When I chose this book, I was interested because it was a memoir about a successful man with Aspergers. What I didn’t expect was that he was Augusten Burrough’s brother. His family life was twisted by his mother’s madness and his father’s alcoholism, but the irony is that Asperger’s shielded him from the worst of his family’s problems. Robison’s memoir is touching and sad, but it is also laugh out loud hysterical. He was an extremely intelligent boy (now adult) and was involved in intricate pranks. More than that, his patience and interest in electronics and cars gave him the knowledge that would allow him to escape his family. What is fascinating (and fantastic) is how he was able to cope with serious social problems without realizing that he was ‘different.’ He has a great sense of self, and this comes through in his writing.

This follows the lives of the author and his girlfriend as they decide to “do good” and move to an atoll in the South Pacific for two years. Sitting just above the equator it is a hot island lacking in running water, no ‘real’ food, and lethal water. While this is ultimately the story of how he adjusts to living without everything you thought essential, it also tells the story of an entire cultural system that is not a part of your average textbook. Well-researched and a sharp voice; would recommend for people who enjoy Bryson.

This has such a great premise: A divorced woman decides to spend a celibate year getting to know herself without the trappings of a relationship to tie her down. Broken into three sections (Italy, India, and Indonesia) it gets bogged down by her whining. Her time in India (in particular) was awfully written with long-winded and unnecessary explanations of her entire experience. It is really the other people that give the book what little life it has. Her “my life is awful, I must find myself” attitude is particularly difficult in the face of her supportive friends and family, strong career, and financial independence. While I understand and respect serious depression and that it defies reality it lacked that ‘spark’ that could made her depression relatable, and thereby moved me (the reader) through her journey.

This book was sad. Which was expected. And it was sort of boring since I had already heard the lecture. But still interesting to think about. He had alot of childhood dreams. I dont feel like I cared that much when I was a kid. I must have been a slacker even back in the day.

“The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”

I am continuing to read books before I see the movie. This one features gymnastics, which so rarely happens that I felt reading the book would be a good move.

I didn’t get at all what I expected. This is a story about a man’s disillusionment, freeing his mind, and discovering what happiness truly is. A mix of martial arts, meditation and pushing himself past the limit. His mentor Soc, has strange powers to induce visions and jump onto rooftops.

This book offers a strange mix of humiliation and compassion that will take some time to digest, but it well worth the time to do so.

Madame Esme is officially my new hero. I hope that in my first year teaching I can have a quarter of her gumption and believe in her ideals and her students. She faced an idiot principal, thrown stones and children with problems that no one should have. She stayed true to her beliefs and herself and is a very inspiring person.

No one can say teachers have it easy after reading this.

1998: Stanley Alpert is abducted and driven blindly through the streets of new york sandwiched between 2 dangerously armed men, eventually finding himself sitting on a mattress in a dirty apartment. He describes a surreal, yet true, experience, as he, an assistant U.S. attorney, helps his kidnappers realize they’ve chosen the wrong man. Sitting blindfolded(on his birthday!) with prostitutes having sex with his kidnappers around him, Stanley slyly manipulates his kidnappers— mildly befriending them. Retardely realizing that they had stolen a man with $100K in his savings account, who is a prosecutor, the kidnappers realize they are in way over their heads.

After asking for legal advice, offering their blindfolded friend drinks, food, sex from their whores, and weed— Stanley escapes. (obviously, considering he wrote the book…)

Entertaining and interesting, considering the statistics on living through a kidnapping.

Susanna Sonnenberg’s memoir is gripping. Her family is dysfunctional-her mother is a drug abuser and (possibly) a nymphomaniac, and her father is an intellectual locked within his own world. Her mother gives her a Penthouse to read aloud at 10, gives her cocaine at 12, and pushes her into “relationships” she is unprepared for. The writing is clean, and moves very quickly (I read this in a night). Drugs and sex are prevalent, so if offended-not your book. She writes without judging her and her family’s decisions, and that kind of narrative choice makes it all the more believable. If anyone reads this, would love to discuss.

“The life of a good dog is like the life of a good person, only shorter and more compressed." This non-fiction work by Anna Quindlen revolves around her labrador retriever Beau. For a dog owner (myself), this was both heart-warming and difficult to read, because ultimately this story is written after Beau is put to sleep. This is a reminder of how dogs are important not just as an integral part of your family, but how having a dog can be a marker for how you have grown and aged. It’s short, but it is so simply and beautifully written that as a reader you don’t feel it is lacking.

Start with a goofy kid who drinks too much and decides to legally change his name to “Johnny Rico”—the lead character in STARSHIP TROOPERS. Have Johnny enlist in the Army and get stationed in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban. You would think this is the setup for an anti-war novel, but you would be wrong. This is a brutally honest look at life in today’s military.

Johnny Rico wants to leave Afghanistan and the Army to pursue his doctorate. But he discovers the contract he signed with the Army allows them to extend his “three-year” commitment to EIGHT YEARS!

The battle scenes have a surreal quality. Life in the military is boredom punctuated by stark terror. Rico captures the day-to-day routine and mixes in his own sexual obsessions.

If you’re interested in the nature of modern war and the people who fight in it, this is the book for you.

