Paul Lynde; Why We Sleep

After reading "The Center Square" I was eager to get my hands on more books about Paul Lynde. I actually bought this one because none of my libraries had anything else. It was very interesting: the author, Cathy, was a big fan of Paul's and quite by accident found his phone number in a book in the library. She called him up and chatted and they ended up becoming friends. She wrote a very lovely and touching biography about him. Not really any different information than "The Center Square", except for her personal stories about the time they spent together. 

I have a confession to make: I love to sleep. I look forward to bedtime every night. I've always enjoyed being alone with my own thoughts and dreaming, even during the day (as my teachers would tell you, I was a daydreamer and still am). I found out, after reading Matthew Walker's book, that I am doing everything right (or almost right, I drink caffeine, but it doesn't affect me) when it comes to getting a full, restful night's sleep. I consistently get between 7-8 hours every night, and I wake up without aid of an alarm, at nearly the same time every morning. I fall asleep quickly and stay awake all night, I barely move (making the bed is a snap, as the covers are barely disturbed). Walker discusses what a world wide crisis it is that industrialized nations aren't getting enough sleep and how lack of sleep leads to diseases and early death. There is even a super rare insomnia disorder that can actually kill you because you literally cannot sleep. He also explained why different kinds of sleep and dreaming are important. It was very fascinating, although it did get a bit technical at times for me. I powered through it :)

Riverdale: the Day Before; Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret; Murder, My Love; The Song of Achilles; The Library Book

Just in case you weren't sure what librarians do when they're on vacation: they read. Duh. Or, at any rate, I do :)
First up, "Riverdale: the Day Before", a fun YA book based on the hit CW show "Riverdale" (please tell me you watch "Riverdale". If not, you really should, it's awesome. Although I will never 'ship Betty and Jughead. Betty belongs with Archie. Full stop, end of discussion). This story focused on our four main characters in the weeks leading up to when the show began on the fourth of July. Betty is in L.A., honing her journalistic chops by interning for what sounds like a truly dreadful blog about celebrities, fashion, and interior decorating. Jughead is bumming meals at Pop's and wondering why Archie is acting so weird. Archie is acting weird because he doesn't want his father or Jughead to know he's having an affair with his music teacher, Ms. Grundy (which the show just totally glossed over, in my opinion). And Veronica is living the perfect society IT girl life in New York, unaware that her life is about to shatter. It was a quick, fun read.

Not a traditional biography, but rather 99 vignettes about the Princess, who was haughty, proud, vain, and a rather atrocious and demanding house guest, yet everyone clambered for the privilege of hosting her. Why? Because she was royalty? Her main redeeming quality is that she was quite fun in her youth. All in all it was snarky good fun, although he did insert a few "what if?" sort of chapters, imagining if she'd married different people (Pablo Picasso was one, apparently the artist had a huge crush on her and told people he was going to marry her someday). They were just odd and didn't really go well with the rest of the book, but thankfully there weren't that many.

God, I miss Mickey Spillane. I'm glad Max Allan Collins has been finishing up his manuscripts and outlines, but I could tell this one was more Collins than Spillane, which makes me yearn to reread "I, the Jury"... at any rate, it was still pretty fun. Set in the early 1990s, Mike is hired by a Senator who has his eye on the White House. He's being blackmailed by someone who has an audio tape of him boinking his secretary. While his wife doesn't care about his extra-marital affairs, he's concerned the voters might (pre-Clinton, this sort of behavior was frowned upon). Mike sets out to find the blackmailer, but of course the case isn't that open and shut. A few grisly murders and twists and turns along the way made for fun, if not quite up to par, Hammer goodness. 

"Song of Achilles" was beautifully written, the story of the great warrior Achilles, who was born to a goddess and her mortal husband. It was prophesied that Achilles would be the greatest warrior the world had ever seen. Achilles had a faithful male companion and lover, Patroclus, who traveled with him to the Trojan war. The story is told from Patroclus's point of view as an exiled Prince (he accidentally killed a boy when he was young and is sent to Achilles's father's house to be raised) who finds a friend in the young Achilles. Soon the two are inseparable. It makes me want to reread "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" again, which I never thought I'd say :)

And finally, "The Library Book" by Susan Orlean is, ostensibly, about the fire that ravaged the Central Library in downtown L.A. in 1986, destroying close to a million books and other items, but it was an interesting mix of history as well as a tender love letter to libraries and librarians and the good work we do every day. I was just a little girl when the library's collection burned, but I remember hearing about it on the news and my father promised to take me to the "big" library once it reopened. It took almost a decade before the city was able to repair and restock (Dad never took me, by the way. I should remind him...). The case was also never solved. It was ruled an arson, and there was a viable suspect, but not enough evidence and so it went nowhere. The suspect died decades ago, and we'll never know the truth. But the library rose, phoenix like, from the ashes and continues to serve everyone who comes through their (many) doors.

