Life advice from Dr. Leary

Why We Suck by Denis Leary, who feels more qualified than Dr. Phil due to the honorary PhD given to him, is full of anger, hate, and advice for America. Leary leaves no stone unturned in his diatribe on what's wrong with America.  No topic is too taboo as he attacks celebrities, politicians, jet-pack moms and the media with equal vigor.

He is equally disdainful of parents who let their children become stars, citing Jodie Foster and Ron Howard as the only ones to survive to a relatively normal adulthood with some sort of career intact.  He blames doctors and parents for over medicating and over diagnosing rather than disciplining.  He talks about his own childhood in a large Irish Catholic family, and how a determination to never hear "no" led to many accomplishments, including being a published poet, successful writer and actor.

His love of his family and wife, after so many years of marriage, ups and downs, and three marriage counselors is clear as he writes.  He attributes his well behaved, well rounded children to the wonderful mothering by his wife Ann.  He's still goofy in love with his wife, explaining why a born and bred city boy spends his days on the horse farm his wife loves mucking stables and learning to ride, two things he'd never thought about for himself.

Part memoir, part rant, at times funny and poignant, at no times white washed, Leary lets you know how he really feels about stereotypes, Anna-Nicole Smith, the Pope and pedophilia.  As a reader, you won't agree with everything he says, won't like most of what he says, but somewhere between the anger, the bald truth, and a strangely out of character worshipping of Oprah, everyone can find something they agree with and appreciate the honesty he's willing to display.

Rating: 4/5

Think you could be a writer?

What It Is, by Lynda Barry, is a book of writing exercises, doodles, and autobiographical stories designed to teach you to find the imagery in a situation and discover your inner creativity.  What It Is won the 2009 Eisner award for Best Reality-Based Work, which is a pretty high honour for a book filled with pictures of monsters.

Barry, an author, cartoonist, and creative writing teacher grew up thinking she wasn't any good at writing or drawing, and that she had no real talent, but used her pictures and stories as a way of distracting herself from a sometimes unpleasant home life.  The book is a mash-up of her doodles, quotes from books (hers and others), comics, and examples of the kind of thing your mind comes up with when allowed to wander.

Some of the effects are meant to be visual, with scraps of book pages, writing and doodles on every page, and I stopped to read every word, even if it did not seem to have any direct correlation to the point Barry makes on the page (incidentally I do the same thing with cereal boxes, magazines, etc., if something with words is placed in front of me I read them all), and served instead as an example of the kind of thing she was talking about.

The exercises she uses (continuous writing, keeping the pen moving even if it's only to doodle), list making (in 3 minutes name 10 cars you had when you were young), and drawing on memories for ideas are ones I have seen in the creative writing courses I have taken over the years, but Barry makes them feel more relevant.  She carries the exercises on, suggests you do them several times (even leaving spaces for your writing in her book), and walks you through the process.  The benefit of doing the exercises here is that you are never expected to show anyone (in fact encouraged, as she says, to walk away from your writing and re-read it a week later for a brand new experience), unlike in creative writing classes where everyone is expected to share or comment on everyone else. 

Writing and reading (as Barry suggests) can take us out of our everyday lives (she likens this to kids playing, able to pretend to be anything from princesses to astronauts to mad scientists.  I distinctly remember pretending to be a ninja cat with some cousins as a child) or can help us find a place within our lives that we had lost.  She reminds us that everyone is capable of writing or drawing, creative expression of some type, and that it is in fact an innate part of human existence (who hasn't drawn a doodle while sitting in a boring class, or on a long telephone conversation?).  

This was a library grab for me, so I'm doing the exercises on scraps of paper and loose leaf, but I think as soon as I'm able I'm going to hunt this one down and buy me a copy.  More people need to remember how to pretend.  This book is a must have for anyone that thinks they can write, thinks they'd like to write, and even more so for people who think they can't write.

Rating: 5/5

Biting the Bullet

Bullet, the 19th book in the Anita Blake series (definitely not for kids) by Laurell K. Hamilton, made parts of my recent 30+ hour road trip fly by.  I always buy these books immediately when they come out, and read them in one sitting, despite sleep deprivation or social setting.  Hamilton brings back characters from earlier books that I had been missing, including Jean-Claude and Asher, who despite being fairly central characters early on, had been appearing less and less often.  Readers are also introduced to a fresh batch of new characters as Anita and crew are once again embroiled in Vampire/Were politics with very little say in the matter.

