52 STEPS CLOSER

I love Sarah Silverman. She’s so unabashedly adamant about everything. This book goes on about all sorts of “jewey” things, her childhood, wetting the bed for some almost 20 years, and even a blip of humanity shines through as she explains that she’s not as much of a monster as she was made out to be after making fun of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears at their lowpoints. A funny quick read.

Chuck Klosterman is another author I’m glad I got into in 2010, the first being David Sedaris. Both of their little essay formats really really appeal to me. Chuck Klosterman mostly dealing with Pop Culture is nice because he has a great take on it.

It was just funny because on my vacation Stupid White men, The Starfish and The Spider and this book all had touched on the subject of a brain disease among cannibals called Kuru - just a funny coincidence.

• “By the time you read this, the United States either has the same president it had a few weeks ago or it has a new President who is taller.”
• “The new husband is a dentist, but he won’t even fix her teeth.”
• “Val Kilmer is nutty.”

I recall something funny about Morrissey in this book, but can’t recall exactly what.

Michael Moore. Self explanatory. Good read, very predicatble. Funny that someone left this in one of the villa’s overseas.

Notably, I really enjoy memoirs/biographies so these blurbs might be a tad biased.

I really enjoyed this book by Mara Altman in her first novel. I really enjoy memoirs just for the fact of getting inside someones head during whatever experiences they’re going through, and seeing it from their poimt of view, and the lengths that Mara goes through in order to obtain the ever elusive orgasm is hilarious.

This was also a quick grab at an Indonesian bookstore with sparse english literature, and an attempt at going outside of my comfort zone.

It was pretty good overall, kinda difficult for me to get into at first because I didn’t understand the conflict going on between the British military system and Pakistan.

This is a lackluster summary. This book spoke no levels of awesome in my memory from reading it in May. Reviews on the book quoted it as hilarious, my tastes in Hilarity differ. Not a bad read, just nothing to write home about.

I hated this book for all the wrong reasons. I picked this up as a quick read when I ran out of books on my trip and found myself at a random mall in Klungkung.

I hated the instant messenger-esque convos in between factoids, I mean there were some interesting convos with some surprising and informative answers but overall not a great read. Poor layout, too much rambling and attempt at witty banter, also bad font choices. This would never sneak into oprahs book club haha. It was very reminiscent of something Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla would have done better about 10 yrs ago. 

Really good book emphasizing how old school corporations whose management structure is in pyramid format are very like spiders whom if you cut the head off, the whole organization collapses, meanwhile new businesses mostly internet based as well as a lot of companies that are reshaping are like starfish in the manner that its so reliant on all of its members/employees that if one person goes down, the rest of it thrives in the manner that if you cut an arm off of a starfish, an entirely new starfish will grow.

It’s funny because Lamb was entirely religion based, but Devil in the Details mentions a lot of similar Jewish faith parts, and even the Starfish and the Spider touches on the Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu which was mentioned in Lamb as well. For books that came from my own collection, and books recommended, or in Annie’s collection, or left behind at the villas that we stayed at in Bali, there was a lot of incestuous details. Nancy Reagan’s “JUST SAY NO” campaign was brought up in Devil in the Details as well as this book also.

Super good memoir about an obsessive compulsive disorder childhood crossed with a fanatical jewish childhood while growing up in a non-practicing jewish family all in one shot. I really enjoy random bizarro tales like this from peoples lives if not for anything more than getting the chance to crawl into their brains for a second and see a completely different view on things.

This book was recommended and lent to me by my good friend Geordon when I visited him last in Ottawa. It was a really good read, and had really funny takes on things and explanations for stuff in the Bible as told by Jesus’ best childhood pal Biff. I also liked that even though I’ve never read the Bible, I could easily maneuver through the story and catch things just through my brief knowledge I’ve picked up over the years of who did what and who did who jist of the Bible.

This is surely my worst review yet. I blame that on the fact that I’m going through the list of books that I’ve read on vacay and spitting out ten reviews/summaries all at once. I also blame it on daylight savings time and the metric system.

The second book I’ve read by David Sedaris, second book I’ve liked by David Sedaris I should say.

