Books to Drool Over

I never review cookbooks. To me, a full cookbook review would require actually making enough of the recipes to be able to vouch for their success. Not just using the recipes to inspire a meal, but ensuring that I use the exact ingredients, with no substitutions and precise measurements. I just don't cook that way.

So, welcome to my new feature: Books to Drool Over in which I share my latest cookbook finds or perhaps an old favorite or two. Look for this feature at the end of every month. (If I'm on top of things, you'll find it.)

First up this month is Caprial and John's Kitchen: Recipes for Cooking Together, by Caprial and John Pence (2003). Caprial (rhymes with, uh...schlemiel) and John Pence are local celebrities in Portland--they have a TV cooking show, run a fabulous restaurant, have published several cookbooks, and manage to be normal people with kids in their spare time. The hook of this cookbook is that the menus are laid out for two people to work together in the kitchen to make a memorable meal. Gorgeous pictures, not most people's everyday fare but sometimes you want something special. Something Caprial and John might whip up for the kids on a weeknight.

Will I use it? My husband and I actually did try this out over the weekend. We made the Sweet-and-Spicy Curry-Grilled Tuna steaks and Gingered Vegetable-Rice Noodle Slaw. Caprial and John's suggested steps were counter-intuitive for us, so we monkeyed with them a little, and we used half the noodles in the recipe because it called for a pound and I'd gotten a ½ pound box (but it was perfect--are you sure you meant a whole pound of rice noodles, guys? Because I'm not sure we have a bowl that big) but I did make a special trip to the store for things like Mirin (Japanese cooking wine) and orange oil, so no substitutions.

It took us about 2 hours to make a dinner that probably takes Caprial and John half an hour to throw together, but it was fun to cook together and the results were divine.

Encore? I'd repeat the recipes we made, and hope to try new ones. Definitely not returning it to the library yet.

Food Adventures: Introducing your child to flavors from around the world, by Elisabeth Luard and Frances Boswell (2006). The picture of a toddler on the front of this book is misleading--many of these recipes would take all but the most adventurous kids out of their comfort zone. My kids like a variety of foods, so Indonesian Satay, Paella, and Lamb Goulash would be hits in my family, but I know very few kids who would greet a steaming bowl of mussels with joy worthy of the expense. The food pictures are inspiring, however, and I love the chapter called The Restaurant Table, that takes readers on a tour of not just the foods of different regions of the world, but also their table manners. There's also a section of foods to cook together, and advice for getting that toddler on the cover off to an adventurous start.

Will I use it? Probably not, but not because of the ingredients. It's because every recipe says it serves "2 adults and 2 children" and if I'm going to cook I want to feed 2 adults and 2 hungry kids with plenty leftover for lunch the next day. For anyone wanting just a taste of something different to add to a usual diet of macaroni and cheese and fish sticks, though, the portions would probably be perfect.

Lastly, I have Read It and Eat It: A month-by-month guide to scintillating book club selections and mouthwatering menus, by Sarah Gardner (2005). Gardner publishes a newsletter about book clubs and cooking, called The Literary Gathering. This book has four book selections per month with accompanying menus, plus four bonus chapters. Most of the books are classics (Gone With the Wind in February, Dracula in October), which ironically keeps the book from getting hopelessly outdated. But even if your book club's taste in books didn't match Gardner's, many of the menu themes of the book (Brides in June, Banned Books Week in September) could still match books of your choosing for each season.

Will I use it? Seeing as I don't have a book group, probably not. Sometimes my choir-mates and I throw together a summer book club, but the chances of me making a special menu to go along with the book vs. picking up chips and dip and baking brownies from a mix are pretty slim. There are also no pictures to get my mouth watering. Still, it was fun to read through, and for people more organized and theme-oriented than me, this might be just the ticket to spice up a book group or other gathering of literary-minded folks.

Etta--Gerald Kolpan (book review with My Friend Amy)

My Friend Amy and I sat down together, 800 miles apart, for a chat about Gerald Kolpan's Etta. Etta Place was a real woman who was involved with The Sundance Kid of Butch Cassidy's gang, and this book is based on Kolpan's imagination running away with the facts that are known about that historical figure. Amy and I both liked the book, but we had a lot to say about the format and style of it.

Amy: So.....what did you think of Etta?

Ali: Overall, I liked it. But I have to say, I was a little put off by the interview at the back of the ARC that said he'd made a bunch of stuff up to make it a better story. It was an odd mix of historical fiction with real people as characters, and just plain fiction.

Amy: True. I guess I'm okay with them making stuff up, though some of it was pretty far out there...like when she pretended to be Annie Oakley...wait, is that too spoiler-y?

Ali: I don't think that's too spoiler-y. That's exactly the type of thing I mean. Or, her relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt. I could never tell what was real and what was made up.

Amy: Yeah. What did you think of the format of the book? Articles, telegrams, diary entries, etc.?

Ali: Normally, I love that, and in some instances I did. Some of the newspaper articles were distracting to me, though. I couldn't quite tell why they were there.

Amy: I have to admit, it was really obvious that this was written by a man!

Amy: I never felt like we got really deep into Etta's point of view...did you?

Ali: The diary entries didn't read like a woman's diary.

Ali: No, I always felt like she was distant--even in the diary entries, which were in first person so should have been closer.

Amy: That's exactly how I felt! I was wondering...(sorry I'm all over the place) this was recommended to me several times for my try-something-new mini challenge in which I committed to reading a Western. Have you read any other westerns? Is this how most Westerns read?

Ali: I have to admit, I have never read a western, or had any desire to! But this book got me curious about that era, more so than I had been.

Ali: Not that "western" is an era--but that time and setting, I mean.

