16 y.o. Erin's dream job

Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN - James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales (Little, Brown and Company, 2011)

When I was a teenager, I desperately wanted to work at ESPN. Statistics preferably, but whatever. I was completely enthralled by the world of sports, and how could I not want to work for the Worldwide Leader? There was this small thing about being located in Bristol, but I figured I could sort that out.

At any rate, I've always had a soft spot for the network, one that has survived despite their callous disregard for hockey in the years since they lost broadcasting rights. So this huge (roughly 750 page) oral history felt like it was right up my alley.

And in so many ways, it was. Different voices - often conflicting - tell the story of ESPN's genesis and rise to glory. It was a peek behind the scenes, and a helpful glimpse of the ways it was amazing, and the ways it really wasn't.

But still, I had such a time getting through this beast. I started it two months, and it languished often enough on my nightstand, because I craved narrative. I needed a story. And this wasn't the right book to give it to me. Which in no way is meant to disparage Miller's & Shales' work, which is incredible. But it just felt overwhelming, and endless, and sad.

That said, it was fun to hear about the first decade, the one I never knew. And then the 90s, when I discovered sports, and started setting my TV to turn on SportsCenter every morning as an alarm clock, and watched pretty much anything that was on, even (dread) boxing. And there was hockey on then! And then shows that I had all but forgotten, or whatever. To realize how many of these names I recognized without really noticing that I knew them.

I'm nothing but glad that I read this, but I'm also shockingly relieved that I'm finished.

Fate and such

You're (Not) the One - Alexandra Potter (Plume, 2010)

I am totally not sure what I thought of this book. Other than I think I need a break from romantic comedy-type fiction. Maybe. It's cute. Lucy moves to NYC from England, is like any good heroine in that she is messy and tends toward lateness, and has a perfectionist sister and a suitably wacky roommate. Also a crazy boss. And she's an arty type - specifically a once-aspiring artist who works in a gallery. Check, check, and check. But more importantly, she once kissed a young lover under the Bridge of Sighs at sunset, which should have bound her to him forever. Except they didn't work out, and Lucy can't help wondering what might have been.... until she runs into him again. Sparks fly like mad, but then it turns out that they've grown into two very different people, and opposites don't attract.

But Lucy & Nate can't get rid of each other, even though they would both very much like to. And even though she's met a new guy, one who is so much more like her. Which raises the question: if someone who is so completely unlike you is not the right match, is it really better to fall for a guy who explicitly reminds me of yourself?! I'm skeptical, but then I'm not the one writing the book. And Lucy has to end up with one of her two suitors, right?

Plus two other looks of what love and soul mates might look like, courtesy of the supporting cast. Charming, but not up to the expectations set by Charlotte Merryweather.

The perfect marriage gone perfectly wrong

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn (Crown Publishers, 2012)

I don't think there is anything to be said about Gone Girl that hasn't already been said in the buzz of media attention it got last year. What I'm impressed about is that somehow I managed to miss all the spoilers. Or maybe I didn't, because as it happened, my initial suspicions about plot twists proved pretty spot on.

Has anyone missed the overview yet? Amy and Nick are celebrating ("celebrating") their fifth anniversary, except she goes missing the morning of. The novel alternates between Nick's first person narrative as Amy's disappearance is discovered and the investigation begins, and Amy's diary entries, ranging from when they met and through their marriage. That the marriage is troubled is immediately clear, and it's additionally clear that they both have secrets. But that's the thing about secrets - you can keep them hidden even from your reader. And boy is authorial reliability brought into question here.

It's much more than the tale of a disappearance, it's the story of a marriage, and even before that, the ways that childhood shapes (or misshapes) you in ways both seen and unseen.

And even though I guessed right about Amy's disappearance, I didn't actually trust that I was right, which made the turn almost as surprising. And even more to the point, I could not have predicted all of the twists and turns, and the flood of detail.

I'm not sure it's the ideal read for someone like me, whose relationship with anxiety is so fraught. I coiled up so tense that I am still trying to work myself out. And my dreams last night.... well, let's just say that Plants vs. Zombies and Gone Girl combine in bizarre and frightening ways.

Faux sincerity

How I Became a Famous Novelist - Steve Hely (Black Cat, 2009)

Large swaths of this book are hilarious, particularly early in the book. I kept laughing out loud, and reading passages to my boyfriend. Very quickly he resorted to the "nod and smile," and yet I just kept repeating the funny parts more loudly, in hopes that my sheer enthusiasm for the funny would rub off.

The conceit is simple: a highly-educated but seriously adrift young man (Pete) is bummed out by his job writing essays for rich students, and even more distressed when his ex-girlfriend announces her upcoming wedding. And then he comes across a couple profiles of hugely successful authors - and decides that not only is their writing crap, but that they know it is crap, and are cashing in on an ingeniously con. So he decides that by the time the ex's wedding comes along, he will be a best-selling author.

The satire of current best-selling authors is fantastic. And as much as I admire Jonathan Safran Foer, the description of the obvious JSF stand in made me just about cry I laughed so hard. It was all beautiful. And our antihero's description of the creative process was amazing too.

Then the book (The Tornado Ashes Club) comes out, and things lost a little steam. Pete discovers that making it up the best-seller list isn't just about hitting all the marks, and that the literary world is more complicated than he may have envisioned. Somehow, his hit novel doesn't make him the belle of the ball at his ex-girlfriend's wedding. And when he meets people who really do treat storytelling with sincere reverence, even he realizes the shortcomings of his snark.

But will he really learn any "lessons" from his experiences? What do you think?

And it gets a little more complicated

Crossed - Ally Condie (Dutton Books, 2011)

I think what I liked most about this sequel to Matched is that it adds narration by Ky. This allows us to track both teens as they try both to survive and to make their way back to the other, which occasionally is pretty cute, and also stressful. But more importantly, we get inside Ky's head and learn his secrets before Cassie does. Because in addition to everything else going on, there is trouble brewing for the couple. Cassie wants to be part of the Rising; Ky has his own reasons for avoiding it. (Erin thinks that parts of this sound quite a bit  like The Hunger Games.) And while Xander only makes a brief appearance in the book, his presence is enormous. Which leads me to believe that maybe if I ever manage to get a copy of Reached, we'll get some Xander-narration too. Very exciting.

Teens love a good romantic triangle

Matched - Ally Condie (Dutton Books, 2010)

Would it even be a young adult novel without a love triangle? Which reminds me of my first young venture into romance reading. When I was younger, there was a series of YA historical fiction that always had a young woman in some interesting time/place. And against the backdrop of History, said heroine had to choose between two suitors: one stable, the other exciting. While it seemed like Mr. Exciting usually won out, Mr. Dependable got the girl often enough too.

Anyway, before I get too bogged down in wondering about the elements of a good triangle (Who is Mr. Dependable in Twilight? Jacob? Edward? Um, no.) let me move back to Condie. Love story PLUS dystopian future. And believe me, if you go on Goodreads you will read no end of opinions about the various other dystopias that helped inform Condie's world. (People get cranky on Goodreads.)

Long story short. Cassia lives in a future where the Society plans everything out for optimal results - when and whom to marry, where to live, where to work and in what profession, and more. Crazy enough, she's "matched" with someone from her area, her best friend. Except on the little microcard with his info, another face appears - and yet another guy she knows. And, like any good 17 year old, she finds herself drawn to this second, false, match. Which leads her to question everything she's ever known.

This story had its ups and downs. I wasn't crazy about Cassia or the writing. But it had enough momentum to keep me going, and I requested the second book in a hurry.

(PS - The Society relies heavily on statistics. Which I have to admit, sounds a little awesome. But even I recognize that probabilities work exactly because they are only that: probabilities.)

Love and history

Overseas - Beatriz Williams (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2011)

Very early on in reading this novel, I described it as Fifty Shades of Grey meets The Time Traveler's Wife. Except then I realized that I haven't read Fifty Shades, and besides I wasn't talked about the kinky sex parts. I meant the deal with the superhot bazillionaire who is head-over-heels for a girl who sees herself as totally average. So perhaps the better comparison is Twilight meets Time Traveler's Wife. Okay.

That's it. End of review.

Except I guess I should flesh it out so that I can argue for why you should consider reading it. First of all, it's set mostly in 2008, on Wall Street. So you have a fun look at that world from the standpoint of junior analyst, both before and during the crash. (Well, during the crash she's living with her bazillionaire, so her perspective there is a little different.) And then when it's not in 2008, it's back in 1916, in France during the First World War. Kate ends up back there because she needs to stop the man she loves from .... well, it's complicated.

Time travel stories can create fun conundrums (conundra?) but this one does a pretty good job of dancing around how the characters' actions could change history, even if the characters act almost blindly in that regard. On the other hand, that meant that I sort of saw the shape of the story pretty early on. But that's okay, because what makes for a beautiful love story often isn't the plot twist.

Stereotypes are weird

Bad Girls Don't - Cathie Linz (Berkley Sensation, 2006)

Bad girls don't fall in love. And they don't go for authority figures. They do like yoga, belly dancing, and being totally loving and friendly. Or something.

