Kait

I don't read many thrillers, and frankly I didn't know there was such a thing as a “British thriller,” but you can blame Nick Hornby for this. It was gripping, and well-plotted - as these things go, anyway - and kept me interested throughout. It comes off a tiny bit whiny, at least to this American, but then we again we made The Patriot so we probably had it coming.

Sarah Vowell always manages to take what should be dry, boring sections of history and enliven therm far beyond what I could reasonably expect.

This time the subject is the history of Hawaii, and I can confidently asset that prior to starting this book the extent of my knowledge in that area amounted to “it didn't used to be a state and now it is.” I know much more about how all this came to be, and the only emotion I can muster is sadness.

It's a tight narrative arc, the American interaction with the islands. It took less than a century to get from religious do-gooders genuinely concerned about the Hawaiians to a cabal of businessmen deciding their profits outweighed all other concerns and forcibly overthrew the elected government. I'm sure

The more history I learn, the more I suspect that I don't (and, in many cases, can't) know about any given topic. There are so many layers, characters and narratives swirling around any event that to discover one only inevitably leads you to several more. This is not a reason to discourage such pursuits, merely a reminder about their ultimate lack of finality. Still, the best we can get is closer, and the only way to do that is to keep trying.

Visceral. That was the word I landed on (thanks to Joan's help) that best sums up the feeling I got from reading this book. That might sound off-putting, when the crux of the book involves the child of the narrator perpetrating a school shooting. There's little gore, in terms of physical violence. It's emotional violence, almost, though its awfulness (in the sense of “awe-inspiring terror”) is in the very rawness with which the narrator, Eva, relates the internal landscape of her entire adult life, not any specific actions.

The depths to which Eva plumbs her life, her relationship with her husband, her worries about her children, her mounting fear of her sociopathic son and everything in between are scary because of their groundedness. She's not an entirely reliable narrator, due to her relating relationships between multiple people who don't get the chance to have their say, but you never get the impression she's unfair, either.

This is definitely the kind of book you don't want to see yourself in, but in many of the characters I saw not facets of my character (the easy, “Oh he likes Doctor Who and I like Doctor Who!”) but fundamental precepts through which I navigate the world.

When Eva accuses her husband, Robert, of viewing things in terms of the generic (“I'm so proud of my son”) versus the specific (“Kevin did X that I'm proud of”), it was a gut-punch because it reminded me of how I made my way through college, singling out the broad assumptive touchstones (“We're fraternity brothers who are drinking at a party!”) rather than the actual experience (“I'm drinking way too much because I'm interminably bored on a Friday night because I spend too much time not actually doing anything!”). The parallels I could draw between parts of many of the characters really made the book feel like it was taking cheap shots, and this is not a book that really needs to punch above its weight. It's already a prize fighter.

In fact, the only reason I almost didn't give it 5 stars is because I can't read it again. It was just too much to deal with, though I implore those of you who are able to stomach it to tough it out. In the end, though, I can't really fault a book for connecting too much, or for working too well. I'll have to leave it in the words of a Penn State sophomore, talking about the freshman dorms: It's the best worst thing I never want to do again.

Cell phones are the bane of modern filmmaking. It seems like at least half (if not more) of all major conflicts from classic movies could be solved with a simple phone call (or text message) between two people who have the ability to communicate almost literally wherever they are. Modern writers have taken to have the first character be tragically misunderstood, but get so frustrated they decide not to clarify things because they're SO ANGRY or the second character is SO HURT ... only for it finally be resolved a few months/weeks/one crisis later.

Or you could have the character go to Antarctica. I'm just saying, it's an option. Apparently.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette is one young teenager's attempt to piece together where her missing mother might be. For out-and-out Seattleites (complete with a Microsoft Dad), they certainly have more adventures than you might expect.

The plot mostly moves forward through a series of miscues and miscommunications - some accidental, some not. I'm loathe to give away any of the plot points, really, because trying to muddle through what the hell happened is well more than half the fun.

I really liked the book, but I have the literary equivalent of part of a popcorn kernel stuck in my teeth that, no matter how hard I run my tongue against it, I can't quite seem to get loose.

