Cheryl Truman on books

Lexington author Ed McClanahan’s new book, O the Clear Moment (Counterpoint, $23) comes out in September, a slim (186 pages) volume of short memoirs touted as “nostalgic and tongue-in-cheek.” The book contains several glancing blows at sports, of a fashion, appropriate to note since it’s time to kick off the football season — popularly known in Kentucky as the time we huddle together in football-bound tailgates ticking down the seconds until basketball season, which sends Kentuckians a-quiver with the knowledge that the state still doesn’t star in the high school basketball soaper ”Hoosiers,” this probably won’t be the miraculous season that the UK basketball team pulls out another NCAA championship and someone out there, the unholy trinity of Bobby Knight, Christian Laettner and Mike Krzyzewski still draw breath. Laettner is a particular thorn in the commonwealth’s collective side, as he figures in our greatest state nightmare, the 1992 buzzer-beater shot in which Duke knocked Kentucky out of the NCAA tournament (which is on YouTube, should you need to refresh your misery: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY-iq58_oz4).

So yes, around here, we know something about the tongue in cheek. In part, that quality was given to me by a former boss who wandered around quoting liberally from McClanahan’s novel The Natural Man, which I would wager at one time I knew about as well as the author himself.

But back to McClanahan, one of Lexington’s most genial citizens and an oft-cited favorite in our Reader Top Ten summer swapfest of favorite books.

The kickoff essay is “Great Moments in Sports,” which is peripherally about sports but mainly about the teen pursuit of convivial company, which continues to this day, and in a manner just as classy, and when I say classy, I mean, probably involving property damage. (Yes, the teenagers have just about done me in, thank you: Every morning I wake up, grope around for the cell phone, ascertain that The Call has not come in about either of them while I slept fitfully, and then stumble into the bathroom to look for the JoBeth Williams mile-wide “Poltergeist” gray streak that I’m sure has sprouted in my hair overnight. Truly, it makes you wonder if anybody has mentioned to these Brangelina folks that all six of those little angels will be, simultaneously, teenagers, and that People magazine won’t pay 14 cents, much less $14 million, to take pictures of two hollow-cheeked parents who haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a decade and have recently spent time peering over the remains of a demolished device formerly automotive, murmuring, “And then you did what?” I’m just sayin’.)

I’m guessing the essay is even more hilarious read by McClanahan himself, and I hope to hear it, but until then just know that it concerns two Bobbys, the importance of impressing young women and, of course, eggs. Of course. McClanahan’s second take on the sporting life involves that very special period when he was a youngish activist, of sorts, and trying to make his way in a hotbed of Vietnam War-era political unrest that revolves loosely around “Bolshevik gremlins” and contains a trenchant observation about “the First Law of Revolutionary Physics, which is that tear gas is heavier than air.”

Again, hearing that one testified in person is probably even more entertaining.

In fact, come page 105, McClanahan confesses as much hisveryownself: “I expect I might as well go ahead and own up, right off the bat, to the fact that this little morsel of writing has but one ambition, which is to provide a vehicle that will allow me, when my vast audience clamors for me to read my work in public, to inflict upon them — be warned — the only three songs I’ve ever written, rendered up, strictly Acapulco, in — be doubly warned – my very own inimitable singing voice.”

And here’s McClanahan’s memory of trying to guard Cliff Hagan, who would later become UK basketball royalty: “Or the time twelve guys on our high school basketball team came down with the flu, and I was abruptly — not to say precipitously — elevated from second-string JV to the furthermost end of the varsity bench, and suddenly found myself, deep in the third quarter, not only in the game but also endeavoring to guard the great Cliff Hagan, then of Owensboro High, later of the University of Kentucky Wildcats and the St. Louis Hawks. On the first play he broke for the basket and went twinkle-toeing up my chest like he was Fred Astaire and I was the Stairway to the Stars.”

Here’s to McClanahan’s busy autumn, singing, as he puts it, Acapulco.

I’ll get to Bonner’s lengthy and thouthful list, but first: Who knew that Kentucky readers loved — and I do mean really, really love — Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety? It’s appeared on more lists than I can count, and I’m using the next long weekend I have to dig it out of its spot at my house  – you know that spot you have, that “on-deck” spot on the bedside table, where the books of your best intentions quietly gather dust and get knocked about by the cats? — and read it.

Says Bonner: “Last summer, I submitted my 10 favorite books, but did not realize they were similar to many others, and therefore, not very interesting.

“Just in case you might like to use a different kind of list, I am … submitting a ‘novel list, based on 4 categories. I could have included others (mystery, poetry, Lexington writers, etc.), but 4 seems a good way to go … for starters!”

LOVE

Leaving Cheyenne by Larry McMurtry. “First of many gems, but the most poignant by far. Tale of three friends, 2 men and a woman, whose lifetime of love and devotion never leads to any sex, marriage or favoritism. I cried at the end — not out of sadness.”

