Rocketjk's 49.49 book challenge for 2009

Well, in 2008 I got through 87 pages of my 50th book, Call Her Savage by Tiffany Thayer. The book is 305 pages long, so my 2008 50-book challenge ended at 49.29 books! So close! So this year, I'm trying to improve on the 49.29 mark. I'm going for 49.49!

In addition to the books I read straight through, I like to read anthologies, collections and other books of short entries one story/chapter at a time instead of straight through. I have a couple of stacks of such books from which I read one story/chapter each between the books I read from cover to cover (novels and histories, mostly). So I call these my "between books." When I finish a "between book," I add it to my yearly list. It so happens I'm nearing the end of several such books right now, so my 49.49 challenge will get a pretty good boost early in the year.

Master List (Touchstones included with individual listings below):
 1: Call Her Savage by Tiffany Thayer
 2: Great German Short Novels and Stories edited by Bennett Cerf
 3: Designated Hebrew: the Ron Blomberg Story by Ron Blomberg
 4: Mother Knows Best: the Natural Way to Train Your Dog by Carol Lea Benjamin
 5: The Centaur by Algernon Blackwood
 6: An Anthology of Russian Literature in the Soviet Period from Gorki to Pasternak edited by Bernard Guilbert Guerney
 7: Kaltenborn Edits the War News by H. V. Kaltenborn
 8: Thirty Stories by Kay Boyle
 9: Hungry Hearts by Anzia Yezierska
10: Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach
11: Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk
12: Tales of the Dervishes: Teaching Stories of the Sufi Masters over the Past Thousand Years by Idries Shah
13: St. Ronan's Well by Sir Walter Scott
14: The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
15: Turning the Tide of War: 50 Battles that Changed the Course of Modern History by Tim Newark
16: Strat-O-Matic Fanatics: the Unlikely Success Story of a Game that Became an American Passion by Glenn Guzzo
17: GraceLand by Chris Abani
18: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by Dr. Montague Rhodes James
19: A Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne
20: New Orleans 1960 by William Claxton and Joachim E. Berendt
21: The Fables of La Fontaine by Jean de La Fontaine with illustrations by Marc Chagall
22: The Nigger Factory by Gil Scott-Heron
23: Astounding Science Fiction - July 1955 edited by John W. Campbell
24: The History of Rome Hanks and Kindred Matters by Joseph Stanley Pennell
25: Racing in the Street: The Bruce Springsteen Reader edited by June Skinner Sawyers
26: Something to Declare: Essays on France and French Culture by Julian Barnes
27: Up in the Air by Walter Kirn
28: Payback: Five Marines After Vietnam by Joe Klein
29: Great Modern Reading: W. Somerset Maugham's Introduction to Modern English and American Literature edited by W. Somerset Maugham
30: Echoes of World War II by Trish Marx
31: Jazz on the Barbary Coast by Tom Stoddard
32: Milk and Honey by Kaye Kellerman
33: Prize Stories 1994: The O. Henry Awards edited by William Abrahams
34: A Mad Desire to Dance by Elie Wiesel
35: Tales of the Trinity by Horace Bell
36: Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland
37: Top of the World by Hans Ruesch
38: The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde
39: The Sisters by Robert Littell
40: The Kid from Tomkinsville by John R. Tunis
41: Satchel: the Life and Times of an American Legend by Larry Tye
42: Voices of the Valley, Volume II: More Stories of Anderson Valley Elders Collected by Anderson Valley Youth
43: Saratoga Trunk by Edna Ferber
44: The Black Flower by Howard Bahr
45: Under the Iron Heel by Lars Moen
46: The Ballad of West Tenth Street by Marjorie Kernan
47: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
48: World Series by John R. Tunis
49: Bringing Tony Home by Tissa Abeysekara
50: An Inn Near Kyoto: Writing by American Women Abroad edited by Kathleen Coskran and C.W. Truesdale
51: Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
52: The Kid Comes Back by John R. Tunis
53: The Humbling by Philip Roth
54: The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry
55: Moorish Spain by Richard Fletcher
56: Visions of Jazz: the First Century by Gary Giddins
57: The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds
58: As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee
59: Moscow Circles by Benedict Erofeev
60: The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lilian Jackson Braun

Book 1: Call Her Savage by Tiffany Thayer



Call Her Savage has all the appearances of a pulp novel, but really is a pretty well written book. Published in 1931 (and it is worthwhile to note that Thayer is male, despite his first name), it is the story of a "willful" woman who tries to live life on her own terms without knuckling under to society's norms (and the power of men). Surprisingly, the book begins with the main character's grandparents as they come across the plains in a wagon train, and works up through the next generation to explain the character's antecedents.

At any rate, the book is very much in the "determinist" school, wherein characters are shaped by their environment in a way that leaves them very little wriggle room, fate-wise. Sort of a Theodore Dreiser with a touch more licentiousness.

A bit predictable in parts, but over all I enjoyed the characterizations and dialogue, and the ending worked quite well, which, to be honest, I wasn't expecting. I did a bit of investigation online and was fascinated to learn that this book was made into a move starring Clara Bow as part of her ongoing efforts to make the transition of silent screen star to talkies. Bow's work was generally praised in the movie, but the film itself was panned for being over sentimental and sensationalized.

Love weird (meant in a good way) books like this. Where did you find it? Thayer has an interesting Wikipedia bio, too.

"Love weird (meant in a good way) books like this. Where did you find it? Thayer has an interesting Wikipedia bio, too."

Absolutely. Me, too! I found the book in a great San Francisco bookstore called Kayo Books which specializes in pulp paperbacks. They've got several shelves of downright, well, porno, but most of the store consists of great old murder mysteries, sci fi novels and other "far out" pulp fiction. (http://www.kayobooks.com/)

Between the title and the cover, I couldn't resist this one, and, as frequently happens, the book turned out to be quite interesting, and the author's story interesting as well. (Yes, I have perused his Wikipedia bio as well.)

One of the reason I love offbeat books, and sprinkle them liberally into my reading habits, is that so often they lead to learning something entirely new about history or culture or both!

Good luck on the book challenge! Question for you: how do you post book covers on these threads? They always look so good! Thanks!

Good luck with your challenge. Call her Savage looks like a very interesting book. I will have to see if I can find a copy anywhere. I love to try different kinds of books because you never know what you might just learn.

#5, For images you use the following code:

(img src="http://www.xxx")

but instead of parenthesis, use the symbols.

Now go to the image you want to paste (I use the cover image on the Book page of the book in question). It has to be online somewhere, you can't just use a .jpg from your hard drive because you need an online URL. Put your cursor over the image and right click your mouse, then select "Copy image location." Go back to the code, highlight everything between the quotation marks (i.e., the quotation marks must remain in place), and then hit Paste.

Et viola!

Well, kayobooks just looks terrific (not at all surprised to see John Waters giving a testimonial). It reminds me, somewhat, of a bookstore that I used to frequent when we lived in West Hollywood. I no longer remember the name, but it had a circus motiff and stocked much pulp fiction.

Book 2: Great German Short Novels and Stories edited by Bennett Cerf



My first "between book" (see above) completed of the year. This is a Modern Library anthology with a lot of great works in it, including "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann and "Amok" by Stefan Zweig. Goethe, Heine and others are also represented. This might have been a bit ponderous to read straight through, as there are precious few light moments included here, but reading one story from the collection at a time over the course of about 6 months was the perfect pace for me.

Rocketjk;

Just a note to thank you for your recommendation of The Four Deuces: A Korean War Story by C. S. Crawford. I found a used library copy to read and made it the first book on my 50 book challage. I really enjoyed it.
Thank you again.

Glad you enjoyed The Four Deuces, usnmm2. I haven't had a chance to get to it yet, myself. I do have an extremely interesting memoir about the Spanish Civil War, War is Beautiful, on my short list, however.

Book 3: Designated Hebrew: the Ron Blomberg Story by Ron Blomberg



For baseball fans only (and, I guess, folks interested in contemporary Jewish history). An interesting enough account of Ron Blomberg's career. Blomberg was the first Jewish Yankee (other then Jimmy Reese, who played for the Yanks for two seasons in the late 20s) and by a quirk of luck became the first player to come to bat as a DH when the rule was instituted in 1973. In the telling of his tale, Blomberg sticks to himself only, offering very little other than fully rehashed stories about the clubhouses and dugouts in which he spent his years as a Yankee. And even in telling his own tale, Blomberg offers precious little in interesting anecdote form. I was happy to read this, in that it filled in some blanks in my teenage memories of Blomberg and those Yankee teams of the early 70s, but other than that I didn't learn a whole lot here. One interesting tidbit, though. I was sure I had read on various occassions that Thurman Munson had more than a trace of anti-Semintism about him. But Blomberg portrays Munson as one of the four or five Yankees who consistently supported him when others expressed belief that Blomberg was malingering through his many injuries. That was nice to read.

Book 4: Mother Knows Best: the Natural Way to Train Your Dog by Carol Lea Benjamin



The basic idea of this book on dog training is that the best way to learn how to train a dog is to watch how a mother dog trains, rewards and disciplines her puppies. Clearly written, with a lot of ideas that make perfect sense and, so far in our training of Yossarian, our 10-month-old yellow lab, seem to work. We've heard very good things about this book, and about Benjamin's theories and methods, from the dog trainers we've asked. The only problem with the book is that reading it isn't enough. You also need to practice the training methods with your dog over and over again.

This book looks really interesting. I don't have a puppy. I got my dog when she was about a year old and now she is 4 1/2. She was so easy to train because she was older. However, she is actually not so great on a leash! So, although my dog is older and pretty much well-trained for what I want, I still want to check this book out. :)
--BJ

I draw the line at licking their little tushies.

Hey Richard, You do have a way with words, my friend!

Book 5: The Centaur by Algernon Blackwood



Blackwood, a writer active in the late 1800s and early 1900s was best known for his collections of horror short stories, I think. In this novel, though, he is delving into a sort of ecological mysticism. The theme of this novel is that the Earth is a living entity and that early in the existence of Mankind there was an easy, if subconscious, communication between the Earth consciousness and humankind. Modern life, with its trappings of civilization, have long since severed this link, although there are some few people walking the planet who are still able to make this connection. Unfortunately, giving in to the call of the Earth consciousness, and experiencing a sort of ultimate beauty of existence, means risking losing your self-consciousness, something even the most enlightened modern man is loath to do. The book is about the journey of discovery taken by one such atuned man, as told by his friend who has heard only the protagonist's descriptions of events. Think, for example, of Marlow telling us about Lord Jim. The book is interesting as a period piece, an example of the mystical writing of the period. The problem is that the discussions and descriptions of the philosophy and the characters are quite repetitive. This novel, 260 pages in the modern reprint I read, could have been half the length. And Blackwood's writing is strewn rather too heavily with overwrought adverbs: things are done or perceived "amazingly" "incomprehensibly" "astoundingly" "insufferably" way too much. But some of the descriptions are quite good, including the protagonist's experiences once he has his brief run in with the great spiritual realm of the Earth consciousness. (I can barely believe I just typed that with a straight face, but there you have it.) Anyway, I found this interesting, but I can't say I'd recommend it to very many people.

Gods, wasn't that era just the Mothership of Modifieritis? I think we're less tolerant of that trait now that our visual imaginations are so much more sophisticated due to the life-long visual grammar lesson that is television (before that, movies).

The Centaur sounds ghastly to me, so I won't likely be picking it up...though I think the hypothesis, so reminiscent of the Gaia Hypothesis, sounds pretty solid. Then again, I was the tallest, broadest, palest, and reddest of the visitors to the Shinto shrines of Japan who actually knew what to do. I've always contended that we're just not listening to what Mother Earth is telling us, and She's getting teed off....

Hey Richard . . .

Gods, wasn't that era just the Mothership of Modifieritis? I think we're less tolerant of that trait now that our visual imaginations are so much more sophisticated due to the life-long visual grammar lesson that is television (before that, movies).

I think it's just relying on adverbs in that way is simply weak writing. When you call something "astoundingly" beautiful, you really haven't told me much, other than that thing is beautiful, because "astoundingly" means something different to everyone who reads the word. So you are having the character respond as the reader would respond, I suppose, rather than showing me (yes, it's the old "show don't tell" gambit) specifically how the character reacted at that moment.

The Centaur sounds ghastly to me, so I won't likely be picking it up . . .

You would probably hate it, while at the same time, as you say, having sympathy for the underlying theme. I too find the hypothesis itself an attractive one. Rather than saying it's "pretty solid," I will maintain myself an agnostic on the subject. Philosophically, or metaphorically, I have no beef with it.

A reasonable and reasoned stance.

PS, did you do a major round of promo here on LT today? I only saw one announcement of Thursday's shindig. I sent an email to all my music-oriented friends earlier. You could be getting log-ons from all sorts of odd places!

Thanks, Richard, for the free publicity! But one notice on the Gathering Place thread from me is sufficient, I think!

Book 6: An Anthology of Russian Literature in the Soviet Period from Gorki to Pasternak edited by Bernard Guilbert Guerney



This was a "between book" (see explanation in Post 1) that I completed last night. It was a very interesting collection in that it included writers, other than the two in the title, who were almost wholly unknown to me. Some of the pieces were sort of turgid political prose, but surprisingly (to me) few of them fit that description. Enjoyable writing, for the most part, and I learned a lot about Russian life and attitudes of the first half of the 20th Century through the eyes of the writers of the day.

Book 7: Kaltenborn Edits the War News by H. V. Kaltenborn



H. V. Kaltenborn (http://www.otr.com/kaltenborn.shtml) was one of the America's most known and respected radio correspondents in the 30s and 40s. After America entered WWII, one of the movie newsreel companies began a series of features wherein Americans would be encouraged to send in their questions about the war. Kaltenborn would select a few representative questions and answer them on the newsreels, which would then, of course, be shown in movie houses before feature films.

This book is a compilation of some of those questions, with Kaltenborn's answers. What's most fascinating about the book is that it was published in 1942. We have a tendency now to look back on the events of the war as if they were written in stone, but looking at the questions people had in 1942, and Kaltenborn's answers, show us how uncertain everything was and how many of decisions made by the Allies were far from inevitable.

Many of the questions concern things like the timing of the opening of a second front in Europe, which Kaltenborn believed would happen much sooner than it did. Kaltenborn also gives assurances that Russia will soon begin helping in the war against Japan, at least to the extent of allowing American bombers access to airfields on Soviet soil, a development which never occurred and which might have really changed the war in the Pacific.

Those misconceptions aside, or maybe even in part because of them, Kaltenborn here provides a great amount of fascinating insight about what was going on in 1942 and what Americans' concerns and questions were about those events.

Good entry, Jerry! I got interested in HV Kaltenborn when I read The Murrow Boys a year or so ago. It gives a very different perspective on Kaltenborn and his place in the broadcasting firmament. Check out the reviews of The Murrow Boys over at Amazon. It's a really fine read.

Hey thanks, Richard. I will check that out. By the way, I neglected to mention something else really cool about the Kaltenborn book: First edition; signed by Kaltenborn! I found it in some thrift store or antique shop somewhere or other. I'm also the only LTer with this book listed.

*recovers from fit of bookenvy*

Why, how nice for you, I'm sure.

>23 rocketjk: Pssst..does anyone know where rocket lives, and when he's likely to be away from home? Does he have a big dog?? I seriously covet that book. And that's before I read Post 25. I started a group a loooong time ago called "Eureka Finds". It never caught on. But this one definitely qualifies as an entry there.

"Pssst..does anyone know where rocket lives, and when he's likely to be away from home?

