Blah, Blah, Blah, Book Blog

Should I be embarrassed to admit that this is one of my favorite days of the school year? Yes, I am a parent, but on Book Fair day I am the biggest kid in the family. We got some great books this year - brand new ones we've never heard of, and others we've been waiting to buy. Also bought some gifts, which is just as much fun. Can't wait to read the Chip Kidd book, so awesome, especially since it's all about my day job...

How often do you get a chance to make a difference just by reading? Of course, if you are reading to someone else, you are certainly making a difference, but there are other ways you can help that are just as rewarding. I discovered Publerati through NetGalley, and I have been a fan for a while now. They turned me on to the wonderful writing of Ellen Cooney, with their publication of Thanksgiving. So when I saw this email from them today, I just had to share. I have a couple of their other books in my to-read pile, so there’s plenty to choose from. Your purchase – and these are inexpensive ebooks – really does make a difference. There are some perfect holiday reads – Thanksgiving, Normal Family — that will help you keep everything in its proper perspective when the holidays start to get to you.

For every purchase you make, Publerati donates 15% of the publisher's share to the Worldreader Organization to help spread literacy. This is a great pitch, but honestly, these are terrific books. You will be happy to have read them, and the fact that they are paying it forward is really just a bonus.

This is one of my smaller, Newberry-inspired To-Read piles.

I love my kindle, but there are some things you just can't get from it. This, for example. My kindle to-read pile is all squished inside that tiny little case. Sure it's neater, but it's just not the same.

So, I probably shouldn’t have started this book when my husband was out of town. My comfy hundred and something-year-old house seems especially creaky and scary when I am alone in my room late at night reading a gruesome book about shape shifters, secret societies, and murder. Add to that the astonishing idea that the murderer can transform into the body of your loved one, and you pretty much have me pacing the floors and checking more than once or twice to make sure the kiddies are ok. But, in my defense, (again) I did not go back and remind myself what the book was about, so I honestly wasn’t prepared. I try to read the books I get from NetGalley in their publishing order, as close as I can to the date, so when I added this one to my “currently reading” tab in goodreads, I thought, ah, what a nice looking cover, must be about knitting.

So no, not really. This book is a perfect example of a writer who got rid of the boring exposition and jumped directly into the action. For the first couple of pages, I had to remind myself to breath. And, after I got over the initial shock about the “not a book about knitting” thing, I started to enjoy it. It was another one of those stories that switches back and forth chronology-wise, and I thought this worked very well in some places, but not so much in others. After a while we can tell what year it is based on the characters, but sometimes the switch can be jarring, especially the first time it happens — when we go straight from a life or death car ride to a sleepy college campus. I mean, I was kind of relieved, because I could breath again, but still.

For the most part, I loved the characters in this book, so if it is the first in a series, I would definitely want to read the next one. There were a few things I didn’t feel were as well developed as the rest of the story; including the Eleni, a secret society whose origins were a little vague to me. There were also, I thought, some inconsistencies toward the end that I found distracting, but I will not detail them here since for the most part this is very suspenseful. I was hoping for a less neatly tied up ending, and for some reason, after the wild ride I had been through, the last scenes seemed to drag.

While I understand that the author has imagined a unique people, society, etc., I am really picky about words that are invented (or in Hungarian and not translated) that I cannot pronounce in my head while I am reading. I find these umlaut-filled words distracting, especially if they have no accessible meaning to me. I feel like I am playing foreign language mad-libs, and I have to guess the meaning of the unpronounceable word based on its context. These italicized words mock me, seemingly saying, you will never find me in your cheesy kindle dictionary. Yes, I’m a baby, I know, but there are people who might stop reading when this happens, I persevere.

Despite this, it was a thrill to read, even if I spent a lot of time double-checking the locks on the doors and the windows, and wanting to wake up my children to teach them how to validate me… just read it, you’ll understand later.

I picked this book on NetGalley because the idea of a family that traveled from India to settle in New Mexico (and then Seattle) just seemed like it had to be interesting — all interesting places, not very often mentioned together. I was especially drawn to a work that was considered perfect for fans of Meg Wolitzer and Jhumpa Lahiri; pretty good company for a debut novel.

