An Embarrassment of Riches

Pringles Potato Chips, Nestle's Drumstick Cones, the Candy Necklace - by Nicola

In 1975, when Bich Minh Nguyen was still an infant, her father suddenly swept her and her sister out of Vietnam, not even leaving behind a note for her mother. They settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with her grandmother and uncles. As she grew out of babyhood, Bich (pronounced Bit) began to crave the food items noted above plus many others. She loved McDonalds, Burger King, Hostess cupcakes and Toll House cookies. Food was an important part of her life and her family's. She named her memoir Stealing Buddha's Dinner.

Soon Bich's father married a Latina named Rosa, who had a daughter named Crissy. That meant that Bich had to deal with Rosa's Latin culture, her new American culture, and her native Vietnamese culture all at the same time. Like many girls her age, she tried to fit in with the most popular girls, the ones with blond hair, blue eyes and perfect teeth. Fitting in was often a frustrating challenge for her.

What makes her memoir special is that, while we are reading about Bich's efforts to fit in, we can reminisce about foods, movies, television shows, and books that were popular in the eighties. She loved them all. She even enjoyed watching soap operas with her grandmother. Was Bich harmed by any of her excesses? You wouldn't think so. You see, she eventually became a professor of literature and creative writing at Purdue University. Her first novel, Short Girls is coming out this summer.

Let's See...Old Mother Hubbard... - by Nicola

…went to the cupboard to eat her curds and whey. Wait, that’s not right!  Well, it has been a very long time since I've even thought about nursery rhymes, but I did think about them a lot while reading two books in the Nursery Crimes series by Jasper Fforde (pronounced “ford” like the car).  Are these books even for adults?  Oh yes!  Many children would have trouble with all of the nuances Fforde inserts into his whimsical stories. The Big Over Easy is the first title in the series. The main characters, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant Mary Mary, are head of the Nursery Crimes Division of the local police constabulary in Reading, England. Their assignment is to investigate the death of Humpty Dumpty. The second  book in the series is The Fourth Bear.  Was there a fourth bear?  Why didn’t Mama Bear and Papa Bear sleep in the same bed?  And how could Jack Spratt not look for the violent Gingerbreadman who had just escaped from the supposedly secure mental hospital?  Well, mystery readers won't be surprised that Jack will not forget the Gingerbreadman is on the loose, even though he has been suspended for screwing up another assignment involving Red Riding Hood.

Jasper Fforde’s highly imaginative books are not for everyone, but those with a sense of fun will enjoy going along for the ride with him wherever his mind takes them.  

Brrrrr - by Nicola

January 12, 1888, started out as unseasonably warm in the upper Plains states. Children left home for school without their winter clothing in Nebraska, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. Suddenly the weather changed, leaving everyone unprepared for hurricane force winds, horizontal snow and the sudden drop in temperature. Children were sent home from school and hundreds of them perished on the way, thus the title of this book, The Children's Blizzard.

Using survivors’ accounts of the storm, the author, David Laskin, creates a gripping book about the blizzard that is as hard to put down as any thriller. Laskin personalizes the experiences of five of the families involved and tells how they tried to deal with the storm.  There actually was a weather service back then. It was run by the Army Signal Corp and the author discusses their efforts, which were, not surprisingly, not particularly efficient or very sophisticated at that time. His discussions about how brutal cold harms the human body and eventually leads to death are particularly enlightening.    

What is it Like to be Normal, Anyway? - by Nicola (read)

Lou is a highly functioning autistic man who has a job with a pharmaceutical company and drives his own car.  The novel, The Speed of Dark, takes place in the future.  Doctors are able to determine that an infant is autistic and reverse the autism while the child is still in the womb.  Lou, however, was born before this was possible.  His employers want him and his autistic co-workers to submit to a medical procedure that will make them “normal.”  The problem is, the procedure has been tried on only non-humans so far.

Will this experimental procedure be successful or will it leave him to live as a vegetable?  Lou wonders if his friends will still like him if he becomes normal.  Will he feel the same way toward the woman he thinks he loves?  Indeed, what does it feel like to be in love?  Of course, Lou ponders other things.  For example, if there is a speed of light, what is the speed of dark?  This is where the title of the novel, a Nebula award winner, comes from.  The author, Elizabeth Moon, is the mother of an autistic son and she has special insight into their thoughts and behavior.  This makes her novel, which is told from Lou’s viewpoint, especially remarkable.   

I Laughed Til I Cried - Nicola Were you around when bomb shelters and fallout shelters were being built in the 1950s and early 1960s?  Can you picture Christopher Walken as a compulsive and slightly crazy scientist?  Then the film Blast From the Past is for you.  One night Calvin and Eve are visiting their neighbors and news of the Cuban missile crisis comes on TV.  The nervous Calvin insists that he and his wife, Eve, go down to spend the night in the elaborate shelter he has built under their house.  That very night a jet plane crashes into their house and Calvin decides that is a nuclear bomb since he cannot see what it really is.  The very pregnant Eve gives birth to their son, Adam, soon after they have been in the shelter.  The three of them end up spending 35 years in the shelter because that is the half-life of radioactivity and they would then be safe from the side effects of nuclear fallout.  The fun begins when Adam emerges from the shelter on his 35th birthday to a world he has never experienced before.

Irish Bedtime Stories - by Nicola

A warm and fun read before you turn out the lights is the little series by Brendan O’Carroll, an Irish playwright and stand-up comedian.  The first book is alternately called Agnes Browne or The Mammy.  The premise does not seem humorous—Agnes is trying to raise her seven children alone in Dublin after her husband dies.  Agnes is spunky, however, and she handles the hurdles in her life with strength.  The second in the series is The Chisellers.  The title refers to her seven children, some of which have begun to be a bit troublesome.  The third title in the trilogy is The Granny and continues, not surprisingly, when Agnes becomes a grandmother for the first time and most of her children are in their twenties.  O’Carroll continues with a prequel, called The Young Wan,

which describes Agnes’ young adulthood before her marriage.  In each book, the characters are eccentric and get themselves into some interesting predicaments.  The only drawback is that some people may have trouble with the Irish slang, which O’Carroll  uses quite liberally.