As mentioned, the novel propels itself along with tufts and strings that hint at what happened, but only become fully fleshed out the farther you get into it: A murder mystery without a murderer. But if your whole book rests on the plot, all the dominoes you set up in the front half have to pay off with a satisfying topple in the end. In this case we get not a bang, but yet more misdirection and a plot hole between the dominoes you could fly a 747 or navigate an Antarctic research vessel through.

That's what knocked me down to a mild “you should probably read” versus a must-recommend. Regardless, though, definitely one to keep in mind.

This is a book for readers. ... Even more so than all other books, which kind of by definition are also for readers. There's not a single book, or even publication, that has so drastically blown up my to-read list in the last year or so. Hornby is a person who loves books in the same way most millenials love television — enthusiastically, unrelentingly and with numerous exhortations as to why you should love it, too.
I appreciate that Hornby doesn't assume we've all read the book before he gets around to talking about it. Like a good (regular) book reviewer, he largely avoids spoilers and (unlike most regular reviewers) is forbidden by decree from slagging on those things that don't meet his taste.
Even past the book recommendations, though, are Hornby's insights and quips about reading, life, and other redundancies. His idea that some books are bad but also sometimes they're just not read properly, for example, is one of the best arguments in favor of a “no negative reviews” policy I've ever heard. And even if you hate Arsenal (or don't care about sports in any way), his excuses and slackening reading pace through some months will give comfort to all those who sometimes can't find the time for books in a given month (or two).

Less prescriptivist than most (to it's benefit), Hillbilly Elegy uses the saga of one Kentucky family to explain the societal pressures, pitfalls and opportunities (or lack thereof) faced by working-class whites. Surprisingly objective for a pseudo-memoir, Vance's appraisal of the sources of strife as multifaceted ring truer than most attempts to simplify it to “government,” “personal choice” or “culture” - all of which undoubtedly play a large role, but never an all-encompassing one. And despite a pretty dire personal narrative, the unique handholds in life that offered the author an opportunity to hold on and propel himself out of a bad situation undergird the book with an oddly uplifting, optimistic feeling even when at its darkest moments.

I typically describe Klosterman as the authorial equivalent of “fridge logic” - really interesting stuff in the moment that starts to logarithmically decay the moment you close the book until it settles in around 50 percent of where it started from. But, given that Klosterman often succeeds in nimbly managing previously less-explored areas of your mind, this is not at all a bad thing.

BWWW is a series of thought experiments that attempts to examine modern life through the same lens we view the distant past: What is likely to survive, what artist or author will emerge to represent his or her medium as Platonic ideal (for example, were we in Ancient Greece Klosterman might be telling you that this Plato guy that no one's heard of [at the time] might make it big because he's not as popular now).

As thought experiments, they're mostly interesting but even more so than traditional futurology, it suffers by virtue of being unprovable and contrarian. I don't even think most of them are wrong - all at the very least have inner threads of logic that seem more or less resilient when you tug at them. But my mind can only be so elastic, and building up one brain-stretcher upon another leaves me weary, and accepting of arguments if only to prevent defeat by them - not out of any real consideration or judgment.

Then again, I'm not sure the specific arguments were the point, anyway. The main takeaway seems to center around the idea of being open to new ideas - not in the traditional sense of “maybe I should do something different” but “maybe ideas or formulations I possess that are central to my understanding of reality might be completely wrong.” The point is not to run screaming in the streets, tearing out your hair and warning everyone you meet of their inevitable doom. It's to leave space in the your mind (and in the world) for possibility, to not let things go unexamined simply because they're familiar or widely accepted. Interrogate reality, so that you might make sure there's no unreality simply cloaking itself in the veil of normality.

But who knows? Maybe I'm wrong, too.

A riveting account of the beginning of the New York Medical Examiner's office, as well as American toxicology/forensic chemistry. The book follows the life of Charles Norris, the first person in charge of that city's dead with a genuine interest in the science and circumstances of how they died.

The book takes the reader through a litany of poisons, from the dangerous quasi-booze of Prohibition to everyone's favorite, arsenic. Norris, with tremendous help from his chief scientist, Alexander Gettler, pioneered the use of science to convict criminals of wrongdoing, as opposed to a policeman's supposition/forced confession.

