How About Never - Is Never Good for You?; My Life in Cartoons by Bob Mankoff

I seldom pick up The New Yorker now, but there was a time when once a week I would take the latest copy from the library's magazine room to our lunch room to read the cartoons during lunch. I would also glance at the "Talk of the Town" and the book reviews and scan the table of contents, occasionally coming back to the issue if I wanted to read the short stories, but the cartoons were the draw. I recollected this past with pleasure as I read How About Never - Is Never Good for You?; My Life in Cartoons by Bob Mankoff.

"How about never - is never good for you?" is the memorable part of the caption of Bob Mankoff's most famous cartoon. It has been enshrined in The Yale Book of Quotations and, according to Mankoff, been ripped off by comedians and the makers of T-shirts. He is collecting royalties on sales of the cartoon from the Cartoon Bank, which he founded, so he has profited. He tells stories about several of his cartoons in his multifaceted book.

How About Never - Is Never Good for You? may be called a memoir, but large sections of it deal with topics other than Mankoff. He recounts the history of cartooning and the story of The New Yorker magazine, and he profiles many of his fellow cartoonists. He also gives readers hints on how to win the weekly caption contest at The New Yorker.

Anyone contemplating cartooning as a career will find Mankoff's behind-the-scenes stories very instructive. The rest of us can appreciate the artistry and laugh at the many cartoons included. It is worth several hours of pleasure reading and may lead some readers back to The New Yorker.

Mankoff, Bob. How About Never - Is Never Good for You?; My Life in Cartoons. Henry Holt and Company, 2014. 285p. ISBN 9780805095906.

I Was a Child by Bruce Erik Kaplan

Our job as children growing up is to accept and reject. Accept our parents for who they are. Reject some of their ways. Be close if possible in loyalty, but move away, perhaps physically great distances if necessary. Find our own ways better for us. These are my thoughts on reading I Was a Child by Bruce Erik Kaplan, a cartoonist for The New Yorker as well as a television writer and producer.

Kaplan and I are by no means twins, as his ways are not mine, but we definitely shared some experiences. In his cleverly illustrated memoir, he briefly recounts moments that send me back to my own childhood. And I think Kaplan might agree that we never wholly leave childhood, as we are still children as long as we have parents or even remember our parents.

I was particularly struck by all the useless things in his parents' house, all the broken things that remained in place. He tells about a box outside his parents' door for the milk delivery. Decades after milk was no longer delivered, it was still there. He also tells about a console holding a nonfunctioning record player and old never-played records. I am not the only child to have noticed such things! He also tells about closet doors that won't close, and I feel a sudden urgency to get a door fixed.

I can imagine some readers will believe that Kaplan is disloyal for shining a light on his parents' failings. They might also argue against almost any revealing childhood memoir. For this reason and because I Was a Child is very entertaining and quick to read, I think it would be a great choice for some book discussion groups.

Kaplan, Bruce Erik. I Was a Child. Blue Rider Press, 2015. 193p. ISBN 9780399169519.

The Book with No Pictures by B. J. Novak (A Review with No Pictures)

I have seen lots of books with no pictures, but they are not aimed at young readers. So The Book with No Pictures by B. J. Novak is unusual.

You could easily write a easy book for kids with no pictures and have it be nothing special. Maybe it could be a little story, such as how dust settles under furniture or which trees lose their leaves first in the autumn. Maybe it could be instructive, telling how to tie shoe laces or how to sharpen pencils. Maybe a book listing all of your cousins and their favorite colors would be interesting. Of course, all of these books would be better with some pictures.

The idea behind The Book with No Pictures is that it has to be read aloud (every word) by one person to another person. You might assume that would be an adult to a child. That would be fun. It might also be fun to listen to a child read it to another child.

The first time you read it should be aloud to someone else without having any idea what will be on the next page. This is the way to maximize dramatic tension.

There are some colored parts and larger than normal words.

I do not want to say too much and give anything humorous away. Try it.

Novak, B. J. The Book with No Pictures. Dial Books for Young Readers, 2014. ISBN 9780803741713.

One More Thing: Stories and More Stories by B. J. Novak

B. J. Novak is a contemporary comedian who has been seen on television and in the movies. With his recent book One More Thing: Stories and More Stories, he shows us that comedians are storytellers. They spin stories to make listeners laugh. Novak likes to make us laugh, but in tradition of George Carlin and Dick Gregory, he challenges us to consider subjects that make us uncomfortable.

