude. Even the books in his store have stopped holding pleasure for him. These days, he can only see them as a sign of a world that is changing too rapidly. 

And then a mysterious package appears at the bookstore. It’s a small package, though large in weight—an unexpected arrival that gives A.J. the opportunity to make his life over, the ability to see everything anew. It doesn’t take long for the locals to notice the change overcoming A.J., for the determined sales rep Amelia to see her curmudgeonly client in a new light, for the wisdom of all those books to become again the lifeblood of A.J.’s world. Or for everything to twist again into a version of his life that he didn’t see coming.

Opening lines:

“On the ferry from Hyannis to Alice Island, Amelia Loman paints her nails yellow and, while waiting for them to dry, skims her predecessor’s notes. ‘Island Books, approximately $350,000.00 per annum in sales, the better portion of that in the summer months to folks on holiday,’ Harvey Rhodes reports. ‘Six hundred square feet of selling space. No full-time employees other than owner. Very small children’s section. Fledgling online presence. Poor community outreach. Inventory emphasizes the literary, which is good for us, but Fikry’s tastes are very specific, and without Nic, he can’t be counted on to hand-sell. Luckily for him, Island’s the only game in town.’”

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Book Talk: ARTS & ENTERTAINMENTS, by Christopher Beha (Shelf Awareness)

Arts & Entertainments: A Novel
Christopher Beha (Facebook) (Twitter)
Ecco Press (July 1, 2014), trade paper (ISBN 006232246X / 9780062322463)
Fiction, 288 pages

A version of the following was previously published as a Starred Review in Shelf Awareness for Readers (July 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.

In his second novel, Arts and Entertainments, Christopher Beha (What Happened to Sophie Wilder) shifts his setting from the world of writers to that of unscripted reality television, but those worlds aren't really as different as they might seem. They're both about crafting stories; they just use different tools to do it.

When he left St. Albert's School, "Handsome Eddie" Hartley thought that he and his girlfriend Martha Martin both had long careers of acting out other people's stories ahead of them, but he was wrong. Fifteen years later, Martha is a household name with a hit TV drama, while Eddie is back at St. Albert's, halfheartedly teaching drama and struggling nearly as hard to start a family with his wife, Susan, as he once did with his acting career. And a struggling schoolteacher who happens to possess a sex tape he made with his ex-girlfriend, who has since become a huge TV star, just might have a way to pay for his wife's infertility treatments.

When Eddie sells his old video of Martha to an internet entrepreneur, he's not thinking about any consequences other than funding his and Susan's efforts to have a baby. He certainly never imagines that they'll lead to a high-risk pregnancy played out on social media and reality TV, or that his role of a lifetime will be an edited-for-broadcast version of himself.

Beha's sharp observations of crafted, carefully produced versions of private lives becoming public property resonate in an time when it sometimes feels like a life unexamined by other people isn't a life properly lived...or worth living, for that matter. Arts and Entertainments is indeed entertaining, but it's also a thoughtful examination of how we shape our own stories.

Book description, from the publisher's website

"Handsome Eddie" Hartley was once a golden boy poised for the kind of success promised by good looks and a modicum of talent. Now thirty-three, he has abandoned his dream of an acting career and accepted the reality of life as a drama teacher at the boys' prep school he once attended. But when Eddie and his wife, Susan, discover they cannot have children, it's one disappointment too many. 

Weighted down with debt, Susan's mounting unhappiness, and his own deepening sense of failure, Eddie is confronted with an alluring solution when an old friend-turned-Web-impresario suggests Eddie sell a sex tape he made with an ex-girlfriend, now a wildly popular television star. In an era when any publicity is good publicity, Eddie imagines that the tape won't cause any harm—a mistake that will have disastrous consequences and propel him straight into the glaring spotlight he once thought he craved. 

