This is what I read

The Hunger Games

2012-01-28T14:04:00.000-05:00

by Suzanne Collins
January 2012

Everybody's reading The Hunger Games. Everybody's been reading The Hunger Games for a long while now. This is the first in a trilogy of books that has remained popular for several years now. I finally decided to see what the fuss was all about but couldn't get my hands on a copy. Thanks to a Barnes and Noble gift certificate and my Nook, I finally joined the club.

It's a good book and an exciting read. I imagine that the popularity of the book grew with the publication of the other two titles in the trilogy.
The Hunger Games is set sometime in the future. The land mass of North America has shrunk due to global nuclear war, changes in the climate, and through natural disasters. The United States is no more - now the country is known as Panem and is made up of twelve districts. The capitol city is located in the Rocky Mountains. About 75 years before this novel begins, the districts rebelled against the Capitol. One of the districts (number 13) was destroyed and the rebellion was put down. As a punishment for the rebellion, all of the districts were ordered to participate in "The Hunger Games."

The Capitol is like ancient Rome and the Games are akin to the gladiator's games. In fact, the residents of the Capitol have names like Cinna, Octavius, and Flavius. There are 24 participants, or "tributes": one girl and one boy chosen from among the teenagers in each district. Once a child turns twelve, he or she must enter his/her name into a lottery. The obligation to enter the lottery ends when the child turns 19.

It's considered an honor to be chosen and the tributes are treated like celebrities during the weeks leading up to the games. But the games are a necessary evil because the winner is the person that is still alive at the end. Because this story is set in the future, the games have somewhat of a high-tech quality. The setting and circumstances of each game change from year to year. They always take place in an arena, but to the tributes, it could look like a forest or a desert or an icy wasteland. The year that Katniss, the hero of our book, becomes a tribute the setting is a forest. Fortunate for her, because she has spent most of her life hunting for food in the woods near her home.

The high-tech stuff comes in the way that the Gamemakers manipulate the environment. The whole game is televised, so if things start to become boring the Gamemakers can start a thunderstorm or bring in a cold wind.

I enjoyed this book a lot and am ready to read "Catching Fire," the next book in the trilogy. The world that Suzanne Collins created and the games themselves are a fascinating invention. I can see why this series has become so very popular.

Bethlehem Road

2012-01-24T00:43:00.001-05:00

by Anne Perry
finished January 22, 2012

This is Anne Perry on her soap box. While she has always pointed out the subclass status of women in all of her books, this one stands on a soap box and shouts it out.
In fact, the book begins with Charlotte attending a women's sufferage rally.

The mystery comes with the death of an MP on the Westminster Bridge. It's thought to be either a personal attack or the act of a lunatic. When a second MP is killed, Pitt begins to suspect that the deaths were politically motivated. The prime suspects are a pair of women who are vehemently for women's rights.

Charlotte, with the help of Aunt Vespasia and a new character, Nobby Gunne, investigate by paying calls upon the families of the murdered men as well as to the two suspects. But it's Thomas who solves it all with his street smarts and skills of deduction.

The end came kind of out of nowhere, but it wasn't a complete surprise. It's been very interesting reading the later Monk books and then these earlier Pitt books. Later in her career, Perry learned how to mesh a good mystery with her soap box. For now, with Bethlehem Road, however, she is a little clumsy.

Silence in Hanover Close

2012-01-11T21:21:00.001-05:00

Anne Perry
January 2012

This was so good right up until the end. Pitt is given the assignment of investigating a three year old robbery and murder. The Foreign Office has asked that the investigation remain discreet because it could involve scandal and treason.

Thomas investigates as best as he is able, but makes little headway. He cannot question the family involved without raising suspicions and creating scandal with the investigation itself.

Of course, Charlotte gets involved and is able to find out things that Pitt never could. This time she launches her own investigation in order to give the widowed Emily something to occupy her mind while she is in her period of mourning and confinement. She also wishes to get to know Jack Radley better since he and Emily have continued their friendship after meeting at Cardington Crescent. Could Jack be genuinely interested in Emily or is he only after her inheritance?

Charlotte poses as Jack's cousin from the country and finagles an invitation to the house of the murdered man's family. Meanwhile, Emily goes in disguise to obtain a job as a ladies maid to the young widow who is newly engaged to be married.

I really enjoyed this book and the mystery involved until the end. Perry wrapped things up too quickly and in a very soap opera style. The final paragraph was completely unrealistic and a little too movie-of-the-week.

Still, Perry found a way to continue her pattern of Pitt-investigates-and-Charlotte-helps without becoming stale.

On to the next book!

Witches!

2012-01-11T21:04:00.000-05:00

The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem
by Rosalyn Schanzer
January 11, 2012

This is a non-fiction book from National Geographic publishing. The book is small and illustrated with black, white and red drawings, similar to what's seen on the cover. In judging this book by its cover, I thought I was going to read a narrative of the Salem witch trials. Instead of a interesting true-life story, Schanzer presents a series of facts and anecdotes. The book was written for a much younger audience than it appears to target. I expected a book for upper elmentary, if not middle school. The writing style makes this suitable for 3rd grade and up. However, I am not sure that most 3rd graders would be ready to hear about the confusing and inexplicable behavior of the Puritans who tortured others because they feared witchcraft.

Update: This book was named a Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal Honor Book for 2012. I am not too sure it deserved that.

Cardington Crescent

2012-01-01T11:35:00.000-05:00

by Anne Perry
December 2011

The Thomas and Charlotte Pitt mysteries are getting better. At first I was a little bit bored with them. I am so fond of the Monk series, these weren't impressing me. But I'm enjoying them more and more as I get into the series.

Emily, Charlotte's sister, is suspected of murdering her own husband, Lord George Ashworth. The couple had been guests of family at Cardington Crescent. George is found dead of an apparent heart attack. The doctor becomes suspicious when the family dog is found dead, too. It turns out that someone has poisoned George's coffee with an overdose of digitalis. The poor dog became a casualty after drinking some coffee offered to it in a saucer.

Charlotte comes to Cardington Crescent to support her sister and Thomas is called in as the investigating detective. The book is a sort of drawing room mystery, with most of the story taking place in the house at Cardington Crescent. Near the end of the novel Thomas takes the investigation out into one of the area slums after finding a new lead.

Death in the Devil's Acre

2011-12-23T17:25:00.001-05:00

by Anne Perry
finished December 23, 2011

I read this on my Nook Color. I had a hard time getting a copy of it. Perry's older titles aren't always available at the library. So, I broke down and bought it for the Nook. I was given a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble, so I can buy more Nook Books!

The Thomas Pitt books are getting a little more gritty. We've move out of the posh neighborhoods and into dangerous slums like the Devil's Acre. This is an area of town where a gentleman would only go if he had business there - namely, if he was visiting one of the area brothels. A lady would never go there - at least not any lady in her right mind.

A body is found in "the acre". He has been stabbed in the back and his genitals have been cut off and placed on the ground between his legs. The murder of a pimp wouldn't normally garner much attention at all, but the manner of his death attracts the attention of Thomas Pitt. He recognizes the victim to be Max, the footman that formerly worked for the Balantyne family in Callandar Square.

Another victim is found, killed and maimed in a similar way. This time, the victim is not a pimp and not a resident of Devil's Acre. He is a respected doctor. The case suddenly takes on a greater importance.

Thomas is being featured more often in these novels, which I think is a good thing. Charlotte and Emily still finagle invitations to tea or to society events in order to do a little amateur detective work, but the tedium of Rutland Place is gone and an actual and interesting mystery is in its place.

This was a quick and satisfying read. Some old characters return and new ones are introduced.

The Fox Inheritance

2011-12-18T14:10:00.000-05:00

by Mary E. Pearson
December 2011

This is a sequel to The Adoration of Jenna Fox.
About 250 years after the events in the first book, Locke and Kara's minds have been uploaded into new bodies. Their bodies are completely synthetic, made up of a substance called BioPerfect. Locke narrates the story of his and Kara's quest to escape the scientist who would use them as "floor models" for potential clients. This is also a quest to learn how to live in a society so completely different from the one that they left two hundred fifty years before.
As with the first book, The Fox Inheritance explores the themes of medial ethics, the soul, and what it means to be human. Locke and Kara were prisoners in a dark, isolated world for two and a half centuries. Are they old or are they still the teenagers they were when they "died" in a car accident so long ago?

A worthy sequel. Will it become a trilogy? The author hints that it will be.

Bluegate Fields

2011-12-05T19:37:00.001-05:00

by Anne Perry
December 2011

I didn't enjoy the last Anne Perry book as much as I did all of her others. So I thought I had become fully saturated with Perry's books. With this mystery, I found it wasn't true. I really enjoyed Bluegate Fields. Thomas has a much larger role than he has had in the novels up until now. Of course, the mystery isn't solved without Charlotte's help (see past Pitt and Monk mysteries). Even so, there was much less "visiting for tea" and more deduction.

A 15 year old boy's naked body is found in the sewers of London. He is identified as Arthur Waybourn. A medical examination reveals that he boy had drowned in bathwater, that he had been "homosexually used" before death and that he had syphilis. This is the stuff of scandal and the family of the deceased is eager to find a responsible party and to move on.

A responsible party is found in the boy's tutor, Maurice Jerome. Both Arthur's brother and friend are asked if Jerome ever touched them and they answer that he has. Two other witnesses are found and the case is closed. But something bothers Thomas about the case and Charlotte won't accept Jerome's guilt. Thomas investigates as much as he is able to, considering the pressure put upon him by his supervisor to drop the case. Charlotte works behind the scenes, finagling invitations to tea and to soirees in order to find out more details.

I haven't seen any brilliance or even any great skill in the detective work of Inspector Pitt. With such a long running series, I suppose he will begin to develop in some of the books to come. Next on the list to read: Death in Devil's Acre.

The Night Circus

2011-11-18T20:50:00.001-05:00

by Erin Morgenstern
November 2011

A book like this is the reason I am wary of over-hyped books. There's been a buzz about The Night Circus.
Some have called it the next Harry Potter or the next Twilight. There's already a movie planned. It will make a great movie because the story, for the most part, is good.

Marco and Celia have been raised as pawns in a contest between two magicians. These are real magicians, not merely illusionists. Prospero ( Henry Bowen) is reunited with his young daughter after her mother dies. It's clear early on that she has supernatural powers. He sends for "the man in grey" (also known as Alisdair) and challenges him to a new contest or game. AH agrees and sets out to find a young ward of his own. He raises Marco as a virtual prisoner in his home. Every effort and interaction with the boy is to teach him enchantment or magic. Marco studies and reads incessantly. Prospero teaches his daughter in a more natural way, leading her to discover her abilities on her own. She assists him in his stage shows and later this experience leads her to join Les Cirque des Reves. As Marco and Celia grow into adulthood, he begins to work for Chandresh Lefevre, who is the creator of Les Cirque des Reves and she is hired to be the illusionist. Although Celia and Marco are opponents, they end up falling in love. But, the contest can only end when one of the opponents dies.

The concept of the circus is interesting. It is only open at night and suddenly shows up in a town, only announced by a silver card with the words Les Cirque des Reves and the location. It doesn't have a main tent with three rings and a ringmaster. Instead, it's a series of tents. Some include performers and others are simply environments for the circus goers to enjoy and marvel at. The setting is turn of the century, although it wasn't always apparent to me. It could have been set in any age.

The book is written in third person, present tense, which is not easy to carry off and ends up making the reader feel very remote from the action and the characters. Consequently, I didn't really care about the characters. The writing style is also rather choppy. Matched with the narrator of the audiobook, it sometimes sounded like I was being read a list.

Ok, it wasn't that bad, but I became bored pretty quickly. After checking the comments on Amazon I found that several reviewers had the same opinion. So, I've skipped from disc 7 to disk 10, just to see what happens. It's a little more interesting now, but still not impressive. The narrator is Jim Dale, who a friend of mine loves. He narrated all of the American editions of the Harry Potter series. He really didn't do much for me on this one. It's the only thing I've heard him read. I'll certainly give him another chance, but I think I've just been spoiled by the fabulous Simon Jones.

This book was marketed to adults and my library bought it for the adult collection. However, this is a young adult novel, in my opinion. It will appeal to the Twilight fans for its star-crossed, doomed lovers and to other teens for its magic/fantasy element and it's turn of the century setting. You could even have a Night Circus party. It's ready made for a Teen Services librarian.

I'll finish listening to it simply to see what happens. If there had been more of a plot rundown on Wikipedia, I wouldn't even finish listening to it. But I'll be waiting for the movie because Les Cirque des Reves would really be something to see.

We Bought a Zoo

2011-11-17T12:12:00.001-05:00

by Benjamin Mee
November 2011

This book kept catching my eye in catalogs and magazines, even though the book is a couple of years old. I found out that there's a movie based on the book coming out in a few weeks. Matt Damon and Scarlett Johannson will play the couple who decided to buy a small, failing zoo.

The movie is set in southern California, while the book is set in England. Benjamin Mee and his wife Kathrine had been renovating a barn in southern France. Benjamin was a DIY columnist and Katherine was a graphic designer. When his sister sends him an advertisement for a zoo-for-sale, Benjamin starts dreaming. His whole family gets on board, with the exception of a bothersome brother, because they have some inheritance money available from their recently deceased father. Benjamin's mother will need to sell her house anyway, so she could easily come to live at the zoo's on site director's house along with her son, his wife and two children.

In the middle of all of this upheaval, Benjamin's wife learns she has a brain tumor. She is treated and recovers well, but sadly, the recovery doesn't last for long. Still, Benjamin continues with his dream. With the help of friends, colleagues and original staff of the zoo, he begins to re-build the Dartmoor Zoological Park.

The real Mee family

The movie Benjamin Mee and Scarlett.

Most of the book concerns Benjamin learning the ropes not only of zoo management, but of animal care. It's an interesting look at what it takes to make a zoo work.
The movie seems to make its main character more of a novice than Benjamin Mee actually was. He started with some knowledge of animals. He also didn't fall in love (at least not in the book) with a Scarlett Johannson. And he did need lots of expert advice and help in getting the zoo going, in spite of what the movie trailer implies. Still, it might be a good movie.

Rutland Place

2011-11-03T23:57:00.000-04:00

by Anne Perry
October 2011

I started listening to this, but I just couldn't make it. Davina Porter does a good job, but I was bored. Besides, Porter makes all of her characters sound too snooty. Unfortunately, she has narrated most of the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt books.
I ended up reading it.

I wonder why this series is called "Thomas and Charlotte Pitt" mysteries. Charlotte is actually the main character. Thomas seems to be around simply to give Charlotte a reason to get involved in crimes (which happen to all be related to her mother or sister, for some reason).

In this mystery, Charlotte's mother asks for help in getting her locket back. She fears someone has stolen it. The locket isn't that valuable, but the photo inside could cause scandal and ruin her life. While dealing with this problem, one of the residents of Rutland Place is found dead. She has committed suicide - or so it seems. Thomas and Charlotte are not convinced.

Most of this book is just about the manners and morals of the upper class of Victorian England. The Monk series started this way, but were much more interesting.

Here's to hoping the series improves.

Occupy Meggan's Blog!

2011-10-24T16:56:00.001-04:00

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

2011-10-05T23:16:00.000-04:00

by Ransom Riggs
October 2011

I chose this book solely because of the cover. Well.. not only the cover, but the whole design of the book. I didn't even read the plot summary. When I opened it up and saw pictures like these:

I knew I had to see what it was all about.

The book isn't a creepy horror story as the cover implies. It does have a creep factor and a few kind of scary scenes, but it is mostly a fantasy adventure story.

Jacob has heard stories all his life about his grandfather's peculiar friends. As a boy he believed in them. As a teenager, he naturally thinks that they are make believe. As grandfather gets older he begins acting strange. He gets paranoid and talks about the monsters coming. One day he calls Jacob frantically asking for the key to his gun case. Of course, Jacob's father hid the key to keep his elderly father from hurting himself. But grandfather is so frantic that Jacob goes over to his house. It's there that Jacob's life changes forever. He sees (or thinks he does) grandfather's monster. And he sees his grandfather mutilated and left for dead in the woods behind his house. Before finally succumbing, grandfather is able to say a few last words to Jacob. But they make not sense:

"Find the bird. In the loop. On the other side of the old man's grave. September third, 1940."

Later, in going through his grandfather's belongings Jacob comes across a letter and photographs of the very people from grandfather's stories. This leads Jacob on a personal quest to solve the mystery of the stories, the photos, the monster, and his grandfather's murder.

In the book's endnotes, Ransom Riggs says that he wrote the book after seeing strange old vintage photographs collected by some of his friends. Supposedly, all of the photos in the book are authentic and not staged for the book. That makes the book all the more interesting.
There could be a sequel, and I hope there is. This was a really fun story and a fascinating book.

Count Karlstein

2011-10-05T22:50:00.000-04:00

by Philip Pullman
September 2011

I checked out and tried to listen to River Secrets by Shannon Hale, but was really very disappointed. The readers were miscast. They were simply readers, if that makes sense. They didn't make their characters live. It sounded like a mediocre college production. I couldn't make it past the first chapter. So, on to another full cast audio: Count Karlstein.

I've learned that this was Philip Pullman's first book for children and it was originally written as a school play for the school where Pullman taught.
Kind of funny... the book that originated as a school play became a fantastic audiobook while River Secrets sounded like a school play!

Count Karlstein owns a large estate and cares for his two orphaned nieces, Lucy and Charlotte. He cares nothing about them, however. It's revealed early on that he has made a pact with Zamiel, "the demon huntsman" and plans to leave Lucy and Charlotte in a locked cabin as an offering to Zamiel.

The demon huntsman rides through the land on the eve of All Souls each year. People fear him and parents use his name to discipline their children. He's a boogey man, but he's apparently real.
Karlstein bargained with Zamiel and agreed to let him hunt in his forest, taking whatever he wanted if he left Karlstein himself alone. But twenty years have passed and the pact is about to expire. Karlstein must give Zamiel a special offering or face his wrath. That's why he's decided to give up Lucy and Charlotte.

The plot sounds horrible and scary. But the book isn't that way (at least not until the end). It's actually a rather funny book.

One of the household servants in Castle Karlstein is named Hildi. She learns of the plot and sets out to foil Karlstein's plan. Helping her is Max, the assistant to a traveling magician, and Miss Augusta Davenport, the girls' former teacher.

As I said, it's kind of a funny book, made more so by the great performances in the audiobook. The scene when Zamiel arrives is very scary (at least listening to it is). But there's a happy ending. I don't think it spoils anything to reveal that. Count Karlstein reads a lot like a fairy tale.
I really recommend listening to this book. Philip Pullman is a good storyteller and his first children's book is made all the better by the excellent cast of readers.

Resurrection Row

2011-10-05T22:18:00.000-04:00

by Anne Perry
September 2011

Another Thomas and Charlotte Pitt novel. I am enjoying these, but they aren't as good as the Monk mysteries. While there is a continuing plot (Thomas and Charlotte's life together), each book really stands alone better than any of the Monk books.

Every T & C book I've read so far were written before the Monk novels. I will be interested to see if the mysteries of these characters develop into something meatier than these. It's not that I don't like them. It's just that they are each very similar to the others.

There's a murder. The murder takes place in a very high class neighborhood. The neighborhood has some connection to Thomas or Charlotte (usually a relative lives there). Everyone treats Thomas as a lower class person (which he would have been in that era). Charlotte, because of her former life, is able to mingle with the residents of the very high class neighborhood. Consequently, she is able to find out things that Thomas could never find out through regular police work. That's the basic plot, so far, of each book.

Resurrection Row has an interesting premise that doesn't really hold up too well at the end. A body is discovered sitting in the driver's seat of a cab. The strange thing is that it is the body of a person that had been previously buried. Thomas investigates.

The body is re-buried but turns up again sitting in the family pew at church. It's supposed that someone is trying to send a message. Was the man actually murdered instead of the victim of a heart attack?
More bodies show up and the mystery gets more tangled

I enjoyed this one and I'll keep reading the Thomas and Charlotte books, but they do have a sameness about them. They'll have to get more exciting for me to go much further.

Wait Till Helen Comes

2011-09-06T22:19:00.000-04:00

by Mary Downing Hahn
September 6, 2011

Another short audiobook to listen to until I can get to another Pitt mystery or the third installment of the Lionboy series.

Wait Till Helen Comes is a ghost story for junior high aged readers (give or take a few grade levels). This would make a good movie and, in fact, I was surprised to learn that it had never been a made for TV movie. I can just imagine watching it on the Lifetime channel on a Saturday afternoon. It will become a movie next year, however. Jennifer Love Hewitt is set to direct a movie for the big screen based on the novel. I hope that it doesn't become a modern horror movie with more blood and suffering than real suspense.

Wait Till Helen Comes is about a blended family who moves into a charming house and old church which has been converted into an art studio. Mom (Jean) has two children, Molly and Michael. Divorced from her first husband, she is now married to Dave who has one seven year old daughter, Heather. Heather's mother (Dave's wife) died in a fire four years earlier and Heather is still dealing with the trauma of the loss.

When the family moves to the former St. Swithins, they discover a small graveyard on the property, along with an old abandoned house called Harper House. In the graveyard, Heather discovers a long forgotten grave with the initials H.E.H. Heather's initials just happen to also be H.E.H. and she is exactly the same age as whoever is buried in that grave. It's easy to see where this is going.

The tension that has existed by bringing the two sets of children together in one household escalates as Heather begins talking to someone named Helen. No one notices Heather's new "imaginary friend" except Molly. And, it's only Molly that realizes that something more sinister is happening than pure imagination.

Heather constantly accuses Molly and Michael of being mean. Dave, of course, sides with his daughter. Jean defends Molly and Michael, which begins to drive a wedge between her and Dave. Molly can convince no one that it isn't step-sibling rivalry that is causing the bad feelings. She's on her own to save Heather from the lure of the ghostly Helen.

The book is predictable, but fun.

Paragon Walk

2011-09-06T21:43:00.000-04:00

by Anne Perry
September 5, 2011

The third Thomas and Charlotte Pitt book. I read this one. All of the audio versions of the Pitt mysteries are narrated by Davina Porter. She's excellent, but for some reason, I'd rather hear a male narrator.