Amy: It's kind of an era. :)

Ali: So, that's my main praise of the book--it definitely piqued my interest!

Amy: It was fun in many ways and Etta was very likeable I thought...the way she rescued Little Snake and such.

Ali: I thought the Sundance Kid was likeable as well. Actually, Butch Cassidy kind of was, too.

Amy: Yes, I thought so too!

Ali: Another thing I liked about the book was that, even though Etta did some crazy things I would never even consider doing, her character was always believable to me. Like, I "got" why she got involved in the Hole-in-the-wall gang.

Amy: Yeah, that's a good point. I thought that the dime store novel story was really funny.

Ali: Gosh, I kind of skimmed that. I was ready to plow through to the end by that point.

Amy: LOL! I just thought it was funny because people wanted to like her, so they painted her circumstances as being very sympathetic.

Ali: I liked the way she never was quite what people expected. She was so high-class, and then did things that didn't quite fit that persona.

Ali: So, who would you recommend this to?

Amy: Hmmm...anyone with an interest in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or that era. I wanted to read this book because I hoped to learn more about them. I did, but I don't feel like I was ever fully transported to that time like some historical fiction can do.

Ali: I didn't either. And because so much of it was made up, I didn't feel like I could "trust" the author to teach me more about the history--which is another thing I enjoy about historical fiction.

Amy: Also, I guess anyone who likes to read about mob chases might be interested. I got a little bit confused by all of that.

Ali: Oh, true! Funny, I went from Etta to The Girl She Used to Be. I hadn't even made the connection that they are both about women running from the mob!

Amy: Ha! Are you enjoying The Girl She Used to Be? I started that but haven't finished it yet.

Ali: I'm loving it, actually.

(But that's another review...) It was so much fun to chat about this book, and easy to do with gmail. I'd love to do it again, so if anyone's interested in a book chat, let me know and we'll see what we have in common on our TBR pile!

The soundtrack (in my sidebar--anyone know who the singer is? I'd like to credit her):Lyrics from the song Hard Times Come Again No More appear in the middle of the book, and again as the final words. This song was all the rage during the Civil War era and was written in 1854 by chart-buster Stephen Foster, who's also known for such popular songs as Oh Susannah and Camptown Races. Now, this guy had staying power! Think folks'll be singing YMCA around the campfire in 120 years?

Views to Other Reviews, II

This week's Weekly Geeks assignment is to write a post encouraging readers to look through my archives, and find the books for which you've also written reviews.

Here's a linked list to all the books I reviewed before November. One day I'll create an archive list for my more recent reviews, but for now, you can find all my reviews here, or check the list of tags in my sidebar for familiar authors. Leave a link to your review in the comments section of my review, and I'll edit to add your link in the body of the review post.

By the way, you don't have to be a regular Weekly Geek to participate--either adding links, or including a similar invitation on your blog. Jump on in!

In person: Susie Gilman

I haven't read Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven, but Bermuda Onion liked it, and that's generally endorsement enough for me. So when my former writing teacher gave me the heads up that Susan Gilman was giving a reading at Powells tonight, I had to go.

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven is a memoir of Susan's trip to China in the mid-eighties with her friend Claire. Wanting adventure and a world exprience, they arrived in Hong Kong prepared with Mandarin phrase books, the first Lonely Planet guidebook to Asia, Swiss army knives, and water purification tablets . . . but totally unprepared for a land where they couldn't read menus, call home, or communicate with the citizens of a smaller town they visited, who spoke a different dialict from Mandarin.

Susan gave a magnificent reading. The sections she read were well-worded and full of self-deprecating humor, and had the audience riveted. (In fact, when it came time for questions, nearly all of them were some form of "what happened next?"). I definitely wasn't the only one there who's dying to get started on the book!

The High Road Award--Philip Lee

Like many bloggers, I pride myself on honesty. I don't tend to be snarky, but I don't see the point in gushing over every book that was just Pretty Good, either. Some authors understand this; others get hurt feelings. I've seen author comments that made my toes curl. The commenter never does himself or herself any favors by curling people's toes. Word spreads around the internet and the negativity associated with the author's name lingers long after the review would have been forgotten.

Today Philip Lee left a really thoughtful comment on my review of his memoir. I liked the book, but pointed out several ways in which it wasn't what I'd hoped it would be. Lee took the high road, cordially responding to every criticism I had of Bittersweet, in a nondefensive way, that made me think.

Memoir is such an interesting and often controversial genre right now. In a time when some writers have been called out for embellishing the truth, Lee made every effort to be accurate and to protect the privacy of the other people involved in his story. Me? I was bummed because I wanted more dialogue and details. As Lee says, that's not the book he set out to write. In his words, Bittersweet is,

in part a memoir but also an exploration of marriage, love, families, and how to get happy. My narrative holds the book together but the subject matter is universal (I hope).

Please read his full comment, here. After reading Mr. Lee's excellent points, I wouldn't change my original post--but I'm so glad he took the time to respond in a constructive way that adds more depth to my review, by contributing a perspective that's quite different from my own. No, hold on--I would change my post. I'd add this: Every criticism I have can be boiled down to one thing: it wasn't the book I thought I was sitting down to read.

I'm giving the High Road Award to Professor Lee. I created this new award, for authors who take the time to leave meaningful comments on less-than-glowing reviews of their books. Feel free to bestow it on other authors, any time it's called for.

What author would you offer the High Road Award to? Has your opinion of a book ever been swayed by a comment (or another review), after the fact?

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You can learn more about Bittersweet, on the Goose Lane website or the author's website, The Mysterious East. If you're interested in a journalist's exploration of marriage and relationships, written in a style so personable that you'll wish you could have the author and his whole family over for dinner, I highly recommend giving Bittersweet a try.

