Baby Got Books

I came to read Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis through a non-linear set of circumstances.  It all started with a review that I read for Utterly Monkey by Nick Laird.  The review suggested that Monkey was a cross between a Guy Ritchie movie, the TV show The Office, and Lucky Jim.  I knew two of the three references - with the odd reference out  being Lucky Jim.  I hate not being in on references, especially since I not only knew the other two - I loved them.  So I ordered Lucky Jim to see if it meshed with these other great British icons.  Hmm. That was a pretty linear path after all.

If you decide to go down a similar path, do yourself a favor. Skip the introduction by David Lodge.  I understand the idea that Lodge wanted to set the stage for our appreciation of the book by discussing the context in which the book was written.  That’s all well and good.  However, Lodge proceeds to discuss the book as if you’ve already read it, know all the major plot points, have studied its place in the British canon, and you’ve come back to read it again - only this time with the benefit of his insights.  How about a big *Warning: Spoiler Alert* across the whole introduction?  In fact, if you really want to save yourself some time, just read the intro by Lodge and you’ll be more than adequately equipped to discuss the book at length at those swanky cocktail parties you go to in the Hamptons.  Sumbitch.
Lucky Jim is the story of a guy, Jim, who attended university on the British equivalent of the GI Bill.  He finds himself a junior academic, a position that was reserved exclusively for the social elite before the war.  Jim hates this career path and feels that he is failing miserably at it.  He expects to be exposed as a fraud at any moment and run out of the institution.

There are some clever send ups of the academic life.  There is lady trouble. Alcohol features prominently.  There is a hilarious speech that Jim gives that is reportedly a classic.  I don’t want to give away any more - unlike some bastards I could mention. Although the modifier in the title should give you an indication of how things turn out.  I did find out why Lucky Jim was thrown in with the other references to describe Utterly Monkey.  So I have that going for me.

• For your convenience, NPR has grouped their summer reading stories to a single page.
• Salon has a summer reading round-up
• And here’s the Village Voice’s list

A very negative review of King Dork in a young adult publication, supposedly written by a teen, has the following damnation of the book:

The sarcastic humor will appeal only to mature teens with an interest in 1960s novels, heavy metal music, oral sex, and random beatings.

Yeah, all that stuff sucks. Either being a teenager is not what it once was (I blame that sumbitch Reagan), or this teen reviewer has no understannding of her audience.

I bought The Book Thief by Markus Zusak around the same time that I picked up King Dork. Both are marketed as “Young Adult” titles. Both are outstanding. Yet, they could not be more different.

The Book Thief begins with a few introductory sentence fragments and then hits you with the following all bold statement:

***HERE IS A TRUE FACT ***
You are going to die.

The narrator speaks from an authoritative position. The narrator is Death. At least Death tries to be reassuring: “I’m nothing if not fair.” Despite the reassurances, Death, as you can imagine, often seems unfair. The book takes place in Germany during World War II. Liesel Meminger is abandoned by her mother to a foster family, because she is unable to care for Liesel and her brother any longer. The brother does not survive the trip. This is when Death first spots Liesel. Liesel and death do not have long conversations and get to be buddies. It’s not that kind of story.

Death tells us Liesel’s story. Liesel lives in small town with a foster family that is struggling to keep themselves afloat during the war. They are not Jews, but the book does deal with how Liesel’s family and the villagers interact (and have previously interacted) with the Jews that they encounter who are ultimately bound for the Dachau concentration camp.

Liesel becomes a book thief by stealing a book about grave digging from one of the apprentice undertakers at her brother’s burial. Although unschooled, she treasures the object. It is all that she owns. Liesel similarly obtains additional books as the opportunities present themselves, becoming a book thief.  However, it is a book that was forced upon Liesel’s family by the Party, Mein Kampf, that ultimately becomes the most meaningful to Liesel.

The Book Thief obviously weighs some heavy issues - death, humanity, inhumanity, family, justice, Nazis, compassion, memory, survival, language, The Holocaust. I don’t hang out with many teenagers, so I’m not sure what the young adult crowd would make of this book. Would the King Dork crowd dig this book as well? Who can I call?

I came across a review of The Book Thief written by Janet Maslin of the New York Times around the time that the book came out. It began with what I considered a couple of fairly provocative opening sentences.

Markus Zusak has not really written “Harry Potter and the Holocaust.” It just feels that way.

No it doesn’t.  I’ll admit that the quote piqued my interest, but that clever opening doesn’t do the book justice on its own. The book does have a lyrical, almost fairy tale, feel to it. Despite the fact that Death is conversing with you throughout, the book doesn’t feel “magical”. The realism of the story is what keeps the book grounded and deeply moving. If Death were able to step in and alter outcomes by magic, it would have been a different book. It would have felt very cheap actually, given the subject matter.

Maslin says that Liesel is “Potterish in her appeal as she makes her way through a mystifying adult world.” I suppose. Unlike Potter though, she doesn’t have any otherworldly resources at her disposal to confront her real world demons. Liesel is a normal little girl, and unlike the Potter books so far, we have no real guarantees that Liesel and Death are not going to be on more intimate terms over the course of the book. Maslin also insinuates that The Book Thief is not as good as “better books” like Everything Is Illuminated or Vonnegut’s novels. I think that Zusak might take those comparisons.

This is a first rate book throughout. Reading back-to-back Young Adult novels that were so well written (they are both in my top 5 for the year so far), yet so diverse, has blown my mind. What is the cut off on “Young Adult” anyway? The clerk at Barnes & Noble seemed to think that I was too old for the book. Whatever. I hope that I never feel too old for books like this.

In a complete aside: This is the second book by an Australian that I’ve read this year.  I can’t think of any Australian authors that I have read other than these two.  Are there great Australian books that I have just assumed were British?  Or have I just missed out on Australians all together?  Where are all the great New Zealand(-er? -ian? -ish?) novels?

You can hear the author talk about his book on NPR.

Here in Atlanta, our northern suburbs are a constant source of amusement and alarm due to their conservative and reactionary government by what appear to be the smallest minds available for the jobs. Cobb County used to be the county most likely to make national news for stupid decisions, like putting evolution is “just a theory” stickers in all science books or any number of institutional homophobic offenses.

Gwinnett County, our other neighbor to the north, is poised to fight for the dumbass crown. Not deterred by their loss in trying to remove Harry Potter from school libraries, the no-bookniks are at it again. First, they fired their Library Director, who led them to a National Library of the Year Award in 2000, without cause, apparently in an attempt to “harmonize the library system with conservative values” of the community. Uh, huh.

What are the conservative values of the community? Well for one thing, the library won’t be buying any more works of fiction in Spanish, because they ”can’t supply pleasure reading material for all language groups, so we’re not going to go down that road”. Also, “we didn’t need to cater to illegal aliens”. Here is my personal favorite and most paternalistic of all the self-serving quotes in the story:

Board member Dale Todd said her only objection to the Spanish books is that Harlequin romance novels are not of high enough literary value. Instead, she said, the library should offer life-skills books to help immigrants.

Ms. Todd, can I come over to your house and make some personal reading decisions for you? I have a few “life-skills” books that I think should take precedence over anything else on your shelf. Michael Schaub at Bookslut says that the money earmarked for Spanish books “will instead be allocated to the county’s “cross-burnin’ fund.” Heh. Wait until they find out that another library system recently tried to ban kids from the homeless shelter from borrowing books - those lazy reading bastards.

As you may remember, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the incredibly hyped King Dork by Frank Portman. How red hot is King Dork? Check out this picture of Rick Neilsen reading the book. Here’s a lady who couldn’t put King Dork down while in the hospital after giving birth. What’s your book been up to lately?

King Dork is Tom Henderson, a born-to-lose high school student. He’s also called Moe, Chi-Mo, Hender-Fag, and other fantastic high school nicknames. Tom’s high school is typical. AP classes are where you get to do less work for more credit. Advanced French is for people who speak awful French in the present tense and talk about the time, the weather, and this one guy Jean and this other guy Claude. Girls are mysterious or just plain weird. You know, high school.

