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Goodreads
May
31
Simon Levack’s The Shadow of the Lords is the exciting second book to his Aztec Mystery series (the first being Demon of the Air). Levack writes in an easy-to-read style with good character development. The second book picks up right where the first one left off (I have not experienced this concept with any of the other mystery series that I have read) - I love this idea.
Here is a brief synopsis of the book from Publishers Weekly:
Levack’s second 16th-century Aztec mystery (after 2005’s impressive Demon of the Air) is another intellectual page-turner that will satisfy even those with no previous knowledge of the ancient Central American civilization. The novel picks up moments after its predecessor’s dramatic conclusion. The complex and all-too-human Yaotl, a former priest, has just learned that he is a father and that his son is connected with a murder mystery he was probing at the request of Montezuma himself. As he tries to protect his son, Yaotl faces further challenges after he stumbles into a new inquiry involving a brutal killing and sightings of the dread god Quetzalcoatl that have driven the local population into near panic. The author matches impressive period research with tight plotting and the rare ability to make the inhabitants of a different world and time seem familiar.
I think you will enjoy this second book.
May
25
Happy Birthday to me
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Well, it is my birthday (I’m thirty-seven. I’m not old.) for a few more minutes, but after a morning spent painting the house and seven hours in the car (with two dogs and a two year old frequent stops are necessary) I feel a bit wiped out. But I am in the state of my birth and with my family so all is well.
Hope all of you have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend.
May
24
The Walk by William DeBuys
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I was recently trying to describe William DeBuys’ The Walk to a friend and realized that the book wasn’t easy to categorize or summarize. Here is the book description from Amazon (which is a portion of the book flap):
Set, like River of Traps, on a small farm in a New Mexican mountain valley that the author has tended since 1977, The Walk explores the illuminating ways in which personal and natural history interweave in a familiar environment. A kind of love story about a landscape, the book consists of three interrelated essays — “The Walk,” “Geranium,” and “Paradiso.” These pieces move from a period of strife and conflict in the author’s life to a place of limbo, to a place of peace — or, as the author says — from “inferno to purgatorio, and finally to paradiso.” DeBuys takes the same walk each morning, through the woods near his farm, and arrives at a clarity that comes from observing life carefully from the same vantage point for years. DeBuys, one of the country’s premier nature writers, is revered for his compassionate, clarifying prose. The Walk only reinforces that reputation.
The difficulty comes in seeking simple descriptions. In fiction we relate the plot, in non-fiction an argument or thesis or historical person/event. The Walk doesn’t fit easily into these categories. It is a sort of memoir in that it describes events in DeBuys life, but it is more of a meditation on the land then it is a description of events or personalities (but those are weaved in as well). I guess “explores the illuminating ways in which personal and natural history interweave in a familiar environment” captures things pretty well. It reads like a sort of extended conversation; as if you were walking around DeBuys farm while he talked about his life on the property over the years.
Donna Seaman, reviewing The Walk for Booklist, had this to say
These days the meditative art of nature writing is often overshadowed by works of environmental concern and warning. Therefore what bliss it is to encounter deBuys beautifully crafted musings on the history and spirit of land he has long walked and cherished. On a small farm in northern New Mexico, deBuys has married, raised children, cared lovingly for horses, and learned the ways of water and earth, grass and elk. He has also studied evidence of the errors of our ways in the “testimony of the landscape.” DeBuys contemplates the follies of pesticide use and wildfire policies, and takes measure of his painful solitude after the demise of his marriage and the death of friends. What is there to do, but to walk the land as he has for 27 years? After all, “walking helps the mind go out and the world come in, and brings us to our senses.” A supple and silvery book, The Walk defines hope in terms of mountain and sky, river and pine, mindfulness and love.
Some might find this boring, but I found that Debuys’ writing was strong enough and his thoughts and insights interesting enough to make it worth while. It is by no means exciting or suspenseful, but it is enjoyable in a relaxed and thoughtful way. It is not the kind of book you can’t put down, but rather one you will enjoy picking up and dipping into for a few minutes. Seeing how the book is only 176 pages, it won’t take to long to finish.
For a few examples of passages I found worth highlighting, see below.