A hilariously biting and incisive takedown of our culture's monstrous obsession with fame, Arts & Entertainments is also a poignant and humane portrait of a young man's belated coming-of-age, the complications of love, and the surprising ways in which the most meaningful lives often turn out to be the ones we least expected to lead.

Opening lines:

"'You know who I saw on TV last night?' John Wilkins asked the small group of old friends surrounding him. 'Dr. Drake.'

"They'd been drinking in the St. Albert's library for less than half an hour. Eddie was surprised it had taken even that long for the name to come up.

"'The show's in syndication,' he said. 'It's on every day.'

"'Not Dr. Drake,' Wilkins clarified, as though the distinction should have been obvious. 'Martha. She was on Entertainment Daily talking about her new boyfriend, Rex Gilbert.'"

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Book Talk: GOLDEN STATE, by Michelle Richmond

Golden State: A Novel
Michelle Richmond (Twitter) (Facebook)
Bantam (February 2014), Trade paper (ISBN 0385343280 / 9780385343282)
Fiction, 304 pages
Source: Purchased ebook (iBooks edition, ISBN 9780345532404)

Southern-rooted, San Francisco-based Michelle Richmond was my “Must-Read Author Discovery” of 2008 thanks to her novels The Year of Fog and No One You Know, but I’d lost touch with her a bit until her latest novel, Golden State, was published earlier this year. Certain elements here will be familiar to those who’ve read this author’s earlier works: a San Francisco setting, characters with ties to the Deep South, a deep bond between sisters, and a romantic relationship strained by a tragedy involving a child. However, despite all those similarities, Golden State is not a reworking of a story Richmond has already told.

Golden State takes place on one exceedingly eventful day in the life of Dr. Julie Walker, a physician at the VA hospital in San Francisco. She’s turning 40 and signing divorce papers, after having spent one last night with her soon-to-be ex-husband. Her unmarried younger sister is about to give birth. It’s the day that Californians are voting on whether to secede from the United States—which could leave Julie out of a job. It’s the day that she finds that she has caused a hostage situation because local upheaval over the secession vote delayed her getting to work…and that situation will force her to deliver her sister’s baby. As Julie tries to manage her sister’s labor and the hostage-taker’s demands, she reflects on her long and complicated relationships with both of these people, and how they factored into the breakdown of her marriage.

The California-secession angle could be the basis for some fascinating speculative fiction, but here it’s ultimately just that, an angle–a relevant one, but not as critical to the overall narrative as it seems like it will be early in the novel. I’d actually like to read that story, but it’s not the one Richmond’s offering here, and I’m not exactly sure I’d want her to be the one to write it—I’m not certain it would play to her strengths. Her strengths lie in character development and the depiction of complex relationships, and those are deployed quite effectively in Golden State, providing a framework for insights about fate, choices, and how our lives become what they are.

“But the thing about reinvention is, no matter how much you change everything on the outside, you still know where you came from. You’ve still got all that stuff from middle school clanging around in your system. It’s almost like you’re living a double life, just waiting to be caught. Waiting for someone to walk up to you and say, ‘I know who you are. Enough with the charade.’" 

“’We become so accustomed to the patterns we create for ourselves,’ he said, his voice full of excitement. ‘We become so used to the way things are—scientifically, cosmically, personally—that we can’t imagine things being any other way. But there’s always another way. Common wisdom is, don’t buy a lottery ticket, because no one wins the lottery. But here’s the thing: someone always does win the lottery.’" 

“I never expected to find myself here, on the edge of the continent—forty, childless, possibly jobless, with broken bones and a broken marriage, citizen of a broken country. But here I am, and I must make something of it. That’s really the only choice one has: make something of it, or don’t—a choice my mother failed to make after my father died, a choice my sister has completely embraced.”

Richmond effectively balances an account of the tension and suspense of one particular day–and between an impending birth and a disgruntled, gun-wielding veteran, there are literally life-and-death stakes here–with an exploration of the emotional connections, conflicts, and personal histories underlying them. Golden State is involving and affecting, and was a welcome reminder of what I discovered in Michelle Richmond’s fiction years ago.

