Back With Some Decent Reading

Sorry for the long break between posts; I hope to post regularly now that we're settling into a routine once more.  I recently re-read a good book, nonfiction, by Alexander Stille.  Best known for his book about the complicated relationship of Italy's Jews with the fascist regime, Benevolence and Betrayal, Stille also wrote a riskier and more complex book about Sicily's mafia.  The book is called Excellent Cadavers, and if that sounds odd to English speakers, it makes a lot more sense in Italian.  The "excellent cadavers" refer to the trail of murdered magistrates, prosecutors, law enforcement officials and politicians who had the nerve to challenge the mafia's boa constrictor-like hold on Sicily's infrastructure.  Having insinuated their way into every profitable facet of life in Palermo, Sicily's capital, the mafia even had allies within the very organizations designed to combat its pernicious influence.  If you enjoyed The Godfather (and that's one movie that is far better than the book) you will like this book; however, it makes the fictitious Corleones look like mildly criminal juvenile delinquents.

For those of you who read crime fiction, you have probably noticed the recent flood of translated mysteries from Scandinavian writers.  Most popular seem to have been the series of three from Stig Larsson, whose predilection for graphic and gratuitous violence and detail is shared by nearly every other Scandinavian mystery writer I've sampled.  Hence, I was pleased to read Asa Larsson's (I'm assuming she's no relation; it's a ubiquitous name up north) Until Thy Wrath Be Past.  It's a nicely written and well-translated mystery with its roots in World War II era Sweden, and Larsson does not hesitate to dig up the painfully equivocal details of Sweden's relationship with Germany.  It's a satisfying mystery in every way, once you get past the complicated names.

I've mentioned Leah Cypess and her popular Young Adult fantasy novel, Mistwood.  This week I finally got my hands on Nightspell, her second book, and though I had to read it fairly quickly (my teenager was waiting to read it) I liked it a lot.  I hope I don't insult the author if I say I enjoyed it more than the first -- somehow, Nightspell drew me more into the story and I liked the characters better.  Perhaps it's just that I have an easier time dealing with ghosts than with shapeshifters.  In any case, it's a good pick if you like fantasy, and I'd recommend it to teen girls as well.  It's a pleasure to have female protagonists in fantasy stories who aren't waiting pathetically to be rescued.

Some Old Favorites

I've been trying to get through a pile of new books that I've accumulated; sadly, many are so dreadful they are practically unreadable.  My progress has also been hampered by obligations at work and home, school having shifted into high gear once more.  Therefore, I've decided to designate this post as an addendum to this one, and write about some books that were (and in some cases, still are) favorites of mine.

