Customer Reviews

Birdseed Cookies: A Fractured Memoir

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

There's a woman in my office who doesn't like "seinfeld." Nice person, but she doesn't like the show and thinks its truly about "nothing." She doesn't like to read dave barry, or david sedaris, and never did like erma bombeck. A book like "birdseed cookies" is in a similar vein: it's about "nothing." Kids with head lice? Giving up on learning to ski? Getting your heart broken? Who cares about this stuff? These things happen to everyone, so why write about them? If that's how you feel, then don't get this book.

IF, on the other hand, you LIKE reading about small moments and love that flash of recognition, the moment when you say, "Yes! That's just what it's like!" then you will LOVE this book. You will laugh out loud. You will pass it along to your friends, who will thank you.

Readers who, like me, are familiar with Janis Jaquith's essays on public radio, can't help but hear her voice in each of these collected pieces. But, even those who are complete strangers to her radio work will enjoy the ride through the life and mind of this sometimes ditzy, always insightful writer.

The pieces are short, most not more than three pages. You can dip into them, one at a time, to savor each morsel, or, if you're greedy, like me, you'll devour the whole book in one sitting.

Jaquith seems to have this knack for telling stories on herself. She sets up her wonderfully wacky solutions for dealing with problems ("I'm a genius.") and then lets us watch them result in absolute failure (Ah, Jeez!). I loved "Pond Scum", the tale of her hare-brained scheme to remove algae from her pond with the aid of electric fans and many extension cords. Only Lucy Ricardo comes close. The thing is, she's not afraid to embarrass herself and that makes for entertaining and revealing reading.

It's not all a circus, though. Jaquith examines both the big and small moments of her life and, in so doing, weaves a tapestry that really is a "fractured memoir". She's trying to make sense of it all, just as we all are. The reader alternates between thoughts of "you know, that's exactly how I feel, but I've never been able to put it into words" and "I never knew there were people like that".

She takes the reader from unbearable poignancy ("A Magic Phone") to laugh-out-loud comedy (the title "Birdseed Cookies"). The thing is, neither the tears nor the laughter is ever cheap. It's all well-earned and well-executed.

This is the kind of book that, like Russell Baker's memoir, you want to buy, not only for yourself, but for your parents, your kids, everybody you love, because it's a way of saying that you're not alone.

I happened to wander into a bookstore during one of Janis Jaquith's readings at a book festival and was impressed: her delivery is wonderful and she's very funny. (she's a radio personality, so no wonder her delivery is so good)

I bought the book, and I have to say that I heartily recommend it. It's not just funny: sometimes it can be moving, too. It just isn't like anything else I've ever read.

What it is, is a collection of little stories, real ones from her life. And I end up reading certain stories over and over again. I've even xeroxed a few of them to send to family and friends. (a no-no, for sure, but here I am buying extra copies for gifts)

I just wish it was available in hardcover, because I'm going to want to hang onto it for a long time.

This book of short essays starts out strong. The writing is good, funny. It made me laugh out loud and kept me reading. After completing "Attention Deficit Disorder-Who Knew?" a poignant and honest account of a child's classroom struggles, I felt this was going to be on a par with "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris. But sadly, in the end I was disappointed. I believe the author is talented and accomplishes her mission of presenting stream-of-consciousness material, but the collection lacked a palpable order and ultimately provided more questions than answers. Take, for example, the piece titled "Celebration," about her twin sons' second birthday party coinciding with a call from the pediatrician and the devastating news that cancer has spread to her son's lungs. She predicts he won't make it to his third birthday; however, we don't really learn the outcome. To mix this serious topic with the whimsical subjects of 3-M notepads and doggies in Burberry trenchcoats made me long for a little organization. Take me down a funny road, take me down a serious road-but give me some warning signals, please. Perhaps this is why the subtitle is "a fractured memoir." I think I might prefer the novels she mentions in the essays. Will they be published anytime soon?

I've read that good writers borrow from great writers and great writers steal the material overtly. In the essay named "Quack," I wonder if the author borrowed or stole from Arlo Guthrie. Janis Jaquith has shown moments of greatness in Birdseed Cookies, but overall, I think this was a just a good book.

I saw the article about Birdseed Cookies: A Fractured Memoir in the New York Times the other day. As it happened, I had already ordered a copy of the book, and it arrived the same day.

