30,29,28,27

I had several books come through all at once.

God Bless you, Dr. Kevorkian: Kurt Vonnegut - Call it chicken soup for slightly odd soul. I love this guy's work. This particular book is one of his more absurdest offerings, with the author supposedly undergoing several Near-Death procedures in order to speak to a variety of famous, infamous and unknown dead people. Funny and thought-provoking.

The Enthusiast: Charlie Haas -I picked this one up because the back of the book said he wrote Gremlins 2. I saw that film. I'm not sure why I watched it. The same is pretty much true of The Enthusiast. Occasionally funny, occasionally touching, occasionally insightful. The book meanders all over the place, starting as what might be farce or satire and eventually turning to sentimental schmaltz. Sort of forgettable.

A Framework for Understanding Poverty: Ruby Payne -This one was way outside the box for me. It's basically a teacher's manual and workbook for understanding and teaching historically impoverished inner-city kids. The basic gist is there are unspoken rules in each social class. Your success in life is based on your ability to understand and apply the rules. Most of these rules are things like how to talk to people in particular ways and in particular situations and what sort of values are assigned property.

If you're a poor kid, growing up in a housing project, you start off screwed because you do not know the rules --almost as bad, the way your world operates discourages you from having the capacity to learn them easily. It's not intentional, since the classes are cultures to themselves. Rising above your beginnings, in some cases, means accepting certain things you'd have thought beneath you.

I don't know that I agree with all of it, but I definitely can see some of her points. It was eye-opening.

Better Body in Six Weeks: Anita Bean -This is almost cheating to add to my 100, but I'm really at the point, when I'd kind of like to be done. This books gives a series of workouts to follow to improve strength, agility and flexibility. It's for beginners like me, who maybe know where the gym is, but isn't precisely sure what all the damned machines are for.

I've wanted to expand my workout for weeks now, but have sort of stymied by a lack of knowledge. I don't know what I'm doing past my hamster wheel activities. This book gives workouts and has nice, big pictures of what to do and on which machine.