Time and good writing

A great gift book for news junkies comes from Time Books. (There are still news junkies out there, right? Who like to read as opposed to watching the crawl on CNN?)

Time, which blessedly does not have a crawl or Tucker Carlson, celebrates its 85th anniversary with 85 Years of Great Writing, in which it compiles some of the best stories in the magazine's history. This is one of the books you keep handy and, when you're feeling restless, open randomly and start reading. You might end up on James Agee's elegy for President Roosevelt, or Newton Hockaday on Charles Lindbergh's flight. Maybe Richard Corliss on MASH or Nancy Gibbs on Hurricane Katrina or Stephen Hawking on the nature of relativity. Other contributers: Walter Isaacson, Calvin Trillin, Pico Iyer, John Hersey, Richard Schickel.

(I have duly noted this stuff is mostly written by men, yes. And it's still worth checking out.)

I haven't read Time magazine in a while, but we always had it in our house when I was growing up, so it's really one of the first magazines I ever read. My parents shunned Newsweek (just like they shunned any TV anchor besides Walter Cronkite and, later, Dan Rather); they were Time loyalists, and so for awhile was I. This book provides a bit of a nostalgic buzz, which is pleasant. And I admit to being charmed by anything I don't have to read all at once.

I carry a 700 degree fire in my hand

I don't, actually, carry a 700 degree fire around, but David Sedaris used to. Not anymore. In his new collection of essays When You Are Engulfed in Flames, he writes about how he finally quit smoking: Cold turkey on a 3 month trip to Japan. He figures it cost him at least $20,000, so you might want to stick with the patch.

Flames is, of course, hilarious, more so if you listen to Sedaris read the book than if you read it himself. The audiobook is that good. My two favorite essays in it (Solution to Saturday's Puzzle and In the Waiting Room) I had read in the New Yorker months ago, and yet hearing them again read with Sedaris' perfect comic timing was a joy.

I think my favorite essays of his out of all of them may be from his last collection, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim: Rooster at the Hitching Post (about his brother's wedding) and...I can't think of the name of the other, but it's about Dutch legends about Santa Claus, which almost caused me to wreck my car when I was listening to it. I agree, Mr. Sedaris: Santa didn't USED to do anything.

You can read my review of When You Are Engulfed in Flames here. And you can hear a clip of Sedaris reading from The Smoking Section chapter here.

R.I.P., Mr. Adams

I DID IT! I DID IT! I finally finished the John Adams audiobook today. More fitting, perhaps, if I'd finished listening on July 4 - and believe me, a few times I thought it was going to take precisely that long - but I will settle for completing it on Memorial Day.

As everyone knows, it's a brilliant book. Just terrific. I'm so happy to have read - or at least listened - to it. It's so good it has made me want to tackle David McCullough's Truman next, although some have suggested I read the Alexander Hamilton bio, which makes sense, as he plays such a large role in Adams.

Will leave you on this Memorial Day with something Adams once wrote to his friend Francis van der Kemp:

"Griefs upon griefs! Disappointments upon disappointments. What then? This is a gay, merry world notwithstanding."

"Vodka" not a laughing matter

I'll be the first to admit it's got a great title, but Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea turns out to be a major disappointment. It's not that I expect great literature (or even mediocre literature) from the author of the memoir My Horizontal Life (OK, another good title). Especially not in a collection of humorous essays. But I do expect to laugh. Or at least chortle or snicker.

Unfortunately, Handler, who's a stand-up comic, doesn't bring the funny, at least not on the page. If you can get through the horrendous opening essay - in which third-grader Chelsea tries to convince classmates she's been tapped to play Goldie Hawn's daughter in the sequel to Private Benjamin - you are a more patient and tolerant soul than me. Also maybe you need to get out more.

What is funny so far: Marian Keyes' This Charming Man. More as this develops, but the first 50 pages are pure Bridget Jones (and I mean that in the most flattering way possible). I'm kinda over chicktion, but this novel is pretty entertaining so far.

Truth and memory

If you haven't read the New York magazine story on Augusten Burroughs, you should. It's long but interesting, and if you start it stick with it 'til the end. The writer is clearly skeptical of the veracity of Burroughs' new book A Wolf at the Table, but Burroughs turns the tables on him at the end.

"It was my way of screwing with him," Burroughs told me in a recent phone conversation. Good job by you, Augusten.

A Wolf at the Table is Burroughs' latest memoir about his father. It is dark. It is creepy. It is not in anyway as amusing as Running with Scissors or Dry. Burroughs will be at the Lincoln Theatre on Lincoln Road at 7:30 p.m. Monday; you can get free (and required) tickets at any Books & Books location.

