Happens Every Day

Posted on April 14, 2009 by malenalott

HAPPENS EVERY DAY by Isabel Gillies

First Line: One late August afternoon in our new house in Oberlin, Ohio, my husband, Josiah, took it upon himself to wallpaper the bathroom with pictures of our family.

This memoir by actress Isabel Gillies (Law & Order, SVU) is a piercing, heartwrenching look at the rapid demise of her happily-ever-after, made worse by the knowledge that she had no idea there was anything much wrong with her happy marriage.

New York born-and-bred Gillies, who abandoned her acting career to follow her poetry professor husband to his postings in various universities, is the mother of two very young boys when they settle into the small midwestern town of Oberlin. At first not wild about transplanting to the midwest, she soon flourishes there, all the while unaware that her husband’s love for her is unravelling faster than a kite string on a windy midwestern day. After buying and remodeling a beloved 1800′s-era home and settling into a life unlike anything to which she’d become accustomed, her husband announces he wants out. Gillies seems to take a long time to finally acknowledge that a sexy half-French fashionista/fellow instructor in the English department is at the root of the problem, and instead seems to hold out hope that her husband will eventually realize that what he’s doing is wrong. And she seems to have not heeded the warning that her husband had already abandoned his first wife and small child, so clearly lacked the scruples that she wanted to attach to him to assure herself he’d never do such a thing.

This book had me from the first page. I hated to watch her world fall to pieces but couldn’t help but keep turning the page to find out if for some crazy happenstance it would all work out in the end. While I admire her ability to take the high road and not ultimately vilify her now ex-husband, I wanted to personally smack him upside his head for his incredible selfishness, and wanted her to be more assertive, particularly with the other woman.

Gillies has a charming, disarming voice that draws the reader in and keeps you wanting more.

For: Anyone who’s interested in relationships. -Jenny Gardiner

Get it at Amazon.

The Big Skinny

Posted on January 9, 2009 by malenalott

THE BIG SKINNY: HOW I CHANGED MY FATTITUDE by Carol Lay

Bravo to cartoonist Carol Lay, not only for losing a bunch of weight to get down to a slim ‘n’ trim 125, but for documenting the diet travails in the form of a graphic memoir, THE BIG SKINNY: HOW I CHANGED MY FATTITUDE. It’s such a no-brainer format, you’ll wonder why no one has thought of it earlier. (Perhaps they just couldn’t draw?)

Most diet books tell you how to dump the extra pounds and leave it at that, but with a gentle wit like Lay at the helm, you also learn how she got to be overweight in the first place. In my opinion, you need the perspective of both the uphill and the downhill to be truly effective.

Lay lays it all out concerning her trying every trick under the sun in trying to shed pounds, and luckily, she has a real sense of humor about it that makes her 100 percent amiable. You can’t help but love her whether she’s failing or succeeding. At some point, the stories hit the same point over and over, but this requires so little effort to read, it’s hard to fault the thing. Plus, the slew of healthy recipes at the end is appreciated.

But I’m still eating two brownies as I write this. -—Rod Lott

For: A comic adventure on losing weight and still smiling.

Buy it at Amazon.

Piano Girl: A Memoir

Posted on September 10, 2008 by malenalott

Piano Girl by Robin Meloy Goldsby

First line: “It’s not always a Steinway.”

Robin Meloy Goldsby has played the piano everywhere from a Holiday Inn in suburbia to a private island full of drugged up trophy wives. Her memoir is more of a series of vignettes from her long career playing piano in lounges around the world than a cohesive, linear story, making the collection something you read in bits and pieces than in one sitting, but Piano Girl is fascinating. She writes about the famous people she has worked with along the way – Fred Rogers’ crew, “Sesame Street” cast members – with the same respect that she writes about the waitstaff and fellow musicians that populate her life. Her writing style is direct and funny and she gives the reader a true peek into the world of a musician.

For: Anyone who’s ever played an instrument, or at least has an appreciation for one. – Jenny Coon Peterson

Buy it at Amazon.

new on the A/B Nightstand

Posted on July 17, 2008 by malenalott

Piano Girl, A Memoir, by Robin Meloy Goldsby

Where Did I Leave My Glasses: The What, When, and Why of Normal Memory Loss by Martha Weinman Lear

Undone, a debut YA novel, by Brooke Taylor

The Summoning, a YA novel by Kelley Armstrong

The Gargoyle, a novel by Andrew Davidson