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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An amazing story that’s disturbing and entertaining (as this writer tells it) at the same time.

I would’ve had no interest in the subject matter if the author hadn’t presented the story in the way she did, like a family mystery unfolding.

There were times when I started to lose my grip on the understanding of exactly why the “immortal” cells in question were able to live on the way they have–has there truly never been another living human whose cells could be as valuable in research as Henrietta Lacks’ have been? But otherwise the author breaks down the scientific matters to a level that the layperson can understand.

I read this book while I was (and still am) in the process of teaching African American adults who struggle with literacy, and I have to say I had serious trouble sleeping one night because of the way the black family in this book was left in the dark (until the author steps in with her investigation) about what had occurred after their mother’s death. The author also recaps certain medical experiments done on humans (but particularly blacks) that are unfathomable.

Overall, though, I thought the book was uplifting despite some of its disturbing subject matter, and inspiring to see how one journalist helped a family find answers and closure (and, to some degree, peace).

P.S. I read this book on my Kindle, and I “checked it out” from my local library, and, despite what I might have thought previously, I survived!

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My parents bought me a Kindle for Christmas.

And, ingrate that I am, I’m going to publicly list everything I don’t like about it.

I feel the need to do this, you see, because I once hated the idea of the iPod, (which I now can’t live without).

I’m aware that I’m on the brink of abandoning something I care about deeply (the book, the printed word, the future of human civilization, blah blah blah). So,

I Knock Before I Try, Because:

1. The damn things necessitate accessorizing. I dread this scenario (which I’m sure will happen in the not-too-distant future): Person 1: “What color Skin did you purchase for your Kindle?” Person 2: “I got a pink polka-dotted one to match the pink supply of Air that I purchased to breathe for this month.”It’s like taking the last decent, non-materialistic part of our culture and turning it into one more consumer experience. This is just simply wrong. (Never mind that a certain person  may or may not have added a bright pink, lighted cover to her Amazon Wish List today).
   
2. Books were the last things that encouraged patience, sitting still, focusing on one thing at a time. Now you can buy another book when you’re supposed to be reading the one in your hands. Soon we’ll see the new Amazon “Order with One Blink” option. (Amazon Prime will provide a free tube of Latisse.)
3. Libraries, which you could say are central to democracy, are already struggling. So, you’re already down, eh? Well here’s a big swift kick in the arse!
4. The way people defend the necessity of the Kindle’s existence by saying “It’s so much more convenient.” Really? Holding a small paperback in your hands was seriously “inconvenient”? I will allow this line if you are, say, Susan Orlean, or the President, and are therefore traveling constantly and reading and researching a lot. (That’s the kind of President I hope for, anyway). But otherwise, the number of books you’re reading simply cannot be breaking your back. My great-grandmother probably hauled water for the wash–which she conducted with a washboard–from the well to the farmhouse and back again. My ancestors’ ghosts laugh at your definition of inconvenience. (Take that, Jeff Bezos.)
5. Magazines don’t mind if you drop food on them. (I read at the table when I’m eating lunch. A lot.) Kindles probably cannot tolerate such abuse. (Wimps.)
6. The fact that I know I’m going to be an underdog here. Just like all those poor fools who are trying to save the U.S. Post Office from going under. (If only the U.S.P.O. had invented Blink Mail or colored Air.)

Left: books I received for Christmas. In this corner (right) the opponent awaits.

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the days since I finished this book, I’ve been struggling with what to say about it, because I want to do it justice, and there’s too much to say.

But, I just read an interview with the author, and decided I will let Jeffrey Eugenides himself articulate why the characters of this novel–private-school kids who do things like major in English or religious studies–are worthy subjects:

“…when you think about your 20s…. Everything was at such a high pitch. Intellectually, you’re learning an amazing amount, reading an amazing amount, and you’re discussing these books with your friends. That’s not always the case now, when we seem to read more solitarily, and maybe discuss our reading now and then. But that time is kind of a hothouse of reading and talking. Then that gets all bound up with perhaps the first great love affair that you’ve had or the most intense desire that’s unfulfilled that you’ve ever gone through. College is full of all of that. You’re old enough to make decisions, to be on your own, and yet you’re totally confused. It was easy to re-enter that atmosphere, and I enjoyed having characters who were intellectually fully formed but also unsure of themselves, confused, and passionate about what they thought and who they loved.”

