Corn, Dresden, and BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

35 (NTY) The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan 5/13

Pick:
I loaned this out to a friend, Tonya Arnold, who was both inspired and appalled by it, just like Toni was; I think both of them had to stop partway through the book and read something else, just to keep from having to give up food forever from the sheer horror and despondency. Once Tonya gave it back, it went on the short list until I got to it.

Story:
My response to this was what it usually is when I read about how the corporate-industrial complex has ruined our world: rage. This led to a really nice blog about how much I now hate corn, where most of my reviewing was already done.

Other than make me want to go through the offices of Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland dealing out solar plexus jabs, the first part of this book made me want to be a farmer. I shrugged it off and decided to write, instead, which was the right choice -- but honestly? I may want to be a farmer someday. I loved reading about Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia (Which is also prominently featured in the movie "Food, Inc.," though the book, of course, gives more information.), and his system of intensive management of livestock. The problem for me would still be in the slaughtering -- and the knowledge base, I suppose, since Salatin is a third-generation farmer, and I'm third-generation bourgeois -- but I still love the idea. I love the idea of making real food, of understanding where food should come from and what it should do for you, and fighting against the ravages of the agribusiness corporations. I would love to do that, if I could. And I, unlike those organic bastards, wouldn't sell out when General Mills came knocking. As hard as Pollan worked to make that Cascadian Farms guy seem like a logical man doing the logical thing, he still strikes me as a money-grubbing sell out. Sure, go be that if you want -- but recognize that you're betraying the values you ostensibly started with.

I loved reading the final chapters in this, about hunting and gathering; I didn't know any of what Pollan said about mushrooming, and even though I'm not terribly fond of mushrooms, he made me want to go hunt for them and eat them. Sort of. I am at least fond of the idea. More interestingly, Michael Pollan is the first and only person who has ever made hunting make sense to me. That actually might be the most interesting thing I take away from this book: while I will still and always criticize sport hunting and trophy hunting, hunting for food actually seems like a reasonable thing to do, now. I get it. It just took someone who could honestly describe the entire experience better than my students can, and Pollan did that. It was interesting.

Great book. Everyone should read. Oh, and read about how much I hate corn, too.


36. (Re-read) Small Favor by Jim Butcher 5/15

Pick:
I can't go on without reading Harry Dresden! I can't! Must . . . finish . . . series!

Story:
In the two years since I last read this book, I managed to forget all but the smallest details, so this was nice -- it was an almost-fresh reading. As always, I love the Denarians; the two big showdowns in this book are incredible, especially given that Harry is genuinely outclassed in them -- and in essence, loses one of them. I like the tension between Harry and his friends, who are forced to doubt Harry at more than one point; I like the way we see Mab's manipulation working throughout, from the shadows and barely visible (and not always done in a way that makes any sense to any sane person, which I also liked), and I absolutely loved the Gruffs. Especially the last one, and the way Harry resolves it.

Great book.


37. (12) Turn Coat by Jim Butcher 5/18

Pick:
I loved reading Dresden so much, I went straight into the next one -- which was new, at least for me! Woohoo! I CAUGHT UP!

Story:
To be honest, I didn't like this one quite as much. I didn't like the premise; not because it was poorly thought out or didn't work or anything, but because it put Morgan into Harry's world. Since Jim Butcher is the kind of writer he is, he couldn't let himself write Morgan as anything other than a cantankerous, prejudiced, hard-boiled leather-assed bastard, and it was very annoying to keep reading that in the middle of my happy Harry time. I mean, when Harry goes home to his apartment, I want to read about Mister and Mouse, and get ready to laugh at Bob's cracks. Instead, every time Harry comes home I got -- Morgan. Being Morgan. Though the repeated almost-fights broken up by Mouse were pretty damn funny.

I did like the Council intrigues (I knew who the villain was! Go me!) and I absolutely loved Demonreach and how Harry deals with that. I also really liked Binder, since it gave us a good view of how much damage a minor talent could do if he was also a hard-ass mercenary. Which gave me a push toward one of my ideas for a character in the upcoming Dresden Files RPG (Which will be a librarian, with a specialty in fae lore, who has one magical trick -- I haven't decided what yet. Knowledge will be my power.). The ending of this book, though, was just sad. The good guys win, yet still everything in Harry's life pretty much goes bad. I'm hoping the next book can redeem some of this. I really hope that. I'll be reading it soon.


38. (Got it from school. Seriously.) Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell 5/21

Pick:
Well, I've been reading so many good books, that I felt it was time for a bad one. Actually, one of my Honors students did his book presentation project on this thing last semester, and hearing about the climactic fight made me burst out laughing; it was one of the nicest moments of hilarity I've had at school all year. After he finished his presentation, he sat down and then held the book up and said, "Does anybody want this? Seriously. I'm done with it." So I took it, and told him I'd read it. It has sat on my shelf at school for the last five months; finally that same kid asked me if I'd read it yet, and I had to say no. But when he asked, I was almost finished with Dresden . . .

Story:
Somebody's been reading Bukowski.

To be honest, I haven't read very much of that master barfly's work, but I think I've read enough to describe his hero: a physically imposing, yet almost completely aloof, giant who makes a hobby of being surly. He comes, of course, from a thoroughly soul-destroying background, yet he has known enough kindness, enough love, to retain some small inner core of real compassion. While he is a dispassionately violent brute, who is constantly and intensely intoxicated, he is also a genius; this serves to add contempt for his fellow men to his already anti-social personality. He is profane and visceral, and he is surrounded by scum and filth: everybody he knows is a liar and a fool, and they are all out to manipulate and use and hurt others, including our hero -- who is generally too cynical and intelligent and savage to let them, but that inner core of goodness gives him a vulnerable spot which gets struck again and again.

If this doesn't sound familiar, you haven't read Bukowski (And I would recommend doing what I did: read one of his novels. He was a brilliant writer. But follow it up with the happiest book you can find, because good grief, is that world ever depressing.). Nor, apparently, have you read Josh Bazell's Beat the Reaper, because Pietro Brnwa is exactly what I described. Down to being Polish, just like Henry Chinaski, the main character in Charles Bukowski's books. Except Josh Bazell isn't anywhere near the writer that Bukowski was. This means that Pietro's savagery, while it makes sense, isn't sympathetic like Chinaski's; his profanity and obscenity are just off-putting, and the world of lowlifes that surround him doesn't seem realistic and therefore both eye-opening and depressing -- it just seems ridiculous.

Beat the Reaper is about an orphan who is taken in by a mafia family, and he becomes a hired gun for his surrogate father. Until, as they say, the poop hits the propellor and he leaves the mafia behind, entering the witness protection program (I'm really not spoiling much -- this is all revealed within the first few chapters; then the entire story is told in a series of flashbacks.) and becoming -- wait for it -- a doctor. That's right, a brutal and heartless killer, who manages to slaughter four gun-toting gangsters while he is tied to a chair, becomes the only doctor who isn't entirely corrupt, incompetent and self-involved in the New York hospital where he does his residency. Until someone shows up who remembers him (Maybe he shouldn't have stayed in New York after entering witness protection?), and then he has to make a decision: run or fight?

It's a silly premise, made worse by a thoroughly ridiculous character, and almost entirely killed by the fact that the inevitable betrayal -- because in Bukowski's/Bazell's world, trust always leads to betrayal -- is absurd. It makes no sense. The proposed explanation doesn't work, and isn't really given the weight to make it acceptable with some suspension of disbelief. It's just silly.

However: I did read the entire book. I did this partly because I had been told about the last fight scene (Based on what is, without a doubt, the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard of -- and I read Chuck Norris jokes) and I wanted to read it for myself, but also because Bazell, who is actually a doctor, has a ton of interesting tidbits to say about hospitals and doctors and medicine. He puts them into footnotes throughout the book, which is annoying (Because Bazell also isn't David Foster Wallace), and I refuse to believe some of them (though maybe I'm naive), but they did help enormously in making the book readable. The medical trivia, and the absurdity, were the best parts of this.

My best advice to the curious is this: read the book's first line. If you are interested in a book that starts with that, go for it; if you roll your eyes, put this down and go get Ham on Rye.

Angels, Demons, Aliens, Zombies -- and America.

30. (10) The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson 4/21

Pick:
I think this one was an LBS book (Library Book Sale) that just looked interesting. "An unsparing and hilarious account of one man's rediscovery of America and his search for the perfect small town." Funny, biting non-fiction? I'm in.

Thoughts:
I did like it quite a lot; it wasn't often laugh-out-loud funny (What the kids these days call "lol"), but Bryson has a great eye and a truly scathing wit. If I had any trouble with it, it was that it was a bit out of date for me; the America that Bryson is looking to recapture was not one that I ever knew, either chronologically or geographically. I was an East Coaster growing up in the 70's and 80's; he was a Midwesterner growing up in the 50's and 60's. But I like the way he sees America: as a wonderful place that has basically been horribly fucked up by the people, who are generally ignorant, shallow, short-sighted goobers. On the other hand: some of those idiots are incredibly nice people, and there are people who aren't idiots, who care about their country and their town and their community, and who do a wonderful job, as long as they can survive the slow encroachment of the idiots.

Bill Bryson grew up in Iowa, the son of a sportswriter who took his family on annual driving tours of the country every summer. Bryson grew up and followed his father into journalism, though not into life in the American Midwest: Bryson lived for almost twenty years. And then he decided to come back and see if he could rediscover the country his father had shown him in his childhood, by taking the family car -- a Chevette, god help him -- and touring around the US. He is looking, he says, for the perfect small town, the one that politicians and local-color writers like Garrison Keillor are always going on about. Bryson calls his Amalgam, as he expects that he will only be able to find a piece of it here, a piece of it there.

He tours through 38 of the 50 states, over the course of two months in 1989. He stops at battlefields, at national monuments and state parks, at small museums and shopping malls. He gets lost in the Ozarks, looking for the Melungeon people. He is horrified inside a K-Mart (Only because Wal-Mart had not yet metastasized across the country) by the people there, while he is simultaneously tempted by the bargains -- this guy, by the way, is more than a little cheap. He sneaks into Colonial Williamsburg and sees a once-in-a-lifetime geyser erupt in Yellowstone. And finally, he comes on home to Iowa -- though it's interesting to note that one of his best experiences, in terms of nice people and beautiful, unspoiled countryside, is in New Hampshire -- which is where the author settled with his family after this book's publication. He never finds his Amalgam, but he finds a lot of nice things, mixed in with all the horror.

It's a smarmy book, it is at time a supercilious book, it is a slightly sappy nostalgic book. But it's a very good book.


31. (Vine) Can't Teach an Old Demon New Tricks by Cara Lockwood 4/27

Pick:
A woman has a half-demon child because she didn't know her husband was possessed? Angels and demons are now hunting down her recently-vanished demonic husband? Sounds good to me.

Thoughts:
I thought this was a very fun book. I probably missed some of the enjoyment because I hadn't read the first one; it seems, from comments made about several of the characters, that the first book deals with a similar theme, and the main players in it reappear in this, but are no longer the protagonists -- there are several characters who know about the existence of angels and demons, and their presence on Earth and how humans must deal with them, but the main character, Rachel Farnsworth, is a total innocent when the story begins.

There's a decent romance, though it is a little hard to swallow; the male lead is Sam, a fallen Wrath angel turned demonic bounty hunter. His character's main concept is a loner, an independent who refuses to knuckle under to anyone else's attempts to tell him what to do; he is cold and distant and hard-boiled because of it. And of course, that kind of man always ends up falling in love with the woman with a heart of gold and a tongue of razor-sharp steel, who can break through his tough exterior and make his gooey insides melt, in books like this, and Sam is no exception -- but I didn't feel like enough of the story dealt with making that happen. It just sort of -- happened. There are reasons given, but it didn't feel like enough, to me.

I loved the parts dealing with the fallen angels and demons; I liked the two watcher angels and the ancient Babylonian goddess, and the half-demon toddler was great. I was a little annoyed by the bad guys, but I did like the big surprise concerning the identities of a few of them, and their unexpected intentions. The ending was excellent, both for the adventure story and the romance. Overall a nice book.

32. (New This Year) Flirt by Laurell K. Hamilton 4/29

Pick:
I have so many new books to read, so much on the shelf; I just wanted something from my top picks group (the ones I prefer reading, rather than the ones I'm merely interested in) that would be a quick read. So that was Flirt. (By the way: we had this one because Toni and I are both enormous fans of the series, so this was Toni's birthday present. One of them. Or maybe it was the Bookiversary present -- I forget. )

Thoughts:
It wasn't bad, though I thought it focused on the wrong thing. It would have been okay for the story to really hone in on the concept that inspired Hamilton to write it, which was the flirting scene in the restaurant; it would have been better for her to focus on the stuff she actually does well, which would be the zombie parts. I loved the idea of the two clients who demanded Anita's services, why they wanted their loved ones raised and why she wouldn't do it; I liked the end result of that fairly well.

But since the book went from the zombie story, to the flirting scene, back to the zombie story, the flirting scene felt added in, a complete distraction, and it took some of the focus off of where it should have been. And then Hamilton's author's note, when she told the same goddamned flirting story two more times, in almost identical language -- first narrating what actually happened, and then including the webcomics her friend drew based on the story (Which recapitulated the story for the third time for me, again without changing hardly a word), not only made the zombie stuff seem like the part that was off-topic, but it made the original concept story boring. A flustered waiter and a hot friend are just not that riveting, Ms. Hamilton. Sorry.

I'm waiting on the actual novel.


33. (Vine) Boom! by Mark Haddon 5/1

Pick:
I loved A Curious Incident . . . and this was a children's book by the same guy. About the teacher's lounge and alien languages and mischievous kids. I'm in.

Story:
When you were a kid, did you ever wonder what really goes on in the teacher's lounge? I did. So I became a teacher, and I found out: nothing.

Nothing that you need to know about, that is. Nothing that I can tell you and still allow you to roam around free, with both your memory and your tongue.

But I've said too much.

