Sloane Crosley
Let me first say this, if you are a die-hard midwesterner with no experience or interest in the East coast, I’m fairly certain Crosley’s up-state (Westchester), private-school, Jewish essays will make you crazy. I myself found them immensely amusing. Crosley’s book meanders from stories of being the only …
Beth Lisick
When I cracked open Helping Me Help Myself my first thought was “Oh, this is EXACTLY the same as Jennifer Niesslein’s Practically Perfect in Every Way.” While the premise is identical – woman decides to get her act together via self-help books and write a book about …
The Full Body Project – Leonard Nimoy
I heard a lovely interview by Nimoy months ago on his new book and the fear of working in this “new” medium. Unlike his past works (and most other photographers) Nimoy used plus-size models for his project. After being approached by a member …
Peter Sagal
Host of NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!, Sagal’s voice is all that a good liberal midwesterner should be. Whether discussing attending a swinger’s party, gambling, eating a 24-course gourmet meal or studying pornography, Sagal sounds wry, amused and slightly embarrassed, with strains of the midwest “well, to …
D
ouglas Coupland
The Gum Thief lives up to Coupland’s usual excellent standard. While the formula may be quite familiar – outcast/losers from different backgrounds band together – Coupland once again manages to make the sad and mundane beautiful. Set in a Staples store, Coupland tells the story of the …
Benjamin Nugent
In American Nerd, Nugent takes a look at “his” people – nerds of many colors. While I do agree with my friend Meg’s assessment that Nugent does tend to portray his experience being a nerd as the definitive definition (with little or no reference to female nerds) …
A.J. Jacobs
From the author of The Know-it-All comes another awesome title. At loose ends after his year reading the encyclopedia, Jacobs decides to embark on another experiment. As a agnostic Jew he always had some interest in religion and the perplexed fascination with belief that many non-believers have.
Jacobs …
Russell Ash and Brian Lake
Ash and Lake have collected a mass of truly awful, useless and poorly titled books. Many owe their amusement factor to terms that have changed through time: Girls of the Pansy Patrol and The Gay Boys of Old Yale. Others are bizarre simply for …
Claire Nouvian
This book is gorgeous. While the subject matter, sea creatures of the deepest abysses, is certainly fascinating the pictures are what makes this book so wonderful. Some show perfect, tiny jeweled creatures floating in the dark. Others, lit by ROV lights, look like computer generated movie sets. Unreal …
Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein
Schein and Bernstein were both aware that they had been adopted at birth. Both had some interest in finding out who their birth parents were. Finally both found and contacted the adoption agency where their adoptions took place. Instead of finding their birth parents, the …
Carolyn Jessop
This true and grimly gripping biography pulls you in and grabs your imagination. To the average, educated midwesterner this story of polygamy, abuse and life in a totally insular religious community sounds like soap opera madness. But Jessop both lived it and survived it. As her community slid …
James Christensen
Christensen is both an immensely talented artist and an excellent writer. His illustrations has the fantastic, otherworldly beauty of earlier artist/illustrators such as Arthur Rackham. While some of his work does tend to the maudlin and cutesily religious, the bulk of his work is brilliant and meticulously detailed. …
Ed. Matthew Diffee
Billed as “More cartoons you’ve never seen, and never will see, in The New Yorker ” this delightfully vulgar and amusingly awful collection is sure to get laughs out of the crankiest curmudgeon. Interspersed with the various familiar New Yorker -style cartoons are short bio sheets filled …
Garrison Keiller
Told in his gentle, rolling monologue, Pontoon is all one can hope for in a Lake Woebegon story. Looney characters gently drift through, some angst on a small-scale Lutheran level, gentle teasing of Californians and many familiar names and faces. Interestingly, I think this is the first Keiller …
Edited by Jenny Offill and Elissa Shappell
Offill and Shappell edited another book I started a few years ago, The Friend Who Got Away, a collection of stories by women who had “broken up” with a best friend and which I found too depressing to finish. Money Changes Everything…
Michael Palin – Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years
A thick 600+ page book, Palin’s Diaries start slowly but become increasingly engrossing. Covering the very first year Python starts making shows until the release of Life of Brian, Palin describes Python’s ever-increasing popularity. Palin writes with a witty, kind and …