Rating: 4 of 5

Other opinions, via the Book Blogs Search Engine

Book description, from the publisher’s website:

Doctor Julie Walker has just signed her divorce papers when she receives news that her younger sister, Heather, has gone into labor. Though theirs is a strained relationship, Julie sets out for the hospital to be at her sister’s side—no easy task since the streets of San Francisco are filled with tension and strife. Today is also the day that Julie will find herself at the epicenter of a violent standoff in which she is forced to examine both the promising and the painful parts of her past—her Southern childhood; her romance with her husband, Tom; her estrangement from Heather; and the shattering incident that led to her greatest heartbreak. 

Infused with emotional depth and poignancy, Golden State takes readers on a journey over the course of a single, unforgettable day—through an extraordinary landscape of love, loss, and hope.

Opening lines:
"The reception area of the tiny hotel is eerily empty. On the desk, a coffee mug smeared with red lipstick sits beside a small televi- sion, the volume turned up high, blaring news of the vote. Eleanor’s mug, Eleanor’s lipstick. Famously difficult Eleanor.

"I leave my crutches behind and use the rail to pull myself up the stairs. At the top, I turn left. The first room is empty, the door open to reveal two twin beds, an old dresser, blood on the floor.

“I continue along the hallway. The second door is closed. Room 2B. Heather’s room. Early this morning, while I was still sleeping on the couch of a radio station at the other end of the city, my phone began to vibrate. It was Heather, texting: It’s time. It seems like a life- time ago.”

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Book Talk: BRUTAL YOUTH, by Anthony Breznican

Brutal Youth: A Novel
Anthony Breznican (Twitter) (Goodreads author page)
Thomas Dunne Books (June 10, 2014), Hardcover (ISBN 1250019354 / 9781250019356)

Fiction, 416 pages

A version of this review was previously published in Shelf Awareness for Readers (June 17, 2014). Shelf Awareness provided me with a publisher-furnished galley to facilitate the review, and compensated me for the review they received and posted.

Anthony Breznican's Brutal Youth is at first reminiscent of The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier's classic young-adult novel of bullying in a Catholic high school, but it soon establishes itself as a more broadly-focused--and darkly funny--fiction debut.

It's 1991, and St. Michael the Archangel High School in suburban Pittsburgh is in decline in every possible way: the building is crumbling, enrollment is dwindling, and after a frequently-bullied student snaps and terrorizes the campus one spring morning, the parish pastor has stepped up his not-so-secret campaign to have the school shut down by the end of next year. Father Mercedes intends to make St. Michael's principal, Sister Maria, pay for allowing the culture of student-on-student harassment--culminating in the annual Hazing Day picnic--that may have fostered the outburst; for her part, the principal believes that the school's hazing tradition actually fosters class morale. The cliquishness and jockeying for status that can be found at any high school are ramped up when the environment seems to sanction them, and at St. Michael's, where some faculty and staff are returned graduates still living out their adolescent dramas, they're not confined to the students.

Peter, Noah, and Lorelei meet on the first day of their freshman year at St. Michael's. While they soon unite to support each other against bullies of all stripes, they won't be able to hold together for long. Over the course of the year, each will be ostracized; by spring, one will rise as a school hero, one will find sympathetic acceptance for all the wrong reasons, and one will end up in a place far worse than St. Michael's.

Breznican leavens the bleakness of Brutal Youth's premise with sharp, darkly comic dialogue that feels authentic to his well-drawn characters, particularly the adolescents. This coming-of-age novel is fast-moving, unsettling, and blends sympathy and satire with surprising effectiveness.

Thanks to Macmillan Audio for providing an excerpt from the audiobook, read by Matthew Brown.

