REVIEW: Yes, Please by A. Poehler

Title: Yes, Please

Author: Amy Poehler

Genre / Pages: Nonfiction, Humour / 

Publication: e-book

Rating: 3rd shelf

Source: Chapters Indigo

Lj's plot in one pot: Leslie Knope, I mean, Amy Poehler shares her down-home wisdom, including how to be funny, how cell phones are killing us and well, other stuff.

I was so excited to read this book. Like, NKOTB concert-goers excited. Predictably, what often happens when you get ridiculously amped for something...well, I was a little let down. 

It's not that it wasn't funny, or thoughtful or relevant...it was, I just. Hmm

Okay, I felt like she was lecturing at a college campus, not chatting with a friend. She was teaching, relating, etc., just I didn't really feel like she cared.  

Anyway, it was a good read.  

REVIEW: The Honest Toddler by B. Laditan

Title: The Honest Toddler

Author: Bunmi Laditan

Genre / Pages: Nonfiction, Parenting, Humour / 240

Publication: Harper Collins, 2013

Rating: 4th shelf

Source: Chapters Indigo

Lj's plot in one pot: Only slightly evil genius toddler elucidates, with care and concern, how parents might best serve their tiny lords and ladies...basically do EXACTLY what they say, before they say it.

The honest toddler is my spirit animal!  She is a sweet, caring individual who simply knows what she wants! And what she wants is EVERYTHING, but also NOTHING.

Written through the perspective of a toddler (who is unflinchingly honest), the reader learns a variety of rules and regulations (i.e. Broken crackers need not apply) about how to cope with...err I mean adore their toddler.

This book had me rolling around in silent laughter (as I could only read it during nap time and bed time), and I can't imagine that I could find humour in some of the atrocities that occur during toddlerhood.  I sincerely found almost each example/description perfectly fitting to my little guy and can't wait for my other friends-with-toddlers (there should be a support group) to read this as well.

Exhibit A? I started dog-earing pages that literally made me lol, and had to stop because I was folding every page!  I will try to select only the bestest quotes for y'all, and if they please you, then go find the book.

"Don't let your shower curtain become a love barrier...Gently yank it down and throw it in the trash.  Splash around with your toddler and live for once.  Someone else will clean up the mess.  They always do, trust me...I do believe that many adults prefer to bathe alone because they are ashamed of their bodies...Toddlers are generous people and will pretend not to notice after staring without blinking for five to ten minutes" p.104

"Toddlers know the minute their heads hit the pillow, you release balloons and unwrap a cake.  We are perfectly aware that when we're trapped in our rooms, wearing the wrong pajamas, you are eating a second, more desirable dinner...We're onto you.  Parents, you look terribly exhausted every single morning, and it's because you stay up until two a.m., looking at wavy hair on Pinterest and eating Almond Joys." p.227

REVIEW: Eats, Shoots and Leaves by L. Truss

Title: Eats, Shoots and Leaves

Author:  L. Truss
Genre / Pages:  Nonfiction, humour, grammar/ 512
Publication: Gotham Books Trade Paper, 2006
Rating:  2nd shelf 
Source:  Chapter's Indigo
lj's plot in one pot:  Amidst witty examples, grammar (specifically punctuation) sticklers unite in this how-to / how-not-to tome from Lynne Truss.

I will probably be happy that I read this book, especially when I need to give examples for Language Arts class.  I think the book seemed a little long, a little repetitive, but definitely funny and helpful.  The examples that the author uses are usually silly - what is her fascination with Starburst (a.k.a. Opal Fruits) - but they are always clear.

There were times when the author could seem a bit patronizing, and you; as the reader, felt a bit below her.  However, I think that I might not be the intended audience for which this book was written.  There were many references I didn't 'get' and as the frequency of that event increased, so did the chance that I would scan until the next interesting tidbit caught my eye.

Hopefully I didn't use too many incorrect punctuation marks (the text reveals bloggers / internet writers to be among the worst offenders) during this post.  Here are a few of my favourite examples from the book.

To those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as "Thank God its Friday" (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence.  The confusion of the possessive "its" (no apostrophe) with the contractive "it's" (with apostrophe) is an unequivocal signal of illiteracy and sets off a simple Pavlovian "kill" response in the average stickler. p.43

In the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy, and the semicolon quietly practises the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the big attention-deficit brother who gets over-excited and breaks things and laughs too loudly. p.138

For more information on the book / author, click here.

REVIEW: The Princess Bride - S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by W. Goldman

Title:  The Princess Bride - S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure

Author:  W. Goldman
Genre / Pages:  Fiction, humour, satire / 512
Publication: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007
Rating:  3th shelf 
Source:  Chapter's Indigo
lj's plot in one pot:  Beautiful Buttercup is mean, then madly in love with even beautifuller Westley, then marries Prince Humperdink, then needs to be rescued...we all know this story, am I right?

Having LOVED the movie, I was all geared up to LOVE the book.  I was a little disappointed.  There is a lot of author talk in the first hundred pages and it gets a little dry.  When the plot that we all know and love finally starts, (seriously, it took forever.  So long that I thought I had the wrong book) you are really ready and amped to not have his negative, ironic voice in your head.  But alas, there is no reprieve.  He keeps butting in and explaining why he wrote / didn't write something the way he did (or didn't).  *sigh*.

Fezzik and Inigo saved this book.  They are fantastic characters and I was THRILLED to find that the rhyming in the movie is also featured in the book 

Vizzini: Stop rhyming, and I meant it!

Fezzik:  Anybody want a peanut?  (not really in the book, but my fav line from the movie)

and

"He must be very desperate, or very frightened, or very stupid, or very brave"

"Very all four I should think," the Prince replied...p.185

and

"We have Fezzik,"  Westley replied simply.

