This book made me laugh. I mean, really laugh . . . the kind of belly chuckles and snorts that elicit glares from library personnel. Especially if you are 40+ and a little incontinent.

The world was getting me down. After reading the book it seemed, temporarily at least, a more pleasant place.

Thank you, Rita.

If you are fostering or have adopted a child with RAD, this is an excellent book for understanding the child’s point-of-view.

I’d put this book in the same category as Eat, Love, Pray.

Mostly seems to be geared toward upper-middle class women who wake up somewhere in their 40’s and feel their lives are shallow and unfulfilled. So, they leave home with a wad of cash and an “invisible backpack” (see http://www.uakron.edu/centers/conflict/docs/whitepriv.pdf if you aren’t familiar with the term) to find themselves.

While I agree with the author’s premise that it’s very helpful for women to retreat from the world for a couple of days, the spoiled, almost sorority-girl “it’s all about me” tone of the book was tiresome and grating.

Highly recommended for anyone who is open to meditation and needs help with everyday minor flurries of anger or more deep-seated ones. Looks at anger as a habit that can be managed, rather than a inescapable reflex.

Balanced account of what life was like before the genocide in Rwanda, a miraculous escape from slaughter, and an attempt to rebuild life with immense courage.

Intriguing, emotional, inspiring portraits of 27 fascinating, fascinating Chinese citizens.

The last chapter of A Nation of Wimps offers 11 very good suggestions for parents:

Let children play
Eat dinner together regularly
Learn how to criticize your children constructively
Let children find their own rewards for achievement
Quit hovering
Stop turning parenting into a [perfectionist’s] profession
Teach children how to tolerate discomfort
Learn how to praise children for the right things
Encourage your children to problem solve and take risks
Let your kids fail
Give your kids increasing responsibility for managing their own lives as they get older
Take your own brains back and get out of panic mode (i.e. be more rational & look at challenges in childrens’ lives as opportunities to make them problem solvers, not robots)

Great list.

The 255 pages BEFORE this list . . . meh.

The author’s main goal is to prove that the “wimpy” generation, (AKA current college-aged students): flunk out of college, self-mutilate, commit suicide and just can’t handle life due to over-zealous parenting (defined as parents who, among other things, choose: excessive amounts of adult-led activities, homeschooling, expensive gadgetry esp. cell phones , internet monitoring, etc. . . . )

While I totally agree that Alpha-Parenting (AKA “helicopter parenting”) is harmful, the things the author takes pot-shots at are sometimes ridiculous (e.g. she argues that parents who provide GPS phones to make themselves and their kids feel safer are “infantilizing” children).

Her Nietzsche-esque message, (pounded out for 255 pages before the last chapter . . . and almost in spite of it): “Parents, it’s OK, even desirable to unplug from your children and leave their asses hanging in the wind.”

As a “moderate” parent (neither a hoverer nor a free reigner . . . ), I feel she has it half-right . . . but I question what percentage of parents need a book like this to give them more excuses to be disconnected parents . . . when I look around I think there are more parents who don’t parent at all than those who overdo. There are a helluva lot more social problems created by them than by the Alpha parents, who are mostly just annoying as hell.

When the author started expounding the virtues of Sudbury Valley Schools though, which have few set curriculum standards and allow children to choose their own curricula . . . I totally tuned out . . . any theory that is grounded in the idea that American schools and homes need less structure seems extremely misguided at best . . .

Adichie manages to tell the complex story of Biafra in a stunningly simple, understated way . . . no theatrics, no hysteria, and surprisingly little vitrol towards the West . . .

Unforgettable characters, absorbing story lines, profound themes . . . this book has it all.

Today I curled up with a pot of Earl Grey and read The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000). Her journals begin in 1950 when Plath was 18, a freshman at Smith. They end in early 1962. Ted Hughes burned the last journal (in which she no doubt recorded his mental cruelty and philandering). She killed herself February 11, 1963.

NYT review: “As maddeningly incomplete as they are, these journals are a revelation. Most strikingly, where one expects morbidity, one finds instead an almost pagan relish for life.”

[Thinks of the line from Annie Hall: “Oh, Sylvia Plath, whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the schoolgirl mentality.”]

Well, Woody Allen got it 2/3 right. Her suicide was tragic. My schoolgirl mentality could relate to aspects of Sylvia’s life. But nothing about her death seemed “romantic.”

Her journal is absorbing on many different levels, though: voyeuristic (a glimpse into a sexy debutante’s not-so-good-girl’s journal); analytic/medical (a glimpse into a young, intelligent mind on-the-edge-of-madness), academic (a chance to live vicariously through her “dream” academic career), and as a period piece (a vivid trek through 1950’s life and mores).

The hours flew by. I got home with her words throbbing in my temples and feeling the weight of a familiar brilliance, creative inspiration, trivial foolishness and pettiness . . . elements that unchecked can destroy a human spirit . . .

Felt no deep affinity with Sylvia Plath, just sympathy and a confused relief that through cruel (?) fate my own life was denied that sort of insanity, intensity and a career in the world of screwed-up narcissistic poets. (Came close, though.)

A quick read; fairly entertaining: competent, bland, tactful. I have long been curious as to how Madelyn Pugh became successful at a time when television writing was dominated by men; I admit I was hoping for an Unsinkable Molly Brown tale, imagining her to be sort of a bitchy, backstabbing, beer-guzzling, clawing-her-way-to-the-top gal. No such luck. Damn! Basically, she paints herself as a Bland Token Woman Employee: a hard-working dame who mostly thought like a man and didn’t cause the network execs trouble.