Review: The Laments by George Hagen

Sometimes a book languishes unread on my bookshelves for what seems like millenia. There's no predicting when I will possibly pick it up and read it; just knowing that it is there waiting is a sort of balm to my soul. In the case of The Laments by George Hagen, the book had been tucked away for years when I inadvertantly bought a second copy of it at a used bookstore this summer. Yes, I do that sometimes. On the plus side, I consider it confirmation that the book definitely appeals to me (twice). And I've made it a practice to consider it a nudge from the universe to actually get on it and read the book already.

The Lament family is peripatetic in the extreme, traveling around the world, settling briefly, before heading off again in search of a place that fits them better than the one that they are in. Opening with the birth of their first son, a fat and happy little boy, there is no doubt that the family's luck is all going to be bad or impossible from the moment a mentally disturbed woman whose own infant is sickly and melancholy kidnaps the cheery and chubby Lament baby instead of accepting her own. The only recourse, of course, is to adopt her son and pretend that he is their biological child. Will, the secretly adopted Lament, spends the next many years trying to fit in with his boisterous and rambunctious family. His struggle to fit in is a mirror in miniature of his family's quest to fit in as they move from Rhodesia to Bahrain, England, and America. Father Howard is a creative and frustrated engineer with a strange affinity for valves while mother Julia is an artistic and somewhat apathetic sort. The twins, who have a deep and unexplainable twin connection, are hellions and apt to create chaos and leave upheaval in their wakes no matter where the family lives.

The Laments start out the book full of hopes and aspirations, unrealistic though they may be, and they end it rather more downtrodden and definitely downwardly mobile than they started it. On the whole, the book is a tragedy but there is such wonderful dry humor and forthright writing in it that it is nothing but a pleasure to read. I truly did laugh out loud in more than one instance and if the terrible happenings quotient is higher than I'd usually find realistic, it is entertaining all the way. The characters are quirky and eccentric but they inspire great sympathy in the reader as they go through their lives. Exaggeration is rife and the explicit social commentary is hard to miss but even though I suspect Hagen of condemning my life, I still thoroughly enjoyed his novel.

Review: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

With a quirky title, a slice of cake on the cover, and a main character who can taste other people's emotions in the food they make, this is definitely a book that will intrigue a lot of people, especially those who read and enjoyed Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate so many years ago. Rose is just a child when she can suddenly taste her mother's despair in the lemon cake she has baked that day. And it's not just her mother's feelings, she can now taste the emotions of anyone who has cooked anything she eats. This is such an unsettling gift that she starts relying solely on highly processed foods. While she can pinpoint the places that all the ingredients originated and the factory in which the food was produced, there's less human contact and therefore less disappointment, sorrow, and unhappiness for her to taste. Rose's new and unusual talent highlights the dysfunction, secrets, and unhappiness surrounding her family and as she grows up, the quiet desperation continues to run through their lives singly and as a family.

This melancholic novel seems to inspire reviews from both ends of the spectrum, love it and hate it. I didn't love it but I liked it fine up until the end, at which point I wanted to throw it across the room. So I guess my reaction encompasses both reactions all in one. I guess I can only stretch credulity so far before I snap and the resolution with Rose's brother Joseph took me one step too far. The tone of the book was definitely depressing and the characters practiced avoidance far more frequently than they made any meaningful connection with each other. And only Rose, when she could bring herself to eat their food, could tell at all what was in each person's heart and head. The constant strivings of quiet desperation could be a tad overwhelming at times, the pacing of the book was uneven, and the plot was a bit thin. Overall, given my final impression, I was disappointed but there is definitely much food for thought included here amongst the dysfunction.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Review: The Mercy Papers by Robin Romm

Fierce, emotional, and painful, this book is Romm's recounting of her mother's last three weeks before dying of breast cancer. Her mother was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer when Romm was only 19. She lived for nine more years. Nine short years. Nine not-nearly-enough years. But then she died, slowly, painfully, and too soon. Romm tells roughly not only of her mother's last three weeks but also the ways in which her mother's dying affected her. She was angry and selfish and bitter, raging against the universe and the hospice nurse and her mother's longtime friends and her father and herself.

