I wonder about boys. I've wondered about them about them just about as long as I can remember, as a matter of fact - and then I had one.
My son's nearly four now, and I'll admit up front, his gender absolutely is NOT the root of all of my parenting puzzlements.
In spite of the fact I just finished reading Michael Gurians's The Wonder of Boys, I'm no expert now. But I am a little um, do I dare say, wiser?
Like Gurian's The Wonder of Girls, Boys is written in easy-to-digest terms while the book presents plenty of data.
One of the reasons I like the book (and Gurian's style in general) is that Boys does NOT go down the "men-are-from-Mars" road. Instead, the author has skillfully selected a few choice phrases that are in the general vernacular while neither talking down to or over the heads of the "typical" reader. Smart guy, that Gurian.
Speaking of smart, Gurian spends practically no time discussing IQ test or how-to-handle-gifted-children, and does not head into any lengthy discussions of "lost" boys.
That said, I especially enjoyed Gurian's coverage of "The Way Boys Feel: Feelings and the Brain," where he describes eight common ways boys process their feelings and emotion. Yes, one of them is "going into the cave." Several of them seem quite closely related, I'll admit - the action-release method and the physical-expression method, for example - still, I nit pick.
As in The Wonder of Girls, Gurian again addresses most of his information to mothers. (Sorry, dads.) There is, I'm glad to report, no talk of the "artful" mother in Boys.
Overall, I'm glad I read the book, and I may pick it up to re-read in the future. While I do NOT feel the book is a handbook or reference to keep on my own shelf, Gurian's obvious knowledge and presentation style are a nice combination, and too rare, in my opinion, in the overcrowded parenting/pop psychology market.
Two thumbs up.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Why I Love Newspaper Book Sections
I've heard a lot about the eventual death of newspapers, enough to think the doom sayers will prove right. But not soon, I hope - I love newspapers. (Yes, the paper kind.) For a lot of reasons.
When I finished Laurie Notaro's there's a (slight) chance i might be going to hell,* I realized another reason why I love newspapers: it's the book reviews! I've never been steered wrong by one.
Generally, I read the reviews in the Plain Dealer, and the one on slight chance a few months ago was spot on. The reviewer said the book was sorta funny, sorta wacky, but not the year's best title, even by smarter-than-average chick lit standards. She was right. She also said the title's main character, Maye Roberts, was good company through all 302 pages - and she was right about that, too.
Maye Roberts happily accompanies her university-professor hubby when he moves from overheated Phoenix to lush and lovely Spaulding, Washington, only to find out it is possible for a town to be too green, and organic jelly donuts may in fact cause brain damage.
Maye, who is no wall flower, has a heck of a time finding a friend in town. Apparently, she's not old enough, vegan enough or hippie enough, and she has a tragicomic knack for turning little white lies into full-blown scenes worthy of the (Spaulding) nightly news.
The surefire way to make friends in Spaulding, Maye learns, is to enter the Sewer Pipe Queen Pageant. So she does.
The Miami Herald's review said Notaro "may be the funniest writer in this solar system," and while I seriously doubt it (and I think Herald guest columnist Dave Barry might disagree, too) she IS funny.
Sure, I could quibble about the too-neatly-wrapped-up-ending (no, she doesn't win the pageant) or the grammatical mishaps here and there (please, nobody look for mine!) but the fact is Maye proved fabulous company on a four-hour car trip. And for creating her, I believe Notaro earns a spot in reader's heaven.
*Powell's has it for $9.50 compared to Amazon's $11.16
When I finished Laurie Notaro's there's a (slight) chance i might be going to hell,* I realized another reason why I love newspapers: it's the book reviews! I've never been steered wrong by one.
Generally, I read the reviews in the Plain Dealer, and the one on slight chance a few months ago was spot on. The reviewer said the book was sorta funny, sorta wacky, but not the year's best title, even by smarter-than-average chick lit standards. She was right. She also said the title's main character, Maye Roberts, was good company through all 302 pages - and she was right about that, too.
Maye Roberts happily accompanies her university-professor hubby when he moves from overheated Phoenix to lush and lovely Spaulding, Washington, only to find out it is possible for a town to be too green, and organic jelly donuts may in fact cause brain damage.
