Thursday, December 31, 2015

Come As You Are


Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski, 400 pages

"An essential exploration of why and how women's sexuality works-based on groundbreaking research and brain science-that will radically transform your sex life into one filled with confidence and joy.  Researchers have spent the last decade trying to develop a "pink pill" for women to function like Viagra does for men. So where is it? Well, for reasons this book makes crystal clear, that pill will never exist-but as a result of the research that's gone into it, scientists in the last few years have learned more about how women's sexuality works than we ever thought possible, and Come as You Are explains it all.  The first lesson in this essential, transformative book by Dr. Emily Nagoski is that every woman has her own unique sexuality, like a fingerprint, and that women vary more than men in our anatomy, our sexual response mechanisms, and the way our bodies respond to the sexual world. So we never need to judge ourselves based on others' experiences. Because women vary, and that's normal.  Second lesson: sex happens in a context. And all the complications of everyday life influence the context surrounding a woman's arousal, desire, and orgasm.  Cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines tells us that the most important factor for women in creating and sustaining a fulfilling sex life, is not what you do in bed or how you do it, but how you feel about it . Which means that stress, mood, trust, and body image are not peripheral factors in a woman's sexual wellbeing; they are central to it. Once you understand these factors, and how to influence them, you can create for yourself better sex and more profound pleasure than you ever thought possible.  And Emily Nagoski can prove it."  Every woman should read this book.  So should every man that wants to understand female sexuality better.  I definitely recommend this book. 

The Rule of Thoughts


The Rule of Thoughts by James Dashner, 328 pages

In this sequel to The Eye of Minds, Michael finds himself in the body of another boy, Jackson Porter.  Although he hadn't realized it until now, Michael was a tangent, a computer program and even though he didn't ask for this, he feels terrible that he has taken over someone's body.  Kaine, another tangent, has found a way to make this process work, claiming that he can give everyone immortality.  Michael knows that Kaine's plan is evil, and with his friends, Sarah and Bryson, they try to create a plan to stop Kaine.  Kaine is more powerful than they know and they run into many obstacles along the way.  Dashner isn't my favorite author but I like this series better than The Maze Runner series.  That being said, I'm in the minority, I think, and teen fans of Dashner and most science fiction fans will probably like it.

Finders Keepers

Finders Keepers by Stephen King, 434 pages

A sequel to Mr. Mercedes, this book involves Bill Hodges, Holly Gibney, and Jerome Robinson again.  However, they don’t come in until halfway through the story.  A man named Morris Bellamy kills a famous author, John Rothstein, and steals his money and notebooks full of unpublished writings.  He hides everything until things cool down but in the meantime is arrested and sentenced to life in prison for an unrelated crime.  Decades later, a young teen named Pete Sauber finds the money and the notebooks.  Unfortunately, Bellamy is eligible for parole.  I really liked this book, probably as much as I’ve liked anything by King.  He still can write some truly horrific scenes and even some terrifying scenes, but I almost feel like his stories have improved since he’s lightened up a little on that aspect.  I highly recommend it to fans of King and horror.

Gigi The Story of a Merry-Go-Round Horse

Gigi The Story of a Merry-Go-Round Horse by Elizabeth Foster, 118 pages

Gigi was born in Vienna.  His mother was a pine tree and his father was the wind.  Gigi was a horse on the finest carousel in Vienna.  Everyone came to the park and all of the children wanted to ride Gigi after they got past the fact that he was new and untried.  Gigi even became the exclusive horse of the young Austrian prince.  When hard times came, Gigi was sold and started off on a journey that took him to France, England and the United States.  This is a short, sweet story told from Gigi's perspective about his travels and the children that he met and grew to love.  This is another book that I loved as a kid and I still do but that the library does not own.

Oh Sarah


Oh Sarah by Florence Musgrave, 247 pages

Sarah is a preacher's kid and everyone expects her to be nicer and better behaved than other children.  But Sarah hates having to go without because her family has no money and she just wants to be a normal girl in a normal family and she often lashes out in anger at people because of her this.  Despite her anger, Sarah really does want to be good and tries her best to be understanding, most of the time.  But Sarah's patience is tested when her mother wants to adopt Sarah's cousins, baby twins.  Sarah just sees more work and less money and is angrier than ever.  I first read this when I was kid and it was not a new book then, but Sarah's problems are relatable today.  This was a used copy I received as a Christmas present because I loved it so much as a kid and I found that I still loved it as much today, but it is, unfortunately, not one the library owns.

Dragonbane

Dragonbane by Sherrilyn Kenyon, 343 pages

"Out of all the mysterious boarders who call Sanctuary home, no one is more antisocial or withdrawn than Maxis Drago. But then, it's hard to blend in with the modern world when you have a fifty foot wingspan.  Centuries ago, he was cursed by an enemy who swore to see him fall. An enemy who took everything from him and left him forever secluded.  But Fate is a bitch, with a wicked sense of humor. And when she throws old enemies together and threatens the wife he thought had died centuries ago, he comes back with a vengeance. Modern day New Orleans has become a battleground for the oldest of evils. And two dragons will hold the line, or go down in flames."  I liked this book.  It's very typical of Kenyon's writing, not super original but she writes pretty well and the story is interesting enough to keep fans interested.  I wouldn't say it's her best book, but it's a good, solid offering to her collection.

