The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling

Block, Lawrence.The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling. New York: Random House 1979. Print.

First Sentences:

I suppose he must have been in his early twenties. It was hard to be sure of his age because there was so little of his face available for study.


Description:

Quite a good opening line to Lawrence Block's wonderful private investigator crime novel, The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling. And the plot is a doozy, too. Can there be a more enticing scenario than a petty burglar turned book dealer working with a bribable cop on an investigation of a local crime?

 

Bernie Rhodenbarr is a known thief who apparently has gone straight, setting himself up as owner of a small book shop that seems to have few customers and even fewer sales (which doesn't seem to concern Bernie in the least). Where he got the money to invest in this store is questionable, but he assures everyone that he is out of the burglary business. 

That is, until he is quietly offered a job to steal a rare book and deliver it to his contact. All goes well...except for the part during the delivery of the stolen merchandise when Bernie is drugged to sleep, then awakens to find himself alone with a gun and a dead body next to him.

What ensues is a twisty-turny series of events: burglaries, set-ups, lies, and non-stop action. Bernie is in the middle of it all, trying to avoid the police who are looking for him as the murderer, as well as doggedly searching for the stolen book to redeem some sort of financial gain and prove his innocence. Of course, he would prefer not to blow his cover as a used book dealer in the process, but that gets trickier with each page.

I'm all in on this book. After initially being captivated by the title, I was pleased to discover this quirky novel was only one of many in the Bernie Rhodenbarr series written by author Block. It's exactly the kind of rollicking, funny, edgy mystery full of shady characters and settings that I love. Can't wait to try his other ten adventures, each with an even more enticing title, including The Burglar Who Studies Spinoza, The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams, and The Burglar Who Painted Like Modrian.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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Block, Lawrence. Burglars Can't Be Choosers.   

Our hero/burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr is on a simple caper: steal a leather-covered box sitting inside a roll-top desk. At least it was simple until he finds the desk contains no leather box, the cops break in while Bernie is still working...and there's a dead body in the bedroom. Only his fast-talking and quick wits can keep Bernie out of jail until he can find the murderer. (This the first piece in the 11-book  Bernie Rhodenbarr series.)

Lessons in Chemistry

Garmus, Bonnie. Lessons in Chemistry. New York: Doubleday 2022. Print.

First Sentences:

Back in 1961, when women wore shirtwaist dresses and joined garden clubs and drove legions of children around in seatbeltless cars without giving it a second thought; back before anyone knew there'd even be a sixties movement, much less one that its participants would spend the next sixty years chronicling; back when the big wars were over and the secret wars had just begun and people were starting to think fresh and believe everything was possible, the thirty-year-old mother of Madeline Zott rose before dawn every morning and felt certain of just one thing: her life was over.

Despite that certainty, she made her way to the lab to pack her daughter's lunch.

Description:

I don't often read books off a best-seller list, but somehow Bonnie Garmus's Lessons in Chemistry snuck into my To-Be-Read notebook and wow, did I ever enjoy it. It is quirky, character-driven, funny, thoughtful, and always unexpected, my favorite kind of reading.

Elizabeth Zott, the main character of the novel, is a scientist, first and foremost, working as a researcher in 1961, a time when women scientists were few and those in the profession were generally delegated to bringing coffee to men scientists. This role would never do for Elizabeth Zott, a powerfully-driven woman who demands the same facilities, pay, responsibilities, and respect as her fellow (men) workers routinely receive.

She is the mother of the precocious Madeline, who "had been reading since age three and now, at age five, was already through most of Dickens". Madeline despertely wants to fit in with the other students, so tosses away her mother's daily inspirational lunchbox notes ("Play sports at recess but do not automatically let the boys win"). She trades her nutritionally balanced, but odd, food as well so as not appear any stranger. She was just starting kindergarden, so what could go wrong with this strategy?

The other day [Harriet] suggested they make mud pies and Madeline frowned, then wrote 3.1415 with a stick in the dirt. "Done," she said. 

Elizabeth deals with her own chemical research doggedly, but with little encouragement. Her boss steals her research papers and publishes them under his own name. Her lab equipment is reduced and her chances of promotion ignored.

Her grudges were mainly reserved for a patriarchal society founded on the idea that women were less. Less capable. Less intelligent. Less inventive. A society that believe men went to work and did important things---discovered planets, developed products, created laws---and women stayed at home and raised children.

That environment all changes, for better and for worse, when she sneaks into five-star researcher Calvin Evans' lab and steals some of his beakers. Soon, they become a couple.

They were more than friends, more than confidants, more than allies, and more than lovers. If relationships are a puzzle, then theirs was solved from the get-go---as if someone shook out the box and watched from above as each separate piece landed exactly right, slipping one into the other, fully interlocked, into a picture that made perfect sense. They made other couples sick.

Inevitably, (not really a spoiler since it is mentioned on the first page), Elizabeth Zott moves out of her lab. She is coerced into hosting a TV cooking show based on science and respect for women who cook for their families. While it is unlike any show and goes against the expressed ideas of the station manager, Supper at Six becomes a huge hit.

 

But Elizabeth Zott is miserable. And always, there are the challenges of childrearing as a single parent.

Every day she found parenthood like taking a test for which she had not studied. The questions were daunting and there wasn't nearly enough multiple choice. Occasionally she woke up damp with sweat, having imagined a knock at the door and some sort of authority figure with an empty baby-sized basket saying, "We've just reviewed your last parental performance report and there's really no nice way to put this. You're fired."

I cannot give away any more. All I have mentioned happens in the first chapters, so there is a lot of ground to cover in this off-beat novel of a women fighting to do what she is trained to do and for what she knows is right, a woman who faces obstacles and antagonists in every corner. And there's still more in this captivating story about rowing, cooking, and a dog named Six-Thirty who is trained to understand hundreds of words.

My highest recommended as a thought-provoking, highly enjoyable look into the 1960's era from the eyes and words of a whipsmart woman. 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Semple, Maria. Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

A fiercely-independent architect walks away from her eccentric life, neighbors, and family and heads for an unknown destination after a series of misadventures in her current life. (previously reviewed here)

 

Simsion, Graeme. The Rosie Project.   

An eccentric geneticist creates a 100-point questionaire to find the perfect wife. Unbeknownst to him, a young grad student is mistakenly identified as a potential mate, and the fun begins as the serious woman faces off with a highly-exacting man.  (previously reviewed here)

 

  

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

San Jose State University. Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. (https://www.bulwer-lytton.com). San Jose, CA. 2022. Online.

First Sentences:

I knew she was trouble the second she walked into my 24-hour deli, laundromat, and detective agency, and after dropping a load of unmentionables in one of the heavy-duty machines (a mistake that would soon turn deadly) she turned to me, asking for two things: find her husband and make her a salami on rye with spicy mustard, breaking into tears when I told her I couldn't help--I was fresh out of salami.

 

John Farmer of Aurora, Colorado - 2023 Bulwer-Lytton Contest Grand Prize Winner.

 

Description:

 

Not everyone agrees with me that you can judge a great book by its first sentence. But we all can recognize when a book's first sentence is really, really awful. Of course, the epitome of bad first sentences was the famous one written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his 1909 novel, Paul Clifford:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness

Suffice to say, Paul Clifford will not make it to The First Sentence Reader blog of recommended readings. However, one can take gleeful delight in off-beat first sentences like this. And to help with your secret desire to see bad first sentences, there is a contest to determine the worst first sentence of the year, The Bulser-Lytton Fiction Contest. Professor Scott Rice of San Jose State University decided in 1992 to create this international competition where anyone, including all First Sentence Reader followers, can submit a tremendously bad sentence for consideration.

You can read the other 2022 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest winners and submissions here as well as entries from past contests under sections like "Adventure," "Crime and Detective," "Fantasy and Horror," "Historical Fiction," "Romance," "Vial Puns," and many more. Great time-killer.  

Here are a few other "Winners" and "Dishonorable Mentions" (as the contest terms the runners-up) from the 2022 contest for your pleasure:

The heat blanketed the small village in much the same way a body bag blankets a murder victim, except that a body bag is usually black, which the heat wasn’t, as heat is colorless, and the village wasn’t dead, which a murder victim usually is.

