The Scam

The Scam by Janet Evanovich & Lee Goldberg, 286 pages

This is more of the usual fare from this team of setting up a scam in order to catch the crook with a few laughs and a lot of sexual tension on the way.  In this book Kate, FBI agent, and Nick, con artist and secretly working with the FBI, are setting up an operation to trap casino mogul Evan Trace in his money laundering schemes.  Along the way, they drag in a Hawaiian gang lord in an effort to take him down also.  There are several close calls along the way, with the worry that their scheme will be uncovered, and Trace setting up a scam of his own that could ruin their plans.  I'm still enjoying this series.  The characters are funny and the stories, even though somewhat predictable, are still fun.  Fans od the romantic comedy adventures should check these out.

Hit Count

Hit Count by Chris Lynch, 362 pages

Arlo is a football player.  He's really good and loves the thrill of the hit.  His older brother played too but quit his senior year because he was still on the junior varsity team.  After that his life seemed to go completely off track.  Arlo is determined that won't happen to him.  Despite his mother's fears for possible brain damage or death from all of his hits, Arlo can't give it up.  Football, especially the hit, is what he lives for.  Even though the rest of his life is pretty good, with a great girlfriend, a good family, and decent grades, Arlo needs the adrenaline rush from the hit.  Even when he starts to have problems with dizziness, double vision, memory, and losing time, Arlo refuses to admit that anything could be wrong.  This was a pretty good book about the possible effects of football head injuries.  I really think that a lot of teen boys would probably like this book.

The Rat With The Human Face

The Rat With The Human Face by Tom Angleberger, 146 pages

There are three members of the Qwikpick Adventure Society; Lyle, Marilla and Dave.  Lyle’s parents work at the Qwikpick and the three friends hang out there all of the time.  After their first adventure with a Poop Fountain they are primed for more adventure.  When they overhear someone talking about seeing a rat that had a human face the three decided they had to see this for themselves.  Despite some obstacles, the three begin to hatch a plan that will enable them to get to the place the rat lived, see and photograph the rat and get home.  But, as they say, the best laid plans…  This was a good adventurous realistic story for elementary kids.

The Sleeper and the Spindle

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman, 66 pages

This was an interesting retelling of more than one fairy tale, the main one being Sleeping Beauty.  Although a lot of the major points are the same there are some interesting twists that will be surprising to people familiar with the story (and who isn’t?).  I liked it.  Half of the book is illustrations and it’s short to begin with, making it a good choice for reluctant readers.  Give this to teens who like fairy tale retellings.

Princess Academy: The Forgotten Sisters

Princess Academy: The Forgotten Sisters by Shannon Hale, 326 pages

Miri is excited to be able to return home after her year at the palace but just before she leaves she is ordered to go to Lesser Alva and tutor three sisters, cousins of Prince Steffan.  One of them is to be the bride of a rival king as part of a treaty to prevent war.  Miri reluctantly agrees but is dismayed to find three wild girls who are used to trapping caimans and hunting in the swamp who know absolutely nothing about court.  Miri isn't sure that she is capable of making these girls ready to marry anyone, especially a king, but as she gets to know them she isn't sure that she wants them to be ready.  As she becomes friends with Astrid, Felissa, and Sus, she feels it unfair that one of them will be forced into marriage with someone they don't know but if she fails, Miri could lose everything dear to her and be responsible for not preventing war.  I thought this was a good, solid addition to the Princess Academy series.  This could easily be the last book as everything is pretty well wrapped up, but there could be more books also.  Older elementary or younger teens, especially girls, who like fantasy type stories will enjoy it. 

Forty Days of Musa Dagh

The Forty Days of Musa Dagh by Franz Werfel, 817 pages

This is Franz Werfel's fictionalization of the true story of a community of Armenians who, facing deportation and almost certain death, fortified a mountain called Musa Dagh and resisted the Turks for 53 days.  The shortening of the siege to the more evocative forty days is only one of many liberties Werfel takes with history, most notably the transformation of the actual leader of the resistance into a fictional character.