*thanks to wigflip.com/roflbot for the image macro generator that added text to the public domain image I used for the award graphic.

Sunday Salon

I feel like I'm reading at a snail's pace this week! I've had extra rehearsals for a choir concert, and staying on the computer too long once I get home. The concert was this weekend (we performed a Haydn mass, combined with another choir and an orchestra) so, with a little will power to get me off the computer and into my book earlier, I hope to speed up a bit.

I'm reading Etta, by Gerald Kolpan--it's historical fiction, based on the life of a mysterious woman who was involved with Butch Cassidy's gang. An interesting mix of the historical facts with stuff the author readily admits he completely made up. I'm really looking forward to the review for this one--Amy (that's My Friend Amy) and I are going to get together via chat and talk about Etta, and somehow turn that into a book review. I can't wait to hear what Amy thinks of this book.

Did you know there's going to be a Book Blogger's Retreat in Portland this summer? Trish of Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'? has the scoop. This is going to be so much fun, and the more the merrier--Oregon is a great vacation spot in July. Truly.

Coming up even sooner is the next Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-thon, on April 18th-19th (in memory of Dewey, who came up with this idea and worked super hard to make them happen). I've never done a read-a-thon before and I'm really excited to give it a try, though I doubt I'll come anywhere near to 24 hours of reading. I'm going to pull my kids into it some, too. The Read-a-thon will be from 5 a.m. Saturday until 5 a.m. Sunday in my time zone (PDT).

So, that thing I said about getting off the computer and upstairs to read sooner? Yeah, I'm gonna go now. Think I'll take a break from Etta for tonight and see if I can get a short story read for Short Story Mondays.

He read it, I didn't: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

At the beginning of the year, I publicly stated my intention not to read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle in 2009. Imagine my surprise when my husband, who works at the library, arrived home one night toting Edgar in his bike pannier.

I said, "That's not for me, is it?"

"It's for me. But I'll have to change my nightly routine if I'm gonna finish it in three weeks," he informed me.

Well, finish it he did, and let the record state that upon finishing it he said, "If I could finish it in one week, you'd finish it in two, easily."

Did I detect a subtle challenge to my anti-challenge? An attempt at sabotage?

Nah, couldn't have been. I must have misheard.

Well, he may never dare mention another book in my presence because as soon as he finished I pounced on him to write a guest blog. In the end we decided to blog a conversation--kind of like I do with my kids. The main difference being that my husband talks faster than the kids so my fingers got stiff, trying to keep up! Also, he was doing dishes while we talked, instead of playing with a finger skateboard or lolling about on the couch.

Ali: What made you pick up The Story of Edgar Sawtelle?

Chris: That's an interesting question, because I think that blogs are becoming the best way for people to sort through the vast amounts of what there is to read, what movies to watch—nobody can possibly do it all. So people want a personal connection to something before they even attempt it. This seems to be especially true for those who read a lot. So it's kind of ironic that what finally made me decide to read it was one little sentence about it in Time magazine, while waiting to get my blood pressure taken at the doctor's office.

Ali: So was that before or after my anti-challenge?

Chris: After. So, yeah, the fact that you had pledged not to read it was some motivation. I don't think I could begin to touch on all that you read, because you read so much. It was intriguing to read something that you were not going to read.

Ali: So it wasn't just to tempt me?

Chris; No, not just to tempt you. I don't start to read a 566 page book just to make a point. I didn't think there was any way I could get through it because, the day before I checked it out, one of my co-workers was talking about reading it for a book group and she said it was 900 pages long. I thought she was serious.

Ali: But you finished it in like a week, didn't you?

Chris: Yeah. I still don't know where I found the time.

Ali: OK, so here's your chance to challenge my challenge. Why should I read this book?

Chris: Because it goes quickly, so even if you don't bond with it, you won't feel like it's a waste of your time. And it reads like music—and I don't mean like when you're sight reading.

Ali: Poetic prose?

Chris: Yes. I kept thinking lyrical prose, but I'm not really sure it is. Though I did find a list of books that had lyrical prose, and at least 2 of them I had read and agreed with--Cold Mountain and Smilla's sense of snow.

The male characters are the strongest—dogs aside—but the tone is, most of the time, very tender.

Ali: Because it's about a kid, right?

Chris: Yeah, he's growing up, so he gets to be an angry rebellious teenager, too.

Ali: I like angry rebellious teenagers. But the Hamlet references really turned me off, because to me that means everyone dies a nasty death in the end.

Chris: Okay, not everyone dies. It's not a strict retelling of Hamlet. Certainly not all the Hamlet-character equivalents die.

Ali: So is there hope at the end?

Chris: Yes.

Ali: And dogs?

Chris: Yes, there are dogs in the end. The people don't all die, and the dogs don't all die either.

Ali: I don't like books where dogs die.

Chris: Can I tell you what was good about the Hamlet aspect?

Ali: Sure.

Chris: It gave a framework--if you know the Hamlet story, you know roughly where you are in the story. It actually made me think about Hamlet in different ways. I honestly never, in all the times I've read or watched Hamlet, wondered about how good a father the ghost had been to Hamlet. Nor did I ever wonder how Hamlet's grandfather's failings might have turned Claudius turn into such a jerk. With a contemporary American novel, nobody's surprised when it makes you think about family relationships.

Ali: I like books about family relationships.

Chris: And I thought the setting wasn't tied that strongly to Wisconsin. The setting was just rural, and the bodies of water could have been rivers instead of lakes and it could've been Douglas firs instead of deciduous trees and it could've been Oregon or Montana or something. They just would've been catching different fish, that's all.

Ali: Okay.

Chris: So do you want to know why you shouldn't read it?

