The Book: The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa, by Josh Swiller

The Story: Josh was born deaf.  With the use of hearing aides, he was able to hear enough to get by and lead a “normal” life.  By that I mean that he went to public school and did everything that his hearing friends were doing.  It wasn’t until he was beyond high school that he ever even encountered other people who were non-hearing.

After college, he joined the Peace Corps.  His thought was that he wanted to end up in a place where his deafness really would be irrelevant.  He ended up in a village in Zambia that the Peace Corps had never been to before.  His “goal” was to get a community project going to dig a well for the village.  While everyone listened to him and were totally struck by the novelty of a white man, he came up against some pretty serious obstacles before he could really get anything done.

In his two years in Zambia, Josh made a great friend in Jere, the guy who ran the village clinic.  Their friendship and the goals that they make together were, for me, the heartbeat of this story.

As far as his deafness, at times it really was made irrelevant, but the big conflict in the end was (maybe) caused by the fact that Josh couldn’t hear and therefore couldn’t communicate with the people in the village.  All’s well that ends well, but it was probably mostly luck that makes Josh’s ending be one that even allowed him to write a book about his experiences.

What I Thought: I was really lucky the summer before I went into high school to be able to go on a trip to Africa.  I went to the Ivory Coast with a group of girls and we built a couple of churches in villages and became pretty involved in a local church in a larger city.  A lot of times I found myself laughing at Josh’s experiences because they echoed mine so well: kids following him around chanting their word for “white,” the best mangos on earth, crazy driving situations, the incredible lack of communication, villagers being grateful but expressing it so differently than Americans.  All of these things were things that we both experienced and I really enjoyed reading about that.

I thought that Josh probably went into everything with good motives, but I also felt like he kind of blew off what the Peace Corps told him just so he’d have an “accomplishment” to talk about after his two years.  I guess I feel like they have those rules in place for a reason, and him blowing them off put not only himself but a lot of the people in his village in quite a bit of danger.  I know that he was tired of the village’s “system” but when he was openly bucking the system, I felt annoyed at him.  Cultural sensitivity just didn’t seem to be on his radar at all. He really didn’t do a whole lot outside of cause trouble.  I wasn’t clear, in the end, if he realized that or not.

That being said, I thought that this memoir was open and honest and well written.  I was totally engaged the whole time I was reading it, I was just surprised at what a “what not to do” book it seemed to be.

Conclusion: For people that are interested in the Peace Corps or public services overseas should read this for sure.  Same with people that are non-hearing or involved in the deaf community.  I think that it’d be an educational experience.  Neither of these apply to me and I still enjoyed it and got a lot out of it, so if you just enjoy memoirs, I’d give this a look too.  Good stuff.

The Book: The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid: Travels Through my Childhood, by Bill Bryson

The Story: Although he is known for his travel memoirs, Bill Bryson decided to take us on a trip through his childhood in this one.

Bill Bryson grew up in the 1950’s and 60’s in the midwest.  He is nostalgic and sweet about little things: comic books, color tv, escalators, the onset of prepackaged food, lincoln logs, stuff like that, and about big things: the space race, the evolution of the suburbs, education, baseball*.

He combines his personal memories with data and facts about what was going on through this period to give a good solid look at 20 years of America’s past.

What I Thought: I’ve had a thing for Bill Bryson for a long time.  I was so excited when my mom passed this on to me after reading it that I’m pretty sure I actually squealed.  So frigging good.

I cannot even tell you how many times I was laying on the couch reading and laughing loud enough that Shaun would make me read the part to him.  I really couldn’t help it. I had to set it down a few times because I was laughing so hard.  Usually this happened when people got hurt or embarrassed.  You’ll be happy to know that both of these things happen a lot.

I think the thing that sets this apart and makes it really good is not the humor even though it was really funny. It’s the charm.  I’m young and still get a little nostalgic when I look back on my childhood.  Reading a good writer flesh this out is charming and sweet.  The innocence of his childhood and his love for that time in his life and his family and friends just comes through the pages and for me it was really touching.

