Maybe I should go jump over park benches

Natural Born Heroes

Despite the "Chris MacDougal" style--build up and switch--this was gripping and altogether unforgettable.  This time his alternating plot lines were the British undercover operatives on Crete during World War II and the superhuman feats attained by people who practice Parkour and other extreme athletic regimes.  He likes to spend a chapter or so on the main plot line--the extreme level of fitness (physical or mental--who knows) required to do the stunts the operatives did--then switch off for a bit describing the history of Greek athletes or the Parkour regimen for extreme fitness or other lost arts of near-superhuman achievement.

His style works for me, once I got used to it again.  (See: Born To Run)  But it bugs some people supremely. Others probably just plain don't believe him.  I can understand that--he gets going with an idea and goes a little far, hyperbolically, at times.  If you can forgive him those occasions and stick with what can be demonstrated in the history books or proven by observation, then this book will blow your mind and expand your vision of possibilities.

Shouldn't try to read cookbooks

Modern spice
by Monica Bhide

As I expected, a cookbook with extras.  What I didn't expect was the volume of the extras, both the big, 2-3 page stories and the occasional little mini-stories in with the recipes. Very enjoyable.

Both the little stories and the big ones are chatty, informal tales of cooking, traveling, meeting people and more. You practically get to know her just by reading her recipe notes. By cooking the recipes you'd be stepping even further into Ms. Bhide's crossover life. She explains at the beginning that this is her own, highly personal introduction to Indian food and flavors--it's not a reference manual.  It's an attempt to capture the soul of the cuisine and not be too fussy about authenticity.  And borrowing on her own claims to authenticity, she allows herself to improvise.

I enjoyed the book but didn't copy down more than two of the recipes. As much as I love the cuisine and will continue to cook my own Americanized versions of dals, curries, and 'masalas', I simply will not begin every recipe with "2 tablespoons vegetable oil".  That's just a little too Americanized for me.  In my stubborn know-it-all opinion, a teaspoon of olive oil or ghee rubbed around the skillet will improve most dishes, but I'm not going to have everything swimming in 'vegetable oil'.  Yuck.

So I won't attempt to review the recipes but I will recommend the book--it's a lot of fun.

Lovely, lively memoir

Life from Scratch
by Sasha Martin

I was just plain bowled over. From page one she had me.  This book had been described as "one woman's quest to cook around the world," but there's a whole lot before that.  You could almost call the cooking part an anticlimax--I think the book really set out to explain why she felt the need to cook a meal from every country in the world.  And it did explain it, admirably.  She had one of the most screwed up weirdo childhoods you'll ever encounter, barring actual abuse.  Abuse wasn't the problem--it was stupidity!

I'll let you read for yourself why she started the cooking quest--no more spoilers.  The only thing I might have liked was a little more detail about the blog she wrote and about her recipe selection. How did she choose a menu from a country like India or China, which have lots of regional cuisines that we Americans all lump into one? But it turns out her website is still out there and possibly the blog archives are, too...yep. globaltableadventure.com   Maybe it will tell....I see that its organized by country, but that's the order she cooked in, so okay. 

One of the most amusing parts of the cooking adventure was how she found the ingredients even though she lived in Tulsa, which ain't all that big and is not at all a big immigrant center.  I live near a larger city with a lot more people and I'm still trying to locate black mustard seeds.  Obviously you can order such things online, but she found local sources for foods you wouldn't imagine, and often, she even found the people who knew how to cook them.  Call that part two of her adventure.

Despite all my talk of food, that's not the point of this book.  It's not for 'foodies', but rather, for anyone who enjoys memoirs.

A family tale in the works

The Girl From Foreign

It's hard to say why this book gripped me so much. Ms. Shepard has gone to India on a research grant, to make a documentary about the Bene Israel settlement on the coast near Mumbai.  The Bene Israel is a community of Jews who were shipwrecked on the coast two thousand years ago; they have lived until recently in isolation from the rest of the Jewish world but but still practicing what they could remember of their religion.

That's the focus of Ms. Shepard's research grant, but you quickly learn she's also hankering after a different story--the story of her grandmother.  Her grandmother was a Jewish woman who became the third wife of a Muslim man, taking on his religion and raising her children in it, but never truly forsaking her own. She was a highly educated woman, a nurse--why did she choose to give that up and become a second-class citizen?  Why did she quit her own work to take care of her husband's properties and live in his house as the 'favored wife'?  What were her thoughts--her daily experiences--her deepest feelings?

Maybe the author wasn't able to answer all these questions, but she made a great try.  And answered a few of her own existential questions at the same time.  Not perfect but very interesting.

Classic and for a reason

The Good Earth
by Pearl S. Buck

At times I was listening with fists clenched in fear and fingers crossed in hope. At times I had to grit my teeth to keep from hollering--don't do it, stupid!  At times I was amazed to think that people could have subsisted on so little food and saddened to know that they did.  When drought strikes the whole land, if the rich used their silver to bring in food and share it with the hungry, would their goodness be remembered?  We'll never know.

I was so caught up in the powerful story that even as I shuddered at people's foolish decisions, I didn't get angry at the author, only the people.  There were only two really 'good' people in the whole book and I never fully understood what made them tick, but they weren't the story--the story was of Wang Lung and his father and his sons.

Actually, I'm not sure I want to use the term, 'good'.  It's not about good vs. evil, it's about human beings and what they do to survive. If I call Wang Lung's wife 'good', I'm ignoring her whole role in life. She exists to serve--she's a wife and a mother and she meets the obligations as she has been taught them. She seems to be grateful for what she's been given and seldom envious of what she can't have. She's simply a survivor.

But you never know what's going on inside her. If Pearl Buck had written this book forty years later (it was published in 1931), would she have considered writing from the woman's perspective?  Did she feel that to be taken seriously she had to write about men?  Was it verboten to show a woman's true feelings--would that have typecast her work as chick lit and trivialized its existence?  I'm not sure we'll ever know, and it's a pity.

Wrong again--we might know!  She wrote a series of essays,  Of Men and Women, and is considered a feminist writer by some people.  I'm going to check this out!  See you later.

A quick YA so-so

Breakfast served anytime
by Sarah Combs

For all that I enjoyed this little book, I don't feel comfortable assigning it a high rating. It's thin and disjointed and seems to be aspiring to be literary or symbolic.  The heroine never seemed like someone I knew, let alone liked. She was amusing, that's all.  There were hints of a painful past, a missing mother and a lost grandmother, but that's all--hints.  There was some internal conflict about acting that I never understood--did she want to? Did she have bad experience with it?  Did I flip two pages and miss something critical?