A very worthwhile read for any loves of history, chemistry or just a good story.

Excellent book, but the ending felt unearned.

Dan Lyons is a Journalist. I can't emphasize that last word enough. Nor, it seems, can Dan Lyons.

Lyons, a former Time writer and internet content raconteur, found himself in his early 50s without a decent job. After decades of covering the latest 20-something billionaires, he (sensibly) decided he wanted to jump into a startup to try to make his own big hit. Disrupted is his tale of woe, bemoaning the millennials and their shoddy union sensibilities and their loud music (no, seriously).

I don't want to dismiss Lyons' takedown of his former employer, Hubspot, as a simple case of “Old guy doesn't get how things work now.” There's absolutely no doubt that the management, owners and coworkers at his new employer are insane. The problem is, the things he brings up as issues on which to prosecute an entire industry/generation aren't exclusive to either the industry or that generation: As someone who's worked for a marketing agency, the headquarters of a multilevel marketing company and yes, even newspapers, all of the traits and peculiarities he mentions are things I've encountered. The trait of “being a shitty manager/coworker” is not endemic to a certain age group; it's more just an indicator of shitty people.

Don't get me wrong, the book is fun! See him learn that manager does not equal friend when his crazy direct supervisor's power-tripping petty bullshit constantly tears into Lyons after acting like they're best pals. Watch through some veiled sexism (paraphrase: “I'm not saying all women are shitty, but the three or four whom I interact with the most and are the only ones I talk about in depth in the book are terrible workers AND people”) as he grovels to the PR manager for offending her (paraphrase: “I don't understand why she's all upset just because I said an interview she arranged for the CEO went terribly.”). Revel as he reveals just how freaking out of touch he is when he tells us about his “hundreds of thousands of Facebook followers” then acts shocked and violated when it turns out his employer is watching what he writes and doesn't particularly enjoy his raining criticism down upon them.

As a former journalist, I particularly disliked the part where he complained about how much better journalists are as people. DID YOU KNOW that journalists: a) don't like meetings; b) would “[slam] doors and [turn] the air blue with profanity” if their boss made them a promise and then someone up the line changed their mind; c) if made to go to training, make fun of each other and the instructors and intentionally waste time. Oh, and also joke about killing someone in front an HR person; d) are lousy when asked to write someone beneath their level, like lead-generating blog posts (because of all their JOURNALISM EXPERIENCE).

Some of those are true, about some of the journalists I've worked with. Most are not. (Though, in fairness, journalists - especially older journalists - do tend to complain a lot that they're not allowed to say literally whatever they want in the newsroom, regardless of sexism/racism/profanity/just terrible ideas. As someone who's listened to a lot of them, this censorship is decidedly in everyone's best interest.) In fact, I'd bet you could replace the word “journalist” with “white guys who worked a white-collar job in the 80s/early 90s” and a lot of Lyons' complaints would have exactly the same meaning. Please note that I'm not calling him racist; I'm saying he's a overprivileged twit.

I'm not so much upset with the book or the writing as I am the idea of the book. Michael Lewis rose to fame with his (then-)shocking expose of the financial industry in Liar's Poker precisely because we didn't already know about. Lyons tended to follow trend stories (he did write for Time, after all) back when he wrote regularly, so his explosive reveal that “most web-based startups have terrible products and even worse business plans” isn't shocking, it's late and, most importantly, lazy. There's lots of good journalism out there about the bad and the good of our current economic/business/cultural climate. And it doesn't require taking a single company as evidence/harbinger of the doom of all things.

In a way, it's a tale of two mistakes. His, for his choice of employer, and me, for choice of reading material. I doubt either of us will make the same mistakes again. Oh, well. Unlike most of the readers of this book, at least I learned something.

I wanted badly to like this book. It's about the nerdiest of nerds, guys who literally wore pocket protectors and carried around slide rules, and yet managed to land a dozen human beings on a rock floating through space.

