The Olive Reader

With Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza, and Festivus coming up, I thought I’d use today’s blog to share my holiday literature wish list (hint-hint):

1) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (JK Rowlings) – That Hermione is developing into a serious piece of tail. And did anyone see that Saturday Night Live skit where Lindsay Lohan played her? It was before she went completely nuts and lost all that weight, so her breasts looked amazing.

2) I’m Proud of You (Tim Madigan) – This is Madigan’s story about his relationship with Fred Rogers (AKA Mr. Rogers) and how it changed his life. I’m planning to write a similar book, but about my relationship with Peter. The working title is I’m Gonna Go Light a Match.

3) The March (E.L. Doctorow) – A novel set against the backdrop of William Sherman’s infamous march through Georgia and the Carolinas at the end of the Civil War, when he set fire to half of the South. Apparently they overcooked his grits at the Waffle House, and he just went berserk.

4) Faith and Politics (John Danforth) – Because these things go together like nudity and Roger Ebert.

5) Greatest Story Ever Sold (Frank Rich) – Details how the Bush administration’s propaganda machine spun 9/11 to consolidate their own power, launch a war against Iraq, intimidate the Democrats into incoherence and incompetence, and ultimately turn a Presidential election into a macho pissing contest where being “the smart one” was a bad thing. So much for Condi in ’08.

6) Teacher Man (Frank McCourt) – McCourt’s memoir about being a public school teacher in New York City. Reminds me of my short stint as a substitute teacher at Buddy Cianci Jr. High. The kids in my remedial English class had the language skills of Sloth from “The Goonies.” (And one of them had that involuntary ear wiggling thing too.)

7) English Roses: Too Good to be True (Madonna) – Another celebrity children’s book. It’s amazing to me how Madonna is continually able to reinvent herself… from punk skeeze, to glamorous skeeze, to twisted Catholic schoolgirl skeeze, to conical boobs S&M skeeze, to faux British skeeze, and finally to maternal skeeze.

8) Foxworthy’s Redneck Dictionary (Jeff Foxworthy) – You know you’re a redneck… if you own a book written by Jeff Foxworthy. (And on a side note, given that most rednecks are functionally illiterate, isn’t this like writing a cookbook for anorexics?)

9) The Darwin Awards IV – My favorite every year is the genius who dies trying to execute some insanely complex and perverted method of masturbation and gets found dead with a random household item sticking out of his pooper.

10) The Varieties of Scientific Experience (Carl Sagan) – This posthumously published book is a collection of his famous “Gifford Lectures on Natural History.” And further proof that a dead Carl Sagan could kick a live Malcolm Gladwell’s ass in mental arm-wrestling any day of the week.