Still Alice by Lisa Genova

A couple of years ago I happened upon the film version of Still Alice by Lisa Genova. At the time I didn't know it was based on a book, but the movie looked pretty good and I was trapped on a very long trans-Pacific flight so I gave it a go. It was so good, but an airplane full of people was not the best place to watch such a sad movie when you're a weeper like I am. When I found a copy of the book, I quickly added it to my rather tall stack of books-I'm-going-to-read-really-soon-but-not-yet. It sat in that pile until I finally dug it out from the bottom a few days ago.

Alice is a fifty-year-old professor of psychology at Harvard University, a wife, and the mother of three grown children. She is at what should be the peak of her career, but when she starts finding herself confused, disoriented, and losing her train of thought she fears something must be wrong. Assuming it to be a normal part of aging and menopause, Alice seeks out the doctor she's seen for years. When the diagnosis comes back as early-onset Alzheimer's disease, Alice is devastated. This seems like an impossibility at her age, but she learns that "ten percent of people with Alzheimer's have this early-onset form and are under the age of sixty-five." Even harder to accept is that this form of the disease is genetic and each of her children has a "fifty percent chance of inheriting this mutation, which has a one hundred percent chance of causing the disease."

Genova is herself a neuroscientist with a Ph.D. from Harvard and she spent a lot of time researching Alzheimer's and dementia so while this is a work of fiction, it is a truthful one. I learned so much I didn't know and couldn't help but think of how I would react in a similar situation. There are heartbreaking moments in this book ranging from the first time she finds herself disoriented a few blocks from home and unable to get there to the time she gets lost in her own home and cannot find the bathroom in time. There are also moments of love and tenderness from Alice's family and collogues that are the cause of their own tears.

Even though I went through a fair number of tissues, I really enjoyed this book. It was one I couldn't stop reading, even when the clock kept screaming at me that it was past my bedtime. 

Dear Fahrenheit 451 by Annie Spence

I have mentioned many, many times how much I love my local library. That fondness has increased after reading The Library Book and my most recent read, Dear Fahrenheit 451 by Annie Spence. I stumbled across this book on a display in my library for Love of Reading Month. It was small, epistolic, and looked like a quick fun read.

Written by a librarian and life-long book lover, Spence shares with us letters she has written to books she has loved and some she hasn't loved, all drawn from the various shelves that have filled her life. These books range from the titular Fahrenheit 451 (a book I can't believe I've never read) to To Kill a Mockingbird (a book Spence can't believe she's never read). It ranges from books she has loved- The Goldfinch which she has recommended to so many people it's falling apart- to books she has really, really hated- Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian which made her say "erotica" to an old lady. And she talks about books that have changed over the years as her perspective and life stages have changed- The Time Traveler's Wife.

This book was just as expected: quick and fun and a walk down memory lane of books I've read and a list of additions to my Goodreads Want to Read list. I love books and I love book lovers (I'm looking at you, SmartGirl!) and so it's no surprise that I enjoyed this book. In the introduction, Spence describes her affection for the literary this way:

Reading has shaped me, guided me, reflected me, and helped me understand and connect with, and this is not hyperbole, HUMANITY.

This was the written form of exactly the way I find myself walking through bookstores: gently caressing and murmuring to all those I've loved, glaring at the ones that betrayed or irritated me, but mostly wishing I could find the time to read them all.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

When I first heard about The Library Book by Susan Orlean, I thought it was about a library book. I love books and I love the library, so sure, that sounds like a book I'd like. Then I learned a bit more about it and that it was actually about the 1986 fire that burned down the Los Angeles Public Library. Okay, sounds interesting. Here are a few facts that I picked up about that incident:

• By the time it was extinguished, [the fire] had consumed 400,000 books and damaged 700,000 more.
• The building burned for more than seven hours and reached temperatures of 2,000 degrees; it was so fierce that almost every firefighter in Los Angeles was called to the scene.
• The number of books destroyed or spoiled was equal to the entirety of fifteen branch libraries.
• The cost to replace the four hundred thousand lost books was estimated at over $14 million.
• The author had never heard of the fire (she lived in New York at the time) and it was because it occurred three days following the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union: The biggest library fire in American history had been upstaged by the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown.
• According to librarian Glen Creason, the breeze was filled with "the smell of heartbreak and ashes.'

Invaluable items were lost in the fire:

• ...car repair manuals for every single make and model of automobile starting with the Model T 
• A volume of Don Quixote from 1860
• A leaf from a 1635 Coverdale Bible, which was the first complete translation in modern English.
  

The book goes on to discuss who, if anyone, was responsible. There was a suspect, but he was never convicted or even tried in criminal court.

Then as I continued to read, I realized this book wasn't just about single library fire, but about the history of the Los Angeles Public Library, its librarians, and even the general history of the growth of Los Angeles itself. I was surprised to read the history (and even scandal!) of the head librarians at the library since its beginning: it was like reading a soap opera! There were many wonderful things established by these librarians including by the current head City Librarian John Szabo who established the first accredited library-based high school program in the United States and who frequently preaches the gospel of the library as the people's university. 

This book is absolutely a love letter to libraries: a place where everything is available to everyone; a place that could serve someone like a man named Harry Pidgeon, in 1925 who completed a solo sailing trip around the world, only the second person ever to do so. He had gotten the building plans for his boat and most of his nautical knowledge from books he had borrowed from the Los Angeles Public Library. His boat, The Islander, was nicknamed The Library Navigator. 

That is powerful!

Honestly, I have so many highlights and notes in this book that I can't share them all here. If you are a book lover like I am (and I'm guessing that you are), you need to read this book for yourself. Usually I don't enjoy non-fiction very much, but this reads much more like a narrative. The writing is fantastic and the "characters" will keep you interested. The only problem I have with this book is that it proves that the written word can be dangerous: it has reignited (pun intended) my yearning to be a librarian, something I've long wished for but thought was an unrealistic career goal based on the expense of library school. Orlean's mother shared my dream:

I knew that if we had come here together, she would have reminded me just about now that if she could have chosen any profession in the world, she would have been a librarian.

What I've Heard- The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

I read The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox nearly two years ago and I really loved it. It was a fascinating story with wonderful characters. I was so sad when I listened to the audio version and discovered that it did not translate well to the listening experience. The book alternates points of view and timelines with very little warning other than a large space between paragraphs. These spaces are not represented by breaks in the audio, leaving the listener confused and scrambling to keep up with the narrator. If I hadn't already read the book and remembered where it was going, I would have been completely lost. The disorientation is only made worse when the point of view switches to one elderly character who is in the late stages of Alzheimer's.

Where are we? When are we? Who are we??

I really enjoyed this book, but I would highly recommend sticking with the print version.

What I've Heard- You Are a Badass

Oh, my gosh, you guys! Self-help books are SO LAME! I mean, come on- what is this going to be:

I'm good enough; I'm smart enough; and gosh darn it, people like me? Give me a break. But, a friend picked You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero for a reunion of an old book club, so I said, "Fine. I'll read it. I won't like it, but I'll read it." Actually, in an effort to waste the least amount of time possible, I borrowed the audiobook from the library. Cheese Fest, here we come.

[Turns on audiobook. Listens for a little while.]

Holy crap, you guys! This book is amazing! Okay, I'll try not to sound like I was just completely brainwashed through my earbuds, but really, this book far exceeded my expectations. At the beginning I did a LOT of eye rolling- there was a lot of You're awesome! You're amazing! You are the only YOU there will ever be! It was just so cheesy! And then I started to wonder "how would I feel if this was directed at my daughter?" Well, I think my daughter is awesome and amazing and all of those wonderful things and I really want her to feel that way about herself. Why can't I feel that way about myself? Why do we have such a hard time seeing our own awesome?

Sincero admits that she herself used to feel that the self-help genre was "unforgivably cheesy: it reeked of desperation, rah-rah churchiness and unwanted hugs from unappealing strangers." And yet, before I was half a dozen chapters into this obligation read, I was laughing, nodding along, saying "huh" a lot, and at least once having the breath knocked out of me. 

Or how about all that If you can dream it, you can do it baloney? There's plenty of that nonsense floating around in the world and I don't really need more of it. And yet...

I listened to the audio version of this book, but I also checked out the print version, you know, so I wouldn't look like a jerk when I showed up for the book club reunion. I got to the point that I had the book nearby while I listened just so I could put little sticky tabs on the good points. And SmartGirls, this book I thought was going to be so cheesy and dumb- well, I have almost thirty tabs sticking out of it right now! Here are just a few, chosen at random:

 During our little sojourn here on earth, we need our bodies more than they need us. Say nice things about your body; dress it up, and take it out. Give it hot sex, luxurious baths, and massages. Move it, stretch it, nourish it, hydrate it, pay attention to it- The better our bodies feel, the happier and more productive we are.

If you had an unlimited supply of cash, what would you spend your life doing? Our fantasies are the most revealing peepholes into who we are and what we think is awesome. No matter how out-there and ridiculous they may seem, they mean something to us, and usually represent our biggest and best versions of ourselves.

There is nothing as unstoppable as a freight train full of fuck-yeah.

If I kept going, I'd have to transcribe the whole book here. Just go out and get your own copy. Or at least borrow it from the library. The audio version is great (it's read by Sincero herself), but I recommend a print version as well. This is one of those books you're going to want to underline and make notes in the margins and refer back to over and over again.
...At least that's what the brainwashing is telling me! Ha!

Either way, this book is worth your time because you, SmartGirl, really are a badass!

Night of Miracles by Elizabeth Berg

Following the last book I read, which was a pretty dark and scary, I wanted something nice as a bit of a palate cleanser. Night of Miracles by Elizabeth Berg seemed to be just the ticket. The sequel to The Story of Arthur Truluv, I knew it would be just the thing I needed. This novel follows Lucille Howard and a whole new cast of neighbors in the small town of Mason, Missouri. We see bits of Maddi and Nola, but they are auxiliary characters in a book focused on Lucille's business, the family who has moved into her old house next door, Iris moving to town, and Tiny and Monica's will-they-won't-they relationship.

I absolutely adored Arthur Truluv and this book had so much of that same magic and charm, but I didn't find it quite as satisfying as I did the first book. This one ended too quickly and somehow it felt unfinished to me. Luckily Berg is working on a third book in the series so hopefully that will round it all out and give me that feeling I'm missing. Or maybe I still won't be able to get enough of these sweet characters. I can only hope that while Berg is at her writing table, she might consider adding a collection of Lucille's recipes. The descriptions in the book make my mouth water!

If you haven't read Arthur Truluv yet, I highly recommend that you do and then add Night of Miracles right behind it. You'll love this sweet small town and all the lovely people who live there.

Believe Me by JP Delaney

I have just finished reading Believe Me by JP Delaney and oh, do I have lot I want to say!

When I read The Girl Before, I was impressed with the way the author combined the storylines of two different characters and two different timelines. I loved the writing and the character development and the thrilling surprises. I couldn't put it down. It is not unusual for the follow up offering of a newish author to fall short of readers expectations, especially when the first book was so amazing. Well, SmartGirls, Delaney isn't the usual author and this book had me dizzy with all the twists and turns and I mean that in the best possible way.

Claire is a British actress struggling to make it in New York and...

Well, that's about it. I just can't say much more without stealing some of the joy of experiencing this fantastic novel for yourself. I would never do that- you mean too much to me! You will just have to read it for yourself. I recommend making it a book club pick, or at least reading along with a friend. You'll want someone with whom you can dissect all the craziness and unpick all the tangles.

My head is still spinning! 

The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty

The Hypnotist's Love Story is the fourth book I've read by Liane Moriarty and I have really enjoyed them all. Well, I did start Truly Madly Guilty, but I really couldn't get into it so I let it go, but the others I loved so it should be no surprise that I fell for this one right away.

Ellen works out of an office in her eccentric home as a therapeutic hypnotherapist. She knows many people view this as a strange occupation, picturing only the few hypnotists they've seen on stage making people dance or quack like ducks, but what she does is wholly different. Ellen actually helps people. When Patrick, her new boyfriend, tells Ellen he has a stalker, she isn't frightened off like he expects, but is intrigued. What would make someone do that? What happened in their relationship that would cause such behavior? Unbeknownst to her, Ellen has already begun treating the stalker with a false name.

This book falls squarely into the ChickLit category: it is a romance, a bit of a love triangle, a will-we-get-married-and-live-happily-ever-after-or-not? kind of book. And there is nothing wrong with that sometimes, especially when it is this well written with compelling characters each with solid motivations and plenty of depth. Even Saskia, the stalker, the so-called villain, is interesting and- believe it or not- likable. This book is fun and it was one I wanted to keep reading all day.