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. “Not as celebrated as Angle of Repose, yet, a heart-wrenching and honest (to a fault) family saga of two couples reliving their pasts during a summer weekend. Mesmerizing.”

Birth of a Grandfather by May Sarton. “Lovely and moving story of a crotchety old man who finds love and meaning as he (reluctantly) becomes a grandparent. Not well-known but priceless.”

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. “A mother and her daughter, Turtle, on a long trip during which adventure is admixed with fear, confusion and love. The funniest open paragraph in modern literature.”

Lady by Thomas Tryon. “A heart-breaking but redeeming secret in a small New England town where taboo and sensuality meet heat on. Any further comment would give it away.”

The Awakening by Kate Chopin. “Turn of the century instrospection of a woman coming alive.”

The Grass Is Singing by Kate Chopin. “Not nearly as well-known or appreciated as The Golden Notebook but every bit as riveting and stark. Set in South Africa where an Englishman tries to tame the untameable land. He is a miserable failure, but his wife is even more desperate — until she finds redemption and sanity by way of an illicit, taboo affair.”

Beloved by Toni Morrison. “A triumph for all time. Deep and desperate love helps stay the horror and violence of a black woman’s journey to freedom near the Ohio River in Kentucky. As most well know, it is so much more than that.”

WAR

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski. “Frightening account of a young Jewish boy during World War II who runs and hides alone for three years throughout Europe to escape capture and death. The most compelling anti-war book ever.”

Common Ground by J. Anthony Lucas. “The true account of a couple who tried honestly but unsuccessfully to disarm and diffuse the battlegrounds in three diverse adjacent Boston neighborhoods.”

Hiroshima by John Hersey. “Chilling account of the aftermath of the atomic bomb dropped on Japan in August 1945. Many others have followed but this is still the classic.”

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. “Grisly expose of the turn-of-the-century slaughterhouse industry in Chicago. Considered by experts to be the impetus for eventual FDA regulations after this famous bloody ‘war’ between owners and workers.”

Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan. “The best of many hundreds on the Vietnam War.”

Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhoads. “One of my literary passions is the Manhattan Project. In my collection there are many fascinating accounts but this is my favorite.”

AFRICAN-AMERICAN

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. “One of the first books I read that made me realize just how marginalized and ‘unseen’ minorities have been for centurities. It was an emotional rollercoaster ride.”

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. “Of Morrison’s early works, this is the most heart-breaking. It doesn’t take much to personalize and empathize with the young black girl whose identity is never her own.”

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. “When this came out, we thought, ‘No way’ … but he was prophetic and right on! Much of what he predicted came true in Watts, Detroit and other cities as race riots and protests against how blacks were treated burgeoned.”

Soul On Ice by Eldridge Cleaver. “The memory of a very angry black man in prison. Soulful and riveting. I regret that I let people borrow books like this, as I never get them back.”

Middle Passage by Charles Johnson. “A haunting account of the slave ship Armistad as it crosses from Africa to the New World. The descriptions and dialogue are vivid enough to put you right in the thick of it and make you scream with anguish as the passengers did.”

REGIONAL AND UNIVERSAL

Working by Studs Terkel. “This one is one of my all-time favorites mainly because it is so different. Terkel describes hundreds of occupations and doesn’t shy away from graphic depictions of the dangers.”

Night Comes to the Cumberlands by Harry Caudill. “The first book I ever read about Eastern Kentucky, the mountains and the coal mines. I discovered later that it was controversial in many circles but as a native of that land, he ‘told it like it was.’”

Stand Like Men by James Sherborne. “I had never heard of Bloody Harlan but was fascinated by the gutsy and fearless men and women who fought for their rights as miners in the Thirties.”

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. “A sad and compelling story of Africa and her tragic history at the hands of colonialists.”

Chamed Circle by James Mellow. “I have always wished I had been alive at the time and been a part of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas’ (circle)  .. and all their writer/artistic friends.”

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Sora Neale Hurston. “A book to treasure now and always. … Now part of the high school canon and probably the favorite among all of Hurston’s books.”

And really, I don’t see why more book marketers don’t take to this bit of golden marketing from Semantricks:
A dictionary of words you thought  you knew.

It’s not a safe book for the kiddies, but decent pocket-sized material to haul along for a doctor’s office visit or other occasion where you have may a long wait in surroundings in which one of those DNA/babymama “Maury” editions will be on the waiting room TV and there’s only a collection of well-worn (and hence, intensely germy) old Sports Illustrated issues to read.

Example:

Carnival: Meat eaters festival.

Get it? Get it? Try to hold in those sides, lest they burst from your laughter.

Still, for pocket or bathroom, it’s not a bad mini-book — although, Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Books? $12.95? Really? You guys must be the ones with the sense of humor.