Tournament at Gorlan

Tournament at Gorlan by John Flanagan, 364 pages

This is the first in a new series by Flanagan.  The series takes place before the events of the first Ranger's Apprentice series, when Halt was young.  This is called The Early Years.  Halt and Crowley have teamed up after discovering that one of the Barons, Morgarath, is holding the king and the prince prisoner.  Although they are unsure what his plan is, they suspect he plans to somehow take over the kingdom himself.  He has disbanded the real King's Rangers and has replaced them with incompetent fools posing as Rangers.  Halt and Crowley intend to stop him and together hatch a plan to stop him.  Full of action and humor this book is just as satisfying as every other book Flanagan has written.  I would highly recommend it to teens who like stories about fantasy, adventure, relationships, or humor.  These books have pretty wide appeal.

Texas Gothic

Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore, 406 pages

Amy is as normal a girl as possible, considering that she is a Goodnight.  All of the Goodnights have an affinity for magic.  Amy and her sister, Phin, are spending a month watching their aunt's place for a month.  When Amy meets their neighbor, Ben, it's a love/hate relationship at first site.   Amy has no idea why Ben is so antagonistic but finds out it has to do with her aunt's reputation for craziness and a land dispute.  Unfortunately, Amy, who is usually the sensible one, discovers a ghost that seems to be connected to Ben's land, and if she ever expects her life to be normal again, she has to deal with this ghost, or it may follow her forever.  A good fantasy story about ghosts that teens will enjoy.

Not Otherwise Specified

Not Otherwise Specified by Hanna Moskowitz, 260 pages


Etta has always been determined to get out of Nebraska.  Now, life is even worse.  Her former friends are bullying her at school because she's been dating a boy.  They are all lesbians and even though Etta always said she was bisexual, they fell like she betrayed them.  She is still struggling with her body and eating issues and life basically sucks.  Then she finds out about an open audition to a musical theatre school in New York.  And she also meets a girl in her eating disorder group, Bianca.  Bianca is trying out for the school with her brother, James, who is gay, and their friend, Mason, who is not.  Although Etta is convinced she can't sing well enough to get in, she decides to audition and rehearses with and becomes friends with this new group of people. Although a lot of things still suck, not everything sucks quite as much, but Etta still has a lot of problems to work out.  This was a decent book about a girl working through her life.  A lot of teens would enjoy this, not just the LGBTQ community, but teens who like realistic fiction. 

Festival Accompanying Arc

Higurashi When they Cry: Festival Accompanying Arc by Ryukishi07, (4 books - 1832 pages)

Cover image for Having watched various characters kill each other and die gruesome deaths in previous arcs, I was fully expecting more gruesomeness here. But I am very happy so say I nearly completely wrong. When contrasted to the Massacre Arc previously, where there was a mass killing and someone gets their entrails ripped out, this huge four volume set is quite tame.

Cover image for Not only does this arc finally wrap up everything, but when we learn who was behind all of the plots in the village, and why everything always went so wrong it sort of makes sense. By that I mean we have certainly been shown glimpses of this underlying truth, that are only obvious in reflection.
The Festival Accompanying Arc is such a complete story about what is going on in Hinamizawa that you do not need to read any of the other arcs at all, but should anyways.

I was going to elaborate and give a review of the entire series focusing on how the arcs build off each other and such, but I found out that this is not the end, there are still more arcs. Though what they are about I do not know.

Claymore 16-20

Claymore Volumes 16 - 20 by Norihiro Yagi, (5 books, 943 pages)

Cover image for It was just as I foretold! The circular leveling has happened! Repent now and flee! Wait, don't do that I got a little carried away... Anyways the one thing I hate about manga has now happened to a series I was just starting to really like, circular leveling. If you don't know what that is see my previous blog post about the Claymore series. Don't worry I will wait for you to come back. Back yet? good lets continue.

Everything happened just as I predicted, the Claymores and namely the ones who had already developed sketchy new powers came across a new bad guy, or in this case girl who they, even when fighting together cannot beat. This should be game over, end of story, everyone gets to die and have their closing cut scenes. I am thinking a nice monologue about saving yourself and forgiveness. But since no one really wants the series to end, except maybe me, the author had to find a way to allow good to have a fighting chance. I would almost rather see it as a hidden weak spot, sort of like the video games, but in manga we get the circular leveling. Since I have ranted about this enough for one year, I won't continue this rant, but Claymore got penciled in on my naughty list.

Cover image for
Despite all of my hatred for what Claymore has become, the series is quite good. Despite having a feeling of wandering in the first few volumes, everything has really come together in a nice streamlined story. There are of course some pieces missing that frankly seem slightly more interesting than the actual story, but it is not distracting and we do get glimpses to keep them fresh in our minds. Everything is headed for the final showdown, it will be interesting to see how they end it.
And yes, like nearly everything else I blog about, I will also continue to read the story. So sometime in the future you can look forward to reading another post about how right I was and my circular leveling hatred.

Notes on the Death of Culture

Cover image for Notes on the Death of Culture: Essays on Spectacle and Society by Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by John King, 226 pages

In this book of essays, Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa explores the possibility of culture in our modern "civilization of spectacle" in which entertainment has eclipsed art, the concept of value has been wholly obscured by price, and a leveling egalitarian spirit has anathematized any notion of hierarchy.

