Nërd Girl Rocks Paradise City - Anne Thomas Soffee

For anyone harboring a soft spot in their heart for 80s hair metal bands, replete with spandex pants and girly faces, this is the book for you. Soffee chronicles her years of being the only rivethead at a prestigious and very preppie college. She describes her decision to make her fortune writing for heavy metal magazines in L.A. in an attempt to convey the mind-boggling coolness of metal to the world:

"These guys on the cover are from Guns N’ Roses," I say, making a futile stab at relaying their coolness in words. "Hang out for a little while and maybe the video will come on. The guy on the right does this snake dance thing, and he’s got on purple eye-shadow and his voice is all screechy,"

"And that’s supposed to make me want to stay why, exactly?"

"No, it’s really cool! And he goes ‘and you know where you are? You’re in the jungle , baby! You’re gonna die!’ It’s cool."

"Yeah, you said that already," Stacy says, leafing half-heartedly through the magazine. "Hey, look. These girls don’t shave under their arms! Is that the new style? Does that mean I can stop shaving under mine? Because that would really save me some hassle."

"Those aren’t girls. That’s Poison."

Lots of great funny commentary on the world of music journalism, surviving in L.A., the grocery shopping of Glenn Danzig and more, intertwined with the sadder story of Soffee’s addiction to drugs and alcohol. I can’t wait to start her next book, Snake Hips, on her "redemption" through bellydance.

The Loch - Steve Alten

Perfect summer read? Let’s see here:
Creepy cover with short, punchy title in large, raised letters? Check.
Wronged hero trying to right his life? Check
Snarky nemesis for said wronged hero? Check
Loyal sidekick/best friend? Check
Gorgeous dame to win in the end? Check
Fantastic prehistoric creature wrecking havoc? Check
Lottsa Crichton-esque psuedo-science so you don’t feel like you’re reading complete schlock? Check
Mangled corpses found left and right (gasp!)- Check
A bunch of Knights Templar thrown in, just in case you were getting bored? Check.
Lemonade, sunglasses, hammock? Check.

When you finish cruising through The Loch, you may want to check out Alten’s first book - Meg - reviewed by the LA Times simply as "Jurassic Shark!" Good stuff.

The Beard and Moustache Championships - The First Official Book (with entry form!)

A short but amusing tome with a collection of photos of past international beard and moustache championship winners. Everything form little clarkie moustaches and van dyke beards, to multi-tentacled freestyle beards and foot wide mutton chop whiskers. The contestants become very involved with their facial hair (one contestant and his wife spend 1 hr 45 minutes a day preparing his freestyle beard) with costumes and accoutrements galore. And yes, there is a site too: http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/

The Big Bento Box of Ununesless Japanese Inventions - Kenji Kawakami

Kawakami is billed as " the inventor of the concept of Chindogu and the founder of the 10,000-member International Chindogu Society.’ And what, may you ask (and you may) is Chindogu? Chindogu is the concept of an invention this is almost, but not entirely, useless. True chindogu cannot be patented or sold, even as a gag gift. They are created simply on the idea that it would be useful to have, though once created, the complexity, size or other element of the invention renders it nearly useless. Take, for example, umbrellas that clip to your shoes to keep them dry. A nice idea. However, to offer maximum coverage, each umbrella is 30 cm wide - forcing the wearer to shuffle with their legs spread so they don’t knock into each other. Umbrellas play a large roll in the vast majority of chindogu - doubling is tripods, hats, full-body covers and grocery bag racks. Other popular inventions focus around the subway (suction cup hats to hold your head up while you sleep and hard-hats with your station printed on them so you can be woken), cooking (rubber gloves with blades or sponges attached to the fingers) and personal hygiene (a mirror with fake hair around the edge so you leave home feeling attractive and hirsute, metal teeth covers for eating so you don’t get your teeth dirty). Really messed up stuff from a very messed up people. It almost makes us look normal… almost.

Slow Fat Triathlete - Jayne Williams

Williams describes herself as "nearly asteroid sized and shaped" when she decided to start running (270). Within two years she was competing in her first triathlon. She freely admits that yes, she is fat and yes, she is slow. But she also competes and has a great time. She pokes fun at herself as she sprays down with Pam to get into her wetsuit and mentions that her sprint and jog look virtually identical. There’s a 95% chance I won’t be doing a triathlon anytime this decade, but Williams’ book was a funny and inspiring read for anyone wanting to get off the couch and try something new. Yes, she says, you’ll look like a fool while you’re doing it, but at least you’re out there doing something fun. Great attitude, super funny inspiring book.

The Rule of Four - Ian Caldwell, Dustin Thomason

I saw this book compared to Da Vinci Code, but I disagree. I enjoyed this one. Yeah, is does have some of the over the top "hidden messages from the past" stuff in it, but on the whole it was a bit more believable (I didn’t make pppppppft sounds every few pages). More than anything, I think Caldwell and Thomason did a good job in creating likeable, realistic and fleshed-out characters, particularly the academics who become so enmeshed in their research of the dead and gone that the here and now is another world to them. Another good summer read.