Shelf Life

Tag: Humor

  • How to Marry Keanu Reeves in 90 Days

    How to Marry Keanu Reeves in 90 Days

             At first Bethany Lu Carlisle can’t believe what she’s hearing. Keanu Reeves, her super crush forever, is getting married in three months. No way, she thinks trying to dismiss the thought before doing a frantic internet search to find out if it’s really true.

             It’s a vulnerable time for Lu. She’s having difficulty with her creative process which is a fundamental problem given that she’s an artist with a show coming up at her best friend Dawn’s New York City gallery. She also is fielding a business offer from a shark-like, uber rich entrepreneur who wants to brand her work. It’s a very lucrative deal but Lu is afraid of losing control over her own work and besides the guy is way too “hands-on.”  Plus, her other best friend, True, the handsome college professor who wrote a definitive and highly praised book on some type of economic theory—Lu hasn’t read it—is getting job offers from West Coast businesses and has an attractive and overly-friendly research assistant. Like Keanu, True has been a serious crush for Lu but she’s never let him know it. We don’t think it’s a spoiler alert to let you know that he’s been crazy over her for the last 20-plus years as well.

             All this calls for a drastic shake-up to get her life back on track and what better way than to track down Keanu and convince him if he’s going to marry, then she’s available.

             Sure, it sounds flaky but remember How to Marry Keanu Reeves in 90 Days is a romantic comedy (rom-com) written by USA bestselling author Kwana Jackson under the pen name K.M. Jackson. It’s the latest in the many rom-coms novels she’s authored.

             Jackson, who was born in Harlem, is just as obsessed with Keanu as Lu and it seems to be a real life family trait.

             “I called my mother today like I do every day and she was busy watching a John Wick movie,” she said in a recent phone interview.

             For the five people in this country who don’t know, John Wick is a lethal and ruthless assassin played by Keanu Reeves in a series of movies by the same name. Retired, Wick is forced back into business to track down his adversaries—a seeming endless task that results in a high rate of carnage in each of the four movies.

             The idea for her book started with a fun tweet Jackson posted after realizing the next Matrix movie starring Reeves as well as the newest John Wick film would come out on the same day.

             “When I saw that, I tweeted don’t bring out your next book on Keanu day,” said Jackson who was bombarded with comments about the book she was supposed to write and told by her agent she’d better get to work on it.

             But that really wasn’t a problem for Jackson.

             “I’ve always been an un-ashamed romance book lover and romance has given me a wonderful place to escape into when I need a place to decompress,” she said. “It makes me happy to write a place for people to escape into.”

    This review previously appeared in the NWI Times.

  • Comedian Michael Ian Black “A Better Man”

    Comedian Michael Ian Black “A Better Man”

    Michael Ian Black

    A Buzzfeed Most Anticipated Book of 2020, Michael Ian Black‘s new book, A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter to my Son (Algonquin Books) is a poignant look at boyhood, in the form of a heartfelt letter from the comedian to his teenage son as he is leaving for college. But more than that, it is also a far-reaching and radical plea for rethinking masculinity and teaching today’s young men how to give and receive love.

    In a world in which the word masculinity now often goes hand in hand with toxic, comedian, actor, and father Black offers up a way forward for boys, men, and anyone who loves them. Part memoir, part advice book, and written as a heartfelt letter to his college-bound son, A Better Man reveals Black’s own complicated relationship with his father, explores the damage and rising violence caused by the expectations placed on boys to “man up,” and searches for the best way to help young men be part of the solution, not the problem. “If we cannot allow ourselves vulnerability,” he writes, “how are we supposed to experience wonder, fear, tenderness?”

    Honest, funny, and hopeful, Black skillfully navigates the complex gender issues of our time and gives a touching answer to an extremely important question: How can we be, and raise, better men?

    Black, an actor, comedian, and writer, started his career with the sketch comedy show The State, on MTV, and has now created and starred in many other television shows. Movie appearances include Wet Hot American Summer, The Baxter, and Sextuplets.