Never has the use of precisely controlled unfathomably large explosions to propel a massive vehicle into the heavens managed to seem so boring. I get that the vast majority of the guys you're talking to were the engineers whose professional lives definitely peaked when they launched dudes into space, but that's where you, as the writer, are supposed to work your magic. Even oral histories tend to use editing to make things seem connected, and make sense, and maybe even work out a logical structure, please?

But no. There's a common format for works about monumental events: You start right around the most exciting time, then leave the reader hanging on a pivotal moment as you circle back and start at the beginning. The thought, I suppose, is to hook the reader's interest so you can explain what led up to it (ignoring the fact that the personal already bought a multiple-hundred-page book about the topic). In this case, the author liked it so much he used it twice: We start a few months out and tiptoe right up to the Apollo 11 launch ... then we back up to the beginning of the Apollo 11 program, when it looks like it might not launch at all. Then, after we get about to where we started ... we back up to the entire history of rocketry and missiles.
If it sounds confusing and disjointed, that's because it is.

But it's not the only issue. From ninth-grade essays up to the latest historical monographs, the best writing tends to be done by those with a passionate interest in the topic. Which makes total sense! Frankly, if you're pounding out a couple hundred pages on a topic that bores you to death, it's unlikely anyone is going to derive any enjoyment from reading it (see: Every primary/secondary education textbook ever).

But there's a distinction you have to draw between interest and advocation when you're writing objectively: In the same way I don't 100 percent trust everything Fox News or the Huffington Post says without third-party verification, I'm also gonna need a little bit more background before I swallow the entirety of Winston Churchill's History of English-Speaking Peoples (spoiler alert: The British come off pretty good in it).

Rocket Men Author Craig Nelson is a homer of the highest order who, if he doesn't actuallly believe it himself, let the astronauts and people deeply involved with the space program inform too much of the narrative thrust of the book.

To be clear, I think the Apollo program (which is mostly what this book chronicles) was a masterful effort of technology, government, politics, engineering and human spirit. Landing on the moon is probably the most significant event for the human species to date. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we should be spending trillions of dollars to put a man on Mars, and I resent the implication that questioning that notion makes me unpatriotic or terminally short-sighted.

I really do think it's unfortunate. There are great stories, anecdotes and personalities on display throughout Rocket Men, and the author clearly did an enormous amount of research bringing it all together. I just wish he would have focused a little bit more effort on the writing part, too.

A decent graphic novel about a father's quest to help his daughter overcome her insecurities. Basically the same idea but not quite as well done as Level Up.

There's too much TV nowadays. Too many movies, too much media to consume for the average person! The completist (a depressingly un-endangered species nowadays) will lament this, because what's the point of doing anything if you can't do everything?

But there's a fix! Nowadays, in addition to actual criticism (I saw a thing, and I have a background in these things/can string together two sentences about it), the internet saw the invention and flourishing of the recap, wherein we take the old TV Guide synopsis of any given TV show and expand it into its own novella.

But the biggest oddity to me is not the synopsis (or its cousin, the spoiler-laden review/complaint). It's the people who only follow a TV show (or whatever media) via these recaps: The equivalent of Cliff's Note-ing, if Cliff is actually a guy you know who you asked to give you the gist of Romeo and Juliet in the five minutes before class.

This brings me to The Dilettantes. The subject matter (college newspaper) intrigued me, because I worked at a college newspaper. I've been to college, I've met lots of collegians, and ... very few of the people the book looked like anyone I've ever met before.

And it didn't seem to be the case (as is possible) that these were just types of people I didn't meet. It more seemed like these weren't people at all, but vaguely sketched stereotypes that you might think about when trying to categorize the young people. In essence, the world was populated by someone who never actually met individual students/people, but rather heard about these “millenials” secondhand and tried to describe them: The “recap” version of character development. I think the author may be a millenial (or close to it) himself, but the analogy still stands.

As you can image, this injures the book. For a novel that hangs so much on irony (or lack of definition/artful use thereof), at best it was reaching for an arch absurdist take on the modern college experience/person, but came up fumbling and groping inexpertly. And who needs that when there's so much else out there to (not) watch/read?

Hilarious, inventive, mysterious ... I can't quite bring myself to “realistic,” but this book is a rollicking good ride.