Novak is bound to offend some readers. I winced several times as I listened to the audiobook as Novak and a cast of actors and actresses read his mostly comic stories. I started to write that he is of the Say Anything School, but I do not believe that is true. Novak sounds spontaneous, but his words are very well chosen.

A part of me thinks Novak's vulgarity is unnecessary in some stories, but another part believes that he depicts a segment of contemporary society as it is. With offensive words, he creates an atmosphere in which his stories seem to have more authority than if he used sanitized language. At least, I imagine it is that way for some readers.

Uncertain whether you want to read One More Thing? Try the first story "The Rematch" which is about the hare wanting the tortoise to give him another chance to race. It is a clever piece that points out that stories never really end, that there is always something next. Novak shows a bit of what he will dish out in heavier doses in later stories.

Novak, B. J. One More Thing: Stories and More Stories. Knopf, 2014. 276p. ISBN 9780385351836.

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

I tend to be like A. J. Fikry. I often dismiss many new books as just something somebody made up, and I avoid bestsellers. There are just so many redundant romances, zombie stories, suspense novels, depressing memoirs, and such. So, you would not expect that I would try and like the bestseller The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry: A Novel, but I did and do. It is witty, unpredictable, and speaks to me about what I have seen in the world of books from my role as a librarian. Plus, Fikry is a lovable character behind an antisocial mask.

I am better-behaved and less eccentric than Fikry. If you know me, you might say I nothing like the bookseller. But I identify with him anyway. And I can imagine being just as cranky if publishers' sales reps dropped in to promote all their new books. Like most people I know, I dislike telephone calls from anyone trying to sell to me, and I am not the model of hospitality when salespeople show up uninvited.

Like many of us, Fikry is much nicer once you get to know him. In fact, he is incredibly generous to the people who fill his life. That's what the book is about. I bet we can identify some A. J. Fikrys in our own neighborhoods if we try.

Zevin, Gabrielle. The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry: A Novel. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2014. 260p. ISBN 9781616203214.

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

Upon hearing an interview with Julie Schumacher on an NPR Books podcast, I knew that I wanted to read Dear Committee Members. I like offbeat academic satires, such as Moo by Jane Smiley and Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith. I was not disappointed. Schumacher is an inventive and witty storyteller.

Dear Committee Members is not your common comic narrative. Schumacher has instead written a long series of letters of recommendation from unpredictable English professor Jay Fitger of Payne University. Many are written for students of his creative writing classes who are seeking employment to either pay for their educations or to get their first full time jobs. Some are aimed at getting grants or scholarships. Not all are for the benefit of students, as he writes LORs for his colleagues trying to escape the underfunded and disrespected English Department. What makes these letters funny is Fitger's total lack of tact and over-sharing.

About five letters into the book, I was not sure if I was going to like it much. There were many characters, and I had not yet seen who mattered. I am happy that I continued because several story lines became clear and I became very interested in Fitger, who is a very complicated man.

After reading Dear Committee Members, you may wonder whether anyone will ever again ask the author Schumacher, who teaches at the University of Minnesota, for a letter of recommendation. She told NPR that her students know about the book but they still ask for letters
.

Schumacher, Julie. Dear Committee Members. Doubleday, 2014. 180p. ISBN 9780385538138.

The Swoop! and The Military Invasion of America by P. G. Wodehouse

From her library, Bonnie brought home a thin volume of early P. G. Wodehouse fiction that at first glance seemed particularly silly to me. It is a 2013 republishing of two early Wodehouse stories, The Swoop! and The Military Invasion of America. I say "two stories" because both have titles and both take up part of the volume. In fact, they are one story, which I will explain in a moment.

"The Swoop!" is an illustrated satire about British public nonchalance about national security. Published in Great Britain in 1908, about six years before the start of World War I, Wodehouse portrays his country's citizens as much more concerned about cricket, tennis, and football than about the movements of foreign armies. When the island country is invaded by nine other nations, the news is buried below the sports scores. I do not want to give away too much of the plot, but only the Boy Scouts have the resolve to rid the country of its foreign invaders.

