I had been invited to Institute Day on Friday, ahead of all the public festivities for Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Cooking for Solutions event. The Aquarium was so kind to invite me, and I was thrilled to be in the room with so many big name media people. I definitely felt like a teeny, tiny guppy in a sea of very, very big fish.

The day opened up with breakfast hosted by Earthbound Farms, which was amazing. First I had to get myself there. Here is the story:

Because I was driving to Monterey on Friday morning, with a target time to arrive at 7:30am or 7:45am to catch a shuttle down the street from my hotel, I had to get up at 5:15am.

Yep. That’s called “oh-hell-no” o’clock in my house. Le sigh.

So I packed the night before, charged all necessary electronic devices (computer, iPad, smartphone, etc.), and hauled myself out of bed at 5:15am to drive into Monterey to make my shuttle. Luckily, traffic was very kind to me (as I suspected it would be…southbound is generally “against traffic” in the morning), and I pulled in at my hotel at around 7:40am. I had spotted the shuttle pick up point at the Monterey Plaza on my way in, so I knew that there were three shuttles taking everyone to breakfast. I ran into my hotel, was greeted by the lovely people at the front desk, and dashed out the door to walk approximately three blocks or so to the Monterey Plaza Hotel. As I walked down the street, I saw one shuttle pull away…followed by the second shuttle. I began to panic. I was only about a half block away, so I began to sprint the last bit of it…waving my arms frantically at the people loading everyone into the third shuttle: “I’m here for that shuttle…WAIT FOR MEEEEE!“.

I made such an embarrassing display of myself that they did indeed wait for me.  I totally lucked out because the person who had invited me to the breakfast that morning was actually on that third shuttle. They checked with her, and she graciously invited me to sit next to her near the back of the shuttle.

Here’s how that seating pans out: Me…Alison (lady from the Aquarium)…and…Chris Cosentino.

Meep.

I was totally dumfounded to find myself sitting in such close proximity to Chris. Let’s just say I’m a bit of a fan and leave it at that. He was discussing his admiration for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a man I am embarrassed to say I only barely knew of. In any case, he was talking about how he was such a fan of Hugh’s…how brilliant Hugh is…et cetera. I tried to be all cool and act like I was supposed to be there, but man oh man, I was intimidated right from the start. Alison tried to get me to talk to Chris, but all I could muster the courage to do was give him a word he was searching for when he randomly switched topics to talking about steampunk (he was looking for the word “steampunk”).

We arrived at Earthbound Farm, a relatively short drive from Cannery Row in Monterey, where we were served a completely organic buffet-style meal. It was a bright, sunny day out…just perfect for this event. I managed to introduce myself to Vikram Vij while I was there, as well as a few other media people that were there from the likes of Sunset Magazine. My head was truly spinning.

After breakfast was served, there was a discussion about organic food in relation to health issues (namely, how good eating a rainbow of fruits and veggies can be good for you…all grown organically, of course), featuring a physician/dietician and an OB/GYN from Kaiser Permanente. (Note: I am nailing down the names of the people from this discussion, and will update this post when I get that information straight. I know, I’m a terrible journalist).

It was fascinating to hear about all the wonderful things that eating a more organic diet can do for your health. Of course, the discussion did cover the obvious point about how not everyone can afford to buy organic food, or they simply don’t have very good access to it. I appreciated the point they made about organic food, and how they are working to bring it to more communities and make the cost point more accessible as well. Kaiser Permanente has instituted weekly farmer’s markets at many of their campuses, which might be a good way to begin to bring it to more people. I myself have been to farmer’s markets at my local Kaiser campus, and I can tell you first hand, they always do a beautiful job.

Even though the discussion was largely about organic food, they were equally passionate about getting people to eat more at home as much as possible, as well as a more diverse diet. Sure, there are several arguments floating around about how “cheap” it is to eat fast food (or heavily processed food) for meals on a regular basis, and that is why a lot of people shy away from taking the time to visit their farmer’s markets or grocery stores to buy food and cook at home. But in reality, the cost to buy food and cook at home is actually cheaper, as shown effectively by Mark Bittman of the New York Times in 2011.

