The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
Category: Fantasy Grade: A-
Carolyn and I don't typically have the same taste in books. I'd say that maybe one of every ten books each of us reads gets referred to the other. Of those, maybe half actually get read and half of those actually have us both saying good things. Top that off with the fact that Carolyn almost never reads fantasy novels (the last was probably Bear's Infinity Concerto a decade ago) and you'll understand why I was a little skeptical when she raved about Donohue's debut novel and strongly suggested I read it. But, given that this was a book that sounded up my alley, I decided to give it a try.
For most of you (as suggested by a review of the book in Newsweek), the fact that its called a fantasy will be a showstopper and that'd really be a shame. I can understand the reluctance since, for the most part, fantasy novels are pigeon-holed -- they're about dragons or knights or quests or hobbits and have a real small audience. They're usually written for teens and you have to be a real fan to find the gems.
The Stolen Child is different - it's pretty much a fantasy for thinking adults. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't anywhere near the sex and violence that you usually find in teen-targeted fantasies, it's just a little more cerebral than most of the genre. The book is based on the old legend of "changelings". In the legend, children are stolen from their homes and replaced by a changeling who takes over the child's life. The stolen child then becomes part of the pack of changelings until decades or even centuries later, it becomes their turn to take over the life of yet another child.
This book starts with the theft/replacement of a six-year-old Henry Day. Henry has run away from home, giving the changeling tribe the opportunity to snatch the boy they've been observing. Armed with the knowledge that the tribe has gained, the eldest of the changelings leaves the tribe to, essentially, become Henry Day. Interesting setup and, we firmly expect to follow the trials of the changeling's effort to assume his new life -- to fill in the gaps in his knowledge of the family; to learn to modify his body to mimic a boy growing up; to forget his past as a changeling and, before that, as a real child. We get this and the story is fascinating, but that alone would have made this a readable, but probably ordinary book.
What makes Donohue's book special is that the "original" Henry Day, now a changeling called Aniday, stays with us throughout the book. The chapters alternate between the two characters and follows them through the next several decades as the real-world Henry Day grows to be a man with familiar but slightly "off" life and the changeling-world Aniday tries to master the ageless life of the changeling tribe in an increasingly hostile world.
To me, unless you're a true "sword-and-sorcery" fantasy fan, books like this, that mingle the familiar with the fantastic are the best kind of fantasy novels. Donohue's prose is terrific. Finally, unlike most of today's fantasy novels, this one does not seem to be a setup for a series of sequels. In fact, I was all set to give this book a solid B rating until the very-satisfying ending, pushed the grade up. This is definitely a fantasy for those of you don't usually read fantasy.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Monday, May 29, 2006
The Red Badge of Courage
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Category: Civil War novel Grade: B+
Yes, that Red Badge of Courage. I promised myself that I was going to include some of those books that they force us to read back in high school and see if they were really as bad I remembered. I hated this one in high school. Well, apologies to Mr. Henry - my senior year English teacher. He's probably long dead by now but, Mr Henry, if you can hear me -- I'm sorry.
This is actually a beautiful little book. Its only about 125 pages long so its a really quick read. There's a lot of battle and blood as in any civil war book, but, this is really the story of the internal battles of "the youth", Henry Fleming. The terror that causes him to run at the first gunshots; the cursing of the inept generals; the pride in his eventually bravery -- Crane really makes you feel what this kid is feeling as the dreams of battle glory meet the realities.
The writing is really good although, since it was written 125 years ago, a little stilted. There are some passages that are gorgeous. I still think this is a terrible book to make high school kids read but, 40 years later, its a surprisingly good read.
Does mean that Silas Marner isn't as bad as I remember? Naah.
Category: Civil War novel Grade: B+
Yes, that Red Badge of Courage. I promised myself that I was going to include some of those books that they force us to read back in high school and see if they were really as bad I remembered. I hated this one in high school. Well, apologies to Mr. Henry - my senior year English teacher. He's probably long dead by now but, Mr Henry, if you can hear me -- I'm sorry.