Ali: Yeah.

Chris: Because you ask too much of characters. They're bound to disappoint you, and I don't think that's their fault. The only character you might not be disappointed in is the dog, Almondine. But even if you weren't disappointed with her, you'd be disappointed in Wroblewski because you probably would think that he didn't spend enough of the book with her voice.

Ali: When you say disappointed in the characters, do you mean in their actions, or how they're developed?

Chris: How they're developed. I didn't have any problems with it, but I've discussed enough books with you to know that what I think is okay character development, you would find lacking. So that would be your problem.

My problem was, I couldn't picture some of the physical settings well enough to know what was supposed to be happening. in . I had to spend too much time trying to figure out how the rooms were connected during certain pivotal points in the plot. Not understanding where characters were when the catastrophes happened took some of the impact away.

Ali: That always bugged me in Nancy Drew books. Trying to figure out the lay of the land in order to make sense of the plot.

Chris: In this case it's the layout of the barn. I thought it was a certain way, but it turned out that I didn't understand how they were supposed to be, even though the author kept describing it.

Ali: But overall, you liked it, were glad you read it.

Chris: Yeah, I'm glad I read it.

Ali: You'd recommend it to most people?

Chris: Yeah but that's your point, isn't it? Everyone's recommending it. Anyone can recommend it, but how many can convince someone who's sworn not to read it?

Ali: I didn't swear to never read it. Just not this year.

What about a song?

Chris: The music that's mentioned is Patty Page, Patsy Cline, Roger Miller, but I'm going to pick one from the Cowboy Junkies--Common Disaster. The themes of loss, jealousy, revenge, and murder are pretty appropriate. And disaster too.



Other reviews of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: Dreamybee

Bittersweet: Confessions of a Twice-married Man--Philip Lee (book review)

Philip Lee has survived "the dark year" - a year in which two newly divorced brothers rough it, with no running water or indoor plumbing and contend with a feisty band of squirrels that inhabit their kitchen. Dishes are washed in the rain, coffee is made with a can and a blowtorch, a bucket becomes a make-shift shower, and renovation projects are abandoned almost as soon as they are started.

This first paragraph of the publisher's blurb totally hooked me. Grown brothers, living together again while recovering from painful divorces, contending with feisty squirrels! I was eager to be entertained by their exploits and touched by the brotherly love.

You know how sometimes books start out with a summary of what's been going on, and you're not hooked yet but you keep reading because pretty soon the thing will kick into gear? Bittersweet never kicked into gear for me. It wasn't poorly written. It just lacked some of the things I look for in both fiction and memoir. Dialogue, for example.

Author Philip Lee lets the reader peer into his heart as he moves from married man to divorced man to married-again man. His examination of himself and the institution of marriage makes for an interesting read, but he never invites the reader in off his proverbial front porch. He describes the house (feisty squirrels, water-bucket shower, and all); he talks about his kids, his brother, the women he loves; but the reader never quite steps through the threshold to meet them in person. Which is a shame, because by the middle of the book I had connected with Lee and was really rooting for him. But, should I have cared if he got together with the woman he eventually married? I didn't know her well enough to decide if she was a good-guy or a bad-guy (she was at the root of the downfall of his marriage, after all), and while I was still puzzling over that, he'd already sorted through his feelings, gotten remarried, and was on to the next hurdle.

Philip Lee is a professor of Journalism in New Brunswick and in addition to writing for various newspapers has published two other books--Home Pool: The Fight to Save the Atlantic Salmon, and Frank: The Life and Politics of Frank McKenna. Many were more impressed with his memoir than I was, including all these people.

A Journey Into Ireland's Literary Revival (book review)

In honor of St. Patrick's Day I thought I'd take a look at an armchair travel book this week. With its beautiful pictures and history of Ireland's literary and theater movement in the early twentieth century, A Journey Into Ireland's Literary Revival was the perfect fit.

Twenty-five years before the civil war that separated most of Ireland from the United Kingdom, three friends got together over coffee one day and had a chat about the state of their homeland. William Butler Yeats, Lady Augusta Gregory, and Edward Martyn decided that Irish culture had been given a bad rep and something should be done about it.

Here's the wacky idea they had: what if there was an Irish theater in Dublin, that produced plays by Irish writers, about Irish people? Not just stereotyped characters who made an appearance for laughs, but real people who also happened to be Irish?

We propose to have performed in Dublin, in the spring of every year certain Celtic and Irish plays, which whatever be their degree of excellence will be written with a high ambition, and so to build up a Celtic and Irish school of dramatic literature.

Believe it or not, at the time it was a radical idea. James Joyce thought it was a waste of Yeats' talent, and when the plays were performed, some of them were so controversial that they caused rioting in the theater.

With its county-by-county tour of the areas that inspired the writers of this period, this book could serve as either an introduction to the literature, or a way to connect favorite works to their specific settings. Felton takes us from County Galway, where the seeds of the Revival germinated, to County Mayo, where John Millington Synge's play The Playboy of the Western World was set, to the streets of Dublin where playwright Sean O'Casey was raised. Annotated maps guide the way for anyone close enough to visit the sites in person; full color pictures allow the rest of us to sit back and dream of the Ireland that goes beyond the shamrocks and leprachauns we're inundated with at this time of year.

The soundtrack: Gaelic culture is alive and well, in large part due to the vision of the founders of the Irish Literary Revival. Cuach Mo Lon Dubh Bui, like many of the songs performed by modern Irish folk group Altan, is sung in Gaelic. Listen to it by clicking on the playlist in my sidebar.

My Little Red Book -- a little author interview

The day I got my review copy of My Little Red Book in the mail, my friend Debby Dodds brought her copy to our writing critique group. "I'm a published author!" she announced proudly.