    He is also the author of several children’s books including the award-winning I’m Bored, I’m Sad, and I’m Worried, and the parody A Child’s First Book of Trump. His books for adults include the memoirs You’re Not Doing It Right and Navel Gazing, and the essay collection My Custom Van. Black also co-authored with Meghan McCain America, You Sexy Bitch.

    As a stand-up comedian, Michael regularly tours the country, and he has released several comedy albums. His podcasts include Mike & Tom Eat Snacks, with Tom Cavanagh; Topics, with Michael Showalter; How to Be Amazing; and Obscure.

    Married, he lives in Connecticut with his wife and two children.

  • Jen Lancaster Set to Launch New Book with an Anderson’s Bookshop Online Event

    Jen Lancaster Set to Launch New Book with an Anderson’s Bookshop Online Event

    Anderson’s Bookshop is proud to welcome back New York Times bestselling author and Chicago-area native Jen Lancaster to celebrate her newest book, The United States of Anxiety: Observations from a Reforming Neurotic.  Lancaster has visited Anderson’s Bookshop half a dozen times, and each event is special, including this launch program on Thursday, October 1 at 7 pm. Participating fans will be the first to get their hands on her latest title.

    Register here and you will receive the Zoom link in your confirmation email. https://www.eventcombo.com/e/virtual-event-with-jen-lancasterthe-united-states-of-anxiety-40870

    Anderson’s realizes that this is a challenging time for many families.  We are offering a variety of ticket options so that customers may choose what is the best fit.  Every book ticket will include a signed copy of The United States of Anxiety, and all contributions will go towards supporting our independent small business and our employees.

    About the Book: New York Times bestselling author Jen Lancaster is here to help you chill the hell out.

    When did USA become shorthand for the United States of Anxiety? From the moment Americans wake up, we’re bombarded with all-new terrifying news about crime, the environment, politics, and stroke-inducing foods we’ve been enjoying for years. We’re judged by social media’s faceless masses, pressured into maintaining a Pinterest-perfect home, and expected to base our self-worth on retweets, faves, likes, and followers. Our collective FOMO, and the disparity between the ideal and reality, is leading us to spend more and feel worse. No wonder we’re getting twitchy. Save for an Independence Day–style alien invasion, how do we begin to escape from the stressors that make up our days?

    Jen takes a hard look at our elevating anxieties, and with self-deprecating wit and levelheaded wisdom, she charts a path out of the quagmire that keeps us frightened of the future and ashamed of our imperfectly perfect human lives. Take a deep breath, and her advice, and you just might get through a holiday dinner without wanting to disown your uncle–or even worse.

    About the Author: Author Jen Lancaster has sold well over a million books, with over a dozen New York Times bestsellers. From Bitter Is the New Black to The Tao of Martha, Lancaster has made a career out of documenting her attempts to shape up, grow up, and have it all – sometimes with disastrous results. Her New York TImes bestselling novel Here I Go Again received three starred reviews (Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers Weekly). She loves bad TV, terrible wine, and will die before she gives up her Oxford comma.

    Lancaster can often be seen on The Today Show, as well as CBS This Morning, Fox News and NPR’s All Things Considered, among others. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and her many ill-behaved dogs and cats. Visit her website: jenlancaster.com, Twitter: @altgeldshrugged, Instagram: @jennsylvania, or Facebook.com/authorjenlancaster.

    Hear the stories behind Lancaster’s books on The Stories We’d Tell in Bars podcast, available on iTunes, Podbean, Spreaker, GooglePlay, and iHeartRadio, among other entities.

    About Anderson’s Bookshop: Anderson’s Bookshop is a 6-generation family-run neighborhood independent business with locations in Chicago’s western suburbs. The company includes a toyshop and school bookfair division. Recipients of dozens of honors, Anderson’s Bookshops share a passion and knowledge of books and of building community through great reads. Anderson’s Bookshops are located in downtown Naperville at 123 W. Jefferson Ave. and in Downers Grove at 5112 Main St. For additional questions and information, visit AndersonsBookshop.com.

  • Finding hope while studying penguins

    Finding hope while studying penguins

    A quirky adventure following an unusual heroine, “How the Penguins Saved Veronica” tells the story of wealthy 85-year-old Veronica McCreedy, who lives alone in a Scottish mansion. Feisty, stubborn and at times whimsical, McCreedy decided to use her large inheritance in funding a group of scientists who study penguins in Antarctica.

    But all that money comes with one condition — she wants to meet the penguins.

    “The main inspiration of my book was a friend of mine who’s obsessed with penguins,” author Hazel Prior said. “When her husband died, she found an extraordinary strategy of coping with her grief: she decided to travel round the world visiting penguins, her aim to get photos of every penguin species in its native habitat. She’s had such fun with her mission. I’ve always felt that the natural world can bring us healing in many ways, but I decided a story about healing through penguins would be extra-special.”

    Prior said she decided to make Veronica older because she’s been incredibly inspired by people she knows who have started learning new things, from harp-playing to sky-diving, in their 80s and 90s.

    “I love their ‘it’s-never-too-late’ attitude,” she said. “And they have experienced so many changes in their lives. Having an octogenarian as my main character gave me the chance to delve back into wartime history, which is another interest of mine.”

    It’s also important for other reasons.

    “Our society leads us to believe that it’s better in every way to be young,” Prior said. “It would have us think that at 30 the best part of your life is over, at 40 nobody notices you anymore and from 50 onwards you may as well not exist — particularly if you’re a woman. This is so wrong. I admire people who are hungry for life, who go out and seek new experiences regardless of their age. For example, a friend of mine started learning the harp at the age of 90. And my neighbor’s father took up skydiving in his 80s. These are extreme examples, but we never stop dreaming, learning or having new adventures. Every year that passes adds to our rich bank of experiences. The logical conclusion is that the older you are, the more interesting you are — so wouldn’t an octogenarian be the perfect heroine?”

    Speaking of harps, when Prior was a student in Scotland, she found an old broken Celtic harp in a cupboard and decided to learn how to play it, which wasn’t quite as easy as it sounded.

    “But the harp has always been a source of magic and wonder for me,” she says. “It’s an instrument with a sound that’s just so evocative and moving. The Celtic harp was the inspiration for my debut novel, ‘Ellie And the Harp Maker.’”

    Asked if she has any special take-aways for readers, Prior answered that she would like to highlight the importance of caring for this planet that we share with so much amazing wildlife. Adélie penguins are just one of the many species threatened by climate change.

    “But overall, ‘How the Penguins Saved Veronica’ is a fun book,” she said. “Penguins are not only sweet and charming; they also set us a wonderful example of determination, gusto and cheerfulness in the face of hard conditions — a lesson that’s very relevant in our current times. If I could sum up the message of the book in one word, that word would be ‘hope.’”

  • Alexandra Petri: Nothing is Wrong and Here is Why

    Alexandra Petri: Nothing is Wrong and Here is Why

             Before she turned 30, Alexandria Petri was the winner of the O. Henry Pun Off World Championship (I bet you didn’t even know such a contest existed) where she made puns on the names of every U.S. president  in chronological order such as “if Andrew jacks an automobile” and the loser on Jeopardy! Now Petri, a columnist for the Washington Post has written her second book, Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why (W.W. Norton & Co. 2020; $17.99—Amazon price), collection of more than 50 new and adapted essays from her Post columns.

             If you think someone with a resume like this was a nerd in high school, you’d be right. The only child of a U.S. Congressman from Wisconsin, she wrote a Shakespeare and feline comic book at age eight. Now that is seriously nerdy.

             Petri now has taken her humor to a more modern stage. She loves to skewer politics and the somewhat frightening and nonsensical actions our politician’s take.