Tom’s dream is to be in a great rock and roll band. Much of Tom’s time is spent plotting the band’s meteoric rise along with sidekick and fellow ostracized teen, Sam Hellerman. They come up with countless band names, album titles, and album credits, like band #23:

The Elephants of Style
Guitar: Mot Juste
Bass and Animal Husbandry: Sam Enchanted Evening
First Album: Devil Warship

The great thing about having a teen protagonist is that he gets to have a strong opinion on just about everything and can make definitive statements like this:

The Sweet…maybe the were only the the second-greatest rock and roll band of all time, but they made the first-greatest album of all time (Desolation Boulevard) and the all-time greatest song in the history of music (”Fox on the Run“)

If you were or are a teen boy who obsesses about music, this kind of stuff is pure gold. The author may know a thing or two about having rock and roll dreams. Frank Portman is the singer/guitarist of the very good (but under appreciated) punk band, The Mr. T Experience. A living that he apparently turned down graduate school at Harvard to pursue. In spite of the built in life-long street cred that comes with being at the helm of a punk band that never sold out, Portman may secretly be a dork, just like us. Exhibit A: The author’s photograph on the dust jacket features Portman and a robot. A girl robot.

At any rate, the book is not just a rock and roll fantasy, coming of age story (or is it a bildungsroman?). Although it would stand as a masterpiece on those terms alone. It also works in literary criticism, mystery, conspiracy theories, awkward sex, and more fake names than are technically necessary.
In the course of plotting out rock stardom, Tom stumbles across some books that belonged to his late father - including The Catcher in the Rye. Tom loathes Catcher in the Rye and has a hilarious rant about the book and the cult of teaching it. Through the books, Tom stumbles across mysterious coded entries in the margins. Sam and Tom try to unravel the mystery with some surprising twists. Really, the mystery is almost beside the point.

Tom and Sam also try to understand the profound riddle of high school girls. They are purposely ignored or actively humiliated by the girls in their school. Every once in while though, through bizarre twists of fate and baffling encounters, Tom finds himself involved in inexplicable sexual escapades. There has been some criticism of the portrayal of the girls in this book. These encounters may seem a little one sided to the ladies, but they seem to me to be entirely in keeping with the male-rock-fantasy-teen-voice of the book. Sorry to say it, but that’s how girls look from the viewpoint of a teenage boy. I guess. There were no girls (zero) at my high school, which, if anything, made them even more baffling and alien. Besides, no one is more surprised by the action than Tom.

The book is pitch perfect in its portrayal of high school and is written with a knowing humor that is irresistible. It includes section titles like: High School is the Penalty for Transgressions Yet to Be Specified and What Happens When you Need to Get to Slut Heaven as Quickly As Possible but You Can’t Drive Yet. It has a handy guide to all of the Sam/Tom band names for easy reference. It also has a glossary so readers can quickly settle bets about the ranks of the greatest bands of all time (Wishbone Ash is 65,893-rd).

I could not recommend this book more highly than to buy it for you and drive it over to your house and put it directly in your grubby mitts. We both know that’s not going to happen, so check it out on your own.
Bonus King Dork Material:

• A short film trailer for the book
• Fan art of Sam and Tom band #4 - Tennis with Guitars
• Sam and Tom band #22 - The Chi-Mo’s song - I Wanna Ramone You as sung by Frank Portman (you can hear Tom’s first rate French in the lyrics)
• Frank Portman’s (aka Doktor Frank) sweet blog

Slate and the NYT love the book Heat by Bill Buford.  Buford was the fiction editor for the New Yorker.  He gave up the cushy life (and a really sweet job) to start off at the bottom as a line cook for Iron Chef Mario Batali.  It sounds great - in the mold of Kitchen Confidential, with a little less rock and roll attitide.

Google now has a site where you can check out the complete works of Shakespeare, you can search for your favorite Shakespearian catchphrases and read them in context, and you can even visit The Globe via Google Earth.  I love me some technology. 

Pick a category.

Music: I’ve fallen inot listening to ambient music at work. It’s relaxing, helps me focus, and it totally disappears in the background. It’s also great on an iPod on the bus or a place when you’re trying to read. I’ve been listening to an old Brian Eno disc and the second side of Moby’s last album. Am I listening to “good” ambient music? How would I know? Discuss.

Grammar: My NPR station goes out of its way to use the possessive case to describe temperature - “it’s cloudy and we have 93 degrees and 100% humidity”. Is this correct usage for a physical property? Why? It’s making me crazy. Bonus: What is up with the New Yorker using umlauts diaeresis on words like coördinate. Can they be stopped?

