Blankets by Craig Thompson

There isn't much more to be said about Blankets, Craig Thompson's award-winning autobiography of his adolescence. It is visually stunning and the story strikes a deep chord in the heart and the memory. 

I remember those long winters and how long those winter breaks from school seemed back then. I remember we had four seasons back then, too. I recall how falling in love was so utterly foreign and absolutely all I wanted simultaneously, this deep desire to love and be loved. However, it was my unfortunate custom to go from zero to sixty, from an evening holding hands to proclaiming my deepest feelings in a few short days usually via a copied song lyric that completely overstated what I was trying to get across. "I'll cross the sky for your love" from U2's Drowning Man comes to mind. Oh those poor girls I must have overwhelmed with my adolescent ardor.

Now let's be clear, that wasn't Thompson's way at all. In fact, he sort of falls backwards into love with his heart's desire, Raina (I fell in love with her a bit myself while reading the story. Doesn't everybody?). In fact, he's almost as confused by her as he is attracted to her but they are of a pair. Certainly, an unlikely pair, she the lovely and popular to his introverted artiness. What initially binds them is their evangelicalism but it becomes clear when Craig visits Raina that they approach and hold their faith very differently. They sparkle and burn brightly but that is tough to maintain. 

If you don't read many or any graphic novels, I encourage you to try this. It is as good a story as you'll find in any print novel and the art is truly gorgeous. I also admire the courage it took to lay himself so bare and reveal those ugly parts of our youth that we want no one else to know even after all these years. 

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie

The latest from Alexie, a memoir, may be the author at, to coin a phrase, his Alexie-est. It is infuriating, repetitive, whiny, overbearing and we've heard much of it before. It is self-serving, self-centered, self-indulgent, and self-absorbed. It is Alexie at his worst.

But, and seemingly as ever, it is beautifully written and painfully raw. It is unnervingly tender, bravely confessional, absurdly funny, and utterly heart-breaking. It is Alexie at his best. 

Having followed his career since first reading him in the second incarnation of Story magazine, regular Reed-ers know how much I love his work. This latest is an exploration of the difficult relationship between himself and his mother, Lillian. There is much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments along with the plaintive wail of "Mommy didn't love me!". Often, it appears she didn't. 

One passage describes their relationship this way:
"...as her son and perhaps her most regular opponent, I only remember a little bit of my mother's kindness and almost everything about her coldness.

Did she love me? Did my mother love me? When I gather up all the available evidence, I have to say, "Yes, Lillian Alexie loved Sherman Alexie, Jr." But I can only render that verdict with reasonable doubts. "  

There are statements like this throughout the book. 
To me, this was Alexie actively grieving before my eyes and in my hands. He hurts.

There is also a physical component to all the mental anguish as he delves deeply into his own health issues (born with hydrocephalus, he suffered a host of maladies the reservation was ill-equipped to help with) and the very painful stories of repeated sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of people he knew well throughout his childhood. Nor does he let us forget the culture of racism, poverty, alcoholism, and violence that was ever-present. 

Telling these stories repeatedly in public led the author to curtail his book tour this summer. Rehashing all this pain became too much for him to bear mentally and physically. When I read of this, my heart ached for him. 

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me is no easy read nor is it a how-to in healthy suffering. To some, it might even be perceived as the author dropping the mic and walking away like all the kids do these days. However, those familiar with him know he could NEVER live without an audience or cease telling stories. All I can wish is that Alexie finds solace or a measure of peace sooner than later. 

And if you can, call your Mom. 

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

Author Jon Ronson has been popping up on podcasts I've listened to for years and I'm generally enthralled by the stories he tells. Too, his soft-spoken, sing-song English accent never fails to grab me so at last, I'm reading his work. 

To be honest, I read this particular title in order to help determine if a person in my life is actually a psychopath. While I have my suspicions, I wanted to learn more about psychopathy in order to make my own unqualified assessment and then be all judge-y and shit. 

In fact, this same idea is among the reasons Ronson wrote the book: he became aware of a man who faked his way into a mental hospital to avoid prison and who then couldn't get out. From there, Ronson learns of Dr. Robert Hare and his psychopath test: 20 questions that have become a standard in diagnosing psychopathy (I'm skipping over how the book starts with an odd story about random academics who receive copies of a custom, cryptic book since you pretty much can ignore that).

As Ronson  applies his newfound knowledge, he starts seeing psychopaths everywhere and this is a fellow who certainly knows how to find people who are, shall we say, a bit off. In fact, he feels so empowered by this wee bit of knowledge that, as the book goes on, he recognizes the Hale test might be too broad to be consistently correct. He also learns those with psychopathic tendencies are less often the homicidal maniacs that we've come to associate with the term but quite often leaders in government and business. It seems psychopathy lends itself to this personality type. Are they all nuts or just misunderstood? Tough call. 

