Review: Openly Bob by Bob Smith

Smith was the first openly gay comic to appear on The Tonight Show. Given that I am long asleep before the show comes on, I did not see him on there and had few expectations of this book beyond hearing from a friend years ago that it was hilarious. And you know what? It absolutely was hilarious. This is a memoir of sorts in the form of essays that Smith has written dealing with being gay and being a grown-up. He takes on all sorts of topics like needing couples counseling, coming out to his parents, taking his boyfriend home to meet his quirky family, working as a comic, auditioning for roles as the stereotypical gay man, and so much more. The tone throughout these connected essays is humorous and amusing and while a few pieces have bits that might date them, it is also instructive that some of his politically relevant jibes are still, unfortunately, relevant, 12 years after this book won a Lambda Literary Award. Smith has a biting humor and a sharp wit and those who enjoy word play, will find much to admire here. Although the essays were certainly polished over time, it is clear that Smith must be a pretty darn funny stand-up comic off the cuff as well. He's insightful and observant and quirky and the book stands as an entertaining testament to the ups and downs in one gay man's slightly offbeat life. Read this one when you want to laugh, a lot.

A-Z Wednesday

Reading at the Beach is hosting A-Z Wednesday where bloggers take the time to highlight one book that starts with the letter of the day. This week is the letter Z or Zed as our British friends say.

Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis is the very last book in my collection if go alpahbetically by title. I read it too many years ago now to admit to, long before I knew it was a classic of any sort. I just stumbled across it in a used bookstore, read the description and handed over my $2 for it. Did I enjoy it? I can't honestly remember although the fact that it is still on my shelf almost 30 years late argues that I did.

Amazon offers the bland and rather unappealing:

The unnamed narrator is a scholarly, introspective writer who opens a coal mine on the fertile island of Crete. He is gradually drawn out of his ascetic shell by an elderly employee named Zorba, an ebullient man who revels in the social pleasures of eating, drinking, and dancing. The narrator's reentry into a life of experience is completed when his newfound lover, the village widow, is ritually murdered by a jealous mob.

A customer offers a more compelling reason to read this:

Zorba is a man who has lived fully. He has been a soldier, a miner, an itinerant musician... He is a man who knows all the tricks and has travelled the world; he has taken advantage of others and has also loved; in his sixties he says to be driven by an inner Zorba who claims to be thirty and, often, behaves as if he were fifteen ... This huge character is offered a job as foreman in a mine, and the story focuses on this episode of his life and on his relationship with his employer, a timid, intellectual young man who has only lived, vicariously, through books and whose world view is shaken by Zorba's stories and way of life. In this book the exuberant Zorba, is contrasted with the mystical, restrained narrator, a dreamer with no practical skills who is looking for a direction in his life. The mine is located in Crete, and the place were they live is depicted as very traditional, hard, and brutal. There are many disturbing scenes, such as the killing of a young woman because she has rejected the advances of a suitor, or the plundering of a house by the people of the village which begins when its owner is agonizing. Occasionally, there are also scenes that show the joy of life and which celebrate pleasure and happiness. Zorba the Greek is a complex book, like its main character, which contains many objectionable ideas and attitudes, but which is full of life and a very Dionysian joy.

Maybe it's time to revisit this one myself and see.

Review: This Lovely Life by Vicki Forman

Vicki Forman's twins Ellie and Evan were born at only 23 weeks and weighed just over a pound a piece when they were born. Knowing as she did, the terrible odds stacked against her babies, Forman begged doctors to let them go at birth instead of using heroic measures to keep them alive. But doctors didn't listen and the babies were whisked off to the NICU to start the fight to live. Ellie died four days later. Evan faced almost every medical challenge possible but he lived. This devastating memoir is the story of Evan's survival, the long road both emotionally and medically that the entire Forman family faced, having lost one baby and having another with multiple permanent disabilities. It is harrowing and open and anger and guilt-fueled but it is also the story of a powerful love both for the baby who died and the baby who didn't. It is primarily a memoir of motherhood, or as the subtitle says, premature motherhood, although Forman does touch on some of her husband's grief and way of coping with the overwhelming uncertainty and dread and on how they as a couple found the strength to continue on together in the face of the enormous obstacles facing Evan.

