I was having trouble getting into the book Vanity Fair. I liked it a little more when I found out the real title was Vanity Fair: Novel without a Hero. The subtitle caught my attention because I always think sarcastic thoughts when Dr. Phil says “This family needs a hero” Yes, these people are on national TV yelling at each other, they are totally hero quality. I usually wait until I finish a book to review it but I read this passage & had to comment immediately:

That bowl of rack punch was the cause of all this history. And why not a bowl of rack punch as well as any other cause? Was not a bowl of prussic acid the cause of Fair Rosamond’s retiring from the world? Was not a bowl of wine the cause of the demise of Alexander the Great, or, at least, does not Dr. Lempriere say so?–so did this bowl of rack punch influence the fates of all the principal characters in this “Novel without a Hero,” which we are now relating. It influenced their life, although most of them did not taste a drop of it.

I will always think of William Makepeace Thackeray as the first person to write about Founder’s Day Punch.

I had heard of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair before. It always seemed to appear in trivia questions as “Which book helped form the Food & Drug Administration?” I chose not to read this book just because I didn’t think I could stomach anything about the meat industry in the early 1900’s. My thinking went like this “Meat industry in early 1900’s=grossness now let’s read a book about butterflies.”

However, it was on Rory’s book list so I had to read it. Yes, the meat industry in the early 1900’s=grossness times ten. However, the book is so beautifully written. Just the use of words is incredible. Usually I start yelling “just say what you mean” if words are too flowery & then people look at me. This book just captivated me & I’m glad that I bought it in hard cover because it’s going to have a place on my bookshelf for a long time to come.

Here are a few facts about The Jungle by Upton Sinclair:

He went to Chicago intending to write the book. When he arrived at a hotel near the stockyards he supposedly said “Hello! I’m Upton Sinclair, and I’m here to write the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the Labor Movement!”

The Jungle received five rejections before it was published.

The book was intended to reform living conditions of the working class but instead led to meat packing regulations. Sinclair is quoted as saying “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”

I usually am not a fan of books about writers. Especially when the book is about a writer who is writing a book about a writer, who is probably writing a book about a writer. It’s just too confusing. The only time this is acceptable is on the Stephen Colbert Show when he stands in front of a portrait of himself & in the portrait there’s a picture of him standing in front of his portrait, so on & so forth. However, there was one chapter in this book that made the entire thing worthwhile, & I’m not telling you which one.

My name is Sara & I don’t always read book jackets. This was the case of “Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories from a Decade Gone Mad” One of the subtitles is also Growing Up Sane in a Decade Gone Mad.

I picked up the book, read the first page, closed the book & thought “Crap, that’s really good”. The entire book was on the same level. Then I finished reading it, looked at the book jacket again & saw that it was written by Virginia Holman. I thought “The girl’s name in the story is Virginia, could it be?” I finally put together that it was a memoir. In fact it’s one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read. It reads like a novel, serves me right for not reading the book jacket.

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