“For reasons that cannot be explained, cats can suddenly read at a twelfth-grade level. They can’t talk and they can’t write, but they can read silently and understand the text. Many cats love this new skill, because they now have something to do all day while they lay around the house; however, a few cats become depressed, because reading forces them to realize the limitations of their existence (not to mention the utter frustration of being unable to express themselves). This being the case, do you think the average cat would enjoy Garfield, or would cats find this cartoon to be an insulting caricature?”

That’s what caused me to interrupt a perfectly calm holiday evening in our household as I failed to quell my laughter. Thank you Chuck Klosterman. That’s an excerpt from his book “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs,” specifically a section on the 23 questions he asks everyone he meets in order to decide if he can really love them.

So far, everyone I have asked says cats would enjoy Garfield. I think I agree, though there are undoubtedly some really snooty cats that would be offended. I think these cats are the really long-haired ones that seem to think they’re better than other cats and probably you as well as they eat their Fancy Feast. You absolutely must read this book for the other 22 questions, or at least spend the 10 minutes at a bookstore laughing in the aisle as others wonder what is wrong with you.

Ok, I’ll give you one more. This one has a familiar feel to anyone who has gone through the joy of journalism school and lessons on newsworthiness: “Defying all expectation, a group of Scottish marine biologists capture a live Loch Ness Monster. In an almost unbelievable coincidence, a bear hunter in the Pacific Northwest shoots a Sasquatch in the thigh, thereby allowing zoologists to take the furry monster into captivity. These events happen on the same afternoon. That evening, the president announces he may have thyroid cancer and will undergo a biopsy later that week. You are the front-page editor of the New York Times: What do you play as the biggest story?”

Of course, in j-school the hypotheticals are usually more common occurrences about wars, car accidents, plane crashes and fires. Still a valid question though.

Even taking into account a low sample size, this is the only book of the 20 my mom has seen lying around and been befuddled by its title. Or at least the only one that has caused her to ask what the heck it was about.

“Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs” has discussion of all three topics, along with a host of other pop culture essays and other thoughts. Cocoa Puffs come into play in a section about what you can tell about people from the cereal they eat. Klosterman writes that cereals that sell themselves with things like “a laid-back bear wearing a mock turtleneck” (as in Golden Crisp) are for “nonsense people.” That’s in contrast to “no-nonsense” cereals like Grape Nuts, that put a picture of, um, Grape Nuts on the box. “Consequently, we nonsense types spend hours and hours staring at cardboard creatures like the Trix Rabbit and absorbing his ethos.” I’m a Cocoa Puffs man myself.

Of course, perhaps even more important than a discussion of what cereal means to our society is a chapter featuring Saved By The Bell. Klosterman writes about watching the show with a friend in college. He says the friend–a term he uses loosely–would say virtually nothing during the show until one day he burst out in exasperation at the unlikely relationship between Zack and Mr. Belding. Klosterman writes about how odd it was that this instance was the truly unbelievable thing in the show:

“I mean, Bayside High was a school where students made money by selling a ‘Girls of Bayside’ calendar, and it was a school where oil was discovered under the football team’s goalposts. This is a show where Zack had the ability to call time-out and stop time in order to narrate what was happening with the plot. There is never a single moment in the Save By The Bell series that reflects any kind of concrete authenticity.”

I think high school would have been a lot more entertaining if I had the ability to stop time. I would have become a pro at stealing packs of mini chocolate donuts from the vending machine near the gym. Imagine what I could have accomplished by saving those 60 cents every time. That could put an end to world poverty, or at least have netted me nearly two chocolate chip cookies at lunchtime. I bet with stopped time I could also learn how to break into the Veryfine machine and add a fruit punch to my daily time-stop snack. I would certainly have moved things on people’s desks, but only slightly to mess with their heads without giving them any notion that anything concrete was happening.

The last bit of Klosterman-ness I’ll touch on is a more serious portion citing the Oklahoma City bombing. He writes about the newspaper coverage afterward, specifically of the victims. The Chicago Tribune mentioned each of the 168, with a one-sentence bit following their name. “There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with any of those details. However, as I read and reread every little bio on the list, I found myself deflated by the realization that virtually everyone’s life is only remembered for one thing.”

Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote “The Great Gatsby.” James K. Polk was president of the United States. What will your sentence say?

Next up: Tomorrow I’ll do the grand wrapup of the Year of the Book, including fabulous pictures and perhaps even a graph! Make sure the kids get a good night’s sleep and keep their excitement under wraps (I know it will be hard!)

George Orwell’s “1984” is a book I’m pretty sure that most people have tackled at some point in their life. For me, this was my second time.

The first was the summer before my senior year in high school, which is now a whopping 8 years in the past. As I read I didn’t remember much from that first encounter. Actually, only two things stand out and really neither has much to do with the plot or themes.

One is how almost useless it felt for me to read the book at the time. That’s not to say it wasn’t a good read or that I didn’t enjoy the act itself. Rather, in an academic sense it made absolutely no difference.