So. I actually finished this book over a week ago. Usually when I read a book I like, I can’t wait to tell my friends (and anyone who will listen) about it. But something happened when I read this book, and I needed to live with it for a little while after I finished. There is an almost overwhelming sense of foreboding and sadness accompanying this book. I spent a good part of it nervous, and another good part waiting for the other shoe to drop. So when I finished, I was reluctant to let these characters go, and a little greedy about sharing their story. And truthfully, no matter how cliché it sounds, this book will break your heart if you let it, and I did. Maybe it’s because it’s about our parents aging; it evoked the sadness I felt when I read Please Look After Mom. It may have been that there were characters I related to in a tangential sort of way, but their life experiences, for the most part, were very different from my own, both geographically and culturally.

This is a story that spans generations. It is written in sharp, sometimes elegiac, deeply moving prose. It is overflowing with strong, intelligent, beautifully imperfect people struggling to make peace with their past, and reconciling themselves to their uncertain futures. It is also a book about hope, and our enormous capacity for faith in new beginnings. Most importantly, it is about families — the ones we are born into and the ones we choose — and how we grow and change with them over lifetimes of joy and sadness. It is an emotional journey, but I promise you will not regret the ride.

Here is the problem with reading a book on my kindle. When I have a nice, old-fashioned book, I can put it on my shelf and think about it for a while before I read it. I can rearrange my to-read pile, and glance at a blurb or two without actually diving in, and I don’t feel like I’m cheating on the book I am reading at the time. By the time I pick the book up to read it, I am comfortably familiar with it. While I am reading, I can tuck in my place with the dust jacket, and see a short bio and photo of the author. Sometimes I do this more often — when I read The Glass Castle, I must have flipped to Jeannette Walls’ photo a hundred times, because I almost couldn’t believe she lived to tell the story.

On my kindle, if I get an author photo at all, it’s at the end, and sometimes my kindle gets confused if I go there first to check it out, so when I try to go back where I left off it offers to “sync to the latest page” and takes me right back to the end, again. For the most part, the actual “books” on my kindle are just two line listings on my home page. All this is really to say that by the time I picked up this book, (which has such a cool, morbid cover I kind of want to buy it just to have on my shelf), I had forgotten it was a memoir and not a novel. Phew, that was long-winded, sorry. But still something to think about, Amazon.

So. Andrew Meredith has recovered from an incredibly strange but sometimes wonderful (but ok, mostly strange) childhood. In the beginning, the unusual trauma he has been through was shocking to me, despite the fact that the story did not involve any kind of physical abuse or violence that would be appropriate for what I was feeling.

In the broadest sense, his story reminded me of a friend, many years ago, who went through a long, drawn-out divorce. The couple stayed together, fiercely unhappy; convinced this was good for their children. The effects of ten years of unhappiness and silence are still playing out in all their lives these many years later. In the same way, I think that Meredith has many more demons he needs to work through, but he has come through the ordeal almost psychically unscathed. Or at least it appeared that way to me. He admits that much of his perspective was gained in the way we all gain perspective, in hindsight.

The Seventies and Eighties in suburban Philadelphia are brought to life in the carefully crafted details here. Meredith sets the scene with skill, and all of the cultural references put the story firmly in that particular time and place. (Except for the group Pavement – I’m sorry, I never heard of them. But maybe this book will spark a reunion.)

Andrew Meredith has taken a long and difficult road to becoming an author. He followed a path that not many of us would choose, working jobs that would easily qualify for the Dirty Jobs show. But working these gruesome jobs has taught him acceptance, compassion and understanding — and working with the dead has literally brought him back to life. We are the beneficiaries of his eloquently documented rebirth.

Does anyone know how to make the headline smaller? My html is not very good..! Any help is appreciated.

I read Thanksgiving by Ellen Cooney, so I was happy to read a new book by her when I was given the chance. The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances is not a typical pick for me. Had I not heard of the author, I probably wouldn’t have chosen it. Now, after reading this and Nick Trout’s book Dog Gone, Back Soon, I am going to start looking like a real dog lover! Which is kind of funny, since I have never had a dog of my own. I have always been around them, and I know several people who rescue them, but this book was eye opening for me anyway.

Of course this is a novel, but there is so much that feels like the truth in this book. This is a book about rescue and recovery. For Evie and the dogs she is learning to train, this book is about second chances, earned and otherwise. I felt, at times, as if I was reading about the island of misfit toys come to life. There are so many characters in this story that Cooney takes the care to bring to life; I got the feeling that they were all important, since so many of them seemed to be created with love for their many imperfections.