Anyway, the wonderful foreword:

“It’s enough for us that you’ve bought this book:; no need to read it. Give it to someone you dislike. If you dislike the person a lot, give two copies. For anyone who is inclined to read it, we advise small takes. A little of this material goes a long way. And yet, paradoxically, all of it doesn’t go very far.”

Consider how often a right-up-front admission of mediocrity would save us from the purchase and dogged reading of what is, after all, very bad literature.

… in the print edition. You’ve already clipped these and affixed them to your refrigerator via magnet, I’m sure, but just in case:

 What’s summer reading without our reader submissions for their Top Ten favorite books?
    Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto makes its first appearance of the season, and I have to say: I’m Bel Canto-dyslexic. Some readers got it, and a few of us didn’t. So if you’re a Bel Canto fan, speak on up: Send your Top Ten favorite books.
    This week also brought the first reader reference to Wallace Stegner, the first guilty confession of being a Stephen King fan, the first call-out to Kentucky writing demigod Wendell Berry.
    We’ll take reader favorites through the end of July, so there’s still time to submit the books that keep you spellbound: E-mail a list to Cheryl Truman at ctruman@herald-leader.com or mail your list to Cheryl Truman, Lexington Herald-Leader, 100 Midland Ave., Lexington, KY 40508.
    We’ll also put up the lists on the Bluegrass Books blog at Kentucky.com.
   
    Cassie Moses, 31, at-home mom, Cynthiana
    1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
    2. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
    3. Saints at the River by Ron Rash
    4. and 5. The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini
    6. Smokejumper by Nicholas Evans
    7. Clay’s Quilt by Silas House
    8. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt (”I can still remember my mom reading this to me when I was young.”)
    9. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (”This book makes me want to cry each time I read it to my girls.”)
    10. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
   
    Mary Sue Mitchell, 53, instructional assistant, Northside Elementary School, Midway
    “I read Pillars of the Earth and loved it. I too could not wait until William got his come-uppance. It felt like a long wait, though. (Editor’s note: If you read one 973-page epic in your life, make it Pillars of the Earth. There’s medieval cathedral-building, political scheming, sex, war, hissable villains and, in the end, the good guys, most of them, triumph, and the bad guys, all of them, wind up in the bits and pieces they deserve. A triumph for the Almighty, or karma, or the demigod who takes care of faithful readers.) I also found The Shell Seekers (by Rosamunde Pilcher) at a used-book store and I liked it so much I shared it with the people I work with. The Dollmaker is another book that was on the list of several others. … I received it for a Christmas gift and have also shared it with others.”
    “Here is my list, in no particular order.”
    *  Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
    *  Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children series
    *  Francine River’s Mark of the Lion series, about first-century Christians in ancient Rome
    *  Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
    *  Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg (”I laughed so hard when reading this I had to read it in a room by myself.”)
    *  Centennial by James Michener
    *  The Frontiersman by Allan Eckert
    *  Three Weeks With My Brother by Nicholas Sparks
    *  The American Bicentennial series by John Jakes (”This series got me reading again after a break.”)
    *  The Bible. (”Another book that continues to surprise me. The more I read, the more I learn.”)
   
    Eric Iversen, Lexington
    “Most of these are titles spouse Libby and I have read to each other over the years.”
    1. Boy Life on the Prairie by Hamlin Garland (”a life in nature in the 1870s”)
    2. Maude Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks (”emerging consciousness of a child of the great migration”)
    3. The Circle of Quiet from the Crosswick Trilogy by Madeleine L’Engle (”finding respite in, and from, family”)
    4. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner (”Friendship of couples over a lifetime”)
    5. Big Two-Hearted River from the Nick Adams stories by Ernest Hemingway
    6. Dancing on the Edge of the Roof by Sheila Williams
    7. Andy Catlett by Wendell Berry (”An 8-year-old visits both sets of his grandparents”)
    8. The Bishop of Stinking Creek by Joe Powlas (”Eastern Kentucky’s answer to the Mitford series”)
    9. A Winter Room by Gary Paulsen
    10. The Maytrees by Annie Dillard (”Grit and whimsy among the Cape Cod dunes”)
   