Mark Haddon's novel "Boom!" covers this same vital question, and unfortunately for Mr. Haddon -- an excellent author with a fantastic imagination, the kind of person who can dream up things that are so close to real life that they seem most genuine, yet are different enough to open our eyes and minds and show us the wonder that hides behind our perceptions and assumptions (witness his most famous and brilliant novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) -- he knows what he's talking about. His two heroes, the schoolboys Jim and Charlie, decide to plant a hidden microphone in their teachers' lounge, in order to find out whether the rumor of Jim's impending expulsion is true or not. They hear more than they ever bargained for. They hear what we teachers really say when there is nobody else around.

The results are terrifying, fascinating, and of course, utterly hilarious. The characters are picture perfect, three-dimensional and real without being overly complex. The story tells not only of a thrilling and intergalactic adventure, but also of a family that comes close to falling apart but manages to hold on and rediscover what is truly important. It makes the book not only fun to read, but good to read. Anyone who wants to read this book will be able to follow it, and anyone who reads this book will enjoy it.

And then you had better forget all about it, if you know what's good for you.

Gridzbi Spudvetch!

34. (11) Curse of the Blue Tattoo by L.A. Meyer 5/4

Pick:
I wanted something rollicking and fun, and I wanted to see if this second book held up with the first.

Thoughts:
Hell, it was even better! As much as I enjoyed the story of Mary "Bloody Jack" Faber finding her way from the rough streets of London at the turn of the 19th Century to life in His Majesty's Royal Navy, I liked this story even better. In this one, Jacky, having been discovered masquerading as a boy and thus removed from the HMS Dolphin, has been enrolled (largely against her will) in the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls in Boston. She quickly finds that while life as a proper young lady in Boston is much less physically strenuous than life in an orphan gang or life on a ship of the line, it is no less dangerous. She is still surrounded by enemies -- though she finds friends, as well, just as close as those she had on ship -- and she must still maintain a masquerade. This one gives her much more trouble, however. On board the Dolphin, she simply had to pretend to be a boy; here she must pretend to have an entirely different personality and upbringing, and priorities and morals that run completely counter to those she actually has. This is a life that her previous lives have most definitely not prepared her for.

Fortunately for Jacky, and for those of us who love her and wish her only the best, her talent and intelligence, her kindness and sense of justice and fairplay, and her intelligence and toughness and love of adventure carry her through most of her trials -- and into several of the worst ones. She goes from proper young student -- and almost universally disdained and treated cruelly by the meanest set of snippety little bitches I personally have ever read about -- to jailed strumpet in danger of a flogging, to chambermaid to the very girls who treated her so poorly before. Then she becomes a singing sensation, once again a proper young lady, for a few brief spans she is again a boy -- and she ends up both saving the day and coming within inches of death. It was amazing how many adventures she had, and also how well written they all were.

That was the coolest part of the book for me. As much as I loved reading about Jacky -- and I did, all the way up to the ending, which is quite sad (though it set up the next book and got me all excited about reading that one, too) -- the best part of this was how well the author managed to recapture so many disparate elements of early American life. I mean, Jacky goes everywhere and does everything in these books; this one is absolutely the story of a young girl who doesn't fit in to an upperclass environment, but who also makes her mark on high society; whereas the last one was a nautical yarn about life on a ship, with a secret. Totally different, yet both equally good. Very impressive -- and these are highly recommended.

Parrots, Hamsters, Ifrit-dogs, and Vampires, Oh My!

Oh: and bad graphic novels about Templars.

25. (Vine) Solomon's Thieves by Jordan Mechner, LeUyen Pham and Alex Puvilland (4/3)

Pick:
I was going through the Vine newsletter, not seeing anything that was terribly exciting but determined to look at all of my options; I had already picked the parrot book when I saw this little graphic novel, and I thought, "Hey, how long could it take me to read a comic book?" So here's one more to pad out my reviewer's resume.

Thoughts:
I'm a fan of graphic novels from way back; I'm also a fan of medieval tales, of knights and rogues, loyalty and chivalry, betrayal and dastardly deeds. But I'm not a fan of this book.

The story isn't bad, though there is a confusing jump right at the beginning when you change narrators without warning; I kept wondering how the hero of the book could have been in the Templar battle at Acre in 1291 when it clearly said that he had joined the Templars in 1295; turns out it was some other Templar at Acre for the first few pages. But overall, it's a fairly intriguing tale; it is the story of the downfall of the Order of Solomon's Temple, the Templars, in the infamous purge on Friday the 13th which has been written about in several other novels and movies, as the author mentions in his afterword. This one has a nice spin on the story, as it focuses on a group of knights who aren't the most chivalrous or upstanding: rather they are the knights who sometimes try to sneak out of the Temple to drink, gamble, and find women, though they do try to sneak back in in time for the Crusade.

Unfortunately, the short length of the book and the timeline the author chose doesn't offer very much time for these uncouth knights to get into trouble, which is really too bad, as it means we don't get to enjoy their defining characteristic. They sneak out once, but by the time they stumble home (their night out having been disrupted by a romantic side story that will presumably be wrapped up in later issues, since it was left badly hanging in this one), the Templars have been arrested en masse by the French king, jealous of their power and wealth and determined to defy the all-powerful Catholic church.

The story has a nice bit of hidden treasure and valuable secrets, and ominous bad guys chasing fugitive Templars; there are fights, of course, and a chase scene involving a carriage and several Royal Guards on horseback. There is quite a lot of torture, though not as graphically depicted as I've seen it in some other books -- say, The Watchmen, for one. And the historical details are often quite interesting, particularly the attempt to capture what it meant to an ordinary man to call himself a Templar.

So there are good and bad things about this one. But there is one fatal flaw in this graphic novel: not in the novel part, but in the graphic. This book has some of the worst character art I've ever seen. The backgrounds are generally good and sometimes stellar, but the characters are poorly rendered, badly proportioned, and in some cases, indistinguishable from one another -- I completely missed one important moment the first time through simply because I genuinely didn't recognize the character; I had to flip back and forth several times to figure out who it was before I understood what was going on. It made it much harder to enjoy the interesting parts of the story, so unless you are a big Templar fanatic, I'd give this one a miss.


26. (Vine) Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who's Determined to Kill Me by Jenny Gardiner (4/6)

Pick:
I liked the idea of a book about a vicious parrot, which the author cared for. Reminded me of Toni and her Romeo.

Thoughts:
As I suppose anyone would, I wanted this author's experiences to resemble my own: I, too, owned a vengeful parrot who was determined to kill me, at least by proxy through my wife, whose parrot it was. So I was disappointed when Jenny Gardiner's memoir of her life with Graycie the African Gray did not really come close to our time with a Blue Crown Conure with a nasty disposition. But despite that, this was, I thought, a nice book overall.

Gardiner starts out by making some good and valid points about the dangers and complications inherent in buying parrots, particularly when her family adopted Graycie twenty years ago: at the time, and to a lesser but still serious extent now, many of the parrots on the market are captured from the wild and smuggled into the US. This is not only illegal, of course, but it is harmful to the environment -- the birds are often captured through the simple expedient of cutting down the tree where the young birds are in the nest, and then picking up the stunned chicks out of the wreckage -- and extremely damaging to the birds, which, of course, makes them, shall we say, problematic pets. Since parrots are highly intelligent, curious, and possessed of some pretty dangerous weaponry, in beak and claws, and since they can live for decades -- some even longer than the humans who "own" them -- having a psychologically scarred wild animal for a problematic pet is really not a good thing.

Fortunately for Gardiner, Graycie isn't nearly that bad. Oh, she has her troubles -- she is not affectionate as some parrots can be; she is aggressive and attacks Gardiner constantly; for the first few years of their life together, Graycie plucks out her own feathers and chews herself bloody, a fairly common parrot problem. But once the family learns to work around Graycie's habits and moods and needs, they get along fairly well; Graycie is as clever and entertaining, and sweet and affectionate at times, as all parrots can be, even when they do have nasty temperaments. Gardiner shows some nice humor when she relates the more amusing stories of her life with a parrot.

The problem I had with this book (and my wife, who lived with her parrot Romeo for fifteen years more than I did, had an even larger issue with this) is that the title is somewhat deceptive. Graycie is not actually a vengeful parrot, and she does not want to kill her owner; she's just a parrot with some bad pet-habits that are completely understandable considering Graycie's origins and the mistakes the Gardiners made when they first got Graycie -- particularly putting the parrot into a windowless, isolated room in the basement, when intelligent birds need lots of visual stimulation, natural light and air and scenery, and lots of company and interaction. The worst source of friction is actually Gardiner's expectations: she seems resentful throughout when Graycie doesn't live up to her ideals of life with a parrot. Graycie is not a performing wonder, amusing the family and their guests with her myriad of tricks; she does talk and whistle and sing and make noise often, but not always amusingly and not on cue. But then, no parrots really do that, other than the ones trained to perform: parrots are pets, living creatures with wants and needs and dislikes, not wind-up toys. Graycie is not affectionate, being more willing to snap at Gardiner than to sit on her shoulder and gently coo, or perhaps squawk "Polly want a cracker!" And Graycie, like all pets, creates a large mess; since parrots are caged animals, a lot more of that mess needs to be cleaned up by hand; you never really appreciate how nice it is that dogs can be housetrained until you care for an animal that can't go outside to relieve itself. Gardiner does learn to appreciate Graycie for what she offers as a pet, but only after a whole lot of what seemed to me somewhat whiny complaining about Graycie's downside.

Perhaps more to the point, the book is only somewhat about Graycie: it is really a memoir of the growth of Gardiner's family, including the story of her marriage, the birth and raising of her three children, their adoption of dogs over the years, and their various homes over two decades. The parrot is a part of that, as she is part of the family; but not the largest part. The book is, honestly, more about the children than about the parrot. For all that, it is well-written and interesting, but if you are looking for a book written by someone who had the same experience that you had with a misanthropic parrot, this isn't really it.



27. (9) New Tricks by John Levitt 4/11

Pick:
The first one was pretty good, as I recall -- though I don't remember very much about the story. I remember liking the main character and his dog, and the idea that his best skill magically was his jazz-inspired ability to improvise. Plus it's on the shelf and I need to read those.

Thoughts:
This one was pretty good too, and fortunately I didn't need to remember the first one to follow this story; I remembered the characters, Victor and Eli and Campbell, along with Mason and Lou the Ifrit, and that was good enough. I still really enjoyed the musical parts and the magical parts, and I think Lou is a great character; the problem with this book was that it was far too predictable. It's about a practitioner (a magic-user) who is attacking other practitioners, apparently with the intention of possessing them; there is an obvious suspect, a black magician named Byron, but it is readily obvious that he didn't really do it. The reader is guided to suspect another character almost from the beginning, and in the process of being guided to that character, I picked up on the twist ending from about 100 pages in. Perhaps that was my own natural genius, but since I didn't know the guy was dead in The Sixth Sense until after my wife explained it to me, I don't think it was me.

I did really like the world created in this book and the first one; these remind me very much of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, though these do pale a bit in comparison to those. I especially enjoyed the larger world hinted at in this one, and the slow unraveling of the mysterious origin of Ifrits like Lou the "dog." And even though I knew it was coming, the final confrontation was excellent. So I will look for the next one, and hope that it's a little more surprising.



28. (Non: Bought it for Le Title.) The World According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney 4/12

Pick:
I saw this at Fred Meyer; had to pick it up, of course. It's about a hamster named Humphrey. That was good, but the clincher? He's the class hamster for Room 26. Which would be my classroom number at school. It's kismet!

Thoughts:
This book is very cute, though obviously a little too young for me to really get into. Humphrey is brought to Room 26 by a long-term sub -- it's a fifth grade class or so -- who treats him as a pet; but when the original teacher comes back, Humphrey seems to be in trouble: she doesn't want him there, considers him a rodent, won't take him home at night or over the weekends. But the kids in Room 26 step up and take over Humphrey's care over the weekends, and it turns out to be a good thing when he is left in the classroom overnight, as he makes friends with Aldo Amato, the night janitor at the school. In fact, Humphrey makes friends with everybody, and in the process, he teaches them all important life lessons -- like how to overcome shyness, and the importance of turning off your TV sometimes, and how to get your children to listen to you, and never to give up hope. Like I said, very cute, but a little young. I might grab another one, but all in all, I much prefer Bunnicula.


29. (Still re-reading!) White Knight by Jim Butcher 4/16

Pick:
Must . . . Finish . . . Series!

Thoughts:
This was great, because I didn't remember the story very much at all. I certainly didn't remember who the bad guys were, or exactly how everything would play out -- though I did remember the final denouement, and also the big reveal about Thomas's new job and his manner of feeding himself. But the majority of the book was a nice surprise, and as enjoyable as all Butcher books are. Now I really want to get on to the new one. Pardon me: new ones. Sigh.

Dragons!

24. (Vine) Dragon Haven: Book Two of the Rain Wilds Chronicles by Robin Hobb 4/3

Pick:
Well, I read the first one for Vine; why would I pass up the sequel and conclusion?

Story:
The first thing you should know is that the story doesn't end here.

This book, the sequel to "Dragon Keeper" and the conclusion of the Rain Wilds Chronicles, is not the end of the story. Things remain unresolved on the last page, and some of the most interesting possible story lines remain open; I can only hope that Robin Hobb will see fit to continue the tale in subsequent works.

Because this one's a beaut.

The first book (DEFINITELY required reading; this is more of a single story in two volumes than it is separate novels in a sequence.) tells several parallel stories: the story of Alise Fincarron and her marriage of convenience (and perhaps love) to the dashing and wealthy Hest Finbok, the best evidence in these books that despite Robin Hobb's brilliance as a storyteller and creator of genuine, full-color and deep-hearted characters, she has trouble thinking up good names; the story of Thymara, child of the Rain Wilds whose deformities (claws instead of fingers and scales instead of skin, in some places) should have led to her being exposed and abandoned at birth; the story of Leftrin, captain of the livebarge Tarman, oldest and perhaps wisest of the Liveships; and, of course, the story of the newborn dragons, the transformed remnants of Maulkin's tangle from the Liveship series. All of these people (and dragons, who are not, as this book points out, either people or animals, but something else entirely) have serious troubles in their lives, and some don't even realize how serious those troubles are. They come together when the Traders' Council of Trehaug, the ruling body of the Rain Wilds, sends the dragons, for whom they cannot properly care, up the Rain Wild River to find the lost (and perhaps vanished) city of Kelsingra, where the Elderlings of old once made a home for the dragons they loved and served and perhaps even worshipped.