Werfel (best known as the author of The Song of Bernadette) intended neither a history text nor a Tom Clancy-style military thriller, though it is easy to imagine either treatment of this story being effective.  Rather, the author slowly develops themes of loyalty, sacrifice, love, honor, jealousy, pride, hope, and faith, centered around the protagonist, Gabriel Bagradian, a wealthy Armenian recently returned to his people after long years abroad, his French wife Juliette, and their son Stephan, who simultaneously struggles to find his place both as a man and as an Armenian.

The Forty Days of Musa Dagh is a long, slow novel.  Rather than providing a hollow sense of closure when even victory is a kind of defeat, the novel concludes with an anti-climax.  Instead of fast-paced action, Werfel delivers genuine surprises.  

Everybody rise

Everybody Rise by Stephanie Clifford
376 Pages

 "A witty tale about a high-society wannabe...Little is more delicious than watching an ambitious but tragically flawed protagonist brought down - especially in a designer cocktail dress." -The Washington Post Everyone yearns to belong, to be part of the "in crowd," but how far are you willing to go to be accepted? In the case of bright, funny and socially ambitious Evelyn Beegan, the answer is much too far... At 26, Evelyn is determined to carve her own path in life and free herself from the influence of her social-climbing mother, who propelled her through prep school and onto New York's glamorous Upper East Side. Evelyn has long felt like an outsider to her privileged peers, but when she gets a job at a social network aimed at the elite, she's forced to embrace them. Recruiting new members for the site, Evelyn steps into a promised land of Adirondack camps, Newport cottages and Southampton clubs thick with socialites and Wall Streeters. Despite herself, Evelyn finds the lure of belonging intoxicating, and starts trying to pass as old money herself. When her father, a crusading class-action lawyer, is indicted for bribery, Evelyn must contend with her own family's downfall as she keeps up appearances in her new life, grasping with increasing desperation as the ground underneath her begins to give way."

I wish I knew why I ended up with this book,  it definitely wasn't because it was a People magazine pick.  The writing was solid but the storyline hackneyed and the characters unsympathetic.  No surprises here. 

Fates and Furies

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
390 Pages

"At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed."

The book is divided into two parts, the relationship from Lotto's POV and then from Mathilde's POV.  It is interesting how their perceptions of events differ and the underlying motivations shaping those perceptions.  While at times slow,  I did enjoy Groff's writing and the love story of Lotto and Mathilde.

House of Evil

House of Evil: The Indiana Torture Slaying by John Dean, 231 pages

In July of 1965, Gertrude Baniszewski, a 37 year old mother of seven living in Indianapolis, agreed to care for 16 year old Sylvia Likens and her 15 year old sister Jenny in exchange for 20 dollars a week.  In October, police responding to an emergency call found Sylvia dead, emaciated, her body covered in bruises, burns, and open sores, the words "I'm a prostitute and proud of it!" carved into her stomach beneath a branded "3".

Horrific as it was, Sylvia's torture and death would blend into the background of child abuse if not for the identity of the perpetrators.  As it came out, not only did Gertrude abuse the girl, her children were also encouraged to join in, and their friends participated, too.  It became a neighborhood game to put out cigarettes on Sylvia's body or push her down the stairs.  Her three oldest children were arrested along with six neighbors, Gertrude was ultimately convicted of first degree murder, her eldest daughter of second degree murder, and three boys of manslaughter.

This book tells the story poorly, although how much of this is due to a failure on Dean's part and how much the result of conflicting stories and foggy details is unclear.   It seems as if, in a case with so many witnesses, a better account could have been constructed despite the obvious difficulties, but Dean seems to have relied almost exclusively on courtroom testimony - House of Evil was originally published soon after the trial and it is unclear how much it has been updated.  The children are portrayed more like preteens than the teenagers they were.  There is a natural reluctance to defame the victim, but Dean loses a great deal of credibility when he seemingly accepts the transparent lie that Sylvia found a set of gym clothes lying in the street - important because it ties in with claims by the tormentors that Sylvia had been caught stealing on other occasions.  Worst of all, the chronology is vague and confused, making it extremely difficult to chart the escalation of abuse and the manner in which the abusers fed off each other, which is the key narrative.  Instead, the story is a catalog of seemingly random horrible things that horrible people did to an almost entirely innocent girl.