    Megan Coffman, Lexington
    Coffman is a particular fan of books on tape/CD.
    Coffman’s comments:
    “While I am a voracious reader, I have found that if you expand your ‘reading’ to audio books, you can get even more books in! I’m typically listening to three books at once - one in the car (and believe me, even without a regular commute you are probably in the car more than you think), one in the kitchen for when I am cooking and cleaning up, and one in the laundry room.
    “There is something about audio books that will let you get through authors and subject material you would never get to in the precious time for actually sitting down and reading.
    “Because I’ve picked them up cheap at yard sales or Goodwill, I’ve ‘read’ everything from war-themed books (not tops on my list) to Kitty Kelley with The Royals (actually pretty enjoyable).
    “When it comes to picking a ‘top 10 list,’ there’s a lot of pressure, especially if you’re a known reader, because, by golly, every book had better be top quality, intellectually reflective, entertaining, etc, or your reputation is injured (or at least you feel it will be), so that being said, here is a list of audio books I enjoyed. Most of them are strictly for entertainment, and you soon find that the reader makes the book, becomes the voice of the book, and the book would never be the same without that reader, which sometimes is astonishing, when credit to the reader is not even found on the front cover!
    “Another bonus with this list - all but one are available for checkout from the Lexington Public Library!”
    1. Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer, read by Gerald Doyle. “This is junior fiction, but is completely engaging for adults as well. A complex story involving everything from Beowulf to family relationships, it was totally mesmerizing. After listening to hundreds of books of all stripes, this is the first time I contacted a company by e-mail to praise the reader.”
    2. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, read by Bernadette Dunn (unabridged): “Every obstacle the heroine faced had me sitting on the edge of my seat.”
    3. Louise Erdrich reading her own works: “The Master Butcher’s Singing Club and The Antelope Wife were memorable. Because Erdrich wrote the books, I guess she knows more than anyone exactly how they should sound, where to pause for the best effect.”
    4. Janet Evanovich series, beginning with One for the Money: “These are obviously wildly popular in print, but are rollicking fun for a long car trip, even if I did have to cover my 9-year-old’s ears more than a few times, especially on later books in the series.”
    5. Moving Mars by Greg Bear (not at the library): “Written in 1993, this was one of the earlier books I ever listened to. I tracked down my very own copy on eBay - and upon relistening was still amazed at all of the futuristic insights Bear plugged into this work.”
    6. Cell by Stephen King, read by Campbell Scott. “So scary, I had to turn it off on the first disc. … Super creepy, and had me staring at my cell phone in the car for weeks.”
    7. Prey by Michael Crichton, read by George Wilson. “Again, super creepy - a friend lent me their copy, and I went and bought my own for future relistening enjoyment.”
    8. “Guilty pleasure of listening to the entire Confessions of a Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella. The British-accented reader gives them just the right touch, and that kitchen is cleaned in no time!”
    9. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, read by Anne Fields: “This is the first audiobook that actually made me cry. Beautifully written and read.”
    10. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, read by the author - both entertaining and educational - great for family listening on that long car trip.
    And a bonus:
    11. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (unabridged, please): “If you never got around to reading this classic as a child, this is a perfect way to make the time. Delightful, after you get into it.”
    Reach Cheryl Truman at (859) 231-3202 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3202; e-mail her at ctruman@herald-leader.com.

These are from the Reader Top 10 favorite books lists from last week. Forgive my delay in posting. I’ve been called into the editing ranks rather frequently of late, so I’m just now compiling.

But here’s my promise: All your lists will appear on Bluegrass Books. Promise. These appeared in the 8/2 newspaper, or printed product, or tree-based megablog, or whatever we’re calling it now:

Deb Jones, head teacher, ­Burrier Child Development ­Center, Eastern Kentucky University

“These are the books that I buy extra copies of to give out to friends and which have impacted my life greatly.”

■ The Bible

■ If God Is Love (also If Grace Is True) by Phillip ­Gulley and James Mulholland. “A radical view of salvation that has made me think deeply.”

■ The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. “A best seller that helped me reflect on why I’m here on earth.”

■ Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, “I read (it) in college for a philosophy course and continue to ­reread every decade or so.”

■ The Kingdom of God Is a Party by Tony Campolo. “I think the title says it all!”

■ Amazing Grace (also The Cloister Walk) by Kathleen Norris. “More favorites I revisit every years or so.”

■ The Joy of ­Loving by Mother Teresa. “Her ­writings are a great ­inspiration for daily living.”

■ Praying the Names of God by Ann Spangler. “This book deepened my ­relationship with God ­beyond words.”

■ Feathers From My Nest by Beth Moore. “This book has helped me as my ­children have left the nest.”

■ Anything by Anne Lamott. “She is so funny and full of truth.”

Jessica Boggs, Whitesburg, student at Campbellsville University

1. Clay’s Quilt by Silas House. “Seriously, the perfect book. It captures Eastern Kentucky like no other book I’ve ever read.”

2. Oral History by Lee Smith. “Most people, when talking about their favorite Lee Smith book, says Fair and Tender Ladies. I like that one, but Oral History was the first Lee Smith book I read, and it is what made me realize that there was such as thing as Appalachian literature.”

3. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. “Two words: Rhett Butler.”

4. The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. “British alternate history in which the Allied forces didn’t win WWII and the world is obsessed with classic literature. Perfect for anyone who loves history, books and sarcasm.”

5. She Walks These Hills by Sharyn McCrumb. “Actually, any of McCrumb’s Ballad series, but this is my favorite. I feel so sorry for Harm, the confused prison escapee.”

6. The Big Beautiful by Pamela Duncan. “Another wonderful Appalachian novel. At a reading of this book by the author, I laughed so hard my sides hurt afterwards.”

