Scratch Beginnings (A Nonfiction Book)

Pro: A very interesting read. Surprisingly fast, too.

Con: None

The Bottom Line: Adam shows that it is possible to scrape your way up from the bottom – it’s hard, and it sucks, but it is possible.

One day at work, a girl asked for this book for one of her school classes. Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream. I think if that subheading hadn’t been there, I might not have given it a second glance. After all, I get people asking for all kinds of books all the time. But with that subheader coupled with the picture of some guy standing on the side of the road with just a duffle bag made me wonder – what is this book about?

It’s about just that – Adam Shepard heads out to a random city with only the clothes on his back, a sleeping bag, and $25 to his name. He can’t use family and friends for help. He can’t use his previous history to help him get a job. He’s going in on a blank slate, or at least as blank as any person can be. He becomes another homeless person lost in the masses. But his goal is to have $2,500 saved up, a functioning vehicle, and a place to call his own at the end of one year. Is it possible these days? Can hard work and sheer desire get you to a better place in life like we’re all taught to believe?

Published back in 2008, it’s not terribly old so a lot of it should still easily apply. I found this book really hard to put down as each chapter brought something new into Adam’s life. This is a look into a place that we never see. The world of homelessness. The places they can go to get help and food and shelter. What it’s really like and the reasons it’s not what many people think it is. I learned about places that hooked places up with quick and easy labor (easy as in quick to acquire for the location, not always so easy on the workers), but paid like garbage because they’re essentially the ones doing the hiring so they can get away with paying the person a lesser cut than normal. I didn’t even know places could do that (restaurants aside – and let’s face it, people shouldn’t have to rely on tips to survive, but that’s a whole other ball of wax).

And before you jump on the “Oh, well he’s a white guy anyway so he’s got an advantage” wagon, Shepard acknowledges at the very beginning of the book that he is not in the same sort of position that many others are in. He’s not a single mother, he’s not a person of color – he doesn’t have added disadvantages and he is well aware of this. But this also isn’t a book saying, “Hey, anyone can do it!” It was his own sort of documented social experiment – a personal one. He wanted to know what it was like in the dredges of society. He wanted to know if people really were getting screwed day in and day out. He wanted to know if it was possible to get out, to get up, and for at least one person to, in essence, live the American Dream.

But I’m not going to tell you if he did or not – you need to read the book for that.

I think it’s the kind of book any person could read. It’s interesting and insightful. It has funny and poignant moments like any story of human interest. Adam has his setbacks, too, from struggling to find a job to breaking his toe and facing the money-eating world that is the hospital (he didn’t know about free clinics). It’s a reminder that if you think you have it tough, there’s always a lower rung you could be on (though most of us don’t like to think about that). Ultimately, it’s a good story, a real story, and one that might have you appreciating what you have just that much more, or perhaps working a little bit harder or budgeting a little bit better to improve your own lot in life.

NT

A Lifetime of Secrets by Frank Warren - How Many Secrets Can One Lifetime Hold?

Pros: A book you can't put down.
Cons: I've got nothin'.

The Bottom Line: More secrets for the world to share. They can even teach us something if we're willing to open up...

Back in 2004, a man named Frank Warren started the PostSecret project, a community art project that took in postcards from people of all backgrounds. These postcards, sent anonymously, all contained someone’s secret. It is now 2007 and Warren has received thousands and thousands of postcards all carrying secrets. What started as a famous blog and an art exhibit has transformed into four fascinating books, the original PostSecret, My Secret, The Secret Lives of Men and Women, and this book, A Lifetime of Secrets.

The central theme to this particular collection of secrets goes from the cradle to the grave. Secrets people have carried about their childhood, school, moving into parents, marriage, old age, death, and all that can happen in between. The secrets aren’t just notes on everyday postcards. They’re creative, unique, and utilize all sorts of mediums to tell their secret, from paper clippings and watercolors to yarn and staples, from personal photos and study notes to x-rays and crayons. Each secret is a piece of art in itself, and each one is poignant that may strike a chord somewhere inside you or make you giggle with a memory or simply feel for whomever wrote that secret, either in joy or in sorrow.

