britty books

Don't you wish everyone could have an airplane shell seat? Photo: Hideyuki KAMON/Wiki

Most flights I’ve ever been on have two separations: coach and business class. Having never flown in business class, I try and find my own little perks within coach. This amounts to ‘at least I’m not by the crying baby,’ ‘at least I’m not across from the toilet,’ ‘at least I’m not in the middle seat between two large men,’ and ‘at least the person next to me doesn’t want to talk.’

If you’ve been reading along, I’m sure you’ve noticed that David Sedaris has a theme going here with a lot of his stories. Funny things that happened to Sedaris while riding in a cab are related in “Town and Country” and “Of Mice and Men” and riding in a vehicle while hitchhiking in “Road Trips.” Funny things that happened while riding in an airplane might be a subset of the vehicular comedy in “Solution to Saturday’s Puzzle” and this story “Crybaby.”

Let’s get on with the

Gist of the Story

Sedaris is flying in Business Elite, which is one step above Coach but not quite First Class. Cute comments about the coach passengers glaring at him after realizing he is not someone famous. I tend to do that, as well. I think I’d do that even if if was someone famous, though. Closest I ever came was riding on an airplane with Catroina Le May Doan, the Canadian Olympic speed skater. Her thighs looked pretty average in her regular clothes which surprised me.

Sedaris has an open seat next to him so the flight attendant asks if she can move up a crying passenger because he’s bothering the people sitting next to him in coach. Sedaris, I believe, puts himself in these situations just to see what happens. Of course he says, “Yes.”

The big, Polish man has apparently just lost his mother and is flying to Poland for her funeral. He is not blubbering all over the place but simply sobbing off and on. Sedaris doesn’t try to engage him in conversation but instead has a conflict about whether to watch an in-flight movie or not. He even feels guilty eating his airplane food.

At long last, Sedaris settles in to watching a Chris Rock movie and thinking back on laughing at his flatulent grandmother at the dinner table and then being whacked in the head with a serving spoon by his father. All this pent-up comedy inside of Sedaris turns into tears and both he and the big, Polish man weep their way across the Atlantic.

First Lines, Last Words

The night flight to Paris leaves JFK at 7:00 p.m. and arrives at de Gaulle at about 8:45 a.m. French time.

But in the meantime here we were: two grown men in rommy seats, each blubbering in his own elite puddle of light.

Quotable

Strange that being walloped with a heavy spoon made everything seem funnier, but there you have it.

Book Rating

I know you’re waiting on pins and needles for the ending of this book to arrive so that I can make use of my Book Ratings Chart. So am I!  In the meantime, check out what Sedaris was laughing about on the Crybaby flight:

Even I like spiders, but yikes on the huge Tegenaria Domestica, Sedaris! Photo: Dixi/Wiki

Do you think that people are willing to donate more money to a charitable cause if there is animal suffering involved?  Some may say ,”Yes!” even though they think the animals are having fun.  Look at the popularity of I Can Has Cheezburger? I just don’t get it.  A classic issue of anthropomorphism, which is to say applying human characteristics to non-human beings.  Like spiders.  Like David Sedaris in his

Gist of the Story

Sedaris writes that instead of showing human suffering on programs asking for charitable donations, i.e. tsunami disasters, we should instead show a photo of a big, fat puppy lolling about on the ground.  He says it worked in New Orleans when they showed photos of dogs being stranded on the roofs.  People sent more money!  Even Nate Burkus rescued pets during Hurricane Katrina.  Good TV.

So, in typical Sedaris fashion, he takes up a liking to the spiders in his windowsill in Normandy, France.  Okay, spiders, I thought.  Spiders are alright.  Um, these are cousins of the tarantula-type of spiders (photo shown here).  Yikes!  Anyway, when I still thought the spiders were relatively harmless, I was amused by Sedaris naming them and feeding them flies.  He loves one spider, April, so much, he takes her to Paris with him and shows her the Eiffel Tower.  How romantic!

However, flies are not as plentiful in Paris as in Normandy (who knew?!) and he returns her back to her windowsill where she scampers off and is never to be seen from again.  Sedaris is yet another person that falls victim to ANTHROPOMORPHISM <insert dramatic music and echo effect here..here…here>.

