The Show I'll Never Forget and The Girl Who Played With Fire

When I moved to Boston in 1996, I was thrilled with all the shows I could see-- musicians and bands that wouldn't come anywhere near Wichita regularly played in Boston and Providence.  I could see The Violent Femmes, or The Lemonheads, or the Mighty, Mighty, Bosstones!

Once we were old enough to drive, my friends and I would see any show that came through The Cotillion and would venture to Kansas City and Tulsa as well.

The Show I'll Never Forget edited by Sean Manning is collection of writers who recall, obviously, the show they'll never forget. Some are first concerts and some are just really iconic concerts (Woodstock).  Some read like braggarts (so, yeah, I saw Hendrix...) and some are extremely personal (a high school benefit concert for an ill student).  The shows run the gamut from Patti Smith to Nirvana, from Nina Simone to the Beastie Boys.  In some cases, I would be just as mesmorized to see the writer (Jennifer Egan, Chuck Klosterman) as the concert (The Stones, Miles Davis, James Brown!).  I was disappointed by only a few essays- by and large each writer evoked a time and place (watching a Red Sox game with The Pogues at Fenway).

Two shows came to mind for the Show I'll Never Forget.  For my 18th birthday my mom got me four tickets to see The Cranberries in Kansas City.  When I look at the pictures from that trip, I remember how excited myself and my three friends were and also think what a great mom I have. She drove us to KC and took us to an early dinner, then waited in the parking lot during the whole show while we were inside (well, outside).  I know concerts are about smoking pot, but we were good kids, and since it was my 18th birthday I did two things: I bought a legal pack of cigarettes and I registered to vote at the Rock the Vote tent (the voting stuck, the smoking didn't).

The second show I really remember was seeing Pavement in 1997.  I'd just finished my first year of college and my friend Caron and cousin Jenny came into Boston and we saw them at the Roxy.  We were SO EXCITED!!  I remember Jenny had to use a fake id to get in, because she wasn't 18 yet and I remember the opening band sucked (Shudder to Think) and I remember just being thrilled that they played everything I wanted to hear.  We could see them pretty close and I was just in love.

 

I read the 2nd book in Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy-- The Girl Who Played with Fire.  You're either going to read this book or you're not (or you already have) and it's no use giving details.  Needless to say it was captivating and I can't wait to read the third and final book.

 

netflix stars: 4/5 and 5/5

Lit

I had a recent foray into reading my old journals and found them beyond cringe-worthy.  So I'm pretty much amazed by writers who can squeeze more than one memoir out and even more amazed when those memoirs are not completely filled with self hate.  Mary Karr had a childhood made picture perfect for memoir writing: sometimes absent and flighty mother, poor and drunk father, small town in Texas. 

Lit could best be described as Drink, Pray, Love, with Ms. Karr describing hitting rock bottom after the birth of her son, finding support from various AA chapters and sober friends and ultimately having enough love for her parents, husband and son to not just continue living and writing, but to do so with grace.

I've been trying to write this for weeks and there's no way I can do it justice; Lit isn't preachy, it isn't predictable and it is, in short, inspiring. Lit was Trail of Crumbs without the blame and Crazy Love with more self confidence.

5/5 netflix stars.

Never Let Me Go

It is a good time of year to reflect back on school days. School is letting out and as I see kids waiting for the bus to camp, I have some fond memories-- getting "pop privileges" in 5th grade for doing good work (I always bought a Barq's for $0.40), slumber parties with my girlfriends, going to Dog n Shake for lunch in high school and summers filled with part time working and lazy afternoons at the local pool.  I'm sure there are buried memories that aren't so pleasant (maybe all of 8th grade?) but overall I had a pretty peaceful childhood, have kept some really close friends and consider myself to be successful.

The childhoods of Kathy, Ruth and Tommy in Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro seem outwardly as idyllic as any childhood-- cliques were formed, friendships made and lost, and lessons and classes taken in a posh English country boarding school.  We learn quickly that Kathy, as the narrator, is years past school and is working as a "carer" for "donors" although it's not immediately clear what that means.  There is a slow,unraveling twist throughout the book that reveals a childhood (or at least adulthood) that is in reality anything but idyllic.

I felt kind of bewildered reading this since Ishiguro seemed to use cheap techniques to keep the reader engaged ("...which is why what happened next was so surprising...") and the things which were important to Kathy, Tommy and Ruth seemed extremely trivial to me.

Never Let Me Go is like a cross between Prep and Murakami. It was a quick, compelling read, but I never felt attached to the characters.  I'll give it 3.5/5 netflix stars.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

The Kindle is finally making its way into the mainstream-- it's almost as common to see one as to see professional women reading the New Yorker on the 39 bus at 8 am.  I'll admit I'm one of those people who likes the feel of a real book in my hands but I'm also easily swayed by new technology.  Before my recent trip to Turkey, wanting to make sure I wouldn't ever run out of reading material, I downloaded the Kindle app for my iPhone and purchased The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. 