My kick ass local college radio station plays a broadcast of the Commonwealth Club of California each week.  The show usually begins with a first rate lecture on a timely topic, followed by a Q&A session.  This week’s show featured Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and the new kids’ book on the same theme, Chew on This.  It was riveting.  I had to leave my car, reluctantly, to meet with my future employers, or I would have spent the whole hour in a parking lot.  You can listen to the episode here.  Fun trivia: Willard Scott was the first Ronald McDonald.  He was fired because he was “pudgie”.  I haven’t read Fast Food Nation yet, but it will have to go into my “to read” pile.

While I let our list of the Top 25 Books stew in its own juices, I came across this alternative to the Times’ list called the alt.list (via That Girl Who Writes Stuff). Dammit. “Alt.list” is way more clever than “our list”. The winner of the alt.list voting was The New York Trilogy by Paul Aster. Let me be the first to flaunt my ignorance - I’ve never heard of it, but I am interested in checking it out. Several familiar names followed in the voting.
I’ve enjoyed the commentary that the slackass NYT list generated in the blogosphere, and working our own list was an interesting exercise. Little did we know that we were fools, Fools!, pawns in the Grey Lady’s desperate bid for attention and relevancy. Jessa Crispin lays into the NYT Book Review in an article at the Book Standard:

And that list of the best American novels of the last 25 years? Instead of the expected responses of anger or respect, they got a large number of publications, especially online magazines like Slate and Salon, asking, “What the fuck?”

Her theory is that the Times’ strategy is to create buzz from wherever they can - even if the source of the buzz makes them look stupid and out of touch, killing their credibility. A quote from the same article says:

Look at all the talkback the Book Review got from that best-of-the-last-25-years list. Everybody hated that list, and everybody talked about it—and I guarantee you the Book Review’s editors were counting on that. The section doesn’t need to be loved, it just needs to be read.

In other news, the posting has been infrequent this week as a computer problem that I thought that I had fixed turned into the long, slow death spiral of my hard drive. Hopefully I’ll be firing on all cylinders again soon.

Like many, we were vaguely dissatisfied with the contents of the the New York Times’ list of the Top 25 Works of American Fiction in the Last 25 years. We resolved to make our own, hopefully better, list. After many false starts and blown (but arbitrary) deadlines, here’s our list - as sorted alphabetically by my spreadsheet:

• A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
• A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
• A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
• All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
• Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
• Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
• Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
• Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
• Independence Day by Richard Ford
• Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
• Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins
• Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
• White Noise by Don DeLillo

Our methodology differed from the NYT’s in a few important ways. For starters, we did not have a stable of writers and critics to call upon to cast their votes nor did we have an A.O. Scott essay to accompany our list.  We also decided early on to limit any given author to only one book in the final list. This would prevent guys like Philip Roth from taking over ~25% of the list (see NYT’s list). Having arbitrarily diminished the influence of DeLillo and Roth, the list was opened up for other contenders.

Secondly, the voting was opened up to our regular contributors and any other readers who cared to comment. Unlike the NYT’s voting, our voters were allowed and encouraged to make a list of books that they thought should make the list, rather than a single “best” book. Facing a pitifully small n, I finally e-mailed our working list of nominated titles to the less motivated of our crew and had them simply put checks next to books that they agreed with and add any last minute write-in candidates. All together, about 25 people offered their opinions.

In the end, we ended up with about sixty recommended titles. Through the miracle of spreadsheets, I tallied the list and came up with our list above. Our book with the most votes - and this surprised me - was The Shipping News. I don’t think that anyone would have said “this is the best book of the past 25 years!”, but it seemed to be the one that we could all agree on. Go figure. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was second, and A Confederacy of Dunces was third. Although, it should be said, a sizable and vocal minority of our voters absolutely hated Dunces. They clearly have no taste.
I think that we ended up with a pretty good list. It’s not a list that I would defend to the death - or even in a protracted flame war - but fairly decent all the same. Our list appears to have a more populist, or accessible, slant to it. Many of the old white guys were left off our list - Updike, Gaddis, etc. Most of those casting voter for our list (at least the one’s that I know) are in our thirties, so we seem to have missed the Updike books. I don’t know anyone who has read the Rabbit series. Maybe we’re just philistines. By the same token, we seem to have given short shrift to the books of our formative years. Guys like Jay McInerney and Brett Easton Ellis are nowhere to be seen.