I live in Boonville, CA. A 90-minute drive north from SF on Hwy 101, followed by 45 minutes on a very windy 2-lane "highway" up, over and around a whole bunch of mountains. You are welcome any time! I am likely to be away from home during regular business hours. However, my wife works from home. She is much tougher than I am, anyway. Plus . . .

"Does he have a big dog??"
Yes!

"I seriously covet that book. And that's before I read Post 25. I started a group a loooong time ago called "Eureka Finds". It never caught on. But this one definitely qualifies as an entry there."

I know what you mean. I cannot stay out of thrift stores and antique shops, and out in the small California towns (and probably any small town area across the country), the books finds can really be wonderful if you have a wide range of interests.

However, I got curious about the value of my signed copy and went online to Alibris and one or two other sites. Copies of the book are not hard to find. There were even some other signed copies. I got mine for $15 somewhere. The signed copies I saw online were three to four times more than that, but unsigned copies did not seem to be particularly expensive at all.

And how nice to be among a group of people where others would be appreciative of a small gem like the Kaltenborn book!

I think your next radio show is on Lincoln's Birthday...I intend to call in a bomb threat to the station out of sheer spiteful envy...that's how much I appreciate "Eureka Finds" like this book.

laytonwoman3rd, I somehow missed knowing about that forum. Isn't it a commentary on modern cyberlife that we have to promote even good, free ideas to get them off the ground?

Richard, My next radio show is actually this Thursday. For reasons that have wholly and somewhat charmingly to do with being in a very small town (keeping two people who refuse to be in the studio with each other at the same time from having to do so . . . it's very Northern Exposure around here sometimes), I get to do my show two weeks in a row, and then go back to every other week. Thanks for reminding me. I meant to post that on the Gathering Place thread, too. So I miss having a show on Lincoln's Birthday, but this Thursday is Constitution of 1917 Day in Mexico (http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/1917-Constitution-of-Mexico), and since there are many of Mexican nationality in our area, I'll probably be playing a whole lot of Latin Jazz.

Book 8: Thirty Stories by Kay Boyle



Another "between book" completed. Boyle was a wonderful short story writer and this collection, presented in chronological groups, really shows off her development over the years. Of particular interest, to me, were the group of stories written in France during the period 1939-1941. In '41, Boyle got out of France and came home to the U.S. These stories are about the France of the first days of WWII and then the first days of the occupation, as the French people began coming to grips with the idea of being a conquered people. The stories are gentle, the ideas presented through small, telling details, the characters' reaction, in general, believable and understated. I have read and enjoyed one or two of Boyle's novels, but didn't enjoy them quite as much as I enjoyed these stories.

I don't think I've ever read a story by Boyle. I'll go add her to the pile. Thanks!

Irene Nemirovsky sounds like a close match. Have you read Suite Francaise yet? I can recommend it.

I know of Kay in a historical context, but have never read her any of her writing. Jerry, this is such an interesting thread. Thanks.

#32> Richard, I have Suite Francaise on my, um, tall TBR stack. That's to say, it's one of the 1,500 or so books in my house I haven't read yet. One of these days . . .

#33> theaelizabet, I really recommend these stories. The great thing about a short story collection is that you don't have to commit to a lot of time with it if you don't want to. A story or two from time to time, and then you can jump back to a novel or history or other full-length book if and when you want.

That's basically the philosophy behind my "between books" concept. I'll read one story or entry apiece from about five or six collections/anthologies that I've started in between each full-length book I read. I generally have two such stacks which I alternate between. My wife thinks I'm a little whacky when I haul out one of my "between book" stacks after I finish a novel, but she seems to love me, reading quirks and all.

Thanks for the kind word about my reading list. As you see, I really enjoy having my reading all over the place. The only area that seems to get neglected is the current fiction that most everybody else around here seems to enjoy most! Oh, well. Anyway, my next two books are going to be relatively current: Bonk by Mary Roach and Rant by Chuck Palahniuk.

Book 9: Hungry Hearts by Anzia Yezierska



One more "between book" down. Anzia Yezierska was a very well known writer about the Jewish immigrant experience in the early part of the 20th Century, to the extent that her stories were made into movies. Hungry Hearts is a collection of her short stories which are mostly variations on a theme: a young Jewish girl in Russia dreams of freedom of the soul and intellect in America, but when she gets here finds instead only the soul-crushing reality of drudgery in the sweat shops. However, these girls never let go of their dreams . . . dreams of artistic freedom, romantic love or, in one story, simply a friend to share her emotions and experiences with. Sounds a bit corny to our modern sensibilities, maybe, but Yezierska is able to bore down so close to her protagonist's feelings with very simple language (although skillfully rendered into a believable but not impenetrable Yiddish accent) that the emotionalism is kept to a minimum. We get a true, if slightly overwrought, sense of what our grandparents (for those of us of European immigrant stock) went through, the highs and lows of expectations, dreams and realities of the desperate dash to America. It should give many of us a firmer grasp on the bounties they earned for us to enjoy.

I just recently added Yezierska's novel Bread Givers to my ton and a half of TBR books. I too have Eastern European (though not Jewish) ancestry, and the whole experience does fascinate me. My grandmother was the youngest of 3 children of immigrant parents, and the only one born in this country. She lost both parents by the time she was 11 years old, so sadly, not a bit of their history was passed on to my Dad, let alone to me. I've managed to dig some of it up in the last 20 years, and even found close relatives in Slovakia still living on the family farm my great-grandfather left behind--but we can't communicate easily because of the language issue.

Book 10: Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach



I enjoyed this book a lot, laughed out loud often and even learned a thing or two. The enjoyment was greatly enhanced for me by the fact that Mary Roach is a longtime friend of my wife's, so I could "hear" her voice while reading the book. Roach's sense of humor and wry side observations (the footnotes really make the book, in my opinion) bring this subject alive: fascinating and absurd all at the same time; sort of like the rest of live, come to think of it!

Sounds interesting! Another one for the TBR pile.

jk, I can't keep this straight (you should forgive the expression): When is the next radio show? And tell Mrs. K that I would even go back to batting for the other team if Mary Roach is a-huntin' for a man....

I'm back on the air next Thursday (Feb 19). And Mary Roach ain't a huntin'. The long-suffering but good-natured Ed referred to frequently in Bonk is a real guy, and a very cool one, at that.

Book 11: Rant: an Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk



A fun, strange, imaginative wholly enjoyable science fictionish black comedy that becomes stranger and more surreal as you go along and the deeper levels of Palahniuk's concept are revealed. There are some extremely memorable characters here and I fairly raced though this. The ending, while entirely fitting, did not quite live up to the quality of the rest of the book, but it wasn't the sort of drop off that diminishes enjoyment. Very cool stuff.

*mmmfff*

Well, in keeping with my "why waste time running stuff down" policy, okay.

Tomorrow is your show! Looking forward, and posting a reminder.

Book 12: Tales of the Dervishes: Teaching Stories of the Sufi Masters over the Past Thousand Years by Idries Shah



This was a "between book." This book is comprised of very short stories and parables about the values of learning and trust and patience. Some of them are relatively opaque or metaphorical, but some are more "obvious" in their message. A few are humorous.

Here is one of my very favorites, which also happens to be one of the shortest and one of the funniest.

"The Dog and the Donkey"

A man who had found out how to understand the significance of the sounds made by animals was walking along a village street one day. He saw a donkey, which had just brayed, and beside him was a dog, yapping away for all he was worth. As he drew near, the meaning of this exchange came to him.

"All this talk of grass and pastures, when I am waiting for you to say something about rabbits and bones: it bores me," said the dog.

The man could not restrain himself. "There is, however, a central fact -- the use of hay, which is like the function of meat," he objected.

The two animals turned upon him in an instant. The dog barked fiercely to drown his words and the donkey knocked him senseless with a well-aimed kick of his hind legs.

Than they went back to their argument.

Book 13: St. Ronan's Well by Sir Walter Scott



This is the only one of Scott's novels that takes place in the 1800s. In his introduction, Scott actually apologizes to Jane Austen and two or three others of "the women" then writing similar novels for horning in on their territory, as it were, but says he did it simply to try his hand at something new.

At any rate, the book is enjoyable, although not as much so as Scott's historical novels, like Rob Roy and Ivanhoe. The story takes a little time to get going, but once it does it moves along engrossingly enough, and Scott has a nice touch at drawing relatively comic figures. As well as taking a page from Austen (whom Scott admired), the story also owes more than a little to the comedies of Shakespeare, including wise fools, foolish heroes, mistaken identity, and more than a little of the range perfected by the Bard.

As readers, we do end up with a rooting interest for the main romantic couple, but, seeing how this is Scott and not Austen, we move through the book unsure as to whether we are going to get a comic or a tragic ending.

Fun for Scott fans to see him trying his hand at something different, but not the book I'd recommend for folks looking to read him for the first time. Austen fans, similarly, might enjoy this as sort of a curiosity, but it doesn't measure up to her work, as a whole, I don't think.

Thanks for reviewing this book. I had never heard of it.
--BJ

what would you recommend for folks reading him for the first time? :)

#45> billiejean, you're welcome! I didn't know of it, either. I have it because about a year and a half ago I found a set of four of Scott's Waverly Books at a flea market. The Waverly Books is the series of novels Scott published at first anonymously. The first novel was called Waverly and after that they were just published as "By the author of Waverly." So they became known as the Waverly Books. Anyway, this set of four is an incomplete set, with each volume containing two full novels. The set itself was published in 1898, so they're beautiful old books. St. Ronan's Well and Rob Roy are in the same volume, and when I read Rob Roy last year and enjoyed it so much, I figured I might as well read its companion novel this year. Like so many other books that one stumbles on by accident and/or random, this one turned out to have a pretty interesting (at least to me) back story, as mentioned above. So that's the scoop.

#46> girlunderglass, I would very much recommend either Rob Roy or Ivanhoe. Rob Roy is a fun story of treachery and intrigue. The narrator and his story are very well created, and although Rob Roy, the character, doesn't really appear until halfway through, he's still a great, old-fashioned sort of "against all odds" hero. A fun read, although Scott's reproduction of 17th Century Scottish accents can cause some passages to be slow going. Ivanhoe to me was particularly fascinating because it examines the still strong rivalry between the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons several generations after the Norman invasion, beginning, in fact, with a short examination of the ways in which the Normans brought French words into the English language. Also, because I'm Jewish, I found Scott's use of a Jewish heroine and also the examination of the place of Jews in medieval English culture to be interesting, as well. Finally, it's just a very good adventure story. I have also read Quentin Durward, which I remember enjoying quite a bit, but I read that one probably around 10 years ago, so my memory of it is not as fresh.

Hope that helps. Enjoy!

thanks that's very helpful! Out of the two, Ivanhoe sounds more like one I would enjoy. Happy reading! What's up next?

You're welcome! Next up will be The Line of Beauty by Allan Hollinghurst.

The Line of Beauty, eh...hmmm...can't wait to hear what you're gonna sayy about that one! I hope I can listen in tomorrow, for once I don't have a PLANNED duty. You watch...the dog will want to go out and then the aunt will too.

*sigh* Adulthood.

I'm only up to about page 40, Richard, but so far enjoying it immensely. Hollinghurst is a very, very good writer. His sentences and paragraphs are beautiful. The characters are immediately believable. Looking forward to a full evening of reading, which I haven't had in a while.

Book 14: The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst



Hollinghurst writes beautifully and perceptively, and the story/protagonist really allows a heterosexual reader (at least this one) to get an insight into what it is like to be gay in a straight society, especially, perhaps, during the 80s, when the book takes place, a time when the idea of being unashamedly "out" was still a fairly new idea that the straight world was still getting used to, and with the AIDS epidemic gathering steam as well. So many little assumptions, so many off-hand comments, often made innocently but still serving to remind the gay person in the room that he/she is still considered an "other." The book begins as a tour de force, and then settles down for many, many pages to add on small observations amid seemingly minor and repetitive story points, until finally adding up to a very powerful ending. The problems with the book, for me, were that that middle portion really did begin to get repetitive, despite the beautiful writing. I thought the point had been made and then continued to be made again and again until I was ready for the story to resume already. It is all made good at the end, but still, there was a period of reading when I felt restless. The other problem, for me, is that the book takes place mainly among the English upper class. I kind of feel like the foibles of the rich, as humorously as they're examined here, are sort of easy pickings. At any rate, I have less interest in the troubles of the rich than I have in the experiences of the regular walking around folk, as it were. Those are personal sticking points only, however. This is a book to be highly--very highly--recommended.

Hey, Jerry! Nice review! I picked up The Line of Beauty last week, based on the high praise here on LT. I'm looking forward to it!

Book 15: Turning the Tide of War: 50 Battles that Changed the Course of Modern History by Tim Newark



Another "between book" finished. From the 1792 Battle of Valmy in the Franco-Prussian War through the 1995 Battle of Krajina in the war between Serbia and Croatia, this book provides short descriptions and analysis of 50 important battles. Interesting for those intersted in history and/or warfare. There are some political leanings revealed, especially in the more recent entries. For example, we are told in no uncertain terms that it was the hysterical over-reactions of the press after the Tet Offensive that led more or less directly to the U.S. losing the societal will to continue the fight against North Vietnamese and Viet Cong and therefore caused the U.S. to lose the Vietnam War. Overall, though, mostly good, straight-forward writing, through which I learned quite a bit.

Book 16: Strat-O-Matic Fanatics: the Unlikely Success Story of a Game that Became an American Passion by Glenn Guzzo



No working touchstone for this book.

This book tells the history of Strat-O-Matic Baseball (and all the other Strat-O-Matic games). You would probably have to have played this game as a kid, or like me and a lot of people, still be playing it as an adult, to find much interest here. However, the book is very well written and in fact tells a compelling human interest story. The games' inventor, Hal Richman, grew up on Long Island as the child of a verbally abusive father who was constantly telling him how worthless and stupid he was. As a result, Richman retreated into his imagination and his love of both baseball and math to create a baseball game based on probabilities. He stuck with the game, constantly improving it and making it more sophisticated, until, as a young adult, he had something he could try to begin marketing. The story of his struggle, and the game's slow but sure growth as a hobby for "kids of all ages" really does make quite fascinating reading, assuming one has a predisposition to care about the subject matter. Which I do. Honk, and I'll tell you about my two Strat-O-Matic draft league teams, the Hackensack Freeloaders and the Marigny Dreamers!

Interesting review. I love that the author overcame a difficult childhood to find success.
--BJ

Thanks billiejean. To be honest, I wouldn't expect anyone who's not really interested in the game itself to read this book. The funny thing is, though, that anyone interested in baseball and/or in real-life human interest stories about individuals using their innate strength and talents to overcome difficult beginnings against long odds probably would actually enjoy the first half at least. The second half enters into a description of how the game itself has changed over the years since it first became popular, and the reasoning/risks behind those changes: interesting for Strat enthusiasts, but maybe less so for folks not interested in the game.

>57 rocketjk: not interested in the Strat game, or not interested in baseball? I don't know how to play the Strat-O-Matic game, but baseball's a delightful thing. What do you think the odds are of my liking the book?

Richard,

I really meant not interested in the Strat-O-Matic game. Honestly I think you would enjoy the first half to two thirds of the book quite a lot. You will probably lose interest once the book starts to move away from Richman (the inventor of the game and main subject of the book) and into the phenomenon of the game itself and the community of players/fanatics it's attracted. But I personally think that first half or so is well worth reading for the human interest element I described above.

btw, as you professed yourself interested in my take on The Line of Beauty (see Post 50), I'm wondering how you reacted to my review (posted above).

Best,
Jerry

I didn't already post my response...? That's weird. Wonder where my head was that day.

I kind of feel like the foibles of the rich, as humorously as they're examined here, are sort of easy pickings. At any rate, I have less interest in the troubles of the rich than I have in the experiences of the regular walking around folk is the heart of the matter, and honestly, that's where it's make-or-break.