I think there was even some kind of moral lesson, too. No idea what.  Sorry not to like.

Happy feet and lala legs

Feet, Don't Fail Me Now: The Rogue's Guide to Running the Marathon
by Ben K

Funny-ish and full of useful information. If I could only sustain the speed of my younger days, I'd try his training schedules. But, I fear, I'd be disappointed really quickly.

He structures the book around four races that you're going to do--a 5K, 10K, half-marathon and marathon. In a year. Sounds silly, no? But it's been done--and he's going to tell you how.

So each chapter starts off with a few weeks of training schedules--how many days to run, how much time to run and walk, how to balance the times spent running and walking. Later in the book he has to switch from time to distance as distance becomes more critical.  Then each chapter goes off on a topic of interest.  They're widely divergent but always important.  There is talk of what to eat, of working your core, of Kenyan runners, of networking with other runners, and of motivation--always, motivation.  At the end of each chapter is a list of inspiring music for the run, and often, interviews with the artists who recommended it. Some are runners--Willie Nelson, really?--but many are not. Fun stuff.

The reason I can't try his schedules is that when he says, "Run for six minutes," all I can muster is a fast jog.  He even says "jog" from time to time, but I honestly think he's expecting people to start off doing eight-minute miles.  The only way I could effectively use his schedules is to substitute my 'jog' for his 'walk' and then run like heck when he says to. But maybe I could...and maybe I will. Since I'm not yearning to run the marathon in a year, maybe I could stretch out his schedule a bit....

Wow--that right there tells you how inspiring this book is. It's actually making me want to try it out.  I guess that means, highly recommended.

Not so bad celeb memoir

Loretta Lynn
by Loretta Lynn, George Vecsey

Her voice, her true voice, shows on every page. This is her as she wanted to show herself, and she doesn't gloss over the bad times or embellish the good deeds--I don't think.  We all hide a little evildoing in our histories, so I won't insist on a biographer to come along and dig the dirt.  But she, as big and goodhearted as her 110-pound body will support, gets to tell her own story her way.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.

(If you're not already a Loretta Lynn fan, you probably don't need to read this. But I enjoyed it.)

just a little more YA to go and I'll quit with it again

What Can't Wait

by Ashley Hope Pérez

Now this is a real YA realistic fiction.  It's not "the evil teacher" or "the school bully" who's preventing Marissa from realizing her dreams--it's a loving family and her own sense of responsibility. Her family is pressuring her to skimp on school (and especially calculus for her AP college credit) so she can put in extra hours at Kroger, cook dinner, or babysit for her sister.  What's the point of college anyway?  And even if she gets into the engineering program at UT, how can her mother let her go so far away?

There's boys in there too--she's a teenager, after all.  And about as stupid as a highly intelligent high school senior can be...maybe. We hope not. We'll see.

Another YA but better things to come

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces
by Isabel Quintero

Remarkably long and honest tale of teenager coming of age.  Her Dad is a meth addict; her mother works too many hours and isn't exactly tactful about Gaby's food issues, but she has her instincts in place when they need to be.  Gaby learns to cope with the conflicting demands of family and school  by pouring out her soul in poetry, and I enjoyed that a lot.  Recommended, especially for a conflicted teen who wants a friend who's going through the same kind of messed up stuff she is.

Quick and forgetful

Close to famous
by Joan Bauer

Very solid YA cozy by the author of Hope Was Here.   I liked it, and in general, I like her stuff. It doesn't have that mysterious spark that makes me want to read more, but it served its purpose well--to give me light and cheer on an evening when I feel blue.

She maybe could have sneaked in a little more detail on Foster's struggles, or dug some depth into any one of the other characters.  The actress would have been an interesting character to explore.  Maybe I shut up and quit criticizing kid lit--let the people of the right age do it--but still, shouldn't I get an opinion?  There's a whole lot of it I do like.

Still, maybe I should find some grownup books to read for comfort food...but it's hard. Grownup books seem to think they have to rip your heart out, like My Year Of Meats or All The Light You Cannot See.  How to find a "light" grownup book?

The garden has returned!

The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

by Alex Kershaw

Beautifully written, neither too much nor too little. This is the war story of Felix Sparks and the 45th infantry division--The Thunderbirds--during World War II and a little after.  The author included a bit of Sparks life after the war so we wouldn't be left hanging, and I really appreciated that.

From the disastrous beach landing on Sicily, to the blind hand-to-hand combat of the Vosges forest, to the liberation of Nuremberg,  Sparks was in the thick of the bloodiest battles of the whole bloody war. Near the end, he ended up at Dachau in time to stop some of his men from enraged execution of SS troops left behind when the real killers departed.  In my book that makes him a true war hero--not one who kills, but one who prevents killing.  Killing seems to be the real reason for war. We says it's for territory or control or even to enforce peace, but somehow it all comes down to killing the people who disagree with you.  There are better ways to enforce peace...if only we can seek them.

Anyway, this is one of the best histories I've ever read.  Right up there with A Bridge Too Far or some of Catton's Civil War novels.

Not for me, I'm afraid

On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God (Confessions of Georgia Nicolson, #2)
by Louise Rennison

Okay, this was a mistake for me. I refuse to say anything bad about this book because I'm way out of its target audience and therefore I don't get to have an opinion. All I can venture to say is this--I didn't think it was as funny as the first one.

If you are in the target audience--say, 10 to 14 years old--you'll probably find this hilarious and rush to get the next one.

Wild and wonderful romp amid the weird

Stiletto

(The Checquy Files #2)

by Daniel O'Malley

Almost as good as the first.  No...as good except for the element of surprise.  No...not quite as good.  No....

In any event, following a book as weird and wild as The Rook was, this one couldn't help but suffer a little in comparison. I mean, how do you trump a skinless man?  How do you improve on the method the grafter used to smuggle himself into the Rookery?  Where do you take a book after a glorious romp with amnesia?

He did an awesome job. Can't wait for the next.  Hurry, Mr. O'Malley, please?  No, don't hurry--take your time and make it awesome. No...hurry.  No....

Fan girl author does it again

Attachments
by Rainbow Rowell

Awwww!  Such a sweetie!

The IT manager of a daily newspaper, whose mother saddled him with the idiotic name of "Lincoln" (probably to reduce his chances of ever meeting girls), is given the task of monitoring the new email scanner and reading any personal emails that it flags. He's supposed to ensure they're not actually pornographical or criminal, then send a friendly warning to the person(s) involved.