At least he didn’t start a grammatical horror of a website after the ugly things.

First Lines, Last Words

While watching TV one recent evening, I stumbled upon a nature program devoted to the subject of making nature programs.

The TV was on, the grandmother signaled from her rooftop, and I found myself wondering, with something akin to panic, if there were any spiders in her house.

Quotable

“I mean, come on,” I said, “You can’t feel sorry for everything.”

Book Rating

…is happening at the end of the book!  Stay tuned or review the book ratings chart in the meantime. Or watch some real “April in Paris” to calm you down from the spiders:

Holy flaming mice, Batman! Photo: Ltshears/Wiki

Have you ever had a “that reminds me of the time” story that, no matter who you tried to tell it to, you can never get the whole thing told?  Or, if you do manage to tell it, people don’t believe you?  Or, the best yet, if when you tell it, people ask stupid questions about it that have absolutely nothing to do with the point you were trying to make?

Mostly, though, I find people don’t really want to listen and instead tell you how a story about your life reminded them of their own.  I truly think Chuck Palahniuk hit the nail on the head when he said in most conversations people aren’t really listening to what you’re saying, they’re coming up with what they’re going to say next.

I guess David Sedaris feels the same as he describes here in the

Gist of the Story

Sedaris has read a very amusing story about a man in Vermont whose house was overrun with mice.  The man decides to exterminate them all in one fell swoop and fumigates.  The mice run outside and collect themselves under and big pile of leaves.  Ever the thinking man, the owner lights the leaves on fire.  Oh ho ho, but wait!  One poor mouse, streaming with flames, runs back into the house.  With all the fumigation fumes still inside…POOF!  The house is no more.

Funny story, right?

Well, Sedaris has a hard time finding a situation where he can tell it.  And when he finally does manage to squeeze it in, people ask all the wrong questions like: did the owner get insurance?  Kind of beyond the point.  There’s another great exchange with a cab driver like in “Town and Country” (hey, it’s New York after all), whereupon the driver, after spinning out yarns and yarns of cliched travels, tells Sedaris he’s a liar.  Flat out.  You got to love N.Y.

As Sedaris is verifying the cab driver’s lies at home (one can only suppose he is Googling), he discovers that his own mousy tale has been remodeled in his brain.  The house happened to be in Mexico, not Vermont.  The owner didn’t fumigate, it was simply a mouse caught outside while the leaves were already burning.

No matter, I like Sedaris’ version better.

First Line, Last Words

I’ve always admired people who can enter a conversation without overtaking it.

The fire spread, the house was consumed, and these are certainly dark times, both for the burning, and those who would set them alight.

Quotable

This from someone  who’s reduced the Chinese to a bunch of people eating rice from bowls.

Book Rating

Hey-o, I’m almost at the end of this book which means the book rating for the book as a whole will be up soon!  Check out how the ratings work in the meantime.

"You're acting like a crowd of kids!" says Piggy, hardly more than a kid himself.

Welcome to the Bullying Prevention book review this month!  There has been a tremendous focus on the issue of bullying in the news during the month of October, especially involving social media and the preventable death of Tyler Clementi.  If you are concerned about bullying, are a victim of or know someone that could use some strategies to cope, I recommend that you investigate J. Richard Knapp’s International Bullying Prevention monthly newsletter. Remember, bullying is not only a children’s issue.  These book reviews are a small part of this free subscription.

You’re Acting Like a Crowd of Kids…and Other Statements
That Led to Piggy’s Downfall
in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies

William Golding’s first novel in 1954 was recognized as an instant classic for the social experiment within.  The main thrust of the plot is a school of English boys stranded on a deserted island when their transport plane crashes.  The only adult on board, the pilot, dies.  So, the boys (who range in ages from approximately 6 years to 14 years old) must learn to fend for themselves.

Immediately, the reader is immersed in the relationship between two of the three main characters, Ralph and a boy only known as Piggy.  The reader never does discover Piggy’s real name, as he becomes an easy target of the other’s repulsion with his asthma, his glasses and by being overweight.  Although Piggy is somewhat of an outcast within the tribe of schoolboys, he is one of the few older children and, most importantly, is council to Ralph, the voted chief of the island.

