As the final season of AMC’s Breaking Bad is heading toward its much anticipated series finale on Sept. 29, I’ve been consuming just about anything written about the show. Whether it is episode reviews or crazy fan theories about how the show might end, I love reading it all.

One of the more interesting pieces of writing I read was Breaking Bad and Philosophy: Badder Living through Chemistry. The book is an entry in the Popular Culture and Philosophy series, published by Open Court. Previously, the series has examined some 60 other topics including Seinfeld, Harry Potter, and The Walking Dead, another hit AMC TV show.

Before going any further, here’s a warning: there are probably spoilers ahead. I’ve tried to avoid too many specific plot points, but the book examines in depth many choices and actions from the show involving a slew of different characters, so it's kind of impossible to talk about the book without at least referring to some of these plot events. Again, you've been warned. 

            The book is a collection of 19 essays, each by a different author. As someone who knows next to nothing about philosophy, I was a little afraid that I would not have enough knowledge of important philosophical concepts to really understand what the authors were saying. But by and large, the authors did a great job of “dumbing down” many potentially confusing philosophical concepts. Most of the authors seemed to realize that a majority of the people who read the book will be more a fan of Breaking Bad than a fan of philosophy, so they tried to simplify things as much as possible without losing depth or meaning. A downside I could see to this approach, though, is that people who are well-versed in philosophy will spend a lot of time reading many philosophy terms and concepts that may seem elementary to them.

The opening chapter of the book details each death Walter White is responsible for, looking through the lens of Aristotle’s criteria for either blaming or praising Walt for an action including his motivations, justification and the consequences of the actions. I was a little surprised, especially considering how far Walt has fallen this season, to remember how much sympathy and empathy I had for Walt in those early seasons. Despite him killing (or being directly responsible for the death of) at least nine people, I remember justifying his actions as “doing it for his family” and that he simply had no other choice. Little did I know how unjustifiable Walt’s actions would become in the later seasons.  

            Probably my favorite chapter in the book was "Heisenberg's Uncertain Confession" and was written by Darryl J. Murphy, an instructor at Brock University (who I can only assume was chosen to write for a Breaking Bad book because of the name of the university). Part of this chapter’s appeal was how accessible Murphy made the discussion of some of history’s greatest philosophers. Going into the book, I definitely didn’t expect to be reading the sentences "cut off his junk and sent him packin' " and "had mad relations with females" before page 20.

            Murphy makes a novel connection between Walt naming his drug kingpin alter ego “Heisenberg” and physicist Werner Heisenberg’s famous Uncertainty Principle. I apologize in advance for butchering this attempt at an explanation, but in short, the principle argues that there is a limit to how precisely some physical properties of sub-atomic particles can be measured. There is some “uncertainty” in the measurements. After some logical reasoning, Murphy concludes that this gives Walt’s science-based, “materialist point of view” a chance at gaining some kind of redemption by the end of his story. “Heisenberg allows Walt to believe that he chose to break bad and that he can choose to be good again." 

            Other chapters cover many varied topics, such as comparing Breaking Bad to Shakespeare's Macbeth, looking at parallels between Walt and Don Draper of AMC's Mad Men, and how Gus Fring's lack of empathy helped him become the criminal mastermind who led the meth market in much of the southwest U.S. 

As a whole, the book was an enjoyable, fairly easy read. One of the benefits of the essay format was that the book was very easy to pick up for 15 minutes, knock out a chapter and then begin a brand new topic when you picked the book up a day later. And since there was no real carryover from chapter to chapter, one could easily skim or completely skip any chapters that don’t seem interesting.

One issue I did have with the book, and maybe it’s a bigger deal to me than to most readers since I work with words for a living, but there were more than a few really distracting grammar mistakes. Some adverbs should have been adjectives, some present tense verbs should have been past tense. These mistakes often made me reread sentences and paragraphs to figure out what the author was trying to say.

            The book only covers through Season 4 and not any of 2012 and 2013’s two-part fifth season. Walt’s body count has risen since then, so those deaths and choices are not examined in the book. But I guess it’s a good indicator for how much I enjoyed the book that I’m hoping a new, updated version is published after the series finale.  


Be sure to follow Matt Skrajner on Twitter @MattNewsHerald

I grew up in a different environment and on the opposite side of the country than Amber Humphrey, but we still had basically the same experience growing up. So I'm unbelievably grateful she wrote "Did I Do That? The Best (And Worst) of the '90s" (Abrams Image, 2013).

Humphrey is hilarious and picked some of the best parts of '90s culture to write about. It's hard to narrow down what I love most about this book, but here are 10 of my favorite parts (in no particular order, because how do you rank so many great things???):

The succinct explanation of Vanilla Ice.