It’s a truly fascinating read and I read this right after finishing My Secret. I finished both in about an hour, but your time may be faster or slower. It depends on how much you want to examine and admire the postcards themselves or zero in on the secret you’ve just read. Here are a few, though it’s really best to go find the book at a library or bookstore so you can actually see the scribbled or scripted handwriting or pasted letters onto a sheet of paper or designer cardstock. The presentation adds 20 times more punch to the secret. Some I can’t even write because you need the photo or background to understand the rest of the secret, and some secrets are too deep even for someone to write down anonymously.

I wish my dad was still alive…so he could scare away the boys.

======

My mom had an affair with the first boy I ever kissed and I don’t know who I’m more embarrassed for—me, him or her. ???

======

I steal spoons from restaurants.

======

I stopped wearing panties to the office weeks ago. Work has never felt so refreshing!

I’d love to list more, but they’re all just so interesting. I’ll probably read this book a few more times before I have to return it to the library, and by then I hope the other PostSecret books are back so I can get my hands on them. You never know what secret you’ll get from someone, be that person a 10-year-old by admission or someone working to beat cancer or someone ready to let go of the rest of the world. There’s even a secret from someone who heard about PostSecret.com and slipped their own secret inside a book at the bookstore. I’d thought of mailing in my own little secret, but I think perhaps I’ll leave mine inside this book instead (or maybe one at the book store) as an extra bonus secret to whomever takes the book home next.

NT

Originally posted on Epinions.com

Notes from the playlist: "Airplanes" by B.o.B (featuring Hayley Williams)

Currently Reading

A World Without Islam by Graham E. Fuller

Yet another book spotted while at work. This is in the current affairs section, and it caught my eye and my interest. It's in this book that Fuller intends to show what the world may be like without Islam - and it may not necessarily be any different at all. Indeed, if not Islam, then what religion, what politics might have come into play and would they be the same in terms how how the West is viewed, etc? Very intriguing questions. I'm not yet very far into the book, but look forward to see how Fuller's ideas unfold.


Notes from the playlist: "What I've Done" by Marié Digby

Recommended for Travelers and the Curious

God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre by Richard Grant

I first spotted this book two, maybe three years ago when working at my other store. It's kind of hard to ignore a book called God's Middle Finger. It's equally hard to forget about it after reading what it's about. With phrases like, "[...] his reckless adventure spiraled into his own personal heart of darkness when cocaine-fueled Mexican hillbillies hunted him through the woods all night, bent on killing him for sport." Whaaaat? Really? Of course, I didn't get the chance to read it right away, but that book stuck with me until years later I finally got my hands on it. It's a great read. Definitely worth it. Grant travels all along Sierra Madre and learns about how the police and the drug dealers co-exist, sees abject poverty, the nonstop machismo that saturates the culture (and the men), and quickly discovers that it's all about who you know.

I put this book near Thanksgiving because after reading this book, it just makes me thankful for everything I have here. I'm sure Grant's happy to be alive and well on the opposite side of the Mexican border...

Read the Epinions review here!


Notes from the playlist: "Silver Springs" by Fleetwood Mac

Just Cracked Open

The Intellectual Devotional: Modern Culture by David S. Kidder and Noah D. Oppenheim

Well, another year, another Intellectual Devotional. Yesterday saw the end of the original Intellectual Devotional, so now it's time to learn some new things. While the first one I ever read was based on American History, the second based on world information, now this one is all modern culture, from Alfred Hitchcock to Hiroshima. Luckily for me, David and Noah came out with yet another one last October, The Intellectual Devotional: Health, which means by the end of this new year, I'll have another one to read and they'll have plenty of time to create another.


Notes from the playlist: "Maybe I'm Amazed" by Paul McCartney

Recently Finished (and Recommended)

Intellectual Devotional (Original) by David S. Kidder and Noah D. Oppenheim

Well, technically I won't be done with this book until tonight, but close enough. I went out of order in reading the Intellectual Devotionals - I recommended the American History one earlier in October. This one had a much wider focus, looking at issues all over the world and from all sorts of areas of study. Religion and music, art and science, history and philosophy, with so many tidbits of information ranging from people to ideas. More interesting than your gradeschool history book and offered up in page-sized bites, it's a smart way to end the day.