Insights from the author in a conversation with Caroline Leavitt, and in a Twitter conversation with me following this review's original publication in Shelf Awareness:

by Florinda Lantos Pendley Vasquez

a minute ago

tweetcon

a brief Twitter conversation with debut novelist (and Entertainment Weekly senior writer) Anthony Breznican

1. 
   

   Anthony Breznican@Breznican

   Thanks to @florinda_3rs for the fun BRUTAL YOUTH review on@ShelfAwareness. So glad you found humor in there! :) http://bit.ly/1ncPQ7u 

   18 HOURS AGO
   
2. 
   

   Florinda PVasquez@florinda_3rs

   @Breznican You're welcome--and I hope I was supposed to!@ShelfAwareness

   15 HOURS AGO
   
3. 
   

   Anthony Breznican@Breznican

   You definitely were! Some overlook that part, so your review made me very happy. @florinda_3rs @ShelfAwareness

   15 HOURS AGO
   

   REPLYRETWEETFAVORITE
4. 
   

   Florinda PVasquez@florinda_3rs

   .@Breznican Was I also supposed to get the Elvis Costello reference in the title? Because that was one reason I asked to review #BrutalYouth

   13 HOURS AGO
   
5. 
   

   Anthony Breznican@Breznican

   That's a bingo. :) "Now, there's a tragic waste of brutal youth ..." That whole @ElvisCostello album was a massive influence.@florinda_3rs

   13 HOURS AGO

Book description, from the publisher's website

With a plunging reputation and enrollment rate, Saint Michael’s has become a crumbling dumping ground for expelled delinquents and a haven for the stridently religious when incoming freshman Peter Davidek signs up. On his first day, tensions are clearly on the rise as a picked-upon upperclassmen finally snaps, unleashing a violent attack on both the students who tormented him for so long, and the corrupt, petty faculty that let it happen. But within this desperate place, Peter befriends fellow freshmen Noah Stein, a volatile classmate whose face bears the scars of a hard-fighting past, and the beautiful but lonely Lorelei Paskal —so eager to become popular, she makes only enemies. 

To even stand a chance at surviving their freshmen year, the trio must join forces as they navigate a bullying culture dominated by administrators like the once popular Ms. Bromine, their embittered guidance counselor, and Father Mercedes, the parish priest who plans to scapegoat the students as he makes off with church finances. A coming-of-age tale reversed, Brutal Youth follows these students as they discover that instead of growing older and wiser, going bad may be the only way to survive.

Opening lines:

"The kid had taken a lot of punishment over the years, so he had much to give back.

"A steel hatch on the roof of St. Michael the Archangel High School shuddered, then burst open, and the boy crawled out and collapsed against the gritty tarpaper surface, kicking the lid shut again with one sock-covered foot. He wore only his uniform gray slacks and a wide-open button-down shirt, streaked with blood that wasn’t his. A black canvas book bag hung over one shoulder, swinging back and forth as he scrambled to his knees. He pressed his weight against the closed hatch to stifle the hollering and pandemonium rising from beneath it.

"Next to the steel hatch was a bucket, steaming with hot tar. The janitor had been using it to seal sections of loose shingle that had been leaking water into the school during every springtime rainstorm. A grubby tar mop leaned against the bucket. The boy shifted his heavy bag and scooped up the mop, wedging it between the handles of the hatch, locking it shut. Then he fled back across the flat roof toward the ghostly concrete statues lining the edge.

"The row of saints had stood watch over St. Michael’s for as long as anyone alive could remember. Thomas, the doubter; Joseph, the foster father; Anthony, finder of lost things; Jude, devotee to the hopeless; Francis of Assisi, the lover of nature, who had a small concrete bird in his outstretched hand, and a real drip of birdshit on his concrete head. At the center archway of the ledge high above the school’s main entrance stood an even larger statue of a warrior angel, St. Michael himself, wings spread and sword raised against the satanic serpent being squashed beneath his foot.

