Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry

Larry McMurtry can make any subject interesting. Here he tells us about his life in the book trade, his day job, and it is fascinating. Never mind that I don't know the people he mentions, the books he sought and found, the collections he and his business partner coveted. I know them now. McMurtry pulls us into his world effortlessly and we are happy to be included.

Growing up, there were no books in his house. There were stories, though, although he says they held little interest for a child. I wonder if this is where McMurtry developed his genius for realistic, amusing dialog. Nineteen books, a gift from a WWII bound cousin, opened the world of books and McMurtry was hooked.

I was particularly interested in McMurtry's writing habits. Right after graduating from North Texas State he began writing five pages of narrative per day, every day including holidays. A couple of years later, the accumulated pages won him a fellowship at Stanford University. He tells us he still writes every day; his output is now ten pages per day.

Lonesome Dove, McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, is my one of my favorite books if not my Number One Favorite. McMurtry says in Books: A Memoir that he has written no great novels, only good ones. Oh, Larry.

Read this good book. If you haven't already, read a great book by the same author: Lonesome Dove.

Busy Body, my life with Tourette's syndrome by Nick Van Bloss

I read this book all in one sitting. It's not that I don't have anything else to do it's just that I couldn't put it down. I read while stirring the oatmeal, I read while sorting laundry, I read as the washer cycle spun.

Nick Van Bloss has lead a remarkable life. Tormented mercilessly in school by students and in at least one case, by teachers, he prayed every day for rescue. Why God didn't answer that prayer will be on my list of questions to ask the Almighty when I reach the pearly gates. Also, I'm going to want to know just where in hell that teacher ended up; if it is not a toasty corner with no water cooler I am going to circulate a petition to make it so.

Tourette's syndrome is a brain disorder that is best known for its victim's potty mouths. Many with the syndrome can't control the compulsion to swear, loudly, often and colorfully. Van Bloss doesn't have that symptom but it seems the only one he doesn't. He is plagued by tics, clenching and unclenching of muscles, nodding and jerking his head, eye rolling, and on and on. To give us some idea of his need to tic he suggests we not blink for a period of time. That build up of overwhelming need to blink is similar to his need to tic. There is no holding it back.
Studying the piano was and is Van Bloss' salvation and passion. Although Tourette's syndrome is a curse, the compulsion to concentrate completely gives the sufferer a leg up on learning new things over those of us whose interests don't consume us. Never mind that the leg that is up is twitching and ticcing, at least he is concentrating.

Van Bloss began having symptoms at age 7 and though the signs were classic no doctor diagnosed the problem until he was 21. "Bad nerves" they had said. Where did they all go to medical school and don't they know about researching odd cases. I read about Tourette's as a kid in the sixties and I am sure no MD.

Read this book. It is a glimpse into the life of a person with problems we can only imagine, whose humor and humanity shine through the pages. You will applaud his successes and gnash your teeth over his troubles.

The Seventh Well by Fred Wander

The Seventh Well, by Fred Wander, is a novel set in several Nazi prison camps. The title refers to the mythical well of truth and, in the way of many novels, the larger truth is brought into focus more clearly through story than through a recitations of the facts. This book's truth: survival of any inmate was achieved through the collaboration of others, sometimes conscious, sometimes accidental, in an elaborate dance of death and life and those who gave their lives live on in the survivor.

Literature on the subject of the Holocaust has always fascinated me. There is something about the mix of survival and brutality that attracts and repels. My father's family came from Germany only a generation before WWII so I am sure I have relatives who saw first hand the horrors of Hitler's world. It also makes me look at my German-American relatives in a new light. Could my Great-Grandma have looked the other way while children were starved and worked to death or burned in the gas chambers? Of course, everyday Germans had very little input by the time all that was going on and would have disappeared themselves had they spoken up. Survival for them was a daily dance, too.

The book is a fascinating, fictional account of the inner lives of several inmates at multiple camps. Fred Wander was a survivor of twenty concentration camps himself, so he knew the subject well. Written years after his release from the camps, his description of the forest still resonates with the longing of one held captive.


This book gives us fully drawn, fully alive people, with hopes and dreams and quirks.
Rabbis argue the finer points of the Torah in the barracks at night, an inmate sarcastically conducts imaginary tours of the Louvre, and Karel, the Russian Jew, whose father wanted him to be a doctor but who gave up his medical studies in favor of the pleasures of the red light district, struggles to save as many inmates as he can.

This is a must read for anyone interested in the Holocaust but also a must read for students of human nature.

The View from 101

The book on living to be 100 reminded me of a discussion the seniors at our Senior Citizen Center had. They were talking about the plight of one of their members who can no longer attend because of problems with incontinence.

Mary, who's 101 years old, asked, "How old is she anyway?"
After some thought the rest said she was 85, last Fall.
"Well," said Mary, "that's too young to have those kind of problems."

It just goes to show, age is relative. We're all just kids to Mary.

Secrets of Longevity, Hundreds of Ways to Live to Be 100

This book is a treasure trove of tips for healthy living. The author is Dr. Maoshing Ni, Doctor Mao to his patients, the 38th-generation of doctors of Chinese medicine. Wow, he should write a book about that history.

Following a tip a page format the doctor dispenses secrets of long life and wellness on the way there. If you adopted just a few of his ideas your health would probably improve and I suppose that usually translates to a longer life.

If you've paid attention to the latest in health advice a lot of Dr. Mao's advice will be familiar, like the advice to increase fiber in your diet. Some ideas were new to me and some seemed a little wacky. In the I hadn't heard it category: two glasses of celery juice per day to ward off high blood pressure. Wacky: the system of judging our body type by the shape of our face which correspond to health problems and personality traits. The choices are Wood, Metal, Fire, Earth and Water and I can't tell where I fit in. My face is kind of oval. That would make me a Water type but my face is rounder than an oval....

I was amused by the page advising us to avoid bleached paper because of the residue of dioxins, a carcinogen, left behind. I am sure he's right; the bad stuff leaches into our food from coffee filters and the like and then when we discard them it slowly releases the dioxins into the ground water at the landfill. The thing is, this book is printed on the whitest paper ever. The decision to print on shocking white paper was probably made by the publisher so I won't hold that against Dr. Mao.

The book has the blessing of Hollywood's Jim Carrey, Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser. I wonder how anyone could arrive at a decision on the shape of Jim Carrey's face. Would that be the one he used as the Grinch?

I recommend this book for those interested in health and long life. Isn't that nearly everyone?