But he gets interested in the conversations between two ladies--one who is conflicted about whether or not she wants to have a baby and another who is in a relationship with an emotionally absent musician.  He gets so interested that he can't stop reading.

What ensues is pretty funny, and oh, so very very sweet.  Great little book  I be it'll be a movie one day.

Wow--the author has other books!  I knew her name sounded familiar--she was the author of Fangirl.  I raved about it a few months back.  Where's my reading list....

History told at the time

Dear Miss Breed: True Stories of the Japanese American Incarceration During World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference

by Joanne F. Oppenheim

There's only so much you can cram into a book. I don't remember any of the history I was taught in school, but if I did remember, I expect it would be about presidents and wars and inventions and discoveries.  Columbus discovered America-- how exciting is that? Well...not exactly America. The West Indies (which he thought were the East Indies) and the coast of Central America.  Nowadays I think history textbooks try a little harder, but they still seem to be telling the tale, not showing.

If I were boss, schoolkids would spend ten minutes of each class period on facts and the the rest on books like this. Movies, too--documentaries for sure, and works of fiction so long as the fiction was true to the times.  Every American schoolkid learns that Hitler killed Jews, but how many know that the United States relocated and incarcerated 110,000 people?  Once a Jap, always a Jap--even if they were American citizens born in America and speaking no more than a word of two of the Japanese language.  Most of the people had to leave behind their possessions and sell their properties at a huge loss. They were kept in concentration camps (actual term employed at the time), surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by soldiers with guns...for their own protection. If the guns are for our own protection, they wondered, then why are they pointed at us?

In San Diego a children's librarian named Clara Breed walked among the kids queuing up for evacuation trains, hugging her many small patrons and handing out stamped postcards with her address on them.  Write to me, she begged.

This book is the result.  Her letters from Elizabeth, Ellen, Tetsuzo (Ted), little Katherine and others make up the icing of this nutty treat.  The letters are mostly cheerful and amusing, speaking of the sunsets on the distant mountains or the stars overhead...but the darker reality left unsaid is always in the back of your mind, if you only stop to think. 

Everyone else liked it

Walking Across Egypt
by Clyde Edgerton

I just didn't get the point of this book.  The characterization is awesome, I must say.  The author manages to be in everyone's head almost all the time, and it's not even annoying.  It's like an exercise in perspective--take a scene and tell it from ten different perspectives and you'll come up with ten completely different descriptions of what just happened.  You don't notice it at first, but it's a clear demonstration of how what we see is so very much colored by who we are...and that's freakish and frightening.

Plot in short: an elderly lady living alone moves through the adventures of her ordinary life with charity and hopeful love for everyone.  (Except the bossy lady at church.)  It could teach us all a few lessons about how people can be kind and tolerant without sacrificing their principles.

But I still didn't get the point.  It was fun meeting the people, especially Mattie--she of the rigid Christian principles, fantastic pound cake, and unrelenting hospitality.  But I didn't finish the book smiling, satisfied, or even particularly happy to have read it. I wanted something more...and no idea what.

Those who can't do, read

Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail

by Carrot Quinn
Astonishing--this travel tale had almost none of the elements that make me love a travel tale, and I still loved it.  The daily journeys were relayed in a plain, sequential narrative, and in present tense. The present tense was annoying at first, but after a couple of pages it pulled me in and swept me along--

I close my eyes, listening to the sound of the freeway in the distance. Turning the wheel of life, as they say.
or
I eat my rehydrated instant pinto beans from my plastic peanut butter jar. They taste amazing.

I quoted a couple of mundane passages on purpose--this gives you the idea of the simple, no-nonsense narrative of the journey. It's simple, but by no means mundane. One doesn't hike over two-thousand miles through desert and mountains without experiencing enervating heat, grinding weariness, aching cold, and gnawing hunger.  In dizzying intervals she is literally on the top of the earth and in the depths of despair, and it's good being there with her.

Not as good as doing it yourself might be...but then, not as tiring.

Now I'm a true know-it-all

The Complete Book of Running for Women

by Claire Kowalchi

I read  almost all of this, except for the section on shoes, which I sneered at, and the race training schedules, which didn't seem relevant since I won't qualify for a race for a hundred years at least.  Re shoes: I wonder if runners will ever see the absurdity in asking someone who sells shoes for a living, probably on commission, for advice about buying shoes.   Shoes a little worn on the outside of the sole? You need better shoes. You won't get advice on shortening your stride or practicing barefoot running on grass--you'll get sold new shoes designed to correct overprotonation and by the way, they'll need to be replaced every hundred miles.  (If they're so good, why....  Don't ask.)

Shoes aside, her advice is good.  She's a little paranoid about amenorrhea--it's mentioned at least eight times and there's a whole section about it--but probably she sees of lot of cases of it in her practice.  In her diet advice she doesn't say much about sugar--maybe she assumes that anyone seriously interested in running isn't going to down three cans of coke a day.  Most everything else seems right on.  (I'm no expert but I've read a couple of books.)

Whether you're a beginner or an expert, this is a good book to dip into. Much, much better than the Runner's World guide I picked up. I had to give that on that one.

The train to crystal city:

FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America's Only Family Internment Camp During World War II

by Jan Jarboe Russell

 

A lot of history crammed in here, but somehow, it felt like an overview.  Especially toward the end.  How is that possible?

Mr. Russell  chose a handful of significant people to follow, in particular the director of the camp and a few of the American children who were involuntarily detained. In the first few chapters, he'd frequently adopt the point of view of one of those people. And he'd then expand out to tell the family history of the children, how they came to be there and what their family life was like.

This was great stuff and I loved it. But at some point it began to be less episodic and more linear, almost textbookish. I found myself involuntarily "skimming" to get to something I could relate to. Not that I don't love reading history--dates, times, places and people are all fascinating--but didn't start out simply reading facts and didn't have my brain geared that way.

Luckily, the personal narration resumed for some of the people, in particular two families who were "repatriated" to Germany and Japan, so I ended feeling somewhat satisfied.  But there was still a certain unsettling lack of structure about the work.

And there's one I haven't read

The Remarkable Case of Dorothy L Sayers
by Catherine Kenney

Not a biography--as I'd thought--but something just as good. It's a scholarly review of her major works, concentrated on what they did for detective fiction in particular and fiction writing in general, then. And for her later, non-fiction works, it explained why they're so awesome. I can't speak to personal knowledge of the later works, but I think I can trust the author's honest opinion on the matter.