This is not an easy book to read, despite its slight size. It is packed with incredible depth of emotion, such that sometimes the reader has to take a breather, the very thing that Romm could not do, could not afford to do, in the time of her mother's dying. And as much as this is the memoir of a woman dying, it is also very much the story of Robin Romm, the daughter losing her mother. It is peppered with memories and remembrances, because even before her mother is physically gone, she is no longer the mother Romm knew, instead floating on a sea of pain killers and barely conscious. Romm does not sugar-coat her feelings about the people surrounding her mother. She is oftentimes nasty and snipes at them, either on the page or in fact. She is selfish, not wanting to share her mother, wanting her to be present as long as she can. Throughout, it is clear that she is devastated and fighting no matter the cost. This book is raw, it is angry, it is philosophical, and it probably isn't for everyone. But it is well-written and intense and true too. The final twelve pages of the book, blank because loss never ends, are stark reminders of the hole left behind for Romm and her family, and really for all of us. And those readers who don't shy away from the pain depicted here will find a gem.

Review: The Girl Next Door by Elizabeth Noble

An ensemble piece, this novel by Noble invites readers into the lives of very disparate characters connected only by the fact that they live in the same co-op building in New York City. There's Eve and Ed who have moved to New York from England for Ed's job. There's Violet, an elderly British woman who has kept herself aloof from others in the building until she meets the desperately lonely Eve. There are the Kramers and the Schulmans, both of whom are suffering marriage crises of different kinds. There's the disolute, unemployed, mid-twenties son of wealthy parents who falls in love with a gorgeous, driven woman in the building. Charlotte is a shy romantic who lives vicariously through her friends. Madison is a predatory man-eater whose major goal in life is to snag a wealthy husband. And these are only a few of the residents. Some of their stories intersect but not all of them do, with characters living tandem lives that never touch.

The vast cast of characters and plot lines give this an episodic feel as each chapter focuses on the lives of different residents of the building. The danger, of course, is that some characters get short shift and that is definitely the case here. The lives of the characters vary in their ability to interest the reader as they range from everyday issues to bigger problems like infidelity and great tragedy. Because the narrative moves back and forth so frequently, it is difficult to become fully engaged with any of the story arcs although, British transplant Eve seems the most fully realized and her story the most engrossing overall. The biggest disappointment for me was the superficiality of each segmented part as the characters moved from hurdle to hurdle in their own rather insulated lives. The writing was reasonable though so this might make a decent beach read for those so inclined.

Review: Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog by Lisa Scottoline

Mostly culled from Scottoline's Chick Wit column in the Philadelphia Inquirer, these brief essays are collected under the subtitle of The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman. And they are indeed ordinary adventures as most women readers will recognize the situations that Scottoline has written about, having experienced them themselves at some point. She uses her family and her own life as the basis for these very short (they were published in a newspaper after all) life pieces. While they provided some entertainment during the reading, they have been, unfortunately, very forgettable since then. And while I'm certain that I must have chuckled at least once, I cannot for the life of me pin it down and be certain of that. These are probably best for a "woman of a certain age" combined with those sitautions where you want to have a book in hand but must be capable of putting it down at a moment's notice. In other words, this would be perfect while standing in line at the DMV (which, come to think of it, she doesn't write about despite it being a place rife with comedic potential). Obviously not my favorite read of the month but others have found it hysterically funny so perhaps we just don't share the same sense of humor.

Review: One Vacant Chair by Joe Coomer

I discovered Joe Coomer's books years ago through another reading friend's recommendation. Then I chose one of his books for my summer book club last summer to help spread the word a bit farther. There's just something wonderful about the quirky characters he creates and the way in which he can tackle deep philosophical issues in the guise of a humorous, thinking novel that makes his work shine. One Vacant Chair is the latest I've read and thoroughly enjoyed.

This novel opens with the Hutton family gathering for the memorial service to bury their mother and grandmother. Edna, an unmarried school cafeteria worker and artist who paints portraits of chairs had taken care of her cantankerous, bedridden mother for twenty odd years. But Edna (and grandma) lived lives that would have surprised the rest of the family and after the reading of the will where grandma asked for her ashes to be scattered in Scotland, a place she'd never been, the details of their lives start to emerge. Sarah, Edna's niece, reeling from her husband's infidelity, offers to stay and help her aunt pull together all the lose ends involved in international travel for those who have never left home. She also has the chance to observe her aunt's artistic process and to get in touch her own artistic roots while in the presence of a wonderful artist, one who will be revered posthumously as small comments scattered throughout Sarah's telling of the story make clear. While living with Edna and then traveling with her to Scotland, Sarah learns the secrets, large and small, of her aunt's life and comes face to face with the delicate realities of living and dying.

