On twitter I follow mostly book people so my stream there is literate and funny and entertaining. I cannot imagine myself reading posts from average everyday people. I can see twitter being very, very boring. But not mine, and I'm spoiled.
I think the biggest reason is because the people I follow are readers. Reading is the gateway to learning, obviously, and learned people interest me. I am a fairly intelligent person but every one of my close friends, every one of them, is smarter than I am. Not only do I learn from them but I sharpen my skills when I verbally combat them. Just like on twitter.
I am currently reading My Reading Life by Pat Conroy. The reading is slow-going, not because of Mr. Conroy's writing. His writing is superb and engaging. It is just because I am slowly savoring it during the little bit of reading time I've had lately. Since he normally writes fiction, I haven't done much reading of Conroy before. I've seen a few movies made from his books but we all know how that goes.
But on this day I thank goodness that I found twitter. I resisted it for the longest time and perhaps I joined it just at the right time. I have plans for my blog; plans that I hope to eventually result in bigger things for the publishing industry. But for now, my reading life and my twitter life are intertwined. I wouldn't have it any other way.
If you follow me on twitter, thank you. If I follow you, thanks for the entertainment.
In case you haven't noticed, it's Silly Season. Today I have a short list of some other books that grabbed my attention this week.
First up today is a book that could make a great gift for that person in your life that is concerned about their health and fitness. Timothy Ferriss' new book is The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman (Crown Archetype). This book is just quirky enough to make my list. From the book website:
This is not just another diet and fitness book.
The 4-Hour Body is the result of an obsessive quest, spanning more than a decade, to hack the human body. It contains the collective wisdom of hundreds of elite athletes, dozens of MDs, and thousands of hours of jaw-dropping personal experimentation.
Next up is an author that has a huge following but also receives a lot of criticism. In my book, that means he is doing something right. Out in paperback this week is What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell. I have read The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers and I am a total and unapologetic Gladwell fan. I have yet to pick this one up, but take it to the bank that I will.
If you're a navel gazer, the next book may be for you. Thomas Hurka, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto has written The Best Things In Life: A Guide to What Really Matters (Oxford University Press). From the book website:
For centuries, philosophers, theologians, moralists, and ordinary people have asked: How should we live? What makes for a good life?
In The Best Things in Life , distinguished philosopher Thomas Hurka takes a fresh look at these perennial questions as they arise for us now in the 21st century. Should we value family over career? How do we balance self-interest and serving others? What activities bring us the most joy? While religion, literature, popular psychology, and everyday wisdom all grapple with these questions, philosophy more than anything else uses the tools of reason to make important distinctions, cut away irrelevancies, and distill these issues down to their essentials.
And finally today, Ralph Keyes delivers Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms (Hachette/Little, Brown and Company) . If you've ever wondered where euphemisms come from, why we use them, or what they say about us as a culture, you would probably enjoy this book. From the book website:
Any word or phrase that gives us pause is a candidate for euphemizing. What gives us pause varies from place to place, however, and epoch to epoch. Euphemania shows how euphemisms went from a tool of the church to a form of gentility to today’s instrument of commercial, political and politically correct doublespeak. Categorizing high-risk loans as subprime made it easier to extend them. Controversial tax cuts are more palatable when called tax relief. Calling hungry families food insecure households makes them easier to ignore.
An overlooked source of euphemisms is current events that become part of the vernacular. One reason this happens is the entertainment they provide. Wardrobe malfunction is no more descriptive than flashing or simply exposing body parts but is a lot more fun to say. And who wouldn’t rather say I inhaled than I smoked marijuana?
If you are looking for a Christmas gift for a hard-to-buy-for person, I think I may have found just the book to solve your problem. Out in paperback this week from Ballantine/Random House is How to Build A Fire: And Other Handy Things Your Grandfather Knew by Erin Bried.*
Every once in a while a book comes along that is widely appealing and yet does not appeal to lesser intellectual pursuits. It seems to me that this book would be a perfect gift for many. Read the description from the publisher website here.