My sophomore and junior years at the illustrious Oakton High School I was enrolled in advanced English classes. That meant that not only did I have to do more summer reading than the “regular” class, but it also required papers and discussions on each one. Senior year I decided to take the English side a bit easier since I was taking on AP Calculus and AP Government.

That turned out to be a great decision for my sleep schedule. On the first day of class we were given a writing assignment. It was some sort of college essay that was roughly two pages. And it was due by Thanksgiving. I should have started bringing a pillow to class. No mention of “1984” whatsoever. None. The period itself was divided–half hour of class, then lunch, then the last hour of class. That meant that any quiz or graded item was done before lunch and I spent the hour conked out on my desk. I can’t imagine what would have happened had I stayed awake the whole time. Though I’m not sure I could have improved on my roughly 105% average in the class. That’s probably also the reason the teacher never bothered to wake me up.

I remember sitting on our front porch to read a good portion of the book. The other distinct memory is the image I had of the main female character, Julia. One of the sometimes jarring things about watching a movie version after you have read a book is how different the actor is from what you had pictured while reading. For me, Julia was Britney Spears from a video that I will now look up online because I’m happy to say I don’t know the name of it.

Hold please.

Ok I’m back. It was the video for “Oops I Did It Again.” I think Britney became my Julia because that video was on TV that summer, and Orwell describes her as having some sort of jumpsuit type attire. If only he had predicted K-Fed’s influence and the emergence of Trainwreck Britney.

Actually, I’m going to argue that he did. These two people who work for the same basic entity end up in a pretty inexplicable relationship. It’s wrong on many levels and yet they become intimate very quickly. They are eventually exposed and beaten down both physically and mentally by guards and drugs. They emerge with a relationship that will never be the same, and neither looks remotely the same.

Maybe Orwell was the original TMZ.

I’m a big fan of movies like “Snatch” that bring together several parallel storylines for a satisfying conclusion. Paul Auster’s novel “The Book of Illusions” is a masterful literary example.

I almost want to say nothing for the fact that I can’t begin to express how much I enjoyed this book. You can find just about anyone to give a good review of anything, as evidenced by the strange publications cited as calling “Alvin & The Chipmunks” one of the best movies of the year. In book terms, they go for some variation of “page-turner” like “Just try and put it down!”

But in this case, it wasn’t that I couldn’t put it down, but was so engrossed in the story I’d reel off 40 pages, 60 pages, feeling like I had been reading for five minutes. It’s like sleeping in the car on a long trip, once you get started you can’t believe how quickly it went by. And what goes by is a great weaving of people’s lives that end up reflecting and following one another in such a way that you want to draw conclusions about their relationship. It’s the first book this year that I’m dead sure I will go back and read again, carefully noting parts that seemed insignificant in the beginning that will have a different look knowing the outcome.

In the movies, the storylines always come together in a very tangible way. The groups come together, or one party’s scheme ends up affecting someone they have never met but whom we have been following on screen. Auster gives another level, adding the literary sense of the reader connecting themes and motifs that don’t necessarily play out in the direct action.

One of the reviews on the back cover calls the book “gripping and immensely satisfying.” I concur.

So that’s 16. I think 20 is in reach.

Sometimes I surprise even myself. Yesterday I posted saying it would be a day or two before I got to writing about Number 15 on the list, really thinking it would be more like four days.

But here I am one fine day later. I would blame the expedited finishing of Nick Hornby’s “How To Be Good” on going to the DMV today, except it was easily the fastest DMV trip in the history of humanity and I only read like four pages there.

This was sort of a recommendation, which have turned out to be some of my favorite books in the Year of Reading or whatever I dubbed this project in January. Actually “High Fidelity” was the recommendation, but since I’ve seen the movie I thought I’d give this one a shot.

“How To Be Good” puts forth a very simple question: What happens when you think you’re the “good” one in a relationship, but out of nowhere the other person becomes far “gooder” than you? How do you deal with it?

It’s also a book written by a man with a female narrator, something I can’t remember encountering. It seemed like she had a perfectly logical inner monologue, which probably means it’s somehow flawed in reality. But I digress.

Katie’s husband David visits a healer and comes back completely changed. He’s nice to everyone, is concerned about the struggling people in the world and has suddenly utterly confused his wife who thinks he’s a jerk. Actually, as a doctor, she thinks there’s something very wrong with him. “David. I don’t want you to panic, but listen carefully and do exactly what I say. You probably have a brain tumor. You have to go to the hospital and have a CAT scan, urgently.”

Of course there’s a far better explanation. He had crippling back pain, and visited a healer named GoodNews. That’s totally what I would do in case of major pain. Maybe my guy would be named Admiral GoodNews for extra authority.

GoodNews does such a great job at not only healing the pain, but changing David’s sour outlook on life, he naturally moves in with the family. Told from Katie’s perspective, this is a totally non-sensical event and she’s less than enthused about a “healer” living under the same roof as her two children.

