Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World, by Leah Hager Cohen (1994)
Leah Cohen can hear, but she grew up living at a school for the deaf where her parents worked. The book is part anecdote, part agenda: we get to read stories of the deaf students' victories and struggles, but we also have to take a heavy dose of "Deafness is a culture, not a handicap." This was okay with me except when it crossed the line and began saying that a child born with curable deafness shouldn't be cured of the deafness any more than a child born black should have his skin permanently bleached and hair permanently straightened. I felt that in her zeal to defend deaf culture, the author began to confuse medical technology with racism and prejudice. If I became deaf and knew there was a cure, I would want the cure. If I had a baby whose deafness was curable, I would certainly want him to be cured. In neither case is this because I'm prejudice against deaf people, and I hardly think that trying to make a black child appear white is an even remotely similar situation. On the other hand, Leah Cohen has had extensive experience in the deaf community and knows far better than I how the deaf community feels about it, and I'd rather have an accurate portrayal than a pleasing one.
They Always Call Us Ladies, by Jean Harris (1988)
Two "agenda" books in a row. Jean Harris is a prisoner doing 15 years to life for murder. The book consists mostly of her complaints that prisoners have no freedom, combined with her insistence than prisons don't keep people from committing crimes.
As it happens, I have an opinion on this issue and it's a fairly strong one: part A is that prisons are not supposed to be pleasant places to go, and part B is that they sure keep the criminals away from everyone else. I don't care if prisons produce rehabilitated and constructive members of society as long as they keep the non-rehabilitated and non-constructive members away from me. I also don't care if those non-rehabilitated and non-constructive members are comfortable and happy behind bars. I'll go along with the theory that they shouldn't be raped or beaten or abused, and I admit leaning favorably towards various educational and vocational programs I've heard about, but I'm not going to spend a lot of effort making sure that they're intellectually- and emotionally- and materialistically-fulfilled.
Jean Harris is also very concerned with how many of her fellow prisoners claim to have been unfairly convicted of crimes they never committed. It seems to me that's an age-old story.
The book gets points for being an interesting peek inside prison walls and a good reference book on prison history, but I had a strong feeling we weren't hearing the real story.
Letter to Louise, by Pauline Collins (1992)
Letter to Louise is a book written by Pauline Collins to a daughter she gave up for adoption. My only complaint is that 90% of it is stories about the author's acting career. I didn't read the book to find out how long it took her to memorize her lines, I read it for the hankie-wetting stuff about little layette jackets packed lovingly for the baby's new family. The last dozen or so pages were the book I was looking for; if only that part had been longer. Other than that, a surprisingly well-written book considering the author is also a talented actress.
A Positive Life: Portraits of Women Living With HIV, by River Huston and Mary Berridge (1997)
River Huston interviewed the women; Mary Berridge photographed them. Sections of this book are almost unspeakably moving: a sudden turn of phrase, a detail in a picture can be more emotional than you might expect even from a book on such an emotional topic. Other sections are horrifying: many of these women continue to have unprotected sex, or won't have their children tested, or won't tell their new partners. Most horrifying to me was the HIV-positive woman who mentioned that her lover refuses to use protection when he has sex with her but continues to donate blood regularly without divulging his high-risk activities. Not only will this book give you compassion for people who have HIV and/or AIDS, it will make you aware of how on guard you must be against people who have it and don't mind spreading it.
The Forgetting Room, by Nick Bantock (1997)
When I first read the Griffin & Sabine trilogy, the scrapbook format and bizarre plot entranced me. I remember turning a page and realizing that I was going to get to take a letter out of an envelope and read it, and so unusual was this for a fiction book that I almost had to have a little lie-down. The Forgetting Room is similar in that there are items pasted among the pages and the concept is bizarre (a dead grandfather plays a mystical game with his grandson). This time, however, I never fell under the spell. In fact, I confess to skimming. Perhaps this book is not as good as the trilogy, or perhaps the element of surprise was the entire source of the original enchantment. A quote from the book, taken out of context, describes very closely my opinion: "I found it unnerving---it was all symbols and signposts, too specific to be dismissed as a dream and too inexact to tell a story."
Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast Pillow Book, by Bill Richardson (1995)
This book is a very close approximation of what you might get if you placed a blank scrapbook in a bed-and-breakfast occupied by two intelligent, literary twin brothers in their 50s, an exceptionally well-read parrot, an opinionated cat, an eccentric handyman and his depressed pet lizard and mute pet rooster, plus all the guests. The story of the twins' somewhat less than immaculate conception is followed by a recipe for Betty Bundy's Bachelor Buttons sent by a former guest along with the story of how that guest's house was re-arranged by a gang of breaking-and-redecorating pranksters. Then a list of cookbooks that are "fun to read," a story about the mole on the back of one brother's lady friend, a copy of one of the 20 application letters submitted by the handyman in order to obtain his present position, and a list of recommended books for the bathroom. If this book had been written by Nick Bantock we would have been able to see the masking tape and rubber cement used to fix each item into the scrapbook and also the little doodles penned into the margins while someone talked on the phone; as it is, it's easy to imagine it. This highly enjoyable hodge-podge of miscellany may inspire you to set up your own Household Scrapbook.
Another City, Not My Own, by Dominick Dunne (1997)
There comes a time when a fiction book needs to be a big brave boy and declare itself non-fiction, and I've found that point not as difficult to identify as I might have thought. Here it is: When everything you're writing is true, you are writing non-fiction. Let's not quibble over things like "But I changed the name of the main character!" or "But my newscaster's name is John Phillips not Phillip Johnson, and my network is CBA not ABC!"
This book subtitled "A Novel in the form of a Memoir" is really "A Memoir in the form of a Memoir" and I think we all know it, so let's not have any more of this "It's all just a made-up story, folks" nonsense. Until this book owns up to what it is and can be properly categorized, I'm not going to suffer the irritation of pretending it's pretend. And on a separate subject, it may be a number of years before I can read anything about O.J. Simpson anyway.
A Window Over the Sink, by Peg Bracken (1981)
One of my favorite parts of the book was a reference to an urban legend which has been going around the internet faster than I can believe: the one about the woman who goes to Neiman-Marcus / Nordstrom / Macy's / Mrs. Fields and buys a cookie recipe for "two-fifty" and of course this turns out to be $250 not $2.50 and so to get revenge she broadcasts the recipe all over the internet and exhorts recipients to pass it on to as many people as possible. I've been receiving copies of this recipe in its many forms ever since I got my first email account in 1992. Even though I knew it was an urban legend I made a batch or two just to try them, and they weren't anything special. Still, I continue to get copies of this dang recipe, each with an earnest power-to-the-people-style plea from a friend that I pass it on. An interesting aside is that the author of this book points out something I hadn't noticed: that the recipe often contains a bag or bar of something with a brand-name. So to everyone who keeps sending me the recipe: you gullible minions of the advertising industry, you. It occurs to me that this is a book review and not a lecture on urban legends, though I hope you'll all go out and get a book on the subject before passing on any similarly ridiculous-yet-strangely-believable stories. The rest of Peg Bracken's book is similarly smart and incisive on subjects such as kitchens, cooking, piano lessons, childhood, and relatives. She's been compared to Erma Bombeck, but at the risk of being stoned for blasphemy I think Peg Bracken is much less likely to go for the cheap and obvious jokes. Erma Bombeck is humor for the masses who haven't done enough reading to recognize the jokes that have been worn thin; Peg Bracken is a cut above, the kind of funny writer who doesn't feel she needs to force a joke into every sentence whether it likes it or not. I had a lot of fun reading this book, which meanders and comments and goes into asides far worse than my little urban legend digression above, and yet somehow manages to remain cohesive. Best of all, the back of the book contains recipes for the dishes she mentions.
Letters to Judy: What Your Kids Wish They Could Tell You, by Judy Blume (1986)
There's comfort in knowing that no matter how good your parenting skills your children are bound to resent you and feel you don't understand them. The best a parent can hope for is that when the child is grown he or she will gain a new perspective and use it when they look back on the past rather than continuing to resent the parent for such behaviors as not realizing that a first crush was True Love. The other hope is that when the child goes to another adult to complain about the parent, the child will at least choose an adult who will be sensible and help the child as the parent would if the child would allow it. Many children choose Judy Blume as their confidant. I remember well how Judy Blume's books capture the angst of being a child, and so I can understand why children feel she'd be a sympathetic ear. In this book Judy Blume publishes excerpts from the letters in the hopes that parents will have a better understanding of the issues their children are hiding from them. It's an interesting peek back into the turmoil of adolescence, but for the most part it made me feel that the situation is hopeless and that the best a parent can do is tough it out until it's over.