The only one I knew about was her translation of The Inferno.  But it appears that at about the time when World War II started, she'd brought the Wimsey/Vane saga to an appropriate close and she shifted her writing efforts to nonfiction--the Dante translation, plays including a rather lengthy series dramatizing the life of Christ, and essays, including her notable The Mind of the Maker.  This one compares the work of the Creator to the work of man and concludes that the highest and most fulfilling work a man can do is to imitate God--by doing creation.

The most surprising thing Ms. Kenney does is to point out the myriad ways in which Sayer's fiction is rooted in the solidity of her Christian faith.  I'd never noticed it--it was just part of the scenery. But there it was, and when she points it out, you marvel at how she snuck the little gems of philosophy into her light, enjoyable froth.

Reflections on running

To Be A Runner
How Racing Up Mountains, Running with the Bulls, or Just Taking On a 5-K Makes You a Better Person (and the World a Better Place)

by Martin Dugard

Totally elevating. Even his descriptions of bloody, chafing thighs fail to demotivate.  He talks of his own running, his coaching, and his racing with equal intensity.  This is clearly a runner who runs because...well...because he runs.

He's run many marathons and other races in his life, but at some point he realized it was time to reconsider--
When would crossing the finish line of yet another superhuman test of endurance make me feel complete?  A still, small voice in my head reminded me that the time I'd been happiest in my athletic life was when I was just a runner. Just a guy who laced up his shoes and ran because it felt good. That was enough.

The thought didn't lead him to disparage running the marathon or to discourage his young runners from own their dreams. But it was probably the reason he wrote this book--to reflect on what running really meant and share that with the world.  The many thoughts and observations scattered through this book that will make me pick it up again and again.  If for no other reason, just to get a different perspective when things look grim.

Makes me want to go buy a dress

A Vintage Affair
by Isabel Wolff

What a darling book!  I think it got unfairly typecast as a romance novel and thus it missed the praise it deserved. There's romance in it, yes, but there's also loss, suffering, regret, conflict, friendship, mothers, fathers, parenting, and a whole lot of other stuff.  It's no more or less a romance than an Anne Tyler novel.

In retrospect, the only fully developed character is the heroine. Some of the other people, most notably the heroine's mother and the older lady Mrs. Bell, got a little extra treatment. But everyone else was a shell person--like one of the bumper posts that your pinball bounces off. They had nothing to do except divert the course of the ball.

So...I guess it was a little shallow in that regard. But I liked it anyway.

With a brief aside on the "warning label"

Don't eat this book

Lot of lectures by the creator of Supersize Me, Morgan Spurlock. I was expecting it to be all about the documentary but that was only a small portion, maybe a third.  Those parts were really interesting--how he threw up on the first (or was it second?) day; how sluggish he felt, almost from the beginning; how he got to where he hated the food even while he craved the sugar-fat rush he got from it; how his metabolic indicators plummeted so badly that his doctors were alarmed and wanted to take him off the "diet".

But mainly it was lectures on topics only too familiar these days--what fast food is made of, where it comes from, why it's so cheap.  More shocking is his description of how junk food is marketed to children from a freakishly early age.  Fast food has the money to fund video game development, school activities, and even sports games. I wonder how fast you'd be ejected if you'd tried to hawk Burger King products at the 2012 Olympics?

He spoke of, but didn't attempt to quantify the ultimate cost to society of the stuff.  It's a hard number to quantify, but I think we'd find that the our dollar menu chicken nuggets ends up costing us five times that.  Too bad we can't make junk food manufacturers subsidize health care.

If you don't already know all this, read this book.  You'll start to wonder when Big Macs will start coming with warning labels--and you'll know why they never will.

Agony and its reward

My Year of Meats
by Ruth Ozeki

Unbelievable. No, inconceivable. Why doesn't this woman win a Pulitzer prize?

I started this book and, after a couple of chapters, put it aside in favor of a nonfiction book about mystery novels. Did I sense, somehow, that Ruth Ozeki was going to do it to me again?  Did I unconsciously flash back to the torture that A Tale For the Time Being applied to my soul?

Okay, that's a little overdone.  In any event, she has a rare gift for making you feel suffering as intensely as you would feel watching a tiny, helpless child alone on a battleground. The child cringes away, covering its ears from the pain of explosions. It scurries into unsafe shelter when the only right thing to do would be to run far, far away...and that's the one thing it can't do.  And you're powerless to help!

She doesn't hit you over the head first thing out of the box. Things start out normal-ish, maybe a bit uneasy, enough to make you keep reading...to scratch that niggling itch. If her books didn't start off slowly, you would ever read another.  It's like the way women decide to have a second baby as soon as they forget the agony of the first. Remembering only the joy of the ending, they jump in a second time...and find themselves in the same horrible mess all over again.

My Year Of Meats has a few themes in common with A Tale, but the people and plot are totally, marvelously unique. Jane Takagi is our American hero, strong and determined and maybe able to save the day...but can she save herself? Akiko seems to be waiting for permission to break loose from her passive position as the dutiful wife, but will she ever get it?

I'm shutting up now. I can't talk any more without giving away secrets. All I can say is, I cried at the end.

Wish I were there

Without Reservations

The Travels of an Independent Woman

by Alice Steinbach
 

It's so cool that this woman, so comfortable alone, is able to make friends so easily and naturally. A chance table companion at a crowded restaurant who introduces her to two old friends. A gentleman at the bookstore who cautions her that dripping tears on Jane Eyre will make her have to buy it. A slim, handsome stranger met on a train....

The friendship with the stranger, Narohito, comes to dominate large swathes of the book, yet the spirit of adventure lives on. It's had to explain what makes this book so appealing--it's slow in pace but lively in detail. Never laugh-out-loud funny but always light-hearted. She's able to throw off even the occasional disappointment and even an attempted mugging--with difficulty--and see the good and beauty in all her adventures. What an excellent traveling companion she would be!

Didn't go down well with me

Food a love story
by Jim Gaffigan

Wow. Did that get old!

Even a very funny comedian should be taken in sound bites. A series of twenty-minute comedy routines would be perfect for this guy. He's very, very funny--at first.

I especially enjoyed his description of the regional cuisine of the United States. It consists of bugs (Northeastern States), steak (Texas and the Midwest), Mexican (the southwest), and coffee (Northeast). At some point he got bored with this endeavor--or else my IPod glitched--and he launched into a description of his favorite foods, favorite fast-food restaurants, holidays, and meals. And so on and so on. Ad nauseum.