7. The Pink Carnation series by Lauren Willig. “The best historical romances I’ve ever read. My favorite is The Masque of the Black Tulip.”

8. Just Listen by Sarah Dessen. “A great teen novel that’s much deeper and much better than the average teen romance. Read this instead of Gossip Girl.”

9. Saints at the River by Ron Rash. “The ending left me thinking for weeks.”

10. Appalachian ­Studies by Anne Shelby. “These poems were like listening to my grandparents’ stories.”

Debbie Burns, Manchester

“Since I am a big fan of short fiction I am listing my five favorite short-story ­collections followed by my five favorite full-length works of fiction.”

1. The Yellow Wall-Paper and Other Writings by ­Charlotte Perkins Gilman. “This volume includes her novelette Herland about a trio of men stumbling upon a society composed completely of women. An eye-opener, as is the story If I Were a Man.

2. Stories by Katherine Mansfield.

3. The Collected Short Stories of Edith Wharton “is another favorite of mine. It’s always fun to read about the idle rich at the turn of the century.”

4. The Mysterious Mr. Quin by Agatha Christie. “I’ve been an Agatha ­Christie fan for years, but I only recently stumbled upon this collection of short stories. In place of Miss Marple, we have Mr. Satterthwaite, who is ‘an earnest student of the drama called Life’ and of course, the otherworldly Mr. Quin.”

5. Miss Marple, The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie. “I have a soft spot for armchair ­detectives, and no one can touch Miss Marple.”

Now, for my five favorite full-length works of fiction:

1. Life With Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. “Bertie Wooster is always landing in trouble, but thankfully he has his faithful butler, Jeeves, to help him out. These books read like one of those slapstick romantic comedies from the ’40s.”

2. Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. “This is the love story of all time.”

3. Small Change by J. Belinda Yandell. “It’s about the secret life of a middle-aged woman. Turns out her husband and two grown children don’t really know her at all.”

4. The No. 1 Ladies ­Detective Agency by ­Alexander McCall Smith. “Precious Ramotswe has been ­described as the Miss Marple of Botswana. Her reflections on life are as interesting as the mysteries she is trying to solve.”

5. Nothing Ever ­Happens Here by Carol Beach York. “This is a young adult ­coming-of-age novel. ­Published in 1970, it is indicative of the era and was the coming-of-age story that I read when I was 12.”

Today’s avalanche of books brings the new (on sale August 5) Dave Barry book. This took me aback, because I had forgotten all about Dave Barry, rather like the grody beer-swilling uncle you once thought was so cool. Then you grew up, and he didn’t. That’s what Dave Barry seems like these days: the annoyance on the bookstore shelf.

Dave Barry’s History of the Millennium (So Far) (Berkley Trade Paperback Reprint, $14) features a cover design that illustrates perfectly what I mean: Barry is Photoshopped flashing rabbit ears over the head of President George W. Bush. I’m sure there’s a preschool somewhere where that’s still cutting-edge humor.

And then there’s Barry’s style, which has always relied on juxtaposing the mundane with the absurd and then tossing in some random reference to something that’s adolescent and probably booger-related and hoping against hope that You Get It.

But let’s do this by example, in this entry from June, 2003: “On the literary front, the blockbuster bestseller of the year is the long-awaited fifth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter Reaches Puberty and Starts Taking Really Long Showers. Another best-seller is Sen. Hillary Clinton’s new book, I Can’t Help It If I’m a Saint, in which, with great candor and openness, her ghostwriter reveals the most intimate details of Sen. Clinton’s life, except the parts that might be interesting, which fall within Sen. Clinton’s “Zone of Privacy.”‘

The problems here are about as infinite as Barry’s fascination with lame puberty jokes:

–This is really lazy writing.

–You suspect that Jon Stewart and “The Daily Show” could have made short work out of both events. (Or Joel McHale, or The Onion, or the Websites 236.com or Wonkette. Good Lord, there’s more sophisticated, harder-working humor on icanhascheezburger.com)

–And the Daily Show is on basic cable, and the InterWebs are basically free, whereas Barry is expecting you to shell out $14 for a collection of his end-of-year columns, slightly updated. And while $14 for a belly laugh is no bad deal, this book is just a Dave Barry literary garage sale, and jokes about Martha Stewart and Paris Hilton and Dan Rather really have reached their “sell-by” date.

–And even in a literary garage sale — basically, a writer dumping everything he didn’t get published in the big leagues between two covers and calling it an anthology, or “the collected,” or “the uncollected,” or “stuff no magazine, print or online, would sneeze on these days” — there is occasionally a pink flamingo, an item that’s fun and kitschy and makes you proud to haul it off to the car and pose it in front of your coffee table.

Dave Barry may make a comeback, like Abba or “The Golden Girls.”

But this is no pink flamingo.

