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.

The GodMOTHER- The Company She Keeps

The Company She Keeps-- Georgia Durante

Something about the mafia has always interested me.  I'm obviously not alone or The Godfather, Goodfellas or The Sopranos would never have become such massive hits.  But, as much as I may joke about my grandmother's connections to the Chicago mafia, I'd never actually want to be associated or friendly with anyone who was in the mob.

Georgia Durante obviously didn't have the same conviction.  From a young age, the former model was considered a staple in the Rochester Mafia scene.  If her story is to be believed, and I do believe her only because there are too many names in this book for her not to have written the absolute truth, then she's led a hell of a life.

We all make choices we sometimes regret, but Durante's created a life built upon regrets.  From Rochester, she moved to New York and California, all with her wife-beating, cheating, mafia-connected husband in tow.  She surrounded herself with bad people, acted as the get-away driver for various mob-related hits, and found herself in relationship after relationship with some really screwed up men.

In an effort to straighten out her life, Durante created a professional stunt-driving business and now does much of the stunt work we see in commercials and film.  Though not without obstacles, her business has become successful and she is reputed to be among the best female stunt-drivers in the world.

Durante's story is really interesting!  Many a time, I wanted to climb into the book, sit her down and say "listen, girlfriend, you don't need to go back to him." Or "He's LYING you idiot!!" But, it was fascinating to read about her choices from the perspective that age has given her.  Like The Sopranos gave us insight into the life of a mafia boss, so, too, does The Company She Keeps give us a window into the life of a beauty queen, a battered wife, and a successful businesswoman.  It's an interesting view and one worth peeping into.  Just don't let the cops know you're watching...

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!