The Grim Grotto

2004, first edition, from HarperCollins
Lemony Snicket
Illustrated by Brett Helquist
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Eleventh: The Grim Grotto
Original price $11.99, purchase price $4.80
Worn hardcover
C+

This entry introduces a perhaps temporary love interest for Klaus (Fiona, who in her triangular glasses looks suspiciously like Petra in the Helquist-illustrated Chasing Vermeer [2005] by Blue Balliett).  Also, it has a discussion that I suspect is a parody of Sirius Black saying the world isn't divided into good people and Death Eaters, in this case comparing them to mixed salads.  And it has Sunny saying "procto" to mean "the other end."  But it also has three running jokes that, while perhaps meant to be annoying, are nonetheless annoying: Olaf's new evil laugh, Fiona's stepfather's overuse of the word "Aye," and the narrator's long-winded discussion of the water cycle.  So we've got the weakest book in the series so far, with two more books for Snicket to bounce back in. 

Dude, Where's My Country?

2004 update from 2003, published by Warner Books
Michael Moore
Dude, Where's My Country?
Bought newish for $14.95
Worn paperback
B-

It's been awhile since I've seen Dude, Where's My Car?, so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the car actually physically missing?  And in this book, Moore says you can't have a war with a noun, like "terror."  I think he means an abstract noun, but maybe he doesn't actually know what "country" means.  I'm not questioning his patriotism.   He's probably more patriotic than I am, since he actually gives a shit, while I've spent the dozen years since 9/11/01 doing my best to not follow the news, although feeling guilty about it and sometimes compensating with purchases such as this.  (Ironically, I first saw the attacks in Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, since I've never hooked up my TV to anything but my VCR and DVD player, and I bought them all earlier in 2001.)  I just think he's again chosen a bad title.

This time he of course addresses that War on Terror, as well as the war against civil liberties at home.  He's still very confrontational, but arguably less so.  (2003 was, however, the year he made his "fictitious" speech at the Oscars.)  He thinks that there's a great deal of consensus in America, and you can make common cause with your conservative brother-in-law, provided you admit that liberals are wrong about some things, like MTV.  (What happened to MTV being hated by feminists?  Now we find out that the liberals are to blame?)  Oh, and "your children do not have a right to privacy and you better pay attention to what they're up to."  Yes, parents should be involved, but guess what?  Kids (especially teens) have legal rights, including to privacy.  (Or does pro-choice Moore want to argue for parental consent laws for abortion?)

In Googling Moore before writing this review and the previous one, I saw that he's been criticized for portraying himself as a working-class hero, when he's actually "rich."  Well, I guess it depends on how you define "rich."  He's no Trump, but he's financially comfortable, as he tells us in this and Stupid White Men, like in the chapter here called "Woo Hoo!  I Got Me a Tax Cut!"

Moore seems to be one of those love-'em-or-hate-'em divisive sorts that I can't get too worked up about either way.  (Madonna is my ur-example for music.)  I find him somewhat entertaining and informative, if taken with a grain of salt, but after following his career from roughly '02 to '05 I lost track of him and didn't really care.  Revisiting that time through these books has taken me back a bit, and I will rewatch Fahrenheit next year for its tenth anniversary.

Stupid White Men...And Other Sorry Excuses....

2004 update from 2001, published by HarperCollins
Michael Moore
Stupid White Men...And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!
Bought newish for $13.95
Worn paperback
B-

Moore generally is not good at titling his works.  For instance, his Oscar-winning documentary sounds like the old show Bowling for Dollars, with purple flowers substituted for money.  In this case, he was inevitably setting himself up, so it's not surprising that it inspired the "answer book" (sort of like an answer song) Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man.  The thing is, Moore at various points in this book says he's not proud of being (somewhat) stupid, white, or male.  Some of those he attacks aren't white and/or male, but he considers, for instance, Condi Rice and Colin Powell "honorary white men."  And the problem isn't really that these are stupid people.  (Even George W. is simply inarticulate, like his father.)  The problem is that they're cruel and/or greedy.  But that might've made for too wishy-washy a title.  And Moore is all about being in your face, in a humorous way.

Yeah, I think the book is funny, although I wouldn't put it in humor (as I might with Ivins), because the line between Moore being satirical and being outspoken is always blurry.  When he tells women to buy a stepladder so they won't have to rely on men, I suppose it's pointless to mention that some women can reach cupboards just fine.  (I'm 5'3" and when I had lunch with an ex-girlfriend recently, I recalled that she's seven inches taller than I am!)  It's the same for some of his more "serious" suggestions.  

This book was originally published right before September 11, 2001, but held back by the publisher for a few months.  It still went on to be a best-seller.  Moore has added footnoted updates for this edition, including on Enron, which was just about to break in '01.  He goes into quite a bit of detail on the 2000 Presidential election, and even if you've seen Fahrenheit 9/11 (a good title choice that time), it's worth rereading, especially with hindsight.  

Country Girl, City Girl

2004, undated later edition, from Houghton Mifflin
Lisa Jahn-Clough
Country Girl, City Girl
Bought newish for $6.99
Slightly worn paperback
B-

This was published a generation after Nancy Garden's Annie on My Mind (1982), and it's interesting to look at the similarities and differences.  As the title suggests, part of the book is set in the country (rural Maine) and part in New York City, as opposed to all in NYC in Annie.  You might expect a dual narrative, but it's all from the perspective of thirteen-year-old country girl Phoebe, who meets fourteen-year-old Melita, the daughter of the best friend of Phoebe's late mother.  The passage of time seems to have allowed for greater explicitness.  Instead of "heck" and "damn" being the strongest swears, the S-bomb is dropped a few times.  Also, there are more mentions of breasts than in Garden's book.  And yet, perhaps because the girls are younger, they never do more than kiss.  They also come across as more bi-curious than definitely lesbian, and we don't even get a delayed Happy Ending, since the girls don't end up together.  (Phoebe does make another new friend, but it's not indicated that this friendship will turn romantic.)

I said that Annie was quaint and "timeless."  Here, there are more contemporary (or at least '90s) touches, like an androgynous barista and mentions of hair-dying, piercing, and tattoos, as well as the girls staging a "postmodern, feminist" fairy tale "fashion show."  I did find that the dialogue was more natural than in Annie.  However, I didn't particularly like Melita, so I wasn't especially rooting for her and Phoebe as a couple.  Perhaps it would've been better to have half the book from her viewpoint, although admittedly that didn't work too well when Danziger gave her Phoebe and Rosie each a book.

Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush: More Political Subversion

2004, possibly first edition, from Viking
Jim Hightower
Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush: More Political Subversion
Original and purchase price unknown
Hardcover in pretty good condition except for torn dustjacket
B-

Unlike Michael Moore (coming up twice later in '04, for reasons I'll explain then), Hightower seems to be more interested in domestic policy than foreign, although they overlapped when it came to Attorney General Ashcroft, who did indeed say, "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists."  So there's a lot more here about the environment and the economy than on wars and elections, but that was true of Hightower's Dead Armadillos book in the days of Clinton.  

To mix things up a bit, this time there are illustrations and puzzles, the latter solvable if you've read the chapter, sort of like in a junior/senior-high Civics class.  You could probably guess the five-letter word for "Former President who looks like the Jolly Green Giant [environmentally] compared to George W," even if you hadn't read the chapter, since there were then only five possibilities.  (No, I don't count Van Buren.)

The Midnight Disease

2004, undated later edition, from Houghton Mifflin
Alice W. Flaherty
The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain
Bought newish for $15.00
Slightly worn paperback
B

Flaherty is a neurologist and a mother of twins, as well as a writer, and she brings all these perspectives to this book.  She also quotes a variety of writers, from Flaubert to Mel Brooks.  Although there's a lot in here about how the brain works, it never gets too dry or technical, but instead is funny, lively, and thought-provoking.  You won't necessarily learn how to unblock your writer's block, but you'll learn some coping techniques, including how to see the block as part of the process.

At the time I reviewed The Golden Notebook, I said that I'd never seriously had a writer's block.  Well, after that I did find myself stalled on one story, but I eventually realized that I didn't really want to be writing it.  I came to accept that if writing isn't easy for me, it won't be good, and vice versa.  And then a few months ago I was able to write from three to six short chapters a day of a different story, until I reached the home-stretch and had to tie up loose ends, which slowed me down to a chapter every day or so.  

