Angry Island
Posted: 2018/07/09 Filed under: Book Reviews, Lust To Go, NonFiction | Tags: 2018, AA Gill, book lust iii, book review, england, essays, humor, june, NonFiction Leave a commentGill, A. A. The Angry Island: Hunting the English. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005.
Reason read: Gill was born in the month of June; read in his honor.
From the very beginning you know you are going to laugh out loud at least once or twice while reading Angry Island. Right in the preface Gill starts off with, “Facts are what pedantic, dull people have instead of opinions.” Well okay! He later states “the national character of the English is anger.” At the time of this writing he was a food and travel critic so he was required to be a little…well…critical. It was expected of him. In The Angry Island his snarky essays cover all kinds of topics from language to war memorials, from sports and animals to drinking. Needless to say, he has a well-barbed opinion about everything. My big question is this, if he was born in Scotland and considers himself Scottish and hates England, why stay there? Why didn’t he move away? He has even less of an opinion about America but that (or Ireland or Australia) would have been an option for an English speaking bloke, especially one with a sharp tongue.
Other quotes I liked, “The purpose of an army must surely be to put itself out of business” (p 237),
Author fact: A.A. Gill is Anthony Andre Gill, born on June 28th. He died of cancer in 2016.
Book trivia: since Angry Island is a collection of essays I was surprised to find an index.
Nancy said: Gill’s essays are “filled with biting, sometimes snarky commentary about morals and mores of England” (Book Lust To Go p 78). I had to laugh when I read the word “snarky” because it’s a favorite of mine and it describes Gill perfectly.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Entering England” (p 76).
Cactus Eaters
Posted: 2018/06/28 Filed under: Book Reviews, Lust To Go, NonFiction | Tags: 2018, book lust iii, book review, Dan White, hiking, humor, june, memoir, nature, NonFiction Leave a commentWhite, Dan. The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind – and Almost Found Myself – On the Pacific Crest Trail. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008.
Reason read: June is National Hiking Month.
Pure fun. From the comfort of my couch I took great pleasure in reading about Dan White’s adventures while hiking the 2,650+ mile Pacific Coast Trail from Mexico to Canada. With his girlfriend Allison for companionship Dan’s account is in turn both funny and didactic. He can be snarky and scholarly in a single sentence. What starts out as an avoidance of the real world turns into a journey of self reflection and maybe, just maybe, a little growing up.
What makes Cactus such a pleasure to read is this is Dan’s account of the first time he hiked the PCT. He has no idea what he’s doing, despite reading up on it in the months leading up to the hike. He isn’t a seasoned through-hiker expertly navigating arid blazing hot deserts. He isn’t a blase professional warding off bear visits with a ho hum attitude. He is cocky in his naivete.
All time favorite line, “I could not stop the racing thoughts about Todd the Sasquatch somewhere out there, tearing up the foothills while exuding massive amounts of man sweat” (p 63).
Author fact: I could tell from the songs White enjoyed singing while on the PCT that he is about my age. An internet search revealed he was born just a few years before me.
Book trivia: The Pacific Crest Trail is 2,650 miles long and covers three countries and yet White doesn’t include a single map or photograph. To be fair, his camera didn’t have film in it for part of the trip and he did include one illustration of a journal entry.
Nancy said: Nancy dedicates 25% of the chapter to describing the plot of Cactus Eaters, but not much else.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Hiking the (Fill in the Blank) Trail” (p 94). Confessional: this the second book I am reading from the chapter and I just now noticed while Pearl mentions the four major long-distance trails in the Americas, she only recommends four books. Three of them are about the PCT and the final one is about the Appalachian Trail. Why bring up the Continental Divide or the American Discovery Trail if you aren’t going to include a book or two about them? There certainly was room for a few more recommendations for the chapter.
Adrian Mole: the Cappuccino Years
Posted: 2018/05/23 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, Fiction | Tags: 2018, book lust ii, book review, fatherhood, Fiction, humor, may, Sue Townsend Leave a commentTownsend, Sue. Adrian Mole: the Cappuccino Years. New York: Soho, 1999.
Reason read: Mother’s Day is May 13th and Pearl included this in her chapter about “Mothers and Sons.”
Adrian Mole: the Cappuccino Years could be seen as a cautionary tale for men in their 30s: do not get too dependent on mama. Adrian, at this stage in his life, is divorced, lusting after a former flame while being the father (a decent one, I might add) to two boys, and yes, still living with mother. As he tells his journal, he is frequently constipated and suffers from bad breath and ill penis health.
This was a silly read. I almost gave up on it a few times, especially when it became over the top ridiculous. Case in point, Townsend seemed to be poking fun at the Food Network with the creation of “Ping with Singh,” a cooking show aimed at microwave users. The show becomes popular enough to create a stage adaptation to satisfy the masses. Adrian’s own show “Offally Good” produces a book deal (which his mother ultimately ends up ghost writing, go figure).
The best parts were the current events of the times: Tony Blair’s election, Lady Di’s love affair with Dodi and Bill Clinton’s Monica scandal. The latter got a chuckle out of me.
The one line I laughed at, “‘Your money, Mr Mole, is an abstraction wafting in the air between financial institutions, at the mercy of inflation and interest rates, dependent on the health of the global economy'” (p 151). That, sadly, is banking in a nutshell.
Author fact: Townsend wrote a whole series of Adrian Mole books. I felt a little lost jumping in when Adrian is thirty years old. I imagine it’s like coming in late to a really wild party. Everyone is too drunk to talk to you and you can’t get drunk fast enough to catch up.
Book trivia: The entire story is Adrian’s journal.
Nancy said: Nothing. It is listed as a “Mothers and Sons” book.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Mothers and Sons” (p 160).
Bogey Man
Posted: 2018/04/27 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust II, NonFiction | Tags: 2018, april, book lust ii, book review, George Plimpton, golf, humor, NonFiction, sports Leave a commentPlimpton, George. The Bogey Man: A Month on the PGA Tour.
Reason read: the Professional Golf Association tour usually ends in April. This year it ended on April 1st but there are other tournaments still going.
George Plimton was a journalist who liked to get into the thick of things when writing about his subjects. When composing articles for Sports Illustrated he played tennis, boxed with, and swam with professionals. Later he found himself pitching with the Yankees and throwing the football with the Detroit Lions. His involvement with professional golfers was no different when writing Bogey Man. He played as a participating amateur in the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, the Lucky International, and the Bob Hope Desert Classic for a month. During that time he absorbed stories about the professional golf circuit, from the caddies to the fans and, the professional golfers and the game, of course.
Author fact: The perception I have of George Plimpton is that he had quite the ego. For starter, many of the photographs in Bogey Man are of Plimpton. Then, there is the author information. Most authors chose a short paragraph to be inserted on the back flap of a book. Plimpton’s takes up the entire back cover.
Book trivia: There are a smattering of photographs in Bogey Man mostly of Plimpton looking wistfully after an ill-struck ball.
Nancy said: Pearl said she would buy Bogey Man for “David” who eats, sleeps, and dreams golf (p 117).
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the catch-all chapter called “A Holiday Shopping List” (p 115).
