The 3 R's Blog // Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness

BlogHer is coming. Look busy.

2010-07-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

It's that time again, folks...the time when hundreds of blogging women (and a few good blogging men) start talking about the big annual conference they'll soon be attending, and hundreds of other bloggers either commiserate, turn green with envy, eagerly follow every detail, or get sick of the whole thing and tune it all out.

This will be my second year attending the BlogHer Conference, and it's nice to have some idea what to expect this time. I expect to be overwhelmed by crowds at times, and to want to duck out early from any parties I actually attempt to attend. I expect to have a hard time deciding which breakout sessions I most want to go to, and to keep my days full and busy with great content. I expect to meet up with bloggers I've met before and bloggers I've been wanting to meet, and not have enough time to talk with any of them. And I know where I'll be at 1:30 PM on Saturday, August 7:

Writing Lab: Room Of Your Own - The Evolving Publishing Ecosystem

We all know bloggers want to become authors. But with traditional publishers spending less and less on marketing, authors must now become marketers, and that means they must become bloggers too...sometimes they take to it eagerly, sometimes dragged kicking and screaming. Add to the mix how much easier than ever it is to self-publish and the book bloggers who are now being wooed by publishers and even authors directly, and you've got a new publishing eco-system.

The solitary pursuits of writing and criticism are now transparent and sometimes even crowd-sourced. And more authors and critics are now not only the content producers, but their own publishers and business development representatives. The lines are decidedly blurred. But the opportunities seem so much more accessible than ever. We will dig into it all in this session featuring Kamy Wicoff from She Writes (moderator), book blogger Florinda Pendley Vasquez, marketing expert Penny Sansevieri, and author Carleen Brice.

I "met" my fellow panelists via conference call two weeks ago, and am looking forward to meeting them in person at the speaker-training session the evening before the conference starts. They're all professionals in writing and developing writers, and I feel privileged - and a little out of my element - to be working on this with them. In our session, I will do my best to speak to and represent the role book bloggers play in this "ecosystem" - building relationships with authors and publishers, reviewing and publicizing - and try not to make anyone sorry to have me on the panel! If you have anything you particularly want me to talk about, let me know in comments, and if there's a way to work it into the discussion, I'll certainly try to bring it up!

The conference is being held at the same hotel, the Hilton New York, where my family stayed during our recent vacation trip to the city, so I don't want to spend all the time in the hotel! For one thing, the Hilton's lobby does not encourage relaxing and chatting - unlike the Sheraton Chicago, where the 2009 conference was held, there's no seating in the lobby. Considering how much time I spent camped out in the lobby last year, people-watching and chatting and reading, this was a very disappointing discovery. But there's a lot of sight-seeing within easy walking distance or a short subway ride, and with luck, I'll still remember a bit about how to get around. There's one place my roommate and I especially want to visit - the Strand Bookstore. Now, that's a bookworm's idea of a party...

Lots of bloggers have been posting prep tips for BlogHer recently, and have done a better job of it than I would. Whether it's your first or fifth time going to the conference, there's lots of info to help you get ready.

Miss Britt has a list of things the first-time BlogHer-goer can expect: lots of free stuff, lots of parties, and even more parties that you won't even know about until someone mentions them on Twitter and you realizes you weren't invited to them. Expect to be overwhelmed and confronted with existential questions about your place in the blogiverse. Expect to spend a lot of time on your feet - hence, the Great BlogHer Shoe Debates. I'd add one thing: expect to enjoy it all just as much as you set your mind to, but what you get out of the experience is up to you.

Cecily Kellogg of Uppercase Woman recommends a few things not to do: skip the fancy shoes, don't getting preoccupied with the parties and the swag, and don't get caught up in (or create) interpersonal drama.

"BLOGGERS ARE JUST PEOPLE. This is my most important point. The other bloggers? The ones you think are super famous? They are just people. They have their own life issues happening at any given moment, and they are trying to have their own awesome conference experience. Plus? Some of them are paralyzed by social anxiety. Some are freaked out about having to speak, and some feel like they just totally fucked up while they spoke. Sometimes they've got food poisoning. Sometimes they just had a tremendous emotional experience and need to have some quiet time to recover. Sometimes they've had too much to drink. Sometimes they get into an argument with a friend. Whatever it is, the moment you choose to approach a blogger you've admired from afar may very well be the worst moment of the weekend for her. So if the blogger you've loved forever is short with you, or doesn't gush back as much as you want her to, or simply walks by without responding to your hello -- whatever it is, IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU."

Undomestic Diva's "Less Than Super Famous Blogger's Guide to Blogher 2010" has "before," "during," and "after" suggestions: order business cards and arrange a ride share from the airport; bring cash, a camera, those business cards, and a party dress (just in case you decide not to blow them off after all); speak up, say hello, and mingle; and don't diss your experience after the fact.

Christine Koh from Pop Discourse advises a "less is more" approach to the conference based on being realistic:

"Be realistic about the conference program…and take a step outside your comfort zone.
Wherever you are on the program stamina spectrum, I suggest mapping out what sessions you plan on attending in advance and keeping the number of sessions reasonable. Obviously, this number will vary from person to person, but I might recommend identifying 1-3 must attend sessions then a handful of additional sessions across the conference to add on depending on your stamina for sitting and listening. And if you’re mostly going to BlogHer for networking, I recommend scanning the program and attending 1-2 sessions beyond your reach or comfort zone.

Take a realistic look at your social calendar.
I’m taking a realistic look at my calendar (and a map of Manhattan) over the next couple of weeks, stripping out double bookings and un-RSVP’ing for events where I’m pretty sure it would be un-fun or impossible for me to get from point A to B to give the event’s organizers any meaningful amount of my time...I’m taking a firm line and politely declining if I already have a conflict, no matter how tempting the event is or how much I’m fretting for people about their event planning. These two action items will not only make social events more reasonable and fun for me, but will open space for other people."

Related to the social-calendar item, I'd second Christine's suggestion to make plans with friends you want to make certain you see there - either in advance, or via text/IM on-site. It's a huge event, and while you may find there are some faces you seem to see everywhere you go, you'll also find there are others you won't manage to see at all unless you make a point of it.

Jean from Stimeyland had a couple of very practical recommendations I didn't see anywhere else:

Don't forget the Advil, but bring the Pepto-Bismol too. (My addition: If you do forget either one, there's a Duane Reade just up the street. There's a Duane Reade every few blocks, actually. In New York City, they're like the Starbucks of drugstores.)
Bring small bills - the drinks may be free, but the tips aren't.

Also, she suggests that while part of the excitement at BlogHer comes from seeing old friends, it's good to take some down time to get to know someone new.

And here are five of Kim Tracy Prince's "Top 10 Tips for Survival at BlogHer'10":

"Pace yourself with the alcohol – for God’s sake! You are an adult person. Drink responsibly. Also, pack ibuprofen.

Wherever you go, you will miss something, but you’ll have a great time there. There are so many simultaneous events that unless you have figured out how to clone yourself you will indeed miss several things.

(echoing Cecily's point) Remember that some bloggers are much more comfortable at home in their pajamas and are socially awkward. If you run up to someone with squee in your brain because you are excited to meet her and she remains nonplussed – it’s not you, it’s her. Most likely.

Try not to miss breakfast. There are plenty of tasty, healthy treats to stash in your bag for later, in case you forget to bring the granola bars.

DON’T worry if you’re not invited to the party, or you don’t know where the secret swag room is, or if the mommy bloggers get all the cool stuff. Focus on what’s happening, on the people you’re meeting, on the information you’re learning. You’ll be much, much happier and more satisfied."

Are you going to be at BlogHer'10, or just in New York City between August 5th and 7th? It would be great to see you - please leave a comment, @ me on Twitter, or e-mail me at 3.rsblog AT Gmail DOT com if you'd like to make some plans! And if you make it to my ROYO session, please come by and say hello!

Book Talk: Every Last One, by Anna Quindlen

2010-07-29T05:00:00.001-07:00

Disclosure: I purchased this book in e-book format to read on my Amazon Kindle. *I am an Amazon Associate. Use of purchasing links in this review will generate a small referral fee for me.

Every Last One: A Novel
Anna Quindlen
Random House (2010), Hardcover (ISBN 1400065747 / 9781400065745; eISBN 9780679603726)
Fiction, 299 pages

Opening lines: "This is my life: The alarm goes off at five-thirty with the murmuring of a public-radio announcer, telling me that there has been a coup in Chad, a tornado in Texas. My husband stirs briefly next to me, turns over, blinks, and falls back to sleep for another hour. My robe lies at the foot of the bed, printed cotton in the summer, tufted chenille for the cold. The coffeemaker comes on in the kitchen below as I leave the bathroom, go downstairs in bare feet, pause to put away a pair of boots left splayed in the downstairs back hallway and to lift the newspaper from the back step."

Book description: Mary Beth Latham is first and foremost a mother, whose three teenaged children come first, before her career as a landscape gardener, or even her life as the wife of a doctor. Caring for her family and preserving their everyday life is paramount. And so, when one of her sons, Max, becomes depressed, Mary Beth becomes focused on him, and is blindsided by a shocking act of violence. What happens afterwards is a testament to the power of a woman’s love and determination, and to the invisible line of hope and healing that connects one human being with another. Ultimately, in the hands of Anna Quindlen’s mesmerizing prose, Every Last One is a novel about facing every last one of the the things we fear most, about finding ways to navigate a road we never intended to travel, to live a life we never dreamed we’d have to live but must be brave enough to try.

Comments: The opening lines quoted above exemplify one of the notable qualities of Anna Quindlen's latest novel, Every Last One - the details, every last one. The author uses the proverbial thousand words, and then some, to create a fully realized picture of the day-to-day life of the Latham family - mom and business owner Mary Beth, doctor dad Glen, and their three busy teenagers, daughter Ruby and fraternal-twin sons Alex and Max. The Latham house is a second home to many of their children's friends as well, particularly Ruby's. The family has its issues, but for the most part they're close-knit, functional, and weren't at all difficult for me to understand and relate to. They're so everyday, in fact, you might begin to wonder why they even merit a story.

I'd read a few reviews of Every Last One before I read the book, and I knew something happened partway through that turned the story on its head, but I didn't know the details - and I won't spoil you with them, either. I tried to anticipate and guess what would happen, though; I was wrong - and utterly stunned. But what didn't change from that point on was Quindlen's focus on the details, as she continued to build and develop her characters and make their situation feel convincing and real.

