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Tony Miksak

WORDS ON BOOKS by Tony Miksak for KZYX&Z-FM, 90.7 Philo CA
Airs Sunday, January 28, 2007 at 10:55 am, repeated Wednesday, Jan 31 at 1 pm

(copyright 2007 Tony Miksak)

Title: The KZYX Book Discussion Group Meets Over Tacos and Quesadillas

(MUSIC UP) This is Tony Miksak with a few Words on Books.

Books will drive you crazy. This assertion has been on the public record at least since 1605, when Miguel de Cervantes wrote:

"In short, (Don Quixote of La Mancha) became so caught up in reading that he spent his nights reading from dusk till dawn and his days reading from sunrise to sunset, and so with too little sleep and too much reading his brains dried up, causing him to lose his mind."

Don Quixote lost his mind on page three. I lose mine in various places, often on page twenty-five; page fifty if a book is really, really good. There is no cure for the book crazies, but you can live with it.

The other afternoon I found myself chewing tacos and talking books with fellow KZYX board members. As soon as one person named a title someone else took off on the theme and brought up another favorite book.

It was CRA-zy!

The whole thing started, I recall, when Jane Futcher mentioned "Running with Scissors." She described the book as "a wacky, sad, funny memoir by Augusten Burroughs." She also mentioned something about a Masturbatory Chamber, so we were immediately paying lots of attention.

"At age 12," Jane explained, "the author’s mentally ill mother dropped him off to live with her psychiatrist, an eccentric free-thinker who has no boundaries and offers nothing in the way of traditional parenting – not to Augusten nor his own brood of dysfunctional children. Burroughs is gay, and among the many unusual adventures he offers is his seduction and subsequent relationship – beginning at age 13 – with a 30-year-old gay man, one of the shrink’s many adopted children."

"Scissors" made Michael Grady think of "Self-made Man" by Norah Vincent. Michael said, "Though I was initially dubious about the value of a woman disguising herself to pass as a man and make forays into the all-male preserves of bowling leagues, strip clubs, monasteries and men's groups, I found increasing amounts of insight in her accounts of her experiences.

"After all, I haven't experienced a lap dance or lived in a monastery, but I think that what was most revealing to me were her descriptions of dating women as a man and her reflections on the often cruel balance of power between women and their suitors."

By this time several book conversations were going on at the same time.

I heard Eric Enriquez mention "Candy Girl: A Year In The Life Of An Unlikely Stripper" by Diablo Cody. Eric said, "I didn't read the book yet... (I saw her) appearance on David Letterman, which I give four out of five microphones."

By now the talk had veered to food, and I brought up my favorite book on corn, Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" in which Pollan demonstrates that corn has colonized the Midwest and driven out the cattle and other crops for miles around.

"Like a virus," Michael observed. "Pollan has the same idea about marijuana (and apples, tulips, and the potato) in "The Botany of Desire."

Johanna recommended Laurie King's seven books about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, starting with "The Beekeepers Apprentice."

So it appears the KZYX Board of Directors has become (among other things) a book discussion group. We were wondering if maybe, just maybe, it's YOUR turn to join the discussion?

We are fast coming up on the annual election for members of the KZYX Board of Directors. There are five openings, and the board has voted to extend the filing deadline to mid-February.

We hope to find volunteers who love books, and community radio, who will share their talents with the rest of us.

(MUSIC UP)
If that might be you, please download an election application from the KZYX web site, or call the station: 895-2324 and get one mailed to you. Or just call for information.

(MUSIC)) You can subscribe to the email version of Words on Books by writing to amiksak@mcn.org. Transcripts are available on the KZYX web site.

Notes:

"Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes. Translated by Edith Grossman. HarperCollins paperback $16.95. ISBN 0060934344. Very nice edition, fresh translation, Introduction by Harold Bloom, with "insights, interviews & more." How do they get all those crunchy words in that itty-bitty box?

"Running With Scissors: A Memoir" by Augusten Burroughs. Picador paperback $14. ISBN 0312425414. A long-time Staff Favorite, customer favorite. Raunchy and funny; like David Sedaris but much, much darker.

"Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man" by Norah Vincent. Penguin paperback $15. ISBN 0143038702.

"Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper" by Diablo Cody. Gotham Books paperback $14. ISBN 1592402739.

"The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" by Michael Pollan. Penguin paperback $16. ISBN 0143038583.

I discussed "Omnivore" briefly here: http://www.gallerybookshop.com/bkm/wob060319.html

"The Beekeeper's Apprentice" by Laurie King. Bantam Books paperback $12. ISBN 0553381520.

Board member Jane Futcher writes, "Also, I recently finished "The Echo Maker," a novel and winner of the 2006 National Book Award, by Richard Powers. It’s about a 27-year old Nebraska man who flips his truck over on a dark winter night and, on awakening from a coma, is certain his beloved sister is an imposter, part of an alien conspiracy to take over his brain and that of those he loves. At the baffled and worried sister’s request, a well known neurologist (clearly based on Dr. Oliver Saks, author of “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat”), flies in from New York to help her brother, diagnoses him with a rare case of Capgras syndrome– the delusion that people in one’s life are doubles or imposters. But the doctor, as well as the patient’s sister, find their own grasp on reality becoming as tenuous as the patient’s. Powers’ haunting descriptions of rural Nebraska, where sandhill cranes land each year during their migrations between Alaska and Mexico, are beautiful and add to the novel’s haunting exploration of the mysteries of the human brain and the fragility of Nature.

"One other recent favorite is "The Line of Beauty," the 2004 Booker Prize for Fiction winner, by British author Alan Hollinghurst, about class, sex and money in Margaret Thatcher’s London through the eyes of a young gay man living in the house of a Conservative member of Parliament – the father of one of his close friend’s from Oxford University. The main character is a Henry James scholar, and the novel echoes James -- vivid descriptions of London, single point of view, delight in detailing class distinctions and their interplay with morality and character, and the slow, inexorable build to a tumultuous ending.

Board President Michael Grady writes, "The Dog Rules (Damn Near Everything)" by William J. Thomas is a very light romp in the world of being the companion animal to a dog. Interesting insight into being a Canadian and regarding your well-known but incomprehensible neighbor to the south.

"I'm also reading "Isaac Newton" by James Gleick, a brief biography of the paradoxical inventor of modern science. Perhaps the two most important long-term influences on Western thought have been Newton and Darwin, in that order. In both men, it seems they were capable of amazing leaps to (correct) conclusions, as if they knew the answers from a future built on their own insights. Does it count that I've also just finished a collection of Roz Chast's cartoons "Theories of Everything"?

Tony Miksak
Bookseller Emeritus & member, Board of Directors, KZYX&Z
read "Words on Books" at www.gallerybooks.com/bkm/index.html

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