Having finished "Swoop!", I began to read "The Military Invasion of America," a story published in the United States in 1915, before the Americans entered World War I. To my surprise, I found it was essentially the same story relocated across the Atlantic Ocean. Wodehouse reduced the invading armies to two, set much of the action in New York, and left out the comic illustrations, but the plot, main character, and many of the punch lines are exactly the same. Again, the unconcerned public relies on the Boy Scouts to defend the nation.

Even a hundred years later, these stories by the English author who later became an American citizen are enjoyable light comedy that should make readers of British comedy smile. Most readers will finish the two stories in an evening or less easily. Then they should read some Bertie and Jeeves stories until bedtime.

Curiously, people may be just as intent on their sports and other entertainment in 2014. What dangers do we ignore?

Wodehouse, P. G. The Swoop! and The Military Invasion of America. Overlook Press, 2013. 138p. ISBN 9781468308341.

Jeeves and the Wedding Bells: An Homage to P.G. Wodehouse by Sebastian Faulks

The family of P.G. Wodehouse hopes to bring the world of Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves to a younger generation. Whether that effort will succeed, I do not know, but I (being of a certain age) liked the new estate-approved novel Jeeves and the Wedding Bells by Sebastian Faulks. The new author for the series mixed all of the traditional Wodehouse elements very well. As a reader might expect, Bertie agrees to help one his pals from the Drones Club obtain permission from an aged guardian to marry the girl of his dreams. Of course, Bertie's efforts hinder more than help and Jeeves is there to save the day.

In his introduction to Jeeves and the Wedding Bells, Faulks pledges to keep to the spirit of Wodehouse without resorting to parody, plagiarism, or predictability. One difference from the original series that I noticed is that Bertie actually has a few serious thoughts, such as when he appreciates the beauty of the English countryside which could have been lost if Britain had lost the war (that war being World War I.) If I remember correctly, Wodehouse always kept Bertie carefree and unaware of current events. Wodehouse never revealed a year. Faulks in a very subtle way has introduced a bit of identifiable historical detail.

That said, don't worry that Bertie will become serious or scholarly. He is still the model for all lovable upper class twits and is ever dependent of Jeeves, even in their reversal of roles included in Jeeves and the Wedding Bells. Experienced readers are in for some surprises, which I will not reveal. Read it soon.

Faulks, Sebastian. Jeeves and the Wedding Bells: An Homage to P.G. Wodehouse. St. Martin's Press, 2013. 243p. ISBN 9781250047595.

The Panda Chronicles, Book 2: Wheel of Pandas by Anne Belov

In March at Panda-Monium 2013 in San Diego, Bonnie acquired a copy of The Panda Chronicles, Book 2: Wheel of Pandas by Anne Belov. When she finished joyfully reading, she passed it to me. Silly me left it on my bookshelf until Wednesday night. I laughed through about half of the book then and finished in the morning. Why had I waited so long? Now I want The Panda Chronicles, Book 1: Your Brain on Pandas and look forward to The Panda Chronicles, Book 3: Tails from the Panda Kindergarten. 

The Panda Chronicles series collects comic strips from the website The Panda Chronicles. Belov posts a new strip every Wednesday and sometimes on others, too. In them you follow the exploits of Bob T. Panda, Mehitabel the Cat, Babette de Panda, and the mischievous class of the Panda Kindergarten. Bob T. and Mehitabel report for the Panda Channel, which seems to be a subsidiary of The Institute for Contemporary Panda Satire, which is a couple of rungs below Way Better Than Working, Inc. on the organizational chart found in the front of Book 2.

I don't want to spoil any of the fun, but I will tell you that I enjoyed bits about the panda sex identity misunderstanding at the Atlanta Zoo and about Bob T. wanting to reduce his carbonated footprint. I read with many smiles and finished with a desire for cuppycakes with black and white frosting.

Belov, Anne. The Panda Chronicles, Book 2: Wheel of Pandas. Leaping Panda Press, 2013. 133p. ISBN 9780988388017.

The Second City Guide to the Opera

Being on the stage of the Civic Opera House in Chicago is not an experience I expected, but I have now been up there twice this year. The first was to take the Lyric Opera tour last February. Since many public buildings now give tours, it is not a rare privilege, but it was a great tour. On Sunday night I returned for a less likely event, The Second Guide Guide to the Opera, a melding of talent from two famous Chicago institutions from very different pages of the weekly entertainment guide.

