Sinking into ...THE EMPTY BOAT

I fairly jumped up and down when I found out that Mark Salzman had written a new memoir. I have read Salzman's nerdy-teenager book LOST IN PLACE: GROWING UP ABSURD IN SUBURBIA at least 15 times (and that's a conservative estimate); I named it as one of my favorite books that make you laugh, but that doesn't cover the kind of bizarre kinship I felt with Salzman seeking the solace in cello playing and kung fu that he wasn't getting anywhere else. Not to be dramatic, but it was a book that saved me. I went on to read his most famous memoir, IRON AND SILK, as well as another (TRUE NOTEBOOKS) and two of his novels, but none of them had as much an effect on me as LOST IN PLACE.

And I can't recall that his other books called back as much to LOST IN PLACE as THE MAN IN THE EMPTY BOAT, even though they chronicle very different periods in Salzman's life. LOST IN PLACE ends with him looking ahead to college; in THE MAN IN THE EMPTY BOAT, Salzman is a father of two struggling with the latest draft of his novel, a world away from the future he might have imagined for himself. In a family crisis, he finds himself going back to his teenage years and the anxiety and doubt that seems to plague his whole family, and how they can be -- if not beaten, at least better governed.

I was riveted; I finished it in one sitting, feeling like I was catching up with an old friend. The creative strand (Salzman's wife is also in the arts, although film is her medium) added a layer to the personal story that lent it resonance beyond the specific details of his crisis. (It also made me hope that Salzman finishes his novel soon. You can do it!) If you haven't read any of Salzman's books I recommend this one as a gateway, or start with my favorite and move on to this one next.

I got an e-galley of this book through Open Road Media.

Books That Make You Laugh

Back when I wrote my list of books that make you cry I promised to write its counterpart later in the year when it would be necessary. What I didn't consider was that really, there are two potential opposites for books that make you cry, being those that make you laugh (the direct correlation) and books that somehow make you feel better or uplifted, but aren't necessarily funny. I've been pretty grumpy recently so I will now hold forth on the former.

Sentimental favorite: Gordon Korman, NO COINS, PLEASE. This is the first book I can remember reading and laughing at; it's a middle-grade chapter book about an eleven-year-old con artist on a chaperoned trip across America who runs a new scam in every city. What's even cooler about it is that Korman was a writing prodigy who published this book when he was just 21.

Sentimental favorite II: P.J. O'Rourke, MODERN MANNERS. As I wrote before, my parents took this book away from my sister and me after we discovered it and thought it was the funniest thing in existence. Now I'm grown-up and no one can stop me from owning a copy of this book, or from listening to him on "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" I even think he's kind of handsome in an elder-statesmanly way, which: yeah, I know.

Algonquin Round Table pick: I love Dorothy Parker, but you all know about Dorothy Parker, so might I direct you to the Robert Benchley collection THE BENCHLEY ROUND-UP? As a miniaturist writing about topics like how to read a newspaper in public and the psychological benefits of chewing gum, he is often overlooked in the pantheon, but I think it was his work more than any other's that shaped the Shouts & Murmurs column as it appears today.

Funny and best-selling for a reason: The writers of "The Daily Show" could have just regurgitated some of their best known bits into book form. Instead they came up with AMERICA: THE BOOK, which resembles a real(ly unorthodox) textbook, including wacky definitions and a recurring sidebar entitled "Would You Mind If I Tell You How We Do It In Canada?"

Funny in 2009: Steve Hely, HOW I BECAME A FAMOUS NOVELIST. I mentioned this book last week in the context of Colson Whitehead's "What To Write Next," but I'm plugging it again here. This satire of a frustrated writer can get pretty cutting and if I were Hely's publisher, it might not be the kind of mirror I'd want to see myself in, but it's funny enough to risk the injury. The four people I know who actually took my advice and read it all liked it, and how can a not-at-all random sampling of four people be wrong?

Funny, but also sort of uplifting: Mark Salzman's memoir LOST IN PLACE: GROWING UP ABSURD IN SUBURBIA has been one of my favorites for going around 10 years now. The author was a teenage cello-playing dork who one day became obsessed with kung-fu movies and decided his true calling was to become a Buddhist master with a black belt. Sometimes, he acts like a complete idiot, but his reckless passions are enviable -- maybe I'll regret sneaking it onto this list when it comes time to do the other.

What are the books that make you laugh the most?