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"The Last Lecture"
Randy Pausch, with Jeffrey Zaslow
Hyperion, $21.95
Get out the tissues.
Randy Pausch is dying. The computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon was given months to live because of the cancer that just won't go away. He is invited to give a last lecture, and his book "The Last Lecture," explains his process of figuring out how to say goodbye, how to leave the people he loves, the people who have been important to him throughout his life.
Dying or not, Pausch is an inspirational person. He achieved his dreams simply by trying for them, and he tries his darndest to impart that wisdom on everyone he knows and everyone he doesn't. It would have been awesome to watch him give his last lecture.
He's living like he was living, not living like he was dying.
Pausch is a good guy, the kind of guy that this stuff just shouldn't happen to. It's terribly sad to see that his family will have to live without him, that his daughter likely will have no memories of her father because when he dies she will still be too young to remember. It's hard to imagine how his wife is dealing, taking care of three young children and the man she loves as he drifts toward death.
The book is likely to make you cry, but it's just as likely to inspire you to go after your dreams. Pausch has some great advice, and it's unfortunate that the weight of his knowledge is only publicly known because he soon will be dead.
Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think. (p. 111)
"The Five People You Meet in Heaven"
Mitch Albom
Hyperion, $19.95
I think I was slightly put off by the title of this book when I first picked it up, thinking it was going to be about God and heaven and Christianity. But it is far from it.
"The Five People You Meet in Heaven" is Mitch Albom's interpretation of what happens when you die — one must meet five people before settling for eternity in the heaven of their choosing.
Eddie is the head of maintenance at Ruby Pier, "an amusement park by a great gray ocean" (1). Eddie dies, then goes to heaven, where he meets five people. Each person is someone who has died before he has, someone whose life had an effect on Eddie, someone who has a lesson to teach Eddie.
The time Eddie spends meeting the five people settles the discrepancies from his own life. He learns the whys and hows of the incidents that had bothered him the most in his life, and he reignited the love that had grown cold in his heart. When Eddie gets to his heaven, he is finally happy, finally satisfied with the previous 83 years, for which he had previously believed himself to be a failure.
Albom's idea of heaven is comforting, believing that you are able to relieve the best part of your life for eternity in heaven. However, I have issue with the five people you must meet in their own heavens before moving on to your own heaven. Albom's idea of heaven is structured so that you will never meet someone who is still alive, and there is no guarantee they will be meeting you when they die. True, if they were important to you, they will be part of your heaven, but one is locked into only learning about the effect of those who have died before.
At the root of Albom's idea is that we are all connected. As Eddie learns from the first person he meets in heaven,
"That there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind." (48)
And from the second person he meets in heaven,
"That's the thing. Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it to someone else." (94)
And from Eddie's start of eternity in heaven,
And in that line now was a whiskered old man, with a linen cap and a crooked nose, who waited in a place called the Stardust Band Shell to share his part of the secret of heaven; that each affects the other and the other effects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one. (196)
Albom constructs the six degrees of separation, including a twist in the epilogue that further relates the characters.
The author illustrates maturity and intelligence through the lessons each of the five teaches Eddie. And his writing is good, linking the lessons to real-life experiences to contextualize them and truly make them real. His storytelling is smooth, so the book is an easy, quick read. "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" is a comforting look at the importance of every individual, because every individual has an effect on the world.
"Love, Rosie"
Cecilia Ahern
Hyperion, $6.99 paperback ($22.95 hardback, as "Rosie Dunne")
Although I have read only two of her books, it is obvious to me that Cecilia Ahern is a master of the sweet, romantic novel. Following "PS, I Love You," Ahern's "Love, Rosie" (previously published as "Rosie Dunne") is another sweet, romantic novel. And like "PS, I Love You," the reader will find herself cheering for the heroine to pursue her dreams and be all that she can despite the hardships she is facing.
The story begins with 7-year-old Rosie Dunne and 7-year-old Alex Stewart and follows their lives for the next 40some years — through letters, e-mails, instant messages, chat rooms and text messages. Rosie and Alex are secretly in love with the other but refuse to admit it to anyone, especially each other. Their friends and family are just waiting for the two to get together, but in the mean time watch Rosie and Alex deal with marriages and children and education and jobs.
Ahern had a genius idea in writing the book through correspondence. Who doesn't like to snoop and read the conversations of others? The letters also provide her the ability to skip through long periods of time, leaving clues as to how much time has passed between correspondence with weddings, divorces, birthdays, births and deaths. The primary fault with this form of writing, however, is that it is difficult to explain everything important that has gone on through conversation only, so description of events seems forced at times, and during instant messages the characters tend to be long-winded.