Paragon Walk continues the theme of The Secrets of the Rich and Idle. Paragon Walk is the street on which Lord George and Lady Emily Ashworth live. Emily is, of course, Charlotte Pitt's sister. One of the residents of Paragon Walk, the young Fanny Nash, is found raped and murdered. It's almost certain that the murderer did not come from outside of the walk. The night of the murder, one end of the walk was filled with carriage drivers and footmen waiting for their employers to leave a party. The other end was patrolled by a constable.

And so the soap opera of Paragon Walk begins. This one is not quite as pointed in its presentation of the social divide between rich and poor as the first two books. Instead, it's about the interactions of the people living on Paragon Walk. Most of them live there only during "the season", which I assume is summer. The women spend their days calling on one another.

In this book we are learning a little bit more about Thomas Pitt, but most of the story involves Charlotte and Emily, who help to solve the mysteries through detection done while attending parties and afternoon tea.

I enjoy these Pitt mysteries. But, I hope that Anne Perry takes us beyond the lives of the rich and famous.

Bird

2011-09-06T20:56:00.000-04:00

by Angela Johnson
September 2011

I just needed an audiobook to listen to after finishing Lionboy. This was short and seemed interesting. That's what it turned out to be - short and interesting and not much more. I enjoyed the audiobook because it was read by three different people - all of them children.

The title character is nicknamed Bird. She received this name from her stepfather, Cecil. When Cecil leaves the family, Bird decides to go in search of him. The book begins with her living in the shed of a farm family. When they leave for church on Sunday mornings, Bird takes advantage of the empty house to get food and to take a bath. It's clear to the reader that she has been living this way for some time. Only Ethan knows that Bird is there and he sometimes leaves food for her.

Ethan is hungry for friends. He has grown up isolated because of a bad heart condition. The book begins with Ethan getting stronger after a heart transplant. He's fascinated by "the girl in the shed" and wants to meet her rather than simply leaving food for her.

The third child (I should really say teenager) is Jay. He's under house arrest by "borrowing" old Mrs. Pritchard's car for a joyride. He's also dealing with the death of his brother. He meets Bird one day while sneaking out of the house for a change of scenery.

Ethan's, Jay's, Bird's and Mrs. Pritchard's lives all intersect and they find that even the smallest kindness can begin to heal.

I wasn't completely satisfied with this book. Perhaps I would have liked it better had I read it and really paid attention. Listening to the 2 disc audiobook, I was a little surprise when the book just ended without much resolution. But none of our lives are "resolved" until the day we die, so I suppose Bird is a book about real life.

Lionboy

2011-08-31T23:30:00.000-04:00

by Zizou Corder
August 2011

"Zizou is a creature of mystery who likes accordion music, dancing in chandeliers and telling stories. She was born in a Hungarian nightclub, to a Circus Family, and now sails the world in a blue canoe hoping that one day she will find an orchestra up a tree."

Actually, Zizou Corder "is Louisa Young and Isabel Adomahko Young, whose names are too long to fit on the front of a book." In the posts on Zizou's blog, Zizou is referred to as a male. His(her?) name comes from a pet lizard.

I had been wanting to read this book for a while. The cover caught my attention. I always assumed it took place in Africa. I had no idea it was a somewhat of a fantasy adventure set in London, Paris and Venice in the near future and featured a floating circus. But these things made me like the story even more than I had thought I would.

11 year old Charlie comes home from school one day to find that his scientist parents, "Magdalen Start, PHD, MD, PQRST, LPO, TP" and "Aneba Ashanti, Doctor of Endoterica and Tropical Sciences at the University of Accra in Ghana, (currently on sabbatical at London University) " have been kidnapped. Whatever they had been working on in their secret laboratory was obviously of interest to a person or persons unknown. Luckily, Charlie can talk to cats. The strays that live at the nearby ruins tell him what has happened, but not much else. He manages to escape from the "fancy slimy git" named Rafi who has tried to nab him as well, and goes off in search of more clues as to his parents' whereabouts.

Charlie ends up on a floating circus called "Thibaudet's Royal Floating Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy." This is where he meets a pride of performing lions and where he aquires the nickname Lionboy.

Charlie has no idea why his parents have been kidnapped. They never told him about their latest research project. The cats he encounters along the way know something, but they aren't very forthcoming with information. Charlie has to piece together various clues which lead him closer to his parent's location and their secret project.

The book doesn't really end, but leaves us with the words "to be continued." This is a trilogy. Book two is Lionboy: the Chase. The conclusion is Lionboy: the Truth."

I love that the book started as a series of bedtime stories told by Louisa to her daughter Isabel. According to an interview in Audiofile magazine, "The collaboration process gives Louisa constant access to another imagination. They discuss escape routes for lions or names for acrobats. Louisa types up the scenes, Isabel reads them, and they revise together."

I listened to the audiobook. Actually, what made me finally pick this book up to read (listen to) was the narrator - the fabulous Simon Jones, whose voice and reading I fell in love with while listening to him narrate the Bartimeus Trilogy. Interestingly, Jones does not narrate the British audiobook. His is the American edition. From the Audiofile interview:

"Young Isabel likes to listen to audiobooks; whereas, Louisa likes to “read books for the silence.” They listen to audiobooks together in the car, though, and it was there that they first heard narrator Anton Lesser reading Philip Pullman’s RUBY IN THE SMOKE. Anton Lesser reads the UK audiobook production of LIONBOY at their request, and Simon Jones narrates the American audiobook. After eight years of telling each other stories from LIONBOY, it’s surprising to hear it read by someone else. When Louisa listened to Jones’s version, she found herself wondering what was going to happen next."

That last line - "...she found herself wondering what was going to happen next" - that's because Simon Jones is so good you find yourself getting completely absorbed in the story.

One sort of odd thing about this audiobook is the music. At various times throughout the book music plays behind the narration. Sometimes it makes sense, as in the calliope music of the circus boat. Other times, the music seems added randomly. When I picked up the book itself to look at the spelling of a couple of characters' names, I saw that music is actually printed in the book. I'm not quite sure why it's so, but apparently it was important to the authors to include it. In fact, you can buy a book of the piano music with a CD - Music from Zizou Corder's Lion Boy by Robert Lockhart.

Besides realizing the music was in the printed book, I found that there are some neat illustrations, including a map on each endpaper as well as a diagram of the circus boat.

Fortunately, the added pleasure of the illustrations will get me through the second book because, unfortunately, the library doesn't own the audiobook of Lionboy: the Chase. I'll have to read it in order to get to the third book, narrated by the fabulous Simon Jones.

Callender Square

2011-08-28T13:23:00.000-04:00

by Anne Perry
August 27, 2011

This is the second book in the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series. It's kind of odd, but T & C don't figure very prominently in this book. Most of the plot revolves around the residents of the houses in Callender Square.

The book opens with two workmen digging in the park that sits in the middle of Callender Square in order to plant a new tree. They discover the bodies of two babies - one buried six months earlier and the other about two years earlier. Thomas Pitt is assigned the case and questions the servants and residents of each house.

Two years have passed since the first Pitt book, The Cater Street Hangman and Charlotte and Thomas are married and expecting their first child. Charlotte's sister, Emily, has married Lord George Ashworth and has jumped right into high society life. But she's bored. When she hears of the case of the two dead babies, Emily decides to find out all she can. After all, it would be much easier for her to learn secrets through gossip than it is for Pitt to learn the truth through official questioning. Charlotte becomes involved when Emily suggests that she temporarily help General Balantyne with clerical work for a military history of his family.

Callender Square isn't so much about a detective solving a mystery as it is about the manners are morals of high society. I think I said that about the last book, The Cater Street Hangman. But it is more true of this book. The narrator is omniscient. In other words, we don't follow the plot from the point of view of just one or two characters. Instead, we are sometimes with Emily, sometimes with Charlotte. Other times we are with one of the murder suspects.

The hypocrisy and double standards that were so prevalent in Victorian society are both interesting and maddening to read about. A man may have an affair, even with a servant, and it is ignored. It's looked down upon, but everyone does it - a don't ask, don't tell kind of thing. The man's wife may even know about the affair, but she usually will accept it because the alternative would be worse. The affair may be common knowledge, but if it is made public the man will be embarrased and shamed and his place may suffer in society. The servant woman would be dismissed "without a character" (references) and would probably have no alternative but to become a prostitute. The wife would suffer embarrassment and loss of status as well. She wouldn't divorce her husband because she would leave the marriage with no money or property. Even if she came to the marriage with money, she leaves it with none because marriage transfers her assets to the husband. Besides that, the chances of her finding another husband is nearly impossible. Who would want to marry her?

It's in this atmosphere that Thomas, Charlotte and Emily try to find out who buried the two babies.

I enjoyed this book a lot. Thomas is quite a different character from Monk, the detective in Anne Perry's other series. Thomas is rumpled and less reserved. He doesn't care what others think of him and is very happy not fitting into society, so he is more able to speak his mind to the upper class people. Charlotte, like Hester, is "not beautiful" but is charming enough that men admire her. She is strong willed and doesn't like to follow convention, although she isn't as unconventional as Hester.

On to the next book: Paragon Walk.

Smarter Than the Average Bear

2011-08-28T12:30:00.000-04:00

Created by GiftRocket gift cards

The Cater Street Hangman

2011-08-24T23:27:00.000-04:00

by Anne Perry
August 2011

This is the first novel that Anne Perry published. I expected it to be less polished than the rest of her books. However, it was very good! I can see why this book set her on the road to success.

Most of the story centers around Charlotte Ellison, her sisters Emily and Sarah and their parents. Sarah and her husband Dominic Corde live with the family, as was apparently common back in those days. Charlotte, the second oldest, has a crush on Dominic. Emily is enamored of the rich and handsome George Ashworth. Sarah is content to the the good wife. Charlotte is outspoken and self assured. She is practical minded and looks at the world with a mind open to new ideas. Emily is similar to Charlotte, but she's much more willing to play the game Victorian society demands of her in order to get what she wants.

In the midst of this setting a murderer begins killing young women on Cater Street. No one particular type of woman is targeted. One victim is the daughter of one of the finer families. The next two victims are servants. Inspector Thomas Pitt is assigned to the case. He comes to the Ellison house to question family and staff.

The theme of class distinction is explored. This is territory that Perry also presented in the early Monk books. In Victorian society, the woman was to be protected and shielded from anything harsh in life. The finer the family, the more sheltered the woman was. The Cater Street Hangman makes the reader wonder if women were more harmed than helped by this attitude.

This is the first book in the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series. Of course, I knew that Inspector Pitt would end up asking Charlotte to marry him, but it was almost a minor plot point in this book. I suppose in future books their relationship will develop and we will learn more about who they are as a couple.

I really enjoyed The Cater Street Hangman and I look forward to reading more of this series.

What's Next?

2011-08-20T12:35:00.000-04:00

I picked up two books (one audio, one paper) to read during vacation. Neither one has grabbed me. One is called The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman. I thought it would be a good comfortable food book. But, it doesn't seem to be that way. It's ok and I'll probably try to read it (not listen) again some time.

The other book is called The Herring in the Library, which caught my eye for obvious reasons. It's part of a mystery series by L.C. Tyler. so far, it's good. It's set in present day England. Ethelred Tressider is a second rate mystery writer. Elsie Thirkettle is his agent. They get mixed up in mysteries. It's a humorous cozy style mystery. I will probably keep reading this. It's short and I'm halfway through.

But I'm feeling the need for something familiar and comfortable. I wasn't going to start any more Anne Perry books because I thought I should go on to something different. But, when a person wants comfort, nothing else will do. So I am going to sart on the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series. There are 27 books - ten more than the Monk series. The first one, The Cater Street Hangman, is the first novel she ever published. I think I have the original copy that the library purchased back in 1979. It has an awful cover.

Perry published her first Monk book in 1990. It'll be interesting to compare this first book with her later works.

Featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt:
~~The Cater Street Hangman~~ (1979)
~~Callender Square~~ (1980)

~~Paragon Walk~~ (1981)
~~Resurrection Row~~ (1981)
~~Rutland Place~~ (1983)
~~Bluegate Fields~~ (1984)
~~Death in the Devil's Acre~~ (1985)
~~Cardington Crescent~~ (1987)
~~Silence in Hanover Close~~ (1988)
~~Bethlehem Road~~ (1990)
Highgate Rise (1991)
Belgrave Square (1992)
Farrier's Lane (1993)
The Hyde Park Headsman (1994)
Traitors Gate (1995)
Pentecost Alley (1996)
Ashworth Hall (1997)
Brunswick Gardens (1998)
Bedford Square (1999)
Half Moon Street (1998)
The Whitechapel Conspiracy (2001)

Southampton Row (2002)
Seven Dials (2003)

Long Spoon Lane (2005)
Buckingham Palace Gardens (2008)
Treason at Lisson Grove (2011)
Buckingham Palace Gardens (2008)
Dorchester Terrace (2012)

Acceptable Loss

2011-08-15T12:11:00.000-04:00

by Anne Perry
August 2011

Ahhh. I love vacation time. I was able to spend the entire morning just reading. The only problem? Now I'm done with the book and have to find something else to read.
Acceptable Loss was as good as I thought it would be. I'm sad that I'll have to a year or two for the next one.

This book continues the story from the last book, Execution Dock. Mickey Parfitt is found dead and floating in the water. When Monk and Orme find Mickey's boat and board it they are horrified to learn that Mickey has taken Jericho Phillips' (from the last book) trade in prostituting young boys. It's a hideous trade - one that I had not known existed before I read these Monk books. Apparently, prominent men in Victorian society involved themselves in such a thing not always because they desired young boys, but simply because they desired dangerous experiences.

Scuff, the nine-year-old urchin from past books has taken to living with Monk and Hester. He has nightmares from his brief involvement with Jericho Phillips and Hester is determined to end Scuff's nightmares. First, Rupert Cardew, a benefactor and friend of Hester's clinic, is suspected of the murder. Then the evidence seems to point to Oliver Rathbone's father-in-law, Arthur Ballinger.

Questions of loyalty and justice are running throughout the plot of Acceptable Loss. What would you do to save a loved one? When does a loss become an acceptable loss?

The plot was tied up at the end, but not for the characters of Hester, Monk, Rathbone and Margaret. There's a lot to be dealt with in the next installment.... which can't get here soon enough!

Note: I listened to part of the audiobook. It was narrated by Ralph Lister, who did an ok job, but was mostly just annoying. I really wish they had gotten David Colluci, who has read some of the past Monk novels. Or better yet, Simon Jones.

Masterpiece

2011-08-14T22:12:00.000-04:00

by Elise Broach
August 2011

This was a cute, sweet book about a beetle and a boy. As it began, it reminded me of books like Stuart Little or A Cricket in Times Square. I would have been happy if the entire story had taken place in the Manhattan apartment of James and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Pompaday. Marvin, a beetle, lives with his family behind the walls of the Pompaday's apartment. The humans don't know of the beetles' existence and the beetles know how to keep out of the way of the humans.

But then Marvin makes one life changing decision. He tries out Marvin's new ink and pen, given to him by his father for his birthday. Actually, he doesn't use the pen. With his little beetle legs he draws a small and intricate drawing of the view out of James' bedroom window. The beetle is discovered by James who is delighted. The drawing is discovered by James' mother, stepfather and father. James' father thinks that the drawing looks a lot like an Albrecht Durer drawing. So he takes him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see an actual Durer.

James is asked to draw a copy of a Durer called "Fortitude" to use as a decoy painting in a plan to fool some art thieves. Marvin (who has hitched a ride in James' jacket pocket) obliges and makes a near perfect copy of the Durer. From there the story turns into an art heist adventure.

It was a fun story, and exciting at moments. James devises a way to make the parents forget about James' amazing artistic talents. Marvin finds a way to satisfy his need for artistic expression without revealing his presence to the rest of the humans.

Hopefully Elise Broach will write another Marvin and James story, but I hope she doesn't feel the need to continue the art theme. To me, it was the weakest part of the book. In order to teach her readers about Albrect Durer, Broach had her characters spend a chapter talking about Durer: who he was and why we should care. It reminded me of an episode of Quincy M.E.

Expert: "Like any artist, Durer put his life everywhere in his work. These drawings were a
response to his own sadness and lonliness"

Quincy, M.E. (nodding head) "Is that right?"

And like Criminal Minds the three art experts take turns explaining Durer and his art to James, as if they'd practiced their lines ahead of time.

That was really the only chapter that annoyed me. Broach didn't seem to be talented enough to weave information about Albrecht Durer into the plot.

I listened to this book. The narrator, Jeremy Davison, was very good.

Other Kingdoms

2011-08-14T21:26:00.000-04:00

by Richard Matheson
August 2011

I was wandering through the new books at the library. A Richard Matheson book! And it was in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section! I loved Richard Matheson and read lots of his stories and books when I was a teenager: the Shock! series of short stories; Third From the Sun; The Shrinking Man; I Am Legend and so on.

Several years ago I read a suspense novel of his called Seven Steps to Midnight. I think that it had a fantastical element to it, but I can't remember for sure. It was awful. I was so disappointed and wondered if my memory of those Matheson books I'd read as a teen was wrong. Was he as good as I had remembered?

I was hopeful when I picked up Other Kingdoms. I wanted to like this book so much.

No good. I couldn't finish it. The story seemed promising. Narrated by an old man, a writer of horror fiction, the story goes back to World War I. The narrator learns of a beautiful place in England from one of his fellow soldiers in the trenches. After the English soldier is killed, the narrator goes to that beautiful place. He had been warned by the Englishman to "avoid middle..." but he never heard the end of that phrase. It had been the man's dying words. What could it mean? The narrator finds out. It's Middle Earth - the place of fairies and magic.

That's about as far as I got. The writing style in this book is highly annoying. Now, I like to use parentheses and dashes. Perhaps I learned to use these in my writing from reading Richard Matheson in the past. I can't remember if he wrote this way in his older books. But in Other Kingdoms, Matheson uses so many parenthetical asides and phrases set aside by dashes that I wanted to scream, "FOCUS!!"

"The book was fifty-seven pages long, and that was too much. Review? One word. Godawful. I planned - eighteen and brainless - to submit it to the primo publishers in New York - I'd show the damned Captain! - or, if necessary (most unlikely, I truly believed) London. Fortunately - thank God for the literary world - I never sent it anywhere. Rats (I'm not sure now, it was rats) chewed up the manuscript. Breaking my author's heart, but now at eighty-two, a source of profound gratitude. I will say that the wheels did begin to turn, later installed on the Arthur Black hearse. The rats - was it rats? - did me a favor."

I looked for reviews on Amazon to see if I was being too hard on Richard Matheson. Maybe I was just not in the mood for this style book. Maybe I should try it again later. Nope, the bad reviews pretty much summed up my own thoughts:

"Other Kingdoms is a far cry from Matheson's other works. The themes, characters, and overall writing style bear little to no resemblance to I Am Legend or Hell House. The narrator is annoying to no end, constantly making alliterations and drawing attention to them like a child showing off an awful drawing. The suspense, action, and eerie feel usual to Matheson are almost completely absent, replaced by dumb humor, an often disgusting and repetitive eroticism, and a bland paganism that can't be taken seriously, even in the context of a fairy story. It was so bad, I couldn't even finish the last quarter of the book. "

Here's part of another review:

"I am so disappointed in this book. I wanted it to be everything it promised to be! A fairy story by the Master! I mused in delight: "What ingenius twists and novel ideas will Matheson inflict on fairy lore?" The answer . . . is nothing new. Nothing fresh. And on top of this, the writing is amateurish at best. The overuse of parentheses and personal asides and apologies to the reader were so annoying that I almost flushed this book down the toilet page by crumpled page! You literally are interrupted and pulled out of the narrative flow EVERY FREAKING PAGE! Or just about. "

I looked online for a bibliography with timeline of Matheson's works. All of his great books were written between about 1954 (I am Legend) and 1975 (Bid Time Return). He published hardly anything in the 1980s and then began publishing again in the 90s. As I said, Seven Steps to Midnight (1993) was junk. Now Other Kingdoms in 2011.
What happened to Richard Matheson? Should I read more of his post 1980s books and give him another chance? Maybe third time will be a charm. Or maybe I should just go back to re-read those great stories that I loved all those years ago.

Bartimaeus Trilogy (plus one)

2011-08-02T21:54:00.000-04:00

The Amulet of Samarkand
The Golem's Eye
Ptolemy's Gate
The Ring of Solomon
by Jonathan Stroud
Summer 2011

Madeline had been telling me to read this series and I finally did. What actually hooked me on them was the audiobook. The reading, by Simon Jones, is just fantastic. Bartimaeus, the 5,000 djinni is a sarcastic, egotistical, egocentric troublemaker. He is also charming and hilarious. To me, most of the charm comes from Jones' voice. He is and always will be Bartimaeus to me.

The trilogy involves Nathaniel, a magician's apprentice who summons Bartimaeus all on his own. He's smart enough to have made a foolproof plan for keeping the djinni from breaking the power Nathaniel has over him. It's a good thing, because Bartimaeus really doesn't like the boy. But it's his duty to serve his master.

The books are set in an alternate reality London where the government is run by magicians and common folk are considered to be inferior humans, fit only for manual labor and menial jobs. The chapters alternate between Bartimaeus and Nathaniel, the djinni's being told in first person and the magician's in third person. It's weird, but it works somehow.

Nathaniel has a great desire to become a great magician and to rise to the highest level of government. The problem is, he's not cut out to be part of the greedy, cut-throat world of magicians. The three books of the trilogy takes Nathaniel through that journey and follows Kitty, a commoner, in her quest to change the balance of power.

There's so much involved in these three books it would be difficult to describe it all.

The fourth book, a prequel to the series takes place during the time of Solomon, king of Israel and master of an extremely powerful magical token - a ring. Asmira, captain of the guard in Sheba, is sent to assassinate Solomon and take possession of the ring. Bartimaeus becomes involved as the slave of one of Solomon's magicians.

I loved these books. I hope that Stroud continues to write more and that Simon Jones continues to read them. With Bartimaeus' 5,000 year history, Jonathan Stroud certainly has lots of material from which to draw.

The fabulous Simon Jones

Dreaming in Chinese

2011-08-01T09:11:00.000-04:00

by Deborah Fallows
June 2011

This is the second book I read this summer about someone from America living in China. Unlike Susan Conley, author of The Foremost Good Fortune, Deborah Fallows embraced China and tried to enter into the culture and language as fully as she could. Susan Conley resisted and remained a stranger in a strange land even before her diagnosis of breast cancer. Deborah Fallows found everything in China an opportunity for learning and growth.

