You're Doing a Great Job by Biz Ellis and Theresa Thorn

Title: You're Doing a Great Job! 100 Ways You're Winning at Parenting

Author: Biz Ellis and Theresa Thorn

Publisher: Countryman Press 2017

Genre: Humor, Parenting

Pages: 160

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Mount TBR

Stop feeling like sh*t for being a mom—laugh-out-loud affirmations for every parent

Guess what? This “parenting book” is not designed to make new parents feel bad. Authors and co-hosts of the popular comedy podcast One Bad Mother, Biz Ellis and Theresa Thorn, know firsthand that raising kids is tough. They also know that, most likely, parents are winning more than they’re failing. This book reminds parents that it’s okay to have a low bar. Celebrate what did happen, not what didn’t,

Love love love this one so much! I'm a huge fan and follower of the One Bad Mother podcast of which Biz and Theresa are the hosts. I love how the podcast is all about reaffirming just how awesome we are doing at parenting and at the same time acknowledging how hard it is. The book is a continuation of that philosophy with 100 pages of winning at parenting. So many of these had me shaking my head in agreement. A few even had me tearing up with emotion. This book would be an awesome gift for a new parent or even an experienced one. As an OBM, I had to have it on my shelf. And I had to read it quick! I'm seeing Biz and Theresa record a show live in San Francisco tomorrow night! I can't wait! 

Next up on the TBR pile:

Sh*tty Mom by Laurie Kilmartin, Karen Moline, Alicia Ybarbo, Mary Ann Zoellner

Title: Sh*tty Mom: The Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us

Author: Laurie Kilmartin, Karen Moline, Alicia Ybarbo, Mary Ann Zoellner

Publisher: Abrams Image 2012

Genre: Nonfiction - Parenting, Humor

Pages: 176

Rating:  3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Nonfiction Adventure; Library Book; 52 Books - W9

Sh*tty Mom is the ultimate parenting guide, written by four moms who have seen it all. As hilarious as it is universal, each chapter presents a common parenting scenario with advice on how to get through it in the easiest and most efficient way possible. With chapters such as How to Sleep Until 9 A.M. Every Weekend and When Seeing an Infant Triggers a Mental Illness That Makes You Want to Have Another Baby, as well as a Sh*tty Mom quiz, this is a must-have, laugh-out-loud funny book for the sh*tty parent in all of us.

Not the laugh-out-loud funny book I thought it would be.  At times, I think it tried too much to be funny and lost the realities of parenting.  Not quite what I was looking for.  Definitely don't pick it up if you can't see the absurd in parenting.

Selected Stories of O. Henry

Title: Selected Stories

Author: O. Henry

Genre: Classic Short Stories

Pages: 433

Rating:  4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Classics - Short Stories; TBR Pile; Dusty Bookshelf; 52 Books -- W34

How I Got It: I own it!

O. Henry, the pen name of William Sydney Porter, is known for short stories with surprise endings.

I feel like I should apologize to my former English teachers for never having read O. Henry.  His stories are just so much fun.  I love the little twist endings.  I love his social commentary.  I love the writing style.  It feels like you are sitting in a pub with Henry while he recounts these random tales.  I was thoroughly engaged in the collection and could not put it down.  Lots of fun for a bit of weekend reading.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

Title: Let's Pretend This Never Happened

Author: Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess)

Publisher: Berkley Books 2012

Genre: Memoir

Pages: 372

Rating:  5+++++/5 stars

Reading Challenges: T4MC -- NYT Bestseller; Women Authors; TBR Pile; Eclectic -- Memoir

How I Got It: Birthday present for me!

When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her fantastically unbalanced father and a morbidly eccentric childhood. It did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in the strange shame-spiral that is her life, and we are all the better for it.

In the irreverent Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson’s long-suffering husband and sweet daughter help her uncover the surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments—the ones we want to pretend never happened—are the very same moments that make us the people we are today. For every intellectual misfit who thought they were the only ones to think the things that Lawson dares to say out loud, this is a poignant and hysterical look at the dark, disturbing, yet wonderful moments of our lives.

I have been reading The Bloggess' blog for awhile now and I swear she sees into my soul.  I may not have participated in her particularly crazy adventures, but I definitely have her twisted sense of humor.  And I tend to see the world as a very strange place.  J can attest that I am pretty strange at times.  Much of what Lawson says out loud, I've thought in my head.  I guess I just have a better internal filter than she does.  But that's what makes her so amazing.  She's her and no one else.  Her memoir made me laugh at loud so much that J repeatedly asked me if I was okay.  It also made me get a bit teary eyed (especially the chapter about Barnaby Jones Pickle).  Among all the stories, Lawson conveys a great message of accepting yourself and the crazy.  My favorite lesson comes from the chapter "Jenkins, You Motherfucker":

Soon afterward, Jenkins and the other turkeys disappeared from our lives, but the lessons I learned from them still remain: Turkeys make terrible pets, you should never trust your father to identify poultry, and you should accept who you are, flaws and all, because if you try to be someone you aren't, then eventually some turkey is going to shit all over your well-crafted facade, so you might as well save yourself the effort and enjoy your zombie books.

Thank you Jenny Lawson for making me laugh and cry and feel more comfortable being me.  "Knock, knock, motherfucker!"

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris

Title: Squireel Seeks Chipmunk

Author: David Sedaris

Illustrated by: Ian Falconer

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company 2010

Genre: Humor

Pages: 159

Rating:   5 / 5 stars

Reading Challenges: Amazon -- Customer Favorites

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary is a collection of animal-themed humorous short stories by memoirist and humorist David Sedaris.

If animals were more like us, if mice kept pets and toads could cuss, if dogs had wives and chipmunks dated, sheep sat still and meditated, then in the forest, field, and dairy you might find this bestiary, read by storks, by rats and kitties, skimmed by cows with milk-stained titties. "I found the book to be most droll," might quip the bear, the owl, the mole.  Others, though would be more coarse.  "Bull," could say the pig and horse.  As to the scribe, they'd quote the hen: "Trust me, he's no La Fontaine."

Delightful collection of stories.  Some funny, some sad, some thought provoking.  Make not mistake about it, these stories really aren't about animals. Unless you consider humans just to be another species of animals.  Then, yes, it is about animals of the upright two-legged kind.

My favorites:

• The Parenting Storks -- What happens when we try to answer the touch questions?  What kinds of answers do we get?  One stork thinks she has it all figures out.  Unfortunately for her and her child, her answers aren't real or logical.  Poor stork!
• The Crow and the Lamb -- The cruel things we do to each other.  Makes for a great story about a lost sheep and lamb and the selfish crow.
• The Judicious Brown Chicken -- Pride goeth before a fall.  Haven't I read that somewhere?  Another take on the phrase.

David Sedaris has certainly hit another home run.  Just amazing!