When I'm Not Reading

I'm having a love affair with my iPod. A couple of years ago, my hubby bought me an 80 gig iPod and I promptly loaded all of my music on it from his computer. We ditched all of our CDs and now have our music on another iPod attached to our stereo and all the music is backed up on his hard drive. But that's not the only thing I have on the old iPod, no not quite.

Over the last few years, I've become a huge fan of the radio storytelling program on NPR called "This American Life." Hosted by Ira Glass since 1995, the show is also available on iTunes as a FREE podcast if you subscribe. Past episodes appear as reruns from time-to-time, or can be purchased from iTunes 99 cents--a bargain at twice the price, in my opinion. I have about 140 episodes of the 363 produced as of this date, and while most have been free podcast downloads, I have been known to zip over to iTunes and drop $5 on a few new-to-me shows when I'm about to take a trip or if I'm in the mood for something new.

Twice a year, I donate to WBEZ in Chicago to help support the FREE podcast so everyone can enjoy TAL and this year I got a thank-you gift DVD of the first season of the This American Life television show on Showtime. Can't wait to jump into that!

Why am I addicted? Give it a listen for yourself and see. You can listen to most episodes FREE via your computer from the website. I've been known to lie in bed when I should be sleeping stifling guffaws at some of the tales being told like #323: The Super--especially Act. I by Jack Hitt. On the other hand, I've been moved to tears by some like #322: Shouting Across the Divide--Act. I, Serry and her husband, Muslims, move back to the USA because they feel it is a safer place to raise their children--then Sept. 11 happens.

Here is a quote from the TAL web page describing the show:

One of our problems from the start has been that when we try to describe This American Life in a sentence or two, it just sounds awful. For instance: each week we choose a theme and put together different kinds of stories on that theme. That doesn't sound like something we'd want to listen to on the radio, and it's our show. So usually we just say what we're not. We're not a news show or a talk show or a call-in show. We're not really formatted like other radio shows at all. Instead, we do these stories that are like movies for radio. There are people in dramatic situations. Things happen to them. There are funny moments and emotional moments and—hopefully—moments where the people in the story say interesting, surprising things about it all. It has to be surprising. It has to be fun. Each episode has a theme. That's mostly because a theme makes it seem like there's a reason to sit and listen to a story about a contest where everyone stands around a truck for days until only one person is left on their feet...or a grown man trying to convince a skeptical friend that not only has he heard the world's greatest phone message, but that it's about the Little Mermaid...or a man who's obsessed with Niagara Falls, lives minutes from the Falls, writes and thinks about the Falls all the time, but can't bring himself to actually visit the Falls because, as he says, "they've ruined the Falls." If you're not doing stories about the news, or celebrities, or things people have ever heard of elsewhere, you have to give people a reason to keep listening. The themes make it seem like you should. We view the show as an experiment. We try things. There was the show where we taped for 24 hours in an all-night restaurant. And the show where we put a band together from musicians' classified ads. And the show where we followed a group of swing voters for months, recording their reactions to everything that happened in the campaign, right up through their final decision. And the show where one of our contributors went on a fast to find out if doing that sort of thing leads, as promised, to enlightenment. We think of the show as journalism. One of the people who helped shape the program, Paul Tough, says that what we're doing is applying the tools of journalism to everyday lives, personal lives. Which is true. It's also true that the journalism we do tends to use a lot of the techniques of fiction: scenes and characters and narrative threads. Meanwhile, the fiction we have on the show functions like journalism: it's fiction that describes what it's like to be here, now, in America. What we like are stories that are both funny and sad. Personal and sort of epic at the same time. We sometimes think of our program as a documentary show for people who normally hate documentaries. A public radio show for people who don't necessarily care for public radio. Some of the writers whose work has been on the program: David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, Russell Banks, Dave Eggers, David Rakoff, Tobias Wolff, Jhumpa Lahiri, Anne Lamott, Michael Lewis, Michael Chabon, Nick Hornby, Alex Kotlowitz, Dan Savage, David Foster Wallace, Spalding Gray, Chris Ware, Gay Talese, Haruki Murakami, Aimee Bender, Lydia Davis, Junot Diaz, Sherman Alexie, Bill Buford. This American Life started in 1995 in Chicago. It went national in early 1996 and in the years since, it's won a lot of awards—the Peabody, the duPont-Columbia, the Murrow, and the Overseas Press Club, to name a few. Ira Glass, the host of the show, was named best radio host in the country by Time Magazine. And the American Journalism Review declared that the show is at "the vanguard of a journalistic revolution." The program is on more than 500 public radio stations across the country. They say 1.7 million people listen to us on the radio each week, which sometimes is hard to imagine. It's probably airing this weekend on a station near you. If not, you can listen to the show here on this site. The most recent show is available for free download or podcast. Older shows can be streamed from the archive pages, where you can also buy episodes on CD or via iTunes. And you can get our greatest hits CDs and other merch right here on the site. Have fun. And thanks for listening.

Oh, and we know what you're thinking: radio is so 80 years ago, and TV is so 50 years ago. Well, what about social networking? That's only 2 or 3 years ago, and we're all over it. Find us on MySpace and Facebook and YouTube, too. We've also got a bunch of instant messaging icons, wallpapers, and blog badges for your downloading fun over on our Showtime site. Go nuts.

So, here's my piece of advice for the day--if you've not listened to This American Life, do it. You won't be sorry. I guarantee it.

P.S. You don't have to be American to love this show because people are people the world over, in spite of what some politicians might tell you.