It took a full quarter of the book before I realized this was written by Christopher Buckley, not Christopher Moore. Moore is known for his genre/historical parodies - including one of my favorite books of all, Fool - while Buckley is better known for his political/modern satire. I count both Christophers among my favorite authors, but in this case the discovery that it was less than Moore caused me some grief.

Buckley can be funny - I'm just not sure why he chose not to be here. It felt like a first draft of a classic Moore, before the dialogue gets punched-up and the plots intricately woven together.

Perhaps it's unfair to compare, but I would in all earnestness urge you to read “Fool” if you're considering this. Then, if you're still looking for more, you can always swing back around to pick this up.

In answer to the eternal question, I don't honestly know whether it's better than the movie. It's definitely more helpful for those of us not steeped in the Star Wars lore, but I cannot deny a lightsaber fight that “lights up the forest like an explosion” works better on the big screen than my Kindle.
That being said, the novel puts motivations and connections in better order than the movie did (at least on one showing), and the writing quality paints quite the picture. Definitely a worthwhile read for those who are even tangentially interested in the Star Wars mythology.

It's always funny when people try to translate the things they see on the movies and TV into their everyday life.

It's confusing when they do so in the midst of filming a reality TV show. Things get meta, fast.

Pete Crooks is a mild-mannered journalist who's just trying to finish an assignment about a local PI when he gets tipped off that the ride-along he went on was a setup. This draws him far too deeply into the web of intrigue, backstabbing and outright pettiness that almost all of us not there associate with California.

Crooks is an able reporter and a pretty good writer, though his constant jumps in the narrative (I believed this guy, but I didn't know x, y or z) are more jarring than helpful - if you're trying to bring the reader along with you, don't spoil the ending?

An interesting if one-sided look at how the personal computer industry developed during the 80s. Canion's obviously knowledgable — as founder and CEO of Compaq, his company led the charge against IBM's various attempted machinations to control the computer industry. There's more than a bit of rose-tinted hue around this tome (literally only one “bad decision” is ever discussed, hesitantly at that, and ultimately turns into a big company-rousing win anyway), but it's an interesting part of computer history nonetheless.

The completely unnecessary add-on of a section about the iPad/iPhone/iPod is both completely unnecessary (as evidenced by this sentence's preface), self-serving and even then judging it wrong. It's a really bizarre jump from the end of the book (1991) to the introduction of the iPad (2010) in the span of a page turn.

A short but thorough enough behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Back To The Future trilogy. It (understandably) focuses heavily on the first movie, and its only real shortcoming is the lack of new Michael J Fox material. it's a true compliment to say that this is one old-movie recounting that performs better as a book rather than a lazy magazine oral history.

As ever, the moniker “Harry Potter for adults” both sums it up and doesn't do it justice. This collection mostly mirrors the books - but they were good stories anyway, so it works.

Richard Nixon was a legitimately terrifying human being. Triply so because he was president. I never figured him for a super great guy, but the Nixon depicted in this book is clinically paranoid, petty and far more vindictive than he has any right to be. You need a little background for this book, which is the only reason I left off a star - it's an accounting of the secrets that have come out of Nixon's presidency only in this millennium as the secret tapes and documents have been made public.

In a weird way, Nixon was right: It's far better for the United States that the things he did, said and thought were kept from people. However, the ultimate tragedy (for Nixon, sure, but for the rest of us as well) is that it's only true because Nixon was given power - if he weren't so awful, we wouldn't have needed the secrecy.

Books intended for young adults tend to be more direct. There's not as much beating around the bush or tediously in-depth descriptions of the bush that grows outside the jail door to overtly-covertly hammer the theme into your head (I don't much like you, Nathaniel Hawthorne). Instead, the story lives or dies on its own merits.
And that's refreshing. Don't get me wrong, I can enjoy a good literary novel, but they often come off as possessing an excess or distinct lack of plotting. So it's nice to have a writer just tell a story.
Finding Audrey is about Audrey's “reawakening” after an bullying incident triggered anxiety issues. Along the way, her interactions with her mom (crazy), older brother (addicted to gaming), dad (out of it) and little brother (hilarious) provide lots of fodder for a solid book.

