May Reads

The slimmest month so far, reading-wise. I have no real excuse beyond a backslide into my old, internet-intensive habits and a long-term housesitting gig that gave me access to cable television and what I assume is an endless marathon of Law and Order episodes. (That show is my kryptonite.) I only made it through a scant handful of books:

Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star by Tab Hunter with Eddie Muller

I was hoping for more scandal from this autobiography of the closeted C-list teen heartthrob, but Hunter turned out to be pretty coy about revealing details of his time in Hollywood. Pity. Aside from a vaguely outlined affair with a skittish Anthony Perkins and a one-night (afternoon, really) stand with Rudolf Nureyev, there isn't much in the way of juicy details.  It was a quick read anyway. I only bought it because John Waters name-checked Hunter in his one-man show This Filthy World, making Hunter sound really fun. I suspect more than a little bit of starry-eyed fan-boy-ism at work in that opinion.

Role Models by John Waters

My favorite read of the month. I have a soft spot for Waters, the writer/director/actor who made such movies as Polyester and Hairspray. This collection of essays is about his role models, everyone from drag queens and Japanese clothing designers to former Charles Manson groupies. I especially love the section where Waters talks about collecting art and his favorite artists.

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

I picked up this little trip down memory lane on a trip to the used bookstore. I read it for the first time in middle school when I was about ten years old. I remember liking it, but it didn't become a favorite of mine. It's a pretty thin read; I wish the two authors had gone into more detail about the strange and interesting lives they lived as the children of efficiency experts.

Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman by Alice Steinbach

I feel like almost everything I read this month was somehow disappointing and this book was just part of the crowd. When she was in her 50s, Steinbach took a leave of absence from her job as a newspaper columnist and traveled alone to Paris, London, and various places in Italy. You'd think that this would be the adventure of a lifetime, exciting on paper at least, but Steinbach's limited skills as a writer seem to have been dulled by years of writing at the average newspaper level. Hemingway she ain't--and this is no Movable Feast. I have a lot of respect for solo women travelers, though, even those as blandly vanilla as Steinbach.

The Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead

This collection of essays about various parts of New York City by a native New Yorker is a bit generic unfortunately. Still, I would give Whitehead another chance, mostly based on a couple of interviews I read with him and a piece he wrote in The New York Times; I'll probably pick up one of his novels.

And still in progress:

Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart

Reading this is like trying to force down the last few bites of a crappy dessert at the end of a stupidly filling but completely mediocre restaurant meal. Don't lie, we've all done it, and all hated ourselves after. And that's how I feel about this novel. Why don't I abandon it? Because I'm reading it for a book club. That's the only reason. Read at your own risk.

That's it. Can you believe it? I'll get my groove back next month.