This is actually a beautiful little book. Its only about 125 pages long so its a really quick read. There's a lot of battle and blood as in any civil war book, but, this is really the story of the internal battles of "the youth", Henry Fleming. The terror that causes him to run at the first gunshots; the cursing of the inept generals; the pride in his eventually bravery -- Crane really makes you feel what this kid is feeling as the dreams of battle glory meet the realities.
The writing is really good although, since it was written 125 years ago, a little stilted. There are some passages that are gorgeous. I still think this is a terrible book to make high school kids read but, 40 years later, its a surprisingly good read.
Does mean that Silas Marner isn't as bad as I remember? Naah.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Sidetrack - a movie and a web site
Its my blog so, once in a while, I'm going to throw in a posting that is something other than a book review. Feel free to ignore or enjoy.
First, the movie. Well, we got all excited and went a couple of days ago to see The Da Vinci Code. Between us, we came at the movie from different directions. I loved the book; Carolyn gave it up after 50 pages. No divided opinion when it came to the movie - it really wasn't very good. It's very lecturish and surprisingly slow. Not sure whether to blame the screenplay or acting, but Tom Hanks seems to sleep walk through this - easily his worst performance in years. The only thing that salvages the movie from boredom is a stellar performance by Ian McKellan. And now they're saying X Men 3 isn't very good either!
Next, the web site. If you like music of any kind, I've got an amazing web site for you. The site can be found at www.pandora.com . This free service is an outgrowth of the "music genome" project that categorizes tens of thousands of pieces of music by dozens of criteria. Put simply - tell Pandora about a song or an artist that you like and it instantly builds a custom streaming radio station of music that matches what you specify. You can add more songs and artists to the station and it will get more specific to your tastes. You can even create multiple radio stations to match your moods. I was really stunned at how well the service in finding music that I like. Its especially fun since, because of its huge database, it throws in obscure music that, while you've probably never heard of it, is exactly the kind of music you wanted! You definitely need a broadband connection, but, if you love music, give it a shot.
First, the movie. Well, we got all excited and went a couple of days ago to see The Da Vinci Code. Between us, we came at the movie from different directions. I loved the book; Carolyn gave it up after 50 pages. No divided opinion when it came to the movie - it really wasn't very good. It's very lecturish and surprisingly slow. Not sure whether to blame the screenplay or acting, but Tom Hanks seems to sleep walk through this - easily his worst performance in years. The only thing that salvages the movie from boredom is a stellar performance by Ian McKellan. And now they're saying X Men 3 isn't very good either!
Next, the web site. If you like music of any kind, I've got an amazing web site for you. The site can be found at www.pandora.com . This free service is an outgrowth of the "music genome" project that categorizes tens of thousands of pieces of music by dozens of criteria. Put simply - tell Pandora about a song or an artist that you like and it instantly builds a custom streaming radio station of music that matches what you specify. You can add more songs and artists to the station and it will get more specific to your tastes. You can even create multiple radio stations to match your moods. I was really stunned at how well the service in finding music that I like. Its especially fun since, because of its huge database, it throws in obscure music that, while you've probably never heard of it, is exactly the kind of music you wanted! You definitely need a broadband connection, but, if you love music, give it a shot.
Room Full of Mirrors
Room Full of Mirrors, A Biography of Jimi Hendrix by Charles R. Cross
Category: Musical biography Grade: B+
First a little about why I picked this book this time. Last week was a sad week for the Austin music scene. Clifford Antone, one of the key figures in making Austin the Live Musical Capital, died of heart attack at the age of 56. Clifford opened the first incarnation of Antone's over thirty years ago. Over the last three decades, he has brought just about every major name in blues and R&B to Austin. He loved what he did and promoted not only the big names but the talented side men and the often overlooked originators of the blues.
Carolyn and I got a chance to get to know Clifford just a little bit in the last couple of months. Clifford loved to teach people about the music he loved so much. Our family first connected with him during the '04-'05 school season. He taught a semester long course at UT - Clifford Antone's History of Blues and Rock - and Dan spent two semesters as his TA. This spring, we underwrote a series of four lectures by Clifford at the little Uptown Theatre in Marble Falls. They were an absolute blast. Clifford was a walking encyclopedia and, mostly through is enthusiasm, taught us a lot about the music that changed the world. He will really be missed.
