To celebrate tomorrow’s release of Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach, I’m giving away an ARC copy of the book, signed by Mary Roach! Details of the giveaway are below the review.
I had the pleasure of hearing Mary Roach speak at an author breakfast at Book Expo this spring. She is a gifted speaker and tremendously funny. She comes across as very personable and intimate, even when speaking to a room full of hundreds of people. That style comes through in her writing as well, making an essentially scientific book come alive with warmth, humor, and personality.
The focus of Packing for Mars is not on the science of how we space travel, but the science of what happens to humans when we space travel. Topics covered include: selecting astronauts who will thrive in space, motion sickness, hygiene, eating & nutrition, bone loss, surviving malfunctions and re-entry, and (perhaps most humorously) the complications of going to the bathroom in space.
This book is a great read regardless of your level of interest in NASA, space travel, or astronauts. (Although didn’t most of us want to be astronauts at some point?) It’s fascinating to read about the effects being in zero gravity for extended periods of time have on our body and mind. Learning more about how NASA tests these effects on their equipment and astronauts is equally as interesting. And the key selling point to all this is that Mary Roach makes it extremely fun to read.
To read a Teaser Tuesday passage I posted from Packing for Mars, click here.
PACKING FOR MARS GIVEAWAY
To enter to win an review copy signed by Mary Roach, please leave a comment and share what comfort from Earth you would miss most during space travel.
For up to 2 extra chances to win, tweet and/or blog post a link to this giveaway, and leave another comment here with the link(s).
This giveaway will be open through August 18, 2010, and is open worldwide.
A few years ago, a book of humorous essays got a large amount of positive buzz. It was called I Was Told There’d Be Cake. Titles just don’t get much better than that. It also had a fantastic cover. Those three forces combined into one irresistible book, and I immediately bought it, read it, and loved it. Sloane Crosley was also a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor for that collection. I think it was over a year ago that I first heard Sloane Crosley had a second collection in the works, and that news made me incredibly happy.
I’m delighted to report that the new collection, How Did You Get This Number, does not disappoint. It even soars a bit higher in some moments. Not every essay is fantastic, but all are enjoyable. The last two essays are particularly wonderful, about a trip to Paris and a difficult break-up. Good memoirs & essay collections make you feel like the author is an old friend. Even better ones are when you recognize pieces of yourself, especially the silly pieces. For me, Sloane Crosley accomplished both.
I might recommend starting with the first collection, but this collection stands well on its own. I’m also always partial to the order I read things in, probably because I can’t imagine reading them in any other order. :)
One last note: one essay in the collection brings up the classic girl’s slumber party game of the 80s/90s, Girl Talk. I had forgotten all about this amazing/disturbing game. Raise your hand if you remember having to stick a red “zit” sticker on your face or finding out that you were going to have 9 kids because you were born in the month of September.
A few favorite passages:
There’s no way to convince someone that a doll-head chandelier is tasteful. But this one was. (page 64)
“Is that like cartography?” I asked, wondering if there was a use for such a thing anymore. I was under the impression that the world was kind of done, that we had accepted its parameters and moved on. Like ashtrays. Or ketchup. Or bricks. These things were about as good as they were going to get. (page 155)
During April, in honor of National Poetry Month, I read 77 Love Sonnets by Garrison Keillor. (Here’s a link to purchase this collection at an Indie Bookstore.) A modern collection of sonnets is, unfortunately, rather hard to come across. I was delighted last year to find out that Garrison Keillor was publishing a collection of his sonnets, and I bought it right away. I had been reading from the collection somewhat sporadically, and decided to read the collection from front to back in April. Many of them are about romantic love, and others are tributes to a variety of other people/things. All of them are lovely.
Here is one of my favorites:
November
How is your bookstore doing? people ask, and I say,
“Holding its own.” And they smile and say, Great.
A bookstore is like an old father. If he has a nice day,
Goes for a walk: fine. It’s enough to perambulate,
No need to run a six-minute mile.
A bookstore is for people who love books and need
To touch them, open them, browse for a while,
And find some common good – that’s why we read.
Readers and writers are two sides of the same gold coin.
You write and I read and in that moment I find
A union more perfect than any club I could join:
The simple intimacy of being one mind.
Here in a book-filled sun-lit room below the street,
Strangers – some living, some dead – are hoping to meet.
Title: The Postmistress Author: Sarah Blake Published: 2009 My edition: Putnam Hardcover 2009 Borrowed From: The Hoboken Public Library Pages: 326
Synopsis (from Strand):As the dawn of World War II sweeps throughout Europe, Americans are still relatively at ease and holding fast to Roosevelt’s promise that we’d be safe at home. Though, one American radio reporter, Frankie Bard, whose been stationed in London is bent on extending warnings to those in Europe and back home. While many of these broadcasts go unheard, Franklin, MA, resident Iris James has heard the call and heeded the warnings. Along with Iris, whose concerns are still veiled behind feelings for a local mechanic, Will and Emma Fitchs’ lives are about to be changed by the warnings as well. In “The Postmistress” author Sarah Blake offers us a novel that shows us 4 lives forever changed and intertwined.
I read this because: I saw about 400 fantastic reviews, and had to check it out for myself. It also sounded like exactly the sort of novel that I would enjoy.
My thoughts: To put it very simply: I love this book. It was almost like I made a checklist of everything I’d love in a novel and Sarah Blake wrote it: Historical fiction, WWII, strong & likable characters, letters, a love story, multiple points of view, a small town on the Eastern seaboard.
I was craving a good novel, too. As much as I adore memoirs, poetry, non-fiction, food writing, short stories, etc; I often need a compulsively readable novel. I want to be told a story. From page one I was completely drawn into this story, and didn’t want to emerge from it to do things like eat, sleep and work.
One thing that this book made me think a lot about is our society’s relationship to the news. There are many people who follow world news extensively, but there are also a lot of people who don’t. (I’ll be the first to admit that I often fall into the latter category.) A common excuse is that “there’s too much sadness & bad news out there.” This book really brings that attitude into perspective, especially through the character Frankie Bard, who travels around Europe riding evacuation trains and interview people to find out their stories. Some (ok, most) of these stories are heartbreaking. No matter how much you don’t want to hear it, there are heartbreaking stories happening all over the world, right now. (The passage I quoted below relates to this.) It doesn’t mean we need to spend our whole life being sad about what happens in other areas of the world, but we can certainly try not to be blind to it, and we can do what’s in our power to be educated about what’s happening and help however possible.
Book club worthy? Yes.
You might like this book if you like:The Help, Water for Elephants and historical fiction in general.
I wanted to write about this somehow – this aspect of war and its terrifying accidents and how we come to terms with the fact that wars are being waged right now, even as I write (and you read) these words. How do we imagine that simultaneity? (page 324, from the afterword)
Title: Auntie Mame
Author: Patrick Dennis
Published: 1955
My edition: Broadway Books Paperback 2001
Purchased From: Strand
Pages: 299
Synopsis (from Strand): The world’s most beloved, madcap, devastatingly sophisticated, and glamorous aunt, Mame is impossible to resist, and this hilarious story of an orpahned ten-year-old boy sent to live with his aunt is as delicious a read in the twenty-first century as it was in the 1950s.
I read this because: I saw the copy that my friend Jon was re-reading, and it looked like just the sort of thing I would like too.
My thoughts: I adore Auntie Mame. I can’t believe I had never heard of the books, the movie, or any of the stage adaptations. Thank goodness I’m no longer in the dark. It’s an extremely fun book, and very witty. Auntie Mame is one of the most memorable and likable characters in literature. She’s fabulous, ridiculous, charming, and mischievous. Reading this book is a treat. It’s a great book to read at any time, but would be a particularly good one to read while traveling, or anytime you want a lighthearted (but still smart), funny book to make you smile.
Follow up required: I’m looking forward to reading the other Auntie Mame book: Around the World With Auntie Mame. I am also incredibly excited to see the movie version with Rosalind Russell, which I’m watching later tonight with a few friends.
You might like this book if you like: P. G. Wodehouse
By one o’clock there were more than a hundred and twenty relatives milling around Peckerwood, all talking, and all talking loud. Mrs. Burnside indicated her disapproval of all this with a fanfaronade of flatulence. (page 70)
I’ve returned from a longer than anticipated blogging absence. I went on a relaxing 9 day vacation to Michigan, thinking that I would probably catch up on some book review posts there. I wound up barely touching a computer the whole time. I did finish six books while I was there, which was lovely.
So I’m back with many posts and reviews to catch up on, and I might as well start by throwing my two cents into the book blogosphere about what’s sure to be a much read & reviewed book this year, Yann Martel’s new novel Beatrice and Virgil.
A Little Backstory:
In late 2007, my friend Laura and I went to a book event for the Illustrated edition of Life of Pi. It was fantastic to meet Yann Martel, and he told us about his upcoming book. He said it was called The Twentieth Century Shirt, and it was a Holocaust book that featured a monkey and a donkey having a conversation on a shirt. It was to be a “flip-book” – a novel on one side, and then if you flipped it over, there would be an essay on the reverse side, “upside-down” and with it’s own cover. Here is my original post from 2007 about the event.
News & release date info about Yann Martel’s new book came out earlier this year, and the title was not The Twentieth Century Shirt, but Beatrice and Virgil. When I finally held it in my hands I saw that it was not a flip book. I realized he must have completely changed his mind about the title and format of the book, or this was a different book altogether.
So I began reading Beatrice and Virgil, not really knowing what to expect. A few pages in, the reader learns that the main character, Henry, is a famous Canadian author. He then begins working on a second book (this info is not really any sort of spoiler, it all occurs within the first few pages), and the book he’s writing is a flip book about the Holocaust. At this point I became incredibly curious about how the book Yann Martel told us he was writing in 2007 became what seemed to be a book inside the book I was reading. On Friday last week I went to see Yann Martel again at a book signing at Borders, and I had a chance to ask him about the writing process that changed the book he described in 2007 into Beatrice and Virgil. Notes about his reply are at the end of this post, but first I’ll post a few thoughts about the novel.
My thoughts on Beatrice & Virgil:
I really don’t want to say too much about the plot of the novel, because it’s unlike anything I’ve ever read and I think part of its power comes from going into it not knowing much about the plot.
This book is inevitably going to get compared to Life of Pi. “Is it as good as Life of Pi?!” people will prod those they know who’ve read it first. In my opinion, no, it’s not. Life of Pi is one of the best books I’ve ever read. An author would be lucky to write a book half as good as Life of Pi, and they would still have written an excellent book. So it’s unfortunate for Yann Martel that he has to be compared to himself, because Beatrice and Virgil is a great book.
I really enjoyed reading it. It’s unusual (in a good way), and opens up your mind to a new way of thinking about what a “Holocaust Book” is, and what it should or can be. The ideas presented in the novel are its most compelling atributes. Looking back on the experience of reading it, I wasn’t really reading to find out what happens next. It was a page turner because the ideas and thoughts that the characters have are so interesting. I wasn’t reading to find out what becomes of the characters, but rather to find out what they’re thinking. It’s an unusual reading experience but it’s one that works in this case.
If I had one problem with the novel, it would be the ending. It felt a little hurried to me, and it didn’t move me quite as much as I expected. (I’m talking about the ending of the prose, not the end section of “Games for Gustav,” which is incredible and kind of genius.)
Beatrice and Virgil is a thought provoking novel that is also a very enjoyable read. It would serve very well for discussions, and I’m excited that my book club has selected it for June.
Notes from the book event:
-When I asked Yann Martel about the process of turning his flip book concept into the book published today, he immediately said, with a smile but serious nonetheless, that the process was torturous. He started off with a play, the same play that’s partially featured inside Beatrice and Virgil. He wrote an essay to accompany the play, and did intend to publish them as a flip book. His publishers then advised him that the essay seemed to weigh down the play, and so he did away with it. The play eventually became part of the overall novel. The beginning of the novel and the character of Henry seem autobiographical, but he only used a few main similarities, and only so far as they suited his purpose in the novel.
-The audience also asked him more about his project called “What is Stephen Harper Reading?” This is a completely awesome project & website, where Yann (concerned about Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s disregard for the Arts) sends a book and a letter to Stephen Harper every two weeks. More (extremely interesting) backstory can be found on the About page, and the site contains all 79 books sent thus far, as well as the letters that Yann wrote to accompany each book.
-Yann Martel is awesome.
Extras:
An interview with Yann Martel that also talks a bit about the process of changing his flip book into the novel Beatrice & Virgil.
A video introduction to the book, from Yann Martel:
‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things:
Of shoes – and ships – and sealing-wax -
Of cabbages – and kings -
And why the sea is boiling hot -
And whether pigs have wings.’
Alice. The smiling Cheshire cat. The White Rabbit. The Queen of Hearts. The Jabberwocky. It seems like I grew up with these characters, and yet I had never sat down and read Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass in their entirety, as they were written by Lewis Carroll.
So, it was about time to remedy that.
There’s not really a need to reviewAlice in Wonderland. It’s the epitome of a classic novel and is already extremely well loved (and rightly so). But I did want to share a few thoughts and favorite passages.
Many authors cite Lewis Carroll as a source of inspiration, and there’s no question as to why. The imagination, wit, and adventure in his work is extraordinary. I love how completely quirky everything in Wonderland is. You can sort of feel your imagination growing as you read it. (As if you ate a little cake that said ‘eat me.’) Suddenly everything seems possible. That’s special.
I also want to note how much I adore the original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. They are perfect and fantastic, and I’m glad they’re still the standard illustrations for most editions. I do not take kindly to the illustrations being changed in children’s literature to keep them more “modern.” For example, the new illustrations in the Ramona books are generic and horrid. (Ramona looks like this. And sometimes like this. Not like that.)
My book club is reading both works for our March selection, and I’m hoping to have time to read the notes in my copy of The Annotated Alice before the discussion.
~
“Oh, it’s too bad!” she cried. “I never saw such a house for getting in the way! Never!”
