Review--The Idiot Girls' Action Adventure Club, by Laurie Notaro

The Idiot Girls' Action Adventure Club was recommended to me by Amazon.com, and I have to say that I absolutely loved it (the book, though the website has its advantages)! The book is actually a collection of short essays, written by Laurie Notaro, the heavy drinker and smoker who tells of her exploits with candor and a sense of humor. And along the way, she's able to laugh at, and with, herself. The essays can be read alone, but they work best when they're read in the order in which they're presented. I loved the essay about her attending her high school reunion (I think we all have a story in which we do something mortifyingly embarassing in front of old high school/ college classmates. I sure do), and the one where she explains oral sex to her 82-year-old grandmother.

Although not very well written (sometimes Notaro sounds as though she's in middle school), The Idiots Girls' Action Adventure Club was a quick read (I read it in one day) and had me laughing so hard that people walking by would ask, "what are you reading?" Notaro's other memoirs and novel are also good, but not as funny as this one is. It was definitely on my list of favorites in 2007. If you like this kind of thing, I also recommend Bitter is the New Black, by Jen Lancaster.

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Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars

Six Degrees of Barbara Pym's Novels

This year seems to be The Year of Barbara Pym; I know some of you out there are involved in some kind of a readalong in honor of the 100th year of her birth. I’ve read most of her canon, with only The Sweet Dove Died, Civil to Strangers, An Academic Question, and Crampton Hodnet left to go (sadly). Barbara Pym’s novels feature very similar casts of characters: spinsters, clergymen, retirees, clerks, and anthropologists, with which she had direct experience. So it stands to reason that there would be overlaps in characters between the novels. You can trace that though the publication history of her books and therefore see how Pym onionizes her stories and characters. She adds layers onto layers, adding more details as her books progress. Some Tame Gazelle (1950): Archdeacon Hoccleve makes his first appearance. Excellent Women (1952): Archdeacon Hoccleve gives a sermon that is almost incomprehensible to Mildred Lathbury; Everard Bone understands it, however, and laughs

A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

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