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I'm reading Dress Your Family right now. I'm loving it. Got it at the library and a second Sedaris of which I can't remember the name.

EmmaG

Took me a really long time to get into Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics. First, the title scared me. It would have been months since I'd read a review, had it recommended to me, or done whatever it was that led me to buy the book. I saw the title and thought: OMG, I've bought a book on physics! Now whatta I do? Forcing a calm I wasn't close to feeling, I read the back cover and a few blurbs. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least the book was fiction. Next the thickness of the paperback registered. Easily a doorstop. I checked the number of pages. Over 500. Strike two. I looked valiantly for a third strike but couldn't find one. I started to read, and it was touch-and-go all the way through. Like the little girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead, when Special Topics was good, it was very good, but when it was bad, it was horrid. Goods and bads that I noted:

1) The narrator, Blue Van Meer, is about to start her senior year at a prestigious private high school. Her father, an itinerant college professor, has taught political science at many universities—usual in the offbeat branches in little-heard-of towns. Since his wife, also Blue's mother, is dead, Blue has moved everywhere he taught. Blue's sense of St. Gallway, her upcoming school, begins when she reads some introductory pamphlets. The accomplishments of its graduates didn't read like those found in most brochures. "We have the highest number of graduates in the country who go on to become revolutionary performance artists, … one out of every ten Gallway students becomes an inventor, … 10 percent will study stage-makeup design, 1.8 percent puppetry, … one out of every 2,031 Gallwanians gets into The Guiness Book of World Records. Wan Young, Class of 1982, holds the record for Longest Operatic Note Held …" (page 63) All right, I'm hooked. Any author who can come up with those specifics has my attention. For at least the nonce.

2) Quite often Pessl's use of language —probably misuse of language to a lot of educators—fascinated me. Blue and her new friends have followed Hannah, a teacher at St. Gallway, as she picks up a man at a seedy bar and takes him to an even seedier motel. The teenagers amuse themselves aimlessly as they wait in the car. Blue says, "I sort of Vietnamed too." (page 145) Pessl is really good at taking nouns and turning them into verbs and vice versa. And, IMHO, her switches work. Didn't one aspect of Vietnam involve soldiers putting in their year, filling time and waiting for it to be over?

3) Blue's often pompous professor father does come up the occasional well-turned phrase. Example: "Americans need to master lingual before they attempt to be bilingual." (page 159) Ah, yes. I have memories of when I was a pretty burned-out professor who would occasionally answer the office phone with "English and other foreign languages."

4) Pessl refers to a huge number of books. Some I recognized; others I didn't. Many of the unfamiliar ones sounded interesting so I'll be checking to see if they really exist. Inquiring minds and all that.

5) Blue attempts to read (to understand) Hannah and notes the following: "Maybe she was simply a matter of Faulkner: she had to be read very closely, word by painful word (never skimmed, pausing to make critical notes in the margin), …. Eventually I'd come to her last page and discover what she was all about. Maybe I could even Cliff Notes her." (page 184) Cool analogy and, again, that amazing use of language.

6) I loved the names of Hannah's two white Persian cats—Lana and Turner. How perfect.

7) Sometimes I questioned Pessl's details—of which there are nine zillion. At one point Blue and Hannah are in a restaurant and Blue calls her father on "the pay phone by the cigarette machine." (page 257) It jarred. The novel is set a year ago ("It had been almost a year since I'd found Helen dead." ((page 5)) ) I have trouble believing neither Beth nor Hannah had a cell phone.

8) At one point Professor Van Meer holds forth on fallout from the protests of the 1960s. "With their delusional self-importance, ad-hoc violence, it becomes easy to dismiss anyone voicing dissatisfaction with the way things are as freaky flower chiles (children?)." (page 260) That thought was with me at the anti-war protest yesterday when a) a kid around eight years old, in a car with his parents, felt free to give me the finger and b) a group of young adults told us to "go somewhere else, you queers."

9) During a visit to Paris, guests in the hotel where Blue and her father were staying "were emptied out into Place Vendome like cream of potato soup from a can." (page 265) What made the author pick cream of potato? Why not clam chowder? Plain old vegetable? Any ideas? The choice jumped out at me and I'm still wondering.

10) "If Servo (a friend of Blue's father) was in a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, he'd be the Painfully Tragic character, the one who wore bronze suits and alligator shoes, the man who worshipped all the wrong things so Life had to bring him to his knees." (page 275) A Willie Loman who "got it"?

11) Nigel, part of Hannah's student entourage, is in her house, talking to Blue. He picks up and puts around himself a full-length fur coat. Later he twirls. "The mink dutifully Christmas-treed around him." (page 284) Christmas-treed? Dutifully? Cool.

12) A cop is summarizing Blue's misadventures on a camping trip—and summarizing it well. "He could shrink any plot of Dickens into haiku." (page 342) High school students would love him.

13) A woman talking on the phone gets caught up in her message. "… her words stampeded into the receiver …" (page 433) Another expression that grabbed me.

14) Pessl mentions the movie Elephant Walk and comments parenthetically that it's "a film no one had ever heard of except descendants of Peter Finch." (page 488) Excuse me! Not only have I heard of it, I watch it anytime I know it's on TCM. Graypanther, you with me on that?