• I'm going to begin this list with E.B. White's Charlotte's Web and The Trumpet of the Swan.  These, to my mind, are the quintessential American children's novels.  Both books focus on animals with very human attributes, and there's a secondary focus on the humans around them, sympathetic and not.  I recently read a new (adult level) book about White and the creation of Charlotte's Web; quite fascinating, really.
• No new reader should be denied a chance to read Pippi Longstocking.  This Swedish character is incorrigibly everything a good girl should not be, and yet she is one of the most lovable protagonists in children's literature.  Astrid Lindgren, the author of the Pippi books, wrote others that are not widely available.  Mio, My Son is one that I didn't really get into, but I loved Ronia, The Robber's Daughter.  Targeted to a more mature audience, (11-12 years) this book pulls the reader into another world completely.
• Jean Little was a very popular author when I was growing up; many of her books focus on children with disabilities.  She has also written some impressive autobiographical books.  From Anna is one of the former, and it focuses on a little German immigrant to Canada who discovers that her stupidity and clumsiness are really a result of her extremely poor eyesight.  I'll confess that I still sometimes take it out of the library and read it, and I always cry at the end.  Another favorite of mine is Stand In The Wind, which does not have her usual disabled character; it deals with the children of two families and some ruined summer plans.
• I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who didn't like The Secret Garden.  Its mysteriousness, its spoiled brat protagonist, the dramatic denouement, all combine to make the perfect story.  If it gets a little sappy occasionally, who can blame Burnett?  That's most likely what her contemporary audience was looking for.
• My children recently discovered that the movie The Parent Trap was based on a book, long out of print.  As a child, I read this book multiple times, so I was happy to buy a used copy for them.  If you've never read Lisa And Lottie, you'll enjoy this story of twins separated at birth.  Originally published in German in 1949, it's been adapted for film many times, twice in English.  (Side note:  The author, Erich Kastner, had many of his books burned by the Nazis, and effectively was banned from publishing any of his material throughout the time of the Third Reich).
• The Velvet Room, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, is a book I've read countless times and has recently come back into print.  A Great Depression Era book, this novel was probably the first coming-of-age type story that I ever read.  Robin, the protagonist, is really the perfect character for a girl in her early teens to relate to as she reads.  Snyder writes about feelings very well, and manages to be emotional without being cloying.  Other books I've enjoyed by Snyder include Below the Root (fantasy) and The Famous Stanley Kidnapping Case.
• Most avid readers have heard of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and it's hard to find a reader who didn't like this unusual book.  E.L. Konigsberg writes here of every child's deepest and darkest wish -- to run away, but not just anywhere;  to run away to somewhere special.  In this case, it's the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the story's mood alternates from suspenseful, to humorous, to businesslike, all in a few chapters.  A prolific writer, Konigsberg has written some other excellent books (such as The View From Saturday) but because of certain poor choices in language I don't feel comfortable recommending them to a wider audience.
• The Secret Language was the only book written by Ursula Nordstrom, who was for many years editor-in-chief of juvenile books at Harper & Row.  This book shows such a deep knowledge of how the minds of children operate that no reader can help but be moved.  The illustrations are also wonderful.
• As a final pick, I'll mention the inimitable Encyclopedia Brown.  This series, by Donald Sobol, seems to have grown by several volumes since I last read it.  It's enjoyable even for adults to read the short mysteries and try to guess the solutions before turning to the back of the book where all is made clear.
• I'd like to wish all my readers a sweet Jewish New Year, with good fortune, good health, and only happy occasions.  My next post should be some time after we've emerged from the holidays, and I hope I'll have read several noteworthy books by that time.

Rite of Spring?

After a long wait, I finally got a hold of The Hunger Games, which everyone on the hold list seems to have been reading.  Classified as a Young Adult book, this is a strange futuristic tale of a country (ours, in a future I hope doesn't come) in which a terrible yearly rite is carried out.  Each year, every district is required to select two young people to participate in the nationwide Hunger Games, which seems similar to Survivors but without the scruples.  In the Hunger Games, the last one alive wins.

This book is quite dark, but engrossing.  It put me in mind of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, a story I read in high school, about a contemporary community which still practices something like the pagan rite of spring sacrifice.  I won't say too much more; I don't like spoilers.  This isn't a book I'd give to my young teen, but it is a well-constructed story with an unexpected ending.  Even better, it begins a series, and I'm waiting now for the second installment, Catching Fire.

Switching genres entirely now, I would like to recommend an excellent nonfiction book recently published.  1493, by Charles C. Mann, is subtitled Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, and could just as easily have been called The Columbian Exchange.  Mann's sizable tome covers all populated continents, as he documents the ripple effect (in some places, more of a tsunami effect) that the European conquest of the Americas caused.
Mann also published 1491, about the Americas before Columbus.  I enjoyed this book, but not quite as much as 1493.  In 1493, he spends some time on the devastating effect of European diseases on the local people, whose populations were decimated by smallpox, measles, and other diseases they had never experienced, and writes at length of the effect of the malarial mosquito on Europeans.  Anyone who is interested in food will find interesting the chapters on origins of certain fruits, vegetables, and grains we take for granted as native to our lands today.

Magical Reading

If it were possible to lock C.S. Lewis, J.D. Salinger, Terry Pratchett, and J.K. Rowling into a room and force them to collaborate on a book, the result might possibly be a lot like Lev Grossman's The Magicians and The Magician King.  These are, strictly speaking, fantasy, but they do seem to bridge the gap between that genre and regular fiction.

The Magicians introduces the reader to the character of Quentin Coldwater, who is a familiar figure -- a teen with no clear direction.  Through an odd sequence of events, he lands at Brakebills, a Hogwarts-like institution of magic.  However, the similarity to Hogwarts is quite superficial -- Grossman's books, while lighthearted (and really funny) at times, lack the fairy tale/happy ending/hope for the world moods that underlie the Harry Potter series.  The sequel, The Magician King, builds on the foundation of the story told in the first book, and has its share of surprises. These books are about people who seem real in their characters and have a greater share of flaws and faults, and while their choices do have a great impact, there are situations in which the characters cannot win, and simply have to deal with in their own ways.

