Book Review: True Spirit The True Story of a 16-Year-Old Australian Who Sailed Solo, Nonstop, and Unassisted Around the World by Jessica Watson

Title:True Spirit: The True Story of a 16-Year-Old Australian Who Sailed Solo, Nonstop, and Unassisted Around the World
Author: Jessica Watson
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: September 7, 2010

After 210 days at sea, Australian teen Jessica Watson sailed into Sydney Harbor on May 15 2010 completing a trip that circumnavigated the globe. Jessica sailed a 33 foot boat nonstop through some sever weather conditions unassisted to complete her dream of becoming the youngest person to sail around the world. At an age where most teenage girls are thinking of boys and school and clothes, Jessica took a dream that many adults would not get a chance to fill and with the help of a very supportive family and a team of experts on sailing, weather, and mechanical parts made that dream a reality.

I thought that this was an interesting book.

Since I first stumbled on a copy of Dove back in high school, I have loved travelogues that involve sailing. I've done a little sailing on Lake Michigan, nothing larger than a 19 foot boat (with no motor just sails only). It was something that I have enjoyed doing a lot, and now that I don't I enjoy reading about other people's sailing adventures.

I thought it interesting that Jessica took her blog entries made during her sailing and expanded them for the book. It showed her immediate reactions to situations, as well as what she remembered afterwards. It's a shame her trip is not recognized by certain sailing organizations as circumnavigating the globe (and that there is not a youngest sailor record anymore). However, you get the idea that while it might have been nice to have her name put to a sailing world record, Jessica is more thrilled with the fact that she dreamed making this trip and actually getting a chance to fulfill it. It was refreshing to witness this journey through Jessica's own words without the passage of time between the events that happened, and the writing of the book.

I was a little annoyed by the vast use of QC codes throughout the book linking to her video blogs. As someone who lacks a smartphone I thought this a tad annoying to include as not everyone has the technology to use the codes.

Book Review: Ambulance Girl by Jane Stern

Title: Ambulance Girl
Author: Jane Stern
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Publish Date: April 27, 2004

Jane Stern had hit her fifties with a thud. A successful food writer with her husband Michael, she had fallen into depression and had started collecting phobias, and her marriage of thirty years was struggling. A chance noticing of the volunteers needed sign outside the Georgetown, Connecticut fire station put an idea into her head. She was going to become an EMT. She, who had trouble helping herself at times was going to help other people in need.

So, she signed up for EMT training through the volunteer EMT program in her township. Despite her fears of being too old, too fat, and too squeemish, Stern found herself doing well in her classes. She passed the local exams, the practical exams, and the national board certification to become an EMT-B. In doing so, she becomes a member of a community of firemen and emergency response personnel that allows her to become more than she expected.

Ambulance Girl is a retrospective of Stern's first year as an EMT. She revisits her struggles through the initial certification process. Her first months as a woman in a male dominated fire department. We see her struggles with her claustrophobia, her fears of dying, and her ongoing struggle with depression. When a good friend suffers a brain hemmorage, and is "saved" only to end up in a long term care facility half the person he was, Stern starts to question her role as an EMT.

I was drawn into this story. I have read a couple of the author's food books, and found this chapter of her life enthralling to read. She shares her journey from neurotic and depressed to the first female officer of the fire station (station secretary) in a way that is both humorous and warm. I found myself turning page after page wanting to know how she was going to handle the next situation.

Book review: Cathedrals of the Flesh by Alexia Brue

Title: Cathedrals of he Flesh: My Search fo the Perfect Bath
Author Alexia Brue
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Date Published: 2003

I originally received this book from Morsecode as part of the books she sent when my name had been pulled from a drawing that she did on her blog Morsie Reads!. I had put this on my wishlist after reading the blurb when the book was offered in a swap on one of the forums that I read regularly.

When author Alexia Brue visits her best friend Marina in Paris, they both attend a local turkish bathhouse (also known as a hamam). Alexia and Marina decide to research what it would take to open a hamam in New York City. This research took Alexia's curiosity concerning the history of bathhouses and their current status worldwide. Alexia travels from the US to Turkey, where the hamams are frequented by older generations and looked down on by the younger generations. She then travels to Greece and visits the remains of a Roman bathhouse which is being excavated by archaeologists. From there Alexia travels to Russia and Sweden with their Steam baths. Russians show her their love of the banya with it's ritual of flogging the bathers with bunches of birch leaves (a tradition which brings blood to the skins surface, and promises that those partaking won't get old). Sweden shows Alexia the tradition of the sauna where bathers end their bathing experience by plunging into frigid waters. Alexia finishes he travels by visiting Japan, where bathing occurs in the onsen (the author visits an onsen in Tokyo), to the more famous hot spring baths outside of Kyoto.

