Irritation, Depression, and one REALLY good book in between. Guess which one.

39. (13) Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer 5/26

Pick:
I like the idea of the criminal mastermind at age twelve. I love the name, I like the covers, I'm up for a young adult fantasy series. And I need something lighter and a bit more cheerful after that gorefest. I'm also of the mind that this will be better written than that. Then again, so are the ingredients on the cereal box.

Thoughts:
It wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be. I liked the fairy characters quite a lot, though LEPRecon is a bit too far into the silly realm. I prefer the JK Rowling version of institutions -- paralleling the real world, but not trying to re-define it. But I liked their goals, and their system -- especially the underground and the shuttle flights and the motorized strap-on wings; I liked the techno-whiz centaur and the determined Captain Holly and the grizzled blustery captain and the ladder-climbing suck-up who fails so spectacularly.

Unfortunately, I didn't like Artemis Fowl. I didn't like Butler, and I detested his little sister Juliet. Perhaps I wasn't meant to like him; he is an evil mastermind, after all, and there is a certain amount of redemption at the end with his final wish. But he's a money-grubbing scumbag who uses his badass bodyguard to accomplish his goals, rather than his own brilliance. Sure, he was clever enough to find The Book (a sort of instruction manual for fairies) and use it to hatch his masterplan, but Butler is the one who captures the fairy and protects the compound from the rescue attempt. With a little help, he's the reason Artemis survives the troll. So Butler should have been the hero -- and I would have liked him more, except I didn't care for his blind loyalty to the annoying kid, nor his understandable-but-still-annoying loyalty to his idiot sister.

So how well does this bode for the second book and the rest of the series? Well, I have The Arctic Incident already, so I'll read it and see if Artemis gets more likeable or if the fairies play as big and as fun a role in that one. And if it's a no on both of those, I'll move on to a different YA fantasy series with a better hero.


40. (Toni's Shelf) Bloodfever by Karen Marie Moning 5/29

Pick:
For some reason, after reading a book with a pretty annoying hero, I decided to read another book with a fairly annoying hero. I prefer Mac to Artemis, though, and these books are more adult and thus more stirring. I like that.

Thoughts:
The series is improving; I like the villain work in this one, both the ominous Reaper shadow and the final reveal behind it, and the exploration of the sidhe-seer network. I dug the horror elements, the invasion of the shades and the half-eaten fae that Mac keeps finding. I like what Mac is forced to do, and very happy with the final result of that choice. I like V'Lane and his character growth in this one; the all-powerful sex god crap can get annoying, but he was much more interesting in this one.

For the annoying parts? I am heartily sick of Mac's pathetic wish for a stupid life, being all girly and tan and marrying a nice Southern hunk and squeezing out a litter of rednecks. I don't mind the sorrow over lost innocence, but her innocent paradise sounds really freaking annoying to me, which I don't like. Jericho gets on my nerves, as he is supposed to, because he isn't forthcoming enough with information I want. Of course there should be mysteries, and of course there should be a Yoda who knows every secret and refuses to reveal them except in the fullness of time; my books will have the same things. But I hate that he is in every chapter, on every page, standing around all smug and knowing and not saying crap. Makes me want to reach in and shake him. Which isn't at all bad for an author to get that reaction out of me, though it can be a little tough to read books while I'm dreaming of doing violence to a main character. And I don't like Mac's sister, nor Mac's sorrow over said sister, much like I don't like Mac's fantasy life. And my biggest problem, of course, is her name. Thank god Barrons calls her "Ms. Lane;" that's a name I like. I'm not looking forward to when their increasing intimacy leads him to call her MacKayla. I'm hoping she finds out what her birth name was, and decides to drop that travesty of a first name.

But I like the books, I like the writing, I love the world. I like the bad guy, too, and how incapable Mac is of dealing with this stuff -- and the reason why she has Barrons as an ally, and what an interesting ally he makes, in terms of dealing with the supernatural. So definitely going to keep reading them, and pretend her name is actually, hmmm, how about Michelle? I like Michelle.


41. (NTY) Changes by Jim Butcher 6/1

Pick:
New Butcher! Woot!

Thoughts:
So now everything has changed, as the name implies. We're moving into Endgame, which is outstanding (Though sad, as the end of the series is therefore looming.). I wish this book could have shown us something about little Maggie herself, and I REALLY wish it hadn't ended the way it did. But I can't wait for the next book. Oh: and when Sanya hears about Harry becoming the Winter Knight and, err, coupling with Mab in order to seal the deal, his comment -- the deadpan, "So. Mab. You hit that." -- was one of the funniest things I've ever read in this series, and that's saying something.