On the surface, a quirky tale filled with unusual characters, Coomer has a knack for delving deeply into the things that drive our lives. Here the examination is not only of life and death as points on the same continuum but also of the place of family and love on our own personal time lines. With Sarah telling the story from the benefit of hindsight, the reader knows much of the territory that the narrative will cover but that doesn't make it dismissively predictable. Instead, it freights the conversations between Sarah and aunt Edna with more portents than perhaps would have been possible otherwise. And still there are major twists that are surprising in their deviation from the expected. As the two women travel through Scotland doling out ashes in the places they have chosen, they each struggle with the path their lives are on, trying to find the right thing for themselves in balance with those surrounding them. The book is never preachy and always accessible but it is full of the symbolic and the philosophical. It is beautifully presented and entertainingly drawn, well-written and appealing. You'll warm to the characters, ache with their indecision and weaknesses, and laugh with their eccentricities. You might even learn something about art and art process (I sure did). Readers looking for an unusual story will be richly rewarded with this one. It's a gem.

Review: The Gollywhopper Games by Jody Feldman

I was working at the school's book fair the other day and thought this one sounded cute. I set it aside to get for my second grade son but after a mom at the bookfair asked me to read it and let her know how it was, I dove into it first. I do still think it'll be cute for the kiddo but as an adult I have to say it was awfully derivative and that was somewhat disappointing. Even the author admits in the end note that she specifically wrote this when she couldn't find another book to satisfy a child who had just finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And the obvious influence of that classic is evident in so many ways in this one.

Gil Goodson is desperate to join and ultimately win the Gollywhopper Games, the 50th anniversary celebration of the Golly Toy Company. If he wins, his dad has promised him that the family will move out of town and away from the lingering terribleness and malicious gossip following "The Incident." It turns out that The Incident refers to Gil's father being arrested for embezzling from the Golly Toy Company and although he is eventually found not guilty, the town has tried him in the court of public opinion and come back with a guilty verdict, resulting in the ostracizing of the family and Gil in particular. And Gil wants to leave all of this behind, hence his entry in the contest.

He does get into the contest, successfully answering questions related to Golly products and he is one of the top ten after the final question, ensuring that he can go forward in the Games. Like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Golly Toy Company building, where the second portion of the contest takes place, is an awe inspiring place of magic and fantasy. And Gil is, of course, not alone as a contestant. His fellow contestants are initially his teammates: Thorn, whose father bought up enough toys to guarantee him a spot in the contest; Rocky, who used to live in town and is so focused on winning that he is willing to cheat in order to come out on top; Lavinia, the sheltered bookworm; and Bianca, whose sole goal is to make it on tv. First the group must work as a team to defeat the other team of five and then they must compete as individuals to win it all. Although Charlie and the Chocolate Factory doesn't have puzzles to solve and stunts to perform, these puzzles and stunts are still reminiscent of the various stages of the tour Willy Wonka offers since they take place in a wonderous and fantastical place with characters eliminated at each juncture.

The subplot of Gil's father's disgrace comes into play a few times throughout the action of the novel and while the resolution is predictable and easy to see as an adult, I'm not convinced that it would be so glaringly obvious to a child. The characters here are, thankfully, not entirely good or bad (well, aside from Gil, who is a bit of a conciliatory wishy-washy character). The ultimate end of the book is so predictable that it was disappointing to me and the puzzles weren't as hard as say, those that Ellen Raskin concocts in some of her wonderful books like The Westing Game, but they will probably be hard enough for the target audience, if the audience tries to solve them themselves instead of racing through the explanations to get back to the games. Feldman is inventive in her setting but given that she seems to have the imagination, I found it a let down that she didn't go further afield from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the plot. However, I suspect that this is simply a problem because I am an adult reading the book and not a kid. If you only have time for one book, I'd say read Charlie but if you have time for two, go ahead and compare with this one too. Oh, and one final note: this would not be a good read aloud book unless the reader is willing to draw visuals of the word puzzles.