Check back tomorrow to see which one I plan on starting for the new year!


Notes from the playlist: "Baby, I Love Your Way" by Peter Frampton

Just Finished (and Highly Recommended)

Voluntary Madness by Norah Vincent

I'd already read Self-Made Man and in that book Norah Vincent mentions that all her work had led her to a bit of a breakdown. She then visited an institution, and after only 4 days, realized what her next project had to be. It became this book, in which she visits three different mental institutions; public, private, and altnerative medicine, and reveals to readers what she finds. Her discoveries are incredibly engrossing. It was hard to stop reading. She also lends her thoughts and even gives us a very candid look into her own mental health and issues. Though she said she set out to show that the system was broken, she realized many different things, that blame lies with more than one person, and that there are ways to heal - it's just a very difficult path.


Notes from the playlist: "Macedonian Morning" by Bill Whelan

Recommended for Culture, Human Interest, and Biography Buffs

Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent


I was zoning (read: orgainizing) the biography section in the store one day and came upon this book. A lot of times, that's how we booksellers get sucked into books. Something looks interesting and we pick it up and before we know it, we're adding it to our mental list of "Books I Need To Read." Nevermind that the list is already hundreds of books long (most of which we eventually forget about at some point). But this one I did finally read and found to be thoroughly interesting. Norah Vincent conjures up a convincing man-counterpart (from the walk to the talk to the fake cash and prizes in the pants). From there she goes on a journey, slipping into man-saturated areas of life: bowling alleys, strip joints, door-to-door salesmen, and even a monastary. For over a year and a half she was Ned, experiencing life as a man, even dating women to see what it was like on the other side. Within her writings, she tries not to make too many assumptions, or at least, press her opinions on anyone, but rather does her best to report what she discovers within the world of men.

A real eye-opener and a fascinating read for both men and women, her experience eventually led to a minor breakdown, which led to the inspiration (if one could call it that) for her next book, Voluntary Madness, a book that is, of course, on my mental reading list. Except this one is near the top so it doesn't get lost.


Notes from the playlist: "Bonebreaker" by Infidel Incorportated

Recommended for Culture, History, and Trivia Fans

The Intellectual Devotional: American History by David S. Kidder and Noah Oppenheimer

Read from January 1, 2008 to December 31st, 2008, this devotional isn't the typical religious sort. Instead, David Kidder has created a devotional dedicated to American history with categories of science, art, history, music, politics, and more. Each page is a tidbit of information that your history books may or may not have ever mentioned, giving you something to consider each night before bed. What you learn depends upon your current knowledge of American history. Either way, it's a gem for your nightstand.

Now for 2009, I'm going back to the book that started it all - the original Intellectual Devotional.


Notes from the playlist: "Rough and Ready" by Trace Adkins

Recommended for Humor Fans and Customers/Retail Workers Alike

The Customer Is Always Wrong: The Retail Chronicles by Jeff Martin

If you've worked in the retail industry, you'll be able to relate to the tales in this book. If you've never worked in retail, you should probably read this book anyway. You might learn something. No, really, you might. Collected here are horror stories, hilarious tales, and head-shaking moments of dealing with wacky customers, tough managers, and backroom issues. It's a smorgasbord of laughs, some with life lessons, and others just letting the world know what the world of retail is truly like.

Notes from the playlist: "Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke

Recommended for Culture Buffs and Human Interest

PostSecret by Frank Warren

I remember everyone asking for this book at one point in time and I never understood why - until I finally looked at it. This compilation of letters, postcards, and other mailings is the result of a social experiment by Frank Warren. Within these pages are people's secrets. Their dark ones, their light ones, secrets they've hidden from the entire world, and yet here, are freeing them for the entire world to see. It's all anonymous so you'll never know who sent what, but you still may find yourself able to connect with some of them. Not the only one of it's kind, PostSecret has 3 other sister books as well as a website. Truly fascinating, I plowed through all four books in a matter of days - the only reason it took longer than it did was because I had to wait for the books to be in stock.

I look forward to the October 2009 book: PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God

Read the Epinions review here!


Notes from the playlist: "Second Chance" by Shinedown