There are quite a few racist and sexist bits mixed in, but generally he admitted right off that he was about to be a little bit racist or sexist.  Not sure if that makes it better, but it didn’t detract from the book for me. I just felt like that was how he was raised and if the rest of the book can be filtered through a lens of “childhood,” these bits probably should be too.

Conclusion: I’m not sure how many baby boomers I have reading my blog, but if you’re one of them: get this book right now.  So good.  Even if you aren’t a baby  boomer, there is really good stuff here. You’ll love it. Go get it. This probably isn’t his best work, but I think it’s worth the read, without a doubt.

*This is the worst constructed sentence I’ve ever written. Maybe it is the worst constructed sentence I’ve ever seen.  After I wrote it, I reread and realized how truly awful it was, but just wanted you to be able to enjoy it like I did.  You’re welcome.

The Book: Same Kind of Different As Me: A modern-day slave, an international art dealer, and the unlikely woman who bound them together, by Ron Hall & Denver Moore

The Story: Denver Moore and Ron Hall really could not have led lives that were more opposite than the ones that they were leading:  Denver was a former share-cropper (pretty much a slave) who was living in a shelter and Ron was a super-rich art dealer.

Ron’s wife Deborah had a real heart for the homeless and started working at the shelter where Denver was living.  He was the meanest, toughest, most hard-to-reach man there, but for whatever reason, Deborah felt really drawn to him and encouraged Ron to start a friendship with him.  At first, Ron really did just pursue Denver because his wife wanted him to, but over time it turned into a true friendship.

In alternating chapters, Ron and Denver both talk a lot about how they felt about this new friendship.  Ron was blown away that he could love someone so different than himself.  Denver was touched and truly changed by the fact that Ron saw value in him and trusted him.

Faced with a horrible circumstance,  Ron and Denver’s friendship continues to grow deeper as they learn to lean on each other.

What I Thought: No where on the book jacket did it say that this was a straight-up religious non-fiction book.  I had no idea.  I am a Christian and “get” that part of the story so it didn’t annoy me, but I just want to warn you right off that if that kind of thing gets under your skin, you’ll just want to skip this.  Faith and Jesus and church and Heaven come up over and over and over.

That being said, I was sort of blown away by this book.

Initially I was just amazed at Denver’s life up to this point.  I had heard of share-cropping but wasn’t entirely sure what that meant and surely didn’t know that it went on as recently as the 60’s and 70’s.  I was amazed when he said that he had no idea that WWII, Korea or the Vietnam War had ever happened- he was totally separated from the rest of the world- but just living in Louisiana.  Totally wild.  I am not sure if he is literate now or if he just did his part of the book orally and had someone transcribe it, but his “accent” comes through clearly in his chapters and I really did feel like I could hear his voice by the end.

Ron’s past was less interesting and to be perfectly honest, I never really liked him.  I was touched by his relationship with his wife, but as far as him as a person… eh.  I felt like his devotion to Christianity was a little bit… off.  He admitted that when he was younger he really did the “religion thing” to appease his wife, but from the book, I felt like he was like that straight to the end.  I don’t want to be quick to judge, but he just never seemed real to me like Denver did.

Their friendship and their story together was kind of wonderful.  At one point, Ron’s daughter needs help moving some stuff and he can’t do it.  Denver offers to do it with his newly acquired driver’s license.  He said he was even kind of joking- it was something like an 800 mile trip and he didn’t even have a car.  Ron handed him a few hundred dollars and the keys to his truck.  This was a big turning point not only in their friendship but in Denver’s life.  Never had anyone just trusted him with their money and their stuff and their family.  It gave him worth and he started believing in himself.  Kind of beautiful.

The part that just about destroyed me though was Deborah getting sicker and sicker.  I think I need to stop reading books about spouses dying.  I’ve been hovering over Shaun for weeks and checking on him all the time and trying to force him to go to the doctor for no reason.  I also make him hug me about every 10 seconds. I need to read a happy book or two.  Seriously.  Anyway, Deborah getting sick was awful.  Reading it from Ron’s point of view was just about more than I could take.  I ugly-cried.

