Lying on the Couch

Book: Lying on the Couch
Author: Irvin Yalom
Where I Read It: At work, in that undefined hour between opening the coffee shop and when normal people begin to want coffee.

What I Thought: Good effort on the part of one of the most sane and creative people working in the mental health field today. Having read some of his non-fiction, I often fantasized about becoming his patient. He would be able to save me for sure! Not the most convincing of characters, they seemed a little too two-dimentional, but I still made it through the whole thing.

Earnest Lash is a therapist who convinces a man to leave his wife, Carol. She decides to become his patient and seduce him, to the ultimate end of ruining his professional reputation and his life, just as she felt he did to her. Earnest's mentor, Marshall, plays into a con-artists scam, and then finds himself enlisting the help of the aforementioned Carol, who happens to be a lawyer. Small world, huh?

Pretty good, although his non-fiction is far more well-crafted.

Girlfriend in a Coma

Book: Girlfriend in a Coma
Author: Douglas Coupland
Where I Read It: Hmm.. this one throws me a little. I don't remember reading it, although, I know I have. It was probably read while waiting for my then-boyfriend to get off work from his early morning coffee shop job so we could go out for breakfast.

What I Thought: Not much. Although I adore Douglas Coupland enough to sort of wish his first name was David so he could be inducted into the David Trifecta(but of course then it would have to be the 'David Quad,' or the 'David Rhombus' or something), I didn't feel like this was his best effort. In fact, it was his weakest.

Story is, there's a ghost of a jock floating around for the first little bit. Then, two teenagers, Richard and Karen, do what teenagers will, and did it. But in the freezing cold of winter outside, which I didn't really buy, and then Karen unknowingly ODs at a party and slips into a 20 year coma. She also happens to get pregnant from the first and only time she has sex, and gives birth to a daughter.

Then she eventually wakes up and everyone else on the planet except for this pocket of loser friends of hers falls asleep forever.

Post apocalyptic panic grips them, and eventually someone realizes they are going to have to make a sacrifice in order to make things right.

Large attempt to be whimsical, perhaps, just comes out as confusing. Would probably not read this again.

The Hippopotamus

Book: The Hippopotamus
Author: Stephen Fry
Where I Read It: Sunriver Coffee Co., where I worked. It was the off season, a few months until summer, and after setting up and opening the doors for the few locals who stopped in at that ungodly hour of the day, I had about an hour before normal people started rolling out of bed and staggering to the store. So I read. This was recommended to me by my boss, Kim, who is one of my favorite people.

What I Thought:
Ted Wallace, a drunken, divorced, drowned in whiskey poet/critic is asked by his god-daughter Jane to check out, detective style, this rich kid named Davey, to see if he really can deliver on his promise of being able to faith heal.

Bestiality, incest, and free-flowing libations are the background for Ted's adventure in Norfolk. I remember vaguely a scene with a horse or a cow that supposedly dropped Kim's mouth open, but now I'm not at liberty to say what happened. Hmm... It's been so long.

It was funny. There was lots of pontificating about life while knocking back whisky shots, and when is that ever a bad time?

Naked

Book: Naked
Author: David Sedaris(part of the indispensable "David Trifecta" that consists of Sedaris, Eggers, and Foster Wallace)
Place I Read It: On the red-eye back from Kauai to LA, where the turbulence wasn't quite pants-crappingly scary, but it was pretty bumpy. Like a hay-ride where the horse has gotten into the cider barrel or something. My sister-in-law was sawing logs beside me as her daughter made whimpering noises. I turned on the air blower above my seat and only a small trickle of stale recirculated cabin air came back at me. I probably looked green. My husband slept most of the way back, although heavily into hour three, when I thought I would rather die than stay on the plane for one more minute, he opened his eyes and said, "I need a cigarette," and then went back to sleep.

What I Thought:
I have read this book, cover to cover, five times. My paperback copy that I purchased under the recommendation of a flamingly homosexual man at the airport is tattered and bubble bath stained. I love this book. Mere words cannot describe how this book makes me feel when I read it. I howl with laughter until I cry tears of mirth every time. David Sedaris should be declared a saint, or maybe be knighted, or something.

His first essay is about his obsessive-compulsive behavior as a kid. As I excitedly turned the pages and started shaking with recognition, I thought, "This is me! He's writing about ME!"

My favorite part of the book is when he discovers that someone in their house(one filled with many siblings, his parents, and his grandmother) is wiping their ass on the bathroom towels. They happen to be brown, so you'd go to dry your hair and not think anything, but notice, too late, that unmistakable smell...

He also spends the title essay taking a stay at a nudist camp, and who wouldn't want to read about that?

This is one of the best books of all time. I don't know anyone who doesn't love this book, nor would I want to.

Probability One

Book: Probability One
Author: Amir D. Aczel
Place I Read It: In my tiny house with no air conditioning in the high desert of Oregon while pretending that the juniper pollen wasn't ruining my life by coating my throat and lungs with a disgusting tasting yellow paste.

Drake's Equation:
N=N/* f/p n/e f/l f/i f/c L

N : the number of civilizations in the galaxy currently capable of communicating with other civilizations.

This number depends on the value of the seven factors on the right side of the equation that I couldn't seem to type in scientific notation. But then, how many blog nuts are trying to type out scientific notations? Aren't most of us just whining about our jobs and our love lives? Mostly, I complain about how crappy my asthma is making me feel or my latest trip to urgent care.

But I digress.

N* : number of stars in the galaxy
This number may be as high as 300 billion. That's not even that many when you consider that there are like, 100 billion OTHER galaxies.

f/p : the percentage of stars with planets
They estimate this to be like, .5.
n/e : the environmental factor
The number of planets with environments favorable to the formation of life.
f/l : the fraction of planets with life
The actual proportion of planets on which life forms.
f/i : intelligent life
Ditto the previous but add in the word "intelligent" before "life"
f/c : communication
This is my personal favorite, because, since we have received no radio signal or other sign from space, we have no data "for any statistical estimation of this parameter." Ha!
L : longevity
My second favorite; intelligent civilizations may eventually destroy each other.

"Interplanetary travel for the armchair explorer..."

I loved this book because Mr. Aczel told me what I wanted to hear, that we are not the hot shit species that we think we are, and he threw in a bunch of scientific evidence to convince me that I am even more justified in my beliefs.

To quote Fox Mulder while Scully rolls her eyes: "I want to believe."

Book Review Backlog

Book reviews of all the books I have read in the past five years.
Let's start from the beginning:

1999.

The year of the undying Prince song.

Book: Chaos
Author:James Gleik
Place I read it:
Dechutes County Public Library, Bend, OR
Squishy and very comfortable leather chair by the window.

What I can remember about what I thought at the time-keep in mind this was, you know, five fucking years ago:
Holy crap! A book about a rather perplexing scientific idea that I can understand! The girl who forfeited high school chemistry in favor of a year of (and less credit for) human physiology because I just couldn't fathom the math and the smell of the former.
I sat in my leather chair and read this puppy in about 3 days. Mr Gleik explained the complex ideas behind what scientists think they understand about fractals and chaos theory in a down to earth, but not talking down to me, tone. Anecdotes and dry humor made learning fun. Plus, you look pretty tough when people see you reading theoretical science books. I made lots of pencil underlines.