Really, July 4 is up there with Halloween as a reader’s holiday: What else are you going to do? On July 4, you have the best of excuses to lounge on a porch swing with a book: It’s hot and humid and generally sweat-baiting to move around in the oven that is Kentucky, you can’t stand over a hot grill all day, and the fireworks aren’t until 10 p.m. Besides checking out the marathons on basic cable, what else are you going to do?

So: a roundup of what the book haul has yielded this holiday-shortened week.

Worst blurb of the week:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Dial Press, $22), a book that could use all the help it can get based on title alone, has this dust jacket gem: “Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the Society’s charming, deeply human members, from pig farmers to phrenologists.”

I love it when people are deeply human, don’t you? It sets them apart from my cats and dog and the bird who attempted to take up permanent residence in our garage last week and is, sadly, No Longer With Us.

And really, had the blurb just given up with letting humans be human, I would let it go. But no, it’s on a roll: “Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds there will change her forever.”

And, in the words of the immortal Randy Travis, forever and ever, amen.

Worst title of the week:

Santa Vs. Satan: The Official Compendium of Imaginary Fights by Jack Kalish (Three Rivers Press, $13.95).

Initially you think: Clever! And then you notice that for every Gandalf vs. Obi-Wan Kenobi, every Han Solo vs. Indiana Jones, you get a “The Constipated vs. the Incontinent” or a “Small Man with Breasts vs. Large Balding Woman” — that is, stuff you wouldn’t read even if you were in a college class where credit was at stake.

Still, props for quote selection, particularly in the Muhammad Ali vs. Bruce Lee dustup, in which Ali’s cool quote No. #1 is: “Here I predict Mr. Liston’s dismemberment. I’ll hit him so hard he’ll wonder where October and November went.”

Best title of the week:

How Dolly Parton Saved My Life: A Novel of the Jelly Jar Sisterhood by Charlotte Conners (Broadway Books, $12.95).

Isn’t it amazing how many publishers think they’ve got the next Mitford series? But after stealing Ms. Parton’s halo, the book suffers from a thoughtless cover (wigs and beadboard) and a godawful cover blurb that has something to do with “successful, independent women who put their families first” (as opposed, I guess, to all of us abject failures who put our families somewhere below lawn edging and beer swilling), Atlanta, bonding, “personal hurts,” prayer and “sisterly support.”

Do Whut, Now? Odd book of the week:

The World’s Coolest Hotel Rooms by Bill Tikos (Collins/Design, an imprint of HarperCollins, $29.95).

OK, I understand the concept of the coffee table book: random infobits, beautifully illustrated and consumed at reading increments of 5-10 minutes.

Even so, it’s hard to know where this book’s market is: “Fifty of the hippest, sexiest, newest, and most unusual hotel rooms in the most widely traveled destinations around the world.”

So: If you travel extensively and have megbucks, you already know these places. If you don’t, hearing about them is going to make you feel particularly Motel 6: poor, cheap and probably covered in wood laminate and polyester blend of a low thread count.

Unless, of course, it’s Hotel Basico in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, which, the book informs, “exudes industrial chic; the materials are recycled from the region’s oil refineries and factories.” A few pages later, it burbles: “For those who want to take back mementoes of their stay, there’s a Polaroid camera handcuffed to the bed.”

While I can understand the joys of a hotel that thoughtfully anticipates its guests’ need for hand restraints, the place basically looks like a jail with ocean views and bottomless mojitos.

Worth A Second Look:

Larry McMurtry’s Books: A Memoir (Simon & Schuster, $24). I am a total fool for the book-lover-memoir genre (such as Paul Collins’ Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books), so this is the book I’m having with my July 4 potato salad.

Except, of course, when I’m reading Pillars of the Earth: entire family crises have wandered past this week while I’ve been following Philip and Aliena and Tom Builder and waiting for that sweet, sweet moment when hissable William gets dispatched. As far as I’m concerned, the medieval English yarn, be it Ken Follett or Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series, is the reason I learned to read in the first place.

I may have spoken too quickly about the last book from the arch TV site Television Without Pity. A newer try, A TV Guide to Life: How I Learned Everything I Needed to Know from Watching Television (Penguin, $14) by Jeff Alexander, a TWOP writer, arrived yesterday.

And yes, it does have the appropriately evil yet literate tone of somebody who has been through college, possibly even the wilds of graduate school, and yet occasionally lets the TV remote wander to the musings of Shanna Moakler and Chris Jericho on VH-1’s “I Love the New Millennium.” If you don’t know who Shanna Moakler and Chris Jericho are, you’re not spending enough time either Web-surfing, watching TV or reading: I can’t help you there. (Well, OK, then: the tabloid-friendly but surprisingly funny beauty queen known for her battles with Paris Hilton, and the WWE wrestler and occasional singer. A working knowledge of pop culture: so valuable.)

It’s not the book you show off with, and yet, on a Kentucky Saturday afternoon in which the humidity and the temperature are waged in a battle to your death, it’s appropriate sofa-slouch reading.