Eric Rice, Madison,WI

 

While scrolling through the online catalog of the Acme website trying to decide if he should order rocket roller skates, TNT, and an anvil, or—Fool-Me-Twice fake tunnel paint, the Coyote suddenly realized, ‘Hey, I could just order food.’

Rusty Hamilton, Candby, OR

 

Tony Angel walked Fiona back to the car and handed her the leash; if only he hadn’t thrown the ball so hard; it had marred an otherwise perfect first date on the White Cliffs of Dover.

Lizzie Nelson, Wheaton, IL

 

Ensign Kurt Pulver inadvertently scuttled his command career path by interrupting the starship dedication ceremony with “You mean, ‘to go boldly,’” and spent the next sixteen years de-polarizing the Jefferies Tubes four times a week.

Randall Card, Bellingham, WA

Just thought we all needed to take a break from great reads and wallow a bit in the gloriously awful sentences of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Enjoy.

 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Zinsser, William. On Writing Well  

Probably the most clear guide to writing available. Answers any grammer and style questions succinctly with easily-understood examples of good and poor writing.

 

Introduction to The First Sentence Reader blog

Samples of great first sentences and even a quiz to match first sentences to their books. (Tooting my own horn a bit.)

 

In a Sunbuned Country

 Bryson, Bill. In a Sunburned Country. New York: Broadway Books 2000. Print.

First Sentences:

Flying into Australia, I realized with a sigh that I had forgotten again who their prime minister is....But then Australia is such a difficult country to keep track of.

Description:

   

I admit that there are only a few authors that really make me laugh: P.G. Wodehouse, A.J. Jacobs, Quentin Crisp, Jim Gaffigan, Tony Hawks, Mark Twain, Donald Westlake, and Farley Mowat are at the top. While we all have our favorites, probably the humorist everyone looks forward to reading is Bill Bryson. I recently found my copy of his wonderful memories about traveling to Australia, In a Sunburned Country, and, in checking out pages marked by my little paper scraps for favorite scenes and text, found the book every bit as out-loud laughable as I had remembered.

 

Bryson is at his best, in my opinion, when he writes about his travels. In his skilled hands, all the Australia's oddities and challenges he might face (or actually does encounter) become funny. His research into the history, cities, and people is insightful and always shared in his  "everyman explorer" style of dry humor. His stream of consciousness writing make readers feel like invisible companions privy to his wandering thoughts and muttered observations of everything around him.

...my guidebook blandly observed that "only" fourteen species of Australian snakes are seriously lethal, among them the western brown, desert death adder, tiger snake, taipan, and yellow-bellied sea snake. The taipan is the one to watch out for. It is the most poisonous snake on earth, with a lunge so swift and a venom so potent that your last mortal utterance is likely to be: "I say, it that a sn---."

The Australian history he uncovers is fascinating, obscure, and always quirky. Take his description of the founding of the capital, Canberra:

The young nation had a site for a capital and a name for a capital, and it had taken them just eleven years since union [1901] to get there. At this blistering pace, all being well, they might get a city going within half a century or so. In fact, it would take rather longer.

The people of Australia and some of their notable traits don't escape his observation:

I had read in the paper that Australians are the biggest gamblers on the planet....[T]he country has less than 1 percent of the world's population but more than 20 percent of its slot machines ["pokies"]....We put in a two-dollar coin, just to see what would happen, and got an instant payout of seventeen dollars. This made us immensely joyful.

His descriptions of the rules and play for cricket matches are worth picking up this book. For him, cricket play:

...goes on for so long that by the time the match concludes autumn has crept in and all your library books are overdue....Listening to cricket on the radio is like listening to two men sitting in a rowboat on a large placid lake on a day when the fish aren't biting.

There is so much more in this delightful, informative travel memoir. In a Sunburned Country is one of my go-to books when I need a lift, a laugh, and a wallowing in great writing about a fascinating topic. I never get tired of this book and even after many readings still find things to laugh at or just be astonished by on every page. And I do mean every page. What other book can you say that about?

 

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Bryson, Bill. A Walk in the Woods.   

