A Child Called 'It', Dave Pelzer

I bought this book because I've always had good luck with books that are rated high on Amazon.com. It was an extremely fast read for 2 reasons:

1) I read it while Chris was at our friend's house watching the Super Bowl while I sulked at home with a fever, headache and incredibly stuffed sinuses.

2) It's a memoir written by a dude who, had his story not been so compelling, never would have made it as an author. No offense, Pelzer.

This book tells the story of a kiddo whose sick-in-the-head mother decided that he would serve as a slave instead of a family member. The details of her abuse are nauseating-- especially the fact that it took the schools so long to realize what was going on with this kid. But like I said, it wasn't written by a writer, but rather a guy who had a story to tell. You catch my drift? I'm just not sure why it got such high ratings on Amazon...

(2.5/5 stars)

Julie & Julia, Julie Powell

For some reason this book took me a long time to read, but I really enjoyed it! So much so that I gave it to Lody and Mom for Christmas. Julie Powell is a receptionist working in New York who decides to cook every one of Julia Child's recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year's time.

I, personally, hate cooking and the idea of cooking every day-- especially from a cookbook---ESPECIALLY from a French cookbook makes me queasy and sort of makes me want to cry, but her style of writing is witty and sharp. Also, it's a true story and the fact that her fame was born from her choice to blog about her "Project" makes it that much cooler. In fact, it was a blogspot.com blog, just like this one, that housed her journey through MtAoFC. See here to read it!

(4/5 stars)

The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch

I really liked this book. I had heard about Pausch's last lecture a long time ago, and I finally bought a used copy with the gift card Logan and Jody gave us for Christmas. Randy was a computer guy who taught at Carnegie Melon, had a loving wife and little kiddos...then found out he had terminal cancer. This book is derived from his "Last Lecture" he gave at Carnegie Melon months before his death.

The idea is that professors are asked if they could give one final lecture, what would it be-- kind of a "if you had to live on a desert island with one person forever, who would you pick?" kind of thing. Normally the speakers weren't terminal cancer patients, so sadly his "Last Lecture" really was his last lecture.

My coworker said she hated the book because he didn't mention Christ in his final speech and that she believes that a life without Christ is empty and worthless. I reminded her that he states specifically in chapter 1 that his talk would not be about cancer, religion or his family. This doesn't mean that those things aren't important to him, it means that this would be a professional speech regarding his career and how others can have an awesome career if they achieve their childhood dreams (as he did).

It was short and sweet, and very much a tear-jerker at the end (really just the last sentence). I then watched the lecture on youtube. Although I couldn't relate to hardly any of his fascination with information technology and computer programming, Pausch was extremely endearing and reminded me a lot of what Logan would say and do. Anyway, below are a few of the lessons I found particularly interesting/important:


"Even if you're in a position of strength, whether at work or in relationships, you have to play fair. Just because you're in the driver's seat doesn't mean you have to run people over."

"The brick walls are there for a reason. They're not there to keep us out. There there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."

"It doesn't matter how well you polish the underside of the banister." (don't waste your time dwelling on irrelevant details/unimportant petty issues)

"Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won't make us happier."

"[My dad] believed manual labor was beneath no one. He said he'd prefer that I worked hard and became the best ditch-digger in the world rather than coasting along as a self-impressed elitist behind a desk."

"It's not about how to achieve your dreams. It's about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care if itself. The dreams will come to you."

(3.5/5 stars)