The Paris Wife by Paula McLain ****

I needed a new book to read, something recent that looked good.  I can't remember where I saw this book listed, maybe on the New York Times bestsellers list, but the idea of reading a pseudo-memoir about Hemingway's first wife was intriguing. 

Hadley Richardson was from my hometown, St. Louis, and was considered a spinster at age 28 when she met Ernest Hemingway.  He was 21 and just starting his writing career, not yet the man he would later become.  They fell in love, married, and moved to Paris so Ernest could be where all the great writers of the age were:  Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and more.  There they lived for several years in what for Hadley was marital bliss, but for Ernest became a tightening noose around his neck. 

I appreciated this book on several different levels, one of which was the character of Hadley herself.  I've seen that many people who've reviewed it thought that Hadley was a wimpy character, but I found her to be quite real.  She was the only person in a circle of very bright stars that wasn't a writer and wasn't trying to be famous in some way.  She was very ordinary, and as a rather ordinary person myself I liked her.  It was as though she were trying very hard to not be eaten alive by the people around her, and somehow she came out the other end intact. 

I would like to read The Sun Also Rises now since Hemingway's life while writing it was the model for this book.  And my husband's favorite Hemingway book, Islands in the Stream, would be good to read also--it has so much to do with Ernest looking back on his life and his wives with regret and longing.  And it's obvious that though she wasn't a flashy flapper, a love-starved socialite, or a petulant  beauty queen, Hadley in many ways was the love of his life and an anchor that he lost and never could find again.

My Lobotomy by Howard Dully ****

Howard Dully was given a lobotomy in December 1960, when he had just turned 12 years old. His step-mother hated him & wanted him gone from her life, & this was her way of doing that. When that brutal procedure didn't make him non-communicative & immobile, he was made a ward of the state of California & lived the rest of his childhood & young adulthood in mental hospitals. As Howard writes in this book, he always wanted to know "why?" What had he done so wrong to warrant these actions against him?

When he was approached by two producers from NPR to do a 22 minute story about lobotomy, Howard finally found out what had happened to him. And the horrible truth, which was that he was a typical 12 year old boy, with no justification except his step-mother's lies for what was done to him.


To say this is a moving book is to put it mildly. The horror & outrage that I felt when reading this, & the fear that filled me when I realized that sometimes the medical community is not only incompetent but twisted, was breathtaking. How could this happen? How could this happen?


After reading the book I looked up Howard's NPR story online. If I thought the book was moving, it was nothing compared to hearing Howard himself finding out & dealing with what was done to him.


I think the thing that made the biggest impression on me was the realization of the power we, as adults, hold over children. We make so many choices for them, & not just for our own kids, but those we deal with in our jobs & in the community. We owe them the responsibility of doing what is best for them at all times, in all ways. As Howard points out, he was helpless against what was done to him. But no one stood up for him: not his father, not the doctors, not the nurses, no one.


With Holocaust Remembrance Day fast approaching (April 11), we remember to say, "Never again." Let's remember that when we deal with children also. Never again.

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher *****

I'm going to keep this short--this is a good book. Read it. It is funny. I liked it. Carrie Fisher is crazy. She has lots of problems. But she has a great sense of humor. So what the hell. Don't we all?

Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business by Dolly Parton ***

Yep, I read Dolly Parton's autobiography. I guess there has been some debate recently if women can be funny, & on the side of women definitely being funny was this book. Yes, it is a hoot in parts. Her hilarious descriptions of life in the mountains & the fact she doesn't take her self very seriously are great to read. Plus, her one-liners are the best.
She seems like the sort of person that gets along with everyone. She's very spiritual also, though not religious. There's a lot to find in common with her, & I like where she writes upfront that anyone who's reading this book to be like her shouldn't do that--be like yourself.
Here's why I'm only giving this 3 stars though--I guess I just get tired of reading stories about famous people. Pretty damn lame, eh? Like an un-famous person is going to get a deal to write about their massively exciting life. I guess what I mean is that it seems to be that famous people are rather selfish & self centered. I think this is by necessity, because you have to constantly strive for your goals & not let other people get in your way if you're going to become famous. You can't bow out of opportunities of you want to become famous either.
I suppose I'm a tiny bit jealous, to be honest. I live a compromised life, like 95% of the people on the planet. I know a self-help guru would say I'm choosing that, but like I said, so are 95% of my fellow humans, so I don't feel very alone. We all go out & buy the self-help books, write down lists of our dreams & goals, make all the moves to make it come true, then realize we don't have the money/time/energy/support/motivation to do it. And we come off feeling like shit.
Now, Dolly acknowledges her fans & seems like a genuine, sweet loving woman. But at the end of the book she talks about all her plastic surgeries, her refusal to be seen by anybody without wearing a massive amount of makeup, a wig, & 5 inch heels, & her talk about starting a cosmetic line the help all those "homely" women out there.
No thanks, Dolly. I'd rather just roll out of bed & let the world see me for who I am. How horrible!