I don't think I have hypergraphia, which she discusses here as a compulsion to write quickly and at great length, but it is something I relate to more than a block, and why I bought this book in the first place, because no one ever talks about it in comparison to block.  (Obviously, it's much less of a problem, unless it's interfering with other tasks.)  I also liked things like her observation that the "inner child" has little to do with actual children's behavior.  (The stuff with her twins, then three, is great.)  And about 35 years after Kate Millett, Flaherty can let a simple "Yikes" suffice for Freud's view of the pen as penis.

I was also amused that in '04, roughly three years after I got a LiveJournal account, she defines "blog (from Web-log)" as an "on-line memoir."  Obviously, blogs (not just this one) are often used for less diaristic purposes as well.

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

2003, first edition, from Hyperion
Mo Willems
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
Bought newish for $12.99
Good condition hardcover
B-

The first picture book on here in over a dozen years, since Seuss's Oh, the Places You'll Go! (1990), shows a children's author at the beginning, rather than the end, of his career.  Willems has written many more books since, including a few more about the Pigeon.  This title character is like a spoiled, manipulative, yet likable child.  He addresses the reader directly, and we're meant to discourage him from driving the bus, even when he throws a tantrum.  Still, he's unsinkable, and in the endpapers he dreams of driving a truck.

Willems has a simple, retro art style, here sort of like 1950s animated commercials.  I wouldn't say this is the best of his output-- the Knufflebunny books and Elephant and Piggie beginning reader series are arguably better-- but it's a fine debut.

I could say that we've got only a decade left for this project, but actually at this point my most recent books are from 2011, so unless I get, say, the latest Bridget Jones (and I'm waiting for that to come out in paperback), we're only eight years from the end.

The Slippery Slope

2003, first edition, from HarperCollins
Lemony Snicket
Illustrated by Brett Helquist
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Tenth: The Slippery Slope
Bought new for $10.99
Hardcover in good condition
B

Despite the title and the overall slow decline of the series, I found this to be the best entry in awhile.  It helps that we meet the third Quagmire Triplet, Quigley.  He befriends the elder Baudelaires and seems to be a love interest for Violet.  (Like Rowling with Harry's first kiss, Snicket gives Violet some alone-time with Quigley, although he's much more ostentatious about it, a word that here means calling attention to his discretion.)  I also enjoyed the several-times-repeated alphabetical list of Snow Scout pledges, with "xylophone" the "adjective" for X.  And I actually laughed out loud, partly in surprise, at "'Busheney,' Sunny said, which meant something along the lines of, 'You're an evil man with no concern whatsoever for other people.'"  (Hint, think of who the President and VP were then.)  Most of all, I felt like all the hints were finally adding up to something.

Nonetheless, I didn't own #11 or #12 till yesterday, although I did check them out from the library at the time.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

2003, British hardcover Bloomsbury first edition, American hardcover Scholastic first edition
J. K. Rowling
American edition illustrated by Mary Grandpre
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
British edition possibly bought later for 16.99, American bought new for $29.99
British edition in good shape except for torn dustjacket, American possibly water damaged
B

Although Snicket fluctuates from B+ down to B-, with occasional trips back to B, Rowling continues to earn B's.  This book is of course even longer, so that at the point that Stone was wrapping things up, Harry has just earned his first detention with the "sweet" but really malicious Dolores Umbridge.  She's one of several memorable new characters, mostly female, that are introduced surprisingly late in the series.  One is a villainess of a very different sort, Bellatrix Lestrange.  (Yes, Bellatrix appears in Goblet, but it's much briefer.)  Nymphadora Tonks and Luna Lovegood are both unconventional but brave and loyal.  And we see more of Cho Chang, which is a mixed blessing, as she spends most of her time crying over Cedric.

I'm keeping notes on Rowling's mathematical errors to a minimum here, since as I said, there are plenty of sites that track these.  But I must note that it's not just the movie version of this book that puts Cho into Harry's year, after it was very clear in Goblet-book that Cho was a year older.  Here she refers to a Quidditch match in "the third year," meaning hers as well as Harry's.  Rowling could've avoided this by saying, "a couple years ago."  Still, I thought she did a nice job of showing the awkwardness of a first date, where Harry can't think what to say, when to hold Cho's hand, or even how to move his own limbs.  (And, yes, Ron and Hermione continue their tension, without getting it at all resolved.)

Unfortunately, Grandpre is drawing the characters as if they're about three years younger than the 15 or 16 that they are.  I know Harry is small for his age (though getting taller), but even Ron doesn't look like he's too far into puberty.  I did like seeing what she did with Tonks, Sirius, and Lupin though, and I do think this is her best cover so far, not so overcrowded, and with the nice blue tones.

