I went by the store yesterday, and while browsing the book section saw a book with a wrap around cover that stated: “I have not survived against all odds. I have not lived to tell. I have not witnessed the extraordinary. This is my story.” And in larger type, the title: Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. How could I resist? I came home and gobbled it up in one sitting. In this book, Amy Krouse Rosenthal sets out to document her rather ordinary life with a series of alphabetical entries. The entries read like the blog entries I wish I could write- some are trivial, minutae of Amy’s life and preferences, while others are deep and thought provoking on a more universal level. Under the header Dry Cleaners, Amy relates being touched by her dry cleaner’s gesture of returning $10 he found in her clothing; Busy is her brilliant rumination on adults’ tendency to blur the line between business and productivity, Blush consists of one line: “I blush easily”. Some of the entries are cross referenced like in a real encyclopedia, and you can read through them in pretty much any order. The writing is witty and charming and sweet, and Amy is someone I’d like to know.

The beauty of this book comes from it’s encyclopedic conciet. By their nature, encyclopedias are full of important information, information everyone should know. By taking her life and putting it in an encyclopedic format, this book puts forth the idea that individual’s lives are important; that it’s possible that knowing whether or not Amy (or anyone) always gets creme rinse stuck in her right ear is as important as knowing about the aurora borealis or penguins. Do we spend as much time getting to know the people around us as we should? Are we stuck in our own bubble assuming everyone is just like us, and do we then get mad when they do something we don’t understand? If only each person came with their own encyclopedia, so we could become experts, could look something up if we didn’t understand.
I want to go make an encyclopedia of myself now.

Current total: 12
Just Finished: Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Currently Reading: The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I finished Marion Davies by Fred Laurence Guiles, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Marion was an incredibly interesting woman, and I found it interesting to compare her experience with that of Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe- all three being women who are remembered for their connection to the powerful men in their lives rather than for their own considerable accomplishments. I need to find examples of Marion on film, I’m enamored of her vitality and generosity. She seems to have lived her life with a joy and grace that you don’t see often, and it did me well to read of her.

In my last post I expounded my theory of the two different kinds of mystery novels. One you have a chance of solving mid-book, the other you just have to wait through to the end. Carola Dunn’s Daisy Dalrymple novels tend to be of the first variety (which is nice, I like those). Damsel in Distress, which I finished today is of the second. Phillip, the ertswhile suitor of Daisy has fallen in love with an American heiress, and goes to Daisy for help when she is kidnapped and held for ransom. It’s an interesting case, but less compelling than the previous books, since there’s really very little chance of solving the mystery before the end. Theres some action as Daisy gets herself in and out of dangerous situations, but it’s not my favorite of the series by a long shot.

I also read Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, but since I think it may end up being one of my favorite books of the year I’m going to think about it over night and write about it tomorrow.

Current Total: 12
Just Finished: Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Next Up: The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I’m still reading the Marion Davies biography and really enjoying it. I find that it takes me longer to read non-fiction than fiction, and even longer to read biographies than non-biography non-fiction, so it feels like it’s taking me a long time to finish. In the middle of it I took some hours off and read Away with the Faries by Kerry Greenwood, and I think it’s the best of her Phryne Fisher series so far. I have no idea what number it is in the series, since they’re being reprinted here in the US, but I’m almost positive it comes before one of the others I’ve read.

(To those of you who may be worried about my blossoming addiction to mysteries set in the 1920s: I’m well aware I have a problem, which is the first step to recovery. Please be comforted in the knowledge that I’m making progress, and please look the other way while I hang out on this first step for a while.)

Away with the Fairies centers around the death of Miss Lavender, a too-precious-to-be-true author of fairy stories for children. Of course things aren’t as they seem, and everyone that lives around Miss Lavender has a reason to kill her, and thats where our dear Miss Fisher comes in.

I say this is the best of the series so far, (well, of the 3 I’ve read), and I mean it. In my mind there are two kinds of mystery novels. The first is the kind where you have enough clues at the beginning to figure it out by the end, so when the detective says: “There’s a piece of green fabric here caught in this door”, you think “Wait, wasn’t Betty wearing a green coat in that first scene?”. The second is the kind that parcels out the clues as you go, so that there’s no way for you to know whats going on until the end, like when they find a cowboy hat at the scene and you don’t find out until the very end that Lou was actually a cowboy and that’s the only thing that links him to the murder. Both are nice, but I like the kind I have a chance of solving early, because they make me feel smart. The other Phryne Fisher books fell solidly in the second category, but this one was complex and open enough from the beginning that you had a chance to figure out what was going on.

