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: A Priest in Hell by R. Radic

Title:  A Priest in Hell

Author:  R. Radic
Genre / Pages:  Nonfiction, Memoir / 333
Publication: ECW Press, 2009
Rating:  2nd Shelf 
Source:  publisher copy
lj's plot in one pot: After embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars, former priest, Radic spends six months in prison; in this text, he shares his awful account of jail life.

This book really appealed to the trashy person hiding deep inside me (and I suspect all of us).  Okay, so the blurb makes a reference to "Cops" and after reading that, I was sold.

However, upon further inspection, I became less than thrilled.  The author used crass and just gross terminology so jarringly that I had to read things aloud to J, to share my disgust (and flush those words out of my brain).  And...anyone who knows me knows that I am not prudish when it comes to language, so if this offended me...then you can be assured that is it BAD.  I also had this feeling the whole time that it was really forced.  Like when your teachers used to try to use slang and it just feels wrong.

That being said, it was kinda neat to hear about the daily in's and (for a select few) out's of prison.  But more enjoyable than that...was knowing that my book was eco-friendly!  I participated in this really cool campaign (see previous post) that united 200 bloggers to help spread the word about Green Books.  Please go to this site for more info about the campaign.

http://www.prlog.org/11043665-200-bloggers-200-books-56-publishers-and-one-hour.html

http://www.ecolibris.net/greenbookscampaign2010.asp

Ooops, I forgot a quote...now this is not safe for work / children / church-goers / most decent humans with a pulse, but I had to show you the reality of most of this book.

"They were 'associates' outside in the real world.  Not friends.  [He] makes a clear distinction between friends and associates.  I am not sure of the separation, but an associate is less than a friend, deficient in some vague way, untrustworthy perhaps.  [His] meager vocabulary, emanating from his decomposing brain, due, of course, to his affaire d'amour with meth, is powerless to supply me with a precise definition." p.161

"Milk is like crystal meth to chomos [child molesters].  In the best Faustian tradition, they will trade their souls for it.  It is not unusual to watch [him] consume four or five milks at a meal.  I don'tknow why they crave it the way vampires crave blood, but they do." p.137

Okay, okay, I caved - I just couldn't have those words on my little site...If you must, drop a comment and I can pass the book along :)

REVIEW: Julia's Kitchen Wisdom by J. Child

Title:  Julia's Kitchen Wisdom
Author:  J. Child
Genre / Pages:  Nonfiction, Cooking / 160
Publication: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2009
Rating:  3rd shelf 
Source:  borrowed from Mom
lj's plot in one pot: Julia's "basic" methods for no fail "simple" cooking.

Hardy har har.  I love Julia Child, I really do.  I think her "Mastering the Art..." cookbooks belong in a museum, let alone in the kitchens of people everywhere.  However, let's not kid ourselves that ANY of this is simple or basic.  For pete's sake her recipe for making hard boiled eggs is almost a page long!  That being said, she is still adorable and her love affair with food is definitely admirable, if not contagious.

So this book is not the "cooking for dummies" that I thought it might be, but that is just a marketing problem.  Julia's little tips come alive in this book, you get the sense that you are once again little, watching t.v. in the rec room and have stumbled upon this hilariously large enthusiastic woman playing with geese carcass.  Her words are truly hers, and if you love her, you'll love this book.  

"[This book] is aimed at those who are tolerably familiar with culinary language..." p.ix 

For more Julia, check out the PBS website, here .

REVIEW: Hollywood Stories by S. Schochet

Title:  Hollywood Stories
Author:  S. Schochet
Genre / Pages:  Nonfiction, Short Stories / 312
Publication: Hollywood Stories Publishing, 2010
Rating:  bottom shelf  
Source:  Publisher Copy
lj's plot in one pot: A collection of tales about Hollywood's stars.

I was initially really excited to read this book...I am a big fan of celeb magazines, blogs, etc.  However, I couldn't really get into this book.  It might be because a lot of the stories are about movie and television stars from before my time, or it might be because the writing doesn't draw the reader in, or it might be the lack of connections/transitions.  

I did see later, that the "stories" are actually scripts from the Hollywood Stories One Minute Radio Feature and at that point, I realized why the transitions were absent.

Anyways, I have no doubt that the author is probably an excellent tour guide, and that the tour would be lots of fun, I just wouldn't recommend the book.