Ultimately, what I believe Ronson learned by writing The Psychopath Test is that while someone may indeed be a psychopath, it isn't for him to decide. Same goes for me. As Alexander Pope said, "A little learning is a dangerous thing". 

Extraordinary Adventures by Daniel Wallace

Let us now meet Edsel Bronfman. He's not Ed or Eddie to anyone. He's Edsel. In fact, as Charlie Brown is always called Charlie Brown, he's really more Edsel Bronfman. Two words. 

As a first name, Edsel is unusual, outdated, and reminiscent of the automobile that was such a spectacular failure. Bronfman sounds like a muffled tubercular sneeze. The shoe fits. 

Edsel Bronfman is ordinary. Extra ordinary--two words, not one. He lives in Birmingham in a shabby apartment in a shabbier complex where his only semblance of a friend is a drug dealer Edsel distrusts. He has held the same position, a junior executive shipping manager, for ages,where he has perfect attendance and you imagine he will likely retire in, oh, 30 more years. In his free time, he looks after his free-spirited mother though she gets along just fine, thank you. His world is tiny and he keeps it that way. Edsel Bronfman doesn't live his life. He is just passin' through.  

Adventure or the potential for one arrives with a phone call. A Carla D'Angelo (how exotic-sounding!) is calling from Extraordinary Adventures to tell him he's won a free trip to Destin. The only cost is the time-share pitch meeting he must attend in order to collect. The catch is that this prize is for couples and he has 79 days to work it out or he forfeits. As you might imagine, Edsel has never been chosen for anything. He's never been anywhere. He's certainly never won anything. He's the equivalent of human wallpaper so this prize offer is a big to-do and sets in motion his adventures. 

Now you might want to write this off as a frothy beach read or trite rom com material but fortunately for us, we are in the capable hands of Daniel Wallace. Sure, it ain't War and Peace but it's not supposed to be. What we get is a funny, and very touching portrait of an extraordinarily lonely man who attempts to break out. It's as if he only now sees there is a world out there and he can actually live in it; that he deserves to do so. 

What follows is a great shambling attempt at romance and second-guessing with the impetuous Sheila McNabb. On the way, he attracts the attentions of a lovely lady cop and the drug dealers' girlfriend. Edsel is working without a net and we can't help but root for him. 

When the English Fall by David Williams

Dystopian fiction is all the rage and has been for some time now, especially in the YA market. Done well, it can make for great storytelling (see work by Orwell, Atwood, Huxley, Bradbury, Burgess, etc). I keep reading how, with that orange maniac and his cronies hastening the decline of the republic, this outpouring of dystopian fiction is a metaphor, as well as a manifestation, of our current fears. Perhaps so. I was especially intrigued by his new spin on it and was rewarded with a fast, tense novel that practically made me yearn to be Amish. 

Jacob is an old order Amish farmer in rural eastern Pennsylvania and the story is told from his journal entries. At first, they are normal, even mundane, as he discusses work on the farm, the families in his community, and his hopes and fears for his own family. His daughter has an ability to see the future which causes him grave concern but, of late, she has been on an even keel. Still, he worries. 

One evening, the skies dance with strange light, both beautiful and terrifying. However, no light shines from the nearby town and the family sees a plane plummet from the sky. The next day, Jacob learns a solar storm has destroyed all electric and electronic power. The English world (the non-Amish world) is crippled. 

So begins the end of the world scenario--communication is all but impossible and as desperation leads to lawlessness, the Army's grasp on order slips. Jacob clings to his family, his community, and his deep faith as the English begin to encroach on his way of life. 

What most endeared Jacob to me was his sense of honor, fairness, and grace amidst the struggle over which he has no control. Were it not for the dire situation for the English, he could live his life as he always has but he must serve his fellow man and so he does. While his family and community come first, he also helps those outside, even taking in an English family. Williams evokes great humanity in Jacob and his wife, Hannah, and the religious aspects of the book never seems cloying. In fact, they seem quite genuine which makes sense since the author is a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church.

When The English Fall is a rewarding story of kindness and decency set in a time of desperation and ruin. Let's hope it's not too prescient. If so, I want Jacob as my neighbor. 

Almost Missed You by Jessica Strawser

The author is a friend, former colleague, and a homegirl and I was thrilled when she landed a book deal with a big house and more excited to be at her book signing debut. However, there was a lot of anxiety about this first novel mostly because she and I are old pals and what if I didn't like her book? 

Now when asked to be an early reader prior to publication, I am always straightforward with notes and opinions even if they might sting a little. If I'm not honest at this point, it serves no one well and it's a waste of everyone's time to tell a friend their work is better than I really think it is. Certainly they may not agree with my suggestions but at least I've been square with them and fulfilled my duty.