At the heart of the book is a struggle between its two primary inspirations - Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture and Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies.  The former describes culture as an inescapably religious organic development grown by a creative elite, the latter celebrates an open marketplace of ideas as the best vehicle for progress.  The tension between the two is most explicit in his treatment of religion, which he endorses for utilitarian reasons while denying the validity of any claim to absolute truth, simultaneously asserting its necessity while leaving it hollow and lifeless.  This is, of course, the dilemma of any advocate of cultural renewal in late modernity - how to maintain the modern virtues of tolerance and equality while simultaneously rejecting relativism and its children, consumerism and nihilism.  

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Summer Before the War

The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
496 Pages (Comes out March 2016)

From the author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand this novel is set in the beginning of World War One.  Simonson does a good job of capturing the  small village atmosphere and develops strong characters in her writing.  There is humor as well as sadness as a generation loses their innocence. 

Pretty Girls

Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter
396 Pages

"It's been more than twenty years since Claire and Lydia last spoke. Claire is the glamorous trophy wife of an Atlanta millionaire; Lydia, a single mother dating an ex-con, struggles to make ends meet. But neither has recovered from the disappearance of their sister Julia two decades earlier--and the shocking murder of Claire's husband brings the horror and heartbreak of the past roaring back into their lives.

The vanishing of a teenage girl and the killing of a middle-aged man, almost a quarter-century apart: What could connect them? As they form a wary truce, the surviving sisters unearth the secrets that destroyed their family all those years ago . . . and find the astonishing truth they least expected."

 I found this to be a riveting read once you get past the first 25 pages or so.  Not completely original but it should be popular with people who enjoy suspense.

Curse of Jacob Tracy

Curse of Jacob Tracy by Holy Messinger
308 Pages

"St. Louis in 1880 is full of ghosts, and Jacob Tracy can see them all. Ever since he nearly died on the battlefield at Antietam, Trace has been haunted by the country's restless dead. The curse cost him his family, his calling to the church, and damn near his sanity. He stays out of ghost-populated areas as much as possible these days, guiding wagon trains West from St. Louis, with his pragmatic and skeptical partner, Boz.

During the spring work lull, Trace gets an unusual job offer. Miss Fairweather, a wealthy English bluestocking, needs someone to retrieve a dead friend's legacy from a nearby town, and she specifically wants Trace to do it. However, the errand proves to be far more sinister than advertised. When confronted, Miss Fairweather admits to knowing about Trace's curse, and suggests she might help him learn to control it in exchange for a few more odd jobs. Trace has no interest in being her pet psychic, but he's been looking twenty years for a way to control his power, and Miss Fairweather's knowledge of the spirit world is too valuable to ignore. As she steers him into one macabre situation after another, his powers flourish, and Trace begins to realize some good might be done with this curse of his. But Miss Fairweather is harboring some dark secrets of her own, and her meddling has brought Trace to the attention of something much older and more dangerous than any ghost in this electrifying and inventive debut."


Set as a series of short adventures that blend to a greater book I thought the novel was entertaining.  There is definitely room for further books and I would welcome more character development.  

Sunfail

Sunfail by Steven Savile
319 Pages


"Jake Quinn is a NYC subway electrician and former Special Forces operative. When he finds two young men spraying graffiti across the subway station walls, he realizes their marks aren't gang tags or band names: they are a message, a call to arms spelled out in a lost language. The Hidden are communicating with each other. The end of the world has arrived, and it's being orchestrated by those unseen - for profit."

It should suffice to say that this novel should have only been an e-book.  A mid-rate thriller with unmemorable characters.  

Dewey Decimal System

The Dewey Decimal System by Nathan Larson
251 Pages

"After a flu pandemic, a large-scale terrorist attack, and the total collapse of Wall Street, New York City is reduced to a shadow of its former self. As the city struggles to dig itself out of the wreckage, a nameless, obsessive-compulsive veteran with a spotty memory, a love for literature, and a strong if complex moral code (that doesn't preclude acts of extreme violence) has taken up residence at the main branch of the New York Public Library on 42nd Street.

Dubbed "Dewey Decimal" for his desire to reorganize the library's stock, our protagonist (who will reappear in the next novel in this series) gets by as bagman and muscle for New York City's unscrupulous district attorney. Decimal takes no pleasure in this kind of civic dirty work. He'd be perfectly content alone amongst his books. But this is not in the cards, as the DA calls on Dewey for a seemingly straightforward union-busting job.

What unfolds throws Dewey into a bloody tangle of violence, shifting allegiances, and old vendettas, forcing him to face the darkness of his own past and the question of his buried identity.

With its high body count and snarky dialogue, The Dewey Decimal System pays respects to Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Jim Thompson. Healthy amounts of black humor and speculative tendencies will appeal to fans of Charlie Huston, Nick Tosches, Duane Swierczynski, Victor Gischler, Robert Ferrigno, and early Jonathan Lethem."


I picked this up because I read a review of a new volume in the series coming out.  As I read I realized I had had this book out before but hadn't finished so I read to the end.  I was disappointed in the plotting and characterization in the novel.  I never really connected with anyone and the author's need to be tricky just resulted in a mess.  Not recommended. 

My Name is Lucy Barton

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
208 Pages

"Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy's childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy's life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable."

While the story is not that memorable, the narrative voice in the book makes it well worth reading. 