Great tales of his life such as growing up gay, children being startled to death, quitting smoking, in turn going to Tokyo, thus resulting in azn difficulties. 2 out of 5 which applied loosely to my situation at the moment while on vacation, one that applies directly.

• “Westerners often think all asians look alike, and you don’t see the ridiculousness of it until it’s turned in reverse. Back home Hugh and I couldn’t even pass as stepbrothers.”

Pretty much the same for me and Annie, I mean back home we’ve received a few “are you guys sisters?” over the years, but here in Bali almost everyone greets us with an over enthusiastic “Sisters?! yes?!?!”. We’ve learned ‘yes’ is always the right answer, and we just move on.

This was an odd choice for my first book to read by Chuck Klosterman only because it was his first formal novel instead of just a compilation of essays he’s written over time like all his other books. I thought it was really good, reminding me of something somewhere in between Douglas Coupland and David Sedaris, it was a lot more interesting than his small stint of story writing that was at the back of “IV” because I thought that dragged on with irrelevant detail that went no where and I couldn’t really get into it, even though it was only like i think no more than 50 pages tops.

22 autobiographical essays later I’m left laughing at ridiculous situations, and feeling better about my own life. i like his view and take on situations, i mean, not that I’m a gay man, and i cant picture myself panicking at the fact people may thing I’m wanting to molest a child based on solely being gay, but very well put and simple. it was a good shift from reading a Coupland book who with or without crazy similes can so intricately describe a situation down to the piece of hair fallen between your eyes.

• “She laughed and swatted him with a towel, and we witnessed what we would later come to recognize as the rejuvenating power of real estate. It’s what fortunate couples turn to when their sex life has faded and they’re too pious for affairs.”
• “It wouldn’t have made any difference… a woman like that, the way she sees it she’s a victim. Everyone’s against her, no matter what.”
• “Call me unimaginative, but I still can’t think of anyone else I’d rather be with. On our worst days, I figure things will work themselves out. Otherwise, I really don’t give our problems much thought. Neither of us would ever publicly display affection; were just not that type. We can’t profess love without talking through hand puppets, and we’d never consciously sit down to discuss our relationship. These, to me, are good things. They were fine with Hugh as well, until he saw that damned movie and was reminded that he has other options.”
• “…it was disorienting to see her with so little confidence. Suddenly she was relying on other people’s opinions, following their advice and withering at the slightest criticism.”
• “Listen, you might want to pack a few of your things together before going to bed. The former bishop of Turkey will be coming tonight along with six to eight black men. They might put some candy in your shoes, they might stuff you in to a sack and take you to Spain, or they might just pretend to kick you. We don’t know for sure, but we want you to be prepared.”
• “Dead or alive, I’d have no peace, and so i let it go, the way you have to when you’re totally dependent on somebody.”
• “That’s like having a fucking Willie Nelson doll living inside you.”

And on that mental visual, I wish you all nightmares tonight.

A little delayed on making my Week 2 book write up, but who’s counting (please don’t count) ;

Instantly striking a chord was the fact one main character was from North Bay - FUCK YEAH FORGING BONDS LOLOLOL NORTHERN ONTARIO ! I really enjoyed this book half because i’m balls deep into anything that spews from Douglas Couplands brain, so a biased opinion on my part, but also because it struck a bunch of chords within me. Most notably was when I believe it was Julien that kept on making note of how mysteriously hard it is to just produce stories from thin air. The small stories within the novel are ridiculous brain farts of Coupland in a manner which are all so entwined and ridiculous all at once.

Somewhere midway through this book i fell into my messy habit of folding pages where i enjoy quotes.

• “Then she wondered if not believing in anything robbed her of the ability to fall in love.”
• “Realizing that she was in love was a pain, and few things make us feel so alone in this world as unrequited love.”
• “…he was worried that his girlfriend was cheating on him simply because she could, and because her take-him-or-leave-him attitude kept his own brain’s neuroproteins on constant nuclear alert.”

I really hope by the end of this book reading project, my reviews end up being more structured instead of opinionated word vomits projectile vomited from my brain. I’m really good at writing essasys composed of intelligent sounding bullshit, but making my own guidelines and then colouring outside of the lines regardless allows for too much of a creative arena.