This book continues the "darkness," with more violence and death.  It also shows a distrust of government, in the form of the Ministry of Magic, that wasn't as strong in the pre-9/11 days (although the book is set '95 to '96).  The parallels to both British and American Muggle governments will be more obvious in the next book.

I mentioned in my Goblet review that this contains a weak chapter, one I think could've been omitted or at least quickly summarised (as it is in the movie, but then that's notoriously short as a whole).  "Hagrid's Tale" of befriending giants is inconclusive.  They may or may not help Dumbledore's side.  And it could count towards the building of Hagrid's romance with Madame Maxime, except that Rowling later said that that fizzled out.  Yes, the journey leads to Hagrid bringing home his full-giant half-brother, but even that's not really necessary to the saga.  I consider this the weakest chapter in the series.

On the other hand, I've long regarded the sixth book as the weakest overall, so we'll see if I revise that opinion when we get to 2005....

Margaret Pole: Countess of Salisbury, 1473-1541

2003, 2009 University of Wales Press edition
Hazel Pierce
Margaret Pole: Countess of Salisbury, 1473-1541
Bought newish for unkown
Slightly worn paperback
C+

This has some of the faults of other biographies of royal women, the main one being the complex one of never resolving the contradictions in personality and values of the subject, or really making her come alive to the modern reader.  It's a shame, because here's a woman who was not only the Countess of Salisbury in her own right, but niece to Edward IV and Richard III, godmother and governess to Mary I, and a very posthumously declared martyr of the Catholic Church.  Yet, Pierce crams the first three decades of Pole's life, up to her widowhood, into one chapter.  And she spends too much time on the lives of people who were only peripherally connected to Pole.  Still, there are enough nuggets worth digging out, such as Margaret's liking for black clothes and hiring of women estate officers, and her son Geoffrey's fondness of puns, that I can recommend this particularly to those with an interest in the sixteenth century.

This book finishes off a shelf, although as always, that's subject to future shifting.

From Bush to Bush: The Lazlo Toth Letters [Volume 3]

2003, possibly first edition, from Simon & Schuster
Don Novello
From Bush to Bush: The Lazlo Toth Letters [Volume 3]
Bought newish for $10.95
Worn paperback
C

This is another slip in quality for the series, harmed by one, fewer responses; two, mostly bland responses when there are any; and less interesting letters to begin with.  As always, the consumer stuff is more interesting than the political.  (I must note that, despite the title, there isn't really much of George Bush the Elder.)  Novello is now 70, young enough to do a Volume Four in the next few years, but maybe letter-writing being an increasingly anachronistic exercise is working against these.  Perhaps next time he can do Toth's emails, or Facebook updates.

Jump the Shark* *When Good Things Go Bad: TV Edition

2003 update of 2002 original edition, from Plume
Jon Hein
Jump the Shark* *When Good Things Go Bad: TV Edition
Bought new for $10.00
Slightly worn paperback
C

Hein founded jumptheshark.com, which in its glory days provided outrageous often opposing opinions on when TV shows had gone bad, as when Fonzie water-skied over a shark on Happy Days.  He came out with a book that offered either the consensus of the site or his own opinions on such shark-jumping, and not just for television, but movies, music, and even politics.  This is the TV chunk of that book.  And it has little of the raucous fun of the website.  Not only that, but, for someone who thinks he's obsessed with pop culture, Hein gets a lot wrong.  (And it's not like he doesn't have a long list of people in the thank-yous at the end.)  These errors range from calling Velma of Scooby-Doo "Thelma" (after getting it right earlier), to saying Belushi and Aykroyd left SNL at the end of its fifth season (with Bill Murray replacing them), to screwing up the chronology of the seasons on Mork & Mindy (and there are only four), to saying that Cindy on Three's Company was "the first of many Chrissy replacements" (and there are only two).  No doubt there are other errors on the shows I never or seldom watched.  The book might have nostalgia value for some-- including for Alias, which premiered in 2001 and I've never even heard of-- but, well, you'd get a lot more out of the website.

Except that Hein sold it to TV Guide, who killed it.  Yeah, talk about shark-jumping.  Still, "jumping the shark" remains a handy shorthand for a recognizable phenomenon.