They don't make it to Kelsingra in the first book, and for nine-tenths of this book, the party is still traveling up the Rain Wild River. They do reach a destination at the end, or at least an end of their journeying; I won't say more to avoid spoiling the ending, which is quite nice, despite leaving room for much more story.

In this book, most (but not all) of the interpersonal frictions are resolved. Secrets are finally revealed, some voluntarily and some not; arguments are brought from a long, slow simmer to a raging boil (most of them involving either Thymara, or her dragon Sintara, or both --fitting for the two most defensive, combative, and snarling-stubborn queens of the group), and all of the dragons, and the people, begin to find either their true potential -- or the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.

The book is long, but never slow; some of the characters bog down slightly as they try to work through painful and difficult issues, which quite naturally takes time, and might seem repetitive in the hands of a less capable writer. But Hobb is her usual brilliant self, showing sides and nuances and depths to all of her characters that some people never see in real life, let alone in fiction. There is some action, some blood (How could there not be, when there are more than a dozen proud, and hungry, dragons in the mix?), some disasters and some triumphs. Not everything came to the conclusion I would have liked to see, but then, isn't that always the case?

What is also always the case is: I loved it, as I have loved all of Robin Hobb's books, and I would recommend these two highly to all fantasy fans. These are, in my opinion, the best dragons since Smaug. As a brief note to those who have not read Robin Hobb's other works, you should know that nearly all of her fantasy is set in this same world, revolving around the same geopolitical structure and sometimes the same world-changing events --such as the rebirth of dragons, begun in the Liveship series and continued here. Therefore, reading all of her books is necessary to get the real depth; however, these two novels, "Dragon Keeper" and "Dragon Haven," can stand alone and would be a good place to start, if you can stand missing some background details that will be filled in later.

A few good books for Spring Break

21. (8) Just After Sunset by Stephen King 3/20

Pick:
No real reason; Stephen King books are piling up, and I liked the idea of short stories.

Thoughts:
I didn't think this was his best collection of short stories; probably Nightmares and Dreamscapes or the classic Skeleton Crew were better. I like when his short stories lean to horror, since he does that so very well-- one of the best things about Stephen King is his ability to create images that stick with you forever -- the black slick in "The Raft" pulling that guy down through the boards and the finger coming from the sink are two of the worst for me. This book didn't really have one of those images, though there were some good horror moments in here; I thought "The Gingerbread Girl" and "A Very Tight Place" had outstanding thriller moments. I also thought "Willa" and "The Things They Left Behind" were lovely stories, along the lines of King's more serious fiction. "Stationary Bike" and "Ayana" were interesting concepts; I loved the fantasy of "Stationary Bike" being taken over by -- what? constructs? His subconscious? Other beings that inhabit him, like the farandolae in A Wind in the Door, but a whole hell of a lot more menacing? I like the idea of his body turning on him, and I like the resolution -- but for a horror story? Boo. I really didn't think much of "Harvey's Dream" or "Rest Stop," "Graduation Afternoon" or "Mute;" I thought "The Cat From Hell" had a wonderfully horrible ending, but not enough story otherwise. My favorite story was probably "N.," both because I love the Lovecraftian feel, particularly with the contagious madness, and because the descriptions are amazing.

Overall, not bad.


22. (Bookiversary Present!) Black Bartlemy's Treasure by Jeffery Farnol 3/23

Pick:
Are you kidding? I've got a book about pirates, one of the seminal works of pirate fiction, AND it was a present from my sweetie? You think I'm going to read anything else?

Thoughts:
It was a surprising book for me, because it turned out to be a romance. And though the hero got annoying, what with his constant disavowals that he's unworthy, I actually really liked the romantic aspects. I know it's weird, but I like reading about beautiful women when I can picture them and they match my opinions of beauty -- for a counterexample, Elena in The Vampire Diaries, slender and blonde and fair and icy? Not hot. But Lady Joan Brandon, with her waist-length dark hair, her smooth skin, trim waist and "deep bosom," her fondness for singing aloud and her passionate ways? Hubba hubba. I also loved the scenario, that the two of them were marooned on a deserted tropical island, and spent a few months building a fine homestead. That sounds like a wonderful time, to me.

Anyway, the piratey parts were still outstanding; reading about Abnegation Mings and Roger Tressady with his steel hook and Black Bartlemy with his silver lady, and of course, Adam Penfeather, the buccaneeringest buccaneer of them all, was just incredibly fun. Not to mention, of course, the reason I found out about this author in the first place, to wit that he was the source of three-quarters of the pirate speech in my Pirate Primer, which meant I got to read things like this:

"Open the gate!" says I.
"Be hanged for a murderous-looking rogue, a lousy thief, a wastrel, and a hangdog knave!" says he all in one breath.
"All true enough!" says I. "And now, open the gate!"
"Be danged for a prigging Gypsy -- 'A Gad! I'll have ye clapped i' the pillory for a black-visaged clapper-claw!"
"Unbar!" says I. "Or it shall go plaguey wi' you when I come in."

At which point he bashes open the gate, and it does indeed go plaguey for the guard. Now that's good stuff. I loved this book, and I absolutely have to get the second one, Martin Conisby's Vengeance, since this one is a thrice-bedamned cliffhanger, arrrr! But for all that, I'd not be tradin' the readin' o' this fer all the pearls in the Caribee! Yoho!


23. (Re-read) Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher 3/25

Pick:
I just got these back from Xian, and I not only love them and want to get all the way to the new books (I still haven't read last year's new installment, and this year's comes out in a month or so), I also have to get ready for the possible RPG sessions based on these books this summer! Woot!

Thoughts:
This one's a hell of a yarn. It's interesting in that it doesn't have the supervillain that has been present in most of the first half-dozen books -- maybe even all of them, now that I think about it. This one has wheels within wheels and plots within plots, and problems popping up for the new Warden Dresden all over the place. Great drama, great surprises concerning Michael's family, and a hell of a fight scene or ten. I love these books. I'm obscenely jealous of Jim Butcher's ability and success and, well, almost everything about him, but I am still very glad I get to read and re-read these. It was cool, too, because other than the part with Molly, I didn't really remember the details in this one, and it's only been, what, two years since I read it? Maybe three. Anyway, it's good to know that they hold up to a reread or three. I look forward to reading Dresden for a long, long time.

January and February, 2010

Hey -- I just noticed that I should really change the title of this blog.

And it also seems that this month-by-month system isn't really working for me any better than the review-by-review system was, so I think I'll go back to that. I got behind on my write-ups; I have too many things to do with my time. Ah, well. At any rate, here's the first score of books for this year, and I'll try to update more frequently here.

Hope somebody's still reading this.

The Shelf theme, if you don't know, is because last year my book shelf collapsed under the weight of the books I have amassed and intend to read; I promised that I wouldn't buy any more books until I finished the ones I already had. Which was, clearly, a total lie -- but I am trying to read through the shelf, and keeping track of how long it takes me to read the books I had when the shelf collapsed.

Off the Shelf: Books for 2010

1. (Non-shelf: borrowed from student) The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (1/8)

Pick:
The Charbonneau twins, possibly the readingest pair of students I've ever had, said I HAD to read this one, and loaned it to me for Christmas break along with Elantris.

Thoughts:
They were right, this is an excellent book. Definitely going to keep up with the series, which seems lined up as a trilogy. I like the main character, Kvothe -- though it saddens me that he is quite that stupid with women, because I know that's going to go badly before this thing is over -- and I like the system of magic and I like the themes. Kvothe is studying to be a master Arcanist, their version of a wizard and a wise man; he is younger, poorer, and more desperate than any other student at the University -- but fortunately, he is also much smarter, quicker-witted, and apparently more powerful and talented than any of the others as well. He gets into plenty of trouble because of his precociousness and his impatience, but for all that, he has a very sad story. The mysterious bad guys, the Chandrian, are incredibly intriguing -- and the best part is that Kvothe's two favorite things, the things that keep him sane, are books and music. And the author does an excellent job of describing how both of those things weave into Kvothe's life. It's got a nice flashback going, with very ominous overtones but a slight sense of a distant hope for redemption, and I like that, too. Really excellent -- I'd recommend for high fantasy fans, though as always, maybe wait until all the books come out.


2. (Non-Shelf: Amazon Vine) Blood Ninja by Nick Lake (1/11)

Pick:
I've been looking for a ninja book for a while, as I'm trying to learn more about actual ninja history, and also for confirming or refuting my pro-pirate stance. I saw this one on Vine, it said it was for teen readers -- sold.

Vine Review:
It's about vampire ninjas. It really shouldn't be.

I had a smarmy comment all prepared for this review: I was going to imagine a satirical version of the author, describing his silly excitement as he thinks of the coolest idea EVER: vampire ninjas! But after finishing the book, and reading the author's note, I realize that was the wrong way to approach this. Because in his author's note, Nick Lake describes how he jokingly suggested a book about vampire ninjas -- and he thanks the person who said, "Oh, you should write that."

Actually, he shouldn't have.

The story is not too bad, though the plot has some painful cliches as it stomps and flails blindly toward the ending. The setting is certainly interesting, as are the background and the informative elements that Lake wove into the story, all of which were presented with some finesse and style. The characters are not so good -- well, no, the truth is that they're not good at all. The main villains are so over the top and one-dimensional they might as well be twisting their black mustachios while they tie the girl down to the train tracks -- actually, one of them does have a long black mustache, though he never twists it. Not that we know of. The mentor character, Shusaku, is both heroic and perfect, though he fails, Obi-Wan like, at just the right moment for the hero to step up and show his (remarkably quickly learned) masterful skills, and win supremacy over all foes. The hero, Taro, is -- I'd like to say he's amazingly capable for his age, but I have no idea what his age is. He is described as a boy several times, but he defeats men in combat without any particular dwelling on his inferior strength or youthful quickness. In fact, he wins through skill, though there's no good justification for his having this skill -- apart from the fact that, well, he IS the hero. It's in his blood, we are told. Taro's sidekick Hiro is the perfect sidekick, his mysterious past is the textbook mysterious past for a diamond-in-the-rough hero, his deus-ex-machina power is so deus-y (He can walk in sunlight. We don't know why. Maybe it's magic!), you want to pin a medal on it.

The primary theme of the book -- the essence of honor, as defined both by samurai and ninja -- is well-tilled ground, but this book doesn't do a half bad job with it, apart from the fact that it is worked through by these cardboard cutout people. The real problem is that there is absolutely no reason for these characters to be ninjas, and even less reason for them to be vampires. It would be better without these things, as the added power this grants the characters makes them even less realistic. Taro is a peasant boy with a dangerous secret in his past; he discovers the truth, after he and his family are attacked and his father is killed, and he sets out to avenge his father and destroy the villain. It's a fine setup for a novel. So why is he attacked by ninjas? The novel, working with the concept of honor in feudal Japan, points out that samurai are not always honorable -- or they may be honorable but not actually good -- and there are some ronin who have turned brigand who pop up in the story. So why not have Taro's attackers be ronin, or dishonorable samurai? Apparently, just because ninjas are cool. Okay, so why are the ninjas in this book vampires? Taro is turned into a vampire, which would be a real plot point -- except he is surrounded by people who accept and even envy his vampirism, and indeed, he can walk in the sunlight. Hey, why not be a vampire if it gives you super strength, speed, and healing ability, and doesn't come with any weaknesses, apart from preferring a, shall we say, different part of the pig for dinner?

At least these vampires don't glitter.

Anyway, the hero wins the day and gets the girl (That was a nice twist, actually -- because there was some question of which girl he would get, and it wasn't the one I expected), but the tale does not end here . . . (I was hoping the book would have a large THE END? on the last page, but we can't have everything) The book would have been fine without any ninjas, without any vampires, and with a bit more genuine humanity in the characters. As it is, though? I'd give this one a miss. Maybe find a nice book about pirates.



3. (Non-Shelf: Amazon Vine) Union Atlantic by Adam Haslett (1/16)

Pick:
Actually, I liked that it featured a struggle between a banker and an ex-teacher who talked to her dogs. That and it was something different.

Vine Review:
I picked the book up because I liked the idea of a struggle between a young banker and a retired schoolteacher whose dogs talk to her -- being a dog-owning schoolteacher who dislikes many of the aspects of high-end capitalism, it was clear which side I would be on (And I was, and it was a good side to be on). But little did I know that the book would be both a revelation, and an inspiration.

The revelation is this: Adam Haslett is a staggeringly good writer. Since his first work, a collection of short stories I will be buying very soon, was a finalist for a Pulitzer and an NBA, I suppose this is no surprise to most people, but it really hit me. The man is brilliant -- one of the finest fiction writers I have encountered in years. This book, Union Atlantic, sweeps you into the lives of a varied group of people, all of them finely crafted and nuanced, and all of them entirely different from one another: from Doug Fanning, the rapacious banker; to Charlotte Graves, the tragic genius; to her brother Henry, the pragmatic idealist (I know -- but read the book, you'll see); to Nate, the stoned teenaged romantic; each of them alive and fully realized, each of them capable of affecting the reader in a new but very personal way.

The inspiration was this: "She had been content in solitude. Her soul kept alive by the leaps of incandescence that now and then hallowed intervals otherwise inconsequent: the rhythm of words singing off a page, a sonata turning time into feeling, a landscape on a canvas so caught as to grant one brief respite from the fear of total neutrality. These were the body and blood of her faith in the world. What the utilitarians and the materialists and the swallowers of all the cheap scientism would never understand: that the privilege of walking by the river in nature's company owed as much to a mind trained by poetry and painting -- of Protestant plainsong or Romantic largesse -- as to any quiddity of nature's own. You walked through the painting. You saw through the poem. Imagination created experience, not matter alone."

Read the book. I'm going for a walk.


