Bowerman, Girlfriend in a Coma, Anastasia

Bowerman and the Men of Oregon by Kenny Moore

While I was perusing the running section of the library I found this book and decided it looked interesting. Bowerman was the track coach at the University of Oregon after Bill Hayward (who the Oregon field is named after). I don't remember his exact years of coaching there, but mid 20th century onward. He developed great runners, but not just great runners, he coached Olympic runners. Runners who were consistently breaking records. He had a funny way about him in terms of dealing with his runners. Phil Knight was on his team and Bowerman became the co-founder of Nike. He was Steve Prefontaine's coach. He was the first coach of his time to emphasize rest, or easy, days in training, which was contrary to what other coaches were telling their athletes at the time- that the more you put in to your workouts, the more you get out of them.

Not only all this, but Bowerman was an Oregon man, and I can't really fault that! Good read, I learned a lot about this history of running, many things I didn't know. I quit reading about the time Prefontaine was breaking some records, but simply because I had to return the book to the library.

Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland
This was a re-read. I bought a used copy at Powell's because this is my favorite Coupland book. Somehow I had remembered over the years how much I adored this book, without ever cracking it open again. So i was a little afraid of how it would go over, the second time, years later.

I first read Coupland because an online group of people I knew were always fawning over him, and his book Life After God, but the only book I could immediately get from the library was Girlfriend in a Coma. It turned out to be a good choice, as I fell in love with the book, used it to read aloud a section in a humanities class, and have referred to it as a favorite ever since. I think i read it for the first time maybe 4 years ago. But that's a guesstimate.

So in reading it the second time I realized why I love Coupland's writing so much, and that is because he writes in a way that is so modern, yet seems so timeless. His characters are far fetched, but you feel connected to them. The plots are always a bit fantasy-like, yet attainable, and you feel that if the world were tilted just a little bit in another direction, it might all be true. And yet in all of that, Coupland always writes a message that speaks to the heart of what it means to be human, and that is incredibly present in Girlfriend in a Coma.

Anastasia On Her Own-Lois Lowry

I was in the library the other day with two girls I was taking care of, and while they were entertained by computer games I began to peruse the kid literature section, looking for those authors of yore that I loved. I remember spending so much time in this particular library growing up, and I began to remember all the books I had fallen in love with. I saw Lois Lowry speak a month or so ago, and I hold The Giver very close to my heart, as I'm sure a lot of others do as well. But what I recalled in that library were all the other books of hers that I loved as well, especially the Anastasia series.

I've always loved contemporary, realistic fiction. I thought the heroines of these stories were cool, funny and collected, their families interesting, their problems so real, yet solvable. I guess that's still how I am. I'll pick non-fiction or realistic fiction any day. That's what I gravitate toward.

So this is a cute book about Anastasia and her family (she's in 7th grade, her brother is 3 years old), and how she has to help run the house while her mother is on a business trip. Cute, funny, entertaining, etc.