This story will leave the reader drained but impressed with the empowerment and advocacy that Forman grew into in the unexpected years of mothering her disabled but no less perfect for that boy. The winner of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Bakeless Prize, this is exquisitely written and deeply felt. It takes the reader on the roller coaster ride that parents with medically fragile children face every day. And it gives a glimpse of the unrelentingly different sense of normal experienced by families with ex-micropreemies or multiply disabled children. Much of the memoir focuses on the first two years of Evan's life and how Forman became the mother he needed. But it also deals with the way she bottled her grief for the loss of Ellie because of Evan's daily struggle. And while there's no miracle ending here, there is still a sense of the miraculous and the beautiful. Life and death are so intimately intertwined here, ethical and moral questions abound but ultimately there's an all pervading mother love, strongly and unstintingly stated. It feels strange to say that a story so shattering can be hopeful and affirmative and yes, even enjoyable, but it is. Just be prepared to weep yourself dry when you read this incredibly worthwhile memoir.

Thanks to the publisher for a review copy of the book.

The Book List Meme

Rebecca of Lost in Books has come up with a new meme that hits on one of my very favorite things in the whole world: lists. Here's what she says about it:

There is a different topic each week, which will be posted here.

You write a post on your own blog about the topic.

The post will be a list of 3 books pertaining to the topic. So, for example, if the topic were, say, 3 Books That Make You Want to Go Shopping, you would write a list of 3 books that when you read them made you want to max out your credit card. I have no idea what those books would be, but you get the picture.

You may include photos with your lists, especially if that helps illustrate your point.

You link back to the week's post here on Lost in Books in your post so if someone else wants to play, they can find their way here.

Then you come here and leave your link in the Mr. Linky so other people can find your post and your list!

This week the challenge is to list three books you read when you need a good cry. In cruising my shelves, I found:

1. Mrs. Mike by Benedict and Nancy Freedman
The sheer number of deaths from epidemics makes you weep until your eyes are dry (even worse that there's truth to the idea.)

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
I sob like a lunatic every time Cedric dies. Actually, I sob more when Dumbledore gives his moving speech about Cedric's death.

3. Marley and Me by John Grogan
Although I've listed this one, it really stands for all books where beloved animals die at the end. I've been crying over animal deaths since Charlotte's Web.

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.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading This Week?

This meme is hosted by J. Kaye at J. Kaye's Book Blog. I started bouncing all over the place reading-wise so I didn't get much finished this week but I did at least manage to continue to write up reviews.

Books I completed this week are:

This Lovely Life by Vicki Forman
Openly Bob by Bob Smith
The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories by Charles Chestnutt
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
Barely a Bride by Rebecca Hagan Lee
A Slant of Sun by Beth Kephart
Dog Years by Mark Doty

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Return by Victoria Hislop
The Sexual Life of Catherine M. by Catherine Millet

Reviews posted this week:

Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin
Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland
My Darling, My Hamburger by Paul Zindel
Romeo Romeo by Robin Kaye
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
Reasons by Tracy Fabre

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker
This Lovely Life by Vicki Forman
Openly Bob by Bob Smith
The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories by Charles Chestnutt
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
Barely a Bride by Rebecca Hagan Lee
A Slant of Sun by Beth Kephart
Dog Years by Mark Doty

Giveaways on the blog

The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg

Monday Mailbox

A different sick kid and nasty cold weather that is worse than the area's seen in 30 some years all combined to make me a little cranky. Good thing books continued to arrive in the mail to keep me from turning into the crank of the century. This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Admit One by Emmett James came from Lisa at Online Publicist.
I couldn't resist this memoir about a boy who escapes into films and eventually makes his way to Hollywood to pursue his dream of becoming an actor.

Keeping the Feast by Paula Butturini came from the publisher, River Head Books.
With a subtitle of One Couple's Story of Love, Food, and Healing in Italy, you tell me which part doesn't sream read me! That's right, not one single part.

Petals From the Sky by Mingmei Yip came from LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
A young woman decides to become a nun and spends ten years of her life in preparation. But then she is rescued from a fire at her Buddhist retreat by an American doctor and she must consider another life.

The Book of William by Paul Collins came from the delightful Tina at Tutu's Two Cents because she's just that generous.
A history of Shakespeare's First Folio? Could the anticipation be more delicious?

How High the Moon by Sandra Kring came from Bantam Books at the author's request.
An unrestrained, free-spirit of a ten year old, abandoned by her mother, who is matched with a the 17 year old town sweetheart for a summer enrichment program must mean all sorts of good reading is sure to follow, don't you think?!

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Marcia at The Printed Page and enjoy seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.