The Opposite of Loneliness

The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan, 208 pages

Full of short fiction stories and personal essays, the premise behind this book is absolutely heartbreaking. It is so hard to put aside all knowledge of Keegan's tragic death while reading the stories that I would often find myself crying.

Long story short: Marina Keegan graduated magna cum laude from Yale, about to head into a job at The New Yorker, with a promising writing career ahead of her. Five days after graduation, she died in a car accident at 22-years old.

Her short life serves as a reminder that if a bright, successful, and promising young woman could die in a freak accident in her twenties, it could happen to any of us at any time. Her stories are also a clear illustration of what her death should be remembered as: a reminder that life is too short to be too-mired down in the complexities of the world that we completely miss the little joys that life has to offer.

No matter how cliché, that is what her life, through her writings, should be teaching us.

Troilus and Criseyde

Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer, from The Complete Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by John SP Tatlock and Percy MacKaye, 137 pages

Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde is a tragic tale of lovers during wartime.  A Trojan knight, Troilus, is punished for his mockery of love by being smitten with the Criseyde, a Trojan widow whose father has defected to the Greeks.  Even as Troilus gains the assistance of Criseyde's uncle Pandarus to win his lady's love, other forces conspire to tear them apart.

The "Modern Reader's Chaucer" was translated into something approximating modern English prose, with a King James accent to give it an antique feel.  Chaucer's anachronisms have the peculiar charm of a painting of Biblical figures in Renaissance dress, or an Elizabethan play in modern dress.  While this eviscerates the poetry of the piece, it does preserve the distancing effect necessary for a "modern reader" to accept some of the story's more dated conceits.  This clears the way for a deeply moving experience, albeit not quite the one Chaucer intended.

Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

 

Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans by Gary Krist    448 pages

I’ve always been fascinated with New Orleans. It’s such a contradictory city, with a touch of evil hovering over it, and an unsavory feel that often makes me nervous to visit. Yet, the foods that come from that part of the country are unparalleled.

Until I read Gary Krist’s nonfiction piece, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans, I had come to believe that the debauchery of the 1960s through the ‘70s was at its height there. To me, and what I knew about the city, New Orleans made Las Vegas seem like a night out for nuns and priests.

Krist focuses on a scant thirty years, from 1890 to 1920. When I first realized that the book 448 and that 105 of them were the bibliography, notes, and index, I was a little overwhelmed, afraid that the writing would be too deep for me to sink my teeth into. However, Krist’s has written an easy-to-read narrative that held me attention from the beginning.

I enjoyed reading/learning about such characters and places as Storyville (where the city tried to coral its vice) and Tom Anderson (its unofficial mayor). There were the madams like Lulu White and Josie Arlington. There were the saloons and gambling houses. There was the immigrant population---Italians, whom too seemed to be in the same mess today’s illegals are in. I ws mesmerized by the corruption that ran rampart from the slums to the highest echelons of state government. Old Huey Long was a saint compared to some men back then; they make today’s politicians looks like humble old ladies.

I knew that New Orleans was a port-of-entry for many Italians, and they lived in slums and ghettos that reminded me of New York’s tenements. And I had learned of “Little Sicily” from a PBS special, The Italian-Americans.

There are three areas in the book that I really enjoyed reading: First, of course, are the jazzmen. Guys like Robert Charles, Buddy Bolden, Jellyroll Martin---how they created the music form that we now know as jazz, and how hard it was a musician wanted more than a gig in a whore house.