Turner House

The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
341 Pages


"The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years. Their house has seen thirteen children grown and gone--and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit's East Side, and the loss of a father. The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to the suburbs. But now, as ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a tenth of its mortgage. The Turner children are called home to decide its fate and to reckon with how each of their pasts haunts--and shapes--their family's future."

An engrossing novel with a strong narrative voice.  I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Kitchens of the Great Midwest

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal
312 Pages


"Kitchens of the Great Midwest, about a young woman with a once-in-a-generation palate who becomes the iconic chef behind the country's most coveted dinner reservation, is the summer's most hotly-anticipated debut.

When Lars Thorvald's wife, Cynthia, falls in love with wine--and a dashing sommelier--he's left to raise their baby, Eva, on his own. He's determined to pass on his love of food to his daughter--starting with puréed pork shoulder. As Eva grows, she finds her solace and salvation in the flavors of her native Minnesota. From Scandinavian lutefisk to hydroponic chocolate habaneros, each ingredient represents one part of Eva's journey as she becomes the star chef behind a legendary and secretive pop-up supper club, culminating in an opulent and emotional feast that's a testament to her spirit and resilience."   


This is a book for people fond of the cooking channels as well as the theory of six degrees of separation.  New characters are introduced throughout the book and you wonder how they interact with one another and Eva. 






Power Surge

Power Surge by Ben Bova
363 Pages


"Dr. Jake Ross came to Washington, D.C., to make a difference. As the science advisor to a newly-elected freshman senator, Jake has crafted a comprehensive energy plan that employs innovative new technologies to make America the world's leader in energy production while simultaneously boosting the economy and protecting the environment. The factsâe"and the scienceâe"are on Jake's side, but his plan soon runs afoul of entrenched special interests, well-funded lobbies, cynical bureaucrats, pork-barrel politics, and one very powerful U.S. Senator.
To keep his plan alive and secure a sustainable future for America, Jake needs a crash course in the way Washington really works. Everyone keeps telling him that his plan has no hope of succeeding, but Jake is determined to prove them wrong even if it kills him . . . something that certain hostile parties may be all too happy to arrange."

Probably a fairly accurate portrayal of some of our political processes crossed with a Grisham like conspiracy twist.  

Rage Against God

Cover image for The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith by Peter Hitchens, 219 pages

As a teenager, Peter Hitchens lost what little faith he had in God - he simply grew out of it, as one more step towards adulthood.  At the same time, he found a new faith in radical politics.  An education as a reporter in '80s Moscow lead to the death of that faith, as he learned that an atheist society could not, despite a mountain of corpses, produce an earthly paradise.  This experience was one of the factors which lead him to a reconsideration of, and then reconversion to, the Christianity he had smugly rejected as a young man.  It also shaped a new understanding of his former fellow travelers, most notably his older brother Christopher, and the motives which underlay their atheism.

This is both the strength and weakness of The Rage Against God.  It is not about the reasons for faith so much as an attempt to reveal that atheism is not a default position which must be reasoned out of, but is itself the product of hidden premises and desires, most often the desire to reshape the world in our own image.  His target is not atheists as a general class, but a certain class of atheists which included his more famous brother.  The autobiographical accounts are excellent, but Hitchens slips a bit when he tries to universalize from his experience.

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Rite and Man

Rite and Man: The Sense of the Sacral and Christian Liturgy by Louis Bouyer of the Oratory, translated by M Joseph Costelloe, SJ, 220 pages

This is another phenomenological exploration of the religious experience - in many ways, Bouyer begins where Otto (The Idea of the Holy) ends.  In his analysis, it is ritual which is the central location for an encounter with the numinous.  

In Fr Bouyer's account, far from ritual being an invention of priestcraft to interject a supernatural note into the secular world, ritual served initially as a focus for a numinous reality universally perceived - in the beginning, every slaughter of an animal was seen as something mysterious and sacred, until the establishment of ritual sacrifices formalized and thus limited this power.  The natural significance of ordinary acts - a bath, a meal - recovers its supernatural expression in the rite.  This logic underlies the entire sacramental system.

The first eight Stephanie Plum books

One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Three to get Deadly, Four to Score, High Five, Hot Six, Seven Up, and Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich, (8 books - 2551 pages)

Cover image for Having read my way through all of the Meg Langslow Mystery series, I set out looking for my next coz mystery series. I had some criteria that I thought would help narrow the field such as any series had to be at least five books long. Finished series and series with puny titles would also receive an extra glance. The Stephanie Plum series, I must admit, was not the first series I selected, it was actually the third. The others however fell by the wayside with unlikeable characters and horrid writing.

Cover image for The Stephanie Plum series follows one Stephanie Plum as she tries to survive and make rent in Trenton. But after a messy divorce and losing her job as a lingerie buyer, the ends are not meeting. She tries to stretch things along, selling off appliances as needed but eventually she is forced to blackmail her cousin Vinnie into giving her a job. Unfortunately for her it is not the desk job she was hoping for, instead it's bounty hunting. While the job isn't what she wanted, with the all of the shooting and such, she tries to make it work. Except she is likely the worst bounty hunter in the world. Not only does she frequently lose the people she is trying to capture, but they also tend to humiliate her in the process. She also has a tendency to have her car blown up and to find dead people. Though some how it all works out in the end.