It feels like a lot of the books I read specifically for review are authors' first and second novels, but when I choose books for myself I have many favorite writers I like to come back to, and I appreciate being brought through a story by a seasoned pro. For my money, this is Quindlen's best novel in some time, and may turn out to be among the best fiction I read this year - the story was riveting, I cared about the characters, and the writing was accomplished and somehow unobtrusive at the same time. I read almost two-thirds of this on an airplane; while it's probably the opposite of "escapist" fiction, it was excellent vacation reading.

Rating: 4/5

This counts for the Read Your Own Books Challenge (10/20)

A Vacation Story: NYC - A night on Broadway, a day at the museum

2010-07-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

We didn't have much planned for our Wednesday in New York City until evening...but before that, Katie needed to find some shoes. Wet hopped on the subway headed to the 34th St./Herald Square Station. These days, nearly every city has a Macy's, but there's really only one MACY'S. Two full city blocks, seven floors, those historic wooden escalators...and the shoes!

After our shopping trip to Macy's, we rode back uptown, stopped at the hotel to drop off Grandma and our packages, and went back out to find some lunch - which we did, at Five Guys in the next block. Satisfied with burgers and fries, we walked a few blocks up Fifth Avenue to visit the Land of Toys, F.A.O. Schwarz. I was looking for a birthday gift for my nephew, but that was just an excuse.

Previous installments of our New York adventures are here and here.

Shoe Heaven, 7th floor!

Katie's shoes completed this outfit

This is the Vasquez family, not the Addams Family!

That evening, we were Broadway-bound to see the new musical, The Addams Family. I didn't find the songs particularly memorable, but the book was hilarious (and for the most part, appropriate for all ages - the ten-year-old was in stitches for most of the show), and I thought Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth were perfect as Gomez and Morticia.

Thursday was our last full day in the City, and we decided to spend a Day at the Museum (of Natural History, of course!). But before we got there, we had our only real public-transit blunder of the trip. We didn't go in the wrong direction, but we overshot our stop; it does make a difference whether you get on an express or a local! However, once you do get on the correct train (B or C), the Museum conveniently has its own stop at 81st Street. We didn't see everything - that would take more than one day - but we made sure not to miss the Hayden Planetarium or the prehistoric critters and fossils.

Teddy Roosevelt is historic, not prehistoric

We left the museum and walked down Central Park West, looking for a cab to take Mom-in-law and the kids back to the hotel; Tall Paul and I had a couple of other places we wanted to see. They're obligatory stops on the pilgrimage for lifelong Beatles fans like us.

We spent a little while walking around Strawberry Fields and people-watching in Central Park before getting back on the subway at the 72nd Street station, across the street from The Dakota, and returning to the hotel to pack. We had an early flight home the next day.

I'll be back in the City soon, for BlogHer'10 - and after that, I hope it won't be another twenty years until I visit again!

A Tuesday in NYC: Meeting St. John and Lady Liberty

2010-07-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

On the day we arrived in New York, I received an unexpected - and more than welcome - message from a dear friend asking if we might be able to meet up during my time in the City. Ann and I met over 20 years ago, when I was an accounting temp and she was a secretary for a communications company in Ithaca, New York, and hadn't seen each other since I moved to Memphis in the fall of 1991. But we've stayed in touch, and I've followed her progress in the path toward the ministry. She was ordained as an Episcopal priest a couple of years ago, and while her home parish is on Long Island, she was scheduled be in the city celebrating a Mass on Tuesday morning. We made plans to meet for breakfast, with my family in tow, on the Upper West Side. It would be our first trip on the subway!

You may have seen this place before:

It's not really called Monk's, the interior is very different from the Seinfeld set, and they serve a pretty good breakfast!

After breakfast, Ann took us down the street to give us a little tour of the famously unfinished Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, where she sometimes celebrates Mass in one of the chapels. It's a beautiful and fascinating place, surprisingly eclectic in style - or perhaps not so surprisingly, since it's been under construction for over a century - and there are little touches throughout nodding to other faiths and cultures. Ann told us that more of the money the church collects goes to its missions and ministries than to building, so there's no estimate of its completion date. However, this vibrant faith community has a beautiful, if still incomplete, home. I was thrilled to visit it, especially in the company of my friend. (Note: the better-quality photos were taken by my husband.)

There are peacocks that live on the Cathedral Close. When this white one shed a feather, Spencer picked up a unique souvenir.

We got back on the subway after leaving the Cathedral and rode to the tip of Manhattan Island - we were headed to Battery Park to board the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. Like the monuments we visited in Washington, "Liberty Enlightening the World" isn't done justice by her photos; up close, she's even more imposing and beautiful. Tall Paul and Spencer made the long climb inside to the statue's crown; I visited the small museum in the pedestal and didn't go any higher than its observation deck, but the views from there were pretty good all the same.

Hey, look, it's the Statue of Liberty!

This cross-beam at the Cathedral and this sphere in Battery Park are both relics from the World Trade Center site, 9/11/2001

Grandma and the kids were ready to call it a day after that, so they stayed at the hotel while Tall Paul and I went back out. We (inadvertently) found our way to Carnegie Hall, and had a terrific dinner across the street at the Brooklyn Diner, where I ate what may have been the best baked mac & cheese I have ever had!

At Battery Park, Spencer shares his current reading obsession, the Warriors series. (And yes, Katie's t-shirt does say "Frak off.")

Book Talk: Bird in Hand, by Chistina Baker Kline (TLC Book Tour)

2010-07-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher, via Trish at TLC Book Tours. *I am an Amazon Associate; purchasing links are provided by Amazon.com and will generate a small referral fee if used.

Bird in Hand: A Novel
Christina Baker Kline
Harper Paperbacks (2010), Reprint, Paperback (ISBN 0060798904 / 9780060798901)
Fiction, 288 pages

Opening Lines: "For Alison, these things will always be connected: the moment that cleaved her life into two sections and the dawning realization that even before the accident her life was not what it seemed. In the moment that it took the accident to happen, and in the slow-motion moments afterward, she still believed there was order in the universe - that she'd be able to put things right. But with one random error, built on dozens of tiny mistakes of judgment, she slipped into a different story that seemed, for a long time, to have nothing to do with her."

Book description: The accident was just that -- an accident. It was dark, it was raining, ALISON had two drinks in her, and the other car ran the stop sign. She just didn't get out of the way fast enough. But now a little boy -- not her own -- is dead, and Alison finds herself trapped under the twin burdens of grief and guilt, and feeling increasingly estranged from her husband . . .

CHARLIE, who has his own burdens. He's in a job he doesn't love so that Alison can stay home with the kids (and why isn't she more grateful for that?); he has a house in the suburbs and a long commute to and from the city each day. And the only thing can focus on these days is his secret, sudden affair with . . .

CLAIRE, Alison's best friend. Bold where Alison is reserved; vibrant where Alison is demure, Claire has just had her first novel published, a thinly-veiled retelling of her childhood in South Carolina (which is also Alison's, in a sense). But even in the whirlwind of publication, Claire can't stop wondering if she should leave her husband . . .

BEN, an architect who is thoughtful, kind, and patient. And who wants nothing more than a baby, or two -- in fact, exactly the kind of life that Charlie and Alison have . . .

Four people, two marriages, one lifelong friendship: everything is about to change.

Comments: Christina Baker Kline's Bird in Hand is a novel where not much happens, but what happens could happen to almost any of us, even if we'd rather not think about it. What it's ultimately about are the things we'd rather not think about, and the questions we really aren't sure we want to ask ourselves, because then we might have to answer them...and the answers could change everything.

Kline's character-driven domestic drama focuses on the shift in relationship dynamics among four people - two couples with a long history together - over the course of a year in which one of the women is involved in a fatal car accident and the other publishes an autobiographical novel. The narrative viewpoints shift between the two women, old friends Alison and Claire, and their respective husbands, Charlie and Ben, and the structure of the novel mixes flashbacks through the couples' shared past with the crises of their present.

The characters are, in many ways, people we've met before, and that helped me connect with their story. The fact that I have - not totally by choice - struggled through some of the same conflicts and life questioning that they're going through was another attribute that made me fly through this novel; it struck several chords with me. I really wasn't sure I'd like any of the characters early on, but gradually I developed sympathy for each of them and their place in a complicated situation.

That's another thing that Kline does well in Bird in Hand; she recognizes that the questions we prefer to avoid can have difficult, sometimes scary, answers...and yet, those answers might be the right ones, at least at the time. We may find ourselves questioning them again later on. Bird in Hand doesn't really say anything new, but it says it well, and is a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece of women's fiction.

Rating: 3.75/5

An enlightening "Five Questions" interview with the author on SheWrites.com

Other Stops on this TLC Book Tour:

Monday, July 5th: Book Addiction

Wednesday, July 7th: Lit and Life

Tuesday, July 13th: The Winey Mommy

Wednesday, July 14th: Til We Read Again

Monday, July 19th: Coffee Books and Laundry

Wednesday, July 21st: The Lost Entwife

Thursday, July 22nd: Reading at the Beach

Tuesday, July 27th: My Random Acts of Reading

Wednesday, July 28th: Staircase Wit

Thursday, July 29th: Books Like Breathing

Date TBD: Sasha and the Silverfish

*Buy Bird in Hand: A Novel at Amazon.com*

A vacation story, continued: New York, New York!

2010-07-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

The Washington, DC portion of our trip was recapped here (part 1) and here (part 2).

Days 7 & 8, Sunday-Monday June 20-21:
For Tall Paul's first-ever train ride, we boarded Amtrak's Acela Express at Washington's Union Station on Sunday morning bound for NYC's Penn Station, just like East Coast natives travel! We passed through Baltimore, Wilmington DE, Philadelphia, and a couple of New Jersey stops before arriving in the City around 1 PM.

We really hadn't planned much for the day, so once we got settled in at the centrally-located Hilton New York (6th Avenue at 53rd St.) - where I'll be returning next month for BlogHer'10 (still wearing my sling? too soon to say!) - we got an early dinner and, as we enjoyed doing in DC, walked around the neighborhood for awhile. "Around the neighborhood" took us from Rockefeller Center, up Fifth Avenue to the southern end of Central Park, across to Columbus Circle, and back down Broadway to 53rd Street.