After breakfast, we were all shuttled back to the Monterey Plaza Hotel to begin the day of panel discussions. I’ll tell you guys about them in the coming days, but I have a lot of notes to sort through before I get to that. Seriously, I can’t believe how much was covered…so stay tuned!

Entrance to the Monterey Bay Aquarium

I’ve visited Monterey, California my whole life. Going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium was always part and parcel of being in the area. Kind of like I can never drive through Anaheim and NOT go to Disneyland. If I’m in Monterey…I’m going to the Aquarium. It’s the rules.

(Oh, and this whole thing might sound like I work for  the Aquarium. I swear I don’t…I just really love this place).

The Aquarium itself is amazing and deservedly world-famous for the conservation work they do. The care they show not only for the animals they have on exhibit, but for the surrounding Monterey Bay ecosystem is phenomenal. I love the Aquarium because they go out of their way to benefit the community around them. Any organization that does that automatically has my heart.

Plus, I’ve always loved the ocean. Even when I was younger and couldn’t swim, I liked the water. The beaches on the Central Coast are lovely but the Pacific up here is notoriously frigid…even in the summertime. Still, I kind of liked that when I would stick my toes into the water, they would get a little numb…prompting me to see if I could outrun the incoming waves. It was like a game when I was a kid. I mean, who doesn’t love digging around in the sand and finding the most beautiful seashells when you’re little?  The truth of it is, as much as I loved the ocean as a kid…it was the Aquarium that made me fall in love with the creatures that lived in it.

For those that have no idea what the Monterey Bay Aquarium is like, I highly recommend that you make time to visit it if you’re local (San Francisco Bay Area). If you’re not…then if you find yourself anywhere near Monterey, trust me on this…it’s worth the extra time to see it.  I will say that it was heavily featured in the movie  Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. (Yeah, yeah. I’m a geek. This is not news).

The exhibits I deemed my “favorite” as a kid still have a special pull for me, but honestly, the entire place is so breathtakingly wonderful that it’s hard to nail down a certain exhibit that would be my “favorite”. There are certain places in that converted cannery building that always render me speechless, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. The Outer Bay exhibit, the Kelp forest window, both of the jellyfish exhibits, and the Secret Life of Seahorses exhibit.

This weekend’s event, “Cooking for Solutions” is in its 14th year, and promises to be bigger than ever. I’ve been invited to cover it as a food writer, something that I’m sure someone at the Aquarium will notice and ask “how did she get invited?”. For now, I will enjoy it and wait to be found out as a total fraud. Okay, so I’m not a fraud…just go with the self-deprecating thing here.

I’ll be live-tweeting my impressions all weekend long, so keep an eye on my twitter feed to witness my antics at behaving like a professional. Next week, I’ll recap the “greatest hits” of the event for Food Riot, so stay tuned for that as well! For now, I leave you with a few pictures of the Aquarium…

Sure, it’s not a traditionally “Mom” poem. It’s about strength, grace and confidence. Or at least, that’s what it conveys to me. Here’s to all the Moms out there – with a special shout-out to my Mom – who make us all strong in big ways and small.

Still I Rise

Understand: this is not meant to be an indictment against Weight Watchers. I’m quite happy with their program to be perfectly honest with you. Turns out, Jennifer Hudson isn’t lying. But I think I just need a moment to rant about the surreal feeling of wanting to eat more decadent things in a way that I had never experienced and be essentially forbidden from doing that.

A list:

1. Not gonna lie, IT BLOWS.  Like seriously, it sucks.

Everyone who makes a life-changing decision about diet and exercise will regale you with stories about how good they feel, how much energy they have, and how happy they are that their clothes are fitting better. All of that is true. While my weight loss is occurring slower than I’d like, I can say that I have felt the benefits of making a dietary change.

Ah Starbucks, you evil temptress, you.