Romance Without Tears: '50s Love Comics-- With a Twist!

2003, first edition, from Fantagraphics Books
Dana Dutch
Edited by John Benson
Various illustrators but mostly Matt Baker
Romance Without Tears: '50s Love Comics-- With a Twist!
Bought newish for $22.95
Slightly worn paperback
C

Unlike Martinet's romance comic parody of a couple years earlier, this one isn't even unintentionally funny.  Benson argues that Dutch (a man by the way) presented proto-feminist heroines who seldom cried or got punished for their romantic and other errors.  This despite the fact that in at least four of the roughly twenty stories, the heroines cry.  As for not being punished, in the story "Masquerade Marriage," the two underage girls are tricked into a false wedding ceremony, and at least one of them has an off-panel "wedding night" where the man is "rough...almost brutal."  The men end up jail, but the girls' reputations are ruined.

And some of the actions of girls and women in other stories are questionable, like the one in "They Called Me Boy-Crazy!" who is interested in her friend's brother but dates his best friend to not only create jealousy but to show she can have a steady boyfriend!  And no one seems to mind.  Or what about the woman in "Elopement Hid Our Sins"?  She agrees to an in-name-only-marriage and falls for the guy, seemingly only because he's emotionally withholding.  (Of course he turns out to be secretly in love with her, too.)  And I can't tell what the lesson is in the one-page story, "Allergic to Love," where Ellen walks home rather than kiss her boyfriend, and realizes that she was "such a prude" and should've let him drive her home.

The artwork, primarily by Baker, is bland to the point that I couldn't tell some of the men apart in one story.  I wished Martinet could've weighed in, although admittedly these stories from the 1949 to '55 period seem less kitschy than the mostly later stories she chose.  Read this book only if you're really interested in the genre.

Dykes and Sundry Other Carbon-Based Life-Forms to Watch Out For

2003, first edition, published by Alyson Books
Alison Bechdel
Dykes and Sundry Other Carbon-Based Life-Forms to Watch Out For
Bought new for $13.95
Slightly worn paperback
B+

Well, it turns out that getting a Republican in the White House again was good for the strip, as this is the best collection in a long time.  As the title and cover art indicate, Bechdel continues to expand her world beyond just lesbians, since in the molecule-like structure, we see not only Sparrow's Stuart and Toni & Clarice's son Raffi, but also Jezanna's live-in father and Lois's "tranny fag VW mechanic."  (Plus one of Mo's female cats and a tofu package.)  As Bechdel says in her introduction, where she looks back at 20 years of cartooning, "You don't have to be a lesbian, in the technical sense, to want to do something about" all the forms of prejudice, "you just have to be human.  Or at the very least, a carbon-based life-form."

There's some good, funny stuff about the crazy 2000 election, and a touching wordless strip about 9/11.  But it's not just the politics/world events.  I like what Bechdel does as she moves the characters along, adapting to change even as they bump up against 40.  Probably the most dramatic change is Sparrow's, as she becomes accidentally pregnant by Stuart and decides to go through with it, while still trying to shock her parents (whose last name is Pidgeon, sort of a pun) with her living situation.  Mo starts library school, and struggles with her assumptions when she thinks Lois is transitioning to "Louis."  And Ginger gets a new girlfriend, one with a genderqueer 10-year-old son who likes to dress up as Hermione.  (I loved bearded Stuart bonding with the kid by playing Hagrid!)

The bonus story this time is "Replicants," which focuses on the Pidgeons' visit as well as Mo and Sydney's stay with the latter's dad and stepmom.  I don't think Toni, Clarice, and Raffi appear there, but their lives are settling down a bit, once Clarice gets over her post-election depression.

The next title is less futuristic, more of a throwback, Invasion of the Dykes to Watch For in 2005....

Unshelved, Volume 1

2003, 2004 Overdue Media edition
Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
Unshelved, Volume 1
Bought new for $14.95
Worn paperback, with autographs and the message to "read responsibly!"
B-

This life-in-a-library comic strip has somewhat exaggerated situations that anyone who deals with the public, and not just in libraries, can relate to.  I didn't find it hilarious and the art, particularly early on, is primitive, but there are some amusing moments, especially with the library mascot.  There's a less "radical" view of libraries here than in Mo's decision to become a librarian, but we do see the staff coping with censorship, including computer filters.