4. (1) Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks by Ethan Gilsdorf (1/22)

Pick:
Toni demanded I read it. Demanded, I say!

Thoughts:
I love the concept of this book: Ethan Gilsdorf, former hardcore D&D nerd, looks back on his past and how his former passion has grown and evolved over the years, in order to see whether he has grown and evolved, and just what the connection between himself and the world of nerd means for him. I love it partly because it is very close to my own experience: I'm a few years younger than Gilsdorf, and so was younger when I went through my obsession with Gary Gygax's masterpiece, but otherwise we went much the same way: for a few years, at least one night a week was dedicated to invented people adventuring through invented lands; for both of us it was an escape from the real people and real lands that surrounded us for the rest of the week (Though Gilsdorf, with his divorced parents and his mother's crippling stroke, had far more to escape than I did -- I was just shy and unpopular.) Then we both made the decision to leave that life behind and seek out coolness and popularity; I made my choice during my junior year of high school, and Gilsdorf made the switch during college.

But then our stories diverge, and if anything, that was what gave me trouble with this book. Gilsdorf went on to become a career journalist, and only thought of his nerdish roots on the verge of his 40th birthday; I found new nerd friends -- cool nerd friends -- in college, and went right back to my old geekery with rapture and bliss. Gilsdorf questions the value of the nerd world -- of roleplaying games, of video games, of conventions, historical reenactments, and fandom and sci-fi/fantasy books and movies -- wondering if it is a negative influence on the people who participate, if they suffer for their hobbies and obsessions, or if they are somehow made stronger by them. For myself, I had no doubt: of course the various worlds of fantasy are more beneficial than harmful. Of course you gain problem solving skills, increases in quick thinking and wit, and a vast and vivid imagination when you let yourself participate in the games fully. And of course you need to let yourself go as much as possible to get the most out of it.

Gilsdorf finds these things out over the course of the book as he explores the fantasy world; he goes much deeper into it than I've ever been, which was definitely the fascinating part for me. The book made me want to join the SCA, and start LARPing; though more than anything, it made me long for the days of pencil and paper and pewter figurines and plastic dice by the bucketful. It also showed me that I probably don't want to visit New Zealand for the purpose of finding Middle Earth sites from the Lord of the Rings movies, and that I'm still not terribly interested in WoW; knowledge I am very glad for.

All in all, it was nice to get back into nerddom vicariously through the book; anyone else with a nerd background, or persistent curiosity about the state of nerdishness today, would enjoy the book as well.



5. (2) Royal Destiny: Queen of the Orcs Book III by Morgan Howell (1/27)

Pick:
Wanted some fantasy, after two serious books and one pile of vampire ninja crap. I also wanted to finish this series and tie it up with a bow.

Thoughts:
I liked this series less with each book, unfortunately. To be honest, the female orcs were much less interesting than the male orcs, and Dar made a much better slave than a queen. The humans were way too annoying, the bad guys much too successful and the anti-orc prejudice just moronic. I also got really sick of reading orc words, particularly anything with the root "muth," which means "mother" in Orcish; since they have a strongly matriarchal society, that was everywhere: muthuri for mother, Muth La for the goddess, or Mother of All; Dar's name becomes her title, Muth Mauk; their homes, run by the mothers, are hanmuthi -- good grief. Dar's strategies for dealing with the problems are stupid, and only succeed because of the even-greater stupidity of the enemy. On the plus side, I liked the concept of the evil possessed wizard guy -- and honestly, I really liked the ending. So it was worth reading, once.


6. (Amazon Vine) Bite Me: A Love Story by Christopher Moore (1/30)

Pick:
Christopher Moore! Sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck! For free! Amazon Vine is the bestest ever!

Review:
Being the Review Fallen From the Languid and Morose Fingertips of One Who Would Totally Be the Love Monkey and Blood Slave for Countess Abigail von Normal, Back-Up Mistress of the Greater Bay Area Night.

'Kayso, I'm looking through my e-mail, and it's all like "Viagra . . . Nigerian Banker . . . Help me, because I'm such a worthless loser I need you to friend me on Facebook (which I would never have gone on, except it's such a handy way to keep my minions and worshippers up on my comings and goings. Plus I like Farmville.) . . . Write your mom back, already," and I'm all, "Oh, whateverz -- delete, delete, delete, ULTRAdelete," and then I saw it. Amazon Vine Newsletter. Well, perhaps there will be something in here that will fight off my enervating ennui, my soul-crushing Weltschmerz. Plus I get to read free books. (That's right -- chew on that envy, losers!)

So I open it up, and look at the books listed there. Yeah okay: lame, lamer, complete lameness, so lame it should be in the Special Olympics, lame duck with a loser viniagrette and a side of sucka pilaf . . . Oh, this will be no help at all, and I will be forced to cut my wrists and my throat, and maybe stab myself in the heart, just a little bit so there will be but the tiniest spot of red on my artfully arranged corpse, and those who find me and weep for the sorrow that will encompass the world (or at least encompass my dog) at my loss will know that I died of a broken heart. But then I saw the last book on the list.

Bite Me: A Love Story. By Christopher Moore. I swear I threw up in my mouth with excitement. Just a tiny bit, but I still had to down the rest of my latte-and-bitter-wormwood to wash out the taste. (Okay, it was cinnamon, but they just keep ignoring my suggestion cards at Starbucks, even when I wrote, "You should totally start putting out bitter wormwood on the sugar-and-cream table. You'd get every caffeine-addicted Goth within a hundred miles coming here, and you could snap your fingers under the noses of all the other Starbucks managers at the next Starbucks Manager convention and be all like, 'OWNED, you wheezy java-pimps!' Signed, The Starbucks CEO (I just stopped in to check your store out and make a suggestion. Nice place. I'm telling you: bitter wormwood.)" I guess nobody would ever believe the Starbucks CEO would use a suggestion card, even though I totally wrote it in rich-old-guy handwriting. Anyway.) Then, after a moment of reverent silence, I clicked "Send Me This Book."

Then I had to wait forever. Like at least a week. I know, unbelievable, right? They should totally send them by magic Jetsons transport tube, or maybe by owl, so that you can click that button, get up and walk to your window, and there's your book waiting for you. Maybe with a nice thermos of hot chocolate and a cookie. Amazon should get on that now.

Anyway, I read the book with bated breath (And if you think it's easy to keep your breath bated all the way through a 300 page book, you've never driven past a farm just after the manure delivery), and with tears of joy squeezing from the corners of my eyes to stain my silk reading jacket with little blots of reading bliss, which went nicely with the coffee stains. And once it was finished, and I had spent a respectable amount of time in a worshipful silence, appreciating the craftsmanship of The Master Scribe Christopher Moore, I decided to come on here and basically dry-hump his prose until I created a bastard mutant spawn version of my own. And I realize now that writing like this is WAY harder than you would ever think, and I can't do it a thousandth as good as Moore can, so I should probably just shut up and let him do the funny stuff. And I also realize I've gone on way too long without saying anything real about the book, so I'll just say this: if you have read "Bloodsucking Fiends" and "You Suck," you have GOT to read this one, because it's even better than those two put together with a triple mocha and a fresh biscotti. All the same characters are here: Tommy and Jody, the Emperor of San Francisco and his men Bummer and Lazarus, the Animals (with Troy Lee's gangsta grandma), and of course, the inimitable Abby Normal, who acts as the narrator for much (but not all) of the book. The story is just as fast and surprising and unexpected, the writing is just as hilarious and easy to read, and the ending is by far the best of the three books.

And if you haven't read Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck, then what in the name of all that's unholy and profane are you waiting for? Go get them now! Maybe by the time you get around to clicking the button, Amazon will have that owl-and-hot-chocolate thing ready to go. But even if they don't, you should read those books, and then this one. Because they will rock your stripy socks.

kthxbye!


7. (Non-Shelf: Insistent Loan from Friend) Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton 2/3

Pick:
Jaime asked me if I wanted to read this one, and I did; she offered to lend it to me, and I said that's fine, I plan to buy my own copy at some point, since it's a pirate book and I want to own pirate books. But she said, "No no, you can borrow mine -- I like lending books. My husband will bring it to work tomorrow and you can pick it up." So fine. I borrowed it, and I wanted to give it back, so I read it as soon as I could.

Thoughts:
This was a really good pirate story. It did seem to me to be lacking some polish in places, which is presumably why it was still in Michael Crichton's files when he died, rather than at his publisher's; but the man clearly did a ton of research into the golden age of piracy, and this had all kinds of cool historical details: how the ships sailed, how the cannons worked, their strengths and weaknesses; the politics behind piracy and privateers in the Caribbean during the 1600s, and especially the many ways to die, or to kill. This was one bloodthirsty book: not only because it tells the story of a raid on a Spanish fort by an English privateer, but because said privateer is betrayed at one point, and swears vengeance on everyone who betrayed him. Vengeance he carries out in the bloodiest way possible.

Which, of course, was incredibly cool.

So I'd give it four stars as an adventure story, and a hearty YARRRRR! for the pirate end.


8. (Non-Shelf: About to loan it to friend) Dead Beat by Jim Butcher 2/8

Pick:
Xian is reading these, and reading them fast; he has asked to get books 7, 8, and 9 from me next week. I expect to get them back within a few weeks, but I wanted to get a jump on them before I handed them over, since this is where I am in the rereading of this series, too.

Thoughts:
Along with Death Masks, this one is probably my favorite in this series. The bad guys are incredible, the ending battle scene is the best ever, and I really like what Harry goes through in this one with the Wardens and the war against the Red Court. This also has my all-time favorite description of the thirst of a vampire, when Thomas explains to Harry what it is like to deny himself a true feeding. I also love Mouse, and Bob's ominous past. Great book.


9. (3) Glenn Beck's Common Sense by yep, Glenn Beck. And Thomas Paine. 2/12

Pick:
Yeah, that's right, I read Glenn Beck's book. Know your enemy. I bought this one a while ago, wanting to know more about this jackass and his Tea Party crud, and it's been sitting on the shelf ever since, though I did read the first chapter and started making notes in the margins. I thought now would be a good time to foment some outrage, so here we go.

Thoughts:
Sure, there's some outrage. But the most interesting thing about this book, other than the glimpses into the psychology of my political opponents, and particularly into the mentality of those who manipulate the right wing of America, was the number of similarities between my views and theirs. I actually found myself agreeing with Glenn Beck, which honestly surprised me. I knew that I had some views and values that coincided with those on the right -- but with Beck? He's a whacko and a hack, isn't he?

Well yes. And an idiot: because he modeled his little treatise here on Thomas Paine's influential pamphlet from the Revolution era, and he included that work in the back of his book. Which was stupid, because Paine was far and away the better writer -- which Beck did admit, at least -- but also far more intelligent and focused on genuine societal change for the better, which Beck is not. But I get his rationale, since he is trying to appeal to the people who want to go back to the founding principles of this country -- hence the persistent Revolutionary imagery and symbolism and jargon, from the Tea Party reference to the Don't Tread On Me flag they are trying to adopt, to this book and the Paine connection. And he put Paine's work in the back of his book. Because enough of the people who read this book will not actually want to read Paine's pamphlet after working through Becks' screed, that Beck won't actually suffer by comparison in the minds of most of his readers.

Not me, of course. I read Paine first. Beck's a doof.

But: take away the shilling for corporations, and the subtle but consistent racism, and the unbelievably stupid denial of global climate change (Global warming? But temperatures have been cooler! Burrarroom! [That's a Treebeard-esque grumble, as emitted by the phlegmy throat of a fat, self-satisfied idjit who smokes cigars in between bacon-wrapped entree courses.]), and there's some interesting points here. Education in America is screwed up, and probably can't be fixed. I finally understand that the push for gun control is personally insulting to gun owners, because we are telling them they cannot be trusted with their firearms, regardless of how careful and responsible they are. The national debt is completely obscene, and the bailout to avoid the second depression was less effective than it should have been. Lawmakers are too concerned with their own reelection, and they are appealing to the extremes of both parties in order to assure their continued place in the catbird seat -- and we should have definite term limits on all elected positions, and probably on some appointed and bureaucratic ones. Laws are far too specific and incomprehensible, and they should return to shorter, simpler versions (though that idea came from a book about common sense that was worlds better than this one) that actually allow people freedom while protecting them from harm -- and we should trust individuals to handle those things much more than we do.

So even though I plan to blog quite a bit about how stupid and appalling Glenn Beck is (Did you know Glenn Beck is trademarked? By the Mercury Radio Corporation?), what this book really made me want to do is: join the Tea Party at some events or conventions or something, and try talking to them. See if we can't get a real discussion going. Wouldn't that be fascinating? If the Tea Party could withstand some honest disagreement over ways and means, or even over basic principles? Wouldn't if be fantastic if we could actually try to build a political party that wasn't dogmatic?

Yeah. I don't think it's possible either. But I'm curious as hell about trying.


10. (4) The Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle 2/14

Pick:
I had to read something short, because Toni will be finishing the Vampire Diaries soon, and I want to read those.

Thoughts:
This is the sequel to A Wrinkle in Time, and it isn't as good. It's not bad; it's a fun exploration of the possibilities of infinite and infinitesimal, the whole idea of a cell being a solar system for creatures inside us who are so small we could never detect them, and perhaps the universe going the other way, with us living inside cells of some unimaginably large being. It has a nice theme about universal interconnectedness, that everything that lives relies, to some extent, on everything else, and that nothing exists in a vacuum; that your choices affect me and mine affect you and both of ours affect the universe. And it's got a fantastic concept for a villain, the Echthroi, the creatures of nothingness, of destruction, who wish to tear apart the order of things. I like that an angel becomes an Echthros when it decides to cease to exist, and that its death sounds like a scream tearing the fabric of space and time. That was cool.

But Meg came off more as whiny than fearful in this, and her Seraphim friend was kind of a shmuck, and I couldn't get behind the decision to bring Meg's dead-souled teacher along to try to reinvigorate him as an educator and lover of young people. Meh. It also wrapped up too quickly for me -- they save the farandola, which saves the mitochondrion, which saves Charles Wallace. The end.



