all over the map

I read "All Over the Map" by Laura Fraser after attending her book reading at Powell's. I totally adored "An Italian Affair" and was eager for her new book. I like her bemused take on things. She goes on all kinds of adventures - Outward Bound, a silent retreat, her college reunion, - and reports on stories in Rwanda and Samoa, where she is attacked. It's very upsetting. She struggles to find peace in the struggle to find peace (as Sarah McLaughlin would say). The ending clobbered me. I had just reread "An Italian Affair" so the Professor seemed very alive and sharp in my mind.

The structure feels kind of loose but her company is so charming, I enjoyed going along with her.

I also read "Life Would Be Perfect In That House" by Meghan Daum, which is extremely enjoyable. She's a hilarious writer. She recounts things in a deadpan way that makes me laugh - often describing mistakes she has made. She describes her passion for real estate and moving and I definitely related. There's a part in the end about a company called Soft Surroundings that makes me smile thinking about it.

I liked this passage - very apropro as we are moving soon.

"There are many dramas inherent to relocation via the highway: the tears triggered by a country song, the weird free fall of registering at a motel and not knowing your address, the exhilerating merger of open road and open future. But no one ever talks about those agonzing miles between your departure point and the point at which the interstate fades into a generic ribbbon of asphalt. No one ever talks about the suspension of disbelief required to pull out of a driveway that is no longer yours, coast through a neighborhood that will soon no longer be home, and pass - if not for the last time ever, at least for the last time before they become symbols of nostalgia - the landmarks that, while utterly prosaic, have long been the only thing standing between disorientation nad sweet familiarity."