I Love Led Zeppelin: panty-dropping comics
     and
Monkey Food: the complete I was seven in '75 collection

by Ellen Forney

Hilarious and highly recommended if you like comics. (These are definitely comics, not graphic novels.) Forney's drawing style is well-suited to both the comedic and the erotic themes.

I Love LZ is mostly one-page, one-off comics in the how-to vein: how to be a fag hag, as explained by Margaret Cho; how not to get caught using drugs; how to reattach severed fingers; how to twirl the tassels on your pasties — all a little dirty, subversive, sexy, etc. It also includes a few longer comics, including one written by a gay male friend and illustrated by Forney. Not that everything else is oppressively gynocentric, I just found that one extra interesting, for reasons you should be able to imagine.

Monkey Food is the episodic narrative of the author-illustrator's wonder years. I was only two in '75, but I'm still old enough to appreciate the way bell-bottoms and loud colors can turn the screw on ordinary human foibles.

Happiness: a history

by Darrin M. McMahon

A survey of the evolving definitions of "happiness" in Western thought — not, as you might expect, dealing with psychology, but rather in terms of mythology/religion, philosophy, sociology, a touch of linguistics, and even a bit of zoology (happiness being one of the things that distinguishes man from the other animals). Some examples: in ancient Greece, happiness was a matter of fate or luck; the spread of Judeo-Christian values gave rise to the notion that happiness could be achieved through virtuous living; in modern times people think happiness is mankind's natural state, that we are entitled to happiness, that we simply need to eliminate the physical and/or psychic barriers that are keeping us from being happy.

I found this book intensely interesting, but it was slow reading. I got about halfway through, took a break and read some fluffy teen fiction, then went back and finished. I'd only recommend this book to someone who's certain s/he wants to read philosophy and intellectual history; dabblers should look elsewhere.

Children of Hurin

by J.R.R. Tolkien

Unless you're a nut-case, skip the introductory stuff, which will be especially confusing for those who haven't read The Silmarillion. Otherwise, this is a nice stand-alone novella of Middle Earth. The action takes place well before anything in the trilogy, and it won't add much to the experience if you're planning to read or re-read the trilogy. But like I said, it's a fine story, worth reading even if you're not a hardcore Rings fanatic.

P.S.: Sorry I haven't posted in so long. Busy with other stuff, yadda-yadda-yadda. I'll try harder.

Call Me by Your Name

by André Aciman

The first review of this book that I read made it sound really boring — and I am totally OK with books in which not much happens, so it must have sounded re-e-eally boring. I don't recall what tipped me over the edge, but it may have been the sexy cover:


Interesting, isn't it, how an image can be non-explicit and yet somehow sexier than if it were? But I digress...

I really didn't want to read another book about a teenage queer boy and the older (but not much older) man who changed his life. But I'm glad I did. The writing is just lovely, and the emotions are rendered with an intensity and realism that overshadow the plot's un-originality. The book is mostly about the build-up, the excruciating anticipation; then the short-lived explosiveness of the thing itself; and ultimately the book tries be original by tacking on a completely unnecessary chapter showing how one of the lovers never totally gets over it.

I was about to say the book is slim, so the unnecessary epilogue-y bit doesn't ruin it, but I checked online and it's 248 pages. It sure didn't seem that long, which means I must have been reading it quickly, which is kind of odd for a book that's mostly about anticipation — but maybe it isn't. The author writes about one's sense of time being affected by feelings of anticipation and desire, and I must have had an experience similar to the character's. I guess this book is more original (in quality, if not in content) than I thought. (Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure one of the reviews said something to that effect, which means I'm not being original. It's a vicious, vicious circle, isn't it?)

Twinkie, Deconstructed: my journey to discover how the ingredients found in processed foods are grown, mined (yes, mined), and manipulated into what America eats

by Steve Ettlinger

I'm behind on my reading -- again. Luckily I've just cracked Twinkie, Deconstructed, which is nonfiction but reads really fast. It's all about the origins of the ingredients of Twinkies, including a lot of stuff you probably never thought of as "food." Although not as disgusting as Fast Food Nation, it'll still make you think twice before snacking. Also a good recommendation if you enjoyed Garbage Land.