The quote that the book title comes from is kind of beautiful. I dog-eared the page so I could share: “I used to spend a lotta time worryin that I was different from other people, even from other homeless folks. Then, after I met Miss Debbie and Mr. Ron, I worried that I was so different from them that we wadn’t ever gon’ have no kind a’ future. But I found out everybody’s different – the same kind of different as me. We’re all just regular folks walkin down the road God done set in front of us. The truth about it is, whether we is rich or poor or somethin in between, this earth ain’t no final restin place. So in a way, we is all homeless – just workin our way toward home.”

Conclusion: Seriously a beautiful, gut-wrenching story.  Know going into it that there’s going to be a lot of religion presented and just be ready for it.  I don’t think it’s presented in a shove-it-down-your-throat kind of way, but it is there.  Also, if you see your significant other reading this, expect that they’ll hover for a few days and need lots of hugs.

The Book: Operating Instructions: A Journal of my Son’s First Year, by Anne Lamott

The Story: If you’ve ever read Anne Lamott before you know that she has quite the history (drug addict, alcoholic, yadda yadda) and quite the circle of friends.  She converted to Christianity later in her life and is still figuring out all the ins and outs.  In the meantime, she gets knocked up by some guy who doesn’t want a kid and begins the journey into parenthood. Alone.

She decided to keep a journal during that first year and then later to publish it.  This book covers all the nitty gritty: the birth, the late night feedings, the total drug-out, can’t-thing exhaustion, along with all of the beautiful stuff: loving Sam and watching him grow and become his own little guy.

Because Sam’s dad left her when he found out she was pregnant, she is technically a single parent, but her friends just really gather around her and help her.  They cook when she’s too tired and play with Sam while she takes naps.  In the course of the book, one of her best friends finds out that she has a pretty serious form of cancer and Anne records her struggle through that as well.

In this book, Anne Lamott makes it ok to get mad at your baby and ok to think that he’s the greatest thing on earth.  She says all of the stuff that most parents would never fess up to, like how shocked she is that babies cry so much, and how she thought it’d be more like getting a new cat.  She really covers a broad spectrum of emotion and, in one journal entry, can provoke about 90 different emotions.

What I Thought: I’m going to go ahead and admit right off the bat that I’m madly in love with Anne Lamott and have been for years.  I read her novels first and then all her non-fiction and she always makes it to my list of authors/people that I’d love to sit down for dinner with.  I love her. So this review is not unbiased.  I went in knowing I would love this book and was not at all let down.

For me, the appeal of Anne Lamott’s books are this honesty that almost never comes out.  Hearing that someone else struggles with the same things and delights in the same things as  me somehow makes it ok.  The fact that she can talk about these things in a poetic, gritty, wonderful way is just icing on the cake.

This is one of her only books that I hadn’t read yet, and I’d been saving it for when I was about to have a little one of my own.  Give me a couple of months and I’ll be blogging with puke running down my shoulder (except for with babies, it’s called “spit-up”… how cute, right?) so I thought that the time was right.

In the first couple of entries, she talks about her fears about becoming a mother and doing this thing right.  She also talks about how beautiful it is and how excited she is about having her son and loving him so much.  Because we’re still waiting on my little guy, this is the part that I related to the most.  Since I’ve been pregnant, I’ve talked to so many other mothers and so many pregnant women and usually it’s either “oh God, I can’t do this” or “I can’t wait! Baby, baby, baby!”  How I feel is somewhere in between, and I just felt like she captured that feeling perfectly.

I could go on and on. I just loved this. I’m going to give copies to my pregnant friends. This is part of my new shower gift pack.  I need to stop, because I can tell that I’m gushing.

Conclusion: Pregnant women, mothers, grandmothers: Read this.

The Book: Stalking the Divine, by Kristen Ohlson

The Story: One Christmas, Kristen Ohlson wondered into a Catholic church in Cleveland.  She had wondered away from any type of religion for years and just wanted to go to church on Christmas.  It turns out that this Catholic church has a cloister of nuns called the Poor Clares.