I cannot even scratch the surface here on the wonders of this story. You can read the summary and it may intrigue you, but I swear it will not do this lovely gem of a book justice. I probably lack the eloquence to convince you, so I will rely on a blurb from Gail Godwin, another favorite author of mine:

“Is there such a thing as a Rescue Book? Well, there is now. This is a miracle of a book. It’s even a spiritual handbook. And it is for readers young and old and all of the in-between. Cooney is such a wise genius of a writer, and her sentences keep surprising you, but are never the point in themselves. I read with a kind of mental breathlessness.  If Cooney needs someone to convince her to write a sequel, I volunteer.”
—Gail Godwin

Really, do you need any more than that to want to pick up this book? Go buy it; you can thank me later.

I received this book from NetGalley, but I have to confess that I let my 10-year-old daughter read it first. We were on vacation, and she was between books, so I lent her my kindle. I did not get it back until she finished.

Now honestly, this is a perfect middle grade book. It is a book for the kid who is perhaps not yet ready for Harry Potter, or, if they’re like my daughter, the kid who has already read Harry Potter, but just can’t read enough stories with mythical creatures, quests and adventures. There are also some very creative riddles throughout the story. Gabriel, our reluctant hero, has formed a bond with a raven, and the magical bird is going to help him find his father, who has been missing for three years. He has the requisite sidekicks – two girls, and a misunderstood boy — who offer balanced commentary to his plans.

What I liked most about the book is that there is grave danger, but somehow you know it will all work out in the end. It can be fearsome at times, but it is never given over completely to evil. In fact, even the greedy deceitful characters are, at times, sympathetic. My minor quibble with the book is that sometimes the characters said things that just did not seem likely to have come out of their mouths. I would say that it is simply the fact that an adult is writing from a child’s point of view, but I am not sure that’s the case. A perfect example is when Gabriel’s friend says to him that she is jealous of his friendship with the raven. Now admittedly, it might be a better world if we all just put our feelings on the table like that, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never met a kid who came out and admitted something this embarrassing so easily. She might ignore him, give him the silent treatment, or scream at him for nothing at all (oh wait, maybe I’m talking about women, oops), but rarely would she admit what’s really bothering her. Could be just me, but it felt odd, and it is one of her repeated refrains.

At the beginning of the story, Gabriel’s aunt and caretaker does a favor to an old school friend and lets her and her daughter live with them after they lose their home. This good deed, of course does not go unpunished, and they are all forced to live under the woman’s dictator-like rule, and eat her inedible meals. Why? It seemed bizarre that anyone would let a stranger take over their lives so completely, especially when that person is indebted to them. I understand that the author wanted a kind of Cinderella-like structure; but here it felt like a rickety, unbelievable premise.

In the end, it really only matters what the kids who read it think, not the skeptical old grownups. My daughter loved this book. She wanted me to read it the minute she finished, and she was willing to listen to the whole thing again if I wanted to read it out loud. So even before I wrote this, I recommended this book. It is a terrific story that you can feel confident putting in the hands of a middle grade reader, and you will have quite a few hours of perfect silence as they read, and read, and read.

I knew when I got this book from NetGalley that it was one of the summers’ much-awaited debut novels. However, this was not a light summer beach read. It took me more than a few nights to finish, because at times, it felt like an arduous thing I just had to get through. It was an emotional book, and it was unsparing in its graphic detail of families coming together and apart.

When I first started reading, I had flashbacks to Frank McCourt, and imagined it was going to be a hard-knock Irish story like his. When the story moved to slightly more psychological issues, it reminded me of The Glass Castle. I’m not sure why I believed this book had autobiographical details, but it seemed that the author had an unusually intense connection to his characters.

