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Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming

Source: Dey St. and William Morrow
Hardcover, 304 pgs
On Amazon and on Kobo

Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming is one of the most honest, heartfelt, and engaging memoirs out there.  Cumming is the son of a Scottish family, and his father was verbally and physically abusive, but that’s just part of this story.  Despite the abuse, Cumming had dreams, dreams that he ultimately hoped to achieve and did, even if they just began as fantasies of escape.  As a young boy, he was given impossible tasks by his father on a Scottish estate where they lived as caretakers, and really they were given so that he could fail and be the subject of his own father’s wrath. His escape from that life was acting and school, but he was careful after several early incidents to never show too much passion or love for anything because his father would take it away.  Although his relationship with his father shaped some of his anxieties that he took with him later in life, it is his relationship with his mother that solidified his confidence in becoming the talented actor he is today.

“You see, I understood my father.  I had learned from a very young age to interpret the tone of every word he uttered, his body language, the energy he brought into a room.  It has not been pleasant as an adult to realize that dealing with my father’s violence was the beginning of my studies of acting.”  (page 4 ARC)

Parallels between Cumming’s past and that of his mother’s father, the grandfather he never knew, are drawn easily in his mind and throughout the memoir after he agrees to uncover the truth about his grandfather’s death in Malaysia sometime after WWII.  Like his mother, Cumming did not have a real relationship with his father, but unlike his mother, his father lived with him for most of his life until he left for Glasgow for acting school.  Shifting between past and present in his own life, Cumming also examines his relationship to his deceased grandfather and how memory is subjective and that most people remember in an emotional way.

Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming is not about how his father drops a bombshell on him that he is not his son.  The memoir is about how Cumming is his own man and nothing like the abusive, angry father he had, and in many ways how he is more like the grandfather he never met.  This is a contender for the Best of list this year because it is told with such honesty, self-reflection, and humor that readers will not be able to avoid examining their own lives and familial relationships.

About the Author:

Alan Cumming is an award-winning actor, singer, writer, producer and director. He recently starred in an acclaimed one-man staging of Macbeth on Broadway, and appears on the Emmy Award-winning television show The Good Wife. He won a Tony Award for his portrayal of the Emcee in the Broadway musical Cabaret, a role he is reprising in 2014.  He hosts PBS Masterpiece Mystery and has appeared in numerous films, including Spy KidsTitusX2: X-Men UnitedThe Anniversary PartyAny Day Now and Eyes Wide Shut.  Photo by Ricardo Horatio Nelson.

25th book for 2014 European Reading Challenge; (Set in Scotland and England)

 

 

 

 

71st book for 2014 New Author Reading Challenge.

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez & Giveaway

Source: Dey Street Books
Hardcover, 160 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: The Making of a Television Classic by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez provides an inside look at how the television special about the great pumpkin and Charlie Brown came to be.  The prologue illustrates just how engrained Charlie Brown and the gang’s antics are in our popular culture, as politicians recently started using iconic scenes from the comics and movies to illustrate their own disappointments.

When Charles Schulz, Mendelson and Melendez created the Christmas special, they had low expectations that it would do well, but when it ranked #2 in 1965, they figured they earned a little confidence from the network, CBS.  The network executives, however, were still skeptical and were still not convinced even after the creation and success of a second special, Charlie Brown’s All Stars!  The executives basically called on them to create a blockbuster or else.  The recounted brainstorming session with Schulz is fantastic and the back-and-forth is inspiring as the animator and the creator of the comic bounce ideas around the room with Mendelson.

Included in the book are some great strips from the newspaper, photos of the creative team and actors, and the music sheets.  The book also includes the illustrated script for the special.  It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: The Making of a Television Classic by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez is another wonderful keepsake or gift for the Charlie Brown aficionado in your life.  Slightly smaller than coffee table size, but great to put on the shelf, pull out on the holidays, and just share with the family any time.

About the Cartoonist:

Charles M. Schulz, nicknamed Sparky, was an American cartoonist, best known for the comic strip Peanuts. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential cartoonists of all time, cited as a major influence by many later cartoonists.

Giveaway:

For U.S. residents.  Leave a comment below about one of your Halloween or Christmas Traditions and one winner will be chosen to get both books — It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: The Making of a Television Classic and A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition!

Deadline to enter is Sept. 30, 2014, at 11:59 pm EST.

Other reviews:

A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition

My Drunk Kitchen by Hannah Hart

Source: HarperCollins
Hardcover, 240 pages
On Amazon and on Kobo

My Drunk Kitchen: A Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Going With Your Gut by Hannah Hart is a more how-to guide for noncooks and those who have few resources on hand.  In many ways this is not your ordinary cookbook — yes there are ingredients listed but they are mostly suggestions, and there are few if any step-by-step instructions on how to recreate Hart’s creations.  “Unconventional” is one word to describe this cookbook, and another would be “fun.”  This is a cookbook about having fun in the kitchen, getting creative, and inviting your friends to join in the frenzy — and alcohol always helps.  Hart lets readers into her life and her kitchen — from her younger years in the lunchroom scrounging among friends to fill her belly with various concoctions of candy and crackers, etc.

From this cookbook, we selected Pizzadilla for my birthday party last weekend, which requires sauce, shredded cheese, and tortillas.  The recommended drink with this is cold beer of course, and we happened to have Sam Adams in the house.  You smear the sauce on the tortilla and then add the cheese before putting another tortilla on top — you can stack these on top of one another to make them taller — put them in the oven to cook.  It looks as though this requires some babysitting as there is no temperature listed for the oven, nor is there a time for cooking listed.  You’ll have to keep an eye out for the browning of the tortilla and the melting ooze of the cheese.  You can cut these into slices with a butter knife.  These all came out great within about 10 minutes or so on 350 degrees.  Everyone seemed to enjoy them, and we think they could be filled with other toppings, like peppers, mushrooms, pepperoni, and other meat.

My Drunk Kitchen: A Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Going With Your Gut by Hannah Hart is a fun cookbook for those not too worried about timing things and directions, who are interested in making creative dishes in the kitchen.  Beyond single people, bachelors, and drunk cooks, this book could be helpful in introducing kids to cooking.  It is humorous and fun.

***Silly me, we forgot to take photos of the creations, but perhaps we were too drunk.***

About the Author:

Hannah Hart, sometimes nicknamed Harto, is an American internet personality, comedian and author. She is best known for starring in My Drunk Kitchen, a weekly series on YouTube in which she cooks something while intoxicated. Apart from her main channel, she also runs a second channel where she talks about life in general and gives her opinions on various topics. She also has written a cooking book named My Drunk Kitchen – a guide to eating, drinking, and going with your gut.

47th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.