After Middlemarch, Jonathan Lethem’s The Disappointment Artist was a much needed change of pace. Through his essays which are mostly autobiographical/memoir, we learn about the incredibly obsessive adolescence of the author. Which is really the best descriptor of what he was, really really obsessive.

The essays lead us through his influences, his influence largely having driven his young life: collecting all of Philip K. Dick’s work (and reading the “irv” twice), seeing Star Wars twenty-one times in a single summer, matching that number with 2001, jumping from author to author, compulsively digesting their style before moving on to the next.

The focus mostly stays on reading and film-viewing, with some nods to music-listening, and a reasonably thorough description of his parents and their nyc-hippie lifestyle. Most interestingly to me though is so clearly being able to state who his influences are, and each with an associated time period. This is something I simply cannot do; I know generally who and what I have read, but never anyone so many times or so completely sit in my mind with a period of my life. I am too scattered for such determined focus.

A non-fiction collection of stories by Chuck Palahniuk. Some of the stories were pretty boring, but all of them were short. A great book to read when you only want to read a little at a time. Or if you’re ADD.

The most interesting stories in the book were the ones Palahniuk wrote about himself. Obviously the most detailed and with a first person commentary, these stories sounded the most genuine. The other stories recounted short interviews and brief encounters, which made it seem more of an in-depth journalistic study than a inside look into a topic.

I have never listened to an audio book before (except some failed attempts at librivox.org recordings – that I never actually made it through). It was pretty enjoyable; though we certainly picked a giant to start with: 18 cds. I suppose since I refuse to listen to anything abridged this is bound to occur, but it was still a pleasant way to spend a large portion of the trip.

Sean Wilsey recounts his childhood, complete with San Francisco star parents, love affairs, boarding schools, sex, drugs, rock and roll, an overdose on Tolkien, escape plans, childhood fantasies, and eventually the building story of what he became (an editor at McSweeney’s, a published novelist, a successful journalist, a husband, a father).

I am sure this book will be pleasant to read or listen to, and well presents one man’s story of growing up in and out of San Francisco.

I like audiobooks.

Overall a quick read and entertaining. Marjorie Hart and her best friend Marty decide to go to New York City during the summer of 1945 when the sorority sisters at their Iowa college decide to rent apartments and live “the life.” This memoir focuses on a very specific period in her life, detailing her summer as they become the first women to work on the sales floor at Tiffany & Co.. This reads as a “who’s who” of the celebrities of that time-Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, et cetera but this does not detract from the story. While she repeatedly returns to her small town roots to establish how “new” this new world is, I think a wiser choice would have been to begin with her family background, and return to it only when necessary. This summer is also of import since that August is when Japan surrenders. She glosses over a lot of the items they were forced to live without-she only notes at the beginning of the book that she leaves Iowa with her rations and stamps. These details would better shape how extraordinary her summer was during a period of loss and hardship.

I was in a really bad mood this morning.
Then I read this book.
And I feel very happy now.
Notice this all happened in one day.

This book is awesome, because it is about a drag queen and her male hooker boyfriend.
What about that doesn’t scream awesome to you?

Fully entertaining. I laughed out loud several times, and I learned a lot.
You may be wondering what exactly I learned…
Probably things you’re supposed to learn on the street, but luckily this guy brought it into a book.

boys. sex. drugs. vodka. parties. fish. love.

I really like the title of this book.
I suppose there are a few connections between this title and the actual story.
Literally, Danielle’s father was a “tunnel rat” in Vietnam during the war which, as you can probably assume, involved him crawling though dirt tunnels below ground (Danielle later visits Vietnam and crawls though a such tunnel) (and these tunnels scare me, as does Vietnam).

More metaphorically- Danielle’s life: choosing to live with her drunken, traumatized, mostly heartless father, living her childhood and adolescence in bars hearing war stories and about her father’s sexual escapades.

So, in the end, I really liked the title of the book.

“Cold saline on the brain can actually stop a seizure in its tracks.”

This is a casually written memoir. It was a really fun and easy read, but in a way the tone almost trivializes the very subject it is on, neurosurgery.

Katrina Firlik, a neurosurgeon (one out of about two hundred women in the field), talks about her seven years as a resident. She thoughtfully chooses which cases to tell and which words to use and shares a glimpse into the OR, while she jovially interjects interesting facts and entertaining reflections.

I want to be a neurosurgeon.

“The brain, by far, is the most complex and interesting organ of the human body (take note, guys, if you thought otherwise)…”

I read this book in one day, and I was sad when it was over.
Jeannette and her family bounce around from trailer park to trailer park, from run down apartments to abandoned train stations. Having parents with no money, no sense of responsibility and huge unrealistic dreams (such as building a glass castle), Jeannette has to develop her own plans, and actually achieve them.
The Walls kids learn to take care of themselves, as well as their parents (who are quite interesting characters).

One of the most intriguing parts of this book is that you already know that Jeannette Walls is a successful journalist. You know the ending already, so this is solely about the journey.

A book from the woman who brought us When Harry Met Sally, it addresses all types of seemingly random problems we face as women, such as the bottomless pit that is our purse. While she is reminiscing about being “old,” I think that readers of all ages can find something to identify with, be it the apartment that you fell in love with, and refuse to move out of, or the process of aging. A collection of short thoughts, it is an easy read.