by H. G. Bissinger
ages: adult
First sentence: “Maybe it was a suddenly acute awareness of being ‘thirtysomething.'”
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I’m probably the last person on the planet to read this; I didn’t even know it existed until the movie came out several years back. Since then (and the highly recommended TV show, as well), I’ve known that I “should” read this one, especially since I consider myself a football fan. But it wasn’t until I read Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer a few months back that I really got serious about reading this book.

You want to know what? It’s incredibly depressing.

If you’ve been living under a rock, the basic story is Bessinger moving to Odessa, TX; a small town in the late 80s that has gone through the boom and bust of oil. Bessinger moves there to follow the town’s main football team, The Permian High MoJo. However, while it’s a book about football, it’s not a football book. Bessinger follows the team throughout the season and highlights the games, but uses football as a springboard to talk about bigger issues: race, class, education, and most of all, the sense of entitlement (and pressure) that comes with being a high school football player.

Bessinger doesn’t paint a pretty picture about it all. Odessa was — one of the things I kept wondering was how everyone’s fared in the 23 years since the 1988 football season — obsessed with football. Perhaps unhealthily so. It was their life, their all, and I’m not talking about the players, either. In a town where there wasn’t much of anything: the industry being basically shut down (I seem to remember a statistic that at one point the unemployment rate in Odessa was at 20%, but I could be wrong), the educational system being basically average, the only hope for anyone — and really, we’re just talking about the boys, most of them white — was to be on their above-average, mostly winning football team.

And so most boys held the dream of playing for the Mojo.

But, even with the hope of something better — or perhaps they put all of their hopes into that promise — the boys didn’t go anywhere. Sure, they made it into the state playoffs, and got as far as the semi-finals. But, their lives, with the exception of the one who put his effort into his academics, didn’t go anywhere. And I found that depressing. Because it’s all for a game.

The other depressing thing was how little has changed in America in the last 23 years. In some ways, things have gotten better. But there was too much in the book that I could nod at and say, “You know, that’s still exactly the same.” We like to think we’ve made progress in race, in education, in our livelihood. But this made me wonder just how much has changed. I’m not sure much has; football is still more important in our lives than, say, a speech by the president on his plan to create jobs. While Rammer Jammer made me feel like I wasn’t enough of a fan, this book in many ways made me ashamed to support a game (a game!) that creates the kind of situations that were put out in this book. Those high school and college players we put so much pressure on to win? They’re boys. And this book is a weighty reminder of what pressure, stress, and too much privilege can do to boys.

And that’s depressing.

Tall Tales and Mostly True Stores About Growing Up Scieszka

by Jon Scieska

ages: 9+

First sentence: “I grew up in Flint, Michigan, with my five brothers — Jim, Tom, Gregg, Brian, and What’s-His-Name.”

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Although I have stories from when I was growing up, some which are quite funny, I have long since envied my husband’s stories. They’re so much more entertaining, rambunctious, and plain laugh-out-loud funny.

The reason? There were seven boys. I am convinced that while I adore my daughters, they will just never have the stories to tell that their father did. There is just something hilarious (in the long run; I’ve always felt sorry for my mother-in-law and what she had to deal with) about a heavily-male family.

Which means that this book is flat-out hilarious. With all the love he can muster, Jon Scieszka spins tales about his childhood. They’re short and sweet: no psychological analysis here, which makes them all the more funny. He covers everything from chores to peeing to school and road trips. He talks about his relationship with his older brother, Jim, and his parents. He touches on the differences found in big families, how the older set of siblings get treated differently than the younger set. It’s a sweet book, full of humor and affection.

I’m not sure what kids would be drawn to it; M only picked it up after she heard me laughing (and snorting) over it. And the fact that I made her read a couple of the stories because they were just too funny. But I’m not sure that C would ever read it. I do think boys would like it; it’s very much a boy story. The people who would appreciate it most, however, I think would be parents of boys. Shaking their heads at all the knuckleheaded things their sons do and have done, they can smile with love at their idiocy.

Hey, something good has to come out of raising boys. Right?

Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe
by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
ages: adult
First sentence:”I touched down in Afghanistan for the first time on a raw winter morning in 2005 after two days of travel that took me from Boston to Dubai via London.”
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Life is not easy in Afghanistan. It hasn’t been for a long time, now. Between the Soviet occupation, the civil war, the Taliban, and the U.S. retaliation, everyday life for Afghanis is difficult, to say the least. Especially for the women. Especially during the Taliban years, when they were essentially relegated to their homes; held prisoner in their own houses.

