Llew's Reviews

Preparing For Christmas Season In The Harried Book World: Book #2

“This is an unusual story about the power of love to transcend physical limitations and to transform ugliness into beauty. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder, as we are often told. This book makes you believe that simple truth.” Miriam Sontz from Indie Bound’s August 2008 Indie Next List

I really adored this one, but I can’t think of one single person who I would recommend it to. With a severely burned former porn star as its main character it’s not exactly the wholesome feel good story one likes to suggest to customers. But the people in the book who are on the cusp of “normal” society are just so intriguing, likable, and easy to relate to - whether it’s the gay viking or a fallen nun in the 13th century.

It’s part The Burn Journals (by Brent Runyon) and part “the last will and testament of a crazy homeless man.”  It doesn’t have a neatly tied happy ending, but the way this story wrapped up didn’t make me feel cheated either.

1. Bookstore and libraries need to take this out of their “young adult” sections PRONTO.

2. If I keep reading vampire books will I lose all respect for myself? Because, to be honest, I actually quite like a lot of them.

3. I feel as if I should take a shower after that last sentence.

After seeing this one on countless bestseller and bookclub of the month lists, I decided to try it out knowing that such a touted memoir must be one which firmly knotted the old heart-strings.

Walls was the second oldest of her four siblings born to a college educated mother who was hellbent to never use her teaching degree as she was an Artiste and an alcoholic big-idea father. I did not think that any parents would frustrate me more than the mother in the novel, Towelhead (see Book #36) but oh how wrong I was. The children basically starved and lived in incredibly destitue dire circumstances (no electricity, no indoor plumbing, huge holes in the roof over where they slept, little to no food, no medical treatment on serious injuries, having their money stolen by their own parents, being molested by countless people including their own grandmother and uncle, having their father send them up with a man who he knew was going to make sexual advances on his young daughter, etc.) All by an educated couple who if they had put their own selfishness aside would have been able to support their children. In fact, the mother owned land worth over a million dollars which she refused to sell or even live on. Instead, her children starved.

It’s an intriguing memoir to read mostly because the way it is told. There’s no self pity or whining. It’s just laid out there. Of course, what was really sad was that I realized that I grew up with many children who were in same financial cirucumstances as I also grew up in the very rural Appalachian mountains. Unfortunately, I was about as thoughtless as the Walls classmates when it came to their struggle. That’s where the pain really hit for me.

1. This is the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of this book (first done in 1956.) The CD which comes along with this is a TRIBUTE cd so there’s no actual singing by Billie Holiday - Boooo!

2. Billie Holiday was a bad ass who I wouldn’t want to have ever pissed off.

3. I really wish life, government, and a racist society hadn’t been such a bitch to her.

Yeah, I read it two years after everyone else but as this novel teaches: Time is completely irrelevant. Unless you’re popping into a place where hunters like to go.

Then … Well, you’re in some trouble boy.

“The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life… To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

I’ve been meaning to read this novel for around seven years when it was first recommended to me as being quite excellent. However, you can’t just rush into a book with a main character by the name of Binx Bolling, you know.

I’m quite thankful I waited as well because I connect much more to a 29 year old Binxy boy much more now than I could have when I was 22. Although I suppose the wayward ennui and the dalliances with secretaries are things I could ALWAYS relate to. Such is the southern life.

Do I even need to say that I adored this book? I loved the descriptions of the long drives in fear that malaise would somehow seep out of the car into the atmosphere and narrator. Of course, the uncaring desperation and detached shiftlessness of Binx is exactly the kind of thing I would have smitten with seven years ago. Good thing I waited - otherwise I would have had to develop one of those terminally unrequited crushes on it that I was so fond of at the time.

Guess what everyone is getting for Christmas for this year?

I’ve always been a little wary of short stories until I discovered Lorrie Moore who I adore with a passion. There’s something about the emotional blows she can deliver within the span of one paragraph that jar me so completely that I have to love her. After discovering Moore, I was excited to read other short stories thinking maybe I had just been missing it all these years. However, after searching I just couldn’t find another contemporary author who held a candle to her. That is until I came across this find. I ordered it a year ago (after I finished reading Lahiri’s novel, “Namesake”), but since I’m not in charge of book orders I wasn’t able to get my grubby hands on it until this weekend.

As much as I liked “Namesake,” it wasn’t anything but a mildly interesting tale compared to her skill at the short stories in this collection. Some of them were absolutely breathtaking in their execution. I’m trying to think of my favorite, but am having trouble deciding on one. Just read them all.

After hearing other booksellers rave about this book and request so many advanced readers copies, that the publisher ran a reprint of the ARC (which I didn’t even know publishers did) and seeing it voted as the top pick in the most recent Book Sense 76 listing, bookshop girl duty forced me to read this novel.

This novel masters the point of the prologue. From it, the reader believes they know the story arc and the pivotal plot point. Then, when the story finally reaches the place already descriped in the prologue it turns what you think happened on its head. It’s incredible. And although I would never consider it a great classic of literature for that point alone it’s a worthwhile read. Plus, it involves a circus! I’m a sucker for books where a distraught teen joins a circus to escape their troubles. (See: Amanda Davis’s “Will You Miss Me”)

I have no idea why there aren’t enough books with that storyline to make it its own genre. Circus fiction. Tell me you wouldn’t gravitate toward THAT section in a bookstore?!

Also, this book helped me answer one of my life’s biggest questions: What do I want to be when I grow up?

The answer:

For the first time in years, I decided to take a gander at the literary list I compiled three years ago. At the time, I was more or less bed-ridden and was completely bored. So, I asked people to recommend me their favorite life changing book. Then, I compiled them to a list with every intention of reading as many as I could. And I did, but somewhere along the way I got sidetracked and stopped before reaching my goal.

Lately, I’ve been wishing I had a friend with similar taste who would suggest some books for me. I used to have an over abundance of them, but they’re no longer around. This list seems to be a very handy replacement for such. Thus, “To Each His Own” marks my return to The List.

And, I LOVED it. It was this unconventional (at least to me - perhaps it’s old hat to Sicilians) detective novel which subtly dissected how the Mafia works without glamming it up Hollywood style. There was no Sharon Stone. There was no, “Meet My Little Friend.” There probably were characters who talked as if their jaws had been wired shut, but I couldn’t hear it so it was okay. And I thoroughly loved it.

Oh, and with all of the New York Review Of Books editions, save that introduction for after you read the actual novel. As usual, they RUIN the plot for you.

As I stated on The Librarian’s Revenge site - who knew having three jobs, one involving working at a CPA firm during tax season, would be such an impediment to my To Do list? And just forget about reading. However, I’m just back to two now and am hopeful that I will be able to return to my beloved books now.

I’ve had this one for a while, and have been quite excited about it. However, I only just now got around to it. I absolutely loved it. It’s one of the most fascinating books, and I completely want to have urban adventures of my own now. Well, the tunnel exploring kind anyway .. I don’t think I’m up to the ones involving a Tijuana donkey and naming a part of my body “The Liberty Bell”.