Sure enough, Debby's autobiographical short story, "The Von Trapps and Me," is one of the 92 that editor Rachel Kauder Nalebuff selected for this anthology of women's first period stories. These mini-memoirs run the gamut from funny to sad to everything in between, but the collection of them all in one book is a testament to the potential impact of this rite of passage on girls and their relationships with others and with their own bodies.

I thought it'd be fun to interview Debby as part of the blog tour for this book. As well as being a writer, Debby is a mom, a high school teacher/tutor, and an actress (not necessarily in that order). Her story tells of the day her first viewing of The Sound of Music on TV was rudely interrupted by an unexpected "visitor."

How did you come to be published in My Little Red Book?

I saw a call for submissions on an alumni website. I'd just found out I was pregnant a few days before because of a missed period (surprise!), so the concept of "periods" caught my eye. Between bouts of morning sickness, in March of 2004, I wrote the story that appears in the book. Then in the spring of 2008, I was teaching as a long term sub in Portland, and got an email from Rachel in my inbox. Because I'd moved and changed emails, she had to google me to find me and luckily she found an email for me through the school's website. Rachel told me she'd found a publisher and wanted to include my piece in her anthology.

Wow, she really had to hunt you down! When you reread the story four years later, was there anything you wanted to change?

One of the weird things was that I'd written the piece in 2004, submitted it, and then forgot about it over the years. Then a couple of months before I heard from Rachel, in the spring of 2008, I'd found the piece on a disc. I decided to rewrite it a bit for a workshop I was doing at The Attic with Ariel Gore. When Rachel contacted me, I forwarded her the updated version and she liked it and so that's the one she printed. The re-write wasn't really that different but I think I added the stuff about the Slam books and what a nerd-girl I was in middle school.

Have you been published before?

In magazines, yes, but this is my first anthology. Last year I had stories in both Hip Mama and The Sun. I co-wrote a feature screenplay, Whackjob, and won an award for an Industrial Short I wrote in 2007. And I've written skits for my two-woman show, Girls on the Edge. But I'm so excited to be included in this great book.

Tell me more about Girls on the Edge, is this an ongoing project?

Girls on the Edge was a two-woman show that Nicole Tibbets and I performed and co-wrote in 2001. Nicole and I met while students in NYU's Tisch School of the Arts when we were doing Silverstein! (a show based on the work of Shel Silverstein). We performed in venues in LA, the Ha Ha Comedy festival and in New York City at The Duplex and The Gotham Comedy Club. It was very un-PC and political but silly at the same time.

One of my favorite moments performing Girls on the Edge was one of our first gigs at a club in Los Angeles. I was playing a bulimic Barbie who was requesting a “magic wand” from Mrs. Claus so I could better stimulate my gag reflex. After some pretty gross descriptions of my need to vomit to stay perfect, I had a speech about all my frustrations in life and what it was like to be smooth in place of my vagina, and a woman stood up and made a big deal of walking out of the club in an offended huff. I loved that so much. Nicole, because she is a much nicer person than I am, perhaps owing to the fact she’s British, was upset after the show but I remember telling her, “This is what I want to do! Affect people!”

You also did skits for Disneyland, right? What was that like?

I first worked for the Mouse in Florida at the MGM Studios theme park in a show called Streetmosphere. It was set in 1940s Hollywood and I played the Girl off the Bus. I was fresh out of college and the gig was an interesting one. We got to write our whole character history as well as many of the scenarios we were involved in. We also did a lot of interactive improvisation. I named my character “Jean Normal” and she was obviously new in Hollywood, had just arrived from Grassville,IL to become a star. She had a penchant for performing the witch’s melting scene from the Wizard of Oz for anyone who would watch. She also liked to hand out crayon drawn picture/resumes to potential “talent agents” (which was actually anyone she met.)

I worked at Disneyland in the late 1990s with a group called Comedy 911, and at California Adventure in the early 2000s in the, now sadly defunct, Soap Opera Bistro. We’d act out soap opera melodramas for unsuspecting diners while they ate meals in these meticulously re-created ABC soap sets (the Nurse’s Station from General Hospital, Chandler Mansion from All My Children, etc.). That was a fun gig but for some reason our performance wasn’t advertised as a “show” so the people eating would often be quite freaked out when we started our scenes right in front of them. I loved walking into the restaurant and starting a show by accusing some sweet-looking grandpa type who was just trying to eat his pasta primavera of cheating on me with my twin sister because he’d just found out I was secretly a murderer. Good times.

Do you have a favorite story in the book (besides yours, of course)?

"Hot Dog on a String." I've read them all and love so many of them but that one is my favorite. It's hilarious.

My two kids are both boys, so I've had fun thinking of which mother-daughter pair I'd like to pass this book along to. Who will you be sharing your copy with?

I sent copies to both of my parents. My mom, who is a character in my story, got the first copy I’ve ever autographed. She’s a librarian and is so proud of me which feels wonderful. Another friend, Andrew who is an ADA in Arizona, bought a copy and plans on passing one on to his preteen niece which I think is awesome. My daughter, Dory, is only four and a half but when she gets old enough, I’m saving one for her to read.

Thanks for visiting Worducopia, Debby! It was fun to learn a little more about you and all your adventures with writing and performing.

Other stops on this blog tour include

At Home With Books

She Reads and Reads

Marta's Meanderings

Confessions of a Romance Book Addict

Write for a Reader

Reading With Monie

Marjolein Reviews

The Review From Here

Zensanity

Scribe Vibe

Cafe of Dreams

Carol's Notebook

Ms. Bookish

B & b ex libris

Brimful Curiosities

Cindy's Love of Books

Books in Every Room

Seaside Book Worm Blogger

Books Ahoy!

