If Oprah Has A Book Club, Then...

this image has been shamelessly pilfered from the internet

I drove from Cambridge-Narrows to Dartmouth, where I'm staying, to have dinner in Halifax with a friend from Montreal who borrowed a book of mine to read last summer while in St.Andrews. Welcome to the global village, Eastern Canadian style. The book I loaned him was called 'Don't Get Too Comfortable', written by David Rakoff; a Canadian boy who now calls New York City home.

David Rakoff lives in New York City, eh? Strike one.

Everyone has a weakness, and Rakoff's is a love for big city life. Thankfully, the city acts like Warfarin for his poisoned pen. He is my favourite writer in terms of writing style (don't worry, Bill Bryson, you're still my favourite writer overall). David Rakoff could write about anything...anything...and make it worth reading. He could find gold in a pile of sh...avings. He destroyed Barbara Bush in the opening few pages of Don't Get Too Comfortable, and he did it with just cause. What he wrote about Karl Lagerfeld was, in my mind, legendary.

He's been compared to author David Sedaris. Though I see the similarities, he's more like Sedaris on steroids. Apparently they're friends. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for their conversations, though not a fruit fly.

I first heard of this book from my friend Lisa. She's a Toronto girl who I originally met in Saint John, where she lived for five years or so, but now lives in Victoria after a brief stint in Kelowna. I met she and her Vancouver boyfriend in Les Iles de la Madeleine this past summer. She used to live in New York City, before Saint John.

Lisa once lived in New York City, eh? Strike two.

Lisa is brilliant. No strikes against her, not even when considering her time in the Big Apple's core. There's no doubt that life in New York City fueled her appreciation of Saint John and its amazing cast of characters. If Lisa chose to write, then I believe that she could be every bit as good as Sedaris or Rakoff. Lisa, it would appear, would rather wrap fourteen year old soccer boys' knees with athletic tape. To each their own. I respect her immensely. An e-mail from Lisa is better than a Christmas gift, by far.

Needless to say, I appreciate literary vultures who strip life clean to the bone; writers like Bryson, Rakoff, Currer and Sedaris. The friend who returned my copy of Don't Get To Comfortable gave me a little gift...a copy of Rakoff's other book, called Fraud. Somehow I hadn't been aware of Fraud, written in 2001, even though it pre-dated Don't Get Too Comfortable by four years. I'm looking forward to reading it and I'll undoubtedly make reference to it in a future blog.

I'm not sure if Don't Get Too Comfortable ever made it onto Oprah's book club. I hope not because I feel like it's something that I would only want to share with a few select friends, not the world. Have you got a favourite book? Are you brave enough to share that book with the readers of this blog? Feel free to leave a comment...here's how to do that:

step one: click on 'comments'

step two: type in your comment

step three: in the drop down menu, choose 'anonymous'

step four: follow the instructions regarding typing in the scrambled security word.

step five: Voila! You've just spoken to all of my readership and, trust me, they both really appreciate your comments.