Book Report

[stormkeeper_lovesall]

Interesting note: only one book by a female author in this crop! 

The Places In Between by Rory Stewart – The author has walked through many countries – India, Nepal, Iran. In this memoir, he tells of his walk through Afghanistan in 2002, just after the Taliban fell. Reading the book in 2022, it’s easy to see why the Taliban rose again so swiftly. It would seem that outside of Kabul, the country is uneducated, hungry, poor, and tired of war. But Stewart’s account is riveting. Most villages he visits consist of shabby houses (or huts) and maybe a mosque. No restaurants, hospitals, or schools. And although Stewart runs into some shady characters, most of the people open their homes to him, house him for a night and feed him (even though the meal is usually not much more than dry bread and beans). Can you imagine the reverse? If a Muslim went on foot through the US and requested to be put up in people’s homes for free. Grade: 7

 

Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor – I’m not the biggest fan of short stories, so I’m not sure why I started this book. It did say that many of the stories were related to each other though. Anyway, the author’s writing was very descriptive and visceral (at times I kinda went “eww”) and each character certainly felt real and human. If you like short stories, you might enjoy this as it certainly was well-written, but I just couldn’t stay interested. Grade: 4

 

Better To Have Gone by Akash Kapur – An interesting book, part memoir but mostly an excavation of two lives. John and Diane were the author’s in-laws, and they were also two members of an intentional community in India called Auroville. They both died young and in somewhat mysterious circumstances. So the author examines what he can about their lives, and the founding of Auroville and its leaders. It was a nice look at something I hadn’t known much about, but I wasn’t truly hooked either. Grade: 5

 

The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow - I tend to prefer non-fiction, and I tend to be very harsh when judging fiction, immediately putting a novel aside if it doesn’t capture my attention. But when I find a good piece of fiction that I can sink my teeth into, I am really, really happy. This book made me happy. J It tells the story of the middle Bennet sister of “Pride and Prejudice”. Mary is the one who isn’t beautiful, and she doesn’t have social skills either – she’s basically a bookish nerd, and she looks likely to remain a “spinster” much to the dismay of her shallow mother. But Mary is determined to carve out her own path and live life on her own terms. This was a remarkable work of storytelling; I read all 470 pages in three days. Grade: 8

 

Still Just A Geek by Wil Wheaton – Here is Wil Wheaton’s annotated – I mean really really annotated – memoir. He takes his older memoir (“Just a Geek”) and annotates the living hell out of it. The TLDR version of this report? I love Wil. I loved this book and mostly read all of its nearly-500 pages in 3 days, though I did skip some of the gaming stuff. Grade: 8

But….here’s the longer version, if anyone cares about my history with the subject matter. I never liked Wesley Crusher and never really thought about him despite the fact that I used to record Star Trek Next Gen onto VHS tapes and watch each ep more than once. I also never considered myself all that fannish over Next Gen, despite the aforementioned episode taping and re-watching. In any case, Next Gen ended, many years went by, and somewhere along the way, someone said to me something like, “Hey did you know that Wil Wheaton is cool now? He’s a geek like us, he loves sci fi. He’s got this blog that everyone’s reading.” (I don’t know who said this to me. Tina? Ben and Val? Ann? A friend from fandom and not real life?) Wheaton got back onto my radar that way. I listed to his reading of the audiobook Ready Player One. At some point I started to follow him on social media. He had suffered abuse from his parents and now he struggled with mental health. For a cishet white male, he seemed to be doing what he could to speak up for others and own his own privilege, and call out racism and other isms when he sees it. The book takes us through all of this, along with his struggles with money and not booking gigs, going on endless auditions and not landing roles. I loved hearing his behind-the-scenes looks at conventions too.

Another aside, about all the auditions Wheaton goes on and never hears back regarding. I know that it’s a terrible struggle for most actors. I gotta point out though….go to Wheaton’s IMDB page and he has a fuckton of credits. 140 acting credits as of right now. If you want a comparison, my favorite actor from The 100 has 37 and my favorite from Spartacus (who is older than Wheaton) has 22. Yes, many of Wheaton’s are B-grade productions or podcasts or voice-only but I’d say Wheaton’s acting career has been not just respectable but enviable! Of course I do understand that if you started your career with Stand By Me and Star Trek, you might not feel that way.

Comments

[rhoda_rants]

That Wil Wheaton super annotated bio sounds awesome! And yeah, he grew up *real* nice. He's definitely one of the good ones. Might have to check that out! It's been awhile since I've read a biography.

[stormkeeper_lovesall]

Exactly as you said it - he grew up real nice! I definitely recommend the book.

[nytshd3]

I am always amazed when I hear stories about people wandering in foreign countries and being taken in by strangers who feed and house them.

I don't know what it is about short stories. I want to love them. I've read a handful that I loved, but for the most part they feel very uneven.

What was the intentional community built around? I would be curious to know what happened to them too, did he get any good information?

Hooray for a juicy non-fiction book! It's kind of disappointing how many lousy fiction books are out there, and it's so nice to find a really good one. Have you read any of the author's other books (if she has any)?

It's possible it was me that told you about Wil Wheaton? But I don't remember the blog anymore. I was fascinated about some of the stories I read about him, I enjoyed hearing him share stories like about being at a convention and helping someone propose to their girlfriend, and he truly does seem like a genuinely nice person. I follow him on Instagram.

I imagine the hardest thing about acting is that there's just no... stability? I mean if you're lucky enough to land a job on a show that's on for 10 years, sure, but unless you get that or you become a megastar, you're just auditioning over and over and getting rejected over and over and hoping for the best and trying to get by financially (which has to be almost impossible in any city where they make movies). I also imagine it must be so disheartening to get rejected over and over again. "hustling" culture is popular but I would soooo much rather have something boring and steady that pays the bills. I also wonder if a lot of less-well-known actors are married to 'regular' people with day jobs. My friend Anna's son-in-law was trying to make it as an actor and they had agreed they would live in los angeles for I think 3 years? while he tried pursuing his dream. Meanwhile his wife had a high-paying regular job to keep them afloat. Now they live in Indiana and just had their first baby, I'm not sure what he's doing work-wise these days. One story that I thought was pretty funny was that on The Office, there was a guy who played the CFO of the company. The actor was actually a finance guy (stockbroker I think?) who kept his day job for many years while he was playing this (small part) character on the show.

[stormkeeper_lovesall]

Ditto on short stories.

The intentional community, it was basically built around a few gurus. They preached good stuff, meditation, peace, etc. What happened to the author's in-laws? Lots of things but it come down to them eschewing conventional medicine and placing too much faith in the idea that they could use their minds and their beliefs to overcome their bodies' limitations.

I plan to read whatever else the author of The Other Bennett Sister has written.

Yes, good point about the lack of stability. That plus constant rejection has to be hard.

Thanks for reading!