Category Archives: Book Log

Book Log #53 – To Kill A Mockingbird (re-read)

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To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee [Had in our library]

It was inevitable at some point that this would be on the bedtime reading list of my daughter, who goes by the nickname Scout. I had thought that she would read it on her own at a somewhat older age, but when she gets an objective into her head, she doesn’t often let go.

And so we embarked upon this well told, but at times uncomfortable, story. There were many, many times when she stopped the book and demanded clarification, far more than any other book we’ve read… why would someone act like that? That’s really how people lived? How could those people make that decision? What’s a chiffarobe? The world of Maycomb County is very foreign to a 10 year old girl in 2016, though she did find the connection through her counterpart the main character.

I don’t know if she was really ready, but I know she can always pick up the book again and revisit it.

I know I do, from time to time, and it’s always a new thing.

Books Read: 53
Week Number: 52

Book Log #49 – A Sneaky Little Snoop Like Me

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A Sneaky Little Snoop Like Me by Anna Mildred Dunkle Meadows, Edited by Ryan J. Lucas

My grandmother wrote down some stories of her early life before she died, and those pages have been floating amongst family members for years now. I finally took the plunge and wrote them up and made them into a book, along with a batch of research on ancestry.com. As of this writing, 3 copies are being made and sent to my parents’ home in time for Xmas gifting.

So, I have to set the publish date for December 25, 2016. Many will cry out until then, “Why did you skip #49!??” but I can give them no answer… And after then, “Why is #49 out of order!? WHY?” And hopefully, this will explain.

Books Read: 49
Week Number: 49

Book Log #50: Sword Song: The Battle for London (Saxon Tales Book 4)

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Sword Song: The Battle for London (Saxon Tales Book 4) by Bernard Cornwell

Another Saxon Tales book! This one like the others! Intrigue! Action! Barbarians! Norsemen! Etc!

I enjoy reading them, but… unlike A Song of Fire and Ice, I am not compelled to read the next one. I expect I’ll lay off these for a while, and return when the book well runs dry.

But I understand NPR recommended an unprecedented 300 books this year. I should check some of them out.

Note: Astute readers will note that no #49 has been listed. Not that I think my target person follows this blog, but it involves an Xmas present, and I don’t want to give anything away. So, #49 will be revealed at 1am, December 25. I’m sure you’ll all stay up to see.

Books Read: 50
Week Number: 49

Book Log #47 – The Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual

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The Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual by Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, & Matt Walsh [Drama Bookstore, New York City, $25]

The last time I looked for books about improv, there were about three. Impro for Storytellers by Keith Johnstone, Improvisation for the Theater by Viola Spolin and some other book I’m forgetting that I didn’t read. Truth in Comedy by Charna Halpern and Del Close– I just looked it up.

There are now hundreds. Dozens in the Drama Bookstore in New York City, which is a great stop for the theatrically minded.

The UCB is strongly in the Del Close school. If I came from any school of improv, it was more Johnstone, who begat TheatreSports, which begat ComedySportz, which was my first exposure to Improv in 1985. But I have no cultish attachment to any of them.

I wish I had picked up Truth back when I was actually doing improv, it probably would have helped.

This UCB book is chock full of good stuff I’d heard bits and pieces of over the years. I was surprised at their aversion to actual storytelling, though. Their thought was that the plot or storyline is almost insignificant in doing comedy improv, whereas I (and Johnstone, I believe) have seen story as the cake you put the comedy frosting on. Johnstone’s title, was, after all, for Storytellers.

Is this a conscious wall they’re putting between the Haralders and the TheatreSportsers? Dunno. Don’t care either.

Though the book is needlessly repetitive in many places, it’s an inspirational read. It focuses on long form improv (which they capitalize LongForm), which I greatly prefer these days. Ironically, I have never actually seen a true Harald (the longform primarily described here), though I have heard people go on about it. It seems interesting, if rigid in structure.

Perhaps I’ll catch one next time I’m in Chicago.

Books Read: 47
Week Number: 47
Parity again!

Book Log #46 – Approval Junkie

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Approval Junkie: Adventures in Caring Too Much by Faith Salie [Hardback, Little Shop of Stories, $27]

I knew Faith Salie a tiny, little bit.

Freshman year at my dream school, and her “safety” school (pg 224), we lived in the same 103 person dorm. We acted together in a video project, where I and two other guys sang (poorly, in my case) a serenade to her about art, or rather how “we have art for [her]”. We are not the heroes of this video, we are the jerks. She plays a being from another plane of existence, or something like that. I played a pizza delivery boy.

