Book Reports & Book Giveaway

Bridge of Sighs went well, thank goodness. It took me longer than usual to get into it (I think of Richard Russo books as having a lot of dry humor, but there wasn't any for the whole first slightly-dismal chunk of the book), and I never did feel like I understood the younger Louis's character or why Sarah chose him, and there were a few sections where I thought the author got a bit swept up in the beauty of his writing and let it take over, so that I was thinking, "Okay, yes, lovely writing, well done, now let's get back to the story" or "Is he deliberately writing a character who would actually speak/write this way, or has he forgotten that this is supposed to be a real person talking?" But overall, I liked it very much, there were many good parts, and I was happy with all the nice filling-in-the-gaps details (like where you first see something through one character's eyes, but then later you get more information that spins it a different way). I'd recommend it.

Then I read This is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More, and I liked it well enough to immediately put it on my wish list because I want to OWN it. It's like three decades of psychotherapy, condensed---and better yet, written by someone funny and awesome. There were parts I thought could have stood a little FLESHING OUT: like, in the chapter on sexual issues in a relationship, he tells an anecdote about a woman who didn't want to have sex with her husband, and it turned out that this was because he couldn't stand her and was contemplating suicide to get out of the marriage. Ah ha! Well! I think that's a lesson ANYONE could apply! And the only idea for breaking addictions seems to be to...stop doing them. While he says wayyyy more about it than that, and in fact that's one of the parts I found so mind-blowing, afterward I thought to myself, "Well...but then, if that doesn't work...?" (He covers that too, but it's like "If that doesn't work, maybe you can't.") Or, sometimes I felt like he thought that because something worked for his personality/temperament, it would be the same for everyone. But mostly not, and I've found his ideas very interesting and complicated to think about (the stand-out ones for me are his thoughts on Alcoholics Anonymous and suicide), and I suspect I'll be applying a number of them over the years.

And then I've just finished The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, which I thought was really fun to read, but it will make some people want to stoke up the woodstove. It's about the return of the Messiah, and how he's treated. (Hint: second verse, same as the first.) My main objection is that the new Messiah thinks everyone should have jealousy-free sex with anyone they want to. And of course the whole book is putting the author's opinions into God's mouth and/or pants, so you'd have to think ahead of time about whether you could handle that in a fiction book. My second objection is that the story is told from many points of view, and I thought the author had a lot of trouble making the women sound like women. What I thought was the good part was the neat science-fictiony stuff about someone who isn't a regular human, and the parts about how WOULD the Messiah behave, and what would he have to be like for people come to believe that it was him, and how would the rest of the world react to the situation, and so on. And maybe the women don't quite sound like women, but each of the various storytellers does a very good job telling his/her own story. And there's quite a bit of suspense, because you know it can't end well but you don't know in what direction it's going to go poorly.

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Let's do another book giveaway. I'll buy a copy of one of these three books for one randomly-selected commenter. You can still comment without being entered, if you want; if you want to enter, mention in your comment which book you'd want to win a copy of. I'll do the drawing on Thursday the 17th. [Edited to add: I guess it'll have to be U.S. shipping addresses only. I was planning to use my Amazon Prime to ship it for free, but I think that only works in the U.S.]

Update: The winner is Amanda!

OH, nothing

(Oh pardon. But if you want to enter a contest to win a $25 Amazon gift card, there's only one more day. Not even a full day. And I know I get very irritated to get a ton of "Just one more day!" and "HOURS LEFT!!" emails from a company, but this is not a company, this is Swistle, and I get no benefit from you entering except that it makes me feel happy when someone I KNOW wins a contest. And my boss hasn't even so much as suggested that I tell you about it, let alone required me to tell you about it, which makes me feel more like telling you about it. And so I'm telling you here, in case you don't read Milk and Cookies. Anyway here's the contest. You just leave a comment, any comment. And then maybe you get to spend the evening of Mother's Day choosing three paperbacks for yourself, or a hardcover and some MP3s, or some glow sticks or flax seed meal, I don't know what you like.)

The Ideal Birthday Party Invitation

The ideal birthday party invitation for a child's party would contain:

1. Name of child (with surname), and address of party location, and date of party, obvs.

2. Time of party---and this may seem like another for the "obvs" category, but I'm listing it on its own to specify start time AND end time because the two party invitations we got this week only have a start time.

3. It doesn't have to be a lengthy minute-by-minute thing, but a GIST of what is going to happen at the party. Whether it will be indoors or outdoors, so I can make decisions about sunscreen and tick repellent and outerwear. Whether food other than cake will be eaten, so I can make decisions about what to feed the child ahead of time. Whether it's one of those big family-reunion-type parties with a few school friends also invited, so no one is watching the kids because everyone's catching up and no one knows who belongs to whom, so I'll need to bring a book and stay. Plus, some of my kids are the anxious type, so this lets me prepare them a little ahead of time for how things are likely to go, and to review any safety/politeness rules that might be specific to the type of party.

4. For younger children, a line about whether parents should expect to stay or leave, or whether it's completely up to them.

5. The parents' names, especially if there's only a phone number for R.S.V.P.ing.

6. If there is ANYTHING WEIRD about the location, DETAILS about that. Especially for apartment complexes: parking instructions, which building to go to, which door to go in, which button to press to get buzzed in ("Hey, these are all surnames! None of them say 'Jonathan's apartment'!").

7. An email address for R.S.V.P.ing, I beg of you. I BEG OF YOU.

The Critical Eye

I hadn't realized how many novels have characters who casually or seriously evaluate/criticize their parents until I found myself getting worn out with all the mental arguing I do with them: "Well, you know your parents were HUMAN, right? I mean, they absolutely HAD to have SOME flaws, and these were the ones they happened to have. Would you have preferred DIFFERENT flaws? No you WOULDN'T have, because if they'd had THOSE flaws you would have criticized those TOO. It's not as if your parents COULD have been perfect if only they'd TRIED. What is it you expect them to DO with their flaws, anyway? You think that just because it would have been better for YOU, the child, if your dad didn't have a short temper, that he could have easily and completely pulverized that part of his personality? 'Oh, it's better not to struggle with temper! I'll just STOP DOING IT, THEN!' And what about your criticisms of things that aren't even flaws? You think that just because you would have preferred the kind of mom would would RUN and LAUGH and PLAY just like a golden retriever, that she could have changed herself from the quiet, bookish, indoorsy type she was? And you think that she SHOULD have? Why shouldn't YOU transform YOUR active, social, outgoing personality into a quiet, bookish one? Does THAT make any sense to you? NO? You see how ridiculous that line of thought is, then! Why not focus on what your parents did RIGHT, instead of what they did WRONG? Or on the ways they were a GOOD fit for you, rather than the ways they were a BAD fit for you? Why not see if you can bring yourself to realize that your parents had the same limitations as any other human being, and were not required/able to be custom-made to your rigid specifications? Why not meditate on the idea that they didn't choose your temperament any more than you chose theirs, and that ALL parent/child relationships are a total crapshoot and we're lucky any of us get along AT ALL beyond the biological instincts to love each other? GEEZ."

Ahem. I may be a little touchy on that topic recently, with a teenager in the house.

It's been hard having that kind of light turned onto ME so fiercely. Every book I read reminds me of how he seems to see me at times: as someone who at every turn should have made a different decision; as someone who is willfully unfair; as someone who willfully fails to control her flaws and is not sorry about them and doesn't even TRY to change; as someone who COULD be perfect if I'd bother to TRY. It seems like so often he chooses to see me in the worst possible light.

I've gradually realized the only way to escape that variety of critical stare (their eyes! like gimlets!) is to die relatively young so they instead idolize me and pine for me and speak only of my virtues and how much they miss me and wish they could talk to me. Which reminds me of those things older people say when you ask how they're doing: "Better above ground than below it!" "Welllll, can't complain---it's better than the alternative har har!" "The only way to get my kids to remember me in a glowing light is to die young, so I guess this is better than that har har!" Har.

What Do You Spend on a Child's Birthday Party Gift?

I have noticed that there are times where I am going around thinking $x is the right amount to pay for something, and then I find out that everyone else considers even $2x to be totally cheapo. Haircuts can be like this: I think of myself as paying kind of a lot for a haircut, not a ton but not cheapo either, but it happens repeatedly that I will hear someone say "I'm never going to get around to going to my usual place, so I'm just going to get a cheapo $2x cut and hope for the best"---where $x is what I pay for a haircut. That kind of thing.

Anyway, what I'm wondering about is birthday party gifts you'd bring to someone else's child's party (not for a relative of yours, but for, like, your child's classmate). I definitely don't want to be cheaping out on that, but I don't need to bring the most expensive gift of the day, either. And I'd like to be SENSIBLE about it: we generally don't know the child's current toy inventory/preferences, so what we get could easily be a duplicate or something they don't like. So even if I found out that everyone else was spending $20-30, I might still stick with what I currently spend, which is "about $10." I will spend a little more for the perfect thing, but I was going to put a range there, and I'd thought "$8-13," and then I realized no, I don't think I'd spend $13 unless it was really truly irresistibly perfect---and it's rare to know such a thing about someone else's child.

Anyway-again, what I think is useful for these sorts of things is a POLL (over in the right-hand margin). [Poll closed; see results below.] But I also like the comments section, because I like hearing people say the DETAILS of they do: "Well, for someone we don't know, I spend $x; but for close friends' kids, I spend more like $2x" or "I let my child choose a gift, and anything up to $20 is fine" or "We've been spending $30, but that was when we hardly went to any parties; now that the kids are getting invited to more, we have to cut it back to more like $15" or "I don't have a plan: sometimes I spend $5, sometimes I spend $40" or "It depends on the location of the party: if it's a home party I aim for $10, but if it's a big exciting place I aim for more like $25" or "Well, we MAKE gifts, so it's harder to figure out, but probably $5 for the materials, and the result is the equivalent of a $15 gift."

(If you've never had to bring a gift to a child's birthday party, you can answer with what you think you'd be likely to do.)

Cranky Books

I have read THREE books in a row that made me cranky.

ONE: A book that was on the Librarian Picks shelf. It was apocalyptic fiction, which means it goes in my library bag whether or not it's on the L.P. shelf. Then I read about 3 pages, thought, "What on earth is going on here?" and checked the cover to read the plot summary again to try to remember why I'd chosen it---and noticed it was published by a Christian publisher. Ah. That explains it. I tried another few pages just in case, but no. Apocalyptic fiction can have religious themes, and it can even have a subtle message ("Look what will happen to us if we don't stop experimenting with crop chemicals!")---but it's ruined if it's PREACHY.

TWO: Then I read Dan Chaon's Stay Awake, which is a book of pleasingly creepy short stories. I liked them very much, but they were kind of sad (lots of stress and death themes), and I couldn't figure out what was going on in ANY of them. So again and I again I was in a state of unsatisfied suspense, which made me feel irritable and stupid. Then I spent a couple of hours online trying to find stuff written by people who HAD figured them out, and all I could find was (1) one hint that did in fact let me figure out one single story---making it feel as if I should be able to figure out all the others, and (2) a lot of people saying most stories COULDN'T be figured out, which made me cranky because I don't like to be toyed with like that, plus I was frustrated because I'd wasted so much time looking for something that didn't exist.

