Let Me Off at the Top!: My Classy Life and Other Musings by Ron Burgundy

3.5 Stars

I’m assuming everyone reading this is already well aware of the legend that is Ron Burgundy.

You’re not, you say???? Although I cannot even fathom how that is possible, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with his work. Don’t worry I’ll wait for you . . . .

Okay, are you back? If so, I assume the transformation from curious interweb clicker to crazy superfan has officially taken place. After all, we’re talking about Ron Burgundy here.

Why yes. Yes you are, Mr. Burgundy, and I can’t thank you enough for making time in what I can only imagine is the busiest of schedules to put pen to paper and draft your memoir.

From his not-so-well-known friendship with Bobby Kennedy to romantic trysts with the likes of Barbara Walters (with a cameo appearance by Walter Kronkite) and Bruce Lee (just to name a few), this is a chance to get to know Ron Burgundy on a truly philosophical level. Not only does Ron give you complete access to what made him the man he is today, he also shares the story of how the entire Channel 4 News Team came to fruition.

Words cannot express how thankful I am that I had the opportunity to get inside of Ron Burgundy (interpret that as you will), and this book? Well, it’s just

If you’ve been a fan of Ron Burgundy, Brick Tamland, Brian Fantana and Champ Kind for the past 10 years and still can’t get enough, then this is the book for you. If you’re not a fan, then I only have one thing to say to you:

Skins by Adrian C. Louis

2.5 Stars

Are you looking for a book that will give you an excuse to do something like this:

If so, well boy howdy is this the one for you!

Rudy is a cop who has always attempted to do the right thing – even when it comes to arresting the local drunk, his brother Mogie. In his efforts to “be the good brother” Rudy finds himself going to the most horrible of extremes – one example being burning down a local liquor store vigilante style in order to stop the problems caused by booze. Adrian Louis is unapologetic in his approach to telling the story of what life is like for some of the residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. His brutal honesty will leave you reeling.

Of course, if you’re looking for a nice, upbeat little tale you can always read it backward ; )

You get your house back
You get your dog back
You get your best friend Jack back
You get your truck back
You get your hair back
You get your first and second wives back
Your front porch swing
Your pretty little thing
Your bling bling bling and a diamond ring
You get the farm and the barn and the boat and the Harley
First night in jail with Charlie
You get your mind back
You get your nerves back
Your first heart attack back
You get your pride back
You get your life back
You get your first real love back
You get your big screen TV, a DVD and a washing machine
You get the pond and the lawn
And the bail and the mower
You go back where you don't know her
It sounds a little crazy a little scattered and absurd
But that's what you get when you play a country song read this book backwards

The Long Walk by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman)

4 Stars

 

There’s only two things you need to worry about when taking The Long Walk: picking them up and laying them down.



Outwalk the other 99 contestants in this most twisted of games and you’ll win the grand prize – whatever your heart desires for the rest of your life.

Why the hell did I not know about this book for the past billion years I’ve been alive? I’ve been a King fangirl since the discovery of fire and can’t see how this one slipped past my radar. (Sidenote to all the über booknerds who might be reading this and are thinking about ways to rebel: Keep going to school and making the honor roll – just add a little Stephen King to your life and watch your mother freak out that you are really “acting out” all of a sudden. It makes for some fun times and you’ll discover an author that will entertain you for the next 20+ years.) However I managed to miss it, it happened and I now owe a huge THANK YOU to all of my Goodreads buddies for reading this en masse, making it pop on my feed and impossible for me to ignore.

This is the King I love the best. I’m not such a superfan when I look back on a lot of his late 70s/early 80s stuff – it seems a little campy, a little too heavy on the horror and a little too light on the storyline. But this????? This is what was lurking inside –a foreshadowing of what was to come with character driven stories where gore takes a backburner to psychological terror.

You might be asking why you should read this book? Hasn’t the whole battle to the death thing been done a time or twelve before?



Hasn’t it even been taken to not-so-PG13 levels a few times?



Hasn’t Stephen King even done this already????



The answer is yes, but King does it so well and on such a different level in The Long Walk than any of the others that it simply should not be passed by. Stephen King might be the only author who can write a nearly 400 page story with no reference to what year it takes place and absolutely zero “world building”. All he had to build was a road and send 99 kids out walking on it and he created a book that I could not put down until the last page was turned.

The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida

1 Star

 

I’d feel bad about giving a 1 Star rating to a book written by a 13 year old if I believed at all that a 13 year old actually wrote this book. Since I do not I have zero guilt.



I see The Reason I Jump as yet another outlet that has adults manipulating a child in order to advance their own personal agenda (*cough* Heaven is for Real *cough*). I believe Naoki’s mother, as well as David Mitchell and his wife, used Naoki’s alphabet board more like a Ouija Board and interpreted responses given in the way they wanted to hear them. There is no way a thirteen year old child came up with some of these responses.

