1994, 1995 Ballantine edition
Marilyn French
Our Father
Original price $6.99, purchase price $1.98
Very worn paperback with split spine
B-
This is about on a level with French's other novels, Her Mother's Daughter of course excepted. I prefer it somewhat to Smiley's Thousand Acres. Again, the incestuous tyrant of a father is not quite humanized. We never find out exactly why he's such a monster. (Is it his wealth? Is French saying all rich men are monsters? Or at least have the opportunity to become so?) But I did like that the sisters, four halves, find sisterhood in both personal and political senses, unlike the sisterhood and sisters falling apart in Acres. Like Acres, it's set in the recent past, in this case the last couple months of 1984, so that French can include Reagan's reelection. The title character was friends with powerful Republican leaders, including Reagan.
There is some soap-boxing, from various perspectives throughout the novel, but it's more plausible than in Walker, since the four women are all talkers with strong opinions, and they're sort of trapped in the house they grew up in, mostly with just each other's company. I felt like the book never quite gelled, but it was never dull.
French died in 2009, at 79. I've never read any of her other books, and although she can be quite good at times, I always hesitate even to reread, because her writing can be emotionally and intellectually draining.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Delusions of Grandma
1994, undated later edition, from Simon & Schuster
Carrie Fisher
Delusions of Grandma
Original price $22.00, purchase price $4.00
Good condition hardcover with slightly worn dustjacket
D+
This has the most annoying writing style since Gloria Vanderbilt's Once Upon a Time (1985). Ironically or not, the main character (as in Postcards from the Edge, transparently autobiographical of Fisher) is a screenwriter. She and nearly everyone in the book is "witty," but it's wit without intelligence or humor. For instance, she compares conversation to a kiwi (fruit), and it's maybe cute at first but it goes on to be as over-used as "zing" in Hotel Transylvania. Also, someone apparently told Fisher that puns are the highest form of humor, so heroine Cora makes them compulsively and (she thinks) profoundly, like the leaden play with "birth" and "berth." The one exception to everyone talking like they're in a James L. Brooks movie is Cora's boyfriend, who's not as good with words, seeing as he's a lawyer. A Southern lawyer. Say what???
The boyfriend knocks her up while they're helping her gay friend die with dignity from AIDS. She realizes that she doesn't want to get married but does want to raise the baby, with his help. I have to say that Anita Loos did this better-- funnier and more touching-- in A Mouse Is Born back in 1951. I suppose this book almost works as a follow-up, including the view of Hollywood, car phones and all. And I think it's the first of my books to mention "E-mail."
The title by the way has to do with Cora's sort-of-based-on-Debbie-Reynolds mother (Ruby-slippers-owner and all) "kidnapping" Cora's grandfather from a nursing home, so wacky yet life-cycley shenanigans can ensue.
Carrie Fisher
Delusions of Grandma
Original price $22.00, purchase price $4.00
Good condition hardcover with slightly worn dustjacket
D+
This has the most annoying writing style since Gloria Vanderbilt's Once Upon a Time (1985). Ironically or not, the main character (as in Postcards from the Edge, transparently autobiographical of Fisher) is a screenwriter. She and nearly everyone in the book is "witty," but it's wit without intelligence or humor. For instance, she compares conversation to a kiwi (fruit), and it's maybe cute at first but it goes on to be as over-used as "zing" in Hotel Transylvania. Also, someone apparently told Fisher that puns are the highest form of humor, so heroine Cora makes them compulsively and (she thinks) profoundly, like the leaden play with "birth" and "berth." The one exception to everyone talking like they're in a James L. Brooks movie is Cora's boyfriend, who's not as good with words, seeing as he's a lawyer. A Southern lawyer. Say what???
The boyfriend knocks her up while they're helping her gay friend die with dignity from AIDS. She realizes that she doesn't want to get married but does want to raise the baby, with his help. I have to say that Anita Loos did this better-- funnier and more touching-- in A Mouse Is Born back in 1951. I suppose this book almost works as a follow-up, including the view of Hollywood, car phones and all. And I think it's the first of my books to mention "E-mail."
The title by the way has to do with Cora's sort-of-based-on-Debbie-Reynolds mother (Ruby-slippers-owner and all) "kidnapping" Cora's grandfather from a nursing home, so wacky yet life-cycley shenanigans can ensue.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Great Catherine: The Life of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia
1994, first edition, from Crown
Carolyn Erickson
Great Catherine: The Life of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia
Original price unknown, purchase price $6.40
Hardcover in good condition with worn dustjacket
B-
The best aspect of this book is the description of eighteenth-century Russia, before and during Catherine's reign. (The empress grew up as a minor German princess named Sophia, but spent the next fifty years or so in Russia.) In some ways, it helped me better understand the world of Tolstoy, particularly War and Peace, in the same way that understanding the Georgian period in England throws light on Victorian fiction. For instance, wife-beating was as normalized as it was in the Middle Ages, and yet there was an acceptance of female rulers, so that Catherine could rise to the throne with no claim of blood. (She wasn't even the mother of the emperor's son, since she and her husband Peter never had sex, and she had to take a lover in order to have a child.)
I thought Erickson did all right exploring Catherine's character, but she didn't resolve the inconsistencies, like Catherine's "tender heart" with her often ruthless politics, from approving Peter's murder, to not insisting on freeing the serfs, to invading Poland. She does address the empress's promiscuous reputation (including the "horse" story), making it clear that while Catherine was far from Queen Victoria (or Elizabeth I), she probably had fewer partners than, for instance, Henry VIII. And she shows how hard-working and self-educated Catherine was, as well as surprisingly down to earth. (She liked to make animal noises to amuse the court!)
Carolyn Erickson
Great Catherine: The Life of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia
Original price unknown, purchase price $6.40
Hardcover in good condition with worn dustjacket
B-
The best aspect of this book is the description of eighteenth-century Russia, before and during Catherine's reign. (The empress grew up as a minor German princess named Sophia, but spent the next fifty years or so in Russia.) In some ways, it helped me better understand the world of Tolstoy, particularly War and Peace, in the same way that understanding the Georgian period in England throws light on Victorian fiction. For instance, wife-beating was as normalized as it was in the Middle Ages, and yet there was an acceptance of female rulers, so that Catherine could rise to the throne with no claim of blood. (She wasn't even the mother of the emperor's son, since she and her husband Peter never had sex, and she had to take a lover in order to have a child.)
I thought Erickson did all right exploring Catherine's character, but she didn't resolve the inconsistencies, like Catherine's "tender heart" with her often ruthless politics, from approving Peter's murder, to not insisting on freeing the serfs, to invading Poland. She does address the empress's promiscuous reputation (including the "horse" story), making it clear that while Catherine was far from Queen Victoria (or Elizabeth I), she probably had fewer partners than, for instance, Henry VIII. And she shows how hard-working and self-educated Catherine was, as well as surprisingly down to earth. (She liked to make animal noises to amuse the court!)
Monday, August 26, 2013
Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media
1994, 1995 Times Books edition
Susan J. Douglas
Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media
Bought new for $14.00
Slightly worn paperback
A-
As you might guess from the condition, I haven't read this book very often, so I was very pleasantly surprised by how fantastic it is. It's intelligent, witty, snarky, sometimes crude, sometimes sophisticated, and always aware of ambiguity and contradiction. In fact, ambiguity is as much the subject as what it was like for Douglas, born white, middle-class, and American around 1950, to grow up watching TV and movies, listening to rock music, reading magazines. It is her story (without being a biography as such), but it is also about other Baby Boom women. I think there are things that others can relate to-- women my age and younger, women of other classes and colors, and some men-- but that is her focus. She is the daughter of a woman who struggled with 1950s messages about work and home, and the mother of a girl who loved Disney princesses yet made Douglas change all the pronouns to female during bedtime reading. She is also a professor of media studies, which she both takes seriously enough that she thinks it should be studied, and as irreverently as she takes everything else.