THREE: Then I read a book that I NEVER would have chosen if it hadn't been on the Librarian Picks shelf, and this book CLOSED THE DOOR on the L.P. shelf for me. It was narrated by a dog. The dog had a lot of insightful observations to make about human beings (we should listen more! we only get sick and die because we BELIEVE we will! and we should live in the NOW, just like the racecar driver who constantly anticipates the future and repeatedly watches tapes of the past! ...wait, what?). And it was sentimental/weepy fiction written by a man. Some people right now are going to want the name of the book because this is exactly their thing; for me, that is like the perfect trinity of unreadability. AND YET I READ IT ALL THE WAY TO THE END because I had to know how the unearned-suspenseful plot was going to resolve, so then I felt irritable and crabby but had only myself to blame. That's an unhappy place to be, let me tell you.


No, wait, it's FOUR cranky books, because before these three I read Unorthodox!

Now I'm reading Richard Russo's Bridge of Sighs, and if I don't like it I'm going to spend the weekend reading People magazine and watching television.

I Didn't Sign Up For This

Here is a recurring life problem I have not yet figured out how to handle: If you sign up to do something, but then you get the response last-minute and/or for something other than you thought you were agreeing to, but at this point backing out will cause other people some level of hassle---how do you deal with it gracefully? And by "gracefully" I mean "So that they fully realize it's their fault, not yours?"

Like, let's say several weeks ago you filled out a form saying you'd be happy to contribute an item to the Teacher Appreciation brunch, which the form doesn't give a date for. The form says someone will contact you to arrange what you'd like to bring. But then the first you hear back, it's "Great! Can you bring peeled, sliced, hard-boiled eggs and washed cut-up cauliflower for 45 people tomorrow morning? On trays, thanks!" And YOU'D been thinking that when you were contacted to see what you'd like to contribute, you'd say muffins; and you have no idea how much egg and cauliflower would be enough for 45 people, and you've never bought cauliflower in your life, and you can never get hard-boiled eggs to peel right, and you would have to drop today's plans to meet this request? WHAT DO YOU DO?

What I did was reply that I was sorry but I wouldn't be able to do that by the next day. I didn't give excuses or explanations, or get into what I would have chosen to contribute or how I felt about peeling eggs, I just said I wouldn't be able to---though I think "by tomorrow" implies the basic reason. And then I agitated and suffered, because I'm imagining that the person who contacted me will see this as "bailing," or wonder why I would sign up to do something I couldn't do. So I've been having all these imaginary conversations with that person, where I explain that the form didn't indicate that I'd just be ASSIGNED something, and also that I don't think one day's notice is reasonable, and also that hard-boiled eggs AND cut-up cauliflower seems like a lot to assign to just one person, and also that maybe it would be better to say how much food (e.g., "a dozen hard-boiled eggs and a head of cauliflower") rather than how many people, since probably MOST people aren't familiar with catering-type estimating, and also we don't know how many other foods are going to be there. ---Like that, but on and on because the other person is completely in my head so I get to deal with an endless stream of their imaginary unfair objections, accusations, and assumptions.

Anyway. It's the sort of thing I don't run into ALL that often, but nevertheless regularly over the years. When it happens repeatedly from the same source, I know to just stop signing up for things, or to clarify a few things at sign-up time. I stopped doing a writing job because it happened so consistently: they'd ask if I was interested in writing on a topic; I'd respond yes; and then I'd hear back three weeks later that they'd need a draft the next morning, thanks! I felt like I had SAID yes so now I needed to follow through---but that I WOULDN'T have said yes to THIS.

The problem is that it's usually less consistent/predictable than that, and it's usually coming from many separate sources---and/or else it's something I don't WANT to get out of, like contributing things to the kids' schools.

I guess the answer in general is that it would be a good idea to make some clarifying comments at sign-up time. For example, on school forms I could check the box saying I'll donate something, but then ignore the part about choosing something later and instead write "I can bring a dozen muffins" or whatever. That doesn't solve the problem of if they then contact me the night before (although I guess I could add something like "I'd need a couple days' notice") or if something else happens that I didn't realize would be an issue I'd need to anticipate---but thinking over the issues I run into most often, it seems like it would significantly reduce the problem.