The sidebar on Lights Out. I didn't know anyone else even knew what this game was! I was obsessed/frustrated with it, and sometimes I would play it in the dark in my bedroom closet because the lights were cool.

Everything about Captain Planet — but especially these parts. And honestly, I think my anxiety about littering is directly correlated with this cartoon.

The Tiny Toons stickers. Seeing this picture on the page gave me a sudden jolt of a memory I didn't realize even existed, but I now remember not wanting to peel off those yellow stickers because once I stuck them somewhere, I would be done using them. Also my favorite was the one of Buster and Babs reading — which will be no shock to anyone who has met me.

The 1990s fashion. I wore a lot of spandex pants with stirrups. Also I remember a "dressy" dark green velvety short-sleeve shirt, which came with a matching scrunchie.

How to build a boy band. I mean, it makes so much sense now that 98 Degrees didn't get close to reaching the magnitude of Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync.

The 1990s Olympics. The figure skating in the 1994 and 1998 Olympics meant a lot to me — but I'm not sure if any big event in the 1990s meant more to me than Kerri Strug's final vault. I can't even think about it without getting chills.

Hunting and creative deaths on the Oregon Trail. Does anyone remember anything else about this game? And I don't mean like how you tried to play "Frogger" as you forded the river. I'm sure there was some sort of educational element, but I couldn't name a stop along the way. I don't even know if I would have been able to say the wagons left from Missouri.

Rufio. I totally had that toy. Also he was clearly the best character in "Hook."

The recognition that Cory Matthews lived a surreal life and did not, in fact, "meet world." But "Boy Meets World" still is one of the best shows ever produced, and I cannot wait for "Girl Meets World" to start.

If this blog post didn't make sense to you, then clearly you did not grow up in the 1990s. But if you did, I can't believe you're still sitting there and haven't ordered "Did I Do That? The Best (And Worst) of the '90s" online or searched for it in your library's catalog. It's an easy, entertaining read that will have you literally LOL-ing and feeling nostalgic for your childhood.

-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

It's probably been a while since you've thought about pop-up books, and even longer since you picked one up. But one that was published in April is more than worth a look for kids of all ages.

The Grand Canyon

"America's National Parks: A Pop-Up Book" (W.W.West Inc.) includes gorgeous images of six of the country's national parks, illustrated by Dave Ember in the style of 1930s WPA posters, with paper engineering by Bruce Foster. The accompanying text Don Compton gives some details and history on the national parks, highlighting the must-see features of each of the locations.

The book is absolutely gorgeous. This picture I've included with this blog post doesn't even come close to doing it justice, and the details of the illustrations are something that can be studied over and over again. The worst thing about this book? It's making me want to plan lengthy trips to each of the parks, in order to see all of the beauty that's described. This book will definitely have a place on my living room coffee table for years to come.

According to a news release:

America's National Parks is available in two hand-assembled editions. The regular is $34.95, and $8.00 from every copy is donated to the NPCA (National Parks Conservation Association); and the Deluxe Limited Edition is $105, of which $80 is donated to the NPCA—but only when purchased from the official website www.nationalparkspopup.com. Only 1,200 copies of the Deluxe Limited Edition are being produced, each will be numbered and autographed by the paper engineer, illustrator and author, will feature the NPCA mission statement stamped in gold foil on the slipcover and an NPCA logo pop-up above the mission statement, all enclosed in a black cloth slipcase.

Not a bad price to pay to help with the preservation of the country's most beautiful places.


-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

In case there was any doubt, let me admit upfront that I am not in the target audience for Dan Krokos' "False Memory."
But I don't believe that Young Adult fiction should be limited to the young. After all, shouldn't reading be at least partly about expanding your worldview?

Which is not to say I didn't enjoy False Memory, I did. In case anyone thought I was between the ages of 12 and 18, I wanted to set the record straight. Ha!

"False Memory" has a lot going for it right from its opening. Appealing teen characters. Thriller plot. Set in Cleveland.
What more could a Northeast Ohio reader ask for?

Meet Miranda North, she's in the food court at a mall. That's about all she knows when the story opens. Things quickly spiral out of control when she tries to unravel the mystery of her identity. She panics. People around her die.She doesn't really want to trust the teen boy who comes to her aid, but what choice does she have?

Soon she - and we - learn that both teens are part of a group specially trained to use their mental powers to destroy an entire city.
And that's only the beginning.

Krokos moves the action along at a fast pace, while raising questions about the nature of memory, identity and family.

As Miranda notes when she begins to remember snippets of her past:

"When I wake, I feel empty and full at the same time; the memories fade but remain inside me. The little glimpse of my past leaves me wanting more.
So I grab at one again, the last memory in the diner. I'm there in the booth, but I can't remember how I felt."

Memory is about much more than knowing you were someplace. It's about recalling the smells and sounds and how you felt when you were there. Take that away and are you you?



