It's been a spate of non-fiction this last month or two. It started with a book sent to me by my mom called The Power of Habit-Why We Do What We Do In Life And In Business by Charles Duhigg. It's a combo of self help and business practices, all with fascinating stories around certain companies, products and society. A good read, but nothing earth shattering to learn for me. There is no magic bullet to changing habits!
Next I read Soldier Dogs - The Untold Story of America's Canine Heroes by Maria Goodavage. Ms. Goodavage was on The Daily Show promoting her book and it caught my fancy as I had recently finished reading about Rin Tin Tin. I was amazed at the amount of dogs there are in the military and the kind of training they go through. You have to be a very special dog to pass muster in the military. And yet they are still considered "supplies" like guns or vehicles. The stories of various events in Afghanistan and Iraq are amazing and the love the handlers have for their dogs is unsurprisingly touching. The dogs save lives and frequently give up their own as they are the first body in the way of bomb.
Lastly, I read Save The Cat! Goes To The Movies by Blake Snyder. This was also a gift from mom, or rather I should say Harper (with help from mom) on Mother's Day. If you are wanting to write screenplays, Save The Cat is a great book to read. This second book takes what is in the original book, styles of scripts and movies, and divides them into type ("Golden Fleece" or "Dude with a Problem" or "Monster In The House") and then uses a specific movie as an example, breaking it down to its elements. It's a fun read and very educational. I already had some ideas on rewrites for my current script just from reading this. Highly recommend!
Yesterday we had a lovely visit from Auntie Wendy and she brought Harper her first travel book. And what a wonderful book it is! I can't wait to read the book to Harper and more than that, can't wait to take her to Venice! Thanks Wendy!
Harper is almost four months old and lucky us, goes to sleep around the same time every night. That means I can then cozy into my own bed and read before I got to sleep. JOY!
For Christmas (or birthday?) I got the book Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend by Susan Orlean and couldn't wait to read it. I had heard of the dog, but didn't know much and was amazed to find out what a gigantic star he was in the 20's. HUGE. Silent films often had animals as leading characters which makes sense as you could put any thoughts into their heads on screen.
Rinty was apparently a phenomenal actor though many of his films were lost due to neglect and decay. The story of Rinty, his offspring/legacy and his master is a good one, I only wish there were more photos!
I have now moved on to reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. It was a surprise gift from my mom and it's pretty fascinating so far!
There are many more books stacked on my bedside table just waiting. Big thanks to Harper for being a good sleeper so that Momma can get some reading done!
Last night I went out with Sarah to a literary evening in Santa Monica. Kurt and Harper had Friday night on their own. The book in question was "Lost Kingdom" by Julia Flynn Siler, about the history of Hawaii through 1900. (Similar to "Unfamiliar Fishes" by Sarah Vowel.) Sarah and I became mini celebrities as the we were the only people there from Hawaii. Fun evening out!
The reading has been slowed down a bit as I tackled two LARGE books these last six weeks or so. The first was ESPN: Those Guys Have All The Fun by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. I have watched enough SportsCenter since being married to Kurt to appreciate the sports channel and was curious about its personalities and history.
I'll admit right here, I didn't finish it. I got about 2/3 of the way through (it's 784 pages) and was done. The story is fascinating, no doubt, but after a while it got kind of tiring to read. The style in which it's put together is different in that it is not a straight up narrative written by the two authors. Instead it is a collection of interviews that have been broken up to tell the cable channel's history from the beginning. So you read the different perspectives of all the significant players in chopped up form. It took a little getting used to and sometimes it's broken up by a comment by the authors to provide context or to set up the next series of quotes. I found this style a bit distracting and herky jerky. If you are at all interested in sports and are a fan of ESPN, then it's really for you. There are so many ups and downs, so many hilarious moments and many interesting dramatic moments. Just cuz I didn't finish it doesn't mean it's not worth getting.
Next up I read another long one (500 pages this time): Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. It wasn't something I was dying to read but a friend loaned it to me and I thought what the heck. I had read The Corrections years ago and found it well written, but for the life of me I can't tell you what it was about other than a family with issues. (hmmmm, how many novels does that describe?) I think I enjoyed this book more than The Corrections, but still felt quite distant from the characters and the action. I always looked forward to reading it, but not in a very passionate way. There were a few nights when I stayed up later than normal reading and found it hard to put down, but more because the "action" had more momentum, not because I was emotionally attached. The guy can write, there is no question, but in a few years will I remember what the story was about? Hard to tell.
I just finished reading Freedom last night, so I'm not sure what I'll open tonight. I might start The Wave by Susan Casey (about giant ocean waves and "the surfers and scientists who seek them out") or maybe find something else I bought a whle back and stashed on a shelf. I'll begin my search after dinner...