I know she took the Early to Bed, Early to Rise adage very seriously, to the chagrin of her suitemates, who were more the opposite and didn’t care much for shushing during Really Deep Conversations That We Have In College.

We once had a very nice conversation in a suite, the topic of which I completely forget.

She transferred to Harvard after freshman year, which I referenced in the dorm yearbook with a joke about “Faith No More”, a band I knew existed but couldn’t point out in a lineup. I stretch for the comedy.

But now she is part of the Golden Era of Female Comedians. Felicia Day, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Amy Schumer, Mindy Kaling, Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, etc. etc. etc., many of whom have written memoirs. But not many of them are on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me on NPR, which is her greatest achievement IMHO.

I love these books, and Ms. Salie’s is no exception. Very funny, very readable, and just the right amount of poignant. She’s got plenty of stories worth telling, even at her young age of mid-fortiesish.

I recommend it, even if she disses my alma mater.

Books Read: 46
Week Count: 47
Gotta… catch… up.

Book Log #44 – The Pale Horseman (Saxon Tales Book 2)

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The Pale Horseman by Bernard Cornwell (Amazon, Kindle, $9.99)

Continuation of the Saxon series. Continues to be Game of Thrones Lite, but with actual history of England as the basis.

The author has notes at the end about where the story deviates from history, which is interesting.

There are echoes of plotlines from Game of Thrones… a healer/witch who heals the son of the king, which causes the death of another boy. Death for life, which is reminiscent of the “healing” of the Khalesi’s husband (Drago?) in GoT. There were other parallels I’ve forgotten.

All in all, a good read. I’ll probably continue in the series.

Books Read: 44
Weeks : 45
Ratio: 0.977

For the first time since starting this, my ratio drops below 1.0. Scary times! Desperate measures are called for! I need 8 more books in the next 7 weeks!

Book Log #42 – Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions

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Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions by James Randi and Isaac Asimov

This is one of the staples of the skeptic community, and I’d had it on my wishlist for quite a while. Originally published in 1980, much of the perpetrators of the flim-flam have faded into obscurity, having long been debunked.

This book describes a lot of the trials people went through trying to win Randi’s (then) $10,000 prize for proof of the paranormal. Mental metal benders, psychics, water diviners… all failed spectacularly.

You don’t hear so much anymore about lots of these things having fallen out of fad, but I did note Randi’s one error in prediction: he estimated that the Scientologists movement would fizzle out after not too long. Boy… he was off.

Randi’s prize is now at $1,000,000, and no one has yet met the challenge of the double-blind experiment.

Books Read: 42
Week Number: 42
Books/Weeks: 1:1

Book Log #39 – The Girl in the Well is Me

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The Girl in the Well is Me by Karen Rivers [Scholastic]

Just finished reading this to Scout. Though the premise is seemingly dark (POV a 12 year old girl who is stuck in a well), it is actually a pretty brilliant novel.

The girl in the well was sort-of tricked into falling in there during a hazing by three Mean Girls at her new school. Gradually, the author lets out her full story in oxygen-deprived, stream of consciousness monologues that work much, much better than you think they would.

It’s a great YA book. Enjoy

Week: 38
Book: 39
Ratio: 1.03:1

Book Log #38 – The Member of the Wedding

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The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers [Little Shop of Stories, $7.56/Kindle $6.51]

“Recommended” by the Language Arts teacher at Dekalb School of the Arts. By which I mean, it is on my son’s reading list for this fall. This is the second book from his list that I’ve picked up, and I must say that we’re 2/2 on good reads there.

Probably I wouldn’t have appreciated it as much in 8th grade. Or 12th. Or when I was 25. Tastes change, now I am boring. Or I used to be. One or t’other.

This book is a fascinating character sketch of a 12 year old girl. Full of complex emotions she’s encountering for the first time, she struggles with finding her place in the small town she grew up in. That description seems cliche, and doesn’t really do justice to the fine writing and vivid portrayal involved here.

Regardless, I liked it quite a bit. I look forward to more of the school system’s recommendations for “my” reading list.

A note that I read the first half in paper form, then we forgot it when we went out of town and Roan needed to get a couple chapters read, so we grabbed it on Kindle, where I finished it. Being a short novel, the price/page on this one is fairly high.

Week: 38
Book: 38
Ratio: 1:1