Only thing I'm going to add here is that the author isn't the greatest writer (not a lot of flair), but in a book such as this that isn't a bad thing. The writing is solid, organized, and easily understandable without sacrificing interesting details.

How Language Works: how babies babble, words change meaning, and languages live or die

by David Crystal

This is what happens when one doesn't write one's reviews right away: of course I remember what the book is about, but my initial reaction is lost and I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts about it. So, this'll be kind of a short one.

I wound up having to skim parts of this book, especially at the end. I'm really interested in cognitive linguistics, neurophysiology, semiotics... so the creation of language, learning of language, the biology and psychology of language are all subjects I'm jazzed about. Heck, I already knew about Noam Chomsky's universal grammar theory. How Language Works covers a lot of ground, including some stuff I found rather boring, but the parts I liked were super.

It's hard to find nonfiction that strikes the right tone between professional/academic and popular/readable. This particular book was a tad to "approachable" for me, in part because I'm already acquainted with some of the material. Overall, I'd say this book is an OK introduction to a broad range of subjects loosely gathered under the banner of Linguistics, but it's too broad and loose to satisfy more than a passing fancy.

Point to Point Navigation: a Memoir, 1964 to 2006
     and
Palimpsest: a Memoir

by Gore Vidal

Unless you already have some familiarity with Gore Vidal, don't read Point to Point Navigation until you've read Palimpsest, which covers the earlier part of his life. Even having read the earlier memoir, as well as some of his fiction and essays, I still found this latest book a bit erratic and at times full-on confusing. (Give the guy a break, he's getting pretty old.) Anyone who enjoys reading memoirs will enjoy Palimpsest, but P to P is probably only going to appeal to hardcore Vidal-ophiles.

I read Palimpsest ages ago, at a time when I had zero interest in nonfiction. I really only picked it up because it had a picture of G.V.'s extremely handsome boarding-school boyfriend. Turns out Vidal's life is a fascinating mix of politics, old money, and show business. It helps, too, that he has a very sharp wit and isn't shy about speaking his mind. He was also, in his own way, a gay rights pioneer: he wasn't an activist, and he didn't "come out" publicly the way the famous do these days; he simply always was, unapologetically, who he was, one facet of which happened to be that he's gay.

Other books by Vidal that I've read include Myra Breckenridge and The Smithsonian Institution, both trashy-fun fiction (the latter actually has a paperback edition with a romance-style cover); I also read a collection of his essays, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta. I wanna read more of his fiction, but there's so much other stuff to read too. Sigh.

The Effect of Living Backwards

by Heidi Julavits

Although I read it maybe five years ago, this is a book I frequently recommend — in part because it's frequently on the shelf in my library, unlike a lot of other titles I'd like to recommend. Plus it's just a really interesting, weird book with flavors of Douglas Coupland and Haruki Murakami, and even a little Tom Clancy.

What does that get you? Surreal... familial... terrorism... with laughs. Two sisters who hate each other are on a hijacked plane, where they start competing for the romantic attention of their blind captor. Doesn't sound like the kind of story that's capable of providing insight into the human condition, does it? And yet somehow it works, but it's difficult to explain; you just have to trust me. The convoluted plot and psychological screw-turning are kind of reminiscent of an M.C. Escher drawing: there's that quality of convincing realism at war with the subtle (but obvious once you see it) impossibility of it all.

Still not sounding like much of a recommendation? What can I say, it's a tough sell. Best for adventurous readers and risk-takers.

Zine roundup

Yay zines! I've been reading tons, and I just don't have the energy to blog them all individually, so here are a few quick and dirty zine reviews.

The Secret Files of Captain Sissy, No. 5
Kind of a journal-y storytelling zine written by a guy who:
1. Got a real bad concussion when he crashed on his skateboard (sexy)
2. Did an internship with the United Steelworkers (righteous)
3. Traveled with a mobile zine exhibit (kewl)
4. Witnessed the Great West Philadelphia Food Co-op Strike of 2002 (my homie!)
5. Suggested changing the Flaming Hot Cheetos mascot to a flaming hot queer boy (delicious)

Camp Mania
Hilarious recollections from a summer-camp counselor. Occasionally creepy, as summer camp should be. The typos only make it funnier.

Go Fuck Yourself : a mini-zine devoted to D.I.Y. sex toys and gender-bending devices
I only flipped through this one. Like a cookbook, it's not the kind of the thing you read cover to cover. Lots of great ideas if you're crafty and horny.