Ralph is a graceful, good-looking, self-confident type that the other boys see as a natural leader.  The only threat to this duo is Jack, a tall, lanky redhead who insists that hunting the island pigs is far more important (and much more thrilling) than keeping a signal fire going in order to be rescued.

As the novel progresses, the power shifts from the lawful use of assembly via a conch shell that denotes the speaker who has the floor, to a hodge-podge dictatorship run by a half-crazed and painted-faced Jack, with his strongman, Roger, to do his evil bidding.  Although a once banned book, Lord of the Flies is standard reading for most high school English curriculum, so it may come as no surprise to most that Piggy’s own words are his ultimate downfall in his final confrontation with Jack.

Piggy, the voice of reason and order on the island, becomes nothing more than a target to bully as the balance of power shifts to Jack.  Because of Piggy’s adult reasoning in this expanse of children, Jack feels the need to silence Piggy in order to be able to give himself and the rest of the boys completely over to the savagery in which they wish to participate.

In Piggy’s final speech, he appeals to Jack saying:

‘I got this to say.  You’re acting like a crowd of kids.’
The booing rose and died again as Piggy lifted the white, magic shell.
‘Which is better – to be a pack of painted niggers like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is?’
A great clamour rose among the savages.  Piggy shouted again.
‘Which is better – to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?’
Again the clamour and again – ‘Zup!’
Ralph shouted against the noise.‘Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?’
~page 200

Conformity is sadly still one of the sticklers of social acceptance.  Piggy never compromises his inner wisdom of things he believes to be right and wrong and therefore becomes a figurehead for the boy’s rebellion against adulthood.  Should have Piggy been less rigid, joined in the hunt and admit to Jack’s style of leadership?  Or was the downfall of Piggy inevitable?

If you have never read or studied this novel before now, I strongly encourage you to do so.  Discover in what places we, as adults, ‘go along to get along’ and when we decide to stand up against the odds for what we know is right.

Who would you save from death even if it meant dying?

The funny thing about so-called “kid’s books”, i.e. Harry Potter, Twilight, etc., is that they often don’t make it up to the adult attention unless they do something crazy good.  Much like kids themselves…although for kids, it’s usually crazy bad.

And not bad as in good, or sic as in groovy, either.

I had never heard of this series until Mockingjay was just recently released to rave reviews and according to my bookseller friend, “Something like Harry Potter but not as big.”  Yes, I did notice that!  Board games, pins, lanyards, stickers…anything remotely salable is more potent to those young adults with the disposal income.

Beyond the hype, a young person will not invest in a full series if it doesn’t have something interesting to say, so let’s get to the:

Gist of the Story

Our heroine, Katniss, whom I didn’t discover was a girl until I was about 6 pages in (hey, I don’t read the book jackets, sue me), lives in District 12.  North America has dissolved by war into 13 Districts and the Capitol.  District 13 is said to be a wasteland but I figure we’ll see more of it in later books.

The Capitol (a loose interpretation of Washington, D.C.) holds the Gamemakers, a nasty bunch of people bent on capitalizing (pun intended)  on the power they hold over the Districts.  Each year, similar to Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, one girl’s name and one boy’s name is drawn from each District.  These 24 teens battle in an arena of natural landscape that differs from year to year.  And like Stephen King’s The Running Man movie, they fight to the death.  Or like in King’s pseudonym’s novella The Running Man, they run and avoid.

So, after a lot of hype and presentation, halfway through the book we finally get to Katniss running and hiding, which she is terribly good at being a hunter at home.  Some of the other contestants, or Tributes as they are referred to, depend of their strength and training to aggressively seek out the others and kill them.  Winner takes all.

Spoiler territory ahead. Just a warning.

Because this is a trilogy, I was somewhat surprised that the Hunger Games were played to it’s end.  I was halfway expecting to be stopped short with 6 players left in the game, much as I was with Justin Cronin’s The Passage. Happily, I was rewarded with a conclusion, and, of course, it is the one the reader would most expect: Katniss wins.  How exactly she survives is a roller-coaster of a reading adventure and I definitely would not want to take away any of this adventure.  However, her relationship with Peeta is most interesting.