All in all this makes for a funny and quick read. The series is a little on the morbid, or dark side for my definition of a cozy mystery, but is still worth reading. Though like all of these series, you have to wonder when the police are just going to lock up the protagonist, for the safety of everyone else.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Lost Souls

Lost Souls by Seth Patrick
374 Pages


"Able to wake the recently dead for testimony that is accepted in courts worldwide, the use of revivers has become a routine part of police investigation. Despite his troubled past, Jonah Miller is one of the best. But while reviving the victim of a brutal murder, he encounters a terrifying presence. Something is watching. Waiting.When long-hidden secrets are uncovered, Jonah is forced to come to a chilling conclusion: An ancient evil is coming - and Jonah may be all that stands in its way..."

I remember reading the first novel of the series and it was okay so I thought I would read the second.  Again,  just okay.  I will probably end up reading the third book but only because I won't remember that it is just okay.

A Borrowed Man

A Borrowed Man by Gene Wolfe
300 Pages

"It is perhaps a hundred years in the future, our civilization is gone, and another is in place in North America, but it retains many familiar things and structures. Although the population is now small, there is advanced technology, there are robots, and there are clones.
E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person. He is a clone who lives on a third-tier shelf in a public library, and his personality is an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human.
A wealthy patron, Colette Coldbrook, takes him from the library because he is the surviving personality of the author of Murder on Mars . A physical copy of that book was in the possession of her murdered father, and it contains an important secret, the key to immense family wealth. It is lost, and Colette is afraid of the police. She borrows Smithe to help her find the book and to find out what the secret is. And then the plot gets complicated."

Somehow the whole novel seems very dated in the plotting and dialogue.  If it had been written in the 50's it would have fit perfectly.  I did not enjoy and would not recommend.  

The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster

The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster by Scott Wilbanks
392 Pages

"Annabelle Aster doesn't bow to convention-not even that of space and time-which makes the 1890s Kansas wheat field that has appeared in her modern-day San Francisco garden easy to accept. Even more peculiar is Elsbeth, the truculent schoolmarm who sends Annie letters through the mysterious brass mailbox perched on the picket fence that now divides their two worlds.
Annie and Elsbeth's search for an explanation to the hiccup in the universe linking their homes leads to an unsettling discovery-and potential disaster for both of them. Together they must solve the mystery of what connects them before one of them is convicted of a murder that has yet to happen...and yet somehow already did."

 The book has all the elements it needs to be  a thrilling read but falls short.  Shallow characterization is probably the main reason that the book doesn't resonate with me.  I never get invested in the characters.  

Let There Be Water

Let There be Water by Seth M Siegel
337 Pages


This non-fiction book outlines how Israel through a series of steps has become a water producing nation in a region with a noticeable lack of water and how the steps they took could be applied worldwide to help prevent shortages of the most precious resource humans have: Water.

Easy to read and interesting but also frustrating since our current politics would prevent the U.S. from using any of the solutions in a widespread, meaningful manner.


Tails from the Booth

Tails from the Booth by Lynn Terry
115 Pages

"Furry friends meet photo booths in this quirky photography book that captures all the cute canine action when the leashes come off and the dogs are the star of the show.

If dogs could take selfies, it might look something like Tails from the Booth . For this adorable collection of photographs, Lynn Terry draws on more than twenty years of professional photography experience to capture the most endearing moments between canine companions: A couple of pitbulls grinning widely at the camera. Two saggy-faced bulldogs bumping jowls. A Pomeranian, an English bulldog, and a Boston terrier dog-piling (of course) on top of each other. These pictures show the countless ways dogs will ham it up in front of a camera, and that more dogs in a photo booth = even more fun!

With all the charm of Underwater Dogs and Shake , Tails from the Booth will make you laugh out loud at all the awkward and endearing ways dogs make friends with each other."



A local author,  Terry has created a book with great dog photos.  

Aeronaut's Windlass

The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher
630 Pages

"Since time immemorial, the Spires have sheltered humanity, towering for miles over the mist-shrouded surface of the world. Within their halls, aristocratic houses have ruled for generations, developing scientific marvels, fostering trade alliances, and building fleets of airships to keep the peace.

Captain Grimm commands the merchant ship, Predator . Fiercely loyal to Spire Albion, he has taken their side in the cold war with Spire Aurora, disrupting the enemy's shipping lines by attacking their cargo vessels. But when the Predator is severely damaged in combat, leaving captain and crew grounded, Grimm is offered a proposition from the Spirearch of Albion--to join a team of agents on a vital mission in exchange for fully restoring Predator to its fighting glory.

And even as Grimm undertakes this dangerous task, he will learn that the conflict between the Spires is merely a premonition of things to come. Humanity's ancient enemy, silent for more than ten thousand years, has begun to stir once more. And death will follow in its wake..."


Butcher returns to his fantasy roots with this new series set in a world where ships sail the etheric currents.  Compelling characters with a relatively swift moving plot.  If you are one of those people that only reads series after they are all done I would recommend Butcher's Codex Alera series.

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Confessions

Confessions by St Augustine of Hippo, translated by Edward B Pusey, 197 pages

The Confessions of St Augustine, written at the end of the fourth century, is a landmark of Western culture.  Often imitated - it's the reason Rousseau and De Quincey, amongst others, wrote "Confessions" - the original is unmatched in both poetry and profundity.