 Maybe I'll learn more in the next chronicle of Miranda's journey.

Maybe you could learn more from Krokos himself.

He'll be at the Bouchercon Mystery Convention in Cleveland Oct. 4- 7.

And he'll be at Barnes & Noble, 28801 Chagrin Blvd., Woodmere at 11:30 a.m. Oct. 6.

See you in the stacks!

-  Tricia Ambrose   l  @TriciaAmbrose  l  tambrose@news-herald.com

Since I've been writing more about the books I read, I have been keeping better track not only of what I read but also of who wrote it.

(Side note: Saw this on twitter today on the value of keeping a book journal. May have to start something similar. Anyone out there have a method that works they'd like to share??)

In any case, as I've mentioned before I'm a big fan of Stewart Onan, Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Weiner (did you catch her last night in the Bravo Clubhouse with Andy Cohen!?)


Add Elizabeth Flock to that list.

"But Inside I'm Screaming" marks the fourth of her novels I've gotten lost in, though it's the first one she published. ("Me & Emma" and "Sleepwalking in Daylight" "Everything Must Go" are the others.)

In Screaming, we meet driven TV journalist Isabel Murphy as she's freezing on national television during coverage of Princess Diana's accident. The fallout from her failing marriage and faltering career prove too much and she finds herself at Three Breezes, a psychiatric hospital.

Her struggle to regain her mental health balance is very relatable. Who has on occasion felt overwhelmed?
Who hasn't thought if I could just have the time to pull it together? What makes some of us able to continue to move forward? And how would I cope if suddenly it was all just too much?

As Isabel says to a therapist:

"You can imagine? What? You can imagine what it's like to go from having everything to having nothing? To be treated like an infant sometime and an inmate others? I can't even count how many times I've traveled, alone, mind you, to foreign countries to cover pretty dangerous stories - wars, even. And yet I can barely take two steps out of the unit without someone telling me to sign myself out."

Like her therapist I can't imagine. But after reading Flock's work I have a better idea.

Read an excerpt of "But Inside I'm Screaming" here. You won't want to stop.

See you in the stacks!

Tricia Ambrose

Imagine a world in which some of your loved ones and neighbors have simply vanished without a trace and you are left behind.
That's the world Tom Perrotta has crafted in "The Leftovers" (now available in paperback).
A few months ago that's what happened when we meet the citizens (or what's left of them) of  Mapleton.
The Sudden Departure as it's called has left families splintered far beyond the that initial  disappearance as those not taken struggle to find a way to move forward.
Some like Kevin want to pick up the pieces and move on. His wife Laurie has joined a group called the Guilty Remnant and taken a vow of silence. Their son Tom becomes one of the "Holy Wayners," followers of a prophet of sorts. Daughter Jill is an eyewitness. She was right next to one who was taken.
Whose way is right? Was the Sudden Departure an act of God? Why were only some taken?
Big questions all. But the heart of Perrotta's novel is really about the ordinary, about those relationships central to our existence.
Nora, the only member of her family not taken, says it best:

"I'm not greedy. I'm not asking for that perfect day at the beach. Just give me that horrible Saturday, all four of us sick and miserable, but alive, and together. Right now that sounds like heaven to me."

Fans of Perrotta's from "The Abstinence Teacher" and "Little Children" will not be disappointed.

Let me know if you agree.

My favorite thing about reading is getting into a book that is so good that I stay up all night reading it. You know it's a good book when you hear the thump of the newspaper being delivered outside and you still won't go to bed because you have 30 pages left to read.

"The Help" was that book for me this weekend.

Many of you probably know that the movie "The Help" is based on the book of the same name by Kathryn Stockett. I haven't seen the movie, and I'm guessing I will at some point, though I'm worried it will be too much of a bastardization of the story.

"The Help" is about an educated white woman who longs to be a writer - though in 1960s Jackson, Miss., her mother just wants her to be a wife. She gets the idea to tell the stories of what it's like to be the help - the black women who cook and clean and raise the children of the rich white families. But the racial tensions force Skeeter and the maids to meet secretly and cause them all sorts of problems with their families and friends.

I loved so many things about this book. Stockett chose to tell the story from three different perspectives - Skeeter, the writer, and Aibileen and Minny, two maids - which gives the novel a lot of depth. Stockett didn't just write about the women's connections to each other and how they wrote a book, but their relationships with their families, their friends, their lovers and their employers. And she somehow wrote this in a way that there weren't too many characters to keep track of. All of the characters were so vivid that I could picture each of them immediately upon reading their names. Stockett also created clear voices for each of the women, writing in different Southern dialects for each of them. I could hear Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny talking to me as I turned flipped through the pages.

I can't recommend this book enough. Get on your library's website and add yourself to the hold list (which undoubtedly exists).