Review: Fool by Christopher Moore

Are you a fan of an offbeat sense of humor? Of the completely warped? Of witty but completely irreverent re-writings? Of hilarious bawdiness? Have you made the reading acquaintance of Christopher Moore yet? I stumbled on his writing completely by accident but I should be upfront and honest and say that I have been in love ever since. This man has never yet failed to truly make me laugh out loud when I am reading one of his books. For him, I will even read vampire novels (and that's really going some). So it was inevitable that I would start reading Fool just about six nanoseconds after I walked in my door with it in my hot little hands. (I would have started earlier but reading and driving at the same time are too much of a challenge for this can't walk and chew gum at the same time kind of girl.)

So, a re-write of King Lear from his fool's perspective. Could be a tricky undertaking, at the very least one that will have Shakespeare scholars with their knickers in a knot. While a re-telling, Moore isn't overly concerned with absolute fidelity to the original, cleverly bringing in the witches from Macbeth and his own warped and delightfully nefarious twists. Pocket, Lear's fool, narrates the events of the novel and he's wildly entertaining, as befits a fool. He's also obsessed with sex and intrigue and naughty language (well, naughty anything really). He plays Regan and Goneril like harps, engineering much of the action familiar to Lear readers.

Moore is truly a wordsmith and he has crafted a sly and witty book (mostly) within the confines of Shakespeare's original. He has created some of the most wonderful insults in print today (a true talent given the difficulty of developing entirely new insults that are both effective and memorable) and throughout the novel, you can't help but have the sense that Moore, like Shakespeare has a real and appreciable love for language, its uses and the ways in which to manipulate with it and create things anew. I could rave about this one nigh on forever but I'll spare you the gushing. If you aren't easily offended by potty humor, like British slang (despite Moore's Americanness, his British narrator is believable and authentic sounding--although not terribly Shakespearean), appreciate likable characters, and are amenable to re-writings of the Bard's famous works, this might just be for you. But only if you have a wonderful sense of humor and don't mind perfect strangers looking at you oddly as you guffaw in public should you be so foolhardy as to read this anywhere but the privacy of your own home. And once you've read this (and have come back here and duly thanked me), go on out and try the rest of Moore's entertaining oeuvre.

Review: Inside the Postal Bus by Michael Barry

I saw this book at the local charity shop when I went to drop off 9(!) paper grocery bags full of books and thought of a friend for whom I wanted to buy it. And because I am one of those kinds of friends, I read it first, of course. Written by a member of the US Postal professional cycling team, this is a combination memoir of the 2004 season (when Lance Armstrong won his record sixth Tour de France) and a bit of insight into what it's like to be on one of, if not the premier, cycling teams in the world.

I know next to nothing about cycling as a sport. I think the last time I went out for a ride on a bike, it had a banana seat. Not that that dates me or anything. But when I clip my cycling shoes into the pedals of the spin bikes (it's been months since I even did that), it makes me feel all fancy and professional. Ha! But I was curious about the life of a professional cyclist and thought this book would be a great opportunity to learn more. Barry discusses daily life on the team and talks about his team mates' accomplishments. He shares the grueling training regimen of a professional cyclist and the tactics and adrenaline-fueled race efforts that are such a major portion of their lives. The heady races around Europe (where the majority of the races take place) both powered by their own legs and the races on flights and by bus just to get to the races are described in detail. And each of the bigger races is broken down and analyzed in great depth.

If a reader is a cyclist, this attention to detail is probably fascinating. On the other hand, for those of us who only don bike shorts to go workout at the Y, the detail is exhaustive and a bit excessive. I think the book is intended to reach a non-specialist audience but it doesn't quite make it. The writing is often choppy and jumps from topic to topic. It founders a bit organizationally. There's little information about the author himself, which perhaps led to my feeling unconnected to the book. More personal information both about Barry and about any or all of his teammates would have been nice. And I don't mean of the expose sort. Entertaining anecdotes about things that happened on the bus, between roommates, at meals, etc. which told a bit about the personalities of the friends and competitors would have added immeasurably to the enjoyment factor here. There was some interesting information about the way that each team works, their strategies, and what it takes to ensure that a team's leader will win a big race. But the interesting information was overshadowed by a blow by blow recitation from each big race. By the time we reached the end, I had no doubts that the overall actions of the peloton and the groupetto would be much the same in each race and I didn't need to read about it repetitively. This book had the potential for so much more. I know Barry is a world class cyclist, riding with the best of the best, and in love with his sport. But who he and his teammates are in terms of human interest? Well, that's not in here and I for one wish it had been. Recommended for the hard core cyclist only.