In example, this description of the Fox show “House,” starring the inimitable Hugh Laurie, who is great as the irascible doctor (I think “irascible doctor” is a trademarked description for House), but — trust me on this, as I had a lot of time to kill while housebound with two youngsters — even better as the daffy Prince George on “Blackadder.” (If you’re reading this, I’m going to trust you have either a Netflix subscription, or a working knowledge of classic BBC comedies, or both. Because while I can take a stab at explaining the appeal of Chris Jericho — which is the quality of being both fully engaged in WWE antics while at the same time viewing them from a sneering distance and wondering, really, how long he has to take these falls before some other line of work will take off — you need to do some of the lifting, or at least watching, yourself.)

In any case, the book’s description of Gregory House, M.D.:

” … House decides on a course of treatment by asking himself a series of questions, just like any other doctor. These questions are:

1. How is the patient lying to me?

2. How is the patient’s family lying to me?

3. What do the other doctors think? Because the opposite is probably true.

4. Where’s my Vicodin?

And so lives are saved. See? Being a doctor is easy!”

Of course, this is not all you get. There are elaborate notes on set construction, or why the Huxtables’ living room did not look like the Conners’, TV couples, how TV characters “work,” and of course the great TV path of instruction on the path of child-rearing:

“Arnold Jackson, Alex P. Keaton, and the Soprano kids are cautionary tales of what can happen in the homes of parents who let their kids sharpen their wits on them.

“That’s why kids should be kept away from reruns of Family Ties and Roseanne, and be steered instead toward The Cosby Show. Cliff Huxtable’s kids occasionally ventured the odd retort directed at tehir parents, but everyone in the house was fully aware that goine into a battle of wits with Cliff was like going into a firefight unarmed.”

So, are we clear?

Be this: Cliff Huxtable.

Not this: Roseanne Conner, the “Family Ties” parents of Alex P. and Mallory Keaton, Tony Soprano (although this was the first time anybody ever ventured the critical observation that young Anthony Junior had any wits to sharpen on anybody, ever, and the last time we saw Meadow she couldn’t even parallel park the luxury car Daddy bought her).

The Definitive Guide to Stuff White People Like: The Unique Taste of Millions (Random House Trade Paperback Original, $14) has been cooling on my desk these last few days while I try to consider whether I have anything of use, or interest, or even moderate tastefulness, to say about it.

And I think I do. I’ve collected stunt books over the years — The Official Preppy Handbook! The Sloane Ranger Handbook! (the British equivalent of preppies) — so I know a humorous deconstruction of an easily slammed lifestyle when I see one.

And I’m becoming more familiar with books launched off blogs, as this one is: Generally they don’t work. That’s because you read blogs for infobits — killing a minute or two of time between surfing to something more substantial, or something at least different: The Internet works as if invented for the Attention Deficit Disordered. And there’s an inevitable rise and fall in blogs: The fashion criticism site gofugyourself.com was on for awhile, particularly concerning all matters J. Lo (about whom it wrote with an evil brilliance), but then it seemed to wander off and lose focus and turn over too many days to “Intern George,” and then there was the resulting book, and the book somehow lost the appeal of the blog, plus you had to lay down real money to buy it. Likewise the Television Without Pity site, which chronicles shows on which its summaries are better than watching the real thing (I direct you to the first-season summaries of VH-1’s “Rock of Love,” particularly the summary of the “meet the parents” episode, which may be the funniest, most risque thing on any site on the Internet, period). The Television Without Pity book didn’t work, either. But then there are sites that you are just a little bit embarrassed to admit that you visit — not icanhascheezburger.com, which is both feline and genius and surely will never disgrace itself with a bad book, but certainly, stuffwhitepeoplelike.com. It’s the kind of site you’re pretty worried will show up in your browsing history and give people the wrong idea that you are not reading it for the irony alone, and in some ways the site is a one-trick pony. Because: How many ways can you slice up Teva-wearing, Prius-driving, conscientious-parenting, TV-limiting, hardwood-craving urban recyclers? Well, just about that many, and then you’re done. Next joke, please: Who’s getting fat at theskinnywebsite.com?

It’s not that you won’t recognize the lifestyle — the symbolic almighty Prius! The people who blog about their Prius and take its picture and give it a name and refer to its as if it is a particularly accomplished family member and then parade it around so much they’re burning more gas than you, Mr. Guilt-Ridden Chevy Suburban. The always-gifted children! Not having a TV exclusively so that you can tell people you don’t have a TV, hence you are superior and lack mind rot! Unless you have a TV and admit only to watching “The Wire” and “Arrested Development” and “The Simpsons.” Hardwood floors! Liberal politics!