-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

I finally read "SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance", after having read "Freakonomics: The Hidden Side of Everything" a few years ago. I was pretty excited about the sequel, having really enjoyed the first book and all of the interesting correlations it revealed.

But I was kind of disappointed in the second book. I didn't feel the same interest, shock and excitement I had when I read "Freakonomics." Maybe it was because I had been through it before. But it also seemed the writing in the second book wasn't as good as in the first - or maybe I was so interested, shocked and excited when I read the first book that I didn't notice how much the authors jump from topic to topic to topic to topic. I like the connections and conclusions that are drawn in each scenario, but I just found it more difficult to get into them the second time around - or to even follow where they were going.

I'd probably rather listen to these stories and studies than read them, so I'm glad the Freakonomics podcasts exist to let me do just that.

If you haven't checked out the original "Freakonomics," you should definitely do so. If it really grabs you, there's always a second book to pick up (and then the podcasts if you just can't get enough).


-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

I've long been entertained by the Twitter account of Justin Halpern - @sh*tmydadsays - so I figured I would be equally entertained by his book of the same name. (Or, rather, his Twitter handle doesn't include an asterisk where his book title does.)

The book description from HarperCollins:

After being dumped by his longtime girlfriend, twenty-eight-year-old Justin Halpern found himself living at home with his seventy-three-year-old dad. Sam Halpern, who is "like Socrates, but angrier, and with worse hair," has never minced words, and when Justin moved back home, he began to record all the ridiculous things his dad said to him.

Halpern's book is essentially an expanded version of his Twitter account. He takes the ridiculous, ahem, stuff his father says and adds context and a story to it.

Some people thought Halpern's material was so good that they decided to turn it into a television show starring William Shatner. It was canceled after 18 episodes.

Why must everything be made into a TV show or a movie? Some things are best left just as they are. As is the case with Halpern's Twitter account.

Halpern's material is funny, but it's funny in 140-character snippets. The book was fine, but got a little redundant after a while. At just 158 pages, readers get a good sample of the funny stuff Halpern's dad says.

There was nothing really bad about the book, but its jokes are something I'd rather keep up with via Twitter. In fact, I kind wished Halpern had never gotten the book deal or the TV show so he would update his Twitter account more often. The book was good for one read, but it's not one I'll pick up again. That's probably the reason the show was canceled, too.


-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

The same initial set of circumstances can go in any number of intriguing ways in the hands of an author.
That point was driven home as I began reading Lisa Scottoline's "Save Me."

I was hooked from the get-go, that's a given.
At the start we are in a school cafeteria where mom Rose is facing a bullying situation. How much should she intervene on behalf of her daughter? What authority does she have? Why do no other adults step in? When a fire breaks out following an explosion, it soon becomes clear that bullying may not be the driving force of the story. Scottoline writes:

Rose's mind reeled. If she got Amanda and Emily out of the cafeteria to the playground, she wouldn't have time to go after Melly. If she went to save Melly, she'd have to leave Amanda and Emily, who were right in front of her. She couldn't do that, and she couldn't leave her own child to die.
It was the choice from hell, in hell.
Rose could save Melly, or she could save Amanda and Emily.
She had to choose.
Now.

Rose makes her choice and then finds herself increasingly embroiled in a legal battle and increasingly distant from her husband.

If this were a novel by Jodi Picoult, the story would probably have centered on that legal battle. The story of how a volunteering mom made an impossible split-second decision and the events that followed.

If this were a novel by Stewart O'Nan, the story would probably have focused on the relationship between Rose and her husband.

But in the hands of Lisa Scottoline, it is the basis for a fast-paced mystery novel. Rose begins spending time investigating the cause of the explosion, and as she delves deeper and deeper into the circumstances surrounding the incident, I found myself turning pages faster and faster

Click here for some questions for book clubs.

 Tricia Ambrose 

Follow me on Twitter @triciaambrose

Among the most intriguing things about Rachel DeWoskin's "Big Girl Small" is what it isn't.

It isn't a novel about coping with the challenges of being different. It's a novel about coping with the challenges faced by teens told by someone who happens to be different.

DeWoskin's heroine Judy Lohden is a 16-year-old girl making the transition to a new high school for the performing arts.She's clashing with her parents, trying to make new friends, coping with boy troubles. And, oh yeah, she's not even 4 feet tall.


Judy is your typical teen in more ways than not. DeWoskin has crafted a wonderfully rich character who doesn't define herself by her stature, so why should we?

If anything, she defines herself by the vocal talent that's landed her at the performang arts high school:

I mean, I knew they weren't going to be able to believe it when they heard me sing. Partly it's just an expectation thing - it's like when you see a book with a really stupid cover and then you're surprised it's deep or good or smart or whatever. When you see me, you're like, okay, there might be things she's good at, but having a huge, bellowing voice probably isn't one of them. But it is"

And yet, despite her talents, her loving family, her good friends, all is far from rosy in Judy's world. When does teasing stop being funny? When does a joke cross that line? Does any of us know where the line is?

