Swamplandia! is one of the best pieces of fiction I’ve ever read. I loved it so much, I broke the cardinal rule of New York City subway travel and butted into a conversation upon overhearing two people talking about it (thankfully they agreed with me on all its merits and we gushed about it until my stop at 14th street.) I loved it so much that I would stop reading mid-chapter, clutch my Kindle to my chest, and sigh.

I love it so much I don’t actually want to talk about it, because I can’t do it justice. You should just go read it, and then email me. We will sigh together, and you can then join me in feeling massively unaccomplished; Karen Russell published it at 29.

Here’s a not-so-secret: I love Meg Keene. She is one of the people instrumental in inspiring me to getting my business up and running in 2010, it is her hand that is among the ones I feel pressed into my shoulder blades when the business blahs hit, and I am completely in awe of her.

How do you thank a person like that? I don’t know, but when her book came out and everyone banded together to push it to the top of the best-seller list, I started by buying three copies.

Then she sent me two. One of them is mine-all-mine, but the other four are for you. Leave a comment below telling me your favorite part about going to weddings, and I’ll pick four winners at random on Monday 9 January.
Closed! Thank you guys for your comments!

***

Meg is on tour right now promoting the book with lots of fun events. The Brooklyn party, though, is going to be the best; I know because I’m planning it, along with Meg from La Vie En Rose Events and Michelle Edgemont. We have met over beers, volleyed countless emails between us, and schemed away.

The reading will be at the Park Slope Barnes & Noble on Saturday 28 January at 2pm. It is only by showing up there that you will be given walking directions to the most kick-ass, planned with love after-party in the history of book tours. It will be boozy and fantastic, and, from what I’ve seen from Michelle’s handiwork, very, very pretty.

**RSVP here**

See you there?

Remember how two years ago I made six pies? The next next year I broke my own record and made nine the night before Thanksgiving, earning myself a spot in the The Recordsetter Book of World Records (on page 78).

Two hilarious dudes from Toronto teamed up that Christmas to beat my record with 14 (and they did it wearing Christmas Tree costumes!)

Now I’m seeking to reclaim the title this Thanksgiving, and am bringing *more than 14* to Greenpoint Church again. Thank goodness my neighbor said I could use his oven. Next year, I think I’m going to have to call for backup.

It’s going to be a wonderful holiday, I can feel it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just finished reading Think by Lisa Bloom and woah oh man did it make me start to simmer! I first heard of Lisa when she wrote an article called “How to Talk to Little Girls“. It’s rare that I’m inspired to find out more about someone based on an article they’ve written, but something made me Google Lisa Bloom, and when I found out she had a book, I bought it right away.

A lot of the ideas that were just starting to germinate in my brain about the society around me were nurtured and solidified by the simple language and hard facts presented in this book. American women are, by and large, focused on shallow, unimportant things and ignoring a lot of what should be igniting passionate ignition in all of us as privileged, first-world citizens. Most poignant to me: she points out that most of us are way more interested in Angelina Jolie’s love life and possible “baby bumps” and ignoring the fact that she is one of the most effective humanitarians of our generation.

I would check it out if you, too, are a woman sick to death of worrying about the Kardashians or the Real Housewives, and are, like me, nervous about the fact that 25% of girls would rather win America’s Next Top Model than the Nobel Peace Prize. It will give you something wonderful to Think about!

About 3 hours before I left for vacation I realized I had nothing new to read – THE HORROR – but bless the world, it’s 2011, and I downloaded Bossypants to the Kindle app on my iPad and had it bought, paid for, and in my hands in two minutes without having to leave the house.

My grandchildren will read this and chuckle, but my goodness is this ever a wonderful time to be alive.

Anyway.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a mix of biography, social commentary, thoughts about what it means to be a mother and a boss, and an inside peek at an incredible career. This is my favorite passage; it’s called “The Mother’s Prayer for Its Daughter”.

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered,
May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half
And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her
When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels.

What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.
Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long,
For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming
Magenta for one day–
And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.
O Lord, break the Internet forever,
That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers
And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister,
Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends,
For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord,
That I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.
“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget.
But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.

A Bad Day for Pretty is Sophie Littlefield’s second book* about Stella Hardesty, a battered wife who got fed up with being knocked around and is now a happy widow of her own making.  She runs a sewing shop by day and has a word-of-mouth side business helping other battered women “take care of” their own abusive husbands in a manner that ensures justice but doesn’t quite put her on the correct side of the law.  Even so, it’s the local sheriff of all people, a lanky Mr. “Goat” Jones, that she has her heart set on.

In the middle of a romantic dinner with Goat, his tacky, trashy no-good not-yet ex-wife Brandy blows in with the approaching tornado.  The storm causes another problem as well: it unearths the murdered body of a young woman, and all signs point to Stella’s friend’s husband Neb as the killer.

It’s up to Stella to figure out the truth, along with  her sewing shop employee, Chrissy, a young single mother and one of the benefactors of Stella’s unconventional brand of justice.

