Bossypants - Tina Fey

I’m a big fan of Tina Fey. I thought her impersonation of Sarah Palin for Saturday Night Live was one of the highlights of the 2008 American Presidential elections.

And I also loved 30 Rock, especially the first three seasons. So there was no doubt that I would be reading her biography, Bossypants.

The good news is that the book is just like an episode of 30 Rock: smart, funny, heavy on the political humour and sarcasm, plus a couple of laugh out loud moments.

Particularly funny is her chapter on what she calls the biggest issue facing women in America at the moment: the evils of photoshop.

Worth the price of entry alone.

That and the chapter on her honeymoon cruise disaster.

Although the book tracks her career, including working on SNL and 30 Rock, it is particularly light on in terms of any revelations. Indeed, there is I think a conscious lack of any Oprah moments.

Here is her description of why 30 Rock got supported by NBC:

"NBC executives must have seen something of value in my quirky and unique pilot (Alec Baldwin) because they decided for some reason (Alec Baldwin) to 'pick it up.' This means they agreed to make eleven more episodes and maybe show them on TV."

Every time the stories veer towards any sentimentality Fey throws in a very funny, self-depreciating line.

That being, said one of my gripes is that I would definitely have liked some more backstage goss and naming of names!

The book is very readable. I finished it in one sitting and it was a highly enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.

Refuse to Choose! Barbara Sher

I normally stay away from self help books, especially those with “!” or “NOW” and even worse the combo “NOW!” in their title.

But I suspended my disbelief to read Barbara Sher’s Refuse to Choose!, after it was recommended by Sarah Wilson.

Sher argues that when it comes to careers, there are two types of people out there: scanners and deep divers.

And each type is fundamentally motivated by different rewards:

• Deep divers are happy with fitting into one defined career path or profession. They seek specialised knowledge, financial security and recognition.
  

• Scanners finds it difficult to choose one career and be defined by it professionally. Instead, scanners need to do lots of different things, are always interested in what else is out there. They seek different rewards and often end up having a series of careers and spend their time "scanning the horizon, thinking about their next move."

For someone who has dabbled in a lot of different things and rarely feels completely satisfied in one career, this book really resonated with me.

I have often had the "it's time to buckle down and chose one thing" inner dialogue with myself. Or worse yet, the morally destructive comparing myself with my friends and their seemingly straight forward career trajectories.

Sher writes:

“Almost every case of low self-esteem, shame, frustration, feelings of inadequacy, indecisiveness, and inability to get into action simply disappeared the moment they understood that they were Scanners and stopped trying to be somebody else.”

In her book, Sher breaks down scanners further into different types of scanners and maps out career/life strategies for each one.

I found the advice and strategies quite helpful, moreover it was the sense of relief that I could be put a name to my feelings.

I guess that is what self-books are all about, putting a name to our problems and making us feel understood and part of a community.

I'm still working though some of Sher's advice, which must of course be tempered by the reality of our current economic climate.

While, googling about scanners I came across a great article by Dr. Lauchlan A. K. Mackinnon who puts Sher’s ideas within the context of the market place.

He notes that the contemporary workplace favours Divers and there are very few employers willing to take risks in terms of hiring practices. Interstingly, he observes that:

“Australia employers in Melbourne are more conservative and less likely to take a risk and hire on talent rather than track record compared to employers in, for example, Sydney.”

That's bad news for this Scanner living in Melbourne!

Sookie Stackhouse Book 11 - Dead Reckoning

Book number 11 in the Sookie Stackhouse series, Dead Reckoning, has just come out.

Even though, I’m on a waiting list for the book at my library I am ambivalent about what to expect.

The last two books were really average and the last book, Dead in the Family, was a major disappointment.

At what point do you give up on a series? When has an author ‘jumped the shark’?

I’m edging toward closing the book on the Sookie Stackhouse series. I think that Harris has exhausted all possible and interesting storylines.

She has had the competing boyfriends issues (Eric and Bill), romance with a werewolf and discovery of fairies relatives.

Now, the characters just seemed to be treading water. In fact, I found Sookie quite annoying in the last two books as all she seemed to be doing was bleat on about wanting a nice boyfriend to settle down with. Ugh!

So, why do authors do it?

Sure, there is a fan base to satisfy and of course the money, but at some point I wish someone would step in and say ‘enough already’.

Don’t they realise they just destroy the legacy of their own work.

A prime example I’ve previously blogged about is Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta series. I finally stopped at Book 15: Scarpetta Factor.

And I just checked her website and I can’t believe that she is bringing out another Scarpetta book this year!

News flash: Emperor of All Maladies won the 2011 Pulitizer Prize for general non-fiction.

The Emperor of all Maladies: a biography of cancer

I chose this to read this book because unfortunately in the last few years cancer seems to have touched a lot of people I know, either directly or indirectly.

I thought it was time to actually find out more about it in a sustained manner.

Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer is an impressive book that systematically charts how cancer has been defined and treated.

He starts with the oldest surviving description of cancer is written on a papyrus from about 1600 B.C. and follows through to the development of chemotherapy treatments and stem cell research.

What makes this book a compelling, and also distressing read, is his narration of medical breakthroughs and disasters. The increasing radicalisation of surgeons who thought they could cure cancer by cutting more and more from the body is truly horrifying.

Mukherjee also intersperses his own clinical experiences and writes with a moving honesty about his own struggles with maintaining a sense of optimism in the face of this disease.

Overall, what will stay with me is the mercurial nature of cancer: it seems to have no logic or rationale. When it comes to cancer and also autoimmune diseases, we just don't know why our own bodies decide to turn against us.

For a dedicated arts/humanities geek, the science is pretty accessible in the book. Although the last few chapters, which go into the depth about DNA and RNA, did go a little bit over my head.

This is the book to read if you are interested in understanding more about cancer.

Reading literature

I’ve started a creative writing course and it has made me realise that I don’t really read that much “literature” anymore. That is capital L, serious, Booker/Miles Franklin [insert appropriate award] winning books.

Surprisingly, the course is very much about the ‘classics’ with set readings from authors such as: Hemmingway, DeLillo, Ondaatje, Proulx, Naipaul, Carey and Winton.

I am struggling with the readings. And it’s not just the short fiction, but also the critical analysis pieces which have so far relied upon a close textual reading ie. this is an important point in the narrative because it represents this and in relationship to that etc.

Oh god, reading some of these set pieces just reminds me why I didn’t continue with literary studies at university!

The main text is The Best Australian Stories 2010, edited by Cate Kennedy. And to be quite frank I didn’t find anything that great about them! I actually enjoyed about 2 stories in the whole collection.

The frustrating thing is that I am supposed to use some of these stories as a springboard for my own writing. Oh and the fact that I have to produce a peice of fiction that is:

• literary in style: not specialist generic fiction such as science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery – but you may draw upon aspects of those genres providing your work remains literary in style and sophisticated in approach and content.

I'm a little miffed that it seems that "literature" does not seem to encompass sci fi, mystery or other genres. It's an old fashioned and very conservative view of literature which suprises me because the institution I am at isn't a traditional conservative "sandstone" sort of place.

After all this whining, you may be suprised that I have decided to contiue with the course. The actual creative writing has been fun and it is quite liberating that you get to make it all up! Especially when my day job is all about writing 'key messages' for other people.

That and the fact that I will be writing a genre influenced creative piece for my assesment. Just trying to work out whether to go with zombies or vampires......