42. (14) The Road by Cormac McCarthy 6/2

Pick:
I saw it on a list of post-apocalyptic must-reads; actually, I somehow remembered it as being about zombies. It's been on the shelf for a while.

Thoughts:
And for the Most Depressing Books Ever Written Award, our winner is: The Road! Congratulations, Cormac -- though sadly, our judges killed themselves before they could get your name engraved on the award, so we'll have to give it to you blank. I'm sure your own sorrow, which by now must be petrified to a stone-like obduracy and sharpened like a straight razor stropped on your leathery angst, will serve as the implement for carving your name on this thing. Or you could just splash some of your lifeblood onto it, since that seems to be what you used for ink; as you prefer.

I've read a fair number of post-apocalyptic books; it's a pretty standard staple of science fiction. One of my favorite all-time sci-fi books is post-apocalyptic; Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer. And that one's pretty frigging bleak: people try to hoard, then fight over what's hoarded, and then just fight out of desperation, and then, of course, turn cannibal. But in Lucifer's Hammer, there is some hope; the cannibals are actually defeated by that hope in the end. Well, hope and mustard gas -- it really is pretty bleak. The Road picks up the story about ten years after that, when things have gone past hopeless to desperate to simply vile. The message of the book, if there is one, is: give up. Do it sooner rather than later, and save yourself a lot of misery.

So if anyone has The Road on their To Be Read list, I advise you to do what Mr. McCarthy proposes: give up. Do it before you read the book, instead of after, and save yourself a lot of misery.


43. (Vine) Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance by Alexander Zaitchik

Pick:
I had to grab this one; after reading Common Sense from the Beckster himself, and watching Jon Stewart's parody of Glenn, I have something of a fascination with this particular talking head. So I wanted to know what I could find out about him. I trust that this review will garner me some negative votes, so I'm going to try to be less insulting of the idiot than I would be otherwise in order to minimize Tea Party backlash. And I am so disappointed that my friend is a fan of this schmuck.


Thoughts:
If you are a fan of Glenn Beck: before you start frowning, then snarling, then clicking the "Unhelpful" button and pounding the keys as you compose a new blog, think about how Mr. Beck himself would view this book (and this review, which is of course far too small a venue to gather any notice from Mr. Beck). He would love it. He would be glad for the attention that books like this bring to himself and his causes, and he would simply smile and shrug over the criticism; he would point out that there is no desire to tear down anyone unless he makes himself a target. Unless he is becoming a threat. Glenn Beck himself has said that he is a threat to the establishment in this country, and so this book should be seen as a compliment.

This book is not a compliment, however. It may garner some of the attention that Glenn Beck thrives on, but it is anything but a compliment. It is well-researched, meticulous in its citations and evidence, and thoroughly reasonable in its conclusions, if not always in its tone. This author sees Beck as an enemy, and his descriptions of Beck echo that stance: Zaitchik is insulting, derogatory, and dismissive at every turn, and his bile grows more bitter as the book follows Beck's rise to power and prominence.

On the other hand, he's also correct. Beck is a self-serving, infantile, overly sentimental egotist who seeks power and glory and will let nothing stand in his way -- not truth, not reason, not the best interests of his fellow man. Zaitchik draws an early parallel between Beck and another master showman: P.T. Barnum, perhaps the greatest huckster who ever lived, and certainly the founder of infotainment as it is practiced (and perhaps perfected by Beck) in America today. It's a good parallel, but there is one difference: Barnum, so far as I know, only sought personal wealth and fame; Beck wants power. If he remained nothing but a showman, I would have no problem with the man -- but he is trying to change my country, not simply because he thinks he's on the right path, but also (primarily) in the name of self-aggrandizement. And therefore is he very dangerous.

The book lost coherence near the end for me, as it turned from Beck's personal career to a sketchy analysis of the rise of Beck's 9/12 Tea Party movement. I think the current nature of the Tea Party movement, and the simple fact that whatever his intentions may have been, the Tea Party is no longer Glenn Beck's baby (if it ever was), prevented Zaitchik from gaining as solid a grasp on the subject as he had on Beck. But the majority of the book, the careful delineation and analysis of Glenn Beck's rise from zany morning DJ on Top 40 stations, to the media mogul he is today, was fascinating. This is a study in what it takes to build one of those meteoric rises that so define modern public figures -- though this particular meteoric rise is fueled by lies and ignorance, by hate and fear, by appealing to the lowest common denominator and every selfish, self-righteous taint on the collective American consciousness. I thought the book was great, and would recommend it, though of course, Beck fans risk being upset by the author's disapprobation. It still might be interesting, however, to read about why Beck acts the way he does on camera, why he cries, why he professes simplicity and ignorance, and why he talks about America the way he does. Maybe it would be worthwhile to take a look behind the mask. It was for me.

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.