How to Prepare for Your High-School Reunion, and Other Midlife Musings, by Susan Allen Toth (1988)
This is a series of essays concentrating mostly on the thoughts of a middle-aged woman. I couldn't identify, mostly because I've never been quite that enraptured with either nature or Thoreau and both appear on nearly every page. I read half the book and that's when I got tired of reading someone else's musings. Still, some of what I read was interesting, and all was well-written if a little heavy on the meaning of it all.
Real Women Send Flowers, by Susan Connaughton Curtin and Patricia O'Connell (1983)
Here's a valuable book for a time capsule. The ideal woman changes from decade to decade, but one thing stays the same: books such as this offer no room for personal choice. Women shave their legs or they don't, they have casual sex or they don't, they cook or they don't, but it's one or the other and we all have to do it the same way. Thank goodness for books like this that keep us all updated on which way the pendulum is swinging.
A telling detail is that I got halfway through a list of "don't"s before I realized I was no longer on the "do"s: almost every rule is defendable as either. I think the whole concept of having rules for how "real women" behave is ridiculous, but if we're going to have some let's have some that aren't quite so outrageous. Real women, according to this book, spend their time making lists of women who are not real women. Real women say "Bloomie's" not "Bloomingdale's." Real women are not allowed to carry pictures of their families in their wallets, but they must carry a diaphragm because real women are not on the pill and real women sleep with married men on a moment's notice if they want to. Real women can be hookers as long as they're not cheerleaders or romance novelists or health-food shop owners.
Perhaps 1983 was a particularly tough year, but are these authors serious? Did they have no idea how much of their idea of what was suitable came from what was Cosmo-trendy at the time not from what was truly valuable? If I don't like Brie I'm not going to eat it no matter what kind of woman it makes me. If I thought there was any such thing as a "real woman" I'd say it was someone who made the choices that were best for her particular situation without assuming that those same choices were necessarily best for every woman.
The Choking Doberman and Other "New" Urban Legends, by Jan Harold Brunvand (1984)
If you read my review of A Window Over the Sink by Peg Bracken (above), you may be looking for a book of urban legends. May I make a recommendation? Either this one or The Vanishing Hitchhiker by the same author. In fact, nearly any book on urban legends by Jan Harold Brunvand will do. He has a good feeling for when the reader is getting bored with the folklore analysis and wants another good story. The Vanishing Hitchhiker includes such slumber-party favorites as "The Microwaved Pet" (woman tries to dry her pet poodle in the microwave), "The Killer In the Backseat" (woman stops at gas station; the attendant pulls her aside roughly then explains that there was a man with an ax in the backseat of her car), and "The Nude Surprise Party" (secretary is in on a plan to get her boss to his surprise birthday party; he misunderstands her intentions and is naked when his family leaps out with the cake). The Choking Doberman contains, among others, "The Elevator Incident" (a tough-looking man boards an elevator and says "sit"; frightened ladies in the elevator obey before realizing he's talking to his dog), "The Death of Little Mikey" (the Life cereal commercial boy died when he ate Pop Rocks candy and then drank soda), and "Mickey Mouse Acid" (drug dealers manufacture LSD-soaked paper squares that children will mistake for lick-and-stick tattoos). In both books the author discusses how urban legends begin and how they persevere despite being completely untrue. This sort of book ought to be required reading especially now that email has made the pass-it-on problem even worse. I swear I have friends who believe these stories and others are true ("It happened to my mother's old college friend!").
Tormenting Thoughts & Secret Rituals: The Hidden Epidemic of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, by Ian Osborn, M.D. (1998)
In general I disapprove of psychology books written for the general public. Too many times they seem to give fresh meat to Psychology Hobbyists, people who are always spouting the latest trendy psychological buzz-words and using the latest trendy disorders as an excuse for bad behavior.
This book doesn't fall into that sort of category. For one thing, it doesn't seem to have been written with an eye on increasing the popularity of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), because this isn't an illness that anyone would want. This book would be appropriate for several situations: as a supplement to a classroom textbook, as recommended reading for an OCD patient undergoing psychiatric treatment, or as a useful resource for a teacher who suspects that a child in her classroom may be suffering from the disorder (many cases of OCD begin in young children). I read it all the way through without losing interest, but don't expect anything sensational: this is an educational book by a qualified author, so you won't find exclamation points, slogans, or 12-step solutions.