Unshelved is still around and there are of course later volumes, but I've never been a big enough fan to continue collecting.  (Yeah, smart-ass, I have checked some out from the library.)

Fruits Basket, Volume 8

2002 first published in book form in Japan, although as a comic in 2000, this TokyoPop translation from 2005
Natsuki Takaya
Fruits Basket, Volume 8
Bought newish for $9.99
Slightly worn paperback
B-

This does have one of the characters that made it into the anime (which shuffles things around more than I realized), the "monkey" Sohma, Ritchan, who's just as hysterical (in the over-reacting, not funny, sense) as his mother the hot springs "concubine."  I find him annoying, and I wasn't that into the other stories, but I thought the "haunted house" sequence was great and I wish that had been animated.

There were fifteen volumes after this, a few of which I read, but I didn't care enough to buy them, or keep going.  Mostly I see the books as a supplement to the anime, rather than the other way round, but they're somewhat entertaining on their own.

The Carnivorous Carnival

2002, first edition, from HarperCollins
Lemony Snicket
Illustrated by Brett Helquist
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Ninth: The Carnivorous Carnival
Original price $10.99, purchase price $4.80
Hardcover in good condition
B-

While better than the autobiography, this entry is still not Snicket at the top of his game.  I did like the discussion of whether evil acts, like lying, are evil if they're done by good people for good reasons.  But at this point, I think it was wrong to have the Baudelaires be rootless wanderers.  When they were with guardians who were supposed to take care of them in one place, no matter how much the guardians failed at this, it rooted not just the siblings but the story.  In this one, there's no reason for them to stick around the carnival (more of a circus really), except to eavesdrop.  And, yes, I don't find myself laughing out loud at the humor anymore.  The series is still better than a lot of other children's series, but it's not living up to its initial promise.  Snicket does top himself with his most outrageous sex joke so far: under a discussion of French terms, he has "'la petite mort,' which describes a feeling that part of you has died."  Since he's mainly discussing de ja vu, this allows him to repeat the joke three times!  (At least when Ruth Plumly Thompson did this stuff, there was a chance she didn't realize what she was saying.)

The best illustration this time is definitely Esme's gown with the "I [heart] Freaks" banner.

Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography

2002, undated later edition, from HarperCollins
Lemony Snicket
Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography
Original price unknown, purchase price $4.00
Paperback in good condition
C+

Although Snicket does a better job with tweaking biographical conventions than Eggers did in A Heartbreaking Work, I found this much less focused than the books in the Series of Unfortunate Events.  There are of course clues to that series here, as well as affectionate jokes about such other juvenile fiction authors as Wilder and Cleary, but I didn't feel like Snicket brought it all together.  Oh, and continuing the sneaky sex humor of his earlier books, there's here a repeat of the joke from I think #6 or #7 about the Church of the Alleged Virgin.  No Helquist illustrations this time, but there are an assortment of odd photos, seemingly from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s.  Since this is the paperback edition, it doesn't have the reversible cover that the hardback apparently came with. 

In the past three months, my reading stats have continued to climb, so thanks, Everybody!  One hundred books ago, I had

1 F
4 F+s
2 D-s
5 D's
13 D+s
23 C-s
47 C's
170 C+s
294 B-s
183 B's
50 B+s
8 A-s

Since then I've had to add a D- and two D+s, although no D's.  There are three new C-s, one new C, and nineteen new C+s.  As usual, close to half the new books were B-s, this time 44.  There are 24 more B's, five more B+s, and even another A-.

Backstage with the Original Hollywood Square

2002, possibly first edition, from Rutledge Hill Press
Peter Marshall with Adrienne Armstrong
Backstage with the Original Hollywood Square
Bought newish for $24.99
Hardcover in good condition, "includes CD of Zingers from The Hollywood Squares"
B-

Marshall looks back fondly on the popular game show he hosted for sixteen years.  For a long time, THS was assumed to be lost, but shortly before this book came out, many hours were rediscovered and ended up on the Game Show Network.  I have to admit, based on the 45-minute CD and what I've seen on Youtube, the program hasn't aged well, unlike the still funny and fun-to-play-along-with-at-home You Bet Your Life, Match Game, and Bert-Convy-hosted Password.  (Marshall by the way hates Convy, but doesn't explain why, unlike his dislike of Dan Rowan, which he goes into a bit.)  I probably got more laughs out of the print collection of Zingers from '78.  Yet, there are some behind-the-scenes anecdotes that are worth reading.  Marshall is still alive at 87 and last month was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame, although this show is his main claim to fame.