So, as I was listening to people like Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and Big Momma Thornton, I decided that the next book up should be about one of the big names in blues or rock. The one I really wanted to read next was Guralnick's new bio of Sam Cooke. Its on the way, so more about that one later. I've had this bio of Jimi Hendrix for a while and decided to give it a go.
Hendrix was a bottle rocket. He came out of nowhere. As a teenager, with a mother who drank herself to death and a father who wasn't around much, he lived in near total poverty. There were times in his late teens when the only reason he had anything to eat was that he hung around a hamburger joint and took whatever they were going to throw away at the end of the day. Initially, he taught himself to play guitar by playing a broom!
In his early twenties, Hendrix moved to New York to try and make it and had a moderately succesful career as a guitarist for other stars -- Curtis Knight and even James Brown. In spite of this, he was never really able to get much of a career off the ground. His big break came at the age of about 23, when he was invited to come over to England by Eric Burdon of the Animals. This was the height of the music scene in England with the Beatles and the Stones tearing up the charts. Almost overnight, Hendrix became the hottest rock/psychedelic star in Europe.
It still took a while for him to make back in the states. He never was particularly popular with the black audiences since he had left R&B/blues behind for the wild, inventive music that he played. It took Monterey Pop and later, Woodstock, to really make him as an American star.
Cross writes well and doesn't shy away from the negative aspect of Hendrix's life. Given Jimi's public image and tragic end, he comes across in Cross's book as a reasonably shy and somewhat grounded man up until his last days. I have to admit that, at the time, I wasn't a huge Hendrix fan, but when I think of the psychedelic music era two of the three sounds that come to mind are his -- Purple Haze (with the great line "'scuse me while I kiss the sky") and Jimi's unforgettable solo guitar rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Give his visibility, its hard to get your head around the fact that Jimi's entire life was less than 28 years long!
This book isn't the music grabber of some of the earlier ones I talked about, but its definitely worth reading, especially if the music of the 60s is a big part of your life.
(BTW -- the third sound of psychedelics is Iron Butterfly's incredible Ina Gada Da Vida.)
Category: Musical biography Grade: B+
First a little about why I picked this book this time. Last week was a sad week for the Austin music scene. Clifford Antone, one of the key figures in making Austin the Live Musical Capital, died of heart attack at the age of 56. Clifford opened the first incarnation of Antone's over thirty years ago. Over the last three decades, he has brought just about every major name in blues and R&B to Austin. He loved what he did and promoted not only the big names but the talented side men and the often overlooked originators of the blues.
Carolyn and I got a chance to get to know Clifford just a little bit in the last couple of months. Clifford loved to teach people about the music he loved so much. Our family first connected with him during the '04-'05 school season. He taught a semester long course at UT - Clifford Antone's History of Blues and Rock - and Dan spent two semesters as his TA. This spring, we underwrote a series of four lectures by Clifford at the little Uptown Theatre in Marble Falls. They were an absolute blast. Clifford was a walking encyclopedia and, mostly through is enthusiasm, taught us a lot about the music that changed the world. He will really be missed.
So, as I was listening to people like Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and Big Momma Thornton, I decided that the next book up should be about one of the big names in blues or rock. The one I really wanted to read next was Guralnick's new bio of Sam Cooke. Its on the way, so more about that one later. I've had this bio of Jimi Hendrix for a while and decided to give it a go.
Hendrix was a bottle rocket. He came out of nowhere. As a teenager, with a mother who drank herself to death and a father who wasn't around much, he lived in near total poverty. There were times in his late teens when the only reason he had anything to eat was that he hung around a hamburger joint and took whatever they were going to throw away at the end of the day. Initially, he taught himself to play guitar by playing a broom!
In his early twenties, Hendrix moved to New York to try and make it and had a moderately succesful career as a guitarist for other stars -- Curtis Knight and even James Brown. In spite of this, he was never really able to get much of a career off the ground. His big break came at the age of about 23, when he was invited to come over to England by Eric Burdon of the Animals. This was the height of the music scene in England with the Beatles and the Stones tearing up the charts. Almost overnight, Hendrix became the hottest rock/psychedelic star in Europe.
