Title: Talk to the Hand

Author: Lynne Truss

Publisher: Gotham Books

Year Published: 2005

Had not my friend given me Talk to the Hand for Christmas last year, I would never have read it on my own. Even though my tastes are fairly broad, this one happens to fall outside my usual browsing area. Way outside. But that’s ok. That’s what friends are for. To steer us back onto the path when we happen to wander a bit off course. Or to take us gently by the hand, guide us over to the garden and to thrust our face down into the flower bed when we don’t take the time to stop and give them a big ol’ sniff. Not only did I sniff, I breathed deep and thoroughly enjoyed floral dunking.

Talk to the Hand is a book on manners. Now before you start with the one-liners, it isn’t a “how-to” book, something written to detail the proper etiquette of text-messaging or which fork is for the salad and which is for the shrimp. Rather, it’s a casual study of the apparent lack of manners that is so prevalent in society today. Much of it is focused on the English culture (Ms. Truss is English, you see), but as a High School teacher over here on this side of the pond, I feel safe in assuring Ms. Truss that most, if not all of what she says is just as pertinent in the States as it is in her neck of the woods.

At times uproariously funny, Ms. Truss had me talking to myself, agreeing with her own perceptions and laughing at her hysterically sad examples. Written much like a personal essay, there were times when she got bogged down with what other people think, but always she returned to the strength of the book… the power of her observations and interpretations, and the complexity and intelligence of her sense of humor.

I have another of her books waiting in the wings (Eats, Shoots & Leaves) and am happy to have it so close the top of the stack. If she treats grammar anything like she treats rudeness, it will be another fast, fun read.

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Program: Eli Stone

Network: ABC

Creators: Greg Berlanti & Marc Guggenheim

Primary Cast: Johnny Lee Miller, Natasha Henstridge, Laura Benati, James Saito, Victor Garber

Eli Stone is a lawyer, and a damn good one. There’s only one small problem. He’s a prophet who has visions of people who need his help. Either that, or he is hallucinating because of that pesky little inoperable brain aneurysm he inherited from his father.

Johnny Lee Miller (Eli Stone) is curiously charming as he tries to figure out exactly what is happening to him. His visions take him on an emotional ride. Memories of his father assail him, who shared a similar condition but was unable to cope with it and turned to alcohol in order to still the visions. Not wanting to put hisfiancé through what his father put him through, he walks out on their engagement in order to save her the pain his own mother faced each and every day.

This strong, engaging through line connects the episodes and allows the characters and their relationships to evolve, but make no mistake… though there is an ongoing plot (including a potential love triangle… ooo drama!), this show is about the visions Eli has and how he struggles to interpret their meaning. So far, they have all pointed him in the direction of a specific case to take on, and this, I think, will likely grow old after a while and be a rather severe limitation for the show’s longevity. But for now, with the veritable wasteland that is network TV, this mid-season launch is a breath of fresh air. There are few shows on TV that I actually pay attention to, even in the best of times, so it’s nice to find something that isn’t a reality-based embarrassment show or the 97^th spin-off of CSI or Law and Order.

I’m not sure why I started watching this. I don’t have much time for TV, and record everything because Prime Time for TV is also Prime Time for grading and writing my thesis. But something about it caught my eye so I tossed it on the DVR’s record list. What a surprise! I was sold the moment Eli had his first vision… George Michael singing and dancing on the coffee table in his living room. This quirky, schticky little show has me laughing out loud each and every episode. And that is enough to keep me coming back to it each week.

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Now playing: David Sanborn - Over and Over

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I won’t even try to describe how busy I have been between school and… well… school. I think, though, that maybe I have a handle on the workload now and can get back to updating once a week or so. Along with that comes a return to reading books for me and not for one school or another. And that’s how I am going to ease my way back into a regular posting pattern again. Talking about books. Specifically, what books are next on my reading list and why.

Before I get into all that, though, I need to emphasize that whatever order I come up with for the next 4 or 5 books is tentative, at best. I know, I say that each and every time I post something about what’s on my bedside stack. But this time it’s a little different. I haven’t heard anything official yet, but Amazon is finally listing George R.R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons with a release date and a pre-order option. And yes, I pre-ordered it. And, also yes, I know that it will likely come out after their posted release date of September 30^th. But that’s ok. I have waited this long, another few months won’t kill me. Besides, it gives me time to re-read the first four books. I’ll probably start them in July, or maybe as early as June if I get really anxious, so it won’t cut into my next 6 or so reads. But eventually the publishing world will need to go on without me as I re-immerse myself in Westeros and have a walk with Jon and Bran and all the rest. Martin’s series easily ranks among my favorite reads of the last ten to fifteen years, and part of me is almost sad that this release will mark the end of the series [ed. ok... there are two more books left after ADOD. Thanks Ms. Gilmore for pointing this out to me. 4 more years of breathless anticipation!]

For now, though, I am content with catching up on the books I received as gifts over the holidays. First up is Talk to the Hand by Lynne Truss, and it has me in absolute laugh out loud stitches every time I pick it up. I had never read Eats, Shoots, & Leaves, and, sure enough, as soon as I started talking about Talk to the Hand, someone went out and bought me its predecessor, which will now close out the books I have on my gifted list.

After Truss, I have Orwell’s Animal Farm to brush up on before I teach it to my freshmen.

And then comes Stross. Charles Stross. I don’t even want to think about how long various books by Stross have been on my reading list. Finally though, a friend down in the Lone Star State had enough of my reading trash like Martin, Card, Hawthorne, and LeGuin, and gave me The Jennifer Morgue without knowing that I had never managed to get The Atrocity Archives, the book to which it is a sequel, off my increasingly crowded To Buy list. So, of course, me being me, I immediately ordered The Atrocity Archives and moved them as close to the front of my To Read list as I dared. And there they sit. Just two short books away. I think my palms are sweating.

Next on the list is a gift from a buddy of mine making his way out in that crazy land of Hollywood. I gave up on that town years ago, but he is well on his way to taking it by storm, so when this arrived in a padded envelope from him, I was more than a little excited. Anytime someone with dyslexia recommends a book to me, I take them seriously. And when they are a writer and filmmaker, doubly so. Peter Baskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is all about the Hollywood of legend… the mecca of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll that both entranced and mortified the rest of the nation back in the late sixties and early seventies. Or at least that’s what the jacket says. My friend, knee deep in the same industry that I left and that this book seems to both worship and vilify, says it is quite simply the most fascinating book on the film industry he has ever read. And that’s enough for me.

Bookending the list is the other Truss book I mentioned, Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Yes, I am reading them out of order. No, I am not going to stop now and fix it. I got them out of order, they aren’t a series, so I will read them out of order. If it bugs you, then by all means, start talking amongst yourselves and get a little more coordinated as to when you get me gifts!

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