Before we could pretend not to see him, he waved. We all waved back. And no one said anything mean, even after he jogged away with his shorts riding up so high he looked like he was naked. Maybe simply because it would have been too easy. And all I can say about that morning is - how did we three know instinctively where the lines are between being funny and being brutal?

Judy discovers firsthand how quickly things can go from being wonderful to being awful as she comes to terms with a situation I fear is too common in today's world.

How refreshing to read a novel about someone who's different that's not about the difference.

- Tricia Ambrose 

Follow me on Twitter @triciaambrose

Cheesy. Unimpressive. Unbelievable.

Those are some of the words I would use to describe "Random Hearts" by Warren Adler.

A man and woman are cheating on their spouses and die in a plane crash. The spouses meet and fall in love.

The premise isn't awful; the book is written awfully. What I said above is all revealed on the jacket of the book, but the two main characters don't even meet and find out what happened to their spouses until about a third of the way through the book. Then they almost instantly fall in love, and even though they have some bumpy moments in the first few weeks of getting to know each other, they decide to stay together.

That would never happen!

In the indie movie version of this story, the two main characters sleep together, then realize what an awful mistake that was because they were just trying to use the other to replace what they lost and discover that it isn't possible, so they move on in their lives separately, more hurt than they were before. Maybe that's a bit on the depressing side, but that is a book I would read and enjoy - because it would be realistic.

More unbelievable fodder from the book: The widower learns how much his deceased wife's family hates him because they blame him for her death. Adler paints Lily's family as uber-Italian and unforgiving, and her "Jersey Shore"-esque brother threatens widowed Edward for stealing her away. OK, 1) Who marries someone their family has that much hatred toward if their family is THAT IMPORTANT to them? and 2) What kind of uber-Italian name is Lily?

Unfortunately, Adler wrote this book nearly 30 years ago, when apparently you could board a plane using fake names without showing photo identification. The setup of his book wouldn't even be possible today - which made it a little more difficult for me to digest.

Watch the author speak briefly about the story below:


Read the first chapter of "Random Hearts".


-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Stewart O'Nan's.
Check out my reviews of  "Snow Angels," "A Prayer for the Dying"and "The Good Wife."

My latest foray into his works was with "Emily, Alone," the sequel to "Wish You Were Here."

We follow the widowed Emily Maxwell, whose grown children are far away, who feels unconnected to her grandchildren, whose comfortable routine is shaken up when her sister-in-law has a health scare.

It's very much a slice of life. A life shared no doubt by countless widows.

But what struck me is how beautifully he has captured the voice of an older, widowed mother and grandmother.

As Emily ruminates while looking for a photo: "The question of how she should be remembered was not one she wanted to contemplate. Her life had been happy, for the most part, her disappointments mild, common, yet when she recalled herself, she did so with a mix of self-righteousness and shame, holding up her worst moments against her best intentions. She would never forget the names she'd flung at Henry in her rages, or the times she's made her mother cry."

Or this as Emily thinks about her relationship with her daughter-in-law: "Emily likes to think she didn't need anything from Lisa, yet Lisa held the ultimate power over her - the ability to deprive Emily of time with Kenneth and her grandchildren. Even Margaret at her worst understood that family trumpeted their personal battles."

Or as she visits her husband's grave: "The slope was steeper than it appeared, and shadeless. Wanting to look nice for him, she'd worn the wrong shoes, and had to be careful, taking little mincing steps, carrying the cosmos out before her with both hands as if it were a hot casserole."

It strikes me as a pretty uncommon gift, this ability to masterfully craft characters of the opposite gender.

When I think back upon those characters who have really stuck with me for the most part they are women created by women or men created by men. There's Mrs de Winter in Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca;" there's Pip in Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations; " E.L. Doctorow's "Homer & Langley;" Anna in Jodi Picoult's "My Sister's Keeper;" ... I could go on and on.

It was more difficult to think of the reverse. I got Hester Prynne in Nathanial Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter."(Most likely because my son just read the book and the tale is fresh in my mind.)

I must just be trying to think too hard.

I'm sure I'm forgetting scads of favorite characters. Who can you remind me of?

- Tricia Ambrose 

Follow me on Twitter @triciaambrose

I wasn't sure what to expect from "A Visit from the Goon Squad", so I'm not exactly sure if I was happy with what I got. The best-selling novel by Jennifer Egan is more like a collection of stories involving music and people who are intertwined. Bennie is a music executive, and Sasha his assistant. Each chapter is told from the perspective of someone different, whether Bennie or Sasha or someone else that has been in their lives for some important reason at some point.