             Is it hard, I ask her, to transform the horrible news we hear into satire and is it a way for her to keep sane?

             “I think I tend to be a relatively cheery person and this almost maniacal devotion to hunting for a bright side in gloomy situations can manifest as a kind of satire,” she says in describing the way she writes such columns as “America, please don’t put bleach inside yourself like the president says” and “Know The Signs: How to tell if your grandparent has become an antifa agent” in response to President Trump’s musing that maybe the 75-year-old protestor pushed to the ground in Buffalo was actually an ANTIFA agent trying to block police communication.

             It’s a way, she says, of looking at the way your thinking would have to be deranged to see today’s particular monstrosity as great news.

             “ I think of writing as a way of trying to make eye contact with people and say, are you seeing this too?, and in that way it is sanity-affirming,” she says. “It helps me feel less alone and remember that other people agree that this is not the way we would like our world to be.”

             Sometimes even people who can win national pun contests run out of ideas. What does Petri do when this happens?

             “I will usually go for a walk or pick up a book or something that isn’t the news and see if fresh inputs will help my brain along, but sometimes that doesn’t do it and my editor is nice enough to think it’s better only to write when you have something to say,” she says. “I am also grateful that I don’t always have to write jokes; sometimes I will just write a more straightforward column. If I can’t think of anything funny to say, I know I don’t always have to. And the flip side of this is that there are some days when I want to write three columns and have to be restrained from doing so.”

             Asked if there is anything else she wants people to know about her book, Petri has a quick answer.

             “I hope they will buy it and enjoy its cover,” she says, adding, “everyone please wash your hands and wear a mask and stay safe.”

  • MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES

    MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES

    Class Mom meets Small Admissions in MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES, a wryly-observed debut about the privileged bubble that is Liston Heights High–the micro-managing parents, the overworked teachers, and the students caught in the middle–and the fallout for each of them when that bubble finally bursts.

    A former teacher, Kathleen West keeps us amused and amazed in her book about the social stratas on an upper middle class high school where some parents (think Lori Loughlin) will stop at very little to make sure their children achieve what they see as success.

    Isobel Johnson can’t stand helicopter parents like Julia Abbott, a stage mom whose world revolves around interfering in her children’s lives. Julia resents teachers like Isobel, who effortlessly bond with students, including Julia’s own teenagers, who’ve been pulling away from her more each year.

    Isobel has spent her career in Liston Heights side-stepping the community’s high-powered families. But when she receives a threatening voicemail accusing her of Anti-Americanism and a “blatant liberal agenda,” she realizes she’s squarely in the fray. Rather than cowering, Isobel doubles down on her social-justice ideals, teaching queer theory in AP American Lit. Meanwhile, Julia, obsessed with the casting of the winter musical, inadvertently shoves the female lead after sneaking onto the school campus. The damning video goes viral and has far-reaching consequences for Julia and her entire family.

    With nothing to unite them beyond the sting of humiliation from public meltdowns, Isobel and Julia will find common ground where they least expect it, confronting a secret Facebook gossip site and a pack of rabid parents in a suburb where appearance is everything.

    Perfect for readers who loved the novels of Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, The Gifted School by Bruce Holsinger, Laurie Gelman’s Class Mom and Amy Poeppell’s Small Admissions.

    A teacher for twenty years in the Minneapolis school system, West brings her experience to a novel set in a small, privileged suburban high school that explores all sides of the teacher/parent equation: the good, the bad, and the truly outrageous. MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES is a wryly-observed story about two women: Isobel, a beloved teacher whose “unconventional” teaching methods and in-classroom politics ruffles some parents’ feathers and puts her job in serious jeopardy; and Julia, a helicopter parent who becomes the subject of a viral video when she has an altercation with a student on school grounds.  MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES combines heartfelt humor with thoughtful insights into the modern challenges facing students, parents, and teachers.