(Includes film criticism in the sense that Marshall talks about his not very well known movies, and there's some biography, including that he's actress Joanne Dru's brother.)

Angels

2002, 2003 HarperTouch edition
Marian Keyes
Angels
Original price $7.99, purchase price 50 cents
Very worn paperback
C+

I found this to be between the first and second Walsh Sisters books in quality.  Five years have passed in the real world and in theirs.  Second sister Maggie, or Margaret, is now 33.  As with Claire in Watermelon, her marriage is ending, or seems to be.  So she goes to visit her screenwriter friend Emily in Los Angeles.  (The title is also a reference to guardian angels.)  While there, she thinks about her marriage, and about her long-ago relationship with Shay, as well as the pregnancies that resulted from both.  Meanwhile, she has two flings, one with a man with a large, "angry-looking" erection, and one with a woman with breast implants.  Keyes goes into much less detail about the one-nighter with Lara, partly because Maggie is bi-curious but not really into women.  When Maggie's parents and youngest sisters show up, I expected some sort of pay-off with Mammy Walsh's* reaction but she doesn't find out.  Still, Lara is a sympathetic character, so this makes up somewhat for the stereotypes in the earlier book.  (There's still mild racism though.)

As with Watermelon, the husband's personality comes across differently at different points in the book, and again I can't tell how much of this is bad characterization and how much is the protagonist rethinking things.  This time though, the Walsh sister goes back to hubby, older and wiser (and more sexually experienced).

The view of LA here can be compared and contrasted to Fisher's insider portrayals from the '80s and '90s.  Keyes's LA seems both phonier and more down-to-earth, with less drug use and more plastic surgery.  

Next up in the series will be Anybody Out There, Anna's book, in 2006....



*Her daughters still call her Mum, but the word "mammy" is used to indicate an old-fashioned Irish mother.

Bachelor Girl: ...A Social History of Living Single

2002, 2003 Perennial edition
Betsy Israel
Bachelor Girl: 100 Years of Breaking the Rules-- A Social History of Living Single
Original price unknown, purchase price $7.50
Slightly worn paperback
B-

I found this about equal to Blumberg's The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls (1997), with which it somewhat overlaps.  Despite the subtitle, we're actually looking at more like 150 years of single "girls."  And some of these singles are young, under 21, although she does discuss older "spinsters," of 30 or 40 or even 50.  She goes roughly chronologically, but sometimes with a few decades in one chapter.  The book didn't quite jell for me, although there was some interesting material.  And, yes, both Sheila Levine and Bridget Jones make appearances, as do some TV characters like Mary Richards and Ally McBeal.  Israel was single and 27 when the "marry a terrorist" study came out, although she wed soon after.  I wish she'd gone into more about the binary assumption of married and single-- as a divorced childless woman I identify as neither-- but I do appreciate that she includes lesbians to some degree.

Standing in the Rainbow

2002, 2003 Ballantine edition
Fannie Flagg
Standing in the Rainbow
Probably bought new for $7.99
Worn paperback
C+

I said of the companion novel, Welcome to the World, Baby Girl (1998), that I'd rather Flagg had set the story in the 1940s entirely.  Well, although this book covers 1946 to 2000 (with some flashbacks to the Depression and World War II), it's mostly set in the Truman days, with that era used in the second half of the book as a stick to beat the 1960s and beyond with.  I did like learning more about Neighbor Dorothy and her family and friends, but too much of the book is about Hamm Sparks.  When he dies, it's probably the most boring mystery in all of the Flagg novels.  (Meanwhile, his wife Betty Raye's switched-at-birth story is never revealed to any characters and is just thrown in there to explain why she doesn't fit in with her family.)

As always with Flagg, the timeline is screwy, whether it's Bobby changing his birth year from 1936 to 1934, or Aunt Elner being an old woman for something like 60 years.  (The woman, Mother Smith, who was 70+ in 1948 and a little girl in 1904 last book, this time was a college student in 1898, although her son would've been born around 1895.)  And although I didn't like Dena in the earlier book, it seemed weird that she's not even mentioned in this one as moving into Dorothy's old house and starting her own radio show.  There are other companions/sequels in this sort-of-series, but I think this is the last Flagg book I own.  Too bad she couldn't maintain the wacky charm of Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man (1981).  Oh, and like that first novel, there's a gay man named Cecil in this one, but despite the title, there's little queer content this time.