Bookopolis

The Reading Room

Book Bargains and Previews

Wendy's Minding Spot

The Epic Rat

This Year You Write Your Novel--Walter Mosley

If you've been one of the many NaNoWriMo participants, or if you haven't because you worried you wouldn't get it done, I highly recommend Walter Mosley's This Year You Write Your Novel. This little gem of a book is full of advice about getting those early drafts written and starting to shape them.

Two years into revision, I don't need help getting started, and the basic elements of fiction have been covered more thoroughly in other writing craft books. What I really need is for Mosley to write the next installment: This Year You Shut Up About Everyone Else's Novel and Finish Revising Your Own.

Even so, I marked several passages to reread. If I read it enough times, I may even find a way to spend the hour and a half Mosley recommends working on the novel, every single day. Even if all you do is reread what you wrote the day before, Mosley says, you must stick to the hour and a half each and every day.

The process of writing a novel is like taking a journey by boat. You have to continually set yourself on course. If you get distracted or allow yourself to drift, you will never make it to the destination. It's not like highly defined train tracks or a highway; this is a path that you are creating, discovering. The journey is your narrative. Keep to it and there will be a tale told.

The most helpful bit for me, was Mosley's response to the question, When am I finished rewriting? Mosley's answer: Never. Okay, then! Never mind.

Seriously, though. How do you know when to stop?

You find yourself reading through the book for the twenty-fifth time, and as you see problems, you try to fix them, but the attempt only makes things worse. . . . Then you know you're finished. Congratulations. You have a novel. This one is good. The next one will be better.

With nearly thirty published books and several awards under his belt, Mosley clearly has a sense for this stuff. It's worth listening to him. My novel's still in that in-between stage, though, so if you could get cracking on that second installment, Mr. Mosley, I'd be much obliged.

Emiko Superstar (Book Review)

I brought the graphic novel Emiko Superstar to the hair salon with me for some light reading during my boys' haircuts. But of course I also had to chat with my friend as she cut Evan's hair--and by the time I'd finished a sentence, the book was closer to Ben's lap than mine, long past the page four I'd looked up from. Oh, well. It was almost time for my haircut anyway. I'd get back to it during lunch, maybe.

But when I brought my lunch to the table, Evan was in my seat, reading--you guessed it--Emiko Superstart. Drat.

It's now the next morning, I've finished it and am ready to write my review--except that Evan's taken it over again, so I can't refer to the book while I write.

This is the second Tamaki book I've read, the first being Skim, which I liked but didn't love. Emiko and Skim both portray teen girls trying to figure out who they are. What makes Emiko shine brighter, in my opinion, is its focus. Skim brushed the surface of so many subplots (Wicca, suicide, a friendship cooling off, a teacher crush) and never let the reader dive in to any of them. In Emiko, all the threads tie together into a neat little slice-of-life bundle: girl goes from wallflower to performance artist--what's not to love?

And the characters--even the minor ones--are fully rounded out, partly thanks to Steve Rolston's artwork. Evan, for his part, has determined a kindred spirit in Rolston, because of the incredible detail in his vehicle illustrations. "What else has this guy done?" he wants to know. We'll be checking into these for age-eight suitability.

The soundtrack: I love it when authors make it easy on me: "My first police raid. Set to Kaiser Chief's I Predict a Riot. Although I could swear I also heard some Ramones in the background." Click on the playlist in my sidebar (From Facebook, click here) to hear it.

TSS: Inspiration and the blogger's book cart

First, I have the results of my Rich Like Them giveaway to announce! Since I rarely read all the comments in other people's giveaways, I want to give you a heads up: the responses to this question (tell about a person whose life philosophy or success you admire) absolutely made my week. If you need a mental pick-me-up, take five minutes to read about the inspiring people everyone wrote about. Wow. Thank you, all who entered.

The winners were chosen randomly, using Random.org, and they are:
#15: Susan
#27: Sweetsue
#42: Donna
#25: Demmi
#30: Rottawa

Congratulations to the winners, I hope you enjoy the book! Email your U.S. or Canadian street address to me at worducopia@gmail.com, and I will pass it along to Hachette Book Group to send out your copy in the mail.

In other news...

I'm trying to be more organized, because I was getting overwhelmed with all the review copies sitting on my desk. I now have a Windows calendar filled up with reviews I want to post on particular dates this month. Which makes it seem ridiculous to check out additional books from the library, but that doesn't stop me.

Speaking of the library... I stopped by to pick up the holds waiting for me last week, and the hold shelf had nothing for me. Nothing! I was--what's that word again?--Oh yeah: astonished! Then I turned around and behold! A book cart, at the side of the check-out counter, empty but for two stacks of books: all for me. Yes, folks, I had my very own book cart at the library. This is what my world has come to.

Here's one of the stacks (the other was mostly kids' books):
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, by Annette Gordon-Reid: recipient of the 2008 National Book Award for non-fiction, this is the biography of three generations of a slave family owned by and intertwined with Thomas Jefferson's family.

The Secret Keeper, by Mitali Perkins, so excited to read this YA novel set in 1970s India!

The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner. Weiner sought out the happiest places on earth, and I want to know what he found! Somebody blogged about this like a week ago. Do I remember who? I do not. If it was you, leave a comment and I'll link you.

Pure Skin: Organic beauty basics by Barbara Close. I ran out of a moisturizer I wasn't thrilled with last week, so I set about researching what to replace it with. Came across the Cosmetics Database and became completely overwhelmed by the toxicity in the skin care industry. After hours of research, I bought an Oil of Olay all day moisturizer that apparently won't kill me too quickly, and decided to look into natural alternatives.