Click here to read the NY mag story. I'll be posting my own story in a few days. And yes, you are required to read that, too.

I'm a snob, and I shouldn't be

I don't know why I would be surprised by this revelation, but I am: St. Pete Times writer Piper Castillo, in her "What's on  Your Nightstand?" feature, asks former actress on the sitcom One Day at a Time and current author Valerie Bertinelli what she looks for in a book. Bertinelli says: "I always enjoy a bit of humor in drama. And, if you really are into fiction you can't go without Margaret Atwood. I know I can always rely on her."

I'm always delighted to find a fellow Atwood fan. Sorry, Valerie, that I doubted your ability to be a serious reader. If you haven't read The Blind Assassin, don't miss it!

Bertinelli's book, Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time, hit no. 8 on the NY Times bestseller list last week. The author is also a Jenny Craig spokesperson. And for the record, as a kid I always liked One Day at a Time.

Just in time for National Library Week

I actually got a couple of audiobooks from the Broward County library system, so I can cancel the fatwa against them. So nice to have something to listen to in the car after The Diane Rehm Show is over (or before it begins, for that matter). First up: David McCullough's 1776. The author reads the book, and so far it's not bad, though I'd have to say it falls more  the "like" scale than the "love" scale, but I've only heard 2 discs so far.

I also got Geraldine Brooks' March, in keeping with the theme of books about American wars.

Riding out tonight to face the promised land

If you think you're the only one who grew up loving Bruce Springsteen's music, think again. Sarfraz Manzoor, a Pakistani-born Londoner, writes in his new memoir Greetings from Bury Park that hearing The River (and the rest of the Boss' songs)  changed his life. Journalist Manzoor did not come from down in the valley but mister, when he was young, they brought him up to do like his daddy done. And he said no.

In honor of Springsteen's concert this week in South Florida, read a swell review of the book by Herald staff writer Lisa Arthur here.

Why am I such a wuss?

Confession: I started Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers on the recommendation of one of my vacation companions and the clerk at Back of Beyond Books in Moab, Utah - a great little store, should you ever find yourself in Moab with a break between mountain biking and fighting the RV traffic at Arches National Park.

Here is the book's marvelous first line: "The human head is of the same approximate size and weight as a roaster chicken." How can anyone not want to read more? Roach (whose new book is Bonk, about...well...bonking) goes on to describe a class in which aspiring plastic surgeons practice on severed heads - real ones, donated to science by "kindly southerners." Roach is funny and informative, and I laughed aloud at several descriptions.

Still. I am not a squeamish person normally. I like zombie movies. I don't faint at the sight of blood. But something about this chapter gave me the wiggins in a big way, and I couldn't finish it on the plane on the way home, for fear all my twitching and squirming would lead people to think I was some sort of nervous IRA terrorist. I'm going to try again but really, WHAT is my problem?

You don't know everything

Even I don't know everything. That's why the new book Discover's 20 Things You Didn't Know about Everything is so helpful. Compiled by the editors of Discover mag and a guy named Dean Christopher, this book provides 20 fun facts about a bunch of topics, from airport security (warning: read this segment only after your next vacation; the missile stuff will freak you out) to sperm banks, space disasters, rats, milk, mosquitoes, your body and duct tape. And, of course, more.

For example, did you know duct tape is good for repairing everything and anything BUT ducts? I mean, a surgeon running low on surgical tape can conceivably use duct tape to close a gunshot wound, according to this book.

Another popular topic: Aliens. In 1957 a Brazilian farmer named Antonio Vilas Boas claimed that he was abducted by aliens who covered him in gel and mated with him and - here's the surprising part - they barked. Hmmm. Another fact confirms that a 2003 Harvard study reports that 70 percent of "abductees" say they were used for breeding or sexual experiments. But then, we already knew that; we've followed Agent Scully's plight for years.

I won't back down

It seems the ever-controversial Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert has passed a milestone: It has now officially spent 52 weeks on the paperback nonfiction bestseller list. That's a whole year, folks.

I only bring it up because 1. I liked the book and thought it was fun, and 2. I know some of you were less than thrilled with it, and I would be remiss in not taunting you.

Think of Elizabeth and her travels in Italy the next time you snuggle up to a nice steaming plate of pasta!