Plain Jane's Thrill of Very Fattening Foods Cookbook, by Linda Sunshine (1984)
There is a time for broiled skinless chicken and there is a time for Rebel Yell 15,000 Calorie Cake; there is a time for steamed broccoli and there is a time for Bacon Things. Linda Sunshine's book is for the happier times. I wouldn't say that every word smacks of originality and cleverness, but the recipes can be amusing (ingredients: 6 Milky Way bars for cake, 1 Milky Way bar for cook, 1 cup...) and they certainly live up to the promise of fattening. It's refreshing to find a cookbook that recommends adding more sour cream rather than recommending you substitute fat-free plain yogurt.
Why Does Popcorn Pop? and 201 Other Fascinating Facts About Food, by Don Voorhees (1995)
A fascinating issue I wish books such as this would address is: What's with the "and one" obsession? I'd rather have them use the actual number of fascinating facts they came up with than have them force themselves to cut or add to come up with what they think is a snappy number.
This book, typical of the and-one genre, overdoes the exclamation points and "witty" asides, and underdoes the research. Some questions are answered incorrectly or misleadingly; others are incomplete or confusing. A typical sentence is "Potatoes are our second highest source of vitamin C." Second to what? And to whom does "our" refer?
I was surprised, too, at how much advertising was involved in the answers. The answer to "What is America's best-selling ice cream?" (and speaking of incomplete and confusing, I assume he means The United States when he says America) is "Breyers! What else? It uses all natural ingredients. If it's not on the label, it's not in the ice cream. Breyers vanilla ice cream, for instance, contains only fresh milk, cream, pure sugar and imported natural vanilla. No preservatives or stabilizers are added." If I wanted TV commercials in my books, I would be reading comics. I can't recommend this book on any level, not even for the fun of it: the combination of inaccuracies, exclamation points, and jingles is fatal.
Take This Book to the Obstetrician With You: A Consumer's Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth, by Karla Morales and Charles B. Inlander (1991)
I don't like the trend I'm seeing of doctors and other medical professionals portrayed as The Enemy. It's true that I don't spend a lot of time with doctors, but when I do see them I've never had a problem getting the kind of treatment I want. Usually this ends up being the kind of treatment they want to give me, which is why I'm paying them. If I wanted to have it done completely my way with no help from the doctor, I would have first gone to medical school to get the necessary training. As it is, I don't know how to do a tonsillectomy so I'm not going to try to instruct my doctor on the best way to do one, even if I have read the most interesting book on the subject. If I've read things that raise concerns in my mind or inform me of various options I have, I would certainly assume my doctor would be ready to answer my questions, and if he or she weren't I would feel free to find another doctor.
This "feeling free to find another doctor" is as far as I need to stretch my sense of power. I don't need to bluster into the doctor's office, elbows out and book in hand, head down ready to do battle over what I presume will be his or her professionally-cultivated deaf-ear arrogance. I think that many people are the same as I am: they go to the doctor to take advantage of his or her medical expertise, and if they don't feel they're getting it they go to another doctor.
Even these reasonable people, however, (notice how smoothly I put myself in the "reasonable" category) turn into offensive linemen when the doctor is an obstetrician. The attitude is, "I have to see you because you have medical knowledge that can save my life and the baby's life, but I don't trust you to tie your shoes properly." With mental sword drawn the patient goes into battle before the obstetrician has had the chance to say "Nice to meet you."
I blame this approach on books such as this one. Not satisfied to educate women on the various methods of childbirth such as Lamaze, Bradley, and Screaming For An Epidural, these books have to use inflammatory language such as "drug-induced coma" to describe the effect of a single extra-strength Tylenol. Furthermore, though I've found that most doctors support and even advocate the patient's right to choose among various childbirth options, these books imply that doctors like nothing better than the drug-and-slice assembly line technique. I don't know a single woman who couldn't find a doctor who was willing to do things her way, yet to read the current literature on the subject you'd think the hospital staff was cackling with glee each time a new patient entered The System and they'd get to ignore her and torment her and take away her rights to have A Beautiful Experience.
A final complaint: while the authors are shaking their little fists and insisting that women have the right to make their own childbirth decisions, they forget all about the women who don't want A Natural Birth Experience any more than they want A Natural Appendectomy Experience. Evidently you can only make your own decisions if they happen to be the same as the authors' decisions.
