#2: The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman

Certain books need to be heard.  This is one of them.  Sarah Silverman reading her own book makes it so much better.  The funnier parts are funnier because she knows how the sentences are supposed to sound, where to put the beats and the stresses, and how to pitch her voice to structure the horror or glee.  The serious parts are stronger because you’re comparing them to the time she told her nana to shove those brownies up her ass.  How can you NOT want to get the audio version?

Even better, she tailors parts to address the listener.  I love that she goes off script for her own book to acknowledge that you’re listening to it.  Sure, you might miss a few pictures, but you get to hear first hand how she stabbed Al Franken in the skull with a pencil.

She is completely honest about her life and doesn’t gloss over the ugly bits.  She gets very personal and it feels like you’re hanging out with her as she shares a bunch of stories about growing up and then moving to New York and getting into the business.

She doesn’t take herself seriously when it doesn’t matter, but is incredibly on target in the moments where she needs to be.  She came to realize a long time ago that what she has been able to do is a gift and she recognizes it all the time.

The back stories of things that didn’t go so well were really interesting.  I had seen both of her MTV moments where it looked like she was trying to make Paris Hilton and Britney Spears cry.  She came off looking like a total bitch (even though, hey… Paris Hilton) but the reality is that she was sort of set up.  I like when you get the other side of a media story and realize that you totally fed into the machine and were willing to believe what the entertainment news people told you to believe.

I laughed out loud a lot while reading this.  The kind of laughter where you think maybe you should pull over because it can’t be safe to be driving a car while shrieking and crying.

If you like her even a little bit, I recommend this and if you have the choice, get the audio version.  You know you want to hear her actual voice explain the difference between pee and pee-pee.

2011: The Review

The fact that I’m sitting down on January 31, 2012 to type up my 2011 review sort of sums up the review…  I did not meet my goal of 52 books.  I was very surprised by this because I assumed I read this much by the middle of each year easily.  Clearly I spend more time watching TV, playing video games (Skyrim owns my soul right now), and letting my iPhone own my life than I realized.

Here are the books I finished last year but did not review, so they did not make it into the CBRIII countdown:

#38: The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life) by Chris Hardwick

This is a self-help book. I had thought it was a memoir and would have been really disappointed if I didn’t find out it was a self-help book before I got it.  Like any self-help book, there’s stuff in here that is outstanding and there’s stuff in here that made me roll my eyes.  I do like that he framed skills to fit the nerdist mind and I could relate to the negative mindset, but parts of it didn’t work for me.  I think any self-help book is like that though.  I don’t know what I would have thought of this book if I wasn’t a huge fan of Hardwick and the Nerdist podcast.

#39: The Fairy-Tale Detectives (The Sisters Grimm #1) by Michael Buckley

Super cute!  Sabrina and Daphne Grimm have been living in an orphanage and shuffled around from family to family.  The grandmother, who they were told is dead, shows up to claim them and things start to get more and more confusing for the two girls.  Granny Relda calmly explains that fairy tales are real, they’re all related to the famous Brothers Grimm and it’s up to them to solve crimes in their town and keep all the characters in line. 

I would have LOVED this book and probably the entire series as a young’un because the book was massive and had chapters.  I can see a lot of hardcore young readers tearing these up. 

#40: Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch

Another memoir in my quest to live vicariously through others.  This was a great look at Lynch growing up knowing to her very core that she was going to be a star and how she navigated her way and did it.  There’s a lot of interesting things about her improv work and I was really interested in the terrifying exhilaration of working on a Christopher Guest creation.  She talks about how she realized her drinking was becoming a problem and even if she didn’t have some fantastic rock bottom story, it was time to let it go. 

She developed an incredibly mean streak for herself and had a long running, critical, judgemental voice running over and over through her mind.  In her early thirties she was finally able to embrace her sexuality, come out to her parents, stop drinking, and tackle that inner Sue Sylvester.

She comes across as very honest and open in this book and it’s awesome to see her success, not only with acting but with her wife and wife’s daughter.  It’s awesome when there are happy accidents.

#41: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

I loved this. 

I didn’t know it was YA until after I started it, but I would have grabbed it anyway.  It’s super creepy and original and I could not figure out what in the hell was happening. 