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
“The Knight looked surprised at the question. “What does it matter where my body happens to be?” he said. “My mind goes on working all the same. In fact, the more head-downwards I am, the more I keep inventing new things.”
I’ve said it before and I will no doubt repeat myself in the future: I love Food Writing. Good authors writing about food is some of the best vicarious living through reading that you can experience. When that author also makes you laugh out loud quite frequently, that’s some good food writing.
American Fried: Adventures of a Happy Eater is the first book in Calvin Trillin’s “Tummy Trilogy” and is a collection of his articles and essays in various magazines in the 1970s. Trillin isn’t much of a cook himself, so he mostly writes about eating out, and this book takes you to restaurants all across America.
Despite being written in the 70s, and the fact that many of the establishments mentioned have doubtlessly changed or closed, the collection still feels timeless. There is one funny part that can be best summarized by the line “I admit to having been intrigued by the idea of storing restaurant information in a computer.”
I definitely recommend this collection, and can’t wait to begin the second book in the trilogy: Alice, Let’s Eat.
Here are some of the lines that made me laugh:
The other New York newsletter I have seen, The Craig Claiborne Journal, devotes more space to recipes than to restaurants, and is therefore of less use to me, since my cooking skill does not extend past a special way of preparing scrambled eggs so that they always stick to the pan. (page 78)
New York line behavior can be explained only by assuming that just about everyone in the line believes himself to be in possession of what the Wall Street people call inside information. (page 96)
He was not going to be able to meet me until a few hours after I arrived in Cincinnati, but he suggested on the phone that for my first taste of authentic Cincinnati chili, at lunch, I might want to try the unadorned product and therefore should start with what is known locally as “a bowl of plain.” He had no way of knowing, of course, that I have never eaten the unadorned version of anything in my life and that I once threatened to place a Denver counterman under citizen’s arrest for leaving the mayonnaise off my California burger. (page 129)
Fairs are good places to eat, particularly for stand-up eaters – which is one of the kinds of eaters I am, although when I eat standing up away from home I sometimes miss the familiar cool breeze coming from the open refrigerator. (page 185)
Buster’s fried chicken tastes as if it is made from chickens that have spent their entire pampered lives strolling around the barnyard pecking contentedly at huge cloves of garlic. (page 213-214)
Title: The Sixty-Eight Rooms Author: Marianne Malone Published: 2010 My edition: Random House Hardcover 2010 Purchased From: Barnes and Noble Greenwich Village Pages: 269
Synopsis (from Strand): Every Chicagoan knows about the Thorne Rooms in the Art Institute of Chicago. Sixty-eight miniature rooms, depicting rooms from European homes throughout the centuries, in immaculate detail, precise right down to the tiny rugs and doorknobs. Sixty-eight rooms so marvelously real that they seem magic. And for Ruthie, they are. Because she has found a key that allows her to shrink down to a size where she can explore the rooms, and discover their secrets. Small enough to find that someone has been in the rooms before her, and left important clues behind.
I read this because: I love the Thorne Rooms, they are my favorite part of the Art Institute of Chicago. Combining these lovely rooms with children’s literature is a perfect fit. Also – if ever one was to judge a book by its cover, this one pretty much takes the cake. I have Kelly to thank for giving me a heads up that this book was about to be released, and you can read her review here. Thanks Kelly!
My thoughts: What a magical book. There’s a lot to love about it: likable characters, unique setting, good writing, magic, adventure, mystery, and tiny things. A great read and a wonderful escape into a magical world.
If you don’t enjoy reading children’s books yourself, first of all take a moment and think about when exactly it was that you lost your soul. :) Seriously though, if you’re not interested in this for yourself, it would make a great gift for any child in your life.
Book club worthy? For book clubs interested in children’s literature, definitely yes.
Follow up required: Reading this really makes me want to go back and visit the Thorne Rooms again soon. I also really hope there will be a sequel.
You might like this book if you like: From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg, The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
It was the feeling you sometimes get when leaving the darkness of a theatre after a really exciting movie – you notice how the world around you is exactly the same as when you went in, only you feel different. (page 45)
I’ve been enjoying the Casson family series by Hilary McKay. This month I finished the third, Permanent Rose. I don’t feel the need to post a full review of it, but here are a few of my favorite lines from the book:
“I always say a little prayer when I put cakes in the oven,” remarked Eve, as she stopped to kiss Rose good-bye.
“What do you say?”
“I say, ‘Please, God, don’t let me forget I’ve put that cake in the oven.’” (page 102)
“Where can Caddy have got to?” moaned Bill for the hundredth time. “Why doesn’t she answer her mobile?”
“It’s switched off,” said Rose.
“Why?”
“In case someone rings.” (page 183)
David, always aware of his lifetime’s collection of guilty secrets struggling to escape, had been shocked at being seen through so quickly.” (page 2)