It still took a while for him to make back in the states. He never was particularly popular with the black audiences since he had left R&B/blues behind for the wild, inventive music that he played. It took Monterey Pop and later, Woodstock, to really make him as an American star.
Cross writes well and doesn't shy away from the negative aspect of Hendrix's life. Given Jimi's public image and tragic end, he comes across in Cross's book as a reasonably shy and somewhat grounded man up until his last days. I have to admit that, at the time, I wasn't a huge Hendrix fan, but when I think of the psychedelic music era two of the three sounds that come to mind are his -- Purple Haze (with the great line "'scuse me while I kiss the sky") and Jimi's unforgettable solo guitar rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Give his visibility, its hard to get your head around the fact that Jimi's entire life was less than 28 years long!
This book isn't the music grabber of some of the earlier ones I talked about, but its definitely worth reading, especially if the music of the 60s is a big part of your life.
(BTW -- the third sound of psychedelics is Iron Butterfly's incredible Ina Gada Da Vida.)
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
A Death in Belmont
A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger
Category: True Crime Grade: C+
This is Junger's second book. The first was A Perfect Storm, a mega-success that had the expectations high for this one. In this one, Junger uses the fact that Albert Desalvo, the Boston Strangler, spent a few days at Junger's childhood home doing some contracting work as a springboard to launch in to the Strangler's crime wave in the early 60s.
Junger uses the "non-fiction novel" approach created by Truman Capote in In Cold Blood. The problem, stylistically, is that Junger isn't Capote. I plan to reread In Cold Blood later this summer, but as I remember it, it was clean and, while it told a very dramatic story, didn't use ultra-dramatic prose. In Junger's book, you keep imagining a background sound track going dah-dah-dah-daaaaah. Its very distracting. There are also some major side tracks in to things like the Kennedy and King assassinations that, why'll have an impact on the story, don't warrant the pages devoted to them. Ultimately, this book feels like a New Yorker article that some editor said "Why don't you pad it out and make it a book?".
In addition to Desalvo, the co-focus of the book is Roy Smith, the man who was probably wrongly convicted of a murder that was probably the 13th Strangler murder. While Desalvo confessed to the other 12, he never copped to the strangulation/rape of Bessie Goldberg. The MO was identical to the other 12 but, Smith, a black laborer who happened to be working at the Goldberg house that day was picked up and was, in all probability, convicted of murder because he was black man in a white neighborhood (the Belmont of the title). Smith spent more than a decade in jail for the crime and maintained his innocence until he died - two days after his sentence was commuted.
While the Smith angle was interesting, if you've read anything about the Boston Strangler case, the Junger book really doesn't add much. The connection between Desalvo and the author really boils down to "he did some work at our house and gave my mother a funny look". It's not a bad book and its a quick read but, if you are really interested in true crime writing, go pick up a copy of In Cold Blood instead.
Category: True Crime Grade: C+
This is Junger's second book. The first was A Perfect Storm, a mega-success that had the expectations high for this one. In this one, Junger uses the fact that Albert Desalvo, the Boston Strangler, spent a few days at Junger's childhood home doing some contracting work as a springboard to launch in to the Strangler's crime wave in the early 60s.
Junger uses the "non-fiction novel" approach created by Truman Capote in In Cold Blood. The problem, stylistically, is that Junger isn't Capote. I plan to reread In Cold Blood later this summer, but as I remember it, it was clean and, while it told a very dramatic story, didn't use ultra-dramatic prose. In Junger's book, you keep imagining a background sound track going dah-dah-dah-daaaaah. Its very distracting. There are also some major side tracks in to things like the Kennedy and King assassinations that, why'll have an impact on the story, don't warrant the pages devoted to them. Ultimately, this book feels like a New Yorker article that some editor said "Why don't you pad it out and make it a book?".