I recognized two of the chapters immediately, possibly through a reading on The New York Times Book Review podcast or PRI: Selected Shorts. It makes sense to me now why the chapters could be read out of context: Each is its own story and can stand on its own. I read the book almost like "Winesburg, Ohio", which is a collection of stories about people that are somehow related or tied to one another. Several times while reading "Goon Squad," I had to skim back through earlier chapters to find out why a name seemed familiar or to figure out why I should know a character's name.

In that regard, I liked the book. I enjoy reading short stories, and it was kind of neat to revisit characters who seemingly had lost their role after each chapter ended. Her style also made the book a little more difficult to read. Each character had a distinctly different voice and told his or her story in his or her own way - and she didn't even identify who was speaking at the start of each chapter. (Maybe doing so would be "dumbing down" the book too much, or Egan wanted to challenge her readers to think harder while reading.)

My favorite chapter of the book was told via PowerPoint slides by Sasha's daughter. It was the easiest to read, even though the ideas, actions and dialogue weren't necessarily written in order or in complete sentences. The somewhat random visual nature of that particular story made me more interested and gave me more than just the plain blocks of text from the rest of the book. I'm glad she didn't use this method for every chapter, but it was an interesting and neat way to tell a story from a different point of view in an entirely different way.

The publisher turned those slides into a nine-minute video posted on YouTube. Watch it below (unless you're super worried about spoilers, which you don't really need to be because the book is told in a somewhat disjointed manner anyway):


I'm still kind of undecided as to whether I liked the book. It was a little weird, and I'm not sure exactly the story Egan was trying to tell or what she wanted me to get out of it. If you have read this book, what did you think?

Check out a sample of the book below:




-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

Anyone who has read my musings on Tuned in to Pop Culture knows that I'm a big fan of Bravo TV. And, one of my favorite shows, "The Millionaire Matchmaker," comes back for a fifth season tonight. Patti Stanger is the millionaire matchmaker and CEO of an exclusive dating service, the Millionaire's Club. And since just about anyone can write a book these days, Stanger has.

I breezed through "Become Your Own Matchmaker: 8 Easy Steps for Attracting Your Perfect Mate" in advance of tonight's season premiere because I wanted to get a little more of Stanger's entertaining, no-nonesense attitude instead of rewatching reruns of previous seasons - after all, you can only watch the Hello Kitty girl crash and burn so many times. "Breezed through" is key here, because "Become Your Own Matchmaker" is written very simply, and somewhat poorly. It's so conversational - and not even in a good way. I could hear Stanger's voice as I read the book, but the tell-it-like-it-is attitude about her didn't translate well from the screen to the pages. Her anecdotes seemed fake, and I lost track of where she was going with some of her examples (the "Red Lights" and "Green Lights" of men you're dating, with nicknames that went on for pages and pages that I couldn't even keep straight). And the book committed one of the biggest sins, in my opinion: poor editing. I have been trained to be an editor and cannot read something without editing it, so I had a lot of trouble stumbling over the mistakes and inconsistencies throughout the book.

The best part of the book was the introduction, during which Stanger details her background. I wonder if that's the only part Stanger actually wrote - and if her co-author Lisa Johnson Mandell took care of the rest. But maybe I just liked the content of the introduction because I like the author's persona on TV, and I'm not looking to become my own matchmaker.

Not that the advice isn't good. Stanger is spot on with her suggestions for how women can feel better about themselves and how they should handle different dating situations in order to find their "perfect mate." I suppose I'm just not in her intended audience. I can't even figure out what audience this was written for. Maybe Hello Kitty girl? I sure hope she's read this book. She could really use a lot of Stanger's advice.

The fifth season of "Millionaire Matchmaker" airs at 9 p.m. today on Bravo TV.


-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

Got an email in response to my plea for readers to tell me what it was about "Unbroken" that struck a chord with them.
I had heard such buzz about Laura Hillenbrand's work before reading it and was a bit let down to be left with so many questions when I finished.
Steve Roszczyk, the friend who had originally encouraged me to read the book - and was kind enough to send it to me - wrote:

I remember one chapter describing how the Japanese believed that if a man’s dignity can be destroyed, he has nothing left and is easily broken.  Dehumanizing Louie proved to be impossible.

 I don’t know if his yet to be discovered religious beliefs played a subconscious role in his survival, or if it was his growing hatred for his captors, but he certainly was a strong willed and determined individual.  Although many times he came close, he simply was not going  give in. Hillenbrand does a credible job in describing how Japanese culture played a role.  Yet, the brutalizing torture is something that neither you nor I can ever fully understand, irrespective of which end of the persecution we are on.