Bryson decides to reconnect with his country by walking the 2,100 mile Appalachian Trail. He travels with his friend, Stephen Katz, a woefully out-of-shape non-hiker who eats much of their supplies on the very first day, What could possibly go wrong in the days ahead?

The Puzzler

Jacobs, A.J. The Puzzler: One Man's Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life. New York: Crown. 2022. Print.

First Sentences:

One winter morning several years ago, I got an email with some ridiculously exciting news. Or so I thought.

Description:

 

The newest immersive living and exploration book from A.J. Jacobs is The Puzzler: One Man's Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life. 

 

He's one of my regular go-to authors whenever I need to read something interesting, humorous, off-beat, and uplifting. He always writes about his full-bore immersions into lifestyles and topics such as health (Drop Dead Healthy), reading the entire encyclopedia (The Know-It-All), self-improvement (My Life As An Experiment), and even following religious edicts (The Year of Living Biblically). Each of these quirky tales of inquiry and pursuit is highly recommended.

The Puzzler follows Jacobs' personal tried-and-true writing pattern: 

• pick a lifestyle or question that interests him;
• research the history, quirks, important people, and current state of that topic;
• interview the major figures in this field;
• challenge himself to incorporate their suggestions and immerse himself, with the goal to understand and hopefully become a better person and solve the toughest problems.

The Puzzler explores the intriguing facets of a wide variety of puzzles, including crosswords, anagrams, mazes, secret codes, Sodoku, chess, riddles, puzzle hunts, and many more. Some of these you may not have even heard of much less have an interest in. But in Jacobs' capable hands, he gently guides you so wittily and thoroughly to new challenges and experiences that by the end of each chapter you may want to tackle more of these puzzles for yourself. Fortunately, he includes examples of each puzzle at the end of chapters for you to try, with answers in the back of the book.

 

For an example, in one section he decides to explore crossword puzzles. He is already a fanatacal New York Times crossword puzzle solver, setting his alarm nightly for 10:01pm when the next day's puzzle is posted online so he can complete it before going to sleep. He feels proud that his name was famous enough to be an answer to a Times crossword puzzle. That glow lasted briefly until he learned that, as a Saturday puzzle, only the more obscure references are used and therefore his fame really was not so widespread. He interviews Peter Gordon, puzzle maker "known for his creativitiy and deviousness," who shows him the first crossword puzzle from 1913 (reprinted in this book for you to solve). Armed with solving tips from Gordon, Jacobs gets to work on and eventually solves Fireball #9, Gordon's toughest crossword.

For each puzzle, Jacobs follows a similar pattern of description and immersion, ending with his tackling the toughest version of that puzzle. He buys a 48,000-piece jigsaw puzzle (since it is the world's largest); competes with his family in the international jigsaw puzzle tournament (as representatives of the United States since no one else had entered); and learns that the normal Rubik's cube has 43 quintillion combinations, while the 33 x 33-block version, the Octahedon Starmix, has "2-followed-by-137-zeroes combinations." Of course, he has to buy a Starmix, but after recognizing the time involved and his own limitations, farms it out to be solved for him by a Super Cuber, someone who can solve a Rubic's cube in mere seconds.

There are many other puzzles, riddles, and posers to challenge readers. All are presented in Jacobs' witty style full of information and humor. For example, here's one of the tough rebus symbol puzzle he offers for readers to try:

                    B

 

(Sorry, the answer is not "A Bee" - the real answer is below) 

 

Puzzles, to Jacobs, provide the concept of a single solution which is highly satisfying to all of us facing a myriad of problems and answers in our daily lives. A clear-cut right answer is deeply reassuring. Jacobs shares that even Barak Obama fantacized about "opening a T-shirt shop on the beach that only that sold only one item: a plain, white T-shirt, size medium. Freedom from choice."

 

Highly engaging, challenging, fun, and humorous. I just love every adventure Jacobs takes me on. The Puzzler is a fine addition to his immersion lifestyle writings.

 

       [Rebus Answer:   ABOLONE - (a "b" alone). Told you it was a toughie.

 

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

 

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Cline, Ernest. Ready Player One.   