Second, was the Mafia or the Black-Hand. Krist could have delved into that more in my opinion, but still the rise and fall still fascinated me.

Third, the serial killer, The Axeman, seemed to target the Italians.  Brutality knows no generation.

Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans is an easy read that I highly recommend. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review.

Rule of St Benedict

The Rule of St Benedict: A Commentary by Paul Delatte, translated by Justin McCann, 496 pages

The Benedictine Rule, developed and codified by the saint over the course of decades of study and practical experience as an abbot, has formed the standard for Western monasticism for nearly fifteen hundred years.  

The author of this paragraph by paragraph commentary, Dom Paul Delatte, was the second successor of Dom Gueranger as Abbot of Solesmes, a monastery which was central in the revival of French monasticism after the terrible persecution of the French Revolution and is justly famed for its key role in the liturgical movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Delatte speaks, not as an antiquarian explicating some ancient curiosity, nor as an innovator seeking justification in a peculiar interpretation of the distant past, but as part of a living, breathing tradition.  

The commentary, although written for monks, is of interest to those outside the cloister - the book is dedicated "to all those, whether in monasteries or in the world, who belong to the great family of St Benedict."  In the midst of a consideration of the practicalities of St Benedict's regulations concerning monastic meals, Dom Delatte surprises by remarking on the error of conflating commutative and distributive justice.  A section on the manner in which the Divine Office is to be chanted becomes a lesson in the importance of self-denial.  The Rule is more than a set of arbitrary or practical laws for the functioning of a society - it is a means of personal formation and growth in holiness.

ApocalyptiGirl: an Aria for the End Times

ApocalyptiGirl: an Aria for the End Times, by Andrew MacLean, 88 pages

Aria appears to be the last woman alive on a post apocalyptic Earth- scavenging for parts and food with her best friend, a cat named Jelly Beans.  But as we follow her on her daily ventures into the ruins of a former cityscape, we realize that there are others out there- and they are not exactly friendly.  It also becomes clear that Aria has a bigger mission that she's getting closer to completing every day- but the fate of Earth if she is successful is unclear until the very last page.

Cinderalla

Cinderalla, by Junko Mizuno, 144 pages

Okay, this is a super-adult, super-weird, kind of grotesque, wait- really grotesque, loose re-telling of the Cinderella story.  Cinderalla runs a yakitori restaurant with her dad, who dies, but becomes a zombie, as the dead do.  He falls in love with a fellow zombie who also has two zombie daughters.  Cinderalla is soon constantly making pancakes for her new zombie stepmother, making bras for one of her step-sisters and keeping the other from performing lap-dances on customers (note: see the first sentence).  Also, everything is drawn in a very cute manner, but belies the fact that it's pretty darn gross most of the time.  And despite all of that... I found this utterly fascinating.  Also, kind of humorous if you can get past the gross and weird and unsettling.  A pretty fascinating read on a fairytale retold in a very unique manner.

Idea of a University

The Idea of a University by Bl John Henry Newman, 464 pages

The author adapted these essays from a series of lectures he delivered in Dublin between 1854 and 1858.  During this period, Newman was struggling to establish the Catholic University of Ireland, a labor which naturally prompted sustained reflection on the nature and purpose of the university.

For Newman, the university is grounded in the unity of truth.  All branches of learning - physical sciences, philosophy, the arts, theology, law, medicine - take their places in the university as complementary parts of the greater whole.  Without the influence of the other fields, any one discipline is sure to go astray, and too great a specialization by the student produces a stunted man.  More than arguing for a certain concept of a university, he argues for an integral humanism that is truly Catholic.