Songdogs, by Colum McCann. When I wrote about his story Everything in this Country Must, it got me thinking I should read some more Colum McCann. Songdogs, from 1995, was his first novel (he has a new one coming out this spring!); it's about a young man who returns to his native Ireland in search of his father. Only 212 pages, the perfect St. Paddy's day read, if I can get to it!

Freddie and Me is a graphic novel memoir, which was recommended on An Embarrassment of Riches, which is my local library's awesome blog. It's a coming of age story which is centered around the music of Queen. Yeah, I'm not really sure, either, but I can't wait to find out.

Dear Darkness, by Kevin Young. I've been wanting to read more poetry and more African American authors, and Kevin Young fits the bill on both counts. Wish I could remember where I came across his name.

Astonishing thoughts about Diana Joseph's "I'm Sorry You Feel That Way"

To: Title Elves
Re: Those astonishing, attention-grabbing titular* words

Whether you're the author, the agent, or the editor, I realize that snappy titles aren't easy to come up with. You strive for a word that'll grab readers' attention and make them want to yank your book off the shelf over all others, and you never really know if it worked or not because, did we read the book because of the title? The cover? Because our friend told us it was great despite the stupid title and ugly cover? You'll never know. We don't even know. But I'm here on behalf of readers, to let you in on a little secret.

The word Astonishing? It's run its course. We're over it. Please replace it with something snappier and unique such as....Snappy. Or Unique.

You see, we've read Barry Lyga's Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl, and M.T. Anderson's Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing. There was Christopher Grey's Leonardo's Shadow: Or, My Astonishing Life as Leonardo da Vinci's Servant. Let's not forget Clare Morrall's Astonishing Splashes of Color (which takes its title from a description of Neverland in Peter Pan) shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2004. And now we have Diana Joseph's newly released memoir I'm Sorry You Feel That Way: The Astonishing but True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother, and Friend to Man and Dog.

And here's where the title fails, dear Title Elf. (I'm not even going to touch the fact that Ms. Joseph wrote a chapter lamenting her son's use of the word slut and then, for shock value, you smacked it onto the cover of her book for everyone else's young sons to glimpse.). I enjoyed this memoir--in turns funny, touching, and disturbing--but I have to tell you honestly that I waited through the entire 206 pages and the astonishment never came.

Maybe the astonishing part was supposed to be the fact that Diana Joseph appears to define herself entirely in relation to men? Each of these fifteen stories revolves around a male in Ms. Joseph's life: her father, her brothers, her son, her lovers. Her boss. The neighbor she has breakfast with occasionally. Yes, even the dog is male.

Her mother makes a brief appearance or two, but no female--not even the author herself--not even the cat--merits her own chapter. I think that's a significant decision on the part of this talented creative writing professor, and yet it's an issue she chooses to scarcely touch. It's a little unnerving.

But astonishing? No. Unfortunately, even in the twenty-first century, that's not astonishing at all.

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*Titular. Now there's a word I've never used before.

A Journey Into Michelangelo's Rome--Angela Nickerson (book review)

Seven things you may or may not know about Michelangelo Buonarotti:

1. His dad was so against having a painter for a son that he beat him as a child, to discourage him from doodling.

2. As well as a sculptor and a painter, he was a poet. He often came up with ideas for sonnets while sculpting.

3. He loved stone so much that he left part of each of his sculptures unfinished so the raw stone would be visible.

4. The pope built a secret drawbridge from the Vatican to Michelangelo's studio, so he could visit with him at work without appearing to play favorites.

5. He wore boots made from dog skin.

6. In fact, he wore them for months at a time, without taking them off. With bare feet.

7. Today (March 6th), was his birthday. He lived to be 89 years old (1475-1564).

I learned all this from Angela Nickerson's A Journey Into Michelangelo's Rome, my third book in the Roaring Forties Press's ArtPlace Series (the others being A Journey Into Dorothy Parker's New York, and A Journey Into Steinbeck's California). Of the three, I'd say Nickerson had the toughest task. Rome was, after all, a huge city with millenia of history behind it by the time Michelangelo was born in 1475. So, how does one take a tour of Michelangelo's Rome, without visiting the ancient structures that helped define the city in his day, as well as ours? Then there's the inconvenient fact that Michelangelo spent part of his life in Florence and Bologna, rather than Rome. A thorough biography of the artist can't focus exclusively on his time in one city.

All this to say: I found this book to be less of a journey through Michelangelo's Rome, than it was a history of Rome and a biography of Michelangelo, twisted together into one illustration-packed 163-paged volume. There's a fine line between providing context and overwhelming the reader. Maps and illustrations contain both Renaissance-era and ancient structures. Meanwhile, the site one of Michelangelo's residences, (now replaced by modern buildings), is mentioned but not mapped.

With its translations of sonnets and excerpts of letters written by Michelangelo, A Journey Into Michelangelo's Rome offers an engaging introduction to both the artist and the "Eternal City." However, a narrower focus on the points where the two intersect would have made it more fully stand out, among the dozens of books that can be found on either subject.

For the soundtrack: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525ish-1594) rocked the renaissance. He was a famous composer in Rome during Michelangelo's time, and his music is still sung today. I'm delighted to have found a recording of a piece that my choir has done to share with you. So gorgeous, so fun to sing.

My next review in the ArtPlace series is coming up on March 17th. I'll be journeying into Ireland's Literary Revival with author R. Todd Felton, in celebration of St. Patrick's Day.

Passing up bargains

This post was inspired by Weekly Geeks 2009-08: Choose a political or social issue that matters to you. Educate readers about your topic by telling us a little about it and any involvement you've had in this issue. Find books addressing your issue; they do not necessarily have to be books you’ve read. They can be non fiction, fiction, poetry, etc...Give a little synopsis of the book or a link to the description.

