Literary Scene: 3 Sunshine-y Reads

By Ryan G. Van Cleave

Under Par: Celebrating Life’s Great Moments On and Off the Golf Course
by Phil Callaway

My dad’s always looking for good books on golf, so my FORE! radar is regularly in operation. When I saw that humorist, golf writer, and bestselling author Phil Callaway was hitting the links, so to speak, with stories of faith, friendship, family, and failure on the fairway, I knew I had to check it out. Indeed, what’s offered here are “principles that can help us get our lives back on course, focus on stuff that matters, and celebrate the golfer’s favorite four letter word—hope—even on cloudy days.”

The thirty-six selections are all appropriately short, but still packed with as much punch as you’d need to properly wedge a good shot out of the deepest bunker on a nasty par 5. And for those who are serious about golf, each chapter ends with tips ranging from how to hit a fade to how to save $87,000 over the course of your own golfing career (no joke!).

A few of my favorite selections? #19 Dogs and Cats and Golf. #32 Easter Visits the Masters. #35 The Greatest Gimme Ever.

Grab your metaphorical clubs, folks. It’s tee time with Phil, and you won’t be disappointed.

Ryans Rating: 4.25 out of 5
www.PhilCallaway.com

Einstein, Michael Jackson & Me:
A Search for Soul in the Power Pits of Rock and Roll
by Howard Bloom

You might not know who Howard Bloom is, but you’ve sure heard FROM him. Why? This self-professed “science nerd” founded the biggest PR firm in the music industry, and through that helped create or expand the careers of household names in music—AC/DC, Prince, Bob Marley, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Bette Midler, KISS, Aerosmith, ZZ Top, Queen, Ozzy Osbourne, Michael Jackson, and a hundred more.

Einstein, Michael Jackson & Me is Bloom’s attempt to explore the “the dark underbelly of science and fame where new myths and movements are made.” What you get is a series of often-previously-unheard music stories paired with philosophy, science, and much more. As Bloom writes about his business: “What you’re selling in the music business isn’t an inanimate ‘product’ like a cornflake. In the music business, you are not selling pieces of plastic, streaming, or downloads. You are not branding, marketing, or selling ‘image,’ You are selling soul. You are selling raw human emotion. You are selling a sense of self-validation. You are selling a chance to make contact with normally hidden parts of yourself. And you are selling the right to feel that even in your weirdness you are not alone. You are selling a salt crystal for the human spirit. You are selling honesty of a very strange kind—honesty that comes from centers that don’t have normal voices in the human mind. You are selling the gods inside.”

In some ways, this book is a love letter to Michael Jackson. In other ways, it’s a meditation on what makes music music. The way in which he examines, appreciates, and explains the world of music resonates with a passion that is hard to ignore.

Ryan’s Rating: 4 out of 5
www.HowardBloom.net

Pussweek: A Cat’s Guide to Feline Empowerment
by Bexy McFly 

Unless you waste as much time online as I do each week, you might not know about the magazine series Pussweek, which is jokingly written “by cats, for cats.” This new book by those same folks, Pussweek: A Cat’s Guide to Feline Empowerment, takes things a step further in a fun way that reminds me of SNL mashed up with the fashion and celebrity mags you find at supermarket register racks. Me-wow, right?

The book starts strong with a NOTICE TO HUMANS that admits “respect from a cat is pretty much the holy grail, so don’t get your hopes up.” But that’s followed by a NOTICE TO CATS that says, “Now that we’ve got the cat-splaining for dummies out of the way, let’s cut the crap. If you’re reading this, you’re not only a good cat and a pretty cat, you’re also a smart cat.” 

The rest is equally fun, with “articles” such as “Top 20 Things to Push Off a Table,” “Trim’s Extreme Sports,” and “Exposing the Nip.” And one look at the masthead fills me with confidence that they’ve got the team to handle this—witness Benji the Castrologer & Clawvoyant, and Simpson the Purrblic Relations cat!

While the social media world might be engaged in cat shaming, this book turns the tables and lets cats tell their own stories, from scandalous pawparazzi pics to revealing litter quizzes. This is what feline empowerment is all about.

So, cat friends and fans—go ahead and paw up a copy right meow for yourself or that crazy cat friend in your life. You’ll finally have the answer to that eternal question: “What the #$!@$# is my cat thinking?”

Ryan’s Rating: 4 out of 5
www.pussweek.cat