I’ve had two quite busy and stressful weeks at work, which has cut into the brain power I have for reading and blogging. I just haven’t been able to write any reviews lately, and I’ve been struggling to get into some of the nonfiction I’ve got on my plate right now.

This week, Thursday was especially mentally and emotionally exhausting, so by the time I settled in with a book before bed I was just looking for something frothy and goofy. I’ve had Jen Lancaster’s My Fair Lazy: A Culture-Up Manifesto out from the library for about a month, and it seemed like exactly what I needed.

Unfortunately, I really, really didn’t like this book… despite the many, many positive things friends and coworkers that have good taste in books have said about  Jen Lancaster, it did not work for me. I finished the book up this morning and couldn’t help wondering what was wrong with me. What wasn’t I getting about this author that everyone else seems to love?

I thought about my cranky reaction all day (hence this very late post), and I think I finally came up with my two big problems with My Fair Lazy that, combined, left me actively annoyed that I actually bothered to finish reading it. First, the stunt memoir part of the story was poorly executed. And second, I didn’t think Jen Lancaster’s persona was funny at all.

As you may know, I’m a bit of a super geek when it comes to the sub-genre of the stunt memoir. I’ve read a lot (really, a lot) of stunt memoirs, so I have deeply-held ideas about what makes them interesting and what makes them seem like, well, a pointless stunt. One of the most important aspects is to set up the premise of the book early, then get started working on it right away. The stunt also has to have something for the reader, a reason we care about the author going about whatever stunt they’re planning.

My Fair Lazy fails pretty spectacularly on both accounts. While Lancaster does set up the idea of becoming more cultured early in the book, she doesn’t really seem to get started doing anything about it until well over 100 pages into a 360 page book. Sure, she goes a play and visits a society hotel in New York, but those things happen more as a result of Lancaster procrastinating on writing her next book and going on a book tour… which is not what I really signed up to read about. And finished the book without ever getting the sense that I cared whether Lancaster became more cultured or that she was offering me any lessons I could apply to my own life (other than some general platitudes about “Live life to the fullest!” and “Try new things!”)

To be fair, it could be that Lancaster didn’t intend My Fair Lazy to be a stunt memoir, and I placed the wrong set of expectations on the book before I even started. But, the full subtitle — “One Reality Television Addict’s Attempt to Discover If Not Being a Dumb Ass Is the New Black, or a Culture-Up Manifesto” — makes me think I’m not totally off-base… but that’s open to debate.

Secondly, and probably more damning, is that I just didn’t think the persona Lancaster adopts for the book was very funny. All of the reviews and in-person recommendations I’ve gotten to read Lancaster have talked about how hilarious she is… but I just didn’t get it. I think I laughed out loud once in the entire book (at a joke about fois gras being meat butter). I think if her sense of humor had clicked more with me, I wouldn’t have minded the fact that this isn’t a very good stunt memoir. But when the book was both not funny and not well-executed, I got annoyed.

I read some reviews online after finishing the book, and it seems like I’m not the only person that was less-than-thrilled with this particular Lancaster memoir, suggesting that this is the worst of the several she’s written. So I want to try again, sometime, with one of her other books, to see if maybe it was just the execution of this book that I disliked, not Jen Lancaster as an author. I’m leaning towards Bitter is the New Black, but I’m open to suggestions?

Have you ever been excited to read an author that let you down? Or, brought the wrong set of expectations to a book that caused disappointment? What are you reading this fine Sunday?

Earlier this week I posted about some of my favorite online sources for finding great essays to read, but the post was light on actual recommendations. I’ve been slowing working through some short nonfiction on my Nook — individual pieces you can buy for between $.99 and $2.99 at the online book retailer of your choice — that I wanted to review. So here they are, in no particular order:

‘How a Book is Born: The Making of The Art of Fielding‘ by Keith Gessen

“How a Book is Born” is a version of an article that appeared in the October 2011 edition of Vanity Fair, which takes a look at the story of how The Art of Fielding, a book about baseball by Chad Harbach, came to be. Gessen, a friend of Harbach’s, has been around since the book was just a few chapters being critiqued at an MFA workshop, so he is able to give a really great insider/outsider perspective.  Just like The Art of Fielding is more than a book about baseball, “How a Book is Born” is more than a story about a book about baseball. It’s a quick, insider look at the world of publishing and the life of a book that I highly recommend.

‘The Baby Chase’ by Holly Finn

I was not entirely enamored by Holly Flinn’s “The Baby Chase,” which chronicles her struggle to conceive a baby through in vitro fertilization. Although Flinn is sympathetic, knowledgeable, and often quite funny, the piece felt a little pushy to me. There was this sense that women who could still have children, were still within the age range where getting pregnant is likely, should do it right away. I get that Flinn’s point was that if you want to have kids, don’t wait too long before age makes it dificult, but I didn’t feel like she acknowledged the number of women who don’t want children, or may not realize they do until later in life. I’m not sure how to articulate it… something just pushed the wrong buttsonf or me.

‘Cooking Solves Everything’ by Mark Bittman

If you want to read a short version of an argument about why cooking for yourself is a good idea, Mark Bittman’s “Cooking Solves Everything” could be just what you’re looking for.  I think this felt a little flat to me because I read it right after reading The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn, and they cover a bit of the same territory. However, I think Bittman’s piece is a bit more political and wide-ranging, making a case that cooking can be a political act. I guess this sits a bit in between Flinn’s book and another popular cooking manifesto, The Ominvore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, but is much shorter than both!