I found this book a fascinating way of visiting other countries. While the author's travels and research did not end up leading to the opening of a bathhouse in New York, it opened her eyes to the different types of baths found worldwide, and gave her oppurtunities to become comfortable with these traditions. I enjoyed reading about the authors travels as a single woman through parts of the world where being a woman is not the best thing, and enjoyed reading her relavations about herself as she traveled the world.

Book Review: The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickinson

For Amy Dickinson, family is her cornerstone. After becoming a single mother to a toddler, Amy found herself moving back from London to Freeville, New York to mend her broken heart. It was with the help of her unusual family of single mothers and strong independent women that Amy was able to find a new direction for her life while officially becoming a single mother.

As she moves away from Freeville to Washington DC, Amy finds herself returning to her hometown, and the advice of her supportive family. These strong, independent women provide Amy with advice, love, and help when needed to pick up the pieces of her life and make them whole again. The book spans the years from Amy’s divorce to her daughter going away to college. Well known advice columnist Amy Dickinson shares the many triumphs and failures that she has witnessed over the past twenty years.

The book is divided into topics of interest in the author’s life. These range from subjects such as divorce, becoming a single mother with and without a support net, gaining pets, seeing your child through the teen years and dating as an older adult. Each new topic explored has a tendency to jump back to the time before/leading up to the divorce and expanding forwards through the years. I found it a little confusing at first. However I found myself drawn into Amy Dickinson’s story.

As someone who lived in Chicago when Ann Landers passed away, I remember the hype surrounding the search for her replacement. I’ve read a few of Amy’s column’s. I am more familiar with her work on the NPR programs that she participates on though. It was because of this semi-familiarity that I jumped on the chance to read this book. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I found a wonderfully sweet memoir of the years leading up to Amy Dickinson’s jump into fame. I think that’s what endeared me most about the book. The author focuses on her family and her life at the time rather than how she became important. This is a book that I am going to pass along to my own mother. It is a book that I think she will be able to relate to, as a divorced single mother, and will hopefully enjoy.

Book Review: Playing with Fire Whining and Dining on the Gold Coast by Thomas G. Schaudel

Read and Reviewed for armchair interviews
Have you ever gone to dinner and had a bad experience? Maybe your food wasn’t cooked right, or you found something that shouldn’t be there in your soup bowl. Perhaps you were witness to one of your fellow patrons being extremely rude and pushy. However, what do you do if you are the chef, and the customer’s complaint is just too off the wall for you to handle?

If you are Chef Tom Schaudel, you write a book about those customers. Tom writes in his introduction: “By my math, I have fed over two million Long Islanders in the last forty years. One million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and fifteen have been wonderful; eighty five have made this book.” Playing with fire introduces readers to these most memorable characters that Tom and the staff of his four restaurants have met over the last forty years of being in the business.

From the moment I saw the table of contents which is laid out to look like a menu and the illustrations beginning each chapter, I knew I was in for a treat with this book. Chef and author Tom Schaudel shares these humorous “horror” stories of some of his best worst behaved customers. From the woman who tried to walk out of the restraint with a Christmas tree attached to her pocket, a grandma who liked to flip the bird at everyone in the place when not helped fast enough, the awkward situations of the woman on a date who is so drunk she is passed out on the ladies bathroom floor, and the young married couple who tried to redeem a counterfeit gift certificate given them as a wedding gift, as well as many others. The stories are told in a light hearted way that make the reader see how sometimes the wait and kitchen staff just have to have a good sense of humor to survive the night. I appreciated the recipes scattered through the pages, and while I don’t cook a lot of seafood myself I did see one or two that I would like to try some night for dinner.

Playing with Fire is a lighthearted romp through the restaurant industry and those nightmare customers who frequent it, as seen by the man behind the scenes.

