Virginia

An amazing book

Revisado: 09-12-23

Andrew Leland describes his decades-long descent into blindness. He wrote this book while functionally blind, obviously doing hundreds of hours of research, to tell us not only what it feels like going blind but a lot of the background history of blind schools, disability movements, legislation, etc. He lays out his personal path, often heartbreakingly difficult, neither feeling sorry for himself nor displaying false. I’m using him as a guide in handling my own much less challenging difficulties.

In addition to being a very talented writer, he narrates his own book as well or better than a professional reader. One of the most satisfying books I’ve ever read.

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As crass and self-indulgent as it gets

Revisado: 11-13-22

Never heard of Eddie Huang? Me neither, and I wish that statement were still true. By his own words he’s an ABC (American-Born Chinese), who feels alienated in both cultures. He hates everything and everybody (calls Biden “a stinking pile of shit”). He apparently thinks he’s funny.

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A fun, smart novel

Revisado: 01-16-22

I don’t like a humorous novel to be “ha-ha, isn’t that funny?” I prefer that the author inserts a sly/dry remark here and there, like raisins kneaded into bread, where the reader feels a slight frisson of pleasure in the catching of the joke.
I also appreciated the author going to the trouble of burying clues in the early part of the book to be dug out and used later. For example, Harriman quite entertainingly depicts the protagonist’s penchant for purloining other people’s possessions, totally worthless to the thief, but this trait leads to the needless nicking of a luggage tag, which proves indispensable later.

I often don’t enjoy fiction, but I give this book an A.

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Heart-breaking, incredibly brave account

Revisado: 12-14-21

I happen to have a sister who is leaving me daily through Alzheimer’s. This book has given me a deeper appreciation of the loneliness and terror she is experiencing. Now when I call, I insist she write down the call in her daily record, otherwise she will forget within a minute, and added to all the other horrors of this condition is the sadness that her sister “never calls.” I recommend the book for anyone who has an association with this disease, which, in the end, will be most of us.

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The author shares his inner life

Revisado: 07-09-21

I usually prefer non-fiction to fiction, because I “learn” something, but I “learned” a lot from this book, too. I so appreciate when an author lets you in, so to speak. Nicholls takes his time building up the complicated relationships, brick by brick, always with a sure hand. I’ve decided I’m going to stick to fiction with built-in humor, like this one, from
now on.

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Not the author’s story to tell

Revisado: 08-09-20

Lisa Rogak, apparently, has found her niche: telling the behind-the-scene stories of famous media people. She’s done Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart and now Alex Trebek.

Well, when he heard about it, Alex didn’t like it so he decided he’d show her, and he wrote his own book—-it is his life, after all—-and he even (sticking the knife in deeper) arranged to have his book released on the same day as hers!

I took the bait, curiosity getting the better of me (and I had extra points), so I listened to both books. Alex’s book wins hands down.

Rogak, since negativity sells, exposes a few somewhat unsavory details of Alex’s life, but upon learning those, I felt she had no business telling them, and I had no business knowing them. And she gets at least two details wrong: 1) She says that Alex adopted his first wife’s daughter. He says he thinks of the then-girl as a daughter but never formally adopted her. 2) Rogak says Alex started wearing a hair piece due to his cancer treatment when in his book he says he started a year or two earlier to hide scars caused by surgery on his head. These are two inaccuracies—-no way to tell how many others.

So, buy her book if you please, but you’ll be better off just buying Alex’s. (And he’s giving all HIS profits to charity, another knife.)

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Alex Trebek sounds like himself...and that’s good!

Revisado: 08-06-20

This is a good book, not great literature, but, golly, the guy was undergoing cancer treatments while writing it. It’s not really a “book” in the sense that there’s a lot of content in orderly fashion. It’s 82 short chapters, some as short as a minute and a half. (I believe that was the one where he encapsulated his philosophy of life as being immersed in a warm bath.)

From the show, which I watch fairly regularly, I wasn’t aware that Alex even had a wife. If he mentioned her, I missed it. But he’s certainly devoted to her and to his two kids.

I enjoyed the banter between Alex and Ken Jennings, who does a good job narrating, too.

I’d definitely recommend.

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Very entertaining

Revisado: 07-07-19

Very funny, how clueless the Babe was, at least in his early career. Well worth the price. (Only kidding, it was free.)

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Trevor survived a horrible childhood

Revisado: 04-10-18

Take a kid with a white father and black mother in a society where such a mixture is criminal, no, scandalous. Add no place to live, no money, no water, no electricity. Throw in a mentally unstable, alcoholic, violent stepdad, a completely corrupt and incompetent police system, ignorance all around. And what do you produce? One of the sharpest, kindest, most insightful entertainers on the face of the earth. Read this book—-better, let Trevor read it out loud to you—-and expand your experience of what the human spirit can endure.

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Fascinating story, too many details

Revisado: 04-08-18

I repeatedly felt like stopping, but there were parts that were well learning, so I shouldered on (at accelerated speed). I had no idea of the degree that the US had infiltrated the Japanese and German codes, through hundreds of women’s efforts to a large degree. But the book would have been vastly improved if it were a third shorter.

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