    ifyougo:
    Tuesday, February 11, 2020

    6:00 PM

    Lake Forest Book Store

    Talk & Signing

    662 N Western Ave.

    Lake Forest, IL 60045-1951

    Phone: 847-234-4420

    Event link: https://www.lakeforestbookstore.com/event/author-kathleen-west-lake-forest-book-store

  • Breathe In, Cash Out

    Breathe In, Cash Out

    “It’s The Devil Wears Prada of Wall Street, in that you get a glimpse into finance—if you’ve ever worked in investment banking you’ll find anecdotes that really resonate and for those that haven’t, it lets you know what the business is really like,” says Madeleine Henry, about her new book Breathe In, Cash Out, a humorous novel about a yoga-addicted investment banker just waiting for her super big yearly bonus so she can quit and open a yoga practice.

    Henry herself is very much like her heroine, Allegra Cobb. She’s a Yale graduate and a former Goldman Sachs banker who is totally into yoga.

    “The book shows the two worlds Allegra inhabits and how different they are, yoga versus fiancé, humility versus power and internal rewards versus external rewards,” says Henry, who recalls her own crazy schedule where days started at day 9 a.m. and ended at 10 p.m. when she was finally able to leave the office. Then it was drinks and complaints about how awful their jobs are with her colleague. Then to bed and repeat the entire scenario the next day.

    As a bottom rung investment banker, Allegra spends up to 24 hours a day changing the colors on stacked bar charts, “making my bosses feel better about themselves.”

    One of the reasons Allegra feel stuck in her job—besides the great pay, prestige and waiting for her bonus—is because he widowed father is so proud of her success and since he’s sacrificed so much for her since her mother died, she finds it hard to tell him she’s chucking it all to teach yoga.

    When Skylar Smith, a yogi guru with over two hundred thousand Instagram followers (making her one of the top InstaYogis,) offers to help her break into the business, Allegra sees herself getting close to her dream. Skylar, a beautiful blonde who models for expensive and trendy yoga clothing lines has the life Allegra wants.  At least that’s what she thinks at first.

    Henry, who always loved to write and was a comedy writer for the Yale Recorder, has had so much success with this her first novel that she was able to quit her job at Goldman and now teaches yoga and has written next novel.

    Asked if some of the anecdotes she uses in her book about her time at Goldman might upset people she worked with, she laughs, saying “they’ll think it’s funny because it’s so true.”

    Ifyougo:

    What: Madeleine Henry book signing

    When: Bookends & Beginnings, Thursday, July 18, 2019 – 6:00pm to 7:30pm

    Where: 1712 Sherman Avenue, Alley , Evanston, IL

    Cost: Free

    FYI: 224-999-7712; bookendsandbeginnings.com/

  • Pride, Prejudice and Other Flavors

    Pride, Prejudice and Other Flavors

             In the 300-room Sagar Mahal, or the Ocean Palace built by her great times four grandfather on the Arabian Sea, 13-year-old Trisha Raje is coached by her father not to be overwhelmed by the sorrow she saw at a school of the blind that day but instead find a solution so she doesn’t feel badly. And so, she does. Before long Trisha had created a global charity that performed eye surgeries on the needy and then became San Francisco’s premiere neurosurgeon, a woman with immense skill but so lacking in social graces that many in her family are not talking to her as she once inadvertently jeopardized her older brother’s fast track political career.

             But that isn’t Trisha’s only difficulty in Sonali Dev’s newest book, Pride, Prejudice and Other Flavors (William Morrow 2019; $15.99), a Bollywood take on Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice. Dev switches up roles between Trisha and DJ Caine, a rising star chef whose cancer-stricken sister is a patient of Trisha’s. She a descendant of Indian Royalty is Mr. Darcy and Caine, a Rwandan/Anglo-Indian—meaning he belongs to a much lower social class, is Emma.

    To paraphrase Jane Austen, Dev writes “It is a truth universally acknowledged that only in an overachieving Indian American family can a genius daughter be considered a black sheep” and the book is classic Austen with its subtle ironic humor and the structured setting required in any well-to-do aristocratic English or Indian milieu. Trisha has broken the three ironclad rules of their family: Never trust an outsider, never do anything to jeopardize your brother’s political aspirations and never, ever, defy your family. Desperate to redeem herself in ways that her brilliancy and scoring a $10 million dollar grant for her medical department—their largest ever—is unable to do, Trisha must cope with falling in love with Caine, saving his sister and ensuring that she will not somehow disgrace her family again.

             Dev, who is married with two teenagers and lives in Naperville, says is Mr. Darcy/Trisha and that’s she’s been entranced with Jane Austen’s book since watching the Indian TV adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” called “Trishna” in the 1980s when she was a middle schooler,

     “I went straight to the library and checked out Pride and Prejudice and read it over and over,” she says.

    As for writing, Dev says she wrote before she could even read, making up stories and characters,” she says, noting she wrote and acted in her first play when she was eight. “Writing has always been with me.”

    She grew up in Mumbai though the family traveled a lot as her father was in the military.

    “I was always the new kid on the block with a book,” she says.

    She continues to read and write at an amazing speed.

    “I am in fact waiting to get the edits back for my new book,” she says, noting that writing is an escape, a way of putting yourself in the shoes of someone not like you.

    What: Sonali Dev Book Launch Party

    When: Monday, May 6 at 7 p.m.

    Where: Andersons Bookshop, 123 W Jefferson Ave, Naperville, IL

    FYI: The event is free and open to the public. To join the signing line, please purchase the author’s latest book, Pride Prejudice and Other Flavors, from Anderson’s Bookshop. To purchase contact Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville, 630-355-2665; andersonsbookshop.com

  • William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls

    William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls

                  Take two cultural icons—William Shakespeare, the English poet, playwright and actor who is considered one of the best writers in the English language and the movie Mean Girls which was released 15 years ago and stars Tina Fey, one of my favorite comedians and you have tales of passion, toxic envy, back-stabbing (both literal and figurative) and intense power struggles (for kingdoms or, in the case of Mean Girls, to belong to the most popular high school clique.

                Now, Ian Doescher, a best selling author has combined the two in the recently introduced Pop Shakespeare series from Quirk Books, starting with two books, William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls and William Shakespeare’s Get Thee Back to the Future. Both cost $12.99 each.

                Doescher, who earned a B.A. in Music from Yale University, a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Ethics from Union Theological Seminary, has taken the Bard’s comedic play Much Ado About Nothing (nothing signifying a great deal of fuss over something of little importance) and Mean Girls which tells the story of Cady Heron, a home-schooled child of anthropologists raised in Africa who enrolls in an American high school.

                Written in iambic pentameter, the style of poetry favored by Shakespeare, the books are in a play format. If you’re like me and forgot exactly what iambic pentameter is, Doescher explains that it’s a line of poetry with a very specific syllabic patter.

                “The iamb has two syllables and pentameter mean they are five iambs in a line,” he says. “That means that iambic pentameter is a line of ten syllables.”

                Think da-Dum, da-Dum, da-Dum, da-Dum, da-Dum, da-Dum, he says. Or to make it easier, sing the line from Simon and Garfunkel’s song that goes “I’d rather be a hammer than a nail.”

                At first reading the books can be daunting but it only takes a short time to get in the rhyme of the poetry and recognize scenarios and phrases from both Shakespeare and Mean Girls and enjoy the humor.

                A natural to write these books which also includes William Shakespeare’s Star Wars, Doescher describes himself as having been the high school nerd who memorized Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquys and then felt compelled to repeat them for friends, family and even to perform them while standing on his desk in English class. We have to agree with him about the nerd thing, particularly after he says that he’s been practicing speaking in iambic pentameter since high school.