There's so much here that's quotable, but I'll try to narrow it down:
As you might guess from that last quote, Douglas is building in part on Wolf's Beauty Myth, and of course Faludi's Backlash, although she sees the media as offering both pro-female and anti-female messages, sometimes at the same time, as with The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She argues that living with the contradictions is part of what being a modern American woman and/or a feminist is.
This is the best book I've reread since Adamson's 1973 Marx Brothers book. (Sorry, fiction just wasn't as good in the 20th century as in the 19th.) Like that whimsical, cynical work of media criticism, this isn't perfect. (I don't think I noted it, but Adamson was a bit sexist and homophobic, if not obnoxiously so.) This book does spend much more time on the '50s and '60s than on the '70s, '80s, or '90s. I do appreciate that it's the first book to actually get what was great about Roseanne. (Even Roseanne's My Life as a Woman didn't, but then at the time that first biography came out, her show hadn't yet hit its stride.) Yet there were so many other shows and movies Douglas could've talked about, even if this is her story.
The copyright page has 1994 and 1995, but I went with the earlier date because the main change from the hardcover first edition seems to be the addition of media contacts, and you can get much more up-to-date information on the Internet. Yes, wouldn't it be great if this book went up to the Internet, not to mention the Spice Girls, Hermione Granger*, and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign? Well, as it happens, in 2010 Douglas published Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism's Work Is Done. I've got it on order and I'll let you know what I think of it when we get up to '10. And no, I don't know what it includes, but this is one case where I am willing to buy the sequel without knowing the details.
*Douglas says of then-recent kids' movies, "Gutsy, smart, enterprising, and sassy little girls remain, after all this time, absent, invisible, denied."
Susan J. Douglas
Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media
Bought new for $14.00
Slightly worn paperback
A-
As you might guess from the condition, I haven't read this book very often, so I was very pleasantly surprised by how fantastic it is. It's intelligent, witty, snarky, sometimes crude, sometimes sophisticated, and always aware of ambiguity and contradiction. In fact, ambiguity is as much the subject as what it was like for Douglas, born white, middle-class, and American around 1950, to grow up watching TV and movies, listening to rock music, reading magazines. It is her story (without being a biography as such), but it is also about other Baby Boom women. I think there are things that others can relate to-- women my age and younger, women of other classes and colors, and some men-- but that is her focus. She is the daughter of a woman who struggled with 1950s messages about work and home, and the mother of a girl who loved Disney princesses yet made Douglas change all the pronouns to female during bedtime reading. She is also a professor of media studies, which she both takes seriously enough that she thinks it should be studied, and as irreverently as she takes everything else.
There's so much here that's quotable, but I'll try to narrow it down:
- "'Woman's bone structure and bodily proportions overwhelmingly lead her toward more passive interests and an inward life,' which I guess explains why American moms always sat on their asses, drinking beer and watching ball games, while our naturally more active dads chased the kids around the house, and drove them to scout meetings and Little League."
- "Now, since Lisa [on Green Acres] spent much of her time flouncing around in chiffon, ostrich feathers, and gemstones the size of Fig Newtons, completely unable to cook or manage the household, the viewer saw immediately that feminist generalizations about domestic life certainly didn't apply here, and therefore, they might not apply elsewhere."
- "In copy sounding as if it had been written by Alexander Haig, our skin was put in a bunker, or better yet, behind Reagan's version of Star Wars, as 'protective barriers' and 'invisible shields' deflected 'external aggressors.'"
As you might guess from that last quote, Douglas is building in part on Wolf's Beauty Myth, and of course Faludi's Backlash, although she sees the media as offering both pro-female and anti-female messages, sometimes at the same time, as with The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She argues that living with the contradictions is part of what being a modern American woman and/or a feminist is.
This is the best book I've reread since Adamson's 1973 Marx Brothers book. (Sorry, fiction just wasn't as good in the 20th century as in the 19th.) Like that whimsical, cynical work of media criticism, this isn't perfect. (I don't think I noted it, but Adamson was a bit sexist and homophobic, if not obnoxiously so.) This book does spend much more time on the '50s and '60s than on the '70s, '80s, or '90s. I do appreciate that it's the first book to actually get what was great about Roseanne. (Even Roseanne's My Life as a Woman didn't, but then at the time that first biography came out, her show hadn't yet hit its stride.) Yet there were so many other shows and movies Douglas could've talked about, even if this is her story.
The copyright page has 1994 and 1995, but I went with the earlier date because the main change from the hardcover first edition seems to be the addition of media contacts, and you can get much more up-to-date information on the Internet. Yes, wouldn't it be great if this book went up to the Internet, not to mention the Spice Girls, Hermione Granger*, and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign? Well, as it happens, in 2010 Douglas published Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism's Work Is Done. I've got it on order and I'll let you know what I think of it when we get up to '10. And no, I don't know what it includes, but this is one case where I am willing to buy the sequel without knowing the details.
*Douglas says of then-recent kids' movies, "Gutsy, smart, enterprising, and sassy little girls remain, after all this time, absent, invisible, denied."
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Good Days and MAD: A Hysterical Tour Behind the Scenes at MAD Magazine
1994, first edition, from Thunder's Mouth Press
Dick DeBartolo
Good Days and MAD: A [crossed-out] Historical [replaced by] Hysterical Tour Behind the Scenes at MAD Magazine
Original price $29.95, purchase price $9.95
Hardcover in good condition
B-
I don't think this is as good as Frank Jacobs's MAD World of William M. Gaines (1973), but I do recommend reading them both if possible, since this updates by a couple decades the lives of Gaines and his magazine. Gaines died in 1992, and DeBartolo, who had a close, teasing friendship with him, clearly misses him. At one point, they had closer contact than expected, when they went separately to the same prostitute in Thailand, a wilder MAD trip than any in Jacob's book. What's really odd is DeBartolo is gay (his first wedding anniversary was a couple days ago, but he and his partner had been together 32 years at that point), yet no mention is made of this in the book. Was DeBartolo bi, experimenting, or what? And what did the sometimes personally conservative Gaines think of this?
That may sound like a side-issue, but I think it's representational of the nothing-fully-explained, meandering quality of the book. Jacobs didn't go strictly chronologically either, but I felt like his book had more focus, and more depth. This is just a fun collection of stories and articles and photos (many in color), with something like fourteen "forewords" by MAD staffers scattered throughout the book. Jacobs, now still alive and writing for MAD at age 84, of course quotes from his own Gaines book. DeBartolo is much younger, 67, having first contributed to MAD in high school. (And he was the one who made Match Game dirtier and hence funnier.)
By 1994, I'd long since stopped reading MAD on a regular basis, in part because I didn't like some of the changes in the magazine after Gaines's death, including allowing advertising. Some of the material here is familiar to me but much of it I never saw in its first appearance. Every few years I read an issue-- I well remember reading the parody Harry Plodder and the Torture of the Fanbase and noting that they used the book subplots, like Ron and Hermione as prefects-- but it's definitely not as big a part of my life as when I was young. Appropriately enough, the next MAD book we're coming up to (and possibly the last) is 1996's MAD About the Seventies....
Dick DeBartolo
Good Days and MAD: A [crossed-out] Historical [replaced by] Hysterical Tour Behind the Scenes at MAD Magazine
Original price $29.95, purchase price $9.95
Hardcover in good condition
B-
I don't think this is as good as Frank Jacobs's MAD World of William M. Gaines (1973), but I do recommend reading them both if possible, since this updates by a couple decades the lives of Gaines and his magazine. Gaines died in 1992, and DeBartolo, who had a close, teasing friendship with him, clearly misses him. At one point, they had closer contact than expected, when they went separately to the same prostitute in Thailand, a wilder MAD trip than any in Jacob's book. What's really odd is DeBartolo is gay (his first wedding anniversary was a couple days ago, but he and his partner had been together 32 years at that point), yet no mention is made of this in the book. Was DeBartolo bi, experimenting, or what? And what did the sometimes personally conservative Gaines think of this?