"...Gollum's garbled voice in The Lord of the Rings:  The Two Towers came from the sound a cat would make by coughing up a hairball...The personality was based on the actor's observations of heroin addicts." p.96

For the book's website, click here.

MAILBAGS!

Ooh!  Trashy celeb news in hardcover!  This glorious day's mail brought me bills, investment opportunities (yeah right) and a NEW BOOK!

So lately, I've been double-dipping (yes, I do that with food AND books)...I'm reading "The Passage" and to banish my shame for not having read it earlier, "The Catcher in the Rye". 

I have to say, so far, not really enjoying "The Catcher in the Rye" quite yet, although I've been warned that it is a slow starter.  Anyway, I'm going to put a pause on dear Holden for now to blast through "Hollywood Stories" by S. Schochet.  The author is a tour guide in Hollywood, and in this book he dishes about the truth you've never heard about your favourite celebs.  I have a sneaky feeling that this will be a super quick read.

Here is a link to find out more about "Hollywood Stories", although I think you get the gist of it by the title.  http://www.hollywoodstories.com/

Full disclosure - this book was received from publisher

PS  Have you checked out goodreads.com yet?  It is an awesome site to keep track of your books; which to read, make notes as you progress through your books, and most importantly talk to others about books!  Very helpful site for bibliophiles like me ;)

REVIEW: The Soloist by S. Lopez

Title:  The Soloist
Author:  S. Lopez
Genre / Pages:  Nonfiction,  Mental Health/ 304
Publication: Putnam, 2008
Rating:  4th shelf  
Source:  Borrowed from a dear friend
lj's plot in one pot: A gifted and troubled musician's journey, and the friendship with a columnist (Lopez) that changed both their lives.

Normally, I can be a bit of a snob when it comes to people raving about books (especially when these books have been made into movies).  I always feel like the hype overwhelms me and I am usually let down.  So true to form, I hadn't planned on reading, let alone enjoying The Soloist.  A friend lent it to me without a word and it sat on my pile of books to read for about a month.  When I finally made my way to it, I was pleasantly surprised!  

The Soloist takes the reader on a journey, not so much through the world of classical music, but rather through the rabbit hole that is mental illness.  Lopez befriends the musician, Nathaniel (who has schizophrenia) and learns a lot about mental illness, how it looks in daily life, and the grip it takes on everyone surrounding the person who is mentally ill. 

The writing can be lengthy at times, I felt myself skimming sections until the plot picked up (for example, during Nathaniel's various rants) and I found Lopez to carry on too long in his moments of self-reflection. 

"His first offering is a Beethoven cello sonata, and this drab concrete corner of downtown Los Angeles, with its nearby settlement of bug-bitten denizens and moving clouds of noxious vehicle exhaust, is transformed into a place of lilting repose." p.37

For more information on the LAMP program, please click here.  

To help artistically gifted people with mental illness, visit the Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Foundation here.  

The author, Steve Lopez's website can be found here.

Review: Lost at School by R.W. Greene, Ph.D.

Title:  Lost at School - Why Our Kids with Behavioral Challenges Are Falling Through the Cracks and How We Can Help Them   
Author:  R.W. Greene, Ph.D. 
Genre / Pages:  Nonfiction,  Education / 305 
Publication: Simon and Schuster, 2009 
Rating:  Top shelf  
Source:  Chapters Indigo 
lj's plot in one pot:  School discipline is failing kids by not teaching them the behavioural skills that they lack.

Having (fairly recently) completed my bachelor's degree in education, and remembering how little anyone can tell you about classroom management/behavioural issues, I think this text should be mandatory reading for all who want to teach.  (big statement eh??  Let me try to back that up.)

Dr. Greene's main idea is that kids do well if they can.  It's hard to believe that so many adults don't agree.  When a child is misbehaving (for the 2nd or 22nd time) it can be difficult to remember that he/she is not trying to manipulate you.  Most (if not all) children do not want to get in trouble, and if they are seeking attention in negative ways, it's probably because they don't know how to seek attention in positive ways.  What does this mean?  It means that standard discipline techniques, such as detentions and suspensions don't work because they aren't teaching the student anything other than what they did was wrong (which most kids already know).  Discipline should follow the Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) technique - but you'll have to read the book to find out more about that!