We were back at Rockefeller Center - the legendary "30 Rock" - first thing Monday morning for the NBC Studio Experience tour. We saw Studio 8H, home of Saturday Night Live, the set of the NBC Nightly News and the adjoining MSNBC studios, and an "interactive news studio" where Tall Paul delivered the weather report in front of the camera. We have that performance on DVD - but they didn't allow pictures on the tour, so I can't show you anything other than the official souvenir photo:

After the tour, we had lunch plans with my aunt and uncle - my mom's sister and brother, who live north of the City - and they surprised me by bringing one of my cousins along! It's been a long time since I've seen them all, and only my uncle made it to Tall Paul's and my wedding, so I was thrilled to introduce some of my favorite people to one another. We had lots of fun joking, chatting, and catching up over lunch, but it was nowhere near enough time!

We went back to 30 Rock after lunch to take pictures of the city views from the Top of the Rock observation deck on the top three floors of Rockefeller Center.

That was enough action for Grandma and Spencer, who returned to the hotel for the evening, but Katie, Tall Paul and I walked down to Times Square and the Broadway theatre district. The crowds were thick, but since most of the theatres are "dark" (no performances) on Mondays, they could have been a lot worse! We located the Lunt-Fontanne, where we would be seeing the musical The Addams Family on Wednesday night, and stopped in at the Hershey's Store on our walk back to the hotel.

I'll finish posting about the rest of our New York visit next week, so it'll be wrapped up before I go back to NYC for BlogHer'10 - I'll be there two weeks from today! But today I'm actually in San Diego at Comic-Con, and my report from there will be coming soon...

Could California ban divorce? Should it?

2010-07-22T05:00:00.002-07:00

I've been mulling about this one for at least a week, and after the two days of discussing Laura Munson's separation memoir, this seemed like as good a time as any to bring it up.

Two years ago, there was a lot of talk in California about "protecting marriage" as Proposition 8 came up on the ballot. The constitutional amendment that defines marriage as strictly between one man and one woman passed, controversially, calling into question the legal status of 18,000 gay marriages, and has been in and out of the courts ever since. I had a few things to say about it at the time, and in reference to the "protection" question, my thoughts were these:

I fail to grasp how anyone in a "traditional" marriage is personally threatened by gays marrying. We have enough struggles in maintaining healthy, strong marriages as it is. If marriage really needs "protection," make it harder for anyone to get married in the first place. Many churches require pre-marital counseling before a wedding ceremony; make that a legal, secular requirement in order to be granted a marriage license. How about a test before licensing - not a blood test, which most states no longer require anyway, but a written exam? If it's important enough to have a test for driving, what about for something else you're intending to do for the rest of your life? Afterward, marriage could also be "protected" by making divorces harder to get, although as someone who has been through not just divorce but the personal pain leading up to it, I don't think I would fully support that myself; sometimes the individual needs protection more. But I really don't get how marriage is being "protected" by denying it to gays and lesbians.

It appears that it's occurred to others that if marriage truly is to be preserved, maybe it does need to be harder to get out of a marriage once you're in one. There's an initiative in the works that would make divorce out-and-out illegal in California, proposed by the group RescueMarriage.org (I'm not linking to them, but you can look them up if you like). It's aiming for the 2011 ballot if it gets enough signatures to qualify in the petition stage:

ELIMINATES THE LAW ALLOWING MARRIED COUPLES TO DIVORCE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced in California. Preserves the ability of married couples to seek an annulment. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Savings to the state of up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually for support of the court system due to the elimination of divorce proceedings. (10-0019.)

I'll save my annoyance with California ballot initiatives for another time, but the short version is that this state, at times, has put far too much governance directly in the hands of its people. I'll also note that all initiatives are required to state their projected impact on the seriously troubled state budget...but financial considerations have little to do with this proposal. Besides, according to LAist.com in the post linked above,

"...further state analysis predicts fewer marriages in California, thus possibly, 'over time, result in a lower overall state population.' It could also reduce the number of marriages, meaning fewer weddings resulting in less local spending at businesses affecting the tax base."

I'm inclined to think that if you prohibit divorce, you probably will see fewer marriages. It's not that most people go into marriages expecting, or intending, that they won't last, or that marriage is something undertaken casually by the general population; although I strongly suspect that in some cases, there's certainly an element of that - it's hard to live so near Hollywood and not think so - but I don't believe it's the norm.

But as much as we'd like to believe in happily ever after and idealize the nuclear family, and even with all the money spent on weddings in this country, the hard truth is that sometimes marriages don't work. Sometimes they become physically dangerous to one of the partners. Sometimes the mental health of one or both spouses is threatened by their domestic situation, or substance abuse is present. In a home where the parents are struggling with one another, their children's well-being can suffer. And sometimes, no matter how much they've worked at it, two people just can't find a way to keep living with each other. Should the state force them to do so anyway? I don't think so. There needs to be a way out.

I've been married twice, and divorced once. The same thing applies to my husband. Neither of us initiated the end of our first marriages, and we did not take their ends lightly. The costs of the divorce aren't just financial, and they are not costs I want to bear a second time - neither does he. Hopefully, we learned from the failure of our first marriages, and we understand more about how to keep this one together. But at the same time, we've also both lived within the misery of a marriage that's near death - the fighting, the silence and avoidance, the pervasive emotional distress under a veneer of stability - and that has costs too. I really would prefer not to bear those costs again, either, and I would not appreciate being required by law to pay them.

There are couples who have made the personal choice that, for them, divorce is not an option. Some have found healthy ways to address the challenges of a shared life. Others live in a state of cold war and share as little as possible, but have their reasons for sticking it out. However, at least they have the possibility of ending things if they do, at some point, become impossible. Prohibiting divorce would take that option away, and while it might indeed "protect marriage," some of the marriages it would protect might be better off left unprotected and allowed to end. I'm not opposed to making it harder to end them - requiring counseling and a mandatory legal separation before filing for divorce, for example - and I really would prefer to believe that most of them aren't being ended on a whim, but I do think that the legal right to end them needs to be preserved. I'll be keeping my eye on this initiative - it failed to qualify for the 2010 general-election ballot, and I hope it meets the same fate this time around.

Image credit: PicApp Image Search via BlogHer

Book Club: How my story is - and is not - her story

2010-07-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

Laura Munson's memoir This Is Not the Story You Think It Is, which I reviewed yesterday, wasn't the story I thought it would be - or the one I hoped for, to be honest. I haven't exactly been in Laura Munson's shoes, but about eleven years ago, mine were a very similar style and size. I have to admit that that even now, I was looking to find some validation from shoes that had walked in the same direction.

Like Laura, I was informed seemingly out of the blue by my husband of fifteen years that he no longer loved me...but unlike her, it was something I had feared and half-expected for quite some time. I think my husband may have been more blindsided by it than I was...but at the same time, he seemed almost as blindsided to realize he was involved with another woman, and it's still hard to say even now which precipitated the other. But I'd always believed my husband was the sort who could only devote himself to one person at a time, so it wasn't hard to imagine he must be somehow done with me if he now felt that way about someone else. Oh, it was hard to ACCEPT, even more than a year after our divorce - but it wasn't hard to IMAGINE.

Like Laura and her husband, my husband and I embarked on a strange and ambivalent separation - one in which he came to our home nearly every day, for the stated purpose of seeing our fifteen-year-old son. Our son didn't have much interest in spending time with his father under the circumstances, however, and so my husband and I spent an unusual amount of time with one another, talking quite a bit more than I suspect most separated couples do. Six months later, he moved back in. A few months after that, we were coming to the conclusion that we had genuinely irreconcilable differences, although we remained in the same house and didn't begin divorce proceedings for another year.

And like Laura, amid the challenges of an unwanted marital separation I found a bit of "unlikely happiness" myself. I didn't feel the need to walk on eggshells or feel like I didn't belong in my own home. I explored my own interests - reading, writing, cooking - without worrying about others' reactions to how I was spending my time, and felt free to be a little self-indulgent (in both good ways and bad). I made my own house rules. I made more social overtures. I spent some time getting to know myself better. Many of the steps I took were small, and plenty of them were in the wrong direction, but there were breaks in the clouds.

However, Laura and I are very different people, and she was probably a lot better prepared to face a marriage crisis than I was. She was a more forceful personality (and probably still is). She was much more able to see that what was happening really wasn't about her, and more effective at managing and deflecting the blame both she and her husband directed at her. Despite those strengths, it wasn't all sunshine and unicorns, of course - but unless you've been through something similar and can bring that perspective, I'm not sure her book will give you a strong sense of emotionally difficult it most likely was. However, it did seem to be, as the book's subtitle says, "a season of unlikely happiness." My own period of separation from my first husband had its elements of that too, along with the many moments of confusion and lack of clarity.

This post is part of an online book-club discussion of Laura Munson's memoir, This Is Not the Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness, hosted yesterday (I goofed - thought it was today, and posted accordingly) at From Left to Write Book Club.

Book Talk: This is Not the Story You Think It Is, by Laura Munson

2010-07-20T05:00:00.001-07:00

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in order to participate in a planned From Left to Write Book Club discussion scheduled for July 21. *I am an Amazon Associate. Use of the purchasing links in this review will generate a small referral fee for me.

This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness
Laura Munson
Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam (2010), Hardcover (ISBN 0399156658 / 9780399156656)
Nonfiction/Memoir, 352 pages

Opening Lines: "At this moment in my life, I am strangely serene. In fact, I may have never felt more calm. Or more freed. Or more certain that these things owe themselves to a simple choice: to accept life as it is. Even and especially when it really fucking stinks."

Book Description: Laura Munson's essay in the New York Times, about the time she was tested in a way she never anticipated, created a firestorm-now here's the whole story.

When Laura Munson's essay was published, The New York Times was so flooded with responses that they had to close down the comment feature. Readers wrote in saying that they had sent the column to all of their friends. Therapists wrote Munson to tell her that they were passing it out to their clients.

What did Munson write that caused such a fervor?

Laura detailed what happened when her husband of more than twenty years told her he wasn't sure he loved her anymore and wanted to move out. And while you might think you know where this story is going, this isn't the story you think it is. Laura's response to her husband: "I don't buy it."

In this poignant, wise, and often funny memoir, Munson recounts a period of months in which her faith in herself-and her marriage-was put to the test. Shaken to the core after the death of her beloved father, not finding the professional success that she had hoped for, and after countless hours of therapy, Laura finally, at age forty, realized she had to stop basing her happiness on things outside her control and commit herself to an "End of Suffering." This Is Not The Story You Think It Is... chronicles a woman coming to terms with the myths we tell ourselves-and others-about our life and realizing that ultimately happiness is completely within our control.

Comments: This wasn't the story I thought it would be - or the one I hoped for, to be honest. I haven't exactly been in Laura Munson's shoes, but about eleven years ago, mine were a very similar style and size. I have to admit that that even now, I was looking to find some validation from shoes that had walked in the same direction.

However, Laura and I are very different people, and she was probably a lot better prepared to face a marriage crisis than I was. She was a more forceful personality (and probably still is). She was much more able to see that what was happening really wasn't about her, and more effective at managing and deflecting the blame both she and her husband directed at her. Despite those strengths, it wasn't all sunshine and unicorns, of course - but unless you've been through something similar and can bring that perspective, I'm not sure the book itself will give you a strong sense of emotionally difficult it most likely was. However, it did seem to be, as the book's subtitle says, "a season of unlikely happiness." My own period of separation from my first husband had its elements of that too, along with the moments of confusion and lack of clarity.

Munson claims to be honest in telling her story, and while a non-witness can't know that for certain, her writing certainly felt honest to me - journal-like in places, with a very conversational tone and frequent use of humor. However, I have to be honest myself; I didn't end up finding her story as compelling as I'd hoped to, and I felt that was in part due to the way it was told. There's a lot of therapy-speak here; most of it's relevant, but it can become grating for me after a while. I found Laura's frequent references to her privileged background both relevant and grating as well. Munson has been a working writer for years, but this is her first published book, and without the notoriety of her New York Times essay, I have to wonder if it would have sold so readily.

This one falls solidly into the "I wanted to like it more than I did" category, but as someone who's been through a variation on Laura Munson's story herself, I may have brought some unwarranted expectations to my reading of it. Having said that, the book is definitely a discussion starter, and I do think it could be helpful, hopeful and inspiring if the reader's in the right frame of mine for it. And I don't think it hurts to be reminded sometimes that life isn't the story we think it is, either.

Rating: 3.25/5

Other bloggers' reviews and opinions, via the Book Blogs Search Engine:
Michelle's Masterful Musings
S. Krishna's Books
The Girl From the Ghetto

Buy This is Not the Story You Think It Is... at Amazon.com

Book Talk: 31 Bond Street, by Ellen Horan (TLC Book Tour)

2010-07-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher for review purposes as part of a blog tour, via Lisa of TLC Book Tours. *I am an Amazon Associate. Purchasing links in this review are provided by Amazon.com, and will generate a small referral fee for me if clicked and used.

31 Bond Street: A Novel
Ellen Horan
Harper (2010), Hardcover (ISBN 0061773964 / 9780061773969)
Fiction (historical), 368 pages

Opening Lines: "About three o'clock early Saturday morning, a heavy snow commenced and continued till daylight. The snow turned to rain and the wind blew for four hours, which we cannot but characterize as the worst, the very worst, wintry gale ever experienced in the city, ripping up window shutters and blowing down signs."

Book description: Who killed Dr. Harvey Burdell?

Though there are no witnesses and no clues, fingers point to Emma Cunningham, the refined, pale-skinned widow who managed Burdell’s house and his servants. Rumored to be a black-hearted gold digger with designs on the doctor’s name and fortune, Emma is immediately put under house arrest during a murder investigation. A swift conviction is sure to catapult flamboyant district attorney Abraham Oakey Hall into the mayor’s seat. But one formidable obstacle stands in his way: the defense attorney Henry Clinton. Committed to justice and the law, Clinton will aid the vulnerable widow in her desperate fight to save herself from the gallows.

Set in 1857 New York, this gripping mystery is also a richly detailed excavation of a lost age. Horan vividly re-creates a tumultuous era characterized by a sensationalist press, aggressive new wealth, a booming real-estate market, corruption, racial conflict, economic inequality between men and women, and the erosion of the old codes of behavior. A tale of murder, sex, greed, and politics, this spellbinding narrative transports readers to a time that eerily echoes our own.

Comments: This ripped-from-the-headlines, made-for-the-tabloids tale has it all. Murder, corruption, scandal, illicit relationships, class conflict, legal intrigue...and the chance to get a great deal on some New Jersey swampland! Ellen Horan's historical novel 31 Bond Street is indeed ripped from the headlines - of the 1857 New-York Daily Times, that is. (By the way, there's an interesting tidbit in the early chapters that explains how the newspaper we know today as The New York Times became the "paper of record.")

Based on the trial of Emma Cunningham, who was accused of the brutal murder of New York dentist/businessman Dr. Harvey Burdell, Horan has crafted a story that's just as much about old New York City itself as it is about the criminal case in question. Even then, New York was a crowded, fast-paced, and energetic city, with Manhattan poised to expand north into "the grid" beyond the old neighborhoods at the tip of the island, where streets were numbered rather than named, and Fifth Avenue was already the desirable address for the well-to-do. Having recently spent a week in not-so-old New York myself, I was particularly interested in the city's role in this novel.

And to be honest, I found New York itself the most interesting character in 31 Bond Street; aside from defense attorney Henry Clinton and his wife Elisabeth (a woman, and a marriage, a bit ahead of their time), I really didn't like most of the others very much. That may be, in part, because I didn't find them especially well-written - but many of them really weren't likable people, period. This is a book to read for the story; it's primarily plot-driven, and for the most part, the plot is fascinating and held my attention nearly to the end.

31 Bond Street is a fast-paced, engaging read, perfect for summer. I read it during the first days of recuperating from my shoulder injury, and it was a fine diversion. It would make a diverting movie as well - in fact, there's already talk that it will be turned into one!

Author Ellen Horan is hosting a Cast the Movie Contest on the book's website - if your picks for the actors to play four of the main roles match hers, you could win a signed edition of the book and a box of handmade chocolate truffles from NYC's own Bond Street Chocolate.

Rating: 3.25/5

Other stops on this TLC Book Tour:

Tuesday, July 6th: Word Lily

Wednesday, July 7th: Rundpinne

Thursday, July 8th: Musings of a Bookish Kitty

Monday, July 12th: Simply Stacie

Tuesday, July 13th: Novel Whore

Wednesday, July 14th: Ask Miss A

Thursday, July 15th: Life and Times of a “New” New Yorker

Tuesday, July 20th: Scraps of Life

Wednesday, July 21st: A Few More Pages

Thursday, July 22nd: Novel Whore- Gabriella

Friday, July 23rd: Starting Fresh

Monday, July 26th: Caribousmom

Tuesday, July 27th: The Tome Traveller

Wednesday, July 28th: Jo-Jo Loves to Read!!!

Thursday, July 29th: Bibliofreak

Monday, August 2nd: A Bookworm’s World

Tuesday, August 3rd: Jen’s Book Thoughts

Buy 31 Bond Street at Amazon.com

Sunday Salon: Bookkeeping, Bookmarks, and Reading, Online-style

2010-07-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Salon

When I went on vacation last month I had a few guest bloggers fill in here, and I think the one who got the biggest response was Molly from The Bumbles Blog, with her tips for managing feed-reader clutter. I've implemented one of her suggestions and have been using it for a few weeks now, so I thought I'd let you know how it was going.

If your preferred browser is Firefox, you read blogs via RSS feed through Google Reader, and you subscribe to a sizable number of blogs (let's say at least 100, and I'll say my number is several times more than that), I'm going to second Molly's recommendation to read them with Feedly instead. Feedly is a Firefox extension that syncs with your Google Reader, and includes all subscriptions and folders you've set up there (you do organize your blogs into folders, right?). The terminology is a little different - Feedly calls your subscriptions "sources" and lets you organize them into "categories" - but the functionality is pretty much the same; it just looks a lot nicer. These are a few of my favorite ways that Feedly improves the blog-reading experience:

Choice of Start Page: You do NOT have to be confronted with the number of unread posts when you first open Feedly unless you actually want to know! I prefer to be forewarned, so I use the "Latest Articles" page as my start page, but you can opt to open with the "Favorites", "Cover," or "Digest" view if you prefer. The last two views don't show the unread count, but they can also include your Twitter stream and mentions, as well as updates from YouTube and Flickr.

Easy Reading: Feedly is just so streamlined. The preview of each item is larger that Google Reader offers, so both skimming and choosing which posts you want to read in full are easier. Posts can be marked as read, saved as unread, read and saved for later, opened in another window or tab, or opened in a preview pop-up with just a click. Feedly is helping me become a speedier blog reader - and that's good, because there's only so much time in the day!

Easy Sharing: Feedly makes it ridiculously easy to share posts to other sites; every post you open has an array of sharing icons at the top. If you choose to share to Twitter, it opens a window with the post title and shortened (bit.ly) link, and lets you know how many characters are available to add in your own message. Feedly's "Karma" feature lets you know how many users have clicked a link you shared on Twitter, just in case you were wondering.

Feedly allows for lots of customization and has made my blog reading even more enjoyable. Have you tried it yourself?

Via Feedly, a few BOOKMARKS for this week:

Will you be at Comic-Con International in San Diego this week? I'm going for the first time, but only for the first two days, Thursday and Friday. My Friend Amy will be there for all four days, and offers a Comic-Con Guide for the Bookish Set.

Do people ever ask how you manage to read so many books? Alison shared some of her secrets - what are some of yours?

Have you encountered some of the tricky things to consider when recommending books that Becky has?

Speaking of tricky things...book blogging has opened new avenues to friendship between readers and authors, but with those friendships may come certain responsibilities. Author Shannon Hale discusses how writers' friends can carry out the responsibility of being first readers.

As part of the new "Outspoken Interviews" series on Estella's Revenge, author Marilyn Johnson makes a plea to save budget-threatened public libraries.

Michelle has been opening up some discussions on the nature of blogging in her Food for Thought series - most recently, she's brought up blogger development and freedom of speech.

But since we are supposed to be talking about reading books here in the Sunday Salon...

