Llew's Reviews

On a recent hike along the trails of Carl Sandburg’s old house in western North Carolina, I brought along a guide book. Under “suggested readings” “Zoro’s Fields” was listed along with a biography on Sandburg. Since I wasn’t familiar with this title, I decided to check it out.

It’s the story of how author decided to move back to WNC when he was 30 and live in a cabin (that didn’t have electricity or plumbing) to eek out a living from the land. He befriends a couple of older gentleman who impart their wisdom when it comes to working the land in exchange for help with some of the more laborious chores. Less than a page is dedicated to Crowe’s relationship with the Carl Sandburg homestead - which is ten miles from his cabin and where on days the farm is closed to the public he clears out the goat barn to use the manure for his fields. It’s an Appalachian Walden’s Pond only not nearly as well written.

Each chapter ends with one of his poems. Evidently, his poetry has been published in various magazine but I don’t know why. Most of it is wretched wretched stuff. And while the book is thought provoking in it’s themes of being self sufficient and discovering yourself through nature, it’s not well written enough to be inspiring or a book for the ages. Plus on the “About The Author” page at the end of the book it describes Crowe as a “baby beat” of the 1970s San Francisco renaissance. Baby Beat? That makes me throw up a little in my mouth. I mean, seriously.

Talk about the wrong book to give a couple of Newlyweds. Ouch!

This was the first book I’ve read by McEwan and in reality was just something to do until I could get my hands on “Atonement” which I had left at work. It’s a quite short story that I couldn’t really relate too. Well told, sad - but just a little off. Didn’t do much for me one way or another. I can see liking some of his other work though.

A Warning: This is probably not the best book to read if you’re 29 or have just turned 30. Seriously.

Book 1 of 2 in a series entitled: “A customer at the store lent me this book without me asking for it, and I’m trying to read it and return it as soon as possible so that I do not do any damage to it and ruin my reputation with them forever.”

A picture of Hunter S. Thompson as a young chiseled man graces the front cover of this paperback, and all I have to say is, “Nice shorts.” Seriously, can we say ‘Richard Simmons’?

In the course of the several hours it took me to wait for my doctor’s appointment, I was able to read this from start to finish. I had borrowed this one from Ben, and it was a nice light distraction. It kind of petered out near the end, but the beginning scene where the narrator pens an old grumpy man to a window with a typewriter because he’s .. well old and grumpy. That right there was enough to make the book for me. If I could have used tactics like that on my last family vacation to Florida, I might have actually enjoyed the trip!

After seeing this one featured in the Southern Independent Booksellers Association spring catalog, I decided to pick it up. The book focuses on ten ten various people in unusual careers which they’re not only highly passionate about but are their own personal “dream jobs.”

Let’s look at what qualifies as these ten people’s dream jobs:
* A fellow who changed his name to “Spiderman” who climbs buildings (to inspect for structural damage and insurance estimates.)
* A Hollywood voiceover artist who does the voice work for movies and commercials
* A female lumberjack. (The term lumberjill seems a bit too cutesy for this woman who, I believe if I met her while she was sporting an axe, might cause me to wet myself.)
* A butterfly hunter who likes to sweat it up in the rain forests of Costa Rica.
* A coach who suffers from Palsy and has never played football, yet is an amazing NFL coach for Kickers.
* A mushroom hunter.
* An artist whose subject matter happens to be prosthetic eyeballs. (Or maybe everyone doesn’t need the term, “Ocularist” explained to them.)
* A handwriting expert.
* A man whose life work is building a life size model railroad based on the route between Troy New York north to the Canadian border exactly as it appeared on September 25, 1950.
* An assistant professor of management and organizations at the school of Business at NYU who studies people and their careers.

Now, let’s look at MY list of personal dream jobs:
* Heiress
* A Countessa with a legion of ready Cabana Boys at her service
* Bookshop Girl
* Independently wealthy literary author

This is another book on the local school’s reading list, but this time for a middle school. Being quite the sucker for young adult books, I thought this was well done all the way through.
Plus, it had lines like, (said to a girl who is moving from New York to Wisconsin) “There’s a lot of cheese where you’re going, Hope. I’m not sure how this affects people long-term…”

After finding myself telling the new puppy, “Just wait until the pack leader gets home!” I decided I needed to study up on The Dog Whisperer’s method rather than just relying on Ben to know what to do. This book is fantastic, and about 75% of it I would have never gotten on my own. It’s just not intuitive to me as a human. I have decided to ignore all the conflicting instructions from the other dog training books, and to just follow Cesar Millan’s method of being a calm assertive pack leader.

The first half is Cesar’s own story which is part inspiring and part heartbreaking. Although I’ve watched his show for a few months now, I didn’t know he had illegally crossed the border and was homeless when he first arrived here in America. Nor did I know that this great insightful man’s wife left him because he was a complete ass to be married to. Here I had been thinking that he must be a dream husband with all of his knowledge and inherent gift to relate to and deal with others. (Evidently, after his wife set “rules, boundaries, and limitations” - just how an owner is supposed to do with their dog - he was able to fix his problems and they have a very good marriage currently.)

The last part of the book is what I really needed to know which is about the actual dog psychology. Unfortunately, I needed to know it a week ago. Who knew I wasn’t supposed to show ANY affection toward the new puppy until he lived with me for a couple of weeks? Whoops. Also, I realize now that I introduced the new puppy into the house the wrong way, and all sorts of other blunders. Thankfully, I can still correct it and at least know what to do from now on. Whew.

Soon it will be me you’ll see careening down the street on rollerblades while being pulled by a pack of my dogs. Awesome.

Guess who got a new puppy? Guess whose new puppy is not housetrained?

As far as how correct the information found in this work is, I guess I won’t really form my opinion about it until about a week from now. I can tell you now that for a “classic” on the subject this is a rather poorly written book. The entire guide is basically the same two paragraphs repeated incessantly. Sometimes, it’s rewritten so it says the same thing in a different way but frequently there’s the same exact set of sentences written over and over. Plus, the style leaves much to be desired. I’m not expecting Proust when it comes to how to housebreak a dog but the tales of how Miffy “stunk to high heaven” were too much like being pinned against my front door as my neighbor corners me about her own tales of woe about housebreaking her little Miff-Miff. By the end, I was just surprised that the phrase “bless her heart” wasn’t tacked on the end of these little “examples”.

“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.