How to Be a Heroine, or, What I've Learned From Reading Too Much by Samantha Ellis (2015)

I love this book so much I can barely write coherently about it. Hence, much love and little rational explanation. It's just one of the best books on books and reading ever.

Samantha Ellis is a British playwright who as part of her own writing spends some time thinking about how the literary heroines that she loved through her lifetime as a reader have influenced her life and her writing. 

From Anne Shirley to Scarlett O'Hara, Franny Glass and the Dolls of Valley of the Dolls, (oh, and Lucy Honeychurch!) this book is filled with so much love for reading and with a deliciously full bibliography for each chapter. 

I love her rethinking of her youthful love for Wuthering Heights and her disdain for Jane Eyre, and especially that she uses Gilbert and Gubar's feminist literary criticism classic The Madwoman in the Attic as a source. (I studied that up and down when writing my senior paper on Jane Austen's Emma.) And I love her love for Cold Comfort Farm. 

This is very meta, but bear with me. Ellis is writing about Flora Poste in Cold Comfort Farm and quotes from the novel:

"Her writing inspiration is Austen, who she thinks was just like her: 'She liked everything to be tidy and pleasant and comfortable about her, and so do I. You see ... unless everything is tidy and pleasant and comfortable all around one, people cannot even begin to enjoy life. I cannot endure messes.'"

Delicious!

Confessions of a Prairie Bitch by Alison Arngrim (2010)

Subtitled: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated. If you looked at the cover of this, with its four shots of Nellie Oleson (who Arngrim played on Little House on the Prairie), and thought, what does she have to write a memoir about ….Let me tell you. Far more than you might ever think.

From complicated family relationships involving secrets and abuse, life as a child actor and beyond, and her years on the beloved family show Little House on the Prairie, Arngrim has a hell of a story to tell. 

Every bit of the story is infused with utter hilarity, while still being unbelievably realistic and clear-sighted and honest. Amazing. Hilarious and delightful and poignant.

So That Happened by Jon Cryer (2015)

Really, really liked this memoir of Cryer's experience in Hollywood. SO funny. 

Many laugh-out-loud moments as well as a great amount of humility and behind the scenes dish and insight into what life is like as a Hollywood actor and theater actor as well. Fabulously fun. SO many funny parts. For example:

 "Beginnings are easy. See how I did that? I began the chapter with a statement about beginnings. This book has layers! Being an author is a cinch! In your face, Herman Melville." (p. 111)

How To Be Black by Baratunde Thurston (2012)

This book is awesome. I loved it immediately from the introduction ("Thanks for Celebrating Black History Month by Acquiring This Book"), which tells us that "this is a book about the ideas of blackness, how those ideas are changing, and how they differ from the popular ideas promoted in mainstream media and often in the black community." And Thurston discusses all of this with insight and utter hilarity.

Chapters include: "How Black Are You", "How to Be the Black Friend", "How to Speak for All Black People", "How to Be the Black Employee", and "How's That Post-Racial Thing Working Out For Ya?"  

In addition to his own thoughts, Thurston brings in his "Black Panel," including W. Kamau Bell, other interesting writers on race, and even one white guy (Christian Lander from Stuff White People Like) to provide even more insight and perspective on the issues he discusses.

I love this quote from Damali Ayo: 

"There's only so much we can say to white people anymore about this, because we've been saying the same things to white people for generations, decades upon decades. It is now really up to them. I've done workshops where I have literally taken all of the people of color out and left the white people and said, 'Your job is to end racism and I'll be back in twenty minutes. You set it up. Take it down.'" (p. 216)  

Also, Thurston's commentary on Cheryl Contee's discussion of the new Harmlem Renaissance and African American culture impacting larger culture: 

"all of these are part of this more global, collaborative resurgence of black culture and thought, and when it comes from the bottom up like this, it challenges the prevailing and limited images of blackness peddled by our major media but also the limited expectations of many black people themselves." (p. 223)

Fabulous, funny, thoughtful and important.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty (2014)

Subtitled: And Other Lessons from the Crematory.  I utterly LOVED this book.  