Birth of Loud

I finished a fun book about Leo Fender and Les Paul yesterday, about the beginning of the electric guitar. It's kind of hard for me to imagine a world *without* electric guitars, since they've been around my whole life and I grew up listening to the rock music my parents liked: Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, bands like that. It really revolutionized the way musicians were able to express themselves. I found it so fascinating that Leo Fender never learned to play the guitar, he just listened to musicians and was able to tweak his designs to make them happy. He not only had a glass eye, he lost an eardrum, too, and he was still able to create some of the most coveted musical instruments of all time. It got a little technical for me at times, but it was still very readable for a non-musician.

Quintland Sisters

Back in 1994, I watched a made for TV movie about the Dionne quintuplets: identical little girls born in 1934 to a poor farmer and his wife in rural Canada. It was a miracle the girls survived, and they became a worldwide sensation. Shelley Wood's fictionalized account of the sisters tells their story through the eyes of Emma, who dreams of being an artist, but her parents encourage her to find more stable work as a midwife apprentice. The very first birth young Emma assists with is the Dionne girls, and she ends up staying with them as their nurse all the way up until their fifth birthday. The girls were taken from their parents and moved across the street to a newly built nursery and hospital, and from that point on their upbringing was supervised by their physician, Dr. Dafoe, and a team of nurses and teachers. The girls were paraded out for the hordes of sightseers to ogle. Emma is torn because she just wants to protect the girls and give them a normal life, but really, how normal a life could the most famous girls in the world possibly have? It was a great book, I couldn't put it down, although the ending was very, very sad.

Husband Hunters; Black Dahlia, Red Rose; The Trial of Lizzie Borden

When I watched "Downton Abbey", I was intrigued by the idea of wealthy American heiresses marrying titled British peers in order to gain a crown and a title. It was a win/win: wealthy American girls who weren't welcome in the tightly controlled New York society took their millions across the pond to the genteel poor who got to save their giant estates from ruin with the influx of foreign cash. De Courcy's book was well written and very interesting, I really enjoyed learning about the excess of wealth on display in the Gilded Age and how regimented society was.

I actually read a book I bought! Last month I happened to see this title at Barnes & Noble, and wondered why my library hadn't bought it. I was a bit worried it might have gotten poor reviews, but I figured I'd give it a shot anyway. It was pretty good. Eatwell makes a convincing case that the LAPD actually had a very good suspect for the murder of Elizabeth Short back in 1947, but due to his connections with some high-ups in the police department, detectives working the case were yanked off and reassigned whenever they got too close to the truth. Her suspect is a man named Leslie Dillion, who apparently killed the Dahlia on the orders of Mark Hansen, a nightclub owner who was friends with Thad Brown of the LAPD. Hansen's name was on the cover of the address book the killer later mailed to the newspaper. She also claimed Elizabeth was murdered at the Ascot Motel: several witnesses as well as the husband and wife who owned the motel remembered a girl matching her description staying there during the week she was missing, before her body was found. The motel owners claimed someone made a mess out of a cabin, it was covered in blood and they had to burn most of the sheets and towels. She was rather dismissive of Steve Hodel's claims that his father, Dr. George Hodel, killed Elizabeth, but I'm not as convinced. Of course at this point who knows, it's all just speculation. I do wish I knew what James Ellroy thought of this theory, though.

I am a self-confessed Lizzie Borden fanatic and read everything I can get my hands on about the trial. I was *really* excited about this one (over 100 years later, people don't write about Lizzie so much anymore). It was extremely well written, very nicely summing up the crimes and the trial, but I was disappointed. She posited no theory on the case, I have no idea if she thinks Lizzie is guilty or innocent. Which is fine: if she wanted to present a very fair minded look at the case without injecting her own opinions into it she did a masterful job of it (I wish other nonfiction authors would take note and emulate...). That being said, there was nothing new. No new revelations, no bombshells, no wild theories and speculations. It was about as tame a book as you could get recounting two brutal still unsolved murders from 1892. I would highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't read dozens of books about the case, it's a great introduction to the crimes and allows the reader to make up their own mind.