So, bottom line: Recommend? Not recommend? Answer: a shrug. I loved it in the spots quoted above. The plot though, when it finally gets 'round to having one, is bizarre and horrible complex. All in all, not worth 514 pages. Would I give the writer another try? Another shrug. Depends on how long her second (and next) book is.

I think the author is alluding to the classic french potato soups here (vichyssoise). Cream of potato soup from a can (famously american and campbells) would not fit in that category, just as the hotel guests do not fit in Paris. One thing is classically French. The other isn't. Were all or most of the guests American?

Wow, Beechhouse , that's a terrific analysis. I didn't get much of a feel for the hotel guests, but Blue and her father had just left the apartment of an old friend who was French. The departure was rough so the idea of their heading to familiar American surroundings would not be out of place.

Thanks.

When last I ventured into these waters I was reading, with some trepidation, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. I've finished it now, and although it deals with tragic death, it is not nearly as depressing as I anticipated. Indeed, it provides a kind of solace regarding death that most people don't express. I am now glad that I read it through. It points out that people are complicated animals with hungers that are quite different from the animal world, and yet are just as vulnerable and blind to potential consequences. It addresses hubris, and idealism, zeal, and how the grandest of plans with the most pure of motivations can be brought down by the most mundane events. It also made me focus on putting meaning back into my life, something that reading is not always a catalyst for. I am now off to read more of Supercapitalism by Robert B. Reich. My mind is already churning.

Just finished Nancy Drew and Company: Culture, Gender, and Girls' Series edited by Sherrie A. Inness. (See? I do read non-fiction. Occasionally.) The book is a collection of essays about girls' series books that started in the 1930s and, in the case of Nancy Drew, are still going strong today. It was an okay book; I'd give it about a C+ overall. I did learn of a series I didn't know about before—the Betsy-Tacy series—that starts when the two girls are five and goes through WWI. The first book is now on my B&N.com wish list. I also learned that the Cherry Ames series started as a means to promote nursing during WWII, but since I've already read one of hers, I don't need to order more. Nancy Drew, of course, remains the longest running series and most emulated character.

Reading critical analyses of series books like these, I keep wondering two things: 1) How come the Dana Girls get so little press? I really liked many of their stories better than Nancy Drew, probably because of the wonderful stuck-up kid at the boarding school—Lettie Briggs, if I remember correctly. 2) Might there actually be a market for an in-depth analysis of the 87th precinct novels? The idea still interests me.

I received a book for Christmas called "Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover's Story of Joy and Anguish" by Mark R. Levin.

Every day since then, the person who gave me the book has asked me if I have finished it yet. Well I can now answer, "Yes."

I had a few questions: Who the hell is Mark Levin and how did my friend find out about this book and decide to give it to me?

Rescuing Sprite is the story of a radio talk show host who lives his life in a house that overlooks the Potomac on the Virginia side. He brought a puppy home for his family that they named Pepsi. The family enjoyed Pepsi so much, they searched a rescue agency to find a friend for Pepsi and, henceforth, Sprite came to live with them.

They found the dog that they instantly fell in love with was no spring chicken (3-6 years old) but a much older dog. Almost immediately the dog's health declined until he had to be put down.

It is a sad story. Isn't almost every story of animal trust and loss sad?

I thought "Sprite" was a terribly written book; not worthy of someone who makes a living in a communications business. I thought it was self-indulgent. The man was grieving for his pet. He didn't need to make ME grieve also. I have enough on my plate, thank you!

Finally the answer was given as to how this book had come to the attention of my friends. They are Limbaughmaniacs. It seems Mr. Levin happens to be best friends with Rush, Laura, and Sean; however, politics in no way spills into this book.

Oh yes, another link: Levin's wife attended the wedding of her sister Ashley in Huntsville, AL and Levin's daughter Lauren goes to school in Tuscaloosa.

I am sorry such a good dog as Sprite died. I am sorry whenever anyone grieves. I think this offering should have been a diary and not a published book. I can see no purpose for this book. It didn't even cause me to think to myself as I do when I read many journals, "I can top that." I don't want to top it.

The only reason I would ask anyone to read this book is so that someone could validate my feeling about how poorly written a book this is. The author tells a story with all the proper requirements but he flies off on tangents on a whim.

The prime example of that is when he describing walking his two dogs and a child's pet gets hit by a car. Off he takes in his writing to proclaim how he rescues this hurt animal. Then he goes back to the story of his own pets and we never hear about the other animal ever again.

Phhhfffaaaattttt. Now I can say I read the damn book and even make references to the connections to PROVE it.

Respectfully,

Kathy Albers

Go for it. I only read two "87th" books. I thoroughly enjoyed the very last book McBain wrote but I just didn't get into "Fat Ollie."

Kathy

I'm on my second David Sedaris book, "Barrel Fever." I just finished "Dress Them in Denim and Corduroy." I love both of them and will get others as I am able to find them in the library. These two books are broken up into shortish essays, so at times I am able to get through a whole essay before falling asleep. I love reading, but my days are so full, that I don't stay awake for long once I'm in bed. Unfortunately, my husband loves Sedaris, too, and shakes the bed with his laughter.

EmmaG

That's okay, EmmaG; after all, laughter is one of the two best reasons for beds to shake.