28 Pages Lovingly Bound with Twine #13
Another journal-y zine with stories about getting a new hybrid car and peeing on campfires after drinking lots and lots of Reed's Extra Ginger Brew. Very well put together — they're not kidding about the "lovingly."

Applicant
Pictures of '70s-era graduate students with phrases culled from their faculty evaluations. Who knew professors were so cruel? And yet it's funny... funny like when people fall down.

Sugar Needle #29
Amusing reviews of strange candies from around the world, reminiscent of McSweeney's Reviews of New Food. Ooh, and the cover is hand-colored!

A Tale of Love and Darkness

by Amos Oz

Here's a book I read a few years ago that came to mind recently when I found out the author is on the shortlist for the 2007 Man Booker International Prize. I must have a read a review in the NYT Book Review, because I read it at a time when I wasn't doing much nonfiction; it's actually one of the books that got me interested in reading more nonfiction.

Oz is known for his controversial views on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and this memoir recounts his childhood and young-adulthood before, during, and after the creation of the Israeli state and the many wars and skirmishes (military, political, and otherwise) that entailed. While the backdrop is certainly interesting, the author isn't taking sides, expressing opinions, or directly confronting any of those issues. What's really compelling is the author's personal emotional and intellectual journey. It's damn well written (and translated), very moving (I got a little verklempt), and definitely one for posterity (for literary merit and historical value).

I'm not quite ready to put this in my Top 10, but if I had a Top 100 it'd be a shoe-in.

All of the Above

by Shelley Pearsall

Yet another based-on-a-true-story tale of inner-city kids overcoming adversity with the help of an inspiring teacher — but I don't mean that in a bad way. The concept has been over-used in movies, but the author, a former teacher herself, makes it work on a kid-friendly level in this cute, heartwarming book. (We're talking upper end of the J-fiction age range.) The kids form a sort of math club to try and build the world's largest tetrahedron, but the story is all about the kids and doesn't dwell on the math long enough to become nerdy.

Rotating chapters through different characters' points of view is risky in a book of this length, but it's pulled off fairly well. From the junior thug with a heart of gold to the frustrated white math teacher, most of the characters display a basic goodness, but not without flaws. The range of characters ensures most young readers will find one with whom to identify. (All the characters are black except the teacher.) The ending is positive and upbeat without being overly triumphant; it's realistic because you can see the kids' problems aren't all magically fixed by this one success story.

I would definitely recommend this book for average middle-school readers and younger kids reading above grade level. Although the story and the characters would probably appeal to a reluctant or struggling readers, the length might be an obstacle for them.

[Note to readers: I promise I'll do some grown-up stuff soon.]

The Left Hand Dreams of Him

(Only the Ring Finger Knows, vol. 2)

by Satoru Kannagi

I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH. I was giddy most of the time I was reading it — picture this: me, on the bus, reading a lavender book with pretty boys and flowers on the cover, giggling every few minutes. If you know me, you know I'm just about impossible to embarrass, but this nearly did the trick.

First, the plot: "Passion builds and tempers flare in The Left Hand Dreams of Him. Wataru and Yuichi may think the biggest challenges of their new love are far behind them, but no one said they'd be left alone for good! Even a private vacation getaway is full of meddling intruders who seem to have their sights on disrupting the careful lovers. Their matching rings unite them in heart and spirit ... will the men trust in this special bond enough to weather the storms of controversy?"

Wataru, the younger half of this couple, starts off as his usual wimpy self, but with the mentorship of a new friend — who at first has the ominous aura of a dangerous liaison — he finds an unexpected inner strength. Yuichi, who's always been Wataru's rock, stumbles when confronted with a formidable familial foe. (Sorry for the alliteration; I couldn't help it.) It's not a complete role reversal, but it's an interesting new dynamic that has me excited to read the third book. (But I'm also a little scared, because volume 3's title is The Ring Finger Falls Silent — aieee!)