The Poor Clares are a small group of elderly nuns and they absolutely capture the author’s heart and attention.  She goes on to research their past and their present to write a newspaper article and decides to expand that into a book.  As she gets to know the nuns better and hear their stories, she finds part of herself awakening too.  She makes attending mass a priority although she doesn’t really believe most of what they say.  She becomes part of the “regulars” at church, has regular meetings with the priest and even attends and all-night prayer meeting.  She is sort of doing all of these things for the book that she’s writing, but she talks a lot about the effect that these relationships and meetings effect her life.

What I Thought: I know it’s a weird thing, but I’ve always kind of liked nuns.  I was not raised Catholic, and although my step-dad comes from a Catholic family, have had very little exposure to the Catholic faith.  What attracts me to nuns is just that level of devotion.  To leave their families and their lives as they know it to live a totally different lifestyle is something that I cannot entirely wrap my head around.  It is just this beautiful and selfless thing.  I also love the pictures of, say, nuns ice skating or riding bikes or whatever.  Pretty cute.

Anyway, I got this book from a thrift store and it had a sticker on it that it originally came from a bargain bin.  My expectations were pretty much nil.

I was pleasantly surprised.

I really loved “meeting” all the nuns.  Kristen got to sit down and chat with a lot of the nuns and hear their life stories.  The variety here and just the sweetness of it all blew me away.  One of the nuns had been cloistered since the 50’s.  Literally had not left or talked to anyone “outside” in over 50 years.  She loved, loved, loved Indians baseball though and was so happy that the stadium was close enough that she could hear the fireworks and cheering when they won.  She always nabbed the sports section from the newspaper first.  I just love that.  There were a lot of stories of living full, rewarding lives then feeling like their next step was a nunnery, then how they followed through with that.  Seriously, fascinating.

The part about the author’s journey was kind of second-rate for me.  I’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember and have had my fair share of faith struggles.  I still could not relate to her in any way.  I felt like she just tried to be logical and reason everything out, ignoring a lot of the faith-related issues that come with any religion.  I feel like even though she was trying to ACT super spiritual, that she never really let anything go any further than skin deep.  This made her whole struggle seem shallow and meaningless.

I know that this sounds weird, but I think that this would have been better had the author decided to write it as a novel.  I think that that separation- leaving herself out of the equation or creating a character to represent her- would have went a long way towards making this book more relatable.

Conclusion: An interesting history of a cloister of nuns written from a semi-secular point of view.  That is a pretty unique case and something worth taking a look at.

The Book: Possible Side Effects, by Augusten Burroughs

The Story: This is a book of essays by the same guy who wrote Running with Scissors.  If you’ve read that, you have some idea of what to expect from him. If not, let me tell you.

This guy had a crazy (no seriously, his mom was in and out of mental institutes) childhood.  He grew up and somehow maintained a pretty decent sense of humor.  These essays are just little bits of how he looks at the world.

Just from memory, here’s what was covered: flavors of potato chips in England, marketing Junior Mints, lesbian personal ads, getting a locksmith, McDonald’s, racial profiling fast food joints, puppies, doting grandmas and evil grandmas… you know, just that kind of stuff.

What I Thought: Let me say first that thrift store workers who write the price on the covers of books with a permanent marker need to get their fingers chopped off.  I will forever know how much I paid for this book because the people at the thrift store nearest us are stupid.  They also have a rule that everything in the store has to be carried out in a bag, so even if you only buy 1 item they have to bag it.  Luckily they have a “comments” box by the door, so I regularly leave comments on both of these items.

Welllll. This is a hard one for me to review.  Some of the essays were good. Maybe 10? They made me laugh or roll my eyes or think of a certain friend. I think that authors and comedians and photographers really have this special gift to see things that are normal in life and just examine them and make us see the importance or craziness or something.  Augusten Burroughs has this gift without a doubt.  These essays were just little, normal bits but just how he went into it was hilarious or touching, depending on which essay.