In the spring of 2007 my sister, nephew, and I had a delicious lunch in San Francisco's Chinatown, and browsed through dozens of stores, amazed at all the bargains to be had. I bought a cable car-shaped pencil sharpener, a parasol, a paper lamp shade, and a couple of jackets, among other things. Little did I know that it'd be the last time I'd even consider shopping in Chinatown.

In November, 2008 I reviewed Where Am I Wearing?, and learned more about the lives of the factory workers who turned out these bargains, as well as our shoes, our cell phones, our computer keyboards, and many of the toys my kids play with.

It was enough to make me say, "This Christmas, I'm not sending my spending money to China." We managed to have a fairly China-free Christmas, with the exception of gifts from others, books printed in China (I didn't look) and some things I'd already bought. That meant my kids didn't get the remote-control motorcycles they'd asked for, and my husband didn't get the standing mixer he wanted, even though it was on sale. It also made shopping take longer, with heavy sighs as "perfect" items were placed back on the shelves.

So, why bother? Well, let's start with a typical Chinese factory worker's schedule, according to the National Labor Committee:

• 12-hour shift, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., seven days a week. Overtime beyond that is mandatory.
• Workers are allowed two days off a month.
• Workers sleep in factory dormitories, 6-8 people per room. If they choose to live elsewhere, they still have wages docked for the room.

But that's just the basics. Here's one worker quoted in the National Labor Committee report, describing his daily life:

I feel like I’m serving a prison sentence....The factory is forever pressing down on our heads and will not tolerate even the tiniest mistake. When working, we work continuously. When we eat, we have to eat with lightning speed. When I need to go to the bathroom, I have to try my hardest to control myself, to hold it in and not go. The security guards are like policemen watching over prisoners. We’re really livestock and shouldn’t be called workers.

It's a pain in the rear to check labels all the time, especially when it means paying more money for basically the same item. Our family gets by just fine on one public employee's income, partly because we're careful with our money and always on the lookout for a bargain. But, a bargain at what cost?

Do you have time to watch a two-minute CNN report about the Chinese factories Wal-Mart uses*?



This week, I read A Year Without 'Made in China,' which is exactly what it sounds like: author Sarah Bongiorni's account of the year she swore off all Chinese-manufactured products. For a full review, see Devourer of Books. I found it an entertaining read, helpful (I'll get to that later), in some cases discouraging, in other cases, funny.

Next on my Made in China reading list:

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie Chang

The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy by Pietra Rivoli--seems kind of similar to Where Am I Wearing, but different.

Postcards from Tomorrow Square by James Fallows: "For anyone who's ever wondered what's behind the ubiquitous "Made in China" labels -- and how the United States economy has become so entwined with the Chinese -- Fallows' book offers an engaging, informative and occasionally prescient glimpse into the reasons why."

When I took my kids shoe shopping this week, I was glad I'd read A Year Without 'Made in China.' I went right ahead and took them to Target (which seems to have more items made in China than, say, Kohls or Fred Meyer) and didn't even bother checking where any of the shoes were made. Why? Because, thanks to Bongiorni, I already knew that any shoe I can afford that my sons will wear in public is certain to be made in China.


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*For more information about Wal-Mart, I highly recommend the DVD Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.

I can relate

Gotta love Zits today!

Book Giveaway Carnival

Tracy of Book Room Reviews is hosting a fabulous book giveaway carnival all week, and I'm joining in with my giveaway of 5 copies of Rich Like Them. Drawing will be held March 8 and is open to U.S. and Canadian street addresses.

Be sure to check out the dozens of other great giveaways at Book Room Reviews, too! And if you have a book to give away, it's not too late to join.

To win a copy of Rich Like Them, click on the book cover:

TSS: Edgar, Leonardo, and Michelangelo

Yesterday when our family was leaving for the science museum to see the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit, Chris beat me to the car and implanted himself triumphantly in the passenger seat with his book on his lap.

"But...when am I going to read?" I asked forlornly through the driver's side door, book tucked under my arm.

He laughed. "On the way home?" he suggested.

You see, my husband recently checked out The Story of Edgar Sawtelle from the library, and he's got a plan: If he reads 40 pages per day, he can finish it before it has to go back in three weeks. Forty pages is a lot for a man who rarely spends more than half an hour reading on a weekday, and frequently doesn't read at all. The guy is clearly motivated to finish this book I've vowed not to read. So, reading in the car will have to be his prerogative, this time.

The da Vinci exhibit, which we were visiting for the second time, is fabulous. Going back to da Vinci's original drawings and using materials that would have been available to him, these folks have built life-sized (or near to it) versions of his ideas--many of which have never been built before. Flying machines that never flew hang from the ceiling, predecessors of cranes, tanks, and automobiles are parked throughout the hall along with models of bridges and an entire town built to resist a plague. In one hands-on section, you can turn different types of wooden gears and ball bearings Leonardo studied and invented, and learn how the same ideas are used in modern machines. Then there's the room of mirrors, and the art section, where infrared photography has allowed us to learn more about the Mona Lisa than you ever dreamed you cared to know. If this exhibit travels anywhere near you and you have any interest at all in history, science, or art, I urge you to go.

And what does all this have to do with reading, you ask? I haven't read the Da Vinci Code and don't plan to. But, I'm currently reading A Journey Into Michelangelo's Rome, from the ArtPlace series. Since Michelangelo and Leonardo were contemporaries, it's been fascinating to compare what I'm reading to what I'm seeing at the museum. I'll have more to say about Michelangelo this Friday, when I review the book in commemoration of his birthday.