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28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love those Cookies, January 24, 2001
By A Customer
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.
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