The main point of the book is the Chinese language. Through the story of her language quest we learn a lot about the Chinese people (the Laobaixing) and their culture.

The Laobaixing are quite different from "The Chinese" - the government and the societal leaders. She tries to explain the difference, but I feel that it can be compared to the idea of "the people" from the movie The Grapes of Wrath: "They can't lick us. And we'll go on forever, Pa... 'cause... we're the people."

The Chinese language (Mandarin dialect) fascinated me. In some ways, it seems to be a very simple language. Words are usually small and made up of one or two syllables. Longer words are just a combination of those short words. (lao=old, bai=hundred, xing=names....kaixin=hai(open) + xin(heart) = joyous...Fangxin=fang(put in place) + xin(heart)=set your mind at ease....)

The sentence structure doesn't seem to be very complicated either. It seems to leave things to the speaker's body language, inflection and the context of the speach. But, it's one of the things that makes Chinese a difficult language - that and the sounds. The way a word is said can change the meaning of the word. For example, the word shi can be pronounced several ways. I don't have the right diacritical marks here, so I can't show the difference in inflection. Depending up on the rise or fall of the voice, shi can mean lion, or ten, or to make or to be...

There was a writer named Chao Yuen Ren who designed an early version of a way to render Chinese in the Roman alphabet. He wrote a story about a lion-eating poet that consisted of 92 Chinese characters, all pronounced "shi". Deborah Fallows says that "shi" sounds like "sure". I imagine it's probably "sher" not "shyoor".

"The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den is the story of a poet (shi) named Shi who loves to eat lions (shi shi) goes to the market (shi) to buy ten (shi) of them, takes them home to eat (shi) and discovers they are made (shi) of stone (shi). Such language play works because the Chinese sound system usus only about 400 syllables, like shi that have multiple meanings."

This book was so fascinating to me. I'd love to learn more about the Chinese language. I don't think I'd ever be able to pronounce it - I wouldn't be that good at the subtle nuances of the sounds.

It was an interesting experience to read the two books about China this summer. I'd love to continue with more books. I'm glad I did read these because they gave me an appreciation of the Chinese people. I get so upset with China, but know I know that I can respect the Laobaixing.

This is the cover of another edition of the book. I thought it was interesting.

Almost Done!!

2011-06-23T22:19:00.000-04:00

Execution Dock
by Anne Perry
Finished June 23, 2011

This is the last published Monk mystery. I am finally finished reading all of them. What will I do??

I'll read the next one that will be published in August!

But then I'll be going through Monk withdrawl. I've so enjoyed reading this series. It'll be hard waiting years for the next one. I feel the way I did after first reading the Harry Potter books. I started reading them when book 3 was just published. I read the first three in a row and then had to wait a year for the next.

A friend suggested that I move on to Perry's Thomas and Charlotte Pitt novels. But, no... I think I'll take a break for a while.

I first started the series by listening to them. A female narrator named Davina Porter. She did an excellent job, but I didn't really like how she did the voice of Monk. I read most of the others until the last three - those were audiobooks narrated by David Colacci. Excellent! I really enjoyed his narration. The only thing I disliked was his voice for Rathbone - a bit too stuffy for me.

Anyway - in Execution Dock Perry has gotten more comfortable with the Thames area setting and characters she's been developing for the last few books. I had to laugh when I read the first couple of chapters. I've long thought that some of the crimes were solved and the criminals tried and convicted by simple conjecture or scant evidence. Execution Dock begins with a trial. Oliver Rathbone has been asked by his father-in-law to defend a despicable man named Jericho Phillips who was accused of murdering a young boy. Phillips is a dealer in young boys. He provides photos and questionable entertainment for wealthy perverts. But he's being tried for murder, not the other crimes. Rathbone is able to prove that there isn't enough evidence to find Phillips to be guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Phillips is aquitted and is set free. I wonder if it was ever pointed out to Anne Perry how conveniently the other crimes in her books were solved. The rest of the book is about the quest to find Jericho Phillips and get him convicted of other crimes.

The street urchin, Scuff, appears in this book again. Although some of the scenes between Hester, Monk and Scuff are kind of sentimental, the boy hasn't ruined the stories as I feared he would. He was a good addition to this mystery and played an important part in the plot.

I'll miss my Monk stories! But on to the next good book...

The Foremost Good Fortune

2011-06-17T19:13:00.000-04:00

a memoir
by Susan Conley

I was looking for something to read, specifically something to read on my Nook. After browsing through the library's ebook offerings, this caught my eye (along with It's All Relative by Wade Rouse).

Susan Conley's husband, after a longtime interest in China, gets a temporary job in his favorite country and moves his wife and two children to Beijing. Susan is excited about the move but is not as enamored of the country as her husband. Her two boys, Aiden and Thorne, have trouble adjusting at first but like most children, soon learn to quit worrying and embrace their new land.

I'd like to read another memoir from the perspective of someone who really enjoyed being in China. I suppose Susan Conley did enjoy many things about her adopted country, but she struggled for the most part. To be fair, she didn't get much of a chance to experience a normal life there. Partway through their stay she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The memoir is not only about her struggles in a strange land called China, but her struggles in the land of Cancer as well. While she spent quite a long time going through the healing process, both in mind and body, this isn't fully portrayed in the book. She goes through a depression after her treatment and mastectomy, but she doesn't seem to recognize it as depression. At least, she doesn't give it that name. Perhaps she couldn't tell the difference between depression and just the disorientation she experience upon first arriving in China.

The book was very interesting and worthwhile reading. It gave me a view of China that I had never had before. Actually, I have not read anything about China outside of school assignments. Its not a country I'd like to live or one I'd like to visit, mainly because of the ridiculous Communist government and its strange laws.

But still, I'd like to read another book about someone's experience in China. I'm willing to change my mind. But I still don't think I'd ever live there.

It's All Relative

2011-06-17T18:42:00.000-04:00

Two Families, Three Dogs, 34 Holidays, and 50 Boxes of Wine
by Wade Rouse

I love memoirs. I don't mean biographies. Those are ok, if I'm interested in the person. But memoirs can be about and by anyone, known or unknown. In fact, the memoirs of unknown people are better because they really don't have anything to lose by telling their stories. I've read some criticism of memoirs that complained that memoirs are usually not completely true. I don't really care about that. I like memoirs because they often read like novels. Anyone with a life interesting enough to have their story published, has to have an interesting life. Either that, or they are talented enough of a writer to many an ordinary life story worth reading.

Wade Rouse is a writer of memoirs. That's what he does. In former professions, he was a journalist and a publicist, I think. But his career since his first book, America's Boy, in 2007, has been memoirist. Is that a word?

He's comparable to David Sedaris. He's got that modern sense of humor. In this book he writes about his childhood and his current life with his partner and soul mate Gary. Each chapter centers around a different holiday, including such obscure commemorations as "Swedish Day".

This is a hilarious book. I laughed out loud many times while reading it. But there are also some very tender and touching parts as well. Family life is the theme of this book: Wade's family, Gary's family and the Wade-and-Gary family.

Wade Rouse is the author of four, critically-acclaimed memoirs, including America's Boy (Dutton/2006), Confessions of A Prep School Mommy Handler (Harmony/2007), and the bestsellers, At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream: Misadventures in Search of the Simple Life (Harmony/2009), and It's All Relative: A Memoir of Two Families, Three Dogs, 34 Holidays and 50 Boxes of Wine (Crown/2011). He is also the creator and editor of the upcoming, humorous dog anthology, I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship: Hilarious, Heartwarming Tales about Man's Best Friends by America's Favorite Humorists.

Almost Done

2011-06-17T18:02:00.000-04:00

Death of a Stranger
The Shifting Tide
Dark Assassin
by Anne Perry
read summer 2011

I'm almost finished with the Monk series of Anne Perry books. The last published is Execution Dock. There's another coming out in August: Acceptable Loss. What will I do after that?

I won't be reading any more Anne Perry for a while. Even though I love her books and there is another detective series featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, I need to take a break.

Funeral in Blue involves the death of Kristian Beck's wife. Of course, Beck is accused of murder and Oliver Rathbone must defend him. Hester gets involved because her brother's wife has developed a gambling addiction, something that Beck's wife also suffered from. I liked the book a lot. Superintendant Runcorn makes another appearance and Monk learns why Runcorn hates him so much. Lady Callandra doesn't come off very well in this book. However, the situation she finds herself in is interesting. The man she loves is finally available, but it's because his wife has been killed. She always thought that Kristian's marriage was dead, but as it turns out - it was only troubled. Lady Callandra, normally a strong outspoken woman, turns into a schoolgirl in love.

Death of a Stranger : I really didn't want to read this book because I was tired of Monk's struggle with his amnesia. But, it turned out to be one of my favorites. Monk is hired to investigate a possible financial scandal involving land fraud and a railroad company. While looking through paperwork Monk finds his own name from back in the day when he was in the business of finance. Worrying that he was involved in unscrupulous business dealings back in his past, this case takes on a very personal note. Through solving the mystery of the scandal and fraud (and, eventually, murder) he solves the mystery of his past life.

The Shifting Tide: This is the first Monk Book I read back in 2007. I liked it at the time, but it was different reading it now, knowing the context of all the characters' lives. Hester is working at a clinic for the poor (mostly prostitutes) of Portpool Lane. She has set the clinic up herself. A woman is brought the the clinic with, they presume, pneumonia. It turns out that she has the bubonic plague. Hester and company cannot leave the clinic. It seems that they will die there. Meanwhile, Monk is investigating the theft of a shipment of ivory from a ship. There's also been a murder, but the ship owner is really only interested in finding the thief. Once again Hester's and Monk's work coincidentally intersects. Oliver Rathbone gets over his regrets over losing Hester when he falls in love with Margaret Ballinger. I liked this book as much the second time as I did the first. Good book.

Dark Assassin: I liked this book right up to the end - then it fell apart. Monk has become an inspector with the Thames River Police. His work investigating the case in The Shifting Tide impressed one of the inspectors on the River Police force who recommended him for a job. Monk and his colleagues see a man and woman struggling on a bridge. They both go over and into the water where they are instantly killed. Was it an accident? Suicide? Murder? It is determined to be suicide, but Monk doesn't believe it. He investigates not only the woman's death but the supposed suicide of her father, several months before. Hester gets involved because Sutton, the ratcatcher, tells her that there is corruption going on in the sewer work being done throughout London. The man who supposedly committed suicide as well as his now dead daughter had been trying to convince everyone of the same. Corruption and unsafe construction practices threaten to cause many deaths if the sewers collapse as the workers dig. Monk and Runcorn team up to solve this one because much of the case involves areas outside the jurisdiction of the River Police.
Scuff, the urchin boy from The Shifting Tide appears in this story and wins Hester and Monks hearts. I can see that he will probably appear in future stories. There's a dog. There's a tv-show ending complete with stupid joke and chuckle at the end.
The main crime is solved too fast and based on a simple hunch. Another crime involving the opulent receiver, The Fat Man, is solved extremely quickly considering the fact that the River Police had been trying to catch the Fat Man for years and years.
A good book that ended badly. I hope that's not a sign of things to come.

The Help

2011-05-24T23:29:00.000-04:00

by Kathryn Stockett
finished May 2011

What a great book. I enjoyed this so much.
This book kept catching my eye for a long time. I would never read it because I thought that it would be really sad and frustrating. I knew it was set in the Civil Rights era.

But, a co-worker told me that she was listening to it and that it was so funny and charming. I asked her if it was sad and she said yes, in parts. But it isn't overwhelmingly sad.
Finally, I saw the trailer for the movie which is coming out soon. It won me over. I did listen to the audiobook - I downloaded it from NetLibrary.

Anybody wanting to read this ought to listen to it. There are four narrators. The chapters alternate between the three main characters and each is told in the first person. But there is one chapter told in third person. The accents and dialects are perfect.
It's interesting that one star comments on Amazon complain about the racist or stereotypical way the black people speak. I haven't really seen the printed book. Perhaps it comes off differently in print, because the spoken narration sounds spot on.

This is the story of change. Skeeter, a young white college graduate, gets the idea to interview "colored" maids for a book. Abilene, maid for Elizabeth Lefold, is the first to agree. She has been nanny to many white babies and has seen just as many grow up to let race come between them and the black lady they once loved unconditionally. She wants to change things even in the smallest way.

What a satisfying book.

The Accidental Genius of Weasel High

2011-05-24T23:22:00.001-04:00

by Rick Detorie
finished April 2011

A pretty cute book. I read this because there was some question about where to shelve it - in Teen or Juvenile fiction. The main character is a freshman in high school, but it seems that the book would appeal to middle schoolers as well. It's for "graduates of Diary of a Wimpy Kid."

Rick Detorie is a cartoonist, I think. This book is highly illustrated and is written in the format of journal entries for a class assignment.

It's just a fun and funny story about the life of a nerdy thirteen year old.

Left to Tell

2011-05-10T20:24:00.000-04:00

by Imaculee Ilibagiza
Finished April 2011

I've been hearing about this book for a long time. Immculee Ilibagiza is Catholic, so I hear about her on the Catholic radio station and on the blogs I read. This is a true story of her life in Rwanda and her escape from the genocide there.

Ilibagiza is a Tutsi and, at this time in the history of Rwanda, Tutsis were considered second class citizens. Of course, for the most part, no one can tell a Hutu from a Tutsi from anyone else. There are physical characteristics that tend to run through the two tribes, but they are unreliable indicators. The people of Rwanda must carry identification cards to prove whether they are Hutu or Tutsi.

How in the world can a community of friends and neighbors turn into mindless monsters, hunting each other down and killing each other in the most terrible ways? The government of the dominant Hutus spread propaganda to their tribe members, convincing them that the Tutsis were evil and should be eliminated.

Immaculee had great faith in God to begin with, but her faith was tested time and time again through her ordeal. She got separated from her family, not knowing whether they survived the Hutu killers. She ended up hiding with at least seven other women in a small bathroom in the house of a village pastor. They hid for months because revealing themselves would be sure death.

Time and again God saved Immaculaee through miraculous, or at least providential, events. She could have been killed a number of times, but always escaped.

So now Immaculee is spreading the good news of Jesus Christ by telling her story. She hopes to bring people to Christ and to end violence through her message.

This is an amazing story. I am so glad I read it. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get through it (after having read of the Rwandan genocide in the book Bonobo Handshake), but it wasn't so bad. Immaculee doesn't shield her readers from anything, but the hope and faith that she expresses in this book is the thing that will get you through the book.
I loved Immaculee's story of her early life and of her strong Catholic family.

I recommend that everyone read Immaculee's story.

And more Monk...

2011-05-10T19:52:00.000-04:00

Three more Monk stories. I was going to take a break from the series, but a new development concerning the characters happened at the very end of A Breach of Promise.
Monk and Hester finally realize their love for each other and agree to marry. I had to find out what married life would be like for the new Mr. and Mrs. Monk, so I went ahead and read The Twisted Root. The third book, Slaves of Obsession had the couple going to America. So, I had to see what that would be like.
I'm still reading the series and will write about the next book, Funeral in Blue in the next post.

9. A Breach of Promise The Melville Case
Killian Melville is being sued for a breach of promise by his alleged fiance, Zillah. Killian claims that he never proposed marriage, but Zillah's parents disagree. Oliver Rathbone takes the case against his better judgement (as usual). Killian will give no reason why he can't marry Zillah. The mystery is puzzling to Rathbone and Monk alike. It seems that it's a hopeless case for Killian and one that is sure to ruin his reputation. But then the unthinkable happens. This was a really good one, with lots of twists and turns.
Perhaps all of the talk of marriage inspires Monk and Hester because they finally get together in a very satisfying ending to the book.

10. The Twisted Root The Gardiner Case
Miriam Gardiner suddenly leaves her engagement party with no explanation to anyone, not even her shocked fiance. Monk is hired to find Miriam but instead finds the coachman who drove Miriam away dead on the doorstep of Miriam's foster mother.
More twists and turns in this mystery. We also get to see Monk and Hester struggle with life as newlyweds. It doesn't help that they are projecting Miriam's pre-nuptial doubts upon their own marriage.

11. Slaves of Obsession The Alberton Case
Daniel Alberton, a gun dealer, has sold a large quantity of guns to an American from the Confederate States. He sees it simply as a business deal, but his daughter, Merritt, is horrified. Her sympathies lie with the Union - rather, she is anti-slavery. So, she is pro-Union States. Lyman Breeland has come to Alberton to convince him to cancel the deal with Philo Trace, the Confederate. He tries to appeal to Alberton's sense of morality and justice. But to Alberton, a deal is a deal.
Well... Alberton goes and gets himself murdered. Lyman Breeland dissapears, along with Merritt. Monk is hired by the grieving widow and mother to go to America, find Breeland and bring Merrit back. Hester must go with him because it would be ruinous to Merritt's reputation to travel unchaperoned with Monk. It would ruin her reputation (as if running away with a murderer has not already ruined it). Once in America, Hester gets to show her stuff as she volunteers with the battlefield surgeons to nurse the injured Union soldiers.
She and Monk find Breeland and Merritt, bring them back to England, and engage Oliver Rathbone to defend them from Murder. Oliver takes the case against his better judgment (as usual).
While I love these books, it's a bit difficult reading the plot points that must be repeated book after book for the benefit of new readers. I love Hester's character, but if I hear one more word about Crimea, Florence Nightingale or battlefield nursing, I think I'll fall asleep.

I'm still reading the series, however. Back next time with a good one: Funeral in Blue.

2011-04-11T13:42:00.001-04:00

Law and Order: Victorian

2011-04-03T15:34:00.001-04:00

I'm still not tired of Anne Perry's Inspector Monk series. The things I like about these books are the Victorian era setting; the mystery in each book; the relationship between Hester and Monk as well as Hester and Rathbone (who will she choose??)

Because the barrister Oliver Rathbone is a recurring character, the last several chapter of each book are set in a courtroom. Weighed in the Balance is more of a court story than The Silent Cry, but nevertheless - each has an investigation and then a trial.

In all of the books, Hester Latterly is invaluable. Without her, Monk and Rathbone would fail.

Plots from one book are often mentioned in another book. So that I won't forget what each book is about, I'll sum them up in this blog for future reference.

1. Face of a Stranger: The Grey Case.
Monk has to solve the crime he was working on before the carriage accident which left him with no memory of his near or distant past. Mr. Grey is a young nobleman who has been brutally murdered in his flat. He is the second son of a well to do family and is not the heir to the fortune. Meanwhile, Hester's father has committed suicide because of a business deal gone horribly wrong. Monk meets Calandra Daviott.

2. A Dangerous Mourning: The Moidore Case
Octavia Haslett, widowed daughter of Sir Basil Moidore is found stabbed to death in her bedroom. No outsider could have done the crime, so suspicion falls upon the household staff.

3. Defend and Betray: The Carlyon Case
During a dinner party, military hero Thaddeus Carlyon falls from the top of a staircase and is impaled on a suit of armor below. Someone in the house did it. Carlyon's wife becomes the prime suspect.

4. A Sudden Fearful Death: The Barrymore Case (or The Stanhope Case)
Nurse Prudence Barrymore is found murdered and stuffed into the hospital laundry chute.
In another plot, Marianne Gillespie has become pregnant and will not disclose the father's name. Monk is hired to find out who it could be.
Where's Maury Povich when you need him?

5. Sins of the Wolf: The Farraline Case
Set in Scotland, the case revolves around the murder of Mary Farraline. Hester is the prime suspect as she was hired to accompany Mrs. Farraline on a train trip to London. Mrs Farraline ends up dead from an overdose of heart medication and one of her pearl brooches ends up missing.

6. Cain His Brother: The Stonefield Case
Angus Stonefield goes missing. He is believed dead - murdered by his twin brother Caleb.
Angus is a successful businessman, Caleb is a thief and a brutal, violent man who lives in one of London's dangerous slums. Monk is hired by Angus' widow to either find him or verify his death. Lord Ravensbrook is Angus and Caleb's uncle and guardian.

7. Weighed in the Balance: The Rostova Case
Zorah Rostova has been sued for slander by Princess Gisela of Felzberg. The Countess has accused the Princess of murdering her own husband. Monk goes undercover in order to mix with the royal family in Venice. Prince Friedrich (the victim) had abdicated the throne in order to marry the commoner, Gisela. Sir Rathbone has foolishly taken on a case that everyone thinks he can't win. Monk wastes Zorah's time and money wooing one of the royals, Countess Evelyn. But everyone lives happily ever after ( as much as anyone can in a murder mystery).

8. The Silent Cry: The Duff Case
Rhys Duff and his father Leighton Duff are found brutally beaten and left for dead in one of London's slums, St. Giles. Constable Evan (a recurring character) investigates. Rhys survives, but cannot speak. Hester is hired to nurse him. In another plot, one of the residents of another slum, Seven Dials, has hired Monk to find the man or men who have been raping and beating the amateur prostitutes in the area. Rathbone shows up at the end to defend Rhys who has been accused of killing his father. In Monk's personal story - we find out why Runcorn hates Monk.

Next up....A Breach of Promise.

Inspector Monk continued

2011-03-13T20:20:00.001-04:00

Read in March 2011

I am hooked on these books. I have a Monk on my back. I had decided to take a break from them so as to not get burned out, but I keep on going.

A Sudden, Fearful Death
A "Crimea nurse" (one of Florence Nightingale's nurses from the Crimean War) is murdered in a hospital. Callandra Daviot, Inspector Monk's friend and business partner just happens to be on the hospital board. She enlists the help of Monk to investigate the crime. Of course, she also arranges for Hester Latterly, also a Crimea nurse, to obtain a job in the hospital so that she can get inside information.

Once again, Monk takes a back seat to Hester in the story. She is the one who finds the crucial bit of information that solves the crime. Much of the novel also involves a trial and the defense attorney, Oliver Rathbone. Monk is described as as a brilliant detective, but I have yet to see it. Still, I like his character. Little by little we find out more about his forgotten past. And, little by little, we see his relationship with Hester changing and becoming stronger.

Which brings me to The Sins of the Wolf. Hester is accused of murder and the circumstantial evidence is pretty strong. However, it is just circumstantial evidence. I would love to read a book about the justice system in Victorian England. In each of these books people are suspected of crimes and arrested for reasons that are purely conjecture.
In Hester's case, however, assuming her to be guilty seems to be a natural assumption.
Of course, Monk investigates the case. Oliver Rathbone, is her barrister. But, he can't defend her in court because the trial is being held in Scotland where the crime took place.

Hester and Monk grow even closer in this book. With Hester's life in danger, Monk realizes how much he cares for her. The problem is, so does Oliver Rathbone! Who will she choose? Alas, I already know because I had read a much later Monk novel a few summers ago.

I'm ready for the next book. It's sitting on the shelf in my office. Not tired of them yet.

Inspector Monk series

2011-02-22T17:24:00.000-05:00

by Anne Perry
Read in January/February 2011

No offense to Detective Adrian Monk, but this inspector is the creation of Anne Perry, mystery writer. He's a detective in London of the late 1850s.

I've read three of these (well, four actually) based on the recommendation of a friend.
I read one of the later ones a few years ago and enjoyed it very much. It's taken this long for me to get back to the beginning. I suppose that with Perry's later Monk books, one could read them out of sequence. If you want to read the early stories, however, you should definitely start with book 1: The Face of a Stranger.

This book begins with Inspector William Monk waking up in a hosptial after a terrible carriage accident. He doesn't remember anything about his life. He retains most of his abilities, but has to learn, little by little, his name, house, occupation, friends and family. The accident hasn't only altered his memory, but his personality as well. And this is a good thing, apparently. The pre-accident Monk seemed to be a very unpleasant person. He was a social climber, pretending to be of a higher class than his position with the police department actually placed him. He was hard on his co-workers and, especially, his subordinates. He was impatient and blunt. But deep down he had a strong sense of justice and fairness. This is the side of him that comes back after his accident. Monk is disturbed by the way people react to him and he's appalled by what he finds out about himself. It's no wonder he seems to have no friends and no close family. He was a driven, single-minded man with no time for other people.
But everything is different now. The Face of a Stranger is a mystery novel. There's a crime that must be solved, but the book is really about Monk's investigation into his life.
One of the characters involved in the external mystery is Hester Lattery. By chance, she is able to help Monk and his partner Sergeant Evan solve the crime.

The second book, A Dangerous Morning, is really Hester's book. More of the plot is devoted to her "detective" work. She becomes a private nurse for the mistress of a rich family mourning the loss of one of the family. Hester uses her inside position to find information vital to solving the crime. This isn't just another volume in the Inspector Monk Series. It is really a continuation of the first book. The criminal convicted in The Face of a Stranger is on trial in this book and we meet another regular character, the lawyer (barrister) Oliver Rathbone.

Third, Defend and Betray has been my favorite of these three. Monk is still struggling with past memories, but he seems to be settling into his new life. Hester is still unofficially solving mysteries and is warming up to the chilly Monk. Oliver Rathbone plays a very important part in tying up the plot. Book four, A Sudden Fearful Death, will continue the story of these characters, Monk, Hester and Rathbone. In fact, the last sentence of Defend and Betray leaves us with a bit of a cliff hanger.

These are pretty good mysteries, but they are really fun Victorian historical fiction. I love learning all about the society, including it's class system and the role of women. I say it's fun, but it isn't pleasant knowing how terrible people who weren't of the right station (or gender) were treated. I plan to read more of these after taking a break for something more modern.

Finishing Becca and Fever 1793

2011-01-10T22:26:00.001-05:00

Finishing Becca by Ann Rinaldi
Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
Finished January and February, 2o11

Another pair of books that were read one right after the other, but not quite as serendipitously as the last pair I read. I chose Finishing Becca because it was sitting on my shelf at home and I needed a book to read. I almost picked it up without looking at what it was. I'd never read an Ann Rinaldi book before, although I recommend her books quite often at the library. So, it was about time that I walked (or read) my talk. I chose to read Fever 1793 next because I was still in the mood for historical fiction and it's been on my I-need-to-read-this list for a long time. It's a total coincidence that both books are set in the late 18th century Philadelphia.

Finishing Becca is, according to subtitle, "a story about Peggy Shippen and Benedict Arnold." Becca Syng is the handmaid to Peggy. Becca's mother had been a woman of means, and a part of wealthy Philadelphia. After her husband (Becca's father) died, she married a simple farmer and became one of the lower class. In hopes that Becca can receive "finishing" as a young woman and exposure to the upper classes, she agrees to have Becca serve as handmaid to the spoiled daughter of the Shippen family.

I remember seeing a biography of Benedict Arnold on The Biography Channel, before they became The [celebrity] Biography Channel. Not remembering very much about Arnold, besides that he was a traitor, I was surprised to learn that he was actually a war hero and that his second wife had much to do with his becoming a traitor. This is a view of Arnold that isn't accepted by all historians. Rinaldi acknowledges that this is a bit of a controversial theory among some historians, but it is the theory that she follows in her story of Shippen and Arnold.

This book didn't receive very favorable reviews and I agree with some of the criticism. The book ended too quickly and by means of a really unimaginative plot device. Still, I liked the book a lot and will read more Ann Rinaldi.

Fever 1793 is written for a younger audience. At first I wasn't as taken with it as I had been with Finishing Becca. But as the story developed, I became hooked. This is the story of the great yellow fever epidemic of 1793. It was a devastating plague that wiped out thousands of people.

Mattie Cook's mother and grandfather run a Philadelphia coffehouse. Mattie is a typical 13 year old. She doesn't want to work and can't abide her mother's constant nagging and orders. Everything changes when people around town begin falling ill. Mattie's mother sends her and her grandfather to the country, to which many citizens have already escaped. But Mattie and her grandfather never make it. They are mistaken for fever victims and thrown out of the wagon that was taking them to a friend's farm.

The rest of the story is Mattie's journey back home and how she deals with life in the decimated city, waiting until the first frost which will end the epidemic.

What a desperate situation these people were in. Medicine had not evolved to the point beyond blood letting and prescribing mercury. Laurie Halse Anderson does such a good job of presenting the story in an authentic historical setting. When I first picked this book up I thought that Rindaldi's book blew this one away. I have changed my mind. While I enjoyed both, Fever 1793 was a much better book.

The Night of the Scorpion and Evil Star

2011-01-06T20:41:00.000-05:00

by Anthony Horowitz
Finished January 2011

I was evaluating part of our fiction collection, checking to see what series needed re-ordering when I came across The Night of the Scorpion by Anthony Horowitz. All I really knew about Horowitz was that he wrote a spy adventure series about a character named Alex Rider. This book, however, was written back in the mid-80s. It's part of the "Pentagram Series." Investigating this title a little further I found that Horowitz rewrote the entire series under the series title The Gatekeepers. The Night of the Scorpion became Evil Star. How fascinating! The Pentagram series must not have done very much for the author because he only wrote four of the planned five books. Years later, after finding fame with the Alex Rider books, he revisited the series, fleshed it out and named it The Gatekeepers (The Power of Five, in England).

I didn't have the first book in the Pentagram series, so I read the second book in each. They both involve a young man (Matt, in the later book) who discovers that he has an unusual power. I'm not quite sure what his power actually is and neither is Matt. It's an unexplored power that shows up when he least expects it. Matt is one of five gatekeepers. He's destined to stop The Old Ones who are evil beings that were banished to an underworld or other dimension. In this book, Matt meets the second of the five gatekeepers. Pedro is a native of Peru, where Matt and his guardian Fabian are led to encounter the Old Ones.

Horowitz's writing has improved over the years. Evil Star is filled with more detail than Night of the Scorpion. Some plot points that were too coincidental or convenient in the first book were changed in the second. Matt's character has changed as well. The first book has him almost innocently accepting his new found power. He's an orphan that now lives with a journalist named Fabian (I can't remember his name in the Scorpion book). He and his guardian remind me of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. The second book is more realistic in the way that Matt and Fabian end up together. Matt is also more rebellious and unaccepting of his new power. The plot of Scorpion is resolved much too quickly.

These were both good fantasy books, but I prefer Evil Star to Night of the Scorpion. There's an element of mystery and adventure along with the fantasy.

You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know

2010-12-02T20:47:00.001-05:00

A True Story of Family, Face Blindness, and Forgiveness
by Heather Sellers
Finished December 2, 2010

Synchronicity? Is that the word I should use for the experience of reading You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know right after reading Bitter in the Mouth? It's happened before - randomly choosing two books, one after the other, and finding a very commond thread between the two. I read The Secret Life of Bees and The Kitchen Madonna, both involving paintings of a Black Madonna.

I heard about this book on the radio in an interview with the author. It's a biography, but reads like a novel. Heather Sellers has a neurological condition called Prosopagnosia, or Face Blindness. In this memoir we learn how Heather struggles "to understand and love her unusual self and to understand and love her family." Those are the same words I used to describe Bitter in the Mouth.

Like Linda Hammerick in Bitter in the Mouth, Heather Sellers comes from a very disfunctional family. Unlike Linda, Heather doesn't fully realize what is making her feel so different from everyone else. The relationship between daughter and mother in each book is complex and has a lot to do with the way the young woman grows up. While Linda rejects her mother, Heather continues to defend her mother and to wonder what is wrong with herself.

Heather's mother is paranoid schizophrenic, something Heather doesn't understand until adulthood. Her father is a cross dresser and an alcoholic. She loves both her parents dearly in spite of the strange and sometimes awful life they've given her. She meets and marries Dave, a gun toting libertarian. Her friends tell her that he is the complete opposite of everything she believes in, but Dave understands her, is patient and loving. She wants so much to be a wife to Dave and a mother to his two boys, Dave Junior and Jacob.

It slowly dawns on Heather that her inability to recognize people is a problem in itself, not a symptom of mental illness or some sort of awful social awkwardness. She happens across a description of Face Blindness while reading psychology books in an attempt to understand her mother and it starts Heather on a process of healing. She cannot be cured of Face Blindness, but she can be healed from all of the old self doubt and the strange past that threatened to destroy her.

Bitter in the Mouth could share this book's subtitle (with a couple of changes): a ~~true~~ story of family, ~~face blindness~~, synesthesia and forgiveness.

Note: I just took a look at Heather Seller's blog and found out that she had been in Lexington in September for the Kentucky Women Writers Conference, which was partially held at LPL. She was in my library! In one of her blog posts she says,

"Lexington is doing that art horse sculpture ting: Chicago did cows. Every store in town has a lifesize crazy-painted horse out front. There are horse statues every where. The giant clock in the library has horses lighting up, the effect of racing, for its second hand. My hotel room curtains, covered with jockeyed toile horses. Downtown, a paddock. Across the country side around the town like great green pillows, acres and acres of horse farms. But I didn't see a single horse. Not one actual real horse. 'There might be some llamas by the airport,' the woman in charge said. I thought, Your (sic) playing the llama card?"

Bitter in the Mouth

2010-12-02T20:10:00.001-05:00

by Monique Truong

Finished November 2010

It's too bad I didn't write about this as soon as I finished reading it. I've forgotten some of the details. Anyway, I noticed it because it's about synesthesia, a neurological condition in which two or more of the senses are experienced at the same time. That's not a good explanation, but it so difficult to explain in a few words.

I first read about synesthesia years ago in a fascinating book called The Man Who Tasted Shapes by Richard Cytowic. Not long ago I read a juvenile novel called A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass about a synesthete who "hears colors." Famous people with synesthesia include Vladimir Nabokov, Duke Ellington, Franz Listz, Richard Feynman, Nicola Tesla and Wassily Kandinsky. A synesthete who "tastes shapes" would actually feel three dimensional shapes in his hand whenever he tasted anything. A person who "hears colors" would actually see colors, not simply imagine them, when hearing sounds.

The protagonist of Bitter in the Mouth experiences tastes when hearing someone speak. Sounds themselves would not bring on the tastes and singing would not bring on any tastes. It only happened when a person would speak.

"'Kellycannedpeaches,' I said, 'I better goboiled carrots. I'm at workNillaWafer stillsourcream. I'll call youcannedgreenbeans as soonTang as I knowgrapejelly more.'"

Only certain passages of the book are written this way, thank goodness, but those passages help us to understand, even just a little bit, how frustrating mixed sensations must be.

Linda Hammerick is the synesthete and the book is about her struggle to understand and love her unusual self and to understand and love her family. We learn Linda's story very slowly as pieces of information are revealed through flashbacks. It's like learning about a friend. We wouldn't sit down and say, "Now tell me your life story." We learn about our friend through conversations and experiences. That's what this book is like.

It's so interesting and the depiction of Linda's synesthesia seems so real that I wonder if the author has the condition herself.

Harris and Me

2010-11-15T22:33:00.000-05:00

by Gary Paulsen
Finished October 2010

A co-worker has been telling me about this book for years. It's her husband's favorite book. I like Gary Paulsen's writing and have read some of his other books, but just haven't pick up Harris and Me until now. I should have read this book a long time ago! It's so funny and such a good book.

The "me" of the story is never really named, if I'm remembering correctly. The narrator of the story, he is the eleven-year old child of alcoholic parents. He's been shuffled from relative to relative for extended periods of time and ends up, one summer, at the home of Harris and his family. They are distant relatives and are quite different from anything the narrator has experienced before.

There's Knute Larson, "some kind of second-uncle", his wife Clair, daughter Glennis and son Harris, aged 9. Harris is a wild man. He gives the narrator a real education on life on a farm and leads him into many crazy adventures.

This is such a good book.

Bonobo Handshake

2010-10-26T22:32:00.000-04:00

A memoir of love and adventure in the Congo
by Vanessa Woods
Finished September 2010

I was without the internet at home for a while, so I'm just getting around to writing about this book. It's too bad, because I had a lot to say about it when I just finished reading it. Now I've kind of forgotten all of the details of what I wanted to say.

I picked this book up after browsing the new book shelf at the library. I wanted to read about bonobos. That's what the book is about, but I learned so much more.

Vanessa Woods is a research scientist and journalist. After graduating from college she began volunteering for the Taronga Zoo in Sydney. While there she heard about a "chimp island" for orphan chimpanzees.

"My job was to lead a team of Ugandans on a census, for which I had zero qualifications. Debby hired me only because the real primatologist got malaria and pulled out at the last minute."

She became enamored of a chimp named Baluku. She also fell in love with a real primatologist named Brian Hare. They married and she became more involved in primate research through her husband's activities.

Then they went to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to study Bonobos and to work on answering the question, "What makes us human?" Vanessa wasn't thrilled. She was more interested in going back to Uganda to study chimpanzees. What she learned while in the DRC about humans, bonobos and chimpanzees would change her life.

This book made a big impact on me. When the author arrived in the DRC she wasn't very aware of the political history nor of the current events of the Congo. She arrived during a very violent and politically unstable time. The stories she heard about the violence inflicted upon people are horrible. To think that people can be capable of doing such terrible things to other people is inconceivable. What makes this interesting and worth enduring the stories of war is the contrast between people and the chimps and bonobos. The chimps are also capable of inflicting violence on their own kind. Bonobos, however, are peace-loving. This isn't to say that they don't have squabbles with each other or that they don't treat each other badly. But squabbles and bad behavior are much different from true violence and cruelty.

We share 98.7% of our DNA with bonobos. We share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees (a recent National Geographic article says 96%). We can see so much of ourselves in both. Woods' book is as much about humans as it is about the apes she studied.

This is such a fascinating book. It certainly gave me so much more than I expected. It made me sad, happy, horrified, amused and enlightened.

Bonobo Handshake official site

Your Inner Bonobo - Vanessa Woods Psychology Today blog

Friends of Bonobos - the support site for Lola Ya Bonobo, the world's only bonobo sanctuary.

Other People's Rejection Letters

2010-10-26T21:53:00.001-04:00

edited by Bill Shapiro
Finished September 2010

This is a collection of real letters, emails and notes to and from executives, writers, actors, boyfriends, girlfriends, teachers, students and so on. They are formal rejection letters, pink slips, dear john letters, angry notes and text messages. We can see actual photos of some of the letters. How did Shapiro get these letters?

"I hit up my friends and then friends of friends, and then I enlisted a
team of clever reporters from across the country to help with the hunt."

Some of the letters are funny and others are sad. There are some that are really historically interesting.

There's a 1956 letter from the Museum of Modern Art to Andy Warhol informing him that they would not be accepting his gift of a "drawing called Shoe."
There is a photo of the letter of discharge from the U.S. Army for Jimi Hendrix.
There's a photo of a letter on "Chock full 'O Nuts letterhead from Jackie Robinson to the President of the United States (1958) regarding civil rights of negro citizens of the U.S.
My favorite is the photo of a draft of the letter of resignation Eleanor Roosevelt sent to the Daughters of the American Revolution after they refused to let Marian Anderson sing in Constitution Hall.

There are also very ordinary letters:

A note on that wide ruled manila primary paper from Naomi to her Grandma: "I got your letter. But I can't come because I have other plans"
A slip of paper that says, "Sometime I think you are a big jack ass but I love you - Mommie"
A handwritten note from a very young child: "I hat you fram PhoeBe"
A note written on the back of a slip of receipt paper: "In case you did not notice this is employee parking. That means you Don't park here. Next time you will be towed. We know your car. Thanks - OTP."
And the reply, written on the other side of the receipt paper: "In case you did not notice I was in your restaurant with 4 clients which will never happen again. I know who you are too!"

A fun book. There's a website as well.

Fast Food Nation

2010-10-26T21:37:00.000-04:00

by Eric Schlosser
Finished September 2010

My doctor suggested that I read this book after I told her that I eat a lot of fast food. It didn't deter me from eating it.

Some people say that the descriptions of slaughterhouses will put you off fast food. The part that made a biggest impact on me was the explanation of how the corporatization (is that a word) of America happened. It's pretty amazing that almost all of the large fast food chains were started by men with no college education. They all began as very small operations. It's kind of an inspiring story - the American Dream. But the small operations grew into huge corporations that squelch the little man. The exploitation of workers is more appalling to me than any bloody images of cows being slaughtered.

I wish I had the gumption to take a stand and eat local, fresh foods.

The book was good and very worth reading. About midway through, however, I became a little tired of the author's agenda. He made good and valid points, but I am sure he was selective with the presentation of the facts. The book has a definite liberal bias, which is to be expected. But I don't think that it was a necessary point of view. The corporate culture, the increase in processed food, the exploitation of workers have happened in liberal and conservative government administrations.

I don't know if Eric Schlosser has plans to update the book, but I think he should. It was written in 2002. I'd be interested in knowing if any of the statistics he gives have changed in eight years.

The Animal Review

2010-10-09T22:26:00.000-04:00

The Genius, Mediocrity and Breathtaking Stupidity That is Nature

by Jacob Lentz and Steve Nash

Finished August 2010

What a funny book. I just ran across it while I was looking for pet books for a bibliography. Apparently, this is based on an unassuming looking blog of the same name. The cover photo is of an alpaca. Interesting... the cover pictured here, which I saved from the blog itself, rates the alpaca a D+. The Book I have in my hand has an F rating, as does the cover shown on Amazon.

This is a humor book. You can learn a little bit about animals, but you'd better take everything with several grains of salt. The authors will make up facts for a laugh. And I laughed a lot.

The premise is that scientists have made animal classification way too complicated. Instead of Kingdom, Phylum, Classes, Orders, Families, Genera, and Species, the authors propose that all animals be divided into four categories: Land, Sky, Water and Other. They can then be rated within each of those categories. To those who feel that giving an animal a grade is a little unfair, the authors say,

"By the way, please try not to feel too bad for the animals that don't get the grade you think they should. The reality is that, no matter how much you might love them, most of them secretly hold you in contempt, and they're usually lying when they tell you that they couldn't call you back because tehir cell phone died. Their cell phone works fine. Trust us."

I was just about to say that I'd rate some of the animals differently than the authors did, but in looking at their complete report card in the back of the book... no I'll have to say that I pretty much agree. The three animals receiving an F: Panda, Alpaca and Locust. Getting a D: Giraffe, Sea Cucumber, Hippopotamus, Peacock, Garden Snail and Sponge. The A list includes: King Cobra, Blue Whale, Sword Fish, Golden Dart Frog, Ladybug.

The Panda review had me laughing out loud:

"After toys with lead in them, food products with lead in them, and lead toys with food in them, pandas are China's fourth biggest export. They are best known for sitting dumbly in zoos around the world while visitors fawn over them and their adorable Chinese names. While about sixteen hundred pandas are alive in the wild, the vast majority (about thirty two) live in foreign zoos, where most of their time is dedicated to not mating...While everyone worries about the panda's future, any objective observer is led to the conclusion that perhaps its time has passed. Maybe Nature is trying to give them the hint that they need to go the way of the dodo, and maybe we should spend our time on a species that at least wants to survive. In the meantime, pandas occupy valuable zoo space and consume prodigious amounts of bamboo that could otherwise be used to produce offbeat furniture. Way to be, GaoGao."

I could keep quoting my favorite passages of the book, but anyone reading this should just go ahead and read the book instead. Or look at the blog. The blog, as I said, is very unassuming. With the book you get color pictures with captions and little fun facts in each chapter.

I Have Heard You Calling in the Night

2010-09-07T20:19:00.000-04:00

by Thomas Healy

Finished August 2010

This book was a pre-publication paperback that I found in the breakroom at work. The title caught my eye as well as the drawing of a dog on the cover. The description helped sell me:

Thomas Healy was a drunk, a fighter, sometimes a writer, often unemployed, no stranger to the police. His life was going nowhere but downhill. Then one day he bought a pup - a Doberman. He called him Martin. Gradually man and dog became unshakable allies, the closest of comrades, the best of friends. Martin, in more ways than one, saved Thomas Healy's life.

I love stories about dogs anyway, especially stories about the bond betweeen dog and human. But I held onto this book for a while before I finally read it.

It's an unusual book. The author's writing style is very colloquial and not very polished. Healy has written a book called The Hurting Business (about boxing) and two novels - Rolling and It Might Have Been Jerusalem. I haven't seen these other books, don't really know who published them, and don't know if they were ever widely read. If I didn't see the publisher name Harcourt on the back of the book, I'd have thought it was a self-published memoir.

This isn't to say that I didn't enjoy the book. It was interesting and touching. Thomas Healy, as the back cover blurb says, was a drunk and a trouble maker. On a pure drunken whim he bought a Doberman pup from an unscrupulous man and named him Martin. Healy saved Martin's life and Martin returned the favor. For some reason, having this dog was just the impetus he needed to stop his drinking. He would drink again, on occasion, and realistically remained an alcoholic. But, he wasn't an active drunk.

This isn't really a dog book. Martin is the miracle that changed the diretion of Healy's life, but the

one who was "calling in the night" is God. This is more the spiritual memoir of someone searching for something deep and lasting. Healy may not be a deeply religious person, even now. But the reader can see God working throughout his life in so many ways, calling him patiently.

I'm glad I finally picked the book up after having it on my shelf for at least two years.

The Tequila Worm

2010-08-24T00:40:00.000-04:00

by Viola Canales

Finished August 23, 2010

I love serendipity! But, maybe that's not the right word. Merriam Webster says that serendipity is "the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for."

I was searching for a good book and I found one. So, maybe it's providence:

"divine guidance or care." Ok - I guess it's just good luck.

I needed a book to read but didn't know what to read. I decided to walk down one of the aisles of the children's department, close my eyes, and read the first book my hand touched. My hand fell on The Tequila Worm. I wasn't thrilled at the time. The cover didn't look appealing and neither did the title. I showed it to some co-workers who kind of turned up their noses. The Tequila worm??

What a great book this turned out to be. I loved it for the same reasons that I loved All of a Kind Family. It's about a family of a different culture (different from my own). There is a plot, but the charm of the book is the description of the daily and yearly life of the family.

Fifteen year old Sofia is the narrator of the story. She, her Mama, Papa, and sister Lucy live in a barrio in McAllen, Texas. I'm not sure in what time period the story is set, but it's a simpler time. It's set in a time when children played outside all day and families watched out for each other. Neighbors gathered on one of the neighborhood porches to tell stories.

Ritual and tradition are such an imporant part of Sofia's family life and of her culture as well. When she gets the opportunity to go to an exclusive Episcopal boarding school in Austin, those rituals and traditions become all the more important. I loved the references to Sofia's Catholic life, although it was interesting to learn about the Mexican flavored Catholic traditions.

My favorite tradition was the nacimiento - the nativity scene. Abuela brings a big pile of mud right into the living room. The family forms little buildings depicting a town - sometimes Bethlehem, sometimes their own town of McAllen. The mud village becomes whatever Abuela wants it to be. Then each member of the family pulls a figurine out of a box. These are things that Abuela has collected and received throughout the years. The elephant figurine belongs to one of the wise men. The other two wise men have a camel and a pink plastic horse. There's a plastic dinosaur that visits the creche, looking over Mary's shoulder at the baby.

It reminds me of the first Christmas tree I ever had. I didn't have any ornaments, so I looked through my house to find things to hang from the tree. I hung a snowman cookie cutter as well as a little llama shaped sponge.

What I thought would be an unpleasant book about teen drinking or something turned out to be a sweet, wonderful story about family and tradition. What a lucky find.

Strangers on a Train

2010-08-17T21:53:00.000-04:00

by Patricia Highsmith

Finished August 17, 2010

"Society's law was lax compared to the law of conscience."

I love Alfred Hitchcock's movie Strangers on a Train. It's suspenseful and has that crazy out-of-control merry-go-round scene at the end. Patricia Highsmith's book is the source of Hitchcock's film, of course. But it's a different experience altogether.

To me, there was no suspense. It could have been that having seen the movie, I wasn't surprised by much in the book, even though there were many plot differences. I think, instead, it was that the book was about the psychology of the two "strangers." It's about the psychology of guilt and about man's capacity for evil.

Charles Bruno (Bruno Anthony in the film) is the psychopath - the one who comes up with the double-murder scheme. He kills Guy Haines' awful wife in exchange for Guy killing his overbearing father. The perfect murder, argues Bruno, because neither has a motive nor any connection to his victim.

But Bruno is such a nutcase and so infatuated with Haines that he cannot leave him alone. He makes connection after connection which leaves a fairly easy trail for the detective. While Highsmith doesn't explicity reveal Charles Bruno as a homosexual, he seems to be unusually fond of Guy. It's mentioned on more than one occasion by other characters that Bruno, "hates women." The only women that find favor with Bruno are his mother and Guy's new wife Anne. He likes Anne because she belongs to Guy.

"'...I like you Guy! I really do!' The wistful face pled with Guy to say he liked him, too. The lonliness in those tiny, tortured eyes!"

It's been a while since I've seen Hitchock's Strangers on a Train, but I remember Bruno as being rather charming and slick. The book's Bruno is an alcoholic lout. He's annoying and thrusts himself into Guy's life even after the deal is done.

The most horrifying part of the story is the thought that a stalker like Charles Bruno could so easily ruin one's life. Highsmith's story consisted more of Guy's and Bruno's thoughts than a straight narrative. While this created a very fitting uneasy feeling for the reader, it also made the book a little difficult to read.

I liked the book a lot, but not as much as the movie. However, they are two different things. Both are pretty great.

The Way Men Act

2010-08-09T22:58:00.000-04:00

by Elinor Lipman
Finished August 9, 2010

I like remembering what I've read in a given summer. A few year's ago I read the entire Chronicles of Narnia. The summer after that I read nothing but mystery stories. Last year I read the Green Knowe series. Years ago was the summer of Ray Bradbury as I have very fond memories of reading The October Country - sitting at the breakfast room table on University Street, eating banana sandwiches and reading about "The Small Assassin," "The Emissary," and Dr. Muniant. Another summer I read To Kill a Mockingbird while visiting Aunt Mickey and Grandmother in Nashville. The painting of my cousin Mary looked, to me, like Scout. I can't remember which boy cousin in the painting I had pegged as Jem.

This summer has been the summer of Elinor Lipman. The Way Men Act is the last book for now. I have yet to read her collection of short stories, but my library doesn't own it, so that will be for another time.

The book should have been called The Way Women Act, for that's actually what it's about. Melinda LeBlanc is the first person narrator who tells us the story of her relationship with the other merchants on Main St. in a small college town. Melinda has moved back to her childhood home after living in California for years. She finds that the old high school roles have really stayed the same as she and her classmates have aged. They should matter less now, but Melinda doesn't seem to realize that.

We don't know the way men act because Melinda can't seem to get a handle on the way men act. The men in the book are characters only talked about and seen from a distance as Melinda tries to figure it all out.

I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. A pretty good Lipman book. I think, since I'm at the end of my Elinor Lipman Summer Marathon, I will rank her books from most enjoyed to least enjoyed.

The Inn at Lake Devine (although I have to read it again...it's been a long time)

Then She Found Me

The Family Man

My Latest Grievance

Isabel's Bed

The Way Men Act

The Dearly Departed

Pursuit of Alice Thift

The Ladies' Man

The ones in the middle could be shifted up and down. But, The Inn at Lake Devine and Then She Found Me belong at the top. The Ladies' Man definitely belongs at the bottom.

The Dearly Departed

2010-08-09T22:57:00.001-04:00

by Elinor Lipman

Finished July 2010

I am just now writing about this, but I finished reading it a couple of weeks ago. I enjoyed this book. I had left it for the end of my Elinor Lipman marathon because it was about death and I thought it would bother me. But, it was fine.

Sunny Batten's mother and a man named Miles Finn die unexpectedly in a tragic carbon monoxide poisoning accident. Sunny travels to her hometown of King George, New Hampshire for the funeral and to take care of her mother's estate. There she gets reaquainted with her childhood friends and enemies. She also meets Fletcher Finn, the son of her mother's fiance (although there is little proof that they were actually engaged.) Sunny learns new things about herself as she is learning new things about her mother's life and love life. All of the characters are enjoyable. Lipman almost always includes an interestingly exhasperating character and Fletcher Finn fills that role.

There's not much else to say about this one except that it didn't leave me disappointed. While it wasn't one of my favorite Lipman books, it was a good one.

Seer of Shadows

2010-07-08T13:17:00.001-04:00

by Avi
Finished July 10, 2010

I've never read an Avi book I didn't like. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle and The Book Without Words are my favorites, so far. This one is just as good.

It's set in the 1870's during the time when "spirit photography" is becoming popular. Horace Carpetine is apprentice to a photographer named Enoch Middleditch. Horace has been raised to believe in reason and science. He has also been taught to be ethical and fair. Therefore, when Mr. Middleditch decides to insert a spirit image into the portrait of the grieving (not so much) Mrs. Von Macht, Horace is upset. But he is convinced that the trick will give Mrs. Von Macht comfort. And besides, if he doesn't cooperate he will lose his job.

The venture takes a bad turn when Pegg, the Von Macht's servant girl hints that the relationship between Mrs. & Mrs. Von Macht and their departed daughter Eleanora, was not what it seemed to be. And the ever reasonable Horace discovers that there might actually be a ghost in the house.

This is a good and often creepy historical novel. I listened to the book on tape narrated by Steven Boyer, who did an excellent job.

The Family Man

2010-07-08T13:16:00.001-04:00

by Elinor Lipman
finished July 14, 2010

This is more like it. The last Elinor Lipman book I read was The Ladies' Man, which was a pretty unpleasant book. The Family Man was delightful and fun to read. The characters were all enjoyable (unlike the other book). You can even sympathize with the character you're supposed to like the least.

The family man is Henry Archer who, at the beginning of the book, is not much of a family man at all. He did share his townhome with his mother, Williebelle, but that was the extent of his family.

It could have been different. He had been married to Denise. But they divorced because she left him for another man. He tried to have shared custody with Denise's young daughter Thalia, but the new stepfather would not allow it. He considered Henry's newly realized lifestyle (gay) to be unsuitable for Thalia.

Henry spent years dealing with his anger and dissapointment. So it's surprising when he decides to write to Denise after twenty four years. Her husband has just died and Henry, always doing the right and the kind thing, sends a note of condolence. Denise writes back and that's where this book begins.

Suddenly, Henry is a family man. He reconnects with Thalia, whom he has always considered to be his daughter. She is a delightful young woman who comes to adore Henry. She moves in to the maissonette (basement apartment) of Henry's townhome. Thanks to Denise, Henry also meets Todd who brings new life and joy to his life.

Thalia and Denise are estranged, but are so much alike. Their impulsivity drives the plot and makes for some wonderfuly funny situations.

I loved this book. It's funny and full of Elinor Lipman's great characters.

Heroes of the Valley

2010-07-08T13:15:00.000-04:00

by Jonathan Stroud
finished June 30, 2010

Madeline told me to read this book. She loved it. Jonathan Stroud is one of her favorite authors. He also wrote the Bartimeus Trilogy.

I really enjoyed it. It's a fantasy, but reads more like an imaginary historical novel. It's set in a kind of medieval viking era, in a secluded valley. The fantastical elements are spoken of, but don't really make an appearance until late in the book.

The heroes of the valley are brave men who settled the land. There are villages or houses named after them - Svein's house and Hakkon's house are the two that drive the plot. Halli Sveinsson is an unlikely hero, but he longs to be one like Svein, the hero of the many sagas and tales he has been told throughout his life. But there's little hope of a life of adventure for Halli. He's a second son and will not inherit any post of responsibility or authority in his house. He is also short of stature and not very handsome. The way he's described, I believe Halli must be a dwarf. Not in the mythical sense, but an actual "little person." He's laughed at and ignored most of the time, which makes him act out. He's often in trouble and that's where the trouble begins.
Halli is forbidden to join the Festival - a time when people of many houses gather at one house for eating, drinking and other activities. Because he isn't dressed in his festival wear, he's mistaken for a servant by a member of the Hakkonson family and treated badly. In retaliation, he nearly poisons the young man and starts a feud which ends in murder. Halli seeks revenge and sets out on a life changing adventure.

Halli's greatest desire is to be the hero of this adventure. He dreams of one day being as great as the heroes of the valley who defeated the deadly Trows - creatures who live beyond the hills and the reason no one can leave the valley. The heroes of old have been buried in cairns around the perimeter of the valley in order to guard against the Trows. Halli meets up with Aud, a girl from another house, who tries to convince him that the Trows and the stories of the old heroes are just fairy tales.

Jonathan Stroud has us wavering back and forth like Halli. Are the Trows real? Should Halli and Aud travel beyond the cairns? The answer to these questions is the most gripping and thrilling part of the book.

Good book suggestion, Madeline!

The Ladies' Man

2010-07-08T13:14:00.000-04:00

by Elinor Lipman

Finished June 2010

Here's an Elinor Lipman book that I didn't like that much. Lipman's worst book is still a good book, but compared to the rest, this one wasn't nearly as enjoyable. It must have been the characters, none of which were particularly likeable to me. The title character, instead of being one of the charmingly exasperating characters she does so well, is exasperatingly irritating. He's a despicable cad and a boor, the kind of man people call a "ladies' man" only to be polite.

His name is Nash Harvey. When he was a younger man and known by his original name, Harvey Nash, he left town while his intented was waiting for him to arrive at their engagment party. She - Adele Dobbin - never forgave him and never entered into a relationship again. Suddenly, after twenty some odd years he shows back up on her doorstep after abruptly leaving another relationship in California. What he finds is Adele and her two unmarried sisters sharing an apartment. Adele's brother serves as mediator between Adele and Harvey (uh, Nash). Adele's middle sister, Lois, thinks that Nash (Harvey?) has returned for her. Kathleen, the youngest and most likeable character, has fallen for the nice doorman in the apartment where she owns a lingerie shop called "The Other Woman."

Everyone in this book seems to be dealing with a life of dissapointment. They are searching for happiness and struggling with the notion that simply settling for a life without unhappiness is the best they can hope for.

The title of this book refers specifically to Nash Harvey, but in a broader way could refer to each of the male characters. Each one relates to women in a different way - fearful, indifferent, shy, bold. Each wants a different thing - love, companionship, a place to live, a fling.

I think this was a good book and could generate a lot of thought for the reader. It might be a good book for a discussion group. But it left me unsatisfied. Luckily, I've moved on to a delightful Elinor Lipman book which I'll write about soon.

Humanism, What's That?

2010-06-12T14:08:00.001-04:00

A Book for Curious Kids

by Helen Bennett

Finished June 12, 2010

I bought this book for the library's collection to add depth to our religion/philosphy section. It's unfortunate that there isn't more written on the subject for children because this is only just good enough to be a placeholder. It simply fills an immediate need.

The book is written in a question and answer format. It begins by telling us that the classmate of a group of children (of undetermined age) has been in an auto accident and is now in a coma.

One of the children says, "Let's all pray for Amanda. I bet God will make her well if He hears our prayers." Mrs. Green answers by saying, "I'm sorry, Jesse, but we can't do that as a class. If you wish, you may pray on your own, silently, or pray at home or after school." The children are surprised by her answer and wonder why they don't have a right to pray together. Mrs. Green explains that the Constitution of the United States assures a separation of church and state and by having the whole class pray together might force someone who doesn't believe in God to do something that makes them uncomfortable. The children express surprise that someone wouldn't believe in God.

Instead of leaving it at that or suggesting to the children that they talk to their parents about it, Mrs. Green says, "If you are really curious about a different view, we can meet as a group about it after class if you will get your parent to sign a permission slip. We'll talke about Humanism, an ancient philosphy that many good people follow."

Now, in my mind, the children were simply asking why they couldn't pray together and whether someone who doesn't believe in God can be a good person. Mrs. Green's answer to this is a little like the old story abou the kid who asked his mother where his baby sister came from. She gives him an entire sex education lesson when all he wanted to know was which hosptial she was born in.

Six of the thirty two children bring back permission slips and have an after school discussion with Mrs. Green about Humanism.

The book should have been called "Why Humanism is Better than Religion." It reads more like an argument against religion than an explanation of Humanism. The children ask questions or make comments like, "My minister says that my church knows the truth, and all other churches are wrong. Is he right?" The questions the children ask come from a fundamentalist viewpoint. Since the book ended up being a religion vs Humanism debate, I was aching for more challenging comments from the religion side.

One child asks, "Who created nature and the world, if not God?" Mrs. Green answers, "Many people believe that our world didn't develop over time but was created by God - you know, the way you create trees and animals and people out of clay during art class. Humanists do not believe that the world was 'created' by anyone. The earth and all things on it developed or 'evolved' over billions of years." None of the children challenge this by asking - but where did it all begin? Everything has to have a beginning.

But that's the problem. Mrs. Green is debating with children. Her answers aren't challenged at all. Of course, that's not the point of the book. It's supposed to be an introduction to Humanism. However, it's a cheap shot, in my opinion, to present counter arguments to issues raised by children.

In Mrs. Green's version, "all" humanists are highly ethical. Yes, she said all humanists are highly ethical. "They believe in doing good because it is the right thing to do, not because they are afraid of God's punishment." I've seen this line used in other children's books about athiesm or humanism. Have they not heard of the Great Commandment? (Matthew 22:36-40). Of course, the bible is an unreliable source, for Mrs. Green. God is not that great of a guy because he's pretty mean and unfair in the Old Testament. She knows a lot about the OT God of Wrath but not very much about the God of Love and Mercy.

The Graveyard Book

2010-06-11T22:11:00.000-04:00

by Neil Gaiman
Finished June 11, 2010

This book received the Newbery Medal for 2009. That was surprising, since Neil Gaiman is British and the Newbery Medal is for "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." But, The Graveyard Book was published in the United States and Gaiman now lives in this country. The book is still very British in flavor - one of the reasons I liked it. It's set in modern times, but has a very old fashioned feel because the ghostly characters are of all historical eras from pre-Druid to the 1950's.

It begins with a murder: "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife." A man, woman and little girl are killed by "the man Jack." Only a baby, "barely a toddler," escapes. The baby is old enough to walk and he does walk - all the way to an old nearby graveyard. The man Jack follows him, but is unable to finish his job because the toddler is taken in by two kindly ghosts - Mr. and Mrs. Owens. They promise the child's mother (now a ghost and on her way to her own graveyard) to keep the toddler safe and raise him. Silas, neither dead nor alive, becomes his guardian and provides the child with food.

The plot of this book is often summed up with the paraphrase, "it takes a graveyard to raise a child." Bod (the child is named Nobody) is given "the Freedom of the Graveyard." As such, he is able to live within it's walls, see and talk to all of it's residents. He even learns to do such things as "fade," "dreamwalk," and cast fear into people's minds.

Bod lives a happy but sheltered life in the cemetary. But he can never hope to ever enter the outside world as long as the man Jack is still looking for him.

The Graveyard Book is part Harry Potter, part Jungle Book. In fact, Neil Gaiman says in his acknowledgements, "First and foremost, and forever: I owe an enormous debt, conscious and, I have no doubt, unconscious, to Rudyard Kipling and the two volumes of his remarkable work The Jungle Book. I read them as a child, excited and impressed, and I've read and reread them many times since."

This is an exciting, funny, somtimes spooky, always charming story. I've heard that the audio book version, narrated by Gaiman himself, is fantastic. There are plans to make it into a movie, which is easy to imagine as you read the book. Gaiman has an excellent way of bringing his story and characters to life in the reader's mind.

The Pursuit of Alice Thrift

2010-06-09T20:43:00.000-04:00

by Elinor Lipman

Finished June 8, 2010

I tried reading this book once a few years ago. I think it was the first Elinor Lipman book I had picked up after reading the wonderful Inn at Lake Devine. At that time, I lost interest in it and never finished it. But after being won over by some of her other books, I was ready for this one.

Once again, Lipman gives us an exasperating character. This one, unlike Isabel in Isabel's Bed or Bernice in Then She Found Me, is not also charming. He's just irritating. It's Ray Russo, the man who is pursuing Alice Thrift, M.D., a first year resident at a hospital in Boston.

Alice is pretty much all intellect and not much of a social butterfly. She's not even a social caterpillar. Her mother accuses her of having Asperger's Syndrome because she doesn't seem to be able to create a social life for herself. That's when Ray Russo comes in. He lavishes attention on Alice and she, at first, is taken aback by his forward style. But, a man is paying attention to her. Knowing that she needs to improve her personality she lets him woo her.

Ray Russo is a character that is pretty irritating, but one that I think you can enjoy hating. Alice's few friends - who are also in pursuit of the fun loving Alice they know is inside the M.D. exterior - don't trust Ray and wonder why she's even giving him the time of day.

Like all of Elinor Lipman's books, this is funny and filled will great characters. I especially liked Leo the NICU nurse and his huge Catholic family.

This wasn't one of Lipman's better books, but still enjoyable.

Trust the Dog

2010-06-05T19:40:00.000-04:00

Rebuilding Lives Through Teamwork with Man's Best Friend

by Gerri Hirshey

Finished June 5, 2010

This book is about guide dogs for the blind, specifically guide dogs from the Fidelco organization. At times the book reads like an advertisement for Fidelco, but it is still fascinating.

Fidelco (a word combination of Fidelity and Cooperation) was founded by Charlie Kaman and his wife Robbie (pronounced "robey"). Charlie Kaman founded an aviation and aerospace corporation and he invented the Ovation guitar. As if that wasn't enough, he and his wife took their hobby of breeding and training German Shepherds and turned it into a successful organization dedicated to giving blind people new lives through guide dogs.

Fidelco is different from most guide dog organizations. Most require the person to attend training at the organizations' facilities. Fidelco will send a dog and trainer to the person where they will train for as long as it takes in real-life situations.

The best parts of this book are the anecdotes from the people featured in each chapter. They each tell the story of how they became blind and what led them to get a guide dog. The dogs are amazing. They're not only guides, but protectors and friends. There are several stories of the dogs' uncanny ability to sense diabetic seizures or pregnancy. "Trust the dog" is the title of the book and is the lesson that is sometimes hardest to learn. But in a few instances, near disaster is averted by trusting the dog.

"...after a heavy overnight thunderstorm, they head out for an early morning walk in Windsor... They are on a quiet street, walking at a relaxed pace, when Nemo stops short again and cuts in front of her, pulling her off course and to the side. He is so firm - Mary can sense his tension - that she decides to turn around and go back.Since she likes to check on such unusual behavior, she asks a friend - a mobility instructor - to return to the spot with her and see what stopped the dog. Nearing the place, her friend gasps. 'I don't believe it.' Just past the spot Nemo had stopped, a live electrical wire downed by the storm dangles at chest level."

Another story about Nemo:

"When Mary's diabetes caused an insulin imbalance and she fainted at a bus stop, Nemo lay down next to her, head and paws on her body and would not move. The site of the large long haired German Shepherd guarding her did cause some consternation among the EMT workers, until animal control officers took him gently into custody and Mary could be loaded into an ambulance."

Fidelco dogs are always German Shepherds bred from Bavarian stock. It's amazing how just the right dog can be paired with a person. Each person is evaluated for lifestyle, temperament, living conditions, abilities and is given a dog that will work in the given situation.

Every time I read a book like this, it makes me want to get a dog. But I'm sure I'd be disappointed if it weren't an amazing super dog like the ones in this book.

Isabel's Bed

2010-05-30T11:02:00.000-04:00

by Elinor Lipman
Finished May 29, 2010

I was supposed to be house cleaning yesterday. Instead I finished reading this book. I love Elinor Lipman. I've read four of her nine novels, beginning with the excellent The Inn at Lake Divine.

Isabel's Bed is about an aspiring writer named Harriet Mahoney, who, having just broken up with her boyfriend of nine years, accepts a job being the ghostwriter to Isabel Krug, "the other woman" in a scandal that ended in murder. Harriet moves in with Isabel - an exchange of room and board for her ghostwriting work.

Lipman's characters are great, as always. Isabel reminds me a bit of Bernice Graverman, the flamboyant mother in And Then She Found Me. She's exasperating, but compelling at the same time. She's the kind of friend that's fun to be around but is also exhausting.

What to read next... there's only five more Lipman novels - and one book of short stories. If I take my time, she'll have written another and I won't have to do without.

Last Survivor Series

2010-05-18T10:45:00.000-04:00

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Read these May 2010

Life As We Knew It

The Dead & the Gone

This World We Live In

One evening in May everyone in the neighborhood went outside to sit in lawn chairs and have cookouts. They were having asteroid parties. Everyone wanted to see the big asteroid hit the moon. Soon enough the party atmosphere turned to panic. The asteroid knocked the moon out of its normal orbit and closer to the earth.

Life As We Knew It begins this trilogy of life after disaster. It's format is a teenager girl's diary. Miranda, her brother Jon and mother Laura live in the country just outside of a small town in Pennsylvania (I think). This is the story of their survival. At first, only electricity is effected and only intermittently. But Miranda's mother wisely prepares for the worst and stocks up on canned goods and winter clothes. Her instinct turns out to be correct as life gets more and more difficult. Because the gravitational pull of the moon has been altered, earthquakes and tsunamis happen all over the world. For a while, the family survives on food grown in the garden. As the skies fill with ash from volcanoes that have erupted throughout the world, food becomes more and more scarce.

This is an interesting story. How would one survive if life as we knew it changed completely?

I enjoyed the second book more. It takes place in New York City and tells the story of Alex, Julie and Brianna Morales. Surviving in the city is sometimes easier and sometimes much more horrible. I think I liked this book because of the religious theme running throughout.

Miranda, in the first book, has really no ties to religion at all. One of her friends has become a fundamentalist holy roller and sees the disaster as God's way of punishing mankind.

In The Dead and the Gone, however, religion is portrayed in a much better light. Alex and his sisters are Catholic. It's the anchor that gets them through the disaster.

Finally, the book This World We Live In is disappointing. It's Miranda's diary again and it's simply more of the same survival story in a way. But the appearance of Alex and Julie change things. I liked Alex's story so much that I resented it becoming a part of whiny Miranda's diary.

The story is bleak and not filled with much hope at all. I don't know if Susan Beth Pfeffer plans to write any more. I hope she does, because the reader has to know that life will go on.

These books have been criticized for bad science. I'll agree. And I'll add that the world would not be caught off guard by an asteroid of that size. Even if nothing could have been done about it, the news media would be all over the story. The earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis would have been predicted.

I'll also add that I don't think the United States would become such a desolate place. I just heard someone say on a news show about Haiti that Americans are "fix it" people. We want to fix things rather than letting them just lay there broken. I think Pfeffer's view of the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it is overly pessimistic.

Still, I enjoyed this series.

Half Broke Horses

2010-05-08T09:57:00.000-04:00

by Jeannette Walls
Finished April 2010

This is a companion to The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. While the first book was a memoir of the author's life, this one is a "true-life" novel based on her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith.

Jeannette Walls has been criticized with both books for creating history and manufacturing unbelievable lives for her characters. That's probably why this book is called a "true-life novel" rather than a biography. Nothing wildly unbelieveable happens. But Lily Casey Smith didn't have a normal life. She grew up on a poor ranch in Arizona and left home as soon as she could to persue a better life (or at least a different one) as a teacher. She tried the big city of Chicago but realized that she was a half broke horse at heart. She belonged in the untamed lands of the southwest.

Her determination and grit kept her and her family alive through drought, floods and the depression. Contrasting her strong character with that of her daughter - especially as Rose Mary was depicted in The Glass Castle - is very interesting. Lily would work three jobs and wear the same clothes day after day in an effort to save money for her family. Rose Mary would hide candy bars from her children ("I can't help it. I'm a sugar addict.") while they subsisted on half eaten sandwiches taken from the school cafeteria trash.

I loved the book The Glass Castle. But I think I enjoyed this one more. Lily, while she could be a hard person at times, was admirable and almost heroic. She broke wild horses on her father's ranch as a young girl. She continued to break metaphorical horses the rest of her life.

I really like this book a lot.

But I Trusted You

2010-04-27T14:07:00.001-04:00

and other true cases
by Ann Rule
Finished April 27, 2010

I bought this book at Kroger in Bowling Green, KY because I forgot to bring a book from home. I was in BG for a Kentucky Public Library Association conference.

I've been wanting to read an Ann Rule book for a while. I like to watch true crime shows on television, so this appealed to me. I was right on with my pre-reading assessment of the book. It is just like 48 Hours Mysteries or 20/20. The writing style even reads like one of these shows, with little cliff hanger statements at the end of paragraphs.

Not a monumental book, but one that definitely satisfies a need for something to read.

The Tale of Halcyon Crane

2010-04-11T13:45:00.000-04:00

by Wendy Webb

Finished April 11, 2010

I finally read another book! This one was a good choice for a return to reading. It's a ghost story - a modern gothic. It just caught my eye as I walked through the new book section at the library.

The Tale of Halcyon Crane is of average quality, but I enjoyed it greatly. It's a lot like a Lifetime Movie: a good thing for an afternoon's pastime.

Hallie James receives a letter from a lawyer on Grand Manitou Island informing her that her mother, Madlyn Crane, has just passed away and that she has been named in the will. Included in the lawyer's envelope is a letter from Hallie's mother. This is a real shock for Hallie because she had always been told that her mother died in a fire when she was five years old. Hallie is only able to confirm the existence of Madlyn from her father who is suffering from Alzheimers. He dies the day after revealing this to his daughter.

Hallie goes to Grand Manitou to learn her family history. There she finds out that she is the sole heir of Madlyn's fortune which includes a big Victorian house and estate. Madlyn gives instructions that the house is not to be sold. Perhaps it's this as well as Hallie's desire to learn her history that keeps her there, even after eerie things begin to happen.

Hallie's inherited housekeeper, Iris, tells her (and the readers) stories of each generation of her cursed family.

There's murder, ghosts, romance, storms and creepy cemetaries. Just the kind of book I needed.

When You Reach Me

2010-03-05T10:29:00.000-05:00

by Rebecca Stead

Finished March 2, 2010

This book won the 2010 Newbery Medal. I had noticed it a few months before the medal was announced. It looked good, but I didn't read it, obviously, until afterwards.

I enjoyed it but have no opinion on its worthiness to win a Newbery. I'd hate to be on the committee that determines that award. I just wouldn't know how to pick one winner from among hundreds of books published in a single year.

The story is about twelve-year-old Miranda and her friendships and family relationships. I would have liked this story when I was ten, eleven, twelve. It's one of the genre tht I liked back then - what I call "school stories." Miranda is best friends with Sal. That relationship is broken when Sal gets punched in the stomach, for no reason, by another kid from their school.

Miranda must make new friendships and she finds just that with Amanda and Colin. They strenghten their bonds when they all take lunch-time jobs at Jimmy's sandwhich shop.

Meanwhile, Miranda's mother is practicing for an appearance on the $20,000 Pyramid game show (this book is set in 1979). I was thrown for a loop when a mysterious, science-fiction element pops into the story. Miranda keeps finding strange, anonymous notes that seem to predict the future. The book turns from just a "school story" into a science-fiction story. I would have liked that when I was ten, eleven and twelve, too.

In all, I liked this book but it didn't wow me. I wish she had dropped the sci-fi theme and just concentrated on the relationships between her many great characters.

My Japan 1930-1951

2010-01-31T12:13:00.000-05:00

by Hiroko Nakamoto as told to Mildred Mastin Pace
Finished January 31, 2010

The only problem with this book is that it left me wanting more. As the book ended, I wanted to know what happened to Hiroko Nakamoto. Of course, the book is called "My Japan 1930-1951." By design, it doesn't tell what happened to Ms. Nakamoto in her adult life.

This memoir tells the story of a little girl growing up in pre-war Japan. Strong traditions dictate how a girl may act and what type of future she'll have. Hikoro's plans for the future begin to change when Japan attacks the United States at Pearl Harbor and World War II begins. Women - even as young as 12 or 13 - begin to work in factories to support the war effort. It's a difficult transition for all, but especially for the young women who, up until then, had been learning how to be good wives, mothers, and homemakers. But even then, the plan was to return to the traditional ways after the gods granted victory to Japan.
Their plans would change forever on August 6, 1945.

It was 8:15 in the morning, and I was on my way to work. I was walking. The night before, as usual, there had been alerts all night. I was groggy from lack of sleep. The all clear had sounded just as I left home. Now all seemed calm and quiet. I did not hear any sounds of airplanes overhead. Suddenly, from nowhere, came a blinding flash. It was as if someone had taken a flashbulb picture a few inches from my eyes. There was no pain then. Only a stinging sensation, as if I had been slapped hard in the face. I tried to open my eyes. But I could not. Then I lost consciousness.

Of course, this was the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. A few days later, another was dropped on Nagasaki.
Witnessing the devastation of the recent natural disasters in New Orleans (hurricane) and Haiti (earthquake) we have some idea of the hopelessness that the destruction of a city can bring. It's a long difficult process to rebuild buildings and lives. How much worse it is to rebuild after the total destruction of an atomic bomb.

In addition to the physical devastation, the Japanese people had to face defeat. It turns out that their emperor was not guaranteed by the gods to be victorious. The American occupational forces arrived and long held, old fashioned traditions began to change. Life for the Japanese was never the same.

Life for Japanese women was certainly very different. The young women that had gone to work during the war realized that there was more for them than being a slave to house and home.
Even for those who would stay home, the primitive ways were not acceptable once they saw such modern conveniences as an American kitchen.
Families were torn apart, houses were destroyed and many people had to live in barracks and dormitories. The traditions of the strong Japanese family began to change as well.

This is Hiroko Nakamoto's story. As such, we don't get a complete picture of the war, the atomic bomb and it's aftermath. But, through Nakamoto's experiences we see what life was like for a young girl.

Any story of Hiroshima would be depressing, but Hiroko Nakamoto was such an inspiring, hopeful person that this book was a pleasure to read.

Witch & Wizard

2010-01-22T13:10:00.000-05:00

by James Patterson with Gabrielle Charbonnet
Finished January 23, 2010

Daddy bought this book in Kroger while we were in Houston. He thought it was a regular James Patterson novel. I think he stopped reading it about the time he said to me, "This is a children's book!?"

He didn't know that Patterson is now in the Teen Lit business. He does actually write some of his books for younger readers. As far as I can tell, he's the sole author of the Alex Cross books and the Maximum Ride books. But Daniel X, and now Witch and Wizard, are co-written. What that means, according to Gabrielle Cahrbonnet's website, is that Patterson

provides a detailed outline, every chapter, scene by scene, as well as backstory and commentary. And we talk about it. Then I write a rough draft and send it to him in chunks. He reads it and gives me feedback. He's very clear about what's working and what's not working. He's generous with praise and constructive with criticism.

Well, Jim... you're not constructive enough, I think. This book has a fairly interesting plot, although it's nothing unique. An authoritative dictatorship has taken over .... the country? The world? (It's not clear). Whit and Wisty, brother and sister, are taken from their homes by the thugs of the New Order. The One Who Is The One has ordered that they be taken to prison because they have been determined to be "Extremely Dangerous."

Why are they dangerous? That's what Whit and Wisty want to know. They have grown up not knowing about their powers. Right before the New Order guard take them away, Mom and Dad give Whit and Wisty a book and a drumstick. Unbeknownst to the two, it's a book of magic and a witches' wand in disguise. Wisty and Whit are Witch and Wizard. They slowly learn to use their powers, which help them get out of prison and other tight spots.

Why doesn't the New Order guard take away the book and the drumstick? I don't know.

Apparently, the grownups of the N.O. have decided that children are immoral and bothersome. They've rounded just about all of them up and put them in prisons and have even tortured them. I don't know why. It's up to Wisty and Whit to free them. All of the freed children live in a giant department store. Why the N.O. don't know about the "hideout", I don't know.

But the "grownups are bad and kids can run the world much better" theme reminds me of the Prez comic book series from the 1970's. Prez was a teen president. Because back in the 1970's it was all about never trusting anyone over 30.

The writing in this book is awful, but it's not an entirely worthless book. Some kids will enjoy it. Because it's a series and ends with a cliffhanger, they're sure to grab the next installment.

Patterson's name sells. This is a good thing for the likes of Gabrielle Charbonet, who up to now has written hack paperback series like "Disney Girls", "American Gold Gymnasts" and several books based on Disney movies. Ms. Charbonet is thrilled to finally be the author of bestselling novels. It was a lucky day she met James Patterson.

UPDATE: We just got the third book in this series today. I noticed that it's by a different author - not Gabrielle Charbonet. On checking, I saw that yet another author wrote the second book. I looked up Gabrielle Charbonet to find her website again and couldn't find a trace of it. What I did find was that Gabrielle Charbonet has been writing under a pen name for many years - Cait Tiernan. Since about 2001, she has written, under the Tiernan name, a series of Wicca fantasies called The Sweep. She has two more series, Balefire and Immortal Beloved.
How interesting. When I read Charbonet's website, it was so gushing and golly-mr-patterson, that I got a completely different impression of her. I perceived her as someone who had written nothing but hack-factory paperback series. Now, I don't know anything about the three Tiernan series. They could also be junk series books as well. Who knows? What is very very interesting is that Charbonet's website is gone. There is no mention at all of Charbonet, James Patterson or Witch and Wizard on Tiernan's website. I wonder what happened? Was there a falling out between Charbonet and Patterson? Was it Patterson's plan all along to use different authors? The third author - Jill Dembowski - is an editor at a publishing company. The second author is Ned Rust. I can't find anything that he's done other than a couple of Daniel X books - more James Patterson.
My theory is that Gabrielle Charbonet was getting a little too much of a big head over being the author of Witch and Wizard. Enter Ned Rust. He didn't get great reviews. So Patterson just went with an editor. Maybe the editor Jill Dembowski follows orders better than the two. That's my theory anyway.
James Patterson...writing machine, live action!

Angels in the ER

2010-01-22T13:08:00.000-05:00

by Robert D. Lesslie, MD
Finished January 18, 2010

I picked this book up in the grocery story while waiting for a prescription at the pharmacy window.

I thought that it was going to be a book of supernatural encounters with angels. The chapter that I read in the store involved a rather eerie account.

But, this was about the "ordinary angels" that you'll find in a hospital emergency department. Dr. Lesslie works with some of those angels but also meets some who come in for treatment.

I enjoyed this book. The stories are inspirational and I always like books set in a hospital. I don't know why I find that to be so interesting.

So... while I didn't find any stories that could wow me with miracles, I did find some that really touched me.

Prayers From the Ark and The Creatures Choir

2010-01-02T12:35:00.000-05:00

by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold
Translated by Rumer Godden
Finished December 31, 2009

Julie gave this book to me for Christmas. She found it at a religious book sale at the Memphis Public Library.

What a gem! Julie, for giving the book to me and the book itself. I took several days to read it even though it can be read in one sitting. The poems asked to be read and re-read. I read a few at a time and then pondered them. I suppose that contemplative approach was due to the setting. I read this while on retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani.

Each poem is a prayer from one of the animals on Noah's ark. There's a prayer from Noah himself, as well. Really, this book is two in one. Prayers from the Ark and The Creatures' Choir. However, all poems obviously work together.

These are not sweet poems. Some are heartbreaking, some funny. Some of the poems speak the terrible truth about how humans treat animals. While all of the poems are in the voices of the animals themselves, many of them speak about the human condition. We can see ourselves when the animals talk about themselves.

Most of the animals have a complaint or a burden but many of them end their prayers with a plea to help them find a way to accept their condition. Take the tortoise, for example:

A little patience,
O God,
I am coming.
One must take nature as she is!
It was not I who made her!
I do not mean to criticize
this house on my back -
it has its points -
but You must admit, Lord,
it is heavy to carry!
Still,
let us hope that this double enclosure,
my shell and my heart,
will never be quite shut to You. Amen

As Julie says, it's providence! It's providence that I should have read this while at Gethsemani. Each day I attended prayers with the monks. They chanted the psalms. In between, I read this book of psalms. Like the psalms of the bible, Bernos de Gasztold's poems are songs of lament, of thanksgiving, and of praise. They express joy, penitence, anger, pride, love, and humor.

The most tender and personally heartbreaking is the prayer of The Lamb:

A spindle on four legs
leaving tufts of white in the thickets,
I am Your lamb,
Lord,
in my soft wool.
My bleating
sends its puny note
into the ewe's heart;
my fleece
throws its curly shadow
on the cropped grass.
Look, Lord,
how my joy must leap!
Yet my need of my mother
never sleeps in me.
Let me run to her
with my wavering steps
and draw some of her tenderness.
Oh,
don't let it happen,
Lord,
that one sad day
I will miss her.
Amen

What a wonderful book. I will re-read it often.

The True Story of Christmas

2009-12-22T13:08:00.000-05:00

by Anne Fine
Finished December 22, 2009

Anne Fine puts the fun in disfunctional with this Christmas story.
Everyone's gathering at Ralph's house for Christmas. Mum is fretting about how she'll manage to feed everyone. Dad's fretting about the destruction sure to be inflicted upon them by the terrible twins, Sylvia and Sylvester. Ralph and his brother Harry are dreading their sickly sweet cousin Titania and her sudden outbursts of song and dance.

This is the funniest Christmas story since A Christmas Story. Each character is hilariously quirky. The book is narrated by Ralph who has been sent to his room because of an incident that brought the family Christmas to a quick conclusion. His explanation is the plot of the story.

One of my favorite quotes (about Great-granny, who is a terror)

"How should I know? Perhaps she was getting into the Christmas spirit and going off to look for some firstborns to slaughter."

My favorite character is Aunt Ida who claims she went to morning communion at Wells Cathedral (even though the Cathedral is about "seven hundred hours' drive from here").

She took communion "even though the vicar was floating past the windows at the time." She even took the chalice. There was wine in the chalice and prawns, too., "the big sort. The ones you can buy at Tesco. I had three or four."

Everything turns out ok at the end, of course. The crazy characters are still crazy. The family is still disfunctional, but it's a Happy Christmas for Ralph, Harry, Mum and Dad who are such a fun family it's no wonder there are sequels to this book. However, being a British author and publication, the books are not readily available in the United States.

Anne Fine is most well known for the book Alias Madame Doubtfire, which was made into the movie Mrs. Doubtfire. The movie was pretty funny, but the book was a wicked delight, just like The True Story of Christmas.

The Little Ark

2009-12-12T13:11:00.000-05:00

by Jan de Hartog

Finished December 16, 2009

Another serendipitous find. I was wandering through the stacks hoping to stumble across something good to read. I came upon this unlikely volume. With a faded mustard yellow cover featuring coarse cartoon figures, this looks like an old, obscure children's book.

While it could have some child appeal, this is not a children's novel. Jan De Hartog wrote this book in 1954, right after the terrible and disastrous 1953 flood in the Netherlands. It's the story of two children, Adinda and Jan and their three animal companions, Noisette the cat, Bussy the dog and Ko the rabbit (and sometimes Prince the rooster). They are sent up the bell tower of their father's church to sound the alarm when a storm hits and flooding seems likely. The flood that does hit goes beyond anyone's wildest expectations. Miles of land are covered in water and the two children are separated from their parents. This is the story of their adventure as they search for refuge from the disaster. But it is also about the disaster itself. I had no idea this terrible event happened. It was a catastrophe along the lines of Hurricane Katrina. Jan De Hartog does a good job of portraying the awfulness of the disaster, but it's not a completely depressing story. It's a disaster seen through the eyes of two innocents. For them, it truly is an adventure. But by the end, the devastation begins to wear them down as well.

Unfortunately, this little book is nearly forgotten. I think that only one other person has checked it out from the library in the past five years. It is old fashioned in style and some of the descriptions don't translate well to modern audiences.

But I'm glad I discovered it.

Twilight

2009-12-07T19:39:00.000-05:00

by Stephenie Meyer
Finished December 7, 2009

What an excruciating book. My theory: this book is meant for teenagers of the social networking age. If you like teenagers telling you about what Jessica said and then what Angela said and then what Mike said and then what Tyler said, this book is for you. The book would have been half the size if Stephenie Meyer had cut down on Bella's blow-by-blow account of making breakfast, doing homework, thinking about Edward. Conversations between the two gooey young lovers are recounted word for boring word.

I suppose that if you're a high school or middle school girl, this is your life, plus vampires.

Things I hated about the book - the boring narration by first person Bella... the boring conversations...the teen girl type mythology of vampires.

They drive cool cars! They are incredibly good looking! They smell great! They can be noble and good if they want to! They can stop you from becoming a vampire by sucking the vampire venom out of your veins with their venomous mouths! They sparkle!

More things I hate....
I hate the way that Edward smothers Bella. He wants her to live a normal life and takes her to the prom so that she can experience it like any other girl, but during the prom, he takes her outside to sit on a bench alone with him.
Bella describes herself as clumsy and lacking balance so often that I wondered if she had some medical condition.
The vampires play baseball in thunderstorms so that people can't hear the thunderous noise that occurs when a vampire hits a ball with a bat or when one vampire collides with another. Somehow, I think that the crack of a bat wouldn't be any louder with a vampire than it would with any other player.

I stuck with the book until the end because I wanted to find out what happens. The story ends abruptly. Instead of reading the next book, I went to Wikipedia and read a synopsis of the three sequels.

Team Edward? No. Team Jacob? No. Call Van Helsing, somebody!

A New Lease of Death and Not In the Flesh

2009-11-29T21:00:00.001-05:00

by Ruth Rendell

Finished Not in the Flesh November 2009

Finished A New Lease on Death December

I picked up Not In The Flesh in the break room at work. It was a pre-publication copy. After reading it, I wanted to read an early Ruth Rendell/Inspector Wexford novel, so I chose A New Lease on Death which was published in 1967.

In Not In The Flesh, a body is unearthed by a truffle hunting dog. The body has been dead for years and Chief Inspector Wexford and his crew work to put the long dormant puzzle together. A second body is discovered, only to complicate matters. A subplot involving female circumcision only confuses things, but reveals some of Wexford's personality. I like Wexford. He's an old fashioned, calm and serious detective. His officers and detectives respect him as do members of the community.

Ruth Rendell has been writing for a long time and Wexford has been her detective for almost 50 years. She makes almost too much a point of comparing the old-school Wexford and his modern staff. Cell phones, computers, music, political correctness, changes in language are things Wexford must put up with.

Interesting, then, that the Wexford of 1967's Not In The Flesh is portrayed as a maturing detective. He doesn't like the modern design of the new police station. He reminisces about past cases. I suppose that we must suspend some of our disbelief for a detective that has been solving mysteries for four decades. We can't expect him to age naturally throughout the series. It seems, however, that Wexford stays the same while the setting for these stories changes.
Of course, I say this after only reading two novels.

I chose to read A New Lease on Death because I wanted to read an early Wexford mystery. The latter book was so full of 21st Century references and the old school vs the new way of doing tings that I wanted to see what Wexford was like at the beginning. Turns out he was quite a different man. The Chief Inspector of Not In The Flesh is impatient, curmudgeonly and rumpled. He's described as large and unkempt. The latter Wexford is not really described in detail, but I pictured him as distinguished and well dressed, patient and serious.

I suppose I'll try to read one more Wexford novel, for he was not really featured in A New Lease on Death. He simply appears in a few scenes. His so called "sidekick" Michael Burden has more to do in this mystery than the Chief Inspector himself. A clergyman named Archery is the real detective and main character of the story. I wonder if he appears in any future Rendell novels.

I like English mysteries. These two books were both a very good read and were two very different books by Ruth Rendell.

All My Patients Have Tales

2009-11-16T18:11:00.000-05:00

Favorite Stories From a Vet's Practice

by Jeff Wells, DVM

Finished November 28, 2009

Just one of those books I ran across when looking for something good to read at lunch.

Each chapter is an account of an animal treated by Dr. Wells. He's a mixed-animal vet in Colorado.

The book begins with his first assignment, in a vet's office in South Dakota. From there he moved to a practice in Colorado. He met his wife at a vacation ranch where he was treating some of the horses.

The stories were pleasant and funny. Nothing special, but very entertaining. Dr. Wells wrote another book called A Veterinarians Handbook for Horse Husbands. Sounds interesting.

There is a paperback version of All My Patients Have Tales on Amazon. The subtitle of that edition is "Why Veterinary Medicine is a Calling." I suppose they changed the subtitle for recent editions. Although, the subtitle is an accurate description for one of the themes of his book. It's not an easy life, at least not for mixed-animal and large animal vets. Besides the elbow length rubber examination gloves and all that goes with that, there are surgeries in cold snow cow pastures and phone calls in the middle of the night. It's a different world from the small animal clinic.

I enjoyed this book. A fun, simple read.

Mary Poppins

2009-11-04T16:34:00.000-05:00

by P.L. Travers
Finished November 3, 2009

I was talking to a library patron about Where the Wild Things Are. I had read somewhere that in the movie, Max goes out of the house and finds a boat that takes him to the land of the Wild Things. I was highly disappointed to hear that they had made that change because it was very important that "...his ceiling hung with vines and the walls became the world all around..." The movie is never as good as the book.

My patron agreed and said that she had never liked the movie Mary Poppins because she was such a fan of the book. As she described some of her favorite scenes with such fondness, I decided that this would be my next I-should-have-read-this-a-long-time-ago book.

It is very different from the movie. While some of the events carried over, (like the tea party on the ceiling with Uncle Albert) and some of the characters remained (like Admiral Boom and Miss Lark and her dog Andrew), most of the book is not to be found on the screen.

Mary Poppins is a curt, conceited, strict nanny. She isn't the sweet and pretty Julie Andrews. Nevertheless, she cares for Michael and Jane and their little brother and sister, the twins. Yes, these two children have disappeared in the transition from page to screen.

The magical happenings come often and are often rather strange. They filmmakers seem to have toned these down. It becomes a little tedious, as if Travers felt she had to fill every moment with magic because, after all, it is a children's book.

I liked this book and will read at least the next one in the series to see if it contributed anything to the movie. I also am reading a biography of P.L. Travers because I find her to be such an intriguing person. I also want to read about her views of the movie, which I know she hated.

There have been only two movies I've come to dislike after reading the books: Circle of Friends and, especially, The Object of My Affection. I liked the movies before reading the books. But, of course, I had only seen each one time and had no emotional attachment to either.

With Mary Poppins and The Wizard of Oz, both of which I have seen dozens of times, I feel that the movie and the book are two completely different entities.

Mary Poppins, the movie, is such a wonderful musical. Everything about it is just right. I didn't like the book enough to lose my loyalty to Julie Andrews.

By the way... I read a version with the un-revised chapter called "Bad Tuesday." I'm sure that P.L. Travers didn't mean to be offensive. But she does, indeed, have Poppins and the children visit the North Pole where they meet some Eskimos eating whale blubber soup. They go to China and meet a Chinese Mandarin who speaks in Confucious-speak. In the West they meet real live "red indians." And, worst of all, in the South they meet black natives from Africa who speak with a sho' nuff southern American dialect. "Ah bin 'specting you a long time, Mar' Poppins...You bring dem chillun dere to ma li'l house for a slice of watermelon right now...!"

Seriously.

From a twenty-first century viewpoint, the entire chapter seems a bit gratuitous. She rounded up and wrote about as many racial stereotypes as she could pack into one chapter.

In the revised edition, the children and their nanny see polar bears, a panda, a macaw and a dolphin. Interesting.

The Kitchen Madonna

2009-10-30T17:33:00.000-04:00

by Rumer Godden
Finished October 31, 2009

When I was a kid we had a ceramic wall statue (what do you call those things?) of the Blessed Mother in a kitchen. She was the Madonna of the Kitchen. Recently, Julie found one at an estate sale. While looking for information about the piece, she found a mention of this book.

I know Rumer Godden mainly as a children's author, although she has written novels, non-fiction and poetry. Looking at a list of her works, I am anxious to read more.

The Kitchen Madonna is about a couple of children, Gregory and Janet, and their quest to find a "kitchen Madonna" for their housekeeper Marta. Marta is a refugee from the Polish Ukraine and, while she is grateful to be in London, living in a secure and loving home, she misses the familiarity of her own country. She tells Gregory and Janet that the modern, sterile kitchen has no "good place."

"No good... What do you mean?" Janet was beginning when Gregory kicked her under the table. "What is a 'good place,' Marta?" "In my home, Ukrainian home," said Marta, "we make a good place. In the corner, there," and she pointed to an angle of the room. "A place on top of cupboard perhaps, or perhaps on shelf. Little place but it holy because we keep there our Lady and Holy Child." "A statue?" asked Janet. "Not statue." "A picture then?" "Not picture." Marta struggled to find words. "Like picture, but more beautiful. They in our churches too. Pictures, but prickled with gold," said Marta in a rush.

Gregory thinks that Marta is talking about an Icon, but later he and Janet learn that Marta has described a picture adorned with cloth and beads and stones or jewels. They decide to make her one.

Gregory is an interesting character. He is a quiet, shy boy. His parents worry about the time he spends alone, lost in his thoughts and dreams. He finds a purpose and stretches himself to talk to shop owners and museum guards on his quest to find out more about the picture. He discovers a creativity he didn't know he had and promises to make more "Mary Jesus pictures."

I loved everything about this story. It was a slight story, but the characters touched me and the description of the picture intrigued me.

The picture that Gregory and Janet finally find in a church is called Our Lady of Czestochowa, Queen of Poland.

"Gregory suddenly stopped, his fingers digging into Janet's arm. Hanging against a pillar was a picture, 'Or not a picture,' whispered Janet. It was a Madonna and Child, a Jesus-Mary, in a heavy painted frame, but both Mother and Child stood out of the picture - 'Because they are dressed,' whispered Gregory - dressed as Marta had described them in cloth and gold. The crowns were gold lace, carefully cut; the veil and cloak were blue edged with silver and stuck with sequins and beads that glittered. The Mother's robe was red, patterned with silver, and the Child's small robe was red too, covered with silver and beads."

It's interesting that this picture of Our Lady is one of the Black Madonnas. I had just finished reading The Secret Life of Bees, in which a Black Madonna figures prominently. The Madonna in that book was a fictional one called The Black Madonna of Breznichar.

I'm not why I was so impelled to read these two books at the same time.

I've always loved the ceramic Madonna of the Kitchen that now hangs in Daddy's kitchen. I think for my own kitchen I'll make a portrait, like the one Gregory made in Rumer Godden's book.

The Secret Life of Bees

2009-10-30T17:29:00.001-04:00

by Sue Monk Kidd

Finished October 27, 2009

In the week before I picked this book up, two different people on two different occasions told me to read this. One person had described the way that one of the characters would lure bugs out of her house by creating little trails of marshmallows and graham crackers leading outside. The other person told me about the character that would write down the names of people or causes she wanted to pray for and tuck them into a stone wall in her backyard just as people do with the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

I loved this book. Other than the picture of the Mother and Child icon on the front cover, I had no idea it had anything to do with the Virgin Mary. She plays a great role in this book.

Lily runs away from home along with her black nanny/housekeeper Rosaleen. They are running

away from injustice and indifference. Lily's father is a cruel man who shows her no love. Rosaleen is their housekeeper. The Civil Rights Act has just been signed into law by President Johnson and Rosaleen goes to town in order to register to vote. There she encounters a group of racist good old boys. After a confrontation, she is arrested and beaten.

At the same time, Lily's father tells her that her mother (who died when Lily was four) had left

home without her and had only come back to get her clothes on the day she died. Lily is crushed. She decides that there is nothing left for her at home so she busts Rosaleen out of the hospital and police custody. They run away to Tiburon, South Carolina. It's a town in their own home state, but unknown to both women. Lily has chosen Tiburon because she found a picture of a Black Madonna with "Tiburon, South Carolina" written on the back.

In Tiburon they find a big pink house owned by three black women, the sisters August, May and June. August is a bee keeper and uses the image of the Black Madonna on her honey jars.

I loved this book. It touched me on so many levels, besides being a really good story. I haven't seen the movie, but I will. I hope it's as good as the book. I also hope they kept the Marian themes.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

2009-10-20T20:01:00.000-04:00

by L. Frank Baum
Finished October 20, 2009

"Oz never did give nothin' to the Tin Man that he didn't, didn't already have."

If I had read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz before ever seeing the movie, I may not have liked the movie. But after seeing MGM's The Wizard of Oz around at least 5o times, my perspective is a little backwards. I cannot picture Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, Oz and the various witches and small people without seeing it all through a Technicolor lens. I did like the book, however. And, I am amazed at what good job the movie makers did in adapting Baum's novel for the screen. Of course, there are some events missing from the movie (and vice versa). Some of the descriptions are different and the book goes on much longer after the Wizard flies away in his balloon.

It's the nuances that the movie makers kept from book to screen that are impressive. Dorothy's slippers are silver, not ruby. However, rubies are important to the plot of the book and I believe that this is one of the reasons for the ruby slippers. It was mainly a cinematic choice, to be sure, (weren't those ruby slipppers glorious in Technicolor?) but I'm impressed that the magical element of the red stones were carried over.

The lands that Dorothy and friend travel through are filled with color. The Wizard's city is, of course, an emerald city. "The fences and house and bridges [in the land of the Quadlings] were all painted bright red, just as they had been painted yellow in the country of the Winkies and blue in the country of the Munchkins." All of this, in my opinion, is expressed in the glorious color of the movie, if not in the movie's plot.

While Kansas is not portrayed as literally gray, Baum does describe the dullness of the landscape and life:

"When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else."

Again, it was certainly a cinematic choice to dramatically contrast the black and white scenes of Kansas with the Technicolor scenes of Munchkinland and Oz, but it is also faithful to the spirit of the spirit of the book.

I find it interesting that such a color-filled story would then be illustrated in this edition by Barry Moser's black and white woodcuts. Ok... it is Moser's own publishing company produced the book, so I suppose he can do whatever he likes. But I did not like any of the illustrations. That is to say, they were more distracting than illuminating. They were also, at times, inaccurate.

"So the Scarecrow followed him and was admitted into the great Throne Room, where he saw, sitting in the emerald throne, a most lovely lady. She was dressed in green silk guaze and wore upon her flowing green locks a crown of jewels. Growing from her shoulders were wings, gorgeous in color and so light that they fluttered if the slightest breath of air reached them."

This description is followed by an illustration of a very manly looking woman with a crooked mouth and squinting eyes. Of course, in hindsight I know we have being deceived and the picture reveals this. But I found the illustration to be very distracting.

As in the movie, the four friends go to Oz to obtain things that are already in their possession. The book makes this more obvious from the very beginning. The Scarecrow has many great ideas and plans. The Lion is quick to jump in and defend his friends from danger. The Tin Man is so tender hearted that he cannot stand to even step on a bug. And Dorothy has the power to go home any time she wants. Her way home is right under her feet.

I enjoyed this book. The writing style is a little "biblical" and I had to laugh because as I realized that, I came upon a scene in which the Wicked Witch of the West sends "plague" after "plague" to keep the four friends from reaching her castle.

I'd like to read more Oz books, but I don't think I'll enjoy them as much as this one. The pleasure of this book was comparing the movie and book.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles

2009-10-18T19:11:00.000-04:00

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food
by Jennifer 8. Lee
Finished October 17, 2009

What a fascinating subject. I was worried, at first, that the book would be an expose about the Chinese restaurant industry and that I'd have to swear off eating Chinese food ever again. Instead, it was just an examination of Chinese food and Chinese restaurants in America - and the world - but mostly America.

Chinese restaurants are, for the most part, independantly owned. Only a few are part of a franchise. But if you go to any town in America you're likely to find the same dishes; the same take out boxes; the same decor and menus; the same fortune cookies. Some variations exist, but the similarities are amazing.

"McDonalds and its golden arches represent an epic achievement of twentieth-century America, the story of highways, homogenization, and a nation in a hurry. The standardization of menus, decor adn experience is regarded as a postwar organizational triumph, coordinated form the company's Oak Brook, Illinois, corporate headquarters. Chinese restaurants - which outnumber McDonalds franchises in the United States by two to one - have achieved largely the same efect, but without a central nervous system."

"If McDonald's is the windows of the dining world (where one company controls the standards), then Chinese restaurants are akin to hte Linux operating system, where a decntralized network of programmers contributes to the underlying source code. The code is available for anyone to use, modify or redistribute freely."

Lee searches for the origins of the Chinese restaurant in America. She looks at the first Chinese delivery and the impact of restaurants on Chinese immigraiton (or vice versa). She travels the world to the find the source of General Tso's Chicken and fortune cookies.

One of the launcing points for this whole journey is the fascinating story of the time that dozens of people across America won the Powerball lottery on the same day because of a set of numbers given on a fortune cookie slip.

This is a food book, a history book and a sociology book all in one. A lot of fun.

One interesting thing... the edition I read was a pre-publication copy. I have never read a pre-pub copy with so many spelling or typographical errors. Maybe the smaller publishing house is the reason. Twelve Books is a company that was established "with the objective of publishing no more than one book per month." You'd think, then, that errors wouldn't get by. But - to be fair - I did read a pre-publication copy.

Flyaway

2009-10-09T20:46:00.000-04:00

Flyaway: How a Wild Bird Rehabber Sought Adventure and Found Her Wings

by Suzie Gilbert

Finished October 6, 2009

I found this book when looking for new books about pets for a library bibliography. No, it isn't about pets, but I ran across it when looking for the subject "birds." I think I was attracted to the book because my family has been talking about birds and birdfeeders lately.

Suzie Gilbert worked as a volunteer at a raptor rehabilitation facility in New England. For reasons having something to do with internal politics, she quit that position and decided to strike out on her own. It became an idea that grew almost beyond Gilbert's capabilities. As she learned more and more about caring for wild birds, she learned more about herself and her family and their ability to cope during difficult times.

The stories of these birds Gilbert cared for were fascinating. They came to her for many reasons from simple wounds to injuries inflicted on purpose by cruel hearted people. Sparrows, wrens, finches, grackles, hawks, crows - Gilbert cared for a huge variety of birds. My favorite to read about were the crows. I have a new found respect for these intelligent and funny birds.

Suzie Gilbert's family was (is) charming and I enjoyed reading about them as much as I enjoyed the birds.

This book was a winner!

The Stones of Green Knowe

2009-09-29T21:11:00.000-04:00

by L. M. Boston
Finished September 29, 2009

This ends The Green Knowe Chronicles. What a great series of books. I'm glad I read them.

The Stones of Green Knowe takes us back to the beginning. Eight hundred and fifty years before Tolly (of the first book) Roger d'Aulneaux, the son of a Norman lord, watches the construction of this marvelous "modern" home. It has a fireplace! Two stories tall! Stone walls with arrow slits for windows! But Roger soon sees marvels beyond his wildest imagination.

In exploring an overgrown hill on his father's property, Roger comes across two large stone throne-like chairs. He cuts the overgrowth and sits on the "King's Chair" and is immediately transported into the future of Toby, Alexander and Linnett. He's enchanted by the three children and is delighted to learn that the stone manor house still exists five hundred and forty years later.

On later visits to the stone chairs he is transported to Susan and Jacob's time. When Tolly arrives in Roger's time, he learns that the "Queen's Chair" is a portal to the past. He is frightened when visiting five hundred and forty years in the past and sees his grandmother's Saxon ancestors invading the land.

As frightening as the war scene was, it wasn't as disturbing to Roger as was his visit to Tolly's time. Airplanes, trucks, cars, modern neighborhoods and paved streets give Roger a bleak picture of what's to come. The only consolation is that the stone manor still exists.

L. M. Boston has a love of history and preservation. She wrote the books after restoring an old manor house - The Manor at Hemingfor Grey. In The Stones of Green Knowe, she shows a distain for modern man's destruction of the past. The book has a sad ending, symbolic of our push to the future without a thought for our history.

When I began reading Stones, I wasn't sure I'd like it. It seemed to be unconnected to the rest of the series. Once Roger finds the stone chairs, however, the entire series comes together as Roger meets Tolly, Toby, Alexander, Linnett, Susan, Jacob and even a young Grandmother Oldknowe.

Roger's description of and reaction to each time period is excellent.

The Stones of Green Knowe not only brings each book's characters back to mind (except for Ping, Oskar and Ida) , but sythesizes the themes running throughout the six books.What an excellent, elegant ending to a great series.

---

This is a photo of the Manor at Hemmingford Grey, the model for Green Knowe.

An Enemy at Green Knowe

2009-09-23T19:08:00.001-04:00

by L.M. Boston

Finished reading September 23, 2009

I called The Children of Green Knowe a creepy book, and so it was. An Enemy at Green Knowe is also a creepy book, but in a very different way. In the case of the first book, creepy meant disturbingly odd. This last book -the fifth in the Green Knowe series - is creepy! It's even pretty scary at times.

Tolly has returned and has become fast friends with Ping, who is now living at Green Knowe as well. One afternoon, Mrs. Oldknowe tells the boys one of her stories about the past inhabitants of the house. In 1630 Dr. Wolfgang Vogel, a famous scholar and alchemist, has been called to Green Knowe to tutor Roger, the sickly son of Squire and Mrs. Oldknowe. Vogel is a mysterious, disturbing man and Roger comes to dislike him. He wishes for his old tutor, the vicar Piers Madely. Stories about Dr. Vogel begin circulating among the locals. Some say that they've seen him lurking about at night. Others say that a hooded figure had come to a woman, offering to buy her stillborn baby for a piece of gold. Has Vogel been looking for bodies to use in his black magic? Roger's illness becomes worse and he tearfully begs his parents to take him away from Dr. Vogel. They finally relent. A week after Roger's departure, Dr. Vogel sends for Piers Madely to come to him immediately.

"He found Dr. Vogel in a lamentable state, hardly recognizable. He had had no sleep for nights on end. He was unbrushed, and his clothes were torn as if from a fight. He said that he wished to make a confession, and as he stammered it out, he behaved as if the room were full of threatening enemies..."

After Vogel tells Madely what's troubling him, the vicar tells him to burn all of his books and certain of his belongings. They begin burning the books.

"Dr. Vogel repeatedly cried out, 'Make haste! Before the moon rises,' and he poured pitch and tallow into the fire...Once Dr. Vogel saw in the firelight a book lying open and unburnt, showing a page of intricate diagrams, and he let out a scream and pitch-forked it into the heart of the flames. Finally there was nothing but a glowing mass. The Doctor sank exhausted on the threshhold of the vault, his head in his hands. Piers managed to say a compassionate, 'Now peace be with you as your trust is in God'... 'Alas!' groaned Dr. Vogel, pointing at the smoldering books and looking not less woeful because his exhausted eyes were straying separately. 'What's thought cannot be unthought.' "

Two hours later, Piers Madely hears a scream coming from Green Knowe, across the meadows from his house. Dr. Vogel was never heard from again.

As with many of Grandmother Oldknowe's stories, this one comes back to them in the form of Melanie Powers, a scholar researching English private libraries. She has come to Green Knowe to find a certain very rare old manuscript belonging to Dr. Wolfgang Vogel. Grandmother invites her to tea, but tells her that Vogels books were all burnt. Powers won't be dissuaded. Her curiosity about the house and her strange manner disturb Tolly and Ping who suspect her of being a witch.

Melanie Powers becomes less friendly and begins to show her true colors as she stops at nothing to find Vogel's missing volume. Curses befall the Green Knowe household and Tolly and Ping begin to fight back.

This is an exciting chapter in the Green Knowe series. Melanie Powers is genuinely a creepy, eerie character. Tolly has grown out of the milquetoast boy of the first two books. Ping, as always, is an interesting character. Even Hanno makes somewhat of an appearance.

There's something for everyone in the Green Knowe series.

A Stranger at Green Knowe

2009-09-22T20:28:00.000-04:00

by L. M. Boston
Finished September 21, 2009

This is the book that caused me to start reading the Green Knowe series. Searching for children's books about apes (for a storytime about the letter A), I found this title in the catalog. Not wanting to read a book from the middle of a series I had never read before, I started at the beginning. The journey to this fourth book has been worth the trouble.

Ping, one of the children from the last book, returns to spend the summer with Grandmother Oldknowe. Ida is to spend the holiday with her cousins. Oskar has been adopted by a family. Only Ping is left in the refugee hostel. Feeling sorry for him, Ida writes to Mrs. Oldknowe, asking if she'd invite Ping to visit. Of course, she agrees.

The first third of the book happens before Ping's visit, however. We're introduced to Hanno, a gorilla who is captured as a baby from his home in the Congo and grows up in a zoo in London.

Ping visits the zoo for the first time with his school's class . He's very disappointed to find that
the zoo is not a place with lush greenery and an atmosphere as wild and natural as its inhabitants. He sees Hanno - his first sight of a gorilla - and feels an instant connection with the magnificent ape. Ping is devastated to see such a noble beast in a concrete jail cell. He thinks back to the concrete rooms in which he has been forced to live as a refugee. Hanno is a "displaced person" like himself. The only consolation he has is that Hanno's keeper raised the gorilla from a baby and treats him kindly. He readily shares with Ping the secrets to dealing with Hanno.

Ping arrives at Green Knowe and soon learns that Hanno has escaped from the zoo. Coincidentally, he ends up in the thicket behind the garden at Green Knowe. But Green Knowe is a magical place, so perhaps it isn't such a coincidence.

This is the only book in the series (so far) that has not had a magical element - other than the connection between Hanno and Ping.

As with Treasure at Green Knowe, L. M. Boston shows great compassion and a sense of justice. She obviously isn't enamoured of zoos - at least zoos of the 1960s, which were pretty hard on the animals. Hanno's story is heartbreaking. I wish we could have seen more interaction between him and Ping.

A lovely book.

2009-09-22T19:57:00.000-04:00

The Day Kanye West Took Over My Website

More thoughts on The Lost Symbol

2009-09-20T11:02:00.001-04:00

Just a few more thoughts about The Lost Symbol. When looking for the source of the scripture passage "The works I do you can do...and greater," I found the quote on this website: http://www.hiddenmeanings.com/storiesjuly02.html

I thought, at first, that this site had been thrown up after the release of The Lost Symbol because it contained so many of the bits of information that Dan Brown included. The site, however, is copyright 1998 and says "july02" in it's URL. Could this possibly be one of the sources of Brown's extensive research?
I wouldn't be surprised at all.

I also ran across this excellent summary of The Lost Symbol's plot.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/sep/15/lost-symbol-live-reading-dan-brown

Finally, this is one of the best book reviews I've ever seen on Amazon. It's hilarious and so very true. It's a one star review by Valannin "Pantheon Outcast" with the title "I'm pretty sure it went down like this" and it begins:

"Three years ago, Dan Brown and top executives in Hollywood and the publishing world assembled Thomas Harris, Dean Koontz, Michael Crichton, Paulo Coelho, Jimmy Wales, Abir Taha, and Rhonda Byrne in one room and said..."

The rest can be found on Amazon.

The Lost Symbol

2009-09-20T01:27:00.000-04:00

by Dan Brown
Finished September 20, 2009

I took a break from the fabulous Green Knowe series to read Dan Brown's latest mystery/thriller. In other words, I took a break from a savory gourmet dish to eat a fast food burger. You know me...I enjoy a fast food burger, but I certainly know the difference between a Big Mac and beef bourguignon.

I looked up "savory" in Merriam Webster to make sure that I was using the right word. Here's the definition: 1. Piquantly pleasant to the mind. 2. morally exemplary (edifying) 3. pleasing to the sense of taste especially by reason of effective seasoning.

The definition of "piquant": 1. agreeably stimulating to the palate. 2. engagingly provocative.

The Green Knowe series (with the exception of the first book) is both savory and piquant. The Lost Symbol is not.

Before I continue, I have to explain that I enjoyed reading the book. All three of Brown's Robert Langdon books have been a lot of fun. I wouldn't have read The DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons, and now, The Lost Symbol if I did not find them to be interesting. Dan Brown's writing style, however, is laughable. It's so ridiculous and predictable, it makes me feel smart.

As an example, here are a few lines. This takes place as the CIA is chasing Langdon and Katherine (the requisite female scientist related to the friend of Langdon who is in mortal danger). The pair are running to escape capture:

"They ran northeast across the courtyard quickly disappearing from view behind an elegant U-shaped building, which Langdon realized was the Folger Shakespeare Library. This particular building seemed appropriate camouflage for them tonight, as it housed the original Latin manuscript of Francis' Bacon's New Atlantis, the Utopian vision on which the American forefathers had allegedly modeled a new world based on ancient knowledge. Even so, Langdon would not be stopping."

I love it! The book reads like a term paper. Dan Brown has found lots of interesting facts and bits of history and he is determined to cram every last bit into his story, even in the middle of a life-or-death chase.

Another Brown idiosyncrasy is his use of italics. I like italics, but every other sentence? Brown has pulled out his template and filled it in with familiar characters. I've already mentioned the female scientist. She, once again, is investigating something groundbreaking that will change the world as we know it. The scientist's relative is in mortal danger and is the reason Langdon is caught up in this mess. The villain is once again a twisted nut job, this time borrowing some of his villainous methods from Thomas Harris' playbook. And there's Robert Langdon, always wondering to himself how many people know that....[fill in the blank with an obscure fact about a commonly known object, belief, person, piece of art...]

Back to the definition of savory. A savory dish (and book) is "morally exemplary or edifying" and it's "engagingly provacative." Dan Brown's books are certainly provacative, but they are not engagingly so. Engaging: "tending to draw favorable attention or interest." I suppose it is favorable to the author that his provocation increases his sales. In my world, however, his provocation is simply irritating. Brown's books are not edifying. In my world, they are not "morally exemplary." Concerns with Brown's views on religion have been dismissed with, "It's just a book." "It's fiction!" I agreed with these statements after the first two books. The Lost Symbol, however, is a little different. After the crisis is averted and the villian is thwarted, after the heroes are safe and sound, the book continues. It continues for eight more chapters and one epilogue. There are 45 pages of religious philosophy regarding God and man. Here are a few examples:

"In fact, Thomas Jefferson was so convinced the Bible's true message was hidden that he literally cut up the pages and reedited the book, attempting, in his words, 'to do away with the artificial scaffolding and restore the genuine doctrines.' Langdon was well aware of this strange fact. The Jeffersonian Bible was still in print today and included many of his controversial revisions, among them the removal of the virgin birth and the resurrection."
---

"Peter lowered his voice to a whisper, "The Buddah said, 'You are God yourself.' Jesus taught that that 'the kingdom of God is within you' and even promised us, 'The works I do, you can do...and greater.' Even the first antipope - Hippolytus of Rome - quoted the same message, first uttered by the gnostic teacher Monoimus: 'Abandon the search for God...instead, take yourself as the starting place.' "

[Note: the full quote from Jesus is this: "Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever belives in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son." John 14: 12-13]

[Another note: Hippolytus quoted the gnostic teacher Monoimus in his book Refutation of All Heresies, a book that was written to "expose and refute the wicked blasphemy of the heretics." Hippolytus considered Monoiumus and his quote to be heretical.]

"When you start to understand the cryptic parables in the Bible, Robert, you realize it's a study of the human mind."
---

"We are creators, and yet we naively play the role of 'the created.' We see ourselves as helpless sheep buffeted around by the God who made us. We kneel like frightened children, begging for help, for forgiveness, for good luck. but once we realize that we are truly created in the Creator's image, we will start to understand that we, too, must be Creators."
---

"Exactly! Langdon had never understood why the very first passages of the bible referred to God as a plural being, Elohim. The Almighty God in Genesis was described not as One...but as Many. 'God is plural,' Katherine whispered, 'because the minds of man are plural.' "
---

"God was the universal constant for man. God was the symbol we all shared...the symbol of the mysteries of life that we could not understand. The ancients had praised God as a symbol of our limitless human potential, but that ancient symbol had been lost over time. Until now. In that moment, standing atop the Capitol, with the warmth of the sun streaming down all around him, Robert Langdom felt a powerful upwelling deep within himself. It was an emotion he had never felt this profoundly in his entire life. Hope."

---
"For America's Masonic forefathers, the Word had been the Bible. And yet
few people in history have understood its true message."

Dan Brown is all about telling us what "few people in history have understood." Brown's readers should either be fascinated by this revealed knowledge or be insulted that he is, in effect, calling us ignorant sheep. Sales figures tell me people are fascinated. Knowing the errors he made throughout The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons, I am skeptical.

As Philip Pullman did in The Amber Spyglass (the third volume of Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy), Brown doesn't hold back in presenting his agenda. When the story ends, Brown gives us eight chapters of his philosophy.

Of course, it could be simply a marketing stragegy. His editor may have said, "Dan! You haven't given any religious controversy. Remember, that's what made DaVinci Code a best seller. You gotta give me something that'll rile up the Christians. Don't bother rewriting. Just give me a few more chapters I can tack on at the end."

There's so much wrong with a Dan Brown novel. There are so many stupid mistakes and bad writing and unlikable heroes. Why does he sell millions of books? Why do I read them? Why do I enjoy them?

Why do I enjoy fast food?

The River at Green Knowe

2009-09-15T21:10:00.000-04:00

by L. M. Boston

Finished reading September 15, 2009

This is the third book in the Green Knowe series.

Grandmother Oldknowe and Tolly are absent. Perhaps they went to Cornwall, as was mentioned at the end of Treasure of Green Knowe.

The protagonists of this book are Ping, Oskar and Ida. Dr. Maud Biggin and her old friend, Miss Sybilla Bun, have rented Green Knowe. They invite Dr. Biggin's great niece (Ida) and two refugees from the Society for the Promotion of Summer Holidays for Displaced Children (S.P.S.H.D.C) to spend the summer with them.

Interestingly enough, the two women leave the children to their own devices as Dr. Biggins is too busy writing a book called A Reconstruction of the Habits and the Diet of the Ogru: A Summary of Recent Discoveries. Apparently, ogru are giants. Sybilla thinks only of cooking. Thus, the children are able to leave the house at any time of day or night to explore the river and it's many islands near Green Knowe.

The Children of Green Knowe involved ghosts of past inhabitants. Treasure of Green Knowe seemed to have a time travel element. Rivers introduces an even more fantastical theme of magical creatures, including winged horses and giants. There is one kind of frightening scene that brings back the time travel element when Ping, Oskar and Ida witness a pagan moon dance or celebration.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. It's obvious why the series has been revived over the past several years. Thanks to the popularity of Harry Potter classic fantasies like the Green Knowe series as well as books by E. Nesibt, George MacDonald, Edward Eager and the more recent Susan Cooper series have been given new life. By design the cover art of these new editions of "The Green Knowe Chronicles" by Bret Helquist connect this series to others such as The Spiderwick Chronicles, Chasing Vermeer and A Series of Unfortunate Events.

So far, each of the three books has had a different flavor. The first was a dreamy ghost story. The second was almost a historical novel with a very few fantasy elements. This was an adventure fantasy. I can't wait to read the next.

One of the most interesting things about this book was the abrupt ending. It was startling, but carried out Boston's theme of the imagination of children and the inability of adults to see past their own assumptions.

Treasure of Green Knowe

2009-09-13T13:22:00.000-04:00

by L. M. Boston

Finished reading September 13, 2009

Originally known as The Chimneys of Green Knowe, this is the sequel to The Children of Green Knowe. Tolly returns to Green Knowe on his Easter holiday. He continues to explore the house and gardens, learning things about its past inhabitants. Grandmother Oldknowe is mending a patchwork quilt and each bit of fabric inspires her to tell a story from the end of the 18th century when Captain Oldknowe, his wife Maria and children Sefton and Susan lived in the manor.

This book is much better than the first. The activities of Tolly and Grandmother Oldknowe are simply a frame that holds the wonderful story of blind Susan who has been stifled by her indifferent mother and her well meaning, but woefully misguided Nanny Softly. Captain Oldknowe is devoted to his daughter and is the only one who doesn't seem to treat her as an imbecile or a helpless, fragile doll. Unfortunately, he is most often away at sea on his ship the Woodpecker. While in Barbados the Captain meets a young black boy named Jacob who asks him, "Captain, buy me?" Captain Oldknow despises slavery and refuses to buy the boy. But he finally relents in order to give Jacob a free life. He brings Jacob home to live at Green Knowe and to be Susan's helper and guide. Jacob opens the world to Susan. Through him, she begins to explore the house and gardens.

L. M. Boston has a lot to say about justice, fairness and human decency. Her depiction of the family's treatment of blind Susan and black Jacob is heartbreaking.

The treasure referred to in the title is a collection of jewels belonging to Maria, Susan's mother. Tolly spends his vacation searching for the missing jewels so that his Grandmother won't have to sell the painting of Toby, Linnett and Alexander (from the last book). Tolly is less annoying in this book than the last. He still seems to take the presence of spirits in stride, although the spirits don't appear as often in this book. There is almost a time travel element to this book rather than a haunting.

This book was so good that I plan to read the rest of the series.

The Children of Green Knowe

2009-09-09T21:28:00.000-04:00

by L.M. Boston
Finished September 9, 2009

What a creepy book! It wasn't scary and it wasn't really eerie, but it was just an unusual, sweetly creepy book.

I've known of this book for years but never thought to read it until I came across the description for A Stranger at Green Knowe" which is about a Chinese boy who befriends a gorilla at the zoo. I decided to read the first book in the series before reading A Stranger. I'm not really sure this is a series of continuous stories. It seems to be a series of stories which happen to be set in the English manor called Green Knowe.

The Children of Green Knowe is about a boy named Toseland (Tolly) who goes to spend the Christmas holiday with his great grandmother at Green Noah (aka Green Knowe). His mother is dead and his father lives in Burma with his stepmother who insists on calling him Toto.
Tolly usually has to spend the holiday by himself at boarding school. All of the other children get to go home. Tolly must stay with the Master and Mistress of the school who pretty much ignore him.

Green Noah is a welcomed change of pace for the boy and his great grandmother is warm and gracious and loving. Tolly feels immediately at home. This is where it gets creepy.
Tolly begins hearing sounds of children laughing. The rocking horse in his bedroom seems to move on it's own. Little unexplainable things happen. But none of this seems to bother Tolly at all. He takes it all in with an insipid childlike wonder. The book never tells Tolly's age, but he seems to be around 8 or nine, with an emotional age of four. I don't mean that L.M. Boston wrote about an emotionally stunted boy. He had a cloying, immature personality .

The children that Tolly hears turn out to be the spirits of Toby, Alexander and Linnet, three children from four hundred years past. Tolly longs to meet them and to see Toby's horse Feste.
Magical things happen throughout the book as little by little, the children trust Tolly enough to reveal themselves.

There's a slightly scary incident with a hedge man called "Green Noah" and a statue of St. Christopher.

The book reads like a foggy dream. It was difficult to read for me. It's not that the text was complex or difficult. It's just that I felt in such a fog reading it. Someone else could take this book and make an excellent novel out of it. As it is, The Children of Green Knowe is a good idea for a book.

L.M. Boston wrote the Green Knowe books for herself, not any audience. She was inspired to write this one after renovating an old manor house. In that case, this book is exactly what she wanted. I wanted more, however.

You Tube has a clip from the 1986 BBC series based on the book. I was able to see the first 9 minutes of the show. It looks to be very good and Toseland (Tolly) in the series isn't the insipid, pasty little boy I imagined him to be. I would love to see that series.
I will read the other Green Knowe books in hopes that they are better than this one.

Punching In

2009-09-04T08:46:00.001-04:00

The Unauthorized Adventures of a Front Line Employee

by Alex Frankel

Finished September 4, 2009

I read an uncorrected proof of this book that I got from the table in the break room at work. Started it while I was on vacation and used the receipt from Cracker Barrel as the bookmark. I mention these little things because often I associate a book with where I was when I read it or what time of year or what I ate while reading it. I still think of eating banana sandwiches at the breakfast room table on University St. when I think of the book October Country by Ray Bradbury. To Kill A Mockingbird was read while laying on the bed in the guest room at Aunt Mickey's house in Nashville.

So, I'll think of Cracker Barrel when I read this. Funny, because the places Alex Frankel worked in gathering material for this book were pretty much the opposite of Cracker Barrel. They were mostly trendy places. I'm not sure if he chose those on purpose.

Alex Frankel worked at UPS, Enterprise Rental Car, The Gap, Starbucks and The Apple Store.

It was an interesting book, although not as well written as it should have been. I wanted more detail than he gave. It was written like a term paper for a college class - a good term paper, but supeficial, nevertheless. The story he told about each workplace was interesting and revealing. I wanted more, however. This is a management book or a book about the workplace, not about these individual workplaces. The section on UPS was the best, so it's not surprising that it was the most detailed and was about the workplace he liked the most. By the end of the book I was getting as tired of reading his descriptions as he was in working at these places.

The most interesting chapter was about Enterprise Rental Car. They are a successful company, but it seems (at least when Frankel worked there) to be a horrible company. The employees were stress out and over worked. The company communicated a good line about opportunities for advancement and committment to the employee, but practiced the opposite.

The most interesting piece of information was the application process for some companies like Home Depot. There's a questionnaire that the applicant must answer, with over 100 questions. The questions are incredible - "Other than pens or paper, what items have you taken from your workplace?" "True or false: I dislike having conversations with strangers." Frankel answered these quizzes with answers he thought the organization would like. He didn't get hired.

All in all, a good book but not great.

My Latest Grievance

2009-08-24T22:37:00.000-04:00

by Elinor Lipman

Finished August 24, 2009

I listened to this book on the way to Memphis and on the way back. Elinor Lipman also wrote the wonderful The Inn at Lake Divine and the excellent And Then She Found Me.

This book is narrated by Fredrica Hatch, the daughter of two Sixties radical Social Science professors (David and Aviva). She grew up living in the dorm at Dewing College, a small Massachusetts women's college, where her parents are also House Parents to the girls of Griggs Hall.

The plot is ignited by the arrival of Laura Lee, David Hatch's ex-wife. Laura Lee has become the Dorm Mother of another residence hall. From there the plot takes off with complication after complication. Conversations between Fredrica, her parents, Laura Lee, Father Ralph and other great characters make up a large part of the story and carries the plot along. David and Aviva encourage open communication in the family. Fredrica saves the reader from wondering what motivates this character or that. She simply asks, "Why did you...?"

I don't easily get hooked by a book-on-tape. In fact, before starting this one, I had tried listening to one called The Tea House on Mulberry Street. I thought for certain I'd like it because it was set in Ireland and involved quirky characters. I couldn't get much past the first chapter or two. It seemed that the book was only a collection of quirky characters. In contrast, Lipman's book involved wonderfully quirky characters and an actual plot!

I've got to read some more Elinor Lipman books. She's 3 for 3 !

Well... maybe she's three for three. I think I started reading another of her books and didn't finish. Or I did read it and don't remember much about it. It was The Pursuit of Alice Thrift. I'll have to check that one out again.

Will I See My Dog In Heaven?

2009-08-14T13:01:00.001-04:00

by Jack Wintz

Finished August 14, 2009

Jack Wintz is a Fransican Friar. Naturally, he approaches this question from a Franciscan point of view. In fact, he talks quite a bit about St. Francis and his relationship to the natural world.

Through quotes from scripture as well as examples from the life and writing of St. Francis, Fr. Wintz makes his case for animals in the afterlife. He points out the connection between human beings and the rest of the created world. He also reminds us of the sacredness of all creation because of the Incarnation.

"Lord, You are holy indeed and all creation rightly gives you praise."

I am convinced that God values all of creation and that we will be connected to the natural world in heaven as on earth. I also believe - or want to believe - that our pets will join us in our second life. But, I'm not sure that Fr. Wintz answers his title question: "Will I see my dog in heaven?"

He certainly convinces us that we will see dogs there- but specific animals? That is the question that is so controversial. Orange tabby cats will be in heaven, but will Akira himself be there? If he is going to be there, then why? What did he do to merit heaven? Do any of us merit heaven?

There are a lot more questions to be pondered. This book was a very good examination of our connection with creation, however.

Second Time Around

2009-08-11T23:06:00.000-04:00

by Nancy Moser
Finished August 10, 2009

This is the sequel to The Time Lottery. It was an enjoyable book, but not as good as the first book. She did a fairly good job of explaining important plot points from the first book without boring those who had alredy read it.

But, she did repeat some of the themes and characters - the greedy, selfish characters; the wise church-goer; the unethical media people.

Three more characters get the chance to go back in time to change their lives and correct past mistakes. The media causes problems when they dig up dirt on the three Time Lottery winners. Greedy family members hope to profit from their loved one's trip to the past.

Still, I enjoyed reading it and would probably read another if Nancy Moser would write one. I read descriptions of some of her other books. She's got great ideas, but her writing style just doesn't do justice to her ideas.

The Time Lottery books would make a good TV series.

Time Lottery

2009-08-07T14:56:00.001-04:00

by Nancy Moser
Finished August 7, 2009

The time travel theme caught my attention. But this isn't a science fiction book. It's a Christian Fiction novel. As such, it gets a little preachy at times, but it is an enjoyable read.

The TTC (Time Travel Corporation) has developed a way to travel back into time. They've decided to offer three people an opportunity to be the first to go back in time. It's advertised as an opportunity to go back and right a wrong or solve a regret. It isn't presented as simply a chance to relive some good times.
The time travelers are given a serum that allows them to travel in time. They are placed into a coma. When a weeks time is up, they are given "dual consciousness." The time traveler will be conscious of his place in the past as well as the present (the future?). At that point he can decide whether to stay in the past or to return to his own time. If he decides to stay, his present body dies.

The science in this book isn't very logical. As I said, it isn't a science fiction book. The time travel device is simply there to carry the theme of addressing past mistakes and regrets.

As a Christian, I didn't mind the preachy-ness. Although it got a bit heavy handed at times. Some of the events were too unrealistic, even for a book in the realm of sci-fi.

In all, it was a satisfying read and I plan to read the sequel, Second Time Around.