With the men and boys fleeing to Iran and Pakistan for work, and to avoid being force-drafted into the Taliban army, how do these women — some of them highly educated — provide for themselves and their families?

Lemmon focuses on one family — the five sisters of the title, but one, Kamila, in particular — who take the bull by the horns and, working within the Taliban’s rules, manage to find a way to thrive under the strict rules and foreboding environment.

On the one hand, what Kamila does in creating a sewing/tailoring business that provides merchandise to local stores and employs local women and girls truly is an inspirational thing. Her innovation and resilience is impressive; she worked within the bounds the Taliban set, and only once did she ever come close to going afoul of the Amr bil-Maroof, the police who enforced the strict morality code. Even then, she was able to talk her way out of things. Her faith and optimism are amazing; if she believed it could be done, she found a way to make it so.

However, it seemed that Lemmon was trying too hard to make the book inspirational. it’s hard to pinpoint, exactly (and it may work for some people), but it’s overall feeling was: “This is INSPIRATIONAL. Pay attention!” The blurbs on the back don’t help: this book will Change Your Life. (And given Greg Mortensen’s problems, having a big blurb on the cover by him doesn’t really help with the credibility.) Additionally, while it’s a non-fiction book and telling is to be expected, there was way too much telling and not enough showing. She told me that the women were scared by the Taliban; she never showed me. She told me that they worked hard, were stressed, and yet overcame all; she never showed me. The other problem was time: the movie covers 13 years, and yet reads as if Kamila achieved all this in a matter of months.

I’m sure there are better books about women under the Taliban, ones that show how resilient and strong they were in spite of everything. And while this is an impressive story, this book is not one of them.

by Warren St. John
ages: adult
First sentence: “At some point in the life of every sports fan there comes a moment of reckoning.”
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First, a disclaimer: I am a college football fan. (University of Michigan Wolverines. Go Blue!) So, naturally, I was curious about this book. Sure, it’s about the Alabama Crimson Tide, but to a great extent football is football is football, and a fan’s experience is pretty much the same.

However, reading this book had two effects on me: first, it made me question my actual fan status. See: I’m not nearly the fan that these people are. St. John is a lifelong Crimson Tide fan and became interested in the psychology of sports fan. However, this is not a pop psychology book; rather, as St. John finds a crowd of fans (maybe it’s a Southern thing?) that follow the team during the season in their decked out RVs, it becomes more of a travel book.

At first glance, these fans are insane: who in their right mind would spend so much money (one man spent $1.4 million) on a traveling hallway just in order to be near the stadium of their favorite football team. But as the book progresses, you come to admire their dedication to the team and to the game. They are a community: granted, one that meets just for 12 weekends a year, but they have a common bond, which makes the temporary nature of the community irrelevant. They are fans in an intense, life-consuming way. And I wondered: if I wasn’t willing to put my allegiance to my team out there as loudly as they are, can I even really call myself a fan?

As the book goes one, I found myself respecting the RVers. They have a dedication to their team — to the game — that is unparalleled. They are fully invested in football, which is superficial, yes, but is also something that bonds people together. As St. John travels with the group (yes, he does buy an RV), he also focuses on the game itself. Though, he writes not from a technical aspect, but more from the experience as a fan in the stands. It’s a personal experience for him, though he does connect with people who are fans to a greater and fans who are fans to a lesser degree than he is. It’s an insightful book, lovingly written; a love story not just to the Crimson Tide, but to all sports fans everywhere.

Which brings me to the second thing the book made me want to do: actually go to a game again. There is something to be said about experiencing the game in a crowd of like-minded people, to be a part of all the fans cheering on their team, experiencing a win (or a loss) together as a group.

If you’re not a sports fan, I’m not sure why you’d pick up this book. But if you are, it’s a fantastic read.

A Bittersweet Adventure
by Marlena de Blasi
Ages: adult
First sentence: “Ce l’abbiamo fatta, Chou-Chou, we did it,” he says, using the name he gave to me, clutching the steering wheel of the old BMW with both hands, elbows out straight like wings, shoulders hunched in glee, wheezing up a conspiratorial laugh.”
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A friend of mine loaned this to me last October, when I was effusing about my reread of Under the Tuscan Sun. I let it sit on the shelf for months, figuring I’ll get to it when the time is right.

When I started it yesterday, I despaired: perhaps I was destined to like only one book about Tuscany. But, where Frances Mayes book is about a love of a house and finding a place, de Blasi’s book is about a love of the people and the food of that place. It took me a while to understand what de Blasi was trying to tell me, but by the end I was hooked, luxuriating in the descriptions of the food, and submersing myself in the stories of the people.