When the eccentric, incredibly rich developer of a virtual reality world dies, he leave his fortune to whomever can solve his mysterious puzzle clues that lead to his treasure. Of course, there are good as well as bad people trying to decrypt his obscure hints, and the chase is on.   (previously reviewed here)

Teacher Man

McCourt, Frank. Teacher Man: A Memoir. New York: Scribner 2005. Print

First Sentences:

Here they come.

And I'm not ready.

How could I be?

I'm a new teacher and learning on the job.

On the first day of my teaching career, I was almost fired for eating the sandwich of a high school boy. On the second day I was almost fired for mentioning the possibility of friendship with a sheep. Otherwise, there was nothing remarkable about my thirty years in the high school classrooms of New York City.


Description:

I think these introductory sentences to Frank McCourt's Teacher Man are the perfect words to pull readers into this delightful memoir. Immediately, you are presented with author McCourt's fear of the first day of school, his not-so-understated terror of being ill-prepared and unqualified, along with teasers about outrageous events that occurred on his first two days. With the statement that McCourt taught school for thirty years, any reader interested in schools and teachers must lick their lips in anticipation of reading many, many more stories about his unusual adventures in the classroom.

Teaching is the downstairs maid of professions. Teachers are told to use the service door or go around the back. They are congratulated on having ATTO (All That Time Off). They are spoken of patronizingly and patted, retroactively, on their silvery locks....Dream on, teacher. You will not be celebrated.

And what adventures he has. After a bit of background from his first 27 years of life as an Irish immigrant, McCourt starts his teaching career in inner-city schools due to his lack of experience. There they call him "Teacher Man." He finds the only way to get through each period and keep the kids' attention is to tell them stories of his youth in Ireland. Not exactly a topic on the curriculum for vocational schools, but he survives for awhile until he just gives up and tries to pursue an advanced degree in Ireland at a Protestant university (he's Catholic) with not too surprising of results.

Finally he lands a job in a prestigious school, one of the best in New York and maybe the country, where students are motivated and preparing for major tests towards their hoped-for acceptance into top Ivy League colleges. Needless to say, his Irish stories and tendency to be distracted into unconventional tangents again land him in hot water. His classes are extremely popular, but he wonders whether it is because he's such a great teacher or because he is such a pushover grader and wandering lecturer? And worst of all, he cannot fulfill the principal's expressed direction to show students how to diagram sentences (which McCourt had never come close to mastering). He soon finds there are other problems with teaching.

If you asked all the students in your five classes to write three hundred and fifty words each then you had 175 multiplied by 350 and that was 43,750 words you had to read, correct, evaluate and grade on evenings and weekends. That's if you were wise enough to give them only one assignment per week....If you gave each paper a bare five minutes you'd spend, on this one set of papers, fourteen hours and thirty-five minutes.

His lessons include a disastrous field trip to a questionable film where the students are boisterous and refuse to leave when the movie is over. Then there is "the art of the excuse note" where students get to create, read, and discuss excuse notes they write which are supposed to be from their parents. There is the lesson where everyone brings in a cookbook and reads or sings a recipe, often accompanied by another student and instrument. And, of course, there is his fallback lesson of his stories told in his wonderful Irish brogue.

Sprinkled into his reflective narrative are encounters with various personalities, from his wife to administrators, fellow teachers, parents, and some very challenging students. He needs to get the attention of each of these  people in different ways, but has only varying success,  blaming himself for not handling situations and encounters better. Like when he ate one student's sandwich in class. Or when he struck another in the face with a rolled up magazine. Or when he called a student's parents with a report of misbehavior and learned the father had severely beaten the student as punishment.

In all, he taught in five high schools and one college, including a vocational and technical high school and a high school of fashion industries.

My arithmetic tells me that about twelve thousand boys and girls, men and women, sat at desks and listened to me lecture, chant, encourage, rumble, sing, declaim, recite, preach, dry up. I think of the twelve thousand and wonder what I did for them. Then I think of what they did for me. 

Those of us who were at one time (brief for me) teachers can identify with many of the situations and students McCourt describes. But with his direct, honest writing style, McCourt relays this information about his world of education so clearly that probably anyone could feel his self-doubt and lack of expertise in handling the daily challenges that arise in Teacher Man. A strong, sensitive, and funny memoir.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Cordell, Esme Raji. Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year.   