The mystery was good, and it also covered quite a bit of territory in regards to the burgeoning feminism of the 1920s. The novel contains a great explanation of the damage gossip rags and trashy magazines can do to women’s sense of self and womanhood, which I really appreciated. And I so wish that the Adventuresses Club actually existed and that I was a member!

One additional thought before I get back to the life of Miss Marion. While reading forums where people break down their reading for the year, a number included graphic novels in their totals. I read plenty of comics and graphic novels, and haven’t been including them in my totals or in my posts. I don’t include them in my totals because well, in my head, graphic novels are different than prose books. That’s said with no disrepect for the medium, (in fact, many times I like them more than prose), but the word ‘medium’ is the crux there for me. If I was keeping track of the movies that I watch I wouldn’t count the plays I may see, even though the act of watching is the same. So, I don’t count graphic novels in my count, even though I’m reading them. I haven’t been writing about them for the same reason, but I may rethink that. One of my goals for the year is to create a website, when I do I’ll have a special graphic novel section to make it up.

Current total: 9
Just Finished: Away with the Fairies by Kerry Greenwood
Currently reading: Marion Davies by Fred Laurence Guiles

Over the last two days I’ve zoomed through three short books. Requiem for a Mezzo by Carola Dunn is the third in her Daisy Dalrymple series ( I don’t have the second one), and it’s just as good as the first. The mystery was well done, plenty of charcters with plenty of motives, and enough red herrings to make the end a suprise. Quite enjoyable.

I picked up The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby because I loved Songbook, and this looked to be similar, but about books rather than music. That’s exactly what it is, but strangely, I liked Songbook better. The Polysyllabic Spree is a collection of columns that Hornby wrote for The Believer magazine, in which he chronicles his book purchases and books read, with commentary about whichever end of that process he feels like writing. As such, it feels a little slight, a little prone to wander. Pieces of it are laugh out loud funny, and I fully intend to pick up a number of the books he writes about, it just left me feeling like there could have been more. In Songbook he managed to take the specific and extend it to the universal, using his experiences with specific songs to examine and expound on the effects that our favorite music can have on us, and in so doing, gave voice to thoughts we’ve all struggled to express. Thats what I was hoping for in Spree, and I didn’t find it. But I enjoyed what was there.

Being slightly obsessed with deconstructed fairy tales, I’ve felt somewhat guilty that I haven’t read any of Angela Carter’s stories. Carter’s modernized, feminized fairy tales are pretty much considered the quintessential reclaiming and retelling of these stories. So when I got my little kickback from Amazon for the books you fine folks have purchased through this site (THANK YOU!), Carter’s The Bloody Chamber was one of the books I picked up. First off, the font is all wrong for me. The design of a book is an essential factor in my enjoyment of it, and this font is too small, to cramped. But, I was willing to put that aside. I read it, and I have to say, what’s the big deal? The stories are enjoyable, but not as earth shattering as I expected. Maybe it’s because I’ve benefitted from the movement she was a part of that they don’t seem so groundbreaking, put in their context maybe I would be more impressed. But as it is, I’ve read better. I’m sure thats sacrilege to someone, but what can you do? (Also, and this is petty, the cover has a quotation on the cover that uses the word ‘ironical’, and that word just bugs me. )

Next up, a biography of Marion Davies. She intrigues me.

Current total: 8
Just Finished: The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
Next Up: Marion Davies by Fred Laurence Guiles

I finished Marilyn Monroe by Barbara Leaming, which is exactly what you’ld think, a bio of Marilyn. Man, did she have one messed up life. There was so much miscommunication, so many missed signals and misunderstandings, it made me want to scream at points. I feel so sorry for her, and can’t help but wonder what would have happened if she was born later. After reading the bio of Jackie, where every statement was backed up with a quotation from a family member or other reliable source, this took a bit to get used to, since it’s written as a straight narrative. I found myself wondering how Leaming knew what so and so was thinking at any given time, but finally went with it. The last section of the book has pretty indepth source citations, so I trust that the information was accurate, it just took some adjusting.

I think I’m going to try alternating a novel with non-fiction for a while, and see how that goes.

Current Total: 5
Just Finished: Marilyn Monroe by Barbara Leaming
Next Up: Requiem For A Mezzo by Carola Dunn

I’ve never really been one for reading two books at the same time, I generally lose interest in one or the other of them, but I seem to be managing it quite well at the moment. I read a little more of Large Account Management, then took a break to read Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn. It’s the first of her Daisy Dalrymple series, set in the 1920s. Daisy is an Honourable Miss, so has no financial need to work, but has decided to be a writer, and her name gets her into the elegant homes to write columns about them and solve the mysteries that never fail to take place within them.