We do know, however, that self-respect and self-esteem play a vital role in quality of life issues for all individuals.  Once stripped of these, the individual is denigrated to a future of hopelessness and depression.  Apply this to the underprivileged, homeless, aged  and even those ignored by family and friends.  Unlike Louie, they’ve lost their dignity, and thus their hope.  It’s not hard to see why they choose to simply give up.

I know the book was the story of one man’s struggle to survive, but when I read the passage about dignity, I felt she was addressing more than just Louie’s life.

What bothered you?

All excellent points, Steve. So I guess what bothered me is the not knowing. How, in the face of the unspeakable, did he retain that dignity? And earlier in his saga, before the torture, when it was just him and his fellow servicemen adrift at sea for so long, what kept him going then when others struggled?
I doubt we'll ever really know. I guess I just hoped to learn something that I could use in my own life when things looked bleak.(Not that I'm likely to endure even one-one zillionth of the struggles he did!)

Anyone else come away with a different take?

- Tricia Ambrose

After Tricia gushed about "Little Bee," she lent the book to me. Did it blow me away? Not really. I'm still trying to figure out if I really liked the book. I definitely didn't love it.

The way the stories of the main characters intertwined was pretty interesting and incredible, as Tricia mentioned in her review, but I spent a lot of the book wondering how I was supposed to feel about the two women. I worried for Little Bee, for her safety, for her future. But I found Sarah - her "friend" in England - to be kind of unlikeable. I judged her for her actions and didn't sympathize for the situation that she got herself into that linked her to Little Bee.

The story is told by both women, alternating perspectives by chapter. I kind of wish the author would have just stuck to Little Bee. I didn't care enough about Sarah to care what happened in her life. I did care - and worry about - her son, permanently dressed up in a Batman costume to keep the Baddies away from his father, which to me was the most simple, tragic description in the book. Maybe it's because I've lived a suburban life, but it was harder for me to read about a child who doesn't understand how he's supposed to grieve than about a woman who witnessed rape and murder in Nigeria. Maybe it's because I work in the news business.

I wish I had seen what this commenter did in the book, and I probably would have come away liking it a little more - or at least come away really knowing whether I liked it. (Warning: Spoiler alert with that link.)


-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

It's not often that I stumble upon books in which the main character is dying - and that spend so little time on the actual cause of death.
"The Household Guide to Dying: A Novel About Life" by Debra Adelaide is just that.
Delia is an advice columnist, wife and mother who has stopped battling against her illness. She wants to tie up a few loose ends and live out her remaining days.
Little time is spent on her disease and the ravages of its treatement.
Instead Delia wants to pen one last guide for her fans, a guide to dying.
I loved the premise and I enjoyed the time travel from present day to past as she went about her loose-ends-tying.
Delia is more matter-of-fact than I imagine I would be in similar circumstances. She works on planning her young daughters' weddings and worries about the running of the household after she's gone.
But the reader in me completely bonded with Delia when she talked about her connection to the books she'd be leaving behind.

"Not so long ago, if I'd known I'd be dying without the chance of rereading my most beloved books, I might have wept, been desolate at the idea of taking off without a final farewell to such cherished friends. ... But now all that didn't matter. Looking at those titles piled up against each other of the shelf in the hallway, I felt almost pleased that I could say farewell."

That sense of accomplishment at having read, that feeling that those favorite works are friends, that sadness  that there are no more such discoveries. What reader wouldn't agree?
Got me thinking, as it did Delia, about what book I'd want to be reading at the actual moment of death.
Would it be the Bible? one of my favorite novels? poetry? I hope it's a good many years before I truly have to answer that question, but I think it'd be poetry. Probably some Robert Frost or depending on the circumstances perhaps Sylvia Plath.
How about you? What would you like to be reading in your final moments?

- Tricia Ambrose

Things in Sweet Valley aren't so sweet any more.

"Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later..." by Francine Pascal sure lets readers know about that quickly -- in the first chapter, we learn that Elizabeth is not speaking to Jessica, who is engaged to Todd. Circumstances are bringing the now-New-Yorker Elizabeth back to California, and the girls are both anxious to be in the same place. Jessica desperately wants Elizabeth's forgiveness; Elizabeth, revenge.

These aren't your mothers Wakefield twins. The girls have developed foul mouths and are a bit more grown up in a romance-novel sort of way.

The rest of their high school classmates are grown up, as well, but most seem to carry the same characteristics. Lila Fowler is still shallow, and she is inexplicably married to football star Ken Matthews (he just seems to good for her!). Caroline Pearce is still a gossip. Enid Rollins is still smart. Winston is still a dork, and Bruce Patman is still filthy rich, but somehow the two became best of buds during a dot-com venture. The formerly fat Robin Wilson is "a successful caterer and restaurant critic, chin-deep in delicious food every day."