What nobody tells you though – changing long-held bad habits is more than just the inconvenience of learning a new way to do things. The cravings…oh holy crap the cravings you guys. Not only do the cravings suck, but they bring up feelings of…well…pure, unadulterated ANGER.

I went to see Alton Brown do a reading at Books, Inc. in Mountain View last year. He told the crowd about how he changed his diet some years back and lost a bunch of weight. One of the changes he made was to give up Diet Coke. I thought, “Okay, that makes sense…soda is bad…so that’s good“. He then told everyone how he was pissed off all the time and I totally didn’t believe him. I thought, “oh come ON“. I figured he was exaggerating for the crowd. You have to tell a good story at a book signing, right?

So I spent the entire first week on the program in various stages of pissed off.  I wish I was kidding. My poor husband had to steer clear of me that first weekend, as he ate whatever the hell he wanted and I was subsisting on celery. Okay I wasn’t really subsisting on celery…but it sure felt like it.

2. Do I tell people I’m on Weight Watchers or don’t I?

You’d think that it would be easy to just tell people, “oh hey there [insert name of close friend or family], I started Weight Watchers“. Nope. Not easy. There is an unspoken element of embarrassment that happens for a lot of people. Sure, I know that I shouldn’t be embarrassed. But I totally am.

Given that I didn’t want to tell anyone, it made it suddenly difficult to be around those I’m closest to. If you’re thinking I mean I didn’t want to tell friends or family, you’d be correct…excepting for the fact that I didn’t even want to tell my husband. Yep, you read that right. Stupid. Totally stupid. We share bank accounts for heaven’s sakes, and Weight Watchers isn’t free. So it was maybe the stupidest thing that I thought I could just keep to myself. I ended up breaking down and telling him the day after I signed up. But not because it dawned on me that he would totally see my payment for the program. It was because he wanted to make his decadent nachos for dinner. Yeah, I know.

3. The greatest tragedy of them all: Manresa in Los Gatos

My husband had made reservations for us to have dinner at David Kinch’s famed restaurant, Manresa. For foodies, this place tends to be near the top of the list of “must go there” places. So I was pretty thrilled that he surprised me for my birthday. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that I was just going to have to be okay with chucking the whole points system right out of the window. True, the tragedy isn’t that it stopped me from going there (I mean, come on, like I would let my changing food habits stop me). The tragedy was having the points system so ingrained in my head even after a few weeks that I was silently tallying up what I was eating…and it kind of took a bit of joy out of the experience. Let’s just say that I spent extra, extra time at the gym that day.

Anyway, I’ve managed to stick to most (but not all…not yet) of the changes I decided to make. Little by little, I’ll get there.

After many years of hand-wringing and searching, I finally joined (more precisely, I was invited to join) an actual book club. Like one where people meet up in person. It’s true that I did join the Rumpus Book Club late last year. That has been a good experience for me overall in that it has exposed me to books that I probably would not have easily come across before. But it’s also mostly online and therefore easy for me to lapse into my solitary ways and just not engage. Bad habits die hard.

Last night, my book club experience finally got me out of my proverbial shell. The stupid thing is: I don’t think I’m a terribly shy person. I will say that I make acquaintances fairly easily. Friends…well that’s another story. To be part of a book club, I imagined that it would be something between acquaintances and close friends…and that always kind of scared me. Mostly because I would see them on a regular basis, and so I couldn’t get away with holding everyone at arm’s length for longer than a couple of months. Eventually, they would get to know me fairly well.

Whenever I would think about that prospect of new people getting to know me, my mind would be flooded with variations of “what-ifs”. Would I be funny enough? Will I have enough outside interests in common to participate in the social aspect of a book club? Will I be able to discuss the book intelligently enough to not look or sound stupid? What do you even wear to a book club meeting? What if I have a bad hair day? What if I’m not cool enough? What if I’m not nerdy enough? Well read enough?…et cetera, et cetera.

I know, it sounds exhausting in my head right now, doesn’t it? Also – my apologies to my book club who might be reading this. I’m taking a huge leap of faith by putting this out there.