Did I mention it’s creepy?

The ending was great and set up the next book.  I wasn’t expecting a series, but I’m really happy it’s in the works because there is a lot that can be done with this.

The pictures make this book work.  So, so creepy.

#42: The Gluten-Free Bible: The Thoroughly Indispensable Guide to Negotiating Life without Wheat by Jax Peters Lowell

Yuck.

There were really helpful sections of this book where the author sticks purely to the facts.  The sections on gluten free grains and flours is outstanding.  She knows what she’s talking about.

However…

There is a lot in this book where she speaks in universal statements that are simply not true and incredibly off-putting if this is not your experience and reality.  She often reminds you about how bad you felt when you kept losing all that weight and didn’t know why.  Remember when your bones stuck out?  Remember when you were so very skinny?  Yeah, that doesn’t always happen.

She also gives tips that work for her and she assumes that everyone will be comfortable and on board.  She talks about how she understands that at first you won’t be comfortable going into a kitchen in a restaurant to read all the labels and make sure the cooks are using clean pots and pans and cleaning off the grill if needed.  Since you won’t feel comfortable doing that right away, just bring your own food and have them cook that.  In clean pots and pans and on a cleaned grill if needed.  WHAT??!?!  Yeah, because that’s totally a comfortable moment!

The part that made me put down the book and groan in pain was when she got to the affirmations.  Yes, I understand the power of positive thinking and I agree that it is important.  However, I am not going to suggest to my newly diagnosed Celiac husband that he walk up and down the bread aisle in the supermarket whispering “You will no longer hurt me.”

I’m sure some people adore this book.  They will love her attitude and find her tips work for their personality.  I am not one of them.

It’s great for the facts, but for me, the tips and behavior suggestions were so alien that they almost negated everything else.

#43: Missy by Chris Hannan

I grabbed this one off the shelf knowing nothing about it. 

Opium addicted, prostitute Dol follows the silver boom miners looking to make money and have a fabulous time.  Nearly permanently gonged out on missy, she wanders aimlessly from party to party and her next dose.  She stumbles upon a violent pimp and his huge stash of missy, steals it, and then must figure out how to get rid of it  before the original owners kill her and everyone she knows.

While all of this is happening, her band of flash-girl friends is falling apart.  Some are killing themselves, some are trying to get out of the business.  On top of everything, Dol’s mom flits in and out of her life.

I almost abandoned this book several times.  I didn’t care about Dol.  Her character was static to the point of being infuriating.  Her friend Ness is done with the life and wants to be a respectable business owner.  She desperately tries to get Dol to come with her, but Dol keeps leading her on and using Ness’ own hopes to fund her missy addiction.  The other flash-girls had no personalities other than what was laid out in the original descriptions.

Dol’s mom was interesting in her desperation.  She’s been in the game too long but knows no other life.  It was incredibly depressing watching her fall apart while maintaining a false ideal of being glamorous and better than anyone else.  Even sadder was Dol’s ongoing attempts to win her mother’s respect and love, or at the least get some any type of attention from her.

I did like the end of the book.  Dol has a great moment of introspection and it changes everything.  I thought it would come sooner and even though I wasn’t too attached to the book, it was incredibly satisfying when it happened. 

#44: The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson

More Chick Lit.  This one follows some of the major Chick Lit themes: cancer, sisters, relationships, career, kids, marriage…

There were some clichéd themes, but they often work in Chick Lit, so I only roll my eyes when they aren’t well written.

I liked the structure of this one.  The entire book is told through emails, faxes, letters and other written correspondence from Olivia.  She’s a super powerful Hollywood exec and is infuriated and befuddled by her wide-eyed small town little sister.

Her letters capture their fights and Olivia’s frustrations with love and work.  And then Maddie gets cancer and things change.

One of the things I really liked about this book is that things don’t get all syrupy sweet and perfect once Maddie gets sick.  Family issues are still there and the same fights continue to happen.  Even while the family pulls together, they still push each other’s buttons and push each other away.