I don't really give a blanket recommendation for these books, even though I have reread the first one several times and intend to do so with the sequel.  If you really don't like fantasy, these books aren't for you.  These books can be graphic at times, disturbingly so for some readers.  This is not crossover kids' fantasy; these are real grownup books.  But if you enjoyed  any of the writers listed in the first paragraph of this post (with the possible exception of Rowling) you will probably enjoy these books as well.

Wild Ride, Indeed

It's not unusual to find overlap between different genres; a case in point would be historical fiction and mystery.  There are many good examples of books which represent the best of both types of writing.  More rare, however, is a book that is a fusion of, say, chick-lit and fantasy.  Wild Ride, by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer, is just that type of book.

Crusie has published several entertaining chick-lit type books; I've never read anything by Mayer, but I'm assuming he brings the fantasy to the table.  Essentially, Wild Ride is a book about an amusement park that is inhabited by demons.  Called the Untouchables, these demons are enclosed in chalices to keep them from wreaking havoc; the longtime park employees make up a group called the Guardia and must endeavor to keep the world safe from the demons and their minions.  Add several young women, a few young men, family secrets, and a love interest, and, Ta-Da! chick-lit and fantasy meld quite entertainingly.

Another book I read this weekend got a song stuck in my head, playing in an endless loop.  Remember that Herman's Hermits song, Henry the eighth I am?  About the fellow who married the widow who'd been married seven times before?  Well, The Ninth Wife doesn't quite play out like that, but at its center is Rory, a man who narrates the stories of his eight marriages, interspersed with the story of Bess, who meets Rory and seems destined to be wife number nine.  The characters in this book are very likable and  don't necessarily develop the way the reader would expect. All in all, this is an engrossing and diverting book.

Laughter: The Best Medicine

As one grows older, those occasions in which a good, long belly laugh occurs grow fewer and farther between.  As children, so much of what we saw and read and experienced was just so funny! Like the knock-knock jokes we told endlessly, to very very patient parents who concealed their rolling eyes and giggled politely.  Where did the humor in life disappear to?

It hasn't gone anywhere, but if you are normal (or approximating normal) you have matured to the extent that what seemed hilarious at age 7, or 12, or 16, seems gross, or dumb, or sophomoric in your 20's or 30's.  This is a bit of a disappointment, in a way; kids have it so easy when they need a laugh.  Pick up a volume in the My Weird School series, and they're laughing all the way home.  Whereas mature adults such as ourselves will seldom find that kind of satisfaction in a book anymore; hence, this post.

Donald Westlake has been around for years; I haven't read all of his books yet but I've read most of the Dortmunder series.  These books, centering around a group of bumbling thieves, is as close to slapstick as one gets in literature.  Dortmunder is just so pathetic -- but the situations he falls into are ridiculously amusing, and so are his friends.  I especially like Stan.

If you want to be amused in a useful sort of way, the nonfiction of Bill Bryson is the way to go.  Whether expounding on hiking the Appalachians (A Walk in the Woods), the English language (Mother Tongue), or the history of the home (At Home), he is relentlessly funny.  The only one that disappointed me was the one about the Royal Society; unfortunately he is capable of writing serious nonfiction when called to do it.  I, however, was unprepared for it; expecting a funny book I hurled it at the wall in disgust.  It didn't deserve that kind of treatment, as it was an excellent book of its kind, but it's all about expectations, you know.

This would really fall under the fantasy genre, but it's just too funny to leave out:  A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.  Some people actually think this is philosophy, so that's funny too.  Another fantasy author who is belly-laugh worthy is Terry Pratchett; his books are mostly based in the Discworld, a sort of parallel universe.  My favorite is Monstrous Regiment; I also loved The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, which is a young adult book.  It's actually the Pied Piper with a talking cat and some genius rats.  Just fabulous.

The difficulty here is that once one has read this supremely amusing book, it's never as funny the second time around.  So now it's your turn -- can you recommend any funny books for me?

The Fantasy and Sci-Fi Post

I think that this genre is very "love it or hate it."  Readers who like fantasy can't get enough of it, will try practically any kind, and sometimes even write their own.  Those who don't can't stay far enough away.  There's a small, small subgroup in the middle, consisting of those who dip a toe in very cautiously and seldom:  that's where I fit in.  I'm not talking about juvenile fantasy a la Harry Potter -- adult fantasy and sci-fi is a completely different kettle of fish.  Being asked as a rational grown-up to suspend your disbelief and bear with the author for a while is a lot more difficult than whiling away a couple of hours with what is essentially a fairy tale.