I'd recommend the comedy act, but not the book. Unless possibly you're a person who has a very short attention span and listens to a book in ten-minute snippets. That might work.

Absolutely charming

The Birds of Pandemonium
by Michele Raffin


Charming little book about a woman's accidental descent into foster care for pet birds, then her eventual creation of a rare species breeding facility. I gained a new respect for people who take on other people's stupid mistakes. And I lost any possible desire I'd ever had for keeping a bird as a pet. I did it a couple of times as a kid, but only with short-lived birds who'd been bred in captivity for thousands of years.

The book is not preachy at all; well, not annoyingly preachy. It would be impossible to write a book about any kind of pet foster care without a brief backstory of why the pets in question needed foster care. But that part is very matter-of-factly written--any judgement calls are left up to the reader.

And best of all, the book is not about human beings--it's about birds. Very enjoyable.

How could she stand being cold for two months?!?!

Alone in Antarctica
by Felicity Aston

Before I start saying wonderful things about this, let me first blast the publisher. I read an American edition with the imprint 'Counterpoint Berkeley', so I don't know if they're to blame or it is the UK publisher, Summersdale Publishers Ltd. Whoever was to blame, here's what they did:
    NO MAP
This is a travel book and there's NO MAP.  The continent of Antarctica has few mappable features--it wouldn't have needed to be a complicated map.  A simple line drawing would have been better than  nothing; better yet would have been a contour map showing the temperature gradients and the sastrugi zones and the crevass areas. But no map at all? Not acceptable.

It had color pictures so they weren't sparing the expense.  I don't get it.

I'd followed along with her journey via NPR, so I knew what she'd planned--to ski alone across Antarctica, from the Ross Ice Shelf to the south pole, then across to the Hercules Inlet. As the seagull flies (theoretically, of course, since they don't fly in the interior of Antarctica), she took the shortest route across the continent. But the zig-zag route came up to 1700 kilometers. (1000 miles to me)

NPR aired her daily reports via satellite phone, but the brief blurps told little of the trials of courage she faced. Her occasional mental breakdowns; her love affair with the sun; her amazing freaking will to endure and why the heck she decided to do such a thing in the first place--that's the subject of this book. She decided to sum up the experience with this:
 
Keep getting out of the tent.
If I can do that, each and every day, no matter the challenge, who knows where the next day will take me.  

Why does everybody do "years"?

My Kitchen Year
by Ruth Reichl

More of a cookbook than I'd been led to believe. It was probably a pretty good cookbook but that wasn't what I was reading it for--I wanted the anecdotes and stories of her life after Gourmet.  She's a good writer and I heartily enjoyed Garlic and Sapphires.  Tender At the Bone, not so much. And this one, not much at all.  I'll try again at least once more.

I have to admit it had gorgeous pictures and thoughtful poetry. It would make a great gift book.  And if the person you're gifting just happens to like cooking, more the better.

Wish I hadn't bothered finishing this

I shouldn't say anything, really I shouldn't. Okay, if you insist.

As much as you can dislike a book and still finish it, I did. But I couldn't stop reading--doesn't that say something good?  It's a wild and wacky story of a lawyer or legal assistant or something who got stuck with a lawsuit investigation or something and ended up meeting a sweet old lady with a cat. At some other point she woke up covered with grape cool-aid, in bed with her hot landlord. It seemed to be trying to be funny, but sadly, I didn't get the jokes.

Sorry not to like it--my requirements for a good mystery are character development, plot, and a protagonist who really gets into the mystery instead of just kicking around aimlessly happening upon clues.  If it had any of that, I'd have tried harder to laugh.

Halfway good

Wildflower

At first I enjoyed Drew Barrymore's memoir because it reminded me of some of my young friends. The way she spoke, her approach to life--it hit a familiar note and made me nostalgic.  When that experience wore off, I kept on listening because certain parts were almost unbearably insightful, like her descriptions of living in an apartment with her mother and her absent relationship with her grandfather. Her deep friendships with Stephen Spielburg and Adam Sandler were funny AND touching.

But I'm sorry to say that a good bit of the rest isn't anything special for the general reader. Letters to one's children are sweet and touching--they need to be written and they need to be preserved and hers are great examples of the genre...but did they need to be published?

Oh, well. She warned me at the beginning. it's not a typical memoir.

Kept trying; should have given up

The Sweetheart of Prosper County
by Jill S. Alexander

Strictly for the younger set, say, through age 12. For the older reader, the story was lost in the lesson. A lot of lesson.  It was like a good writer was being forced to fit a certain market in order to be published, so she made sure to have bad things happen to the bad people while the good people learned to live with their narrow, self-imposed morality. I think she's capable of better things, but this one didn't leave me smiling.

I liked Lewis and Maribelle and the Cajun guy even though they didn't get any character development. They were just tools for teaching. I might have liked the Mom, but she preferred to duck her head down and be a good little woman instead of making a stand that might have saved a kid's life.  She had a chance--I held my breath--she ignored it.   (I'm referring to Dean; she could have filed a lawsuit instead of muttering a "not my problem" epitaph and turning aside.)

And worst of all was the total lack of spine development in the heroine. She ended up moseying along her mousy way.  The same old coping strategies that failed to work in the beginning suddenly and miraculously started to work--thanks to her friends. She never made an effort to make the friends, but they just happened to come along and save her. Like a certain 'invisible' friend who will eventually solve all your problems.

I kept expecting to like it and trying hard, but never did. Sorry.

Never did figure out that title

Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table

by Ruth Reichl

Sometimes a person's experiences while growing up don't seem to reflect on the person they became. Or possibly--just possibly--they do--but the transition is lost in the telling. So with this book.

After reading Garlic and Sapphires I really wanted to know how such an interesting and unique person as Ruth Reichl came to be, but this book didn't get me there.  Apparently I was looking for a different story: how she became a writer. I was also curious about how she managed her mother and daddy issues--nope.  What this book did tell was the story of how she learned to cook and to eat--not inconsequential for a person whose life is so intricately involved with cooking and eating.

Enjoyable, fun, and light.

Not a well thought out review, darn me.

The Longest Race:

A Lifelong Runner, an Iconic Ultramarathon, and the Case for Human Endurance

by Ed Ayres

 

 

Running the JFK 100-mile race and reflecting on our past and our future. Very engaging reading. The future part isn't all that depressing--it's realistic and it makes you think. But he's still out there running...and that says it all.

I'm sorry not to write more but I was reading in a hurry which is a really stupid way to read. I should try it again sometime when it's not overdue at the library.