That may sound like a side-issue, but I think it's representational of the nothing-fully-explained, meandering quality of the book. Jacobs didn't go strictly chronologically either, but I felt like his book had more focus, and more depth. This is just a fun collection of stories and articles and photos (many in color), with something like fourteen "forewords" by MAD staffers scattered throughout the book. Jacobs, now still alive and writing for MAD at age 84, of course quotes from his own Gaines book. DeBartolo is much younger, 67, having first contributed to MAD in high school. (And he was the one who made Match Game dirtier and hence funnier.)
By 1994, I'd long since stopped reading MAD on a regular basis, in part because I didn't like some of the changes in the magazine after Gaines's death, including allowing advertising. Some of the material here is familiar to me but much of it I never saw in its first appearance. Every few years I read an issue-- I well remember reading the parody Harry Plodder and the Torture of the Fanbase and noting that they used the book subplots, like Ron and Hermione as prefects-- but it's definitely not as big a part of my life as when I was young. Appropriately enough, the next MAD book we're coming up to (and possibly the last) is 1996's MAD About the Seventies....
Friday, August 23, 2013
Catherine, Called Birdy
1994, 1995 HarperTrophy edition
Karen Cushman
Catherine, Called Birdy
Bought newish for $4.95
Very worn paperback
B-
This won the Newbery Honor and I remember preferring it to Cushman's Midwife's Apprentice, which won the award the next year. They're both set in the Middle Ages, although this is the more humorous book. It's about Catherine, who is called Birdy because she has pet birds. (I've never liked the title, it sounds like it means that Birdy is calling Catherine.) It's set in England in the early 1290s, as Birdy turns from 13 to 14 and fights her father's attempts to marry her off. Despite the Newbery nomination, it's on the borderline between a children's book and one for young adults. My copy says "12up," and that sounds right. There's mild profanity (e.g. "piss") and mild sexual themes, and yes, mild violence. But it all feels period-authentic.
Whether Catherine is authentically medieval is less clear. I do think there were girls who rebelled against the rules of the time, if not necessarily in the ways she does. In a different way than Jo March, Birdy is tamed and domesticated, while still retaining her individuality.
I didn't find the book hilarious or gripping this time. (I think I liked it most on first reading, although I wasn't crazy about the ending, or at least the events leading up to the ending.) But it's still a spritely yet educational read, the journal format making it zip along.
Incidentally, while the Newbery winner for the year, Walk Two Moons, is possibly better than this book, I actually prefer Sharon Creech's first novel, Absolutely Normal Chaos, which is in the form of a journal. (I don't own any of Creech's books though.) And I think Midwife's Apprentice should've lost to Christopher Paul Curtis's The Watsons Go to Birmingham: 1963, which is better than Curtis's award-winning Bud, Not Buddy. Good thing I'm not on the committee I guess.
Karen Cushman
Catherine, Called Birdy
Bought newish for $4.95
Very worn paperback
B-
This won the Newbery Honor and I remember preferring it to Cushman's Midwife's Apprentice, which won the award the next year. They're both set in the Middle Ages, although this is the more humorous book. It's about Catherine, who is called Birdy because she has pet birds. (I've never liked the title, it sounds like it means that Birdy is calling Catherine.) It's set in England in the early 1290s, as Birdy turns from 13 to 14 and fights her father's attempts to marry her off. Despite the Newbery nomination, it's on the borderline between a children's book and one for young adults. My copy says "12up," and that sounds right. There's mild profanity (e.g. "piss") and mild sexual themes, and yes, mild violence. But it all feels period-authentic.
Whether Catherine is authentically medieval is less clear. I do think there were girls who rebelled against the rules of the time, if not necessarily in the ways she does. In a different way than Jo March, Birdy is tamed and domesticated, while still retaining her individuality.
I didn't find the book hilarious or gripping this time. (I think I liked it most on first reading, although I wasn't crazy about the ending, or at least the events leading up to the ending.) But it's still a spritely yet educational read, the journal format making it zip along.
Incidentally, while the Newbery winner for the year, Walk Two Moons, is possibly better than this book, I actually prefer Sharon Creech's first novel, Absolutely Normal Chaos, which is in the form of a journal. (I don't own any of Creech's books though.) And I think Midwife's Apprentice should've lost to Christopher Paul Curtis's The Watsons Go to Birmingham: 1963, which is better than Curtis's award-winning Bud, Not Buddy. Good thing I'm not on the committee I guess.
The Cat Who Came to Breakfast
1994, possibly first edition, from G. P. Putnam's Sons
Lilian Jackson Braun
The Cat Who Came to Breakfast
Original price $19.95, purchase price $2.90
Hardcover in good condition with worn dustjacket
B
This is set in June, and the 9th falls on a Monday. It should be 1990 now, but maybe Braun thinks it's 1986. (June 9th wouldn't fall on a Monday again until 1997.) Qwill and Arch have been friends for about fifty years, since kindergarten, which does fit, since they must be 56 now.
The title refers to the many-named island that Qwill and the cats visit. I think The Cat Who Came to Providence would've been better. (The names are Breakfast Island, Grand Island, Pear Island, and Providence Island.) Or better yet, something playing off the domino theme that's my favorite aspect of the book.
Qwill stays at the B & B run by one of his favorite young couples, Nick (short for Dominick) & Lori Bamba, who now have three small children. (She was Qwill's secretary when he first came to the area. There actually hasn't been quite enough time for her to have a six-year-old.) I enjoyed the setting, although the mystery felt a bit recycled. (More offstage incest, secret marriages, eccentric rich people, etc.) Overall, a solid entry, although I am getting tired of how everyone-- even tourists!-- has read and adored Qwill's newspaper columns. I do like how Arch & Mildred are so suited for each other, much more than Qwill & Polly, deliberately or not.
Lilian Jackson Braun
The Cat Who Came to Breakfast
Original price $19.95, purchase price $2.90
Hardcover in good condition with worn dustjacket
B
This is set in June, and the 9th falls on a Monday. It should be 1990 now, but maybe Braun thinks it's 1986. (June 9th wouldn't fall on a Monday again until 1997.) Qwill and Arch have been friends for about fifty years, since kindergarten, which does fit, since they must be 56 now.
The title refers to the many-named island that Qwill and the cats visit. I think The Cat Who Came to Providence would've been better. (The names are Breakfast Island, Grand Island, Pear Island, and Providence Island.) Or better yet, something playing off the domino theme that's my favorite aspect of the book.
Qwill stays at the B & B run by one of his favorite young couples, Nick (short for Dominick) & Lori Bamba, who now have three small children. (She was Qwill's secretary when he first came to the area. There actually hasn't been quite enough time for her to have a six-year-old.) I enjoyed the setting, although the mystery felt a bit recycled. (More offstage incest, secret marriages, eccentric rich people, etc.) Overall, a solid entry, although I am getting tired of how everyone-- even tourists!-- has read and adored Qwill's newspaper columns. I do like how Arch & Mildred are so suited for each other, much more than Qwill & Polly, deliberately or not.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change the 21st Century
1993, first edition, from Random House
Naomi Wolf
Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change the 21st Century
Bought new for $21.00
Good condition hardcover, with slightly worn dustjacket
B
While not without its own flaws, this is an improvement over Wolf's more famous book of two years earlier. (For one thing, her pop culture knowledge has improved, although Mr. Nilsson was definitely not Pippi Longstocking's "talking horse"!) Instead of the often melodramatic tone of The Beauty Myth, Wolf is now more aware of shades of gray. (No, not 50!) She talks about seeing other women's (and men's) perspectives on what feminism means, including her willingness to listen to Susie Bright, despite their different takes on pornography. Even when she disagrees with other feminists, particularly what she calls "victim feminists," as opposed to her own vision of "power feminism," she tries to understand why they think and feel the way they do. She also has sympathy for some who aren't feminists.