In this particular story, Daisy goes to the Wentwater Estate to write an article and take some pictures, and notices that things are not altogether comfortable there since Lord Wentwater married a new, younger wife. Tensions are high as another guest, who has blackmailed his way into the house, follows the new Mrs. Wentwater around attempting a seduction. With one son encouraging them together, one daughter fuming since she’s in love with the cad, and another son jumping to his step-mother’s defense, is it any suprise when someone ends up dead? Not really, no. Daisy ends up working with the detective investigating the case since she has photographic and stengoraphic skills, as well as the uncanny tendency to get people to confide in her.

What follows is pretty basic mystery paperback stuff with a few pleasant additions.
I expected a breezy read, and for the most part got one, but I also got some unexpected feminism (as Daisy defends her choice to work), upstairs/ downstairs drama ala Gosford Park, and comments on class relations (as the Honourable Miss Daisy begins to fall for the working class Scotland Yard detective). There was a extra oomph and heft to this novel that I really appreciated. I figured out fairly quickly the flaw in the reasoning that was holding up the investigation , but the actual motive/murder was sneaky and quite well done. The end was very nicely played, and I enjoyed it quite a lot. Which I’m really glad about, since I bought two other in the series at the same time, and it would stink if I didn’t like them. But they were $5.99, what was I supposed to do?

Current Total:4
Just Finished: Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn
Currently Reading: Successful Large Account Management by Miller, Heiman, and Tuleja

I’m still reading Successful Large Account Management, but took a little break today to read My Story by Marilyn Monroe. It’s a short read, and ends in the midst of Marilyn’s marriage to Joe DiMaggio. I knew that Marilyn was a smart woman, so I wasn’t suprised by her intelligence and insight- what suprised me was just how sad her life was. As a child she grew up in poverty, moved from one foster family to another, able to count her happy experiences on one hand. Her sense of causality in her life is incredible, it’s obvious that she spent a lot of time in introspection. She had the ability to see herself from outside herself, and was very realistic about what she saw. Andrea Dworkin wrote the introduction to this edition, and I have to agree with her statement that she wished Marilyn had been born more recently so she would have had the chance to become the serious actress she always wanted to be, and might have been able to get the help she so desperately needed to cope in this world. I can’t wait to read the other biography I have of her, to get a fuller scope of her entire life.

Last year I made a point of noticing the connections between the books I read, this year I’ve noticed that there’s been something in each book that I can learn. From As We Remember Her it was to be genuinely present in each interaction I have. The Everlasting made me remember that it’s more important to deal with what’s going on than look at the past. My Story was all about determination for me, and having hope despite circumstance. Who knows if the rest of the books I read this year will have such lessons, maybe this is just the connecting thread between these books. We shall see.

Current Total: 3
Just Finished: My Story by Marilyn Monroe
Currently Reading: Large Account Management by Heiman, Miller and Tuleja

I finished The Everlasting days and days ago. I haven’t written about it yet because I’m in the dual strange position of knowing the author and the book not being out yet. Now, I loved the book, so it’s not that I wasn’t writing for fear that he would read what I wrote- but I already wrote him a long e-mail detailing my thoughts about the book, so writing about it here feels repetitive, although it isn’t for you fine folks. So, for your benefit, some thoughts. When this book comes out, buy it. The characters are so honest, so genuine, and so realistically flawed that you will feel like you know them. In turns you’ll want to hug, shake, and at a number of points, strangle them, and you won’t want to leave them at the end. There are tons of other things I could say about it, about the irony of a guy only being able to be truly present in his relationship with his cat, or the accidents that happen when you try to reach forward toward new love while simultaniously looking over your shoulder at the past, but I’ll stick to my original statement: Buy it I say!

I tried to read Gilligan’s Wake Tom Carson, but my guess is that it’s probably based on Finnigan’s Wake, and that if I read that first I might understand it better. I liked what I read so far, but just had the overwhelming feeling that there were levels and levels that I was completely missing. So, once I remember to get Finnigan’s Wake and read it, I’ll try this one again.

One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to use the library more and my bank account less, so I hit the library yesterday and realized that apparently I’m in a non-fiction mood. I picked up four biographies- two of Marilyn Monroe (one is actually an autobiography), one of JFK, and one of Marion Davies. I’m not actually reading of them at the moment, instead I’m reading Successful Large Account Management, a book my dad suggested. It’s a very smart look at how to approach customers, with the philosophy that to build their business is to build your own. It’s really very good, and I’m enjoying it in a completely different way than my recent reads.

Current Total: 2
Just Finished: The Everlasting by Jamie S. Rich
Currently reading: Successful Large Account Management by Robert Miller, Stephen Heiman with Tad Tuleja