Given its epochal significance, it is easy to neglect the extent to which Augustine's prayerful contemplation of his own life combines psychological acuity with a deep awareness of the movement of grace.  The autobiography follows the author's life through a dialectic of conversions - to Neo-Platonism, to skepticism, to Manichaeism, then finally to Catholicism - his heart "restless until it rests in You".  For Augustine, complex philosophical and theological questions are inextricably entangled with lived experience.

Edward Pusey, the translator of this edition, was one of the leading figures of the Oxford Movement (and, incidentally, an enemy of Benjamin Jowett).  His somewhat archaic English, deliberately echoing the King James Bible, is likely to be an obstacle to some, but plentiful alternative translations exist.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Hidden Stream

The Hidden Stream by Ronald Knox, 248 pages

There is a small watercourse at Oxford called the Trill Mill Stream which has been covered over for a few hundred yards, flowing largely unnoticed beneath the university.  TE Lawrence ("of Arabia") is among the undergraduates who defied the rules and navigated the underground portion of the stream in a canoe.  There is another "hidden stream" at Oxford, however, at least according to Knox - Catholicism.  The Trill Mill Stream once ran past the Franciscan and Dominican friaries, and although the Catholic past was covered over even more thoroughly than the Trill Mill Stream, it can still be found and navigated by the adventurous seeking an alternative to relativism and materialism.

The Hidden Stream is the written reproduction of a set of apologetical lectures delivered by Msgr Knox to Catholic undergraduates at Oxford, on subjects ranging from the nature of God and the inspiration of Scripture to the Church's teachings on marriage.  If some of the lectures, though enlivened by Knox's wit and style, repeat arguments that can be found in many other places, other passages contain startling insights, notably his lecture on divine mystery, where he explains mystery as not a theological evasion, but the familiar limits of our understanding.

Monday, December 21, 2015

Shadow of a Great Rock

Cover image for The Shadow of a Great Rock: A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible by Harold Bloom, 295 pages

Famed critic and scholar Harold Bloom (The Book of JThe Western CanonShakespeare: The Invention of the Human) describes this work as "a literary appreciation of the King James Bible" but a more honest subtitle would have been "a personal appreciation of the original texts and their Reformation English translations".  It is clear that the theodical shadow of the Holocaust has helped to turn the octogenarian Bloom into a "Jew who does not believe in the covenant" and encouraged his "Gnostic tendencies", with the result that his sympathies lie wholly with Israel in the centuries-long wrestling with God, and wholly against the "Belated Testament" which "has hatred at its core despite its doctrine of love."  Given Bloom's "anxiety of influence" hermeneutic, he can hardly see it otherwise - every author, whatever they might protest to the contrary, seeks to supplant the memory of those who came before, and so the New Testament authors were closet Marcionites whose claims of fulfillment only mask the Oedipal drive to erase the Jews from history.

Bloom has spent a lifetime reading the Bible in various forms, alongside an awesome amount of world literature which he has not only read, but reread and thought deeply about.  The passages here where he discusses the original text and the Tyndale, Geneva, and Authorized translations, as well as those where he instances the influence of Scripture on literature are at least solid.  His reading on Scripture, however, seems rather more narrow - there is little here to suggest he has seriously engaged with anyone who disagrees with him on the issues on which they disagree.  Perhaps because he is an agnostic Jew writing about a Protestant translation, Catholics and Orthodox Christians are invisible here - there is no hint that most Christians regard some of the Apocrypha as canon, nor that there is another perspective on Paul's teachings on justification.  When, at the abrupt conclusion of the book, Bloom mourns that there are those who see the Bible as more than literature, it is difficult to see it as anything other than regret that despite a lifetime of work he has been unable to satisfactorily master the text and shrink it down into a shape of his choosing.

Friday, December 18, 2015

Down the Rabbit Hole

Down the Rabbit Hole by Holly Madison, 334 pages

Cover image for

I love me a good memoir, so when I saw this book by Holly Madison, ex-girlfriend of Hugh Hefner, I knew it would be a good one.

Overall, it didn't disappoint. I was hooked from the very beginning--and kept on being hooked--as she described her life from rural Alaska and Oregon to Playboy Mansion to independent lady.

What made this book truly fascinating was the inside scoop of the infamous Playboy Mansion. I think you would be lying to yourself if you didn't at one point in time wonder what it was like on the inside of Hefner's complex (am I right?), and the book details every inch of it. Spoiler alert: it's not pretty. Did you really expect anything else considering that lifestyle?

Madison does an excellent job of chronicling both her life as a "Playboy bunny" and her life as a woman trying to overcome the stigma of being associated with the mansion. At times, I felt as though the writing was a bit superficial, but after spending nearly a decade in a mansion of ridicule and manipulative confinement, can you really blame her?

Thursday, December 17, 2015

The Color Purple

The Color Purple by Alice Walker  300 Pages

Alice Walker’s classic contemporary novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 and the National Book Award. It has also appeared on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000-2009 at number seventeen because of the sometimes explicit sexual and violent content.

At the heart of this novel is the protagonist Celie’s motto: "I maybe black, I may be poor, I maybe a woman, and I may even be ugly! But thank God I'm here." 

The story begins in 1930s Georgia when a 14-year-old Celie is beaten and raped by the man she believes to be her father. The reader gets the impression that the beating and the rape are nothing new for Celie, but now that she is maturing, a pregnancy is. She has no idea what is happening to her and when a baby appears, she is shocked. Her father takes the baby away. Celie believes that he kills her little boy Soon, Celie is pregnant again, and once again, her father takes her daughter, again to be slaughtered.