This second installment in the series also turns up the heat between the sheets, if you know what I mean. There's nothing explicit; this isn't erotica or porn, it's Harlequin-style romance. But there are a number of stirring scenes, like this one: "While sweetly biting his earlobe, Yuichi spoke in a thrillingly romantic voice. Wataru reflexively stiffened his body, but his lips were accustomed enough to this to patiently melt that away. Each time Yuichi moved his kisses bit by bit from earlobe to neck, then to left and right collarbones, a light giddiness attacked Wataru. In the afternoon sun-filled room, only the sense of rubbing skin and the timbre of kisses stretched out just like an ephemeral ripple." I'm not sure what "the timbre of kisses" is, but I want some!

See also The Lonely Ring Finger.

A note to readers

Blame my moon in Virgo, but I'm going to be re-publishing some more stuff today that isn't really new but just has tweaked formatting and/or labels. Apologies for the annoyance.

A note to readers

I'm trying to finish a bit of re-formatting and tagging of older posts, which involves re-publishing, so they may show up in your blog reader as new items even though they are not new. Thank you for your understanding and support. (Now, how about some more comments?!)

American Born Chinese

by Gene Luen Yang

It's the first graphic novel to win the Printz Award. While it's certainly worthy, I can't help feeling that the format is what put it over the top, that the librarian judges wanted to seem progressive and hip. (The immigration/diversity theme can't have hurt either.) That said, I don't think the story would work very well without the pictures.

Myth, reality, and fantasy converge from three separate storylines that turn out to be threads of the same narrative. Although the conclusion is a tad abrupt, it's satisfying as well as surprising, and it combines the three elements without seeming forced or unreal — despite the essential unreality of two of the stories. There are some obvious lessons about cultural and personal identity, but it manages not to be too preachy, which might actually be a function of the obviousness. The lesson is explicit, so it doesn't have to be dwelled upon or reiterated.

As far as graphic novels go, this one's easy to read. It uses a straightforward square-panel design, and the illustrations are clean and simple with bright, engaging colors. I tore through it in about an hour.

The format, the humor, and the brevity make this book a good recommendation for "reluctant readers," but I can't help feeling a little disappointed that an award winner doesn't demand a bit more of the reader.

The "God" Part of the Brain: a scientific interpretation of human spirituality and god

by Matthew Alper

I was really intrigued by this book — that is, until I read it. (Well, some of it anyway. I couldn't finish.) I'm really interested in neuroscience and neurophysiology, and I've been thinking about god and religion lately, so I was pretty excited to read this book.

Where to begin? Title, subtitle, and... what the heck is that? Off to the side of the cover, vertical rather than horizontal, there's a sub-subtitle: "a personal journey." So our author is neither scientist nor theologian. He is widely, but not deeply, read. As a result, some of his ideas and interpretations are over-simplified, and the superficiality tends to undermine the cross-discipline synthesis he's attempting.

That said, the underlying concept is pretty interesting. Just as our capacity for language, for example, is tied to certain physiological sites and structures within our brains, and these sites and structures have developed through evolutionary processes, perhaps we have also evolved a capacity to think and to experience the world in spiritual terms. (Now I'm simplifying. This part of the argument takes up a number of chapters.)

OK. Fine so far. So what's the evolutionary advantage of our spiritual capacity? (The author sometimes calls it a "tendency.") The author suggests that as our time consciousness evolved and combined with our awareness of our own mortality, we would have been paralyzed by fear of our inevitable death. And this is where he loses me. I don't get why the fear of death would be so great that proto-humans (or whatever) would be unable to perform the tasks of day to day survival. The author's analogy of a bunny confronted by a mountain lion does not compute. Fear of imminent, violent death is not equal to fear of theoretical, potential, eventual death. (Yeah, any of us could die in the next two seconds, but probably not.) Dragging in our ability to conceptualize infinity (and therefore to recognize our personal insignificance) does not, for me, enhance the fear — or the thesis. Ditto for fear of losing loved ones; it's just not scary enough to make me stop eating.

I soldiered on a bit, but it only got worse. Next the author tries to explain the range of spirituality and religiosity with the bell curve: most people fall somewhere in the middle, but some people are at the extremes. Atheism is the side of the curve where folks have little to no spiritual capacity/tendency. So why aren't atheists acting like terrified bunnies? Why aren't they dying because they're too scared to live? This incongruity further destabilizes the already shaky theory.

And then I quit reading.

Clay

by David Almond

Another young adult book that I checked out ages ago and only recently got around to reading. Although the author is popular — at least with librarians and award-givers — I had no problem renewing the book repeatedly, so the kids weren't exactly champing at the bit.

It's a bit of an odd story. It borrows heavily from Jewish folklore (the legend of the golem) without ever mentioning Judaism, and it's set in what seems like the '50s or '60s against a background of Catholic versus Protestant animosity without being in Northern Ireland (rather, it's in northwestern England). Even setting all that strangeness aside, I'm not sure for whom the author is writing, cuz I don't think too many teens are going to connect with this story. It manages to seem old-fashioned without actually dating itself very clearly. (Unlike Black Swan Green, a book by another English author that is set in the indirectly specified recent past but manages to seem timeless. Also unlike Almond's Printz award runner-up Skellig, which was weird and supernatural in a positive way.) It also does that thing where it jumps right in to the story and the reader is supposed to figure out the setting and get oriented by picking up little clues and cues; authors seem to think this terribly clever, but the technique is rarely deployed effectively, in my experience. No offense meant to teens, but if I found it hard to assimilate the dialect and social context, it won't be easy or fun for young adults.

Anyway, it isn't horrible (mercifully short, more like it), but I wouldn't recommend it. The ending is kinda slapdash, and the themes are much more effectively explored in Skellig.

The Burn Journals

by Brent Runyon

It's kind of weird, given the subject matter, to say I was excited about this book — but I was. I first heard this young man a year or two earlier on "This American Life" talking, with surprising humor, about how he had attempted suicide by self-immolation, survived, and recovered (as much as one can from something like that).

The book, as you might guess, is based on the journals he kept during the many months he spent in hospital, chronicling his physical and emotional recovery process. While I give the book high marks overall — it's very readable, even for teens who don't read a lot, despite appearing to be kinda thick — I was a bit disappointed in the pre-burn portion of the book. I mean, I realize it's difficult to put intense emotions into words, but I just wasn't feeling it in the lead up to the actual suicide attempt. Not to be harsh or anything, but it sounded like a bit of a lark: got in trouble at school again, parents'll be mad, maybe I'll just set myself on fire. (See this earlier post for more evidence of my inability to empathize.)

Good nonfiction recommendation for teens, especially those who like to read true-crime and/or true-trauma books in the vein of A Child Called "It". Another sort of similar book I'll be blogging at some point is Sickened: the Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood.

Life and Fate

by Vasily Grossman

Long story short, this is the World War II version of War and Peace. It's a sweeping narrative following the fortunes — personal, political, military — of an extended family during the battle for Stalingrad (though most of them aren't actually in Stalingrad at the time); it's 870 pages, plus eight pages of character names (not even including the many nicknames Russians use).

It's also a really fantastic book, well worth reading. Special interest in Russian lit is not required, but it would help. Also not for the faint-hearted; you'll be mired in the tragedy of war, the tragedy of the human condition, the tragedy — and tragic ironies — of post-revolutionary Russia. (An example of the latter: "The soul of wartime Stalingrad was freedom. ... Here, ten years later, was constructed a vast dam, one of the largest hydro-electric power stations in the world — the product of the forced labour of thousands of prisoners.")

On top of all that tragedy, I found other reasons to almost cry. (I seem to be almost crying more often as I get older. I get all verklempt every time I think about Jimmy Carter.) This book is about a war in the '40s, was written in the '50s and published in the U.S. in the '80s, and the world is still effed up in the same exact ways. I know I shouldn't find that surprising, yet somehow it's devastating. Won't we ever learn?

Cassandra French's Finishing School for Boys

by Eric Garcia

This is one that I read ages ago, and I've selected it as my first "blast from the past" review because it's also one of the suggestions I came up with the other day when a patron asked for fun, light reading and for the first time I ACTUALLY USED MY BLOG AS A READERS ADVISORY TOOL!!!!!!!

Anyway, it's absolute fluff — and absolutely delicious. It's a bonbon of a book in which our protagonist, frustrated with dating and disappointed yet again by a man, refuses to roll over and take it like a woman. Instead she ties him up in her basement and begins training him to become a better man, the kind of man a modern young(-ish) woman would be proud to date, perhaps even marry. As you might imagine, hilarity ensues.

It's chick lit — written by a man. It's a beach book — although I cannot condone reading in the presence of large amounts of sand and/or water.