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin ****

My sister loaned me this book, she’s in a book club that reads non-fiction books from & about different cultures. Basically, it has to do with a man who tried to climb K2 & failed, but in the process found his true calling—building schools for the people of the Karakoram Mountains of northern Pakistan. I have to say that this is a very inspirational story, where one person actually did make a difference. Greg Mortenson now heads an organization called the Central Asia Institute that’s responsible for building 55 schools in Pakistan & Afghanistan.
Musing on how important education is to those who don’t get to have it, it makes me think about how much me take for granted in our country. The US has a lot of problems, that’s true. But they’re the kind of problems born out of plenty. We’re fat, depressed, & stressed, all because we get to have too much. When seeing how other people live, in countries where food is scarce, let alone education, it makes me feel like our country needs to do more. And when I say do more, I don’t mean exporting & imposing our way of life onto others. I mean just giving them a fair chance, like all of us have.
Dog & I got to see President Obama about a month ago when he came to town to give his first 100 days speech. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I’ll never forget. I particularly liked his take on giving aide to other countries. He pointed out how little of our budget is spent on foreign aid—it’s a pittance. By reaching out a hand to help other countries make their own dreams come true, we do good for others. When we retroactively wage war against people who don’t even know who we are, & who we certainly haven’t taken the time to know, all it does in set the human race back. I hope we’re getting back on the right track. I know I feel much better about the direction of our country now than I did a year ago.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch *****

I was first aware of Randy Pausch when Katie Couric announced his death on the evening news on July 25, 2008. I guess by that time the youtube film of his last lecture had made him famous, but I wasn't in tune to that as much as others & so had never heard of him. After seeing the news story, Dog went online & listened to his lecture. He told me it was great & I needed to watch it, but there's a lot I need to do that I don't get around to & that was one of them.

Then a few weeks later, the interview he did with Diane Sawyer aired & we watched it together. There were excerpts from his lecture included, but I still wasn't convinced. I guess I just get tired of having people held up as the ideal, either in the way they live their lives or how they die, & feeling like a very selfish, sub-human creature afterwards because I get upset about not getting what I want. I feel sometimes that's the set up the media gives us so we'll buy more stuff & try to become perfect.

But this Christmas, a friend of mine from work that I don't get to see very much anymore gave me the book. First Dog read it, then Dick read it. Then I finally gave in.

Here's the thing that's great--never does he make out that he's got the answers to all life's problems. The book is for his kids. It's all the things he wants them to know, that he wasn't going to be able to tell them himself. It's not for anyone else. We can read it, of course, but he didn't write it for us. And that's the beauty of the whole thing.

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali ****

This is the memoir of the woman who's most famously known as writing the script for the skit that Theo VanGogh directed & then was murdered for. The short film they made went off on the way women are treated in Islam, basically, & after reading about her life, you can see why she's angry. By the end of the book she's an atheist, even though she was brought up to be a devoted Muslim. After being genitally mutilated, forced into marriage, & a host of other horrible things that a woman such as myself can't hardly imagine, she escapes to Holland & builds a life for herself there. She was a member of their parliament until all this exploded back in 2004 when Theo VanGogh was murdered in the streets of Amsterdam by a Muslim man who was angry at the movie they had made together. She's currently living in the US, in hiding.

I think this book is a must read to understand from an insiders view what the Islamic faith is about. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a very inflammatory person in that she condemns all the violence that has erupted since 9/11 to be due to Islam--her argument is that it is a very violent religion, intolerant of any other belief systems. Whatever you may think, this book will make you think about it in a different way.