Book Review: Bent Objects

Yesterday, after finishing my freelance editing project for Frommer's, I ran out to B&N to buy (oh the irony) a travel book. See, we are leaving for Puerto Rico in less than a week and I have done very little in the way of preparation. (Note to my Frommer's friends: I gave all the competition proper consideration and still walked out with a Frommer's book.)

But once I get into a bookstore, I get lost among all the wonderful ideas, colors, paper textures, and trends. On a table near the middle of the store, I happened to see the picture book Bent Objects. I was drawn in by its cuteness (ha--a cheese doodle with arms and legs!). But when I started to absorb the jokes behind each photo in the book, I realized its true subversive and many-layered genius. There was even a most wonderful scene involving a Kindle and Gulliver's Travels--but you will have to look for that yourself.

I vowed to find the author, Terry Border's, blog (and here it is) and to come back to buy the book as a gift for someone (or maybe more than one person) on my list.

As I rifled through Terry's posts, I made the startling realization that he is a fellow Hoosier and lives someplace nearby. And then I saw that he will be signing books and doing a hilarious presentation on December 5 at the Indiana Historical Society's Holiday Author Fair (details here). Oh, what could be more fun? I love Indiana history and authors and books and shopping! So I plan to be there. Can't wait!

Falling: Living with Polio and a Peculiar Family in Dayton, Ohio (1938-1957)

I've got a pile of books to read on my nightstand and precious little time to do so. But when I found out that Falling, my late college mentor's memoirs, was available, I pushed everything aside and eagerly dove into reading about his family history and early life.

His purpose in writing his memoirs was to share his experience with having contracted polio at age 8, and to show how it shaped his character. It was a part of his history that was painfully obvious when strangers looked at his twisted body, but one that those who loved him ceased to notice.

Particularly poignant were the memories of his time in the iron lung, from which some of his wardmates did not emerge alive. It was a horrible disease that he believed he contracted through the innocent act of swimming in the public wading pool. And when the vaccine came too late for him, I felt like I was right alongside his sobbing mother.

Of course, the "cheerful warrior" persona that the local media tagged him with stuck with him to the end, and so the book is not maudlin and contains plenty of charmingly odd stories of his Appalachian ancestors and his attachment to his siblings. When his father admonished him "Don't step in anything," I laughed and cried at once. He'd issued that same literal and figurative warning to his own kids--and me.

Another point at which I broke down was when he spoke of a high school teacher who "decided" that he should attend Earlham College with the same force of conviction with which Sam determined that I would attend the University of Evansville. And so I did, and Sam's influence changed my life--and those of countless others.

I am biased about this book because I loved Sam. But I do believe even those who did not know him will be entertained and enlightened by this folksy but learned memoir.

The Shiniest Jewel by Marian Henley

When my coworker Selena told me about Springboard Press' appeal for advance reviewers of The Shiniest Jewel, I jumped at the chance. It was touted as a book about adopting a baby at age 50, a subject that I am growing more and more interested in. One look at the cover illustration and my heartstrings were officially tugged.

Springboard quickly sent me a copy of the book and I eagerly sat down to read it at naptime last weekend. For whatever reason, it hadn't occurred to me that the book by the creator of the "Maxine" cartoons wouldn't be all texty. But it still nearly knocked me down when I opened it and found the story was told in cartoon form.

You might think that using cartoons would make the story more shallow, but you'd be wrong. Henley manages to pack a thousand words and some powerful emotions into each comic strip.

The Shiniest Jewel is entertaining, engrossing, and enlightening all at once, showing readers what happens when a single woman decides to travel to Russia to adopt a child--and resolves quite a few other relationships along the way.

I finished the book in one sitting, but I've gone back to reread parts of it since. My mom wants to read it next but I'm not ready to let it go yet.