Doughty, after graduating with a degree in medieval history, gets a job at a crematorium and learns a LOT. This book is beautifully written, so readable and yet she integrates an amazing amount of anthropological research into her writing. 

I love her advocacy for death acceptance and the "good death.' This is totally a buy for me. I love how she talks about the real truth of death in America and how divorced we are from the reality of death. Beautifully written, and I wholeheartedly support her cause. Wonderfully said. Rave, rave, rave. 

Also, don't miss her Order of the Good Death page on Facebook. She posts the most fascinating articles and links.

Whipping Boy by Allan Kurzweil (2015)

Subtitled The Forty-Year Search for my Twelve-Year-Old Bully, I loved this book immediately.  

Novelist Allen Kurzweil, who was sent to a Swiss boarding school after his father's untimely death, was bullied by another student. In adulthood, he became obsessed with figuring out what happened to his childhood tormentor. Amazingly, what happened to his bully is so unbelievable that Kurzweil had to make it a nonfiction book--no one would believe it if it was a novel. 

His bully was part of a fraud ring that involved elaborate banking scams, and amazingly eccentric character--one wears a monacle! After a bit of a digression into the details of the fraud case, he returns to the resolution of his emotionally charged quest. And the resolution is really, really satisfying. Great story.

Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar (2013)

I was compelled to read this book after watching the fabulously undiscovered horror film Devil's Pass, (which fictionalizes the Dyatlov Pass Incident slightly). 

Here's the story: In 1959, nine experienced hikers went on a challenging mountain hike and were found dead outside their tents. Something made them run outside barely clothed, despite the fact that they had adequate heat and shelter in their tents. 

Many conspiracy theories resulted, from avalanche to aliens to government agents to weapons testing to yeti. Although I found Eichar's travels to Russia to the site far less than compelling, I like his conclusion that it was a combination of a Karman vortex (high wind resulting in unnervingly loud noises) and the emotional effect that infrasound can have on people -- only recently discovered. A bit on the skimmable side, but still interesting.

If I Can't Have You by Gregg Olsen and Rebecca Morris (2014)

Subtitled Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance and the Murder of Her Children, this true crime book starts when the Powell family fails to drop off their children at day care. Their day care provider becomes worried, and a search for the family ensues.

Eventually the husband and children show up, but without the mother and the husband is acting most suspicious.  The characters in this book (particularly the husband's family) are as chilling and creepy as in any good suspense thriller. It's also a fascinating look at the complexity of marriage, the Mormon faith, and the tenacious struggle for Susan's family to find out what happened to her.

Despite the spoilery subtitle, this book is incredibly gripping, and one of the best true crime books I've ever read. I still get the creeps when I look at that book cover photo.

Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham (2014)

Most actress's memoirs--particularly if they are comic in tone--I find a bit facile and uneven. They tend to be loosely strung together collections of anecdotes.

However, you have to hand it to Dunham:  She tells it like it is.  I love the subtitle: A young woman tells you what she's "learned". She tells it warts and all, no writerly airbrushing or image enhancement to make her sound better.  

She's amazingly insightful but also amazingly self-aware. I can't help but like and admire her. This was a wonderfully enjoyable book.  Also, there are little sketchings in the book that give it the feel of a midcentury book on etiquette or relationships--and at the end, you find out the artist is her good friend that she refers to through the book.  And it's funny:  

"When I was born I was very fat for a baby--eleven pounds (which sounds thin to me now).  I had three chins and a stomach that drooped to one side of my stroller.  I never crawled, just rolled, an early sign that I was going to be resistant to most exercise and any sexual position that didn't allow me to relax my back." 

How can you not love that?

What We See What We Read by Peter Mendelsund (2014)

Utterly loved this nonfiction book which deconstructs 'what we see when we read': the physical and emotional act of reading. 

Absolutely fascinating, marvelously designed. So many keeper quotes. Like:

"One should watch a film adaptation of a favorite book only after considering, very carefully, the fact that the casting of the film may very well become the permanent casting of the book in one's mind. This is a very real hazard."  