Review: Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker

During a trip to Ireland, Norman Huntley, lay-clerk chorister and student organist, and his mechanic friend Henry stop in to tour a less than impressive church, as much to escape the rain as for any interest in the edifice itself. But on the tour given them by the sexton, they not only feign interest, they create out of whole cloth an elderly friend of theirs who had once been an intimate of the late, beloved vicar. Not content to throw out a made-up name (Miss Connie Hargreaves), they also endow their creation with any number of ridiculous eccentricities and oddments. The farce entertains them long after they leave the church and on a whim, they send a letter, inviting Miss Hargreaves to visit Norman in his home town of Conford, to the hotel they've decided she always removes to for that month of the year. As the entire thing is started as a lark, it is a little startling when Norman receives a telegram telling him when to expect Miss Hargreaves. It's beyond startling when Miss Hargreaves actually turns up, exactly as Norman and Henry have imagined her.

Miss Hargreaves, as she's imagined, starts to cause all sorts of stress for Norman within his family, in his job, and especially with his girlfriend. Worse yet, whenever there's a disturbance in the town, Norman can almost be assured that his Miss Hargreaves is behind it. And no one believes Norman when he tries continuously to explain that he made this strange, elderly woman up. Even Henry thinks that Norman has pulled a fast one on him. The only person who might believe Norman is his dreamy, distracted father, who seems to agree that the power of creation is enormous right before he drifts back off into his own world.

Norman is torn between being proud and slightly fond of his creation and wanting her to disappear entirely. But because he can't help but preen a bit, Miss Hargreaves feels snubbed and gaining in power, starts to create her own story, shucking off Norman's control entirely. And that is when bad things start to excelerate for Norman.

When I first read the description of this one, I was intrigued by the different sounding treatment of the Pygmalion myth and thought it was likely to be a gentle, sweet, and charming story (not that the original was either, mind you). But right from the beginning there is a sense of menace as Norman alludes to his being suspected of a crime despite there being no evidence. And as Miss Hargreaves grows and changes throughout the story, the sinister sense grows and certainly outpaces any light heartedness that tried to peek its head up. The tension builds, desperation becomes palpable, and the power of creation is acknowledged in this beautifully clad Bloomsbury Group re-issue of the 1939 novel. If I had had different expectations going into the novel, I might have liked it more than I did as it is really well written, starting out blurried and slowly coming into focus to shock the reader. I am still sorry it wasn't what I had expected but it's hardly fair to judge the book on my dashed expectations and I think that many other readers will appreciate it quite a lot.

Review: A Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson

Mr. Malik is a quiet, gentle, unassuming man. He is one of the many who show up every week to go on bird walks sponsored by the East African Ornithological Society and led by Rose Mbikwa, a redheaded Scottish woman, the widow of a Kenyan opposition politican who moved to Kenya and fell in love both with her husband and with the country. Mr. Malik not only enjoys the birds they see on these outings, but he is also more than a little in love with Rose.

The book's conflict comes in the person of an old school acquaintance of Mr. Malik's, one who humiliated Mr. Malik as a young boy and who now seems poised to barge into Rose's life despite Mr. Malik's misgivings. When both men want to invite Rose to the Asadi Club's annual ball, instead of making Rose choose, the men come up with a contest to determine the more worthy suitor. The man who spots the most different varieties of birds will win the honor of asking Rose to the ball. The ways in which the two men go about finding their birds and the things that impede them along the way illustrate quite a lot about their respective characters. The outcome will surprise and delight the reader in this charming, light book.

The characters as drawn are delightful. Mr. Malik is generally respectful and courtly. The bits of his life beyond the contest to win Rose are rich and full, intriguing and compassionate. Harry Khan is more opaque to the reader but his character is teased out well enough by a few choice incidents as well. The reader definitely roots for one man over the other but getting to the conclusion of the contest is sheer brightness and light and worth every small page it takes to get there.

I thoroughly enjoyed this simple and heartwarming book, laughing with the gentle humor and enjoying the unusual premise and tone. Not for those seeking something fast paced but lovely for someone seeking a slower, richly rewarding afternoon's read.

Review: As Sure As the Sun by Anna McPartlin

Harri Ryan has a panic attack and ends up at the hospital instead of at the altar. This is the second time she has missed her own wedding and fiance James can't take a third try, having packed his belongings and left before she even returns from the hospital. But Harri's panic attacks seem to be connected to something a lot deeper than just cold feet. What Harri learns when she confronts her parents changes her whole life and also that of her twin George. In full fledged retreat from her family, Harri must learn who she is and how she will go forward with the information they've given her.