As keeper of the spreadsheet, I mostly chose to honor the votes as cast. Mostly. I didn’t think that The Kite Runner should be on the list, but I seemed to be alone in that view. Up it went. Similarly, I think The Cider House Rules is John Irving’s best book (so does John Irving), but The People’s choice was A Prayer for Owen Meany. So be it. With about a 16-way tie for 25th place, I decided to break the tie and add a dark horse to the list,  Cryptonomicon. It’s a fantastic book, I thought that it deserved a place on the list, and so there it is. (I did find at least one other person to validate my opinion before adding it).

Anyway, that’s our list. Is it any better than the Times’?

We look forward to your comments.

This is not the promised list, not THE LIST, the list of our version of the Top 25 Books of American Fiction in the Last 25 Years.  Instead of that list, here’s a list of my excuses, for why I have failed to meet our deadline, and more importantly, our obligation to you, our reader.

• Yesterday was my birthday - had to take time out from list making to celebrate
• My in-laws arrived unexpectedly on their way back to their home.  From Alberta.  Canada.
• I am in the process of quitting my job.
• AO Scott didn’t get his accompanying essay in to us on time.

All true.  Except that last one.  The list will be compiled and ready for action on Monday.  As usual when I shirk my duties, I leave you with a video - A Love Letter From Henry Rollins to Ann Coulter.

Want to check out some graphic novels/comix to see what all the kids are in an uproar about, but you don’t want to shell out your hard-earned? Experiment cash free by checking out these online serials.

• Shooting War is a slightly futuristic look at what the Iraq war might look like in 2011 under President McCain. Our hero is a lefty blogger pressed into service as a journalist. Check this one out for sure.
• Motel Art Improvement Service takes a look at the adventures of a single woman biking across America who becomes stranded at a hotel with odd art-related goings on. Its not as dumb as that sounded.
• Greasemonkey is a sci-fi/space action strip with gorillas.

All Links via BoingBoing at some point or other. Yall check all that out. Our Top 25 List lands tomorrow.

A weight loss place across the street from my office has a sign that says, “Want to loose 15 pounds?”  Actually, no.  I’d prefer to tighten up about 15 pounds if I have a choice.  It drives me insane.  If you can relate at all, check out the blog of Washington Post editor (and professional grammar policeman) Bill Walsh.

Bonus:  This blog will make you literally laugh your head off.

Also: we’ve been receiving actual input for our best American fiction of the past 25 years list. We’ll post the results at the end of the week.

I went to see Jay McInerney read from The Good Life a few months back.

At the time, I wasn’t sure if I’d go. Back in the day, McInerney was one of my literary heroes. He was part of the literary brat pack with Brett Easton Ellis, Donna Tartt, Tama Janowitz, et al. Something soured along the way. We just grew apart, Jay and I. But the night of the reading came, and I went. I made the rookie move of buying the book there and paying top dollar.

The chapter that Jay read from that night would turn out to be one of my least favorite in the book. I wasn’t crazy about it at the time. It’s an angst-y section that delves into why the two sisters in the book have such a complicated relationship. I wasn’t crazy about the chapter in the reading. It felt like there was too much judging of the characters, too much McInerney there in the narrative. Somehow, I came away from the experience feeling upbeat and positive about the book.

The book is the story of two couples. At the beginning of the book, the couples are almost cartoon-y Manhattan-ites. Couple A includes a fabulously wealthy financier husband and a plastic socialite wife. Couple B has a book editor husband and a wife who quit her job as a lawyer to raise their kids. Couple B worries about money. At the beginning of the book, there is some of the same contempt and you feel the eye-rolling of the author as he describes their unhappiness and their lives. Couple A and B hang out with movie makers, famous authors, politicians, and other deeply unhappy people. Someone at the reading I attended asked McInerney why he wrote about these kinds of glamorous, spoiled, and unhappy people. He answered, I’m paraphrasing, because they are my tribe - they’re who I know - they’re my friends. Dude, move.

Then 9/11 happens. The financier and lawyer mom meet on the streets just outside of the rubble and begin a relationship. McInerney said that his intention was to write a novel about love during war time, not a 9/11 novel. I think that he succeeds on that front. The novel is about the relationship with the besieged New York as a backdrop. As much as I could care less about any of these people at the beginning of the book, through some sleight of hand, McInerney was able to convince me to care about what ultimately happens. The tension in the novel comes on several fronts, but ultimately the novel comes down to this: can these two people escape the unhappiness of their lives and the world in general and be happy together? Or is the “good life” a fairy tale ending? You can probably guess the answer.