Obviously, her subtitle proved to be wildly overambitious. Not that women haven't made progress in the last two decades, but there have been setbacks as well, and we're still a long way from seeing, for instance, 51 women in the U.S. Senate. The current number is twenty. But then, remember, it was a big deal in 1992 that there were four. So Wolf was right that there was a "genderquake" in the wake of the Clarence Thomas hearings (among other events), but the changes were not as dramatic as she predicted.
She wrote this book as if women were about to take over, and she advises them to be kind and considerate rulers. For instance, no more male-bashing jokes! Well, women (with notable exceptions) are still relatively powerless, but then so are most men. It makes more sense to suggest that we all try to respect and consider each other because it's the decent thing to do.
As before, her focus is on upper-middle-class and higher women, who are urged to pool knowledge, resources, and money. I'm not sure what the other women are supposed to be doing, other than unionizing and letting their richer "sisters" help them. Actually, she doesn't like the concept of sisterhood, because it makes women feel like they have to like and be like each other. (This despite the portrait she offers of two little girls who fight like puppies.)
While she praises Faludi's Backlash, she sees it as too focused on women's suffering and not on their power, which misses the points when Faludi does talk about progress. And she seems to have ignored the stories of working-class and middle-class and, yes, upper-class women who have not demurely asked for less money than they're worth, because she herself seems to think that all women under-rate themselves and don't struggle for more pay. There are times that women put other wants and needs ahead of money, but then so do some men.
Still, it's a good book, worth reading for its optimism and advice. If she seems to have too short-sighted a vision-- as if we'd reach utopia in a few months-- well, the 1990s were a less depressing time for women than the '80s were, so I can see how she got carried away. And we are better off in many ways than we were then.
Appropriately enough, this finishes off 1993, and there are only 20 years left of this project. (Not that I own any books from 2013, or even '12, but I might by the time I finish.)
Naomi Wolf
Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change the 21st Century
Bought new for $21.00
Good condition hardcover, with slightly worn dustjacket
B
While not without its own flaws, this is an improvement over Wolf's more famous book of two years earlier. (For one thing, her pop culture knowledge has improved, although Mr. Nilsson was definitely not Pippi Longstocking's "talking horse"!) Instead of the often melodramatic tone of The Beauty Myth, Wolf is now more aware of shades of gray. (No, not 50!) She talks about seeing other women's (and men's) perspectives on what feminism means, including her willingness to listen to Susie Bright, despite their different takes on pornography. Even when she disagrees with other feminists, particularly what she calls "victim feminists," as opposed to her own vision of "power feminism," she tries to understand why they think and feel the way they do. She also has sympathy for some who aren't feminists.
Obviously, her subtitle proved to be wildly overambitious. Not that women haven't made progress in the last two decades, but there have been setbacks as well, and we're still a long way from seeing, for instance, 51 women in the U.S. Senate. The current number is twenty. But then, remember, it was a big deal in 1992 that there were four. So Wolf was right that there was a "genderquake" in the wake of the Clarence Thomas hearings (among other events), but the changes were not as dramatic as she predicted.
She wrote this book as if women were about to take over, and she advises them to be kind and considerate rulers. For instance, no more male-bashing jokes! Well, women (with notable exceptions) are still relatively powerless, but then so are most men. It makes more sense to suggest that we all try to respect and consider each other because it's the decent thing to do.
As before, her focus is on upper-middle-class and higher women, who are urged to pool knowledge, resources, and money. I'm not sure what the other women are supposed to be doing, other than unionizing and letting their richer "sisters" help them. Actually, she doesn't like the concept of sisterhood, because it makes women feel like they have to like and be like each other. (This despite the portrait she offers of two little girls who fight like puppies.)
While she praises Faludi's Backlash, she sees it as too focused on women's suffering and not on their power, which misses the points when Faludi does talk about progress. And she seems to have ignored the stories of working-class and middle-class and, yes, upper-class women who have not demurely asked for less money than they're worth, because she herself seems to think that all women under-rate themselves and don't struggle for more pay. There are times that women put other wants and needs ahead of money, but then so do some men.
Still, it's a good book, worth reading for its optimism and advice. If she seems to have too short-sighted a vision-- as if we'd reach utopia in a few months-- well, the 1990s were a less depressing time for women than the '80s were, so I can see how she got carried away. And we are better off in many ways than we were then.
Appropriately enough, this finishes off 1993, and there are only 20 years left of this project. (Not that I own any books from 2013, or even '12, but I might by the time I finish.)
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Misogynies: Reflections on Myths and Malice
1993, revised from 1989 edition, from Faber and Faber
Joan Smith
Misogynies: Reflections on Myths and Malice
Original price $12.99CAN, purchase price $3.60
Very worn paperback with split spine
B-
The original edition of this book actually predates Faludi's Backlash, but Smith updated to include a review of Milan Kundera's fiction (The Unbearable Lightness of Being etc.) and her thoughts on the Clarence Thomas hearings. Her book is less focused and deliberately less inclusive than Faludi's. She's discussing just some of the different forms that misogyny can take in European and American culture. She's British, and this book was inspired by her experience as a female local journalist covering the Yorkshire Ripper case. As with Faludi, music is only mentioned in passing, but she offers literary criticism of not only Kundera but William Styron (Sophie's Choice), Scott Turow (Presumed Innocent), the Bible, and historians of Greco-Roman society. She analyzes not only Fatal Attraction, but Glenn Close's Jagged Edge and some Brian De Palma movies. She looks at how the media treated Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher. And she examines misogyny in court cases.
With a tighter structure and/or a more uplifting ending (the book is very bleak compared to Faludi or Wolf), I probably would've gone B or higher.
Joan Smith
Misogynies: Reflections on Myths and Malice
Original price $12.99CAN, purchase price $3.60
Very worn paperback with split spine
B-
The original edition of this book actually predates Faludi's Backlash, but Smith updated to include a review of Milan Kundera's fiction (The Unbearable Lightness of Being etc.) and her thoughts on the Clarence Thomas hearings. Her book is less focused and deliberately less inclusive than Faludi's. She's discussing just some of the different forms that misogyny can take in European and American culture. She's British, and this book was inspired by her experience as a female local journalist covering the Yorkshire Ripper case. As with Faludi, music is only mentioned in passing, but she offers literary criticism of not only Kundera but William Styron (Sophie's Choice), Scott Turow (Presumed Innocent), the Bible, and historians of Greco-Roman society. She analyzes not only Fatal Attraction, but Glenn Close's Jagged Edge and some Brian De Palma movies. She looks at how the media treated Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher. And she examines misogyny in court cases.
With a tighter structure and/or a more uplifting ending (the book is very bleak compared to Faludi or Wolf), I probably would've gone B or higher.
Man Bites Town: Notes of a Man Who Doesn't Take Notes
1993, possibly first edition, from St. Martin's Press
Harry Shearer
Man Bites Town: Notes of a Man Who Doesn't Take Notes
Possibly bought new for $18.95
Hardcover in good condition with torn dustjacket
B-
Native (Los) Angeleno Shearer writes about local and national issues with the wry humor he shows in everything from The Simpsons (which he'd just started voicing at the time of the first essays) to Spinal Tap. These are his columns from the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, from 1989 to the then present, although it seems like he gets up to 1991 (post-Gulf-War) awfully fast. As with Goodman, I suspect that reading many newspaper columns in a row isn't the best way to digest them, and he, too, has a personal style that can wear thin after awhile. Still, it is interesting to get a more local take than hers or Heimel's on, for instance, the LA Riots. (He uses "Rodney King" as a verb because LAPD brutality doesn't surprise him.) There's of course a lot about show biz in here, but I think I liked his thoughts on architecture best.