This book almost felt like two books (and maybe it could have been.) The first story would be Eileen Tumulty’s; who we meet at a young age. She has become caregiver to her parents, whose alcohol problems have changed the family dynamic. In this part of the story, I am rooting for Eileen, because I understand how desperately she wants to succeed. But at some point, Eileen becomes selfish, which, while understandable given her past, is still not excusable when she affects the lives of others. Eileen has big plans for the future with her husband, Ed. Unfortunately, she didn’t tell him this, and so she did not know he had no such ambitions. But Eileen goes full steam ahead with her plans despite his protests. Now I like a strong woman; but Eileen becomes an almost over the top striver. She wants the perfect life she has imagined, and she will get it no matter what the cost, financially or emotionally. Honestly, there are probably people like this, but I don’t have to like them. Worst of all, she is supposed to be an extraordinary nurse, and yet she cannot understand her husband has a problem until more than halfway through the book. I cannot imagine what the author intended with that – it did not make me feel smart, it made me think she was completely ignorant.

This is not a first person narrative, but the author gets into the heads of several of the characters, including young Connell, on his way to college. Connell walks with his father to the train he will take to the airport for college. (His mother, for some reason, cannot take a day off work to see her cherished child off to college). “He was having another of those inchoate ideas that he couldn’t entirely articulate to himself. He knew that these cloudy notions would come into sharper focus when he was away at college, where he would divest himself of the stultifying habits of personality and the false conclusions of biography and shine the light of pure reason on experience.” Yes, I get it, he went to Regis. But Really? When I was on my way to college, I am pretty sure I was thinking about classes, roommates, laundry and the dining hall. But I guess that’s just me.

So this is what I think of the book. It was a difficult, painful read, especially if you are anywhere near my age. But there were times that the writing transcended all of that, and approached an almost perfect beauty. There were scenes that moved me to tears. So yes, I did like this book. I just didn’t always love the characters. And it was just too long. Don’t get me wrong; I love a big thick book to read. But reading it unpaged on my kindle, it just wouldn’t end. And then, when I thought it was over, it just kept going. Despite this, I did appreciate that the author gave his characters a bit of redemption in the end. I could almost reconcile myself to liking them again.

So I read a zombie book; it only follows that I need to read a (spoiler alert?) Vampire one after that. It’s summer, I was looking for a classic London society story. But honestly, how many times can I say I didn’t realize a book was about___ when I chose it, before people start to doubt my sincerity?

So here it is, in my defense. I am not a fan of those cold, marble-like creatures everyone was thrilling on a few short years ago. I read one of the trilogy, but could not muster the energy for more. So maybe I wasn’t prepped to read between the lines of the publisher’s notes:

"An astonishing debut, a novel of epic scope and suspense that conjures up all the magic and menace of Victorian London

London, 1892: James Norbury, a shy would-be poet newly down from Oxford, finds lodging with a charming young aristocrat. Through this new friendship, he is introduced to the drawing-rooms of high society, and finds love in an unexpected quarter. Then, suddenly, he vanishes without a trace. Unnerved, his sister, Charlotte, sets out from their crumbling country estate determined to find him. In the sinister, labyrinthine city that greets her, she uncovers a secret world at the margins populated by unforgettable characters: a female rope walker turned vigilante, a street urchin with a deadly secret, and the chilling “Doctor Knife.” But the answer to her brother’s disappearance ultimately lies within the doors of one of the country’s preeminent and mysterious institutions: The Aegolius Club, whose members include the most ambitious, and most dangerous, men in England.

In her first novel, Lauren Owen has created a fantastical world that is both beguiling and terrifying. The Quick will establish her as one of fiction’s most dazzling talents."

There were blurbs from some of my favorite, critically acclaimed authors. In my haste to choose it, I saw the words astonishing, epic, magic, Oxford, charming, without a trace… you get the idea. Did I miss the part where they say everyone’s a vampire? I was surprised. But, here’s the tricky part: I was not disappointed. This is not a cheesy teen romance repackaged as high art. This is a well-told story, where the characters are vivid and compelling. London and its environs are lovingly detailed, and provide the perfect backdrop for this gothic mystery. I am almost not ashamed to admit that I enjoyed this book — If nothing else, it said more in one book than that other one said in three. So it was interesting, and it saved me some time. Gotta love that.

Many years ago there was an article in New York magazine about a bitter dispute among the heirs of Charles Lazarus, the Toys ‘R’ Us founder. At the time, I was young and single, scraping by on a measly salary. I could not understand the greed of these children, who felt that the world owed them a lavish and lazy life. I was so appalled by the story that I wrote a letter to New York magazine, which was printed, after having a lot of my ranting edited out.