In addition to Desalvo, the co-focus of the book is Roy Smith, the man who was probably wrongly convicted of a murder that was probably the 13th Strangler murder. While Desalvo confessed to the other 12, he never copped to the strangulation/rape of Bessie Goldberg. The MO was identical to the other 12 but, Smith, a black laborer who happened to be working at the Goldberg house that day was picked up and was, in all probability, convicted of murder because he was black man in a white neighborhood (the Belmont of the title). Smith spent more than a decade in jail for the crime and maintained his innocence until he died - two days after his sentence was commuted.
While the Smith angle was interesting, if you've read anything about the Boston Strangler case, the Junger book really doesn't add much. The connection between Desalvo and the author really boils down to "he did some work at our house and gave my mother a funny look". It's not a bad book and its a quick read but, if you are really interested in true crime writing, go pick up a copy of In Cold Blood instead.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Gone
Gone by Jonathan Kellerman
Category: Mystery Grade: A
Seems almost silly to review this one since its the 20th book in the Alex Delaware mystery series. At this point, either you're hooked or you're not. This is one of the series that I buy just as soon as it comes out. They're well written, fast paced, have great characters and plots. At this point its almost like reading about family except, of course, that they get involved in solving brutal crimes which, as far as I know, nobody in the family does yet!
This one is typical of the series. Alex Deleware is actually a psychologist that helps the police occasionally through his friendship with Milo Sturgis. There's always a fairly brutal murder that kicks off a case that gets more and more complicated as the book goes. As always, Kellerman gives us at least a half dozen possible criminals and provides just enough information that any given point, we're sure we know who did it, only to be drop kicked by some new information - sometimes as simple as a tiny piece of new evidence; sometimes as messy as the murder of the person the reader is absolutely sure did the crime.
If you like good mysteries and you've never tried Kellerman's books, I highly recommend the series. You can enjoy just about any book in the series on its own, including this one. There are, however, a number of ongoing story lines that make the books even more interesting (Allison or Robin? Robin or Allison?). If you're serious about your crime solves, go back and start at the beginning - When the Bough Breaks. And just like that, you're 20 books behind!
One warning -- some of the crimes in these books can be a little gruesome. Not Thomas Harris gruesome, but definitely not Agatha Christie either.
Category: Mystery Grade: A
Seems almost silly to review this one since its the 20th book in the Alex Delaware mystery series. At this point, either you're hooked or you're not. This is one of the series that I buy just as soon as it comes out. They're well written, fast paced, have great characters and plots. At this point its almost like reading about family except, of course, that they get involved in solving brutal crimes which, as far as I know, nobody in the family does yet!
This one is typical of the series. Alex Deleware is actually a psychologist that helps the police occasionally through his friendship with Milo Sturgis. There's always a fairly brutal murder that kicks off a case that gets more and more complicated as the book goes. As always, Kellerman gives us at least a half dozen possible criminals and provides just enough information that any given point, we're sure we know who did it, only to be drop kicked by some new information - sometimes as simple as a tiny piece of new evidence; sometimes as messy as the murder of the person the reader is absolutely sure did the crime.
If you like good mysteries and you've never tried Kellerman's books, I highly recommend the series. You can enjoy just about any book in the series on its own, including this one. There are, however, a number of ongoing story lines that make the books even more interesting (Allison or Robin? Robin or Allison?). If you're serious about your crime solves, go back and start at the beginning - When the Bough Breaks. And just like that, you're 20 books behind!
One warning -- some of the crimes in these books can be a little gruesome. Not Thomas Harris gruesome, but definitely not Agatha Christie either.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Good To Great
Good to Great by Jim Collins
Category: Business Rating: A
I don't read to many business-oriented books any more but decided to try this one after reading an excerpt in the Harvard Business Journal. Collins is an business consultant and former professor at Stanford Business School. This book documents a five year study undertaken in to what makes a company "great". There approach was pretty interesting. They first defined what they meant by a "great" company -- basically a public company that significantly outperformed the market for a sustained period of time -- more than 15 years. They then identified comparison companies - usually the same industry and roughly equivalent starting points. By their criteria, only 11 companies in the Fortune 500 qualified as "great" for the purposes of this study. The team then collected everything they could find about the companies - financial data, compensation data, news stories and interview results. By letting the data speak for itself, they were able to they identified a the distinguishing factors that made these companies great.