The daily memories of a creative, off-beat novice teacher in an inner city school. Delightfully, passionately written with plenty of observations about her students, administration, and wonderful projects she gives to her students, including building and using a time machine in her class and having her students shout, "Play ball!" after the national anthem is piped in daily over the school intercom. Wonderful.  (previously reviewed here)

Life Among the Savages

 Jackson, Shirley. Life Among the Savages. New York: Farrar, Straus and Young. 1948. Print

First Sentences:

Our house is old, and noisy, and full.

When we moved into it we had two children and about five thousand books; I expect that when we finally overflow and move out again we will have perhaps twenty children and easily half a million books....

I cannot think of a preferable way of life, except one without children....


Description:

Shirley Jackson is best known for her creepy short story, "The Lottery" with its surprise, horrifying ending. But in a completely different vein is her humorous memoir of her family adventures in their everyday world, Life Among the Savages, which details her life with husband and children in rural New Hampshire.

After getting a notice of eviction from their New York City apartment due to the forgotten end date of their lease, Jackson, husband, and two children knew they had to look for a larger place outside the city. But they delayed their search out of procrastination until just days before being kicked out of their apartment. Then they remembered friends who had successfully re-located to a small town in New Hampshire. So Jackson's family finally started (and ended) their house search there.

The house hunt is the first adventure she relates. An agent in the rural town shows them only places to buy (despite their protestations that the Jacksons wanted to rent a normal house). All had no plumbing, were falling down or without heat, often all the above. 

Once settled, Jackson gives us stories of their highly-personable children, starting with son Laurie's first day of school:

The day Laurie started kindergarten he renounced corduroy overalls with bibs and began wearing blue jeans with a belt; ...an era of my life was ended, my sweet-voiced nursery-school tot replaced by a long-trousered, swaggering character who forgot to stop at the corner and wave goodbye to me.

Laurie came home with lots of stories in the first weeks of school, all involving a fellow student named Charles, who did one bad thing after another and was punished by their teacher. Biting, saying nasty words, and throwing chalk, Charles became a fascinating character in the Jackson family's life. Jackson herself was incredibly curious to meet Charles' mother and see what kind of woman could raise such a mischievous boy. Then came the first parent-teacher night when she found out from Laurie's teacher that Laurie had taken some time to adjust to school ... and that there was no Charles in the class. 

Jackson's imaginative daughter Jannie gets her share of coverage. 

Daughter Jannie (age 5) went by Mrs. Ellenoy, "the second Mrs. Ellenoy," because the first had died and left her with 7 daughters all named Martha. 

Jackson's husband, usually a quiet figure in the family adventures, was the central figure of a wonderful story involving his air gun (bought for "target practice"), their pet cat, a chipmunk, and a bat that all came together inside the house. 

Other delightful tales included:

• When the family thinks about buying a car (their first since no one knew how to drive) and the ensuing arguments about who would get to sit in the front passenger seat. Of course, after they finally do get a car, son Laurie decides he'd rather have a plane, and the fights renew over who would get to sit on the wing.

• When Father and son bond over coin collecting, but are dismayed to find one shipment that contains both a bag of valuable coins as well as a bag of counterfeit coins. The bags had burst, accidently scattering the real and fake coins together to be somehow sorted over the weeks to come.

Life Among the Savages is just a lovely, clever, funny, and completely believable accounting of a normal family living an everyday life in a small town. Absolutely delightful in all ways, a welcome antidote to our grouchy, pandemic-stay-at-home blues.

Happy reading.

Fred

Other book recommendations
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Gilbreth, Franklin B. Cheaper by the Dozen.   

Memoirs of a family with twelve, yes that's 12, children, iled by the quirky father, a famous time-management expert who tries to regulate the learning and activities of the household. Don't need to say any more except that it is cleverly written and extremely funny, full of wonderful stories.

My Life With Bob

Paul, Pamela. My Life With Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues. New York: Holt 2017. Print

First Sentences:

When you're a child, reading is full of rules.