BOOKKEEPING: The Reading Status Report

Recent Reviews:
The Local News, by Miriam Gershow
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (50th Anniversary observation)
Fly Away Home, by Jennifer Weiner

Upcoming Reviews:
31 Bond Street, by Ellen Horan (TLC Book Tour)
This is Not the Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness, by Laura Munson (review and discussion for From Left to Write Book Club)
Bird in Hand, by Christina Baker Kline (TLC Book Tour)
Every Last One, by Anna Quindlen
Lit: A Memoir, by Mary Karr (TLC Book Tour)

New Additions to the LibraryThing "To Read" Collection:
Labor Day: A Novel, by Joyce Maynard (upcoming TLC Book Tour)

Have a great reading week!

Baby, it's HOT outside - but just chill out! (Weekend Assignment #327)

2010-07-16T05:00:00.002-07:00

Between my vacation and my limitation to one-handed typing for the last few weeks, I've missed a few Weekend Assignments lately. But my right shoulder is recovering well, as I Tweeted on Wednesday morning:

"GREAT news at the ortho yesterday: shoulder healing very well & can wean off sling -by next week, just need to wear it at night!" 9:30 AM Jul 14th via TwitterGadget

and later that day:

"I have a new appreciation for typing with both hands - and oh, right-click, how I've missed you!" 1:34 PM Jul 14th via TwitterGadget

The timing is good - for one thing, I will not be accessorizing with the Immobilizer at Comic-Con next week or at BlogHer'10 three weeks from now! It's also heating up outside - temperatures locally are forecast to hit triple digits this weekend - so it'll be nice not to have to wear something extra on my arm. It also makes Karen's Weekend Assignment topic an especially hot one:

Weekend Assignment #327: Beat the Heat!

Summer is well underway now. If you live in the northern hemisphere, the days are long and the sun is on its way to being about as hot as it gets in your particular climate. How do you stay cool when the weather gets hot?

Extra Credit: If you've ever relocated hundreds of miles to a new home, did the climate play a role in your decision to move?

One reason that my first husband, son, and I moved to Memphis, Tennessee in the fall of 1991 was because the other job offer he had was from a college in St. Paul, Minnesota. After four years of Central New York State winters during his graduate-school stint, I begged for a more temperate climate. Memphis does have hot and humid summers, granted, but the spring and fall are long and mostly pleasant (aside from the thunderstorms and tornadoes, of course) and the winters aren't too rough. When I relocated to Southern California ten years later, I chose it because my extended family all lived there already, but I won't deny that the climate was also part of the appeal.

But unless you're right at the beach all the time, SoCal heats up in the summer too. However, this is naturally a desert climate, and it's a dry heat. Don't scoff at that, because after spending the second half of June in the muggy Northeast, I have to tell you that there really is a difference - and the body adapts more easily to the lack of humidity. Lower humidity means that the evenings are noticeably cooler and more comfortable than the daylight hours, too...and again, unless you're near water, they're also less plagued by mosquitoes. Still, even the dry heat is still HOT - it's just a difference between baking and steaming.

My SoCal-native husband doesn't take heat very well, so when the temperatures go up, we go undercover and inside. Basically, we avoid outdoor activities as much as possible, and even try to confine travel to the early and late parts of the day, when the car won't heat up quite as much out in the parking lot. We may go to the movies or do some other indoor recreation, but some weekends we'll just stay home, playing games, reading, and watching movie marathons on DVD. We are very grateful to have been born after the invention of air conditioning.

Kick back with a cold drink and tell me how you keep your cool when it heats up outside! And if you'd like to tell everyone, join in on this week's Weekend Assignment!

Weekly Geeks 2010-23: The Tale of the Trailer

2010-07-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

This week, Weekly Geeks are considering the newest trend in book marketing: the book trailer. Bernadette says:

In the last year or two a new entity has arisen in the publishing world: the book trailer. Apparently every self-respecting book has to have one these days so it seemed a good time to have a chat about them. Feel free to answer as many (or as few) of these questions as you like.
Do you watch book trailers?

If yes, do you actively seek them out or just watch the ones that get pushed to you in some way?

If you don't watch them, why not?

Have you ever read a book based solely on seeing the trailer? What book was it and what did you like about the trailer?

Where do book trailers come on your list of things that influence you with regards to what books to read (friends' recommendations, mainstream reviews, bloggers, bookstore promotions, the blurb....)?

Do you have a favourite book trailer that you'd like to share? What do you like about it?

Book trailers were also the subject of a recent New York Times article that suggested they've become essential components to book campaigns, and author Beth Kephart responded:

"Citing book trailer budgets of up to $15,000, I thought of my own budgets (no pennies, just my time, which I leave others to value), my own resources (the photographs I know how to take and the video I don't), my own technology (iMovie, after I lost patience with Final Cut during one particularly hot, sweaty day), my own music choices (severely limited by lack of budget and lack of personal composing/performing/recording capabilities, though I do hum a mean "Twinkle, Twinkle"), my own microphone (which is attached to my unportable computer, which sits on my glass-topped desk in my glass-surround office), my own vision (and how sorely it compares to the final product), my own un-desire to sit in front of my little Apple camera and interview myself (what a monumental bore, I think, to interview myself), and my own aims (to tell someone out there what the book is about in 90 seconds or less).

Had I thought, for example, about how hard it would be to create a trailer for my upcoming historical novel, Dangerous Neighbors, I might have thought twice (I'm saying might have, only) before signing up for all the difficulties that simply writing the book entailed. Because how, in fact, does a woman like me—lacking budget, lacking video talent—recreate the kaleidoscopic quality of that book?"

Personally, I almost never watch book trailers, and I don't feel like I'm missing anything. But I really don't have a lot of interest in online video to begin with - I don't watch YouTube unless someone else shows me a clip, I'm not that interested in watching movies or TV shows online when they look so much better (and larger) on my television screen, and the last thing I want to do on this site is vlog, so I relate to Beth's ambivalence about creating video for her books. In any case, I'm probably showing my age here, but I still see the computer primarily as a device for reading and writing - communicating via text and perhaps photos, but not so much audio/video.

Having said that, I did check out Beth Kephart's Dangerous Neighbors trailer on YouTube. If I hadn't already read about the book and made plans to read it, I'm not sure the trailer would have been the thing that put it on my radar, and I doubt I'd seek out any book's trailer if some other form of publicity about it - blog post, news article, print review, Twitter talk - hadn't gotten my attention to begin with.

Trailers and video promos for movies and TV shows pique my interest partly with content, and partly because they're appropriate, expected media for such promotion - that is, they come from the same place. Books are still text, and I guess I just haven't come around to seeing them marketed with non-text-based tools.

What's your take on book trailers?

Washington, DC, Days 4-6: A vacation story, part 2

2010-07-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

Part 1, in case you missed it...

Day Four, Thursday 6/17:
On a sunny, hot, and breezy Thursday morning - duh, it's Washington DC in June, but I will say it was slightly less muggy than usual - we hopped aboard the Tourmobile bus to make the rounds of some of the city's famous Presidential and war memorials. Seeing these places in person, when I've seen them in photos and on screens so many, many times, was just a little surreal - it's probably not unlike the way visitors to LA and Hollywood are affected by the "movie sights" they see when they come here.

Our first stop turned out to be my favorite - the Jefferson Memorial. It's less traveled than some of the others.

Our next stop was the newest and largest Presidential memorial, covering seven acres and dedicated to the only four-term President, Franklin D. Roosevelt. I didn't get too many photos since my camera was acting up, but Eleanor Roosevelt says hello:

The Lincoln Memorial is an inspiring place, and the statue of Abraham Lincoln is one of the finest sculptures I have ever seen - photos don't do it justice.

The Supreme Court

Mom-in-law and the kids waited while Tall Paul and I visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Even in the midday sunshine, the Wall is a somber and sobering place.

We headed back to the Washington Monument on the Tourmobile and found a cab from there back to the hotel for the kids and their grandma. Meanwhile, Tall Paul and I got back on the Metro and rode to Capitol Hill - we wanted to scout the route to the Library of Congress, where we were going the next morning. After that, we decided to take a trip to Union Station. Our Amtrak train to New York City would be departing from there on Sunday morning, and we thought it would be a good idea to figure out in advance how that was going to work.

Days Five and Six, Friday 6/18-Saturday 6/19:
We returned to the Library of Congress in the morning - and this time we went inside! Aside from the fact that it's a temple of
books, the LoC is one of the most beautiful buildings I visited in Washington. If you go with kids, be sure to visit the Young Readers center on the ground floor. My husband was especially interested in the new political-humor exhibit, Hope for America, featuring one of his personal heroes, Bob Hope.

Our afternoon outing was also a re-visit, as we returned to the National Gallery of Art. My husband, whose degree is in Fine Arts and Illustration, was in his element explaining different art techniques to his kids - and providing irreverent commentary about some of the works we were seeing. However, he was anything but irreverent when he had the chance to view his first Vermeer outside of a textbook - and it was his favorite work by the Dutch painter, "Woman Holding a Balance."

Saturday, our last full day in the capital, was a day for seeing people rather than sights, and was also the day of my only bookstore outing of the trip. We met my son Chris for brunch - our last meal with him during our visit - and then he walked me up to Dupont Circle, where I was having a book-blogger meet-up with Serena and Anna. While waiting for them, I dropped in at local indie bookstore Kramerbooks/Afterwords and picked up a few things. Serena has already posted about our fun lunch, and I had a great time hanging out with her and Anna!

There's so much to see in our nation's capital that Tall Paul and I are already talking about our next visit...but perhaps in the spring or fall, when it's a little less hot and humid and our California-acclimated bodies are better suited to the weather.

The next installment of our story moves on to New York City - where I didn't meet any bloggers, but I had the chance to introduce my new family to some of my extended family, and an unexpected visit with a long-time-not-seen friend!

Book Talk: Fly Away Home, by Jennifer Weiner

2010-07-13T05:00:00.001-07:00

Disclosure: I received an ARC (Advance Reader's Copy) of this novel for review purposes via Artemis Azima at Engelman & Co. The book is available in stores as of today. * I am an Amazon Associate. Purchasing links in this review are provided by Amazon.com and will generate a small referral fee for me if used.

Fly Away Home: A Novel
Jennifer Weiner (blog)
Atria (2010), Hardcover (ISBN 0743294270 / 9780743294270)
Fiction, 368 pages

Opening Lines: "Breakfast in five-star hotels was always the same. This was what Sylvie Serfer Woodruff thought as the elevator descended from the sixth floor and opened onto the gleaming expanse of the lobby of the Four Seasons in Philadelphia. After thirty-two years of marriage, fourteen of them as the wife of the senior senator from New York, after visits to six continents and some of the major cities of the world, perhaps she should have been able to come up with something more profound about human nature and common ground and the ties that bind us all, but there it was—her very own insight."