Q: Why do you like being in the water?

"We just want to go back. To the distant, distant past. To a primeval era, in fact, before human beings even existed. All people with autism feel the same about this one, I reckon.”

Seriously?????

They (the adults) also made the decision to continue the abuse use of this “we/us” terminology with respect to all of Naoki’s answers to paint everyone that falls on the autism spectrum with the same broad brush. That does nothing to further awareness – in fact, it does the exact opposite.

If this book teaches people to have more tolerance or understanding of those who fall on the spectrum, that is wonderful. I, however, have always been (and still remain) hesitant when it comes to adult “advocates” using children as their tool.

 

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

3.5 Stars

A strange phenomenon has swept the globe. People, seemingly chosen at random, simply vanished.

After what is dubbed the “Sudden Departure,” those remaining are left to deal with the aftermath. The Leftovers focuses on the residents of a small town called Mapleton. Some, like Kevin, have decided to move on with life – and are maybe doing a little better or feeling a little more needed than they were before the Sudden Departure.

Kevin’s son, Tom, decided to follow a different path and was led to a charismatic new prophet who turns out to be not such a holy man after all, but rather is one of the creepiest of creeps

leading Tom to yet another new-formed group known as the Barefoot People.

Kevin’s wife, Laurie, chose yet another route – joining a cult known as the Guilty Remnant.

Others, like Kevin’s daughter Jill and his new love interest Nora, are spiraling just trying to figure out their place in this new world. This is the story of how these ordinary people move on in the face of extraordinary circumstances.

Before reading The Leftovers, I had only read one Tom Perrotta book - Nine Inches. I’m not really a fan of the short story to begin with, so while that book had me intrigued by Perrotta’s style, it also left me wanting a little lot more. Months passed and someone recommended this book to me. I have confirmed my suspicions – Perrotta can choose any topic from a hat and roll with it to create something pretty fabulous. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a real life-changer, but the story flows and the characters are plentiful and interesting. Just don’t go in thinking you’ll get an answer to the “why” when it comes to people disappearing – it never happens (personally, I prefer it that way). One final thing I was reminded of while reading this book is that I should probably watch “Election” again and I definitely need to get off my duff and read the book.

The Princess Bride - S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by William Goldman

 

EVERY STAR THERE IS TO STAR!!!!!!

Yeah, a little bit. It’s also the best book in the history of ever.

Sure it has a little kissing

but it also has pirates

and bad guys

and swordsmen

and giants

and R.O.U.S.es

I’m not writing a synopsis, I’m not writing a review. I’m just telling you if you have not already read it, read it now.

“What if I don’t like it?” you ask??? INCONCEIVABLE!

 

“Come my love, I'll tell you a tale
Of a boy and girl and their love story
And how he loved her oh so much
And all the charms she did possess

Now this did happen once upon a time
When things were not so complex
And how he worshipped the ground she walked
And when he looked in her eyes he became obsessed

This love was stronger than the powers so dark
A prince could have within his kingdom
His spells to weak and steal a heart
Within her breast but only sleeping

He said "Don't you know I love you oh so much
And lay my heart at the foot of your dress?"
She said "Don't you know that storybook love's
Always have a happy ending?"

Then he swooped her up just like in the books
And on his stallion they rode away
My love is like a storybook story
But it's as real as the feelings I feel
My love is like a storybook story
But it's as real as the feelings I feel"

©Mark Knopfler

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

4 Stars

 

Jesmyn Ward’s memoir is a journey through the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief. As Ward states about the young men she memorializes in this novel, she finds “the adage about time healing all wounds to be false: grief doesn’t fade. Grief scabs over like my scars and pulls into new, painful configurations as it knits. It hurts in new ways. We are never free from grief. We are never free from the feeling that we have failed. We are never free from self-loathing. We are never free form the feeling that something is wrong with us, not with the world that made this mess.”

Ward’s story reads like a penance. Her life has been filled with heartbreaking loss that is beyond measure and she has struggled with the “Why???” of the matter. Why did she lose five people she loved in five years? Why were they stuck in a cycle of poverty and drugs? Why could they not break free and live? When I turn on the news each morning to hear stories of the failing inner-city school district or overnight shootings, I ask myself the same questions. We all should. And then we should try harder to find the answers.

We got to keep it real, and what reality and reality will keep it real with us
I remember them good ol days
Because see, that's the child I was
What made me the man I am today
See cause if you forget where you come from, heheh
You're never gonna make it where you're goin, aheh
Because you lost the reality of yourself
So take one stroll through your mind
And see what you will find
And you'll see a whole universe all over again
and again and again and again and again

©Ghostface Killah – “All That I Got Is You”