Oddly readable for the era

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
by Harriet Jacobs

First published in 1861, this is an autobiography of a woman who eventually escaped to New York.  Later in life she became an abolitionist speaker. The sources I consulted called it a fictionalized history, but having read it through, I'd say there was very little fiction to it. She changed the names of the main characters, but who can blame her? Some of the people were still alive when the book was published. The good people would have suffered for the deeds they did, and the evil ones would have filed one heck of a libel suit.

Even after living on her own for years, she still lived in fear of being captured and returned.  Eventually a  good friend purchased her freedom and that of her children. The generous (or decent) act was done against her wishes, but she admits to relief when it was all over. So much joy! But tinged with eternal grief.  And her one fondest wish was to live in a house together with her son and daughter, but that wish was never realized. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 scared her brother into emigrating to California and her son went with him. Her daughter was educated in a boarding school.

The book ended too soon for me. After hearing of all she'd suffered, I longed to hear her reaction to the Emancipation Proclamation.

One interesting note--bearing in mind that it was written in the mid-nineteenth century, the story is told straightforwardly, with only a modicum of moralizing. Her little asides in the stylistic, preaching tones of the typical nineteenth century writer were easy to ignore.  Her moral indignation was not so convincing, either--when she resisted her master's attempts to rape her, I suspect it wasn't chastity she was concerned with, but subjugation.  It was a power struggle--and she was one determined woman.

Quiet moments on the farm

Epitaph For A Peach: Four Seasons on my Family Farm

by David Mas Matsumoto

Lovely and sad. But not depressing. How is that possible, you may ask, to be sad but not depressing?  Read it and see.

Its a personal, meandering, pondering year on a family farm growing grapes and peaches.  It takes place entirely on the farm in California and entirely in the mind of the author...yet his mind roams far and wide and deep, down to the wiggly worms in the soil and the leaf borers mining his trees for gold.  He touches on history but I wish he'd gone farther--we know his grandfather bought the farm but we hear only the scant facts of their lives and hopes and dreams. His father helps out on the farm, but I long to hear his story, too. Maybe another book, someday?

Oddly enough, it neither bored me nor put me to sleep as such simple, quiet memoirs frequently do these days. I seem to have lost the ability to sit and savor.  Retirement--oh, that blessed fantasy!--might give it back to me.

The rise of the food like substance

In Defense of Food:
An Eater's Manifesto
by Michael Pollan

If you've read Marion Nestle or any number of other critics of the American "food culture", you'll find nothing new here. But Michael Pollan is a great synthesizer and writes a snappy prose. I enjoyed it so much I listened to some parts twice or more.  (Okay, I was walking on busy city streets at the time--I had to double-up sometimes to hear what the noise of motors drowned out.)

Some points of note:
According to Michael Pollan, in 1977 when the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs first attempted to publish its recommendations, it was blasted for saying that Americans should eat less red meat and dairy products. It had to change its recommendations to, "less cholesterol and saturated fat."

Nutritionism is the word used by Marion Nestle (I think) to describe the way of thinking that says that foods with similar nutrients are identical, whatever their origins or other ingredients. Of course this falls short in the easiest example: baby formula. Even when formulated with the same relative proportions of protein, fat and carbohydrates, then fortified with every "known" nutrient, it still fails to keep babies thriving as well as mother's milk.  What we don't know will hurt us.

America's lack of a traditional food culture may owe something to the puritan doctrine that forbade taking pleasure in food.  Bless it, eat it, and get back to work.

You'd have to eat three of the apples of today to get the same nutrients as one apple of the 1940s.

And to top them all, "Organic oreos are not health food."

His personal recommendations for how to shop and how to eat are summarized at the end.  After reading them, I took a look at some of my cherished pantry staples. Most were (reassuringly) actual foods--not food-like substances.  But my organic vegetable broth?

Cane sugar, dextrose, molasses, and pear juice concentrate.  aka, sugar, sugar, sugar, and sugar. Organic, of course.

As far as the foot can slog

As Far as the Eye Can See

Reflections of an Appalachian Trail Hiker

by David Brill

About the time when I was yearning to hike long distances in remote places, this guy did it.  1979, Appalachian trail.  Only it turns out that the Appalachian trail was hardly "remote places".  Never did a day go by without him seeing at least one other hiker, and typically many more. For those seeking solitude, it was not the place to be.

Funny--I walked up the trail a little ways back in 75 or 76 and felt eerily alone. But I was comparing it to where I'd started--Clingman's Dome, a site accessible by car and one of the most visited sites in the Smokies. Once I'd gotten away from the parking area, I had a taste of that panicky solitude you get when you're suddenly away from your pack...but I also felt that marvelous quiet.

It took him a while, but the author got what he wanted. He was changed by the experience in many wonderful ways, and he says it stuck with him for a long time and maybe forever. 

As to the book itself, I'll admit that about halfway through, I got bored. I was tired of his descriptions of his traveling companions, people met on the road, and towns he visited for resupply. A lot of facts like pictures in a scrapbook...how many people can take photos--even vacation photos--that you really want to see?  There's Joe, and John, and there's Matt and his new wife Sally; here's Mount Bland and a scenic trickling stream....  Sorry folks--your friends might pretend to enjoy your vacation photos, but mostly they're just being polite.

But three-quarters through the book he took a break and spent a fortnight at Randall's Farm near Hot Springs, North Carolina  Things suddenly got real--our surface skim acquired depth. And I was no longer bored.

Good beginning; shaky middle; great ending.

So-so mystery

Blessed Are the Dead
by Kristi Belcamino
It kept me turning the pages. What else can I say about a mystery?
Suspenseful--check. Likeable protagonist--check. Any real detective work done by protagonist--nope.  Three-dimensional characters--not really.  Stress-relieving humor--not so that I noticed. Plot--not so much. Interesting twist at the end that you didn't see coming--not a chance. Irritating introduction of a new character at the end just to hike up the suspense--for sure.  Blatant borrowing from Silence Of the Lambs? Seemed that way to me.

Negatives aside, it's fine if you like that sort of thing.  Newspaperwoman on the trail of missing kid because her own sister disappeared and was never found.  It may be just what you're looking for--if so, this is worth a second look.

My new hero

My Beloved World
by Sonia Sotomayor

Wow wholy amazing stupendous. Autobiography and essay by a person with more
brains in her little finger than I ever could cram into my whole stupid head. Wow.

Okay, I'm in love. But honestly--could she be telling the truth? Could she not? How can a poor girl from the projects end up a justice on the United States Supreme Court? She says, brains, perseverance, and a blessed life.  I say brains, perseverance, and a freaking awesome family. 