But the way the story develops, you can feel right along with Katie how more normalized having a guy named GoodNews upstairs feels as things go along. She even agrees to let the eccentric man babysit the kids, though hopes she doesn’t know how she would explain the situation to a few parties who would never understand. “Imaginary conversation with my parents, or social services: ‘Who’s in charge of your children?’ ‘Oh, GoodNews and Monkey.'”

Monkey, of course, is the homeless young man they’ve also invited to live with them as part of a program to get the entire block to “adopt” bums from the street. Hey if a guy named GoodNews is already in your home, what’s the worst that can happen, especially if it’s his idea?

Katie’s problem of dealing with borderline nauseating “goodness” from her husband is exacerbated by her daughter, Molly. The girl likes to stick it to her brother whenever possible and takes on her own campaign of supporting everything David does. At one point Katie decides she pretty much despises her kids, especially Molly. I can’t blame her. That girl is one of the more annoying literary characters I’ve encountered in a while, and she’s not even mentioned that often.

Be good.

Next up: Paul Auster’s “The Book Of Illusions”

John Steinbeck is a MILF. That’s Man of Impeccable Literary Fantasticness; get your head out of the gutter. He’s also a guy with an ability to predict the future.

In 1962 Steinbeck embarked on a trip across the country to reconnect with a place he wrote about, but felt he may have lost touch. Along for the ride went his poodle, Charlie as they rode in a specially designed truck/camper dealio Steinbeck ordered specifically for the journey.

Late in the book, the duo is traveling through Texas when Steinbeck writes about the residents therein. “Outside their state I think Texas are a little frightened and very tender in their feelings, and these qualities cause boasting, arrogance, and noisy complacency.” Sound like someone who’s been out of Texas for, say, almost eight years?

The book is called “Travels With Charley: In Search Of America” and is very much about the beloved Charley. Just like Steinbeck, Charley isn’t exactly a spry kitten anymore, not just for the fact that he’s a dog. But their relationship is an interesting one to follow as they traverse the U.S., making a loop west from New York.

Steinbeck has very clear ideas of what he wants from the journey and sometimes struggles when his vision doesn’t pan out. Across the Midwest and the Northern Plains he describes Charley’s routine of “leaving his mark” on trees as they stop for a break. When they get to California, Steinbeck is almost giddy to have Charley christen a giant redwood. Charley didn’t quite get the memo:

“‘Look, Charley. It’s the tree of all trees. It’s the end of the quest.’ Charley got a sneezing fit, as all dogs do when the nose is elevated too high. I felt the rage and hatred one has toward non-appreciators, toward those who though ignorance destroy a treasured plan.”

But Steinbeck doesn’t just give up. He decides he has to know if Charley isn’t prepared for the task, or just doesn’t get the plan. So his owner cuts a sapling and “plants” it next to the giant tree. “He sniffed its new-cut leaves delicately and then, after turning this way and that to get range and trajectory, he fired.”

Dogs: Spoiling humans’ best-laid plans for (insert number of years since dogs have been domesticated, a number I don’t feel like looking up).

Of course, maybe it’s not entirely Charley’s fault. As Steinbeck describes, there’s a bit of a language barrier. “[Charley] was born in Bercy on the outskirts of Paris and trained in France, and while he knows a little poodle-English, he responds quickly only to commands in French.” Maybe “this tree is for your bladder-emptying needs” is not a phrase Steinbeck found in a translation book.

When I read this book I didn’t realize just how integral Charley is to Steinbeck’s log of their travels. But after looking back at the sections I marked, nearly all of them are Charley related, and many were just things that made me laugh.

The best Charley paragraph is easily this: “Charley is a tall dog. As he sat in the seat beside me, his head was almost as high as mine. He put his nose close to my ear and said ‘Ftt.’ He is the only dog I ever knew who could pronounce the consonant F.”

Then there are just the wonderfull sign-of-the-times observations that go almost unnoticed in the middle of Steinbeck’s writing. While lamenting on the challenges and different nature of the South, he says he is dreading experiencing the region firsthand. “I am not draw to pain and violence. I never gaze at accidents unless I can help, or attend street fights for kicks.”

Were there that many “street fights” going on in the early 1960s? Maybe New York is a particularly tough town, but it’s hard to imagine a place where one of the giants of American literature was learning about a fight in the street such that he would make a decision to attend or not. But maybe the fact that this reference is thrown in the middle of a paragraph in the middle of a much larger discussion about the plight of the South at the time shows just how much of a non-issue that was at the time. Certainly in comparison, but one of those things that caught my eye and made me reach up and dog-ear the page.

By the way, if you’re counting at home this makes 14 books for the year. That’s definitely behind pace to reach my goal of 20, but I’m still holding out hope. Number 15–Nick Horny’s “How To Be Good”–should be done in a day or two…I hope.