She and her Venetian husband, Fernando, uproot their somewhat comfortable Venetian lives and head for Tuscany, somewhat on a whim: they need something new, something different to feel alive again. It’s scary and intimidating and exhilarating all at once. And once they got to their rented house in Tuscany, they find so much more than they bargained for: a friend in Barlozzo, an old curmudgeon who has opinions about everything, and yet is generous with his time and knowledge about the countryside and its charms (especially food-related!). They find a community in the town they’re living in, friends, kindred spirits, family. They find solace in simplicity and rusticness. (Okay, not a word, but you get what I mean.)

One quote that I thoroughly liked (she’s talking about her former profession as a food writer), and think is a good example of the goodness of simplicity:

Enticed neither by swirls of kiwi puree forced from a plastic bottle nor by teetering constructions built from a puff of pastry upon which rested a grilled lamb chop upon which was piled a roasted pear, the pillar secured by spears of asparagus, which leaned fetchingly against it, a few hard-cooked lentils strewn casually about with petals of a zinnia, I’ve always wanted food that sent a current straight to my loins. I’d find it exhausting, having to break down a still life before getting to my supper… And so it was that as chefs began to decompose the very molecular structure of food, recasting it into ever more bizarre forms and substances, it became harder and harder to stay excited about my job…. And now I’m wishing could I scoop up all those men and women who began their chef lives as purists and bring them here to wander these markets, to stand in front of the burners with some of these chefs who change their menus every night so as to reflect that morning’s market, and who are not quietly amazed by this fact as a proof of their own genius.

While the book is slow to show it’s charms (at least for me), it’s like an old friend, sitting down over a glass of wine (for those who drink wine, anyway), talking about everything and nothing all at once. It speaks to your soul (well, at least mine), and invites you to look at what you have and need, to reflect upon what is truly important.

And what better kind of book is that?

Memories of an African Boyhood
by Baba Wague Diakite
ages: 10+
First sentence: “A little boy sat on the dirt floor with a bowl of millet porridge between his legs.”
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I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out a way to summarize this book, and I’m coming up short. How do you summarize a man’s reflections on his childhood, his experiences in a small village in Mali, and the life lessons that taught him? You can’t.

His parents, for cultural if not financial reasons, sent Diakite and his siblings to live in the small village where his father grew up to be raised by their grandparents. He stayed for several years, until he was in his early teens, learning about the ways of the village. While there’s no real over-arching narrative, the stories do follow a bit of a timeline from when he arrived at the village through until he met his wife, came to American and settled in here. The stories themselves are interesting; none are very long, and they each shed light on what life in a small, rural African village is like. There’s some commentary on imperialism and on materialism, but it’s not heavy-handed, or even all that present. The art, done by Diakite as well, helps give the book the feeling of being told African folktales from the hand of an experienced and talented storyteller.

His is a fascinating life, and a good story about how differences, the “other” if you will, can enrich all our lives.

A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps
edited by Dave Isay
ages: adult
First sentence: “StoryCorps launched October 23, 2003, in Grand Central Terminal in New City.”
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Review copy provided by TLC Tours

I didn’t quite know what to expect, going into this one. It’s a series of conversations from the StoryCorps booths about mothers. Since there’s no coherent narrative, and since every story is just a snippet, really, I figured it’d be an easy, but not very substantial read.

On the one hand, I was right: it was an easy read. I breezed through it in an afternoon, but not only because it’s an easy read. It’s also an engaging one. Maybe it’s because I have an odd fascination with oral histories, but I found the stories, even if they were just snippets, to be fascinating.

There’s stories of mothers dying, of mothers caring, of mothers working, of mothers giving up babies, of mothers adopting children, of hard times and good times. It’s a broad collection of remembrances, from every walk of life. It was touching and interesting and sweet, even if it wasn’t especially memorable or life-changing. A lovely antidote to all the extreme mom stories: both the ones that make you feel guilty because you’re not doing enough, and the ones that make you feel smug because you’re so much better than that.

However, I think it was something Dave Isay wrote in the afterward that moved me the most:

I hope you’ll spread the word about our efforts. We want to encourage the entire nation to take the time to ask life’s important questions of a loved one — or even a stranger — and really listen to the answers. We hope to shower this country with more of the sorts of stories you’ve just read — authentic voices that remind us what’s truly important, that tell real American stories, and that show us all the possibilities life presents when lived to its fullest.

It made me want to seek out a booth for a conversation of my own. Which, I suppose, is the best thing you can get out of the book.