It was also really entertaining to see the different sides of Olivia.  You’d see a professional fax she sends to a coworker followed by a pissed off email to a friend followed by a venting, desperate letter to a different friend all covering the same material.  I liked how Robinson captured this truth and show how we all have different voices depending on who our audience is.

There were a few sort of throwaway moments where Robinson slips in some Hollywood fame.  There’s one crazy scene where Olivia describes a date that is completely surreal and ends with the unnamed actor playing the banjo.  Steve Martin, perhaps? 

Robinson is a real-life Hollywood producer, so it’s no surprise that these sections of Olivia’s life are so well written.  Mixed with Maddie’s cancer and family drama, it made for a good read.

***

And there we go!  The 44 books of 2011.  I think there were a few more in there that I started and didn’t finish and maybe a re-read, but these are the ones that made the list.  A mere 8 books more and I would have met my CBRIII goal.

It’s going to happen in 2012 though.  I WILL DESTROY THOSE BOOKS IN THE FACE!

#34: Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks by Ethan Gilsdorf

I wanted to like this book.

I wanted to love it.

I wanted to cheer for Gilsdorf as he reclaimed his freak and geek, grabbed his dice and nerded the night away.

Instead I read through some 300 pages waiting for him to make a decision.  ANY decision.  Just make a decision, commit to it and become it.  So, uhm, I guess there are spoilers coming, unless you agree with him and not me.  Then there are still spoilers, but you think I’m way off base.

Gilsdorf starts of by reminiscing about his childhood and the role D&D had in protecting him from reality, providing him with friends, and creating an outlet where he could control situations while giving in to fantasy.

Later he discovers girls and puts away such childish things.  (Fool.)

Then he gets to be about 40, questions everything about his ability to be in a successful relationship and decides he needs to examine his early love of gaming to figure out where it all went wrong.  Or figure out if he can become a gamer again and be happy.  Or make fun of nerds and be happy.  Or figure out what in the holy hell he needs to do to be in love and be happy.

I want him to be happy.

He starts with Tolkien and his love for Lord of the Rings.  The movies are what drew him back to his freaky-geeky roots and he meets with hardcore Tolkien society members.  He talks to people about their passion for the books and the movies and the man and tries to figure out where the line is between “acceptable appreciation” and “basement dwelling creature” when it comes to being a fan of something.

He then realizes he can write a book by spending time examining different areas of freak and geek.  So he travels.

• Tolkien
• D&D
• Gygax, GenCon (too scary), LGGC IV and tabletop RPGs
• LARPing
• Freak/Geek couples -or- Can Nerds Find Love?
• The Guedelon worksite in France
• Wizard Rock
• Pennsic and the SCA
• WoW and other MMORPGs
• Dragon*Con
• New Zealand…for more Lord of the Rings
• Attempt to put all of these experiences together to figure out his life and the role of freak and geek in the real world.

As a nerd, this list makes me salivate.  The idea of having this much time and money to explore and learn more and go to cons and play games and play games and play games and read books in England and New Zealand and talk about games and play more games and talk to people who love LARPing and being in the SCA and listening to nerd music and playing games is too much for my brain to handle without me getting twitchy fingers.  But the entire time Gilsdorf is there, he’s hesitant and apologetic to the non-nerds who might be reading and he doesn’t want them to know he’s not really one of Those Freaks Over There and ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  You are doing AWESOME THINGS, so shut up and ENJOY YOURSELF.

It drove me crazy  because I felt like every time Gilsdorf started to feel comfortable as a gamer or a nerd or a freak or a geek, he’d convince himself that it was socially unacceptable and he’d run away and point out the parts of the culture that don’t work out so well.  It felt like he was trying really hard not to get stuffed in a locker.  And even when he was jealous of what some of the freaks and geeks had, he still kept himself distanced.  It was Him versus Them.  He might understand the Thems, but he didn’t want to be a Them.  Too much Cheeto dust on the fingertips, I guess.

He meets freaks that have fallen in love, not by changing their freak and geek selves, but because they ARE freaks and geeks.  He seems to decide that this kind of love isn’t for him, or that he’ll find it immediately and it will be easy and wonderful and will happen without thought or work.  So he shrugs and moves on.

The entire book isn’t a loss.  He does force himself to confront his belief system and articulate what he wants.  I just wanted him to jump in the air, claim his freakness and rejoin the land of Gamer.

And, as a geek, it was fun to read because I enjoy watching people try to explain what in the heck we’re doing.  I did wonder from time to time if he was over- or under- explaining things.  Did I understand more because I already knew what the letters meant?  If a non-geek was reading this book (but why would he or she???) would they be confused and frustrated?  Did hardcore geeks get frustrated because Gilsdorf was explaining things that were painfully obvious… to them?  There is a glossary in the back which makes it feel that this is a guide book to people who are not freaks and geeks, but are curious to know what goes on behind closed basement doors.

Gilsdorf is never cruel, even when he’s completely uncomfortable.  While he keeps that clear line of Him versus Them, he never mocks the geek, even if he might point out that he sees it as absurd.

I just really wish he had fallen in love with his D&D self again and gone back to the gaming store to play.

#28: My Booky Wook: A Memoir Of Sex, Drugs, and Stand-Up by Russell Brand

Celebrities get a ton of extra points from me when they not only write their own memoir, but they write it well.  Russell Brand is an awesome writer.  If you’ve seen his stand up, it’s not surprising, but still, it’s a treat that it translates so well to the page.  His footnotes for Americans are helpful and hilarious and the entire book reads incredibly well.

Brand reconstructs his life and doesn’t gloss over any of the ugly bits.  He is surrounded by chaos and creates even more.  You can see the path that leads him to heroin and I wondered what would have had to happen for him to avoid it.  Between his personality, his environment and his work, it’s one of those sad cases where it almost felt like he had to become an addict.  I hate when people make the fame/drug connection and give artists a pass because they can’t be great unless they are tortured, but there does seem to be some truth there.  However, Brand is sober now and awesome and funny and entertaining, so clearly it isn’t the drugs and nearly non-stop sex that fuels it.  (Well, I don’t know what’s happening between him and Katy Perry, so maybe there is a lot of non-stop sex happening…)

I didn’t know anything about his career and I enjoyed learning about his rise and how his addictions and bi-polar personality drove nearly everything.  Obviously he wouldn’t have succeeded without talent, but the madness propelled the ship.  He realizes that the people around him pushed him to keep up the levels of insanity but then cut him loose when he went too far, even though they shoved him those extra few steps.  It’s confusing and everyone is selfish, and yet he came out clean because of people around him.

I feel like he didn’t write this book because he figured he was famous enough to make more money.  Instead, he had something he wanted to say and share, so he sat down and did it.  While I imagine he would have been crushed if no one bought it, I don’t think he did it to make the top ten lists.  He’s learned from his life and wants to put it out there.

I’m looking forward to picking up the second installment.  He’s a good writer and he has plenty of material.

#24: I Know I Am, But What Are You? by Samantha Bee

Here’s what I learned from this book:

• All Canadian girls are sluts.
• Do not swear, even if a bear might be about to eat you.
• Barbie sex parties are exhausting, especially when Wonder Woman is involved.
• Get your cats fixed.  Especially the males.
• No matter how smart you are, a cute guy will make you do stupid things.

Samantha Bee is a fantastic writer and if you like her on The Daily Show, you’ll like this book.  I never thought of her as a writer even though she must write on The Daily Show, and I was happily surprised when I started reading.

The book is a memoir of her life from little girl to married mom and adds to my theory that anyone who had a sane childhood doesn’t get to grow up to become famous.

Bee’s life was insane.  Her parents were divorced and she went back and forth between the two.  At her mom’s she learns about sex when her mom tosses her a book describing in great detail every sex act imaginable.  At her dad and stepmom’s, green beans are eaten and little girls do not know about the things a man and a woman do when The Love Each Other Very Much.

Bee describes herself as an odd child and I can almost see a mini version of herself dealing with these two realities, and then exploding into the insanity that is puberty and teenage rebellion.  She turns to a life of crime, and yet makes it home by curfew.  It’s too crazy not to be true.

I laughed out loud at several parts and actually had to put the book down at one point to catch my breath.  Each page wasn’t crazy funny, but every once in a while one of her stories hit me just right.

I’ll never watch her Daily Show reports the same way.  Mostly because I now know that she’s a Canadian slut.

