I’m on a roll: three good books in a row! Lark and Termite is the story of a family that’s much out-of-the-norm and beset by unusually burdensome challenges but that works despite the struggles. Lark and Termite are siblings (hlaf-siblings, since nothing is simple in the family) who live with their aunt following their mother’s abandonment [...]
Entries from February 2009
February 26, 2009
Rancid Pansies by James Hamilton-Paterson
A perfect package of funny (hilarious, even), goofy, and smart. Don’t be put off by the title (for which you will get an explanation in the book). Don’t be put off by the unlikely meeting of a one-armed woman sailing champion; a landslide in Italy; collective food poisoning brought on by a mouse vol-au-vent (yes, [...]
February 24, 2009
A Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson
A Guide to the Birds of East Africa is not a bird book, although you can learn a lot about marabous and hadadas via the story and the drawings that herald each chapter. But there is a bird counting contest (see here and here for others), although its point is to gain a lady’s affection rather [...]
February 23, 2009
All Shall Be Well by Tod Wodicka
Can books with outrageously long titles live up to their names? Maybe not this one. All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well starts with a hilarious premise: an aging American who revels in medieval re-enactments tries to recover his ties to his children, who have drifted [...]
February 23, 2009
Breakfast at Sally’s by Richard LeMieux
Breakfast at Sally’s is a clumsy but very inspirational (as promised by the subtitle) exposition about the homeless, centered on the author and his adored dog but chronicling the lives of dozens of others who become homeless through bad luck, addictions of some kind or other, or both. LeMieuxcaptures the surprisingly tight-knit society of the homeless in the [...]
February 20, 2009
Modern Manners by P.J. O’Rourke
Having enjoyed On the Wealth of Nations by the same author I decided to try Modern Manners, which was deemed very funny by the blurb on the cover — and it did not quite live to those expectations. Sure, there are many witty one-liners but also many repeated not-so-funny themes and the book feels quite [...]
February 20, 2009
Farewell my Subaru by Doug Fine
Farewell, My Subaru is a mostly lighthearted description of the author’s efforts to lead a green life in a hot and dry (but occasionally flooded) ranch in New Mexico. There’s minimal preaching about the virtues of being green (thankfully and unlike other unbearably self-righteous”green” books such as Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.) The absurdity of some of the changes, such [...]
February 18, 2009
Speaking for Myself by Cherie Blair
How can a smart, outspoken woman succeed in a position that requires the behavior of a potted plan, and a placid potted plan at that? Not very well, it seems, especially if said woman fails to notice the requirements of the job and persists in living an independent life and speaking out about topics she [...]
February 17, 2009
Planthropology by Ken Druse
And now for something completely different: Planthropologyis a mix of a science and gardening, with a whiff of memoir thrown in as well as the most gorgeous photographs of plants, right in the text and not banished to a special section that requires back and forth page turning.
The author talks about Fibonacci numbers and sunflower [...]
February 16, 2009
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker
Three sad family stories in a row (see here and here?) Yes, but The Little Giant of Aberdeen Countyis actually full of hope. It’s the story of a luckless girl who not only has some kind of (undiagnosed) pituitary gland disorder that makes her the giant of the title but who also loses her mother [...]