Books that are appropriate and books that are not, books that grown-ups will smile at you approvingly for cradling in your arms and those that will cause grimaces when they spy you tearing through their pages.

Description:

I'm attracted to books about books. You know, those books chock full of lists of great reads. The type of book that offers new (to me) titles with interesting plots by hopefully prolific authors who will stock my "To Be Read" list for months. 

Such were my hopes for Pamela Paul's My Life With Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues. What could be better than spending time with the lifetime reading diary of the current editor of The New York Times Book Review? But in My Life With Bob, there is actually not much about the books themselves beyond their titles, authors, and possibly a very brief plot reference. 

However, have faith! Bob is a solidly entertaining, funny, insightful memoir where books do play a pivotal role: they provided the foundation behind key life decisions and events for author Pamela Paul. You see, Paul had decided early in her life to keep track of every booksshe read, regardless of whether she liked them, hated them, or was profoundly moved by them. She recorded just the title, author, and approximate date for every book read into her notebook she nicknamed The Book of Books, aka Bob. 

My Book of Books is still a private place. It's not a traditional diary, to be sure. It's about me, and yet it isn't about me. It's impersonal and yet deeply personal....Diaries contained all kinds of things I wanted to forget - unrequited crushes and falling-outs with friends and angsting over college admissions. Bob contains things I wanted to remember what I was reading when all that happened.

Bob relates chronologically the events and corresponding books that she read which influenced her during important periods in Paul's life. Chapters/situations include "You Shouldn't Be Reading That" (Brave New World), "Never Enough" (Catch-22), "Reading with Children" (A Wrinkle in Time), and "On Self-Help" (Autobiography of a Face - yay, a new title for me!). There are also chapters with their related books on topics of "Why Read?" (Les Miserables), No Time to Read" (The Hunger Games), and "Solitary Reading" (The Secret History).

Paul is a wonderful writer. I had so many slips of paper marking clever expressions (do other readers do that?) that describe her and her life that it is difficult to decide which ones to share: Here are some samples:

• Listening to Holden Caulfield moan and groan, I couldn't help but think, What a jerk. What did he have to complain about, with his privileged life and his private school and his afternoons wandering unsupervised around Manhattan?

• If you're going to be a bookish child, you had damn well beter be good at it, and I feared the prospect of being sniffed out for my lapses. Someone always has to be the person who has never read Trollope, but it damn sure wasn't going to be me.

• Sometimes you fall so much in love with a book that you simply have to tell everyone, to spread the love, and to explain the state you're in. You read pasages aloud to anyone who will listen. You wait with bated breath, watching for signs of appreciation, wanting that smile, that laugh, that nod of recognition. Please love this book too, you silently -- and sometimes not so silently -- urge. You become insistent, even messianic in your enthusiasm.

So we readers follow her life episodes and corresponding books, from her job as a "scoopeuse" counter worker for a Haagen-Dazs shop in Paris; marriage, divorce, and motherhood; living in London and Paris; and finally to her position as editor with The New York Times Book Review. She has lead a fascinating life and, of course, recorded the related titles in Bob.

It's hard not to wish that everyone ...would keep a Book of Books. What better way to get to know them? You could find out so much if you could get a read on where other people's curiosities lie and where their knowledge is found....[Otherwise] you miss a vital part of a person, the real story, the other stories -- not the ones in their books, but the stories that lie between book and reader, the connections that bind the two together.

I was completely entranced in her life and the influence books had on her. She is a self-deprecating, funny, serious, and endearing writer who treats readers as friends, privvy to her innermost thoughts, fears, hopes, and stumbles. Highly recommended for all you solitary readers and lovers of the power of books.

If [my] house was on fire. Everything bursting into flames. Only moment to decide what to save... I'd leave behind the laptop and the photo albums and even, forgive me, my children's artwork, because there is one object I'd need to rescue above all else -- my true precious, Bob.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Queenan, Joe. One for the Books  

Joe Queenan, a well-published author of articles and books, reads "between 30-40 books at a time. Because he estimates at this rate, he can only read around 2,000 books before he dies. One for the Books describes the books he loves and hates in a wide variety of fields, as well as topics of e-books, the distasteful use of the word "astonishing" in a book review, and selecting books with his eyes closed. Eccentric, passionate, and outrageously intelligent and funny.  Highly recommended (previously reviewed here)

The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet

Larsen, Reif. The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet New York: Penguin 2009. Print

First Sentences:

The phone call came late one August afternoon as my older sister Gracie and I sat out on the back porch shucking the sweet corn into the big tin buckets.