Quickly, I will also add that, despite my own similarities to the collegiate experiences of the heroine (who finds herself, to her chagrin, being asked to deconstruct literature and language in a semiotics/literary criticism course, when the real reason she’s majoring in English is simply that she loves to read), it wasn’t until the novel began to follow one of her male suitors, Mitchell (based loosely on the author), on his spiritual/religious quest, that I really started to get drawn in.

As a novel that is (very loosely) formed around the structure of a Jane Austen-era plot, there’s a heady level of referentiality that bookish types will especially enjoy. (And, ironically, it was this very writer whose first novel, The Virgin Suicides got me excited about contemporary literature and indirectly led me to become an English major myself).

The one mild criticism I have with the book, and I’m not even sure it’s a criticism, is that I’m not sure why the author chose to set it in the 1980s (other than the fact that this was his own collegiate era). I never felt that it was entirely necessary to the story for it to have taken place in the Reagan era.

One thought that crossed my mind, however, is that for Eugenides to create the characters (and place and time) that shape the arc of the narrative, he needed them to write and receive actual letters, and for those letters to take some time (weeks or months, in Mitchell’s case, as he treks across Europe) to get delivered and received.

There’s also the possibility that he chose the 80s to create sympathy for the other major male character, who suffers from mental illness–because, back in the 80s, so much less would’ve been known about how to diagnose or treat it. But almost everything seemed as if it could have been taking place today.

(See? I actually can’t just let the author speak for himself like I said I was going to. There’s still so much more to say, too. But I will leave you here so you can go read the book yourself.

There.

No more talking from me.

Now go.)

(Or if you’ve already read it, please tell me your thoughts below).
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Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America’s Heartland by Patricia L. Bryan and Thomas Wolf

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My holiday/vacation/part-time-employment-status reading blitz continues!

I was intrigued by this book from the moment I heard about it, not only because it takes place in Iowa (where I just moved) and on a farm (which is the way I grew up), but also because I discovered that I have a few small things in common with one of the authors, (namely that we both once lived and worked in the same small-ish town, and we graduated from liberal arts colleges located a stone’s throw from one another).

Anyway, in addition to having the true-crime hook, the story ends up being quite moving and creates a human picture of the alleged assassin, who, you begin to realize, was in many ways a victim. I appreciate the huge amount of work on the part of the authors’ having worked-in the social and historical research from the time, creating a rich picture of what life must have been like for people (especially farm women) involved in the story.

After the initial draw of the true-crime element, I did start to feel that, in the section of the alleged assassin’s trial, there was less of a hook-y mystery than maybe I had been hoping for. But it was still a compelling read.

And on top of the personal/local connections I mentioned above, it turned out that part of what inspired the research on this story was that it had been reported on (for a Des Moines newspaper) by a young woman who went on to become an award-winning author who was a contemporary of Eugene O’Neill–and she was from Davenport.
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I’m not a fan of sci fi. I can’t help it. I need character development more than anything else, and anything that’s too plot-heavy has the strange effect of boring me to tears.

But recently I read About Time, a collection of short stories by Jack Finney, who was well-known for writing about time-travel. Finney is also noted for being the writer upon whose work the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers was based. (And that’s just one of many of his books or stories to be turned into films).

So, why would I stoop so low as to spend time reading about time travel and the like, you ask?

Well, it has to do with a place–a small Midwestern city–where both Finney and I spent some time (although for him it was in the Forties or Fifties and for me in the Aughts).

The ‘Burg Immortalized in a Book

Specifically, the second story in the collection celebrates the real-life town in which Finney lived when he was a college student, and in which I lived during my first few years after college: “I Love Galesburg in the Springtime.”

It turns out, the place–Galesburg, Illinois–hadn’t changed much in the time between Finney’s stay and mine. And it turns out that both of us loved the same things about the place: namely, the very real and tangible reminders of an earlier America.

Despite its rough edges, the neighborhoods that are riddled with violent crime, and its loss of major industrial mainstays (like the Maytag plant, which has stood empty since the company shipped jobs to Mexico in the early 00′s), Galesburg has so many charms–so many signs of a time of prosperity that are long gone, but not totally plowed down (unlike in so many other places).