I am just relieved to discover that I had no reason to be so afraid. I’m reminded of a part of Jenny Lawson’s book, where she discusses going on a spa weekend with some fellow bloggers that she hadn’t met before. How she was unsure about being friends with women, harboring a rather unfounded fear of being judged and ridiculed when she wasn’t looking. She ended up having a lovely time with them and decided that women were “worth [her] trust and time” and that she didn’t have to be afraid to make new friends. I really related to that. To be clear though, my fear stemmed from possibly just not fitting in, while Jenny’s fear was based on a general distrust of women.

It’s a funny thing to be in your mid-thirties and feel like you’re the new kid all over again. Vulnerability can scare the bejeebus out of you, but only if you let it. I am glad that I didn’t let it scare me this time.

I am so excited about this, I can barely stand it. Today…TODAY…Food Riot has its official launch!

The new design and awesome features have been in the works over at Food Riot for some time now, and it’s been difficult to keep my trap shut about it. The fully launched site is streamlined, informative and well…gorgeous.

Today’s launch is just the beginning.

An amazing recipe-gathering bookmarklet is one of the more awesome things that is still in the works, and it’s pretty damn ingenious. Basically, it functions just like Pinterest’s “Pin It” button, but it’s geared for recipes. You’ll be able to save all kinds of recipes from different food websites (like FoodNetwork.com, AllRecipes.com, etc.), as well as from blogs (PioneerWoman.com, SkinnyTaste.com, etc.), and they will all be on your own recipe page on Food Riot. You’ll even be able to enter and share your own recipes with friends online. Here’s a video explaining how the whole thing works:

You’ll be able to carry all of your recipes with you on your computer, tablet or smart phone. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! To stay in the “know”, you can head on over to recipes.foodriot.com and sign up to be notified the second it comes online. Believe me, you won’t have to wait for too much longer.

In the meantime, my adventure officially begins! I’ll be posting on Food Riot at least twice a month. My regular “schedule” begins this Thursday, April 11th. My articles will appear every other Thursday after that. I may post more often as I get a better feel for what I find interesting and what I think belongs there as opposed to here. I will always post content here, but a lot of my food-centric content is bound to end up there.

So even if you’ve already checked out Food Riot before today, I urge you to check out the shiny new design! I hope you all enjoy exploring the new site and that you’ll join me as I share more of my “foodie” life!

Notice the kid’s book area behind the table…

And it was as awesome as I thought it would be. Let’s walk and talk, shall we? (I know, we’re not walking…just go with it).

As I said in my review of her funny/heartbreaking/amazing memoir, I can’t really remember when I started reading Jenny Lawson’s blog. It’s been a few years at the very least. So when I heard she was coming to San José, I immediately made plans to trek to the one Barnes & Noble in the area that I had managed to never go to (owing to the fact that it is nowhere near me, and in case you hadn’t heard, traffic can SUCK in the SF Bay Area).

For those like me who have followed The Bloggess for years (or really any significant amount of time), I can assure you that yes, she is as awesome in person as you think she is. This is a wonderful case of “what you read is exactly what you get”. Her personality is exactly as it is on her blog, in full swearing and irreverent glory.

She opened up the reading by declaring that this was the “drunkest [she's] ever been for a reading”, to the immense delight of all of us. It was kind of like going to the late show of a good comedienne…you knew that you were in for a treat. To be fair, I suspect that if anything, she may have been a bit tipsy but not really super drunk. She wasn’t stumbling and slurring or anything so you can all relax. She can be delightfully inappropriate but she’s not a total idiot for heaven’s sakes. And Jenny if you’re reading this (sheyah right!), I apologize for starting off this part of my post with your “drunk” admission.

I digress.

Jenny reading from her book.

She read a chapter of the book, and it was extra hilarious because Barnes & Noble managed to set up the event right in front of the Barnes & Noble, Junior area (children’s book section). So…let’s just say that there were probably plenty of kids there that learned…some new language last night. I happen to know the Community Relations Manager from my days working for B&N, so I confess that I rather enjoyed the look on his face as he went from amused to horrified and back again throughout the proceedings. (Hi Michael!)

After reading the chapter, Jenny moved on to the Q&A portion of the evening and that’s where she really shined. Of course, she admitted that she was nervous but you would have never noticed it if she didn’t tell you. It was like sitting with her and listening to her tell random stories for an hour. She was engaging and dare I say…completely lovely. She answered a variety of good questions from the audience, ranging from “did you write the discussion questions from the paperback edition yourself?” all the way to “what is your favorite toe?“. You kind of had to be there to get why someone would ask what her favorite toe was, but the questions really did span that spectrum. In case you’re curious, her favorite toe is her big toe on her left foot because it was “more feminine than the big toe on the right foot“.

Every time I go to an event like this, I’m grateful that I get to attend and meet these amazing writers. Not only that, that there are at least a handful of people who read my drivel when I write about my experiences. Jenny has been a big inspiration to me in the last few years and I hope that I can be a bit more like her (in my own way of course) as a writer in the years to come. So thank you, Jenny for coming to my little corner of the world to do a reading. It was a total blast.

Dorky little me with The Bloggess herself.

Title

Author: Jenny Lawson (a.k.a. The Bloggess)

Pages: 384 (Paperback edition, including a new chapter)

Publisher: Penguin Group, U.S.A.

Pub Date: 3/5/2013 (paperback)

It’s nearly impossible for me to talk about this book without discussing Jenny Lawson’s blog, The Bloggess. I can’t remember when I started reading it; further, I would be hard pressed to tell you how I even found her online. I think it was one of those things where one thing lead to another and I ended up on her site.

I kind of have a thing for irreverent people. As much as I strive to not offend as many people as possible on my blog (see: near total lack of swearing and almost no effort to “rock the boat”), I think that I’m drawn to writers like Jenny Lawson, Erika Napoletano, and Jenna McCarthy because of their total lack of fear in expressing themselves. They aren’t afraid to speak their minds, and more often than not, the use of more…adult language is required to make their point.

Jenny has a fearlessness to her that’s infectious. I find myself laughing at the most “inappropriate” things because for whatever reason, I find some nugget in there to relate to. Sure, it would be difficult to draw the exact line of how I can possibly relate to someone whose childhood was eons different from mine, who has absolutely no fear in her writing, and who can sometimes use the word “fuck” as a comma. Somehow though…I do relate to her. She has an honesty and dare I say, joy about life that not a lot of supposedly more “well-adjusted” people who I know have. And I am not alone, as Jenny has an army of fans online who appreciate her as much as I do. It really is no wonder she’s loved online…I mean the woman has a whole page devoted to Wil Wheaton Collating Paper for those poor souls in marketing that send her ridiculous pitches.

Unsurprisingly, her book is not all that different from her blog…it’s just a bit more focused on her own personal story. The stories from her childhood are a strange combination of endearing and horrifying, but in a good way. She is not shy about discussing things like her father’s penchant for allowing wild animals in the house, as well as her struggles with mental illness. She discusses her upbringing and her family with heart, and even when she talks about some of the more difficult times in her life, she does so with such disarming humor that you can’t help but love her a bit. Like any other great memoir, I really felt I got to know Jenny in a much deeper and more personal way than I have as a regular reader of her blog.

And it isn’t as if she doesn’t share intimate details of her life in her blog…she does. But with the book, it was as though she had a bit more of a chance to allow the reader into her life in a slightly different way. Is she still the same old irreverent Jenny? Absolutely. Is this book for everyone? Probably not. I highly recommend heading on over to her blog to read a handful of entries before you decide to buy the book. If you enjoy her blog, chances are you will enjoy her book. If you feel like splurging a bit, I recommend the audiobook version, as it is read by Jenny, to hilarious effect.

Tonight, I’m off to see her at the Barnes & Noble in my hometown of San José, California. I’ll be back here to tell you all about it tomorrow.

Rating: A hilarious read, with sprinkles of heartbreaking. I loved it, but if you’re unfamiliar with The Bloggess…check out the blog before buying the book. For me, this was easily 4 out of 5 stars. For others, it might not be a good fit.

Picture of Kepler’s sign, shamelessly stolen from their Facebook Page.

Tonight I went to a book event called “You Are Next” at Kepler’s Books & Magazines in Menlo Park, CA.

I had meant for years to make my way to Kepler’s and this was a perfect reason to finally go. It’s a lovely indie bookstore, like the indie bookstores I have loved all my life. The staff is supremely nice, knowledgeable and unsurprisingly, they throw a hell of a book event.

While Kepler’s was part of the reason I went to this event, the bigger reason was so I could finally meet author Martha Brockenbrough.

I’ve reviewed a couple of her books before on the blog, so if you’ve followed me for a long while (and if you have, you deserve a prize), then her name might seem a little familiar to you. Or, if you’re a grammar nerd, then you probably already know of her as the founder of National Grammar Day (which is this coming Monday, March 4th).

I digress.

Martha was the first writer than I had read off and on for years that I interacted with on twitter, and later a bit by email. We had a near-miss opportunity to meet when my husband and I spent time in her hometown of Seattle in 2011, but we were not able to make it happen. (sad face)

Whenever I meet anyone that I look up to for the first time…I just never know what to say. More often than not, my opportunities to meet writers comes in the form of readings, book events or things like the ALA Midwinter meeting. It’s difficult to converse when you know a veritable crowd is standing right behind you waiting for their turn. It’s always awkward, and so even if I think of clever things to talk about…there’s no time for that.

Tonight was no different. I was nervous and awkward and almost jittery. My mind drew a blank after she said hi and gave me a hug (!!). I stumbled over something about how it was nice to finally meet her, she mentioned that the event at Kepler’s was number four for the day (I have no idea how the four of them do it…that’s a lot in one day), and before I knew it, it was time for the event to start.

The presentation that Martha, Sean Beaudoin, Cat Patrick, and Kevin Emerson gave was engaging and funny. They all read from their respective books (all of which sounded great), and played a couple of interactive games with the “audience”. My personal favorite was “90 second novel” – a game that involved asking the audience to call out random numbers. Then Martha, Sean, Cat and Kevin would have to read a single sentence from their books from that page number, and that would go on for 90 seconds. It was cool because it really did give a sense of what each of the books were like. They took a few questions, and did a book signing and pictures…standard end of the night stuff.

I did manage to say hi before I left, and we took a minute to try to talk, but again…there were plenty of other people milling around and waiting for their turn. She asked about my running, and my fangirl self was a little thrilled that she remembered that.

Overall it was a really fun night. I plan on following the “tour” to Hicklebee’s Books in Willow Glen since I managed to forget my book tonight. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be less awkward.

Cover image pulled from the author’s website.

Title: Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief

Author: Lawrence Wright

Pages: 448 (hardcover); 532 (Nook enhanced edition)

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf

Pub. Date: 17 January 2013

Review Note: This is a book I purchased for my Nook. I bought the “Enhanced Edition”, which included extra content such as interviews with people the author used as sources for the book, as well as the author discussing various points he was trying to make. Each video snippet ran about 2 minutes long on average.

I really can’t say for sure why I felt the need to read this book. It was a mix of morbid curiosity and general fascination I guess.  I found this book to be equal parts disturbing, dense and intriguing. If even a fraction of what is revealed within these pages is true, especially regarding the church’s apparent proclivity to harass naysayers, then one can only wonder how the church has survived for as long as it has.

For those that may not know, Lawrence Wright is a writer for The New Yorker, and a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist. Specifically, he won the prestigious award for his book discussing 9/11, which was published in 2006. He has spent the last couple of years pouring through immense binders of information supplied to him by his subject in this book (The Church of Scientology), as well as spending countless hours interviewing several people who have since left the church. Given the relative secrecy of the organization he was researching, that he managed to go through all that information and produce a book at all is astounding in my eyes.