Book description: Sometimes all you can do is fly away home . . .

When Sylvie Serfer met Richard Woodruff in law school, she had wild curls, wide hips, and lots of opinions. Decades later, Sylvie has remade herself as the ideal politician's wife—her hair dyed and straightened, her hippie-chick wardrobe replaced by tailored knit suits. At fifty-seven, she ruefully acknowledges that her job is staying twenty pounds thinner than she was in her twenties and tending to her husband, the senator. Lizzie, the Woodruffs' younger daughter, is at twenty-four a recovering addict, whose mantra HALT (Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired?) helps her keep her life under control. Still, trouble always seems to find her. Her older sister, Diana, an emergency room physician, has everything Lizzie failed to achieve—a husband, a young son, the perfect home—and yet she's trapped in a loveless marriage. With temptation waiting in one of the ER's exam rooms, she finds herself craving more. After Richard's extramarital affair makes headlines, the three women are drawn into the painful glare of the national spotlight. Once the press conference is over, each is forced to reconsider her life, who she is and who she is meant to be.

Written with an irresistible blend of heartbreak and hilarity, Fly Away Home is an unforgettable story of a mother and two daughters who after a lifetime of distance finally learn to find refuge in one another.

Comments: Spoiler for a review not yet posted - I was a bit disappointed with Jennifer Weiner's last novel, Best Friends Forever, so I was a little nervous about reading her newest, which is being released today. Spoiler for this review - I got over my reservations quickly, though.

The Woodruff women are going through simultaneous crises, and while these crises don't necessarily draw mother and daughters together, they do affect how they relate to one another. Younger daughter Lizzie is recently out of rehab and trying to prove - to herself as well as everyone else - that she's not just a screwup. Older daughter Diana's perfectly planned life - mother, wife, doctor - is being turned inside out by her involvement with an attractive intern. A similar involvement is doing the same thing to their mother, Sylvie - except in her case, the one who's involved is her husband, New York Senator Richard Woodruff. It's a ripped-from-the-headlines plot element - the scandal of the high-profile politician caught fooling around, and the spouse's reaction to the revelations - but in Weiner's hands, it's not necessarily the same story you've heard before.

Weiner takes some chances in building so much of her story around an incident so contemporary, and there are details in the ARC - references to a married golfer with a string of girlfriends and an Academy Award-winning actress' cheating husband - that could potentially date the novel. However, the themes related to it - the public presentation and the inner workings of marriages, the challenges of knowing and creating who you are, coping with life's curveballs - are pretty timeless, and Weiner explores them through some of the strongest, most vivid characters she's created in some time. Sylvie, a woman who finds herself at a loss after more than thirty years of making her husband's career her own life's work, particularly appealed to me, but each of the Woodruff women was well-drawn, distinct, and layered. I found something to love in all of them, even brittle Diana.

I think Fly Away Home may be Jennifer Weiner's most ambitious, accomplished novel yet. She challenges her characters with common, yet complicated, topics like infidelity, addiction, unplanned pregnancy and family/career conflict, and acknowledges that there are no one-size-fits-all answers. The novel's humor isn't contrived, and neither is its humanity and emotional resonance. Books like this are why I enjoy contemporary women's fiction, and why Jennifer Weiner remains one of my favorite authors in the niche.

Rating: 4/5

As mentioned, the book is on sale today, and Jennifer Weiner may be bringing it - and cupcakes! - to a city near you! Check out the details of the "Cupcakes Across America Book Tour" on her Facebook page.

Other reviews, via the Book Blogs Search Engine:
Booking Mama
Cheryl's Book Nook
In Bed With Books
Colloquium

*Buy Fly Away Home: A Novel at Amazon.com*

Book Talk: To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

2010-07-12T05:00:00.003-07:00

It so happens that To Kill a Mockingbird was, technically, the very first book I reviewed on this blog. I thought it might be nice to revisit it in connection with the novel's 50th-anniversary celebration - and while I'm at it, spiff up the discussion just a bit.

Book description:

"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel—a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man's struggle for justice—but the weight of history will only tolerate so much.

One of the best-loved classics of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has earned many distinctions since its original publication in 1960. It has won the Pulitzer Prize, been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, and been made into an enormously popular movie. It was also named the best novel of the twentieth century by librarians across the country (Library Journal).

Comments: I first read this post-college as part of my effort to catch up on classics that I'd missed during my formal education. I kept my copy, but I don't know when I'd have read it again if someone hadn't selected it for Book Club in November 2006...and then that meeting ended up not happening, so we never did have the discussion (or watch the movie).

This was a more meaningful reading experience for me the second time around. I think that having returned to the South for ten years after my original reading of the novel - and then leaving it again - made me appreciate its Southern literary flavor even more, and connect better with the history that informs it. Having said that, I had some trouble buying the enlightened attitudes of the Finch family in that time and place; writing of the 1930's in the late 1950's, Harper Lee seems to be foreshadowing the coming civil-rights upheavals of the 1960's. It also struck me as out of place, in that context, for two mid-century middle-class Southern children to address their father by this first name.

However, those are quibbles. The novel certainly takes on Big Questions, but it became and remains a classic because the story is compelling and the characters - Scout, Atticus, Boo Radley - are unforgettable creations. I appreciated Lee's writing, particularly Scout's distinctive narrative voice, more on my second reading than I did originally, and caught more of the humor and small details.

To Kill a Mockingbird isn't usually one of the books that first comes to mind when I'm questioned about my all-time favorites, but it's one I'll always be glad I've read...and read again. Here's to its next 50 years!

Sunday Salon 7/11: Reflections of a One-handed Reader

2010-07-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

The last four weeks have been pretty productive reading time for me, between vacation and convalescing with my dislocated shoulder! I started and finished three books during the two weeks we were away, and in the two weeks since we came home, I've completed four more. I honestly can't remember the last time I read seven books in a month - and I'd also forgotten how much I like tearing through one book after another!

It won't last, though. I'm back to work on a partial telecommuting basis (for now), so my reading time will dwindle. Since I'm still wearing the immobilizer sling on my right arm 22 hours a day, I've been typing left-handed and slowly, which has kept my blogging activity down to not much more than reviews of the books I've finished and some vacation stories. I'm hoping to be weaned from the sling over the next few weeks - I'm seeing an orthopedist on Tuesday and hope to know more after that - and as I return to two-handedness, I suspect I'll be trying to write more (and participate more actively in the blogging and Twitter communities - I'm missing that!). That usually means less time hitting the books.

Fortunately, one doesn't really need both hands to read, but it does help, since not all reading materials are created equal. E-books are great. Hardcovers are better than I'd have expected, since they're easier to prop up (and the dust jacket flaps are built-in bookmarks). Trade paperback is my favorite format, but larger and heavier ones are surprisingly clumsy to manage one-handed, especially when reading at breakfast.

BOOKKEEPING: The Reading Status Report

Earlier this week, I posted my Reading (Half-)Year in Review - and after reading some other folks' status reports, I thought I'd add a few more statistics:

Total books read and reviewed year-to-date: 26 27
Review copies read (ARCs, tours, other sources): 14 15
My books read: 12

Hardcover: 6
Paperback: 12
ARC/galley: 5 6
E-book (Kindle): 3

Fiction: 20 21
Nonfiction: 6

Re-reads (reviewed for first time): 1

Female authors: 20 (read 3 books by one author and 2 by another)
Male authors: 4

Recent additions to the LbraryThing "To Read" Collection

* received specifically for review
# moved from the Wishlist

After many years, I think I may finally be losing my irrational fear of running out of things to read...or else I'm making it even more irrational than ever!

How is your summer reading going?

Washington DC, Days 1 - 3: A vacation story in pictures, mostly

2010-07-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my unfortunate incapacitation and temporary one-handed state, I had to revise my vacation-recap blogging plans to be more photo-sharing and less story-telling. (It takes fewer left-handed keystrokes to browse and paste pictures.) This is the first of several installments, and just a sampling of the pictures. It will take longer than I anticipated to cover the whole trip...

Day One, Monday, 6/14:
After a long day that started very early in order to make our morning flight, we checked in at the Sofitel Lafayette Square (15th and H Streets), unpacked a bit, and sought out dinner. We didn't want anything too complicated at that point, so we walked around the corner to the legendary Five Guys Burgers and Fries. They've got best burgers since my beloved Back Yard Burgers (sorry, In-N-Out!) and terrific fries - but they're cooked in peanut oil, so sadly, you can't eat there if you have a peanut allergy. Fortunately, none of us do, so we were able to visit Five Guys twice - the second time was in New York City.

After dinner, we walked around the neighborhood until the humidity and approaching darkness sent us back to the hotel for showers and sleep.

Day Two, Tuesday 6/15:
This morning brought the first of many trips on DC Metro Rail, as we went off to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Granted, we come from the land of lousy-to-nonexistent public transportation, but we were favorably impressed by the ease of navigation and good condition of the DC Metro trains and stations. Once we were done with Air and Space, we made a brief visit to the National Gallery of Art - we returned for more of that on Friday - and then met my son Chris, a DC resident since June 2007, for a fantastic dinner of "low country cuisine" at Georgia Brown's, where the cornbread and biscuits were amazing and the BBQ Shrimp Salad was like nothing I've ever had before. If you like Southern cooking with a twist, you must try this place!

"The Castle" - The Smithsonian Institution itself! It's admin offices now.

The "National Museum" outgrew this building a LONG time ago...

Day Three, Wednesday 6/16:
We returned to the Smithsonian (via the Metro) to visit the National Museum of American History, where we spent most of the day. It's housed in a very modern building, but it highlights many segments of our country's history - politics and war, exploration, transportation, science and research, lifestyles, and culture. I think it's an essential place for all Americans to visit one day. That evening, we had dinner with Chris again at Old Ebbitt Grill, which is a piece of DC history itself, and then walked around the neighborhood some more.

On the way to the museum, we walked by the Old Post Office Tower; perhaps on our next trip to DC, we'll go inside. And we DO want a next trip - there are so many things we didn't get to do this time around!

Julia Child's kitchen, as seen in the movie Julie & Julia

Spencer's science experiment

I swear I've been in this house - and if you were a kid in the 1960's, you probably were too!