Keys to the City: Tales of a New York City Locksmith, by Joel Kostman (1997)
Is there anyone left in New York city who has not written a book? We need an entire Dewey decimal class just for People Living In New York City With A Story To Tell. As it happens, I love this kind of thing. I like to know what other people's jobs are like. I asked the checker at my grocery store how many produce codes they had to memorize before they could be a checker (at my grocery store, it's 160). I asked my dental hygienist if the insides of people's mouths ever stop seeming yucky (she says yes, with a few exceptions). I once took a job at a bakery because I was curious about just how many of the bakery-fresh items were from mixes (more than you want to know---and don't ask what we use to frost the danish). I worked in a library to see what was behind the "staff only" doors (shan't tell you). It does seem, however, as if people could live in cities other than New York and still have a story or two to tell. Enough nit-picking. The book is fun to read. There is probably many a dull day in the life of a locksmith, but apparently now and then something exceptionally odd happens. Let's not go to the melodramatic book-jacket extreme of "As Kostman is letting the locked-out into their cars and apartments, they are letting him into their lives. These are their stories. Ordinary people, star performances," but certainly it's good cocktail party fodder to be a locksmith who can tell about the time five men in their 80s were sitting around naked in an apartment waiting for you to fix the lock. Tone down the Dragnet style ("It's ten o'clock at night. I am driving down Fourteenth Street. I have to. It's my job.") a notch and this is a great reminder that everyone's job has at least a few interesting moments.
Home Book of Picture Framing, by Kenn Oberrecht (1988)
In the last few weeks I've had several old photos professionally matted and framed, and the results were as stunning as the bills. Furthermore, every time I went into the framing shop I felt lost: I didn't know what my options were, I didn't know which items cost set fees and which varied according to my choices, and most of all I didn't know exactly why the bills were so enormous. I checked this book out of the library with two goals in mind: first, to understand better what is done in the frame shop after I've written a large check; and second, to see if framing was something I could do myself. I found in this book a highly satisfying set of answers to all my questions. Although I wouldn't be able to walk into the back of a frame shop and start work Monday morning, I have a general grasp on all the many steps taken between the time I leave my photo and the time I pick it up. I also have a better feel for the decisions I can be involved in, and at which points I should ask questions or make comments if I feel that the item I'm having framed has some special needs. Best of all, I've concluded that the process is complicated enough, and my interest low enough, that I can comfortably pay the bill without feeling like maybe I'm being ripped off. I can see that it would be much less expensive if I did it myself, but I also see how much work and shopping would be involved. Maybe someday if I have a workshop where I can keep a large table set up with all the necessary supplies . . . but until then, I'm content to let someone else worry about dust seals and acid-neutralizing treatments. Because of this conclusion, I didn't try to follow any of the instructions and can't tell you how easy it would be if you wanted to. However, I can say that they certainly seemed clear when I was skimming by, and there are a lot of photographs and specific tool recommendations to assist you. Be sure to note, however, that this book was published in 1988 and some products and companies and price estimates may no longer be helpful.
The Rest of Us, by Jacquelyn Mitchard (1997)
I always feel a little sorry for essayists and columnists. It's so difficult to come up with first and last sentences, and they have to do it so extraordinarily often. My pity means that I give them a break even when they come up with conclusion sentences so sugary I have to rinse my mouth out with milk.
Jacquelyn Mitchard is a fine writer, and if the price of reading her essays is enduring finales such as, "I understood. I understood" or "But my children have forgiven me. Children always do," then so be it. I can't think of any essay I didn't like, but some of my favorites were:
"An Elf is Just an Elf," about the futility of most craft projects in women's magazines
"Honey, It's Not Over Till I Say So," about the pointlessness of explaining to teenagers that life doesn't end after college
"The Mother of My Child," about the birth mother of the author's adopted son
"Rude and Unusual Punishment," about the way so many people are pointlessly and selfishly inconsiderate
"True Tales of the Kissing Patrol," about a single mother's attempts to date under the parental eyes of her children
"Home Cooking in the Drive-Through Lane," in which the author eats her more pompous words from previous essays
"Someday, They'll Thank Me for This," about the importance of thank-you notes
The main emphasis of the book is child-rearing and family life, with a sideline on getting older and changing how you feel about things. Smaller areas of focus are adoption and widowhood. I was surprised at how often I found myself dabbing with a hankie considering that in most cases the trigger was so very delicate: a turn of phrase that caught me off-guard rather than a long essay deliberately seeking a tear toll. I laughed about as often as I dabbed.