I'm going to single out Mistwood, by Leah Cypess, not simply because it's a good read, but because I've known Leah practically forever and it tickles me to know a published author.  This is actually a Young Adult book; I enjoyed it and I'm waiting to buy the next book, Nightspell.  The books deal with shape-shifters, and have just the right amount of suspense and creepiness minus the gore you might find in an adult book of this kind.

I'm not sure how Tolkien would feel being relegated to second place here, but here he is:  The Lord of The Rings.  Somehow, TLOTR doesn't seem like fantasy to me -- it's almost like historical fiction.  Tolkien was, in fact, a historian, and he even created languages (with grammar!) for the different races he dreamed up.  The writing is absolutely beautiful, though I will admit the length is off-putting -- I would recommend getting it volume by volume rather than in the single book form.  I also recommend the movie, which I normally would never do, as movies based on books tend to completely ruin the book for me; this one, however, is terrific.

Isaac Asimov is always an easy choice.  He's written the same book about a hundred times, but always quite competently.  I prefer the Foundation series; also good is Caves of Steel.

One aspect of sci-fi that makes it a classic (or not) is the degree to which it actually anticipates the future.  I think that one element that keeps the classic Star Trek episodes constantly in reruns is the fact that so much of the technology used in the show is actually reality today.  On the other hand, books written years ago which failed to anticipate today's way of living tend to disappoint.  For example, The Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis, published in 1992, describes a near future in which time travel is possible, but fails to predict the wide usage of cell phones.  The first time I read this book I enjoyed it tremendously; one of the protagonists goes back to the Middle Ages and gets stuck at the time of the Black Death (also, sort of historical fiction).  I read it again and found it ridiculous -- back at Oxford, where they are desperately trying to retrieve the lost character, the other figures in the story race each other all over town, missing vital phone calls as they chase their tails.  The absence of something that is today ubiquitous seemed obvious and totally ruined the book for me.  Don't let it hold you back, though, if you want to try it.  Willis recently published two companion books which take place during WWII; some of the same characters time-travel back to the Blitz:  Blackout and All-Clear.  They're poorly edited and full of errors; don't bother.

Any opinions here?

To Be Filed Under "Whatever"

As you can see, I'm not really sure how to classify this series of books.  By Jasper Fforde, the Thursday Next series features Thursday, the eponymous heroine, as a Jurisfiction agent.  She does live in the real world, but can also pass into the BookWorld.  By the way, the real world in this series is a parallel universe to begin with.  The parallel England in which the stories take place is one in which literature is highly valued; Shakespeare plays (especially Richard III) are considered the epitome of popular entertainment.  People so often wish to change their names to famous authors that they require a number after each name to differentiate. 

These books are really bizarre.  Sorry, I can't think of any other word that defines this genre.  Part mystery fiction, part fantasy, part horror (if your idea of horror includes fictional characters erasing other fictional characters from other books), the line between reality and literature here is very thin to begin with, and gets thinner.

In The Eyre Affair, Thursday pursues a master criminal through the pages of -- what else? -- Jane Eyre.  One of the results of this is Thursday's inadvertent adjustment of the plot line.  This, the first Thursday novel, is just the beginning of a romp through a BookWorld peopled with literary characters, and peppered with literary allusions.  Those of you who feel lovely and superior when you pick up on one of those will love these books.  The Eyre Affair is followed by Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, First Among Sequels, and the most recent one, One of Our Thursdays is Missing.  I will admit being a little disappointed with the last one, as the real Thursday does not appear at all and the book is narrated by the character who plays the fictional Thursday in the books written about her.  I know, this makes very little sense.

Fforde is also the author of a spinoff series starring Jack Spratt as an investigator in the same world.  This series is called, unsurprisingly, the Nursery Rhyme Series, and it begins with The Big Over Easy.  The second one, The Fourth Bear, is actually better than the first, and I believe a third is in the works.

Just as an aside, if you love a book full of literary allusions, you shouldn't miss the mysteries of Dorothy L. Sayers.  Her primary character, Lord Peter Wimsey, never misses a chance to show how well-read he is, and her mysteries are both immaculately crafted and beautifully written.  I believe she is a classical scholar as well; she translated Dante.  This explains a lot.  Enjoy!