However, post-pub is a little dicier, especially since I write about what I read on occasion. I will confess, there was a time or two that I chickened out completely and that was just an awful feeling. The faint praise I was able to muster coupled with not writing about it here was, well, it was miserable. Miserable and obvious. 

Happily that was not the case with Almost Missed You, a gripping tale of betrayal, grief, and kidnapping. It is a taut, tangled tale of deep friendships and dark secrets (my, how alliterative I am this morning!). Strawser offers up a worst-case scenario that somehow manages to worsen and which threatens everyone involved. When I felt certain I knew where this was going, it didn't and I found that quite skillful. 

I will say that had it not been written by a friend, I'm not sure I would have found this book but I'm so glad I did. She'll have another book coming out in 2018. Jump on the bandwagon now. 

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti

Tinti's The Good Thief was among my favorites of 2008 (we was kids back then, weren't we?) so I have waited years for another novel. I have been patient because she has been busy at the helm of the fantastic One Story, a subscription service celebrating the short story. As a fan and proponent of the short story form, I have been an ardent supporter and subscriber for many years (It makes a swell gift, too! And such a deal! One Story website). Her latest is a worthy successor. 

The twelve lives in the title are actually the specific details surrounding the twelve times Sam Hawley was shot over his lifetime. In short, Hawley is an accomplished crook for hire despite the number of bullets in his hide. His young life is spent pulling jobs and living quietly and nomadically off his fees. This life is changed dramatically when he meets Lily at the funeral of her father, himself a career criminal. It is with her that he can lose himself and with whom he has Loo, his beloved daughter. 

Sam lives a life laced with longing and loneliness. That longing manifests itself in a shrine to Lily in every bathroom where they live. Lonely in that he must always keep a low profile since reprisal could happen at almost any time. Because they often need to pull up stakes at a moments notice, there are many bathrooms. As a result, Loo's life is heavy with these feelings without knowing why.  The books' first sentence, "When Loo was twelve years old, her father taught her how to shoot a gun" certainly sets up the rest of the story. 

As ever, Tinti manages to capture the very essence of her characters. As we came to adore Ren and Dolly in The Good Thief, we love Lily and how she makes it possible for Sam to love. As a result, we can only begin to understand his endless grief. 

As for Loo, she is one of those very rare birds that literature allows us to glimpse in the wild. Tinti writes gorgeously of her young life and how her normal adolescent struggles are even more trying living under the lingering cloud that is her mother's memory and the many crimes of her father. 

Though very different from her first novel, it has been well worth the wait to read Tinti again. She is a brilliant storyteller who deserves a much bigger audience. 

If you'd like another take on this book, see what this smart fellow has to say: 
Ron Charles review

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

In Evicted, Harvard sociologist Matthew Desmond, has created a story that is moving and maddening. It provides first-hand insight into how our broken housing, public assistance, and mental health systems are largely irreparable in their current states. It is about how we are detached from our communities, our loved ones, and how our public institutions fail so many.

Having never given much thought to the topic, I assumed eviction was a finite experience in that when you were in arrears to your landlord, you received an eviction notice, moved out (or your possessions were seized in more extreme cases), and then you went and found another place to live. Done.

Evicted, taught me the act of eviction is, in these times, an ongoing event with sprawling consequences and octopus arms that keep hold of you in tattered housing and justice systems. The act itself often leads those affected to shelters and unsafe housing, to court appearances, joblessness, and an eviction record that trails them for years, making it harder to rent the next time. It also leads to sickness, depression, and exacerbates existing mental health issues.

As described in the book, it appears all too many of those affected have the ability to manage their lives in a way that would allow them to break the cycle. When more than half of a meager paycheck or government assistance check goes to rent, leaving little for other essentials, it's easy to see how quickly already questionable situations deteriorate into homelessness. Throw in mental illness, little education or real-world skills like knowing how to balance a checkbook, along with bad choices and the ensuing undoing of a segment of an already marginalized society is complete.

To his vast credit, the author allows us to see the situation for its many sides. You can feel terribly for Arleen and her boys almost as often as you slap your forehead as a result of her bad judgement. You may applaud landlord Sherrena when she shows renters small kindnesses like buying them a bag of groceries but disgust sets in quickly when Desmond describes how despicably mercenary she can be. While she can still locate her own humanity, as she says "the 'hood is good. There's a lot of money in there." Reportedly, she's worth more than two million dollars

This is the story of an America that exists today. Safe and affordable public housing is going the way of the dodo, especially for those living at or below the poverty line. Desmond offers several solutions including housing vouchers that would be helpful but since government and much of the public confuses helping the poor and working poor with entitling them, I have little hope the cycle of eviction and poverty will end anytime soon, especially under the regime of Il Douche'.

The book has won many awards including the National Book Critics Circle award for nonfiction and the Pulitzer in literature. This may be among the most important book to read these days.

