Me Talk Pretty One Day

I first read this book when I lived in NYC and I remember laughing out loud during my commute on the train.  Well, I still laughed out loud here and there so I guess this book has still got "it".  I also think the stories about France were more significant and hilarious to me this time around since I have actually traveled to France in the interim and can relate.  The book is a collection of very short stories/essays from the author's life that cover just about every topic from being forced into speech therapy for a stubborn lisp to the experience of talking like a toddler when speaking a foreign language in a new country (hence the title).  There is a funny, often sarcastic, spin put on all the stories. If you don't like sarcasm, you may not like the stories.  However, I enjoy a good dose of sarcasm and wit so I had a good time with this book.

Life is a Trip: The Transformative Magic of Travel

Having read "Happier Than a Billionaire" right before this book, I was expecting another great book about travel, adventure, and zen-like realizations about the world around us.  This book, while similar in some aspects, was not as enjoyable for me as Billionaire.  It is a compilation of personal travel stories from the author's history.  Within each story there seems to be some moral guideline or lesson.  I gave it 3/5 stars on Goodreads.com because I did enjoy it, but the zen-like realizations felt too forced.  It was as though the author was saying quite loudly "SEE THIS IS THE MORAL OF THE STORY!!!" Instead of letting the chapter/essay naturally come to a peaceful conclusion, she spells her point out just in case you missed it.  However, I always feel that if you've made your point with good writing, you don't have to spell it out in the end.  This is a very quick read and can be completed in a day or two, so I do think it's decent reading for a lengthy train ride or a day on the beach.

Happier Than A Billionaire

This book speaks to the adventurous traveler in me.  This is the true story about a woman and her husband (both chiropractors) who decide to give it all up in the United States and move to Costa Rica.  What follows are the, often hilarious, adventures as expats.  I really enjoyed, not only the story, but the subtle lessons within the story.  As I am currently very interested in a simplified life, this book seemed right on time for me.  I thoroughly enjoyed it!  If I could pack my bags and make a go of it tomorrow, I probably would.  You don't really need a lot in this life to be happy, and this book helps us see why that's so true.

A Spy in the House of Love

This is a book I read years ago and decided to revisit this year.  It was on my bookshelf and I could not remember what it was about or whether or not I enjoyed it when I read it.  That should have been my clue to skip it because if there was anything memorable about the book I would have....um....remembered! The book is essentially about a young woman who is unhappy in her marriage and seeks happiness and fulfillment outside of the marriage.  With that being said, the book was written in the late 1950s so this was a very big deal and scandalous back then. As I read the book I found the overlying themes to be ennui, existentialism, repressed desire, and conformity.  The woman is basically bored because she never got to learn about who she was an individual and as a romantic woman.  She was married at age 18 or 19 and did not have an identity of her own.  She continuously searches for the one man who will make her feel whole, all the while fretting about how to keep these secrets from her husband.  I can see how it would be a scandal at the time the book came out, but as I was reading it in 2012 I was just feeling like "eh".  Probably because most women can do what they want to do now. So being married off at 19 doesn't really happen as the norm. Also, this is one of those books where the author employs a lot of introspection and lengthy descriptions of emotions.  So if you decide to pick it up, be prepared to read a description of fear, desire, anxiety, or any other emotion for at least a few paragraphs.

Book Challenge 2012

It's that time of year again when I sit down and think "What do I want to read this year?". When I first started my personal book challenge it was 2010 and half the year was already gone.  So I randomly said 25 books because there were about 25 weeks left in that year.  Then in 2011, I said 52 books because I really did want to try and read one book per week.  I had no rhyme or reason to what I picked up.  If it looked interesting, I started reading it.  I was in graduate school at the time, so I will readily admit that sometimes if it looked like "light/easy reading" I scooped it up too.  Not much thought went into the selections.


This year, I am finished with school and basically will be back to a relatively normal working schedule so I should have more time most evenings to read a little bit.  I wanted to actually take some time this year and pre-select the books so I could read with intention.  Well before I get too Zen on you, here is the breakdown of my 2012 reading challenge.  


6 categories: 5 books from each category....so 30 books total


Here is the list for each category:


BIOGRAPHY / MEMOIR
1. Malcolm X: A Life of Re-invention by Manning Marable
2. Open Wide the Freedom Gates by Dorothy Height
3. Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff
4. Catherine de Medici by Leonie Frieda
5. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson


CLASSICS
1. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
3. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
4. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
5. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens


RECOMMENDED (by friends or websites)
1. 18 acres by Nicole Wallace
2. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
3. Game of Thrones by George Martin
4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
5. Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran


NON-FICTION
1. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
2. The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee
3. The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth by Alexandra Robbins
4. Happier Than a Billionaire by Nadine Hays Pisani
5. Life is a Trip: The Transformative Magic of Travel by Judith Fein


RE-VISITS (I want to see if I have more insight this time around)
1. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
2. A Spy in the House of Love by Anais Nin
3. Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
4. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee


ON THE SHELF (a.k.a. books that have been staring at me from my book shelf for years)
1. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
2. The Known World by Edward P. Jones
3. When You are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
4. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
5. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry


I have no idea if I will make it through all these books, but the whole point is to have fun and learn something new.  I know I will do that!  Happy Reading!