All About "All About Eve"

2001 update from 2000, this edition from St. Martin's Griffin
Sam Staggs
All About "All About Eve":  The Complete Behind-the-Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made
Bought new for $15.95
Worn paperback
B

This is similar to Aljean Harmetz's 1977 Wizard of Oz book, focusing as it does on one classic movie that was the highlight of many careers.  I didn't grow up watching All About Eve of course, in fact I think I was in my 30s before I saw it.  But the first time I did, I thought it was one of the wittiest movies ever.  I don't know about bitchiest, but Staggs definitely writes from a middle-aged gay man's perspective.  There's certainly queer content in the film, although obviously there's a lot of straight content, too, with Bette Davis and Gary Merrill blurring with their characters, and Marilyn Monroe making a very memorable appearance.  The book is basically a long, sometimes repetitive, but almost always fascinating love letter to not just this movie, but Old Hollywood.  I'm also using the "literary criticism" tag because Staggs has quite a bit about the short story that inspired the film.

I'm going with the 2001 update rather than the original copyright, because it includes, among other things, Celeste Holm's reaction to Staggs's opinions.  She was the only surviving cast member (she died last year) and refused to be interviewed for the book, and yes, she and Staggs are pretty bitchy about each other.

The Hostile Hospital

2001, first edition, from HarperCollins
Lemony Snicket
Illustrated by Brett Helquist
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Eighth: The Hostile Hospital
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Hardcover in good condition
B

Things pick up in this installment, surprisingly thanks to an apparently re-inspired Helquist.  From the smiley-face (not just heart-shaped, as in the text) balloons to the guitar that says, ala Guthrie, "This volunteer fights disease," there are great details.  As for the story, the Baudelaires try to find out more about their parents' deaths (although there may be a survivor of that fire), as they not only elude pursuit for the count's uncommitted murder, but work as file clerks in the hospital of the title.  And following the previous book's anacrostic, we this time get an anagram, suggested by the name "Ana Gram."

I wonder if Snicket realized he was cranking these out too fast and it was hard to maintain a high quality.  (It's still a better series than His Dark Materials of course.)  He slowed down in 2002, so we'll just have Book the Ninth and his "unauthorized autobiography."

The Vile Village

2001, first edition, from HarperCollins
Lemony Snicket
Illustrated by Brett Helquist
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Seventh: The Vile Village
Original price $11.99, purchase price $4.80
Hardcover in good condition
B-

Snicket again teases the Baudelaires (and the readers) with a brief reunion with the Quagmires, but mostly this story is about the main unlucky siblings having to work for an entire village (in a deliberate misinterpretation of the Hillary-adopted "It takes a village to raise a child" slogan), and then being accused of the murder of Count Omar [sic], when Jacques Snicket is killed.  In this middle of what would eventually be a thirteen-book series (each of which has thirteen chapters), the hints are piling up.  That the village goes by the initials V.F.D. is significant, or is it?  Isadora Quagmire's anacrostic couplet allows for some clue-solving within the book.  The illustrations, with their emphasis on the village's crows, are probably the dullest ever.

The Ersatz Elevator

2001, first edition, from HarperCollins
Lemony Snicket
Illustrated by Brett Helquist
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Sixth: The Ersatz Elevator
Original price $10.99, purchase price $4.00
Hardcover in good condition
B-

Another slip in quality, although this does introduce Olaf's married girlfriend Esme Squalor.  Yes, adultery in a children's book, but that wasn't really the problem I had with it.  I just felt like here, almost mid-series, things aren't that fresh or funny anymore.  With the first two books, I was constantly caught off guard by Snicket's turns of phrase.  Also, the two (yes, two) Quagmire triplets show up (after their introduction in the previous book) only to drop hints and then get re-kidnapped.  Still, there's enough cleverness and wordplay (Esme's name is a Salinger reference), as well as absurdity, including Sunny climbing down an elevator using her teeth, to keep things interesting.  No real memorable illustrations this time, although I like the design of the "In Boutique" bags.

ETA: Having since acquired and reread The Austere Academy, the fifth book, I have to say that the real slip began there, as it would also have earned a B-.