May
24
In the Mail - Fiction Edition
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- The King of Methlehem by Mark Lindquist
Publishers Weekly
Lindquist (Carnival Desires) puts his experience combating the scourge of methamphetamines as a Washington State narcotics prosecutor to good use in his fourth novel, a gripping thriller. Tacoma detective Wyatt James is dead set on putting an end to the operations of a shadowy figure who uses the alias Howard Schultz (after the Starbucks mogul), who has moved to establish himself as the preeminent meth dealer in the Pacific Northwest. James’s efforts to turn smalltime dealers into informants who could lead him to his quarry are aided by Mike Lawson, supervisor of the drug trial unit, and the author’s alter ego. When Schultz again beats a rap, James’s obsession with his white whale intensifies, leading to a tragic conclusion. The quality writing and flashes of gallows humor raise this above the usual tale of good guys vs. bad guys.
- If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar
Publishers Weekly:
In Umrigar’s tender fourth novel, Tehmina “Tammy” Sethna is torn between two cultures that couldn’t be more different: Bombay and Cleveland. The former is her homeland, but after her husband’s recent death, she’s been staying with her son and his family in America. Tehmina loves being near grandson Cookie, but she often feels like an intruder in her American daughter-in-law’s home, and she’s disconcerted by the changes in her son, Sorab, who is stressed from the corporate rat race. Though Tehmina’s loneliness floods her with memories of her husband, the Parsi community back in India and her traditional ways, she finds no small amount of purpose (and celebrity) in Cleveland after suspecting her neighbor of child abuse and intervening on the children’s behalf. Immigration laws, meanwhile, force her to decide whether she’ll remain in Cleveland or return to Bombay. Umrigar (The Space Between Us) shows the unseemly side of American excess and prejudice while gently reminding readers of opportunities sometimes taken for granted.
- The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont
Publishers Weekly:
Malmont’s debut thriller reads like pages torn from the pulp magazines to which it pays nostalgic homage. It’s 1937, and the nation’s two top pulp writers—William Gibson, author of novels featuring caped crime fighter “The Shadow,” and Lester Dent, the creator of do-gooder hero Doc Savage—are trying to solve real-life mysteries that each hopes will give him bragging rights as the world’s best yarn spinner. Gibson follows rumors that pulp colleague H.P. Lovecraft was murdered to the fog-shrouded Providence, R.I., waterfront. Dent tracks clues to an impossible killing through the bowels of New York’s Chinatown. As the two adventures dovetail, they spawn sinuous subplots involving tong wars, secret chemical warfare, pirate mercenaries, kidnappings, revolution in China and weird science run amok. Lovecraft, L. Ron Hubbard, Louis L’Amour and Chester Himes all play prominent supporting roles and offer piquant observations on the penny-a-word writing life that conjure a colorful sense of time and place. Like the pulpsters he reveres, Malmont doesn’t let the facts get in the way of his storytelling, and the result is a fun, if wildly improbable, pulp joyride.
- Throw Like A Girl: Stories by Jean Thompson
Publishers Weekly:
The women protagonists of Thompson’s hard-hitting latest collection of stories (The Gasoline Wars; 1999 NBA finalist Who Do You Love) have, like the young army wife of “It Would Not Make Me Tremble to See Ten Thousand Fall,” secret plans to wrest control of their life from husbands, boyfriends and mothers. Kelly Ann Pardee, a high school dropout stuck at home with a child while her army grunt husband is sent to the Middle East, wants to be a warrior, too. The teenage Jessie in “The Five Senses” has run off to Florida with an older man she is beginning to realize is violent and scary, and yet she is disappointed that her new fugitive existence isn’t more exciting than her upper-middle-class life. Older women in these stories have been through the mill—of marriage, adultery, child-rearing. Mid-40s Melanie of “A Normal Life” marries Chad after a long affair, only to wonder if this new version of her lover is one she wants. In “Holy Week,” seething sales agent Olivia Snow is too worn down by her job and single mom drudgery to upgrade her “subemployed musician” boyfriend or realize how at risk her 17-year-old daughter is. Thompson’s talent is on full display.
- Stalin’s Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith
Publishers Weekly
Moscow-based Senior Investigator Arkady Renko, in his outstanding sixth outing (after Wolves Eat Dogs), investigates a murder-for-hire scheme that leads him to suspect two fellow police detectives, Nikolai Isakov and Marat Urman, both former members of Russia’s elite Black Berets, who served in Chechnya. Isakov, a war hero, is now running for public office. Renko must also look into reports that the ghost of Stalin has begun appearing on subway platforms and why several bodies of Black Berets who served in Chechnya with Isakov have turned up in the morgue. Despite repeated threats to his life, Renko stubbornly perseveres, seeking justice in a land that has no official notion of that concept. Smith eschews vertiginous twists and surprises, concentrating instead on Renko as he slowly and patiently builds his case until the pieces fall together and he has again, if not exactly triumphed, at least survived. This masterful suspense novel casts a searing light on contemporary Russia.