"When I read, my retirement from the phenomenal world is undertaken too quickly to notice. The world is in front of me and the world "inside" me are not merely adjacent, but overlapping; superimposed. A book feels like the intersection of these two domains--or like a conduit; a bride; a passage between them." 

This is a book to buy and refer to often.  Fascinating.

Son of a Gun by Justin St. Germain (2013)

After watching Tombstone (in a spate of Michael Biehn movie binge-watching), I wanted to read more about Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and Biehn's character, Johnny Ringo.  In one of those serendipitous coincidences, St. Germain's book popped up in my catalog searches. 

St. Germain lived in (or just outside) of Tombstone with his mother and brother with a succession of his mother's boyfriends.  When he is just 20, his mother is shot to death, likely by her current husband (her fifth).  

In this book, St. Germain chronicles his attempts to make sense of his mother's death as he tries to answer the unanswered questions of her death.  

He wanders back and forth in time as he recalls his own troubled childhood with his mother, and along the way, the story of his hometown and the famous shootouts that took place there.  Simply and sparely written, St. Germain weaves together all of these elements beautifully in a very emotional, suspenseful and touching book.  A good pairing with After Visiting Friends by Michael Hanley.

Dragnet Nation by Julia Angwin (2014)

Subtitled: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance.  Angwin is an investigative journalist who explores the many ways we are being watched and recorded and what we can do about it.  

Short answer?  Not much.  

Angwin looks at how our private lives are under watch and how our private data is being collected by the bushelful, then goes deeply into security and hacker circles in order to figure out how to evade being tracked.  Fascinating and eye-opening.  

A good companion to Brandwashed by Martin Lindstrom.  Also, Angwin's sources are marvelously documented in full detail.

Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast (2014)

I love Roz Chast, and this memoir of dealing with her parents' aging and eventual death is poignant, sad, truthful and surprisingly funny.  

She had a mixed relationship with her parents growing up, and dealing with her parents' eventual dependence on her is honestly and touchingly told.  

Very, very much enjoyed.  

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying by Carol Leifer (2014)

Subtitled: Lessons from a Life in Comedy, I'm totally considering this for my all-time favorite business books.  (Along with Good Boss, Bad Boss and Creating Magic.)

It's a bit of a mix--memoir, comedic essay and some good solid business sense mixed in. Fascinating look at her career, the challenges she's faced and her useful advice, including her great advice to always say hi to people and be kind to everyone.  Also, this quote really hit home for me personally:

"Still I wish I knew then what I know now, and I hope you'll benefit from knowing now what I didn't know then. Whatever workplace you're in, always aim to please the captain. It matters, even if the first mate is ecstatic with your performance, because it's the captain who ultimately decides who stays onboard. If, like I did, you sense that the one person in charge isn't thrilled with what you're doing [spoiler: it was Lorne Michaels], ask for feedback and figure out how to correct your course. Because flying under the radar is a passive tactic that will eventually get you tossed off the ship."

Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir by Wendy Burden

I picked this up in a used bookstore based on the intriguing cover and it paid off in every way possible.  This is a memoir about the descendants of a very, very wealthy family (Vanderbilt), and how things went terribly wrong.

Wendy Burden writes unsparingly and hilariously about her very wealthy and very dysfunctional family.  From visiting her grandparents' estate on an island to only occasionally seeing her flighty, hippie mother, this is a fascinating look at the 1% and how things can go terribly wrong no matter how much money you have.  

But above all, it is utterly hilarious.  I didn't write much about it when I read it, but DANG, it's good.  You should read it.  I mean, look at that awesome cover!

Glitter and Glue: A Memoir by Kelly Corrigan (2014)

Kelly Corrigan begins this memoir, her second, with a discussion of her mother's cancer diagnosis. This triggers the memory of a trip she took in her youth to Australia, and the job that she took there to stay in the country.