I loved this book for many reasons.  It is broken up into different formats (part 'how-to', part anecdotal and part 'Q & A's').  Although the anecdotal portion felt a little long, a little cliche, it was still helpful in understanding exactly how CPS is going to sound/feel.  Greene's tone is neither patronizing nor condescending, he really tells it like it is, and seems to understand the resistance that a lot of adults might feel towards CPS.  In general, I really appreciated the concept that there is no cookie-cutter plan that is going to work for all students.  Imagine that...treating each individual child like an individual!  That being said, all future (and current) teachers should RUN, DON'T WALK and read this book!

"These kids clearly need something from us...They need adults who can identify those lagging skills and unsolved problems and know how to solve those problems (collaboratively) so that the solutions are durable, the skills are taught, and the likelihood of challenging behavior is significantly reduced." p.35

Check out the CPS website here and the Lost At School site here

PS - If you're a parent and like the sounds of CPS, check out Dr. Greene's previous title "The Explosive Child"

Review: The World in Six Songs - How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature by D.J. Levitin

Title:  The World in Six Songs - How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
Author:  D.J. Levitin
Genre / Pages:  Nonfiction,  Science / 358
Publication: Penguin Group Canada, 2009
Rating:  4th shelf
Source:  Chapters Indigo
lj's plot in one pot:  Levitin's research indicates that six songs (friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge, and love) are the foundations of human society as we know it.

This book fed my love of music, science, human nature - quite a feat for just one text!  As I'm not a huge scientifico (yes I made that one up), I was a little concerned that I would be needing to look a lot of terms / theories up while reading this book.  However, the terms were very easy to understand and the theories were well explained...a little too well explained.  Levitin rehashes (on seemingly EVERY PAGE) the theory of spontaneous mutation.  I'm sure the author was trying to ensure that we all understood the fact that the mutation doesn't happen as a result of the environment, but rather spontaneously occurs and then happens to be favourable to the environment.  (Hey, I sound like I know what I'm talking about!  Thank you "Intro to Genetics" in undergrad!)  Moving along, aside from my irritation with Levitin's repetition, I really enjoyed this book.  Music is inherent in us all - just look at what babies do when they hear a good beat; and this book gives us the science to back it up. *If you want to learn more before you buy the book, check out this website.

The book gives each of the six songs a chapter, my favourite of which was Joy, where Levitin explains that the natural / biochemical reaction to joy is to sing, dance, jump or shout.  The author mixes scientific fact (i.e. the act of singing produces endorphins - which make us feel good ) with his, often hilarious, musical experiences (i.e. Sting and Levitin decide that probably the first "song" sung was a caveman making sounds and other cavemen joined in because it felt good). We sing for many reasons and we are many things because of song. 

"Music...is not simply a distraction or a pastime, but a core element of our identity as a species, an activity that paved the way for more complex behaviors such as language, large-scale cooperative undertakings, and the passing down of important information from one generation to the next." p.3

Review: Life, Sex and Ideas - The Good Life Without God by A.C. Grayling

Title:  Life, Sex and Ideas - The Good Life Without God
Author:  A.C. Grayling
Genre / Pages:  Philosophy / 236
Publication: Oxford University Press, 2003
Rating:  3rd shelf
Source:  Chapters Indigo
lj's plot in one pot:  Through short essays, Grayling, a professor of philosophy, invites discussion as to what human life should be.

I hope my rating doesn't push any of you away...I loved this book.  But I loved it even more the first time I read it, when it was called The Meaning of Things.  Being a follower of Grayling's, I've read many of his previous titles ( see here).  I was disappointed in this text, as it feels to repeat the same ideas as many of Grayling's work.  This book is a collection of essays that seem to condense ancient and recent philosopher's (including Grayling's) ideas on different aspects of life; for example, moral education, luxury, safety, etc.  It is divided into seven categories (Moral Matters, Public Culture, Community and Society, Anger and War, Grief and Remembrance, Nature and Naturalness, and Reading and Thinking).  It is clear from the beginning (read the title) that Grayling does not subscribe to traditional religious beliefs.  I appreciate, however that he limits his ire to the religious institutions and the arbitrary rules they have set up.  Grayling uses simple, elegant prose to deliver his message, which usually boils down to "live life thoughtfully, and non-judgmentally".  The book is definitely thought-provoking - my partner hates when I read books like this in bed, because I keep waking him up to discuss something.  It's definitely a good read, but perhaps skip this one if you have already read some of Grayling's other work.

"Marriage as a mutuality of true minds and tender hearts, so long as it lasts, is the happiest of states, whatever the number and gender of the parties to it..." p.44