Told in letters to God and her sister, Nettie, Celie’s story brings home in terrifying detail the description of a young black woman’s life in the early- to mid-20th century. Black women during this time were on the bottom rung of society. Heck, sometimes even animals were higher on the scale than African-American women.

Celie is forced to marry a man who wanted to marry Nettie. As her father did, the man readers only know as “Mister,” treats her the same as her father did.  She is good for nothing but cooking, cleaning, and sex.

When Mister forces himself on Nettie, she has no choice but to leave. Soon she is living as a governess in South Africa. Nettie has promised to write, but decades pass before Celie discovers the letters Mister hid from her.


Walker’s epistolary style and use of Southern English make the novel seem more like a journal. At first, I was pulled in and couldn’t read fast enough. However about two-thirds through, I started to get bored. Once the story’s focus shifted Celie’s plight to Nettie, I lost interest. I’ve never seen the movie, but I felt the same way when I saw the musical. That’s why I give The Color Purple 3 out of 5 stars.

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Modernism


Modernism is an amorphous category with many definitions.  It is reasonable to argue that it should not be used as a label at all, having too little meaning.  Peter Gay argues that it does have a meaning, and that the cultural movement by that name has a coherent past, and possibly a future.

Unfortunately, he fails to establish this convincingly.  The subject is too large and the book too small.  Gay never explicitly defines modernism, vaguely describing it as a set of attitudes involving the search for total independence of artistic expression, the resulting rejection of history and tradition, the quest for inwardness, and an unwavering hostility towards the bourgeois masses.  Understandably, he chooses to break the subject down into subsets - painting, literature, music, architecture, film - and discuss each individually, but in practice this lack of a unitary narrative produces repetition and confusion, as when the story of the birth of Dada is told twice, once under painting and once under drama.  Not that this is avoided within the chapters, either - Waiting for Godot is summarized in the discussion of the Theater of the Absurd and again in the very next paragraph when introducing Beckett as an author.

Nor is Gay consistent in his definitions.  Repeatedly the reader is told that Modernism transcends politics and morality, but views that violate certain norms - Strindberg's virulent misogyny, for example - are nonetheless presented as definitely outside the Modernist pale.  Worse, despite the obvious ways in which modernism, with its rejection of real history, tradition, and morality, its cult of novelty, obsession with progress, and hatred of the unenlightened masses, prepared the way for totalitarianism, and the fact that many of the modernists who, in Gay's own words, "were proclaiming an overwhelming need for, and prophesied the coming of, a New Man in a culture that seemed naked without ideals", found that New Man in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and especially in the Soviet Union, the modernist celebrations of those regimes are treated as secondary to the dictatorships' hostility to modernist art.  True, Knut Hamsun's support of Hitler is thoroughly discussed and justly condemned, but Picasso's enthusiasm for Stalin and Kim Il Sung is not mentioned at all.

There are a few positives.  Gay's account of the importance of artistic middlemen - dealers and brokers, publishers and directors - in the development of art that, by its very nature, had to fight for an audience, could be the seed of a good book, but it is not this book.  Near the end, when criticizing Pop Art and celebrating Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim, Modernism becomes more interesting, but it is too little, too late.

Overall, the treatment of individual figures is superficial, and the treatment of great themes hopelessly muddled.  Modernism does not succeed in compellingly describing either small details or the big picture.

Monsterland

Monsterland by Michael Phillip Cash   208 Pages

Monsterland has been billed as the scariest theme park ever. It houses the things that people fear most: vampires, werewolves, and zombies. Much like Disneyland, the park is divided into three areas: Vampire Village, Zombieville, and River Run.

The brainchild behind the park is Dr. Vincent Conrad, who has spent years gathering the near-extinct populations of vampires, werewolves, and zombies. In addition to actually seeing the creatures, one of the lures of the park is that visitors can interact with them. 

Conrad not only gathered enough specimens for a park in Cooper Valley, California, he gathered enough to open six parks around the world in China, Australia, Brazil, France, South Africa, and Egypt.

As the story opens, opening day is near, and excitement is building, especially for three nerdy high school friends, Howard, Melvin, and Wyatt. The guys are desperate to get their hands on the most-sought-after tickets in the world. A chance encounter in a local burger joint with Dr. Conrad, and the teenagers not only get tickets, Conrad gives them exclusive behind-the scenes tickets. The same types of tickets world leaders, like the President of the United States, have.

Of course, something goes horribly wrong, which makes the entire plot predictable. And of course, what happens in California is happening around the globe.

Just for the record, I don’t usually read books that contain vampires, werewolves, and zombies. I read this book because I have enjoyed other books by Michael Phillip Cash, and he sent me a copy. 

Another area I had trouble with was confusion between the characters whose names were similar. For example, I kept getting Wyatt’s stepfather, Carter, confused with Conrad. There were other instances, but I forget them now. One of the boys kinda disappeared after they entered the park, which I found odd.

I give Monsterland 3 out of 5 stars. The plot flowed, the story has good structure. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Interrogations at Noon

Cover image for Interrogations at Noon by Dana Gioia, 69 pages

Dana Gioia's influence has been more the result of his criticism than his poetry, but this collection shows that the latter should not be ignored.  Full of surprises, the poems span a wide gamut of styles and inspirations, from sacred domestic spaces and objects to suicidal surrealists, from a libretto for an opera based on Murnau's Nosferatu to translations of Seneca (also a suicide) to the patrons of an upscale bar overlooking a marina, which brings us the collection's funniest lines:

     But tonight I hope they prosper.
     Are they shallow?  I don't care.
     Jealousy is all too common,
     Style and beauty much too rare.