It's a highly readable book and it didn't hurt that I agreed with just about everything they said about what distinguishes a great company from a merely good one. I do recommend the book to just about anybody that works in management at any level. Given, however, that most of you probably won't go running to read a business book, I'll summarize some of the findings here. Some of the major factors that Collins found were:
Interestingly, given a lot of things that Carolyn and I are in to these days, Collins also published a brief (30 page) monograph that talks about how the findings of Good to Great can be applied (or not) to the social sector. This is a great addition to the information in the book itself.
Category: Business Rating: A
I don't read to many business-oriented books any more but decided to try this one after reading an excerpt in the Harvard Business Journal. Collins is an business consultant and former professor at Stanford Business School. This book documents a five year study undertaken in to what makes a company "great". There approach was pretty interesting. They first defined what they meant by a "great" company -- basically a public company that significantly outperformed the market for a sustained period of time -- more than 15 years. They then identified comparison companies - usually the same industry and roughly equivalent starting points. By their criteria, only 11 companies in the Fortune 500 qualified as "great" for the purposes of this study. The team then collected everything they could find about the companies - financial data, compensation data, news stories and interview results. By letting the data speak for itself, they were able to they identified a the distinguishing factors that made these companies great.
It's a highly readable book and it didn't hurt that I agreed with just about everything they said about what distinguishes a great company from a merely good one. I do recommend the book to just about anybody that works in management at any level. Given, however, that most of you probably won't go running to read a business book, I'll summarize some of the findings here. Some of the major factors that Collins found were:
- To be great, you need a "Level 5" leader. These were usually low-key insiders whose ambitions for the company far outstripped their personal ambitions. When asked, they tend to divert credit from themselves and give it to others or, frequently, to luck. None of the leaders of the great companies were particularly charismatic.
- Get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off. Most of the great companies hired the best people and then worried about what strategy they were going to pursue. They lived the theory that skills and specific knowledge can be taught but the subtler values were inherent in the right people.
- Act like a "hedgehog". The hedgehog survies in the world by doing exactly one thing really well - basically rolling up in a ball. In business, decided what you can be the best in the world (however you define your world) and then sticking to that, is critical. The discipline to say "no" is vital.
Interestingly, given a lot of things that Carolyn and I are in to these days, Collins also published a brief (30 page) monograph that talks about how the findings of Good to Great can be applied (or not) to the social sector. This is a great addition to the information in the book itself.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
The Last Witchfinder
The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow
Category: Historical (sort of) fiction Grade: A-
Why do great authors sometimes feel the need to introduce gimmicks in to their books? Usually, as soon as I hit gimmicks, I put the book down. Rarely do they work and, most often, they get in the way, killing any value the book might otherwise have. Fortunately, I didn't do that this time, mostly because I'm a big fan of James Morrow, one of the better satirical novelists writing today. The book that got me hooked on him was Towing Jehovah. Its just what the title implies -- God has died and his body is found in the South Pacific and is towed to a port throwing off all kinds of hilarious, though seriously sacreligious, events. Its the beginning of a trilogy that nevers stops being funny and a little off. Because of my past experience with Morrow, I plowed through the beginning of this book and I'm glad I did.
Morrow's gimmick is that the story in the book is actually told by another book, Newton's Principia Mathematica. According to the book, most books are actually written by other books. The Principia pops up every once in a while during Witchfinder to comment on whats going on. The gimmick doesn't work at all, but, thankfully, it makes up less than 5% of the book and can safely be ignored. The comments are occasionally funny, but unimportant to the story.
The story, on the other hand, is terrific - inventive, consistently interesting and very well written. It focuses on the life of a fictional Englishwoman, Jennet Stearne. Early in her life, she is being tutored in all subjects, especially, science, by her aunt. The book takes place in the early 18th century at the height of the efforts to find, prosecute and execute suspected witches. Jennet's father is a witchfinder - testing witches by looking for blemishes that don't bleed (the devil's mark) and by doing trial by drowning (water will reject witches) among other things. The father is extremely ambitious, aspiring to become the Royal Witchfinder. In the process, he trains his son to follow in his footsteps.