The Civil War Memorial


Michelle Obama's Inaugural gown, January 2009

Book Talk: The Local News, by Miriam Gershow

2010-07-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

Disclosure: I purchased this book for my personal reading. *Purchasing links in this review are through my Amazon Associates account, and I will net a small referral fee for their use.

The Local News: A Novel
Miriam Gershow
Spiegel & Grau (2010), Paperback (ISBN 9780385527620 / 0385527624)
Fiction, 378 pages

Opening Lines: "After my brother went missing, my parents let me use their car whenever I wanted, even though I only had a learner's permit. They didn't enforce my curfew. I didn't have to ask to be excused from the dinner table. The dinner table, in fact, had all but disappeared, covered with posters of Danny, a box of the yellow ribbons that our whole neighborhood had tied around trees and mailboxes and car antennas, and piles of the letters we'd gotten from people praying for Danny's safe return or who thought they saw him hitchhiking along a highway a couple states away."

Book Description: Even a decade later, the memories of the year Lydia Pasternak turned sixteen continue to haunt her. As a teenager, Lydia lived in her older brother’s shadow. While Danny’s athletic skills and good looks established his place with the popular set at school, Lydia’s smarts relegated her to the sidelines, where she rolled her eyes at her brother and his meathead friends and suffered his casual cruelty with resigned bewilderment. Though a part of her secretly wished for a return of the easy friendship she and Danny shared as children, another part of her wished Danny would just vanish. And then, one night, he did.

In the year following Danny Pasternak’s disappearance, his parents go off the rails, his town buzzes with self-indulgent mourning, and his little sister Lydia finds herself thrust into unwanted celebrity, forced to negotiate her ambivalent—often grudging—grief for a brother she did not particularly like. Suddenly embraced by Danny’s old crowd, forgotten by her parents, and drawn into the missing person investigation by her family’s intriguing private eye, Lydia both blossoms and struggles to find herself during Danny’s absence. But when a trail of clues leads to a shocking outcome in her brother’s case, the teenaged Lydia and the adult she will become are irrevocably changed, even now as she reluctantly prepares to return to her hometown.

Comments: Sibling relationships can change dramatically when kids reach their teens, and it's happened to Danny and Lydia Pasternak. Danny morphed into a popular jock, one of the kids who can't be bothered with brainiac outsiders like his younger sister Lydia. Actually, other than her friend David Nelson, a brainiac outsider himself, most of the kids at Franklin High School can't be bothered with Lydia, and she's accepted that. But when Danny goes missing, suddenly everyone in town wants to be involved with the Pasternaks somehow, and Lydia doesn't know what to make of the attention that comes with being The Local News.

Danny Pasternak is the character that sets Miriam Gershow's story in motion, but it's told through Lydia's perspective, and in Lydia, Gershow has a distinctive and memorable narrator. Lydia has spent enough time on the fringes of suburban high-school life that when she's suddenly brought into the middle of it - sought out by the people who hovered around her lost brother - part of her remains outside it, observing and dissecting the dynamics of keg parties and aimless hanging out even as she takes part in the drinking and the confused, confusing social maneuvering. Lydia's own feelings about her brother's disappearance are just as confused and confusing, as she is strangely drawn toward the private detective investigating it at the same time she and her parents seem to draw further apart from each other.

Gershow has crafted a resonant and thoughtful exploration of grief - its public rituals and often unpredictable private expression, the ambivalence and conflict that sometimes accompany it - that's an involving, suspenseful page-turner at the same time. Some of the suspense comes directly from the mystery of Danny's disappearance, but for me, a great deal came from my engagement with Lydia and how she experienced the effects of it. I related to her sense of displacement, worried about her misdirected efforts to do something, and hoped she'd find her way through the confusion. While most of the novel is actually told in flashback, Lydia's voice and behavior are realistically adolescent and convincingly portrayed; however, I never had the feeling that this was anything other than a novel for adults. A novel like The Local News brings me back to my occasional ponderings of young-adult literature, because if "a teenage protagonist" is the primary criteria for classifying fiction as YA, this book would fit in there. However, I really don't think that's what it's meant to be, and I'd like to keep this one for the grown-ups.

It's impressive to realize that this is Miriam Gershow's first novel, and I look forward to reading what she does next.

Rating: 4/5

This book counts for the Read Your Own Books Challenge (9/20)

Other bloggers' reviews:
books i done read
The Boston Bibliophile
Caribousmom
Participants in TLC Book Tour (June/July 2009)

Find more reviews via the Book Blogs Search Engine

*Buy The Local News: A Novel at Amazon.com

BOOKKEEPING Special Edition: The reading (half-)year in review

2010-07-07T05:00:00.002-07:00

Inspired by Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness (and others), I'm taking a look back at my half-year in reading. (Since I'm still typing one-handed, it will be a relatively brief look.) I'm pretty satisfied with my 2010 reading so far, both in quality and numbers.

Currently, my LibraryThing reviews are more up-to-date than my reviews on the blog; I've changed my routine to post them there as soon as they're written, while the reviews here post as scheduled and are mixed with other content. In any case, I've pulled some of my stats from LT.

Basic stats:
Total books read and reviewed year-to-date: 26 (slightly ahead of 2009)
Review copies read (ARCs, tours, other sources): 14
My books read, paper: 9
My books read, e-books (Kindle): 3
Fiction: 20
Nonfiction: 6

Reading Challenges progress:
Read Your Own Books Challenge 2010: read 10 out of 20 committed, right on schedule! (Note that I didn't count two of "my" books for this; one was a re-read not previously reviewed, and one was an e-book read for a blog tour)
Memorable Memoirs Reading Challenge: read 5 (one review still to be posted), only 4 required (but I haven't linked up all the reviews yet!)
Women Unbound Reading Challenge: read 2 out 5 committed, non-fiction commitment met!
Blogging Authors Reading Project: read 6 (half of them by Beth Kephart)

Books rated 4/5 or higher, with links to their reviews*:
The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell(5/5)
The Heart Is Not a Size, by Beth Kephart(4.25/5)
When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, by Gail Collins(4/5)

Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress, by Susan Jane Gilman(4/5)

Janeology, by Karen Harrington(4/5)

Nothing but Ghosts, by Beth Kephart(4/5)

In the Land of Believers: An Outsider's Extraordinary Journey into the Heart of the Evangelical Church, by Gina Welch(4/5)

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, by Kelly O'Connor McNees(4/5)

The Irresistible Henry House: A Novel, by Lisa Grunwald(4/5)

The Local News: A Novel, by Miriam Gershow(4/5)*

Every Last One: A Novel, by Anna Quindlen(4/5)*

*linked to LibraryThing review - scheduled to be posted on the blog later this month

Have you reviewed your reading year-to-date? What stands out for you?

Tuesday Tangents: State of the Shoulder update

2010-07-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

It's been 12 days since I dislocated my right shoulder.

I've been cleared to return to work as of today. However, I still can't drive myself anywhere and I only have rides to work lined up for today and tomorrow; and after spending two weeks of vacation public-transiting around two cities where it actually works, I'm more annoyed than usual with LA's lack of good alternatives to car commuting. In any case, I have a meeting at work this morning to discuss some possible accommodations to my condition - including, I hope, telecommuting - until my right arm is set free from the Immobilizer.

Somewhat related: I started physical therapy last Thursday, and they want me back 2-3 times a week, until...well, too soon to say, I guess. They've also recommended seeing an orthopedic specialist, but I haven't scheduled that yet - I want to get through that work meeting first, among other things. Still, if the PT will help - and I'm pretty sure it will - I'm up for it! I'd just like it to work quickly, and there are no guarantees about that, sadly.

Given that, I'm reconciling myself to wearing my sling to Comic-Con in two weeks; then again, it would be one of the more conservative things anyone wears to Comic-Con. I'd like to be out of it by BlogHer'10 two weeks after that, but I'm going to try not to stress over it too much just yet. Plenty of BlogHer attendees will probably be wearing slings, actually, but most of the others will have babies in theirs.

On another note, I want to give my husband Tall Paul a big, public thank-you for everything he's stepped up to do since my injury...and a thanks-in-advance for everything else he'll have to cover at home until I am out of the Immobilizer☺! Thanks also to my sister and brother-in-law for their help and chauffeur services. I will owe all of you big-time when I am two-handed again!

Speaking of which, here are a few things I'm learning to manage surprisingly well one-handed:

typing
reading (thank goodness!)
eating (not especially neatly, however, and not big sandwiches)
combing my hair

And here are some things I can't do left/one-handed:

drive a car
write with pen or pencil
make a sandwich (that really seems to require both hands)
right-click on a trackpad (it's like it knows it's the wrong hand!)

What's new with you, by the way?

Taking the weekend off!

2010-07-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to return to work on Tuesday, and I expect it to be CRAZY after three weeks out of the office, so I've decided to save some of my prepared posts for the next couple of weeks and not put one up today! Besides, it's the Independence Day holiday weekend in the USA, so we should all celebrate our freedoms - including the freedom to take a blogging break!

Waving to you with my one good arm...have a great weekend!

Photo credit: PicApp

Book Talk: Admit One: My Life in Film, by Emmett James

2010-07-01T05:00:00.001-07:00

Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of this book by Lisa Roe, Online Publicist, and she has had to wait an unfairly long time for me to read and review it - sorry, Lisa! *I am an Amazon Associate; purchasing links in this review are provided by Amazon.com and will generate a small referral fee for me if clicked and used.

Admit One: My Life in Film
Emmett James
FizzyPop (2010), Hardcover (ISBN 0984258108 / 9780984258109)
Nonfiction/Memoir, 216 pages

Opening Lines: "If I could tell you just one thing about my life it would be this: my alter ego was once a very famous man."

Book description, via the publicist: First set in Croydon, South London, in the 1980s, Admit One details how Emmett James escaped the pains of adolescence by going to the cinema. With wry, self-deprecating humor and observation, the author reflects on, obsesses over, and rages about film and its correlation to our pasts. Life soon imitates art, and the narrator finds that his true calling is in transiting one side of the screen to the other. He decides to leave England for the only place where he can realize his dream of becoming an actor ––America.

We then follow the narrator on his numerous Hollywood adventures, watching as he glides smoothly from forgery to pornography to crashing the Academy Awards under the alias of a nominated screenwriter. At every turn, the films that inspired Emmett James as a child resurface, and they serve to contextualize his humorous collection of stories. He provides unique insights into the fascinating world of film, and eventually stumbles into acting in the highest-grossing movie of all time, Titanic.

Comments: While books transport and fire the imagination for some of us, movies can do the same for others (and some of us are just as affected by both). Emmett James is far from the first to dream of becoming part of the world of the movies that inspired him, but he is one of the relatively small number of those who have made it a reality, and his story is pretty entertaining in itself.

Each chapter of James' memoir opens with a capsule description of a film that somehow relates to the chapter that follows. In the first half of the book, the relationship is pretty straightforward - he talks about seeing the movie and how it affected his life at thr time, growing up in the London suburbs. In the second half, he literally moves to Hollywood and takes some interesting detours along the road to becoming a working actor - not necessarily the same thing as a "movie star," but the best that most Hollywood hopefuls will manage to achieve, and far more than many ever do.

This is a quick and entertaining read, in more ways than one. I found James' chatty tone engaging, and as someone who works in Hollywood but isn't part of "Hollywood," I found his behind-the-scenes stories particularly interesting, if not especially insightful - even so, they could still be instructive to those curious about the day-to-day struggles of trying to gain a foothold in the business. The actor/author seems to have a generally healthy perspective on what can sometimes be an unhealthy line of work, and while this book strikes me as more the work of a good storyteller than a gifted writer, reading it wasn't a bad way to spend a few hours.

Rating: 3/5

Other bloggers' reviews, via the Book Blogs Search Engine:

Musings of a Bookish Kitty

Amber Stults

Shooting Stars Mag

Alexia's Books and Such

In Spring It Is the Dawn

Buy Admit One: My Life in Film at Amazon.com

Closing a Chapter - and a Group Blog

2010-06-30T05:00:00.002-07:00

I discovered not long after I began blogging three years ago that even though I intended to blog primarily about books and reading, I fit into another niche as well: I was a Mom With a Blog. I didn't see myself as a "mom blogger," really - the "typical" mom blogger seemed to have younger children and a more intimate approach to communicating on her blog than I wanted for myself - but I did want to share some of my personal life with my readers, and I've been a mom for my entire adult life, so I technically qualified.

Many of the other blogging moms I was drawn to weren't typical mom-bloggers either, as it happened...but I knew I wanted to connect to this community somehow. I also knew I was interested in making some off-line connections with the people I was getting to know online. When the Silicon Valley Moms Group prepared to expand its network of regional blogs into Southern California in mid-2008, I was quick to apply as a contributor, and excited to be among those selected to launch the Los Angeles Moms Blog.

I've gotten a lot out of my two years of association with SVMG and LA Moms, including those "real-life" connections I'd hoped for; I'm not sure I would have gone to BlogHer'09 if it weren't for knowing people in those groups. I've also had a place to write about things that didn't really fit in so well here, and exposure to promotional opportunities I'm not sure I would have found otherwise. All the same, though, I've felt like a misfit among the mom bloggers for awhile, and deepening my roots in the book-blog community has only intensified those feelings, so I've been deliberating about my future with the LA Moms Blog for a few months now. But a couple of weeks ago, a decision was made for me.

On June 14, most of the 400-plus contributors to the 13 regional blogs in the SV Moms Group were stunned by an e-mail they received. The next day, an official press release confirmed the news:

Silicon Valley Moms Group, a leading independent blogging publisher for mothers, today announced that their 13-city mom blogging conglomerate plans to close its network at the end of July.

"Over the past nine months we have been analyzing the most effective way to rationalize this business. We have concluded that, considering the needs of our 400-strong writer group and those of our customers and advertisers, the business is not sustainable without additional financial support," stated Jill Asher, a co-founder of SV Moms Group. "It is anticipated that it will take approximately three months to complete the process of closure," stated Ms. Asher. Approximately 22,000 blog posts will remain public and available for the foreseeable future.

"We recognize these are very difficult decisions affecting our writers, their families and the blogging community as a whole," continued Ms. Asher. "We expect this elite community of bloggers to continue to thrive organically." SV Moms Group announcing that the brand will be wound down does not exclude the potential for an investor to purchase the company in the short-term. The privately held company is expected halt operations by September.

This is scheduled to be the final week of new posts on the blogs in the SVMG network, although many of its contributors are seeking new ways to continue collaborating, both nationally and in their local communities. My friend Donna Schwartz Mills blogs at SoCal Mom and was one of the charter writers for the LA Moms Blog, and I share her feelings on the end of a chapter in our blogging lives:

SV Moms was a wonderful experience for me, because prior to that, I felt like I was alone in my little part of the blogosphere. I really envied the community of moms who blog up in Silicon Valley and really longed for some company down here.

We have that now. It may have occurred eventually (especially as Twitter heated up) – but SV Moms definitely hastened the process. I have “sistahs” down here now, and I really feel a lot stronger for it. Fabulous women like Marsha, Liz, Sarah, Amy, April, Jessica, Elise, Yvonne, Kim,and Laura...

I want to thank the SV Moms gang for helping me grow as a writer and letting me be a part of something that was truly special. I know there are more exciting things on the horizon for us all (and many of us will continue collaborating on other projects), but I can't help but mourn the end of a beautiful association.

(Chicago Moms Blog contributor Susan Bearman also has some reflections on the end of SVMG.)

I'll miss being part of this group, and I'll continue to value the people I've come to know and the things I've learned as part of it. I have sometimes linked to or posted excerpts from my LA Moms Blog posts here, but now that it's closing, I may be publishing some of them in full on this blog (especially while I have the one-handed excuse).

Thanks for the memories, and the opportunities, SV Moms Group, and I hope Donna's right about this not being good-bye to my fellow LA Moms Bloggers!

Tuesday Tangents Watches TV

2010-06-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

TV doesn't seem to have "seasons" any more. I grew up with the arrival of fall meaning the start of both the school year and the new TV shows. Shows that didn't last the full season were replaced in late winter, and summer was "rerun season," which was basically a good excuse to leave the TV off and get out of the house to enjoy the long evenings (or stay in and catch up on your reading).

It's different now. Between DVRs and TV series on DVD - and not even counting the places where you could watch streaming video online if you wanted to - you could almost create your own TV viewing seasons. Meanwhile, with more networks and channels than ever before, new shows can be introduced year-round. Some of my favorite shows of the last several years have been spring or summer starters.

At my house, it's officially summer when Burn Notice comes back - so it's officially summer now! We've been hooked on this show since it started three years ago, and reluctant ex-spy Michael Westen is finally learning the story behind who "burned" him and why. That's shifting the overall story framework of the series a bit making its tone a little darker, but at this point, it's the characters and their interaction that keep me coming back, and I think they'd quickly ensnare a new viewer too. Michael is still the accomplished, focused role-player whose soft spots are seldom revealed but whose loyalties are strong. Fiona is fearless and resourceful, Sam has the contacts and balances out the team, and Michael's mother Madeline is...well, still kind of annoying, actually, but necessary. (Yes, this is a USA Network show - "characters welcome.") The action is fast and so is the dialogue, and the Miami heat of the setting comes right through.

The setting of White Collar comes through in its own right, but here it's New York City. This show will be entering its second season, but it hooked me right out of the gate as well. The premise is admittedly a stretch - an art thief is sprung from prison by the FBI agent who put him there in order to be put to work as a "consultant" on white-collar crime cases - but again, it's the characters that put it across and make it all work for me. Neal Caffrey radiates style and charisma; it's not hard to imagine that his sophisticated tastes started him down the criminal path, and it's not always clear where his loyalties lie. FBI agent Peter Burke may bend the rules sometimes to get the job done - it was his idea to bring on the ex-con consultant - but his wife Elizabeth helps keep him grounded. I'm looking forward to seeing where these characters will go this season. We watch this one with Katie, and I can see Spencer joining us before too long - Jennifer Wagner at Connect With Your Teens recently posted about parents and teens watching this show together. (BTW, White Collar will supposedly have a panel at San Diego Comic-Con next month - fingers crossed it'll be on Thursday or Friday! Please?)

Summer's a great time for TV on DVD, and we're using it to catch up with two shows we've missed up till now. Just before we left for vacation, we finished the first season of Mad Men. I'm loving it, and kicking myself for being so late to the party on this one. While the other two shows I've talked about here are fast-paced, Mad Men's story and characters are revealed much more slowly...and I appreciate that. The drama resides in and is driven by the characters, and it comes from ordinary life, not high concept. I like being able to immerse myself in a show, and this one unfolds in a way that allows for that. The look of this show is so utterly right for its time period - I swear I remember some of that furniture and those clothes from my own childhood. The tone is right, too - when we talk about what the characters are doing, my husband and I have to keep reminding ourselves that society and culture have changed a lot during our lifetimes, and that just 50 years ago was quite a different time. Mad Men will be starting its fourth season this summer too, but since we're still so close to the beginning of the series, we've decided this will be a DVD-only show for us - we won't watch it as it happens. (But I'm quite sure I'll read recaps.)

The other show we're playing catch-up with isn't on any more, so we'll be able to experience it in its entirety. My husband received Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series on DVD for Christmas, and we are remedying a serious gap in our Nerd Cred by watching it (no, we completely missed it the first time around - shocking, I know!). One reason I'd been indifferent to this show is that I remember the first Battlestar series, an product of late-1970s Star Wars bandwagon-jumping with a very high cheese factor, and just couldn't grasp why a remake was worth doing. The answer: it was worth doing because it was done so much better - this version is very low on the cheese, at least thus far. Again, we're only part-way through the first season, and our viewing time is a bit more restricted - Katie has been drawn into the show along with us, so we're only watching when she's at our house, but Spencer's not ready for it yet (thank goodness he still goes to bed by 8:30!). We're still getting to know the characters and the mythology, and both aspects are fascinating; making the character of Starbuck a woman was genius, and the always-lurking question of who might really be a Cylon remains a source of suspense. I also have to mention how much I like the music on this show - it really works to add to the intensity. Also, props must be given to BSG for coining the immensely useful word "frak."

Are you spending any time on good TV this summer - or do you just plan to catch up your reading?

Image credits:
TV Addict by Annalog85 on stock.xchng
Burn Notice and White Collar via USANetwork.com
Mad Men via AMCtv.com
Battlestar Galactica via SyFy.com

The 3 R's Blog // Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness

BlogHer is coming. Look busy.

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