May
23
Been a while, time for another edition of In The Mail . . .
Book Description
From the executive director of the ACLU, Anthony D. Romero, and award-winning journalist Dina Temple-Raston, In Defense of Our America takes a critical look at civil liberties in this country at a time when constitutional freedoms are in peril. Using the stories of real Americans on the frontlines of the fight for civil liberties., In Defense of Our America provides a look at the dangerous erosion of the Bill of Rights in the age of terror.
[. . .]
With unparalleled access to key players in some of the landmark tests of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, In Defense of Our America weaves together a compelling narrative that provides an unusually full look at the fight for civil liberties as Americans struggle to protect their rights and ensure their security.
- Virtual Worlds: Rewiring Your Emotional Future by Jack Myers
Book Description
A growing number of young people are spending unprecedented amounts of time in a virtual existence. Virtual Worlds are becoming an embedded part of our culture and the implications for every aspect of society are unimaginable. This 116-page easy-to-read book discusses the potential that Virtual Worlds have to dramatically alter the emotional code of the human race, and also reviews the opportunities for individuals, corporations, advertising and media companies to build personal and corporate marketing campaigns in Virtual Worlds. This first reader generated book not only will open the eyes of readers to this completely new world but, in itself, will become an immersive experience for readers that could keep them involved, engaged and emotionally connected to a virtual world community experience for years ahead.
Book Description
For the last thirty years, Douglas E. Schoen has been one of the most innovative people in Democratic politics, working behind the scenes as a political strategist for some of the world’s most influential and respected politicians. Now, as the upcoming presidential elections focus attention on the campaign process, this consummate insider draws back the curtain on how modern elections have been transformed in the past quarter-century—and how those changes have changed politics, in America and around the world.
May
23
Sea of Thunder by Evan Thomas
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Evan Thomas’ Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign 1941-1945 is an excellent look at four naval commanders and their actions during the Battle of Leyte Gulf during the World War II.
Here is a brief summary of the book from Publisher’s Weekly:
Thomas, Newsweek’s assistant managing editor, turns his considerable narrative and research talents to Leyte Gulf, history’s largest and most complex naval battle. He addresses the subject from the perspectives of four officers: William Halsey, who commanded the U.S. 3rd Fleet; Adm. Takeo Kurita, his Japanese counterpart; Adm. Matome Ugaki, Kurita’s senior subordinate and a “true believer” in Japan’s destiny; and Cdr. Ernest Evans, captain of a lowly destroyer, the U.S.S. Johnston.
The Americans believed the Japanese incapable of great military feats, while the Japanese believed the Americans were incapable of paying the price of war. Both were tragically wrong. Halsey steamed north in pursuit of a what turned out to be a decoy, while Kurita’s main force was positioned to destroy the American landing force in the Philippines.
Evans repeatedly took the Johnston into harm’s way against what seemed overwhelming odds. His heroism, matched by a dozen other captains and crews, convinced Kurita to break off the action. With Halsey’s battleships and carriers just over the horizon, Kurita refused to sacrifice his men at the end of a war already lost. Ugaki bitterly denounced the lack of “fighting spirit and promptitude” that kept him from an honorable death. Evans fought and died like a true samurai. As Thomas skillfully reminds us, war is above all the province of irony.
May
22
I had a very weird feeling the other day. I realized that for one of the few times in my life I agreed with the New York Times more than with National Review Online! What brought such a weird moment to pass? Reviews of The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid.
In my own review I rather prophetically had this to say:
In today’s often polarized and hyper-partisan environment conservatives will be tempted to simply write off Moshin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist as just another anti-American screed masquerading as fiction. Those on the opposite end may want to label it in a similar fashion but approve of the politics. That would be a mistake. Yes, the book does contain anti-American sentiment and passages that are, to my mind, rather banal leftist complaints about the xenophobic and destructive nature of the American “empire.” But to categorize this book as simply a political rant dressed-up as art is to deny both its aesthetic merit and the cultural insights it might offer.
Ann Marlowe soon took up the challenge at NRO with her Buying Anti-American. Marlowe’s review is one long extended rant; she seems genuinely offended by the book. Here are some representative quotes:
- As a novel, RF is tripe — anti-American agitprop clumsily masquerading as a work of art. People who are buying RF are sending their money to someone who is aggressively anti-American.