Musing on music - and life

If you missed in in hardback, now's the time to check out Rob Sheffield's funny, heartbreaking memoir Love is a Mix Tape in paperback. Sheffield, a columnist for Rolling Stone, writes about his whirlwind romance with a Southern girl, their early, giddy marriage and her shocking sudden death five years later. He glues the whole thing together through a series of mix tapes and songs that highlight their life together. And before you think that's too unbearably old-fashioned, Sheffield is quick to point out that a mix tape these days isn't on tape at all; it's most likely an iPod playlist.

Anyway, the book is a quick read, and if you love music it's a given you'll be moved by Sheffield's story, which never gets too maudlin despite its sad content. Life goes on, and so does the music. Good things to remember. If you're the sort of person who gets moony when you see John Cusack holding up that big-ass radio with Peter Gabriel blasting under Ione Skye's window, you'll definitely enjoy this book.

John Quincy Adams update!

So awhile back I made a crack or two about John Quincy Adams and anybody who might read a 900 page biography of him (ie, my brother), but I have just learned what I find to be an extremely interesting fact about him, courtesy of Madeleine Albright's new book Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership:

Apparently JQA "rose early each morning to swim naked in the Potomac," Albright writes. "A female journalist trapped him there, sat on his clothes, and forced him to choose between revealing himself physically and revealing himself philosophically by answering questions while standing in water up tohis neck. He gave the interview."

Great story. One can only imagine how different the outcome would have been had President Clinton been the one in the water.

Sex, yes; traffic, no

"We have this monochromatic view of paradise that does us more harm than good," says Eric Weiner, author of The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places on Earth. The view generally tends to involve warm weather, beaches, sun, drinks with little umbrellas in them. Sounds good, right? Sign me up. But the happiest places on earth tend to be freezing and, in the case of Iceland, dark as hell for a large chunk of the year. Why?

You can find out by reading Weiner's entertaining new book or reading my interview with him or by checking him out at 8 p.m Tuesday at Books & Books in Coral Gables. Weiner, an NPR correspondent, visited nine countries - Switzerland, the Netherlands, Bhutan, Iceland, Qatar, Thailand, England, Moldova and India - to see if and why the people there were happy. The Geography of Bliss is a wonderful travelogue, smart and funny and surprisingly insightful, a quick read that's definitely worth your time.

Weiner has a few things to say about Miami, too. He used to live here. I suspect it made him crazy. Want to know why everybody's so cranky down here, despite the sun and the boat drinks? Traffic. It's one of the top reasons people aren't happy, Weiner says.  He told me about a test done on Texas working women. They got these little pager-type devices that would beep every hour or so, and they had to say whether they were happy or not at that moment.

Here's the shocking results: They were happiest when they were having sex, least happy when they were driving to work in the morning (slightly less miserable on the way home). I think this says something about how our work days ought to be structured.

If this doesn't give you the heebie jeebies nothing will

I just remembered this part of The Animal Dialogues:

"In the last hour of dawn, I woke from a long nap in the sand. I crawled from my sleeping bag, which I had pulled out when we all dropped our water weight sometime in the night. Our camp looked like abandoned debris in the middle of a rippled, tawny-colored dune field. A void encircled me, occupying every horizon. There was no wind, only a still and pale sky. I got up and stepped barefoot across sand as fine as table salt. Not three feet away, I stopped at a fresh track left by a sidewinder. I followed it with my eyes back toward my gear, finding that while I slept a snake had passed beside my head. It had left a graceful, rhythmic print, something written in script."

OK, this is not as frightening as the time Craig Childs walked out of his tent in the Arctic to find a grizzly sitting there, and yet, it gives me the shudders all the same.

A life less ordinary

Craig Childs does things most of us would never dream of doing, even if we do happen to enjoy hiking, camping, backpacking, peeing outdoors and lugging around enough weight to give us back issues for  life. He lived in a tipi through a cold winter. He walks into southern Utah's most barren, rugged landscapes to search for water, petroglyphs, signs of ancient life. He treks through the Mexican desert at night and shuffles through the sand with no boots. Sometimes he just walks out into the middle of nowhere for the same reason people climb Everest; not because it's there, but just because.

In The Animal Dialogues, he writes of his encounters with wildlife over the year, from inadvertent meetings with grizzlies, mountain lions, owls, mountain goats and mosquitos so persistent they can drive a man mad.

Here he marvel at the resilience of coyotes:

"Coyote numbers, by nature of female biology, are designed for rebound. Coyotes are the first species to occupy a devastated area in the way evening primroses grow in the turned sand of roadways. Female coyotes living in areas under light predator control have three to four uterine swellings in a year, each leading to litters of three to four pups. Where the killing of coyotes is more popular, females hve around nine uterine swellings. Start shooting coyotes, and they start having more pups."