Harri's story is interwoven with the diary of a young teenaged girl who lives with an abusive step-father and a broken mother. The connection between the two tales builds gradually, easily becoming clear to the reader early on. It is to McPartlin's credit that this transparency doesn't change the reader's desire to hear the outcome of both Harri and Liv's stories. And she still manages to give a neat and unexpected twist to the outcome.

For the most part, I was caught up in the story but it did run on a bit more than I would have liked. I'm also not certain that I think Harri's panic attacks could be traced back to this old scandal and the secretive way it was buried given her age when it occurred but I suppose the unconscious does some crazy, unexplainable things. Even if I don't buy the origins of Harri's panic attacks, I still think that McPartlin has managed to capture the essence of panic attacks and of debilitating depression. And it's hard not to root for Harri to overcome both in order to win back James. His character is not present enough in the book to feel complete but Harri's family and the way that they each react not only to the revelation but to her response is eminently believable. Each of them suffers and each of them deserves pity, just as she does, working through their shared new reality. The book is well-written and deals with a darker subject than the chick-lit cover would indicate and I liked it for the most part even though it took me longer than it should have to get through it.

Review: What We Eat When We Eat Alone by Deborah Madison and Patrick McFarlin

Not exactly a cookbook and not exactly a narrative non-fiction account of food lovers, this has aspects of both things in its composition plus charming and appealing illustrations (not of the food but rather the situations). Madison and McFarlin apparently spent years asking people what they eat when they eat alone, even before they came up with the idea of creating this book from the answers. Each chapter ends with recipes culled from the responses and scaled to serve one or at most two people. They look at but don't come to many meaningful conclusions about the differences between how men and women cook for themselves. They offer up the things they think everyone should learn to cook before they are grown. And they discuss the motives behind meals, the themes they ran across amongst solo cooks, and the comfort foods that hark back to childhood.

The stories told in the book started to feel rather repetitive as I read along. And I have not yet tried any of the recipes, although a few piqued my interest. But be warned that the recipes are heavily weighted towards southwestern food (perhaps because they live in NM or perhaps because southwestern fare is fairly easy to cook for one) and they pre-suppose a proximity to a wonderful market in which to obtain fresh and oftentimes tough to find ingredients in so many other corners of the country. Mostly I liked leafing through the book and savouring the quirky illustrations more than actually reading the text. It might inject some needed variety in the menus of someone eating alone though. At the very least, it will be something with which to while away a solitary meal.

Review: The Pirates! In An Adventure with Napoleon by Gideon Defoe

The fourth in a series I have previously enjoyed, this entry wasn't nearly as humorous and entertaining as the prior books although it did still cause a few chuckles. The Pirate Captain and his crew are back but the Pirate Captain is not himself. He seems weary of pirating and when he is beaten out by some pompous little upstart for Pirate of the Year, he declares his intention to retire. The crew cannot dissuade him and they loyally follow their captain as he is bested by Black Bellamy again, buying land on St. Helena, soon to be home to the infamous Napoleon, and trying to become beekeepers. Many hijinx ensue as both the Pirate Captain and Napoleon vie to be the most famous, most important citizen on St. Helena. I don't know whether the swashbuckling is getting old (even the author admits tongue in cheek that he might be a bit of a one trick pony) or if I missed the references in the jokes but this fourth in the series didn't captivate me like the others did. As a continuation of a running joke, it was a decent enough entry but it wouldn't have inspired me to read further had it been my introduction to the pirates. All of the usual characters are here: the pirate with the red scarf, the pirate with gout, the albino pirate, etc. and they do their usual covering for the dim-witted, laughably egotistical Pirate Captain. But the caper with Napoleon is less madcap than previous capers and perhaps that explains my disappointment here. Well, that and the noticeable lack of ham. Still of interest to fans of the series I hope future books will hark back to the goofy, off-kilter humor and plots of the prior books.

Review: Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned From Judy Blume edited by Jennifer O'Connell

If you were a girl growing up in the 1980's, chances are you read Judy Blume's books. And if you read Judy Blume's books, chances are even better that you still remember one or more of them better than many books that you have read subsequently. Who doesn't remember Are You There God, It's Me Margaret? And of course, everyone passed Forever around to read the juicy bits. I personally identified with Iggie's House although I was always the kid moving, not the one left behind to befriend the new family in the house. I still have my original Judy Blume books and have passed them along to my older children (and it's about time to pass the less girlish ones along to the small boy as well). And really, the way that these books captured a generation is unique and the very thing that this collection edited by Jennifer O'Connell celebrates.

This is a collection of essays written by current YA and chick lit writers is nostalgic and familiar. Their essays on the work or works that meant the most to them as they developed as girls and young women could have been written by your best girlfriends. As Blume's books are pretty universal, so are the essays in this book. The authors have chosen a wide range of the Blume canon about which to write. The ways in which these stories have impacted their lives, the extent to which they remember the stories, and the breadth of the debt some of their own writing owes to the stories varies but it's likely that you'll find yourself nodding your head in agreement with most, if not all, of them. It is amazing how this shared cultural experience still forms us so many years later. This is very much a love letter and a thank you note to Ms. Blume and I admit that I read it with a huge smile on my face. I might be an adult now, but just reading about others' Blume experiences as preteens and teens had the power to take me back to that more innocent time in my life. And we can all use a little more innocence these days.

Review: Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby

I should preface this review by admitting that I am totally in love with Nick Hornby. I have never met the man, or even seen him in a picture (unless the stylized guy on the covers of the three collections of The Believer essays is him) but I have a raging crush on him anyway and it's all because of books like this one.

This is the third in the collection of essays Hornby wrote for The Believer magazine, following The Polysyllabic Spree and Housekeeping Versus the Dirt. They all start off with a list of books he's bought and books he's read that month. The lists never match up, which is true for most reading addicts I know and is endearing as get out to this addict, who loves to know she is not alone. Then the essays range over the books he's read that month, sometimes touching on their connections to life and other times entertaining digressions from the world of books entirely. As per magazine policy, he only discusses books he's enjoyed but occasionally mentions, without identifying features, books he's set aside as unreadable. The essays read like a conversation you might have with Hornby while walking down a street together, easy and comfortable, smart and engaging. This is truly a wonderful book for other book lovers, and especially those of us who take some measure of enjoyment from writing about what we've read. Unfortunately, this is the last of the collections of this type as Hornby has left the magazine to spend more time with his family. A sad event for his readers although probably a happy one for his family (darn them anyway). Highly recommended.

Review: Mastering the Marquess by Vanessa Kelly

In this Regency-set historical romance, Meredith's Burnley must take her sickly sister and flee her awful uncle's plans to marry her off to her cousin. But this plan is complicated. Meredith's sister is actually a half-sister and their reception at Annabel's grandparents' home is uncertain as her mother had been disowned for marrying Meredith's father. And no one knows how far their uncle will go to try and marry the nearly connectionless Meredith to his son while they wait to see if Annabel's grandfather will ever accept his granddaughter. Meanwhile, Annabel's grandmother has cooked up a scheme whereby her nephew, the Marquess of Silverton, will marry Annabel and mend the family rift. But Stephen is drawn to Meredith and vice versa. The evil uncle will not be denied and matters come to a head, in love and in war.

When I need a happily ever after, I turn to romances, knowing I will get my wish and this one delivered on that desire, as expected. The writing was fine but the plot was not terribly memorable, echoing so many other books in so many small and large ways. Most genre work has stock characters or situations and this one was no exception. I have to admit I am somewhat jaded by the "just in time" rescue from a kidnapping and of the one-dimensional evil character masquerading as a slightly off-putting generally upstanding person. But in asking for a certain outcome, I hav signed on to some of these cliches and I guess I should accept that. I can sacrifice unique for the desired predictability if I get a few hours of entertainment from the book and this one provided me with that. All in all, it was what I wanted.

