Books Galore

My name is Alice and I’m a book buying addict.

I’m not mocking people in 12-step programs when I say this. It’s true. I have shelves and shelves of books that I bought because they looked interesting. Some of these poor things have remained unread for years. While I was dusting shelves on Thursday, I decided that I’m going to do something about my stash.

Winter is coming and I’m trying not to spend money, so I figure I’ll have plenty of time to read. Here’s the plan. I’m going to read my way through the to-be-read mountain and report on the books here. Also, because life is short, I’m going to do a page 50 evaluation. If the book is not working for me at page 50, I can move on to the next.

I won’t try to pretend that I’m not going to buy any new books but I intend to make it through five books before I get a new one.

And I thought give up coffee was hard.

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I always read bits of books while I dust the bookshelves. Today I came across this passage from Cathy Lamb’s The Last Time I was Me.

“Here’s a tidbit of info I have learned during my nervous breakdown: If you have worked your buttocks off for years and you suddenly find yourself in the position of being able to work for yourself or at home, or maybe not even working at all (by choice), it is almost unbearably impossible to put yourself back in the position of working those hideous hours again with strange, mind-boggling people you would not normally want to hang out with unless forced to by a gun. You feel like the life is going to be sucked out of you an inch at a time. Through your nose. And the sad reality is: You are right.”

That one’s for all you working stiffs. The sad reality is: She is right.

In the News

I find the controversy about former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's book very interesting. None of the backlash I've seen has been about the veracity of what he's said in the book but, rather, if it's appropriate for him to have said it. (Press secretaries apparently have some unwritten priest and the confessional type of code of honor.)

Whether he's in the right or not, it seems to me that he's being a bit disingenuous. He claims he did not see the "lack of candor and honesty" in the president and senior administration officials while he was acting as the spokesperson for the "political propaganda campaign" that led the nation into an "unnecessary war". Come on, how can that be? It's not like Bush critics weren't saying the same thing all along.

Maybe I'm being unfair to him. After all, he's a citizen of the same country where 11% of all eligible voters believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. This even though just a few short weeks ago you couldn't turn on the news without hearing about the uproar Obama's Christian pastor caused with racist remarks from the pulpit. Instead, people believe chain emails like the one I read which said that since the names Obama and Osama (bin Laden) have many of the same letters, the two men must have the same belief system. Since we live in a county filled with idiots, how can we expect any clearer thinking from Mr. McClellan?

I don't plan to buy Scott McClellan's book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. Why contribute to the madness?

Made it

I made it through the first week. It's been a lot of fun and I plan to keep on blogging. I'm really grateful for the support I've gotten from family and friends - knowing I had some readers (thanks, guys!) made the first week a nerve-wracking good time.

I've been on a health kick lately and that's made an impact on my book choices. I've listened to Rethinking Thin which basically said trying to lose large amounts of weight is hopeless but was still surprisingly motivating. It made me decide to join Weight Watchers to see if I could lose a few pounds knowing that I'd have some accountability. (See, I can't do anything without making sure I've got some public humiliation in store if I don't come through.)

I just started listening to In Defense of Food on the drive home tonight. I think I'll like that too because I think it's going to be scathing toward food scientists and food manufacturers.

The best has been Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster. The book is a laugh riot. Even though it gets serious in a couple places, it was worth the price just for the description of the Weight Watchers meeting Jen attended. It sounded like the Weight Watchers meetings I've attended - sad really. There's the added bonus of reading about her time on the Atkins diet, her visit to the Jenny Craig office with the huge poster of Kirstie Alley whose eyes follow Jen wherever she goes, and her interactions with her personal trainer, Barbie, who looks like, well, a Barbie. I tried to read a couple of times while I was eating. I laughed so hard, I couldn't swallow so I guess it's an effective weight loss tool too.

I've made it a few days without coffee now. If I had a functioning brain cell, I'm sure I could tell you exactly how many days it's been. This morning I thought it was going pretty well. This afternoon I hit the wall. It could have been the conference call on transparency in communicating compensation programs, but I think it was the lack of coffee.