Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

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I finished Breakfast of Champions last night after a pleasant bath that was accompanied by a public radio program about Celtic music. I usually read in the bath, but this is not the sort of book one would wish to invite into such a tranquil spot.

All these hours later, I’m unsure if I liked the book or not. I mean. I recognize that the sexism in it is partly due to the time in which it was written, and partly to provoke, and that it’s written as social satire. I mean, it’s Vonnegut, you know?

On the other hand, this novel breaks the “fourth wall” often, seems to contradict itself, and is a little confusing, as it doesn’t seem to have much of a plot, and yet, the stories all tie together in the end.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

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First of all, the depth of research required to pull off a novel like this, filling in the blanks between the birth of Christ and the point at which we pick up his story again, when he’s in his thirties, is incredible, and even if many of the scenarios in this novel are preposterous, Christopher Moore deserves kudos just for that.

Second, this is parody at its best, and while, yes, it’s controversial, the best comedy comes from darkness and controversy. Parody serves a purpose, it makes us examine the truths we hold close, but non-threateningly.

Third, this novel is hilarious. Completely hilarious. Biff is the perfect foil for the world’s only perfect person, and the notions expressed – What if Jesus studied Buddhism? What if he knew kung-fu? – are delightful to ponder.

As the author points out, it’s fiction, and if reading fiction causes you to doubt your faith, it’s your faith that should be examined, not the novel that caused your doubts.

Read LAMB.
Laugh a lot.

Booking Through Thursday: Gold Medal Reading

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From Booking Through Thursday:

First:

* Do you or have you ever read books about the Olympics? About sports in general?
* Fictional ones? Or non-fiction? Or both?

And, Second:

* Do you consider yourself a sports fan?
* Because, of course, if you’re a rabid fan and read about sports constantly, there’s a logic there; if you hate sports and never read anything sports-related, that, too … but you don’t have to love sports to enjoy a good sports story.
* (Or a good sports movie, for that matter. Feel free to expand this into a discussion about “Friday Night Lights” or “The Natural” or whatever…)

I vaguely remember reading books about the first modern Olympics, but I think it may have been a movie as well.

The only sports I really follow are horse racing, figure skating and (very casually) hockey, so unless Dick Francis novels, and that one Sara Paretsky novel about the hockey player named Boom-Boom, count, I haven’t read anything about sports, either.

I do love a good skating movie, though. Like the original The Cutting Edge.

Cowboys Are My Weakness by Pam Houston

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I have to confess, I only bought this book because the titular story, Cowboys are My Weakness, was assigned reading for a writer’s workshop I just attended. I didn’t even like it the first time I read it!

But then, after the first couple days of the workshop, when I was alone in my hotel and desperate to read something, ANYTHING, less depressing than One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest I picked the book up again. I wound up finishing it on the plane flight back home.

Houston’s style isn’t fussy, and moves between first, third, and sometimes even second, person depending on the needs of each essay or story. Her characters are vivid. Her tales of love, lust, dogs and horses are tales that almost any woman will enjoy.

Goes well with a burger, and a cold beer.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

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Water for Elephants was recommended to me several years ago when it first came out, but for some reason it didn’t appeal to me at the time, or I passed it over for some other reason. A couple of weekends ago, we were at the library, and I noticed it. In fact, the library we visited was so depressing, that it was one of only three books I bothered to check out.

I finished it tonight, having chosen to savor it and make it last, because once I started reading it, and realized it was about the circus, I was hooked.

This novel is both a behind-the-scenes look at traveling circuses in the 1930s and a love-letter to the art form. Told in flashbacks by the main character, Jacob, who used to be a vet “on a show,” we glimpse the dirtier aspects of circus life, including the often brutal treatment of workers, performers, and animals, the way acts were formed, and the competition between different circuses.

I’ve been telling my husband I want to see the circus for my birthday (Ringling Bros. will be in town), and the fact that this book fell into my lap a month before that event seems to be a favorable sign.

Goes well with caramel corn.

I keep meaning…

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…to post reviews here, of The Maidenstone Lighthouse and Little Earthquakes and Pink, and, and, and, but right now I’m so depressed from reading “Miss Lonelyhearts,” which is quite possibly the bleakest and saddest novella EVER, that I just…can’t.