#19: Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl

Memoir.  Food.  Mental illness.

I liked this book before I even started reading it.

Reichl tells her life story through recopies and food, and it’s a great way to do it.   Everyone remembers a great meal and everyone really remembers a horrible one.

Reichl opens with her mother’s kitchen - disorganized,  chaotic, unsafe, and probably going to make someone sick.  Turns out her mom’s head is the same.  It’s in and around 1960 and Lithium hasn’t entered into the Reichl household yet.  Reichl and her father live around Miriam’s moods and whims.

But this book is about more than mom.  Reichl recreates important moments in her life and how they all trace back to food.  School, college, travels, love, work… they all wind up with a recipe and often a painful life lesson.

She describes food in the most loving and sensual ways.   I’m a vegetarian and skipped over most of the recipes but I still enjoyed her descriptions of food because she was so delighted with those first tastes.  My favorite part was the first time she had real French food at a friend’s house in Montreal.  (Reichl  mentioned that she wished she spoke French to keep her mom’s good mood going at a meal one night.  Her mom shipped her off to boarding school a few months later thinking that was what she wanted.)  As she sits through a decadent meal, her friend’s father is delighted that she loves to eat and that she appreciates gourmet food.  He continues to feed her and she describes these first tastes vividly.  These are the types of descriptions that make ordinary writers grow increasingly frustrated as they desperately try to find the right words.  I wouldn’t have eaten any of it, but I enjoyed how much she enjoyed it.

As Reichl gets older she cooks because she loves it and because her friends want her to.  Her parents leave her on her own and she has no other skill to fall back on.  As she navigates the universal fun of growing up and figuring out life, she’s always in the kitchen and food always gets her to the next phase.

Like most memoirs, there were parts where I wanted to shake her because I wanted her to make better decisions.  And then I wanted to shake myself because I know I would have done the exact same thing.  I love relating to a book this strongly, fiction or not.  Her mother especially infuriated me because she used her mental illness to control and manipulate the family.  I had to keep reminding myself of the time period.

I will definitely be reading her other books, especially the ones where she explores her relationship with her mom and learns more about who she was.

#17: Bossypants by Tina Fey

Let’s start with the obvious:

If you hate Tina Fey, you’ll hate this book.  If you love her, you’ll love the book.

Now, the specifics:

There’s a little bit of everything here.  Fey talks about her life and family, what it’s like to be in show business, the differences between men and women in show business, SNL, fellow actors, being a wife and mother, and more.

The title comes from the endless questions women get about being in charge.  Just like Donald Trump is endlessly asked how hard it is for him.  This is one double standard that won’t end any time soon, if ever.  Having lady parts means you have to be an expert at home life and work life.  Guys seem to only get asked about the work life since the home life is effortless.

Fey talks about her dating history and her failed attempts with guys.  Hot girls are always hotter when they don’t realize how hot they are.  She gets that she’s got the librarian fetish going for her but is bemused by being thought of as sexy when guys in her past told her she’d be pretty if she lost weight. 

I enjoyed her sections about photoshopping and what is was like watching the women “take over” SNL.  She doesn’t really hand down social commentary about things, but simply writes about her life and the things that were part of it.  The social commentary is there because you can’t separate the two.  She compares her style with Lorne Michaels but not in a gender study way.  She shows his responses compared to her Bossypants attitude.

There are universal themes that are completely female because Fey is female.  She struggles with being a mom and working.  She struggles with the decision to have or not have a second kid.  She wonders if she should have felt bad about wanting to leave her husband to die in the ocean if they had actually had to evacuate women and children first.  You know, the stuff most women have to think about.

There’s a little bit of many things in here.  She gets specific about parts of her life, general about others and her voice is clear throughout.  Sometimes I’ll pick up a memoir that was clearly written by someone else.  Even without listening to the audio version, her voice is there.

#13: Prairie Tale by Melissa Gilbert

Melissa Gilbert isn’t the best writer.  It’s too bad because what she says about her life is a great story, but I kept getting caught up on a sentence here and there, wanting it to be better. 