"The boy on the roof was named Colin Vickler. Not that it mattered. This was the end. This was good-bye. There was nowhere else to hide."

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What's What (Sunday Salon): Mid-2014 Bookkeeping Graphics!

Since it's a long holiday weekend here in the USA and many of us just might be doing other things, I'm keeping the words to a minimum here today. I just thought I'd show you how my 2014 reading activity is looking, since we're halfway through the year now.

Books Added to my collection | Create Infographics

Books read by genre category | Create Infographics

Book review Ratings Summary | Create Infographics

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Book Talk: THE POSSIBILITIES, by Kaui Hart Hemmings

The Possibilities: A Novel
Kaui Hart Hemmings (Facebook) (Twitter)
Simon & Schuster (May 2014), Hardcover (ISBN 1476725799 / 9781476725796)
Fiction, 288 pages

A version of this review was submitted to Shelf Awareness for Readers, but was not published due to timing and space limitations. Shelf Awareness provided me with a publisher-furnished galley to facilitate the review, and compensated me for the review they received.

In her second novel, The Possibilities, Kaui Hart Hemmings again displays the gift for portraying believably messy families in remarkably picturesque settings that marked her 2007 debut, The Descendants. The setting is the snowy ski town of Breckenridge, Colprado rather than sunny Hawaii this time, but Hemmings continues to explore the idea that living in paradise doesn’t necessarily make life any easier.

Sarah St. John entered adulthood and motherhood at roughly the same time when she became a single parent at 21. As The Possibilities opens, three months after the death of Sarah’s 22-year-old son, Cully, in an accident on the mountain, she’s slowly discovering how life without him might look. She’s also learning things she never knew about his life through others who have lost him, including Cully’s father Billy, her own father Lyle, Cully's lifelong friend Morgan and Morgan’s mother Suzanne, Sarah’s best friend.

And then there’s Kit, who turns up at Sarah’s door offering to help shovel snow and leaves behind a datebook with notes in Cully’s handwriting. No one seems to know anything about Kit, but she seems to know them, and while it soon becomes evident just how well she knew Sarah’s son, the answer to that particular question raises a whole set of new ones.

The setup is more dramatic than the telling, and that makes The Possibilities affecting fiction. Hemmings’ style is low-key and straightforward, and the character interactions and dialogue feel true to prickly, complicated (and sometimes bizarrely funny) life. Every parent fears what Sarah has experienced, and her struggles with it are engaging, relatable, and moving. It’s been seven years since Hemmings’ promising debut; The Possibilities was worth the wait.

Book description, from the publisher's website:

In the idyllic ski town of Breckenridge, Colorado, Sarah St. John is reeling. Three months ago, her twenty-two-year-old son, Cully, died in an avalanche. Though single, Sarah is hardly alone in her grief. Her father, a retiree, tries to distract her with gadgets from the QVC home shopping channel. Sarah’s best friend offers life advice by venting details of her own messy divorce. Even Cully’s father reemerges, stirring more emotions and confusion than Sarah needs. Still, Sarah feels she is facing the stages of grief—the anger, the sadness, the letting go—alone. 

Barely ready to face the fact she will never again hear the swoosh of her son’s ski pants, or watch him skateboard past her window, Sarah is surprised when a strange girl arrives on her doorstep. Unexpected and unexplained, she bears a secret from Cully that could change all of their lives forever. 

Kaui Hart Hemmings highlights the subtle poignancies of grief and relationships in this stunning look at people faced with impossible choices in the wake of a tragedy. With the unsentimental and refreshingly wry style famous for presenting trouble in paradise in The Descendants, Hemmings in The Possibilities considers the difficult questions of what we risk to keep our loved ones close.