11 & 12. (Non-shelf: borrowed) The Vampire Diaries (The Awakening/The Struggle) by L.J. Smith 2/17

Pick:
One of my students was reading this in class, and I ripped it out of her hands and slapped her across the face with it. After she left in tears, I took a second look, and thought it sounded intriguing.

No, of course not. I commented that I liked the TV show based on these books, and she asked if I wanted to borrow it when she was done. I said sure. Then Toni read it first, and made several comments to the effect that it was very different from the show in certain ways, but that they nailed Damon's character; since Damon is the best part of the show, I only wanted to read it more.

Thoughts:
Of course she was right; the books are very different from the show in certain ways. I prefer the show's version of Elena; the book makes her into a popular fashion princess, which is all fine and good for a teen romance novel, but it holds absolutely no interest for me -- if anything, it makes me hate her a little bit, and I like her character on TV. They also made much of her being blonde, blue-eyed, and slender, and again, for me? Meh. My biggest issue with her was the way she moans and wails over two things: Stefan, within about eight minutes of seeing him for the first time, becomes the one man she MUST HAVE, she has never known love before until she kisses Stefan, he is the ultimate in every possible way -- and at the beginning, it's because he's hot, wears good clothes, and isn't interested in her. Yeah, okay. I understand that, too, since we're talking about teenagers, but it's totally annoying to read about. It made me wish I was the object of her affection so I could thoroughly reject her and shatter that shallow spoiled little heart. The other thing that annoyed me in Elena's whining was her urge to be popular. That one I don't understand. I see the desire to have friends, but she has good friends; why would you want to be popular at school, too? I mean, haven't these girls figured out how empty and worthless teen popularity is? Of course they haven't; they're still teenagers.

Anyway, other than being annoyed by reading a teenaged girl's thoughts and feelings, the books (there were two collected in one volume) were quite good. I really like the version of vampire that Smith writes; they need to drink human blood to gain vampiric powers, and the more they drink, the more powerful they become -- except the more human blood they drink, the more strongly they are limited by the classic vampire weaknesses, inability to cross running water or face a cross, that kind of thing. Actually I don't think the cross works -- I'm probably confusing this with Fright Night, which we watched recently. Plus it's been a while since I read this; I've been slacking, here. But Damon was great; I like him better as pure evil, which he is in the book but not the show. I like it better that Catherine killed herself in despondency over their feud (though I don't think she did it -- I think Damon killed her and faked the suicide note to throw guilt onto Stefan), I like that they are from the Italian Renaissance rather than the antebellum South, and I like that Damon is actually attractive to Elena in many ways. Makes sense for someone that shallow and sight-oriented. Like a freaking pointer, those teenagers, I swear. Yeah, I know I wasn't any different.

And, of course: great twist at the end. Can't wait to read the next books and see what happens. And I'm curious as hell to see if they'll do it on the show.



13, 14, 15. (5) How Right You Are, Jeeves; Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves; Jeeves & the Tie That Binds. by P.G.Wodehouse 2/20, 2/21, 2/24

Pick:
I grabbed this at the library sale, because I remember being curious about Wodehouse for years; somehow I thought he did detective fiction -- now that I think about it, I believe he was shelved among the detective books at the library in Escondido when we were getting our reading from there. My, how things have changed: I haven't been to the St Helens Public Library in, what, two years? Three? Now I have my own library here. Anyway, I decided to read it now for absolutely no particular reason, other than I thought it would be good and it was on my shelf.

Thoughts:
It was good, though it certainly wasn't detective fiction. Each of these was a short novel about Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, a fine upstanding young man of the British gentry, ably assisted by his gentleman's gentleman, Jeeves. This might actually be where the name Jeeves as the standard appellation for a butler started, as Wodehouse wrote many novels, several about this pair, over a 60- or 70-year career.

I remember in one of my lit classes being told about P.G. Wodehouse's manner of editing: he would pin the pages of one chapter up on the walls of his study, and look at them one at a time; as he edited each page, and got it closer to the perfection he sought, it would move up the wall, where the poorer pages would move down. He would keep doing this until the pages lined the ceiling, and then he was done and would move on to the next chapter.

Seems like a lot of work. But worth it, from my perspective; these stories were silly, a tad repetitive (in every one, Wooster is trying desperately to avoid marriage to a domineering young woman), but every one was brilliantly written: witty, sharp, some outstanding phrases and very very smooth and easy. I'm definitely going to be on the lookout for more Wodehouse. When was that next library book sale?


16. (6) In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan 2/27

Pick:
Toni made me read it. She does that a lot. She's a book bully. (Not really. She has good suggestions, I take them. I just like teasing her a lot -- you should see the buttface she gives me when she's irritated. So cute.)

Thoughts:
I'm glad I did. We've taken an interest in food the last few years, starting with Supersize Me and Fast Food Nation -- and culminating recently in Food, Inc. and the Vote for Real Food group on Facebook (Which seems to be petering out, more's the pity.) -- and that led pretty naturally to Michael Pollan. Toni read this a while ago, and it's been sitting on the shelf calling out to me ever since; seemed like a good time to actually go through it.

It's an interesting book. The best part about it is that it is more hopeful and informative than it is infuriating; I expected the opposite. Oh, there's plenty of appalling descriptions of what the food companies do to our grub, but it focuses mainly on the historical buildup to the current state, rather than bemoaning that state in excruciating detail. The last third of the book focuses entirely on how to do better for yourself and the world when shopping and eating.

The best part of the book is what Pollan has been stumping for years now: the food-eater's manifesto. "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." The goal is to avoid scientifically developed lab-altered food-like substances, and stick with things your grandmother would recognize as actual food. Now, since my grandmother enjoyed serving me frozen and reheated peas as a dish, I can't fault this logic in terms of health -- but I fear I might have issues with the taste. But to be honest, we have started going through our food and trying to make it healthier, piece by piece, and so far -- it's going well.

Thank God coffee isn't bad for you.

I think my favorite aspect of this book was the depiction of the way the scientific and medical community, the media, and the food companies feed off each other. It was remarkable to read how the doctors and scientists would discover a new aspect of food that appears to be either healthy or unhealthy; how the media would trumpet it to the stars as the new breakthrough and beat it into the ground, and how the food companies would further alter their food-like products to highlight their healthiness when the food itself was anything but. Really wild how this all goes back to the idea -- which I had never questioned, until now -- that the health is in the nutrients, not the food. Now I'm thinking I should blog about this.

Good book.


17. (7) A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle 3/2

Pick:
I was waiting for Vine books to come, and I wanted to read something short and fictional before they did. I also thought it would be nice to finish this series up; I seem to be much better at starting a series than I am at finishing it.

Thoughts:
These books definitely went downhill from the first. This one was still good, still nicely written and with a fairly sweet message, but it was way too ambitious. I really like the concept that the future can actually impact the past, showing that not only is everything interrelated despite the vast distances of space (which was the point of A Wind in the Door) but also interrelated through the infinite marches of time, as well. I liked that idea, but the characters were not as interesting or well-fleshed. The supernaturals got more annoying and less interesting with every book: the best were the three in the first book, Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit; the seraphim in the second book was okay, though not as well done; the unicorn in this book was more lame than fascinating. The visit to the unicorn world was basically pointless, which was really too bad -- kind of a missed opportunity, and way too derivative of the first book's extraterrestrial visits. And while the second book had the advantage of introducing the Echthroi, this book dropped the ball on them and focused too tightly on the Welsh myth and the children with blue eyes. We didn't even get to visit the time and place where the real climax occurred, because L'Engle locked herself in too closely to let the narrative wander where it should. I didn't like the modern connection to Mrs. O'Keefe, and I didn't like the way she handled the grown-up Murry family. I also definitely thought it ended too abruptly, since this one completed the series -- and the Mad Dog Branzillo threat was just lame, from our place in the nuclear holocaust continuum.

I did, however, like the message, and I liked the way the rhyme, St. Patrick's prayer, came in to each storyline and saved the day. I certainly can't fault the writing; L'Engle has a beautiful way with prose, particularly the large and sweeping description. So: good writing, good concepts, but poor characters and a weak finish.


18. (Amazon Vine) The Wish-Stealers by Tracy Trivas 3/4

Pick:
I'm not sure; I liked the concept, the idea that someone could steal wishes, and someone else could return them. I had picked a non-fiction dog book already, and I was looking for something in a fiction book; this was the lightest of the choices I had narrowed it down to, so I went for it.

Review:
This is a very sweet book with a lovely concept, but it's a little underdone in some places. The main character, Griffin Penshine, is well done; I particularly liked how she wavers between her desire to do what she knows is right, and the temptation to do something wrong when provoked -- the villain of the piece, the pretty and popular, and vicious and obnoxious, Samantha would be well-deserving of Griffin's anger. But the book shows very clearly how that desire to hurt someone back after she has hurt you is not the right thing; it was nice to see that put into motion, rather than staying in the usual cliches about doing unto others, or not sinking to their level. All those things make sense, of course -- but they aren't terribly satisfying in the moment.

Griffin, however, is faced with a real challenge: things are going badly, through no fault of her own, and she has the power to get back at the people that are doing her wrong. If she does so, however, she will lose much more than she gains: she will become like the cruel,spiteful old woman who victimized her in the first place. Griffin was made into a wish-stealer, without her knowledge, because she caught the attention of an old wish-stealer at the end of a long career of ruining people's lives. Now all of Griffin's good wishes will go badly -- but all of her evil wishes will come true. Enter Samantha and her pretty fashionista friends, sniping and giggling and eye-rolling, full of put-downs and mockery: like waving a red flag in front of a bull. So will Griffin give in to the temptation to turn Samantha into the slimy toad her personality resembles? Or will she take the high road, do the difficult thing, and get rid of her unfortunate curse by making up for the sins of the original wish-stealer?

I wish that the book had been able to spend more time exploring the idea of wish-stealing; it has a lovely message about wish-stealers in real life -- they are the people who make others too afraid to follow their dreams, and they are some of the worst people there are, and it is absolutely true -- but the magical aspects of the wishes in this book are very vague and unexplored. I feel like there were just too many wishes -- eleven stolen wishes, and seven good wishes of her own -- for Griffin to deal with in trying to fix her problem. It made it impossible for the book to really get into each wish's story, which left me hanging some of the time. I also didn't think a whole lot of the romantic interest, though the romantic story itself (Nothing happens, of course -- these kids are in sixth grade; they don't even hold hands.) was very well-done and very sweet.

Overall, I liked it, and I would guess that a young girl would enjoy it much more than me, being the actual target audience and all.

19. (Vine) Scent of the Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search and Rescue Dog by Susannah Charleson 3/9

Pick:
Sweet puppy face on the cover, non-fiction, much more cheerful seeming than the usual "Ol' Yeller: How I Learned To Suffer In Silence While Both My Dog And I Were Dying Of Leukemia," which seems to be the major trend in animal non-fiction these days. Plus I don't know anything about search and rescue dogs, so hey, I'm in.

Review:
I learned two main things from this book. The first was, if I'm ever lost in the wilderness, or my senility increases until I wander aimlessly away from the house, or even, in the worst case, if I drown and my body gets stuck underwater, I want someone like Susannah Charleson and her dog Puzzle to come find me. The dedication that these people, and these animals, show to this grueling, heart-wrenching, UNPAID task, is nothing short of amazing. By the time Susannah and Puzzle gained their certification in Search and Rescue, they have spent thousands of hours going through practice sessions and over different terrain, honing their communication and teamwork, building their unspoken connection, learning the ins and outs, the habits and tricks of the trade in all kinds of scenarios. Susannah spent years running behind other handler-dog teams before she even got the go-ahead to pick out a puppy to train; years spent handling radio communications and map navigation, years spent observing every other dog in her unit in Texas. And let us note: these are years spent doing these things on weekends, and in the middle of the night after being woken by a page and sprinting out of the house, from dead sleep to fully dressed, equipped, and ready to move in less than fifteen minutes -- and then going to work the next day. This woman, and every other person that is involved in this, is truly remarkable.

The second thing I learned is that I don't ever want to do this job myself. Amazing to read about, but oh man -- I need more sleep than that. I need less time (Not that I spend any now, but you get my point) spent looking for people who are missing and possibly dead, with the chances of a successful rescue growing smaller and smaller as time wears on. I need less time standing watch over a small fragment of the space shuttle Columbia, waiting for an official from NASA or the FBI to come and collect the evidence, one piece of millions spread over thousands of square miles. I need less time spent hiding in between sweaty, smoke-stained mattresses inside a firefighter's practice burn building, in a Texas summer afternoon, posing as a victim for a practicing dog to find. I would like to spend my time playing with my dog, thank you.

That is not to say that Susannah and Puzzle -- and Susannah's six other dogs, a variety of rescued Pomeranians -- don't spend time playing; they spend plenty of time playing, and plenty of time relaxing and napping, and bonding into a pack and being together, and all of those things were wonderful to read about. The entire book was wonderful to read, even the sad parts; Charleson is quite a good writer, and the detailed descriptions of the life of a Search-and-Rescue team were fascinating and informative. So I think I'll leave the hard parts to the people who are willing and able to give so much, and I'll just spend my time saying thank you. And recommending this book to anyone who loves dogs (It doesn't end sadly, by the way, like so many other animal books do), and anyone with an interest in the topic. Anyone interested in taking this task on, my hat's off to you.


20. (Non-Shelf: one of Toni's.) Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning 3/13

Pick:
Toni made me read it. She really likes the series, and it sounds interesting, and I'm thinking of writing a Fae book after Brute. (Not sure I like that title.) She wants me to read this series now so that I can get caught up in it and get stuck on the cliffhanger like she did. Misery loves company: that's my sweetie's motto.

Thoughts:
I definitely liked the book, and I am going to continue the series. I like them better than Merry Gentry, the other Fae series that Toni got me reading; that one I have really left hanging, what with the Vine and the Shelf.

Good name for a pub.