Not since Tolkien has so much walking been so exhaustively recounted, yet been almost completely tangential to the actual story. (And though there weren't any eagles, there were, like, cars and stuff to explain away.)

Harold is quintessentially British. I completely lost count of the times where he did something like walk into a shop and feel compelled to buy something because the worker was staring at him, and he was the reason they weren't able to close yet.

When he finds out an old friend with whom he's lost touch is dying of cancer, he finds that he can't find the words to say. I'd blame this on the Britishness, but I really don't know that any nationality has the proper phrasing for this, with exception of possibly hakuna matata, which is actually Swahili but not the phrasing anyone who speaks Swahili would actually use.

Anyway.

He goes to mail a trite letter, only when he gets to the postbox he decides he's going to walk to her instead. 600-some miles away.

That's probably enough of the plot. It's not about the destination, it's about the journey. Except it's not really about the journey, either. It's more about Harold's life, and the walk is a penance for all of it. It's purgatory for his wife, who's at home and has held Harold in a subconscious begrudging resentment. And it's a little slice of heaven for the neighbor, Rex, who hasn't had so utility for or interaction with other people in months.

The heartache and emotion that's screwed out of Harold with every step is riveting, if punctuated with several gut-punches. The plotting of the walk itself gets fairly repetitious, as Harold vacillates between rapture and despair with numbing regularity. But peoples' reaction to Harold, his walk and the inevitable nonsense that encircles all of it are eminently believable, especially in the age of social media. And the ending, while not exactly Disney-happy, feels satisfying and earned.

I'm not saying I'd want to read a whole trilogy about the walk (and we're already two-thirds of the way there), but it's worth the effort to amble through.

There are a few different approaches to comedy memoirs. You can go with the actual story of your life (with jokes), a la Amy Poehler: This requires you to a) have an interesting life, and b) be funny. You can try for the structured set approach: You set the book up as a connected strand of narratives, each one with its own theme, and riff as you go. This is the most common approach, at least as practiced successfully: Patton Oswalt's Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, Jim Gaffigan's Dad Is Fat and Tina Fey's Bossypants.

All of this is by way of saying that David Spade could have really used a thoughtful approach here. The book's a bit schizophrenic: The first part is a pretty straightforward narrative of his life coming up in comedy. It's not peppered full of jokes, but memoirs don't need to be — it's about the person's life, and in Spade's case that life is worth reading about.

He of course covers Saturday Night Live, where most people know him from, and it's a worthwhile addition to the numerous full books that have been written about the show from Studio 6H. He also touches a bit on his most-well-known partner, Chris Farley, which I mention only because I've read him in other places talking about the emotional bond between the two. There's plenty of Farley information (with new stories), but Spade doesn't delve as deep into himself and his own feelings as he did in the beginning, so it winds up feeling a little bit like fanservice. Which is understandable — maybe he didn't want to linger too much on Farley (whether because of genuine emotion or not wanting to be eternally Farley's sidekick is immaterial) yet knew there would be an expectation for it — but it's noticeable, nonetheless.

But then it gets weird. We hear a genuinely terrifying about attempted murder, a pretty egregious theft by his housekeeper and ... Spade's thoughts on women? The general reader might not know it, but Spade possess a fairly sizable filmography post-Farley: Joe Dirt, Joe Dirt 2, Grown-Upses, Just Shoot Me, Emperor's New Groove, Benchwarmers, Dickie Roberts ... These get name-checks, at best. I'm not saying a memoir has to include absolutely everything that's ever happened (that's what the sequel's for!), but in this case the latter half of the book is just random stories. Personally, I would have much preferred jettisoning it entirely (except where it made sense in the narrative of his life) and gotten more about his work rather than what sounds like rehashed standup material.

I know we're not supposed to mention when books come from the internet because it frequently makes their authors feel bad for some reason, but this book is from the guy behind http://poorlydrawnlines.com/. It's a lot of new stuff mixed in with some of the best stuff, and for people who find cynicism funny, it hits the spot. Wil Wheaton called “the funneist comic I've read since the Far Side,” and while that's probably overdoing it, it's still good for some laughs.