Review: A Pigeon and a Boy by Meir Shalev

Having read Shalev's beautiful novel, The Blue Mountain, I was eager to see if A Pigeon and a Boy was as gorgeously rendered as that one was. I have to say that I still find the other more enticing but this has an appealing dream-like cast to it. Two different stories that converge in the narrative, the story opens with a rich American, former member of the Palmach telling of the death of a boy and his symbolic release of a final homing pigeon as he dies in battle to the other tour members and Yair, their Israeli tour guide. From this point onward, the narrative splits into the stories of Yair's life and that of Baby, the young homing pigeon handler who died so many years ago in the fighting. But as the stories diverge, so they must, in the end, converge again. Both stories center on love and its loss: man-woman, mother-son, and friend-friend. Shalev draws Israel before Independence with minute strokes, describing the place and everything in it with a detailed richness that sometimes threatens to overwhelm the reader. His characters are lost and found again in love drawing understanding sympathies from the reader. The tragedies and betrayals, both physical and emotional, that play out in the novel are piercing and yet there is still ultimately a redemptive feel to the novel as a whole: the past melts seamlessly into the present and the present can be made right. I found it initially hard to sink into the book fully but once I made that effort, I was rewarded by a stunning book; one that will stay with me for a long time.

Review: Welcome to the Departure Lounge: Adventures in Mothering Mother by Meg Federico

In this non-fiction account of taking care of her aging mother, Meg Federico has tapped into an experience that more and more people are facing. Over a ten year span of time, Federico faced the nuttiness, the anxiety, the exhaustion, and the sheer terror and heart-break of finally having to parent a parent. Federico acknowledges that for the sake of the story she has minimized her siblings' contributions to her mother and step-father's care and that Addie and Walter were blessed with enough money to live through most of this period of time in their own home under the care of home care aides, unlike many aging folks out there. There are hard truths about aging here but Federico leavens these truths with humor. She doesn't flinch from admitting the toll it took on her, her husband , and her children, to be a long-distance caretaker to two people who not only faced dementia but a litany of other chronic health-care issues as well. Walter started ordering sexual aids through the mail. Addie drank to excess. Both of them waged outright war with certain of their aides. But even at their most bizarre or outrageous, they are, at the end of the day, waging a losing battle against the ravages of time and their children have no choice but to try and conduct them to the end of the war as easily as possible.

This book is both terrible and hilarious. It is well-written and honest. What is very clear throughout all of Federico's dealings with her mother is how much she does what she does out of love and not obligation, even when being there for Addie is its most grueling and difficult. I don't know that we have a choice in how we age, whether we are going to become completely irrascible and cantankerous, or if we will meekly accept what others deem to be in our best interest. Does it depend on our prior dispositions? In Federico's musings on both Addie and Walter's personalities before the ravages of age changed them, we see seeds of the elderly people they become but those seeds were certainly tempered by other aspects of their personalities that seem to have faded under the onslaught of the stronger (and ultimately nuttier) aspects that ruled the last ten years of life. And learning to adjust to and accept these stronger personalities is one of the challenges for a child taking care of her elderly parent. As I read along in this, I couldn't help but laugh, even as I gasped in horror at the indignities incumbent in growing old. There is a card or plaque or bumper sticker out there somewhere that tells us that "Growing Old Isn't For Sissies" and this book certainly supports the sentiment wholeheartedly. In the end, after Addie's death, Federico imagines her response to this difficult and love-filled memoir of the end of life and of the ten year long journey Federico herself took with her mother towards this end. And her imagined response beautifully encapsulates so much of their relationship that it is likely to leave you with a smile on your face and tears shimmering in your eyes.

Review: The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide to Raising Children for Fun and Profit by Jill Conner Browne

I picked this up at the bookstore on a whim because I enjoyed the humor in the first few Sweet Potato Queen books. I expected to be easily sucked into this and find chuckles galore but that turned out to not be the case. Unfortunately, this tongue in cheek look at rearing children was not nearly as original or funny as I'd hoped. Perhaps I'm too far away from babyhood (although the title does not imply that the bulk of the book will be focused on infants and little tiny people, now does it? And heaven knows the older mine get, the closer they creep to teenaged life, the more rearing they require but I digress) or Conner Browne is far enough away herself (farther than I am actually as Bo Peep is older than my crew by a few years) that she is unaware of the books already out there on the market that say the same things this one does and also says them humorously (Vicki Iovine, anyone?) but I found myself almost bored reading this. I've not only been there, done that, I've already read the book too. It was a quick read and it did eventually touch on older children but since the bulk of the book focuses on the small fry, I can't really recommend this to anyone but perhaps the expectant mom or the new mom who can still find time to eke out a chapter or two once a year, anyone else, including new moms who read more widely than that, will feel like this is a rehashing with a few minorly entertaining anecdotes at most. (And yes, I know I am probably forfeiting any chance at ever being a Queen myself with these comments--although I still think the original book is pure comedy genius.)