Fast forward to last year, when my curiosity could not stop me from jumping in to the Crazy Rich drama of the Johnson family. Having worked for one of the many “Davids” in the health and beauty industry against the “Goliath” J&J, I could not help but feel eager to read a little dirt on the dynasty. It was one of the first books I received after joining NetGalley, but there was a glitch in my download, and I didn’t realize until too late that I could not access it again. This was the first time anything like this happened, so I wasn’t sure what to do. I felt like I owed them a review, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pony up the money to buy a copy. I waited for the library to get one. Then, when they didn’t have the ebook, I was able to get an audiobook instead.

Well, it’s a lot of listening. The book is just shy of 500 pages, so you can imagine how long it takes to slog through the very detailed biographies here, especially when most of the characters have five or six names: Robert Wood “Woody” Johnson IV (also known as Bobby, because everyone has at least two nicknames), Nancy Sale Frey Johnson Rashad, Sale Trotter Case “Casey” Johnson, and Mary Lea Johnson Ryan D’Arc Richards... And I thought keeping track of the characters in The Westing Game required paper.

So yes, the title is apt. These people bring crazy to a whole new level. On the one hand, I thought many of them were nuts. On the other hand, I didn’t blame them. Many of them were left with fortunes so massive they could comfortably live through several generations without having to work. Anyone looking to marry into the family is thought of as a gold-digger, and the high preponderance of this happening seems to confirm their paranoia.

But hey, it is interesting stuff. There are celebrities pulled into the fray, there are questionable characters, deadly addictions, and a multitude of weddings and subsequent divorces. I was constantly pulling out my earbuds to tell my husband juicy bits of gossip. I listened to it at work, in the car, at home. (I know, it took a while. I had to renew it, twice.) I was amazed at Woody, the current Jets owner, who built several careers away from the family business (yes, funded by it, but still, he did something.)

It taught me about what money could buy, and what it can’t. Woody Johnson is floored when he finds that no matter how big a check he writes, nobody can hand him a cure for his daughter Casey’s diabetes. But later, as a struggling and mentally unstable adult, this same daughter is somehow able to adopt a child — a feat that stymies many middle-class, emotionally solid couples. How much did that cost? Sadly, but also not surprisingly, Casey’s daughter is barely four when she loses her mother to diabetes.

Truthfully, money can buy cures – but not instant ones. It can fund research, innovative businesses, charities, and also excessive lifestyles. Just like everything in life, it’s what you do with it that matters in the end. I would say that for every crazy Johnson out there, there is possibly another one building a school or chairing a charity, to help keep the balance. For me, it was compelling until a point where I just started to think, blah, blah, blah, heiress…blah, blah, blah money. But then again, I did not stop listening until the credits finished.

One note about the audiobook. The reader sounds like a very authoritative gentleman, but at times he’s a bit too genteel for some of the racier parts you feel he is being forced to read aloud. Oddly, his pronunciation of some words is just wrong, which I found jarring to the story. I don’t really recommend the audio, especially since it required major focus and a lot of rewinding as the cast got more complicated. But maybe that’s just me.

I grabbed this book on NetGalley because it just looked adorable. I love graphic novels, especially autobiographical ones. What I found I liked best

about this is that even though Cece’s situation – becoming deaf after meningitis – was not something I ever experienced, I felt her story of growing up was very real and relatable.

Cece is deaf, learning to use a phonic ear, but she is also am ordinary little girl who imagines herself as an extraordinary super hero. And really, who doesn’t do that?

Aside from her many books, there is another reason I was drawn to her work (pun intended). She also happens to be the wife of Tom Angleberger, a favorite author in our house. I had to read El Deafo, because Emperor Pickletine Rides the Bus is brand new and waiting on the shelf.

I only received the first 40 pages of this book, so I can’t wait to read the rest!

I read this book with my daughters over our vacation, while my husband listened in from the next room. It was not like any of the books we’ve read together before. For one thing, the main characters in this story were boys, and we typically read about girls, for whatever reason. This was a tough read — tough because at times the main character, Kieran, was almost brutally mean to his cousin Bon, whose life has already been incredibly harsh. (This does not even include what the bullies at school do to Bon.) When Kieran’s parents take Bon in after many unsettled years traveling with his unbalanced Mom, we expected him to show compassion for him. Instead, we are given what is more likely closer to the truth; the sudden and intense meanness that can happen when the life you know and take for granted is upended.