Maye, who is no wall flower, has a heck of a time finding a friend in town. Apparently, she's not old enough, vegan enough or hippie enough, and she has a tragicomic knack for turning little white lies into full-blown scenes worthy of the (Spaulding) nightly news.
The surefire way to make friends in Spaulding, Maye learns, is to enter the Sewer Pipe Queen Pageant. So she does.
The Miami Herald's review said Notaro "may be the funniest writer in this solar system," and while I seriously doubt it (and I think Herald guest columnist Dave Barry might disagree, too) she IS funny.
Sure, I could quibble about the too-neatly-wrapped-up-ending (no, she doesn't win the pageant) or the grammatical mishaps here and there (please, nobody look for mine!) but the fact is Maye proved fabulous company on a four-hour car trip. And for creating her, I believe Notaro earns a spot in reader's heaven.
*Powell's has it for $9.50 compared to Amazon's $11.16
Friday, October 12, 2007
It's PC to Read About Your PC
Reading PC Magazine isn't exactly a pleasure; I consider it a duty. Like a lot of folks, I shop, read, learn, and work on a PC (a PC and two laptops, in fact) so I think I ought to try to understand the machines that are, for better or for worse, embedded in my life.
I know, as sure as I'll have to see a doctor when I get sick, there are some computer illnesses I'll have to see a help desk technician to heal. And then God help me (and my PC) - because like doctors, some help desk technicians have great "keyboardside" manners, and some don't.
But I digress. The latest issue of PC Magazine contains a dandy list of the editors' top 200 websites. Among them were a few for readers and writers:
Project Gutenberg features more than 20,000 books in the public domain;
WOWIO is an e-book site that offers loads of free books, in easy-to-download PDFs;
Footnote digitizes and uploads every document housed by the National Archives (!); and
Ninjawords, for when you've just gotta know the meaning of a word, and you don't wanna wade through several dictionary sites to get it.
I also enjoyed reading about Kiva, an organization that's reinventing what it means to "share the wealth." The site helps users make small loans to entrepreneurs worldwide - for example, $200 to a shopkeeper in Kenya - and then, helps loan-makers recoup their dough. Sounds good to me.
I know, as sure as I'll have to see a doctor when I get sick, there are some computer illnesses I'll have to see a help desk technician to heal. And then God help me (and my PC) - because like doctors, some help desk technicians have great "keyboardside" manners, and some don't.
But I digress. The latest issue of PC Magazine contains a dandy list of the editors' top 200 websites. Among them were a few for readers and writers:
Project Gutenberg features more than 20,000 books in the public domain;
WOWIO is an e-book site that offers loads of free books, in easy-to-download PDFs;
Footnote digitizes and uploads every document housed by the National Archives (!); and
Ninjawords, for when you've just gotta know the meaning of a word, and you don't wanna wade through several dictionary sites to get it.
I also enjoyed reading about Kiva, an organization that's reinventing what it means to "share the wealth." The site helps users make small loans to entrepreneurs worldwide - for example, $200 to a shopkeeper in Kenya - and then, helps loan-makers recoup their dough. Sounds good to me.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Don't Judge a Book By ... Oh, why not?
Why not judge a book by its cover?
Passing an absolute judgment on a book based on its cover is superficial, sure, but hey, you gotta start somewhere when you're selecting your next read.
For example, I picked up One of Those Hideous Books Where The Mother Dies (well, after I stopped laughing at the title) and couldn't put it down - because my daughter yanked it out of my hands. We took it to the register, and then home, where she read it all in the next few hours. I planned to read it this week, but then her teacher borrowed it before I could start it.
Anyway, my point is some good-to-great books have great titles. Some fabulous books have terrible titles. You just have to start somewhere when you're evaluating a book. A title like One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies is gonna get me every time.
Sonya Sones is the author of that "hideous" book, by the way. You can learn more about Sones and her books at her rather impressive website.
Headlines Grab Me, Too
One of the (too) many things that land in my in-box is ComputerWorld's newsletter; sometimes a great place to find out about a new virus (translation - before you get it), other times, it's way more tech than I can digest. Here's one I couldn't delete, based on the article's title, Data Centers Get Religion. I don't want to ruin the surprise, but let's just say I was a bit disappointed in the article.