Opening lines:

"I pretend that I'm not from here. I'm a woman from Idaho, on vacation with friends. I'm a newlywed from Indiana. An unremarkable guest at the Village Hotel, exploring Breckenridge, Colorado, waiting for a valet to bring her rented car around. A drop of water falls on my head. I look up at the green awning and move so that I'm fully covered. A black Escalade blasting music enters the roundabout. The car is huge, and I expect someone huge to go with it, but out come three young boys--the driver, short, the passengers, tall--and the valet, also a young boy, wordlessly takes the driver's keys, hands him a ticket, and nods his head.

"My son, Cully, who used to work here as a valet just three months ago, told me that he hated to park cars for people his age, and I can see why."

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(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.)”

 

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(Audio)Book Talk: THE MARTIAN, by Andy Weir

The Martian: A Novel
Andy Weir (Facebook)
Audiobook read by R.C. Bray
Crown (February 2014), hardcover (ISBN 0804139024 / 9780804139021)
Fiction (science fiction/suspense), 384 pages
Source: Purchased audiobook (Podium Publishing, March 2013; Audible ASIN B00B5HO5XA)

The Martian is almost certainly one of those books that I wouldn't have noticed in my pre-book-blogging life, and given that my pre-book-blogging reading life didn’t include audiobooks, I absolutely wouldn’t have read it by ear even if I had become aware of its existence. I started seeing excited reviews of this novel on the blogs a few months ago, and although I only skimmed many of them–I went into this one without a clear idea of what the title actually meant–I made some mental notes about it; and when the audiobook won the 2014 Armchair Audies “Listeners’ Choice” Award, moving it up in my listening queue was an easy decision. (Can I just say, not for the first or last time, how much I appreciate what book blogging has done for my reading life?)

The Martian begins on Sol 6 (a “sol” is the length of day on Mars) with NASA astronaut Mark Watney’s first log entry after being left for dead on the Red Planet by the rest of the Ares 3 mission team. Mark understands that decision—the entire team could have died if they’d stayed behind—but he also understands that he’s not dead. Yet. Once he does the math–how much food he has, how long until the next Mars mission is scheduled–he sees that he’ll most likely get there eventually. However, Mark’s drive to survive, and the ingenuity he employs in applying his skills as an engineer and botanist to that goal, is a bit of a surprise to him. NASA’s eventual discovery that he’s still on Mars, and clearly not dead, is an even bigger surprise, and their necessary response to that discovery–finding a way to bring him home–will bring more surprises, some of which will be quite unwelcome.

To be honest, I had a few doubts in the early going that this novel was going to work for me, but just as Mark’s log entries were starting to feel a little tedious–they weren’t boring, but was the entire story going to be told this way?–author Andy Weir switched gears. The narrative expanded to include the Earth-based NASA team and Mark’s fellow crew members on the Hermes space station, and as these strands became braided more tightly together, the suspense built and I grew more invested, both intellectually and emotionally, in The Martian. Strangely and surprisingly, building out the cast of characters made the central one that much more interesting to me. I really grew to like Mark, and his log entries proved to be both genuine expressions of personality and engaging accounts of an inspired survival mission that took me on an emotional roller-coaster ride.

I’m not sure I would have found this one quite as affecting in print, but I absolutely understand that “Listener’s Choice” selection. The Martian was my first experience with narrator R.C. Bray, but I’m pretty sure that seeing his name in an audiobook’s credits will be a recommendation for me in the future. I really enjoyed his character-voice work, and his reading of the tightly-plotted final section had me nearly breathless. (I listen to audiobooks while driving, so this may not have been entirely safe.) When the book ended with the “Audible hopes you have enjoyed this program” message, my answer was an enthusiastic Yes.

Rating: Book, 3.75 of 5; Audio, 4 of 5

Other reviews, via the Book Blogs Search Engine

Book description, from the publisher’s website

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. 

Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there. 

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. 

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first. 

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

Opening lines:
"I’m pretty much fucked.

"That’s my considered opinion.
"Fucked.

"Six days into what should be the greatest two months of my life, and it’s turned into a nightmare.