She became a nanny for a widower with two children, who had recently lost their mother to cancer. As she struggles with becoming a caregiver, she hears her mother's voice in her head. A very subtle, poignant and sweet memoir that focuses on her realization of the impact that her mother (the "glue" of the title) had on her as she grew to adulthood.

Side note: I read it as an e-book from the library and placed 'notes' on a couple of pages I rather liked. However, as the book expired and disappeared from my 'bookshelves' so did the notes, darn it.

This is a lovely book about Corrigan's relationship with her mother, and when she began to stop taking her mother for granted. Here are a couple of quotes I just loved:

"The fact is, lately it seems like the only person who can lift the anvils that sit heaviest on me is my mother. It didn't happen all at once. Maybe it was inevitable, something that develops as daily life delivers its sucker punches, streaks of clarity, and slow-dawning wisdoms." (p. 8)

"The only mothers who never embarrass, harass, dismiss, discount, deceive, distort, neglect, baffle, appall, inhibit, incite, insult, or age poorly are dead mothers, perfectly contained in photographs, pressed into two dimensions like a golden autumn leaf." (p. 56)

Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Murder Mystery by Robert Kolker (2013)

Perfectly marvelous true crime book about the unsolved murder of at least five women whose bodies were dumped on Long Island. Kolker does a beautiful job of giving us the full story on these women and their troubled lives that led to their becoming sex workers.

This book explores the semi-underground world of sex workers, the danger that they are so often in, and the heartrending stories of the family members who worked to keep their girls in the minds of the police officers who were investigating the crime (not always with much enthusiasm.)

Chilling and absorbing.

I See You Made an Effort by Annabelle Gurwitch (2014)

Subtitled: Compliments, Indignities and Survival Stories from the Edge of 50, this is a hilarious and poignant collection of essays about aging.

Gurwitch is not just funny, but a great comic craftsperson.  She doesn't go for the easy joke--she stays true to her story. I loved the mental affair she had with her Apple Genius, all the way down to the best position to have the most flattering sex (rock climbing wall for best gravity defiance, wrap dress for flattering and easy access). 

Struggling with cancer, being part of the sandwich generation, living in Los Angeles, and many more topics of interest to those of us who are feeling the effects of age are all covered in this collection.  If you like her sense of humor (and you should), check out this, check out her excellent Fired! Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized, and Dismissed (2006).

Anything Goes by Ethan Mordden (2013)

Subtitled "A History of American Musical Theatre", this is a comprehensive and dense history of musical theater. It starts in 1728 and goes all the way up to fairly recent musicals. Mordden spends the majority of his time on the alleged (and Mordden scoffs at the term) "Golden Age" of musicals.

As someone who loves opera and operetta, it's fascinating to read the progression of musical theater over the years, from an offshoot of opera to its own entity.  I love Mordden's pointing out of the tropes of musical theater (the merry villagers intro, first and second couples), and the R&H Rules.

I also love that, above all, he is interested in what truly makes a musical integrated. Here's a quote that explains what, for me, makes a great musical (besides a great score, lyrics, etc.):

"This is what the American musical had been working up to for some one hundred years, and all its artistry dwells in the historian's key buzz term "integrated"; the union of story and score. Once a mere collection of songs and now a pride of fully developed numbers supported by incidental music, intros and development sections, and musical scenes mixed of speech and song, the score not only tells but probes the story, above all unveiling its characters."

YES.

Love, Nina: A Nanny Writes Home by Nina Stibbe (2014)

In the early 1980s, Nina Stibbe moved to London to work as a nanny to Mary-Kay (MK) Wilmers, deputy editor of the London Review of Books, and her two children with Stephen Frears, Sam and Will. 

Stibbe kept in touch with her sister Victoria back in Leicestershire through letters outlining the events of the household, reproducing hilarious (and eminently quotable) conversations with Sam, Will and MK as well as frequent household visitor Alan Bennett. 

 Along the way, Stibbe is persuaded to attend university and studies English (her observations on literature are a stitch). With an introduction by Nick Hornby, this charming epistolary novel is a treat for anyone who loves dry, British humor and gets a bit starstruck by London literary elite.