Bonnie, our mastermind of fun, told me that the audience would sit on the stage, but I had not grasped the meaning of this detail. I just expected folding chairs around the performance area. To my surprise, the stage was turned into a comedy club just like the Second City home. We sat in cafe chairs around a little table, while some people who paid top price had couches or easy chairs. Our party of four ordered drinks, a hummus plate, and a cheese and cracker platter. I tried to spread crumbly cheese on a fragile cracker and littered the floor of the stage of the Civic Opera House! They'll never ask me back. 

On reflection, I see that a joint Second City-Lyric Opera venture is a logical merger. Both comics and opera singers find themselves in ridiculous situations. They also share a love of outrageous costumes. We only knew the actual opera singers because they each sang solos. I especially enjoyed Bernard Holcolm singing a piece from the American opera A View from the Bridge. 

Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune reviewed the revue, indicating that he wanted a bit more edge to the performance. He thought the comics were really too kind to the hosting institution. I enjoyed the performance just as it was and laughed heartily. My favorite section was the improv opera based on the lives of a couple from the audience.

The Second City Guide to the Opera runs through the month. The website video for the production shows the original one-time show with a mostly different cast in more formal attire playing to the real theater, unlike what is running this summer. No Patrick Stewart or Rene Fleming this month. Still, the songs and stunts are the same. Get your tickets soon.

The Importance of Being Seven by Alexander McCall Smith

Many people admire Downton Abbey for its great cast of characters. To these people, who enjoy the continuing shifting of focus from one compelling character to another, who like a cast whose relationships are evolving with the changing times, I recommend the 44 Scotland Street novels by Alexander McCall Smith. They may lack the grand house and estate of the hit BBC television series, but they have the high and low streets of Edinburgh and all of Scotland. There is also a good dose of humor.

Foremost in the cast is Bertie. In The Importance of Being Seven, he is six years old, as he has being since the stories began. McCall Smith admits in his introduction to the book that this is not chronologically possible, but he says that at six Bertie is a perfect character bound to win the sympathy of readers. He just wants to be a boy, but his mother Irene wants him to be a genius. While his struggle to be free of his mother's demands is humorous, he speaks for all of us who are still children well into middle age.

Like Downton Abbey, The Importance of Being Seven has its young married couple concerned about whether they can take over and maintain an old house. The series cast also includes an older woman ready to express her strong opinions. Then there is Bruce, a vain young man who just when you think he is reforming cruelly deceives others as a means of his own advancement. Sound familiar?

No one dies in this novel but continuing readers won't mind. They hope everyone will return in the next 44 Scotland Street novel.

McCall Smith, Alexander. The Importance of Being Seven. Anchor Books, 2012. 311p. ISBN 9780307739360

Blandings Castle by P. G. Wodehouse

Blandings Castle is a wonderful place. With fresh air, quiet, and gardens full of beautiful flowers, it is just the place to be alone. If only the ninth Earl of Emsworth could be alone to raise his prize pumpkins and pigs in peace. There always seem to be young people moping about, however, each wanting to fall in love with an unsuitable other young person. Take his son Freddie wanting to marry a young American woman who happens to be some relation of his gardener. Who ever heard of such a thing? Freddie would have to move to America. Hey, what! There's a thought. It would get him out of the old ancestor's hair. 

Blandings Castle is the setting for a series of books by P. G. Wodehouse. While I have read numerous Wodehouse books featuring the ever resource Jeeves, man servant of Bertie Wooster, I had not entered the world of Lord Emsworth until I read a collection of five stories called simply Blandings Castle tucked inside an anthology A Bounty of Blandings.

Being Wodehouse stories, each is filled with silly people facing small problems blown out of proportion. They respond with actions that escalate their problems. Perhaps this is so funny because in a sense it is what many of us actually do. What I particularly like about the five stories in this collection is that what Lord Emsworth at first dreads is exactly what he comes to want in the end.

There are many Blandings books and stories. I may never lack something fun to read.

Wodehouse, P. G. A Bounty of Blandings. W. W. Norton, 2011. 656p. ISBN 9780393341270.