We hoped for a happy ending, but it was a long way coming. There were times when our reader (me), had to stop and pull herself together. My husband would ask me at night, Geez, can’t that kid catch a break? And I would think, yes, this is how it is for some kids; this is something we need to know about, a way to teach empathy to our children. So, it wasn’t pretty, but it was, in the end, wonderful. There are light-hearted moments, mostly provided by Kieran’s younger sister Gina, and there are moments of wistfulness and beauty, provided by Bon, and his friend Julia, and even Kieran, in the end. It is a deeply moving book, it will make you think twice when you notice a kid you might consider different, or odd. It will make you appreciate their difference, and then wonder at their limitless potential.

Check out the girls’ review at 60 second summaries, on Betwixtgirls.com

I am not sure why I got this book. It was probably the note about it being for fans of Neil Gaiman, and I probably looked past the part where it also said fans of Stephen King. I am only a fan of the stuff he writes for babies. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything to say that as much as I love great literature, I can never seem to get enough of a good zombie book now and then. (They are actually called “hungries” in this book, but if you haven’t read it yet, I think zombie is an acceptable substitution.) So come on, it’s summer — time to scare yourself so badly that you have to stay up half the night reading the book, and then sleep the rest of the night with the lights on.

I didn’t realize right away what this book was about (and obviously, I didn’t read any of the many reviews). It almost looked like an innocuous novel I could read with my daughters. The cover looks so happy. Melanie is a genius; she was born with some amazing gifts. For some reason, she seems to be in prison. That’s as much as I read before I requested it. After reading it, I understand that her gifts may be rare and amazing, but ones I never hope to need in this lifetime.

M.R. Carey is apparently the pseudonym for a more famous British writer. Besides that angle, there has been a lot written about this book, and with good reason. It is not just a zombie book (my favorite review called it “experimental zombie fiction”); it is a well-written, edge of your seat thriller. The characters in the book were so well developed I almost forgot at times that I was reading about zombies. And why not? Zombies are people, too, right? Uh, or were, I guess. They have feelings, and super fast speed, and near perfect night vision. There was a time when I only knew a few facts about zombies, and now, I know so much more. So educate yourself, and, possibly, see the sunrise one morning soon, after a night spent reading this creepy, completely awesome book.

When NetGalley offered this book I immediately requested it, because Tom Rachman’s The Imperfectionists was one of the first books I read on my kindle, and I loved it. That story, about a quirky cast of characters trying to keep a newspaper afloat was a little different than this one. Actually, their lives, as painful as they were, seem almost like fairy tales when compared with Tooly Zylerberg’s life in The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. We first meet Tooly in her bookshop, “The World’s End” in a tiny town in Wales. So yes, you know Rachman had me at “bookshop”; let alone the adorable name and the quaint little rundown town it’s in.

Tooly is a character after my own heart. She has learned most of her life lessons from books; in fact, they were the whole of her formal education after the age of ten. She has survived from the mean streets of Bangkok all the way to the cultural elite of New York, mostly on a wit sharpened by literature. How she ended up in Wales is surprising, but not half as surprising as the rest of her story. This is one of those off-kilter adventures that remind me of my favorite John Irving books.

When events lead Tooly to confront her past, she sets off on a quest that would have left me huddled in a corner of the bookshop under a tidy little pile of books. Her search brings her back to the very people who ruined and saved her life in the first place. This is a character driven story, and they are developed here with convincing detail and depth. There is her painfully shy father, who tried to make the best of an impossible situation by running away. Her mother is a Sally Kellerman-like nightmare of unconscionable irresponsibility and irrepressible charm. When she had her chance to help, she left Tooly in the hands of a sketchy group: a Svengali-like con man, a quasi-Russian former pharmacist and amateur philosopher, and other hangars-on. In New York, through an elaborate scheme, Tooly ended up with a boyfriend who later feels remorse for their estrangement, and proves to be the odd link to her past.

How Tooly overcame this madness to end up in a pleasant little bookshop is just part of the story. How she manages to confront these characters and attempt to move on with her life is the rest. It is, in parts, quirky and strange, compelling and repugnant. This book defies a neat little description, and trying to write one would only make me look bad. So I won’t. Just read it. You might regret meeting some of these people, but you won’t regret reading this book.