Bill Bryson- A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

As you will know if you have read my post on Troublesome Words, I adore Bill Bryson. He is probably the funniest writer that I have ever read, and I tend to get stared at when I read his books, because I look a little nutty laughing hysterically to myself. One of my fondest memories is sitting in the landing sitting-room at the Blomidon Inn in Wolfville, NS, drinking champagne and reading Bryson. Come to think of it, I think I was actually reading this book. Being a bit of a book addict, I try not to buy too many books (I'm up to six or seven bookshelves full), but I own every book that Bryson has written because I know that I'll read them over and over.

A Walk in the Woods is Bryson's account of his somewhat misguided decision to walk the whole of the Appalachian Trail, from Maine to Georgia, in order to reacquaint himself with America after twenty or so years living in England. Although there is no definitive answer to how long the AT really is, it is certainly over 2,000 miles, and must of that is through mountains and tough terrain. If you've ever seen a photo of Bryson (here's one if you haven't), you'll know that he's not exactly the most fit and athletic person around. He's kind of portly, in a jolly way, and not the kind of granola-munching MECer that you'd think would tackle a thru-hike on the AT. However, off he went with a college friend Katz, and the results are hilarious.

Bryson is, as well as being interested in travel and language, very into science (another one of my favourite books is his A Short History of Nearly Everything, which I'm going to have to reread and review soon, I am so evangelical about it) and so not only is A Walk in the Woods about hiking, it is also about the landscape and natural environment of the places that he hiked through. I love Bryson's meshing of information and fun, and of course, his knack for gut-busting turns of phrase. Needless to say, as you might guess from the photo and my description of him, Bryson and Katz didn't actually walk the entire AT, but they gave it the college try, and their efforts are some of the best reading that I can recommend. And if you're up for something longer, pick up A Short History. His depictions of the great men of science are wonderfully irreverent, and never will you find natural history so enthralling and funny.

Donna Hay- New Food Fast

Donna Hay is beyond fantastic, in so many ways. My mother tells this story of seeing her on CityLine (if you've ever lived in Toronto and watched TV in the morning or have a mother who did, you've seen this show), and she's on there, cooking and chatting up a storm, with a big rip in her sweater. Totally doesn't care. She's just a mom who wants to cook good food for her family that looks and tastes great, and that's exactly what her books and magazine are about.

This book, New Food Fast, is a godsend even for me, who only has one (albeit always very hungry) fiance to feed, and not two or three kids. Our deal is that I cook most nights and he does the dishes, and so although I sometimes find having to come up with the ideas for meals every night (this I mind more than the actual cooking of them), I don't have to do dishes, which I'm grateful for. But when I come home from work or school at 6:30, and Jonathan is already hungry, I need to find something that I make that is quick, tasty, and uses ingredients that I've already got. And in comes Donna Hay. The book is divided into chapters on meals that take about 10 minutes, about 20 minutes, and about 30 minutes. 10 minutes! How can you go wrong? And her ideas are delicious. How about Pasta with Smoked Salmon and Dill Sauce, Pasta with Scallops and Lemon Butter (drool), or Miso Soup with Chicken and Noodles? All in 10 minutes. None of her recipes has a ton of ingredients, they're all easy to make, and Hay is obviously as interested in variety and nutrition as she is in speed of preparation.

The other best thing about this book is the photography. Donna Hay has used the same food photographer for all of her books: Petrina Tinslay. Her photos are so gorgeous- fresh, colourful, simple, and absolutely delicious looking. I could just look at the photos and ignore the recipes and still think this book was a treat. I definitely need to work on building my collection of Donna Hay books, because one is definitely not enough.

Ellen Degeneres- The Funny Thing Is...

I felt like a laugh when I was at the library last, so I picked this one up. It's a hard book to describe, as funny as it is; I would probably call it a stand-up comedy routine on paper. Question, just as an aside--why is it called stand-up comedy? Was there ever such a thing as sit-down comedy?

Back to the book, Ellen is a funny person, and her writing captures her personality pretty well. The book is funny at times and just silly at others, but it was an enjoyable read, as I enjoy Ellen on TV and as a comic. Just a hint though- the whole thing functions much better when you read it in your head in Ellen's voice, rather than your own. For a few quick laughs instead of watching TV, this book is a good way to go.

Charlotte Gray- Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell

Right off the bat, I need to say that this is a book that I have been wanting to read for ages, I've been so looking forward to it, and when I did finally get it from the library, I read it in four hours. And it's really long! Yes, I read quickly, but this was one of those books that I couldn't put down.

Charlotte Gray decided that the existing body of Alexander Graham Bell biographies was lacking (there are already quite a few), and so she decided to write one that took into account the special relationship that he had with his wife, Mabel. Gray is a thorough researcher and a great writer, and her biography is a treat. She spent extensive time at the family archives in Baddeck, NS (about five hours from here), where the Bells spent every summer for many years at their summer mansion, and she created a fascinating and incredibly appealing portrait of Bell and his family.

