The Guinness Book of Me: A Memoir of Record

Similar to the first reviewer I also know Steve, my wife went through the CSU MFA program with him and is a fellow member of the Minions writing group. Steve's school and open mike readings were something we all looked forward to because we knew we would soon be laughing hard enough to puke. We all hung out at the same bar trading stories and tales with one another, this particular bar was also the birth place of the "Rules of the Buffet" story. However, I have digressed, Steve's book is full of the wonder, magic, pain, and growth we experience in childhood and teen years that makes us who we are as adults. Our youth leaves an unmistakeable stamp on us that we carry, either as a source of pride or baggage it's our choice, and it's also something we have to come to terms with. Steve illustrates this extremely well in his book. Having grown up in southern New Hampshire not at all like Kansas, I felt the same kinship with Steve's writing I have found during many long nights with Steve himself. I also found myself mourning the end of the book because it left me with no more chapters to read and hoping for another book to come out as soon as possible. Steve's writing is refreshing, sad, and inspiring, I can't recommend this book enough. Long live the Minions and late nights at Surfside.

I am an avid reader and a woman. I lean toward great contemporary fiction written by women these days, not sure why. . . so when someone handed me this hot off the press book, I flinched. I try to read male authors, and while I can glean good writing nods from the best of them, I don't reach for them again years later, Most male books don't become best friends. By best friends, I'm talking, Barbara Kingsolvers' books, Monk's The Secret Life of Bees, The Lady who wrote the Pilot's Wife . . . those books. You know . . THOSE BOOKS (I say this like a drug addict talks about his next hit). They're hard to find. The Guinness Book of Me will. I can't get it out of my head. It smacked with honest, strong writing and for the first time, I felt like I honestly got inside a man's head. Hurrah for Steven Church, his first novel. I'd be willing to bet this book is going to go BIG. Be one of the first to read it. Be the one at your reading club to suggest it. You can't go wrong. Male or Female. I can't wait to give it to my 15 year old son to read. There was "chick lit", right? What's this? "Bro Books?" I loved every single written word in it. And I can only say that about a handful of books I've read.

I read this book in just two sittings, it would have been only one, but I have 2 small children. I pick it back up and re-read sections again and again. Steven Church is a fabulous writer. Steven Church makes me wish I could eat dinner with his in-laws and visit Kansas. I love his writing and I can't wait for more. I am buying a copy for my dad, one for my brother, and I am keeping my copy. Steven Church, write more soon.

This book is sensitive. Church has a way of approching the sadness in his life (brother's death, for one) that is simple, but not overly sensitive. But there are enough male-bonding episodes and inevitable scars to make it a guy book. Refreshing, in a sea of chick lit. *And* he gets the girl.

I read this book (indeed, I became aware of this book) because Steven Church is my husband's cousin (there, full disclosure). I've met him a few times, but I couldn't say I know him. I didn't necessarily want to love this book. But I did, and I devoured it in one sitting. So why read a memoir of someone who is not your husband's cousin, someone who has never committed a serious crime or slept with movie stars or been present at a Big Moment in History? Someone whose physical scars all come from silly accidents, someone who grew up in Kansas, for goodness' sake? The facts of Steven Church's life would hardly qualify him for a one-page piece in People Magazine. Read this memoir because it is a true (although maybe not always factual) story. Because it is funny, inventive, touching, real, tough and beautiful. Read it because it will make you want to know Steven Church, because it will make you feel that you do. Read it because his musings about Guinness Book record-holders are as real and intimate and fine as what he tells you about his own battered heart. Read it because it is superbly crafted--WRITTEN, not just WRITTEN DOWN (I do not have the luxury of italics here). So READ it for all those reasons, but BUY it because someday you will be proud and glad to own a first edition of the first book by Steven Church.