Unusual Uses for Olive Oil by Alexander McCall Smith

He's back. American readers first learned of Professor Dr Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, a learned philologist and author of the much-acclaimed and little-read 1200-page Portuguese Irregular Verbs, in 2005 when Alexander McCall Smith's 1997 comic novel Portuguese Irregular Verbs (only 128 pages) was published in America. Other books in the series, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances reached America that same year. It appeared the books would remain a trilogy until 2011, when McCall Smith published Unusual Uses for Olive Oil in Great Britain. It is now available here, too.

Fans will remember the professor is very protective of his reputation and spars frequently with his academic rivalries over very obscure points of philology, manners, and department etiquette. He also gets to travel to conferences to present the same lecture over and over to the same group of academics. He often finds himself in ridiculous situations of his own making. He was, of course, especially hurt when he saw a copy of Portuguese Irregular Verbs that he had given to a potential love interest used as a foot stool.

In Unusual Uses for Olive Oil, life continues for the silly Dr Dr, but I sense a little more sympathy in his soul. Not enough for him to fall truly in love or put others first, but he does seem to learn to look more kindly on the department's talkative librarian Herr Huber.

If ever there is a man who really needed a valet, it is Professor von Igelfeld. Read Unusual Uses for Olive Oil and you'll see why. By the way, you will not learn about the olive oil until the final chapter.

McCall Smith, Alexander. Unusual Uses for Olive Oil. Anchor Books, 2012. 203p. ISBN 9780307279897.

The Complete Ripping Yarns by Michael Palin and Terry Jones

After Monty Python's Flying Circus left the air, not counting reruns and reunions, the members of the troupe unleashed numerous television and film projects. Among these was Ripping Yarns, a BBC collaboration between Michael Palin and Terry Jones. I have never seen the nine episodes, broadcast 1976 to 1979, which may be among the most neglected works in the post-Python portfolio. I was, however, able to secure an interlibrary loan of The Complete Ripping Yarns by Michael Palin and Terry Jones, a compilation of nine scripts published by Mandarin Paperbacks (London, 1991).

As you would expect, humor was still the intent of the Pythonites, but Palin and Jones put a bit more emphasis on story in Ripping Yarns than was evident in MPFC. Episodes develop plots, much like the famous MPFC episode "The Cycling Tour," which we call often "Bicycling Through North Cornwall." The endings may be sudden, but they are endings. Central to all of the funny business was Palin who played the central figure in each of the stories. You can see this from the numerous production stills accompanying the scripts and from reading the credits at the back of the book. Jones appears in only the first episode. The only other Python credit is for a cameo by John Cleese in "Golden Gordon."

The first yarns are "Tomkinson's School Days" and "Across the Andes by Frog," both of which are mostly just good silly fun. Genius kicks in with "Murder at Moorstones Manor," a plot-twisting spoof of British murder mysteries. My favorite story of the bunch is "Escape from Stalag Luft 112B," which is set in World War I, not a later war as you might expect. Palin plays Major Phipps, an inept British officer who spends all of his time devising ways to escape from a very comfortable prisoner of war camp. The story is a classic that everyone should know.

2013 is the 37th anniversary of the start of Ripping Yarns. I think it is a ripe time for a revival.

Palin, Michael and Terry Jones. The Complete Ripping Yarns. Mandarin Paperbacks, 1991. 278p. ISBN 074931222x.

Monty Python's Flying Circus: Complete and Annotated: All the Bits.

PRALINE: It's not pining, it's passed on. This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet it's maker. This is a late parrot. It's a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies. It's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-parrot! 

This is one of the most famous of all Python rants. Found in episode 8, many fans have it memorized. If you don't and would like help getting it right, Monty Python's Flying Circus: Complete and Annotated is the book for you. At 880 colorful illustrated pages, it is a brick of a book in weight and in its great utility to Python fans. There is no excuse for misunderstanding a silly accent now. This book tells you exactly what the Pythons said and when they said it.

What's also fun is that the annotations clue readers in on the back-stories of some pieces. "The Dead Parrot Sketch" came from the pens of John Cleese and Graham Chapman after hearing about Michael Palin's auto mechanic, who would never admit anything was wrong with his car. In Cleese and Chapman's first draft, the verbose Cleese was to return a toaster. Luckily for us, the Pythons had the idea of using the Norwegian Blue.

Python fans should set aside a nice long winter's night (or several) for looking up their favorite episodes.

XIMINEZ: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquistion.

Monty Python's Flying Circus: Complete and Annotated: All the Bits. Black Dog and Leventhal, 2012. 880p. ISBN 9781579129132.

Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith

If I had Silly Fun Awards to grant, I'd probably give the first to Monty Python's Flying Circus and then bestow one on Gary Larson for his The Far Side comics. Then I'd give one to author Alexander McCall Smith for Portuguese Irregular Verbs series. I just listened again to Portuguese Irregular Verbs, the first book in the series in which readers follow the ridiculous life of philologist Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld. He is occasionally called Maria.

The learned professor is famous for his 1,200 page text titled, of course, Portuguese Irregular Verbs, of which nearly 200 copies have been sold in a decade. At one point in the story, he discovers that only two copies have sold in the previous year, and he worries so much about whether a colleague bought a copy, he schemes to get in the fellow's apartment to check his bookshelves. Book sales aside, he is famous enough in the world of philology to receive constant requests that he speak at conferences. At each, like all of the other philologists, he repeats the same lecture. He is greatly excited when a new member of the brotherhood presents a new topic.

My favorite story is about the professor falling in love with his dentist who so skillfully and quickly relieves his toothache. Can you guess what he gives her as a thank you? If you can, you may also foresee the result of his courtship. In another chapter he recalls a trip to rural Ireland as assistant to a professor studying old Irish vulgarities. The moral of this story is be careful where you leave your transcriptions. 

Portuguese Irregular Verbs is wonderful in print or audio, as read skillfully by Paul Hecht. It is followed by The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances.

McCall Smith, Alexander. Portuguese Irregular Verbs. Anchor Books, 2005. 128p. ISBN 1400077087.

4 compact discs. Recorded Books, 2004. ISBN 1402590504

Fresh Air with Terry Gross: Just for Laughs

Comedy is serious business, and interviewing contemporary comedians is like stepping into a minefield. A journalist could easily blunder and sound like a fool. Would you want to be stung by a Stephen Colbert or Don Rickles putdown? National Public Radio's Terry Gross, however, seems to relish the opportunity to question the men and women who make us laugh. She even requests an insult from Rickles in Fresh Air with Terry Gross: Just for Laughs. As the title suggests, there are many funny moments, but this is not all. The three CD audiobook is also filled with surprisingly frank discussion about dysfunctional families, racial and sexual stereotyping, societal hypocrisy, religion or lack of, and personal pain - all the putty from which comedy is made.

Not being a regular follower of celebrity news, I learned a lot about Steve Martin, Joan Rivers, Will Ferrell, and Tina Fey that others may have already known, but I doubt there are many interviews as candid about their lives good and bad. Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock comic Tracy Morgan both nearly melts down and nearly explodes. Sacha Baron Cohen speaks as himself instead of one of characters. George Carlin explains why he uses the seven forbidden words. Trey Parker and Matt Stone amusingly tell how they do the voices for South Park. I enjoyed every interview regardless of whether I actually care for the comedians' work.

My favorite track was Gross's interview of groundbreaking political comedian Mort Sahl, who actually wrote lines for both presidential candidates John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan (but not for Richard Nixon). Though liberal politically, he has enjoyed the company of many politicians and believes that former Secretary of Defense Alexander Haig was the funniest man he ever met. His entertaining interview adds history and emotional perspective to this wonderful collection.

Fresh Air with Terry Gross: Just for Laughs. HighBridge, 2010. 3 compact discs. ISBN 9781598878974.

My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: A Family Memoir by Meir Shalev

When I was a boy, my paternal grandmother did not use the vacuum cleaner. Instead, my grandfather did the vacuuming. Meir Shalev's maternal grandmother in the Israeli village of Nahalal did not use a vacuum either. She got on her knees daily (or assigned the task to a daughter or grandchild) and scrubbed the tile floor until the water mopped up clear. She did this despite owning a vacuum. In fact, she had a top of the line GE canister vacuum, but it sat locked in an unused bathroom. Shalev tells the reconstructed story in his entertaining book My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: A Family Memoir.

Other than not using the vacuum, Grandma Tonia was not much like my grandmother. Shalev's grandmother was obsessed with the cleanliness of her house to the point that she hardly let anyone in. Most cooking and eating were kept on the back porch. Small cloths were kept on doorknobs so there would be no dirty fingerprints. The nice furniture was stored in rooms that she kept locked. The modern bathroom was also kept locked, and family and visitors were directed to the shed out back. The bathroom served as a storeroom for nice things, and the vacuum that was sent by the uncle who abandoned socialism to become an American capitalist sat there wrapped to stay free of dust. The family, of course, longed to get into these rooms.