This is quite the tell-all.  I understand why people don’t like to let actors separate themselves from their characters.  People are always going to see her as Laura Ingalls.  I am fully aware that they are not the same person and yet I was surprised at how much she named names. 

Reading this after Confessions of a Prairie Bitch by Alison Arngrim probably wasn’t the best idea.  I loved Arngrim’s personality and voice and switching from her to Gilbert wasn’t a smooth transition.  It was interesting to see her version of Arngrim’s stories, but I enjoyed Arngrim’s book much better.

Gilbert has not had an easy life and I did enjoy seeing her get to a point where she’s satisfied with who and where she is and able to recognize and take ownership over the parts where she screwed up. 

If you’re interested in the inner workings of Hollywood and the coke and sexy times of the 80s, then grab a copy.

#11: Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated by Alison Arngrim

Oh how I loved this book.

I grew up on Little House.  Between the books and the TV show and later on the Ashton Drake dolls my mom got me for Christmas, Little House was embedded into my DNA.

I loved Laura.  She was a total bad ass.

I’m not sure if my first memories of Nellie are from the book or the show, but man… what a bitch.

Alison Arngrim’s book isn’t all about Little House, but since it defined a major part of her childhood and then her entire life, it makes sense for her to use Nellie as her mentor and metaphor.



Arngrim’s childhood is… bizarre.  Her stories of growing up in a Hollywood family are hysterical and at times depressing because of the adult role she had to step into.  On the other hand, her parents never squandered her money or pulled the whole stage parent madness.   Growing up knowing Liberace was normal.  Growing up with a gay dad was normal. 

Growing up with a sexually abusive brother was not.

This was way way way before victims’ rights.  Arngrim lived in a time when only Other People were abused.  No one talked about it because it didn’t happen in Nice Families.  Her parents were clueless and she didn’t even know she had a voice to say no.  She knew something wasn’t right, but this was not a time when anyone was teaching kids about No-Zones.

Nellie helped save her.

Nellie didn’t give a damn what anyone thought of her and slowly Arngrim realized that this was a fantastic way to live.  Why try to live as a good little girl when you can be a mouthy bitch that gets what she wants?

Nellie paid the bills and later gave Arngrim the power to bring AIDS education and information about abuse to the general public.  People suddenly cared about abuse when they found out someone they grew up with was a victim.  Even if she played Nellie Oleson.

Arngrim is hysterical and this book was like sitting down with a good friend.   She recognizes the absurdity of her life.  She’s proud of the work she’s done, especially with the AIDS community and closing legal incest loopholes.   She realizes she was incredibly lucky when it came to the good stuff and she’s grateful for her friendship with Melissa Gilbert.

This is a book about growing up, being a child actor, being a child actor with Michael Landon, and being a childhood actor playing one of the biggest bitches ever written.

It is not a book that figures out what the hell was wrong with Melissa Sue Anderson.

#5: Sister Salty, Sister Sweet by Shannon Kring Biro and Natalie Kring

This book should have been a big hit for me.

1. It’s a memoir.  I like memoir.

2. It’s about sisters.  I have a sister.

3. The sisters grew up around the same time I grew up.  I like relating.

However, it fell flat.

I wanted to like it.  I liked the structure.  The chapters switch back and forth between the two sisters and start off with the age they were when the moment happened.  You often see the same event from both points of view, which is great because of the four year age difference.  This worked well when the two were dealing with their mother’s miscarriage.

Except for that one section though, I found myself not really caring.

I think it was the written voice of the sisters.  It felt like they were dictating the basic elements to someone else and not exploring the emotions behind everything.  It felt like adults trying to remember how a teenager would feel and then trying to wrap that around their current version.  There were a few horrible moments and I thought to myself “I should be really upset about this, but I’m not.”  I was upset that I didn’t feel upset.

Even when they did get into emotions, it felt too much like telling and not showing.  There were a few moments that felt real and captured what had happened.  Unfortunately these made other moments feel even more flat because they didn’t hold up.  The potential was there but the follow through wasn’t.

I did relate to much of the story.  My sister is six years older than I am, so I responded to Natalie’s reactions to Shannon.  However, their family dynamics are nothing like mine and my sister’s.  However, there were some universal threads in there so the book wasn’t a total loss.