My squirrel days

Review by New York Times Review

audiobooks are tricky. For me, it's all about the narrator. Unfortunately I make quick judgments and frequently abandon ship if I can't wrap my head around something as inane as how the narrator says a word like "Sunday." Or the cadence of the voice: Do I feel like the narrator is commenting on or judging the work? Is there any kind of condescension lurking in the intonation? It's really unfair of me, but I can't help it; I'm a human person and the voice representing the content of a book is something I'm going to associate with the words forever and ever. So, sadly, if the narration is subpar, I will most likely never even finish listening to the book. Thankfully such is not at all the case with two new audiobooks: "My Squirrel Days," written and read by Ellie Kemper, and "Out of My Mind," written and read by Alan Arkin. Although both are memoirs by comic actors, these audiobooks could not be more different in content or delivery. If you're at all a Kemper fan already (I am, a lot), you will freaking love this audiobook. Her performance is infectious. Her energy is like a rocket ship blasting out of my ear buds and into my soul! Every time I would tune back in, I was re-energized by her joie de vivre. This woman loves life, loves her life, seems to love the life of those around her; hell, she probably even loves the life of the manager of the brunch spot that didn't quite get the lentil-to-kale ratio correct on her salad. Ellie Kemper is a happy person. But she's still a regular person too. She tries and fails at inner calm, hilariously reflecting while attempting to cure her pre-wedding anxiety in the outdoors, "Even a sunny hike in a vast park where severed heads are occasionally found was not enough to bring me inner stillness." As I'm sure others can attest - say, the roommate from her improv days who ate only orange food - Kemper has paid her dues and faced her share of struggles along the way to making a name for herself in Hollywood. I could actually feel her gratitude as I listened. The stories of her childhood in St. Louis are relatable, self-deprecating and charming as hell. She details precisely what her house felt like, how her siblings aided and thwarted her grand plans, the diets that represented the different phases of her life (before her first Golden Globes, she "hadn't drunk any water or consumed any salt for two days"), the development of her relationship with the man who became her husband and, of course, her acting career. It's easy to understand, after listening to her audiobook, just why Kemper has been so successful in the entertainment industry, and why people like Tina Fey and Paul Feig were dying to work with her. In fact, after listening to her anecdotes about playing field hockey at Princeton, failing the daily ingredients quiz as an employee at a Crumbs bakery in New York City, and abruptly switching from fivesecond-rule adherent to germ vigilante as soon as her son was born ("A sneeze from across the apartment threatened my family's very existence"), I too wanted to create a TV show for her to star in! Listeners will be smitten with her grace and work ethic, and even her tendency to lose herself in the mean reds when hungry. Though I've never met her, after listening to "My Squirrel Days," I feel confident in saying that Ellie Kemper is my best friend! O.K., maybe that's a bit extreme, and creepy, but she's definitely someone I would love to sit next to on a transcontinental flight. And then I listened to "Out of My Mind," by the great Alan Arkin. What a gear change. I should preface this by admitting to not having listened to Arkin's first autobiography, "An Improvised Life." So, if you have, this might not come as a great surprise to you, but wow is he a great storyteller. His voice is hypnotic - not put-you-to-sleep hypnotic, but like a guided concentration. Which is apropos, as he devotes much of this shorter audiobook to his evolving spirituality and his current meditation habit. It is impressive how, while speaking of his past, Arkin never seems to judge himself, nor does he overthink either his career or the work he's done on his own personhood. It's as though he doesn't even feel the need to explain his actions or decisions: He's just exactly himself. "I've become something that is almost completely unrecognizable from the person I was when I started on this journey," he explains, "and what I'm becoming needs a language that is past my abilities." He owns listeners' attention with his confident timbre, his New York accent and, most important, the power of his stories. In the '60s, while undergoing Freudian analysis (an actor's rite of passage back then), he experiences crippling attacks of stage fright that only improve when he refocuses his career from theater to film. After years of therapy he transitions to several successive forms of meditation, surrounding himself with various communities to support that practice. Alongside his psychological journey, his deep love for and devotion to his sons are palpable as his tone shifts ever so slightly to convey what could be heard only as awe. I listened to this memoir in one sitting, and when it was finished, I had many questions for Arkin - he left me wanting more. (I immediately added "An Improvised Life" to my audiobooks cart.) His storytelling is focused and matter-of-fact; his voice fluid, without extraneous words or noises, nothing to distract me from what he's saying. "If I have a belief system left," he tells us, "it mostly revolves around stopping to breathe." Arkin takes listeners on his journey and inside those meditation rooms, so we begin to understand what he means when he says, "My tensions are my great teacher. They show me the areas in which I still hold secrets and fears." We feel the panic he feels in the theater wings when stage fright hits, his mania as he writes down revelations for his analyst after a jolt of medication to restore his voice before a Saturday matinee. And though Arkin's inward trajectory takes many ups and downs, I never worried for him. "After looking for clarity for many years," he says, "I have come to no conclusions of any kind, except to feel that it's O.K. not to know the reason for things. Or the accepted reason for things. Or the comfortable reason for things." One gets the impression Arkin is telling us this tale from a place of stable, self-reflective calm. All I could do once I finished was meditate, which he advises can be not only "mysterious and exotic" but also "a way to simply achieve some measure of peace and comfort." It's not a transcontinental flight but a transcendental one. And Arkin, like Kemper, is a great companion for the trip. JUDY GREER is an actor and the author of "I Don't Know What You Know Me From."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 14, 2019]

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Review by Booklist Review

Actress Kemper's memoir in essays gives fans a taste of what it was like growing up Ellie. After an idyllic childhood in St. Louis, Missouri, defined by sibling mischief and living-room performances, Kemper went on to play Division I field hockey at Princeton. A season on the bench convinced Kemper that becoming a professional athlete wasn't in the cards, so she joined the school's improv team. Improv led her to New York after college, where she performed with Upright Citizens Brigade. Her role as a naive receptionist on The Office was Kemper's first big break, which gave way to a part in the smash hit Bridesmaids and her titular gig on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Her essays, light and apolitical, do differentiate Kemper from the often hopelessly simple and optimistic characters she plays, but at her core, Kemper herself is darn sunny and sweet. Despite a couple meltdowns over lentils hidden in restaurant food, and Manhattan germs threatening to attack her newborn, Kemper solidifies her upbeat and humble persona with her first book.--Courtney Eathorne Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Actress Kemper tickles the funny bone with her engaging and refreshing memoir. Hers is not the tale of a rough childhood (she grew up in a comfortable suburban St. Louis neighborhood with a loving family), overarching drama (her righteous indignation is confined to an uneducated guide on a The Sound of Music tour in Salzberg, Austria), or unhappy marriages (she's been married to Michael Koman since 2012). Instead, in a snappy, coordinated series of essays, Kemper-who plays the title character in Netflix's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, after a side-splitting role in The Office--amusingly chronicles her life, never hesitating to make fun of herself. She is an entertaining writer, and her tales-including those about auditioning for Saturday Night Live, complimenting Tina Fey ("You have great hair-really strong and thick!"), and tripping while running to fetch a glass of water for her childhood crush, Christopher Plummer ("I sprinted to the bar as fast as my Naired legs could carry me")-will give readers an enticing glimpse of her happy-go-lucky attitude. This is a fun, breezy, and enjoyable volume. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The debut book from the Emmy-nominated actress.It's clear within the first chapter of actress Kemper's memoir that the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star is still playing a character. Her role in the text is that of clever, albeit controlling, comedy writer disguised as the girl next door. Strategically revealing only what she wants the reader to see, the Princeton graduate's English degreeand her experience as a writer for the Onionis on full display. The author begins by portraying herself as a precocious child, with a rambling chapter about her obsession with her second-grade student teacher, a Russian woman named Ms. Romanoff. "I hung on every word that came out of her mouth; her voice sounded how my Eggo syrup tasted," she writes. From there, Kemper picks and chooses choice anecdotes to describe her life, from feckless Ivy League field hockey player to improv workaholic to unsuccessful Saturday Night Live auditioner to cast member on the American version of The Office. What she doesn't include is the typical celebrity tell-all. For the author, the hero's struggle is more Anne Shirley than Lisbeth Salander. Imagining what she will tell her children about her obsession with SoulCycle, she writes, "son, there was a time in my lifewhen I agreed to pay money to take a bicycle-riding class in a studio lit by candles and filled with songs of Coldplay, Pitbull, and E.S. Posthumus." Everything here is played for laughs, and some setups work better than others. When Kemper sticks the landing, the results are uproarious, as in her encounter with Office creator and star Ricky Gervais, who somehow misunderstood Kemper as saying she played him on the American version of the show.A little Lucille Ball, a little bit Tracy Flick, Kemper proves that good comedy starts with good writing. It's no Bossypants, but it's an entertaining celebrity memoir. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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My Squirrel Days Author There comes a time in every sitcom actress's life when she is faced with the prospect of writing a book. When my number was up, I told myself that I would not blink. I would fulfill my duty as an upbeat actress under contract on a television series and serve my country in the only way I knew how. I would cull from my life the very greatest and most memorable of anecdotes, I would draw on formative lessons learned both early on and also not too long ago, I would paint for the reader a portrait of the girl, the teenager, the woman I am today, and I would not falter. I would write a book. And so, Reader, I got to work. First, I started dressing like an Author: black turtlenecks and dark denim jeans. Then, I started sipping like an Author: double shots of espresso with no Hershey's syrup to cushion the blow. Finally, I started talking like an Author: "That reminds me of my book," I would begin most sentences. I noticed people stopped talking to me as much. But onward I marched. I reread all the classics: Pride and Prejudice, The Catcher in the Rye, What to Expect When You're Expecting. I scribbled in journals and I sighed with meaning. All shaving came to an immediate and powerful halt. Did I stumble in my journey? Of course I did. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I would remind myself as I boldly considered mixing two flavors of Ben and Jerry's that I had never tasted together before. Also, you should try writing the first paragraph of your book, I would add, after I had declared my new frozen dairy creation a success. Heroes are not born; they are made. Nonetheless, being an Author is exhausting. I would struggle to fall asleep at night, tossing and turning in the way that only a tortured artist can. "Is this how Chaucer felt?!" I cried out to the big black darkness. "You are being so loud!" hushed my now-awake husband. I envied his innocence. You see, Reader, I knew that I had some great wisdom to offer you, but I worried that I did not have enough great wisdom to give to you. And this worry very nearly destroyed me. I began losing interest in food. 1 I found little joy in the things I used to love. 2 I had to wonder: is all of this Life really worth it? 3 And then, one Sunday afternoon, alone in my closet, sifting through a bunch of broken memories and Spanx so stretched out they were no longer useful, I came across my very first headshot: I stared at the woman in this photo. "I know you," I whispered. "Oh, wait. You're me." For a second, I had thought it was an old picture of Prince Harry. Anyway, there I was. At the time of that headshot, I was twenty-three years old, but I look both fourteen and eighty-seven. The photo was taken by Kris Carr, a beautiful vegan who wore tank tops in winter and cooked us black beans and sautéed kale for lunch. Besides my pale, remarkably round face, every inch of my skin is covered in this portrait. I am wearing a brown corduroy jacket from the Gap and a beige turtleneck that threatens to swallow me whole. My left forearm is placed casually on my right knee, suggesting that I am a strong woman with definite opinions but also that I am able to kick back and relax like an easygoing cowboy. Very little attention was paid to hair or makeup that day, but my mischievous smile assures you that I am crushing life and also that I might just have a secret or two tucked up that corduroy sleeve. I looked at that girl and I missed her. She was full of light, of hope, and her cheeks looked like they were storing nuts. Had this girl moved on to learn anything of substance over the next fifteen years? Nah. But she did remind me of the power in pretending. She also reminded me that the Gap seems to have great sales just about every other day (at least online). The Ellie in that headshot was not only a dead ringer for British royalty, but she was also pretending to be confident at a time in her life when, frankly, she felt a little bit lost. Wait a minute, I realized a few hours later over an exciting new mix of The Tonight Dough with Peanut Buttah Cookie Core: I do have enough wisdom to share! Corduroy Ellie may have been smiling bravely, but there was a considerable amount of doubt and fear hiding behind that smile. And yet Corduroy Ellie did not let the doubt and fear win. As a reasonably talented person who is also part fraud, I cannot praise highly enough the virtues of enthusiasm and tenacity as substitutes for finely honed skills or intensive training. And in this book, Reader, I will tell you about the numerous times that I have made up in pluck what I have lacked in natural ability. I will reveal tidbits from my past, and I will feed you morsels from the present. Some stories might seem implausible, some anecdotes farfetched. And I am here to tell you that this is because I have made them up. What do you want from me? I have an energetic toddler and my memory is fuzzy. Here are some of the tales I have to share: * My exhilarating rise--though some have described it as more of a "flatline"--through NCAA Division I College Field Hockey. A very thin woman with a bionic knee plays a prominent role. * A ruthless exposé of my personal encounters with some of the splashiest personalities in Hollywood. Cameos include Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and the late Pope John Paul II. * Filming the movie Bridesmaids while simultaneously serving as a bridesmaid in real life. Art and life grew inextricable, and I slowly began to lose my mind. * My platonic yet breathless pursuit of a turquoise-pants-loving second-grade student teacher named Ms. Romanoff--and how her Russian heritage would ultimately teach me that even though Russia might have interfered with our 2016 election, it doesn't mean that the entire country is bad. * Why being a mom is hard, but trying to remain rational while hungry is even harder. In closing, I would like to share some writing advice I once received from an old graduate school professor: 4 Write like your parents are dead. Free yourself from any harnesses or constraints that are keeping you from telling your truth. And do not worry about whether you are doing the right thing or the wrong thing. Just be honest. Well, I don't write like my parents are dead. I write like they are alive, thriving, and peering over my shoulder. I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Aren't parents supposed to be your moral guides? Not only do I not want to embarrass my mom or my dad, but I happen to think they have pretty good judgment. Also, I need them on my good side if I want them to keep giving fun grandparent gifts to my son. As far as being honest, I already told you that a lot of the details and dialogue here are made up. I have learned that an Author must write what She knows. And I, for one, happen to know a lot about snacks. In fact, this book is not so much a tribute to brave women everywhere as it is a record of my favorite ice cream brands. So you see, I wrote what I knew, and I know what I wrote. I hope that you enjoy. Best, Ellie Kemper 1 Absolutely untrue. 2 The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, but that is only because I watched the pilot in October, and then had to wait a full two months for the second episode! By then I was so frustrated that I didn't even care anymore! 3 Referring to the cereal. Went waaay overboard at a "buy one get one half off?" sale at Fairway that week. 4 Found by googling "best way to write a book is what?" Excerpted from My Squirrel Days by Ellie Kemper All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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