You Can Go Back to Watching the Olympics in Just a Sec

The Summer Olympics are severely stunting my reading time in the evenings.  Andrew can’t understand my fascination with gymnastics, diving, beach volleyball and other girly sports I only watch once every four years. I feel like Blog Reader and America Lover Natalie when I tear up at the 2 minute canned story about the Olympian’s sacrifice, followed by American Sport Domination over The Evil Chinese/Russians/Lithuanians/Jamaicans/Whoever.  Good stuff.

Speaking of Synchornized Diving (were we?) please find the very bizarre blog sent to me by Friend Who Has Maybe Heard Of This Blog Nick.  For some reason this blogger finds bathing suits that remind him/her of book covers and then posts them.  I do not know why.  I’m guessing that it’s mostly because people love Finding Crap on the Internet more than they love reading their emails and attending required meetings.  I fall pretty solidly into that camp, too.

I’ve posted unnecessary pics of myself in a bikini while reading, so I guess this makes just as much sense.  So, enjoy.

I like everything that is happening here.
The book, shorts and pecs are all working.

Good book, better bikini.

Liked this book, medium on the bikini, still confused overall.

Harsh Review is Potentially Unnecessary, But What the Hell I Will Just Post It Since Like 5 of My Friends and My Mom Might Check This

In Zanesville: A Novel  by Jo Ann Beard is not a good book.  It’s labeled as a “coming of age novel” which I think authors put on the back of books to make you think of The Catcher in the Rye.  Then they write at least one paragraph about girls getting periods and they think they are done.

In this book, nothing happens.  It’s as if the author literally followed a teenage girl around for a few weeks and just documented it – no real reason for a beginning, middle or end.  None of that traditional plot climax stuff here, folks.

I did like one sentence in the book on page 208 in case you just want to read that.  The main characters thinks to herself “This is the worst day of my life.  Unless you count yesterday.”  I probably thought that 1,000 times when I was in high school, likely related to problems like hating all my sneakers or having to take Geometry.

Luckily I read this crappy book while reading on a beach with friends, and generally getting pretty spoiled by my Mom.  So, grumpy teenager reading couldn’t make me but so grumpy.

Mom wins Mom Points via baking.
Individual peach and blueberry cobblers for everyone.
Yes, seriously.

Airport Complaining Narrowly Avoided; Passive Aggressive Stance Taken

Whenever I think of Gypsy Boy: My Life in the Secret World of the Romany Gypsies I think of the abysmal service of US Airways, a topic I am trying to consciously avoid on this blog.  Plus, that isn’t really fair to autobiographer Mikey Walsh who went through a lot to escape his past, learn to read and write and then go on to draft a book.  So I will try to separate my miserable travel to and from Philadelphia this week from the time I spent enjoying this sad story.  Honestly this book and the hopes of a Philly cheesesteak with Loyal Blog Reader Kiley are the only things that got me through.

I have been curious about Gypsies ever since my mom dragged into the underworld that is My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding on the hit-producing network TLC.  I think the white trash folks featured on that show are the Irish Gypsies, who apparently copied the Romany Gypsy lifestyle of being a “traveller.”  This translates into living in trailers, rejecting education, and having the absolute worst and trashiest taste in everything.  Who wouldn’t want to copy that lifestyle?

Poor Walsh was a misfit for this crew from the start, and though he was close to his Mom, I think she should have protected him more than she did.  This story was sad, but ultimately inspiring since Walsh escaped and managed to live his life the way he wanted to.

The Best Thing That Ever Happened to this Blog Happened Today

This morning I got a monumental email.  (Mom, it wasn’t the one you sent me about a new mattress, but thanks for that.)

I have copied and pasted it here in its un-lying and totally true entirety – I am star struck.

I wanted to comment on your blog site but the darn thing wouldn't accept my URL. I also am not certain of your name, so please forgive the no-heading.

I just wanted to thank you for your great review! Thank you! I am so happy that you enjoyed the book. :)

A big hug from Forest, Virginia.

Kathleen (Grissom)

Yes, this actually happened.  I love that my new friend Kathleen got a dig in at the crappy site blogspot, and that we agree that it sucks.  I am pretty sure there is an undertone here of respect for our mutual art of writing.

Kathleen, I am Allison.  Let’s get together sometime – perhaps with Ken Follett if he is available?– and talk about smart literary stuff. 

My day can and will go downhill from here.

Bookworm Raves & Continues To Love List Making

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom is an awesome, awesome book and easily one of the best I have read in a long time.  In fact I am putting it on the top of my largely ignored Current Favorites List here on the right of your screen.  Yes, it was worth spending several seconds remembering how to do that.

Why is this book so awesome, no one asks?  I’ll tell you:

1.  You get into it immediately.  Within 10 pages I knew I loved this book and was going to race through it to lend it to my Mom, since I will see her in a couple of weeks.

2.  Super sad, complex, fast moving, historical story.  It is fictional, but felt so real.

3. The story takes place in Virginia, including several chapters in Williamsburg.  I knew some of the streets and historical sites referenced very well, though my favorite place remains The Cheese Shop, which probably wasn’t there in 1791.

This is the kind of book that makes me love being a reader.  Crappy television like Andrew’s favorite Gardening By The Yard has the same effect but with more eye rolling.

After Two Weeks of Silence, Bookworm Finally Blogs in What Seems Like a Bad Mood

Since I last wrote, I have been slogging through The Last Romanov by Dora Levy Mossanen.  Somehow “slogging” seems like the perfect term for laboring through a book while it is 15 million degrees outside. 

This book looked so promising when I paid full price for it at Barnes & Noble.  A historical novel about the search for the last surviving member of the Russian royal family, I couldn’t wait to jump in.  But the book managed to nail an awful combination of boring and hard to follow.  Even when something cool happened, it was told in such a disjointed way that I was left with a “Say Wha??” feeling.  Not good, Dora.

Just to be clear, I do not recommend this book and want to ask my friends at B&N why it is placed on a prominent table.  I would have much rather read The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss, which I recently bought for a friend’s baby shower.  So if given the choice between those two, I recommend going with the Doctor on this one.