Anyway, I hate the character's name, but her personality is mostly good; just as long as she stops trying to deny the Fae. I like her tenacity, I like her desire for simplicity; she reminds me a lot of Sookie. I also like her strength and her willingness to keep going despite the horrible things she sees. But MacKayla? Come on. Like the teenagers of the world aren't tortured enough with that name; now we have to bring it to paranormal fiction? Bothers me a little bit too that "MacKayla Lane," spelled differently, is the name of one of my students. Whom I don't like too terribly much. But the character didn't remind me of her until just now, as I'm obsessing over the terrible name, so no big deal for the reading.

I like her power, I like the Fae, especially how horrible the dark Fae are. I like the OOPs (especially the acronym) and the Dark Area idea, even if it has been done many times before; I like how this author played with it. If I have one issue with this book that I hope doesn't turn into too much of a problem, it is the way it seems to be following the Black Dagger Brotherhood system of man-description: every guy is immensely tall, immensely muscled, utterly gorgeous, with long hair and a tan, wearing expensive and beautiful clothes, and utterly perfect in terms of knowledge, strength, ability, sexiness, and total arrogance. They're all around 30, which makes them old enough to be rich and worldly-wise and powerful, but still young enough to be sexy and reasonable matches for a 22-year-old heroine. Sigh. I want there to be a little weedy guy with an endearing stutter, or maybe someone a little pudgy but cute.

So anyway, I did enjoy it, I will read the next. When I get around to it.

November, December, and The Wrap-Up

**Summer Knight: The Dresden Files, Book 4 by Jim Butcher (60) 11/3

Pick:
STILL trying to fill the time between finishing the last book and the arrival of my beloved Wheel of Time. Also enjoying Dresden immensely, so this made me put aside my Vine book for now in favor of Harry.

Story:
I had forgotten that this one began with Harry mired deep in depression, obsessed with saving Susan from her vampire curse. It irritated me that he blamed himself: she snuck into the party, dude. After you told her it was too dangerous and she shouldn't come. Her sneaking in was what got her into trouble, and that was a direct result of her mania for getting the scoop. Anyway, I did remember the ghoul assassin in the park, and it's a cool idea, but mine's better.

I like this one much more than the last; I like the parts about the White Council, I like the mystery of Mab and her decision to hire Harry, I love that Harry finally sits down (in Wal-Mart -- heh) and tells Murphy about everything. The Faerie monsters are great, and the final fight scene is wonderful, especially the way Harry finally beats the Faerie Queen over the Stone Table.

Thoughts:
I think this one is where Butcher hit his stride with Harry. In the overall story arc, this is when Harry hits his low point and then starts building up from here -- the war with the Red Court and his own culpability (and power, which is amply demonstrated by his ability to, well, save the world), and how he shoulders the burden of the war and attempts to do the same for Susan, this all adds up to Harry moving towards becoming a power player. I think the next big step for him is the Knights -- and I think that's the next one. Can't wait. Oh, but what is this that has come in the mail . . .

**The Gathering Storm: Book Twelve of the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (61) 11/11

Pick:
Yeah. I gotta explain why I picked this book. It exists, that's why. I didn't think it ever would, three years ago. Now it's here.

Story:
The first couple of pages were clearly not Jordan's writing -- Sanderson has a much leaner, choppier style, short sentences and abrupt paragraph breaks, with fewer details than Jordan lavished onto everything -- but by the time I finished the prologue and got to the actual story (the first chapter of which, I think, is Jordan's writing, at least the classic beginning paragraph and the few pages after that), I was already hooked.

Brandon Sanderson made the decision not to try to imitate Robert Jordan's style, and that was the right decision; the book worked much better this way than it would have if the reader had been forced to parse every paragraph, trying to decide how true it rang, looking hard for the false notes. As it was, once I had my moment of sorrow for the loss of a great wordsmith, I was able to throw myself into the story without any thought for the writing, with only one small annoyance -- Sanderson jumped storylines with nearly every chapter, where Jordan would have stayed with one point-of-view character for two to three chapters or even more, and Sanderson's chapters are a third of the length Jordan's were, so I was constantly pining for more about the one we just left when we moved on to the next. But the storylines were fantastic. All the characters were there, and more was revealed in this book than any other one -- which I think is a result of the looming approach of the climax and end of the series, rather than an artistic difference between the two authors.

I was very pleased that it focused on my two favorite story lines and characters (at least my two favorites of the last few books -- favorites change several times over a series this long), Rand and Egwene. Egwene's struggle with the White Tower was simply epic, building on the groundwork laid in Knife of Dreams and coming to a head in the Seanchan assault on the Tower which proved Egwene's ability in every possible way, and won her the Seat without equivocation. I love what happened to Elaida, as well -- most fitting, most satisfying. I was a bit saddened to watch Tuon return to her roots, because I can't stand the Seanchan and I hate to think of her as one of them and therefore incapable of being a partner to Mat, who loves Tuon; but this book certainly set her up as a bad guy. I'm now incredibly curious how Rand will be dealing with that little problem in the next book.

And Rand. Ah, Rand, you little idiot. The decision to harden himself, to make himself proof against all emotion, is finalized in this book, and the results are -- predictable. There is an impossibly hard-to-read scene, when Rand is forced by one of the Forsaken to do the worst thing imaginable, and the result of that is most surprising. And then every scene after that shows Rand's descent into seemingly irretrievable madness, which had me wondering: what if the Last Battle is not what we have thought? There are hints in this book that it won't be, that the Dark One's wishes are not what everyone expects them to be, and after watching Rand turn more and more despotic and even savage, I thought: what if the Dark One's only goal has been to drive Rand to this? What if the Last Battle is simply over Rand's allegiance, the soul of the Dragon Reborn? If that's the case, then evil comes perilously close to winning in this book. And the ending -- the ending actually made me choke up. First time I've cried over a book since Where the Red Fern Grows.

Thoughts:
Robert Jordan died, but the Wheel of Time turns, spinning memory into legend, and legend into myth. His death was not the ending; there are no beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time, but it was an ending. This book is not completely his book, and that is a loss because he was a better writer than Sanderson. But the book is still my book, as a reader; it is my story, these are my characters, it is the next step towards the completion of my favorite story of all time. I'm so very glad it exists, and I got to read it. And now I can't wait for the next one.

So a moment of silence for Robert Jordan, and three cheers for Brandon Sanderson (and Harriet Jacobs).


**The Unscratchables by Cornelius Kane (62) 11/14

Pick:
Vine Voice; this is one of the first ones I selected for the program, but it got lost in the mail and then brought to our door by the neighbor who received it (and might have read it, since the package was open, but what the hell -- I'm all for reading, even if it is pirate reading, and the book was in fine condition). By then the review was already three months late, so Toni and I decided to use it as one of our cooking storybooks, which I read aloud to her as she makes dinner.

Vine Review:
"The Unscratchables" is a satire of hard-boiled detective novels, with dogs and cats instead of human characters, and so it has exactly what one would expect: the author does quite a lot of playing around with cliches and standard motifs for the genre, keeping true to some and changing others to fit the unusual main characters; there are a tremendous lot of puns and pop culture references, everything from boxing promoter Don King to Hannibal Lecter from "Silence of the Lambs;" and the narrative voice is over the top, so hard boiled that you can't help reading in an angry growl. But what's surprising about the book is that there are also some fascinating and original ideas. The author has not simply replaced human characters with animals; the animals stay true to their natures, at the same time that they are acting like Sam Spade or Special Agent Pendergast.

The main character, Detective Max "Crusher" McNash of the San Bernardo Slaughter Unit, is nicely done: we explore enough of his past to understand just why he hates cats so much, but we don't dwell in the past so much that we lose track of the storyline. The focus in the book is definitely on the mystery: the slashing deaths of several dogs, apparently by some outrageously powerful and quick feline. This means that Crusher has to work with a partner, and not just any partner: he has to work with an agent from the Feline Bureau of Investigation, come straight over from Kathattan, a slick little Siamese named Cassius Lap. The problem is that Crusher fought in the war against the Siamese, and he may not be able to keep himself from giving Lap a death shake, let alone working alongside him.

Cassius Lap is also an excellent character, though the author took advantage of Lap's professionalism to downplay his animal tendencies; apart from a fear of water and a liking for soy milk (Lap is sadly lactose intolerant), Lap comes off simply as a dedicated and intelligent investigator. Most of the animal references are kept within Crusher's narrative voice, his thoughts and language are the most non-human parts of the book, often delightfully so -- I definitely enjoyed Crusher's description of driving in his "tooter (car)," with his head out the window because his windshield was cracked. But Lap's presence keeps the book focused on a genuine mystery, the solution of which played out quite nicely by the end. I especially liked the author's sociological thoughts, descriptions of the Mighty Lamb of societal pressure that has come to dominate its would-be shepherds, voiced through a particularly interesting character -- Quentin Riossitti. That one I'm going to leave for the book to explain. I highly recommend looking into it.

Thoughts:
It was a lot of fun to read, but maybe a bit too complicated for an out-loud story. Probably should stick to the YA stuff for that.


**V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd (63) 11/17

Pick:
I had put a picture of V on my ID tag for school on the Fifth, and still had it on a week later during parent conferences (And still have it on a week after that). While eating lunch with some of my colleagues, one of them noted it and asked if I had ever read the original graphic novel. I said no, I kept meaning to buy it but never had, and she offered to lend it to me, an offer I jumped on. Even though I should be reading my own shelf full of books, I couldn't turn down a chance at V.

Story:
I'm very glad I read it. It does change some things from the film, though the film stayed largely true to it, merely changing some things about the particular characters -- not V, of course, though he's a lot funnier and therefore more disturbing in the book. Evey is younger (she's 16 when it starts, about 18 when it ends), and there are different bad guys, including a particularly atrocious woman, power-hungry and cruel and completely manipulative. The art was wonderful, and one of the especially nice things about this comic is that there are no sound effects, no thought bubbles, and almost no narration at all -- everything happens in the action and dialogue. It's impressive work, and has an even stronger message about non-conformity and anarchy than did the film. I loved it.

Thoughts:
I definitely need my own copy of this.


**Queene of Light by Jennifer Armintrout (64) 11/21

Pick:
Vine Voice, picked it because I want to lean towards fantasy and paranormal stuff and Toni liked one of this woman's other books.

Vine Review:
I expect there are a number of people who loved this book, and many more who would love it were they to read it. I was not one of them. There are some clever ideas here, but for the most part, the setting is overdone and needlessly complex, but not sufficiently explained or described -- presumably to keep the book shorter and quicker, more within the realm of paranormal thriller than epic fantasy -- and the plot is weak. It seems that the purpose of this book is mainly to set up the next two, one of which has already been released by the time I'm writing this, with the other due to be released in two days; perhaps those novels will be superior. This one was not.

A few specifics: the idea of Lightworld and Darkworld is fine, normal Faerie novel fare, but in this case, neither the people of the Lightworld -- Faeries, Dragons, and Dwarves, though the Dwarves do not appear in this book -- nor the people of the Darkworld -- Elves, Gypsies, and rather inexplicably, vampires and werewolves, and even more inexplicably, Christian-based demons and angels(?) -- have ever seen the light. They all live underground, having been banished from the surface world by humans -- after they were all banished from their extradimensional homes by the destruction of the astral plane. That last part is clever, but there seems no reason at all to add the underground elements, other than it serves to make the setting that much darker, since now there can be a complete lack of sunlight and several descriptions of foul, brackish waste water. The Queene of the Faerie (Why, oh why, do authors feel the need to add an "e" to words that have no need of it?), Mabb (of course), is impossible to believe: she is insane and decadent and apparently incapable of and uninterested in ruling, and yet she has the absolute, unwavering loyalty of her subjects: the comment is made that the line of supplicants who wait for an audience with her are willing to wait until their deaths, and then have their children -- conceived and birthed and raised while waiting outside Mabb's palace -- wait as well. Yet Mabb never sees them. So this begs the question: what could they possibly want to ask the Queene about, that they are willing to die without an answer? None of the Faerie have consistent characters, despite some definitive statements about their inhuman ways. If anything, they were inhuman simply because they were more like cardboard cutouts than actual people: cardboard cutouts with odd shapes. I still can't fathom why Ayla, the main character, wants to help these people regain the surface world, or why the villain (an immortal Faerie) waited this long to put his plan into action. But the biggest unanswered question for me is this: why are the races, including Humans, all named with capital letters?

The most unfortunate part of the book is the romance, since it is one of those "I should hate you, but I can't understand why I am so drawn to you" sort, without explanation, without reason, and without much time spent on it before the main characters are pledging undying devotion. I have seen that sort of love done well, but only rarely -- and not in this case. The rest of the plot follows suit. This is a book that either should have been planned out at least twice as much as it was -- or put down before it made it this far.

Thoughts:
Wasn't terrible, but man, it wasn't good.


**The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. I by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill (65) 11/25

Pick:
This one and the sequel were loaned to me by the same teacher friend who loaned me V. Which is why she rocks hard. Know it. Live it. I read it now because I'm curious, and I wanted to return the books to Page.

Story:
This was, surprisingly, something of a disappointment. It wasn't bad, because it was quite well-written, but the art wasn't nearly as interesting as V -- back to standard comic book tropes; if this O'Neill guy didn't draw the later issues of Amazing Spider-Man when I was reading it, he's at least blood brother to the guy that did. The story did have some neat twists and turns; I liked that Quatermain was an opium addict, and the bad guy was excellent, as was his final doom. But for the most part, it seemed pretty standard comic fare. The end piece, a longer narrative with fewer illustrations, was more interesting: Quatermain takes a psychotropic drug and his soul goes on an extra-dimensional adventure with John Carter from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars novels, his "nephew" (I think by dint of a name coincidence), a character from one of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu stories, and the Time Traveller from H.G. Wells. That one was quite cool.

Thoughts:
Meh. I put this one in line with The Dark Knight: a good graphic novel, but not one of the masterworks of the genre. Less interesting than The Watchmen or Sandman or V for Vendetta.


**The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. II by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill (66) 11/29

Pick:
Same as the last; I was hoping this volume would get better.

