reading

Many thanks to everyone who visited last week’s edition of Books Are My Boyfriend Mondays, “Really Stinkin’ Funny Memoirs”. I really enjoyed picking out some of my favorite passages to share with you, and I also very much appreciated the suggestions for new books to try that people left in the comments.

This week I wanted to share some books related to a topic very near and dear to my heart, which is people who are in the process of working out their faith and personal spirituality. (Of course, there is no way we can cover this entire topic in one week, so I will continue to pop back every now and then whenever I find something new that I MUST share with you.) I guess we’re all actually in the middle of doing that ourselves, but these people have written books to give us a glimpse into a part of their own personal search. I love books like this, because all my life I have been a spiritual seeker. Speaking of that, I guess that in the interest of full disclosure, I should share my own religious background with you.

I was raised Baptist-Independent, not Southern (although I personally have no idea what the difference is). Then when I was thirteen we moved, and I spent 5 years attending a non-denominational church. Then at Wake Forest, which is actually a Southern Baptist institution, although it is not “officially” tied to the church anymore, I spent 3 years hanging out with the Methodists as a part of the Wesley Foundation. Then during my last year of college and my first year of graduate school I felt a real calling toward the Catholic Church, and so in 1995 I converted to Catholicism.

Then when I turned twenty-nine (2001, if you’re interested) I decided to have my “turning 30” crisis a year early, and started questioning just about everything in my entire life. It was during this time that I became a student of A Course In Miracles, which I have practiced on and off since then. And now, for the past 3 Sundays, I have been attending the Baptist church up the road because-and pay attention here, because I’m pretty sure that this is the only time you will ever read these words IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFETIME-I desperately missed hymns. So there you go.

I don’t know that there’s an Officially Still Catholic Yet Also A Student of A Course In Miracles Yet Surprisingly Also Drawn Back To The Baptist Church denomination. Or perhaps, maybe as of RIGHT NOW, there is. 🙂

So back to the books-the first one I have to share today has the amazingly fantastic title, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: a memoir by Elna Baker.

So I had a new idea the other day. I’m still recovering from my latest fibro flare-up, so the funny is kind of being slow in returning. So in the meantime I thought it would be fun to start a little discussion about one of the other mad, passionate love affairs I have going on in my life (besides that between me and regular Coke): Me, and Books.

Today’s Category: Really Stinkin’ Funny Memoirs

I thought that I could share some passages from the books I currently have on my mind, and then hit you guys up for some book recommendations of your own.

1. Mennonite in a little black dress by Rhoda Janzen. I knew this book was for me the minute I picked it up off the New Nonfiction table at Barnes & Noble and read the first page:

“The year I turned forty-three was the year I realized I should have never taken my Mennonite genes for granted. I’d long assumed that I had been genetically scripted to robust physical health, like my mother, who never even catches a head cold. All of my relatives on her side, the Lowenes, enjoy preternaturally good health, unless you count breast cancer and polio. The polio is pretty much a done deal, thanks to Jonas Salk and his talent for globally useful vaccinations. Yet in the days before Jonas Salk, when my mother was a little girl, polio crippled her younger brother Abe and also withered the arm of her closest sister Gertrude. Trude bravely wnet on to raise two kids one-armed, and to name her withered arm Stinky.

____ Yes, I think “Stinky” is a cute name for a withered arm!

____ No, I’d prefer to name my withered arm something with a little more dignity, such as Reynaldo.”

2. A Million Miles In A Thousand Years by Donald Miller. I just picked this up a couple of days ago after reading passages like this:

“I wrote a memoir several years ago that sold a lot of copies. I got a big head about it for a while and thought I was an amazing writer or something, but I’ve written books since that haven’t sold, so I’m insecure and things are back to normal.”

Then he was contacted by a studio who wanted to turn his book into a movie, and a couple of filmakers, Steve and Ben, fly to Seattle to meet with him about it.

“We didn’t start talking about the movie right away. We stood on the porch and watched snow make magic of the sky.”

Then later, “You have a sled, man?” Ben asked, still reading the snowflakes.

“No. It doesn’t snow much here.” I wondered whether I’d have a sled if it did.

“We could use trash can lids,” Steve said.

“I have two kayaks,” I said. I said this because I didn’t want them to think I wasn’t an outdoorsman just because I didn’t have a sled. But I did have kayaks.

…”Kayaks are nice. Kind of a summer thing,” Steve said. He was crossing his arms to stay warm.

“Let’s have a look at them,” Ben said. “Anything will slide, really. Some things slide better than others. But anything will slide.” We started walking up the driveway toward the garage. I wondered what we were going to do with the kayaks. My driveway sloped down toward the street, but it wasn’t a steep drop. Ben kept looking back at the slope as if it were a river, as though there were rapids flowing over the cement and ice.

“Did you do a lot of drugs when you were younger, Ben?” I hoped he wasn’t offended at the question. He stopped as we walked up the driveway.. I turned toward him, and he stood and thought about it for a second. Then he kind of punched me in the chest. “I did, man, I did,” he said. “Wow, man, it’s like you know me.”

3. It Sucked and then Then I Cried, by Heather B. Armstrong, aka “Dooce“.

It’s pretty much impossible to find a passage in this book that doesn’t make me snort so hard that I must keep checking to make sure I haven’t disgorged one of my eyeballs. For example, here Heather and her husband have just found out that she is pregnant, and this is their response:

“I had hundreds of ideas for names, most of them stolen directly from the cast of The Dukes Of Hazzard as there was no other show on television that has more accurately captured the spirit of my Southern upbringing, where my mama knew everyone’s business and my cousins routinely took each other to prom. If my kid wasn’t going to have my last name, he or she could at least look at their driver’s license and be reminded of their maternal Tennessean heritage, one where wearing shoes to the grocery store is totally optional by law.

…Jon wanted nothing to do with a Bo or a Luke because he knew too many of those who had communicable diseases, and the act of calling our child one of those names would force him to lose four teeth. Which, okay, fine, we both had to agree on this, so I let him list his favorite names: SnigSnak, Qranqor, Styrofoam, KidNation, Frontline (after the television show or the flea medication), One (or First, or Premiere), Palette, Alphamask, Format (for a boy), Formatte (for a girl), Profile, Tweeter, Peavey. Possibly Wrench if the baby came out with an interesting nose.

While all of these ideas were teeming with originality and flair, two very important qualities in a baby name, we couldn’t help but think that what our work in progress needed was something more Utahn. You cannot live in Utah and give your baby a boring name that some other baby in Wisconsin might have, and we couldn’t get over the nagging feeling that someone in Wisconsin was naming their first-born child Alphamask as we lay there debating.”

All right. I’ve given you some of my favorites-now it’s your turn. What Really Stinkin’ Funny Memoirs do you recommend?