Gene and Dean

Two showbiz books. One a memoir, the other a bio.

Kiss Me Like a Stranger by Gene Wilder

You usually don't start your list of your favorite actors with Gene Wilder but I think you should, just for the three Mel Brooks films alone. Then you get the Richard Pryor pictures, Willy Wonka, the bit with the sheep in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex. He even did great work on two episodes of Will & Grace as Will's crazy boss late in his career. For me, his performances were memorable and often quite affecting and he could hold his own with actors with much larger personalities. Then he marries Gilda Radner who also could make me cry with laughter. 

The memoir is a fast read, filled with some very touching stories as well as some very painful tales, often in the same story. As a young man at college, he became obsessed with praying, often for hours, and couldn't stop. The good that came of it was that he started to learn and understand mental illness and much of the memoir has him talking to his longtime shrink. His mother, to whom he was close, was a sickly woman and deep down, Wilder believed that he had no right to happiness or enjoyment when the woman who gave him life had neither. 

I was surprised to learn of his classic training as an actor and how many of his movies he wrote or helped write.
He also gets into his sex life which didn't begin until later than you might expect. He's very honest and, at times, it was even a bit uncomfortable. 

When he talks of his marriage to Gilda and her untimely demise, it is with great love but there was also a fair amount of anger. It seems as though Gilda lacked self-worth while at the same time was overwhelmingly self-absorbed and it made the hard times even harder. Still, to get a peak at their domestic life was intriguing. 

We lost Gene Wilder last year and I will miss him. Reading the book made me miss him a little less. 

Dino by Nick Tosches

Years ago, when I got into Sinatra's music, it naturally led me to Sam and Dean. Sinatra was a great singer and Sam was the ultimate performer but there was something about Dean I had never noticed: he was cool. As I came to appreciate his vocal style and then his acting, I learned Dean just did his thing. He never strained, he never seemed to swing for the fences but he delivered. As I learned in Dino, that's essentially how he lived his life. 

Growing up young and poor in Steubenville, Ohio, Dino Crocetti dealt blackjack and boxed before becoming a singer, mostly in mob joints. His first ticket out was a move to mob joints in Cleveland and then he meets Jerry Lewis in Atlantic City and BOOM, more success than he could ever have imagined. 

What's odd is that we don't really remember them for that. We know Jerry from movies, many of them just plain silly, and the telethon and we know Dean for some songs, his movies, and the roasts on TV. We are even familiar with their feud that was 'resolved' on the MDA telethon in 1976 but at one point they were the highest grossing club act in showbiz, like The Beatles before The Beatles. It never translated that well outside the night clubs but by all accounts, it was magic before Dean left the act in 1956, ending a seven year ride like few others before or after.

As Tosches tells it, that cool, the ease was the very crux of Dean Martin but that menefreghista, a Sicilian term for not giving a fuck, ended up becoming complacency. If the critics didn't like him in a serious role in a movie, fuck 'em, he'll turn out dumbass comedies for the same money and get points on the back end. The roasts are proclaimed too racy for television at the time? Let's just see how vulgar we can get. Doesn't mean a thing to ol' Dino. He's got a tee time. For him, there would always be another pay day, another broad, another round. Why sweat it? Singing in front of an audience, performing on film or TV was a cinch. As Dean said, "This stuff ain't hard. You want hard? Try being on your feet all day dealing blackjack". 

Still, he was the most charming man on the planet and a great talent whose work lives on to be discovered by guys like me long after he stopped caring. The best part? The work holds up and Dean still delivers. 

Some Writer! The Story of E. B. White by Melissa Sweet

To most readers, White is best remembered as a beloved children's author and millions have read Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan. In grade school, a teacher read Charlotte's Web to our class and I never liked it. In fact, I thought it was a "girl book" and felt the same way after seeing the movie so I never read the other two. Shame on me.

My appreciation of his work came by way of James Thurber and The New Yorker. I know him from casuals in the mag, his fantastic though nameless contributions to Talk of the Town pieces. I even refer to him as "Andy", as Thurber and most of magazine's crew did (I know. I'm kind of a dork that way). 

As well, I know him from the classic reference, The Elements of Style, which I still turn to on occasion mostly to be reminded how mistaken I am and how I should have paid closer attention in school. Regular Reed-ers likely think I should commit the small volume to memory and THEN sit down at the keyboard. A fine suggestion, no doubt.  

When I received this beautiful biography, I was delighted but reading it was an absolute treat. Author Melissa Sweet is a Caldecott honor winner and knows her way around kids books but this goes a step further. The mixed-media artwork is not only stunning but the remarkable visuals add to the the storytelling like few books I've read (Think Griffin and Sabine without all those tedious envelopes and mushy stuff). Sweet makes White's life come to life before your eyes. 

As well as striking pages like this, there are original sketches by White, family photos, and handwritten drafts of some of his most famous works. 

Best of all, it was obvious to me how much Sweet admires her subject as a person and a writer. You come away from the book wishing Andy was your friend and that is no small task for a writer to pull off. White had a way of making his subjects so approachable and there was an ease to his style that must have made other writers jealous. Sweet manages to attain a similar feeling. The book informs, entertains, and enchants the eye. If you are a fan of White's work, of great children's books, or expert visual storytelling, you can't miss with this. 

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

For a long while, I was off Sedaris. Something about him had started to rub me the wrong way. It didn't matter of course. He became wildly popular and can live in France. In fact, it wasn't until his pieces about his life in France started to appear in The New Yorker that I began reading him again. While they could still be bizarre and bitchy, there was a maturity to his writing that grabbed me. He seemed to be writing from the heart more and shooting from the lip less. Now he makes me cry almost as much as he makes me shake with laughter.

To that end, I have some catching up to do on his backlist. I picked up this one at one of my fave used books joints and dove in. I'd like to think the maturity I find in his work is shared. I was in my late 20's when I first came upon an advance copy of Barrel Fever. Now I'm just the other side of 50. Sedaris is less shrieky but no less biting and there is such grace in so many of the pieces, especially those about his family, both currently and looking back. It makes me envious that I'm not closer to my own sibs. C'est la.

The Ship Shape, about his family potentially purchasing a vacation beach house, was among my favorites. However, since I've read him out of order, it hearkened back to one of his most moving pieces from nine years later. In 2013, he wrote Now We Are Five, a piece mostly about the aftermath of the suicide of his sister, Tiffany. His family gathers at a beach house and Sedaris decides he will purchase them the beach house his parents almost bought but didn't all those years ago in Ship Shape. It evokes memories of their youth and vacation and how little they knew about Tiffany by the end. How she had grown away. There is sadness and loss and longing and, of course, sly laughs.

The rest of the collection can be described similarly though the laughs are a bit broader. Over the years, we've come to know his family a bit. It even feels like we have watched them grow up. His brother, Paul, referred to as The Rooster, hasn't changed an iota but has grown as a man, looking after their aging father like I never expected. His sisters like a chorus and David, well, he's David, only more so. 

I'm glad I'm back to reading him again. 

Fiction picks of 2016

Nobody’s Fool and

Everybody’s Fool 

by Richard Russo

This was a project I was eager to undertake: read straight through Nobody’s Fool from 1996 and Everybody's Fool, the sequel published this year. Separately, Nobody’s Fool stands beautifully on its own. It is during that pitch-perfect run that began with Risk Pool and culminated with Empire Falls. 

It is a sparkling, hilarious tale centered around Donald Sullivan better known as Sully. Unashamedly, I will use the same quote about the character damned near every reviewer has used: "Throughout his life a case study underachiever, Sully -- people still remarked -- was nobody's fool, a phrase that Sully no doubt appreciated without ever sensing its literal application -- that at 60, he was divorced from his own wife, carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, estranged from his son, devoid of self-knowledge, badly crippled and virtually unemployable -- all of which he stubbornly confused with independence." Brilliant. Picture him as Paul Newman like I do and you’ve got a fantastic novel (and a pretty decent film starring Paul Newman).

Everybody’s Fool takes us back to North Bath, NY and most of the same characters still populate the town. However, and most importantly, Sully is not our hero though he is still present. That job is filled by Douglas Raymer, a minor character from the first book, who has risen through the ranks to become police chief. Rife with intriguing characters and plentiful sub-plots, it is a Russo tale for certain but the pace is neither as breathless nor as break-neck as the first and that should be expected because it is a slightly different Russo who has written this one. We’re all a little older--Sully, Raymer, Russo and me.

Moonglow by Michael Chabon

Much anticipated, Moonglow pays off. It has all the hallmarks that make Chabon one of the great American authors of the last 25 years but this time he walks a fine line by making Michael Chabon one of the main characters in the book. It is his grandfather though who owns the spotlight. Like most men of his generation, he kept mum for years about himself but in the last two weeks of his life, Chabon’s grandfather reveals more about himself to young Mike than he had ever. 

Grandpa was a shtarker, a tough guy, but with a bent for science. As part of Operation Paperclip, his job was to hunt Nazis after the war and his goal was to capture Wernher Von Braun. Once he returns to the States, he marries a beautiful but troubled French Holocaust survivor with a daughter (Michael’s mom) whom he raises as his own. Typically, Chabon covers a lot of ground that would take too long to summarize and, as always, he teaches us a great deal about any number of subjects that so fascinate him but that often slow the pace. Still, Moonglow is a worthy and customarily uncommon addition to the Chabon canon.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

While a very different book than his outstanding debut, The Rules of Civility, Towles gives us another fantastic novel with sparkling prose and characters you wish you knew. Count Alexander Rostov returned to his homeland as the Revolution began, and after getting his mother to safety, took up residence in Moscow’s Hotel Metropol, one of the great Old World hotels. He is a man of generous spirit and bonhomie, well-traveled and educated, and his life at the hotel is a fine one. In 1922, he is stripped of his status for a poem he wrote as a young man that is now deemed subversive. He is sentenced to house arrest at the Metropol for the rest of his life. If he steps outside, he will be shot. He can travel nowhere and within the hotel, he can no longer enjoy the privilege he has known his whole life. This kicks off the next few decades of his life and the “family” he acquires while there. Some may find it twee but I thought it was absolutely charming and a worthy sophomore effort from the author.

Welcome Thieves 

by Sean Beaudoin

A relative newcomer, Beaudoin’s inventive short stories had me laughing out loud, grimacing at all the right moments, and rooting for his protagonists despite their inability to save themselves. I enjoyed All Dreams Are Night Dreams, a story of a fledgling water spectacle a la Cirque du Soleil and a troupe of Welsh travelers. The show is a slog and a dog and never quite reaches the Vegas heights it hopes for but the characters are most memorable. The long-titled You Too Can Graduate in Three Years with a Degree in Contextual Semiotics might make readers think it’s too clever by half but I thought it novel and affecting. Tiffany Marzano’s Got a Record, Hey Monkey Chow, and the title story were other faves in this very strong collection from an author that stood out this year.
                                                                                       

We Are Still Tornadoes 

by Michael Kun and Susan Mullen

Set in the 80’s, Tornadoes chronicles the relationship between childhood friends Cath, who goes off to college, and Scott, who stays behind. It is a touching take on growing up, friendship, and the impermanence of youth while managing to be kind, funny, and thoughtful and that is no small task.

Regular Reed-ers might be sick of me endlessly plugging this marvelous epistolary novel but I loved it and don’t care who knows!

And then we came to the end...

...of another year and not a moment too soon. It has been a rotten year in many respects. We lost an unusual amount of talented people whose work I admired. There was a personal loss that hit hard and has left many close to me crawling from the wreckage. Finally, there was the election which still feels like a boot to the stomach and which has left me with a sense of fear and foreboding like I've never before experienced. 

Fortunately, there is always art, especially books, to mend my heart and sooth my furrowed brow. Old friends in the book biz still look out for me and I buy books, of course. I use my library more than I have in years and it gives me a certain feeling, a familiarity about which I had forgotten but which I'm happy to feel again. The nearest branch ain't exactly Disneyland but you make do.

Tallying it all up, I finished 30 books this year and picked up and put down another dozen, I suppose. Since I remain consistently terrible at writing about all the books I read despite having this here blog which is allegedly about all the books I read, there may be a few I've even forgotten. Looking over the list, I'm still reading more fiction than non-fiction. 

Uncharacteristically, I read a book of poetry this year, Jeff Sirkin's Travelers Aid Society  (full disclosure, Jeff is an old pal o' mine from an unaccredited Hebrew school we attended in Kuala Lumpur). I must say I enjoyed it but I'm still unsure if I "get" poetry and so there is always a feeling as though I'm doing it wrong. When I laugh at what I think is a funny line, I then look around, guiltily, wondering if that's where I was supposed to laugh or if I completely missed the point of it all and only uneducated cretins laugh at that line and I've actually no business laughing at that line and the poet would be crushed to learn I laughed at their pain. Maybe I can just come to terms with the idea that poetry makes me nervous and uncertain and, perhaps, I'm undoubtedly overthinking this. And why do I look around, guiltily, when it's only Mrs. Next asleep next to me and the dog awaiting the "you-can-get-on-the-bed-now" signal? 

All neurotic, incomprehensible blather aside, here are my top 5 non-fiction reads for 2016:

Sunny’s Nights: Lost and Found at a Bar on the Edge of the World by Tim Sultan

Ever hear of this book? Or the author? I hadn’t either but you should because I think it’s terrific.  Sunny’s Nights is a thing of beauty. A writer, both physically and professionally lost, happens on this tiny, non-descript, only-open-on-Fridays bar in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The owner, Sunny, is an estimable raconteur who holds court and can code-switch from Shakespeare and the Bhagwan Rajneesh to the poetry and patois of Red Hook in an eye blink (in one instance, he suggests Sultan drink a “berlermaker”). He is a gorgeous soul, all too aware of his limitations as a human, but full of a passion and a spirit to be admired. The stories he tells, the life he lives, all chronicled with loving detail by Sultan, make you wonder if he’s putting us on but Sunny’s the real, though unlikely, deal. Fans of J. R. Moehringer’s The Tender Bar will love Sunny.

Preston Lauterbach’s The Chitlin Circuit and The Road to Rock 'n' Roll was an eye-opener for me. It made clear the link between the big band era and rock ‘n’ roll, how the bands pared down in size, how black entrepreneurs made their own successful world despite being confined by Jim Crow, and how huge a debt is owed to the Roy Browns, Big Joe Turners, and Louis Jordans. They led the way for Little Richard and James Brown and all those subsequent musicians who felt their influence. Hot stuff.

The Seven Good Years by Etgar Keret

These pieces were all written in the seven years between the birth of Keret’s first son and the death of his father. Though non-fiction, they have all the elements that make Keret’s writing so outstanding: black humor, empathy, a deep humanity as well as witty self-effacement. Where there is immense sadness, there is also great hope.

97 Orchard by Jane Ziegelman

A remarkable work that traces the history of one Lower East Side address and the five immigrant families that all made their way through the doors from the 1870’s through the 1930’s. Only after reading the book did I learn that this is the address of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum which I then visited in late March (the day we went was the anniversary of the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory Fire). To read this marvelous book and then see the actual rooms themselves was unlike most of my reading experiences.

Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L. A. Punk by John Doe and Tom Desavia

Told by the musicians and artists who peopled the scene, these are recollections of an era that would influence music in ways that are all too often overlooked. X, the Blasters, and The Flesh Eaters may not be as well-known or remembered as their east coast punk rock counterparts but their influence along with others in the book cannot be overlooked. There was power and passion and lots of weirdos. Bless ‘em for it.

Stay tuned. Working on my top 5 fiction picks now. At my current rate, I should be done by early February.

We Are Still Tornadoes by Michael Kun and Susan Mullen

Click the link below to learn more about the book

Regular Reed-ers will remember that I wrote about this book before it was a book. Michael Kun generously asked me to be an early reader of this novel he co-wrote with Susan Mullen when it was still in manuscript form. I loved it and was so happy to spread the early word. To help with that, I plugged it and posted an interview with them (goo.gl/g3yn6h). Not long afterward, the book was shopped and I was delighted when it was snatched up by St. Martin's/Griffin. 

Early this month, it was published and the reviews have been excellent as has the media attention it has received including an extensive blog tour and public appearances on both coasts. I can only guess sales are strong. 

I just want to say I enjoyed it even more than when I first read it almost two years ago. It's a marvelous story that rings true, the characters are people you know and grow to love, the '80's references are plentiful and germane to the book, and it deserves to be read and re-read. It made me laugh out loud throughout and it made me cry. As I start to assemble my picks for the year, We Are Still Tornadoes has already found a place on my list. 

Now go get yourself a copy.  

Running Into An Old Friend at Halloween

Like so many, reading gripped me at a young age and I was also lucky enough to have a few champions who encouraged me and turned me on to books and authors. In a small town with only one bookstore, my family took great advantage of the public library. I would visit on Saturday mornings after breakfast out with my Father. I knew most of the librarians and took a shine to a few, in particular Rosemary D., on whom I had a tremendous boyhood crush, and Pat M. who was among the most generous people I've ever known. 

Pat was probably the first polyglot I ever met and his knowledge astounded me. Most of all, he was a sci-fi nut and turned me on to Heinlein, Asimov, and Bradbury. I remember being especially taken with Bradbury and I read a lot of his work. What's strange is how little I seem to remember. My memory hasn't failed me completely and I still know far more than my fair share of trivial nonsense (the problem, of course, is that I'll share it with you) but with only a few exceptions, I can't remember much about The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451 and many others.

So it was with great pleasure that I re-read some Bradbury just recently. In truth, it was my turn to make a selection for my short story club and I thought it would be great since, in the dozen years we've been doing this, we've never read anything by him. Utilizing my public library, I ordered up A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories. I also ordered up The Halloween Tree, a favorite of mine. What I found was how great Bradbury's work remains. 

The Halloween Tree was written for what we would now call YA lit. One of things I liked about his writing for the younger reader was that he NEVER condescended. In fact, it was like he was letting you in on something, like he knew you belonged there and he took your hand with a welcoming wink and a squeeze of your shoulder. The story, a group of boys must travel the world one Halloween night with the mysterious (and perfectly-named) Mr. Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud to save the life of their friend, Joe Pipkin. 

Pipkin is the heart and soul of these boys. He's their leader, their biggest supporter, and their best friend. Without Pipkin, it's not Halloween. Without Pipkin, it wouldn't be Christmas or any other special occasion. Without Pipkin? Unthinkable! He is the what holds them together and enables them to fly. In one of my favorite lines ever, Bradbury describes him this way: 
"Joe Pipkin was the greatest boy who ever lived...The day Joe Pipkin was born all the Orange Crush and Nehi soda bottles in the world fizzed over". 

Would that anyone were to describe me that way!

Needless to say, The Halloween Tree was as I remembered it--Jack O' Lanterns in the trees, candy skulls, the perfect accompanying illustrations by Joseph Mugnaini, still a little slow in the middle, and a moving conclusion. 

In searching for short stories, of which Bradbury produced hundreds, I wanted something that was less science fiction-y and went back early in his career. A Sound of Thunder & Other Stories is better known as Golden Apples of the Sun (In reprinting it, Harper Perrenial decided to change the name. I've no idea why.) and contains works spanning a decade beginning in 1947. It was remarkable to me how prescient Bradbury was and none moreso than The Murderer from 1953. So as not to give it away or take away the power of the story, I encourage you to read it yourself: 

http://www.sediment.uni-goettingen.de/staff/dunkl/zips/The-Murderer.pdf

Needless to say, I'm so happy to have read Bradbury again and will continue to reacquaint myself with his work. 

Happy Halloween. 

Labor day weekend lazy

I have been duly chastised by a few of the more faithful Reed-ers this weekend and while I don't have anything original to contribute, I did want to pass on this list from the Wall Street Journal. It's going to be a big fall for books and there are many I'm looking forward to reading.

http://graphics.wsj.com/image-grid/fall-books-preview-2016/

Fever At Dawn and Spill Simmer Falter Wither

Lot and lots of reading of late. Publishing pals are keeping me well-stocked with a wide array of books and I'm trying hard just to keep up. 

Peter Gardos is a Hungarian filmmaker who has done things in reverse. He has already made a movie, Fever At Dawn, and then went back and wrote the novel of the same name. I haven't seen the film but I finished the novel recently. 

The book starts with Miklos, a Hungarian Jew, hospitalized 

in 1945 Sweden as the Holocaust winds down. Because of fluid in his lungs, he has been given six months to live. In his boredom and defiance of his imminent death, he manages to secure the names and addresses of 117 girls from his hometown, also hospitalized in Sweden. He writes each the same letter in the fervent belief a correspondence will develop and through that correspondence, he will find a wife. In this manner, he meets Lili.

It's a hell of a set-up, don't you think? Better still, Fever At Dawn is based on the true story of Gardos' parents. He only learned of this tale after his father passed and his mother showed him the correspondence and revealed their story. 

Fever At Dawn is fast-paced and entertaining especially in light of the truth behind it but I wonder if it worked better as a film. To me, most of the characters were uneven and underdeveloped, especially Lili, whose illness is never made known and whose constant fainting becomes laughable (Like Lou Reed said, "...women never really faint..."). There is also a "frenemy" sub-plot that seems unnecessary. I did love Harry, Miklos' randy boon companion, and his never-ending quest to test his potency.

Despite what I find deficient, the book was a bestseller in Europe, the book rights went to auction here in the States, and it will be published in thirty countries. Please decide for yourself. 

More to my liking was Spill Simmer Falter Wither, the debut novel by Sara Baume.  Some might shy away from the man-and-his-dog saga but this is done so well, you'd be foolish to do so. Be warned however, this is no warm and fuzzy read. 

Ray is a puzzle and the solution doesn't come until well into the book. What we do learn is that Ray lives in "his father's house" in a small, seaside, Irish village. The village has been Ray's only home but has always been regarded as an oddball and at 57, that won't change. His father has passed and one day, in a move that is out of character, Ray adopts a troubled shelter dog after seeing a flyer taped to the window of the local jumble shop. The dog has been injured which leads Ray to name him One Eye and they become utterly devoted to each other. The story is told to One Eye but you will often think he is addressing you, the reader. 

At first, I thought the unconditional love going both ways would allow Ray to develop into his own man but One Eye has a mean streak which creates trouble for them both. There is a hovering danger author Baume creates that is unnerving. At one point, Ray is so afraid, he packs up his car, gets his savings, and they spend months driving nowhere and anywhere to avoid consequences that may or may not actually exist should they return to the village. It is a impetuous, paranoid, but poignant trip that leaves Ray broke and afraid but with nowhere else to go but "home". 

Throughout, Baume had me by the cojones and the heart strings. She imbues Ray with surprising insight while avoiding sentimentality. Her prose can sparkle as when Ray remarks about how One Eye's senses overtake him during their walks: 

"...I call you but you don't seem to hear, you're hypnotised by smell. Now you zig-zag the concrete, hop on the wall and shout at the gulls, bust into a frenzied run...How can you be so unremittingly interested? How can every stone be worth of tenderly sniffing, every clump of grass a source of fascination?...I wish I'd been born with your capacity for wonder. I wouldn't mind living a shorter life if my short life could be as vivid as yours." 

If you've ever owned a dog, you know how well she captures the rapture but it is counterbalanced by Ray's own wonder, his deep love, and his history of heartbreak.