Childs is kind of like a noncranky Edward Abbey, more self deprecating but equally in tune with the natural world and our ties to it. Also he doesn't throw beer cans out of the windows of his truck, or at least, he doesn't write about it.

To read more about The Animal Dialogues, go here.

Doggone it

Further study of the bestseller list indicates that yet more writers are cashing in on their pets, and I have to ask: why haven't I hopped on this gravy train yet? Look at what John Grogan did: He started a cottage industry based on that Marley creature. A steady stream of other writers followed. The latest dog lovers to pop up on the bestseller list are Anna Quindlen and Good Dog. Stay. (which does have the sweetest old Lab on the cover) and Rescuing Sprite by Mark R. Levin.

Presumably all these people are waxing poetic on the life lessons taught by their canine companions. So consider this my book proposal. Here are the things I have learned from my dogs. All are extremely valuable:

1. Smelling bad is better than smelling good, so run when you see someone pick up the hose.

2. Anything that falls on the floor is food except lettuce.

3. The nasty fish emulsion mix used as plant food is a delicacy, as are dead toads squashed flat by cars and baked into the road. Crunchy goodness!

4. The mailman is evil.

5. The meter reader is evil.

6. Squirrels, iguanas and any dog on a leash passing by is evil.

7.  Cats are evil, too.

8. The white comforter is a perfect place for black dogs to cuddle up.

9. Nobody can ever take a photo of you in ridiculous fake reindeer antlers if you run straight at the person holding the camera!

10. People want you to lick their faces. Really!

 

(Eat Pray) Love it - or not?

So I was just going over the New York Times bestseller list, which runs each Sunday in The Miami Herald's Tropical Life section, and I noticed a seismic shift on the nonfiction bestseller paperback list: Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love is no longer no. 1! After 45 weeks on the list, it has dropped below John Grisham's An Innocent Man.

OK, so maybe it's not that big of a deal, and it probably should have happened sooner (hasn't every woman on the planet read this book already?) But Eat Pray Love is one of those rare books that seems to elicit not only praise but outright devotion in its readers, all of whom seem to be female. I have not yet met a man who has read it (or admitted to reading it), and I only know of one person who violently disagreed with the general assessment that it's excellent. (I won't divulge a name in the interest of personal safety; you know who you are.)

Anyway, I'm a big fan of the book, which chronicles the author's travels to Italy (to eat), India (to meditate) and Bali (to do a lot of stuff, including falling in love). I personally would never have made it out of Italy, especially not after sampling the best pizza in the world in Naples. I would just set up a box and live on the street nearby to get my hands on that pizza every day, possibly for every meal. Seriously, given the choice, what would you do: scrub floors and live in an ashram, or eat your weight in pasta and drink cheap red wine in Rome? I fear my spirituality is compromised.

A little thing that made a big difference (to me, anyway)

So if you look way down at the bottom of Sunday's paperback bestseller list, you will note that Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference is clinging to the no. 10 spot after 170 weeks on the list.

I can tell you why: It's a fascinating book, just like his second book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, which was something of a tipping point for me. I don't read a lot of nonfiction for pleasure, but I read Blink - actually I listened to Gladwell read it on CD while driving to work - and I was mesmerized. Gladwell, who is one of my favorite New Yorker writers, is a master of explanatory journalism. He's a clear and level headed writer, and the way he works things out in his brain is certainly easier to follow than my own tortured, muddy thinking. One of my favorite New Yorker pieces is one he did a few years back on racial profiling and why it doesn't work, using the example of an Ontario (I think) province banning pit bulls, when in fact there were other avenues to explore in order to curtail dog attacks besides banning the breed (for example, examining the sorts of people who tend to own aggressive pit bulls).

Anyway, Blink forced me to realize that nonfiction didn't have to be moldy history or histrionic and/or fake memoirs (talking to you, James Frey), and it set me off reading all sorts of shockingly unConnie books, such as Anne Applebaum's Gulag and Jared Diamond's Collapse, both of which I loved, if in fact one can love books about Stalin's reign of terror and the ends of civilizations (hint: they tend to end in cannibalism).

Anyway, I recently finished The Tipping Point and enjoyed that equally (particularly the parts about how the creators of Sesame Street and Blue's Clues changed children's programming in utterly different ways). Who knew that for Big Bird to work, he had to be walking around the street with the live people? It's tidbits of info like that that make The Tipping Point such a great read.

But why is it still on the top 10 list and Blink is not? Blink came out in paperback later, in spring of 2007. Interesting. People are more interested in starting trends than in how they think, I guess.