Passing an absolute judgment on a book based on its cover is superficial, sure, but hey, you gotta start somewhere when you're selecting your next read.
For example, I picked up One of Those Hideous Books Where The Mother Dies (well, after I stopped laughing at the title) and couldn't put it down - because my daughter yanked it out of my hands. We took it to the register, and then home, where she read it all in the next few hours. I planned to read it this week, but then her teacher borrowed it before I could start it.
Anyway, my point is some good-to-great books have great titles. Some fabulous books have terrible titles. You just have to start somewhere when you're evaluating a book. A title like One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies is gonna get me every time.
Sonya Sones is the author of that "hideous" book, by the way. You can learn more about Sones and her books at her rather impressive website.
Headlines Grab Me, Too
One of the (too) many things that land in my in-box is ComputerWorld's newsletter; sometimes a great place to find out about a new virus (translation - before you get it), other times, it's way more tech than I can digest. Here's one I couldn't delete, based on the article's title, Data Centers Get Religion. I don't want to ruin the surprise, but let's just say I was a bit disappointed in the article.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Good Girls and Queen Bees
The New York Times Bestseller Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman was the basis for the movie Mean Girls; at least, that's what the book jacket proudly proclaims. I wouldn't know because a title like Mean Girls is hardly inviting to me.
Still, Wiseman has a lot of education and experience in her field - which is mean girls, I guess - so I picked it up and ... ugh. I sure hope she went a little overboard on her estimations.
After all, I was a girl (once, a lonnnnng time ago) and I don't remember hanging out with a bunch of vampires and other blood-sucking monsters. While I didn't enjoy the book, I hung onto it because I'm convinced the author knows her topic.
The Oprah take on the book says it gives parents - meaning moms - "the tools you need to build the right foundation to help your daughter make smarter choices and empower her during this baffling, tumultuous time of life."
Well, maybe, but this mom is hanging onto the hope that Wiseman's methods were somehow skewed to attract a disproportionate number of mean girls. I hope.
While I didn't enjoy Queen Bees..., I did find Michael Gurian's The Wonder of Girls helpful. The book portends to offers "a nature-based approach to why girls are the way they are." Wonder takes the approach that girls' lives can be navigated gracefully, without a great deal of emotional pain and strife. (Yes, I like to live on the sunny side of life, thank you very much; who says denial is unhealthy?)
Wonder did get a little too touchy-feely for me, though, and I didn't appreciate ALL of Gurian's advice. (A co-ed sleepover, for HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS, is a "wonderful experience?!!" NOPE. I'm neither enlightened nor trusting enough.)
The book, while it is written by a father (of two daughters), is written to mothers of daughters. Gurian speaks of, and to, she who he calls the "artful mother." Which is lovely, but frankly, most of the mothers I know are no as artful as they are seat-of-the-pants types. In spite of, or maybe because of, my amusement, I liked the book a great deal.
Here's why I liked it: The Wonder of Girls offers insight into developmental issues, practical advice, and cause for a lot of optimism along the way. I also liked the fact that I only had to read a few chapters. Because it's divided into ages and stages, I skimmed right to "Stage 3" and skipped entirely the section on stepmothering. Still, it's nice to know it's there. (And I have to wonder, what would Cinderella have done with an Artful Stepmother?)
Now I'm looking forward to reading one of Gurian's previous books, The Wonder of Boys... sigh. Of course, I STILL haven't finished Team of Rivals!
Still, Wiseman has a lot of education and experience in her field - which is mean girls, I guess - so I picked it up and ... ugh. I sure hope she went a little overboard on her estimations.
After all, I was a girl (once, a lonnnnng time ago) and I don't remember hanging out with a bunch of vampires and other blood-sucking monsters. While I didn't enjoy the book, I hung onto it because I'm convinced the author knows her topic.
The Oprah take on the book says it gives parents - meaning moms - "the tools you need to build the right foundation to help your daughter make smarter choices and empower her during this baffling, tumultuous time of life."
Well, maybe, but this mom is hanging onto the hope that Wiseman's methods were somehow skewed to attract a disproportionate number of mean girls. I hope.
