You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely

Urg… I keep having more false starts with books. This is annoying because reading a hundred pages into a book and then realizing I don’t want to finish it wastes precious time! The most recent false starts: The Hitler book- I just don’t have the energy for it right now and since I already read Mein Kampf it feels redundant sometimes. So, that is back on the shelf for right now. Then I tried Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography. Gross. It was way too hard for me to read while I was going through the visa drama so I put that down as well. Then I got through books 8-10 and tried Walter Cronkite’s, A Reporter’s Life. I got through about 150 pages of that but didn’t want to lug it back with me and wasn’t really that into it. Surprisingly, his writing just wasn’t that captivating. 

I write about these false starts because I suppose they are reviews in themselves. The other good thing about the false starts is that they show that I can put a book down. As little as an year ago, I didn't have it in me to leave a book unfinished. Even if I totally hated it, I had to see it through. Now that I have read so many good books, I don't want to waste my time on stuff I don't like. The small life lessons you learn by making yourself read a book a week! 

Book Eight
Angela’s Ashes
By: Frank McCourt
Read: 9/29/2009
Rating: 5.8/10

This book was mostly annoying. I wrote a long reflection about it in my paper journal but can’t be bothered to type it up. For the first 200 or so pages it is sad, sad, sad. One sibling dies, another dies. Dad drinks too much. Grandma hates us. Someone else dies. Life in Ireland sucked really bad. Having a drunk Irish dad sucked really bad.

I had so little patience for the people in this book. I wanted to clobber the dad and his ability to keep drinking and drinking in the face of his family’s mounting problems. I wanted to scream at the mom for being such an irresponsible parent and for continuing to bring children in the world and then acting totally irresponsibly around and towards them.

You feel bad for McCourt. You feel bad for the many Irish families, and like-families in the world. But you also feel mad at humans for being such damn idiots.

I want to read 'Tis which McCourt wrote after this book and it picks up in New York where he is more grown and starts a life free of some of the problems of his family. McCourt ended up having a very good and full life and just died a few months ago from cancer.

I didn’t like this book but most people do. But my opinion is probably off base. It won the pulitzer prize for autobiographies, was an international best seller and made into a movie. But that still doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Book Nine
Made in America
By: Sam Walton
Read: 10/9/2009
Rating: 7.1/10

If you hate Wal-Mart, you should read this book. If you are an entrepreneur, you should read this book. If you go to grocery stores, you should read this book. If you have a dream, you should read this book. If you want to make money, you should read this book. You get the idea. Basically, just about anyone can take something out of this book. It is a great story about a really hard working guy who makes good. It is one of my brother’s favorite books of all time and he is also an autobiography addict if that helps you decide if it is worth checking out.

Sam Walton died in 1992 as he was finishing the book. It was his last project. I've noticed that a lot of the most successful people I've read about, had to wait until they were totally incapable of doing anything else before they wrote and many of them died soon after finishing their books. 

Book Ten
My Life in Action
By: Jackie Chan
Read: 10/14/2009
Rating: 9/10

What a great, amazing, fantastic, wonderful read!! I didn’t know much about Jackie Chang going into this book and was really shocked by the crazy life he had! This book is moving and inspiring. It is a story of someone who fails and fails and fails and fails and fails and then finally… finally… there is success!

Book Eleven
My friend Leonard
By: James Frey
Read: 10/24/2009
Rating: 5.7/10

By now you have probably heard of James Frey and how he is a big, fat liar and cheat.

In some ways I can’t blame him for his embellishments. It seems that his life was hard in some ways and I can imagine that when your life is hard but not hard enough to be a really big, sad deal, you might have some sense of entitlement. You might think that the world should feel sorry for you. Or that you know a certain kind of pain and from that you are sure you can talk about a bigger kind of pain. That is bullshit. I am not as mad as some people are about Frey’s attempt to pass his book as a total memoir but I think it is annoying and wish he hadn’t.

I read this book knowing that this guy already had been made a liar with A Million Little Pieces so I guess my next comment probably isn’t fair. But when I started reading it, the first thing I thought was wow, this guy is full of crap. It felt like I was reading a novel. Although it’s true that a lot of biographies are pretty amazing and unbelievable they read totally differently. The sincerity and authenticity screams through the pages. Here, there was none of that. I thought this guy sucks. I don’t want to read this anymore.

But I needed a break from big stories. I wanted to read a regular person’s memoir and lies or not, I got that to some extent. Also, if this hadn't been labeled as a memoir, it is actually a pretty decent book. Not for everyone, but a fun thing to pick up. So, for those purposes, I actually liked it a little bit. Overall, I just need to read some stuff that is a little lighter. My brain just needs a little rest!