GonnaBe a Star?

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I’ve been singing and acting in some fashion ever since I learned to talk, and I grew up watching the FAME tv show, even before I ever attended a performing arts school, so when I heard about Gonnabe, I was actually a little jealous – WHY couldn’t this have been around when I was a kid?

But I grew up in the pre-internet days, when we learned to type on actual typewriters, and the computer class we did have was stocked with TRS-80s, and PONG was a cool game. Yes, I’m THAT old. Of course, I also no longer live in California, and I don’t have kids, but if I did, I’d want them to know about Gonnabe.

Of course, you’re probably wondering – what is it? Well, it’s a production company and networking opportunity headquartered in Emeryville, CA, and it specializes in entertainment for and by kids. By joining, bright talented youngsters and their families will be provided with information about auditions, classes, and local shoots, as well as be able to network with professional casting directors, singers, dancers, actors, and models already in the business.

There’s a common adage that it’s not what you know, but who. GonnaBe helps kids who don’t already have those connections, but do have drive and talent, get the WHO.

If I were a kid in this decade, and I knew about GonnaBe, I’d be pestering my parents. If I had kids who were interested in the arts – I mean REALLY interested – passionate, even – I’d be signing them up.

As a production company, GonnaBe is already responsible for Kids Unlimited and Say What. As a networking community, I suspect it’s gonna be even bigger.

Reading with Mom

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As I’ve been reading and writing about auto insurance quote all week, and today is Mother’s Day, I thought I’d spend a moment talking about reading with my mother.

When I was very young, before I was entirely comfortable reading long novels without pictures, my mother used to read to me, doing all the voices. I especially remember reading Fletcher and Zenobia with her, and I blame this book for my dark tastes, because the illustrations were done by Edward Gorey.

A bit later, she began to read Little Women to me, but by then I was a voracious reader, and our “chapter a night” system was beginning to chafe. That was the last book she read TO me, but several years later, when I was nine or ten, she began to read WITH me.

One book I remember reading together was a collection of Katharine S. White’s garden essays from the New York Times, a year of them, one for each week, I think. It was thick with a lovely color, and we would take turn reading the essays aloud to each other during a hot Colorado summer – there was actually a drought that year, but I didn’t realize it til long after. I’m not certain, but I think the title was Onward and Upward in the Garden. (Katharine S. White, btw, was married to E. B. White, who gave us Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan.)

That was the year I began stealing her Ms. magazines and reading them before she could. That was also the year I discovered Judy Blume.

We haven’t read together since then, I don’t think, though we’ve often passed books back and forth, fought over who was going to read one first, or spend lovely Saturdays going first to the library, and then out to lunch or a cafe.

While I can only handle my mother’s forceful personality in small doses, those sorts of days, where were together, but not necessarily engaged in conversation, are very comfortable, and one of the things I miss most when she goes home to Baja Sur, where she retired about seven years ago.

IF you’re reading this, I’d like to know when you stopped reading with your parents, or when they stopped reading TO you.

Booking through Thursday: What Do You Do?

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Quick! It’s an emergency! You just got an urgent call about a family emergency and had to rush to the airport with barely time to grab your wallet and your passport. But now, you’re stuck at the airport with nothing to read. What do you do??

And, no, you did NOT have time to grab your bookbag, or the book next to your bed. You were . . . grocery shopping when you got the call and have nothing with you but your wallet and your passport (which you fortuitously brought with you in case they asked for ID in the ethnic food aisle). This is hypothetical, remember….

While I don’t own cats, I have enough friends who do to know that being alone without a book is somewhat akin to feline friends being locked in a house without a scratching post or cat tree…not a pleasant situation.

Since I have my wallet, I’d probably hit the airport bookstore and see what was on the best-seller list, or indulge in a few girly magazines of the sort I generally only read at the salon, because it makes them special, and they seem to GO with the salon.

Failing that, I’d look around for a stray newspaper or cast-off book – airports are popular drop points for Book Crossing, after all.

(And yes, I know, yet again, I’m participating on Sunday. Guess I’m not much of a joiner these days, is all.)