The benefit of being long-winded is that the soliloquies provide Ahern an opportunity to be more poetic in her writing like in a normal novel instead of sticking solely to conversation:
You can run and run as fast and as far as you like but the truth is, wherever you run, there you are. (215)
The thickness of the book might be intimidating, but it is easy to make it through 100 pages in one sitting — again, probably because of the way the book is written.
With this being a sweet, romantic novel, the reader might start out believing Rosie and Alex are destined to be together and will come together in the final pages of the book. But the plot twists Ahern weaves throughout the story will leave the reader guessing whether things will ever work out for the best friends who obviously always have been in love.
"Make Money, Not Excuses: Wake Up, Take Charge, and Overcome Your Financial Fears Forever"
Jean Chatzky
Crown Business, $24.95
Jean Chatzky, an editor for Money magazine and the Today show wrote "every woman's guide to getting really, really rich," according to the cover of her book, "Make Money, Not Excuses: Wake Up, Take Charge, and Overcome Your Financial Fears Forever."
"Make Money" is a great resource for any woman who wants to get really, really rich. The book is split into chapters labeled by different excuses women give for not saving their money or investing. Each chapter is further split into two sections: Don't Bitch, and Get Rich. The former goes into the excuses women make for not doing what they need to in order to save and invest, and the latter explains what women can do to get past the excuses to make money.
Chatzky addresses a variety of excuses and fears, from "I don't know where to begin" to "I don't have any time" to "I'm too old — it's too late for me." She gives details for how women can overcome these fears: sign up for a 401(k) at work, think twice before buying, prioritize, stop procrastinating, get help if you need it.
And she makes it seem EASY. It's not too hard to eat out one day less a week, and instead invest that money in an account that gets an 8 percent return. Clean out your house, have a garage sale and invest that money in an account that gets an 8 percent return. Cancel your landline and use only your cell phone, and invest the money you would have spent on a phone bill in an account that gets an 8 percent return. And when you retire in 15, 20 or 30 years, that money will have added up to a nice chunk of change.
Each chapter also includes a "Map to a Million," which takes a point she homes in on and puts it into real terms:
Jane is 30 years old and earns $35,000 a year. If she puts 10 percent of her gross income into a stock market index fund each year for the next thirty-five years, she'll have a bundle at retirement. That's assuming she gets absolutely no raises in pay. That's not factoring in any matching dollars from her employer. Add in a 5 percent match from her employer, and watch what happens.
Start at age 30
Invest 10 percent of $35,000 salary a year
Retirement savings: $457,254
Invest 10 percent of $35,000 salary plus 5 percent employer match
Retirement savings: $685,881 (184)
The "Map to a Million" is laid out at the end of the book, suggesting expenses that can be cut out and invested using real examples and real numbers that will make sense to readers.
Another helpful tip from Chatzky is the "Questions from the money group," something she suggests all women join. A money group can include all types of women in all types of jobs at all different ages, and they can get together and talk about money — either just with themselves or with financial experts as guests. Having a money group can give women the push they need to start investing, give them advice and tips on how they should go about doing so.
Chatzky also includes a "Get Rich Spending Tracker," a "Ballpark E$timate of Your Retirement Needs" created by economists at the American Savings Education Council and an index of financial terms — something tremendously helpful for one just getting started. All the tools will help readers see how much they spend, how much they need to save, and what type of investment will best suit their needs.
The only excuse that remains at the end of Chatzky's book — one that remains unaddressed — might be the biggest roadblock for most women: "I just don't want to." There are very few people who would say that they don't want any more money or to have enough for a retirement they truly can enjoy
While I don't think it helped me overcome my financial fears forever, it did make amassing the amount needed to live comfortably seem a lot easier. It's just too bad Chatsky can't actually give women like me the final push to doing everything she suggested. She offers great advice and makes everything seem easy, but I'm sure there will be people like me who read her book and still think, "I can't do this on my own."
"Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story"
Chuck Klosterman
Scribner, $23
In "Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story," Chuck Klosterman chronicles two and a half weeks of his life, with plenty of anecdotes from his past and predictions of his future. He has loaded up a rental car with CDs with intentions of driving around America, visiting places where musicians have met their end — which, he observes at the start of his journey, often tend to be the beginning of their notoriety, or at least what people remember them for.
But this book is not just about the life (and death ) of musicians. It is about Klosterman's life, and his thoughts, and the women he loves, and music, and mastodons.
