2016 Reading #55 to 57
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
This is what you get when a poet writes his autobiography. Springsteen's stories jump around in time and subject; this is not a chronicle, but an impressionist painting of a life. If you know his songs, you'll hear echoes of both his lyrics and his characters. He's also willing to dig into his own flaws and battles with depression.
Brilliant disguises are Springsteen's stock-in-trade, and you can never assume that a memoir isn't just another mask. But Born to Run seems to be his own effort to explain himself to himself. This is as good an insight into his mind and life as anyone is likely to get.
Crosstalk by Connie Willis
Crosstalk is frustrating. At its best, it's a thoughtful exploration of telepathy and communication seen through the lens of a rom-com plot. I liked the main characters of Briddey and C.B., and supporting character Maeve is fun even though she bears no resemblance to a real nine-year-old girl.
But then there are all the other characters, who are universally horrible. I think Willis was trying to go for the kind of broad comedy that you see in rom-coms, but what's funny for a few minutes on screen is painful when it goes on for page after page. I nearly gave up on the book in the first chapter; fortunately the "good bits" arrived just before the book hit the wall, and there were just enough of them to keep me going to the end.
There's a good novella in there, but I wish I could have skipped the novel that surrounds it.
32 Yolks by Eric Ripert
I've been needing some comfort reading this week, and surprisingly this did the trick. Eric Ripert had the beginnings of a happy childhood, but the ten years between ages six and sixteen sound pretty dire. Which should be depressing, but even as a kid Ripert had a love of food and a knack for picking mentors. His journey from enthusiastic eater to underprepared commis to promising young chef is full of good stories and lovingly described food -- and what could be more comforting than that?