Here I have a confession: I am probably a barbarian on several of these fronts, so I am predisposed to not guffaw. I live in the suburbs, and I only have hardwood in the kitchen.The rest of the house is thickly carpeted. And not only carpeted, but not even carpeted in a neutral: It’s a rich teal green, and I only wish that none of you have to figure out how to buy paint to coordinate with that. Also: I drive a Pontiac. And in my intensive child-hauling, “can you drive the team?” days I drove a GMC Yukon roughly the size of a city block. I never had my children identified as “gifted,” because, being a bad yuppie, I never quite understood the social distinction of it (and yes, they grew into accomplished students nonethless, because they lived in a house full of books and British comedies on DVD, but I have since sat through innumerable parent gatherings in which the sole criterion for how a school is doing seemed to be how the “identified gifted and talented” population performs, so I get it, OK? I just think it’s wrong to pre-judge lifetime academic potential in the third grade). Hence I understand that hell — probably a nylon-carpeted hell in a garish primary color — surely awaits me at the end of my cable-watching, gas lawn-mowing days. In the meantime, what’s on Fearnet?

Still, I direct you to infobit #149 in the book: Self-Importance. “Due to an undying need to share their life story with everyone who wil listen, white people have taken to blogging in massive numbers, though it is no surprise that many have simply turned their journals/diaries into blogs where they talk about the latest episode of American Idol, Darfur, their experience at a coffee shop, and their concerns about the future. … What has been less expected is the need for white people to document in blog format any experience that takes more than a week. Pregnancy, vacations to Asia and South America, renovations, child rearing, and car restoration have all become blogs that encourage the rest of the world to take notice of the astute observations and talent of the undiscovered writer.”

And, yes, I am pre-humbled by the irony of making these observations via blog. Still: It’s a blog at a newspaper that believes firmly in diversity and accountability, and I have never abused said blog to rhapsodize about what is, after all, a car.

Dear readers, remember last summer, when we swapped our top 10 favorite books all the livelong summer?

Well, the Top 10 is back!

Send me your top 10 favorite all-time best reads, or your top five, or heck, your top one. We’ll list them on this blog, and many of them also on the Sunday book pages. (And if you’ve got a top 10 LEAST favorite books, well, send them on: I’ll take a look at those, too.)

Our rules are simple:

The names of the books, and their authors.

Your name, your city and state, and a contact telephone number in case I need to clarify some point.

Your e-mail address.

We had an absolute blast with this last year. Participants included everyone from retirees to businesspeople to politicians to students.

And, as your hostess, I will again lead off …

My Top 10 favorite books (not the best books, or the books that made me a better person, or the books I’m most grateful to have read: my favorites). Mine change all the time; yours probably do, too, so those of you who participated last year are invited to submit updated lists this year.

Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson. I’ve tried to push this book on pretty much every group I’ve ever spoken to, every student I’ve counseled, every family member I’ve managed to corner near a bookshelf. It’s about the 1900 Galveston hurricane, but it’s a beautifully written reminder of the intersection between journalism and history. Larson’s powers of description have never been better — not even in The Devil and the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, about the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and a murderer, which is also a fine read. And yes, Larson is a master at switching up his narrative threads.

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. It’s science fiction, it’s spirituality, but it’s really the book I turn to when I’m sure I’m doing the right thing, to let me know that you can never really be sure. There’s no book that keeps me more humble than this one, no book I’m more grateful to have read. I recommend it to everybody I know. (And sometimes, as was the case with my teenage daughter, they throw it back at me, but you know: I’m persistent.)

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. Just a ripping good yarn about what might happen if unknowable aliens hijacked our planet, put a permeable sheath over the whole thing and started pulling strings. Like an M. Night Shyamalan movie, except that Spin stays with you even after the trick is revealed.

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner. Why is it that single defining moments reverberate for us decades later? How can a single action, or a single moment of losing focus, change everything? And how can the proudest among us grit it up enough to simply do the right thing when we should?

The Portable Dorothy Parker. Because, like my collection of books by and about the Mitford sisters, I couldn’t live without it, and I’m finally old enough to admit it.

Metropolitan Life by Fran Lebowitz. Because Fran Lebowitz could be Dorothy Parker’s daughter.

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. We like to pretend that everything is inevitable. We like a narrative. We like to pretend that history turned out that way because it was supposed to. We are so wrong, and Taleb takes great delight in showing why.

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. What if humanity vanished tomorrow? What would the world be like? Would the earth “recover” from us? One fun footnote: The thing that’s most likely to get your house, and, indeed, all manmade structures: the moisture. Go thank your roofer right now.

Middlemarch by George Eliot (or Bleak House by Charles Dickens: same general idea). Why readers don’t root for the characters of Eliot and Dickens the same way they pull for everybody in Jane Austen just befuddles me.

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Writing about the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth sent me back into this book, and not because I’m looking forward to seeing the movie version (Liam Neeson as the Great Emancipator, indeed). Goodwin has a gift, both in writing and speaking about this time in history, of seeming as if she was on the spot. It’s hypnotizing — and if you can, as a reader, lose track of time’s passage as you’re reading, you’ve found yourself a wonderful book.