I don't care overmuch for the hijinks of the privileged classes in tabloid form, but can't get enough of 'em in the lusher pastures of fiction. I was enthralled by the setting, won over by the characters, and in the end...ticked off by the callous repudiation of that pack of overbred candied-violet-eatin' inbreds, especially that hideous-hat-wearin' mother. Rhoda, was it? Anyway, he saved her bacon several times, did Nick, and she...!
Grrrrrrrrr

So, yeah.

We are already into SPOILER ALERT territory for A Line of Beauty so beware one and all.

To be clear, Richard, I thought the ending was genius. It was the middle ground that made me a bit antsy. Not lost on me, however (Did I say SPOILER ALERT?) is the fact that while everyone around our hero in the end accused him of betraying them, it was in fact quite the reverse: every single one of them betrayed him. In some cases, Nick's form of so-called betrayal comes from simply being gay and trying to act like that was normal, which they all wanted him to understand simply wasn't. Obviously, to them, his implicit insistence that his homosexual affair was no more or less scandalous than their heterosexual affairs seemed to them naive and hurtful, to put it mildly. Even more important is how we're shown that they're not even being hypocritical about this. It's what they truly believe. To them it's simply self-evident, as it would have been to 95% of heterosexuals in those days. Hopefully a much smaller percentage today, but I do wonder. The book unveils this all for the reader without bombast; incredibly skillfully. I thought the mother's (Rachel, by the way) final comment about "Your hideous little car" was a genius way of showing what her true colors toward him had been all along. The final comment of the maid, however, I thought was simply piling on. So was his name, by the way. Nick Guest? A tad low on the subtlety scale. But so it goes.

And yes, one's tolerance level for reading about rich people can make or break one's overall enjoyment of this book. I always sort of think it's easier to present the problems of people who don't in addition to their love/health/emotional concerns, or whatever, also have to worry about making a living. In some cases, movies especially, it actually seems like lazy storytelling to me. Oh, well. C'est la vie.

Despite these reservations, a very, very good book is The Line of Beauty.

You got the most infuriating quote right there, about Nick's hideous little car, that made me want to wrench that ghastly woman's head off and piddle down the neck-hole.

I can only admire Hollinghurst's skill as a storyteller, and gnash my few remaining teeth in unbecoming envy at his gift.

I skipped most of the last few posts above, so as not to spoil A Line of Beauty, which I'm sure I will read one of these days, but No. 62 had me spitting spice tea on an important letter I just printed out (Yeessss...I'm LT'ing at work...shhhh). What an image---that's gonna stick with me.

"the fact that while everyone around our hero in the end accused him of betraying them, it was in fact quite the reverse: every single one of them betrayed him." Straight/gay: isn't that just pretty much the way life is?
By the by---wonderful thread. Some really fascinating postings here.

#64> Thanks for the kind words about the thread.

As to the way life is, though, maybe I'm just lucky, but my incidence of being betrayed by good friends over the long haul of my 53 years on the big blue marble has been pretty darn low. But, yes, in general, often people will try to cover up their own shame by trying to throw the blame onto the victim, instead.

Book 17: GraceLand by Chris Abani



GraceLand follows the exploits of a young boy named Elvis as he makes his daily way through the slums of Lagos, Nigeria. The story of his and his family's earlier years in a small town are also told through flashback. The storytelling here is very good, indeed. The scenes of street life and the lives and attitudes of characters we meet are rendered compellingly. There is more than a touch of Huck Finn in this book, although the violence and poverty are more starkly portrayed. If the protagonist is just a touch too clever and erudite to be believed for his age and social station, well, that is a small flaw, in the overall scheme of things, that is easily forgiven. I highly recommend this book.

As I mentioned in another thread, GraceLand, which takes place among the poor of Lagos duing the 1980s, represents more or less the polar opposite of the last novel I read, The Line of Beauty, which takes place among the rich of England during the 1980s. Both books, however, are exceptionally well written.

Jerry, you are a fink for reading good books that I must put on my wish list. A fink of the first water, mind!

Someone still says "FINK"!!!! (I wish it had been me.)

Graceland sounds very good, Jerry. Your thread is getting to be dangerous territory for me.

you do a great job with all your reviews.

Add me to the list enticed by that review of Graceland! :)
--BJ

Book 18: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by Dr. M. R. James



First off, thanks, all, for the kind words about my thread.

Now, then, last night I came to the end of another "between book" (see Post 1 for an explanation of this invented term).

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary is the first of several collections of ghost stories (originally published in 1911) by Montague Rhodes James. I'll let the first paragraph of his wikipedia entry serve here:

Montague Rhodes James, OM, MA, (August 1, 1862 – June 12, 1936), who used the publication name M. R. James, was a noted British mediaeval scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918) and of Eton College (1918–1936). He is best remembered for his ghost stories which are widely regarded as among the finest in English literature. One of James' most important achievements was to redefine the ghost story for the new century by dispensing with many of the formal gothic trappings of his predecessors, and replacing them with more realistic contemporary settings.

The rest of the entry (found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._R._James) is quite interesting to anyone interested in the history of the contemporary ghost story.

What I like best about these stories is that they take the genre relatively seriously. There always really is a ghost or some other supernatural entity; we don't always find out exactly who this entity is and why he/she/it even exists, but instead are often left with an air of mystery about it all; the protagonists in the stories usually do understand and believe that they've come up against something unearthly, despite their "stiff uppper lip" English approach to life.

Anyway, these stories are fun and, unless you are absolutely, positively sure that "there ain't no such thing as ghosts," actually kinda, sorta believable! Add to that the fact that I was reading a 1937 printing of the original 1911 Penguin Book, and you have some nice, late-night entertainment!

I have a book of M. R. James ghost stories that I was hoping to read in October. This review has me excited about reading it! :)
--BJ

Book 19: A Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne



Another "between book" finished yesterday. Hawthorne's fun retelling of the classic myths, written for children (and their parents) to enjoy. I enjoyed reading these very much, and also enjoyed the nice old edition (1930) that I read them from. I could have included these as two separate 50-Book List entries, I guess, since that's how they were originally published separately, but I decided to list them as I read them: together.

So glad you reviewed Strat-O-Matic Fanatics! I wouldn't have heard about it otherwise. My husband grew up on their baseball games. One summer in college, when we were dating and staying on campus, he pulled me into a "league" with some of friends so as to round out the field. My team came in third our of six teams. It's probably one of the reasons he decided to marry me! He occasionally manages a team online, when time permits. So glad to hear of this book. Sounds like a great Father's Day present.

theaelizabet, I'm sure your husband would enjoy Strat-O-Matic Fanatics. You might even enjoy it too!

Book 20: New Orleans 1960 by William Claxton and Joachim E. Berendt



In 1959, German ethno-musicologist Joachim Berendt contacted American photographer William Claxton with a proposal. Berendt wanted to spend several months driving around America studying the current state of American jazz and jazz musicians, and he needed a photographer. Claxton accepted, and the two did indeed make that journey and subsequently published a book entitled (I think) Jazzlife.

New Orleans 1960, published in 2006, is a big, beautiful collection of the photos Claxton took during the pair's lengthy stay in New Orleans during that trip. And although this book is mostly photographs, it does contain two fascinating essays by Berendt. One is a in-depth look at the state of traditional jazz in New Orleans in 1960, including the still virulent racism that kept black and white musicians apart from each other on stages and in recording studies and at odds with each other about the history of the music. In addition, the essay includes a tidy summation of the various musical and cultural influences that went into the pot that produced the earliest forms of jazz. The second essay is a description of the pair's trip to Angola State Prison in search of the many jazz and (especially) blues musicians incarcerated there.

I found this volume particularly fascinating because I spent quite a bit of time living in New Orleans (1979-1986) and spent most of that period as a jazz and blues producer for the local NPR affiliate. Most of the people photographed in this book had already passed on by the time I got to New Orleans, but I learned all their names from those a bit younger who were still on hand.

Berendt's essays were written at the time of the study, as he was killed in a car accident (actually, he was a pedestrian) in 1999. Claxton's short essay, written at the time of publication, points out the added poignancy of these photos of a world now largely wiped away, not only by time but by the floodwaters of Katrina.

Book 21: The Fables of La Fontaine by Jean de La Fontaine with illustrations by Marc Chagall



One more "between book." In the mid-1920s, prominent Parisian art dealer and exhibitioner Ambrose Vollard commissioned Marc Chagall to create a series of illustrations of the beloved 12-century fables of Jean de Fontaine. There was quite a bit of controversy in this commission, as Fontaine's work is considered a cornerstone of early French literature and a French cultural treasure and Chagall was not only not French but was a Jew into the bargain! At any rate, Vollard persevered with his commission and Chagall completed the work.

This volume contains beautiful print reproductions of many of Chagall's illustrations, each alongside an English translation of its appropriate fable, which were written in verse form. Many of the tales told are universal, like the fox and the grapes, for example. Anyway, I had fun reading through the poems and enjoying Chagall's whimsical yet somehow dead on artistic takes on the stories.

New Orleans, 1960
This sounds like a wonderful book.
Did you happen to see the PBS show a few years back on the last of the houses of blues down south? It was fascinating and they still show it every now and again. If you've not seen it, you might try to catch it sometime.
It's pretty sad that they have gone by the wayside. The blues are an American anthem and part of our heritage.
very nice review, by the way. thanx.
belva

Belva, I have not seen that documentary but I know exactly the one you're speaking of. I keep on the lookout for it and someday I will catch it! But thanks for the reminder.

Book 22: The Nigger Factory by Gil Scott-Heron



Jazz fans of a certain age may remember Gil Scott-Heron as a jazz singer-songwriter active in the 60s and 70s whose lyrics were of a distinctly political bent. He wrote the poem/song "The Revolution Will Not be Televised," and released albums such as From South Africa to South Carolina. I was a big fan of his back during my college days but he more or less disappeared in the 80s, his career, I believe, derailed by drug problems. At any rate, during the 70s he wrote and published two short novels, The Vulture and The Nigger Factory, which were republished by Edinburgh publishers Payback Press in 1999. The Vulture, which I read a couple of years ago, is a murder mystery of sorts that takes place among drug dealers and other ghetto street denizens and offers a pretty vivid portrayal of inner city life during the late 60s. The Nigger Factory is the story of a student uprising at an all black college in Virginia. Much lighter than The Vulture in tone and subject matter, the book does constitute a time machine back to the days when student/authority confrontations were commonplace on college campuses. The students' demands seem relatively tame (more Black Studies classes, the removal of the company running the cafeteria, etc.) and so the book reminds us (or at least those of us old enough to remember that era) of the days when college activists went directly into confrontation mode to deal with grievances.

The book is a satire, and nobody comes off very well here except the protagonist, a moderate student leader caught between a small group of more strident classmates and an old-school, stiff-backed college president. Scott-Heron was/is a good writer, and the story is well told, although at this point I think the work's highest value is as a window into the 60s/70s era. For that alone, the book is worth reading.

Wow. What a blast from the past. I had completely forgotten Gil Scott-Heron existed. These sound like books I'd like to read, darn it. Like I need more tomes on the TBR.

*grumble*

Ooooh, Rocketjk, first the Strat-O-Matic book, now books by Gil Scott-Heron. You're writing my shopping list for my husband's Father's day presents. Just the other day he was playing "Whitey on the Moon," from his office as he worked at home. Had no idea about the books and I'll bet he doesn't either.

theaelizabet, that's funny! Happy to help out with the Fathers Day shopping list. The beauty of the Scott-Heron novels is that, in addition to providing an entertaining "blast from the past," as Richard so eloquently puts it, they're actually pretty good and they come together in one volume, making for an easy purchase.

Book 23: Astounding Science Fiction - July 1955 edited by John W. Campbell



Another "between book". I have a modest collection of periodicals published on or around my birthday, July 4, 1955. This is one of them. A fun Sci-Fi periodical featuring stories and novellas, with a few written by very well known authors of the period and genre, including Algis Budrys, Frank Herbert, Robert Sheckley and Poul Anderson. Also somewhat humorously, among the book reviews is a review of J.R.R. Tolkien's follow-up to The Hobbit. Something called The Fellowship of the Ring: "It's pure fantasy and great fun, if expensive. Charming is probably the word for it. . . . It's not science fiction, in spite of what eminent writers say about it on the jacket: so don't be fooled, but don't pass up something you may like."

Anyway, it's fun to read science fiction from the 1950s to see how they imagined the future.

Lessee...1955...Gutenberg invented movable-type printing in '54, right...?

Columbus sailed under blue, blue skies in '55. Or was it the deep blue sea in '53?

Book 24: The History of Rome Hanks and Kindred Matters by Joseph Stanley Pennell



My wife picked this book up in a thrift store in Fort Bragg, CA, a couple of months ago and now we've both read it. It's an historical novel published in 1944 dealing (mostly) with the Civil War. The book was a sensation when it first came out, making one of the biggest splashes of the year according to all accounts I've found online. It is told in the format of a contemporary man seeking out his forebears on both sides of his family to learn about their participation on both sides of the Civil War. Because the narrative flows back and forth between these storytellers and even between generations with very few signposts to let you know where you are, the telling is sometimes confusing, but almost always well-written enough to keep a reader's (or at least this reader's) interest even if you aren't sure what, exactly, is being described. That a tall order!

At any rate, the battle scenes, most especially the Battle of Shiloh (from the Union side) and Picket's Charge (from the Confederate side) are incredibly well told, as vivid as can possibly be. In both cases, we don't see anything of the planning or the overall scale or events of the battles. We just experience the hours and days of horror and heat in the eyes of the field officers and foot soldiers doing the grunt work and the dying. We also get a vivid picture of what it was like being in those armies between battles.

The book does range extremely far afield, taking some of the characters well past the war and even showing us the next generations. Life in rural Kansas in the 1880s does not look too appetizing in this book. Some of these excursions work better, and keep our interest more, than others.

When the book came out it was hailed for the experimental and adventurous nature and format of the narrative. Some hailed this as the book's strength and others decried the lack of focus and narrative discipline. It's funny that the book has disappeared so entirely. I found it included in a book published a few years back called "The 100 Greatest Books You've (Probably) Never Read" (or something like that).

I'm very happy my wife stumbled upon this book, and I'm very happy I learned about it and I read it. About 80% of it makes engrossing reading. It's not always an easy book to read, but it is, I think, very worthwhile, especially for those with a strong interest in historical fiction, the Civil War, or 19th Century American life in general.

Book 25: Racing in the Street: the Bruce Springsteen Reader edited by June Skinner Sawyers



Another "between book." This is a compilation of articles, essays and reviews about Bruce Springsteen and his music, presented in chronological order from Springsteen's early career up to 2003, when the book was published. It's interesting to see how the perceptions of Springsteen evolved from his days as a newly discovered rock rebel and "savior" of rock 'n' roll to his current position of elder statesman and revered (by those who care and/or don't loathe his politics) poet laureate of rock. For Springsteen fans only, I'd say.

> 87: rocketjk- Terrific review! I jotted this one down. Hope I can find it!

msf59, Thanks for the kind words. The History of Rome Hanks was reissued somewhere along the line and is pretty easily available if you don't mind a paperback reissue. Here you go: http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?binding=&mtype=&keyword=history+of+rom...

Book 26: Something to Declare: Essays on France and French Culture by Julian Barnes



A "between book" (touchstone not working at this time). I bought this book because my wife and I have been to France a couple of times and I thought it would be fun reading the thoughts of this very erudite English author on "France and French culture." The first essay, about a famed Tour de France rider from, I believe, the 1930s, was quite good. But after that one and one or two about French cinema, all the rest were about Gustav Flaubert: about his life, his thoughts, and the insights to be gleaned about him by a careful study of his many surviving letters (sent and received) and other such topics. Well, OK, I guess it's not too surprising that the author of the novel Flaubert's Parrot would be fascinated by Flaubert. And the essays are, in fact, interesting as far as they go, assuming one has an interest in the subject matter. But, really, calling this a collection of essays on France and French culture is misleading. So although the essays are very well written, I can only recommend the collection to readers interested in Flaubert.

Hey jk...let me suggest a book to you about France, the French, and French culture...Seducing the French by Richard Kuisel. Non-fiction of a particularly academic bent, but very interesting and worth reading. I liked the book, and as I type this I realize I never reviewed it in my "75-Books Challenge" thread, like a goofball.

I felt so much more understanding of the attitude the French sometimes display after reading this book. I was a little baffled before. Such warmth, such disdain, such condescension, and all in five minutes from one person in one typical encounter! Would that I had read it before I went.

Thanks, Richard . . . maybe one of these days.

Geez Richard,
"Such warmth, such disdain, such condescension, and all in five minutes from one person in one encounter!" You could have gotten all that for free from your own home right here on L.T.
Next time check before traveling half way round the world, wouldja?

> 94: Nah . . . I agree with Richard. There's no condescension anywhere like that which a Frenchman has on reserve for an American who says or does the wrong thing (or the right thing in the wrong way)! My wife and I made the mistake of wandering into a local's bar on the Montmartre in Paris. It was the only non-tourist bar around and we thought somehow that our discernment and scorn for our fellow tourists would be appreciated. Au contraire! Talk about scorn! Talk about dismissal! It was almost funny at the time and it became funny soon thereafter (especially because I could sort of see their point: "Hey, we have one bar and one bar only in this neighborhood that's free of you creepin' tourists. Stay the heck out of it!") On the other hand, if you are behaving correctly, the world is your je ne sais qua!

>94 rainpebble: True enough, Belva, but it's not as much fun if you're not being ridiculed to your face by a sexy blond stud with a French accent and a questionable command of English for speaking his language with an "accent american." I still chortle at the memory. I mean, I've read Germinal in the original...I wonder if he's read The House of Seven Gables in English?

>95 rocketjk: jk, as I have lived in Manhattan before, I really get on a visceral level the ick factor about tourists. OTOH, I had a wonderful fling with a big Swede when he blundered in to my watering hole bar, confused, lost, and a little scared, on the first day of his two-month internship at the UN. Staying non-judgmental seems like a hard thing for people to do, but it's got its rewards.

Book 27: Up in the Air by Walter Kirn



A very sharp and extremely well-written satire on modern corporate culture and its effects on those who try to stay human within it's conformist environment and cynical world-view. The observations are acute and often quite funny. The protagonist, whose goal is to rack up 1 million frequent flier miles and then quit his job, is sympathetic and mostly rings true. Some of his experiences start to become repetitive after a while, and there is more than a touch of cliche in his dealings with his mother and his siblings (naturally, he is divorced). But overall, a very enjoyable read. It passed one of my main enjoyability standards: when I wasn't reading it, I looked forward to getting back to it.

That's a good enjoyability standard :)

Indeed!~!

And so true Richard. Once again you got me. ***heavy sigh as she runs to change her socks again***

Looks like an interesting read! I'm adding it to the TBR. Thanks!

hi jk...i take it that this should come to papa here in hempstead. darn it! haven't we had "the talk" about reading good books, as in "don't do it anymore"? it's too expensive for me when you enjoy things! suffer some more!

# 101> LOL, I'm sorry to have to tell you, Richard, that you would love Up in the Air. I'm sure you can find a cheap copy, though.

oh noes! that's NOT the proper response! your line is, "no, no, richard, ignore that puffery...the book is gawdawful and you can ignore it completely without missing a thing."

now try again....

"now try again...."

Sorry. You're screwed!!! Buy the book and quit whining. Sheesh! :)

*grumble*

uppity californians

*mutter*

Oh cripes, Jerry, just send Richard your copy already. You aren't going to read it again, are you?

No, but my lovely wife probably will one of these days. Sorry, Richard, but you're still screwed.

There's always the library, Richard.

"Lovely wife" indeed! Lucky man.

Laytonwoman, no one can ever say you didn't try to do a nice thing. That you were thwarted by an uppity Californian is entirely outside your control.

*trudges off to library*

They'll all fall into the sea one of these days, and you'll be vindicated.

And conveniently lose my birthplace, so I can never be asked for a birth certificate again! I will be 39 forever!!

They'll all fall into the sea one of these days, and you'll be vindicated.

He'll be vindicated, maybe, but that will put all of my books under the ocean, too, so what good will it do him?

Just popping my head in to say thanks, you all have been cracking me up with your posts for the last few days :)

#112. Is there some other scenario in which he GETS all your books? No? I thought not. Of course, books sinking to the bottom of the ocean doesn't bear thinking about, so all you Californians better quickly ship your libraries East. Waaay East. Pennsylvania is good.

Pennsylvania...? Still too far west. Long Island! That's pretty easterly, and I *happen* to know where the highest point on the island is...I'm on it! So how much safer will they be? Immeasurably!

UPS is fine, mail takes too long. And send Kaltenborn Edits the War News via FedEx first, can't risk losing *that* one.

Hey spacespuds, they do not even know we are here. They are in their own little world.
So...........spacespuds ,how's it goin?
Wha's happenin' baby?
N/B

Book 28: Payback: Five Marines After Vietnam by Joe Klein



When an ex-Marine and Vietnam Veteran named, of all names, Gary Cooper, went nuts and died in a shootout with police in the early 80s, journalist Joe Klein started looking into the event. He ended up interviewing in great depth several of Cooper's Vietnam Marine buddies, beginning with a particularly horrific battle that they all took part in and then moving out to examine each of their lives as they attempted to re-enter society after their military duty was over. It is not a cheerful book, as each of the veterans face very difficult hurdles, which some never get past, in attempting to resume normal lives. Not a cheerful book, but a very well written one. Payback takes each of the surviving soldiers up through the mid-80s, when the book was published, not counting Cooper, of course, whose story ends with the shoot-out. Klein was given an incredible amount of cooperation from these veterans, some of whom were telling their war stories for the first time, and their families. It's a very valuable book to read for all of us who don't know what it's like. I can't imagine things are or are going to be very much different for Iraqi War veterans. A very good, but disturbing, book.

Sounds a little too grim for me, but I could need the info one day soon. Thanks, jk!

Book 29: Great Modern Reading: W. Somerset Maugham's Introduction to Modern English and American Literature edited by W. Somerset Maugham



In 1943, Somerset Maugham published this anthology of what he considered to be some of the best examples of Modern English and American Literature at that time. This is a thick, robust, wonderful collection filled with short stories, essays, bits of histories and biographies and poems. The book is broken up into a couple of dozen sections, each one with an introduction by Maugham. In my opinion, this is a priceless collection. Not in terms of financial value, but in terms of its value as a specimen of literature, a large collection of works hand selected by a great contemporary writer, with each work introduced with Maugham's witty, informed, passionate opinions about the art of writing. I read through this book slowly, as one of my between books, and savored each session with it. It's definitely one of the gems of my entire 2000-plus volume library.

I have never heard of this one before. It sounds like it would have something for everyone who loves literature. And it is going on my list. Darn, it just keeps growing and growing.

>119 rocketjk: Do any of today's writers have this kind of forum? Would anyone publish, and if published would anyone buy a Stephen King (eg)-selected anthology of modern greats?

I discount the annual Year's-Best anthologies because they're juried, not simply selected and commented on by one famous writer. So...do y'all think this kind of book would still work? Whose book like this one would you buy?

Oh, St. Richard--do go sit in your corner and suck your thumb. I am already on the prowl for it. Did you not read the words: "wonderful collection"? Dost thee doubt the rocket? I pray thee not. Just please have a seat. We will call on you when we are ready for you to speak.

*zzzzzzip* (those were my lips)

#122> No, no, nannybebette (sorry, couldn't resist!), I think you've misunderstood Bonny Prince Richard. I don't think he was casting aspersions on the Maugham collection. I think he was saying, "This looks really interesting. I wonder if any would have writer would have the stature to pull this off nowadays."

And that's a good question. I do think a book of this sort would still work, assuming there would be a publisher with the stones to try it. You'd need an author with a very solid body of work behind him/her whose bona fides as a "Person of Letters" is unchallenged. Julian Barnes is a possibility. Maybe T. Coraghessan Boyle. Philip Roth comes to mind, too, as do Louise Erdrich and Isabel Allende. Gore Vidal, for sure.

So sorry St. Richard; apparently MY misunderstanding. You may be excused from the corner now. Good lad.

I do see what you mean rocket. I think Oates is one could carry it off also.

I'd love to see Gore Vidal do something like that. But I don't think that there is a publisher that would print it, be it from him or any one. Makes one think of the sorry state of book publishing in general.

#125> That's funny. After reading through your 50-book thread, I noticed the mention of Oates and came back here to add her name, but you beat me to it!

Oh, and just to clear up any possible misunderstanding, I realize that I said in my short review that Maugham "published this anthology." The collection was not self-published by Maugham, however. It was published by Doubleday. Without having the book right at hand to look at the introduction, I assume someone at Doubleday got the bright idea to invite Maugham to gather the anthology (or perhaps, I guess, he came to them with the idea).

Well, somewhat amazingly (to me at least) this collection is available online:
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst;jsessionid=Kv5VzdYNGpgV1fg7QqhN69LTyN4TNg6dmd85S7L...

You click on the links to the right to see the start of the table of contents or the introduction, and you then click on the arrows on the right to "turn the page."

Maugham's introduction, to me, is particularly interesting.

Do you know, chick-a-biddies, this has to be the most fertile time for publishing good work in a half-century or more.

Apostasy, I hear you shouting. Publishers are all about 12 years old, "educated" in Internet diploma mills, and addicted to John Grisham and painkillers!

Yeup, no argument from me on any of that. This has always been true, too. Most stuff published in any era is crud. Often crude, too. The thing that's good about today is...wait for it...venues like this social network we're using right now, and its related blogs; places like The Other Press and Europa Editions and Twelve, small publishers of good stuff; things like BookSurge, iUniverse, Xlibris, Lulu, and their PoD brethren and sistern that make it possible for even the weirdest voices to be available; and lastly, the mighty store-killer Amazon.

The number of gate-keepers is down dramatically from the days of Thomas Wolfe and his three million words of drivel that the sadly misguided Max Perkins mined for Look Homeward, Angel (ick) and You Can't Go Home Again (peee-yeeew!). If Wolfe had been born in this era, he'd've been a blogger and none of us would have had to encounter him! How much better life would be....

But seriously (not that I wasn't before), the fact that there are so many venues for getting one's work in front of the public is a Good Thing, honest and truly it is. It means We the Wallets get to vote with our money for what we want to see more of; and We the Eyeballs get the enviable task of spreading the good word when we find good stuff. Dunno about y'all, but few things make me light up faster than telling people about my latest good read. Which I do with great regularity.

There are downward-pointing arrows on this elevator, too. The lack of editing on most stuff published in the past twenty years is extremely disheartening. Many titles, few editors, shrinking quality control budgets in search of greater profits; the rise of the previously praised PoD publishers; and a general absence of high-quality humanities education in public schools all play a role.

But in the end, I wonder just what this Frankenworld will metastasize into. What will its warts end up looking like? What will we get in exchange for looking at them? The next Moby-Dick is there, but I haven't seen it yet...have you?

My Gawd Richard, I just came by to say "Hi" and g'nite to rocket (by the way--we are so psycho rocket re: Oates) but now I am afraid to post after that tome of yours. I have never seen so many words come from your mouth before. I think I am having another breakdown!~! Oh, no. Never mind. It's all okay.
And you know the funny thing---I do believe I agree with every word you said.
g'nite,
belva

Book 30: Echoes of World War II by Trish Marx



This is another "between book" that I finished at lunch today. This is a short volume aimed at kids and young adults but of interest, I think, to everyone. Writer Trish Marx interviewed six people who were children during World War II and created brief oral histories for each of them, with Marx's own copy providing historical context used liberally throughout as well.

The subjects here include people who, as children 1) survived Auschwitz, 2) lived though the Nazi occupation of France and took part (as a teenager) in the French resistance 3) lived in London during the beginnings of the Blitz and was then sent to live with strangers in the English countryside 4) spent years in the Philippines interned with her mother as a prisoner of the Japanese and 5) was a child in Japan during the war and endured bombings and years of severe hunger.

As I said, each of the chapters is short, but the stories are told with the sort of details, and compassion, that help bring each person's experiences vividly to life. Most of these chapters would work very well as teaching aides.

Good review! And it's nice to see that you've grasped the "review no books that Richard needs to read" concept at last.

Ahh, now there's the Saint I know.

g'nite rocket.
belva

Book 31: Jazz on the Barbary Coast by Tom Stoddard



An interesting book that describes the jazz scene on the Barbary Coast, the red light district of early San Francisco that was akin to Storyville in New Orleans. The book mostly focuses on the development of SF jazz from 1900 through around 1920, although there is some discussion of music up through 1940. The first 75% of the book is told through oral histories of the early musicians that the author either conducted or searched out. They are almost all quite interesting, assuming, of course, a predisposition in the reader to care about jazz history and/or San Francisco history. The last quarter of the book, written by the author, comes across as more of a scholarly paper than an interestingly written history. This may have been exacerbated for me by the fact that I already knew most of the background San Francisco history that Stoddard presented. The author makes an interesting case for the fact that jazz was developing on the San Francisco wharf dives at about the same time the music was evolving in New Orleans, with a lot of cross-pollination going on between the two. He quite specifically states that he is not trying to claim that jazz was "invented" in San Francisco, or anywhere else, other than New Orleans, but only makes the point that there has been a lot of myopic, "New Orleans and no place else" sort of research done on topic. As a seven-year resident of New Orleans back in the 80s who worked in the jazz community as a radio producer for most of that time, I found Stoddard's research interesting, if his writing style more than a little dry. But to readers in general, it's the early oral histories that really make this book sing.

Hi rocketjk;
I saw this one on someone else's thread also and thought how fascinating. It sounds really interesting. I will have to check around and see if I can find it.
Jazz and blues are such fascinating subjects because there are so many varieties of each, so many birthplaces of each and such individualistic talents belonging to each.
Very good review rocket.
belva

Ahhh, so many culturally important things have come from San Francisco...jazz, me...and then, as soon as possible, left it.

R;
straight a way, I am sure!~!
b

#137> Well, maybe you left SF, but jazz is still struggling along there. :)

But rocket, jazz is everywhere these days. Perhaps the Jazz Houses are struggling but on any given week end there are many venues with live jazz (at least in the northwest) which is awesome!~!

R prolly just likes country music.

>#137:
St. Richard;
You probably should read this one. I think it looks good.

And a well put together review rocket. Thanx.
catcha later.
belva

>140 rainpebble: Bleeva! No no no no! One does not say to St. Richard, "You should read this;" it is Bad Form! Back to the Great Vestibule for you, thence to be dripped on by the Slickers of the Elect Within the Great Bookstore in the Sky!

Damn it all to hell!~!
We hate, hate, hate, er, um, er, we dislike the vestibule and the drippingssssssssssss
prescioussssss

Book 32: Milk and Honey by Kaye Kellerman



Every once in a while it's fun to pick up a good old-fashioned page turner, and this book filled the bill. An LA police detective finds a lost 2-year-old which leads him and his partner to a multiple murder. In the meantime, the detective is dealing with the relationship issues between himself and his orthodox Jewish girlfriend. Plus, he is trying to figure out whether his Viet Nam war army buddy is guilty of the rape he's been accused of. Lots going on, with characters who are interesting, and a happily believable plot as well. A fine mystery and, in general, a good read.

This is the third book of a series with this detective (and his girlfriend). I haven't read the first two, but didn't feel at a loss at any time for not having read the first two.

Book 33: Prize Stories 1994: The O. Henry Awards edited by William Abrahams



Another "between book" completed. This is a nice collection from this very high-quality annual series. Perhaps the biggest "name" author included is Thomas E. Kennedy, whose excellent short story concludes the volume.

Book 34: A Mad Desire to Dance by Elie Wiesel



Elie Wiesel's latest novel is an often hallucinatory investigation of the inter-relationship between madness and lucidity, responsibility and guilt, both conscious and subconscious, the scars left at childhood by parental abandonment and the brutal events of history alike. It sounds grim, but it is instead largely graceful and revelatory.

The book begins in most difficult fashion: the first 40 pages or so are a seemingly stream of consciousness plunge into madness, a hard-to-fathom discourse on the nature of reality, desire, insanity and loneliness from inside a clearly disturbed if excruciatingly expressive personality. In fact, if this weren't Wiesel, a writer--a person--who entirely has earned my trust and forebearance, I might have given up on the book before coming to the conclusion of this section.

But slowly, gradually, the prose settles into lucidity like leaves swirling and settling to earth after being blown about by a fierce gust of wind.

We find our protagonist, Doriel, a now elderly man, invading (there's no other real word for it) his psychiatrist's office for a series of contentious, difficult sessions and get to read the doctor's case notes as well. We learn that Doriel survived the Holocaust in hiding with his father while his mother left to fight with the Polish resistance. On the other hand, both his siblings, a brother and a sister, were caught and killed. Soon after the war, his parents, now reunited, die in a car crash.

As Doriel reviews his life, struggling to overcome what he and the doctor both see as a serious mental malaise, we are taken through various descriptions of survivor's guilt, abandonment issues and, more generally, the spiritual trials faced by the religious Jew in the face of God's apparent abandonment of his Chosen People to the fires of WWII. In fact we are taken through a range of encounters that illustrate the extremes of post-WWII Jewish experience. We see Doriel's time spent in Jerusalem with religious Jews so fervent in their adherence to ancient teachings that they are anti-Israel, based on their belief that there can be no righteous Jewish state until the Messiah arrives to consecrate it. But next we meet a man who has not only fled from this community, but embraced Israel's existence to the point of becoming an agent in Mosad, the Israeli CIA.

Little by little, through the stories Doriel tells, some to his doctor and some directly within his narrative, and even through the doctor's perspective of her experiences with this most troubling patient, we piece together a life and a world complex in its layered ambiguity, but entirely recognizable for all its blind alleys, frustrations and metaphysical trap doors. There are joys and victories as well; that's made abundantly clear.

I don't often include excerpts in my write-ups, but here are a few that illustrate the texture of Weisel's writing in this book, obviously much better than I can describe it:

On the loneliness brought on by survivor's guilt:

Like madness, solitude is fear.

A solitary man is a man who is afraid. A man who is afraid is a solitary man. When solitude enters me, it becomes me. Solitude emerges unexpectedly when only the body belongs to me, but also when I belong to the body all alone. Solitude changes consciousness into a prison, a jail that I am afraid of leaving.

Afraid of not understanding anything, afraid of understanding everything. Afraid of loving and afraid of not loving anymore. Afraid of forgetting everything and afraid of not forgetting anything: mangled bodies left lying about the battle field, the slow, implacable death pangs of the survivors. Afraid of experiencing hunger, afraid of having no thirst for anything anymore. Afraid of dying and of living. Afraid of being afraid. Afraid of being alone when no one is here anymore. Afraid of being alone when the loved one is here.

There exists a fear that is not yet death but that is no longer life."

And here is a harrowing one-paragraph description of the experience of Polish Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and then the camps that may be the most powerful single paragraph I've read all year:

"I won't tell you what I suffered and lived through there. Human beings became unrecognizable, stripped of everything, beyond everything. For us, the city narrowed to the size of a street, the street to a building, the building to a room, the room to a cattle car; wealth shrank to a bundle of belongings, the bundle to a mess kit, and happiness to one miserable potato. And man, whose destiny is incommensurable, became nothing but a number, and the number became ash."

I know I've run the risk here with these passages of presenting A Mad Desire to Dance as unrelentingly grim, despite my opening claim to the contrary. All I can do is repeat that earlier claim. If you appreciate and/or are in the mindset for a sometimes difficult book about the human experience that ultimately flies on the poetry of its prose and the strength of its insights into the messy human condition, you might be happy you put in the effort to read this book.

So I will leave you with one final passage:

In this ambiguous universe, full of pitfalls and boasts, strength lies in the act of creating one's own lucidity and mastering one's own truth. The person who loves, who creates or re-creates if only for a split second, has already won a victory over the absurdity of fate."

In this ambiguous universe, full of pitfalls and boasts, strength lies in the act of creating one's own lucidity and mastering one's own truth. The person who loves, who creates or re-creates if only for a split second, has already won a victory over the absurdity of fate."

Wow.

Brilliant.

Must have.

Heck of a review Jerry! Great job! I will keep my eye out for this one!

ditto #146 and #147.
A great review. Well done. Thumbs up all way round!~!

CONGRATULATIONS on your hot review for A Mad Desire to Dance Rocket. Very well done!~!
belva

Thanks, all, for the kind words about my review of A Mad Desire to Dance. Just to add a little perspective, I did a quick survey of some published reviews of the book. Not all were as enthusiastic as mine, most pointing out that not all of the book's observations were uniformly insightful, that there was a certain amount of banality mixed in. But most of the reviews I read ended up finding the book ultimately rewarding. Only the review in the San Francisco Chronicle (goodness, what a rag that paper's become) was entirely negative, declaring the book "unreadable." The Chron reviewer complained of the many plot threads left unresolved, missing the point entirely, in my view, that these were intended as slices of memories provided by the protagonist to his therapist, and that taken together these pieces create a mosiac that shows us the whole, if necessarily fractured, picture.

Oh, well. Basically, because I was so enthusiastic about the book and folks said they would therefore search it out, I thought it would be helpful for me to point out that the book does have its discernable flaws and that not everyone felt quite the same way about it that I did.

Book 35: Tales of the Trinity by Horace Bell



I read this slim volume as a "between book" and finished it up last night. A couple of months ago, my lovely wife Stephanie and I took a short driving vacation to the mountain range in Northern California known as the Trinity Alps. We stayed in a town called Weaverville in Trinity County, CA, and took some very nice drives and hikes around the region.

Trinity County was one of the most active areas for the California Gold Rush and Horace Bell was right in the middle of it. Many years later, Bell sat down to write about his experiences. This book contains five entertaining but unfortunately brief reminiscences about those days. Of course, as Bell was writing from memory, and didn't seem like the type to let facts get in the way of a good story, there are places where his narrative is questionable, historically speaking. The book's modern day editor, a member of the Trinity County Historical Society, points out through some unobtrusive footnotes where Bell's accounts differ from those of other writers. That was all fine with me, as the real reason for reading the book was to get the flavor of those times, and to enjoy Bell's happy go lucky writing style, more than to learn about fact and dates.

A fun, short, read for anyone interested in California Gold Rush history. I'm the only LTer with this book listed in his/her library. As far as I know, you'd have to go to Weaverville to buy it, but if you contact the kind folks at the Jake Johnson Memorial Museum (which we enjoyed very much, by the way) run by the Trinity County Historical Society, they could probably figure out a way to mail you a copy.

Jerry- I was able to mooch a copy of A Mad Desire to Dance last night. Pretty good for a new book. I'm not sure exactly when I'll be able to squeeze it in but at least I have it. I like your idea of "in between books". I am mostly a one book at a time guy but at times I like having something else on the side. (that didn't come out right ,did it?) I'll be starting the group read of The Pillars of the Earth next week, so it will be a perfect time to select a few side-plates to go along with the "big daddy".

>#150:
Arggggggggg!~! I like yours much better and I trust you more so.....

>152 msf59::
Mark;
I always have to have a "tweener" going. Something light and easy to pick up during those times when the book I am reading gets a little heavy or for at night in bed; If I am reading something that perhaps is upsetting to my psyche or is spooky---that sort of thing. Like Martha says: "It's a good thing."
later dayz,
belva

Book 36: Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland



This book provides the fictional history of a beautiful Vermier painting and its various owners told in short story form. The stories trace the painting backwards in time to the work's creation. I almost quit on the book early on because the first story is wretched: poorly told, rickety characterizations, and awash in cliche and really, really bad metaphors. I decided to give the second story a chance and it was better, as was the third. The fourth tale goes back to wretched again. And so on. Out of the eight stories, I found half to be tolerable, but even those were regretably melodramatic and in need of two or three more rewrites. On the plus side, there was some interesting historical fiction description of the Holland of centuries past.

I meant to provide a few examples of the sentences/metaphors that caused me to wince throughout this book, but I left my copy at home, so let me just say the following:

Attention to all you writers and prospective writers out there. Editors, too. People do not "go weak in the knees." They simply do not.

I see that there are a lot of positive reviews of this book on LT. I hope everyone else who ever reads this book forever for the history of mankind agrees with those reviewers and not with me and has a rapturous reading experience with this set of stories. I hope they all go weak in the knees with joy. Really, I do.

#155 Wicked good review, rocketjk. I agree with you mostly - I'm not sure I thought even 4 were tolerable.

Book 37: Top of the World by Hans Ruesch



Written in 1950, Top of the World is a novel about the lives of Inuits living close to the North Pole. The narrative describes the lives of these people in great detail, including their religious beliefs, hunting and living methods, diet, social customs, etc. However, Ruesch manages to do this while presenting characters that are interesting as people, and telling a story that's quite interesting, as well. I read this book very quickly, because I got involved almost immediately and stayed that way throughout.

The first half of the book focuses on the Eskimos themselves and how they quite contentedly live their daily lives in the freezing terrain. About halfway through, we get contact with the White Man, and the unhappiness that gradually brings. This may sound dull, but it is made lively by the terrific (in my view) characterizations.

After about 50 pages, I got curious about Ruesch and so did an internet search. Turns out he was a Grand Prix race car driver before World War II. After the war, he began writing for a living. He also became alarmed about the issue of animal experimentation and founded the International Anti-Vivisection League.

Top of the World was made into a movie starring Anthony Quinn in 1960 and released in the U.S. in 1961 as The Savage Innocents. According to wikipedia, "Ironically, Hans Ruesch had never seen an Eskimo {when he wrote the book}. He based his story on the Oscar-winning film Eskimo (1933), directed by W.S. van Dyke." So I don't know how accurate the portrayal of mid-Century Inuit life is. But it's a very fine read, nevertheless.

I didn't really remember why this book was on my shelf, but when I took it down while prowling for something that would cleanse my palette after the Vreeland debacle, I saw that this book was a discard from the Irvington, NJ, Public Library and found, neatly inscribed on the title page in her own handwriting, my mother's name. Well, when I was a kid, my mother was a secretary for an architect whose office was in Irvington (we lived in nearby Maplewood). This tells me that my mother probably picked up this paperback at a library sale approximately 35 years ago, read it, and somewhere along the line gave it to me, at which point I stuck in on my shelf with the fiction and forgot about it until last week. My mother is still alive and reading, but my guess is she will have little clear memory of giving me the book. C'est la vie!

Book 38: The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde



Lots of fun, like every other Jasper Fforde book (I've now read them all, not counting the new novel due out this summer).

But while The Fourth Bear is an enjoyable read, I will say that it's a little slow getting going and not quite up to the standard of the first of the two (so far) Jack Spratt Nursery Crime novels, The Big Over Easy. Never fear, Fforde fans, you'll still be happy to read this book. More great, inventive writing.

Book 39: The Sisters by Robert Littell



A cold war spy thriller that takes place in the early 60s, The Sisters begins somewhat poorly, as the description of the title characters, a highly-placed, CIA odd couple, that makes up the first chapter is distractingly mannered in the telling. But as the storyline moves from these two screwy yet sinister fellows (yes, they are male, despite their nickname) and out into the storyline of the plot they set into action, the book, and the writing, pick up considerably. By about the 60-page mark I was very much into the tale. There are interesting and intelligent characters, and almost all of the plot twists are at least hinted at subtly beforehand, so there's no feeling of things just being inserted for convenience sake four fifths of the way through the plot line.

A high quality spy thriller for those who like the genre. I would not necessarily go out searching for more by Littell, as I don't read more than one or two such books per year, but if I were to stumble upon another book of his on a thrift store rack (which is where I found The Sisters), I might well pick it up.

>39 richardderus: I wonder if Robert Littell is related to the boy who wrote that horrifying Holocaust novel in French?

I realized with a start that I never finished the conversation we started about novel-v-recit! I got so interested in the subject that The Divine Miss and I spent hours going over our definitions of novels, then fiction, then the nature of storytelling, and well...I lost track of how it all began!

I think the very existence of fiction, of the urge to tell each other things that aren't true, is the proof that something divine must exist. It's clearly a need in us, since it exists even in marginal-habitat cultures and across all the time that we have evidence for, and also one that serves no direct evolutionary purpose. I'd say that it seems unlikely to have evolved from random neurochemical reactions because it's so completely random.

Going into the semantics of what a novel is or should be, then, seems like a pointless exercise because it's academic...whatever definition one applies, the stories will keep on comin' until they ain't no people no more.

That's where The Divine Miss and I wrangled our way to, anyway. Any other thoughts?

Richard, Sorry it's taken me a while to respond to your thoughtful post, here. Lot's of cool stuff to do over the past couple of weeks: friends staying with us, a cool work project, etc.

"Going into the semantics of what a novel is or should be, then, seems like a pointless exercise because it's academic...whatever definition one applies, the stories will keep on comin' until they ain't no people no more."

Amen.

"I think the very existence of fiction, of the urge to tell each other things that aren't true, is the proof that something divine must exist. It's clearly a need in us, since it exists even in marginal-habitat cultures and across all the time that we have evidence for, and also one that serves no direct evolutionary purpose. I'd say that it seems unlikely to have evolved from random neurochemical reactions because it's so completely random."

Richard, I disagree here, mostly with the part of your comment I've bolded. When I was an undergrad at Boston University, getting my degree in public communications, I took a fascinating course in the Theology Department as an elective called Myths of Evil. The course was a chronological survey of seven or eight major cultures and their myths/beliefs regarding the origins of evil in the world. What we saw was that the cultures in which people regarded themselves to be more or less of the earth and nature believed that evil and good were too more or less co-existing forces that more or less were present in all of nature, which included men. The Babylonians, a most farming culture, were our example of this. The more people began to see themselves as separate or above nature, the more they also separated concepts like good and evil out of the natural world, as well. We ultimately got ourselves to original sin: it's all our doing.

OK, so I told you all that to tell you this: the definition of myth that we used in this course was, "A myth is a story that the people of a culture tell each other to explain things they otherwise couldn't understand."

So, back to your point about evolution (finally!). Every species' successful evolution depends on them having some tool/biological strategy for survival: speed, camoflage, strength, endurance, etc. Our evolutionary tool, clearly, was our brains, our ability to figure things out and to thereby make the best use of everything we found around us. So because we were driven by evolution to figure things out or die off, I think that knowing the world did, indeed, become a biological imperative for us. So, even if I don't have the wherewithall to figure out where lightning comes from, or why winter comes every year, or even where people come from, that doesn't change the fact that as a human being, I still feel like I need to know! So I think people developed the ability to make up stories about these things and then convince themselves and each other that these stories were true. If we're all down with the fact that the world was disgorged by a giant cosmic turtle and that people were created by the ancient shadow people in order to give the birds someone to play with, then we can move on to figuring out how to find better grazing land. More important, we may need to figure out a way to appease the ice gods so that they'll let spring come back each year. That done, we can turn our attention to figuring out how to build better shelters.

Bottom line, I don't think humankind feels very comfortable with uncertainty because knowledge is our primary survival tool and in nature what you don't know can get you killed. So we create certainty by creating stories and convincing ourselves over time that they are true. Hence, I don't agree that there's anything random about humankind's urge to tell each other stories. Correspondingly, in the modern world, I think that the more we've come to realize how complex and difficult human nature and human motivations really are, the more we've felt the urge to create and tell stories that attempt to delve into and explore all of those multiple dimensions.

So, for me, as a sometime fiction writing and frequent expostulator (see above), the proof in all this that something divine must exist comes not from the urge to tell each other stories, but from the fact that I can sit in front of a typewriter with an empty piece of paper in it and then from somewhere, from the ether, comes a storyline, a turn of phrase, a character, etc.

Or, as Bob Dylan put it, "I don't really write songs. I just write them down."

In other words, for me, it's not that I want to write stories, but that I can. As a confirmed and happy agnostic, my metaphor for the existence of the devine, or really for our understanding of the universe as a whole, is as follows:

I think our ability to understand everything that's going on around us in the universe corresponds roughly with the amount of the light spectrum we can see with the naked eye. I stress that this is a metaphor, not a concrete equation I put any real store in.

I'm quite comfortable with the fact that there's a lot of stuff I don't know and/or can't experience with our physical senses as they've evolved and/or been given us. If we hadn't developed ears, would that mean sound doesn't exist? My guess is that, just like any animal born sightless, there is a lot going on around us that we're simply not equipped to pick up on. And I'm cool with that. At any rate, that's the story I tell myself.

Iiinnnteresting...I dunno....

Our evolutionary tool, clearly, was our brains.... So because we were driven by evolution to figure things out or die off, I think that knowing the world did, indeed, become a biological imperative for us. So, even if I don't have the wherewithall to figure out where lightning comes from, or why winter comes every year, or even where people come from, that doesn't change the fact that as a human being, I still feel like I need to know! So I think people developed the ability to make up stories about these things and then convince themselves and each other that these stories were true.

It's perfectly possible that this was a driver of behavior, and I think your explication of the need for the numinous in human thought is right. I don't really see this as an argument against my earlier position that this wasn't a direct driver of evolution. However, I think the point where we agree is of vastly more importance: We humans is storytellin' apes.

Long may we wave! *waves*

Book 40: The Kid from Tomkinsville by John R. Tunis



This was a re-read of a beloved baseball book I first read when I was in junior high. I'm sure this book is considered YA material, but the writing is very good, indeed and I'm really happy I revisited The Kid. The book opens as Roy Tucker is leaving small-town Tomkinsville, Connecticut, to head off to baseball try-outs with the Dodgers. The book speeds us through two up and down seasons with the Bums from Brooklyn (in fact, the speed of events in the major leagues, the rise and fall and even disappearance of players, the changes brought about by sudden fame or sudden injury, is one of the book's main themes). Other than one or two characters, there's not much characterization here, but we see Tucker's transformation from a raw, scared farm boy to a more savvy, if still young, player over the course of the novel.

The book was written in 1940, so The Kid gives us an interesting peak into life and baseball 70(!) years ago. But the human emotions of fear, courage and determination have not changed and are very well portrayed, here. Disappointment, set-backs and injustices dog the characters. This book is not just a baseball lesson, but a life lesson. In fact, Philip Roth, in his long passage on The Kid from Tomkinsville in his novel, American Pastoral, refers to the work as "the boy's Book of Job." And yet the book is full of joy, as well.

Some of the language, especially the dialogue, will seem dated, and we are talking about a segregated major leagues, here (in fact, the only two mentions of African Americans are cringe-inducing), but that is one of the pitfalls of visiting other time periods. You see their warts, even, or especially, if they weren't perceived as such at the time. And there is some very interesting "inside baseball" intelligence provided, as well.

If you love baseball and have a desire to visit a bygone era, give this book a visit. You'll get a reminder of why this is one of the most beloved baseball books ever.

fyi, here is Roth's passage about The Kid from American Pastoral (you'll need to scroll down a bit or search on the page for "Tucker"). It is fascinating, but be warned that it contains a spoiler or two: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780375701429&view=exc...

#161 I don't see any Joseph Campbell in your library, but from this very thoughtful response, I'm sure you must have read some of his work.

laytonwoman3rd,

Believe it or not, I was able to come up with that very thoughtful response (and thanks for the kind words!) without having read Joseph Campbell! I know it's hard to fathom from a simple Jersey boy like myself, but such is the case.

Just kiddin' ya, but no, I haven't read him. I remember when the multi-part documentary based on his work aired on TV and he was all the rage for a while. As I tend to do with most "rages," I avoided this one, too. That might have been my loss, certainly. Still, I have managed to stumble along in this way for 54 years, so far. :)

Well, the "rage" has passed, and so has the man, unfortunately. So you're cleared to pick up The Masks of God or The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

Fascinating conversation for this particular Christian to have stumbled across. While, obviously, I disagree with some of what you discussed, I did find the dialogue very, very interesting.
And, Linda, thank you for the two recommendations. The latter looks to be especially good.
belva

Book 41: Satchel: the Life and Times of an American Legend by Larry Tye



This is a particularly interesting biography about a seminal figure in American history. Not just baseball history, but American history as a whole. Paige was a larger than life figure throughout his incredibly long baseball career, hurling thousands of games both in the Negro Leagues and in barnstorming exhibitions across the country and into Latin America for decades, before finally making a belated entrance into the Major Leagues in 1948 while in his 40s. Although most of us have heard of Paige and his famous saying, "Don't look back, somebody might be gaining on you," I wasn't really aware of how famous a figure Paige was throughout the Depression and through the war years.

Tye obviously did lots and lots of research and interviews, and he goes as deeply as he can to separate fact from legend when it comes to Paige. The fact that we can't ever know, in places, how successful he's actually been at this is part of the book's charm. When he can't do any better, he simply relates the different versions of particular stories as supplied to him by the different sources he's found. At any rate, legend aside, I learned a heck of a lot about Paige and came to realize just how influential a figure he was to baseball history and how famous he was across the country during his heyday, how he pushed back racial boundaries simply by being himself and insisting on living life by his own rules.

This book is just full of intriguing information about Paige, about the history of the Negro Leagues and even about the ultimate integration of the Major Leagues. For example, I was fascinated to learn that Paige and many of the other Negro League veterans had very little use for Jackie Robinson, although they said all the right things to reporters, and Robinson had very little respect for them or all that they had accomplished and endured. This book will go a long way toward shining a light on a compelling figure in American history before he recedes too far into the mists of time to make such research feasible. I'm giving it 4 1/2 stars, due to the fact that, occasionally, Tye's writing style goes a little dry. Overall, though, wow.

Jerry- Very good review! It sounds like a winner. I need something baseball related to take my mind off my lowly Cubbies!

Book 42: Voices of the Valley, Volume II: More Stories of Anderson Valley Elders Collected by Anderson Valley Youth



The second of a five-part series of oral histories done by local high school students, this volume is full of very interesting oral histories of some of the elders of Anderson Valley, the relatively remote agricultural valley in Mendocino County, California, where my wife an I now live. I read this as a "between book" as part of my ongoing project to learn about the history of the region. I've now read Volumes 2 and 3. Volume 1 is very hard to find, but my neighbor has lent it to me, so I'll be adding that to the "between book" pile next.

This is such an interesting project for the local youth to have taken on...speaks very well of a vibrant sense of community in that bizarre little corner of the world where you've stoured yersel' off.

#171> Richard, that sense of community is exactly what drew us to this valley. There are a lot of beautiful places in California, but this place has a fascinating mix of old-timers (several generations "old") and new comers from different eras: big influx of hippies in the 70s who are still around sporting their now-gray pony tails; wine-growers in the 80s and 90s, retirees in the 90s and Mexicans who came over the last three decades to work, first in the fruit orchards and now in the vineyards. So the community is in that sense diverse. The biggest divide now is between the Anglos and the Mexicans, a divide broadened by the language barrier. These oral histories were in part designed to help bridge that divide for younger generations. Number one, the student historians were both Anglo and Mexican, and number two the teachers involved made sure to include Mexican as well as Anglo elders as interview subjects. That ensured that both the students and the series' readers got a good look into the lives and experiences of folks from different cultures.

The local school system here is not without its problems and faults, of course, but overall it is an incredibly functional organization full of people, from administrators through teachers and volunteers, who really do have the students' and the community's welfare at heart. And although budget problems have caused the District to cut the school's guidance counselor position from full time to half time, administrators have shown the incredibly good sense to hire my wife Stephanie to fill that half-time position. Having worked as a teacher and as a counselor in the San Francisco school system, she is now coming home each day exhausted but entirely optimistic about the good will she's finding all around her, as opposed to the butt-headed administrators who so frequently made her life hell and her student's lives frustrating in the big city school system.

>172 rocketjk: I admire Stephanie for engaging with the #*&$^& bureaucrats at all! I told the story in another thread, but the short version of my woe-is-me is that I was student teaching in the 80s and was called out for focusing on a Revolutionary War battle as the subject of a class period-long project: Writing war reports about the Battle of Lexington for British and American newspapers from the facts given in the textbook.

Too much focus on violence, not in the syllabus, no one approved the lesson design at the state level. Never mind the kids had a blast. Jeesh.

Book 43: Saratoga Trunk by Edna Ferber



A good, old-fashioned "Novel" novel! A beautiful, headstrong young woman, Clio, orphaned and on her own, takes on the world, determined to make her own way in the world of late 19-century America, only as scrupulously as she can afford to be and not caring a bit about it. "Her own way" means marrying money for the security and prestige, but will true love foil her plan? The story plays out for the most part among the super-rich upper class at Saratoga, NY. And of course, in the hands of many of our modern pot-boiler writers, this whole exercise would be dreadful. But Ferber was a very good writer, or at least writes very well here. The characters are larger than life, to be sure, especially the tall, handsome Texan our heroine takes as her scheming partner as well as the somewhat grotesque but immensely strong and resourceful dwarf she has had as one of her two loyal servants since her childhood (spent in exile in Paris because of an illicit and tragic love affair that had gotten her mother chased from New Orleans society). You get the picture. The story is a little slow getting going, due to the less than fascinating exposition through which the mother's backstory is told. But once we get going, as the mother dies and Clio hits New Orleans to claim back her birthright, things heat up.

It's a pot-boiler, for the most part, although the high-quality writing and wry look at the very rich of the era raise Saratoga Trunk above the turgid nonsense we'd expect this book to be today. Not great literature, but a fun book of its kind if one is in the mood.

Ohhhhhhhhhh rocket;
I want to reread this one and I have not thought about Edna Ferber in absolute years. That is a crime!~!
Have you seen the old movie with Ingrid Bergman in the main character role? Very good!
Thank you for that review and bringing to mind something old that is well worth a revisit.
hugs,
belva

Belva, I had no idea there was a movie. And with Ingrid Bergman, no less! Thanks for letting me know. Always happy to bring back good reading memories to my LT pals! You never know what you'll find if you go looking on your own bookshelves, eh? That's how I found Saratoga Trunk. As you can see from the cover .jpg I posted, I was reading a beautiful old Penguin Edition paperback (the first edition of same, in fact). I have a pulp and pulp-style paperback book cabinet (with glass doors so my wife and I can see in, of course). Usually it just sits there looking pretty, but once in a while I go looking there for something to read. Hence my decision to delve in Edna's world.

Hey jk! Ferber...wow...go dig up So Big if you want another sprawling novel-for-novel's sake read.

Thank you Richard. I needed that rec as well.
You little cutie pie you!~!
xoxo
belva

#177> Well, um, thanks Richard. Maybe later. At any rate, I wouldn't call Saratoga Trunk "sprawling," as it checked in at a modest 248 pocket-sized paperback pages. Nice and tidy, which was one of its charms.

Oh, that story has such a scope...her mother, though not as interesting as she is, makes Clio a more believeable character (to me, at least). Otherwise, absent the character's backstory, from whence her iconoclastic independence? And Clint...why would he fall so hard for just another pretty face? Her maman's misdeeds and naughtiness add that element of time travel, of continuity of personalities and even family curses, that I so loved in this book. That's why I call it sprawling, and So Big is in that Ferberian vein. None of her work was gasbaggy. She told her stories and got on with it, like a good novelist should.

Howdy Beelzeva!

Richard, my brother,

Depth and scope does not equal "sprawl" to me. When I think "sprawl," I think of a something that goes all over the place. Michener or some such. . . . lots of generations, lots of scenarios, etc. Think "urban sprawl," for example. The definition that applies most directly, to me, is . . .

"to spread out in an awkward or uneven way, esp. so as to take up more space than is necessary, as handwriting, a line of men, etc." (http://www.yourdictionary.com/sprawl)

Certainly, Clio's backstory makes her more believable. If we had seen her mother's life in depth from birth for 75 pages, and if we had seen her father fighting in the Civil War for 150 pages or gotten a 25-page description on the history of dueling in old New Orleans, and if we had read a 100-page description of the rise of the robber barons and another 100 on the history of the railroads in New York State and maybe 60 pages or so on the rise of Saratoga as a playground for the super-rich, then, yes, I'd give you sprawling. But since Ferber simply "told her story and got on with it," than, no, that's not "sprawling" for me.

Ahhh...semantics at work! You're right, every use of the word "sprawl" has immediate spatial connotations. Depth and scope are Ferberian attributes, then. Clint really made me think more than Clio did. But the story was just plain fun to read, and she's an unjustly underknown author.

Yep, depth, scope and perhaps as important, focus. And yes, Clint's character provided an interesting balance. Driven, but with a lot more ethics than Clio. And able to draw the line between his fascination with her and his own limits to how much he was willing to be handled, and where he was willing to go. As for Ferber's being unjustly unknown, I will surely agree. Although I guess she's remembered for writing the novel Giant, from which the James Dean/Marilyn Monroe/Clark Gable movie was made. (The final movie for all three, I believe.)

I feel it coming on.
A group read of Ferber.
Y'all are warming up to it!~!
I know, I know what you said rocket.
But Giant would be an awesome one to do.
belva

Book 44: The Black Flower by Howard Bahr



This is a beautifully written and powerful novel of the American Civil War as seen through the eyes of foot soldiers and civilians during the war's final, desperate (for the South) year. The first section of the book shows us Bushrod Carter and his comrades of the Cumberland Rifles as they form up near a farm house and await marching orders into a battle that, to their practiced soldiers' eyes as they survey the battleground they have to cross and the Federal works they have to storm, they seem to have little hope of winning or even surviving. Here are two passages I can't resist showing you.

"For the last time, Bushrod looked up to see his army spread out across the plain. What he could see of the brigades and grand divisions still advanced in order; had there been no Strangers, no fatal purpose, no guns or muskets across the way, they might have marched on forever under their bright banners and gleaming bayonets. But already behind the ordered lines the fields were dotted with rags of the Departed, and the smoke was rising, the white smoke that soon would hide them all. Bushrod knew it was only the smoke of the guns, but for a moment it seemed as if it might have risen from the long way itself, like the mysterious fogs that crept from the ditches and hollows in the lonely country nights, that were cold on the face and made saddle horses run wild. Well, no matter. The smoke was rising; into the smoke the long lines passed, and Bushrod knew he would see them no more. 'Goodbye,' he said aloud. 'Goodbye, goodbye.'"

And

"The house itself seemed indifferent. It stood serene above the clamor in the yard: old-fashioned, melancholy, the white portico still holding the afternoon's light. It was built of brick like so many of these Tennessee houses, and it seemed to have stood there since the creation of the world. Bushrod thought how it would still be rooted in time long, long after they were gone, when all that was left of all these boys would be a half-seen shadow among the oaks, a voice mistaken for the wind, a button or a belt buckle turned up by the garden plow. For a moment, Bushrod regarded the house with shame and yearning. He had done so much, come so far--if only he could quit for a little while, slip away somehow and hide himself among those quiet rooms until morning, when all this would be over and done and he could start afresh. He was tired, and he wished for the first time in his life that he could save himself from being forgotten."

These passages to me demonstrate both the book's strengths and its weaknesses, such as they are. Strengths, in that the writing is strong and pretty compelling. The weakness is that at places it is over-written. We are told straight away that Bushrod is a college graduate, and a student of literature, so we can forgive the narrative's eloquence, to a point, although the writing does call attention to itself from time to time. However, Bahr seems able to rein in even his most self-conscious reveries just before they go over the edge, as in, for me, the second passage above, which meanders just a touch too long but concludes with a thought that, at least for me, brings us powerfully right back down to earth and into the here and now.

But I am over-emphasizing my quibbles with the book, I fear. This is a terrific novel. The horrors of war are shown us through the eyes of Bushrod and his comrades. The sorrow and loss of war are shown us throw the eyes of a young woman waiting in that house to help tend to the wounded of the impending battle.

If the soldiers are a touch too eloquent, the characterizations of them are true to life nevertheless. I have been thinking about the book frequently over the past three days since I finished it. I recommend it highly.

Effective call-outs, jk. I think another reason for the eloquence of the writing is the subject matter. The Civil War almost demands the writer deploy every narrative technique s/he can to capture at least a piece of its almost unfathomable importance to the American psyche.

*grumbles off to wishlist YET ANOTHER jk suggestion*

Ah rocket, I think you just needed something to nitpick about it so we wouldn't think it a perfect book. But you didn't fool me.
What a lovely review. You got a great big fat old thumbs up from me and I grabbed the rec and ran right over to Thrift books and ordered a copy for a penny plus S & H.
Thank you for an awesome review. Very well done.
belva
P.S. I think you are going to have a Hot One with this. just sayin'.

Beelzeva is right, dear jk, your review is now a Hot One! And rightly so. Even *I* had to get interested in the book.

Jerry- Terrific review on The Black Flower! I read it a few years ago and thought it was good but not great. Worthy enough for a re-read? Maybe!
BTW, I am listening to a first listen on NPR, of a new album by Pancho Sanchez. He's one of my fav's! You should check it out sir!

Congratulations rocket!~!
You Rock!~!
I calls 'em like I sees 'em.
belva

Thanks, all! Being away all weekend, I missed my own Hotness!

Mark, I can certainly understand why someone would think The Black Flower was good but not great. For one thing, it is longer on character and ambiance than it is on plot and action. That's not everybody's cup of tea, and a couple of times during the reading I found myself wishing things would get going. But overall, obviously, I found the book enjoyable, moving and memorable. And I am right with you on Pancho Sanchez. I will search out that CD.

I am now a few pages into The Ultraviolet Sky by Mexican-American writer Alma Luz Villanueva. The short bio on the back of the book says Villanueva is well known for "her feminist poetry" (the quotation marks are because I'm not sure what "feminist poetry" is). At any rate, I was at Modern Times Books on Valencia Street in San Francisco's Mission District a few weeks back and this book caught my interest. It's currently only listed in three LT libraries (including mine). Naturally, I will report fully when the time is right.

By the way, I mentioned this on the Gathering Place thread, but you can find my blog on the Monterey Jazz Festival here: http://www.jazzwest.com/blogs/jazz_blog_mjf.asp

Book 45: Under the Iron Heel by Lars Moen



American Lars Moen, a chemist and former journalist, had lived in Europe for the better part of 12 years, moving from country to country with his work, when with Nazi invasion of Belgium caught him working on a project in Antwerp. Under the Iron Heel is his fascinating account of the invasion as he saw it from Antwerp, and his life under the first six months of the German occupation.

Perhaps the most fascinating component of the book is that Moen wrote it immediately upon finally getting out of Belgium and returning to the U.S. It was published in early 1941, before the U.S. was brought into the war by Pearl Harbor. So this book is a look back at the early days of the war, and a look forward, conjecturing on things Moen could not know but we now do.

Moen wrote (he died in 1951) with a down-to-earth style, refreshingly devoid of dramatics. He begins by describing such mundane factors like the rationing system the Germans soon put into effect, but flavors this with descriptions how Germany quickly began plundering Belgium's storehouses of food and goods, and the effects this was having both on Belgian life and on the attitudes of the Belgians toward the Germans.

Because Moen spoke French, Flemish and German fluently, he was able to speak with Belgians, refugees from around Europe and German soldiers. His descriptions of the morale of the German soldiers, and his conjectures on how they might be affected by a long war are particularly interesting, especially given that at the time he was in Belgium, the German soldiers were still expecting a quick invasion of England and a quick end to the war, something few Belgians considered likely. The chapter "What a German Soldier Thinks About" is one of the centerpieces of the book. (Can something have more than one centerpiece?) Moen's description therein of the total acceptance by these soldiers of Nazi propaganda was quite surprising to me, actually.

The other is Moen's description of what was like living under constant night bombings (as the RAF began trying to destroy the shipyards and factories of Antwerp in short order). Made particularly harrowing by Moen's levelness of tone, the chapters describing the bombing and the effects it the bombing was having on Belgians and Germans alike are compelling, to put it mildly.

Perhaps the most curious note of the book is the fact that Moen makes scant mention of the Nazi's policy towards the Jews of Europe. He says that he saw no evidence of anti-Semitism in occupied Belgium, going as far as to note that as soon as the Germans showed up, anti-Semitic Belgians posted Jewish stars on the windows of stores with Jewish owners, but that the Germans ordered the stars taken down. Moen says something along the lines of, "I can't explain this. I only report what I saw."

And that's the one and only reference he makes to Jews throughout the book, other than one or two passing references to Antwerp's "Jewish Quarter." Towards the end of the book, there is a long discussion of the observations and beliefs of the many refugees he's spoken with from all corners of Europe, about all sorts of topics, from conditions under German rule to their expectations and conjectures about the future, but nowhere is the Nazis' attitudes and actions toward Jews brought up here.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this, other than to guess that Moen just didn't find the topic worth mentioning or worrying about. Either that or it was too early in the war for the Nazi's Europe-wide policies to have become apparent. Somehow, though, I feel that the former is probably the case.

As I've said elsewhere, I have no idea where I found this book. It's been on my shelf for a while. No doubt I picked it up at an estate sale, flea market or thrift shop someplace. Only four LTers, including me, list it in their libraries. Amazing, the education you can get from a book like this, grown undeservedly obscure, which you pick up by chance somewhere on your travels.

For folks who like to read history written as events unfold, rather than in retrospect, and who have an interest in World War Two, I'd rate this book a treasure.

By the way, I had to give up on The Ultraviolet Sky, the book I reported starting in my previous post. It might have told a good story, but the writing was completely wooden and cliche ridden. I shut it down after only 15 pages.

Book 46: The Ballad of West Tenth Street by Marjorie Kernan



This book made me miserable throughout, and I only finished out of stubbornness, and because I was stuck with it while visiting my mom over the weekend, and because I just quit a book a couple of weeks ago (for the same reason I wanted to quit this one) and didn't want to do it again so soon. Poor writing abounds here, as in prose riddled with cliches and horrid metaphors plus entirely unbelievable characters.

For example, at the beginning we are presented with a main character whose alcoholism seems out of control, and given the rather effective image of her 12-year-old son dolefully counting the empty bottles as he drops them into the recycling bin. But it turns out that this woman's steady drinking has no more effect on her than constant imbibing affected Nick and Nora Charles. While I love the Thin Man movies, by now we know better. The teenage kids are too erudite, the neighbors all entirely too beneficent, and there is a character revelation on page 260 that literally made me curse aloud.

Characterizations and prose like this:

"Kristen, in all truth, lied to herself mightily with her next thought. She thought how much she liked Sadie. She was so bohemian, such a character, and hadn't she stayed unmarried since Ree had passed away? That's the term Kristen invariably used for death."

Metaphors like this . . .

"Above, a pair of screech owls called to each other, their sounds as infinite a part of the forest as all the other parts of it . . . "

Cliches, etc . . .

A man in a coma, viewed in the hospital for the first time, hooked up to all the attendant tubes and machinery is described like so: "He looked like something the cat dragged in."

And then this . . .

"Titus (he is a cat) prowled around (his owner's--a street person) supine form and the broken ground outside, killing rats and mice and eating them with wondrous relish, . . ."

It is that "wondrous" that depresses me so much. What is "wondrous" about the appetite of a starving cat? This is a whole book full of such extraneous modifiers. It's as if the story were being told us by some fictional, cliched old aunt, the kind that only exists in bad fairy tales. (And, yes, the back of the book describes this novel as "a contemporary urban fairy tale," so I guess I should have been warned.) There is a page-long scene told us through the eyes of, I kid you not, an old, stone carving.

But that clunkiness becomes particularly maddening when the "wondrous mouse" passage ends thusly:

"Thus, the old captain and his cat shared hours of sleep in the dusty, strewn depot, two more objects among the broken furniture." See? Now that, to me, is a truly moving image. And there are other good passages throughout the book, passages I hopped along on from one to another, trying to keep myself moving along through the story. So it makes me mad to know that Kernan can write, and yet still the prose is left strewn with all this disconcerting tripe.

The take-away, then, is what? That Harper Perennial no longer has editors? That they think people want to read prose littered with festering cliches and over-precious observations? Is it because the author is a woman and publishers now have so little respect for their female audience? They don't really think women will buy anything as long as it's written by another woman, do they?

On the back cover we're told, "Marjorie Kernan, a former painter, owns an antiques shop on the coast of Maine. This is her first novel." In the "Meet Marjorie Kernan" section at the end of the book, we're told, "Several years ago, while sitting in a truck cab in France, bored out of her mind, she began to think of writing a novel."

So now I can add a third item, along with marriage and parenthood, to things one shouldn't decide to do out of boredom.

Kernan, according to that Meet the Author section, is at work on another novel. I hope it will be better. I hope she becomes a famous, quality novelist and The Ballad of West Tenth Street becomes that first novel that nobody ever reads.

Hey Rocket, just wanted to drop by to say how much I enjoyed reading this thread at lunchtime. I've only read one of the books listed (the Hollinghurst) but there's some excellent reviews and discussion here.

The Somerset Maugham and the Bahr books both look tempting, shame I've sworn off any more purchases until the new year.

#193 Thanks for the warning, and for taking one for the team, Jerry. I hope the next book you pick up rewards you with a ripping good read.

You're welcome, lw3. Happy that someone appreciates my sacrifice! I'm reading a really good page-turner now, the first Larsson mystery, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, so I'm getting a good reading reward.

Book 47: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson



A very fine mystery thriller. Good plotting, good pacing, relatively, for a mystery, good characterizations. Given all the bizarre twists and turns of the story, I thought the plot held up very well. While I won't race out to get the second and third books of the Larsson triology, eventually I'm sure I'll read all three.

Book 48: World Series by John R. Tunis



World Series is the second in the Roy Tucker series written in the early 1940s by John R. Tunis. Tucker is a young player on the Brooklyn Dodgers, learning about baseball, life, and life's hard knocks during the course of his first two seasons, which we read about in the first book in the series, The Kid from Tomkinsville. In World Series, we read about the Dodgers' struggles, and Tucker's, against the powerful Cleveland Indians in a thrilling World Series.

These are YA books, and I read them originally in my junior high days, or maybe even earlier. But they are very well written, and I've had no trouble enjoying them as an adult. Fabulous books that harken back to an earlier era in baseball (although, sadly, the days of an all-white major leagues), provide lots of inside information about how the game is played, and about what a pressure-packed life major league players actually lead.

Sooner or later I'll read the third book in the series, The Kid Comes Back.

Hi Jerry- Nice review on World Series. I finished the Krakauer book, you were asking about. Check out my comments. Hope you are having a good weekend!

Hey, Mark. Thanks! And, yes, I did see your comments re: Krakauer. Guess I'll have to pick that one up soon.

Book 49: Bringing Tony Home by Tissa Abeysekara



I read this collection of four novellas as a "between book" (see first post for expanation of this invented term). Abeysekara is a Sri Lankan author and film/TV producer. These four stories represent four variations on a single theme: all reveries presenting an adult protagonist returning to his childhood home in search of some elusive component of his younger self. Each story is told as a pastiche of floating recollections, moving back and forth in time, often settling on the same spot several times, ultimately creating a wavering thread of longing and regret connecting the realities of adulthood and the unreachable events of the past. In most of the stories, the rural setting of childhood has been paved and built over by an intrusive modern world.

A childhood pet, a man's recollections of a strained relationship with his father, an early, regretted love and a search for the history of a beloved grandmother, long since dead, form the quadrangle of concerns that buttress the collection's recurrent themes. Another repeating theme is the way in which the lies adults tell their children help erode our feelings of trust and security at an early age, and represent to the child a far greater betrayal then most adults ever suspect.

The stories are all good, but I'm glad I didn't read them all straight through, as I believe they would have come to seem repetitive. The title story, about a man's sorrowful memories of the dog he owned as a young boy, is by far the strongest. It's really quite a jewel. But it doesn't help the rest of the collection that this story is presented first.

All in all, I am left with the feeling that there is a lot of insight and beauty here.

Book 50: An Inn Near Kyoto: Writing by American Women Abroad, edited by Kathleen Coskran and C.W. Truesdale



This wonderful anthology includes 51 entries by women writing about their travels all over the world. Some are writing about their experiences as tourists, some as aid and health care givers, some as Americans married and living in their husbands' home countries. Not all of the entries are great, some are only OK, but most are very high quality indeed. I read this as a "between book," and it took me close to three years to read through the whole collection one entry at a time. It was nice to have this book, and these women's voices, with me through that long time period.

The book is particularly special to me because my friend Leza Lowitz, the wonderful poet, translator and yoga teacher who is a buddy of mine from grad school at San Francisco State, has an entry here. In fact, I bought the book at the reading given when the volume was first published, with Leza in attendance as a reader, and my copy is signed by her.

So that's my 50th, and I made it this year with two months to spare!

Hey Jerry- Congrats on reaching 50! It feels good, don't it!

Thanks, Mark. Yes, it does feel good! And I have a couple of months to go, so I might even hit 60! It'll be fun to see where I end up.

Congratulations on completing your challenge! I like your review of An Inn Near Kyoto and had to wishlist it.

You're not going to stop reviewing the rest of the books you're reading this year, right?

Yes, congratulations on completing your challenge! I've been meaning to stop by and than you for your reviews of Strat-O-Matic Fanatics and The Nigger Factory, which lead me to buy them both as my husband's Father's Day present and he read them (along with The Vulture, which was included in the Scott-Heron) and enjoyed them all. I'm keeping a lookout here for Christmas ideas!

Thanks, and yes, Cameling, I will continue to post books and reviews. Writing about books here is too much fun to stop.

Congratulations, rocketjk!

Great job.

I've got four characters outlined in the Death in Blue & White thread...the hero, the sidekick, the magical helper, and the trickster...along with an obituary of the victim. Come visit!

I'd really like to know what you think of these characters, are they ones you could care about? Follow over time, even?

Book 51: Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes



Haven't read this book since 7th grade English class, and boy, did I enjoy it! Very good writing, interesting characterizations and a good trip to Boston on the eve of the Revolution. Just about the only thing that makes this a YA book is the fact that the protagonist is a teenager. I liked the fact that that young Tremain is shown as a sometimes quite unlikeable fellow and that the English soldiers occupying Boston are often portrayed, individually, as likeable. A lot of excellent scenes and excellent writing. The Sons of Liberty are perhaps over-romanticized. I'm giving Forbes a pass on that.

p.s. Richard, I will check out your characters, etc., when I get a minute.

Book 52: The Kid Comes Back by John R. Tunis



This is the third and, as far as I know, final installment of this classis YA trilogy about Roy Tucker, ballplayer on the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1940s. The first book, The Kid from Tompkinsville, shows us Tucker's growth from a wet behind the ears youngster from a Connecticut farming town to a major leaguer. There are many of hard knocks along the way for young Roy, lots of adversity to overcome. Along the way, there's lot of exciting baseall described, as well. The second book, World Series, takes Tucker and the Dodgers through an exciting fall classic.

The Kid Comes Back may well be the darkest of the three books. The first two were written in 1941, with WWII still a cloud looming on the horizon for America. This third book was written in 1946, and where the Kid comes back from is several years of hazardous and harrowing combat duty, some of which is described quite excitingly in the first third of the book. The next third of the book is the Kid trying to overcome a painful war injury. Finally we get Roy back on the field, where the problems of the ballplayers returning from the war that's interrupted their careers is explored somewhat. But now, also, we get back to baseball, and the tumult of a difficult multi-team pennant race.

These are, as I said, YA books. None of the characters, including Tucker, are drawn very deeply. The books, in addition to being exciting action/baseball stories, generally follow the theme of the value of hard work, to sticking to your goal despite any adversity a cruel universe might throw your way, and to remaining loyal to your friends and teammates.

As a set, they are a period piece, no doubt. I read them first when I was in the sixth grade or so, with WWII, and world portrayed in these books, while certainly part of the past, still seemed very much alive. WWII veterans, my parents' generation and, not coincidentally, the people who clearly remembered the Brooklyn Dodgers, were still very much an active force in the nation's daily consciousness.

Reading them now again as an adult, I frequently found myself wondering, "I wonder what I made of this scene as a kid? I wonder what I thought about that one?" Anyway, I don't want to make too much of all this. Essentially, it was lots of fun rereading these three books 45 or so years after my first reading. The writing is mannered, geared to a younger audience, and not all of the dialogue and colloquialisms ring true. Also, Tunis certainly takes the color line in baseball for granted, even dropping in a wince-inducing comments about "coloreds" once or twice per book. Nevertheless, I would recommend these three books, and certainly the first one, for anyone who loves baseball and baseball history, and who is also young at heart.

Book 53: The Humbling by Philip Roth



First of all, I must state the Philip Roth has been one of my true literary heroes for decades, and reading his books has brought me a great deal of pleasure. And though I no longer expect his releases to have the brilliance of the main body of his work, I was especially disappointed in this book. As have been his last few books, The Humbling is essentially a novella. That's fine. But this one, I hate to say, didn't add up to much for me. The story begins as Simon Axler, a famous stage (mostly) and screen actor who suddenly takes the stage to find himself utterly unable to act. So I was hoping we are about to get an exploration of what happens to a famous artist who suddenly and quite publicly finds that his muse has left him and he's no longer able to pursue his art, the work and passion of a long, fulfilling lifetime, and I was greatly looking forward to seeing how Roth was going to handle this issue.

Unfortunately for us, or at least for me, Axler is soon {emphasis on "soon," so this is not much of a spoiler} joined in his countryside retreat by a woman 25 years his junior, someone he has known since she was, literally, an infant, who shows up at his door wanting nothing less than to become his lover. Easy, squeasy. So now the book takes a hard left turn to offer us a view of the perils an aging man faces in trying to maintain a relationship with a much younger woman. The trouble was for me that a) none of this second part is believable and b) Roth dealt with this issue much more strongly and effectively, although not, I'll admit, identically, in The Dying Animal.

Maybe the relationship with a younger woman is supposed to be a metaphor for the character's relationship with acting, with the powers of his younger artistic self. If so, it seems way too heavy-handed for me. I would much have preferred, for a lot of reasons, a more direct delving into the aging artist/vanishing muse question. All in all, this novel didn't move me at all, and I found the ending unsatisfying, as well. I hate having to say all this. I love Roth's work. And although I guess I did enjoy this book well enough in the reading of it, I felt it a let down all told.

Book 54: The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry



I'm very late coming to McMurtry. I'm sorry I've waited so long, but on the other hand happy to have a whole lineup of his books still available to be read. I remember, vaguely, seeing the movie when it first came out in the 70s, and I had the young Jeff Bridges in mind throughout my reading, here. But that's fine, as I'd have to say that was a very good piece of casting. At any rate, this is an amazing book about mid-century small town prairie life. Real, and not always admirable, people acting like people really act. Sad but not overly so and in the end infused with an overall kindness and generosity on the part of the author toward his characters. And one amazing turn of phrase after another spices up the writing. Wholly enjoyable. Over the next couple of years I expect to read through the entire Thalia, TX, series. Little by little I'm sure I'll go through the entire McMurtry "library," now that I've finally gotten started.

Jerry- Nice review of "Picture Show"! It's such a great book! And speaking of brilliant casting, how about Ben Johnson as Sam the Lion! Amazing stuff!

Book 55: Moorish Spain by Richard Fletcher



My wife and I are traveling to Seville in a few weeks for vacation. I noted a positive reference to this book in an old Harper's I happened to be glancing through and so ordered it to pick up some historical background on Southern Spain before our trip.

Any time an historian tries to encompass 800 or so years of history in 177 pages, it's going to be a whirlwind trip. That said, I'm very happy I read this book. I feel like I got a very good overview of the events and accomplishments of the Moslem presence in Spain over the period from 711, the year of the first Berber invasion from Morocco, through 1492, when Granada, the final Moslem stronghold on the peninsula, was finally overrun by the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella. Although of necessity some of the book is sort of dry, overall Fletcher writes in a way designed to engage the layperson rather than the academian, and succeeds quite well.

Fletcher is quite forthcoming about the fact that information about the 8th and 9th centuries in Spain is very, very sketchy, with our ideas of what life was like often pieced together from very frail clues, indeed. When a prevailing idea is based more on guesswork than knowledge, Fletcher says so.

But along the way, Fletcher busts many of the modern myths of what Moorish Spain was like, especially the "Golden Age" myth. A good history for those who enjoy learning about such times.

Book 56: Visions of Jazz: the First Century by Gary Giddins



This was a "between book" (see post 1) that I completed last night. Visions of Jazz is a collection of 49 essays, each one describing a different jazz musician or group, moving more or less chronologically through the 20th century. Giddins is a very good writer, which of course helps a lot, and really brings these musicians and their art alive nicely. The only flaw for the non-musician (like me) reading these essays is that Giddins is not shy about including a lot of technical musical information. That can be a bit daunting, but that sort of writing appears only in relatively small bits and never wholly overwhelms any of the chapters.

The casual music/jazz fan will not of heard of all of the musicians covered here, but a good two thirds of them will be familiar names, at least. It's easy for the reader to choose whether to cherry pick familiar/famous musicians to learn more about or to also gain an introduction to some new jazz artists.

All in all, a terrific, well-written jazz primer and/or reference book.

Book 57: The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds



I came to this book with some trepidation, not even sure why I'd bought it in a thrift store and started reading it almost immediately. Another female, Southern coming of age story. I've been burned by one or two such this year. However, this book is something different altogether. The story of a girl, Ninah, yes, coming of age in a small isolated religious community (The Church of Fire and Brimstone and God's Almighty Baptizing Wind), run with an iron fist by the community's founder and the narrator's grandfather, Herman. A fundamentalist Christian community, one might say, although many of these fundamentals seem to be only in Herman's mind. He keeps the community's 60 or so members on the straight and narrow through some frequently bizarre means, such as making members who have broken one of his many rules spend a night sleeping in an open grave to think more directly about the wages of sin.

But Reynolds has a deft and knowing touch with character, and everyone we meet here, even Herman, is drawn in rounded, human terms. The book is the story of Ninah's self-discovery, her inevitable introduction both to the outside world and to the happy/tragic aspects of adulthood. The story, I have to say, I felt to be a little slow getting going, but overall was compelling and credible. You care about the characters, and especially the protagonist, and you believe what they're going through. And, perhaps best of all, Reynolds' writing style is direct and winning. She has a relatively light and wonderful facility with metaphor, never overdoing it and almost always dead on target. Here's the passage that won me over to the narrative, found in my edition on page 37:



"At Fire and Brimstone, we all looked alike, and that made me lonely, too. We didn't all have the same color eyes or the same textured hair, but it really didn't matter. Our shadows came in two varieties: male and female.

We were all lanky. We all dressed alike. We slept in the same hard beds and washed with soaps made from the same iron pot. All the men wore beards clipped close and work boots that left the same muddy tracks. All the women pulled their hair into buns and left their faces bare for the sun to adorn as it would.

We may has well have been skeletons, unidentifiable. We may as well have interchanged our bones.

I used to pray that God would stunt my growth and keep me little--so at least my frame wouldn't be confused with anyone else's.

Pammy was the relative closest to my size, and as we grew towards being lost in bodies all the same, I'd do my best to make my shadow different, even from hers. Afternoons as we marched through fields, I'd study our shapes bruised on the ground and pull myself up taller of fling out my arms to keep from getting confused about which shape belonged to her and which shape belonged to me."

Simple, clear, compelling and effective. Like the book as a whole.

Jerry- Nice review! I've seen this book bouncing around here for awhile! It might be time to check it out!

What a great review, Jerry. Must add this to my wishlist.

Book 58: As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee



As I Walked Out . . . is the memoir of a young Englishman who spent a year walking through Spain on the eve of the Spanish Civil War, written almost 30 years later, in 1969. We get not only a fascinating look at the almost medieval world that was Spain in those days, but also a compelling coming of age story, as Lee left his rural English village almost entirely ignorant of the world (save what he could glean from books) and comes to learn quite a bit about human nature and his own powers of observation and survival. There are astonishing revelations about the poverty and feudal nature of 1930s Spain, as Lee points out that large tracts of arable land, owned by absentee landowners, had at that point gone untilled since roughly the days of the Roman Empire. (I have read other contemporary reports that confirm that Spain in the 1930s had the closest thing to the original feudal system still existing in Europe.)

Lee benefits from the ancient Spanish custom of kindness and generosity to strangers, and makes his living as he travels playing his violin for small change and meals in the villages, towns and cities he passes through. He meets kindness, and squalor, almost everywhere, but comes away awed by the tough yet loving endurace of the Spanish people. The book concludes with the very opening battles of the Civil War.

In addition to the story Lee tells, the real treasure in the book is Lee's wonderful, poetic writing style. Through that style, he's able to bring people and landscapes fully to life. Here's just one example:

"In this bar, the wine was poured from a great stone jar, and served by an old man who'd lost a leg in the bullring. He carried his grumbles and miseries like a guttering candle from one group of drinkers to another."

I read this book on loan from a friend who insisted I read it before my impending trip to Spain, and I'm very, very happy I took his advice.

I like the sound of those last two, Jerry. I'm a sucker for coming-of-age stories, and I recently gave myself a crash course in what was going on after the Spanish Civil War so I could better understand the political setting of Pan's Labyrinth. I look forward to reading As I Walked Out to set the other bookend in place.

To be clear, laytonwoman, As I Walked Out gives a very up-close and personal view of what the social conditions were like in Spain before the Civil War, but really assumes a knowledge (as it was written, or at least published, 30 years after the fact) of the political circumstances. Essentially, the little that Lee does provide of political context towards the very end of his book describes the Civil War as essentially an issue of rich/landowners vs. peasants. That may be the bottom line as he experienced it, but there is no greater context provided regarding the many contending factions: communists, socialists, anarchists, social democrats, etc., who battled politically and sometimes physically against each other for years before finally being forced to unite in the (losing) fight against Franco's forces. That's the long way of saying that As I Walked Out, for all its many and substantial rewards, will not really help you understand the political setting of Spain before the Spanish Civil War in any meaningful way, if that's your goal in reading it. That's not a criticism of the book, as that wasn't Lee's reason for writing it. I just don't want you to be disappointed if/when you read it that you haven't received the information you were hoping for. But I still want you to read the book! :)

I am a sucker for both good coming of age stories and good memoirs...this one sounds right up my alley. Thanks for the review!

What I've read so far about the Spanish Civil War leads me to believe I am unlikely ever to understand all the politics of it. (Heck, I don't pretend to understand the politics of the world I'm living in!) But getting a "slice of life" view of any culture at any point in history makes me more interested in trying to grasp the overall picture.

Jerry...where are you? It's been like thirteen years or something and I see no posts! Vacation is all well and good (and Spain, well that's just flat GOOD), but are you back yet?

And, since you busted the 50 this year, maybe you'll come join us in the 75-Books Challenge for 2010? I hope?

Hey Richard, We just got back in last night. We had a blast. I will post more about the trip in the Gathering Place thread in a day or so. Only read two books during the vacation (a good sign, as we were very busy with lots of fun stuff), which I will post forthwith.

Book 59: Moscow Circles by Benedict Erofeev



Moscow Circles (also known as Moscow to the End of the Line) by Benedict Erofeev (also known as Venedikt Erofeyev) is a drunkenly hallucinatory ramble through the subways of Moscow. The book was written in 1976 with the Soviet regime still in power, and is a dark, dark comedy written as an indictment of the repressive Soviet system. In the beginning, there is quite a bit of effective, drunken humor and I laughed out loud several times. But the drinking is portrayed quite powerfully as a metaphor for the Russian people's opiate, used to cover the realities of an impossibly depressing lifestyle. As the book progresses, the humor fades and the nightmare is amplified. Very effective writing and a book that will haunt me for a long time.

Thanks to LT member Larry Riley for sending me this book, which I otherwise probably would never have read.

Book 60: The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lilian Jackson Braun



A fun, if slight, murder mystery with an engaging protagonist. Good for a long plane flight from Munich to San Francisco, which is, for the most part, where I read this book. This book about jealousy and murder in the art world was enjoyable, but I doubt if I'll be reading any of the other 731 books, or whatever the real number is, in this series. I'm fine with cats, and all, but this one is too smart and helps the protagonist too much. So you have to buy into the series' sense of whimsy, I guess, and it doesn't hold up well enough for me.

And that brings 2009's reading to a close. 60 books! Pretty good for a 49.49 book challenge. 60 is closer to 50 than to 75, however, so my plan at this point, which might change over the next day or so, is to stay here with the 50-book folks. 75 books in a year seems more than a bit of a stretch for me, realistically speaking.

It's been great fun again! Thanks to everyone who followed along. My first book of 2010, after I spend some time with my "between books," will be And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.

Welcome back, Jerry! Happy New Year, sir!

Well, okay jk...understood...but are you starting a 2010 thread? If so, please post link to same over here, too if you please.

Happy New Year!

very interesting list of 2009 reads you have there, rocket! i'm taking note of several titles. looking forward to your 2010 thread...

#217 The Rapture of Canaan - "I came to this book with some trepidation" - describes my approach to it too. I had a challenge with CharlesBoyd - I'd read Rapture if he'd read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and I devoured it. I thought it was a fascinating book. In fact, I was surprised at how much I liked it.

"I was surprised at how much I liked it."

Yes, karenmarie, that sums up my reaction, as well. I guess that's one of the best features of avid reading: the happy surprise!

OK, one and all! Just back from a long weekend visiting family and finally got my 2010 50-book challenge thread up, including my first two entries. For anyone who cares, it's here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/82681