Tag: humor

Listening to Garth Stein

Our local library has a list of featured authors that speak throughout the year and mostly they are local authors but tonight Garth Stein was in the house!  I remember reading The Art of Racing in the Rain (2008) soon after it came out in paperback.  I believe everyone in the house read it at one point or another and our one loved copy obviously travelled off on its own journey as I could not find it anywhere in my book (over) loaded home. I thought it would be easy to find it and get that one signed…
Enzo is a lovely canine narrator, a deep thinking dog and the book should appeal to all dog lovers, want-to-be dog owners, or any human with a heart. I remember crying and writing quotes from the book onto scraps of paper.

Garth was eloquent and humorous to listen to and he told story after story of his family, his wife, the struggle of being a writer and how the book came into being and how his agent would not accept it. If I ever actually publish any one of my stories this is the part that I fear. I’m an awful public speaker (unless my audience is made up of elementary kids) and could maybe speak extemporaneously for about 10 minutes. We’d have to go to questions pretty quickly. I could handle the signing part though, one on one interactions, but I don’t like getting my picture snapped so that might be an issue. We will cross that bridge when we get to it.

After the event he signed books near a table where his books were on sale through our local university bookstore. During part of the q and a session I spent some time on my trusty Goodreads app and looked up several of his other books.  His latest one, A Sudden Light, about a timber families fortunes and misfortunes had a few negative reviews so I stayed away from that one. My friends Rich and Kay did buy it though and so I’ll wait to hear what they think.  Two of his earlier books had more interesting reviews, to me, so I went with these (yes, I bought them both and had them signed).

Raven stole the moon (1998) is part magical realism and Native American folklore-right up my reading alley. How Evan broke his head and other secrets (2005) tells the tale of a young rock and roller who meets his long lost son at the age of 14. I’m excited to read both of them after I finish the three other books by my bedside and La Rose by Louise Erdrich, our Good Spirits book club choice for October. It is wonderful to live in such a literature-rich household-I never, ever, ever even think the word “bored”.

I was completely unaware that he has a young reader’s version of The Art of racing in the rain and several picture books devoted to Enzo.

Peaceful Reading…

Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid; A Memoir

This book has been recommended by many friends and was my book clubs third  reading choice.  I didn’t read it then because I was busy reading other stuff!  I kept putting it off…then when Bibliophile By The Sea presented the Reading off my Shelves Project; this book made my list!  After reading Dreamland by Dessen I need a change of pace.  Jenners from Find Your Next Book Here highly recommended this choice so I picked it up and read it. 
I liked it far more that I thought I would…I’m not a huge fan of memoirs.  It made me think and laugh and I really enjoyed the historical time-travel aspect of Des Moines history.  I felt transported back to the 1950’s; a serene and innocent era of our history.  
Here’s one of the many “expand my knowledge” parts:
“Often, all that was necessary to earn America’s enmity, and land yourself in a lot of trouble, was to get in the way of our economic interests.  In 1950, Guatemala elected a reformist government-“’the most democratic Guatemala ever had,’ according to the historian Howard Zinn-under Jacobo Arbenz, an educated landowner of good intentions.  Arbenz’s election was a blow for the American company United Fruit, which had run Guatemala as a private fiefdom since nineteenth century.  The company owned nearly everything of importance in the country-the ports, the railroads, the communications networks, banks, stores, and some 550,000 acres of farmland-paid little taxes, and could count confidently on the support of a string of repressive dictators.” p. 133
 
He proceeds to inform how United Fruit took care of Jacobo Arbenz.  I loved learning these horrible historical facts  and thought Bryson did an amazing job of researching facts about this time period.  He discussed how  the Atomic Age impacted our lives-the fall-out (in my opinion) is something we are dealing with still!!  Mixed in with all these facts are humorous stories (like the toity jar, p. 19), hysterical looks at his family life and the greater world around him.  I loved the part about his paper route as I had brothers who suffered through the paper route ordeal and having to collect money from neighbors!  Bill Bryson’s website-click here.
As per Project I need to let you know where this one is going-I’m sending it to my brother in Denver, CO, who attended Drake University.  I think he will enjoy Bryson’s wit as well as the history of the city.

Highly Recommended/Memoirs
4/5 stars
Happy Reading!!!
Peaceful Reading…