The buckets were still peppered with little teeth-marks from this past spring, when Verywell, our ranch hound, became depresed and turned to eating metal.

Description:

How can I explain the marvelous characters, setting, actions and illustrations of Reif Larsen's debut novel, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet? It's impossible to fully describe the genius mind and illustrations of its narrator, T.S. Spivet, a twelve-year-old map-maker extrordinaire. I can only offer examples which hopefully will hint at and temp you into the adventures and intricacy of this wonderful book.

Tecumseh Sparrow (T.S.) Spivet is no ordinary maker of topographical drawings of land, oceans, cities. No, he is an acute observer of the world and its patterns and behaviors. Spivet draws intricate diagrams of actions (e.g., the motions of his father drinking whiskey), objects (the history of the family phone cord), actions (the internal mechinations of how his parents met at a square dance), senses (separate freight train noises combine into a leasing sandwich of sound), emotions (The McAwesome Trident of Desire as demonstrated by McDonald's), and yes, even geography (the Yuma Bat Field #2 showing the location of Spivet's last will and testament). These and so many more are included in the margins of almost every page in the book, along with T.S.'s insightful captions. All from a young boy living on an isolated ranch in Montana.

A map does not just chart, it unlocks and formulates meaning; it forms bridges between here and there, between disparate ideas that we did not know were previously connected. To do this right is very difficult.

While these examples may sound frivilous, make no mistake: T.S. Spivet is a very serious person. The phone call he receives in the opening pages of the book is from The Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., announcing that he has won the prestigious Baird Award, along with a job at The Smithsonian. He is asked to travel to Washington D.C. to receive the prize in a formal ceremony and then give a speech to a roomful of scientists regarding his drawings used by the Smithsonian in their exhibits.

The problem? The Smithsonian doesn't know he is only twelve years old. They assume when Spivet talks over the phone to them about his school, that he is referring to a prestigious teaching post at some important higher-level institution, not his middle school. Also, Spivet's parents do not know of his relationship with The Smithsonian, the prize, or the travel requirement. His father is a weathered cowboy who is right at home doing manly things around their sprawling ranch, while his mother pursues her own biological study to discover an illusive species of beetle which may not even exist.

What to do? Of course, after much careful packing and no actual planning regarding transportation, Sopivet hops a freight train for Washington D.C. two thousand miles away with just a suitcase filled with his drawing instruments and some energy bars.  

During the journey, Spivet has time to reflect on his life, his family, the world passing by, and his future life among scientists at The Smithsonian. As his mind roves, he draws fantastic sketches with explanations of various things, people, or actions from his past, present travels, and his possible future. These are the most gloriously fun, informative, and artístic footnotes you will ever read.

This is so much more than just a simple travel story. Spivet reflects and pieces together fragments (and, of course, maps) about his life on a ranch with disconnected parents, an older sister who is into pop music, the sudden death of his younger brother (in which Spivet seems to have played a role), and a family genealogy of women scientists living in the isolated region of Montana. Each influences his travel and future plans, what he can make of them.

I won't reveal any more about Spivet and his journey so as not to spoil any part of the joy I hope you experience reading this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's moved onto my all-time favorite list and will be re-read by me many times to immerse myself into this brilliant, curious mind and world.

Mediocrity is a fungus of the mind. We must constantly rally against it -- it will try to creep into all that we do, but we must not let it.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet  

Not sure if Hatchet is exactly like T.S. Spivit, but both do focus on pre-teen narrators on an unknown journey full of obstacles they must face with their wits, bravery, and humor. Hatchet  relates how one boy survives a plane crash deep in the Canadian forests and must try to figure out how to survive. Even if these books aren't too similar, I can't miss an opportunity to get people to read Hatchet, too. It's the best. Highly recommended.