My other favorite thing is that he has a back-cover blurb from Merrill Markoe, who co-starred with him on the 1989-90 cable series Word of Mouth, which still makes me laugh when I watch my VHS tapes of it. It's nice to know that they still do projects together, like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsFk763dcJY
Harry Shearer
Man Bites Town: Notes of a Man Who Doesn't Take Notes
Possibly bought new for $18.95
Hardcover in good condition with torn dustjacket
B-
Native (Los) Angeleno Shearer writes about local and national issues with the wry humor he shows in everything from The Simpsons (which he'd just started voicing at the time of the first essays) to Spinal Tap. These are his columns from the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, from 1989 to the then present, although it seems like he gets up to 1991 (post-Gulf-War) awfully fast. As with Goodman, I suspect that reading many newspaper columns in a row isn't the best way to digest them, and he, too, has a personal style that can wear thin after awhile. Still, it is interesting to get a more local take than hers or Heimel's on, for instance, the LA Riots. (He uses "Rodney King" as a verb because LAPD brutality doesn't surprise him.) There's of course a lot about show biz in here, but I think I liked his thoughts on architecture best.
My other favorite thing is that he has a back-cover blurb from Merrill Markoe, who co-starred with him on the 1989-90 cable series Word of Mouth, which still makes me laugh when I watch my VHS tapes of it. It's nice to know that they still do projects together, like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsFk763dcJY
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Imperial Alibis: Rationalizing U.S. Intervention after the Cold War
1993, undated later edition, from South End Press
Stephen Rosskamm Shalom
Imperial Alibis: Rationalizing U.S. Intervention after the Cold War
Original price unknown, purchase price $14.95
Slightly worn paperback
C+
Following in the footsteps of Noam Chomsky (and with the same publisher), Shalom examines reasons that the U.S. government was and likely would be giving for going to war after the collapse of the USSR. I didn't feel like there was much new here (even the insults of Reagan are a bit stale), and certainly Shalom didn't predict how 9/11 would change everything, but the book does a nice job of pointing out hypocrisy, from Teddy Roosevelt's to Clinton's, but especially Nixon's and Kissinger's. (I never realized before how racist Kissinger was, especially against blacks.) Read it if you're really curious about the transitional time between the two Gulf Wars.
Stephen Rosskamm Shalom
Imperial Alibis: Rationalizing U.S. Intervention after the Cold War
Original price unknown, purchase price $14.95
Slightly worn paperback
C+
Following in the footsteps of Noam Chomsky (and with the same publisher), Shalom examines reasons that the U.S. government was and likely would be giving for going to war after the collapse of the USSR. I didn't feel like there was much new here (even the insults of Reagan are a bit stale), and certainly Shalom didn't predict how 9/11 would change everything, but the book does a nice job of pointing out hypocrisy, from Teddy Roosevelt's to Clinton's, but especially Nixon's and Kissinger's. (I never realized before how racist Kissinger was, especially against blacks.) Read it if you're really curious about the transitional time between the two Gulf Wars.
Monday, August 19, 2013
The Shipping News
1993, 1994 Touchstone edition
E. Annie Proulx
The Shipping News
Original price unknown, purchase price $8.95
Worn paperback with ironically water damage
B-
Odd book about family, friendship, love, violence, death, pets, journalism, water, weather, and of course knots. I can't say I like anyone in the book, but it's very well written and I wanted to keep reading, even during the disturbing parts. I was reading some of it at a Farmer's Market and a man who looked vaguely familiar asked me if I'd seen the movie. I said, "No, is it good?" He said yes, and it's a good book. I couldn't think of anything more to say but "uh huh," because, other than the Newfoundland scenery, I can't think of anything in the book I'd want to see on the big screen, and I don't think the turns of phrase would translate well. I do know that after seeing Brokeback Mountain, I had no interest in reading Proulx's short story. That movie is worth seeing once but the hostility of the sexuality was as disturbing as it is here.
I don't find this novel as celebratory of healing love, or as "darkly comic," as the back cover and some critics seem to think it is. I should note that, to a lesser extent than in Brokeback (not enough to get the LGBT tag), Proulx does have a main character who's gay, but the character never comes out to anyone and it's just one more of the secrets of her life. The best parts of the novel are probably those to do with the newspapers that protagonist R. G. Quoyle works at, as he becomes a good writer and eventually a good editor.
Oh, and this book shares a plot twist with Ivanhoe!
E. Annie Proulx
The Shipping News
Original price unknown, purchase price $8.95
Worn paperback with ironically water damage
B-
Odd book about family, friendship, love, violence, death, pets, journalism, water, weather, and of course knots. I can't say I like anyone in the book, but it's very well written and I wanted to keep reading, even during the disturbing parts. I was reading some of it at a Farmer's Market and a man who looked vaguely familiar asked me if I'd seen the movie. I said, "No, is it good?" He said yes, and it's a good book. I couldn't think of anything more to say but "uh huh," because, other than the Newfoundland scenery, I can't think of anything in the book I'd want to see on the big screen, and I don't think the turns of phrase would translate well. I do know that after seeing Brokeback Mountain, I had no interest in reading Proulx's short story. That movie is worth seeing once but the hostility of the sexuality was as disturbing as it is here.
I don't find this novel as celebratory of healing love, or as "darkly comic," as the back cover and some critics seem to think it is. I should note that, to a lesser extent than in Brokeback (not enough to get the LGBT tag), Proulx does have a main character who's gay, but the character never comes out to anyone and it's just one more of the secrets of her life. The best parts of the novel are probably those to do with the newspapers that protagonist R. G. Quoyle works at, as he becomes a good writer and eventually a good editor.
Oh, and this book shares a plot twist with Ivanhoe!
Sunday, August 18, 2013
The Wacky Top 40
1993, possibly first edition, from Bob Adams, Inc.
Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo
The Wacky Top 40
Probably bought new for $7.95
Slightly worn paperback
B-
This book brought back a lot of happy memories. For instance, "Afternoon Delight" will always be the "Bicentennial Song" for me because I was too little to get the innuendo and the "skyrockets in flight" made me think of the Fourth of July. And what could be more 1970s than "Junk Food Junkie"? (Not that the sentiment is that dated, but the references to Euell Gibbons and Hostess Twinkies are, although apparently Twinkies just came back.) Even the songs that are before my time, like "Monster Mash" and "Witch Doctor," were still frequently played in the '70s.
This is definitely a case where an accompanying CD would've helped. (I'm playing some of the songs on Youtube, as I write this review.) Also, I wish Nash and Zullo had explained their criteria, not just what makes a song "wacky," but how they decided the order of their "top" songs. ("They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" is #1.) Some of the songs in here are deliberate novelty songs, while others were meant in all sincerity, like "(You're) Having My Baby." What makes a song about cannibalism ("Timothy") less wacky than "Sugar, Sugar"? Also, while it's nice to get the backstories on the songs, the lyrics are sometimes inaccurate (if not worse than the average lyrics website).
Under the category of singers whose careers still had surprises in the years after this book came out are Randy "Short People" Newman, who won a couple Oscars, and Richard Harris, who, well, back to Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tai2wRlmU7g
Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo
The Wacky Top 40
Probably bought new for $7.95
Slightly worn paperback
B-
This book brought back a lot of happy memories. For instance, "Afternoon Delight" will always be the "Bicentennial Song" for me because I was too little to get the innuendo and the "skyrockets in flight" made me think of the Fourth of July. And what could be more 1970s than "Junk Food Junkie"? (Not that the sentiment is that dated, but the references to Euell Gibbons and Hostess Twinkies are, although apparently Twinkies just came back.) Even the songs that are before my time, like "Monster Mash" and "Witch Doctor," were still frequently played in the '70s.
This is definitely a case where an accompanying CD would've helped. (I'm playing some of the songs on Youtube, as I write this review.) Also, I wish Nash and Zullo had explained their criteria, not just what makes a song "wacky," but how they decided the order of their "top" songs. ("They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" is #1.) Some of the songs in here are deliberate novelty songs, while others were meant in all sincerity, like "(You're) Having My Baby." What makes a song about cannibalism ("Timothy") less wacky than "Sugar, Sugar"? Also, while it's nice to get the backstories on the songs, the lyrics are sometimes inaccurate (if not worse than the average lyrics website).
Under the category of singers whose careers still had surprises in the years after this book came out are Randy "Short People" Newman, who won a couple Oscars, and Richard Harris, who, well, back to Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tai2wRlmU7g
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Who Put the Rainbow in "The Wizard of Oz"?: Yip Harburg, Lyricist
1993, 1996 University of Michigan Press edition
Harold Meyerson and Ernie Harburg
Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz?: Yip Harburg, Lyricist
Bought new for unknown
Hardcover in good condition
B-
Harburg's son co-wrote this book that is more music criticism than biography. (A second marriage for Yip is referred to just in passing.) Nonetheless, the personality of the lyricist for The Wizard of Oz (among many other musicals, on stage and screen) clearly comes across in its all its contradictions and imperfections. Harburg was both cynical and idealistic, sympathetic to feminism while stuck in old beliefs about women. (He was born in 1896, died in 1981.) He was also a socialist who was never a communist (yet blacklisted in an inconsistent fashion), and a pacifist who supported the U.S. involvement in WW II.
The two co-authors analyze Harburg's writing, including as librettist for some musicals, and his contributions to the script for Wizard (also discussed in Aljean Harmetz's 1977 book), such as the title character's speech while giving out the diploma, etc. Harburg's music-- "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", "April in Paris," "Paper Moon," "Down with Love," "Lydia the Tattooed Lady," etc.-- remains better known than he is. But Ernie (himself now in his 80s) is still working to keep his father's memory alive, as a quick Google search shows.
Harold Meyerson and Ernie Harburg
Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz?: Yip Harburg, Lyricist
Bought new for unknown
Hardcover in good condition
B-
Harburg's son co-wrote this book that is more music criticism than biography. (A second marriage for Yip is referred to just in passing.) Nonetheless, the personality of the lyricist for The Wizard of Oz (among many other musicals, on stage and screen) clearly comes across in its all its contradictions and imperfections. Harburg was both cynical and idealistic, sympathetic to feminism while stuck in old beliefs about women. (He was born in 1896, died in 1981.) He was also a socialist who was never a communist (yet blacklisted in an inconsistent fashion), and a pacifist who supported the U.S. involvement in WW II.
The two co-authors analyze Harburg's writing, including as librettist for some musicals, and his contributions to the script for Wizard (also discussed in Aljean Harmetz's 1977 book), such as the title character's speech while giving out the diploma, etc. Harburg's music-- "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", "April in Paris," "Paper Moon," "Down with Love," "Lydia the Tattooed Lady," etc.-- remains better known than he is. But Ernie (himself now in his 80s) is still working to keep his father's memory alive, as a quick Google search shows.
Friday, August 16, 2013
Bad Movies We Love
1993, undated later edition, from Plume
Edward Margulies and Stephen Rebello
Bad Movies We Love
Bought new for $12.00
Worn paperback with stains
C-
I originally bought this book because I felt like sometimes the Medveds acted like turkeys are a punishment to watch (even when you're writing books about them). What a nice change, two people who love bad movies. I guess I should've paid more attention to the "we" in the title. "If you love wallowing in glossy, overproduced absurdities, you'll be howling through the length of" Doctors' Wives (1970). Well, no, I don't generally love wallowing in those kind of movies, or the ones in here that sound like big-screen bad soap operas. I understand that they're reacting against the emphasis by the Medveds (and soon the MST crew) on unglossy, underproduced absurdities, but I don't think a low or a high budget automatically makes a bad movie (or Bad Movie as they insist on capitalizing) more enjoyable to watch. And considering that Margulies and Rebello find even rape scenes funny (as long as the dialogue and acting are bad enough), I'm unlikely to even like most of the movies they love.
That said, there are a few movies in here that they're on target about-- The Swinger (1966) and Can't Stop the Music (1980) spring to mind-- and it was nice to see that they found Fatal Attraction (1987) as funny as I did. But a whole chapter on Sharon Stone? (She was good sport enough to write a short foreword.) Other chapters dedicated to Mickey Rourke and Troy Donahue? (OK, I am curious about Susan Slade [1961], but mostly because of the cast.) And, no, this book isn't so bad it's good.
Edward Margulies and Stephen Rebello
Bad Movies We Love
Bought new for $12.00
Worn paperback with stains
C-
I originally bought this book because I felt like sometimes the Medveds acted like turkeys are a punishment to watch (even when you're writing books about them). What a nice change, two people who love bad movies. I guess I should've paid more attention to the "we" in the title. "If you love wallowing in glossy, overproduced absurdities, you'll be howling through the length of" Doctors' Wives (1970). Well, no, I don't generally love wallowing in those kind of movies, or the ones in here that sound like big-screen bad soap operas. I understand that they're reacting against the emphasis by the Medveds (and soon the MST crew) on unglossy, underproduced absurdities, but I don't think a low or a high budget automatically makes a bad movie (or Bad Movie as they insist on capitalizing) more enjoyable to watch. And considering that Margulies and Rebello find even rape scenes funny (as long as the dialogue and acting are bad enough), I'm unlikely to even like most of the movies they love.
That said, there are a few movies in here that they're on target about-- The Swinger (1966) and Can't Stop the Music (1980) spring to mind-- and it was nice to see that they found Fatal Attraction (1987) as funny as I did. But a whole chapter on Sharon Stone? (She was good sport enough to write a short foreword.) Other chapters dedicated to Mickey Rourke and Troy Donahue? (OK, I am curious about Susan Slade [1961], but mostly because of the cast.) And, no, this book isn't so bad it's good.
The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse
1993, first edition, from Cleis
Mabel Maney
The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse
Original price $9.95, purchase price $6.00
Worn paperback with stains
B-
Although this is a "Nancy Clue Mystery" (the first in a series of three), Nancy herself doesn't show up till fairly late in the story, and the main character is Cherry Aimless (a parody of the less-known-than-Nancy nurse/detective Cherry Ames). Sort of like in Bechdel's DtWoF world, nearly everyone here is gay, although since it's set in 1959, the word retains its "happy" meaning as well. I think the later books are better-- The Case of the Good-for-Nothing Girlfriend is coming up in '94-- but this isn't a bad introduction to Cherry, Nancy, and their new friends. Maney is also an artist, so there are clip-art-looking little illustrations throughout, most of them having nothing to do with the text (a jellyfish, a dinosaur, a turnip, an accordionist, etc.).
Mabel Maney
The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse
Original price $9.95, purchase price $6.00
Worn paperback with stains
B-
Although this is a "Nancy Clue Mystery" (the first in a series of three), Nancy herself doesn't show up till fairly late in the story, and the main character is Cherry Aimless (a parody of the less-known-than-Nancy nurse/detective Cherry Ames). Sort of like in Bechdel's DtWoF world, nearly everyone here is gay, although since it's set in 1959, the word retains its "happy" meaning as well. I think the later books are better-- The Case of the Good-for-Nothing Girlfriend is coming up in '94-- but this isn't a bad introduction to Cherry, Nancy, and their new friends. Maney is also an artist, so there are clip-art-looking little illustrations throughout, most of them having nothing to do with the text (a jellyfish, a dinosaur, a turnip, an accordionist, etc.).
Thursday, August 15, 2013
The Chickens Are Restless
1993, possibly first edition, from Andrews and McMeel
Gary Larson
The Chickens Are Restless
Original price $8.95, purchase price 49 cents
Worn paperback
B-
Far Side doesn't seem so bizarre and twisted after reading John Callahan, but it's still pretty weird. This collection doesn't have any of what I think of as the classic strips (like the neon warning of "DIDN'T WASH HANDS"), but it meets the minimum RDA of farm animals, dinosaurs, dogs, cats, humans, and mythological creatures, many in glasses. There are more puns than I usually associate with Larson, none of which I'll spoil here.