This is the follow-up to Good Girls Do, where proper librarian Julia falls for a guy on a motorcycle. Here, Julia's half-sister Skye runs up against a cop. Sparks fly. And the phrase "wicked awesome" drops once or twice a page. (Skye grew up mostly on the West Coast, which explains her Bostonesque slang. Really, the more appropriate phrase would have been "hella cool.")

I'm really not sure why this charming little book didn't do more for me. I'm sure it deserves a nicer write-up than this one.

What happens when the story takes over

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon, trans. Lucia Graves (Penguin Books, 2004)

The word that keeps coming to mind is "virtuoso" - this novel is pretty stunningly crafted. It's got plenty of melodrama, plot twists, hints of something just shy of magical realism. It's the sort of thing where you sort of think to yourself: well, of course it was written in Spanish. Whatever I mean by that.

There is a boy, Daniel. He is the son of a bookseller. He gets captivated by a book. But the book has enemies - someone is trying to destroy every book written by the author. And as he grows older, what seems like a cascade of sinister events start occurring, and they all seem caught up in the uncertain fate of the novel's author, Julian Carax. And as Daniel and a cast of other characters interact, each bringing together some threads of the story, you start to wonder if Daniel is actually living out Julian's fate. And if so, that is bad bad news for them both.

If that's a poor synopsis, that is at least in part because this isn't the kind of work that lends itself to synopsis. The beauty is in the lushness of the details and the longing in the voices of the characters.

As much as anything, this portrait of postwar Barcelona made me want to revisit the films of Pedro Almodovar and Julio Medem. Perhaps another project for one of these days...

2012 Reading in Review

As promised, a quick look back at what I read in 2012, based on what this blog seems to say, as well as my own memories.

Books read: 50 (not bad)
Of those, how many were:
*Romance novels: approx. 11, depending on your definitions (hmmm...)
*Owned by me: 19 (!!!!! This constitutes balance for me, since usually my borrowed percentage is much higher)

*Written by female authors:  35 (i.e. 70% - wow)

*Non-fiction: 8 (perhaps a little low, but I clearly prefer fiction)

Books still on my "to read" bookshelf next to my bed: somewhere around 50 (improvement)

Books on my "ready to give to a new home" shelf: 9 (time for someone to have a book swap party!)

Fave reads:
The Night Circus (probably my all-out favorite of the year)
Queen Margot
Sarah's Key
We Need to Talk about Kevin (probably the book I've thought about the most since finishing)
A Visit From the Goon Squad
Enchantments
The Other Guy's Bride (the one that made me smile the most)
The Count of Monte Cristo

Which is to say, I liked a lot of books written by women plus a couple by Dumas.

Goals for 2013: I'm not really sure. I'm going to keep plugging away at my bookshelf and my "to read" lists. I'm also going to make more of an effort at non-fiction - let's aim for 10 NF books, and at least two of them history. I miss you, history. (Thank goodness for historical fiction!)

We're all a little mad around here

The Uninvited Guests - Sadie Jones (Harper, 2012)

2012 wrap-up coming tomorrow-ish, I hope. (If not, at least know that according to my blog count, I read 50 books this past year. Decent enough statistics.) Until then though, what better way to close out the year than a trip to the turn of the last century: Edwardian England.

This book reminded me of two things: a sitcom episode in which events spiral increasingly out of control, and one of those dreams in which you can't ever get to that thing that you desperately need to do, b/c other things keep happening. Now throw in a dash of Gothic ghoulishness.

It's Emerald's birthday. Her stepfather is away, trying to save the "family" home impractically purchased by Emerald's dead father. He - the stepfather - has only one arm, a fact of no major importance, but dwelt upon all the same. Emerald's mother is weird in that way 19th-century English literature mothers often are. Emerald's brother sulks, her younger sister runs around in a dirty nightgown, hatching schemes that only neglected youngest siblings do, and the housekeeper has only one more set of hands to put together a birthday party. And then there are guests: another set of siblings, and a wealthy farmer's son.

And then there are more. A train accident, and for some reason haggard survivors descent en masse to the house. In a series of events fairly reminiscent of Clue, the family shuts the survivors in a room and then tries to get back to the matter of the dinner party. Except increasingly creepy things start happening, and eventually all hell breaks loose.

The novel turns into something of a fever dream, until the fever breaks. And people awake, a little hungover, but really none the worse off, all things considered.

10 days, 100 stories

The Decameron - Giovanni Boccaccio (trans. G.H. McWilliam (Penguin 1972, orig. 13??)

It may have struck you that I've been reading a lot of lighter fare recently (although now that I have discovered Hart of Dixie on Netflix all my soapy attention may be placed there) but in addition to whatever other books have passed over my nightstand, since around Thanksgiving I've also been working through a "big book."

Yes, nothing says holiday season reading like a fourteenth-century collection of stories themed around a group of young people trying not to succumb to the Black Death. Wooooo!

And yet, I forgot for hundreds of pages at a time that plague lurked around every page of this book. In some respects, this may have been the lightest reading of all. Ten young folk (plus servants) set out from Florence to escape not only the disease itself, but the obsession with it that has struck everyone. To amuse themselves, they wander and frolic, sing and dance, eat... and tell stories. Each day, each member of the party shares a story. Ten days, ten people = one hundred tales.

Most days have a theme. And this is when you learn that Italy in the 1300s was a pretty rocking place. My lingering cold makes me too lazy to go through and count statistics, but stories generally involved one or more of the following: wives and husbands cheating on each other (usually wives); corrupt priests, nuns, or other members of the clergy; people scheming to steal and play tricks on one another; individuals pinballing wildly between extreme wealth and fortune and abject poverty. But really mainly sex. So much sex. And described in such hilariously euphemistic ways.

For the first several (3?) "days" I was utterly enthralled by this, and recounted each story to my indulgent boyfriend. But after a while, I grew accustomed to the return of these same topics, and the remaining days passed by in a strangely soothing rhythm. (This girl likes structure.)

A couple points. Just because I'm not going into the details of the stories doesn't mean that many of them weren't awfully enjoyable. (I have told the First Day, Second Story to probably 10 different people.) And just because it took over a month to get through the 830 pages doesn't mean it was dull or slogging. It was actually a surprisingly quick read. But with holiday stuff and my desire to jump around and experience other stories, it just got spread out across a longer period of time.  Anyway, recommended with more enthusiasm than I might have expected. Good work Boccaccio :)

Something old, something new

The Singles - Meredith Goldstein (Plume, 2012)

This novel dips into two of my favorite genres: the chick lit (naturally) and the college-friends-in-their-lives-after-college that has the potential to cross into literary fiction.

And it's set at a wedding (a commonplace venue for the latter type mentioned above) - a time of hubbub and ridiculousness that feels familiar smack in the midst of the holiday season.

It's Bee's wedding. Don't get too attached to Bee though, because although there are all sorts of interesting hints about her and her relationships to the people around her, we really don't get to meet her much. It's really about the group that at most other weddings would be tossed together at the "singles" table, but for some reason aren't here: three college friends (one of whom is a bridesmaid), an uncle, and the groom's mother's friend (or rather, her son).

Chapters skip from the perspective of one to the next. Over the course of the evening, each undergoes a crisis (or two or three) and as they bump into each other, you get hints of the ways they might yet come to be one another's saviors. Although there are plenty of red herrings thrown in. And in the end (spoiler? I guess?) each emerges from Bee's wedding ready to enter a new stage of life, perhaps even more so than Bee herself.

Maybe I've done it wrong, but I've never had quite this experience at a wedding. But then again, that's probably for the best.

Spies and otherwise

What Happens In London - Julia Quinn (Avon, 2009)

I didn't really get the title. I guess there's a lot of intrigue afoot - some gossip, spying, a haughty prince who may have a variety of nefarious plans - but it's not as though anything "stays" in London once the action moves somewhere else. Eh, whatever.

Which reminds me - there aren't any London-themed hotels in Vegas, are there? I wonder why not...

Anyway, it was all very charming. I've got nothing else to add, I'm afraid. Oh, and no fake marriages, sadly.

Dream lover

Imaginary Men - Anjali Banerjee (Downtown Press, 2005)

Yet another book that mysteriously made its way onto my "to read" list. But it seems right up my alley. Once upon a time I was reading a lot of South Asian-inflected fiction, and chick lit is my specialty. But to be honest, I'm still not quite sure how I felt about this one.

The premise totally works - Lina is a matchmaker (one of those professions I really only hear about in novels) and in the eyes of her Indian family, an old maid now that she's crossed 30. And to avoid a relative's meddling matchmaking, she claims to be engaged. And hijinks ensue. Mainly because she uses the name of the hot (but terribly conservative) man she just met, and because her family gets SO excited and demands to meet him, and because she's still trying to come to terms with the death of her former fiance.

The plot moves quickly, and I plowed through this book during finals week like it was candy. All good. But I found myself wondering what role Lina's fiance played in the book. People seemed blithely inconsiderate of her loss, and I couldn't quite understand why. And then we have Lina's imaginary man, who is either a)aforementioned lost love; b)her fake new lover; c)the new man she's actually falling for; d)some weird amalgamation. The answer is e)all of the above, but I somehow wanted more from him.

Am I too demanding? Is this why I'm still unmarried?

On the other hand, I really appreciated the ending, which offered a richer, more real portrait of how "happily ever after" doesn't just happen.