Getting back to Jennet - the defining moment in her life is when her adored aunt, having been accused of witchcraft by Jennet's father, is burned alive at the stake. Jennet swears that she will devote her life to creating a scientific proof that witchcraft doesn't exist. OK, I admit this doesn't sound very exciting so far but, as we follow this woman through the next 40 years or so of her life, the adventure accelerates. What emerges is a fantastic picture of both life during this time period and a pretty serious exposure on the mass hysteria of the witchfinding era.
We get to see life in colonial Massachusetts and in an Algonquin Indian village. Highly fictionalized versions of well known characters like Isaac Newton and a young (and surprisingly sexy) Ben Franklin successfully tie the story to the times. This is just a great piece of well written historical fiction. Skim the sections where the book talks (and some of the slightly technical stuff) and what you've got left is a really terrific read.
Category: Historical (sort of) fiction Grade: A-
Why do great authors sometimes feel the need to introduce gimmicks in to their books? Usually, as soon as I hit gimmicks, I put the book down. Rarely do they work and, most often, they get in the way, killing any value the book might otherwise have. Fortunately, I didn't do that this time, mostly because I'm a big fan of James Morrow, one of the better satirical novelists writing today. The book that got me hooked on him was Towing Jehovah. Its just what the title implies -- God has died and his body is found in the South Pacific and is towed to a port throwing off all kinds of hilarious, though seriously sacreligious, events. Its the beginning of a trilogy that nevers stops being funny and a little off. Because of my past experience with Morrow, I plowed through the beginning of this book and I'm glad I did.
Morrow's gimmick is that the story in the book is actually told by another book, Newton's Principia Mathematica. According to the book, most books are actually written by other books. The Principia pops up every once in a while during Witchfinder to comment on whats going on. The gimmick doesn't work at all, but, thankfully, it makes up less than 5% of the book and can safely be ignored. The comments are occasionally funny, but unimportant to the story.
The story, on the other hand, is terrific - inventive, consistently interesting and very well written. It focuses on the life of a fictional Englishwoman, Jennet Stearne. Early in her life, she is being tutored in all subjects, especially, science, by her aunt. The book takes place in the early 18th century at the height of the efforts to find, prosecute and execute suspected witches. Jennet's father is a witchfinder - testing witches by looking for blemishes that don't bleed (the devil's mark) and by doing trial by drowning (water will reject witches) among other things. The father is extremely ambitious, aspiring to become the Royal Witchfinder. In the process, he trains his son to follow in his footsteps.
Getting back to Jennet - the defining moment in her life is when her adored aunt, having been accused of witchcraft by Jennet's father, is burned alive at the stake. Jennet swears that she will devote her life to creating a scientific proof that witchcraft doesn't exist. OK, I admit this doesn't sound very exciting so far but, as we follow this woman through the next 40 years or so of her life, the adventure accelerates. What emerges is a fantastic picture of both life during this time period and a pretty serious exposure on the mass hysteria of the witchfinding era.
We get to see life in colonial Massachusetts and in an Algonquin Indian village. Highly fictionalized versions of well known characters like Isaac Newton and a young (and surprisingly sexy) Ben Franklin successfully tie the story to the times. This is just a great piece of well written historical fiction. Skim the sections where the book talks (and some of the slightly technical stuff) and what you've got left is a really terrific read.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Sweet Soul Music
Sweet Soul Music by Peter Guralnick
Category: History of Rock & Roll Grade: B+
First a setup since this probably won't be the last music related book over the next couple of months. Carolyn and I helped underwrite a series of "lectures" in Marble Falls by Clifford Antone, the owner of Antone's Club in Austin. Clifford opened his first blues club more than 30 years ago and he' become an expert on the History of Rock & Roll, especially pre-Beatles. We've seen 3 of the 4 lectures so far - one on Sun Records (Elvis, Johnny Cash...), one on Stax and Muscle Shoals (Otis Redding, James Brown...) and one on Motown (Tempatations, Smokey Robinson, Four Tops...). The last one is this week and is on the Chicago scene (Muddy Waters...). They've been pretty incredible and have really piqued my interest in the stories of pop music of the last half century or so.