If you like your mysteries with a touch of humor and your heroines smart, sassy and romantic, you will really enjoy reading about Stella.

*Although this is her second book about Stella, it stands alone nicely. If you’d like to read the first book in the series, it’s linked below.

Buy it here on Amazon: A Bad Day for Pretty: A Crime Novel
Also: A Bad Day for Sorry: A Crime Novel

Full disclosure: I got this book free and was asked to review it. I read every book that is sent to me by publishers for reviewing, and I only blog about the ones I enjoy.

A warning: avoid this book if you’re in any sort of nesting/cleaning/organizing flurry, unless you have the time to implement the zillions of excellent ideas you’ll get from this book. It’s filled with modern, creative, space-enhancing techniques for making your tiny home/apartment more beautiful and efficient (ooo, I just got chills!)

This book, mixed with my recent purge-and-organize motivation from who-knows-where, has made me dangerous.

Buy it here on Amazon: Apartment Therapy’s Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces

There have been two times in my life where I was reading a book and it made me cry. The first was Bridge to Terabithia in fourth grade. My friend Sarah put her hand on my back and said, “Hey Amber, are you ok?” and I shook my head.

“This book has made me so sad!” I sniffed and held it up for her to see.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, “that one is a bummer.”

The second is Ken Wheaton’s first novel, The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival. I cried, because by the time something sad happened to someone in the book, I was so emotionally invested in the characters that I felt sad, too! The people in this book are vibrant and well-crafted; they are folks we care about, root for, dislike, laugh at, and love. It is a novel for those of us who appreciate character-driven stories.

The setting is a fictitious version of Grand Prairie, Louisiana, and Father Steve Sibille is the protagonist. He’s a nerdy 30 year old priest with a whole slew of bewildering women in his life, ranging in age from flirty teenage alter girls to a spicy, whiskey drinking “one hundred something” year old African American woman that helped raise him and just can’t stop sticking her nose in his business. “You need a woman!” she tells him often, waving her wrinkled hands at his vow of celibacy.

When a rival Baptist preacher shows up threatening to bring an even bigger, badder church to the town, Father Steve starts scheming up an event that he hopes will keep his flock in the fold: the first annual Grand Prairie rabbit festival. The planning is a little shaky – and that Baptist preacher isn’t going to make things easy on Father Steve and his crew – but this motley cast of characters comes together, and help arrives from unexpected, and hilarious, places.

There’s an elephant, a few trips to the gay bar, and a lot of drinking, too.

On Amazon here.
Listen to my interview with Ken here.

Beg, Borrow, Steal: A Writer’s Life reminded me of On the Road – a little wordy for my internet-addled ADD brain, but good, just good, and written in a tone that makes you want to meet the narrator, if only so he could be someone you met that one time that was intimidating, but very, very interesting. To be honest, I had a hard time getting through this book in the busy, dizzy end-of-the-year crunch going on. I had to make myself read it, and, like forcing yourself to go to the gym, I enjoyed every second of it once my rear was on the couch with the book light on and my email was closed down and in another room. I know that hardly sounds like a ringing endorsement, but it really is a great read, and it wasn’t the book, it’s me – I have a tiki drink attention span, and Michael Greenburg is a 25-year-old scotch, neat.

It helped that the book is broken into pieces – each chapter is an essay by itself, and they all make up the entire novel. The story is a memoir of Michael Greenberg’s life. He is invited to become part of the family scrap-metal business but refuses; he wants to be a Writer. Odd jobs become his way to survive, and in each he is introduced to different characters in New York City that he observes and writes of with a skill that makes them interesting, and sometimes beautiful, even if they are not. He also manages to capture the absurdity of living here in a way that I wish I could because, my god, this place has the most ridiculous people! Even the city itself (herself?) becomes a character in the novel; he imagines that the streets have feelings and seek their revenge if he changes his nightly course home.

The book is a documentation of the journey to becoming a successful writer and will be assigned to literature classes, I am so sure, in the years to come.

They’ve developed an interactive site (MichaelGreenberg.org) meant to recreate the spirit and experience of the book visually including a fineart map featuring some of the places mentioned in the book, and you can appreciate it whether or not you’ve read the book yet.

Someone sent this book to me, and this was the pitch, in part:

Author Irene Vilar is a successful and beautiful mother of two; grand-daughter of famed Puerto Rican activist Lolita Lebron. She finished high school at 15, became an academic star at Syracuse, and distinguished herself in publishing as a top acquisitions editor, literary agent and chair for a major non-profit. Hidden beneath her success however, was a life marred by 15 abortions in 16 years, the result of a complex addiction, years of manipulation and abuse, dysfunctional relationships and depression.

I’m going to start reading it shortly for review, it sounds compelling and controversial, and if you want to read along you can buy the book and share you thoughts, too. It’ll be cool to hear other people chime in.  The book is on sale on Amazon here: Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict