Born to Run; Whitefern; Small Great Things

I'm not a HUGE Bruce Springsteen fan, but I do like him, and my Challenger's favorite song is "Born to Run". She makes me listen to it whenever it comes on the radio. I enjoyed this one quite a lot, he has a wonderful writing style, descriptive without being wordy, which I imagine he's honed as a songwriter. I never really thought of him as a guitarist and songwriter before, but of course that's what he is. He talks about growing up poor in New Jersey and being inspired after seeing Elvis on Ed Sullivan. He worked hard for a lot of years, pounding the bar scene, building up a fan base, before hitting the big time. I found it ironic that a lot of his earlier songs are about cars and yet he didn't learn to drive until his twenties. Lots of fun information and despite being so long, it was a very quick read. I was out in the backyard finishing it up, and as I was on the last page I heard a car drive by on the road behind the house blasting "Streets of Philadelphia", so that was a nice coincidence.

 I love reading trashy books on vacation, and when I found out that there was a sequel to V. C. Andrews' "My Sweet Audrina", I had to run out and get it. "Audrina" was one Andrews actually wrote herself before she passed away, so it holds a special place in my heart. This one wasn't quite as good, and it was terribly predictable, but it was still fun. Audrina is all grown up and her father passes away, leaving the majority share of his stockbroking company to her rather than her husband, Arden. Arden is incensed and demands Audrina sign over her share of the company to him so he can run it properly, but Audrina shows some spirit and holds him off. In the meantime, she hires an art tutor for her developmentally disabled younger sister, Sylvia. Audrina soon discovers the art teacher is molesting Sylvia and that she is pregnant. Since she and Arden have been having issues conceiving, Arden convinces her to pretend she's pregnant and they'll raise Sylvia's baby as their own.

And finally, Jodi Picoult's latest, "Small Great Things". I didn't love it, I found it predictable (or maybe I'm getting smarter and better at guessing...um, doubtful :) ). Usually she's able to make even the most unlikable characters somewhat likable, which is why her books are so amazing, you don't know who to root for because you can see everyone's side. Not this time. A couple of White Supremacists insist that an African American nurse named Ruth be prohibited from tending to their newborn son, and the hospital bows down to their demands. When the floor is short staffed Ruth is left alone watching the baby, who goes into distress. Defying orders, she tries to resuscitate him but he ends up dying anyway. The couple then decides to press charges against Ruth.
Look, assholes, you can't have it both ways. Either you want the woman to do her job or you don't.
Anyway, there's a trial and a lot of preaching about racism and it turns out the baby would probably have died anyway from health issues and then the twist which I figured out beforehand. It ended all too tidily. It wasn't a bad book, and I certainly agree that race is something that needs to be discussed more, but it wasn't the best thing she's ever written.

Sunshine Beach

I've read a few other books by Wendy Wax so I figured I'd give her latest a shot, not realizing it was part of a series. She did a nice job of explaining the backstory, so I didn't feel *too* lost, but I'm sort of sorry now that I read it out of order. I'd like to go back and read the first ones, but I already know what happens, so, we'll see. It was pretty good, I enjoyed it once I got all the characters straight. There was just so much going on. Avery, Nikki, Maddie, and her daughter Kyra rehab properties for a Lifetime series. I guess in the last book the women got so fed up with the way they network was treating them they quit on air. After a bit of time to regroup, they're looking for a new rehab project and trying to raise the funds to do it on their own so they won't need to sell their soul to another network. They seemed to have found the perfect project close to home: an old hotel owned by some acquaintances of theirs. It's been closed for thirty years and is a bad state of disrepair. There are a few obstacles, though, Renee and Annelise's father was murdered there in the 1950s, and Annelise has always hoped to get the case reopened so she's wanted to keep the hotel preserved while Renee has wanted to tear it down because it's a painful reminder of the worst time of her life. I was a bit skeptical that one of the characters would even still be alive: he was a former Nazi officer's handler (I told you there was a lot going on). I figured he'd probably be over 100, which didn't make a whole lot of sense but I was willing to overlook that detail. It was still fun.

The Wonder; All the Little Liars

I actually read Emma Donoghue's "The Wonder" a few weeks ago and forgot to write about it. I really enjoyed it, I had a hard time putting it down. I read a nonfiction book ages ago about the 19th century phenomenon known as the Fasting Girls (there were a few boys, too). Apparently it was a thing for a few years, where these teen girls would claim not to eat but to survive on air. Of course most were proven to be frauds. This one was about an Irish girl named Anna who claims she hasn't eaten anything in four months. Her little village is becoming a tourist destination where people from all over the world flock to see the miracle girl. Lib is a nurse from England, she is sent for to help keep a two week watch on Anna to make sure she's not sneaking in food. Lib figures it won't take her long to discover the hoax and then she'll be on her way. Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple.

It's been quite a few years since Charlaine Harris wrote an Aurora Teagarden mystery. I read a few of them back in the day, since Aurora is a librarian I felt obligated to. Although, honestly, reading Harris's description of her workday leads me to believe she's a page, since all she seems to do is shelve books. But I digress. In this one, Aurora is newly married to author Robin Caruso and is expecting her first baby. It was kind of difficult for me to read on a personal level, how happy and excited she was. Aurora's younger half-brother Phillip is living with her and Robin, and one day he and a group of five other teenagers vanish. One of the missing teens turns up dead. The FBI are called in and no one seems to be able to make heads nor tails out of the evidence, since it's all very conflicting. It was, too, I was super confused and honestly not all that invested in it, so I probably wasn't paying attention as well as I could have been. All in all I feel rather lukewarm about this book. At least it was a quick read, so I didn't invest too much time or effort in it.

Famous Nathan

I've never been to Coney Island, but I've heard of Nathan's Famous, the hot dog stand that's been there for a century now. It was a great story about how a poor, illiterate Jewish immigrant from Poland came to America and within a few days had a job at a luncheonette counter dishing up frankfurters. After a few years of scrimping and saving, Nathan Handwerker was able to buy a little space on Coney Island to sell his frankfurters. He and his wife, Ida, put in long hours and worked seven days a week to help Nathan's succeed, and succeed it did. Nathan was a stickler for detail, nothing escaped his exacting eye. I loved how he was able to pick up a bag of onion peels and tell by the weight if the person peeling them had taken off too much onion. It was a wonderful story that I wished had a happier ending: Nathan hoped his two sons, Murray and Sol, would be able to work together in the store but unfortunately personality clashes led to a falling out and Sol and Murray parted ways. Changing times led to Nathan's going public and the Nathan's of today only vaguely resembles the Nathan of yesteryear.

Best.State.Ever; Libertarians on the Prairie; Devil's Defender; All These Things That I've Done

Dave Barry is usually good for a laugh or two, and his latest, "Best.State.Ever", an ode to Florida, was one of his best that I've read in a long time. I laughed out loud through most of it and it actually made me want to visit the state of Florida, not something I've ever felt compelled to do before. He talked about quirky roadside attractions, he waxed poetic about Key West and the Everglades and Disney World. Even though there was a lot of snark, it was loving snark, if that makes sense.

I wasn't terribly impressed with Christine Woodside's "Libertarians on the Prairie". First of all, does anyone not know by now that Rose Wilder Lane had a huge hand in writing her mother's "Little House" books? I read "Ghost in the Little House" back when I was in my late teens, and that was a very, very long time ago. And of course not every single word of every single book was true! Even as a kid I knew that. It didn't spoil the books for me at all to find out that Rose wrote quite a bit of them and that they weren't 100% true. They're still wonderful stories I reread all the time and enjoy. I also found her argument that Rose deliberately left out or put in certain things to further her Libertarian beliefs rather thin. She gives as one example how they left out the fact that during the Long Winter, the Ingalls family had a couple living with them. Rose left them out of the story, Woodside claims, because they didn't embody the pioneer spirit of individualism that Rose wanted to promote. Honestly, I don't think having the couple in the book would have added any to the story, and Rose was a very canny author of both fiction and nonfiction. She would have realized that. Maybe she did leave them out for political reasons and maybe she didn't. At the end of the day I don't think it really matters. I feel sorry for people who read too much into books. Sometimes a story is just a story.

I also wasn't too fond of John Henry Browne's "Devil's Defender", but at least it was a very quick read (big font, 200 pages). He became a defense attorney and has defended some very bad people, like Ted Bundy, because he believes everyone is entitled to a good defense in court. I absolutely agree with him on that point. Where we differ is on the death penalty. He doesn't think it's right for the state to kill people, and I disagree. I mean, look at how long Charles Manson's been in prison living off the taxpayer's dime. And for what? He's a complete waste of a human being. I remember being so outraged when I found out that the state of California, us taxpayers, were paying to fix the Night Stalker's teeth. *I* needed braces, and my parents couldn't afford to pay for them, but this murdering piece of scum who was on death row got free orthodontic care whereas I had to wait until I had a job and could pay for my own damn teeth to get fixed. Not that I minded, I was proud of myself for paying for them on my own, but it really irritated me that he got his teeth fixed when he was just going to be put to death anyway. I mean, really, what's the point? He didn't show his victims any mercy, so why should we show him any? I don't know. It just angers me, and Browne's holier than thou attitude was grating.

And finally, a fun one! Matt Pinfield grew up loving music and learning everything he could about the bands he liked listening to. He DJ'ed in clubs and worked on college and local radio stations in New Jersey. He was always on the cutting edge, he had his ear to the ground and heard about breakthrough bands before they happened, so he was the first to play a lot of groups and ended up building a good rapport with a lot of them, since they could tell he wasn't full of shit when he interviewed them. He ended up working on MTV in the mid-nineties, which is of course how I knew him. I didn't care for 120 Minutes at first, but after awhile it grew on me, and I liked Matt, he seemed so much less annoying than a lot of VJs on MTV at the time. He was just like this cool, laid back normal guy you could see yourself hanging out with. He did some crazy things, and had issues with drugs and alcohol (I honestly never would have guessed, he always seemed sober on TV) but he seems to be in a good place right now. It was a fun book, nostalgic, and reminded me of how much fun it was to discover a new band for the first time and fall in love with their music. It's been a really long time since that happened for me. It's such a great feeling.

Three Years in Wonderland; Mississippi Noir; The Mannings

Back in the early 1950s, Walt Disney had a crazy idea to build an amusement park. No one really bought into his crazy scheme except for a Texas businessman named C. V. Wood, known as Woody. Woody was Disney's right hand man for years, helping design the park that would become Disneyland in Anaheim and getting much needed sponsorships when Disney ran short on funds. Woody was also instrumental in getting the land for the park, making some shady side deals in order to get it done. Miraculously the park opened on time (although not without a few issues) and Woody's days were numbered. Disney had his brother Roy fire him a few months later, and Woody went on to create other theme parks around the country, as well as Lake Havasu in Arizona. Woody's name has been pretty much erased from all official Disneyland history by the company, longtime employees who knew him refuse to discuss it. It was very interesting, and Pierce did a great job of researching.

I'm always a little leery of reading short story collections because I usually don't enjoy them, but this one appealed to me because of the Faulkner connection, so I read it and I actually really enjoyed it. Most of the stories were pretty decent, but there were a few that were really, really good.

I read Archie and Peyton's autobiography about a decade ago, but of course a lot has happened since then. Peyton's won two Super Bowls and retired, youngest brother Eli has also had his share of success in the NFL, winning two Super Bowls too. It's impossible to read this book and not feel sorry for Archie, although I'm sure he doesn't feel sorry for himself. To never once be on a team with a winning season--man, that's a heartbreaker. You gotta wonder what he could have done in the NFL if he'd been on a decent team like his sons were.