- On a purely literary level, RF is a dreadful book.
- But Hamid has obviously seen that there is greater mileage in playing the “Muslim rage” card and donning the mantle of Islamic minstrelism than in becoming a fine novelist. If I had any sympathy for him, I’d mourn his lack of respect for himself. As it is, I’m appalled at his lack of respect for his audience, his narrator, his narrator’s American listener, his co-religionists who suffered under the Taliban and under Saddam, and for the victims of the World Trade Center attack.
Some of Marlowe’s criticism are fair, but I think in many ways she misses the point.
May
22
Pacific Alamo: The Battle for Wake Island by John Wukovits
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Pacific Alamo by John Wukovits highlights an area of World War II that has rarely been covered – the Battle for Wake Island and the fate of those who survived the battle. Wukovits brings his wonderful narrative style to this subject.
The book covers the battle – which began on December 11, 1941 – extensively through the eyes of the military men and civilians who fought to defend the island against the Japanese. The Japanese tried to take the island with a small force, but suffered heavy losses. After bombing the island for three weeks, the Japanese finally took the island with a total of 700 casualties compared to 100 casualties for the Americans. After surrendering, the Americans were taken to various locations around the Japanese Empire where they were brutally treated and sometimes murdered.
Wukovits does an excellent job of reciting the battle and the fate of the Americans who fought in it. Wukovits weaves together the personal accounts of the military men, civilians, and Japanese. In addition, he briefly explains how the events that occurred on Wake influenced the war in general – many Americans saw the Wake defenders’ defiance as a rallying cry.
In short, the book is wonderfully written about a group of men who captured the hearts of America.
May
21
Ohio Newspapers and Book Blogs
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Sorry about the radio silence of late but off-line life has been intruding. I have some reviews and some opinions I would like to share but I need to find some time to get them down in pixels.
There has been a lot of discussion in lit blogs about local newspaper coverage of books. Ohio papers are working at unique ways to bring coverage to the web. I thought I would offer some links to give you an idea of what this entails.
- The Columbus Dispatch is looking to start an online book club and has asked readers to pick the first book. The choices are: Up in Honey’s Room by Elmore Leonard; The Woods by Harlan Coben; or The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon.
- Dispatch Book Critic Bill Eichenberger has also started a blog with the rather pedestrian title of Book Blog. One small complaint: good luck finding it from the main page of the paper’s website!
- Dayton Daily News also has a book blog more inventively titled Book Nook.
- The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Sara Pearce has a book blog called LitChick.
- The Cleveland Plain Dealer (or at least Cleveland.com) doesn’t have a book blog but has been running reviews from Blogcritics for some time now and, unlike some of the other papers, they have a nice - and easy to find - book section.
I haven’t done any research on other papers. Does your local or state paper have a book blog or a good online book section? It would be interesting to see how many papers are moving in this direction.
May
17
One of my favorite young adult series is the Sisters Grimm Fairy Tale Detectives series by Michael Buckley. They are everything I enjoy about YA fiction: creative, funny, nicely packaged and beautifully illustrated.
My wife and I read through the first three books in the series very quickly so we were eagerly anticipating the release of the fourth book, Once Upon a Crime, this month. It didn’t disappoint. It was a great continuation of this entertaining series.
If you will recall from the last book, Puck had his wings ripped off by the Jaberwocky and the Grimms were planing to take him back to the faeries to see if they could heal his wounds. Well, it turns out the faeries are located in New York City - central park to be exact. The plan is to drop Puck off and head back home, but when someone murders King Oberon chaos breaks out and the Grimms are enlisted to help find the murderer.
The subplot involves Sabrina wrestling with learning about a side of her mother that she didn’t know existed. All of the violence, danger and instability, however, has her wishing she could just give up and be a normal girl. As you can probably guess this isn’t very likely any time soon. Grandma Relda respecters her wishes, but there is the small matter of getting out of New York alive to deal with first.
Buckley weaves in another batch of fairy tale characters that aren’t quite what you grew up with - now hanging out in the Big Apple - with the usual adventurous twists and turns, Grimm family squabbles, and the required climatic showdown with a terrifying monster. We learn more about the mysterious Scarlet Hand, and what happened to Sabrina and Daphne’s parents, but there are still enough questions to keep the series going. It is all good clean imaginative fun.
So if you enjoy young adult fiction, or have kids - “tween” I think is the age group - who are looking for reading material, be sure to check out The Sisters Grimm; to use a cliche they are fun for the whole family.
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