Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys by Billy Crystal

From Goodreads:

Billy Crystal is turning 65, and he’s not happy about it. With his trademark wit and heart, he outlines the absurdities and challenges that come with growing old, from insomnia to memory loss to leaving dinners with half your meal on your shirt. In humorous chapters like “Buying the Plot” and “Nodding Off,” Crystal not only catalogues his physical gripes, but offers a road map to his 77 million fellow baby boomers who are arriving at this milestone age with him. He also looks back at the most powerful and memorable moments of his long and storied life, from entertaining his relatives as a kid in Long Beach, Long Island, his years doing stand-up in the Village, up through his legendary stint at Saturday Night Live, When Harry Met Sally, and his long run as host of the Academy Awards. 


Pros: Audiobook was narrated by Billy Crystal. Listening to him is never a BAD thing.

Cons: I didn't find any of this particularly funny. And when something is not only written but SPOKEN by Billy Crystal, you kind of expect to laugh more than a few half-hearted chuckles.

 To be fair, much of this book is based on the humor to be found in aging, so perhaps in 35 years I will find it significantly funnier.

Crazy Salad and Scribble Scribble: Some Things About Women and Notes on Media by Nora Ephron

From Goodreads:

Two classic collections of Nora Ephron’s uproarious essays—tackling everything from feminism to the media, from politics to beauty products, with her inimitable charm and distinctive wit—now available in one book for the first time.

This edition brings together some of Ephron’s most famous writing on a generation of women (and men) who helped shape the way we live now, and on events ranging from the Watergate scandal to the Pillsbury Bake-Off. In these sharp, hilariously entertaining, and vividly observed pieces, Ephron illuminates an era with wicked honesty and insight. From the famous “A Few Words About Breasts” to important pieces on her time working for the New York Post and Gourmet Magazine, these essays show Ephron at her very best.

I feel like I need to admit here and now that I apparently knew nothing about Nora Ephron. I mean, I knew she's the brains behind a bunch of truly fantastic chick flicks but that's about it. As it turns out, Nora Ephron has done a ton of writing in her career (especially for newspapers and magazines) and a lot of it was extremely feminist. She rubbed shoulders with Gloria Steinem in the 70s. She was hardcore, my friends. And a lot of her writing reflects that.

And so, this collection of essays was NOT at all what I was expecting. It was, however, deeply interesting. Most of the stuff here was written in the 70s but it's still incredibly relevant today. I listened to the audio book while doing some sewing and it was fantastic. I'm now even more of a fan.

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh

From Goodreads:

This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative--like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it--but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book:

Pictures
Words
Stories about things that happened to me
Stories about things that happened to other people because of me
Eight billion dollars*
Stories about dogs
The secret to eternal happiness*

*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!

As a longtime fan of Allie's blog I was REALLY excited to discover that this book was available for immediate download as I sat in the terminal before boarding our flight to Virginia. I had sort of mixed feelings about it though, which made me sad. The very best stuff from the book can already be found on her blog (my favs are her bits about moving with dogs and going to a birthday party after having dental work done). The newer stuff was a little darker, which I'm sure reflects her recent bout with depression. I didn't LOVE it quite like I hoped I would, but it was still a perfectly pleasant way to pass the time on a very long day of flying.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

From Goodreads:

On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born, the third child of a wealthy English banker and his wife. Sadly, she dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in any number of ways. Clearly history (and Kate Atkinson) have plans for her: In Ursula rests nothing less than the fate of civilization.

Wildly inventive, darkly comic, startlingly poignant — this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best, playing with time and history, telling a story that is breathtaking for both its audacity and its endless satisfactions.

Ok, this is one I really wish I hadn't listened to. This is an extremely complex book with multiple story lines, lots of characters, endings and beginnings. I think reading it as a physical book so I could flip back to previous plot lines to remember minor characters and piece things together.

What I did manage to piece together, though, was lovely. Ursula Todd, through her various attempts at life, slowly becomes a strong, smart woman. What a gift to be able to try life over and over until you get it exactly right. Her stories are fascinating, heart-breaking, life-affirming. I'd like to come back to this one someday when the hold list at the library isn't a million people long.

Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood by Leah Vincent

From Goodreads:

Leah Vincent was born into the Yeshivish community, a fundamentalist sect of ultra-Orthodox Judaism. As the daughter of an influential rabbi, Leah and her ten siblings were raised to worship two things: God and the men who ruled their world. But the tradition-bound future Leah envisioned for herself was cut short when, at sixteen, she was caught exchanging letters with a male friend, a violation of religious law that forbids contact between members of the opposite sex. Leah's parents were unforgiving. Afraid, in part, that her behavior would affect the marriage prospects of their other children, they put her on a plane and cut off ties. Cast out in New York City, without a father or husband tethering her to the Orthodox community, Leah was unprepared to navigate the freedoms of secular life. She spent the next few years using her sexuality as a way of attracting the male approval she had been conditioned to seek out as a child, while becoming increasingly unfaithful to the religious dogma of her past.

I don't remember how I heard about this book but it fit right in with my religious memoir kick. This one, however, was FAR more intense than the others. Leah Vincent was cut off from her family and community for the sin of exchanging letters with a boy. She was completely unprepared for regular life alone in a big city and ended up in...situations. I don't want to spoil it but I seriously sat there wide-eyed through most of the book. I kept thinking, "Surely this is rock bottom." And then something else would happen and I'd be like, "Oh...nope, this is it." And then...you get the picture.

At one point she decided she was so broken that her only real option was prostitution. That did not go well for her. 

The thing that totally broke my heart about this book is that Leah was really trying. She didn't CHOOSE to leave her faith tradition. They unceremoniously kicked her out because they saw someone who was struggling a bit.

That hit pretty close to home. I'm a part of some groups of people who are all over the faith spectrum when it comes to the Mormon church. The saddest part is that most of these people are really trying. They want to stay. But when they ask questions or raise concerns an incredibly common response from the community is, "Why don't you just leave the church?" Why are orthodox religions so quick to shove the struggling ones from the nest? What is it about doubt that scares us so much that we're willing to kick a soul out completely rather than try and help them through it and find their place? 

There was a lot in Vincent's book that I couldn't relate to but a surprising amount that felt familiar. This book isn't for everyone (there's some sexual content) but I found it honest and amazing.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

From Goodreads:

Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

I actually finished this one a while ago but then the nausea hit and I just never got around to writing about it, despite the fact that I really liked it.

This is kind of a hard read, to be honest. The story is very sweet but the ending is rough. You're pulling for the power of love and then...love isn't enough. The story made me think hard about the idea of euthanasia. Honestly I've never been opposed to it...if people want to die and their life is total crap for whatever reason, who am I to judge? But I feel like I came away from this story feeling the opposite. That idiot had something to LIVE for! Why didn't he even give it a TRY with Lou? I'm not sure becoming anti-euthanasia was the point of the book, but whatever. My change of heart is on YOU, Jojo.

FDR by Jean Edward Smith

Very shortened summary from Goodreads:

One of today’s premier biographers has written a modern, comprehensive, indeed ultimate book on the epic life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In this superlative volume, Jean Edward Smith combines contemporary scholarship and a broad range of primary source material to provide an engrossing narrative of one of America’s greatest presidents.

This audiobook was about an hour shorter than the Oppenheimer beast I tackled in January but I loved it just as much (if not more?). I mentioned in my post about The Fault in Our Stars that history doesn't tend to elicit much emotion buuut this one kind of made me cry periodically. FDR was an amazing person. He did and said some incredibly inspiring things. The book described the book on Pearl Harbor then went on to talk about FDR's speech, which famously began, 
 

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

And I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried. It's such an amazing moment in history. SO MUCH of this book was comprised of amazing moments in history. The preface states that the 3 most important presidents in US history were Washington, Lincoln, and FDR. Now, having read (heard) about his life, I have to agree. FDR shaped the US as we know it now. He saved it from collapse during the depression. He was BFFs with Winston Churchill (need to add him to my bio list) and was the first US president to fly in an airplane. He rose above a serious physical handicap and inspired a nation. Pretty sure he's my new hero.