Today, Lauren drops by with more good reads:

Even though my last entry for this blog was just published last week, I originally wrote it on August 26. Sadly, of the 35 books I’ve read since then, only a few have been noteworthy. Have events of the real world compromised my enjoyment of mostly fictional worlds? Now that the end is in sight, being in the final quarter of my quest to read a book a day for a year, am I suffering a surfeit of words? Who the hell knows. Whatever the case, these are the books that stand out from September:

The Book of Joe, by Jonathan Tropper. I’ve heard lawyers say they never watch legal dramas on TV or read legal thrillers because it’s too much like still being at work, but most writers I know love reading novels about novelists. Wonder Boys, anybody? And Jonathan Tropper’s delayed coming-of-age story – about a wildly successful novelist whose roman a clef makes him persona non grata when his father’s illness compels him to return home, not so much the conquering hero as the conquering goat – is no exception. Arriving back in Bush Falls, Connecticut, Joe Goffman learns that Thomas Wolfe was entirely wrong: of course you can go home again; the only problem is, everyone hates you now. Interweaving plots involving Joe’s brother (a former jock, where Joe was a nerd), Joe’s best friend from high school (now dying of AIDS), and the girl Joe let get away (with whom he still sparks), this is funny, moving, satisfying writing, guaranteed to please fans of Tom Perrotta and Richard Russo, and therefore not just for navel-gazing novelists.

Let it Ride, by Samuel F. Pickering, Jr. My affection for this book is personal. Originally published in 1991, but just finished by me on Tuesday, this collection of nature essays cum musings on life and semi-fame after Dead Poets Society, is one of several such collections by the professor I had for eighteenth-century children’s literature back in my senior year of college at UCONN at Storrs in 1983. Sam Pickering, it later came to light after the Robin Williams’ movie was released, was the inspiration for the charismatic John Keating character in the film. Apparently, the author of the screenplay had also had him for a teacher. It’s not hard to recognize in Williams’ portrayal the man who used to laugh at our hangovers on Fridays at eight a.m., telling us that we might as well enjoy it until we turned 25, at which time we’d need to decide whether to stop or become winos in the gutter. Pickering, at least when I had him, was both crazier and less dewy-eyed than Williams’ portrayal, handsomer too. Certainly, he was charismatic.

Wild Ducks Flying Backward, by Tom Robbins. This must be nostalgia week for me, because I first read the howlingly funny and wildly original Still Life with Woodpecker also during my UCONN days. I read it in my boyfriend’s dorm room, while he and hundreds of others participated in a mass snowball fight in the midst of a storm. Me, I snuggled up warm and cozy, book in one hand, 32-ounce bottle of Miller Lite in the other. Afterwards, I enjoyed several other books by Robbins, as I did many of the essays in this new book, which is really a collection of travel and general essays, shorter fiction, poetry etc, of pieces previously printed elsewhere. Everyone will undoubtedly have their personal favorites, just like the debate still rages among fans about which is better, Still Life or Even Cowgirls Get the Blues or Another Roadside Attraction, but for me the hands-down standout is an essay that appeared in Harper’s magazine about how old too-serious fiction gets after a while and, hey, isn’t it important for humans to laugh; this essay alone is well worth the price of admission and it’d be great to see Robbins’ piece take on Jonathan Franzen’s infamous HALT (high-art literary tradition) piece in the same magazine in a Celebrity Death Match.

The Weight of Fidelity, by David Cristofano. The title of this one may change once it gets published, but I have no doubt it will be published. OK, this one is personal too. A few weeks ago, an anonymous blogger who I’ve never met but who’s covered my work before, asked me for a favor: would I read some guy’s book with a view toward providing a blurb that might attract editors? I really did not want to do this. Overwhelmed lately by life and work, there’s little enough time to meet my prior commitments, much less take on new ones. Plus, what if, you know, the book sucked? Then I’d need to perform that awkward extraction dance of, “I’m sorry, I guess I’ve just been busier than I thought and therefore I can’t help you after all,” because of course you cannot tell someone you can’t help them because their book sucks. But, remembering how others had helped me once upon a time, I reluctantly said yes. What follows is the blurb I sent to the author, sent shortly after to one of my editors (who immediately asked to see it), sent shortly after to my agent (who signed him within a matter of a few days): “About halfway through The Weight of Fidelity, I wanted to say, ‘Seth Greenfield, Peter Lefcourt and Bruce Wagner need to make some space on their exclusive bench of brilliant writers who skewer Tinseltown,’ but by the time I was done I realized David Cristofano is in a class by himself with this rollicking debut novel that is at once scathingly funny and genuinely moving.” I only hope I don’t turn greener than grass with envy when his career eclipses mine, which I have no doubt it will. Just remember his name and remember you heard it here first.

And now it’s time to go read book 283.