Milk, Eggs, Vodka

This unlikely title led me to one of the funniest books I've ever read. Milk, Eggs, Vodka, by Bill Keaggy, is a collection of found grocery lists accompanied by Bill's acerbic and hilarious commentary on the authors. A great book to give as a gift or keep on the bathroom bookshelf.

As an aside, I emailed Bill Keaggy after I read his book, to tell him my grocery list anecdote: at one time my brother went off to the A&P with his grocery list, and when he got there, he couldn't remember what he had meant when he wrote SBC on the list. He wandered up and down the aisles, scanning the shelves for something that might start with those letters. He asked a store clerk, who looked at him as though he were crazy. When my brother got home he realized that it stood for Spanish Bar Cake, that raisin-y sweet delight mass produced for the Jane Parker bakery at A&P. No wonder the clerk didn't know! At any rate, Bill wrote me back immediately. Very funny guy.

Bill Bryson

Many of my favourite books contain an element of humour, particularly dry humour. When the going gets tough, the tough get a funny book. When I was confined to bed for an extended illness recently I turned to Bill Bryson to keep me entertained. Many of his books are travelogues, technically, but he sees everything through a cynical and hilarious eye, and his style is casual and familiar. Bill and I have travelled together through England (Notes from a Small Island), Europe (Neither Here nor There), Africa (Bill Bryson's African Diary), The U.S.'s Appalachian Trail (A Walk in the Woods)and Australia (In a Sunburned Country). I love his other books too; my kids were highly entertained by his anecdote in The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid about peeing on Lincoln Logs to make them turn white. Lots of fun.

Half Broke Horses, Prizewinner of Defiance Ohio

If you've read and enjoyed The Glass Castle you might want to try Half Broke Horses, Jeanette Walls' story of her grandmother's life and her mother's childhood. Again, improbable, entertaining and told with a dry wit. In the same vein, The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio, by Terry Ryan, is the story of one woman's struggle in the fifties to support her family by writing advertising jingles. As my new bookmark says, don't judge a book by its movie; the book was delightful and the movie disappointing.

A Girl Named Zippy, She Got Up off the Couch, Too Close to the Falls, The Glass Castle

Some of my past faves have been memoirs, particularly of women who overcome adversity of one kind or another. The best stories are told with a healthy dose of humour and dry wit. At the top of the list are A Girl Named Zippy and She Got Up Off the Couch, and Other Heroic Tales from Mooreland, Indiana, both by Haven Kimmel. The first is the story of her own childhood, and the second the story of her mother's life when Haven was young. Both are surprising, inspiring and funny. (I enjoyed most of her fiction too, with the exception of her latest, Iodine.) In this same category of memoir fall two books that I would not have believed were true had they not been clearly marked Biography, Catherine Gildiner's Too Close to the Falls, and Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle. Again, these were funny, improbable and without any sense of self-importance. Great reading, particularly for women "of a certain age".

I've posted cover pictures for most of the books I mentioned along the left side of the page. Click on any cover to take you to that record in the Kingston Frontenac Public Library's catalogue.