Gary Larson
The Chickens Are Restless
Original price $8.95, purchase price 49 cents
Worn paperback
B-
Far Side doesn't seem so bizarre and twisted after reading John Callahan, but it's still pretty weird. This collection doesn't have any of what I think of as the classic strips (like the neon warning of "DIDN'T WASH HANDS"), but it meets the minimum RDA of farm animals, dinosaurs, dogs, cats, humans, and mythological creatures, many in glasses. There are more puns than I usually associate with Larson, none of which I'll spoil here.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year
1993, 1994 Fawcett Columbine edition
Anne Lamott
Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year
Bought newish for $9.50
Hardcover in good condition
B-
Lamott writes about her son Sam's first year (disproportionately the "fourth trimester," his first three months), but she also discusses her friends and family, politics, earthquakes, sports, faith, and addiction. Oh yeah, that quote I mentioned in the Isaacs post. Sam's father wants nothing to do with her as soon as she tells him she's pregnant. But she does get lonely, and when Sam is about seven months old there's a man she's interested in, and it's mutual. However, one of his exes tells her that he's a Republican who doesn't like performing oral sex. She's reluctant to date him, since she'd want to tell him, "Hey, thanks for stopping by, pal, but the thousand points of light are in my pussy."
And then there are the moments when she waxes poetic about the joy of life. She's an interesting blend of spiritual and cynical. She finds single motherhood stressful but is grateful for her support system, from "Uncle Jesus" to best friend Pammy, who was diagnosed with cancer during that year and died in '92.
Oddly enough, this book got a sequel last year, Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son. When Sam was 19, he became a parent himself. I've never read it, but we do have another of her nonfiction books coming up in '94, Bird by Bird....
Anne Lamott
Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year
Bought newish for $9.50
Hardcover in good condition
B-
Lamott writes about her son Sam's first year (disproportionately the "fourth trimester," his first three months), but she also discusses her friends and family, politics, earthquakes, sports, faith, and addiction. Oh yeah, that quote I mentioned in the Isaacs post. Sam's father wants nothing to do with her as soon as she tells him she's pregnant. But she does get lonely, and when Sam is about seven months old there's a man she's interested in, and it's mutual. However, one of his exes tells her that he's a Republican who doesn't like performing oral sex. She's reluctant to date him, since she'd want to tell him, "Hey, thanks for stopping by, pal, but the thousand points of light are in my pussy."
And then there are the moments when she waxes poetic about the joy of life. She's an interesting blend of spiritual and cynical. She finds single motherhood stressful but is grateful for her support system, from "Uncle Jesus" to best friend Pammy, who was diagnosed with cancer during that year and died in '92.
Oddly enough, this book got a sequel last year, Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son. When Sam was 19, he became a parent himself. I've never read it, but we do have another of her nonfiction books coming up in '94, Bird by Bird....
Here on "Gilligan's Island"
1993, first edition, from HarperPerennial
Russell Johnson with Steve Cox
Here on Gilligan's Island
Bought new for $12.00
Worn paperback
B-
The Professor teams up with the writer who paid tribute to The Addams Family for a book that's not quite as good as Bob Denver's but still adds some new information and anecdotes. Like Denver, he talks more about the show than about his life, although he begins with a story of being lost at sea during World War II. And he has a chapter where his grown children talk about what it was like growing up with a famous dad. (It's sad that his son David died of AIDS the year after this book was published, although cool that Johnson was supportive.)
Johnson was more ambivalent about the typecasting than Denver was, and thus more sympathetic to Tina Louise. He quotes from Denver's book, so I guess this came out afterwards. He and Denver both quote from Sherwood Schwartz's Inside Gilligan's Island. The reason why we haven't gotten to that book yet is because I own the revised edition from '94, rather than the original from '88. In between, on Oct. 16, 1992 the original pilot finally aired, with a different Professor and different "girls." Both Denver and Johnson talk about the recasting, and Johnson isn't wrong when he says that he was a better Professor than John Gabriel. (Denver doesn't play favorites in this case.)
Russell Johnson with Steve Cox
Here on Gilligan's Island
Bought new for $12.00
Worn paperback
B-
The Professor teams up with the writer who paid tribute to The Addams Family for a book that's not quite as good as Bob Denver's but still adds some new information and anecdotes. Like Denver, he talks more about the show than about his life, although he begins with a story of being lost at sea during World War II. And he has a chapter where his grown children talk about what it was like growing up with a famous dad. (It's sad that his son David died of AIDS the year after this book was published, although cool that Johnson was supportive.)
Johnson was more ambivalent about the typecasting than Denver was, and thus more sympathetic to Tina Louise. He quotes from Denver's book, so I guess this came out afterwards. He and Denver both quote from Sherwood Schwartz's Inside Gilligan's Island. The reason why we haven't gotten to that book yet is because I own the revised edition from '94, rather than the original from '88. In between, on Oct. 16, 1992 the original pilot finally aired, with a different Professor and different "girls." Both Denver and Johnson talk about the recasting, and Johnson isn't wrong when he says that he was a better Professor than John Gabriel. (Denver doesn't play favorites in this case.)
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
After All These Years
1993, 1997 HarperCollins edition
Susan Isaacs
After All These Years
Original price $6.99, purchase price unknown
Very worn paperback with broken spine
B-
It's fifteen years since Compromising Positions, so the title has an extra layer of meaning for me. Rosie Meyers's husband leaves her the day after their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and after he gets killed she reunites with her high school boyfriend. I said in my Compromising review, "...there seems to be a degree of wish-fulfillment in her mysteries, with their middle-aged (or nearly) heroines with imperfect but good bodies, who find devoted lovers." Rosie is 47 but still attractive enough to not only get her ex back, but to attract a very good-looking 22-year-old friend of her son's.
Rosie is the prime suspect in the murder, and when she goes on the run, this high school English teacher finds herself doing all kinds of things she never did before, from stealing fast food to holding a neighbor at (cap)gunpoint. She's a less sympathetic character than Judith Singer, and the mystery isn't as good, but the story held my interest.
One notable thing about some of the '93 books I'm reading is that some of the women get very anti-Reagan-and-Bush. I saw it in Heimel and I see it here in Isaacs. Anne Lamott, coming up, has a great line which I won't quote till we get there. Lamott and Heimel were writing in and of the late '80s/ early '90s, but of course publishing in the first year of Clinton. Isaacs sets her mystery in the world of new & old money clashing. Perhaps we had to get this deep into the '90s before there was enough distance from the '80s to vent about that decade. Or it may just be these writers' personalities and perspectives.
Susan Isaacs
After All These Years
Original price $6.99, purchase price unknown
Very worn paperback with broken spine
B-
It's fifteen years since Compromising Positions, so the title has an extra layer of meaning for me. Rosie Meyers's husband leaves her the day after their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and after he gets killed she reunites with her high school boyfriend. I said in my Compromising review, "...there seems to be a degree of wish-fulfillment in her mysteries, with their middle-aged (or nearly) heroines with imperfect but good bodies, who find devoted lovers." Rosie is 47 but still attractive enough to not only get her ex back, but to attract a very good-looking 22-year-old friend of her son's.
Rosie is the prime suspect in the murder, and when she goes on the run, this high school English teacher finds herself doing all kinds of things she never did before, from stealing fast food to holding a neighbor at (cap)gunpoint. She's a less sympathetic character than Judith Singer, and the mystery isn't as good, but the story held my interest.