 Many fans of the series have started to pull away, citing a lack of plot or an over abundance of sex masquerading as a storyline.  I read these books like crack.  It is entirely possible that I am a little biased when I say I really enjoy ever book in this series.  They are one of only a few series that I make a point of buying almost immediately when a new one comes out.  That being said, it does pain me a bit to admit that I agree with some of what the nay-sayers complain about.  As of late, there has been a focus on Anita developing her metaphysical abilities (due to a glitch in the vampire/were/necromancer triumvirates she's a part of) through sex.  However, Hamilton isn't just writing sex for sex's sake. 

The novels no longer have an open and shut preternatural crime in them.  The bad guys are taking longer to be developed, and the fight scenes are fewer and farther between.  We are instead following along as Anita comes to terms with powers she hasn't felt comfortable using, learning to control the ardeur and warp it into a power she is able to use.  Anita, and many of the main characters are forced to swallow their pride (no pun intended for those that have been following the story so far) and work together if they are going to fight the big evil.

Anita starts the series as all but virginal, and as her powers develop she is drawn into more and more sexual relationships and situations.  She  is become stronger and more controlled as the stories proceed towards the big evil we've been waiting for.  There is a certain amount of buildup necessary, unlike the earlier books where the bad guys were discovered and taken out within the same novel.

I would like to see a bit more fighting or crime solving (though Anita isn't as popular with the police forces as she once was), instead of the crime fighting by remote that came up in this novel, but I am by no means turned off by the course of events Hamilton is taking us through in the last few books.  I can see in Bullet a return to the more intricate plots that originally hooked me to this series.

Rating: 3/5

Finally I found it

A reason for reading

I don't really need one. A reason, that is. I read as much as is possible while holding down a plethora of jobs, going to school, and being somewhat social on occasion. However, now I can say "no honey, I need to finish this book! I have to write about it for the blog!" I am thankful as always for an understanding husband (although I think me reading gives him more time to watch football and play video games without being accosted).

I've been mildly addicted to books since I was five (that's 21 years now) since I read the Paper Bag Princess all by myself. What probably started as a search for approval and praise (Oh, what a smart girl! Reading all by herself!) quickly became a hobby, an escape (from nothing in particular), and became an identity.

I'm that girl that hides in the bathroom for hours reading when her cousins are visiting. I'm the girl who needs to be physically jostled if I'm in the middle of a good book (or even a mediocre one that has caught my attention). The stock answer for birthdays and Christmas lists when relatives asked my mom or me what I wanted was books. By the time I was 10 (if not younger) that changed to book gift cards, because it became harder and harder to keep track of what I had or what I'd read. Compounding that was The Book Fair, a downtown trade shop where my account consists to this day of traded in Archie Comics and Young Adult fiction (Goosebumps, Christopher Pike, etc.).

I have a soft spot in my heart for supernatural thrillers/romances (however I have yet to read any of the Twilight series), and I spend a good deal of my reading life of late reading Sherrilyn Kenyon, Kelley Armstrong, and Laurell K. Hamilton.

I don't limit myself to this genre, though, and if I have the time to spare (sadly never often enough) at the library I wander up and down the aisles randomly pulling books that look or "feel" interesting off the shelves. It's a rare day that I leave the library with less than 10 books. The librarian has reached a point where she can find my pile on sight, without needing my library card to check my name. This is how I discovered Beat the Reaper and Locke and Key, and I read through both in one sitting, although not all grabs are as successful.

Over the past year or so I've slowly developed a mild obsession with graphic novels (not to the point where I could tell you who the artists are on different stories, but I can usually keep my authors straight). They're easy to see on the library shelves (our library system marks them with a neon green sticker) so I pick them up during my wanderings. Of course, if I like one of my random grabs, then I go online and request anything and everything the author has done that may interest me (hence the giant stack of Joe Hill books sitting on my shelf at home).

http://www.dictionary.com/ defines vagrant as "a person who wanders from place to place; wanderer; rover," and I think that aptly describes my reading habits. I'm always trying to expand into different genres and authors, so please leave me a comment if you have suggestions.

That's me. I have 30 hour road trip this weekend, so I hope to read a new book or two (high on my list of probable reads are Horns by Joe Hill and Bullet by Laurell K. Hamilton). With any luck my book blog may contain a blog about an actual book by next week!