Story:
It didn't. The concept was clever -- they brought in the Martian invaders from War of the Worlds, as well as Dr. Moreau -- but the story dragged very badly. The extraordinary gentlemen still didn't do anything particularly interesting, apart from Hyde and the Invisible Man, which was the best part of the story. Quatermain does nothing but have an extremely awkward and uncomfortable-to-read tryst with Mina Harker, who never does anything interesting in the entire run of the comic -- not once! Not a scrap of vampire power! Totally lame! -- and Nemo was fine, but couldn't really bring the Nautilus to bear on the aliens. The only good part was when the Invisible Man turned traitor and allied himself with the aliens, trying to help them conquer and become Earth's overlord; he gets found out by Mina, whose ass he kicks; and Hyde, who can see T.I.M.'s body heat, takes his horrible, bloody vengeance for Mina's suffering. That was cool, especially the end of it. The end story on this one was long and boring, so I left it out.

Thoughts:
Not even as good as the first one. This one's more on par with The Preacher: I wouldn't throw it out, but I probably wouldn't read it very often.


**Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb (67) 12/5

Pick:
Vine choice. I had to grab it -- it's Robin Hobb. AND it's about dragons!

Review:
As a long-standing fan of Robin Hobb, I had to read this book; I'm glad I did.

I must admit to being behind on my Hobb; I still have two Tawny Man books to read, and I've never read the Soldier Son series, so there might be connections and correlations I missed in this book. But the important thing, I believe, is that I have read the Liveship Traders; this book takes up where those left off, after Bingtown won its war with Chalced, with the help of the dragon Tintaglia.

As always with Robin Hobb's books, the plot is too long and involved and interesting for me to try to recap it here. The best part of Hobb's books has always been her characters, and these are no different. It is fascinating to see the dragons, with their arrogance -- both reasonable and excessive -- from multiple points of view: both the dragons' own, and that of several humans who see them quite differently. Thymara wishes to be a friend to a dragon; Alise worships them; Sedric sees them as filthy and dangerous beasts. The dragons themselves, of course, see dragons as the greatest creatures who ever existed, the Lords of the Three Realms -- sky, sea, and land -- but that also hurts these dragons, as they know themselves to be somewhat less than dragons should be, a circumstance that is both poignant and inspiring. Let me note, as well, that these are probably the most interesting dragons I have ever seen in a fantasy book, both in complexity of character and in the imagining of their life cycle and biology.

I realized a trend with this book: Hobb seems to have a flair for creating cold-hearted, manipulative, deceitful, self-absorbed foppish villains. In the Farseer books it was Regal; in the Liveship Traders it was the Satrap of Jamaillia; in these books, it is Hest Finbok. (Another trend I have known about for a while with Hobb's books: she is terrible at coming up with character and place names. Alise and Thymara aren't bad, but Hest Finbok? Cedric with an "s?" A character with tattoos on his face -- named Tats? Yoinks.) Hest is, like Regal and the Satrap, wonderfully nasty, very easy to hate, and this gives sympathy to a character that could easily be a villain but isn't, whom Hest has, in some ways, corrupted. Alise is up and down as a character: she is annoyingly passive and naive some of the time, but that is exactly who her character is supposed to be, and the shell we hope she will break out of over the course of the books (This is the first of two, rather than Hobbs's usual trilogy.). Thymara is very well done, and the exploration of social interactions between the Dragon Keepers looks to be fascinating as it unfolds.

The book is a bit of a cliffhanger; it cuts off just about when the story really gets going. I would highly recommend that readers reserve judgment on the overall story until after reading the continuation; this book, while not boring, is much more about the characters and the setup, rather than the actual climax and resolution of the plot. This one certainly got me ready to read the second book, and find out what happens to all of these folks.

Especially the dragons.

Thoughts:
I liked it. I bet the black dragon who swoops out of nowhere to connect with Tintaglia and take her out of the story is actually Verity, and that is what happens in the Tawny Man books. Now I have to read those. And the Soldier Son books. And anything else she writes! Woo! Robin Hobb!


**The Big Book of Barry Ween, Boy Genius by Judd Winick (68) 12/9

Pick:
Even though we were only talking about Alan Moore, Page decided to throw this comic collection in there because she thought I'd like it. Told you she rocked hard.

Story:
Barry Ween surprised me. The concept of a boy genius world-conquering inventor is a bit of a cliche, what with Stewy Griffin and Pinky and the Brain, but Barry gives a whole different view of that experience: he doesn't like his brain, or his life, and while he certainly has the capacity to take over the world, and has built the inventions to do it, he doesn't want to.

Then you have another cliche: Barry makes use of the usual comic juxtaposition of a dirty old man in a child's body. He and his best friend, Jeremy, have outrageously filthy mouths, and Jeremy has an unholy obsession with sex and pornography, which Barry feeds. And yet there is quite a sweet story of young love developing here -- without ever crossing the line into actual romance, since these are ten-year-old kids, a 350 IQ notwithstanding.

The art is cartoonish, but very nicely executed; Judd Winick has a flair for facial expression, particularly in moments when the usually cantankerous Barry softens and smiles gently at his friends. The action panels could be overly busy sometimes -- it was hard to find Barry in some of his epic combats -- but the writing more than made up for it. The writing is hilarious, the stories nicely absurd, the characters consistent and many-layered; even the profanity was sometimes original and amusing. All in all, this was an excellent book, with a remarkably poignant ending page, followed by a short full-color episode that made a very satisfying closer. I hope there will be more Barry Ween in the future -- I'd love to keep reading it.

Thoughts:
This rocked; I might just buy my own copy.


17. The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker (Unfinished)

So this is the one that's been haunting me the longest, because four years ago, David Schmor gave it to me and asked me to read it and offer my opinion. I wasn't terribly interested in it then, since I have learned that fantasy is a very chancy genre for picking up new authors and stories, but I was game, and I said I would. And then it sat on the shelf, in its black-on-black-with-black-writing dust jacket, and its doomerrific subtitle (Prince of Nothing, Book One), and its massive tome-like size, and it intimidated me, and gloomed me, and warned me off in every way a book can. And I played along, and avoided reading it.

Until now. I read the first fifty pages, hit the most purple, overwrought, tortured prose I've read since Kushiel's Dart, the most annoying and over-complicated world building since Glen Cook's Instrumentalities of the Night, and the worst names since, well, the Robin Hobb book I read last week. Anasurimbor Celmcas? Really? With an accent over the i? That seems excessive. Just a bit. When I realized that the book held Appendices -- yep, plural -- and that the character was poorly rendered in addition to being badly named and inhabiting a complicated place in a complicated world (this is all within the first fifty pages, mind), I just couldn't go on.

Another one off the shelf.


18. Drinking, Smoking and Screwing, edited by Sara Nickles (69 -- heh) 12/14

Pick:
Something short, simple, immediately interesting after the lump of bombast I just finished. I picked this up off the bargain shelf at Powell's, because I liked the title and the concept. Nice and curmudgeony.

Story:
I expected this to be essays and memoirs and ponderings; actually, it was largely excerpts from longer works, long short stories and novels, chosen because they were about one or more of the three title issues -- smoking, drinking, or sex. The bit from Lolita was well-written but disturbing; the Bukowski snippet was just like the novel I read -- well-written but disturbing. The thing from Spalding Grey was pointless and annoying. I definitely enjoyed the Dorothy Parker story, and I loved the things that looked more like essays -- the piece on the vocabulary of drinking (mainly where mixed drinks get their name -- cocktail, martini, Mickey Finn, etc,) by H.L. Mencken, the one called "How Not To Smoke And Drink Quite So Much," which made me want to start smoking again -- only not so much -- and the pieces by Fran Lebowitz and Mark Twain, on how to deal with annoying people when you are a smoker. Overall it was a nice, quick, amusing read.

Thoughts:
Not bad. Not a keeper. I might want to look for longer pieces by some of these people. I will want to get copies/keep this copy of the Lebowitz and the Twain.


**Death Masks: Book 5 of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (70) 12/16

Pick:
What, I need a reason to read Dresden now?

Story:
This one is one of my favorites. I love Susan's expanded character, I love both plot lines -- the Denarians and the Shroud of Turin, as well as Count Ortega and the Red Court's attempt to kill Harry and end the war. This book is the introduction of Waldo Butters, and of the Archive and Kincaid, and Shiro and Sanya and the Denarians and oh man, does it rock.

Thoughts:
I need to read the others for comparison, but: this is the best in the series so far. No question.


19. The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America by Phillip K. Howard (71) 12/19

Pick:
I got this one at a book sale, I don't remember which one though it was probably Scappoose library. I picked it up because I liked the title and the concept, but I've avoided reading it until now because it's a bit out of date, and I was afraid it was going to be hardcore Libertarianism, which I don't particularly like. But I wanted to read something quick before the end of school, since I'm running this reading challenge with my students over break, and I'm trying to knock down some of my Shelf. So I thought, what the heck. Worst case scenario is I put it down.

Story:
I didn't put it down. I almost want to read it again. This is a brilliant book, and one I really needed to read.

The basic concept is that we have allowed our common sense to slip away, in favor of laws. We got the idea that laws can handle every eventuality, if we just make them specific enough, and that once those laws are specific enough to take care of everything, then all will be well, as solutions to our problems will be taken out of the hands of untrustworthy human beings, with their flawed judgment and their biases and their tendency toward corruption.

I'm not sure how we missed the idea that the laws themselves would be made by those same fallible, biased, corrupt human beings, but there it is. I think it is because we trust the democratic process to keep any individual human from screwing up the laws, whereas we don't trust bureaucrats to actually make decisions -- especially not bureaucrats who were appointed, rather than elected.

The problem, of course, is that laws cannot predict every eventuality. The larger problem is our reaction to this initial problem, which I'm sure became obvious right away (this was a gradual process, of course, and there isn't one tipping point -- though the author glanced meaningfully at both FDR and LBJ), was to add more laws, with more specifics, in order to handle the situations we didn't think of before. But what ends up happening is that the more specific a law is, and the less leeway that is allowed to government officials to make decisions about individual cases, the more loopholes there are in the laws and the easier it is to get away with doing things completely counter to the intent of the law, but well within its letter. Like the tax laws, which allow rich fatcats to pay nothing at all, while I and my middle-class ilk shoulder the burden of paying for the United States. But we can fix that: how about some more laws?

Then there are other problems with our society. One is that government officials, freed from the burden of having to make decisions and then be responsible for those decisions -- because we don't want our government employees to make any decisions at all, since we don't trust them -- have become intentionally indecisive and dilatory, slowing down every government process in every way, and passing the buck whenever possible, so that no decisions ever get made, at all, because that way nobody will be held accountable for a decision. This has been exacerbated by our nation's decision to allow everyone and their mother to sue everyone else and their grandmother for any perceived slight at all: now not only will making a decision put you in danger of losing your comfortable government sinecure, but you just might get smacked with a lawsuit, as well. So nobody makes decisions, and nothing gets done. Issues and requests get sent from committee to committee to committee, where they eventually die of old age, while everything in our society just keeps on suckin'.

The last problem described in the book is probably the nearest and dearest to my teachin' heart. It is the idea that citizens in this country have the right to all services provided by our government, even if providing those services to every individual citizen means that the services themselves become useless, or are denied to other citizens because of the first set. Too confusing, I know. Take the Americans with Disabilities Act. Several examples were pulled out of this. Now, the idea behind it is all well and good; services should not be denied to someone only because of a disability. But there needs to be a certain caveat added to that sentence: when it is reasonable to provide those services to that person. And perhaps some inconvenience, such as a delay, should be expected.

But we refuse to accept that, because we believe we are entitled to all services -- and what's more, we are entitled to convenience in receiving those services. Thus lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit have ensured that every new building which grants access to the public has wheelchair ramps and elevators. Despite the simple fact that people in wheelchairs make up a miniscule portion of our population, and the installation of ramps and elevators and wheelchair-accessible hallways and doorways and restrooms costs an inordinate amount -- money that cannot then go towards providing services or amenities to the rest of us -- and is occasionally detrimental to other people -- such as old folks who have trouble going up ramps, who would be better served by staircases, especially in places that have ice in the winters.

You combine that entitlement, along with the government's unwillingness to make decisions and take responsibility for those decisions, AND our attempts to handle everything through universally applied laws that grow more and more infinitesimally specific -- and thus more gargantuan in written form -- every year, and you get: us. All fucked up and getting worse. Unable to pass universal health care because it is possible that someone, somewhere, could get fifty Federal cents put towards an abortion. Because there has to be codification of something as simple as an end-of-life consultation, which should just be done by a reasonable doctor, and paid for by a reasonable insurance auditor. Because we refuse to allow a government bureaucrat in between us and our doctors, since we don't trust those government people to make our medical decisions for us -- but we'll sure as hell let an insurance company bureaucrat do exactly that. Though of course, they won't be held accountable for their decisions. Because no one is.

And here we are. Without common sense, and dying off as a society because of it.

Happy book.

Thoughts:
The author's recommendation was that we start asking people to make decisions, and holding them accountable for those decisions. Makes sense to me. So I will continue to fail students, year after year after year, until the lazy bastards do their work. And if that ends up getting me, I don't know, chewed out or forced out, I will take responsibility for my decision, and I will do what I have to do. That will be my way of helping save our world.

Go me.



**Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (72) 12/23

Pick:
This one came from one of my students -- the one who reads the most, probably -- who is a fan of the Wheel of Time. He read this for his first book report for class, and we talked a little about it, so he loaned it to me along with another one over Christmas Break. I decided to read it now to make sure I got it done and could return his book (Though I didn't get through the other one yet, so he'll probably have to wait a little while, not that it matters.) and because the premise sounded interesting.

Story:
This book confirmed everything I thought about Brandon Sanderson based on Mistborn, which I read a while back to see how well I thought this guy would do with WoT: I decided then that Sanderson has some outstanding ideas, and is a decent but not a spectacular wordsmith. I was pleasantly surprised to see how well he did with Robert Jordan's characters and plot, but this one went back to Mistborn: it's a fantastic idea, with decent writing. Actually, since this one is Sanderson's first published novel, it isn't as well-written as Mistborn, though it isn't bad. A bit too long; there's a whole section that I thought could have been dropped entirely.

