THE KNOW-IT-ALL

The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, by A.J. Jacobs: A man who read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica and wrote a memoir about it. Reading the encyclopedia is totally something I’d resolve to do (but then fail), so I could sympathize with his quest. Now I don’t have to do it because this book summarized the experience and let me pick up all the good trivia. I liked that it was even organized in alphabetical order, but the encyclopedia material is interwoven with scenes from his life while he’s reading it, and various adventures and investigations into the nature of intelligence. Very addictive and neatly done.

DEVIL IN THE DETAILS

Devil in the Details: Scenes From an Obsessive Girlhood, by Jennifer Traig: A hilarious and fascinating OCD memoir. Traig kind of reminds me of a female, Jewish, more mentally ill David Sedaris. Of the various mental illnesses, I’ve always felt closest to OCD—I know I don’t actually have it, of course, but I understand the sensation. I am, of course, semi-obsessive about lists and organization and planning, and I often have worrywart compulsions, like checking my purse every five minutes to make sure my wallet’s still there (even if the purse has just been sitting quietly on my lap, zipped, with no way for the wallet to fall out), or running back into the house before I leave to make sure the oven’s not on (even if I haven’t used the oven that day). I also used to do this complex OCD-like counting ritual when I was younger, which involved counting things (tiles, stripes in the wallpaper, etc.) to the rhythm of whatever song happened to be in my head, and repeating it over and over until the end of the rhythm matched the end of the row of tiles or stripes or what have you. These aren’t full-blown compulsions, because I can resist doing them if I really want to, but this is why the book interested me so deeply. Standing just at the edge of that behavior, I’m curious what it would be like if I fell over the precipice. Reading the book did make me feel a little crazy, especially because I was reading it while getting ready for my trip, which by necessity involves a certain level of obsessive organization—gifts packed? Windows locked? Spare key out for petsitter? Add to this a certain amount of guilt about leaving the pets alone with only half-hour visits by a relative stranger, and suddenly I found myself unplugging the paper shredder on the wastebasket in case one of the cats accidentally fell into it and began shredding himself. My anxieties were running amuck, but at least, thanks to Traig, I could laugh about it. I really recommend this book.

CREATED IN DARKNESS BY TROUBLED AMERICANS

I am reading Creating in Darkness By Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney’s Humor Category, which is a mixed bag with its share of clunkers, but contains a few gems. I particularly like the list called “As a Porn Movie Titler, I May Lack Promise,” which includes:

When Harry Met Sally, They Had Sex With One Another
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines Are Humping
All Quiet on the Western Front Except for All the People Having Sex on the Western Front

WORD SPY

I’m reading a fun book called Word Spy: The Word Lover’s Guide to Modern Culture, by Paul McFedries (there is also a website here), and one of the new terms I learned is highly applicable to me:

A kind of temporal New Math comes into play: “If I sleep six hours a night during the week instead of eight, that’s an extra ten hours a week! Nothing will stop me then, bwah ha ha ha!” We become a new kind of creature: sleep camel n. (1999) A person who gets little sleep during the week and then attempts to make up for it by sleeping in and napping on the weekend. Silicon Valley refers to the pressured people who store up enough sleep on weekends to manage a 60-hour-plus week as sleep camels. The term brings to mind beasts of burden, expendables expected to die beneath you in pursuit of some higher purpose. (Business Day, July 11, 2000)

Other words I like include “speako” (an error in speaking), “time porn” (“television shows and other media that portray characters as having excessive amounts of spare time”), and “dining al desko” (eating at one’s desk).

HOME COOKING AND MORE HOME COOKING

Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen and More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen, by Laurie Colwin: LOVE. She’s like the Natalie Goldberg of cooking—simple, practical, confident, eminently reassuring. She celebrates plain old food like Goldberg encourages plain old words, eschewing formality and promoting the idea that cooking is something anyone can do if they try. Also like Writing Down the Bones et al., her books are short and episodic, a mix of memoir, meditation, and instruction (she includes recipes). I devoured each one in about a day, came away feeling warm and fuzzy and hungry, and immediately ordered myself some used copies through Amazon.com. Here is my favorite Colwin quote:

It always seems to me that cooking is like love. You don’t have to be particularly beautiful or very glamorous, or even very exciting to fall in love. You just have to be interested in it. It’s the same thing with food. You do not have to be a genius. You don’t have to come from a long culinary tradition....You just have to figure out what it is you like.