One notable thing about some of the '93 books I'm reading is that some of the women get very anti-Reagan-and-Bush. I saw it in Heimel and I see it here in Isaacs. Anne Lamott, coming up, has a great line which I won't quote till we get there. Lamott and Heimel were writing in and of the late '80s/ early '90s, but of course publishing in the first year of Clinton. Isaacs sets her mystery in the world of new & old money clashing. Perhaps we had to get this deep into the '90s before there was enough distance from the '80s to vent about that decade. Or it may just be these writers' personalities and perspectives.
Get Your Tongue out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Good-Bye!
1993, first edition, from Atlantic Monthly Press
Cynthia Heimel
Get Your Tongue out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Good-Bye!
Original price $20.00, purchase price unknown
Hardcover in good condition
B-
This is sort of the rocker-chick version of Ellen Goodman's Value Judgments. Heimel is six years younger than Goodman and a lot wilder, less common-sensical. But they both write about feminism etc. and the time period covered here is similar. Heimel made me laugh more (from the pop-art cover onward), but she also made me shake my head more, from her disgust at lesbians' sexuality (despite her admiration of their confidence) to her belief that Mother Nature can't be a feminist because women are more attractive in their fertile 20s than their menopausal 40s. (Heimel was born in '47 and looks cute in a Laraine Newman sort of way in the author photograph.)
As with Goodman's book, I can see the beginnings of the current era, even in things like Jay Leno hosting The Tonight Show in his own right (He took over from Johnny Carson in '92, after years of guest-hosting.) But she's got to be kidding if she thinks that the Baby Boomers were in no way to blame for the '80s.
Cynthia Heimel
Get Your Tongue out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Good-Bye!
Original price $20.00, purchase price unknown
Hardcover in good condition
B-
This is sort of the rocker-chick version of Ellen Goodman's Value Judgments. Heimel is six years younger than Goodman and a lot wilder, less common-sensical. But they both write about feminism etc. and the time period covered here is similar. Heimel made me laugh more (from the pop-art cover onward), but she also made me shake my head more, from her disgust at lesbians' sexuality (despite her admiration of their confidence) to her belief that Mother Nature can't be a feminist because women are more attractive in their fertile 20s than their menopausal 40s. (Heimel was born in '47 and looks cute in a Laraine Newman sort of way in the author photograph.)
As with Goodman's book, I can see the beginnings of the current era, even in things like Jay Leno hosting The Tonight Show in his own right (He took over from Johnny Carson in '92, after years of guest-hosting.) But she's got to be kidding if she thinks that the Baby Boomers were in no way to blame for the '80s.
Monday, August 12, 2013
The "Get Smart" Handbook
1993, undated later edition, from Collier Books
Joey Green
The Get Smart Handbook
Bought new for $12.00
Worn paperback
C+
Five years after his Gilligan's Island book, Green analyzes another '60s sitcom, with probably even more detail than before. The problem is, although I watched Get Smart as a kid, I was never a huge fan. (I had a crush on 99 though of course.) Unlike with Edelstein & Lovece's Brady book, I didn't bother taking the quiz. The best part of the book is probably the comments about the show from cast and creators, as well as various celebrities and politicians, from Jerry Brown to Donald Segretti to Steve Allen. (Allen helped Don Adams get his start in show biz.) Green reproduces a refusal letter from E. Howard Hunt (the Watergate culprit, known for his cheap red wig and spy fiction), and Hunt seems to have absolutely no sense of humor.
I've always preferred Green's book (which we'll get to in 1996) on The Bob Newhart Show, but then that was one of my favorite sitcoms, in a different way than Gilligan's Island.
Joey Green
The Get Smart Handbook
Bought new for $12.00
Worn paperback
C+
Five years after his Gilligan's Island book, Green analyzes another '60s sitcom, with probably even more detail than before. The problem is, although I watched Get Smart as a kid, I was never a huge fan. (I had a crush on 99 though of course.) Unlike with Edelstein & Lovece's Brady book, I didn't bother taking the quiz. The best part of the book is probably the comments about the show from cast and creators, as well as various celebrities and politicians, from Jerry Brown to Donald Segretti to Steve Allen. (Allen helped Don Adams get his start in show biz.) Green reproduces a refusal letter from E. Howard Hunt (the Watergate culprit, known for his cheap red wig and spy fiction), and Hunt seems to have absolutely no sense of humor.
I've always preferred Green's book (which we'll get to in 1996) on The Bob Newhart Show, but then that was one of my favorite sitcoms, in a different way than Gilligan's Island.
Value Judgments
1993, first edition, from Farrar Straus Giroux
Ellen Goodman
Value Judgments
Possibly bought newish for $22.00
Hardcover in good condition with worn dustjacket
B-
With a great deal of common sense, Goodman discusses families, feminism, politics, and miscellany (from a birdseed-stealing squirrel to Joe Camel). If I can't give the book a higher grade, I think it's because reading so many columns in a row is wearing. She has a certain rhythm to her writing, with a "here's the twist" after the introduction, and a pithy summing up remark at the end. The columns are arranged by topic, and cover from '89 to '93. Now that we're up to about 20 years ago, I'm starting to see the roots of what I think of as the present, so it's funny to come across, for instance, a 1989 definition of "domestic partners." Her point of view is very much Boston liberal, with harsh words for California and much tolerance for Bill Clinton's adultery, since it's in the past and Hillary has forgiven it. Uh yeah. OK, this is still a long time ago.
Ellen Goodman
Value Judgments
Possibly bought newish for $22.00
Hardcover in good condition with worn dustjacket
B-
With a great deal of common sense, Goodman discusses families, feminism, politics, and miscellany (from a birdseed-stealing squirrel to Joe Camel). If I can't give the book a higher grade, I think it's because reading so many columns in a row is wearing. She has a certain rhythm to her writing, with a "here's the twist" after the introduction, and a pithy summing up remark at the end. The columns are arranged by topic, and cover from '89 to '93. Now that we're up to about 20 years ago, I'm starting to see the roots of what I think of as the present, so it's funny to come across, for instance, a 1989 definition of "domestic partners." Her point of view is very much Boston liberal, with harsh words for California and much tolerance for Bill Clinton's adultery, since it's in the past and Hillary has forgiven it. Uh yeah. OK, this is still a long time ago.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Gilligan, Maynard & Me
1993, undated later edition, from Citadel Press
Bob Denver
Gilligan, Maynard & Me
Bought new for $12.95
Worn paperback
B
Although I'm using the "biography" tag, the amount Denver addresses the "characters" is in descending order of the title. You have to read between the lines to figure out when he was born, and how many children he had. But if you're a fan of Gilligan's Island and/or Dobie Gillis, there are lots of fun stories and pictures here. He includes his top 25 DG episodes and top 50 of GI, pointing out absurdities of course but also telling behind the scenes anecdotes. He doesn't seem to have minded being typecast, and I think part of his dislike of Tina Louise (which comes across pretty strongly) is that she objected to the typecasting.
At the time this book came out, Jim Backus had been dead for about four years, Alan Hale for about three, and Natalie Schaefer for about two. Denver himself died in 2005, at 70. "The movie star and the rest" are still with us. The Professor's book will be coming up soon, once I get to the J's for '93.
Bob Denver
Gilligan, Maynard & Me
Bought new for $12.95
Worn paperback
B
Although I'm using the "biography" tag, the amount Denver addresses the "characters" is in descending order of the title. You have to read between the lines to figure out when he was born, and how many children he had. But if you're a fan of Gilligan's Island and/or Dobie Gillis, there are lots of fun stories and pictures here. He includes his top 25 DG episodes and top 50 of GI, pointing out absurdities of course but also telling behind the scenes anecdotes. He doesn't seem to have minded being typecast, and I think part of his dislike of Tina Louise (which comes across pretty strongly) is that she objected to the typecasting.
At the time this book came out, Jim Backus had been dead for about four years, Alan Hale for about three, and Natalie Schaefer for about two. Denver himself died in 2005, at 70. "The movie star and the rest" are still with us. The Professor's book will be coming up soon, once I get to the J's for '93.
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