Book Hopping on Vacation

I just got back from a week in Hawaii and took my intended current read, Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, which I read on the plane and during the first few days I was there. Then my tropical urges got the better of me and I slipped into a local bookshop in Kailua and picked up a paperback copy of James A. Michener's tome Hawaii.

It has been years since I read the book and being there got me in the mood for a re-read, so I dipped in to the first part about the settlement of the islands. Alas, on the way home, I went back to Mayflower (faithless book slut that I am), and will be plodding through that and trying to keep the various Native American tribes separate.

Are you picking up a theme of exploration and manifest destiny?

The Eyre Affair

Is just rocking my world. I love it.
What's not to like?
1. Set in Britian
2. Detectives
3. Literary theme
4. Female heroine
5. Set in Britian
6. Just enough fantasy
7. Hilarious names like: Mr. Braxton Hicks

Gotta go, Thursday Next and crew are waiting for me.

Book Two Finished

I finished Charming Billy by Alice McDermott, winner of the 1998 National Book Award and I'm glad I stuck it out. I decided that in order to finish this book I would have to give up trying to keep the characters straight and just read for dialog. Doing that worked well and I was able to keep going.

I just started The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, winner of the Alex Award in 2003 and after that a book from daughter Kate, The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, a dual winner of the 1999 PEN/ Hemingway award and the Pulitzer Prize in 2000.

Part of this challenge is to read from at least five different awards and it looks like I'm well on my way!

Charming Billy

I'm now reading my second book for the Book Awards II Challenge, Charming Billy by Alice McDermott. Starting at the wake of rip-roaring alcoholic Billy Lynch, this book winds around the lives of Billy's rather large Irish family and collection of friends. I'm about halfway through and wishing I'd started a family tree when I started reading it. I'm having a hard time keeping track of who's who in this bunch--it's almost as convoluted as a Louise Erdrich novel!

I was halfway through the book before it was revealed that the narrator is the daughter of Billy's first cousin! I'm expecting some kind of secret or revelation before the book concludes and if there isn't, I'm going to be disappointed in this book, which could otherwise have been a long short story.

I have a couple of contenders for the next book including The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde and a grocery bag of others hiding in my closet.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle made me happy all over to read--especially during the summer while I was tending my green beans, tomatoes, lettuce and tomatoes and enjoying fresh, local, free-range (really), organic chickens from Triple T Farm at the Farmer's Market.

Arrived by mail today, Manhattan: The Land of Heart's Desire by Robert McCracken, published by the Nye County (Nevada) Press, a gift from my Aunt Madaline. My father and most of his siblings were born in the first quarter of the 20th century in this small mining town in Nevada and I'm really going to enjoy reading the history of this tiny town.

Still Reading

I'm still working on Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and not rushing myself with it one little bit. This book is a must-read for anyone who eats. First, you should read The Omnivore's Dilemma and then this. It is very serendipitous that I began this book, a birthday gift last year from my dear mother-in-law, in high summer as my green beans are producing their little hearts out and my cherry tomatoes are ripening a handful a day. This book is lush with the joy of a love for good food, simply but well prepared.

As I read, the author and her husband just visited Italy where she fell in love with the food and the people. As a second generation Italian, I can say with authority.....what's not to like?

Behind.....

I've been reading like a maniac lately and spending much less time on the computer (as my poor blogging record shows).

I read my first book for the Challenge, Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life last week and enjoyed it very much. I've not read any reviews of the book, but if it is true as written, I find it surprising that Wolff was able to graduate high school let alone teach at Stanford.

His chaotic childhood with a flaky mother and an abusive stepfather reminded me that no matter how dysfunctional I thought my childhood was, others had it worse. He managed to redirect and reinvent his life, a testament to the strength of the human spirit. I loved this book.

Prior to that, I slipped in a non-challenge book that my friends Kathy and Becky gave me. It was a book-group read from Becky's local book group and she said it had mixed reviews which I will elaborate on later.

Jennie Shortridge's book "eating heaven" is a must-read for any woman who has battled with self-image, weight issues and, well, sisters. I identified so strongly with the principal character, Eleanor, the middle of three sisters "the fat one" trapped between "the smart one" and "the cute one." Eleanor is a professional food writer, primarily for "Cooking For Life," a magazine that sucks the calories and soul out of your old favorite dishes so you can eat them without guild--or pleasure. Eleanor gets caught up in caring for an old family friend with a secret history during his decline due to pancreatic cancer, and has to deal with her distant mother and demanding sisters and falling in love in spite of herself.

There is a scene in the book that struck me like lightening. Eleanor is at dinner with one of her sisters, a successful attorney and her sister makes a disparaging remark about E's weight to the waitress. The waitress, for heaven's sake! She follows that up by asking the waitress to bring the dessert menu as soon as the entree is served so her sister can look at it while she eats. This completely callous disregard of Eleanor's feelings reminds me of some things my sisters have said to me over the years and absolutely blew me away. Like being in a therapy session and having an "OMG" moment when the light bulb goes on. In spite of stirring up some uncomfortable memories, which I know is a good thing because it means dealing with them, I loved this book. Eleanor interviews a chef, a good, decent, big man who falls in love with her just as she is, and maybe that sounds trite, but dammit, she deserved it! I totally identified with that! This book will probably never win an award, but I loved it and would recommend it to anyone.

A note about the book group. Becky reported that the women who dealt with weight issues loved the book, but the thin ones didn't like it at all. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.........

Now reading: Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and no comment about the segue between these books......