During the Reaping, which is another name for the drawing of contestants, Katniss’s 12-year-old sister, Prim, is drawn.  She only had 1 entry in thousands.  Katniss had 27.  Katniss volunteers herself as Prim’s replacement and gains the community’s respect.  When the boy’s name was drawn, I fully expected it to be Gale, Katniss’s hunting partner and very faint love interest.  Gale had 46 or 47 entries in the drum.  Because of Katniss and Gale both drawing on the tesserae, a supply of grain and supplies, they garnered extra entries which would compound each year.

Anyway, Gale’s name was not drawn.  It’s was the baker’s son, Peeta.  Peeta is thought by Katniss to be rigging the audience sympathy by pretending to be in love with her.  Turns out he really his.  And, it seems, Katniss is easily infatuated with him by the end of the games.  Or is it survival?  That is the question we are left with at the end of the book when Katniss ends up saving both Peeta and herself ala Romeo and Juliet stunt.  Good ol’ nightlock.

Beyond the fast-paced storytelling, there are some very creative inventions including some muttations (which are like mutations but more ‘mutt-ier’).  Mockingjays are a cross between a mockingbird and a jabberjay (contrived spy bird).  They can repeat songs.  There are also tracker jackers, a deadlier version of a wasp or a yellow jacket.  Pure gold, these buggers give you a welt the size of a plum if they sting you once, hallucinations if they sting you 2 or 3 times and death beyond that.  And you thought wasps were bad.

I know there is still a contingency of people that feel reading teenage books are beneath them.  I encourage you to read this one and be converted.

First Lines, Last Words

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.

I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go.

Quotable

A family once brought in an unconscious young man pleading with my mother to help him.  ~page 178 (Whoopsie!)

Book Rating

Overall rating 4.57/5

Beside the Bed 4.3 I might get some flack for reading below my normal reading level but whatever.

Sleepless for the Story 5.0The time I spent with this book brought on the dinner conversation, “What books have you read in one sitting?”

Regifting this Read 4.4 I’ll be regifting this to my little preteen readers in the house, but if you are thinking of buying a good book for any good reader 11 years and up, this would be my pick for the season.

Book ratings are straightforward or not.  Mine are not.  To get the full why’s and how’s of book rating, see my Book Ratings Chart.

My son thought I was reading the book upside-down. I'm trying for a middle ground with this photo.

My favourite moment of this book is when my son came upon me reading this outside and approached me with his head cocked sideways.  “Oh,” he said, after studying it a moment, “I thought you were reading upside-down.”  We both had a good laugh over that.  He just turned 11 today – slapstick-type of comedy is what he’s all about.

The design cover is quite ingenious to this story.  It is an upside-down story, not in the way of Lewis Carroll but more of a 45 degree tilt.  Oprah featured this book for her book club, but as you can see by my unadulterated/un-Oprahfied cover, and also the fact that I spent a whole 50 cents on this book at a library discard sale, I believe that Jefferey Eugenides was a great writer before the show (see The Virgin Suicides, 29th book read in 2009)…and will continue to be after.  So says NY Times YouTube interview of Eugenides, he is the most sold modern day writer.  I’m guessing this was before the fall and subsequent comeback of Jonathan Franzen, author of The Corrections, which effectively shut down the Oprah book club for two years and then his return to the Oprah book club with Freedom for Oprah’s 25th farewell season.  Might I say that Middlesex proves that Oprah viewers aren’t reading along very well, as Franzen originally hinted (Dear Stacey S., you just got dissed by Eugenides if you didn’t read his response closely enough.).

But that’s too much drama for me.  I just want a good book to read. Let’s get to:

The Gist of the Story (Many Spoilers Ahead)

This book is about a hermaphrodite, which is only partially true.  This book begins with a little from our narrator Cal, the hermaphrodite, and then, as seems to be the trend in everything I’ve read since 1998, plunges into a back-story of how Cal got to where he is today.  And do we go back!

Eugenides begins with Cal’s grandmother and grandfather in Smyrna, Turkey/Greece to start.  Here are our two grandparents going somewhat blissfully about village life on the hill.  She raises silkworms and he sells the raw silk at the open market.  In the meantime, he carouses with a prostitute that looks almost exactly like his sister.  Um, yeah.  I said his sister.

Well, whaddya know?  Orphaned brother and sister fall in love and escape the Turkish riots and head to Detroit, where their cousin is waiting to sponsor them.  The cousin agrees to keep their secret, as now they are married, if they continue to keep hers (she’s a lesbian and a mail-order bride).  Desdemona, our grandmother, Lefty, our grandfather, cousin Lina and her husband, Zizmo all live together.  Desdemona never plans to have children but she does and perchance, so does cousin Lina.  Desdemona has a boy named Milt and cousin Lina has a girl named Tessie.  You’d think second cousins shouldn’t fall in love.  Or you may be stuck at the whole brother and sister falling in love first part.

Whatever the case is, there’s love flying everywhere.  And babies.

Milt and Tessie’s first-born son is called Chapter Eleven (we never find out his real name but this one suits him well.  I often thought of how tired Eugenides must have become of typing this name out over and over again, though.).  Their second-born child is Cal, whom they call Calliope because…whoops!…he’s mistaken as a girl at first cursory glance.  Not until Calliope hits puberty do we find out she’s actually a hermaphrodite and more lenient to being a male, at that.

Things get strange and then weird as Calliope gets tested by a Playboy doctor, of sorts, in New York, and then, as Cal, runs away and ends up in San Fransisco working for a freak peep show.  Eugenides, however, brings it all back at the end for a very brief, but satisfying reunion.

This big book is definitely worth the time.  Plus, Eugenides is not due out with another until at least 2012.  What better reading do you have to do until then?

First Lines, Last Words

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. I lost track after a while, happy to be home, weeping for my father, and thinking about what was next.

Quotable

We’re all made up of many parts, other halves.

Book Rating

Overall rating: 4.73/5

Beside the Bed 4.7 Great book, great writer, subject maybe a bit touchy who aren’t as open-minded.

Sleepless for the Story 5.0 Although this book is 529 pages long, I destroyed in within 8 days.  I think that is a record for me, even.

Regifting this Read 4.5 Again, the subject itself may not inspire you to give it to your grandmother for Christmas, but the author may.  If you’ve never read Eugenides before, begin with this one and then read his first novel, The Virgin Suicides.

Should you be curious and curiouser as to how book ratings work, the full explanation is included my book ratings chart located here. Happy reading!

A novel about the back of house goings-on in the early days of the circus just meant for us rubes.

As I mentioned the overall premise of this book to friends (it’s about the circus, generally, is what I believe I said), I got many incensed reactions and strong feelings about the circus, especially clowns.  Being a globophobe myself and an advocate of animal rights in regards to circuses, I could understand people’s distaste.  What I can’t understand is that it’s in a book….it’s not real (not really, more on that later)…enjoy it!

So I did.  I really enjoyed this book.  I even learned some new language.  Carny language!  Now I can visit the Regina Ex or the Calgary Stampede and fit right in, except maybe for the whole lack of personal hygiene part.

So here’s some new circus language for you from the book:

• a “First of May” means a rookie or a person new to the circus life
• a “Rube” is a common person or customer of the circus.  The connotation is that rubes are generally dumb and easy with their money.
• “Red-lighting” is when someone, sometimes a stowaway, was thrown off a moving train.  Usually, the people would be tossed at a crossing, or red-light, so they could find their way back to town.
• a “kinker” is a circus performer
• the “baggage stock” is a term for the work horses

There’s lots more fun with words to be had should you read this novel.  For now, let’s get to

The Gist of the Story

When we meet the main character, Jacob Jankowski, he is an old man living in a nursing home.  Frankly, I don’t have much positive to say for the nursing home chapters and I felt they were a waste of time.  So, moving on to chapter two, we are entreated to a much younger Jacob studying for his veterinarian finals at Cornell.  A crisis point: his parents are dead and destitute.  Jacob has no money or will to continue on to write his final exams and runs away.  It’s the 1920′s, so he hops a train.

Turns out, he hopped the circus train.

He makes a friend in a man named Camel, who then sets him up with various bad jobs.  Eventually, the ringmaster hears of Jacob’s schooling and installs him as the circus vet.

Jacob rooms in the performing horse part of the train with a dwarf clown named Kinko, who is quite cranky.  But, Jacob is so nice, he eventually wins him over.

Jacob also falls in love with Marlena, the horse performer, much to the angry dismay of her husband, August.  But, lucky for Jacob, nothing much happens between he and Marlena and he even seems to be befriended by August, sometimes.

All the while, the ringmaster, Al, pines for an elephant.  The show finally acquires one…but she won’t perform.  Everyone is upset because they aren’t being paid (the elephant is eating any profits).  August beats on the elephant.

Things from here dissolve into spoiler country and there is much to be spoiled.  But I won’t be the one to do it.

Even though the last chapters seem to fall apart, this is a great book overall, very exciting and thrilling.  Plus, it has an elephant – what could be better than that?

A short p.s.: read the author’s note in the back of the book describing the inspiration for Rosie, the elephant.  One of them was Topsy, sentenced to death for killing 3 men.  Methos of death?  A filmed experiment on alternating current which was performed by Edison.  Yes, that Edison.  You can watch the very grainy film here on YouTube and pray that we have come farther as a society in the humane treatment of animals.

First Lines, Last Words

Only three people were left under the red and white awning of the grease joint: Grady, me, and the fry cook.

For this old man, this is home.

Quotable

“Honey, I plan to marry you the moment the ink is dry on that death certificate.”

Book Rating

Overall rating 4.77/5

Beside the Bed 4.6 Although I’m still quite confused about what it means to be a Canadian author, I am giving this one the benefit of the doubt.  Go Canuckian book!

Sleepless for the Story 4.9 Zoomed through this in two days.

Regifting this Read 4.8 This is one of those books you can give to either a man or a woman, young, old, Canadian or not.  Very universally enjoyable.

If you are not confused about what makes a Canadian author, but how I rate these books and what those ratings mean, see my book ratings chart for further details.

In the afterlife, the mind is all...or is it?

I picked up this book at my local secondhand bookstore because the cover caught my eye.  I liked this 1998 movie of the same name, with Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding Jr.  Some people/movie critics didn’t.

Let’s get into the gist of the story before I tell you exactly why and how the movie is different  – and, most importantly, why this is a rare case of “movies that are better than the book.”

Gist of the Story

We begin with a foreword from the author (never a good idea) telling us his story is not really a story, only a fictionalization of characters and places.  He also points us to a huge reading list at the back of the book should we, the reader, wish to test his facts.

It just gets worse from here.

The story begins as a psychic drops off a novel to the deceased’s brother and then promptly running away.  The story was related to the psychic by Chris Nielsen, dead.  We go through a few painful chapters where Chris, the narrator, is correcting the psychic’s spelling and then we get into the meat of the tale.  Chris, recently deceased from a car accident doesn’t know to move on to heaven, or as they refer to it in this novel, Summerland.  He, instead, hangs around the house, talking incessantly of his wife, Ann, and generally feeling mopey.  His son, Richard, enlists the help of Perry, another psychic, who seems to be able to ‘see’ Chris, although he can’t hear him.  Ann unwillingly agrees to a seance where Chris’s etheral shell is manipulated by Perry and havoc ensues when Chris’s astral self walks into the room to witness this all.

Right, something I should explain here that took me most of the novel to understand.  There is our physical body, our etheric double (which I really don’t know the purpose of) and our astral self.  Kind of a holy trinity of being.

Anyway.

Chris finally makes it to Summerland where he is met by a long dead dog and his cousin, Albert.  Albert shows him the ropes of the ‘third realm’ (There are higher realms we never get to reach here).
All the while Chris is still talking about Ann.  Ann this, Ann that, Ann’s so great, blah, blah, blah.  I felt like killing Chris all over again.  Now, we discover that Chris and Ann are…brace yourself…soul mates.  Mild gagging occurs (on my end).

SPOILER ALERT Chris goes down to the hall of records to find out when Ann is due to die and join him in Summerland.  24 more years.  He decides he can live with that.  He takes a nap.  When he wakes up, it turns out Ann offed herself with sleeping pills.  Chris decides he must pull an Orpheus and get her back from Hell, which turns out to be just the Hell she has created for herself.

The book goes on to create not quite a happy ending, but further talk of rebirth and reincarnation.  It all gets really squiffy.

Here’s what happened in the movie, briefly: Chris dies and goes to Heaven.  The kids die and meet him there (along with the dead dog).  Ann is overcome with grief and offs herself.  Chris goes to save her from her own personal Hell and is successful.  Happy ending.

What differs between the book and the movie: the books is told in the style “a day in the life of dead Chris.”  It’s very painful, especially dealing with a lot of cliches regarding the afterlife and what might happen after we die.  The movie is visually stunning.  It has Robin Williams.  Need I say more?

See the movie, forget the book on this one.

First Lines, Last Words

The manuscript you are about to read came into my possession the following way.

Carefully.

Quotable

The mind is all.

Book Rating

Overall rating 2.73/5

Beside the Bed 3.9 More than a little embarrassed to have this John Edwardian type of afterlife-aura book beside my bed but should I have died, it might have been fitting.

Sleepless for the Story 2.5 The only reason I was sleepless is because I wanted it to be over.  On a more positive note, the chapters were short.

Regifting this Read 1.8 Only to someone I knew would be into the afterlife stuff or possibly an avid reader of Sylvia Browne.  I believe in an afterlife myself, but not this one necessarily.  This book is actually going back to the secondhand store for credit.

For more on my book ratings and a further description, check out this page.

Russell Wiley a unicorn leader among the horses and other great office wisdoms.

I was quite surprised this summer when Richard Hine’s publication office contacted me and kindly asked if I would care to review his forthcoming book (released today, actually).  As Richard was a Twitter friend of mine (@RichardHine or on his novel’s Facebook page), I said, “Yes!” with a resounding yarwp.  As Richard’s publication office contacted me by E-mail, I suppose they did not hear my resounding yarwp but hopefully I used enough exclamation marks to make up for the lack of intonation.

Let’s stop bragging about the authors I ‘know’ via Twitter and start bragging about their guest posts at Britty Books (Richard Hine’s can be found here, too!).  Perhaps this is too egotistical as well?

Then, let’s just get to the…

Gist of the Story

Russell Wiley is the advertising manager for a medium-sized circulation newspaper in New York.  The problem is he’s on the print end of the newspaper in an online world.  There are some amazing insights about the death of print throughout the novel, especially by Wiley’s pseudonym, Christopher Finchley.  His alter-ego writes inspirational leadership material for a magazine.  He gathers ideas from his friend’s daughter.  Hence, Look at My Poopie!: Tracing the Origins of Workplace Competitiveness to Your Early Childhood Years and other ideas about unicorns and stand-out managing.

All the while, Wiley is trying to manage a dry spell in his marriage.  A dry spell for Russell Wiley equals a countdown of days without sex for the reader.  Warning to the faint of heart, some chapters can be quite explicit, proceed at your own risk.  Beyond this, Hine manages to capture the essence of long-term relationships, married or not.

Navigating the waters of his rocky home life, Wiley manages to get through most of the novel doing little to no work.  Office life, indeed!  The reader will recognize many types of office people from the intern with too many good ideas to the consultant of whom everyone is suspicious.  Add to that a hefty dose of project acronyms and the threat of job losses and you have one of the few modern novels that captures the heart of the workplace – for better and worse. (If you happen to be a fan of The Office TV series, you will indeed love this book.)

As his marriage and career rocket toward destruction, can Russell Wiley get motivated?  You may be surprised at this ending.  I was!

First Lines, Last Words

“I’m still asleep,” says Sam.

And this time they kiss.

Quotable

You can only be trapped by unreality.

Book Rating

Overall rating 4.4/5

Beside the Bed 4.3 I’m proud to have a new author on my bedstand but I might get in trouble for some of the explicit language used from my elders.

Sleepless for the Story 4.4 Once I got into what Russell Wiley was trying to do (and get over what he wasn’t doing), it was hard to put down.

Regifting this Read 4.5 Definitely would give this to a friend, just so I can brag about ‘discovering’ this author myself.  Watch out for Richard Hine, there be talent here!

For more on my book rating system, have a look at the break-down.

"Shakespeare wouldn't like it," says main character Giulietta. I think you will.

Welcome to my second official book blog tour with Harper Collins Canada!  This time it’s Juliet by Quebec resident, Anne Fortier.  (For my first tour, check out The Truth About Delilah Blue with author, Tish Cohen).  Stay tuned and subscribe for a word from the author at the end of October.  To keep up with Anne Fortier, like her Facebook page.

Here’s a book I was nervous about finishing on time.  444 pages with set in Bulmer typeface.  This font was designed in the late 18th century by William Bulmer specifically for the Shakespeare Press.  What scared me wasn’t the type itself (which I found enjoyable, readable and slightly different), but the font size.  If I had to guess, I’d say 9-point.  So, with two weeks and counting, my Kiefer Sutherland tick-tock-timer began chirping away.

Had I known this book would be such addictive reading, I wouldn’t have worried.  I finished with time to spare.  Let’s get to the meat, shall we?

Gist of the Story

Here’s where things get tricky.  While I was reading, I was determined to write a review without spoilers….a difficult thing to do in a book that is romance, adventure and mystery. I’ll give it my best shot.  You don’t want to have these surprises ruined, trust me.

Julie and her twin sister, Janice, live with their Aunt Rose and Housekeeper, Umberto.  Julie’s career is manager for several children’s plays of Romeo and Juliet across the eastern U.S.  At the top of the book, Aunt Rose dies.  In her will, it is discovered she everything to the ‘evil’ twin Janice and nothing to Julie besides a passport containing her real name, Giulietta Tolomei, and instructions to go to Sienna,Italy and discover her dead mother’s secrets.

So, she does!

Once things get rolling in Italy, the reader is treated to a story about the 1340′s version of Romeo and Giulietta which flip-flops nearly every other chapter with our present day Giulietta trying to find her Romeo amid being chased by bad guys and good guys alike.  I adored this back-story of the ‘real’ Romeo and Juliet that was said to inspire Shakespeare’s tragedy.  The author takes a thread of a legend and embellishes it in all the right ways.  For example, there is some intense reading around an event called the Palio, which is a horse and rider race through city and countryside involving house flags, vicious by-standers and family honour.  You won’t find your typical Shakespearean tale here, although you may discover echoes of it.

Although not set in Verona but in Sienna, Fortier takes us on a visual tour of the city and its architecture.  Like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, this book will want to make you visit Sienna.  (And, come to think of it, would be a very good book club selection – Oprah thinks so!  Mystery, intrigue, Italians, cappucino…what could be more romantic?)

The big question on your mind is: does everybody die in the end?

The 1340 version and the present day meet up perfectly in the last chapters to rewrite history.  As our modern day Giulietta says, “Shakespeare won’t like it.”  Bully on Shakespeare; you’ll love it.

First Lines, Last Words

They say I died.

Whether or not we had been truly cursed, and whether or not we paid our dues, he was my blessing, and I was his, and that was enough to disarm any missile that fate – or Shakespeare – might still be foolish enough to hurl our way.

Quotable

“…Holy Mother of God, how many times do I have to do this?” ~page 440

Book Rating

Overall rating 4.63/5

4.4 Beside the Bed I typically don’t read what at first glance is romance.  Note to self to not judge a book by its cover.  Romantic story, yes.  But more than just that.

4.8 Sleepless for the Story It wasn’t just the thought of missing a deadline that pushed me through this book in under two weeks.  Very addictive.

4.7 Regifting this Read I might not regift this one to a male friend but I think turning anyone on to a new, great author would be a token in my pocket.  Can’t wait to read another book by Anne Fortier!

For more on how the book ratings work and a further explanation of the cool-ness factor, check out my Book Ratings Chart.