The first and only time I’ve seen Invasion, for example, was at a special showing at the beautiful old Orpheum Theatre in downtown Galesburg, where it’s hard not to imagine a vaudeville show taking place. (According to one legend, it was in Galesburg that the Marx Brothers–Harpo, Groucho, etc.–were christened with their stage names while in town for a performance.)

And in this short story, Finney celebrates Galesburg as a specimen of history-come-alive, lamenting the way we as a nation tend to replace structures and streets of character with the drab and nondescript.

And as he tells the story about strange occurrences taking place in this prairie city–such as a ghostly cable car rattling down the street, long after such things were outmoded–he mentions so many of the real-life landmarks that are not only still in existence, but which I passed by or encountered nearly every day that I lived and worked the ‘burg:

Local spots named-dropped:

• Cedar Street– I lived on this street (in a fairly crap-tastic apartment) for five of the six years I lived in the town.
• The gorgeous, ostentatious homes built by railroad barons on Prairie, Cherry, etc. streets
• The Kensington, a former hotel that has been turned into an independent living facility, but which, in Finney’s day, was a fairly grand establishment
• The Register-Mail newspaper, (for which the narrator is a reporter, and for which yours truly was actually a real-life reporter)
• The Public Square
• the brick streets

…the references go on and on.

And not only did I enjoy reading his descriptions of such real-life places I had experienced, but, as I was reading, one of these places came to life and, you could say, landed in my lap.

Special Delivery

I purchased the collection of stories containing “I Love Galesburg” several years ago, when I was still living in Galesburg; I found it at a rummage sale in what I think might have been the basement of the Central Congregational Church). But I finally sat down to read the book recently. And when I opened it, something fell out:

newspaper clipping from Galesburg, IL

It was a clipping–somewhat dated, possibly from the 1970s–detailing the impending dedication of…a parking lot. And describing the once-famed structure that stood in its place.

I was already aware, because of my time writing and reporting in Galesburg, of the world- famous horse stables that had stood in the spot mentioned in this clip.

But when it fell from the book, the clipping felt like being visited by a small ghost of the past–tucked away by a person who, like the narrator of “I Love Galesburg in the Springtime,” lamented the loss of grand structures–and hand-delivered to me, in a way that Finney himself most assuredly would have appreciated.

As for the rest of the collection, truthfully, I was bored by some of the stories, and in others, I couldn’t help but cringe at the quaintness and dated-ness. (More than once, Finney’s depiction of women betrayed a Mad Men-treatment-of-office-girls sensibility).

But other times I identified deeply with his sense of nostalgia, his concern that, when we progress as a society, it’s often at the cost of losing something else that seems inherently more dignified somehow. (You can’t tuck clippings away inside a Kindle.)

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It’s list season, with Best Movies of the Year, Best Albums of the Year, etc., being published everywhere you turn.

At a younger age, I could have actually given a fairly educated take on all these subjects.

But gone are the days of lying on the floor doing nothing but listening to music, of actually subscribing to Rolling Stone, of going to the movies without worrying that I might have to take out a loan.

So, rather than an actual critical assessment based upon hours of careful evaluation, allow me to offer this, based on the cultural highlights I do manage to catch as a boring old adult:

A List of Some Stuff That I Liked in 2011

1. Bossypants, Tina Fey. This book made me laugh, (which I expected), and made me love her even more than I already did (which I did not think possible).
2. Helplessness Blues, Fleet Foxes. Rather than declaring this one a sophomore slump, I ended up liking this one almost as much as the first. Singer/songwriter/frontman Robin Pecknold, in the first lines of the first track on the album, pretty much sums up thousands of thoughts that have been circling through my mind (hint: procreating/not procreating/what is the purpose of life, etc.) for the past decade. And he does it so beautifully, again, in the title track, when he sings about wanting to be “a cog in some greater machinery.” You might think it sounds like navel-gazing, but you’ve got to hear these lyrics set to music. (I’ve tried 279 times in the past 30 minutes to list the lyrics here, but the formatting in this numbered-list function is screwing it up, grr. So you’ll just have to go listen for yourself. You won’t regret it.) As with the first album, however, and despite the gorgeous, Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys-ian harmonies, there a couple tracks I usually skip. (Especially that one with the “saxophone freakout” that lots of critics commented on this year. Dear Fleet Foxes, I would be perfectly happy if you left out the sax squawks in your future efforts. Signed, a fan.)
3. Stone Rollin‘, Raphael Saadiq. This is an album I never would’ve purchased if it weren’t for the rave reviews from the guys on Sound Opinions. (But there are some sweet, tuneful love songs on here, including one that I liked so much, I asked the DJ to play it at our wedding as part of the guests-arriving-time music. (We had an outdoor, not-really-wedding-y wedding, I should probably point out. And, actually, come to think of it, I had him play this one from Helplessness Blues, too. Did I mention how many beautiful songs are on that record?) It’s true that, as with a couple other things I let Sound Opinions talk me into, (like Janelle Monae’s ArchAndroid), I’m more drawn to a handful of songs than to the record as a whole. What great songs those few are, though–powerful and moving and yet catchy at the same time.
4. The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee, Sarah Silverman. This one was darker, and funnier, (and better) than I expected.
5. The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta. When I first learned that one of my favorite living fiction writers had a new book coming out, I was dismayed when I heard the title and the subject matter: the Revelation. But I ended up liking this one maybe even more than his last two, The Abstinence Teacher and Little Children, which were both great. If you’re into literary fiction but also sometimes wish for literary fiction that’s accessible and darkly funny (i.e. does not depress you for weeks on end), this is your guy.
6. Scenes from and Impending Marriage, Adrian Tomine. The one and only problem with this book is that it’s too short. I can’t tell you how refreshing and awesome it was, in the year that I was planning a wedding, to read a critique of the wedding industry actually coming from a guy’s of view (meaning the guy was actually involved enough in the planning to have an opinion!)
7. Everything Must Go*, starring Will Ferrell. Dark, and sad, and based on a short story by Raymond Carver, but somehow still funny and hopeful (seeing a theme here?).
   *Okay so this one, I just discovered after imdb’ing it, actually came out in 2010. But I’m gonna leave it here because I feel like it.
   
8. Win Win, starring Paul Giamatti. One of those sweet slice-of-life stories that you feel like you might possibly have seen before (or something similar), but still somehow feels totally new.

So there’s a smattering for you. There’s a lot more stuff I enjoyed, of course. And so much great stuff out there I’m sure I missed.

So, that’s where you come in, dear reader. Please share some of your own highlights of the year, and tell me what I absolutely must check out before it turns into 2012.

Do what I say!

Thankfully, I’m settled in–for the most part–into my new life in Iowa.

On the one hand, it’s not too huge a change from my past life; it’s not like I’m living in a commune of cult members or de-boning fish on a boat in Alaska.

But I did leap from full-time employment in writing/editing/marketing/public relations to part-time status as an ABE (adult basic ed) teacher; from living in a rental house that I had all to myself, to sharing a small apartment with my husband.

(More about the moving misadventure here. And, as I’ve mentioned recently, I’ve chosen this time to finally deal with the large mountain I’ve amassed from the detritus of my youth.)

When I moved into my husband’s already-established apartment, he gently pointed out (or, um, pointedly stressed) the fact that we wouldn’t have much space, so I should bring with me only what I truly needed, and deal with the rest later.

Rather than rent a storage locker, we  parked all of my sentimental and /or not-totally-utilitarian stuff–books, CDs, photo albums, family history fragments, creative projects in half-assed state–at my in-laws’ house in a spare bedroom. (They live nearby).

STUFF MOUNTAIN, only partially pictured

The good news: my in-laws are kind, patient people, and they’re okay with me storing this stuff here temporarily.

The bad news: we probably need to have a talk about the difference between “temporarily” and “indefinitely.”

In other words, I still need to find a place for, and/or otherwise “deal with,” every single one of the things in these boxes.

Maybe it doesn’t look like that much.

But it feels overwhelming to me.

I’m starting to wonder if I should just toss it all and enjoy the freedom of having absolutely no tangible reminders of my past. Like a soap opera character who wakes up in the hospital after the bridge explosion (for at least the second time in her character’s existence) with amnesia.

Or maybe, the next time either my husband or one of his parents brings up the subject of the pile, I should suddenly become stricken with said affliction. (What boxes? Who am I? How did I get here?!?

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Nine truths about the new book by The Office writer/actress Mindy Kaling:

1. This book is a fun, easy, lightweight read.

2. You will like it if you like The Office.

3. There are lots of funny entries, one-liners, and quirks to be enjoyed here.

4. I am sure–no, definite–after reading this book that Mindy Kaling and I, who are only two years apart (okay, she’s younger than me, the disgustingly overachieving little wench), have many things in common (actually liking our parents, growing up nerdy and yet social), and would totally be BFFs.