This book won’t be appearing on my list of the best books of the last 25 years. It did restore some of the gloss to my image of McInerney, and I look forward to reading his next book. Next time, I’ll remember to bring my Bright Lights, Big City to the signing.

In light of the fact that that our humble blog was included with other more august book blogs in the New York Times Sunday Book Review (electronic version), it appears that we will have to follow through on our threat to create our own Top 25 list.  Use our handy “contact us” form (top right) to send us nominations of books that you think were grievously left off the NYT list and/or those that you think that they got absolutely right.  We’ll post our findings at the end of the week.

Huah is the term used at West Point to describe someone who is very gung-ho about the Army (remember Al Pacino used it in Scent of a Woman). Absolutely American, Four Years at West Point by David Lipsky is all about how huah West Point can make a cadet. Lipsky is a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine who was the first civilian permitted unrestricted access to West Point cadets and this book details the lives of a few different cadets over a 4 year period.

The book is divided into 4 sections for each school year and it follows certain cadets throughout their entire 4 years. My image of West Point which was confirmed by the stats given at the begining of the book is that it is ultra-competitive and for the best and brightest kids. There are 12,000 applicants, 6,000 physical fitness exams, 4,000 official nominations from senators, congressmen, pres or vp and only 1,200 are admitted. Many of the cadets that Lipsky profiled are the cream of the crop and what fascinated me the most was their entire value system. Honor, valor, loyalty to your country seems to be ingrained in their whole being. They feel so duty bound to protect their country and while I am certainly not anti-American, many of these values were just not part of my upbringing. These men and women just ooze patriotism and that you exist for the protection of your fellow Americans. If you didn’t ooze patriotism going in, you certainly had to get with the program pretty damn quick.

The book begins in 1998 and ends with the May 2002 grads so 9/11 comes right towards the end of the book. Throughout the book, until 9/11, the Academy and the Army itself is really struggling with it’s image and it’s ability to create lifers out of their cadets. Many were giving their 5 years and then returning to civilian life. At that point in time - there was no enemy to focus on and the country had become so “politically correct” that the Academy had somewhat softened up. There was no more hazing, hardships, etc that used to be associated with cadet life. And many of the cadets missed the hazing aspect. They came to West Point to become men and wanted it to be the hardest thing they have ever accomplished. I guess their APFT (which is the physical fitness test they have to pass a few times per year) is not so difficult - 42 pushups in 2 minutes, 53 situps in 2 minutes and a 2 mile run in under 15:54. Piece of cake - right?

It was interesting to read about the immediate change in these cadets post 9/11. Even those who were on the fence about whether they really wanted spend their lives in the Army were suddenly ready to volunteer for Infantry.

My favorite character in the book was George Rash. He is the underdog throughout the book and despite having numerous opportunities where he is practically kicked out, he manages to survive and you end up cheering for him in the end. To give you an idea about how hardcore this place is - he was brought up on charges of lying because as a platoon leader his senior year, one of his cadets got foot rot. When asked how often he checked their feet - he said often but had actually not checked that day. They were going to kick Rash out of the Academy for lying when he was only months away from graduation.

This is only one of the many great characters in the book. Lipsky covers the whole range of cadets - females, cadets that were romantically involved with other cadets, minorities, etc. My only complaints with the book were that Lipsky covered too many people and it got very confusing at times. I also thought he could have lightened up with all the army terminology and acronyms. As a civilian, there were many sections that I was just skimming through. If you ever have a friend or a friend’s kid who is thinking of going to West Point or even into any of the armed forces, make sure they read this book.

The National Spelling Bee was the first piece of network television that I’ve enjoyed in a very long time. My allegiances kept changing, but I have to admit that once Saryn got dropped I was pulling for the Canadian girl, Finola - at least in part to see if there were going to be any spelling hooligan riots in Alberta - in the style of the hockey shenanigans when the Oilers made it to the Stanley Cup Finals last weekend.

Question: Home schooling. The solution to or the cause of kids with zero social skills? Discuss.

Lest you thought that I was making this up:

The cute little nerds will be going for the gold tonight in prime time on ABC.