* Also out this week from the same author and publisher is How to Sew A Button: And Other Nifty Things Your Grandmother Knew, which could also help with your holiday shopping dilemmas.
Every week I sift through hundreds of new releases to find the non-fiction titles that interest me. I will mention the big titles, of course, but I try and find the books that fly somewhat under the radar. The books that aren't placed on the big tables in the front of the chain stores need some love too. In that spirit, I'm listing some titles that grabbed my attention this week. And, because I'm feeling a little snarky today, I'll poke fun at the subject matter or even the title of the book.
WTF? Women: How to Survive 101 of the Worst F*#!-ing Situations with the Ladies by Gregory Bergman and Jodi Miller (Adams Media) I am trying to get a co-author credit on this one....
These are all actual books. I couldn't have made them up if I had tried. No offense to authors, publishers or cute puppies is intended. Feelings may be another matter, however.
When I think of Jacqueline Kennedy, I think of grace. She seems to me to have always been just a tick above others when it came to the business of how to live our lives. She was an example to others in many ways.
It was peculiar to me when I heard she became an editor at Doubleday in her later years. I mean, editors can become famous, but famous people becoming editors? Never!
Out this week from KnopfDoubleday/Random House is Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books by William Kuhn. I read a lot of biographies and memoirs because I love them. I have never read a "hard" biography of Ms. Kennedy, but this one is just quirky enough to be interesting. Along with learning more about Jackie, it might be interesting to read the insider publishing stories too.
I'll never forget when they killed Pluto. I had the news on in the background and they announced that Pluto was no longer a planet. Now, when I was a kid I was one of those little boys who wanted to be an astronaut. (And an oceanographer, a professional baseball player and a teacher. Lord knows what I would have done in my spare time.) I had a poster of the planets on my bedroom wall and was a regular correspondent to the space center just hours away. But when I heard they had taken away Pluto's status a little of my childhood died. I was just relieved they left Uranus alone.
Out this week from Random House/Spiegel & Grau is How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown. Brown is the Richard and Barbara Rosenberg Professor of Planetary Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology. Brown is also the man who discovered Eris, a new planet, in 2005. This discovery began a tumultuous debate which culminated in Pluto being demoted to "dwarf" planet. He then received the most humbling of performance reviews: hate mail from schoolchildren.
I just finished Robert K. Wittman's PRICELESS: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures, and it was a very fun and interesting read.
I had previewed the book back on June 2nd of this year and finally grabbed a copy from a local used bookstore. Wittman, an FBI agent, found a niche within the agency which allowed him entry into the dangerous and often-ignored world of art theft. He took art history lessons and self-trained himself to support his facade as a buyer for wealthy patrons.
While not a book that will keep you on the edge of your seat, it will keep your interest with its tales of underworld maneuverings and how our stolen masterpieces change hands, no receipt needed.
There's a lot of discussion on twitter today about the gender gap in reading; that men just don't read. If you're looking for a book for the man in your life, perhaps this one would work.
After taking my sweet, savoring time through over 600 pages on the life of Willie Mays, it was only fair that I run full-tilt through an easy read. Jason Mulgrew delivers that and more in EVERYTHING IS WRONG WITH ME: A Memoir of an American Childhood Gone, Well, Wrong.
Mulgrew goes to pains describing himself as fat, pasty-white, pathetic and a loser. What he is, however, is a gifted humorist with a talent for self-deprecation. There were no less than two places in the book where I thought I was going to pass out from laughing so hard.
If you read my past reviews you will discover I have an affinity for funny memoirs. I am still in love with Diana Joseph. This book stands up well with any I've read. I have no problem suggesting this book if you like to laugh while you read. While being an easy read, this book is by no means simple. The author clearly grew up with an amazing cast of characters in his neighborhood and his eye for detail and the quirks of life serve the reader well.
Mulgrew has a popular blog (though I hadn't read it before the book), and it is bookmark-worthy in its own right. I look forward to getting my Mulgrew fix online while I wait for his next book.