‘A Killing in Iowa’ by Rachel Corbett

Set in rural Iowa, “A Killing in Iowa” is Rachel Corbett’s investigation into the night the man she considered to be a father killed his girlfriend and then himself. Shielded from the event for years by her mother, when Corbett learns the details of that night, she starts an investigation to try and figure out what happened to turn a man into a killer. As much as this is really gripping true crime story, it’s also a portrait of life in rural America and the way poverty and violence can be intertwined. I liked this one very much, even if Corbett doesn’t quite bring all her conclusions together by the end.

So that’s what I’ve been reading, in between books, anyway. I’ve got a few more on my Nook that I’m excited to get to soon — “Joan” by Sara Davidson, “The Fearless Mrs. Goodwin”, and “The Getaway Car” by Ann Patchett — so expect some more short reviews coming soon.

This post was originally published on Book Riot on Thursday, February 9.

One of my reading goals for this year was to read an essay every single day. Reading essays — both online and in collections — has helped remind me about all the great, short nonfiction there is out there. And, I think we’re living in a particularly robust time for long-form writing, which makes it easy for readers that are tentative about trying nonfiction to find something to enjoy.

Good old Merriam-Webster defines an essay as “an analytic or interpretative literary composition usually dealing with its subject from a limited or personal point of view.” While that’s a pretty clinical definition, it does get at the idea that an essay is both literary and limited, but doesn’t go on to dictate subject or specific style (other than “literary,” but that basically doesn’t mean anything… literary fiction, anyone?).

I’ve been interpreting the idea of an essay pretty broadly, everything from Katy Butler’s incredibly beautiful piece in the New York Times Magazine, “What Broke My Father’s Heart,” to a sports story about Tom Brady’s first hour after losing the Super Bowl on Sunday with a particularly lovely sense of structure.

If you’re into some very, very recent writing, there are two stories, just published, about the exotic animal shootings in Zanesville, Ohio last year that are must reads — “Animals” by Chris Jones in Esquire and “18 Tigers, 17 Lions, 8 Bears, 3 Cougars, 2 Wolves, 1 Baboon, 1 Macaque, and 1 Man Dead in Ohio” by Chris Heath in GQ. And then you could read about the story trailer that Esquire made and how the Internet is disrupting the traditional magazine publishing cycle. I’m fascinated. And a total dork.

Anyway, if you’re interested in exploring some of today’s best narrative nonfiction, I have three websites to suggest:

• Longform: Longform.org is a website that collects old and new nonfiction articles from across the Internet that are “too long and too interesting to be read on a web browser.” The site is set up to easily work with read later services like Instapaper or Read It Later, and just recently launched an iPad app. I love the variety that comes from this site. I find a new essay to read almost every day.
• Byliner: Byliner.com is a little more in-depth than Longform. The site is a publishing company and social network that centers around narrative stories. The site publishes original pieces, Byliner Originals, that are typically between 10,000 to 35,000 words that are available to purchase digitally. The site also collects narrative journalism from around the web that can be sorted by topic or author.
• Nieman Storyboard: If you’re a bit of a narrative nonfiction wonk, Nieman Storyboard is the blog to check out. A project of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, the site looks into storytelling across mediums and offers a place for conversation about how long-form writing is changing in the digital age. I’ve read some fantastic author interviews (this one with Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, is awesome), and I love the way they dissect contemporary writing to see how it works.

If you’re the kind of reader that feels intimidated by book-length nonfiction, the essay can be a great way to ease into the genre. I’m hoping to get up a post later this week (maybe even tomorrow!) with some short reviews of some of the Byliner Originals I’ve been reading so I can give some more specific recommendations.

Photo Credit: Jason Tavares via Flickr

BAND — Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees — is a group organized to promote the joy of reading nonfiction. We are “advocates for nonfiction as a non-chore,” and we want you to join us. Each month, a member of BAND hosts a discussion on their blog related to nonfiction. 

Since I hosted the first BAND discussion last July, we’ve passed discussion around to a bunch of awesome bloggers. In my first discussion, I asked about your favorite type of nonfiction. This month, I want to go the other direction:

What is one type of nonfiction you dislike and why? And, as an extra challenge (if you choose to accept it), ask your readers to recommend a book to try!

I’ve had problems with Mr. Linky, so feel free to leave a link to your response in the comments, and I’ll update this post with a list of submissions and try to do a wrap-up near the end of the month.

My Problems with Reading Pundits and Politicians

While I try not to be a person that dislikes things before giving them an honest try, I have to admit that I have to stop myself from gagging every time I hear about a new book by a political pundit or politician. It’s making me annoyed even thinking about it.

When I think of a political pundit, I’m talking about anyone who makes a living commenting on political issues from a particular political persuasion or hosts a cable news program. And when I think of a politician, I’m referring to anyone currently running for office or who may run for office again in the future.

As much as I like reading nonfiction about politics or political issues (Big Girls Don’t Cry, a book about the 2008 presidential election, was one of my favorite reads in 2011), I just can’t seem to find any interest in reading books by people of any political persuasion. I’m equally turned off by the thought of reading Bill O’Reilly as I am of reading Bill Maher.

I think my biggest problem is that books by pundits or politicians come in only two flavors — political manifesto or political memoir — and I dislike both equally.

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