Books for the Beach

It's rainy and mid-60s today in Boston.  Perfect weather to think about what to read on that beach vacation coming up!!  Here's a list of my top five recommendations for your next beach vacation!!

• Bossypants, Tina Fey-- This isn't just another silly memoir.  This book gives us fabulous insight into a strong, caring, and incredibly funny woman.  I laughed out loud so many times that the dogs started barking at me!  :)

• Heads You Lose, Lisa Lutz and David Hayward-- Lisa Lutz is one of my favorite authors (she wrote the Spellman Files) and here she collaborated with an ex-boyfriend to create a strange and unique experience for her readers.  She and Hayward alternated chapters in this comical murder mystery and they left in their notes to each other at the end of each chapter.  Truly an entertaining read!!

• The Lincoln Lawyer, Michael Connelly-- This was a rather poorly written book, but I'm recommending it anyway.  The story is interesting and the character is developed enough to allow us to actually develop an opinion about him.  If you can get past sentences like "he looked down the hallway and she was standing at the end of the hallway,"  then I actually think you'll find it a pretty good read.

• Slammerkin and The Sealed Letter, Emma Donoghue-- Donoghue wrote Room, which got a lot of attention earlier this year for it's unique premise.  But, long before she ripped the premise of that novel from the Jaycee Dugard case, Donoghue was using headlines as inspiration.  Both Slammerkin and The Sealed Letter are novels based on newspaper articles written in the 1860s in London.  Personally, I've never found that genre overly interesting (Jane Austen aside, of course) but Donoghue's books are really good!!  Unique, intense, gripping, and entertaining, I had a hard time putting either one down.

Sarah Silverman writes a book and I'm not in it...

THE BEDWETTER: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee-- Sarah Silverman

This past summer, our dear friends got married in Nantucket.  While wandering around the island the morning of the wedding, we ran into Sarah Silverman.  In fact, I showed her where to get coffee (yeah, I'm just that cool...)  She was kind, personable and very self-deprecating.  I totally wanted to be her BFF!

So, I was so excited to read her memoir, The Bedwetter.  Given what I knew of her, I was fully prepared for a book fully of references to bathroom habits, funny noises and dirty jokes.  What I got instead was an honest and fulfilling review of Sarah's youth and a commentary on the major events that have taken place in her life to date.

Don't get me wrong- the book was hilarious!  She begins with a foreward written by, yup, Sarah Silverman. She states how honored she was when she asked herself to write the foreward of her book.  She says she's always been a fan of her work and was so excited to be a part of her own book.  I laughed out loud throughout.

More than that, though, I got to learn more about what made Sarah into the witty, sharp and pottymouthed woman she is.  She focused on many childhood issues that most of us would still be too embarrassed to talk about.  For example, she wet the bed. It was an issue she struggled with until she was a teenager.  But, rather than allow the incident to define who she was, she chose to make it only a part of her.  Obviously, it's hard to be social when you fear you'll have an accident any time there's a sleep-over party.  It's challenging to make friends when you're carrying an embarrassing secret.  But, Sarah's humor wasn't a defense mechanism; she was funny before she had a secret.  As a result, her humor is, I think, deeper and more thoughtful.  Sarah's humor doesn't try to hide facets of her being, but instead illuminates aspects of her life-- and ours-- that are silly or inexplicable.

Because many comedians turn to comedy as a means of coping, it's assumed that they develop fairly thick skin. And, frankly, I've come to believe that many are kind of mean-- the world's been unkind to them, so they're unkind in return.  Sarah's memoir reminds us that she doesn't have the layer of armor that many of her peers do, probably because she has enjoyed a fairly normal, stable and, usually, a happy life.  While that makes her fabulous and a great candidate for a BFF, it also means that the cruelties that can accompany fame hit her harder than some.  Because Sarah doesn't aim to be mean or to hurt anyone, she has a fairly deep reaction when someone is offended by her acts.  It's not that she's weak, she simply comes to comedy from a different perspective.

Sarah doesn't aim to be a role model and she didn't write the book to boast about all that's she's accomplished.  In many ways, I think she wrote the book as an explanation-- this is what I am and this is why I've done what I've done.  She writes about her highs and lows, her disappointments, and her proudest achievements.  Hers is an immensely fun and readable story from a truly funny person... who really should be my BFF!

Not Your Ordinary Family-- THE SPELLMAN BOOKS

THE SPELLMAN BOOKS, by Lisa Lutz

The best books are the ones you can't stop reading. The ones that make you go to bed at 8 o'clock on Saturday night just so you can find out what happens next. The best books have characters that stay with you long after you finish reading. You wonder what happened to them next and you realize that they've actually become real to you. The best books come alive.

Lisa Lutz's series of books about the Spellman family have etched themselves into my mind. My mother-in-law gave me the first book, The Spellman Files, almost a year ago. I read it in 3 days, falling in love with the characters and the story! The protagonist is Isabel Spellman, the 28-year-old rebellious middle-child of the Spellman clan, a family whose private investigation business allows for many a hilarious situation. The book is a comedy of errors but with a heart. You learn early on that, as wacky as the Spellmans are, they clearly love each other and want to see each member happy.

Last week, I discovered The Curse of the Spellmans at my favorite bookstore. I then spent the next five days reading. I devoured this book in 2 days and then downloaded both The Revenge of the Spellmans and The Spellmans Strike Again to my Kindle. By Monday, I had finished the series.

My point is, these books are Fantastic!! They're funny, smart, charming and super quick reads. They're also great for book clubs or for a Saturday night. Forget about meeting people in bars; if you want to meet some real characters, read The Spellman Books!!