A Girl and Her Books

Funny, profane, typical Chelsea Handler. Details her drinking, dysfunctional family (who put the "fun" in "dysfunctional"), and various relationships with friends and significant others. I suspect a lot of the tales are exaggerated, or "real-ish," as David Sedaris would say. Still side-splitting if you enjoy no-sacred-cows comedy, starting with the title.

Typical Celia Rivenbark, which is to say hilarious, rip-roaring, definitely the Southern belle's often skewed point of view. Rivenbark touches on car wrecks & lawyers, Britney Spears (as a decidedly Southern hot mess), birthday parties for young (consumer) girls, food and husbands. The quote about palmetto bugs, alone, is worth the full price of the book. Required reading for all those wishing to laugh their asses off. (On cockroaches: "Occasionally, we call them 'palmetto bugs,' which sounds downright charming, as if they march about with palm fronds for hair and carry tiny little glasses of sweet tea on a tray.")

The latest Idiot Girl dispatch from Eugene, Oregon -- psychotic family members, buying a house, water in the basement, and helping a dog cross the Rainbow Bridge, then welcoming another. Don't read this book while drinking or eating -- you'll spew from laughing.

Josh Kilmer-Purcell succeeds where many fail: a non-fiction writer trying his hand at fiction. Jayson Blocher is forced from the family home to an escort service for chorus boys in NYC, then on to Hollywood. Marc Acito covers much of the same territory, and he should fear Kilmer-Purcell's poaching.

This book touched me both as a librarian and an animal lover (despite being severely allergic to cats). Dewey was rescued from the book return by library staffers on a freezing January morning, but ended up rescuing not only the library but its patrons, staff and even the town. He is the perfect poster child not only for reading, but for tolerance, love and forgiveness.

A hilarious account of Chelsea Handler's sexual adventures -- I suspect a lot of literary exaggeration, but still quite funny and enjoyable. The girl gets around.

Both hilarious and harrowing, Russell Brand details his life in sex, drugs and showmanship, from his infancy as the child of divorced & dysfunctional parents, to the talented young man consumed by heroin & cocaine. Just like his stage performances, Brand doesn't hold back anything on the page -- the book starts just after he's entered a sex addiction clinic in Philadelphia -- but instead of appalling readers, his honesty makes his story more compelling and his recovery a triumph.

In a world where the horror of nuclear war has been superseded by a bomb that literally makes the physical world disappear, Gonzo Lubitsch and his nameless best friend head up the Haulage & HazMat Emergency Freebooting Company, a ragged band of troubleshooters who quell problems in the aftermath of the Gone Away War. Through their lives pass ninjas, mimes, pirates, parents and specters surpassing the most active imagination, leading to revelations that shock the reader and stun the soul -- but permeating all is the unmistakable stamp of love in its many and varied forms. The Gone-Away World is a literary masterpiece, and Nick Harkaway is a genius practitioner. Literary trivia: Harkaway is the son of British spymaster John le Carré. This book was selected as a Powell's Daily Dose on February 20, 2009