My favorite one was about him helping his lesbian friend write a personal ad and then pick through the answers. So funny.  The chapter titled “Mint Threshold” also made me laugh out loud.

The remainder of the essays were just so boring.  They weren’t about anything. They just seemed like filler.  They didn’t make me feel anything at all besides just boredom. I’m not a skimmer, but I have to admit that several times I found myself skimming. I’m bored with even writing the review. So. The end.

Conclusion: A quick little book.  I got it at the thrift store for 90 cents and I think it was worth that.  Don’t pay 14 dollars for this book.  There are essays worth the read, but this isn’t a keeper.

The Book: Honeymoon with My Brother, by Franz Wisner

The Story: Franz is kind of on top of his world: his girlfriend of 10 years is about to marry him, he has this high profile, great job and just a pretty nice set up.  Within a week, his fiance calls off the wedding with people already in route, and his job demotes him and moves him into a tiny office.

The first part of this book goes into the relationship that Franz had with his fiance, Annie.  The thing I’ve always wondered about people that get their weddings canceled like this is, “how DIDN’T you know?” The answer is that he did know. He knew that something was wrong and that Annie was doing this to pacify him and that she was not emotionally ready for this.  He just didn’t want to deal with it or admit it and thought that being married would be the end of his troubles.  So while Franz was heartbroken and distraught, he kind of got it.

His friends and family still showed up for the wedding and they partied and tried to cheer Franz up.  It worked while they were there, then he kind of fell apart after they left.  He knew something had to change and then a couple days before his honeymoon was supposed to start, he decided to call his brother Kurt and take him on the honeymoon that had been planned for him and Annie.

The brothers loved it and loved getting to know each other again as adults.  They made up this huge plan to get rid of all of their stuff and travel the globe for a year.  The rest of the book is pretty much a travel log of all the places they went and the people they met and they crazy situations that they found themselves in.

When I say a travel log, I mean it.  They covered something like 30 countries over the two years that they were traveling.  The started in Europe, went to Asia, then South America and Africa.  They had pauses and trips to the states in between each continent to regroup, but most of the book takes place outside of America.

Throughout the book, the boys visit LaRue, their stepgrandma, and send her letters and postcards.  She is this adorable 99 year old lady who is obsessed with the idea of her grandsons traveling around the world.  The whole nursing home is following their journey.  Franz is also sending out email updates to tons of friends and family that eventually end up in newspapers and towards the end of the book they are traveling more as travel writers than just backpackers.

What I Thought: I have been so lucky in my life to have had the chance to travel so much.  It’s always been a little dream of mine to some how fall into the job of being  a travel writer.  I was totally jealous that this actually happened to this guy!

For me, the start of this book- the relationship stuff- was kind of “eh.” I didn’t hate it, but to be honest, I didn’t fall in love until they started traveling.  I loved the places that they went and how they got to know each other all over again.  I know once I moved out of the house, my brothers and I all got so much more distant.  I couldn’t tell you their favorite drinks or their daily routine or these type of things that I used to know without a problem.  I, again, was jealous of these guys that they got to re-learn each other.

I have read a lot of travel writing, and sometimes it just feels so dry or so purposely funny (Sorry, Bill Bryson!) This just felt honest.  Sometimes it was funny, but there were parts that were really touching.

The only issue I had with this book was that I couldn’t relate to Kurt and Franz’s lifestyle in anyway.  Just having hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on travel? Don’t have a way to get around in Europe so you buy a Saab? What?! I am a budget traveler to the max and I just found myself gawking at their spending sometimes.

Conclusion: A great memoir and wonderful travel log.  I would, without reservation, recommend this to anyone!

The Book: Remember the Sweet Things: One List, Two Lives, and Twenty Years of Marriage

The Story: This is the story of a marriage.  The couple, Ellen and Marsh, met later in life.  They had each been married and had children and been pretty messed up before they met each other.  They met at work and kept their distance for awhile. Then they didn’t anymore and they were married not too terribly long afterwards.