It turns out I was busy enough in Turkey that I didn't have time to read, but a few lazy days rolled around last week and I decided to give it a try.  In short, I'm hooked.  Partly on the app but mostly on the book.  Larsson creates two mysteries; one a case of a disappeared girl from a closed island decades earlier and one a corporate scandal.  Mikael and Lisbeth, our hero and heroine respectively, team up in an effort part Clue and part Nancy Drew, but with enough adult thrill to remind you that you aren't actually on summer break...even if you do waste an entire sunny weekend day inside reading, just like you did when you were 12. 5 netflix stars

Little Bee

There are more than 16 million refugees worldwide, and about 8 million of those have had books written about them.  Okay, that's a callous exageration but when Little Bee by Chris Cleave was picked for my book club, I wasn't sure I could read another book about an elite white person helping a disenfranchised black person. Certainly there is hope in books like Strength in What Remains and What Is The What; the protagonists end up with a better quality life thanks to helpful strangers.  But I found these stories to be the exception, not the rule. When so many middle class Americans are struggling, I just found these one in a million (or, one in 16 million) cases of illegal immigrants getting college educations, etc. unbelievable.

So imagine my surprise when Little Bee turned out to exactly what I needed to wipe the cynical smirk off my face. First and foremost, it's the most compelling book I've read in a long while.  A real page turner. Cleave can craft a sentence that is humorous while maintaining humility. Second, his characters are flawed, which makes them overall more believable. Little Bee has serious flaws as do her white patrons, Andrew and Sarah.

This book is enough worth reading that I don't want to spoil it with many plot details.

5/5 netflix stars

The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment and Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy

The past month has been harried and hectic for me-- two trips, a ballet and bookbinding class, friends in from out of town, work events.  Suddenly reading was not only not a priority, but was hardly even an option for relaxation.  After hosting book club yesterday, I settled on the couch to finish Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy by Lindsay Moran and thought about some of the techniques presented in that book as well as The Guinea Pig Diaries by AJ Jacobs that could help get my life under control.

The premise of Jacobs' book is to live his life according to such varied rules as George Washington's "Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour" and cutting out multitasking.  For a series of months, he even outsources his life to India.  Moran, meanwhile acts on a dream and applies to the CIA, where she is trained as a case manager to serve overseas.  She learns how to use an alias, how to avoid being trailed and how to manipulate agents into committing treason and giving her info about their countries.

Was I able to outsource my life, for example, I could have forgone nights at home doing laundry and packing and instead gone to the gym or to the symphony with friends, while someone else prepared for my trips.  Were I a master of disguise, I could have traveled the Baltimore light rail without feeling completely out of place.  If I were a master of foreign language, I could have understood Turkish and better bargained at the Grand Bazaar.  Had I decided to abide by "decent behaviour" I might not have had too much to drink with my co-workers.

Both books were light and easy reads. 3/5 stars each.

Let The Great World Spin

I've written about some of my favorite and least favorite post-9/11 books and I'll admit it's hard to imagine writing a book about New York City that doesn't reference that defining generational moment.  But Colum McCann has done just that.  In Let The Great World Spin, McCann depicts the Twin Towers as the sturdy backdrop for 1974 New York City that was itself spinning out of control.

New York is a city of immigrants, so it is fitting that the opening chapters refer to the Corrigan brothers from Ireland.  The younger brother, known simply as Corrigan, is a heavy drinker but lives his life in service to others.  He prefers living with the down and out so his older brother is less than surprised to find him in America surrounded by a family of hookers in the Bronx. Claire and Lara are mid-west transplants, both living in New York, but very different universes; Claire mourns the death of her son, killed in Vietnam, while Lara mourns her own life, lost to drugs and alcohol.  Gloria meets Claire through a small group of mother's who have lost their sons and Claire's husband, Solomon, is the judge who sentences Tilly, one of the prostitutes befriended by Corrigan.

Each of these people could carry the book on their own and for awhile it's unclear if or how they are all connected.  And then McCann introduces Philippe Petit, a high wire artist who walked a tightrope between the Twin Towers in August of 1974.  Petit momentarily takes our minds off the every day.  As he performs, Gloria imagines he's her son, come back one more time, and Solomon gives thanks for being able to sentence the frivolous and Lara is relieved not to see the details of an auto accident in the paper.  Yet his walk unites all the characters.

From that moment and for a generation, the Twin Towers were powerful: Petit and millions of other's balanced, survived and even thrived.

Netflix stars: 5/5

Also recommended, Man on Wire, the documentary about Petit's famous walk.