There have been many sad stories of independent bookstores being closed due to larger chains coming into their areas. But now one of the bigger chains is closing a store near me and I'm really bummed!* I just read that the Barnes and Noble at the Westside Pavilion will be closing soon.
DAMMIT!
Yes, I'm one of those old fashioned people who actually likes actual BOOKS. (It's going to be a long while before I get a kindle or other ereader. Truly.) I'm also old fashioned in that I like going to a bookstore and browsing among the tables and shelves full of books, all their covers beckoning me to take a look. A good bookstore is my favorite place to shop for gifts, from kids to grown-ups to grandparents.
The Barnes and Noble is right next to the theaters at the Westside Pavilion which made it easy to browse before or after seeing a movie. Sometimes the movie would inspire me to go find more info on whatever the topic was and buy a book. Now if I want to browse a big bookstore, I have to go to Santa Monica or The Grove, both quite far out of the way from where I live. And I live mere blocks from the Westside Pavilion. Apparently they are going to move the H&M to the bookstore spot. Snooze city.
I buy a lot of books from Amazon, but in all the years I've been an online shopper (I was an early adapter of online shopping because of Amazon's prices and convenience) it's never made me want to go to a bookstore LESS OFTEN. Never. I think this stems from growing up with an awesome reader as mentor: My Mother. I loved reading from way back and mom read a ton too. My favorite thing was going to the bookstore with her because she always let me buy a book. Or two. Always! Candy store? No. Toy store? No. Bookstore? EVERY TIME! Shopping at a bookstore is in my DNA.
I'm really going to miss the BN. You know what Culver City needs? A big bookstore. Hey Culver City, what do you think?
*I know that Borders completely going out of business is more of a shock, especially on Maui, but I never much went to Borders, so it was less life altering for me.
I've been whipping through books these last few weeks. Partly because I'm a fast reader and love reading, partly because the books I chose were fun fast reads or the kind you just can NOT put down. Having flights from LA to Maui helped as well.
This last batch started with The Pioneer Woman by Ree Drummond. She started a blog a while back about being a city girl who married a rancher in Oklahoma. The blog became a huge hit and she has become a media empire on her own, most recently with a cooking show on the Food Network.
I had given the book to a friend and then she kindly loaned it to me when she was done as I was curious about Ms. Drummond's story. I have to be honest and say I got quite tired of it pretty fast. Granted, the book reads like a collection of her blog posts and that's fine, I get it. But wow the sappiness overpowered the true emotions for me right away. Plus the fact that she never names her husband-to-be in the whole book. She only calls him "The Marlboro Man". (His name is Ladd, by the way.) Funny though, she names other men in her life.
Anyway, more power to her, she's just not my style.
Next up was The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux. Kurt and I have mentioned our desire to ride the Trans Siberian Railroad some day and someone recommended this book. The book was written in 1975 by Mr. Theroux who decided to travel by train from London to Japan and back. He had lived in Singapore for a few years before this so had some experience traveling through asia by train. It's mostly a travelogue as he winds his way through Europe, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, etc. It's fascinating to read in 2011 as things are so incredibly different now, politically, economically, culturally. The Trans Siberian railway part is the last major leg and by that time he does't write as many details as previous trains. It's a fascinating read, no matter what, and if you like train travel, you'll enjoy this, even 36 years after the fact.
Apparently he retraced his steps in 2006 and wrote a follow up called "Ghost Train to the Eastern Star" but I have yet to pick that up. He is mainly a novelist and lives part time in Hawaii, coincidentally enough.
I had wanted to read Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand since I heard about it on NPR when it was first published. I hesitated buying it because it sounded like a brutal read, even though I knew that the man she writes about, Louis Zamperini, is still alive (this is not a spoiler alert, by the way). When I was home on Maui in August, I saw it at Costco and picked it up but mom said she had a copy. So I started reading it and damn, I could not put it down. I think I read it in about two days. The first night I read about 60 pages and might have stayed up all night if I wasn't so tired.
Ms. Hillenbrand's writing is fantastic. Did you ever read Seabiscut? (No, seeing the movie doesn't count.) It's also a phenomenal story that she weaves about those four characters (the horse, the owner, the trainer the jockey). Unbroken is a similarly compelling story about Mr. Zamperini's early troubled youth, his break into running track, being at the 1936 Olympics, meeting Hitler! And then his time in WW2 as a bombardier in a B-24, crashing and surviving in a life raft longer than any person ever had, then in two hellish Japanese prison camps.The man should have died ten times over. Highly, highly recommend! (And yes, it will be made into a movie.)
Most recently I read Ready Player One by Earnest Cline. I had read about it online and in magazines and it sounded appealing. This is Mr. Cline's first novel and is a love letter to 80's pop culture. Here's a description from Amazon:
Ready Player One takes place in the not-so-distant future--the world has turned into a very bleak place, but luckily there is OASIS, a virtual reality world that is a vast online utopia. People can plug into OASIS to play, go to school, earn money, and even meet other people (or at least they can meet their avatars), and for protagonist Wade Watts it certainly beats passing the time in his grim, poverty-stricken real life. Along with millions of other world-wide citizens, Wade dreams of finding three keys left behind by James Halliday, the now-deceased creator of OASIS and the richest man to have ever lived. The keys are rumored to be hidden inside OASIS, and whoever finds them will inherit Halliday’s fortune. But Halliday has not made it easy. And there are real dangers in this virtual world. Stuffed to the gills with action, puzzles, nerdy romance, and 80s nostalgia, this high energy cyber-quest will make geeks everywhere feel like they were separated at birth from author Ernest Cline.--Chris Schluep
The story is fun, the writing style light and easy. I read this in a day and half and enjoyed it very much. There were laugh out loud moments when he mentions 80's things that I knew so well. When at a key moment he mentions the game "Tempest" I nearly spit out my coffee. That was the one arcade game I actually liked to play way back then. Plus any book that starts off immediately with a reference to Oingo Boingo is aces in my book.
I became a huge fan of The Wire last summer when I finally watched all five seasons on DVD. I got Kurt hooked too and we couldn't get enough. "The Farmer In The Dell" will never be the same. (And I don't think we'll be able to sing it to Sweet Potato without someone saying "Omar comin'!!" at some point.) (Just watch the show if you have no idea what I'm talking about.) I was going to rent "Homicide" as well, but decided to go to the source and read David Simon's book from which both shows were inspired.
Reading about one group of homicide detectives in Baltimore in the late 80's is incredibly fascinating thanks to Simon's writing style. You become so invested in every interview, every crime scene visit, every phone call. There are cases that take days to solve and cases that take months and some that never will be solved. The access and detail that Mr. Simon was privy to is amazing and I couldn't recommend a book more highly. And just go watch The Wire.
Ice T spent plenty of time on the streets in LA before his rap career really took off. I knew he was one of the original big time rappers but only really knew him through his work on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. (I never listened to rap, but loved me some hip-hop with Run-DMC.) I was curious and I was not disappointed.
You probably have a lot of assumptions about an Original Gangsta like Ice, but you'll be wrong. He was not an innocent but did you know he spent four years in the army? That he never drank or did drugs? He worked his ass off to create a name for himself in the rap world and was the first west coast rapper to really make it on the east coast. That is a big deal.
Ice will surprise and entertain you and might just open your eyes a bit.
The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall is a quirky novel about a man with four wives and something like 28 (can't recall exactly) children. It's odd and sweet and sad and wild. It took me a while to get rolling with it, but once I did, I enjoyed it.
The funny thing is that it is a period piece, taking place in the 70's in Nevada with flashes back to the atomic testing period of the late 50's and 60's. Little did I realize I would be diving right into that with my next book.
I saw Annie Jacobson on The Daily Show talking about her new book of non-fiction, Area 51. Being a fan of pop-culture and someone who "wants to believe" I thought I would check it out. I just finished it last night and was amazed at her final reveal about the Roswell Incident. No spoilers here, but if you are at all curious about that kind of thing, this is a fascinating read. It might get your conspiracy juices flowing because man, the secrets this country keeps!
The book focuses mainly on nuclear testing (mind blowing stories and information about the size of the bombs tested and how close people were to observe, some flying right through the mushroom clouds as part of the testing!) and spy planes.
Area 51 was the place were the development and testing of the U-2 and the A-12 Oxcart (sister aircraft to the SR-71 Blackbird) were handled. And later it was used to test drones and to study MiG fighters that had been captured.
So much about the place is still classified but through interviews and recently declassified documents, Ms. Jacobson tells an amazing story about a place in the Nevada desert that still doesn't officially exist.
None of these were strictly necessary. On the other hand, books are always necessary.
I've been wanting to read Homicide since watching The Wire. (If you haven't rented the DVDs, please do. And stick with it! It's challenging at first, but SO WORTH IT! Soon you'll be whistling "the farmer in the dell"...) The Lonely Polygamist has been on a bunch of "must read" lists. The woman who wrote Area 51 was on the Daily Show recently and my curiosity was piqued. While reading Atlantic by Simon Winchester he mentioned Jules Verne's Lighthouse At The End of the World and it sounded like a good adventure story. (Plus I've never read any Jules Verne. That guy was PROLIFIC!) Lastly, yes, I bought Ice-T's memoir. I'm not in any way gangsta, but I like reading about people who are. Plus I'm a Law and Order junkie. WESTSIDE!
I live in Los Angeles. In the summer of 2006 I worked in Mexico City. Instead of sending out giant emails full of photos to friends and families, I started this blog. The summer turned out to be a crazy one and this blog and my camera kept me sane. I didn't want to stop observing and writing when I got home to LA, so I kept the blog going.