Book Review: The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan

Read and reviewed for Front Street Reviews

"The Middle Place is about calling home. Instinctively. Even when all the paperwork—a marriage license, a notarized deed, two birth certificates, and seven years of tax returns—clearly indicates you're an adult, but all the same, there you are, clutching the phone and thanking God that you're still somebody's daughter." – Kelly Corrigan

Thirty-six year old Kelly Corrigan was living a very content life. She had a job she enjoyed, a wonderful husband, two beautiful young daughters, and a great relationship with her family. Then, one evening she discovered an unexpected lump in her breast. Before long, she found herself facing the results of many tests – she had breast cancer. Kelly, who still considers herself George Corrigan’s daughter, finds herself facing her middle place. Before starting chemo treatments, Kelly draws a cacoon of safety around her – her family, her friends, and her desire to survive. She plans a the cancer is gone party for one year after her diagnosis, and calls back home to her parents.

Kelly’s life becomes a changing one of chemotherapy, loss of hair, weakening body as she goes through treatments, and through it all her strength is supported by her husband Ed, and her father. However , six months into her treatments, Kelly finds herself facing a phone call of her own. Her father has been diagnosed with bladder cancer. Suddenly, she finds herself plaugued with worries about not only herself, but her father as she tries to help support her parents from the opposite side of the country.

The Middle Place, is a journey through illness, and health, where strength and support are. found in places that the author does not expect. Kelly Corrigan writes a memoir that is both humerous, as well as thought provoking. She makes her readers feel like they are a part of her family, sharing her stories of growing up and her recovery from cancer with honesty, humor, and a fantastic flair for storytelling. I started the book on a day I was myself laid up with the flu, and found myself engrossed by it. It made me laugh, as well as bringing me to tears as the subjects of love, family, friendship, illness, cancer, and even death are touched on.

Book Review: Straight up and Dirty: A Memior by Stephanie Klein

Read and reviewed for armchair interviews

Stephanie Klein was living her dreams. Happily married to her husband Gabe, a medical student, she is several months pregnant, and is happily ignoring the problems with the relationship to keep this life that she loves. Never mind the fact that Gabe’s mother hates her (for not being good enough for her son, and other strongly implied reasons); that she and Gabe had to hide the fact that they eloped for three months because Gabe was afraid to tell his parents; and that he is increasingly gone from home. Suddenly Stephanie’s dream life spirals into her nightmare of being a divorcee shortly after discovering that Gabe had been cheating on her for several months with an older woman.

Straight Up and Dirty collects Stephanie’s recollections of that first year after her divorce. She struggles with jumping back into the dating scene much to soon after the divorce. We the readers are treated to her stories of trying to juggle “two dates and a spare” (on advice from her therapist), of being a small fish in the Manhattan dating scene at the ripe old age of “almost thirty”. Through her stories, we are witnesses to her triumphs and dramas as she learns to love herself for herself and not need to be in a relationship, grieves through her divorce, a breakup of a several month relationship (the first after her divorce), and the transformation from a woman who is afraid to love again to someone who is proud of herself and finding love unexpectedly.

Stephanie Klein shares the triumphs and lows she has experienced in her memoirs of becoming an older dater. In a market that is filled with memoirs of life before and after dating, this one stands out with its humor, honesty and attention grabbing stories. This book is a witty way to experience the dating scene in Manhattan, and take part in one woman's journey to find herself and true love. I found this to be a very engaging read and wondered where the time had gone when I finished the book.

ISBN10: 0060843276
Biding Format: Hardcover
Publisher: ReaganBooks
Publication Date: July 25, 2006
Author's Website: Greek Tragedy. Stories of my life

Book Review: I Am Not Myself These Days by Josh Kilmer-Purcell

In his first book, a fresh new memoir, author Josh Kilmer-Purcell weaves us a tale of his first two years living in Manhattan after migrating north from Atlanta. His life is a lather-rinse-repeat pattern of working late, going home and transforming himself from Josh to Aqua (a flamboyant drag queen) and spending the rest of the night drinking, dancing, and working the Manhattan gay club scene until going to work again the next day. His life has a repetitious quality to it until he meets Jack. Jack is a crack addicted male escort who after meeting Josh initiates an intense fast paced relationship. We witness Josh and Jack go from happily moving in together into Jack’s penthouse apartment to spiraling out of control and finally violently fracturing apart due to Jack’s addictions.

Reading this book drew me into a very unfamiliar world. However, the author weaves this tale of his past in a way that does not alienate those readers who are not familiar with it. It was a sadly hopeful tale that had some amazingly funny highs and some very intense lows.

ISBN10: 0060817321
ISBN13: 9780060817329
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Publication Date: February 2006
Binding: Hardcover