The Bookish Life of Nina Hill - A Bibliophile's Dream but Downhill for the Mainstream

Abbi Waxman's novel "The Bookish Life of Nina Hill" is meant to be endearing but waxes ones interest but for those who identify with literary loners with witty repartee.  In other words, this novel is one big cliche and serves as a diversion on a beach or in a cozy chair by a fire on an inclement day (which is probably the author's preference).  Nina grew up an only child of a globe-trotting, Pulitzer Prize winning photographer.  She leaves Nina in the loving care of a dotting Nanny.  Her childhood & young adulthood are blessedly filled with books, a "talking" cat Phil and a plethora of books that would make Belle envious.  Nina is not what you'd call a name dropper unless you consider dropping authors' names & book titles.  She works in a neighborhood bookstore with alongside an eccentric manager and close friend.  Nina can count on her hand the number of friends she has which is fine and on one finger the number of family members.  Until, she unexpectedly gets contacted by an atty. who informs her that her unbeknownst father (mom never said) left her an inheritance and an instant family of siblings, nieces & nephews.  Nina is new to the family gig and is not doing a dance about her new found family & serendipitous inheritance.  Nonetheless, she agrees to meet a few family members she never knew existed before the reading of the will.  Nina discovers she might actually enjoy being part of a larger family.  Otherwise for fun Nina loves trivia contests, old space movies, being organized & precise on her planner and nothing better than to be left alone to read.  Being left alone is not in the cards for Nina who meets Tom a sexy trivia opponent.  Nina as with many people deals with anxiety (mainly by being alone).  Like a lot of other bookish novels found inside to be  insipid there's still charm & distractions to amuse many a member of the Jane Austen Society, or not.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone - Don't Waste Time with this Id Platitude Made for TV

Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist, writer and contributor to The Atlantic.  The genre of her latest book "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone" generates a pastiche of psycho babble, self-help & self-grandiose memoir.  The most honest classification would call it out as a TV script.  Gottlieb own's up towards the end of her voyeuristic psychotherapy sessions as both patient & psychotherapist, "turning these late night laptop sessions into a real book."  She also flatters herself without fooling anyone that perhaps "{she'll} decide to use my own experience to help others."  Gottlieb's gregarious back-story to her life story as a writer/psychotherapist is grandstanding into her elite erudite education & positions as script writer in LA.  You don't have to be Sherlock to stumble on "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone" is written under an altruistic guise to benefit her readers by learning from her work as a therapist and from her own therapy sessions.  Read between the lines - this is flippant entertainment that could garner a TV sitcom.   Eva Longoria picked up the rights from Gottlieb's book with the intent of turning into a TV series.  The most driving character is Gottlieb's client, John, the top writer for a popular TV show.  John begins his therapy as an abrasive asshole who calls everyone an idiot.  The books' characters' identities & issues are given a disclosure of obscurity but consider the ethicality of this voyeuristic exploitation into patients' sessions.  Gottlieb drags us into her role as patient working with Wendell (a nom de plum as in Oliver Wendell Holmes perhaps?).   Her reason for seeking advice seems trifling; a break-up with the Boyfriend.  Without intending, Gottlieb gob smacks the seriousness of seeking what for many would be beneficial if not essential means to improved mental health.   The phalanx of platitudes prescribed are unenlightening,"We can't have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change but nonetheless stay exactly the same."  Furthermore, Lori is a shameless self-promoter "I believe that of all my credentials, my most significant is I'm a card carrying member of the human race."  The most sagacious sane advice comes from Lori's hairdresser "just be - let it be."  Save yourself time and money.  Get your hair done & garner some smart lifestyle wisdom simultaneously. John, Lori's most colorful character writes a therapist into his sitcom and ends her therapy with Wendell dancing together to "Let it Be."  Puh-leeze.

Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet Kay Ryan's "The Best of It" US Poet Laureate '08-10

Kay Ryan (b Amer 1945) has received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and named US Poet Laureate ('08-10).  I first came upon one of her poems in the NY subway as part of the MTA's poetry in motion.  I'm a huge fan of the poems & artistic posters that pop up serendipitously like jewels uncovered in a scavenger hunt.  The treasure wrought by gifted poets, and Ms. Ryan is more than just gifted, she bestows luminosity and lyricism to a compilation of words that is miraculous.  Ryan presents us with breathtaking poems in "The Best of It" that are arresting & consuming.  Ryan's haunting legacy speaks to the potency & artistry that can be construed & relished from the deliberate alignment of words strung together.                        TUNE

Imagine a sea
of ultramarine
suspending a
million jellyfish
as soft as moons
Imagine the
interlocking uninsistent
tunes of drifting things.
This is the deep machine
that powers the lamps
of dreams and accounts
for their bluish tint,
How can something
so grand and serene
vanish again and again
without a hint?

Indeed...

Stay Up with Hugo Best - Late Night Talk Host's Last Night Lingers on with Young Staffer

The plot of Erin Somers debut novel focuses on a facetious, flirtatious & unflappable femme fatale who encounters her idol, legendary late night TV host is remarkably fierce, farcical storytelling.  Somers mystifies us by pulling us in to the heroine's melancholy, Memorial Day weekend spent with iconic comic/TV celebrity, Hugo Best.  Best's long running show has just been cancelled.  June finds herself out of a job along with the rest of the cast & crew.  After a pathetic & shallow send off party for Hugo he somehow materializes up at the dank comedy club June went to wallow on stage for her  quelled career path.  Hugo's send off party with his cronies & celebrity clingers is a harbinger for the Memorial Day party Hugo will be  hosting at his CT home.  Hugo & June strike up a spontaneous conversation and coaxes June to join him at his home for the long weekend; no strings attached.  Not surprisingly June accepts and while Hugo & his chauffeur wait outside her ramshackle apartment complex she haphazardly throws together her tote.  Hugo has had an illustrious climb from stand-up comic to decades long late night TV host.  Along the way, Hugo has acquired fame & fortune, several wives, a son & a notorious scandal.  June whose aspired for life in the Big Apple in comedy writing shows potential comedic talents.  She has a dry wit and a strong will that serves well in bizarre & trying situations.  June demonstrates her strong sense of self even when she's skeptical and uncomfortable regarding how her connection with Hugo will unfold.  There's plenty of pathos, satire and dark comedy in Somers' drawn out observations over 3 days.  The days feel interminable yet drench the reader under a siege of convincing characters and scathing satires.   "Stay up with Hugo Best" somewhat resembles Kaling's "Late Night" and Scorsesse's "The King of Comedy."  However, this clever & sophisticated debut novel by Erin Somers is just the opening act to a writer we'll be clamoring for in the years to come.

French Author Antoine Laurain's "Vintage 1954" A Weak Blend of Sci-Fi for the Francophile

"Vintage 1954" is a harmless, somewhat charming time travel fantasy that is a pastiche of Paris chic, time travel mystique that is easily forgettable.  A motley mix of Parisians abiding in the same apartment building along with Bob, from Milwaukee, WI come together under precarious circumstances and imbibe a bottle of "Vintage 1954."  They wake up the following morning to get their cafe au lait and croissant and voila, they've all traveled back to the year 1954.  There's not much  to add this syrupy mixture that aims to cultivate a refined taste for the colorful artists and picturesque quotidian of the epoch.  There is little flair in this facile novel.  The ideas are not nouveau nor intriguing.  This is a sweet blend of nostalgia, romance with non rien regrette.  The novel serves much as a sorbet between courses; a palette cleanser betwixt denser, literary fiction.  Lauren (b Paris 1970) is a best selling award-winning novelist whose most recent novel "Vintage 1954" does not entice me to read more of his works.  Laurain pours out a full-bodied rant about our high tech, disillusioned contemporary world. While back in time, the group concurs "The bucolic scene seemed far removed from the city and the world and they all felt as though they had found the essence of life: humans were not meant to sit in an office chair answering emails...{but} decided that technical advances would lead humanity to great heights."  "Vintage 1954" is to be sniffed, swirled and spit out.  Adieu.    

Elizabeth Gilbert's "City of Girls" Pray Don't Waste Time on this Vapid Vixen's Tale

It's great to have a kindle, especially one you share with a friend.  If you run out of reading material you can try a the book on put there by someone else.  This isn't fool proof.  The name Elizabeth Gilbert did ring a bell.  Gilbert is the best selling author of her memoir "Eat, Love, Pray" which I loathed.  It was made into an unwatchable movie despite the talents of Julia Roberts & Xavier Bardem.  Admittedly, I did finish the memoir.   And, though I checked out the film version, it wasn't  for long.  "City of Girls" is a dreadful, droll novel.  It's a stale saga of 19 year old Vivian, a Vassar drop-out who hits the bit time in the Big Apple.  Gilbert's structure is somewhat enticing.  An elderly woman looking back on her life when addressing her story to Angela, the daughter of a posthumous great love.  Vivian was born into aristocracy on the East coast in the late 1920s.  The epoch for the story is late 30s early 40s; prior to the outbreak of WWII.  Vivian showed no interest in her college curriculum.   Already a disappointment to her parents prior to her expulsion for never attending class, and having no skills other than sewing taught by her beloved grandmother, they ship her to NYC to live with her father's sister, Peg.  Peg is a sblacksheep in the family having led a bohemian thespian life abroad.  Peg is now manages a shabby NYC theater with a cast of characters including glitzy  showgirls.  Vivian falls for what appears a glamorous & exciting lifestyle.  Vivian is in awe of the incredibly gorgeous Celia, a conceited femme fatal out to for gusto & sexual escapades when she's able to pull herself away from the mirror.  Celia flatters "Viv" & turns her into her wingman for hitting the town.  Vivian recalls hearing Billy Holiday, seeing Joe Lewis fight without either making an impression & is oblivious to the approaching war.   I was over this dribble before war broke out on the home front.  War was a rude awakening for our insipid heroine whose only regret was not having sex with the men who went off to become soldiers.  The intrigue of learning when & how the man who will become Angela's father became torturous.  Poor Angela who had to wade through Viv's boring & self-indulgent backstory. "City of Girls" isn't worth a dime.

Mitchell Jackson's The Residue Years - Stains the Soul A MUST READ

Mitchell S Jackson's unforgettable auto-biographical literary work of fiction has a prowess that leaves a human stain upon the heart.  Jackson writes in the first person as Champ, a.k.a. Shawn Thomas speaking directly to the reader's The other storyteller, his beloved mother Grace, breaks your heart. The prologue lays the groundwork for the wretchedness that overshadow their lives.  Grace is visiting Shawn through the glass divide in prison.  He admits his shameful solace is witnessing others worse off. "I have no more than the Wed transport to get me through, the tiny comfort of seeing dudes more inconsolable than me." He tells his mom "This is all we have and this must make do...So we reach out, the two of us, you and your eldest young bastard, and hold one another for a time that flouts the limit of allotted contact."  We sympathize with Grace, but can we really empathize with what it is to be an addict?  Grace tells us "How could you ever really know what us addicts, us experts, are up against in this life." We deeply care for both Shawn & his mother fighting her drug addiction as well as her ex to retain custody of her two younger sons.  Grace darts between religious fervor and the omnipotent drive to get high.  Both Champ & Grace are wise, vulnerable and their own worst enemies.  Champ loathes the church.  "Why is a nigger thanking God?"  Grace understands you become the wrong choices you've made but is ensnared in bad choices.  Still, she counsels Champ to marry the mother of his child "Living against the risk of love is no way to live."  Jackson grew up in OR & spent time in prison where his penchant for writing developed.  Champ's a brilliant writer  & encouraged by his prof. to continue in academia.  Champ's erudite vocabulary is chided by his peers "There you go with those SAT words.  Man, don't you know the shop got rules against this smart boy vocab?  Champ takes on a crusade to save his mom, brothers, girlfriend & their baby.  Selling drugs is the only way to get rich if you don't get caught. Champ is aware blacks now land drug-related prison terms 18 times the rate of whites.  Grace struggles but can't shake the monkey of drugs off her back though she strives "Just for today, my recovery will be my world.  This feels like day one.  It feels like the end....it hurts to be alive.  Mitchell's writing is painfully flawless.  He pays homage to Hansberry's play "A Raisin in the Sun" and the poem "Harlem." Champ clamors "For my family, for all of us, I can't let this dream defer.  My dreams are bigger than this place, and you or nor no one else is going to kill them." Jackson's title is found in his astonishingly moving work "Most of us, if we're lucky, we see a few seconds of the high life. And the rest are the residue years."  A MUST READ