As you might guess, Grandma Tonia was a fierce woman of strong and often uncommon opinions who ruled the family. Shalev contends that she was the originator of the phrase "You talkin' to me?" Other familiar words included "Want me to take a chunk out of you?" and "She is no longer, and it was a terrible death." My grandmother never said anything like this.

I imagine My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner could be turned into a movie set against the early decades of Israeli independence with the nation building struggles in the backing up the domestic comedy. Until such a film is made, enjoy the book.

Shalev, Meir. My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: A Family Memoir. Schocken Books, 2011. 212p. ISBN 9780805242874.

The Dog Who Came in from the Cold by Alexander McCall Smith

In London in a once-stately building called Corduroy Mansions, where the residents of various flats pass each in the lobby and occasionally share cheese and a glass of wine, there lives a Pimlico terrier named Freddie de la Hay. While on most days, the people go their separate ways selling wine, publishing books, attending art appraising classes, marketing herbal medicines, and psychoanalyzing clients, the trusting dog waits for William to come home, take for him a walk, and give him a decent meal. Freddie hasn't always gotten food that he enjoyed. A previous owners tried to make him a vegetarian, but William is kind, as well as a bit sad and lonely. For Freddie life is good until MI6 arrives to ask William to volunteer Freddie to serve his country as The Dog Who Came in from the Cold.

The Dog Who Came in from the Cold is the second of Alexander McCall Smith's serialized novels in the Corduroy Mansion series. In 78 short chapters, McCall Smith continues the stories of the residents of Corduroy Mansions, including psychiatrist Berthea who is writing a very critical biography of her own son Oedipus (a member of Parliament), book publisher Barbara who is shepherding Autobiography of a Yeti (supposedly nonfiction), and herbalist Dee who wants to market a sudoku remedy. They come and go unaware of the incredible dramas unfolding one floor up or across the hall. They certainly do not know how Freddie is working to protect Great Britain's security and prosperity. Lucky readers get to observe it all. It's great fun.

Readers who enjoy McCall Smith's Corduroy Mansion series will also want to try his 44 Scotland Street series, which features an unusual cast of characters set in beautiful Edinburgh.

McCall Smith, Alexander. The Dog Who Came in from the Cold. Pantheon Books, 2010. ISBN 9780307379733.

Church People: the Lutherans of Lake Wobegon with Garrison Keillor

The definition of the book is being questioned in these days of evolving electronic formats. What some of the debaters may have missed is the definition has been challenged before with audiobooks, first on cassettes and then on compact discs. Oral performance has allowed publishers some options that the printed page did not. Some texts are read like plays using a variety of voices, and music sets a background for some narratives. And publishers market these performances as books. Librarians have gone along. (We would have had to create a new category if we hadn't.)

While gardening on Friday morning, I listened to Church People: the Lutherans of Lake Wobegon with Garrison Keillor, which is a two disc collection of monologues, radio dramas, and songs from A Prairie Home Companion. I enjoyed it immensely but I hesitate to add it to my books-that-I-have-read list. I could say that it is a book because I found it in a "book" section of the library. It might also be compared with some literary collections, which might throw together theme-related magazine essays, poetry, humorous pieces, and plays. But I would feel like I am just padding my list. At 2.25 hours of listening, it is just over the length of a regular Saturday PHC show.

I guess it would help to settle the question "What is reading?" Some people say that listening to an audiobook is not reading. They would say that the reader's eyes have to fix on the words on a page. (Or fingers on braille characters.) That argument can be countered with the tradition of oral readings. People read stories to their children at bedtime. Lectors read to congregations at churches. Writing is an offshoot of oral narration, and the result of learning the story is the same.

It might also be pointed out that people who enjoy The Prairie Home Companion are for the most part bookish people. Keillor certainly revels in the use of words and often recites poems. So Church People: the Lutherans of Lake Wobegon is certainly in the spirit of a book - one that made me laugh frequently. But still I hesitate to label it so.

What do you think?

Keillor, Garrison. Church People: the Lutherans of Lake Wobegon. HighBridge Audio, 2009. 2 discs. ISBN 9781598879292