My own mild fascination with the Church of Scientology dates back to 2005 when Tom Cruise kind of, well, appeared to lose his marbles. Actually, why am I mincing words here? We all know he appeared to be completely nuts. The internet had filled with parodies of him jumping on Oprah’s couch (the one depicting him with electricity coming out of his hands à la Palpatine was a favorite of mine), and he gave that insane interview with Matt Lauer on the Today show. It made me wonder – “just what is the story of  Scientology, anyway?“.

I found out about Mr. Wright’s book by accident as I was browsing around the Barnes & Noble website, looking for a new book for my Nook Tablet. It took me a few days to decide to get it, mostly because I knew that it was on the longer side, and I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to delve into the whole of Scientology’s history.

Mr. Wright’s book is an interesting case study of the church, in that it is clear to me that he went out of his way to be as fair and as non-judgemental as possible. Any judgements that are passed on the church’s history, practices and behavior of its adherents over the years comes directly from Mr. Wright’s sources who were willing to be named in the book. Other incidents that were told through Mr. Wright are presented in a firmly journalistic sense, but some of what he describes, especially in relation to disciplinary actions can be difficult to read. The book itself starts off on the slow side, enticing the reader with the introduction of Paul Haggis (a writer, director and producer of many successful films – “Crash” among them) and the beginning of his involvement in Scientology, but then quickly moves into the life of the church’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard. It’s a necessary step, but there is a lot of ground that is covered and it can kind of feel as though the book becomes weighed down by so much information at once.

Midway through the book, the narrative shifts to the church’s development throughout the mid-1970s and early 1980s. The 1980s was a particularly volatile time period in the church, fraught with lawsuits with both former Scientologists and the infamous fight for designation as a religion (thereby gaining non-profit status) by the IRS. Some of the stories are disturbing, such as that of Lisa McPherson (a Scientologist who suffered a mental breakdown and later died while in the church’s care), and various followers of the church who decided to leave. The stories of familial separation and alienation between those that leave and those that stay in the church are downright heartbreaking.

Throughout the entirety of the book, I could not help but wonder what it is that keeps people in the church’s fold. L. Ron Hubbard’s life story depicts a man who was at best, well-meaning and troubled and at worst, tyrannical and crazy. It makes it difficult to figure out what about LRH’s story is true and what is false. There are abundant discrepancies between the biography of his life from the church (derived from LRH’s own writings) versus records about his life from more traditional sources such as military and other official records. Wright presents each side fairly, but of course to an outsider the discrepancies are difficult to ignore.

Overall, I found the book interesting enough to get me past some of the slower, denser parts. The stories about modern celebrities are mostly limited to a few accounts relating to John Travolta and focusing largely on Tom Cruise’s relationship with not only the church, but with its leader, David Miscaviage. Other notable celebrities are mentioned mostly in passing, so if you’re looking for some tell-all style narrative, this is not the book for you. Even with the focus mainly on Cruise, it hardly resembles any exposé done by the hundreds of “infotainment” media outlets out there. Wright does a nice job of keeping his focus as a respected journalist and does not give in to the temptation of turning his book into a breathless unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise and the church à la Kitty Kelley.

If you have no interest in the history of the Church of Scientology, the life of its founder, or how the organization functions, then this is not the book for you. If you have more than a passing interest, or if you wonder what it is that Tom Cruise is so fired up over, then this might be some interesting reading. As I said before, the book is slow to start, and it does suffer the consequences of trying to make sense of something that is largely a mystery. Mr. Wright’s book is clearly thoroughly researched, and he presents the story in an even-handed manner.

As is noted in the beginning of this review, I purchased the “Enhanced Edition” for the Nook. The interviews are a nice way of putting faces to some of the names, and it gives the reader a sense of “filling in” the story of these people nicely. If you don’t mind paying a little extra, then I recommend that edition. I do not know if there is a corresponding enhanced edition for other e-readers.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars. Readers would do well to have a healthy curiosity for the subject, so it is not written for everyone. Despite being dense and slow-moving in some parts, it is worth reading.