"We absolutely do,"  Fezzik shouted, happy that the answer was so easily forthcoming.  "He is right here inside my skin." p.395

 So I really enjoyed reading the text that a fantastic movie was built upon, I just wish there wasn't so much satire, so much author talk.  But definitely read it for yourselves...

Want more info??? (Or perhaps the little extras that Goldman promises?) Click here.

REVIEW: The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by A. Bradley

Title: The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

Author:  A. Bradley
Genre / Pages:  Fiction, humour / 368
Publication: Doubleday Canada, 2010
Rating:  4th shelf 
Source:  Chapter's Indigo
lj's plot in one pot:  The second from Canadian author Alan Bradley features Flavia (almost 11 year old chemistry whiz) who, less than altruistically volunteers to help with a puppet show, ends up trying to solve yet another murder near Buckshaw.

Wow! It hath been awhile...  I've been scrambling like a crazy person trying to get organized for Back to School (aren't we all?) Although reading hasn't slipped on the priorities, blogging unfortunately has.


Anyhoo, I'm still loving Flavia - but in this installment of Flavia-fantastico, she is slight less precocious, slightly more adult-like.  Perhaps the author is trying to indicate the passage of time and maybe her near death experience in the first book has matured her...but I don't want these things to happen.  Not unlike Peter Pan (and a great many women on the Real Housewives shows), Flavia needs to be ageless.


The writing is still fantastic; a believable murder occurs in the environs and Flavia somehow wriggles her way into the detective work.  This time, there were a few loose ends (w.r.t. characters), for example Nialla.  That being said, I still love the book/author/characters and can't wait for "A Red Herring Without Mustard".

"Mother Goose!

I have never much cared for flippant remarks, especially when others make them, and in particular, I don't give a frog's fundament for them when they come from an adult." p17

and just because she is that funny,

"Seen from the air, the male mind must look rather like the canals of Europe, with ideas being towed along well-worn towpaths by heavy-footed dray horses...But the female mind, even in my limited experience, seems more of a vast and teeming swamp, but a swamp that knows in an instant whenever a stranger - even miles away - has so much as dipped a single toe into her waters." p.295

For more info on Flavia / Alan Bradley, click here.

REVIEW: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by A. Bradley

Title:  The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Author:  A. Bradley
Genre / Pages:  Fiction, Humour / 400
Publication: DoubleDay Canada, 2009
Rating:  TOP shelf 
Source:  borrowed from Mom
lj's plot in one pot:  Set in 1950's rural England we meet eleven year old Flavia, a precocious chemistry prodigy; she must solve a murder, one that happened right in her very own cucumber patch.

 

I love Flavia!  As we speak, Alan Bradley's next adventure featuring Flavia is in transport to my humble abode.  She is one of my favourite protagonists, since, well...I guess Audrey Flowers (from "Come, Thou Tortoise" - ha ha) but before that, I haven't related so whole-heartedly to a character in a long time.  From the name of her steed (a bike called Gladys), to her self-praising exaltation,

I was me.  I was Flavia.  And I loved myself, even if no one else did.  "All hail Flavia!  Flavia forever!"  I shouted, as Gladys and I sped through the Mulford Gates... p.74. 

Isn't she a hoot?  Aside from my blinding love for Flavia, the story was great!  The author seamlessly blends numerous characters' stories together, pulling tales from the past and weaving them brilliantly into the present. 

The observation of the "evil" sisters brought much laughter, and I hope her budding friendship with Inspector Hewitt grows in the series.  

Last, but certainly not least, this fine tale is from a good old Canuck...and recently, I've been trying to maintain a ratio of Canadian books (either in content or author). Any readers have fantastic Canadiana to recommend?

"Seed biscuits and tea and a nice glass of milk for Miss Flavia."

Seed biscuits and milk!  I hated Mrs. Mullet's seed biscuits the way Saint Paul hated sin.  Perhaps even more so.  I wanted to clamber up onto the table, and with a sausage on the end of a fork as my scepter, shout in my best Laurence Olivier voice, "Will no one rid us of this turbulent pastry cook? p.49

Learn more about the fabulous Flavia Sabina de Luce and the author, Alan Bradley, here.

REVIEW: Come, Thou Tortoise by J. Grant

Title:  Come, Thou Tortoise

Author:  J. Grant
Genre / Pages:  Fiction, Humour / 432
Publication: Knopf Canada, 2010
Rating:  Top shelf 
Source:  borrowed from sis
lj's plot in one pot: With help from her pet tortoise, Winnifred, Audrey (a.k.a. Oddly), a hilariously punny twenty-something, comes to deal with tragedy in her own unique (and full of word play) way.

 

I love this book!  The narrators (Audrey and Winnifred) are hilarious, sweet, and real.  They fear things that I fear, but more importantly, they rejoice in things I love - word play and puns :)

Although the subject matter is actually quite dark (all the more realistic for the majority of us), this book is full of mirth and had me laughing out loud in bed.  Audrey's trials, though sometimes heart-wrenching,  often end up with hilarious results.  The case of the missing mouse (cheeky souris) and the neighbour's biography stood out the most to me as being something I could get caught up in (both as a child and now).  Her occasional use of French (as in Pardon-moi - not as in ****) brought a smile to my face - especially in the case of the douze-aout (or rather the Doozoo - LOVE IT!).

Anyway, enough of me ranting.  Seriously, stop reading this and please read this lovely book.  For realsies.  Scram.

"That's why he didn't fly.  He was about to get on the plane at Heathrow, but then he was sick in the bathroom.

Heathrow-up airport.

I think about how I would like to cut down the legs [of Uncle Thoby's chair] ... so that when and if Uncle Thoby ever shows up, only his head will be visible over the table." p.211

For more info on Jessica Grant, click here.

For more info on the book, click here.