The idea is this: there is a city, called Elantris, peopled by demi-gods. The demi-gods were once human, and Elantris is surrounded by normal human towns, but every once in a while, a human will wake up and find that he has transformed overnight into an Elantrian: his skin and hair turn glowing silver-white, and he becomes nearly immortal and possessed of great magical power. The human goes to join his kind in Elantris, and they watch over the human people. Then, ten years ago, something happened: suddenly the magic of Elantris stopped working, overnight; the humans rioted as their benevolent overlords failed them, and most of the Elantrians were killed. Ever since then, whenever a human undergoes the change, he no longer becomes a god: now he becomes little more than a walking corpse, cursed instead of blessed. He is thrown into the now-rotting city of Elantris, and forgotten.

It's a nice premise, this idea that even gods could falter, and what would happen when they did so. It's actually built on another cool premise, which is that there are sigils, icons, that are the source of magic in this world; they are the magic the Elantrians had mastered, and which, it turns out, had failed them for a specific (only slightly cheesy) reason. I won't spoil it here, since these clever ideas are Sanderson's best attribute as a writer.

The characters are decent, though there is way too much time spent dealing with political intrigue, and especially with the slow realization of what is really going on. There is a point, maybe two-thirds through the book, when two characters decide to marry each other for political reasons, so they can have a legitimate claim on the throne of the country around Elantris. Stuff happens and they fail, but it takes a while for their plan to come to a head, and then fall apart -- and there is absolutely no reason for it to be in the book. It doesn't advance the plot at all, as at the end of this scheme, the characters are almost exactly where they were before this plan was hatched, and it takes up 100-150 pages of the nigh-700 page novel. Should have been dropped entirely, along with some of the more ponderous explorations of daily life in Elantris -- for instance, there are three gang leaders in Elantris. Why not just two? No reason, he just thought of three different ways the protagonist could overcome three gangs, so he threw all three of them in there.

But: I did like the ideas, I did like the bad guy (even if he was a poorly-disguised allegory for the Catholic Church, as the Mormon Sanderson worked out some personal issues through his characters), and I loved the ending -- except for what happens to the bad guy. Sorta lame. Could have been better. Pretty good book, though. I may try Sanderson's newest series, once I can buy new books freely, again.

Thoughts:
Already said 'em.


**The Doom Machine by Mark Teague (73) 12/26

Pick:
Amazon Vine. I dig YA, I dig sci-fi, I dig that this guy drew his own illustrations. I was curious about the Doom Machine.

Review:
When I first started this book, I was dubious. The characters were cliche and quite flat -- the Huck Finn uneducated independent free spirit, repeated both in ten-year-old Jack and his middle-aged Uncle Bud; the surly prejudiced cop and his dumb bully of a son; the heartless rational scientist, softened not at all by being female. I thought the aliens were silly, and the few jokes in the beginning were not the greatest. Even the illustrations seemed a bit tired.

But I continued on, and when the story left Earth, the book took off with the spaceship. The aliens became multi-dimensional and interesting, the characters gained depth and spirit, the world of outer space was vast and interesting and real, without being overwhelming. The book became a mix of adventure story, political allegory, scientific exploration, and imaginative storytelling, and it really became wonderful. Even the illustrations became more intriguing, when the author/illustrator got into depicting the stranger places and beings his characters encountered.

Much of the book takes place on an alien planet called Arboria, with three human characters trekking across its harsh and strange landscapes in search of help; meanwhile, the alien spaceship flies toward its home planet with two scientists on board -- one who thinks of Earth's best interests, and one who thinks only of his own. The contrast keeps the reader interested, as does Teague's forays into the mindset of the aliens themselves; while they are often cliche villains, the view of the alien culture, particularly the inner conflicts that fracture the society, are especially interesting, and easy enough for a young adult reader to grasp.

The first few chapters are a bit dull and clunky, but the majority of the book is excellent and entertaining. It was definitely worth the effort to get into it.

Thoughts:
He really should have tried harder to think up good human characters; even the aspects that were interesting, like the young girl's mixed race heritage in the 1950's, were not explored, because too much time was spent on young Jack's adventures souping up cars and playin' hooky. Lame sauce. Really were good aliens, though. Great ending -- until they got back to Earth. Then it was lame again.


20. The Verse by the Side of the Road by Frank Rowsome, Jr. (74) 12/27

Pick:
There was no good reason for this book. It's the history of the Burma-Shave signs, the ones that used to spin out a brief poem in five or six lines along highways in the time of Bugs Bunny (which is the only place I'd ever seen them myself, since they ended the campaign and the company in the 60's), which is not particularly fascinating, and has no connection to me personally. But I got it at the Scappoose Library Sale, and I've been using it as a bathroom reader for much of this year. I wanted to finish it up, I wanted to pad my book total -- hey, I really read this thing, so why not? -- and I only had twenty pages of sign limericks left. So there you are.

Story:
Kind of nice that the company was a mom-and-pop who created their own product, and used poetry and wit to sell it, and became not only very successful, but also a cultural icon. For the generation before me, admittedly, since I tried to make a Burma-Shave reference on Facebook and fell flat on my face . . . book, but still: they did it with puns and doggerel and wordplay, and I've got to like that. It was a short, easy book to read, probably would be more interesting for someone who knew the signs in person, so to speak, which means I think it will head over to me pops.

Thoughts:
Here are some of the best (including one promoting highway safety, which was another cool thing about the company):

Does your husband
Misbehave
Grunt and grumble
Rant and rave?
Shoot the brute some
Burma-Shave.

The safest rule
No ifs or buts
Just drive
Like everyone else
Is nuts!
Burma-shave

Said Juliet
To Romeo
If you
Won't shave
Go homeo.
Burma-Shave

Drinking drivers --
Nothing worse.
They put
The quart
Before the hearse.
Burma-Shave


Good stuff.


**The Guinea Pig Diaries by A.J. Jacobs (75) 12/28

Pick:
Christmas present from Toni. (And for Toni.) Something non-fiction, short pieces, after a bit of a slog to get through Elantris? Perfect.

Story:
And you thought A.J. Jacobs could only do year-long experiments in alternative living. Hah! This book is nine month-long experiments, some that A.J. thought up in between reading the entire encyclopedia and living Biblically, and some that were suggested to him by readers or editors or family members. The experiments are: living as a beautiful woman, when A.J. created an online profile, screened the e-mails, and set up dates for his nanny Michelle; outsourcing his personal life to a pair of firms in India; a month of Extreme Honesty, when A.J. tried to tell everyone the absolute truth with no filtering at all; his experience impersonating an actor at the Oscars; an attempt to live life completely rationally, without any biases or unthinking prejudices; his nude photo shoot for Esquire magazine as part of a piece by Mary-Louise Parker (Yep, Weeds woman) on how it feels to be photographed in the nude; an attempt to live according to the personal rules of behavior endorsed by George Washington; a month spent doing only one thing at a time without any multi-tasking at all; and finally, a month doing whatever his wife Julie asked of him.

Thoughts:
The book is great. But since I already blogged about the best parts, I'm going to let it go at that.



21. I Hate Myself and Want to Die by Tom Reynolds (76) 12/28

Pick:
We found this one at Powell's while waiting in the checkout line, I believe; it was marked down and looked/sounded very amusing. I started reading it to her on the way home, and then put it down for probably a year; I picked it up again fairly recently and read it as a bathroom book -- a use to which it was well-suited -- and then decided to finish it up to, well, pad my total for the year. And also so I could be done with it and start something new.

Story:
So this book goes through the 52 most depressing songs ever made, as chosen by the author -- a music critic and musician from LA. His criteria for being a depressing song came down to these: first, is it about a depressing subject? Death, or drug use, or rejection, or loss? Secondly, does it wallow in that depressing theme until you just about want to kill yourself? Third, is it pretentious, either in its attempt to be overtly, shockingly depressing, or in its failed attempt to be grandiose and moving? If it matches all of those, then it made the list.

Reynolds divides the songs into several different categories, rather than offering one a week -- which seemed an odd choice, considering his list includes 52 songs, a pointless number unless you are counting off weeks of the year. Or cards in a deck, I suppose, but there was no connection there. The categories included: She Hates Me, I Hate Her; I Had No Idea That Song Was So Morbid; I Mope, Therefore I Am; I'm Trying To Be Profound And Touching, But I Really Suck At It, and the title group, I Hate Myself And Want To Die. Among others. He lists the song under each category, and then dissects it: he describes the song, both music and lyric; gives its history, as much as is relevant or interesting (read: depressing), and then explains why this song specifically is depressing.

It's not bad. Some of his choices are right on the money -- "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday, "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd, and the Mighty Trio: Celine Dion's "All By Myself," Mariah Carey's "Without You," and Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You." He declares the most depressing song ever made to be "The Christmas Shoes" by Newsong, and that is one thousand percent accurate. The only problem is that he is a bit too much of a music snob, and so is too forgiving of artists that he thinks are good musicians, and too harsh on artists he doesn't like -- he chose "One," by Metallica, which is definitely depressing (especially including the video, a large part of why he picked it), but the song doesn't fit his criteria -- he just doesn't like Metallica's music very much. Same goes for Nine Inch Nails's "Hurt," which he thinks is wonderful in the remade version by Johnny Cash, but horrid in Trent Reznor's original -- and I thought the opposite. His criticism gets a bit too snippy, even caustic and mean at times, and that was sometimes troubling. He did make an odd, and maybe intentionally humbling, choice to keep in the chapter on the song "Brick," by the Ben Folds Five, even after he found out that he had misinterpreted the song; he added some editorial comments pointing out where he had later realized he sounded like an idiot, and kept the chapter in the book. Which was interesting, but a little odd to read.

The biggest problem with the writing was simply that he ran out of ways to say the song was really, really depressing, and yet he felt the need to say it about every one, in the explanation of why the song is depressing. He went the same route almost every time, saying that the song was so depressing it made you want to kill yourself in some terrible painful way -- it felt like someone was "peeling the skin off your skull with a sardine key," for instance. It got very, very tired.

Thoughts:
In some ways it was interesting, but it was too one-dimensional and there were too many depressing songs. The book would have been better if he had included horrifying songs, or sad songs (He did make a nice distinction between sad and depressing, but then I disagreed with his example), or even happy songs. Or if it had been, say, the 26 most depressing songs you've ever heard.


**Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer (77) 12/30

Pick:
Toni found this one in the St. Helens Bookshop and said we should buy it; then she read it first, and insisted I should read it now, instead of something less full of pirate-y goodness. And by gum, she was right.

Story:
This is the tale of Mary "Jacky" Faber, a poor lost orphan girl from the streets of London who found her way onto a British Navy ship under pretense of boyhood, and genuine ability to read --earning her a spot as ship's boy and assistant to the clerk and shipboard tutor. She gains the trust and friendship of her fellow ship's boys, and learns to love the sea and her ship as they sail the Atlantic hunting pirates.

This is a hell of an adventure story. The twist of Mary's concealed gender doesn't dominate the story; much more important and moving was her time as a starving orphan, following the death of her entire family in one of the plagues that constantly sweep London during the 18th century, when the book is set. But the fact that Mary is a girl does add suspense, and some real depth to her character. The depiction of shipboard life is interesting, historically accurate and informative as far as I can tell, and the story drew me in and kept me rolling along. Definitely recommend this, especially to adventurous young women.

Thoughts:
Hey, I read it in a day, and I'm going to be buying the rest of the series. Part of me wishes that Mary was a pirate, but this works very nicely, anyway.


**Blood Rites: Book Six of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (78! Woot!) 12/31

Pick:
I love Dresden, so it seemed a good way to end the year. Plus I was pretty sure I could burn through the book in less than 24 hours and get it on my 2009 list.

Story:
While this one is clever, in the connection between the White Court and the porn industry, it really isn't one of my favorites. It brings some great characters sharply to life: I really like Thomas's place in this series, and this is the book where he steps up and becomes an important character; I think Kincaid is a fascinating shades-of-gray hero/villain; and this is where Harry meets Mouse -- and who doesn't love Mouse?

The most interesting part of the story line -- apart from Thomas and Harry, of course -- is what Harry finds out about Ebenezar McCoy. I love how Harry grows more into the shades of gray in this series, and then (though I haven't read the most recent book and the series isn't over yet) seems to come out the other side with an even stronger sense of morality, of right and wrong, and this revelation is a big part of that journey. I think it's cool.

Thoughts:
At least I was write in my reasons for picking it. And I do like what happens to Thomas's father, Lord Raith. The big twerp.

The main thing is, this finishes a year in books -- a year that featured a pair of collapses, first of our computer, and then of my book shelf. The second one, funnily enough, had the bigger impact for me, I think. Though I am still trying to recover from the loss of my writing, so maybe they both mattered.

At any rate, this year's finished. On to the next!


The Wrap Up:

You know, overall this seemed like a pretty mediocre year for reading. There were some high points, but between the twin catastrophes that screwed this list up -- the collapse of our computer and my book shelf -- and the Amazon Vine program, which has certainly expanded my reading horizons and (one hopes) is doing good things for my career, but which also puts a fair number of cruddyish books in my hands, there seem like a lot of books that I just wasn't that excited about. Maybe it wasn't my fault that my reading slowed down towards the end of the year, there.

Best Book of the Year:
The Gathering Storm, Book Twelve of the Wheel of Time. Fool was great, too, as was Travels With Charley and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and A Wrinkle in Time. But it's all about WoT.

Worst Book That I Finished:
Probably Magician's Apprentice. Maybe School of Fear.

Worst Book That I Didn't Finish:
Oh, that would probably be The Company of Dogs. Though I tried to read a number of massive tomes/weighty authoring, between Genji, Strange/Norrell, and The Darkness That Comes Before.

Book That Was Most Fun To Make Fun Of:
Magician's Apprentice

Most Surprisingly Enjoyable Book:
Actually reading The Pirate Primer, or The Cleft And Other Tales

Most Inspiring Book:
Travels With Charley

Most Demoralizing Book:
The Death of Common Sense

Book That Made Me Laugh The Most:
Fool

Saddest Book:
Dry

Best Vine book:
The Magicians