Klosterman is funny and clever. His observations of life seem ordinary and obvious, but his explanations are entertaining and engaging.
I feel like I can relate to everything Klosterman has said, never mind the fact that what we have in common hardly extends beyond the facts that we both have worked for newspapers and enjoy writing and music. He is able to explain the very exact feeling I have felt in a very specific situation at some important point in my life, even if what led him to have that feeling is something I never have nor ever will experience.
His perception of human interaction is fascinating, especially the integration into pop culture and society. His insight on human nature is funny, because it's true, and sad, because it's true. If I were someone who smoked marijuana, I feel like I could get high with my friends and talk about how Klosterman's writing is so deep and real and we soooo get it, and I think he would be flattered by that. (Though, I'm sure we could do the same thing sans marijuana and he would appreciate it just as much.)
Reading "Killing Yourself to Live" made me feel as though I had learned something about human interaction — but perhaps the only thing I definitely learned was that I don't know as much about music as I had hoped (or wished) I did. And even though I enjoyed the entire book, my favorite part was toward the end:
We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It's easy. ... But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you'll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there's still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of those lovable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. ...The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they're often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about someone else. (232)
And that is why people are so happy and unhappy about love all at the same time. And Klosterman found a way to put it into words. And that is one of the things that makes his writing great, which is definitely the reason you should read this book*.
* "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" might be the best way to dive into Klosterman to get used to his writing style, unless those of you who make fun of me for rambling while telling stories actually don't mind it.
"Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library"
Don Borchert
Virgin Books, $21.95
Don Borchert was able to do what some of us only talk about.
He wrote down his experiences with some of the oddballs he encountered and turned it into an entertaining book that provides some insight into life on the other side of the library counter.
"Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, Gangstas in the Public Library" is a compilation of Borchert's memories of working in a public library near Los Angeles. And his experience is just as the title suggests — a library is free for all, so there are plenty of oddballs, geeks and gangstas who assemble. And they provide quite the fodder for Borchert's book.
There's Henry, who isn't quite right in the head and comes in every day to work on the crossword puzzle in the Los Angeles Times. There's Terri, the children's librarian with a heart of gold who unintentionally befriends everyone, from the 'tween girls doing their homework to the mentally incapacitated Michael. There's Mr. Jackson, who expects the librarian checking out his books to stack them in alphabetical order and put the receipt in the second book from the top, sticking out no more than a half an inch. Not to mention the two men who were caught dealing drugs via a vent in the men's rest room.
Anyone who has worked with the public will appreciate and relate to Borchert's commentary on the comedy everyday people unknowingly bring to life.
Borchert also sheds light on what seems to be the obvious — libraries will lend you thousands of dollars worth of materials, no questions asked, so pay your damn $2 fine! (He has motivated me to pay a visit to my hometown library and pay the $0.40 in fines I owe, while renewing my card that expired almost a year ago.)
The writing is simple; the chapters are short. The observations are obvious and entertainingly portrayed. Borchert has managed to make me both excited and anxious for a career as a librarian.
However, I find difficulty in recommending this book broadly because I'm not sure how many people would be entertained by reading about the crazy antics occurring in the library. Many people find libraries boring and may subsequently be bored by this book, simply based on it's setting.
The book is amusing and clever and charming, but it will never receive the praise or readership it deserves. Because it is about life in the library.
"The Choice"
Nicholas Sparks
Grand Central Publishing, $24.99
Nicholas Sparks is at it again in his latest novel, "The Choice." Surprise, surprise, this book is a love story in which the man and woman must overcome an obstacle to figure out how strong their love is.
Travis Parker is ever the bachelor, whose world is turned upside down when he meets Gabby Holland. She is the uptight Southern belle hoping to break out of her shell, and Travis is the motorcycle-riding surfer to help her do so. Of course, Gabby has a boyfriend and must decide between the two — she must make "the choice." (And anyone who has read Nicholas Sparks, or even those who haven't, can predict the choice she makes.)
But that is only the choice in "Part One." "Part Two" includes an arguably more difficult choice, one that makes reading that far into the book actually worth it.
Sparks writes in third person, but the problem comes with who is telling the story. Sometimes it's Travis, sometimes it's Gabby. The person who tells the story is whoever is the most convenient person to tell the story at that time, without any rhyme or reason as to why the switch. The book is framed as though it's from Travis' perspective because he tells the prologue and starts the book, then Part Two is entirely Travis, as is the epilogue. The only reason Sparks even has Gabby tell any of the story is to illustrate how she is faced with "the choice," because how would Travis know what is going through her mind?
But Sparks definitely did not choose the best way to tell the story. Part One is only a flashback to 11 years earlier, and the reader finds out in Part Two that it was Travis' flashback — so how was the story being told from Gabby's perspective?
If the reader can look past that, it is difficult to get through the 180 pages that constitute Part One. It's a boring love story, typical to Sparks' novels. The story could have been stronger if the book was set up more like a Jodi Picoult novel — beginning in the present and flashing back to the incident 11 years earlier that brought the characters to all of the choices they have to make. Reading those 180 pages is painfully boring because there is no noticeable reason to do so.
Getting to Part Two is only rewarding because the book actually gets exciting. But then the story suffers. Sparks includes more story in those 72 pages than in the rest of the book, weakening the ending because there is not enough space to cram in everything he still has left to say.
Sparks also hammers the choice theme throughout Part Two — reminiscent of the way a college student might try to hurry up and finish a final paper by using the key words as many time as possible. It gets redundant, and again, the ultimate choice and outcome of the book are predictable.
The worst choice in the book is made in Part Two. Human nature is to see the characters who make the poorest choices suffer the worst punishments and learn from it, but the character making this choice hardly seems to see any sort of reprimand for the decisions made because Sparks had to hurry up through that part to finish the story.
I can only guess that Sparks took so long to get to the point of his novel because he wanted to have a major plot twist in the end. Sparks' fans will be shocked and fascinated and fall in love with the novel, but it's boring to those of us who have grown tired of his bland language and love-trumps-everything theme.
You can make a better choice than reading this book.
"Water for Elephants"
Sara Gruen
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $13,95
"I'll do just about anything. But if possible I'd like to work with animals."
"Animals," he says. "Did you hear that, August? The lad wants to work with animals. You want to carry water for elephants, I suppose?" (57)
Sara Gruen opens her novel "Water for Elephants" with a quote from Dr. Seuss' book "Horton Hatches the Egg":
I meant what I said, and I said what I meant ...
An elephant's faithful — one hundred per cent!
"Elephants" lives up to that, leading me to wonder if it served as inspiration for the story.
The novel begins with a prologue, which is actually a shortened version of the climax, then brings the reader up to now, where the main character, Jacob Jankowski, is a 90something confined to a nursing home. When he learns the circus is coming to town, he flashes back to his days as part of a traveling circus.
Jacob's story starts during the Great Depression, when he is studying to be a veterinarian at Cornell. As he is preparing to take his final examination, his parents die in a car accident, leaving him with no money and no job, as he had planned to join his father's practice. And so, in what sounds like something that could only happen in a story (but certainly actually happened during this time), he Jacob runs off to join the circus.
Jacob doesn't intentionally join the circus, however. He jumps a train that just happens to be a circus train, and he just happens to be able to get a job working with the animals. During his time with The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, Jacob finds an enemy in the head animal trainer (August), a friend in the dwarf clown (Walter), and a love in the star performer (Marlena).
Life in the circus changes when Uncle Al, who runs The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, modifies the travel schedule to pick up an elephant when another circus collapses. Rosie joins the show, and Jacob immediately falls in love with the animal. While most of the workers, such as August, think Rosie is dumb, Jacob sees her intelligence and develops a connection with her.
Although Gruen begins her novel with the climax, little is given away because of the omitted details. I didn't understand her reason for doing it when I began reading, nor did I know when this scene would play into the book. But Gruen was smart in doing this because it sets the primary scene for the novel: the midway at the circus, with the greasy fry cook and the wild animals and the loyal roustabouts — the workers who are lowest on the totem pole but will do anything to help out their friends. And because she jumps from the prologue into 90something Jacob in the first chapter, it can be read as if it is a dream Jacob is having — a flashback to the moment that changed his life 70 years earlier.
Gruen fills her novel with historically accurate details of life on the circus train, and each circus chapter is accompanied by a photograph of 1930s era circuses. The pictures in addition to the author's colorful descriptions give the reader a sense of the sights, sounds and smells of everything Jacob experienced. The research put into the book truly paid off because it made the story come alive.
Jumping back and forth between 90something Jacob and 20something Jacob is slightly distracting from the plot of the primary story. The only reason I can figure 90something Jacob even is important to the story is because his is the type of character a reader will wonder about after the story ends.
Gruen's characters are likable and hateable, and in hindsight, predictable. Rosie, especially, serves an important role in the novel, carrying out actions to create scenes that never would have been possible without an elephant in the book.
Because I attempt to predict how the novel would end, I was disappointed when I got there. It was not the same way I would have liked to see Jacob's story end (or begin, depending on how you look at it), but I suppose it was fitting for how he got to be where he ended up.
Overall it is a good book, a colorful story. I would have structured it differently, but then again, I never would have been able to think up a plot like this.
"Bridge to Terabithia"
Katherine Paterson
HarperTrophy, $6.99
I read "Bridge to Terabithia" in sixth grade, and I remembered crying to myself in the classroom, while pretending I wasn't so I wouldn't be embarrassed among my fellow 11-year-olds.
After the 2007 movie adaptation was released, I decided I would read it again before seeing the film, especially because it hadn't been too well-received, and I didn't want a poor theatrical version of the story to taint my memory of the novel, which had faded in the 11 years since.
Katherine Paterson's "Terabithia" tells the story of 10-year-old Jess Aarons Jr., the third of five children — and the only boy — in a poor family in rural Virginia. After initial hesitancy, he befriends Leslie Burke — a rich tomboy whose family (mostly inexplicably) moves to a neighboring farm. The two create the secret, magical kingdom of Terabithia, for which they are the king and queen, while developing a close friendship.
As in most novels, tragedy strikes, and the characters take with them the lessons they had been learning and teaching one another throughout the story so they can persevere.
But because that is a simple, overused plot technique doesn't mean that Paterson doesn't succeed in using it.
She also finds success in her character development by using general, exaggerated stereotypes, and in her foreshadowing by giving clues that might have been too far over my 11-year-old head but far too obvious for any adult.
"Terabithia" has landed itself on banned books lists for the subject of death, the use of the word "lord" and the promotion of secular humanism, according to Wikipedia. Added to that list could be the use of inappropriate language throughout the novel and the inclusion of topics like child abuse. What the banned book list makers seem to fail to grasp is the notion that 10-year-old children are exposed to death and swearing and abuse, and have imaginations that create worlds outside of the "safe" ones where the banned books list makers pretend death or swearing or abuse don't exist.
Paterson was able to step into the shoes of a fifth-grader when she wrote "Terabithia." She analyzes the important things of the world, like winning a foot race or making sure the seventh-grade bully doesn't take your lunch money. Paterson also is able to bridge the gap between how kids and adults deal with tragedy. She runs through the "what ifs" that all adults imagine after experiencing a terrible event and assuming they are somehow responsible for its occurrence, and she is able to see the event through the eyes of a 10-year-old who doesn't know how to respond without the full understanding of what has happened.
There is a reason this novel won the Newbery Medal. And if you haven't already — or if it's been a while since you've done so — you should pick up the book and discover why.
"The Time Traveler's Wife"
Audrey Niffenegger
Harcourt, Inc., $14
According to the book's jacket, "The Time Traveler's Wife" is "A most untraditional love story ..." and that might be the best way to explain it.
Audrey Niffenegger's novel tells the untraditional love story of Clare Abshire and Henry DeTamble. The pair are eight years apart. But because Henry is a time traveler, Clare meets Henry when she is 6, and Henry meets Clare when he is 28. So Clare grows up knowing who she will marry, and Henry has no clue of Clare's existence until he is 28.
They meet in real time and fall in love, and they go through the same troubles that all couples face. But their troubles are complicated, due to the fact that Henry disappears randomly to unknown places and times for varied periods of time. He travels most often when he's nervous, and finds himself naked, hungry and nauseated during his trips, not to mention lost and confused. And after he meets Clare in present time, he leaves her alone, confused and wondering when he will return:
Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waitin. Why had he gone where I cannot follow? (vii)
Niffenegger doesn't follow traditional rules of writing. The book is filled with run-on sentences, so you feel as though you are having conversations with Henry and Clare rather than reading a book, and somehow the blending of thoughts into lengthy breaths makes them easier to read. She also doesn't tell the story chronologically, for obvious reasons, but rather in a way that seems to make sense — telling the different vignettes of Henry's and Clare's lives in the order in which the reader would learn about them as though they were an aside, a flashback, but most of the time, they are told in the present while Henry is time traveling.
She takes real events and real places and gives her characters real problems to deal with — school, money, jobs, life, death, sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, alcohol, cancer, AIDS — and the not so real problem of time travel, which is made real by the details with which she explains the incidents during Henry's travels.
Niffenegger's story is somehow believable, her characters lovable. Readers will find themselves attached to the couple they want to see succeed though they are dealing with the most difficult obstacle to overcome.
"The Time Traveler's Wife" is proof that the magic of love can triumph over hardships and time. It's nice to see a story of love having the ability to conquer all in a world with just too little of it.