It did not disappoint...I totally related to Jaquith and I love her stories about aspects of real life that people don't always talk about. (I can just picture her squeezing into her wedding gown at every wedding anniversary...and how she's worrying that this time, she'll probably have to have someone use a pair of scissors to get her out of it again!)

I found Jaquith through the Internet. Someone e-mailed me a link to her site. If you're wondering if you or someone else would like this book, I suggest you visit her website. You can read a lot of these essays there for free. It's radioessays dot com. I, for one, think this stuff is a hoot. And I figure that anything that makes me laugh out loud (repeatedly) is definitely worth the money

Birdseed Cookies was a romp--the kind of thing that you can read in small bursts, those times when you're stuck waiting in the car for the kids to come out of school. And those are the times that Jaquith writes about, those in-between times when nothing momentous seems to be happening...but what's happening is your LIFE. It's quite funny and sometimes moving, and her life is "ordinary" enough that her appreciation for it makes the reader feel pretty good about her own. I was baffled by one of the reviews below--the "Quack" essay, probably my favorite, had what I thought was an obvious ALLUSION to Arlo Guthrie--hardly the same thing as a swipe. And the heartstopping essay about hearing from a doctor that her toddler son's cancer may have recurred...wow. I don't want to spoil anything for future readers, but contrary to that other review, it is quite clear from other essays in the collection what the outcome was.

In other words, funny, light (mostly) without being shallow, and heartwarming without being icky. Give it a read!

The essay entitled, "Attention Deficit Disorder - Who Knew?" is worth the price of the book. Janice Jaquith doesn't just tell us what it's like to be a child with ADD, she shows us, in using the point of view of herself as a child, just what these kids go through. I have been the mother of a child struggling with ADD for almost ten years. I have read every parenting and child development book I could get my hands on. But not until I read this story did I have a clue about what it's like to actually BE a person with ADD. My eyes are open and I will never look at my child the same way.

The other stories in this collection are really entertaining. I found myself laughing at some parts, and sniffling back tears in other parts. I lent my copy of "Birdseed Cookies" to my son's math teacher so maybe she'll understand what he's going through. I find myself wishing she'd hurry up and give it back, because there are quite a few of the stories in there that I'd like to read again. (Usually, I never read books again once I've finished with them, so this is really something!)

I bought this book based on a recommendation from Amazon and the reviews, all "fives". As I began reading the essays, I kept thinking the next one must be better because what I was reading represented the writing skill of a college junior. The content, with very few exceptions, was about as interesting as linoleum. Jaquith basically relates pedestrian incidents in her life with an uncanny ability to render them even more boring than they could possibly have been.

In all of literature, there are three universal themes from culture to culture: Food, family and animals. In the 66 essays in this book -- reprints of her radio broadcasts on NPR -- Jaquith tackles these and others with aplomb. Whether it's defending a garden against an intelligent rodent ("Guerilla Gopher"), attempting to fight algae in her pond with electric fans and miles of extension cords ("Pond Scum"), or eating some food her children cooked using an unusual recipe ("Birdeed Cookies") Jaquith evokes a smile while often revealing a deeper level of truth. In one essay, she discusses the seemingly outdated wedding tradition of picking out wedding china -- coming to the conclusion that in our paper-plate, disposable society, the china plates serve as a reminder of just how delicate and fragile love can be. Yet another essay ("Attention Deficit Disorder -- Who Knew?") brought tears to my eyes as she talked about what it was like growing up with undiagnosed ADD and constantly being told how stupid she was. Each essay is an enjoyable read, although the ones that aired during pledge drives on NPR sound like -- well, essays that aired during pledge drives on NPR. Still, the entire book as a whole is fun, or thought-provoking, or sometimes both at the same time. Since the book is divided into 66 short essays, the book goes down easy, making it a perfect book for summer reading.

I heard the author on NPR and jotted down the name of her book which they mentioned after her commentary. If you listen to Ms. Jaquith on the radio and like what you hear then you'll enjoy this book as much as I did. My sense is that people who are unfamiliar with the concept of the short commentaries as heard on NPR don't quite know what to make of thse short pieces. I myself look forward to hearing them so I like reading them too. (And they have already been "published" by the NPR producers, so the fact that the book is self published is, IMHO, irrelevant) Click on the "look inside the book" thingamajig and see for yourself if this is what you like. They are written to sound like the author is talking to you (which she does on the radio) so it's different from stuff that's written to be read in the first place. Actually, it's easy reading that has quite a bit of depth and humor. It's a sweet book by an author whose take on life is so much like my own I can't help but recommend it.