But the funny thing is, she started off disadvantaged in the family department, with an alcoholic father and a distant mother and an empty apartment full of embarrassment and anger. But she had grandmothers and aunts and uncles and cousins. She knew the coziness of a grandmother's kitchen, the fun of a family party, the camaraderie of cousins your own age, and the help of uncles and aunts who cared to make a difference.  They did.

And don't get me wrong about the disadvantages--the alcoholic father was a good man who held down a job and cooked for his family and never hurt his kids. He just checked out of life once each day. And the distant mother was trying hard, but so overcome with her own pain and inadequacy that it took her years to learn how to be the mother her kids needed.

Enough--I've said too much. Judge Sotomayor became who she is through self-discipline and hard work.  And if the book gets a little preachy at times, I consider that just fine. She's earned the right to speak out. I hope she keeps on--and I know she will.

More inspiration

My Year Of Running Dangerously:

A Dad, a Daughter, and a Ridiculous Plan

by Tom Foreman

Optimistic to the point of ecstacy, this book is a perfect antidote to the downer that was What I Think About When I Think About Running.  I finished that book still not knowing why he ran. And especially not why he raced. It just seemed like something he did to keep fit.

Not so for Tom Foreman. He may have started off in order to help his daughter run a marathon, but he ended up in a whole 'nuther universe.  From reporter to runner in 180 days.  And that's only the first half of the book.

He ends up on such a monumentally positive note that it's hard to say anything critical at all about the book. Maybe I think the author overdid it a little in his training, but in no way did that hurt the story.  Who likes a wishy-washy writer, anyway?  He wasn't.  And neither was his family. In fact, the family story is almost half of the book and I loved it.

Makes me look slow. But so does everybody.

What Makes Olga Run?: The Mystery of the Ninety-Something Track Star Who Is Smashing Records and Outpacing Time, and What She Can Teach Us About How to Live
by Bruce Grierson

First let me mention that these records are in track and field competitions for older adults by age bracket, typically starting with a minimum age of 35. When Olga was 91, she held 23 age-graded world records in the World Masters Games. And incidentally beat the scores of people who were "only" 70.  Don't be disappointed when you realize they're not talking about Olympic or World Championship records--you know she could whoop the heck out of you and me and a goodly percentage of those young whippersnappers.

Even if you're not trying to learn anything, read this book just to get a kick out of the phenomenon that is Olga Kotelko. She wasn't a distance runner but an all-around top athlete, so maybe the book should have been called, What makes Olga tough?  She competed in long jump, triple jump, high jump, shot put, discus, javelin, weight throw and the 100-metres, 200-metres and 400-metres and 4 x 100-metre relay sprints. Not to mention hammer throw--whatever that is. Or Sudoku, her time-killing hobby.

If all you care about is what what makes her do what she does, you can skip to the end and swallow the author's conclusions, but I suggest you can read it all and come up with your own theories. I noticed that one reviewer downgraded it because it only spoke to "what Olga does" and not to "why other older athletes can't." That was tacky of him--the book doesn't pretend to be answering that question.  I say that Mr. Grierson did a great job...although it would be interesting to get some different opinions from Olga's trainers, teammates and friends. But that would be a whole another book.

Well, at least I'm Older

Older Faster Stronger: What Women Runners Can Teach Us All About Living Younger, Longer

by Margaret Webb


I want a copy of this for my own. It fills you enthusiasm, and except for the advice about diet, it's full of useful information.   I tend to overlook the importance of strength training, even upper body strength, in running.  But to run strong you need a strong core--and even if I find out that's total nonsense, I'll let it slide. I want to be stronger, too, and if it helps my running, all the better.

My only issue with the diet part is that I don't think the one she chose (semi-Paleo) is the right one for everyone. Different diets can serve different purposes. If your goal is to get strong, slim down fast, and run a marathon, it may be a great diet. But what if your goal is to live long and run ultras, or to hike the Himalayas? Not so sure.

But back to the beginning. Ms. Webb is hitting menopause and having mood swings and angst worthy of the worst teenager.  In the middle of her 50th year, she somehow, miraculously decides to get into the best physical shape she's ever been in her life.  Hours of research accompany her hours of training, and both come to surprising conclusions.

I've always assumed women can't build muscle without superhuman effort, and can't build muscle at all after menopause.  Not true.  I've assumed that women athletes are all sensible people who pay attention to injury and cut back when needed. Not true, either. And I've assumed that once a person gets sufficiently fast to finish a marathon, they're so hooked on running that they've become a lifetime addict, never having self-doubts again. This isn't the first book to drive that one home, but the author asks the question near the end, What next?

 I like her answer.

Tear alert

Following Atticus:

Forty-Eight High Peaks, One Little Dog, and an Extraordinary Friendship 

by Tom Ryan

Heart-rending and beautiful. If you're a tender-hearted dog lover, it may make you cry but don't give up on it.

If you don't think a twenty-pound dog belongs in the mountains, you're probably right. But there's more to life that playing it safe--if we really thought that, we'd stay indoors, avoid bathtubs, and keep our pets in a cage.  Here's what Tom Ryan has to say about it:

One of the challenges we have in winter hiking is hiking around Atticus’ comfort level. We’ve done well in keeping him out of the harsher elements to this point. That’s one of the reasons we haven’t been above tree line all that much. Those who watch weather tell us that it’s been a mild winter. Not above tree line. There’s only been a couple of days so far when we could go above tree line and one of those was the first day of winter and on that day we had previous plans to hike Carrigain. Had I known the mild days would be few and far between we would have changed our plans.

 Five stars for me--not perfect, but real close. Sometimes he seemed to get too busy just listing the mountains they climbed, but never gave any of the details that would have made it come real.  But his story of his family and of some of their off-the-mountain adventures made it worth the reading.  And what great adventure story doesn't leave the reader wanting more?

I've since discovered his blog: http://tomandatticus.blogspot.com.br/

what if a hundred cats purr....

What if?

Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

by Randall Munroe

I loved this and I got tired of it and I still think it's great. Just the idea of answering stupid questions with intelligent answers is a hoot, and the research for the answers takes the reader in places he never dreamed he'd go. What if you sucked all the water off earth and dumped it on Mars? If you dropped a frozen steak from space, would it be cooked when it hit the ground? What would happen if everyone on earth stood close together and jumped in the air?

