Common Wealth, Economics for a Crowded Planet by Jeffrey Sachs
No, I will not engage in a debate with you. I may have been a member of the middle school debate team but frankly I don’t have the time to write down my notes on index cards these days. Instead I will write my brief, nonsensical review to your book on my blog and hope that I either a.) inspire some people to read it or b.) dissuade others.
Thank You,
The Valet
Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer Lee
I had every intention of dining on Chinese food and enjoying the post meal fortune cook on the eve that I started this book to get into the spirit of the story. Unfortunately for the review and gratefully for my stomach I ended up at Cordon Bleu on California Street. Yep, that’s irrelevant. What is relevant is that because I didn’t get a fortune cookie I decided that I would get my fortune online, along with my lotto numbers, my Chinese vocabulary lesson for the day and my daily numbers (somehow different than the lotto numbers).
Fortune: “A golden egg of opportunity falls into your lap this month.”
Lucky numbers (Lotto): 44-04-19-23-50-30
Chinese vocabulary: Vegetable = shu-cai (would you believe that I actually already knew this)
Daily numbers: 582
Go get your own: http://www.fortunecookiemessage.com/
So… it appears as though I have a little too much time on my hands. I can’t really read all day, can I? So, in order to help me fill out my days I’ve decided to start something new. Well, not exactly new, but an expansion of my blog. I can’t promise that it will last, but I will certainly try.
Seeing as I have many friends and some family in Los Angeles I thought that they too could benefit from my brief weekly updates of book events. As you all know Los Angeles is considerably larger than San Francisco and I therefore automatically assumed that there would be a much larger amount of events happening. As it, I struggled to find them. If you’ve got any leads or bookstore websites I should be following please feel free to let me know in the comments!
Monday, September 7th
@ All Day Long!
- Labor Day
Tuesday, September 8th
@ 730pm
- Matt Byloos, author of Don’t Smell the Floss will be at Skylight Books (also referenced here) signing and presumably speaking about his book. Don’t Smell the Floss is a work of fiction that sounds rather appetizing to me. From what little I’ve read about the book it would appear as though his style of writing and the characters within each of the stories is very easy to relate to. It’s a book of stories that, by the sounds of it, captivate you.
Saturday, September 12th
@ 7pm
- Frank Portman, author of King of Dorks and Andromeda Klein will be at Vromans Bookstore. I know what you’re thinking, at this point I’ve done a great job of covering all of Frank’s appearances and therefore must somehow be linked to him. Well, I’m not. Although, I really do appreciate his writing and what he does. He is after all a punk rocker (Mr. T Experience!) and a bay area local, so why wouldn’t I promote him? Not to mention the fact that I think my sister and some of her librarian co-workers will be at the event. Check it out!
Well, that’s it for this week, as I said if you’ve got any suggestions or other events worth checking out, please feel free to comment!
September is here, whether you like it or not. Luckily for those of us in the Bay Area there is a lot happening this month in terms of literary events. And doubly lucky for you, I am here to tell you what’s going on and where you should be.
Monday, September 9th
@ All-day
- Labor Day!
Tuesday, September 8th
@ 7pm
- Frank Portman, author of King Dork and Andromeda Klein will be reading and hopefully singing at Books, Inc. at the Opera Plaza in San Francisco. So, if you missed the shindig in Oakland two weeks ago here is your chance to make up for it. Trust me, you will not regret it. The event is being put on by “Not Your Mothers Book Club.” Odds are I’ll be there, you should too.
Tuesday, September 12th
@ 5-6pm
- Frank Bruni, author of Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater will be appearing and presumably signing books at Omniovre Books in Noe Valley. I’m guessing that you don’t know who Frank Bruni is, and if you do feel free to call me naive, but Bruni was the chief food critic at the New York Times for the past five years. The book is his memoir and appears to be filled with humor, sadness and will most likely induce your sympathy. Seems as though his path to Chief was a long and difficult one. In one of his wisest moment, prior to the final publishing of the book Mr. Bruni left his top post at the Times, after all, once everyone knows who he is there is no telling what could happen.
Ok, I may have exaggerated, maybe there isn’t too much going on at the moment. But seriously, I think there may some other events happening soon!
The Bookshop - Penticton, British Columbia
In the sleepy valley city (it does have a population of near 32,000, although it feels like 2,000) of Penticton, British Columbia there is but one book store, The Bookshop. Located at 242 Main Street, the shop is on the main drag of the town. From the outside anyone passing by really wouldn’t have the mind to think too much of this store (except for the awesome horse pulled wagons full books for signage). But, once you step inside you realize that you have been sorely mistaken.
You may be wondering what I was doing in Penticton, which is 4 hours from Vancouver and 6 hours from Seattle by car. Well, I was there for Ironman Canada to watch my brother kick some ass (which he certainly did). During the actual event which was on August 30th of this year I had quite a bit of downtime seeing as the race takes at least 8 hours, 25 minutes, 13 seconds (Jordan Rapp’s winning time). While I waited for my brother to come into the transition, while he was out on the road for his five and a half hour bike ride, I did the one thing I know can keep me occupied for a very long time, peruse the book store.
Jargon. I should have had a military dictionary (if there is such a thing) at my side the entire time while I was reading this.
We Were Soldiers Once and Young By Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway
Ugg. This book pulled at my heart and will most likely pull at yours too. I’ve had a tough week or weekend which involved more heart pulling along side this book so that didn’t help things much (and no, you’re not about to get a glimpse into my personal life). When I first started reading this, about 100 pages in, I called my brother, who recommended it to me, and told him I was unsure of how or if I really liked the book. He suggested I put it down, but that’s not how I work. It took me awhile to try and conceptualize and visualize what was actually being portrayed. In fact, I’m not sure if I was ever able to do that, yet as I got further and further into this gruesome depiction of the beginnings of the Vietnam War I felt as though I was there. As though I was side by side with these brave, courageous, fearless young men (younger than I am now) who were fighting for themselves, their brothers laying in the elephant grass next to them and their country.
In a tribute to the book I’ve decided to give you glimpse of the last day I spent reading this book.
First off, for those of you who saw the post, got my phone calls, text messages and telepathic communiques regarding this event and ignored me, you screwed up. You missed one hell of an event, or as I like to call it “book release variety show.”
Frank Portman wrote his own review of the event and you can find it here. He was rather modest about what went down. Lucky for him I’m here to write and make all of you who didn’t show up feel crappy for not doing so.
Sep 1
Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk
Chuck, it’s over. We’re through. I just think it’s time we both moved on. We’re so rarely compatible and all we do is argue, I think it’s best for the both of us. Yes, I am breaking up with you, I’m sorry.
How many chances do you give the guy? I mean he writes an amazing book that turns into a ridiculously beautiful movie and then nearly everything that follows is garbage.
I give Chuck a lot of credit for writing in a creative style but, Pygmy fell flat and gave me a headache. The story was easy enough to follow but I got tired of it, and frankly it ended poorly, was very sporadic and lacked real substance. The cultural satire is interesting yet I can’t figure out why every one of his books has to be saturated with grotesque sexual references. Sure I do it from time to time, and even occasionally like it, but not in the same vain as Chuck. For the most part, it just doesn’t make sense, I’m sure that’s probably the idea but it just doesn’t sit right with me.
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