Alexander Graham Bell was a bit of a strange man; he was excitable, eccentric, a little obsessive-compulsive, full of big ideas, but unable to transition them to the world of patents and commercial usefulness. His wife, on the other hand, was steady, sturdy, organized, and very much in love with her husband. She was also deaf, and met Bell when he was a teacher for the hearing impaired (a passion that he had for his whole life, which I didn't know. But that's the point of reading biographies!) She kept him from becoming a crazy hermit and helped him to be the successful man the he was, and he helped her to live completely in the hearing world and not be marginalized as a lot of deaf people were at the time; in fact, she never learned any form of sign language, but functioned solely by lip reading.

The mixture in Gray's biography of Alexander Graham Bell as a family man and a husband and also as a scientist is fascinating. You feel like you learn a lot about both Bell as a scientist and as a person, which I think is the perfect balance. I really enjoyed this book, and I loved that it was written by a Canadian and was largely about places that I've been and live near (Bell spent part of his early 20s in Brantford, ON, and considered Baddeck his true home.) More than that, I love that this book is enjoyable as it is informative. I'm going to have to find some more of Gray's biographies soon.

Joan Didion- The Year of Magical Thinking

The title of Didion's book, an essay-length reflection on the year after her husband dies and her daughter becomes extremely ill, is highly ironic. Upon picking up the book, you might think that this is another book on the wonder of living your life like every day is your last, or a book on a widow finding new love and meaning in her life through the power of positive thinking. It's not. And that's why it's worth reading.

Didion's book could more aptly be titled The Year of Delusional Thinking. Didion's husband of forty years, the writer John Gregory Dunne, dies in front of her one night just after Christmas 2003 of a massive heart attack. Nevertheless, time after time in the year following his death, Didion finds herself thinking in ways that makes it clear that not only does she think that he might just come back, she thinks she can in some way execute his return. She refuses to give away his shoes because she thinks to herself that he won't have any to wear when he comes home. She searches through the autopsy report for the reason that he died, irrationally thinking that if it was something small, maybe it could be fixed.

Didion's ability to mourn her husband is hindered by the fact that her daughter, Quintana Roo, falls seriously ill before her father's death, is in a coma when he dies, and has to undergo major brain surgery and rehabilitation after his death. When Didion ends the book, a little over a year after her husband's death, she has just begun to be able to focus on grieving for her lifelong companion—hence the reason that for a full year after his death, Didion's thinking is, as she and Quintana call it, "mudgy." However, we read in Didion's bio after the last page is turned that Quintana herself has died in the course of Didion's writing the book and so Didion now must doubly grieve.

Unlike many accounts and fictional representations of grief, Didion's narrative isn't teleological. Grief for her is not a process with a definitive end, something to progress towards. Rather, it seems more like wading in circles through mud. It's a scary picture, and one that makes me hope that I never have to go through what she did. However, it seems more realistic than many other representations of mourning that I've read. The one thing that I would criticize is that Didion's account of the loss of her husband doesn't give much insight into the man she lost; aside from a few not particularly sympathetic mentions of what he was like during his life, Didion doesn't allow her readers to understand her husband and it is therefore difficult to understand the strength of her grief. Still, her account is fascinating and written in her typical, interesting style, and I enjoyed it as much as I found what Didion was going through difficult to read.

My apologies

I must apologize for not having posted on here in awhile. This is the worst time of year for getting any proper reading done, and as I didn't think that you'd be particularly interested in hearing about a history of 16th century Puritan catechisms or an article about stereotypical women in Western film and literature, I decided not to post. However, I have just received three new cookbooks for my birthday, and as they are entirely legitimate subjects of blog posts, you'll see something about them in the next few days. Until then, sumimasen (Japanese for excuse me) while I finish this term, and look for new posts and a format change on Melissa's Miscellany.

Lynne Truss- Eats, Shoots & Leaves: A Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

I wholeheartedly admit that I care about punctuation. My kids in ENGL1020 did their class evaluations last week, and one of them complained that I care too much about "stuff like punctuation and rules", or something to that effect. And I do care. I proudly belong to the Facebook groups "I judge you when you use poor grammar" and "Good grammar is hot". The hubby proofreads my blogs every time I post so that I won't be caught making mistakes out there in the public realm. Yes, you might think I'm silly and sad, but that's just the way I am. And I'm glad to know that I'm not alone.

As a companion piece to Bill Bryson's Troublesome Words, I picked up Eats, Shoots & Leaves at the public library last week. It is to punctuation what Bryson's book is to grammar: a completely hilarious, laugh-out-loud guide to how to write like an intelligent human being. I loved it. Truss covers apostrophes, commas, exclamation points, question marks, brackets, braces, parentheses, periods, semi-colons, hyphens, dashes, ellipses, strokes, and italics, and all with a wicked British sense of humour and a realization that us punctuation nuts are just that--nuts.

When I become a prof and am forced to teach a first year writing requirement class, I will not be using Strunk & White. I will not be using The Lively Art of Writing (the grammar & style guide that my high school used. Lively, it was not). I will be teaching the writing portion of my class using Troublesome Words and Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Why subject students to boring rote grammar lessons when they can learn it, and probably learn it better, from books that have a sense of humour? Hi, my name is Melissa, and I think that grammar & punctuation are important. Hopefully reading these books will make you think so too. If not, think about why you maybe haven't had a date in awhile: good grammar is hot.