The Book Review Five Months in the Making

I have been waiting to write this book review for a very long time. Since January, in fact. These are the books I read over my Christmas break, but couldn't find time to review because this semester was chock-full-o'-nuts (if you will). There are actually a couple of other books that I've read since then that I'd like to write up, but let's hop in our WABAC Machines, Mr. Peabody, and pretend I'm writing this review five months ago, before those books even "happened" (if you will).


The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
By A. J. Jacobs
Once, back when I had a job (dun dun DUN), I needed to know something about the Arctic. Maybe what time zone it was in, or if it had penguins, or something I now can't imagine applying to legal staffing in any way whatsoever. But Paul was standing nearby and I asked him and he said, "hold on, I have someone we can call, he read the entire encyclopedia." So from my desk phone, we called A. J. Jacobs and asked him if people in the Arctic get cell phone service, or whether or not they have an airport, or something. And I'm pretty sure he knew the answer, but I think he also said something like, "did you try looking on Google?" Which wouldn't have been nearly as awesome for me.

I wanted to read the The Know-It-All before I knew that my boss was in the book and I got to talk to A.J. Jacobs on the phone. I like non-fiction books that are the equivalent of a bildungsroman, that is to say, the author goes on a journey, and there are two narrative arcs: the one where you learn about their journey, and the one where you learn about the thing they're learning about. That is precisely how this book operates. It both about the ridiculous quest of reading the entire encyclopedia (why would anyone do that) and trying to make it worthwhile by attempting to get on Jeopardy (a man after my own heart!), and about all of the strange and wondrous things one finds within the encyclopedia itself. Plus, Jacobs is funny. You have to have a sense of humor to walk around with a ten pound book in public.

I would recommend this book to: Kristin, and my other friends who love Jeopardy, but also think Alex Tribek is hilarious, especially when people answer incorrectly and he laughs at them.

The Prestige
By Christopher Priest

I just re-watched this movie yesterday and was reminded how amazing it is, which only reinforced how stellar this book is. The book gets filed away under science fiction, which I love and therefore do not want to belittle, but it's so much more than that. This is a novel about rivalry, obsession, dedication, sacrifice, secrets, and... stage magic. That makes it sound a little like a romance novel, but it's not. It's seething hatred and red velvet curtains and deep shadows and crackling static electricity through and through. If you've seen the movie and think that you know the prestige, that is, that you know the twist, and won't be entertained by the book, you're wrong. The movie shaves off 75% of what's important and terrifying about the obsessions and rivalries between the two men in the book--and how it affects their families--and the lengths to which they're willing to go. Perhaps I like the book so much because the accoutrement of stage magic--the top hats and doves and playing cards and beautiful assistants and the intrigue of wonder, of the suspension of disbelief--stir something almost primal in my chest.

I would recommend this book to: Jessica B. R., or someone looking for a book they can't put down.

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
By Chuck Klosterman

If Kacie was a dude, and had been born ten years earlier, and wrote books, this is probably the book that she would write. And I would read it every time. I knew I was hooked from this point:

"I once loved a girl who almost loved me, but not as much as she loved John Cusack. [...] It appears that countless women born between the years of 1965 and 1978 are in love with John Cusack. I cannot fathom how he isn't the number-one box-office star in America because every straight girl I know would sell her soul to share a milk shake with that mother____. For upwardy-mobile women in their twenties and thirties, John Cusack is the neo-Elvis. But here's what non of these upwardly mobile women seem to realize. They don't love John Cusack. They love Lloyd Dobler." (2)

Here's the thing. I love Lloyd Dobler. Well, maybe not Lloyd Dobler, but certainly Rob Gordon, who, messed up as he may be, is the John Cusack character someone born in 1983 may be most capable of loving. (ok, I kind of love Lloyd Dobler too. Power Lloyd.) Chuck Klosterman sees pop culture, really sees it, and astutely writes about it amazing and funny ways. This book is a loving mix tape dedicated highest forms of low art. The chapters on Saved by the Bell and the Lakers/Celtics Rivalry changed my life.

I would recommend this book to: Kacie (duh), Jared, Marcus, and Kristin, but not Tim, because Tim doesn't believe in pop culture OR the 80's.

Wuthering Heights
By Emily Brontë

Ok, Emily, what were they putting in your oatmeal that made you so cynical? I hate reviewing classics on this blog, because they are, well... classic. Sometimes they're the most fun to read though because you've heard of them a million times but do you really know what they're about? For instance, I had no idea that everyone in this book was an asshole. I mean that as an absolute compliment. For a novel written in 1847, a novel about love, to have not one character be a blithering wimp is just a real feat. Okay, maybe one blithering wimp, but that's still a record. If this book had a motto, it would be, Come for the classic, stay for the crazy. It's the story of Heathcliff, a foundling taken in by the Earnshaw family, and Catherine Earnshaw, a wild and spoiled child who grows into a tempestuous woman... who marries someone else. It's sort of marvelous how royally things go astray for everyone involved, and how Brontë tells the story though Nelly Dean, one of the household servants.

I would recommend this book to: anyone who thinks old books are boring or overly sentimental. There are ghosts in it for God's sake and Heathcliff is just nuts.