While I didn't enjoy Queen Bees..., I did find Michael Gurian's The Wonder of Girls helpful. The book portends to offers "a nature-based approach to why girls are the way they are." Wonder takes the approach that girls' lives can be navigated gracefully, without a great deal of emotional pain and strife. (Yes, I like to live on the sunny side of life, thank you very much; who says denial is unhealthy?)
Wonder did get a little too touchy-feely for me, though, and I didn't appreciate ALL of Gurian's advice. (A co-ed sleepover, for HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS, is a "wonderful experience?!!" NOPE. I'm neither enlightened nor trusting enough.)
The book, while it is written by a father (of two daughters), is written to mothers of daughters. Gurian speaks of, and to, she who he calls the "artful mother." Which is lovely, but frankly, most of the mothers I know are no as artful as they are seat-of-the-pants types. In spite of, or maybe because of, my amusement, I liked the book a great deal.
Here's why I liked it: The Wonder of Girls offers insight into developmental issues, practical advice, and cause for a lot of optimism along the way. I also liked the fact that I only had to read a few chapters. Because it's divided into ages and stages, I skimmed right to "Stage 3" and skipped entirely the section on stepmothering. Still, it's nice to know it's there. (And I have to wonder, what would Cinderella have done with an Artful Stepmother?)
Now I'm looking forward to reading one of Gurian's previous books, The Wonder of Boys... sigh. Of course, I STILL haven't finished Team of Rivals!
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Amazon Reviews and the Truth
I get sucked in by Amazon reader reviews - and I know better!
I don't "surf" much, but when I do, I'm likely to be found sifting through the pages at the amazin' Amazon of a bookstore. (Yes, I prefer REAL bookstores, but I'm stuck in front of a computer a lot.)
I love the convenience - Amazon has been able to deliver a few titles my library can't! - but I do make some mistakes. For example, I fell for great reviews, including one in an in-flight magazine, of Pete Dexter's Paper Trails.
I admit I fell for the catchy subtitle (True Stories of Confusion, Mindless Violence, and Forbidden Desires, a surprising number of which are not about marriage). I also love essays - good ones - and I thought the award-winning author and former Philadephia newspaper columnist would have a nice collection. There were a few gems, but overall, I found the lot uneven and uninspired. Sigh.
Guess it's back to Barbara Kingsolver for me.
And back to Amazon...
I'm sold on the site, for several reasons - including the various means of delivery offered by the giant e-tailer.
For example, Amy Friedman's collections of stories for preschoolers, Tell Me a Story and Tell Me a Story 2: Animal Magic can be purchased on CD or as MP3 downloads.
And speaking of these stories, they really do deserve the good reviews they've gotten. A friend of mine who teaches preschool (3-4 year olds) says her kids beg for them.
How 'bout you? Can you spout off about a book that didn't deserve the marketing hype or the reviews it got? Or, can you point out a little-known, wonderfully written book that was largely overlooked?
I don't "surf" much, but when I do, I'm likely to be found sifting through the pages at the amazin' Amazon of a bookstore. (Yes, I prefer REAL bookstores, but I'm stuck in front of a computer a lot.)
I love the convenience - Amazon has been able to deliver a few titles my library can't! - but I do make some mistakes. For example, I fell for great reviews, including one in an in-flight magazine, of Pete Dexter's Paper Trails.
I admit I fell for the catchy subtitle (True Stories of Confusion, Mindless Violence, and Forbidden Desires, a surprising number of which are not about marriage). I also love essays - good ones - and I thought the award-winning author and former Philadephia newspaper columnist would have a nice collection. There were a few gems, but overall, I found the lot uneven and uninspired. Sigh.
Guess it's back to Barbara Kingsolver for me.
And back to Amazon...
I'm sold on the site, for several reasons - including the various means of delivery offered by the giant e-tailer.
For example, Amy Friedman's collections of stories for preschoolers, Tell Me a Story and Tell Me a Story 2: Animal Magic can be purchased on CD or as MP3 downloads.
And speaking of these stories, they really do deserve the good reviews they've gotten. A friend of mine who teaches preschool (3-4 year olds) says her kids beg for them.
How 'bout you? Can you spout off about a book that didn't deserve the marketing hype or the reviews it got? Or, can you point out a little-known, wonderfully written book that was largely overlooked?
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