If you really need to know the answers to those--and many more--questions, read this book.  The only reason I got tired of it was that I was listening to it while trying to speed up my jogging, so I kept losing the thread of the narrative. Don't do that. Better to read it on paper, and then you can take advantage of the drawings and illustrations. Plus, if you get interrupted, you can easily back up.

Farming is not for the weak of will

Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn
by Catherine Friend

It's rare to find a person rejoicing in a life even while admitting it might not be the life for her. And it's rarer still to see partners working out a joint future of revolving opposites, twisted  together as strands of DNA. They might split from time to time, but curl back closely together when the time comes to return.

So goes this funny little tale of how a farm threatens to take over the hearts, minds, and equanimity of two good-hearted and loving people. They do try, they really do. But sometimes they name their livestock and sometimes wreck their borrowed tools.  Who doesn't?

One thing I learned for sure--I never want to put my hand inside a sheep.

Now I know what to wear to court

The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England
by Ian Mortimer

What a keen idea!  History told from the perspective of a time traveller from modern times, plunked back into Elizabethan England.  Like a time traveling Hitchhiker's--
    Here's what the Encyclopedia Galactica has this to say about alcohol. It says that alcohol is a colorless volatile liquid formed by the fermentation of sugars and also notes its intoxicating effect on certain carbon-based life forms.
    The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.  (Also the effect of drinking one, where to get one, and how to make one yourself.)
    The Time Traveller's Guide says that if you drink a gallon of March beer you will not dare to stir from you stool but sit pinking with narrow eyes, as half-sleeping, until the fume of your adversary be digested.

I think he did a pretty good job of keeping up the perspective of a helpful friend traveller, although there were a couple of times when I got dragged down in detail and wanted to skip to the good stuff. But only a couple of times, and there was lots of good stuff. I learned the best place to eat--get invited to Sir Francis at Wollington and dine on two courses of meat, poultry, fish and more meat:
    First course
    Capons stewed in white broth
    A swan in sauce chaudron
    A pig roast
    A double rib of roast beef, with pepper-and-vinegar sauce

    Second course
    Peacock in wine and salt
    Two coneys in a mustard and sugar sauce
    Bustard in a galantine sauce
    A pasty of red deer

Don't look for vegetables, they're "noyful to man." The rich, and even the tradesman class, didn't waste chewing time on vegetables.  But eventually as trade with the newly settled countries to the west took off, carrots and potatoes crept into even the richest peoples' cuisine. Even salad was seen--on fast days.

I learned you can get clean by rubbing your body with clean linen and that when Queen Elizabeth took a bath every month whether she needed it or not, she wasn't being a slob--just a bathing fanatic. Baths were for sick people.

It was surprising to learn about the persecution of Catholics and other heretics, but that provides insight into why our founding fathers insisted on the separation of church and state. They remembered a time when the one and only true religion was backed not only by moral rectitude, but legal clout.  Modern-day protestants should look back to their origins when they try to push church functions into the realm of politics. How'd you like to pay a shilling fine for missing church on Sunday?  How'd you like it if the Southern Baptist Convention came into power and decided Methodists needed to join the other heretics in the torture chambers?

Running AND recipes

Eat and Run
by Scott Jurek

I devoured this book and it made me run faster.

Okay, kidding. I wish it had. But I did devour the book and so I don't have much to say about it, except...Burp!

Scott Jurek seemed to start out running somewhat by accident. He'd been hanging out with a friend (Dusty),  who had just run a fifty mile race and wanted Scott to help him train for next year. He agreed, to get into shape for skiing...but possibly also because he just wanted to be wild and free like Dusty. to . From there, he didn't look back...but the back kept pulling. "Sometimes you just do things" ran through his head when the path became tedious--it's the phrase often repeated by his father as he was struggling to care for kids and a wife slowly succumbing to muscular dystrophy. His running resonates with the discipline learned in a childhood of hard work and missed opportunity. The perserverance is clearly there...but the joy?


I think it's there, too.  Anyway he was only in his early-to-mid 30s when the book ended. Maybe the joy comes later.

Catching up on writing about running

What I talk about when I talk about running

by Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (Translator)

 

Recreative.
I wrote that word for all you people who only read the first word of an article.  Sums it up. I didn't write 'meh' or 'blah', nor did I write 'superb' or 'deep and thought-provoking'. But I really did want to write 'deep and thought-provoking', and therein lies my problem.

See, I'd read the title and thought it was going to be about the odd and crazy thoughts that flowed through a runner's head in the twelfth mile of a twenty-mile run, when your brain begins thinking thoughts that go beyond the instructions for putting one foot down and lifting the other. I wanted it to be about insights he's discovered in talking with buddies about how they run--and then realized at some late hour they were really talking about why they run.  I built up my expectations based on a title--

And I found out, in the afterword, that the title was borrowed from a book of short stories called, What we talk about when we talk about love. There appears to be no corollary between the two, just an author's to do homage to a book that meant a lot to him.

With all that build-up--self-induced, darn me!--I couldn't help but be disappointed. This is a simple memoir with a touch of how-to. It's good. It's pretty honest. It has some great insights and some highly quotable quotes. Read it--especially if you like to read about running and writing.

There are a couple of things that bugged me and I want to talk them through, just to figure out what I'm bugging about. One is his use of absolutes. I know that as a fiction writer, he's learned that people don't want to read fuzziness. A fiction writer doesn't write things like, "a lot of people feel", or "sometimes muscles need". He doesn't write, "If you're from the Midwest farming region, you might say the moon rose out of the pumpkin patch like a faded orange demon."  No way!  You write: "the moon demon rose as a fading pumpkin dies from the patch."

But he's writing about sports training, not demons. He says things about training that flatly contradict recommendations of experienced sports trainers. He says, "you must run every day" and then later admits that he, himself doesn't run every day.

That's my other beef--contradictions. Pretty much anything (notice my use of qualifiers?) he says in one part of the book is contradicted in other parts.  The worst one is his insistence early on that he is not a competitive person--he doesn't measure himself against others, but rather, his own previous performance.  I was intrigued. A truly, non-competitive runner? I wanted to hear this.

But later he describes races where he clearly is, and does, exhibit competitive behavior.  Nothing wrong with that--it's normal. It's human. But why insist you're not competitive when you have just as much of a place on the scale of competitive nature as any other human being?

And my last beef is that I really couldn't figure out why he ran races at all. Why does he run? He eventually says that it's to stay fit for writing. But if that's the only reason...why run marathons or do triathlons?  If he wants a motivation to keep running, he can surely find an easier one. Why bother with the racing? What are you getting from this torture? You say it's torture yet you say you like it. Why?

I haven't a clue.