"I don’t even know who will read this. I guess someone will find it eventually. Maybe a hundred years from now.

“For the record…I didn’t die on Sol 6. Certainly the rest of the crew thought I did, and I can’t blame them. Maybe there’ll be a day of national mourning for me, and my Wikipedia page will say, ‘Mark Watney is the only human being to have died on Mars.’”

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(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.”

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(Audio)Book Talk: THE CUCKOO'S CALLING, by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

The Cuckoo’s Calling (A Cormoran Strike Novel)
Robert Galbraith (pseudonym of J.K. Rowling)
Audiobook read by Robert Glenister
Mulholland Books (2014), Paperback (ISBN 1478980826 / 9781478980827)
Fiction, 464 pages
Source: Purchased audiobook (Hachette Audio, May 2013, ISBN 9781611134933; Audible ASIN B00CTQ2ZS8)


True confession time: I doubt I would have paid any attention to The Cuckoo’s Calling if I hadn’t learned that “Robert Galbraith” was a pseudonym, and that this detective novel was a no-longer-secret side project for J.K. Rowling. I became interested in the story behind the story pretty quickly when that news broke. I didn’t get as interested in the story itself until some time later–and by the time I did get interested, I’d come across some good reviews of the audiobook, so I thought I’d read it that way.

The Cuckoo’s Calling is a detective/mystery novel, which means that unraveling the plot is more than half the fun–and since I don’t want to spoil your fun, I won’t say too much about it. The novel opens with a dead body in the street on a snowy winter night–did reknowned supermodel Lula Landry jump from her balcony, or was she pushed over? The police have said it’s a suicide, but the victim’s brother isn’t accepting that, and he’s making a pretty generous offer to down-and-out P.I. Cormoran Strike to launch an independent investigation. With only one other active client and no home but his back office, Strike can’t turn down this dubious case–or the assistance of his temporary secretary, Robin Ellacott.

The novel felt like it was a little longer than it strictly needed to be, but I didn’t guess the final twist too far in advance of the revelation, and I appreciated that–it’s never satisfying to solve a mystery too soon. I appreciated even more that the novel didn’t skimp on character development, particularly that of the detective and his assistant–I really enjoyed getting to know them both.

I’m not sure I would have liked this one quite so much in print, but I really enjoyed actor Robert Glenister’s reading of The Cuckoo’s Calling in audiobook, especially his character voices. If I stick with the Strike series–and he continues as its audio narrator–I’m pretty certain this will continue to be my preferred reading format.

It seemed to me that J.K. Rowling probably have had a lot of fun writing this…especially given that at the time, almost no one was aware that she was writing it, so she must have had an unexpected amount of freedom. That freedom is not likely to accompany the writing of future Cormoran Strike novels–the second in the series, The Silkworm, is out this month–but I hope that won’t hold her back. Rowling’s already responsible for one genuine worldwide phenomenon; we don’t need another Harry Potter, and I think this establishes that she doesn’t need one either. (That said, am I the only one who envisioned Strike, based on the character’s physical description, as a somewhat more refined Hagrid?)

Rating: Book, 3.5 of 5; Audio, 3.75 of 5

Other opinions, via the Book Blogs Search Engine

Book description, from the publisher’s website

After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office. 

Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man. 

You may think you know detectives, but you’ve never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you’ve never seen them under an investigation like this. 

Introducing Cormoran Strike, this is the acclaimed first crime novel by J.K. Rowling, writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

Opening lines:

“The buzz in the street was like the humming of flies. Photographers stood massed behind barriers patrolled by police, their long-snouted cameras poised, their breath rising like steam. Snow fell steadily on to hats and shoulders; gloved fingers wiped lenses clear. From time to time there came outbreaks of desultory clicking, as the watchers filled the waiting time by snapping the white canvas tent in the middle of the road, the entrance to the tall red-brick apartment block behind it, and the balcony on the top floor from which the body had fallen.”

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