The Adventures of Sally

I'm back! Well, back to Virginia at least. I'm not back to full energy or even back to myself for that matter, but I'm definitely feeling better. Basically, life with two little ones was kicking my butt, so I went to my parents house to rest and recharge. It was a wonderful visit.

It was eye-opening, too. I had lots of help with my two little girls and was relieved of all cooking, cleaning, and household responsibilities and I was still wiped out at the end of each day. If I felt tired on vacation, no wonder I was exhausted at home!

During the relentless nursing, I finished reading this. (I'm hoping to start posting more of the reviews I'm behind on. But they will be short, starting with this one.)

The Adventures of Sally, by P.G. Wodehouse
I got an iPod Touch, which is just about the greatest thing ever. Since I'm nursing so much, it's fantastic to be able to hold something small, bright, and entertaining for all of the long days and tired nights when I am nursing a baby.

I downloaded the Kindle app for the iPhone, and I like to visit the Kindle store weekly to see what free books are the top downloads. That's how I found this gem.

It's a classic P.G. Wodehouse story, but not so over-the-top as a Bertie and Jeeves story. Beautiful young Sally inherits money and goes back and forth abroad and to the New York theater scene. It's more along the lines of a romantic comedy or a screwball comedy from the 1930's. It's light, it's fun, it's free. Love it.

Here's an excerpt for your reading pleasure, from a dinner at the boarding house where theater folk are giving a Sally a going away party.

"I have been asked," proceeded Mr. Faucitt, "though I am aware that there are others here far worthier of such a task -- Brutuses compared with whom I, like Marc Antony, am no orator--I have been asked to propose the health..."
"Who asked you?" It was the smaller of the Marvellous Murphys who spoke. He was an unpleasant youth, snubnosed and spotty. Still, he could balance himself with one hand on an inverted ginger-ale bottle while revolving a barrel on the soles of his feet. There is good in all of us.

Marley and Me

Marley and Me, by John Grogan

I had no desire to read this book originally. It seemed to be romanticizing a crazy dog with irresponsible owners, and I had a strong hunch that the dog died in the end. I hate it when dogs die. Why would I want to read about that? Plus, this book was an easy reading top-seller, and I enjoy being contrary and ignoring popular trends. That's just me.

However, the universe conspired to change my mind. My mom recommended it, and she's not a sentimental person. The movie got good reviews. I had a free ebook copy. I was having a really bad day and needed cheering up. And now after reading it, I can see why so many other people enjoyed it too.

This one hit pretty close to home, actually. A young idealistic couple gets a really cute dog that ends up being a handful... check. Begin to outgrow their beloved home in a sketchy neighborhood... check. Start a family and focus on the all-consuming kids while the dog loves them unresevedly anyway... check. I'm at a different stage of life than where this couple ended up at the end of the book, and it was reassuring to hear from someone who made it through on the other side. Plus, it made me feel better about my own hyper dog!

This was a funny and authentic book about loving family, dogs, and life. Save it for when you're having a bad day, and I promise you'll feel better.

Carry on, Jeeves

Carry on, Jeeves
by P.G. Wodehouse

In a word, hilarious. I think this was Wodehouse's first book in the Bertie Wooster series. It's about a British dandy who acknowledges himself to be a bit of an idiot, and his faithful man Jeeves who always saves the day. This, being an earlier book, doesn't have quite the side-splitting hilarity of later books, but I still laughed uncontrollably.

In a related tangent, based on a discussion of this author with my family this afternoon, I have decided to call my winter home (which incidentally is also where I summer, spring, and fall) "Squirrel-Drop-in-the-Fields", a title befitting its station. If my parents ever get the beach house my mom now longs for, it shall be called "Penguin's End." I laughed until my mascara ran.

It's great to be with family.

Boomsday

Boomsday, by Christopher Buckley


This will probably be the last Christopher Buckley novel I read. It was laugh-out-loud funny at parts, but he's better at interesting plot lines than at writing good characters. At the end of the book, all of the characters annoyed me, which wasn't enough to redeem the 318 pages.

You have to hand it to him--he's good at creating interesting situations. The "heroine" of the novel becomes a disaffected cynic when her father blows her Yale tuition money on a dot-com startup. She then joins the Army to get money for college, but then is bounced out after a visiting senator takes over her jeep and almost gets killed in a mine field in Yugoslavia. He feels badly enough to get her a new job in a Washington PR firm. By this time, she's so angry at everyone older than she is, she angrily blogs away. (I'm guessing the author thought frequent mentions of blogs would make him more relevant.) She blames the Baby Boomers for all their selfishness and indulgence, and encourages others under 30 to commit acts of vandalism against golf courses and segways. The movement gains adherents and notoriety, and she develops a plan: "Voluntary Transitioning." Baby Boomers get tax breaks if they agree to kill themselves at 65, so young working people no longer have to fund the massive social security debt passed on to the next generation.

All the characters are two-dimensional, although the president was funny. The most irritating character was the southern Christian who acted as the self-appointed right-to-life expert. Of course, he ended up being a a loser and a hypocrite--so surprise here. Between that and the language, I think I'll pass on future Christopher Buckley novels.

Smile When You're Lying

Smile When You’re Lying, by Chuck Thompson

I didn't want to admit reading this book, but it’s not very honest to omit less-than-stellar books. I read it: here’s the review.

The author is a travel writer who was tired of sucking up to the various industries in travel, where everything is ‘breathtaking!’, ‘delicious!' and ‘an enticing mix of the old and new!’ So he wrote this book as an outlet for colorful stories like Shanghai Bob's exploits, muggings, and waking up in a pool of his own vomit. The biggest caveat of the book was that it was as descriptive of the Thai sex industry as you would expect an unregenerate, anti-Christian single man to be.

Still, it was funny. Right away, I pegged him as from the Pacific Northwest. He had that cranky, sunshine-deprived, angry liberal outlook on life that I remember from growing up in Oregon. Who else would say that by voluntarily paying taxes, even if you vote Democrat, you have Iraqi blood on your hands?

Chapter titles like "Is it okay to miss the Cold War? The philosophical dilemma of Eastern Europe" and "Why Latin America isn't the world's number one tourist destination and probably never will be" reveal the kind of humor to be found in this book. My honey kept reading me quotes and cracking up while I was trying to read a serious book, and it was very hard to concentrate while your spouse reads you excerpts like these (p. 100):

"American public school teachers have the world's best PR operation going. Whining every chance they get about how demanding their jobs are, how many "extra hours" they put in, how little they make, how much of their own money they have to spend just to do their jobs, how noble they are working this job that nobody ever asked them to do--welcome to the (expletive) world."

Thompson writes about the travel industry, hack travel writers, how he became a writer, destinations he should love but doesn't, and surprising locations that became his favorites. He is a funny (but crude) writer, and he has an excellent grasp of history. I learned several back stories to historical events I thought I knew. The book closed with an unexpected positive tone. As a general rule, Americans are the cleanest and most polite travellers you will ever meet, despite an international image that is otherwise ("Americans are the new Germans," page 301). Depending on how the supply of foreign oil concludes, we could be in the golden age of travel right now.

"You can take a week off work and be in Dakar or Tashkent or Borneo in less time than it took Ben Franklin to get from Boston to Philadelphia. Largely taken for granted, this revolutionary ability to go anywhere on a whim has altered our perception of the world in ways we probably don't fully comprehend. If that instant mobility is taken away, our worldview will be drastically reshaped again. The planet could once more become a forbidding place, expensive to see and scary to traverse, one that forces us to reexamine the basic lessons about the world collective that travel used to teach. This might not be a bad thing."