Politicizing the Bible

Politicizing the Bible: The Roots of Historical Criticism and the Secularization of Scripture 1300-1700 by Scott W Hahn and Benjamin Wiker, 566 pages

The historical-critical approach to the Bible - examining Scripture as a historically conditioned collection of texts - is generally considered a dogmatically and politically neutral approach which is rooted in the Enlightenment.  Hahn and Wiker trace its origins back 400 years earlier, to disputes over nominalism and realism at the end of the Middle Ages.  In the process, they reveal how the development of historical criticism was involved in the process of secularization, and how both were entangled in the rise of nationalism.  In addition to the expected (Machiavelli, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke), the authors manage to draw in figures that secularized history tends to undervalue and misunderstand (Marsilius of Padua, William of Ockham, Wycliffe, Luther).

Hahn and Wiker ably expose the manner in which a supposedly disinterested quest for truth is, in fact, a mission of disenchantment itself inspired by prior ideological commitments, enabled by the Averroistic doctrine of double truth and the Polybian conception of religion as a tool to control the unenlightened masses.  More than a simple study of one form of biblical scholarship, Politicizing the Bible, like A Secular Age and The Unintended Reformation, is an intriguing, enlightening exploration of the intellectual currents flowing into modernity.

Bloody Cross Manga

Bloody Cross Volumes 1-4, by Shiwo Komeyama (835 pages/4 books)

In a world that has angels and demons feuding  with each other, the half breeds get the short end of the stick. Which is exactly where Tsukimiya finds herself. As a half demon/half angel she is imbrued with a curse, one that will kill her is she doesn't drink the blood of a pure demon. But with every other half breed killing off demons, they are in short supply. Luckily she meets an angel named Hinata knows where to find a demon. But what happens next was neither of them could have predicted.

I am not entirely sure what to make of this series. One of the main characters is so trusting that they fall into near deadly traps every book. Luckily they are backed up by some seriously powerful allies, otherwise they would be history. But I cannot help but think that if the bad guys were serious about defeating anyone, they really should have killed this klutz a long time ago. Honestly if this keeps up I will only be able to read another ten to fifteen books in this series before I write it off.

On the other hand Bloody Cross is quite interesting with its blend of demons, angels, vampires and a couple demi-gods. It consistently gives you action, and besides from the aforementioned klutz has some well written characters. I would recommend this series to anyone that likes a good action manga.

Note: I know I have harped on it before but I really must say it again, it is very difficult to review a series without giving anything away, especially with manga. Sooooo much happens in each book.

The Grisha Series

Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, and Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo, (1225 pages/ 3 books)

When an ordinary soldier named Alina is discovered to have extraordinary magical powers that could reunite the kingdom her whole life changes. In a matter of days she goes from sleeping in a tent to living in a palace. But her new found life of fame and riches is short lived as not everyone wants to see the kingdom saved, but everyone wants her power.

What I liked most about the Grisha Series was how well it was able to blend magic and science together. And rather then pitting one against the other, they actually are able to exist in harmony and build off each other. I honestly wish that this would happen more in science fiction books.

In some ways I also found myself wishing that this had been written as an adult fiction rather than young adult. Not because it needed more adult content, but simply because adult fiction allows for more world development or borderline epicness.

Claymore Manga

Claymore Volumes 1-5, by Norihiro Yagi (939 pages/5 books)

The Claymore manga series has been on my read list for the last several months, but I had never really gotten around to it. But with this year having bonus points for translated material, and finding myself down 20+ books in my yearly reading challenge, I needed some quick material. Manga certainly qualifies.

Claymore is about an organization of demon slayers, called Claymores. Namely because they carry around huge claymore swords. The organization is comprised of nearly all women, with at least one male organizer. Frankly I am not entirely sure what he does but I suspect that it will be revealed later. The reason the group only has women slayers is because of the entry procedure. To become a Claymore you must be bounded with demons blood. This is nearly always fatal for men, but essential. Without the added strength and speed that blood gives, the demons or youma, as they are called, would easily kill them. But while the blood allows them to kill the demons, it also bears a curse. Everyone who is infected with it will eventually lose control of themselves and turn into a demon.

This series is very action packed, but also pretty gory. As you can imagine, lots of things get hacked apart, and not all of them are demons. So far I am enjoying the series, and look forward to reading more of it.