5. I especially liked her commentary on the unrealistic expectations for female body types in Hollywood, (“When You’re Not Skinny, This is People Want You to Wear,”); being single, (“Married People Need to Step It Up);” and the crap movies that Hollywood puts out (and that people actually go see), (“Somewhere in Hollywood Someone is Pitching This Movie”.)

6. Despite enjoying every page of this book, (and despite everything I’ve just said above), I couldn’t help shake the feeling that maybe the material here just somehow doesn’t warrant an actual book. Like maybe these are a collection of funny blog posts more than a book of essays or whatever.

7. I often think to myself, “If I could put together a book of essays and become a successful published writer, how do I know that readers/editors/naysayers wouldn’t ask, ‘Why does SHE have a book? What’s so special about her?’” And now here I am thinking/saying this about her book (and she, a Hollywood writer and actress, actually has cred as someone who people might want to read about.)

8. Contrasted with other successful comedy folk who’ve put out a book (I’m looking at you, David Cross), this book really does work and is funny.

9. So, I don’t know why I had this nagging feeling throughout–like “Well, I’ve got funnier stories to tell than that one”–when I actually really did enjoy it overall. Hence the 3 stars out of a possible 5. (And yet I’d totally pick it up and read it again. Such conflict you cause me, Mindy Kaling!)

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Of Thee I Zing: America’s Cultural Decline from Muffin Tops to Body Shots by Laura Ingraham

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Ok, friends, don’t hate me for the fact that I somehow ended up taking this book home from the library, (this book which, I discovered only after having gotten it home, is authored by a “frequent guest of the O’Reilly Factor.”) What the hell was I thinking? Shouldn’t I have been able to tell from the cover that the person doing the zing-ing is a conservative? (I’m drunk on the awesome library system where I now live, and on the fact that I can take. books. home. for. free. You can’t blame me, really.)

But then, I thought to myself, “maybe it will be good for you to read something from the opposite point of view.” Isn’t that good for our brains and our human development, to try to at least *listen* to opposing viewpoints from our own, from time to time? (Chris and I often do this in the car when the radio inevitably lands on some ranter, but we usually end up cracking up and doing imitations of the offending hosts.)

So, trying to be open-minded, I gave it a chance. And at first, I chuckled at bit. The author’s observations about excessive parents who compete over who can host the most elaborate birthday parties seemed pretty spot on.

But then I kept going, and I realized that, rather than these being essays poking fun at contemporary culture, the entries were actually just section after section of stuff to bitch about, or “wonder aloud” about, in a very old-guy-in-the-coffee-group kind of way. (“Now, about tattoos..what’s wrong with these kids today?”)

After all the mini-sections on things like, yes, tattoos, text-ing teenagers, obese people at the mall, people who write their own wedding vows, people who carry their babies in cloth carries, and on and on and on, I couldn’t help but return to one of my favorite TV bits of all time: Cliff Claven trying his hand at stand-up comedy on Cheers. (Enter subject matter here, then follow with, “What’s up with that?”)

So, regardless of her political affiliation, I thought she came off like a fuddy-duddy, a judge-y tsk-tsk-er, and a crank.

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You Don’t Sweat Much for a Fat Girl: Observations on Life from the Shallow End of the Pool by Celia Rivenbark

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First of all, at least judging by the author’s photo next to her bio, she is decidedly not fat. So, that kind of annoys me.

And there’s a very “kiss my grits” style of sassy-ness in each entry, and at least for the first couple of entries, I found it kind of cloying.

Having said that, I like writers who analyzes or satirize the seemingly trifling elements of popular culture, (despite the fact that it means their material may not exactly hold up after 10 years because of the contemporary references). I admire writers who aren’t afraid of that possibility of dated-ness (and therefor use as comedic material such cultural fare as the Gosselins and other TLC-show subjects, Twitter over-sharers, and the way Betty Draper treats her fictional children).

I also tried, for two full years, to emulate a newspaper column in a style similar to what Rivenbark is doing, so, I respect and admire her ability to entertain with anything she chooses as her subject matter. I would definitely read more of her stuff, even if I occasionally think the Southern-fried grits-kissing attitude feels a little over the top). I would give this a 3.5 or 3.75 stars.

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