Perhaps what I liked best about the book was the flashbacks in the midst of all the action, explaining what has happened since high school that has brought the girls to their current situations. It was interesting to catch up with these people who I had gotten to know intimately while reading the books about their lives. But the sad, pathetic part about it was that no one seemed genuinely happy with where they were. Divorces, falling outs, cancer, death. The real world was not as peaceful and forgiving as Sweet Valley High.

I found it hard to believe that all these high school classmates would still be in touch with the same groups of people, as if no one had found new friends or moved away. But maybe that's because I'm from a bigger town than Sweet Valley, where most people I know from high school have moved on in their own way while maintaining the friendships that really meant something.

I also was puzzled by the fact that Jessica has been married twice, but her pending nuptials to Todd seem to be the talk of the town and the most exciting thing for the Wakefield family (minus Elizabeth). Really, Ned and Alice? Your daughter is about to walk the aisle for the third time -- to marry your other daughter's LOOOONG-time beau -- and you are THAT thrilled about it?

Is the book worth reading? Maybe. If you were a big fan of the Sweet Valley series, of course you'll want to catch up with the ol' gang. Casual readers, maybe not so much.

The book is (mostly) written better than the original series, until after a climactic dinner party when Pascal returns to the overly dramatic descriptions of how he knew he loved her all along and that sort of thing. But I suppose if you enjoyed reading Sweet Valley books for cheesy descriptions, then you won't be missing out.

And it's nice to see Elizabeth being a little more Jessica and Jessica being a little more Elizabeth. The girls were so set in their ways growing up, and now that they are adults, they seem to have reached a point where they are able to comfortably be more like the other person without losing themselves. (And if you didn't notice it before, you'll really get a sense for how narcissistic and pompous Jessica was.)

If nothing else, "Sweet Valley Confidential" was an easy way to enter another world at least temporarily, which can relieve readers of their own problems and let them feast on the drama of other people's lives. As Jessica herself says (on page 224), "Gossip is the best part of Sweet Valley. If we don't dish, what are we going to talk about?" We're all a little Caroline Pearce, aren't we?


-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

Sometimes I lie to myself -- like Friday night when I pledged I was not going to stay up all night reading. After all, I still had 200 pages left in "Her Fearful Symmetry", and there was no way I'd be able to get through it before falling asleep.

But stay up all night and read I did. At 4 a.m., I finished Page 401, wondering what the heck I would write about it, and what Tricia thought of it.

Tricia said you need to suspend your disbelief to read Niffenegger's work, which I agree with entirely. That's one of the things I loved about "The Time Travelers Wife" and "Symmetry": letting go of my conventional thoughts to get swept up in the realistic but slightly magical world of Niffenegger's imagination.

"Symmetry, set in London, is a story about ghosts and twins, living and dying. The ghosts are among the living, and the twins are learning to live with and without each other. The first 200 pages of the book were a lot of preparation for what would happen in the last 200, which were rather page-turning. (I found the same to be true of "The Time Travelers Wife," which I also stayed up until the wee hours finishing.)

I liked the story, and I liked that throughout the book I wasn't quite sure what was going to happen next. Niffenegger managed to create a suspenseful book by writing an impossible story. Tricia had imagined the story of twins Julia and Valentina taking a different turn, and I almost wish Niffenegger had taken that route in the book. But, that might have been more predictable, and maybe less enjoyable.

I finished "Symmetry" not exactly sure which of the characters I liked. I had trouble weighing all the good and bad each of them had done throughout the story, to figure out what I really thought of them in the end. I was happy for Julia and Valentina, but puzzled at the direction their relationship had taken. I felt sad for Elspeth and Edie, their aunt and mother, because their stories were tragic and unfixable.

The page before the story begins includes lyrics to a Beatles song. I once hear Niffenegger say in an interview on NPR that the song perfectly fit the story, but she wouldn't divulge further information without giving away the story. After finishing the book, I couldn't agree with her more:

She said "I know what it's like to be dead.
I know what it is to be sad"
And she's making me feel like I've never been born.
I said "Who put all those things in your head?
Things that make me feel that I'm mad
And you're making me feel like I've never been born."
She said "you don't understand what I said"
I said "No, no, no, you're wrong"
When I was a boy everything was right
Everything was right
I said "Even though you know what you know
I know that I'm ready to leave
'Cause you're making me feel like I've never been born."
She said "you don't understand what I said"
I said "No, no, no, you're wrong"
When I was a boy everything was right
Everything was right
I said "Even though you know what you know
I know that I'm ready to leave
'Cause you're making me feel like I've never been born."
She said , she said "I know what it's like to be dead"
("I know what it's like to be dead")
I know what it is to be sad...

Click the play button below to watch Niffenegger talk about writing "Her Fearful Symmetry" (including an explanation for the title):


Listen to Niffenegger read the second chapter of "Her Fearful Symmetry" here.


-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl