Moore Musings

Cemetery Girl / by David Bell

2012-01-30T12:53:00.000-06:00

The day Tom Stuart's daughter disappeared is the day most replayed in his mind. 12-year-old Caitlin had taken the dog for a walk, something Tom and wife Abby had agreed was a good responsibility/privilege, and hadn't come back. What unfolded following the disappearance was a classic suburban disaster story. Frantic searches amped up by media coverage and community panic gave way to fruitless leads followed by inconsequential probing of suspects and an ultimate withdrawal of investigators from the case. The grieving couple's marriage then began to dissolve over the void created by their missing child and Abby's gradual weakening of hope; Tom, on the other hand, never stopped believing. After four years, Abby decides it's time to move on and organizes a memorial ceremony in the cemetery to officially declare Caitlin dead. But then she's found--alive. Discovered by police after some new information surfaces, a teenage Caitlin reappears, disheveled and distant, but breathing and at least physically OK.

The miracle isn't quite as luminous as Tom envisioned. His daughter is home and safe and, at least for the time being, the family is together, but the situation is far from stable. Caitlin isn't talking. It's not as if she's incoherent or uncommunicative, she's just not saying what happened, even requesting a stay of questions concerning all that's gone on. And though Tom still can't fathom that his daughter might've actually run away from home rather than be the victim of an abduction, the thought lingers, becoming, while not quite the whole truth, a notion intermingled with what actually went down. To say the least, his daughter's disappearance, time away and reappearance has done Tom's own well-being no favors. His psyche's shot, his mind plays tricks on him (Or does it?), he may be seeing things that aren't really there and the reckless way he's gone about trying to find answers--both before and after Caitlin's return--has only served to alienate his wife, discredit his convictions and complicate his relationships with the law enforcement officials who are still searching for "the guy", the one his daughter won't tell him about and the one person Tom feels can provide the answers he's still looking for.

Perhaps if it weren't for the cover which lends this book a less original flavor, giving it more of a YA feel, Cemetery Girl could've taken off at a similar level to Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, In the Woods by Tana French or even an earlier Stephen King. And even though the novel and its author have gotten the credit it deserves from the people who truly matter, the book is a still something of an underground phenomenon. The appeal is warranted. It's not just the story, a taut blend of well-conceived realism and subtly imbedded cliffhangers, which pushes things forward, climax to climax, revelation by revelation, but the densely layered psychological subtext steadily creeping toward a crescendo. Tom Stuart lost something he will never get back, even when he gets back what went missing in the first place. He's not a particularly likeable character. Even as the ultimate sympathy victim, a parent who's lost a child, he doesn't earn a lot of brownie points for the way he brazenly points the finger, first at the police, then his wife, then the kidnapper and ultimately himself. That may be the key to the story's true victory, almost a de-victimization of the injured party where a heinous injustice wrought on the unwitting counterparts, heaped on top of which is the maddening reluctance of those in charge and the dissolution of a marriage, turns the tables, creating a tenuous balance of good intentions and obsessive pursuit for control. (FIC BELL)

Devils in Exile / by Chuck Hogan

2012-01-26T17:00:00.008-06:00

Neal Maven returns home from Iraq to find that the country he risked his life defending can't offer him much in return. Hundreds of applications and inquiries can't even land him a full-time job and the work he does get scarcely makes ends meet. By chance when he's seen expertly disarming a would-be thief at his night job as a parking attendant, Neal's introduced to a friendly stranger, Royce, another veteran, and a new line of work where his still-amped-up soldiering skills can be put to good use. It's a highly dangerous but highly lucrative occupation in which Royce, Neal and three others, all professional soldiers, infiltrate high quantity drug deals while they're taking place, ripping off the cash and disposing of the dope in quick fashion. The planning part of the operation can be tedious, each heist meticulously planned, and none of the others quite know where or how Royce gets his intel, but the money tends to make the hassle and any troubling questions go by the wayside. It's not just the money but the lifestyle and the girls that come with it which help Neal temporarily forget about his own fears ("Trouble seems to have a way of finding me.") and worries until some subtle missteps coupled with a flawed maneuver help the Feds get wise to Neal and the "Sugar Bandits."

Crime writer Hogan has found success in recent years with his fast-paced thrillers highlighted by morally ambiguous characters caught up in their own self-escalating conflicts. Prince of Thieves, reviewed on this blog some months ago, was adapted into a major motion picture, The Town, and served up much of the same criteria: blue collar Boston underdogs are lured into lives of petty crime and struggle to find a way out. In this case, the situation conveys at least a more patriotic, if not a more moralistic angle. Neal's boss Royce manages to convince Neal and his fellow recruits, with remarkably little effort, that the people they're stealing from are the real evildoers and the product they're disposing of after each little engagement is helping to save lives in the long run. He does this after dishing to his new pupils on the unfair way returning vets are thrust back into civilian life lacking the skills, and more importantly the mindset, to live a normal, honest life. The government trained them to wage war on America's enemies and that's what they're doing, so to speak. If they make a disproportionately enormous profit in ripping off other criminals, then so be it. This aspect of the story might work OK depending on your moral code and even despite the sketchy, insincere way Royce comes across, Hogan's first-person narration through Neal renders him a believable enough character to buy the scenario. The problem has to do with the girlfriend. Royce's lady Danielle used to be the resident senior goddess at Neal's old high school when Neal was a freshman. She's still up there on the pedestal, at least in Neal's eyes, though it's difficult to tell why. She's cranky, crabby, manipulative and generally abusive to Neal who she singles out as a sort-of errand boy. It doesn't take much to get her upset or stressed, moods she remedies with cocaine and other illegal substances. This plot element isn't the only thing detracting credibility from the story, but it may be the most annoying. Otherwise the book is a fun read, exciting and action-packed with good descriptions and a relatable context. (FIC HOGAN)

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, with Elizabeth & John Sherrill

2012-01-25T10:31:00.004-06:00

While this book became a best seller after its publication in 1971, it does not enjoy the status of a “great book”, except to readers of the Christian faith and others who are drawn to the book’s spiritual lessons.

Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch evangelist, had already written some books before this one, compilations of events and experiences used to explain Christian faith. These events were her testimony, as she spent the greater part of her last thirty years travelling and speaking and working with missionaries throughout the world. Although she had told her story many times, Christian writers Elizabeth and John Sherrill worked to make “The Hiding Place” a definitive account of what she and her family went through as defenders of the Jews in World War II.

Over half of the first part of the book is taken up with introducing the reader to the Ten Boom family, who lived in Haarlem. The father was a watchmaker. At the beginning of the war, his wife had passed away, as had three of her sisters who had lived with them. Of his four grown children, two were married and only the two unmarried sisters, Corrie and Betsie, still lived with their father. Betsie, seven years older than Corrie, had a kind of anemia which was not understood at that time, and so was “sickly” and was expected to live at home and not marry. Corrie had suffered an early disappointment in love when someone who she loved and believed to love her in return instead satisfied his family’s expectations by making a “good marriage”. This circumstance gave Corrie her first real lesson in hardship. As she is sobbing brokenheartedly, her father lovingly comes to comfort and counsel her. Interestingly enough, he does not tell her that there will be other chances. He says she has two choices, one to smother and deny her love, giving rise to bitterness – or to give up her own feelings and ask for God’s in return. Not God’s love for her, but God’s love for this man, which is so much greater than her own.

Moments like these are the kernels of Corrie’s life, which are what sustain her during imprisonment and provide the impetus for her missionary work after the war. During the war, her family shelters Jews from being taken by the Germans. They become involved with the underground movement and have a secret compartment constructed in their house for Jews to hide in during a raid. They are eventually arrested. While in the local jail, their aged 84 year old father becomes ill and dies in an overcrowded hospital, left unattended in a waiting area. Corrie and Betsie spend two months in a Holland prison, and are reunited in a Holland concentration camp where they live for three months before being transported by cattle car to Ravensbruck, a concentration camp for women in Germany. Betsie, already ill, survives only two and a half months there before her death.

Although the flow of the narrative is disjointed, the book successfully illuminates key events for the reader interested in suffering and its implications. In Ravensbruck, Corrie changes. She is human - she hates the enemy, the sadistic guards and the cold and starvation and vermin- but she changes. Partly through her sister, who has compassion for everyone, partly through words in the Bible, which they smuggled into the camp. Corrie’s time and place in our history make the book worth reading. Whether or not it’s a “good read”, it’s a read that resonates.

Ice series / Anne Stuart

2012-01-24T11:56:00.000-06:00

How do you like your heroes? If you like them morally ambiguous, deadly and taciturn, you may want to give the Ice series by Anne Stuart a whirl. Stuart has been at her craft for 35 years — she holds a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Romance Writers of American — and her experience is evident in the sure hand she wields when it comes to the characters, pacing and conflict in these romantic suspense stories.

The Ice series is composed of six novels so far:

1. Black Ice
2. Cold As ice
3. Ice Blue
4. Ice Storm
5. Fire And Ice
6. On Thin Ice

A heads-up if you're one of those people who has to read a series from the beginning: Here at Moore Library, we've got No. 2-5 in the series. So I haven't read the first one, Black Ice, or the most recent one, Thin Ice, which is actually only available through Amazon in their Kindle ebook format. (Next month it will come out as an audiobook.) But rest assured that these books can easily be read as standalones; Stuart provides you with what you need to know in each one and doesn't leave you wondering what's going on or who's who.

The Ice series revolves around the flinty-hearted operatives of The Committee, a shadowy international organization that fights terrorism with a ruthless, ends-justify-the-means mentality. Stuart uses a similar storyline in each: An agent on a mission from the Committee finds his (or her) plans inextricably linked to another person, typically a civilian who's in the wrong place at the wrong time. The operation goes awry, and the two are forced to go on the run together. Literal and figurative pyrotechnics ensue.

Yes, it's formulaic, but Stuart knows how to mix it up just enough to provide readers a pleasing combination of familiarity and variety.

As Stuart says herself in the video above, she's not for everyone, but if she is, she works really well. I think that's quite true. The spooks in the Ice stories aren't the gallant knights-in-white-armor types. They're stone-cold killers who often expend a great deal of energy debating whether or not to off the person they're corralled with, seeing them initially as an annoyance and liability. And when they're not in killer mode, the men in particular, they're usually cranky, mean and mocking.

But Stuart makes it work. She uses that dissonance between the two protagonists to create heat and tension. As their humanity is revealed, the male characters grow on you, as they do the the main female characters. Their crazy courtships, if you can call them that, play out amidst a backdrop of exotic locales, life-of-death situations and nefarious villains.

Nor is it the men who always save the day. One of series' main characters is a female Committee operative with formidable skills herself. But it's the relationship between the two main characters that serve as the heart of the story. And given that these are romantic suspense stories, there's never really any doubt how the end will play out. But Stuart, if she's to your taste, makes the journey worth it.

Check out this video to hear from Stuart herself on the series' conception:

The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems / by Henry Petroski

2012-01-20T12:21:00.008-06:00

". . . a scientist studies what is; an engineer creates what never was . . . by extension, science is the study of what is; engineering is the creation of what never was."

Engineering might be the most important thing in the world. Science, knowing how and why things work; Politics, knowing how and why people work; and, Liberal Arts, interpreting how and why people and things work, simply doesn't cut it. How can Science (and Math) be appropriated to meet need? What can knowledge, abstracted information, do for me? Chemistry alone can't heal, equations won't shelter and biology by itself can't nourish effectively. Mere knowledge is useless without applying the concepts incorporated within the prescribed ideas. It takes engineering, in it's functional role, much of it the "inherent practicality of simply actuating the empirical properties of nature . . . to account for the structural, economic, environmental, and other factors that science often does not consider but which are vitally urgent to our lives." Science can only take an idea so far before engineering must get involved. Or, as Petroski so aptly puts it, "scientists warn, engineers fix." That's why this book and its author, writer of several similar titles, is so important: to explain, in very linear terminology and coherent fashion, exactly what engineering (and the role of the engineer) does to not only enhance life, but to stabilize the balance between people and nature. (620 PETROSKI)

24 Hour Party People (2002) / a Michael Winterbottom film; starring Steve Coogan, Paddy Considine, Lennie James, Andy Serkis, Shirley Henderson & Sean Harris

2012-01-19T13:05:00.066-06:00

"And tonight something equally epoch-making is taking place. See? They're applauding the DJ. Not the music, not the musician, not the creator, but the medium. This is it. The birth of rave culture. The beatification of the beat. The dance age. This is the moment when even the white man starts dancing. Welcome to Manchester."

TV personality Tony Wilson is always on the lookout for something new and edgy. His day gig's alright, the studio sending him around his hometown of Manchester where in bemused fashion he fleshes out some of the more colorful facets of what is at the time—late 1970’s—a drab and dreary northern English city. But Tony's real passion is music, namely the burgeoning Punk Rock movement sweeping the nation. In his off time he checks out the up and coming local talent, even helping promote bands like Joy Division, a ragtag assembly of gangly youths known for their writhing lead singer (actually an epileptic). Wilson knows the band and indeed the entire city’s unique approach to modern music—a synthesis of rock and dance rhythms—is on the verge of something revolutionary and he's willing to do what it takes to help it get there. Recognizing the need for venues more conducive to acts like Joy Division, and later the Happy Mondays, he conceives the idea for a new mode of getting the product to the consumer, essentially a remolding of the performance-audience relationship by transferring the focus from the musicians to the medium. Eventually Wilson’s little endeavor, spurred on by the inception of his own record label, Factory Records, gives birth to an entirely new culture—Rave. And even though it's greatly assisted by the timely introduction of a new drug, Ecstasy, onto the streets, "rave culture" is a monumental phenomenon, prospering in practice even if it makes next to nothing for its creators. In a matter of months it's worldwide, proliferating a novel brand of entertainment and entirely new set of problems.

It’s difficult to recreate the essence of a musical experience within a feature film. Musician biopics, where the focus remains on a singular presence, are more feasible projects and justifiably do better at the box office. Over-arching movements, genres and performances, on the other hand, are simply harder to encapsulate in a 90 minute narrative. Documentaries can do it OK; movies not so much. That’s one reason 24 Hour Party People succeeds at such a superior level (Nashville, maybe, could be seen as an earlier exception to the rule). Not only is there an authentic backdrop of the proper place and time (actual original locations), there’s an incredibly well-conceived and truly riveting arrangement of the in-the-moment/mise-en-scène portrayal, orchestrated and enriched by director Michael Winterbottom (Welcome To Sarajevo) and the wry-mouthed Steve Coogan. The same guy from Hamlet 2, Tropic Thunder and Around the World in 80 Days—he’s been kind of pigeonholed in Hollywood—is the same actor who's also Alan Partridge, Tristram Shandy and, now, Tony Wilson in a film, basically a montage/comedy roast/send-up/homage to Wilson's life and times, that effectively “makes Spinal Tap look like fiction." The dramatic model is another reason it works. Coogan as Wilson simply meanders about the screen in self-referential fashion, liberally taking time to talk to the audience and frame the situation amid the unfolding drama--sort of a documentary within a movie. This isn't something that always works to perfection but Coogan's seamless at it. Nothing is the least bit conspicuous or conscientious about how he goes about his business, never looking like he's trying at all, not even breaking ranks even when he "breaks ranks."

The real reason the movie excels is because it evokes a genuine, not manufactured, nostalgia. Another Almost Famous it is not. 24 Hour Party People doesn't need to nail down its message with traditional techniques; nor does it try to regenerate a positive critique on it's subject matter because, well, not a lot of it is very positive. It’s comedic, but there are some unavoidable grim bits. There’s “seizures” of unpleasantness, unavoidable moments where the fatal consequences of over-indulgence are brought to life. And while you could call it anti-establishment, the movie never quite takes itself seriously enough to worry about convincing the audience of its anarchist platform. The unorthodox way it embraces contradictions says all it needs to. Dedication to the music's creative energy is the film's most crucial element. Not the music itself, but how the combined ingenuity of a few crucial people and places sparked a new artistic medium which continues to resonate globally. There's always the underlying reminder of how creative enthusiasm, its entropy and succeeding culmination, stays in the here and now. Spontaneity is the friend of the moment, in other words. Or like Tony Wilson would say, "here it comes, so it goes and there it went." (DVD TWENTYFO)

Hailey's War / by Jodi Compton

2012-01-19T11:15:00.015-06:00

22-year-old Hailey Cain is back home in Southern California after washing out of West Point. Discharged just prior to graduation for undisclosed reasons, she's back where she started without a degree, a commission or anywhere to go. It's not like she's destitute but her home life has never been stable: her father, an Air Force sergeant was killed in the line of duty, and her mother and ragtag clan of relatives, all transplants from West Virginia, aren't all that hospitable. The one family member she can count on, same-aged cousin and music industry up-and-comer, is a reliable counterpart but not someone Hailey can live with forever, especially after an unfortunate accident makes her presence a conspicuous hindrance. A true drifter now, she migrates to San Francisco, taking a job as a bike messenger until an old friend from middle school, now a gangbanger in a female Latino set, asks a favor. Seeing it as a way to make some money (she's well compensated for her efforts), Hailey takes the gig, agreeing to transport an illegal Mexican teenager across the border to her home in Mexico. But everything goes wrong when an ambush abruptly ends their journey and ruthless criminals abscond with the teen, a girl secretly with a mysterious love child, and nearly kills Hailey. The act sets in motion a crisis for Hailey who, deciding she can't just walk away, embarks on a journey taking her through the violent underworld of gang culture and organized crime from the Mexican borders to the streets of LA and further. It's a personal vendetta that won't end nicely.

In what passes for a less adrenalized but more believable Kill Bill or "Alias" type story, Compton pens a commendable third effort about another tough-as-nails gal who just won't quit, even when she's been shot twice and left for dead in the Mexican desert. It's not a perfectly credible story. There's ample deficiencies in the way Hailey's situation is oriented, lots of it about her past, her exit from the US Military Academy and frankly awkward relationship with her cousin as well as a little too much story manipulation and some near-egregious plot fails in places where pertinent details are just plain left out. But the quality of the writing is good, very good. Compton has a true gift for pacing. Masterfully conscious of the precise instant to make transitions, there's rarely a time when the narrative loses ground to attention span. It's this exact blend of characterization and sequencing that prevents the story from verging into overblown femme fatale romanticism. Even though Hailey's far from a fully-centered character, her more sentimental qualities not quite counterbalancing her full-on battle-ready demeanor, the author's ability to put her in but plausible scenarios makes this book a page turner without being a guilty pleasure. (FIC COMPTON)

Recent Humorous Novels

2012-01-17T15:11:00.004-06:00

Lunatics / by Dave Barry

Philip Horkman and Jeffrey A. Peckerman first meet on a soccer field in Fort Lee, N.J. during a girls' 10-and-under league championship game after Horkman calls Peckerman's daughter offside. Though initially only a mild disagreement, the battle between Horkman, a coarse, "forensic plumber," and Peckerman, a pet store owner, soon escalates into an absurd fight leading to several wacky shenanigans. (FIC BARRY)

The Sisters Brothers / by Patrick deWitt

In the heart of the Old West, a man known only as The Commodore orders bumbling assassins Charlie and Eli Sisters to track down and kill a grizzled prospector named Herman Kermit Warm. During their journey from Oregon to the Sierras, the pair confront a strange cast of characters including a witch, Indians, a parlor full of drunken floozies and a gang of murderous fur trappers. (FIC DEWITT)

Ranchero / by Rick Gavin

Nick Reid is an ordinary low-key guy doing odd jobs at a rental store in the backwater Mississippi Delta until his boss sends him out to repossess a television from no-account hick Percy Dwayne Dubois. Refusing to give up his TV, Percy Dwayne hits Nick upside the head with a fireplace shovel and, with TV, wife, and son in tow, makes a hasty getaway in Nick's borrowed 1969 Ford Ranchero. Now Nick, out of a car and soon to be out of a job, has no choice but to track Percy Dwayne down. (FIC GAVIN)

Pym: A Novel / by Mat Johnson

Having been laid off from his job as a teacher of American literature, Chris Jaynes becomes obsessed with the book The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, the only full-length novel Edgar Allen Poe ever wrote. Inspired by a mysterious slave narrative which may confirm the truth about Poe’s novel and its mysterious island, Jayes buys a boat, hires a crew and sets sail after Poe’s mythical island. (FIC JOHNSON)

The Ask / by Sam Lipsyte

Recently laid-off university employee Milo Burke is doing whatever he can in odd jobs to help his family. Then his old boss, the college dean, offers him his job back under one condition: Milo must get a wealthy alumnus, who just happens to be Milo’s old roommate, to donate a large sum of money to the university. (FIC LIPSYTE)

Dollarapalooza, or, The Day Peace Broke Out in Columbus / by Gregg Parr

Disgraced former professor Vonn Carp returns to his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, to take part in his father’s lifelong dream, the startup of a general store called Dollarpalooza. When the store falls on hard times, partly due to a “Wow-mart” moving in across the street, Vonn stumbles upon a new business model to make a difference in people’s lives “one dollar at a time”—he’ll answer any question any customer may have for one dollar. (FIC PARR)

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady / by Elizabeth Stuckey-French
In 1953 during a faulty nuclear experiment, Marylou Ahearn had her body contaminated by Dr. Wilson Spriggs. The result was the death of Marylou’s daughter, Helen, from cancer 10 years later. Now, in the present, 77-year-old Marylou is determined to get revenge on Dr. Spriggs, going so far as to move to Florida into a house right down the street from where he now lives and plotting his doom in quirky fashion. (FIC STUCKEYF)

The Family Fang: A Novel / by Kevin Wilson

Performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang are slaves to their art, so much so that they’ve incorporated their only children Annie and Buster (popularly known as Child A. and Child B.) into their oddly subversive work. Escaping as soon as they can away from their circus-like childhoods, Annie and Buster ultimately return years later, their lives now in disarray, only to be caught up in one last performance. (FIC WILSON)

The Ethical Assassin / by David Liss

2012-01-11T14:47:00.014-06:00

Needing money for college, 17-year-old Floridian Lem Altick hits the road the summer after high school as a door to door salesman of encyclopedias. It's a scammy business, a ruse run by con artists who prey on the rural poor by getting them to think they're making an "educational investment" for their underpriveleged children. And though Lem is actually good at his job, a surprise to everyone including him, he disapproves of the predatory nature of what he does. In the midst of making a pitch one afternoon, he witnesses the cold-blooded murder of his customers, a young couple in a trailer home, by a stranger not much older than Lem who appears out of nowhere. The assassin, later introduced as Melford Kean, agrees to spare Lem's life in return for his continuing silence. He assures Lem that the deaths were no great loss ("These people had it coming."). It's not like he has much choice; Kean forced Lem to put his prints are on the murder weapon and there was at least one witness who saw him enter the trailer at the time of the killing. Going back to his job still wide-eyed with shock, Lem tries to forget about it all only to run in to Kean later that same day, maybe a coincidence but probably not. Before he knows it, Lem's downtrodden gig of peddling overpriced, outdated encyclopedias merges with a strangely alluring world of professional killing and exploitation as his life, up to now a disappointment, is never the same again.

Liss, a scholar of mostly 17th and 18th British literature and author of several successful historical novels, pens a worthy standalone in this book about an assassin with a hyped-up Machiavellian view of life and a casually manipulative way of getting things done. The story meanders around from one plot element to another--Lem and Kean's meeting, corrupt sherriff/mayor involved in the investigation and the overarching criminal underground which infiltrates everything--but the pacing is solid and the author's characterization really shines at depicting his supporting cast, a myriad of sordid types in a world of shady salesmanship, drug rings and sleazy small town cops. Liss, a San Antonio resident, might not quite be up to the level of a Carl Hiaasen or Elmore Leonard but he's not far off. Even with his other work not really in the same vein, or even the same genre, The Ethical Assassin catches on as an entertaining read, unique really in its setup with a normal, down-on-his-luck guy confronted by some quirky, real-world circumstances and an enigmatic villain/hero he can't get away from. (MYS LISS)

There's a new National Ambassador for Young People's Literature in town

2012-01-10T09:29:00.001-06:00

And not everyone is happy about it.

Award winning author Walter Dean Myers has been named the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. Myer's many fans of his books such as Monster, Shooter, Fallen Angels, and many more are happy to have a celebrated author speak on behalf of Young People's Literature, but there is at least one voice of dissent.

Commentator and former public school teacher, Alexander Nazaryan has written a scathing rebuke of the choice in a blog for the New York Daily News, calling Myers work 'insipid'. He claims that all Myer's work does is reflect the worst of life and failing to inspire or elevate beyond it. Instead he believes kids and teens should be reading the classics such as Homer's The Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid. However, he doesn't ever say why kids and teens couldn't or shouldn't read both classics and contemporary literature, which is something that Myers can do in his role as ambassador. You can read his missive here and decide for yourself if Myer's is the best choice for ambassador. To make up your mind, you can also listen to this NPR interview with Myers himself here. Also, check out his wonderful books in our childrens, young adult, and biography sections. Ask a librarian and he or she will gladly help you find our full holdings of his titles.

Let us know what you think about his being named ambassador in the comments.

Unbearable Lightness: a Story of Loss and Gain by Portia De Rossi

2012-01-06T15:51:00.003-06:00

Portia de Rossi comes from Australia, where she expressed interest in modeling at an early age and latched onto the profession as a vehicle to get what she needed in life – money, acceptance, admiration and love. Her mother, left by her father to raise Portia and her brother alone, loved both of her children. But Portia felt the need to excel and to be a comfort to her Mom, and made it a point never to be in trouble or needing anything. On the contrary, she was determined to pull out all the stops and provide for anyone who she loved. What she didn’t realize was that by raising the bar so high for herself, she couldn’t accept any weakness or imperfection in her performance and came to believe that others were judging her on the same level.

When she becomes an actress and a star on the Ally McBeal television show, Portia memorizes acceptable answers for fan and media questions, regardless of how true they are, and decides she has to be a size six since sample outfits generally come in that size. With a tall and rangy physique, Portia has been accustomed to dieting ever since she was a model and was expected to weigh in as “thin”.

What follows is a life of bulimia and finally anorexia. In De Rossi’s story, she tells her side of events so convincingly, that if you weren’t aware of her actual starving herself, you might be fooled. She perfectly describes how a person can zone into a part of their body and see it as fat or ugly, regardless of its actual condition.

Her collapse comes (lucky for her) before it’s too late, and the end of the book is all about how she worked her way towards health, taking the emphasis of right or wrong out of food, and just letting herself eat. Her recovery phase is a bit too rushed and presented to you as a fait accompli – as though there was this confident stunning superstar just waiting to emerge. De Rossi credits a lot of her recovery with her resolutely gay lifestyle, marrying Ellen DeGeneres, while it might just be that relationships can help.

When we have an epidemic of fat in America, does the prevalence of eating disorders increase as our average weight goes up? And why do our media images resist leaving thinness behind? All of these issues come to mind with this timely memoir. If we can’t exactly walk off into the sunset with Portia and Ellen, at least we can mimic their food choices. The best trick is to forget about food, and get used to feeling hungry, in moderation. Easier said than done. Well we can always long for the 40’s to come back, and hope for an end to factory farming and technology bringing us the latest and greatest salty/sweet crunchy melt in your stomach taste combination.

Dying Inside / by Robert Silverberg

2012-01-05T14:43:00.125-06:00

Even among the more super-prolific writers of Science Fiction, a genre in which it's not uncommon to see authors tally over a hundred titles, Robert Silverberg is one who's work has reached some exceptionally lofty heights. Since the 1950's, where even as a student at Columbia (Class of '56) he published a handful of short fiction, he's been repeatedly nominated for Hugos and Nebulas, winning on several occasions, and consistently catching the eye of readers both in and out of the SF genre. A lifelong New Yorker, he moved to San Francisco in the early Seventies amid a pending divorce to his first wife. Ironically the period was one of his most fruitful--Dying Inside, among others, was individually conceived and penned in mere weeks. Upon its original publication the book, about a middle-aged telepathic who's steadily losing his powers, was released to less favorable acclaim. Since then, however, it's been realized by the critics and the reading public for the masterpiece that it is. Locus magazine labeled it "one of the best science fiction novels of all time," and more than a few of Silverberg's literary peers have celebrated it as a trailblazing work of literature.

"It was like that all the time, in those years: an endless trip, a gaudy voyage. But powers decay. Time leaches the colors from the best of visions. The world becomes grayer. Entropy beats us down. Everything fades. Everything Goes. Everything dies."

David Selig can read minds. Born with the extraordinary gift of telepathy, he's lived a life enhanced by his superhuman ability to probe the conscious thoughts of those around him. But it's a talent, a psychological marvel to be sure, hidden from all but three people and not quite blessing people may perceive it as. Put simply, having ESP hasn't helped make David any better. While he can manipulate circumstances and reactions, he still can't get a leg up in society. He's still a loser. Always a bit of a social misfit, a bitter outcast with not a lot of looks or charm or even ambition to capitalize on his unusual talent and parlay his prospects into a dream job or beautiful wife, David's life of knowing what people are thinking--often more of a deterrent from engaging it in the first place because it just reaffirms his negative worldview and dismal self-concept--has devolved into a frustrated, distancing, thoroughly miserable existence. That he's a capable individual is well-evidenced; he obtained a degree from Columbia and several mid-level office positions before flaking out on the 9-5 scene. Now at 41, he writes papers for Columbia undergraduates who willingly pay a modest sum for his services.

David thinks his life would be better if he had more meaningful relationships. He's had fewer friends than most, his condition thwarting more intimate acquaintances and removing him from a lot of social situations. There have been two or three girlfriends and some one-nighters, but relationships, especially with women, have a tendency to become toxic, inevitably leaving a trail of enmity and bad blood despite his best intentions. His family relations aren't so great either. His mom and dad, still around although David doesn't go to see them much, essentially gave up on him during adolescence when he didn't pan out to what they wanted. Even his sister Judith, who his parents adopted at the advice of a child psychologist when David was 8 and one of the three people who knows of his abilities, hates him outright for his sixth sense. But there's another, bigger problem currently. At present, with his 42nd birthday looming, David senses something's wrong, not just with his life but with his gift. His telepathy, which even with all its dismal side-effects has been his life's only real joy, still a mystifyingly wondrous tool capable of offering amusement, diversion, education and even ecstasy all at once, is dwindling. His clairvoyant ability to know others inside-out, to probe the consciousness of casual acquaintances, and even see the souls of strangers bared before him in removed and admittedly voyeuristic though not malicious fashion, is growing dimmer to the point where it very soon may be extinguished altogether.

Initial reaction from Silverberg's publisher on his newest creation back in 1972 was one of offhanded surprise. His editor, knowing him personally, felt that Dying Inside was a rough autobiographical sketch morphed into science fiction. The author denies this although similarities between him and Selig--they're both Jewish, both New Yorkers, both Columbia grads, both writers, etc.--are telling. That the novel is a gem, a true ace of spades richly drafting universal themes of knowledge, communication and essence of existence onto the printed page, is a fact that cannot be overemphasized. It's brilliant. And while not exactly a straightforward narrative, the delivery shifting from first-person to third and back in random fashion, the book excels at giving the story a good balance of background and plot development. It's funny too. Like Kurt Vonnegut, the Silverberg's acrid style, satiric slant and glib interpretations of his protagonist reads fast and cynical though not without admonishing critically important, and often subtly revealed, truths about our world and the human condition. Parallels can of course be drawn to other fictional characters, and perhaps even a few scattershot theories on the actual or similar conditions, but none are as elucidating as Silverberg's conception. There is nothing un-grounded or superhero about David Selig. He's not a vampire, changeling, witch or mutant. He's just a guy, a balding middle-aged flunkie with the capacity, and to some degree the control, to monitor the spectacular phenomenon of the mind at work in his fellow man. It's an ability he's never been without and he doesn't know what he'll do if he loses it. (SF SILVERBERG)

Sex On The Moon: The Amazing Story Behind The Most Audacious Heist In History / by Ben Mezirch

2011-12-31T11:28:00.019-06:00

Thad Roberts was the quintessential brainy guy with not a lot of moral intelligence. Born in Utah to a devout Mormon family, he soon followed a different path--he was actually kicked out of the house in his teen years for engaging in premarital sex. Though certainly smart enough, endowed with the natural gifts to excel academically, he could never quite get past the juvenile hijinks of his formative years and wound up in his early twenties aimless, jobless and unhappily married. Somehow Roberts managed to gain entry into a course of study at the University of Utah where he demonstrated enough prowess to ultimately earn a coveted summer internship with NASA in Houston. He spent three summers doing the rounds at the Johnson Space Center, working with the spacehab and biology personnel during the day and living it up in his off hours, supervising recreational activities and partying at the local hotspots (it's not hard to recognize a lot of familiar haunts) with his fellow interns.

In 2002, out of little more than a desire to impress a girl (not his former wife), Roberts stumbled upon a seemingly inane, though obviously appealing enough plan to steal some of the original moon rocks obtained during the Apollo missions from a loosely secured safe at the JSC main site. That he got away with it wasn't such a big deal--he and his girlfriend actually drove the 600 ib. safe off the site in their Jeep Cherokee--until he tried selling the rocks on the black market, a move inevitably garnering attention from a curious precious metals dealer who, upon verification of the rocks' authenticity, alerted the FBI. It wasn't long before Roberts and his girlfriend as well as a third party were arrested, tried and convicted. Roberts got 8 years in a federal prison while his accomplices got off with relatively lighter sentences, doing probation and forbidden from any type of government employment.

Writer Ben Mezrich does an nice job of rallying interest in the space program even having missed the boat by a few decades and he well-captures Roberts mindless enthusiasm though that's a bit of a problem in itself; Roberts is kind of a mixed bag that we never quite nail down. If the bulk of the narrative is to be believed, he's a bonafide life-of-the-party type A personality with a bent towards self-destructive choices and a penchant for hustling naive women. Yet you have to wonder at the sheer lunacy of some of his decision-making--stealing the rocks is one thing but exposing himself by trying to sell them is exceedingly stupid--as well as the inner-dynamics of his flighty relationships and a spotty academic background prior to NASA, all things the book doesn't quite cover well enough. This isn't the author's best outing (it may have been something the publisher pushed for). The Accidental Billionaires, in which the movie The Social Network was loosely based on, was a better read with more pertinent content and a far more credible story to apply his sensationalized style to. (364.1628552 MEZRICH)

Groundhog Day (1992) DVD / a Harold Ramis film; starring Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell and Chris Elliott

2011-12-30T11:30:00.027-06:00

Snarky, condescending weatherman Phil Connors has had to cover the emergence of Punxsutawney Phil every Groundhog Day for the last four years. With a gift for casual arrogance and talking down to people, he's well aware of how silly the ritual of a groundhog forecasting the climate really is and doesn't hide his dismissive disdain over its continuing media coverage. Foreseeing this year as no different he takes the trip from his station in Pittsburgh to the quaint, isolated village the day before February 2, intending to wake up, do the gopher bit and get out of town as soon as possible. Things go pretty much according to plan, Phil acting up the mock disappointment when the groundhog (he calls it a rat) doesn't see his shadow, then making his getaway only to run into a blizzard on the way out of town, a setback meaning he'll have to spend another dreaded night in Punxsutawney. But the following morning Phil wakes up to the exact same February 2nd day as yesterday. Everything from his encounters and conversations right down to the bums on the street begging for change is precisely the exact duplicate as the day before. The next morning things are no different. It's the same the following morning and the next and the next until Phil realizes he's stuck in some quirky time warp reliving the same 24 hours seemingly for the rest of eternity. With no one to believe him and with no way out, he does the only thing he can do, finding that even when nothing around him changes at all, the one thing he can change--himself--is really all that matters.

From the cover, and even judging from its release date, Groundhog Day might seem like just another Bill Murray/Harold Ramis movie, an entertaining situational comedy with somewhat formulaic elements à la Ghostbusters, Stripes, Meatballs or Caddyshack. There's Murray in a role portraying a shamelessly self-absorbed you-know-what delivering deadpan quips in acerbic nonchalance, his characteristic flippancy and flawlessly timed one-liners on full go (Who better flourished on screen as a the sarcastic smart aleck in those days?). You've got a love interest in Phil's producer Rita, the sweet-natured Andie MacDowell, his dutiful though constantly foiled sidekick in cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott) and even a few cameos by familiar Second City veterans, Ramis among them. But this is where the parallels stop. Groundhog Day, while not a wholly original concept (think movies like It's A Wonderful Life or Peggy Sue Got Married in which individuals are supernaturally gifted with a hindsight perspective and influence over their lives) is a movie which offers something others just don't--novelty of approach. Bear in mind that repeating the same sequences over and over again would get very old very fast under a different direction. Without Murray as the lead and Ramis as director, another archetypal character might learn the errors of his carelessness in heartwarming yet less amusing fashion--the lamentable What Women Want with Mel Gibson comes to mind. Instead we get an even more sleazy, more inveterate wiseguy in Phil, and even funnier situations confined to shorter takes and sequences, before seeing any real transformation which incidentally isn't all that predictable but rather a more intriguing and largely de-individualized film experience. Murray's films since this one have largely mirrored this more introspective choice in roles. Movies like Lost in Translation, Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore and 'Steve Zizou' maintain an edge of sobriety even as his trademark levity and caustic impertinence from his SCTV/SNL days have remained intact. Though still usually the easygoing wag offhandedly gibing at his surroundings, he isn't quite the guy he used to be, the one who's all about shredding people to pieces with superior wit and repartee (though it's still fun when he does). The Murray on screen now is more the mutually beneficial type willing to share the moment with lesser, well-inclined characters. Of course there are those who still prefer Kingpin or What About Bob? to Broken Flowers. And who's to blame them? There's arguments for either side. (DVD GROUNDHO)

The Middle Place / by Kelly Corrigan

2011-12-29T11:55:00.004-06:00

Growing up, Kelly Corrigan was always a daddy's girl, the youngest child in a happy, well-balanced Maryland family that cherished togetherness and bonding. Her father, an ad man and high school lacrosse coach, was the quintessential paterfamilias, a caring, compassionate man whose emotional support helped Kelly through many sad and troubling times. It may have helped things that she was the youngest, the only girl with two older brothers who got a lot of the defacto attention. So when the 36-year-old happily married mother of two young girls found a lump in her left breast which soon translated into cancer, among the first persons she called was her father. Then she found out that her father George also had the disease, his a form of prostate cancer which later also spread to his bladder. Their struggle, equally shared through grueling chemotherapy and false hope, helped bring about a greater bond between them and a new understanding of life in "the middle" for Corrigan.

Corrigan, a freelance magazine editorialist, pens a readable memoir of about a common subject which affects about a third of the population. The parallel journey traveled by both she and her father adds something to the mix, even as they lived on opposite ends of the country--Kelly in California, George back at the family home in Maryland. And while the book's not terribly original, the author manages to blend the issues involving her emotionally rigorous time dealing with her own fate and that of her father well enough to keep the interest of the reader. Interspersed between her present battle with the disease are segments she recalls from her childhood, charming incidents from middle school through college which do a good job of fleshing out Kelly's character and perspective. On the other hand, how many of these types of books can there be, seriously? (362.196 CORRIGAN)

Best Books of 2011

2011-12-28T09:27:00.001-06:00

With 2011 coming to a close, everyone's making their "best of" lists of which books are included. Along with the usual outlets like Publisher's Weekly and the New York Times, the Houston Chronicle has made a list of its favorites as well as NPR which has several selection sets including best novels. The Guardian's books page is another great site to check out for their extensive evaluation.

More Jawing Over Larsson's 'Millenium' Trilogy

2011-12-22T15:41:00.013-06:00

Not everyone's happy about the Americanization of Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy (FIC LARSSON). When merchandising agents and unlicensed publicity began capitalizing on the new David Fincher film, a project with its predominately Anglo/American cast talking in Swedish-accented English, it's taking things too far for Eva Gabrielsson, Larsson's former mistress, who this week claimed that Larsson would never have endorsed such a spectacle. She says the deceased author would've used the spotlight to promote his rigid stance against mysogyny, discrimination and violence against women. Even though she doesn't actually own the rights to any of the books (the author's immediate family does, though that's another matter), Gabrielsson said she and Larsson "would have never sold any rights for merchandizing," adding that, "It has nothing to do with the books." Some people may not have gotten the message. Rooney Mara, the American actress playing Lisbeth Salander, said that her character's neither a feminist nor an advocate of any such group or movement, a gesture to which a disbelieving Gabrielsson replied "Does she know what film she has been in? Has she read the books? Has she not had any coaching?" Gabrielsson may have a point here; the literal translation of Larsson's first title is actually "Men Who Hate Women". Oh well. Maybe Mara only read the American translation. To hear more of what Eva Gabrielsson thinks, be sure to check out her own, recently published memoir, "There Are Things I Want You To Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me (839.738 GABRIELS).

I'm Not Scared / by Niccolo Ammaniti; trans. from the Italian by Jonathan Hunt

2011-12-21T16:18:00.012-06:00

In the sweltering Italian summer of 1978, residents of the sparse hamlet of Aquo Traverse do their best to keep cool and comfortable. Adults mainly stay inside, dissuaded from their normal tasks and irritable to be around, while children are left to explore on their own, largely unsupervised as they roam the surrounding countryside. On one outing, 9-year-old Michele Amitrano accepts a dare to enter an abandoned farmhouse alone. What he finds there, lying in a hollowed-out portion of the foundation, is what he presumes to be a corpse, that of a boy around his own age though he doesn't tell his friends or let on about anything out of the ordinary. Someone must be told though as news of this sort is obviously noteworthy and, soon afterwards, Michele discloses the situation to his father only to have the elder Amitrano mysteriously brush him off, actually telling him to forget the whole thing and indicating (in aggressive fashion) that this is the last he wants to hear about it. A confused Michele, too curious to stay away, ultimately returns to the scene and discovers that the boy in question is in fact not dead, only deathly weak, disoriented and mostly unable to account for his presence. In the following days, with aid from the food and water Michele brings him, a pieced-together story of kidnapping, ransom and cover-up involving every adult, Michele's parents included, in the small village is recounted. The evidence of the abducted boy, what he's able to recall and the mutual conspiracy by practically every grown-up he's ever known are largely out of Michele's reach. From his limited perspective, the situation's not only unfathomable but contradictory. And yet he knows something must be done. At a moral as well as developmental crossroads, Michele decides to act. Will it be the right move?

There are lots of coming of age novels. There are lots of growing older novels. There are lots of recollective, anecdotal stories written by grown-ups of early youth and confronting reality. But there are precious few truly great 'books about childhood written for adults'. This is one of them. Not a thriller, not suspense. Not nostalgia, not YA, not an abuse testimonial and probably not even a kid-centered horror tale à la Stephen King's It or "The Body" (those had relatively happy endings) though similar elements are involved. I'm Not Scared is something different, something inadvertently real and starkly rendered, not too far removed from Italian Neorealism itself in which self-consciousness in storytelling is intentionally absent. It's incredible how convincing Ammaniti is in writing the mindfulness of a nine-year-old. Michele's a character with not a lot of maturity but not a lot of despair, possessing plausible fears and believable errors. He's curious and at times impetuous without the foresight to know different and always, always in the moment. At no point is he looking at things with adult goggles. Ammaniti has been on the radar as a celebrated Italian novelist since the mid-nineties and this book clearly defines why. It's not one to miss. (FIC AMMANITI)

No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod

2011-12-20T17:05:00.003-06:00

This is MacLeod’s first novel, published 13 years ago, when he was 62. A writer and long-time teacher, he uses his childhood and young adult experiences in Nova Scotia to craft his fiction. Familiar with the land and the sea, knowing the lives of fishermen and miners, his novel and short story collections present people whose lives are bound to the natural world and to their family history.

The narrator of the story, Alexander, lived and was brought up on Cape Breton, an island in Nova Scotia which was settled by many French and Scottish people. The narrator’s family is a Scottish clan, from the northern highlands of Scotland. These are the people who fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie against England, and who later were cleared off their land so that sheep could be raised there. In the book, Calum MacDonald, Alexander’s ancestor, emigrates in the late 1700’s to Canada. One of the great stories in the book is about their faithful family dog trying to swim after their boat as they are embarking from Scotland. And how Calum first inveighs against the dog, swearing at her to go back. When she persists, he starts to call encouragement, realizing she will drown if she cannot reach them. Stories and moments like these are what make up the book, about being faithful, and not giving up. MacLeod is not reaching for sentiment – he simply lets you hear the telling, and the retelling.

The book is made up of a series of flashbacks that follow his ancestor Calum’s story and tell us his own upbringing. Visiting his older brother who is a down and out alcoholic living in a seedy Toronto rooming house, Alexander has occasion to remember their childhood and early adulthood. We also catch glimpses of visits with his sister in her present life as the wife of a mining executive, living in affluence in western Canada, far from the robust and natural childhood they experienced on Cape Breton.

A lot of the book is about nostalgia and the good old days. Except in the good old days, people died or were drowned, or went to prison like his older brother, who killed a man in a miners’ brawl. When British General Wolfe’s army scaled the cliff in Quebec to defeat the French, back in 1759, Scottish Highlanders led the treacherous ascent. Wolfe mistrusted them (they had fought on opposite sides in Scotland) and wrote in a letter that if they were lost, it would be “no great mischief”.

These kinds of stark details run like a thread in the narratives. The dog was saved from drowning, but Calum’s wife died at sea. Highlanders were hardy and bold, but their lives could hang by a thread, if they trusted generals or armies or mining companies. There always seems to be a price to pay, and in the end Alexander values his brother Calum just for what he was and what he stands for. Like the sweetness of the spring water spilling out in the salty tide submerging it, there is goodness, but it can’t be held. The most that MacLeod has said about the book is that his characters are not regretting the past - they are only being thoughtful about it.

He leaves it to us, his readers, to realize afresh that this life of the wind and the water and the field is gone for most of us, and will never return. As the writer E.M. Forster put it, seeing the growth of the suburbs around London at the start of this century, “What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?” What good indeed.

Killing Floor (Jack Reacher #1) / Lee Child

2011-12-20T17:01:00.000-06:00

Some of my favorite moments come from picking up a book or movie with low to no expectations and finding it far more entertaining than I thought I'd be. There's just something very gratifying about experiences like that, the ones that require little investment and yet yield a high rate of a return. It's what happened to me with the third movie in The Fast and the Furious franchise, Tokyo Drift (DVD FAST — hey, don't knock it 'til you've tried it!) and, more recently, Lee Child's Killing Floor (FIC CHILD).

This book, published in 1997, is the first in the bestselling Jack Reacher series. Reacher, an ex-military cop who drifts from town to town, inevitably finds trouble. These scenarios let us see our imposing, 6-foot 5-inch laconic protagonist at his best by showcasing his skills as both an operator and a detective. It's thrilling to follow a character who certainly knows how to handle himself, and who doesn't shirk from danger or mystery. He doesn't necessarily go looking for either of them — they just seem to find him.

Lee Child, the pen name for British writer Jim Grant, spent nearly 20 years as a writer in the television industry before corporate restructuring left him without a job. Child's reaction? To buy $6 worth of pen and paper and sit down and write a novel. Fourteen years later, he's still at it.

Killing Floor introduces us to the 36-year-old Reacher, who's just six months out of the Army. He's been wandering American's highways and byways as a self-described hobo since then. On a whim, he finds himself in the deceptively picturesque town of Margrave, Ga. From the minute he sits down in the town's lone diner, things go rapidly downhill for him. A murder — extremely rare for these parts — took place the night before, and Reacher's the easy suspect. The authorities welcome him by putting him in cuffs and pulling him in for questioning.

I thought: should I be worried? I was under arrest. In a town where I'd never been before. Apparently for murder. But I knew two things. First, they couldn't prove something had happened if it hadn't happened. And second, I hadn't killed anybody.

Not in their town, and not for a long time anyway.

Unfortunately for Reacher, but lucky for action-junkie readers, Killing Floor ratchets him back into the fray. A swath of bodies follows, some by the bad guys' hands and others by Reacher's as he struggles to stay alive while uncovering the town's secrets.

His motivations rely too much on coincidence but if you're willing to set aside your skepticism, the ride will keep you riveted. Child does a great job of pacing the story in a deliberate way, imbuing it with a sense of urgency by mixing slower scenes with moments of explosive action. The brutality of the violence took me by surprise — we're talking Girl-with-the-Dragon-Tattoo-level graphic brutality, so don't expect this to be a cozy mystery.

Once you get over the bloodshed, however, you'll see that Reacher's a pretty likable guy, deadly efficiency aside. He just wants to be left alone to do his own thing. For a loner, he certainly has surprisingly good people skills. He finds partners in two of the officers of the Margrave P.D. and together, the trio race against the clock to thwart the story's antagonists.

As successful as Child has been with the Jack Reacher series, it's no surprise that the character's been picked up for an impending movie. No. 9, One Shot is in development and slated for release in 2013.

The actor playing Reacher? Tom Cruise. Yikes. For now, I think I'll just stick to the books. Lucky for me, there are 15 more of them.

Mending: New and Selected Stories / by Sallie Bingham

2011-12-20T15:48:00.009-06:00

Although a middle-aged woman's life is consumed by doctor's appointments which do little more than offer emotional reassurance, it's the only way she can receive intimacy, and, in effect, the only way to "mend" her damaged soul. Two sisters, the eldest one which escaped the downtrodden family farm years ago and the younger one that didn't, talk about what's to be done with it now that their mother's succumbed to cancer. Ignoring her younger sister Shirley's emotional bond to the plot of land which she's been a part of all her life, the elder Miriam spares no tact in talking up her intentions of selling it all to the realtors, even envisioning her plan for the perfect cottage community. On another dying family farm, a capricious widow, still grieving the loss of her teenage daughter as well as her husband, hires a family of Haitian refugees against the will of her semi-bigoted land manager. Amid obvious discomfiture and through nearly impregnable language and cultural barriers, the more subtle admonitions of each's feelings about the other steadily bridge the communication gap, ultimately augmenting the perpetually tenuous social situation and initiating a serendipitous kind of connection.

Born and raised on a farm in Kentucky, literature professor, author, poet and playwright Sallie Bingham has spent much of her life in New York City, amid frequent trips to New Mexico, and has been married three times. Her stories have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and Southwest Review and been featured in several anthologies and collections like this one which includes 5 new stories as well as sampling of her earlier work. Perhaps classified as a mildly feminist author with a realistic voice similar to Joyce Carol Oates or Margaret Atwood, Bingham also has something of Chekhov in her prose, a steady, astute in-the-moment type of voice, economically deconstructing the scene in any given situation and presenting a masterfully dissected arrangement of people and feelings. With striking swiftness, the reader gets to know the principal characters--who they are, where they've been and (to some degree) what they'll do next--in a manner that's at once abrupt and palpable. It's a fun experience, worthy of its praise. (FIC BINGHAM)

The Neighbor / by Lisa Gardner

2011-12-20T11:36:00.007-06:00

The last thing Detective Sergeant D.D. Warren needs is a media frenzy surrounding her current investigation. Jason Jones is husband to Sandra Jones, a woman who disappeared in the middle of the night, leaving her purse, car keys and 4-year-old daughter behind without a trace. Jason's also the kind of hunky face that TV cameras love. Ditto for his young, blond wife who's not only stunningly photogenic, but has the kind of shady reputation--possible infidelity--which D.D. can't seem to get a firm angle on and which will inevitably beget numerous conspiracies if information is leaked and things linger. Regardless of the evidence (or lack thereof), the case has all the makings of another Nancy Grace-led TV news cacophony. Throw in a paranoid, possibly culpable sex offender living right around the corner and a plethora of other questionable neighbors in this regentrified south Boston neighborhood and D.D. has to be extra sharp and ultra fast to get to the bottom of this caper. Initially, at least, there's no direct information that would indicate a homicide, that is until D.D. discovers the 4.5 million dollars sitting untouched in the couple's bank account, evidently an inheritance left them some time ago. Why would a young couple work two full-time jobs--he a reporter, she a middle school teacher--and live a comparatively modest lifestyle while leaving a hefty nest egg just sitting idle? And why is Jason so worried about this sex offender guy who, despite his obvious history, seems to have nothing to do with anything? It's not the only thing that doesn't add up, nor is it the last little surprise to sneak up on D.D. in her quest to find out what happened as the story unfolds.

Suspense author Lisa Gardner hits it big in this highly entertaining bestseller which does well to balance an enthralling story with the charming nuances of a sympathetic protagonist. There's kind of a lot going on so it might seem like a hefty amount for the reader to process, but Gardner lays it out nicely, narrating the plot through four feature characters and giving her heroine the proper scope and incentive to face the challenge. D.D.'s not going to apologize for her faults, and she's not without them--falling for Jason's good looks, snap judgments on certain "neighbor" suspects, flawed interrogation tactics--but she's equally ready to confront any conflict and backtrack through her mistakes to remedy any errors. The author definitely knows her high profile news cases, referencing several of the more recent, over-sensationalized kidnapping/murder stories (Scott Peterson, Elizabeth Smart, Natalee Holloway, etc.) which have gotten a lot of run in the last few years. (MYS GARDNER)

Smilla's Sense of Snow / by Peter Hoeg

2011-12-15T16:51:00.005-06:00

37-year-old Smilla Jasperson is a loner by choice. Though she'd rather not get into reasons why, it has to do with being the product of a Danish physician father and an Greenlandic Inuit mother, the cultural implications of which haven't exactly helped her thrive in a homogenous Denmark. After spending much of her childhood in her mother's home country surrounded by a frozen wasteland of snow and ice, Smilla moved with her father back to Copenhagen following her mother's death where making friends didn't come easily. Snow is actually something she's more comfortable with, having developed a comprehensive, almost intuitive knowledge about the different types of snow and its characteristics, even working sporadically in the field of cryopediology (study of snow and ice) as a consultant. When she returns home one day to find that a neighbor boy, Isaiah, has died after falling from the roof of their apartment building, the sense of security in Smilla's life and the truth about her very origins begin to unravel at a disturbing rate.

For one thing, she's sure the fall was no accident. After looking at the boy's footprints in the snow leading to the roof's edge, it's clear he didn't just get too close to the edge--he was afraid of heights for one thing--and fall off. For another, Isaiah, like Smilla, is an Inuit, a full-blooded Greenland native who moved with his mother to Denmark after his father was killed in a mysterious mining accident. Normally not one to reach out to people, Smilla had originally only befriended Isaiah because of his hideous domestic arrangement--his mother is a raging alcoholic who beats him--and undertook to tutor him after he'd inevitably fallen behind his schoolwork. The real tragedy now that he's dead is not knowing what (or who?) happened to him on the rooftop. The indentations in the snow from Isaiah's footprints clearly indicate running away from something, but who? It's tough going at first without any real leads or help until a clue in the form of a single cassette tape emerges, shedding light not only on Isaiah's furtive habits--he had a lot of hiding places--and fearful disposition, but also on a decades old conspiracy concerning Denmark's ties to Greenland and a startling conspiracy no one could have imagined.

Danish crime writing sensation Peter Hoeg debuted this enthralling mystery back in 1992 when the Nordic crime fiction boom was just hitting the mainstream. He's sense written several others despite his extremely reclusive behavior--2006 novel The Quiet Girl was actually penned in 1996, remaining unpublished for over a decade. Speculation has it that this may be due to his extreme sensitivity to critical reviews, but it's largely unfounded. 'Smilla' is likely his best effort, a taught page-turner with an engrossing character who, incidentally, isn't all that dissimilar to Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander. Each of them certainly make a lot of enemies while trying their darndest to go it alone. Of course they can't help but win a lot of admirers and at least a few genuine friends in the process or sorting out their personal matters while battling conspiracy and corruption with their unique skill sets. Smilla's a little more mainstream than Salander--no tattoos or piercings--and isn't quite as, er, bohemian(?). But fans of the Millenium trilogy are almost certain to take a liking to it. (MYS HOEG)

Voyager / by Srikanth Reddy

2011-12-15T10:43:00.011-06:00

In one of the more creative concepts for a book ever (even poetry), author Srikanth Reddy explores the realms of material consciousness even as the object of his examination probes the physical boundaries of creation itself. In Voyager, the very concepts of life and matter are embodied, reawakened in a spiritual and figurative catharsis involving past transgressions, present distortions and a clever amalgamation of time and 'space'. The original source of his content, a print message and memoir authored by former U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, is currently (at this moment) traveling on an interplanetary journey out of Earth's solar system aboard the Voyager I satellite. The spacecraft, launched back in 1977, is now the furthest man-made object from Earth. The irony of the situation is that, post-1977, Waldheim was indicted and partially proven guilty of Nazi war crimes--as an SS Intelligence Officer, evidence showed he at least knew about certain intricate aspects of the Final Solution--and was party to further anti-Semitic political maneuverings during his tenure as the Austrian president. Reddy literally dissects, inter-cuts, rearranges and subliminally alters Waldheim's own words to reflect the paradoxical truth of an object intended to confront phenomenon beyond our terrestrial means, but which conceals crucial truths, explicit and otherwise, about our own world underneath its veneer.

Without knowing the context, it might be hard not to judge Reddy's carefully crafted, abstract exposition as too dense. The quirky alliteration ("Is is./The self is a suffering form./War is a failure of form") intro's the three part book in sparse, minimalistic fashion before the middle section segues into more direct territory ("This is the universal journey/the gravest proclaimed/in a universal language."). At times the narration overtly renders the author himself as the speaker, an individual with only a conceptual knowledge of his subject ("In my office a globe was set up/less a world than a history of imperialism and corruption"). Other portions speak in another voice, projections of a seemingly nebulous entity, which grasp out at the very substance of consciousness ("creation and fall,/I found fences/all laid down in blood.") Reddy, a literature professor at the University of Chicago, certainly has a gift for nuance and his range in wordplay is unquestionably superior. This is only his second published work of poetry. (811.6 REDDY)

All About Lulu / by Jonathan Evison

2011-12-13T16:04:00.013-06:00

Born in California in 1968 but raised in rural Washington state, Jonathan Evison left home as soon as he could. He drifted to San Francisco he tried reliving the city's bygone hippie era with "all the other alcoholic misfits" before realizing it was a losing effort. Ultimately he engendered himself to the burgeoning punk rock scene in Seattle where he helped found the band "March of Crimes", a group which headlined several future members of bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. Getting out of the music business in the late nineties, Evison worked several odd jobs before taking up writing fiction, gigs which including disc jockey and telemarketer among other things. A fervent devotee to social networking during it's earliest days, Evison was among the first to credit the online tool--Myspace in particular--as a key component of his literary success--he "cold-clicked" several hundred people whose profiles had James Joyce as their favorite author. His first novel All About Lulu, though a largely different story altogether, vaguely rehashes his own coming of age experiences through the eyes of a young dilettante.

In the wake of his mother's death from cancer in the early 1970's, young Will Miller must find a way to cope with his grief. His father and younger twin brothers already have their outlet--bodybuilding. Will's father, Big Bill, is actually on the professional circuit and a regular at their local Southern California hotspot, "Muscle Beach". And while Big Bill's good enough to place high in the rankings, he's not quite stellar enough to win first prize, always losing out to more pedigreed competitors like Arnold Schwartzenegger. Will's no bodybuilder, not even much of an athlete at all. In fact by the age of 12, he's become a vegetarian and is more interested in music than muscles. When Big Bill remarries, Will gets a new mom, Willow, a stepsister named Lulu and the first love of his life. Lulu's not only smart and beautiful, she likes Will for who he is and by the end of their first year of high school, the pair are dating. But after a summer spent in Vermont with relatives, Lulu comes back different. Isolated and moody, she starts to push Will away, begins dating other guys and ultimately leaves the family altogether to live in Seattle. These circumstances may have ended the relationship but not Will's fixation. For him, Lulu, even though she's just a friend now a thousand miles away, is the only reason to breathe. Slogging his way through the rest of high school as a mediocre student and fast food employee, he ultimately turns to philosophy for consolation, developing a taste for the works of Descartes, Kant, Hume and Kierkegaard as he begins a haphazard path to higher education at the local community college. The years pass by but Will's compulsion towards his life's only love never wains.

Though the level of writing would deem it worthy of adult literature, All About Lulu reads like a lot of YA books, even bearing a striking resemblance to one or two notable ones. It's a work which well characterizes the big events in the lives of young people which can remain just that, a big deal, long after adolescence, denoting that there are just some things in life, first loves among them, which don't diminish with age. Stories like these come with a lot of heavy-hearted delineations and morbid self-analysis, consequently there's a lot of irritating narcissistic qualities about the protagonist. Much like the archetypal love-scarred male adolescent, see Goethe's 18th century novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (FIC GOETHE), Will's emotional reach may touch others (his father, brothers, friends, etc.) but most of him is simply incapable of empathizing with much beyond his own afflicted feelings. This isn't a major fault but it does kind of limit the scope of the book and lend a distorted view to the other characters. In an odd way, especially seen in retrospect, Lulu herself seems to accommodate Will's passionate longing, and while not exactly reciprocating his advances, she's at least tolerable of them in amiable, even affectionate fashion--maybe not a typical reaction but you could argue that it keeps the story moving. Evison followed up this award-winning effort with West of Here, currently a bestseller about the history and heritage of Washington's Olympic peninsula. (FIC EVISON)