Before they were even married, Ellen started keeping a list of little sweet things Marsh did for her or cute little things that he said.  And there were a lot. She continued this list throughout their twenty years of marriage.   She would give them to him each Valentine’s Day and each year the list was pages long.  At the end of each chapter, she shared a handful from that part of their life, and they really were just simple moments that she had recorded.

The life that they shared was a full one.  They lived in different parts of the world, had a sail boat and could leave at will, and they seemed like they spent a lot of time just enjoying each other.

When Marsh got sick later in life, and started to lose it and forget everything, Ellen read the pages out loud to him so that he would remember.

What I Thought: I don’t always like full on love stories, and I don’t always like memoirs, but I’ve been feeling kind of mushy lately, so when I saw this in the library, I had to read it.

And I’m glad that I did.

My biggest complaint is that neither of these people seemed real.  Their life did not seem real to me.  They only worked through the first few chapters, and even then they never struggled for money or bickered over nothing.  Even when she mentioned, “oh, he was working a lot during this time,” she never really talked about how that effected their relationship.  I guess I’m just saying that the loving parts of their relationship would have seemed even MORE loving if I had seen a little bit of realness.  I love my husband more that I can even say, but just yesterday morning I got mad at him before he went to work because he left his popcorn bowl on the table and didn’t put his socks in the hamper the night before.  Maybe I wouldn’t put that in a book I was writing about us, but I would surely show that while we’re totally in love, we still have these normal, stupid issues sometimes.

Other than that, I was smitten.  I loved that they found each other late in life and that they really just savored the time that they had together. The lists that she made really were sweet, and a great way to honor her husband.  I loved that the lists had really serious items, and really light, silly things.

The lesson (for lack of a better word) of this book was a lot like that in Gilead.  That life is made up of these little, seemingly unimportant moments that just add up to a life.  So remember them, savor them, and share them. To just enjoy the simple things.

Conclusion: This is a Hallmark movie, in written form.  If you are in the mood for that type of thing, you’ll love it.  It’s light and sentimental and totally non-controversial.  If you want something rougher or more “real” or gutsy, look elsewhere.

The Book: The Complete Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi

The Story: This is an autobiographical graphic novel of a teenage girl growing up in Iran during the revolution of ‘79.  There was a lot about death and war and the veil, and tough stuff, but there were also big chunks about crushes, normal teenage rebellion, secret parties and American pop culture.

While she was still in high school,  Marjane’s parents send her to Austria to continue her schooling in a safer environment.  She met semi-crazy anarchist friends and kind of accidentally joined the punk scene.  While she was in Austria, she sort of lied about her heritage and morphed into a new person.  There is a section of the book that covers a visit from her mom while Marjane is still living in Austria.  This is one of the only times that her “two worlds” meet, and it was one of the more powerful parts of the book.

The book continues up through Iran’s war with Iraq, and goes as far as the early 1990’s.  There is a lot of political history going on, side by side with Marjane growing up.

What I Thought: I promise: last graphic novel for awhile!  I had just picked this up on my graphic novel binge because I’ve heard such good things about it and decided to read it before my books were due back to the library.

I’m oh, so glad that I did.

I have read a handful of books about this time period, most notably Reading Lolita in Tehran , that have really touched my heart.  It is just hard for me to believe that these things are not ancient history.  They happened (are happening) within our lifetime.  That is shocking to me.

This novel works for a couple reasons.  One is the pure curiosity that we, as westerners, share regarding stuff that is happening in that part of the world.  It is in our faces every day but the truth of it is just unimaginable to us.  But, on the other hand, this is a universal “coming of age” story.  I found myself relating with a lot of what the main character was going through.  I loved her obsession with pop culture, and her thoughts on boys, and her anger at her parents.  She is in this war-torn country but what she wants (freedom, a boyfriend, love, to look cute) are just the exact things that American teenagers experience, and for me that made this book very powerful.

Conclusion: Read this.  If you have never read a graphic novel, I do not hesitate to say make this your first one.