    Ifyougo

    What: Ian Doescher talk and book signing.

    When: Friday, April 26 from 6 to 7 pm

    Where: Anderson’s Bookshop, 123 W Jefferson Ave, Naperville, IL

    Cost: Free and open to the public.

    FYI: To join the signing line, please purchase one of the author’s latest books, William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls and William Shakespeare’s Get Thee Back to the Future, from Anderson’s Bookshop. To purchase please stop into or call Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville (630) 355-2665 or order online at andersonsbookshop.com

  • Brett Paesel’s Everything is Just Fine: Life for a Beverly Hills Soccer Team

    Brett Paesel’s Everything is Just Fine: Life for a Beverly Hills Soccer Team

    Everything is Just Fine, a social satire about families on a Beverly Hills soccer team for 10-year-old boys told partially in e-mails, explores the secrets and failings of the parents as they connect with each other throughout the season’s wins and losses.

    Written by Brett Paesel, who also authored the bestselling Mommies Who Drink: Sex, Drugs, and Other Distant Memories of an Ordinary Mom, the book could have been full of stock characters. We have the divorcee who drinks too much and spends way too much time flirting with other women’s husbands, the vaguely zoned-out housewife who keeps telling herself she is really, really grateful for what she has until she lands in bed with the sexy Latin soccer star who is helping coach the team and Coach Randy, who after losing his job, hides out at the library so his wife doesn’t know he’s unemployed.

    But Paesel goes beyond the stereotypes and we come to know and care about these people as we follow what they’re dealing with in their lives.

    “Because of an over-parenting snafu–I wanted to get my son on his friend’s team–I ended up in the Beverly Hills soccer league,” says Paesel about what inspired her to write her book. “My neighborhood league would have been much more modest. Suddenly, I was in a world that was rarified. The fields are lovely and have shade, parents lived in McMansions and some of them even owned restaurants. My son’s team played Beckham’s kid’s team. Paparazzi regularly staked out the games. Will Farrell was a coach at one point. My son wasn’t a gifted player and he landed on a team that really didn’t have a super-strong athlete, but the coach was hugely enthusiastic, and they became the little team that could. The coach sent long e-mails giving shout-outs to each player. I remember he called my son a Lion which he wasn’t – he was deathly afraid of the ball. I started out wondering what was going on with the coach because he was so zealous and seemed to have lots of time to craft these e-mails.”

    At first Paesel thought she was writing a short story parody of the email chain she was reading but soon started feeling compassion for her characters.

    “I wanted to know them better,” says Paesel who is also an actress and producer. “They are all very flawed people, but I was moved by their intense desire to connect – even when they fell disastrously short.”

    Though she initially based most of her characters on people she knew, Paesel says they quickly became their own people and so now, when she sees them in her mind, she no longer sees the real people they were based on.

    Does she worry that someone will know themselves when reading her book?

    “People never recognize themselves in my writing for some reason,” says Paesel. “I found this to be true in my memoir writing as well.”

                  Besides a good read and a lot of laughs, Paesel hopes that people put her book down feeling a sense of belonging to this great human drama we get to live through.

    “The characters in my book get too caught up in things that are simply unimportant and won’t get them the happiness that they are desperately seeking,” she says. “At the heart of my book is an exhortation to keep paying attention to what’s really important. Which is always – very simply – love.”

    Ifyougo:

    What: Brett Paesel has several book events in Chicago.

    Monday, April 15 at 8 pm. Brett Paesel at Louder Than A Mom, 3855 N, Lincoln Ave., Chicago, IL. louderthanamom@gmail.com; louderthanamom.com

    Wednesday, April 17 at 6 pm. Brett Paesel at The Annoyance Theatre & Bar, 851 W. Belmont, Chicago, IL. 773-697-9693; theannoyance.com

    Thursday, April 18 7 pm. The Book Cellar, 4736-38 N Lincoln Ave Chicago, IL. 773-293-2665; bookcellarinc.com