Mrs. O'Dell Reads

 I have been dying to readBossypants but have been equally reluctant to shell out $25 for the hardcover. Since my local library doesn’t have it either, I resorted to borrowing it from a student. It was wellworth the borrow.

In many ways, it’s probably what you’re expecting — a series of strangely insightful funniness. Each chapter is like a little essay — a format I love that makes for super-speedy reading. I read more than half of the book waiting in the lobby of a doctor’s office.

While the memoir spans from her childhood, to UVa (!!!), to Second City in Chicago, to SNL and 30 Rock, my favorite bits were about her time working for Lorne Michaels at Saturday Night Live and, in particular, the epic adventure of being coerced into playing Sarah Palin on the show while simlutaneously raising a young daughter and getting 30 Rock off the ground.

For comedy memoir, this was a great book!

I love, love, love Jen Lancaster!  Such a Pretty Fat is the first book I ever laughed out loud at in my whole life. She’s just one of those writers whom I will always read whether or not I’m interested in the book at face value.  But I was nervous when I heard she was writing her first novel and making the jump to fiction. (Perhaps it’s just book snobbery — if it’s a memoir, it’s okay if I read it. If it’s a novel, then I really am reading chick lit.)

I was pleasantly surprised with If You Were Here,  though. Semi-autobiographical, there is a lot of the real Jen and Fletch in this book.  In the novel, the first of three, the fictional Mia and Mac buy a serious fixer-upper primarily because it was featured in John Hughes’ Pretty in Pink. The renovation (rebuild?) that ensues challenges their finances, friendships, and their marriage.

Nothing about this book was particularly stunning, and I might not have liked it so much had it not been written by Lancaster. The things fans love about her are not lost — her signature snark, her love of animals, the dynamics of her friendships and marriage. It feels very much like what we’re used to, and that will make me pick up the next in the series … even if it’s chick lit fiction and not a memoir.

I picked up this book at a very-sadly-closing Borders Friday night based solely on how hard the book’s promotional website made me laugh at work on Friday.  Let me say from the outset — I understand that this won’t be a book everyone rushes to read. It’s a niche book — a niche which happens to interest me — so, I won’t be offended if you don’t take my recommendation because it doesn’t interest you.

More sociology of religion than religon, McCracken undertakes a journalistic approach to dissecting the newest trend in Christianity — hipster Christianity. Mostly as a reaction to the capitalistic mass culture of WWJD bracelets and contemporary Christian music, the new wave of hipster Christians are much more invested in the traditions and history of the church — it’s mysticism rather than it’s sanitized, popular appeal. Rather than simplifying Christianity, hipster Christians seek to replace the mysteryand confusing conundrums of the faith, claiming that these are as intrinsic as the basics of the Gospel.

McCracken’s work is well-balanced, neither lauding or condemning the movement. Rather, he seeks to understand its underpinings and its reactionary nature. I think anyone interested in religion and religious culture would be interested in this read. The first three chapters on the “history of cool” are entirely skimmable, if not skippable, but overall this is a really interesting exploration of a faith movement.  I read it in one, short sitting.

C’est vrai — I read a lot of memoirs about girls who move to Paris (See this) I suppose it is just testament to some kind of universal dream that so many memoirs are written on the same subject, and yet I pick up all of them. To me, this is ultimate escapist reading.

Delightfully, this was my book club’s January pick … and I didn’t even pick it (though I might have advocated for it a little bit.) 

There isn’t too much to tell by way of sheer plot that is original –  Turnbull meets a dashing, eccentric Parisian at a dinner party in Bucharest. After a few phone calls, she agrees (with some minor reservations … like the fact that he could be a serial killer) to stay with him in Paris for a week.  Frédéric is not a serial killer, and thus one week becomes two. After a brief four-month jaunt around Europe, Sarah finds herself back in Paris permanently. While it may have been amour avecFrédéric, adjusting to the City of Lights is not quite as easy. As it turns out, living in a foreign city is very different from visiting a foreign city, and Turnbull’s first couple of years are fraught with good intentions followed by loneliness and tears.  Eventually, Turnbull finds her footing, marries Fred, and ils vécurent heureux.

Though I was pretty thoroughly engaged in Turnbull’s story, I think that may initially have been more because I am a fan of the genre and a sucker for the storyline. Parts of the narrative felt over-written (and self-admittedly cliché) to me. For example, on one of Turnbull’s first nights in Paris she recounts,

I guess the circumstances are perfect for falling in love. Every skidding stop on the motorbike, each intimate garden, every candlelit café terrace conspires to spark romance. But is it the scene, the city or the man I’m succumbing to? A combination of all three? These question don’t even enter my mind. Who cares when it’s all so much fun? Yes, I admit, I ‘m carried away on a kaleidoscope of clichés straight of out a trashy romance novel. It is magic.