Monday, December 14, 2015

A Wild Swan: and Other Tales

A Wild Swan: And Other TalesA Wild Swan: and Other Tales, by Michael Cunningham, 144 pages

I think that part of what I love so much about fairy tales and the re-telling/re-imagining of them is that there is so much room for elaboration and creativity.  What we have with fairy tales is a shared story- everyone knows the foundation- but the author can really develop a completely new, never-before-seen house on that foundation.  I did not find this particular collection of stories to offer much in the way of interesting re-tellings- but for one story about Rumpelstiltskin that painted him in a way I had never considered before.  But aside from that, the stories are very well-written and the short length of the book may be a compelling enough reason for some to pick it up and give it a look-over.

Winter

Winter (The Lunar Chronicles, #4)Winter (the Lunar Chronicles #4), by Marissa Meyer, 824 pages

Finally- a conclusion to The Lunar Chronicles!  Princess Winter, the scarred step-daughter of the evil Queen Levana, is viewed as such a threat to the throne that the Queen finally orders her murdered.  I think we know the story of Snow White enough to know how that one plays out.  But in addition to that storyline, we have Cinder, the cyborg-mechanic-secret-lost-princess, rallying the planet for a revolution to overthrow Levana; Prince Kai, in love with Cinder but marrying Levana out of duty to Planet Earth; Scarlet and Wolf, who never seem to get a break; Cress and Thorne, who make me roll my eyes to a painful degree with the amount of non-communication they seem to do; and the people of Luna, who get slightly more character development than they did in previous books (but it's still not alot).  This book wasn't life-changing, but there was a theme throughout the book that really spoke to me: "Broken isn't the same as unfixable."  I think that represents all of the characters and the storyline pretty well. 

In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash

In God We Trust: All Others Pay CashIn God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, by Jean Shepherd, 264 pages

So, I've probably seen The Christmas Story enough for several lifetimes, but it still has this powerful, gravitational pull of nostalgia that sucks me in every time I see it.  The movie was based on several of the stories from within this work- most notably, that of the infamous Red Ryder BB gun Christmas and "the old man's" major award.  The pictures that Jean Shepherd paints with his words are instantly recognizable to people of all ages- even if you never sat in front of an old-time radio, waiting to hear the secret message from Little Orphan Annie, we've all had that moment where we realized that one of our childhood loves was actually an instrument of commercialism.  And there are stories within that are not in the movie- stories of penny candy, the town lake that got condemned, or the blind date that made me cringe all over with a sense of shared sympathy.  There is some outdated (potentially offensive) slang in a couple of spots, but overall it was a fairly enjoyable read. 

What Did You Eat Yesterday? vol. 1

What Did You Eat Yesterday?, Volume 1What Did You Eat Yesterday?, vol. 1, by Fumi Yoshinaga, 200 pages

This is a mash-up of three types of manga that I thought worked really well together- slice-of-life, gay romance, and food.  Combining those three distinct genres made for a really subtle work that didn't feel like any specific one of the genres.  Shiro and Kenji appear to be pretty different- Shiro is a hard-working, serious, closeted lawyer, while Kenji is a fun-loving, openly gay hairstylist.  But what matters the most is that Shiro loves to cook elaborate, thoughtful Japanese dishes and Kenji loves to eat them.  The story here is not much of anything, being a slice-of-life, but there are recipes throughout that sound delicious and it offers a sort of fascinating glimpse into a section of contemporary Japanese culture.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

On the Abbey Church of St Denis

On the Abbey Church of St Denis and Its Art Treasures by Abbot Suger, translated by Erwin Panofsky, 87 pages

The renovation of the Abbey of St Denis in the Ile de France, undertaken in the 12th century by Suger, the powerful and influential abbot, friend and advisor to kings and popes, is widely considered to mark the birth of Gothic architecture.  Aside from the considerable expense of the work, Suger faced two major obstacles - the antiquity of the original building and the corresponding reverence in which it was held, and the contemporary Cistercian reform movement with its uncompromising spokesman St Bernard of Clairvaux, implacably hostile towards displays of wealth and opulence.  These two sources of opposition inspired Suger to write multiple explanations of his work, which simultaneously serve as celebrations and defenses.

Panofsky cannily notes that there is no difference for Suger between his own glory and his glorification of the abbey, the two are indissolubly wedded together in his mind.  This marriage, in turn, has as its purpose the greater glory of God.  Suger utilizes the mystical hierarchies of Pseudo-Dionysius, then believed to be identical with the St Denis buried at the abbey, to justify the aesthetic splendor of his renovations, but he is just as proud of his improvements to the abbey's landholdings and finances as its architecture and decoration.

Max the Brave




Max the Brave by Ed Vere   32 pages

A cute book for Preschoolers through Grade 2.

Max is very brave, very black kitten who chases mice. Problem is, Max doesn’t know what a mouse looks like. So off he goes in search mouse. Since this is such a short book, I don’t want to be a spoiler. You’ll just have to read it to find out what obstacles get in Max’s way.


I give Max the Brave 5 out of 5 stars.