Take my word for it: if she can inspire me to bake, she actually may have magical powers. If you like food at all (liking cooking is not required), read these books, preferably over a piping-hot meal.

OUR MOTHERS’ WAR

I’m reading a fun, fascinating history book called Our Mothers’ War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II, by Emily Yellin. You hear a lot about WASPs and WACs and Rosie the Riveter, but this book covers every possible facet of women’s wartime experience, from housewives to movie stars to prostitutes as well as the usual female factory workers and military units. It’s chock-full of personal testimonials, very well organized and informative, and far and away more lively than the book I read about women of the OSS a few years ago. I really recommend it. Also, it supplied me with an unexpected giggle this morning while I was brushing my teeth, as I read this passage about banter between Dorothy Lamour and Bob Hope:

The joke played off a line in Johnny Mercer’s popular 1944 wartime song “Accentuate the Positive,” which spoke of eliminating the negative and latching on to the affirmative, but not messing with “Mr. In-Between.” So Lamour made her own light quip about something mundane and then in front of all the soldiers she said innocently, “Don’t take me seriously, Bob, I was just pulling your leg.” Hope reportedly replied with a glint in his eye, “Listen, Dottie, you can pull my right leg and you can pull my left leg, but don’t mess with Mr. In-Between.”

THE GRIM GROTTO

When I stopped at the library on Tuesday night to pick up some books I had on hold, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had beaten out all the little children of Pasadena for a copy of the new installment in Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events. There’s not much else to say except that as usual, I devoured it in a day, chuckling. I mostly just wanted to share this quote with you:

Having a personal philosophy is like having a pet marmoset, because it may be very attractive when you acquire it, but there may be situations when it will not come in handy at all.

POPLORICA

Poplorica: A Popular History of the Fads, Mavericks, Inventions, and Lore That Shaped Modern America, by Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger: An assortment of short essays about important historical moments that influenced modern culture, including the invention of the air conditioner, the introduction of permanent-press clothing, the creation of the disposable diaper, and the first product placement. It was full of the same nuggets of trivia and broad analysis of social-history trends I used to love about the books I edited at my former job—that sense that even the smallest things can have far-reaching effects and that everything is connects. It was still a relatively light read, though. I did notice some small errors that started to irritate me by the end of the book: for instance, in a single chapter, E.T. was described as “a green alien” (he's brown...right?) and Reese’s Pieces as “chocolate and peanut-butter candies” (GAH THERE IS NO CHOCOLATE!).

MR WILSON’S CABINET OF WONDER

Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology, by Lawrence Weschler: I finished this great little book while brushing my teeth this morning. (Do you do that? I always read while tooth-brushing.) It’s about the Museum of Jurassic Technology in L.A., one of the most memorable and perplexing places I’ve ever been, and where I will most certainly drag any out-of-town visitors at the slightest provocation. I really liked the author’s thesis that the MJT is simultaneously a premodern and postmodern museum—it emulates the unscientific collections of oddities popular in the Renaissance, while at the same time playing with subjectivity and perception, commenting on itself, and parodying (though sincerely) the whole concept of museums. Plus, there really are mice on toast.

NEVER MIND THE POLLACKS

I’m reading Neal Pollack’s Never Mind the Pollacks: A Rock and Roll Novel right now, and it’s pretty darn funny. I was afraid I wouldn’t really get the music in-jokes, and suspected it wouldn’t be as good as The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature (it isn’t), and it gets a bit repetitive, but it still makes me giggle. It follows a fictional rock critic, “Neal Pollack,” through his life and career from the 1950s to the 1990s, during which he is of course conveniently in the right place at the right time to participate in all the great moments in rock history (Elvis plays at his bar mitzvah, he has a brief career as “Smokey, the elusive fifth Ramone,” etc.). I particularly love that he has a brief affair with Wanda Jackson:

“I love you, Wanda,” he said one night as they lay beneath the stars because they couldn’t afford a hotel.

“I know you do, baby,” she said. “Could you pass me the bourbon?”