The beginning left me feeling cold, rather than oh-la-la-ing. Interestingly, the tone seems to shift around chapter ten, when each chapter focuses less on the linear narrative of her transition and reads more as a series of essays on French life, culture, and the challenges of assimilation. I wondered if these chapters were bits she had published before.

Still, these essay chapters mark the biggest difference between Turnbull’s story and the others I’ve read in the genre — it turns out that it isn’t all about her. She muses — often quite fascinatingly — on well-known facets of French culture with an insider-outsider’s perspective.  French fashion, food, and politics are all analyzed under Turnbull’s lens, which is the most effective and interesting part of the book. Turnbull as love-struck foreigner isn’t nearly as compelling as the journalist Turnbull  making sense of the French.

It’s a good book — not a rave, but worth reading if, like me, this is the kind of book you like to indulge in every so often.

As soon as I picked up this book, I wrote the following note: “I think I am skeptical of  ‘How-I-Help-People’ memoirs.”

Which was probably unfair. But I have to tell you that I walked into this (beautiful!) book with a lot of preconceived notions … that this was just the product of a greedy publishing company looking to make a buck on a rip off of Three Cups of Tea.

I can admit it: I was wrong. This book was beautiful inside and out, worthy of the incredible amount of publicity launched by the publisher, a book I will likely pass to many, many of my students and might even put on my school’s summer reading list, and this is just the beginning of my rave review.

In 2004, successful 29-year-old Conor Grennan (a fellow Wahoo!) finds himself bored working abroad and begin planning a round-the-world-savings-account-killing-trip. But it’s hard to tell people that you’re just going to stop working and travel for a year purely for your own amusement.  Thus, Grennan finds an orphanage in Nepal at which he can volunteer for four months;  Grennan rationalizes that after this act of sacrifice, his pleasure trip will be completely justified.

However, everything changes when this committment-phobe falls in love with the children living at The Little Princes, most of whom had been taken away from their parents during a civil war. When Grennan’s four months are up, he finishes his world tour, returns to New York, and finds himself longing for Nepal. He develops a plan to start a nonprofit whose two-fold mission would be to establish a children’s home for other Nepali orphans and to help locate their parents.

Grennan travels back to Nepal, falls in love with an American girl via email, takes daring trips through the mountains of Nepal, establishes his children’s home, and, of course, finds himself in the process.

Little Princes definitely lives up to all of its claims of heart-warming inspiration. Grennan’s determination in the face of seemingly impossible odds mixed with his humility is a refreshing twist to this American-helps-a-third-world-country-tale. Grennan is a reluctant, and even unlikely, hero. His narrative is more than just edifying — it’s authentic.

The beginning, as Grennan sets the context of Nepal and life at The Little Princes,  is a little slow and maybe in need of some more heavy-handed editing.  It took me about 75 pages to get really, page-turningly hooked.  These vignettes are more disjointed than the narrative that follows when the plot really picks up with Grennan’s plan to establish Next Generation Nepal. Still, Grennans voice is strong and relatable — like a friend telling you this amazing story.  And the image he paints of the children is utterly enchanting. A recurring motif through the story is the boys’ constant obsession with Conor finding a wife. When he says goodbye to the boys for the second time, they discuss his marital prospects:

I told them the truth. I told them I loved Nepal, I loved spending time with them and living here in the village. But I had to go home, and I would likely not be able to make it back for a few years, when they were all much bigger. I had to start a new career. I was completely broke, and I had to buy food and rent a home.

“And get married, yes, Brother?” said Santosh, smiling.

“Uh — yeah. Well, no — not really, to be honest. I think you will be married before me, Santosh,” I said, happy that the children took this as a joke.

Then the children started with a chorus of “What about me, Brother? You will be married before me?” and I had to go through the whole list of children, all the way down to assuring Raju that yes, even he would probably be married before me.

Later, after meeting and falling in love with Liz, Grennan writes,

The Little Princes, well, they were a different story. They knew me too well; I couldn’t keep anything from them if I tried. I tested out the same line on them, and the boys laughed as if I had just told them the single greatest joke in Nepalese history.

“Brother, your lie very terrible! We have seen many American movies now. We know not much arranged marriage in your country,” Santosh said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “We meet Liz on her visit. She very very beautiful. You very love her, Brother! You love her!”

If all of this isn’t enough to induce you to buy this book on January 25, when it becomes available, proceeds from this book go to the care of the orphans in the care of Next Generation Nepal, Grennan’s non-profit, which has now rehomed these children in their native village!  In short, you’ve got to read this book; I suspect that pretty soon, everyone will be reading it!

Many, many thanks to William Morrow for an advance copy of this book!