With learning more about this as the goal, Peter Guralnick was a natural one to turn to. He started writing on blues, soul and rock for the Boston Phoenix back in the 60s and is really one of the experts now. He wrote a definitive two-volume bio of Elvis that I may get to and a recently published one about Sam Cooke. Sweet Soul Music is a detailed story about roughly 20 years in the history of Memphis-based blues and soul. Most of the book is about the legendary record label - Stax - that, for a long time, was an incredible story of a multi-racial music company.
Guralnick is a terrific writer who interviewed hundreds of people for this book and his other writing. The stories he tells are great and he makes no attempt to sugar coat some of the dumb decision, bad personality conflicts, etc. of the times. What makes the book interesting is story after story about people who came from absolutely nothing to become both business and artistic successes. Any book that can make heroes out of hard-core gospel-based entertainers like James Brown and, at the same time, New York-born, Jewish guys live Jerry Wexler almost has to be interesting. As anybody who grew up with this kind of music knows, there's also a fair amount of tragedy with the deaths, at very young ages, of two of the biggest stars Stax created -- Sam Cooke and Otis Redding (by the way, my personal choice for the best soul singer of all time).
This was a fast, entertaining read, especially if you know and love the music Guralnick talks about. The only reason the book didn't get an A isn't the author's fault. This book was written twenty years ago and, because of that, sometimes feels dated. E.g. while Ray Charles gets plenty of respect in this book, Guralnick leaves him recording country songs and obviously doesn't see the massive super-stardom Ray achieved before he died.
Category: History of Rock & Roll Grade: B+
First a setup since this probably won't be the last music related book over the next couple of months. Carolyn and I helped underwrite a series of "lectures" in Marble Falls by Clifford Antone, the owner of Antone's Club in Austin. Clifford opened his first blues club more than 30 years ago and he' become an expert on the History of Rock & Roll, especially pre-Beatles. We've seen 3 of the 4 lectures so far - one on Sun Records (Elvis, Johnny Cash...), one on Stax and Muscle Shoals (Otis Redding, James Brown...) and one on Motown (Tempatations, Smokey Robinson, Four Tops...). The last one is this week and is on the Chicago scene (Muddy Waters...). They've been pretty incredible and have really piqued my interest in the stories of pop music of the last half century or so.
With learning more about this as the goal, Peter Guralnick was a natural one to turn to. He started writing on blues, soul and rock for the Boston Phoenix back in the 60s and is really one of the experts now. He wrote a definitive two-volume bio of Elvis that I may get to and a recently published one about Sam Cooke. Sweet Soul Music is a detailed story about roughly 20 years in the history of Memphis-based blues and soul. Most of the book is about the legendary record label - Stax - that, for a long time, was an incredible story of a multi-racial music company.
Guralnick is a terrific writer who interviewed hundreds of people for this book and his other writing. The stories he tells are great and he makes no attempt to sugar coat some of the dumb decision, bad personality conflicts, etc. of the times. What makes the book interesting is story after story about people who came from absolutely nothing to become both business and artistic successes. Any book that can make heroes out of hard-core gospel-based entertainers like James Brown and, at the same time, New York-born, Jewish guys live Jerry Wexler almost has to be interesting. As anybody who grew up with this kind of music knows, there's also a fair amount of tragedy with the deaths, at very young ages, of two of the biggest stars Stax created -- Sam Cooke and Otis Redding (by the way, my personal choice for the best soul singer of all time).
This was a fast, entertaining read, especially if you know and love the music Guralnick talks about. The only reason the book didn't get an A isn't the author's fault. This book was written twenty years ago and, because of that, sometimes feels dated. E.g. while Ray Charles gets plenty of respect in this book, Guralnick leaves him recording country songs and obviously doesn't see the massive super-stardom Ray achieved before he died.
Friday, May 05, 2006
The Pale Horseman
The Pale Horseman by Bernard Cornwell
Category: Historical Fiction Grade: C+
In this sequel to The Last Kingdom, Cornwell continues the story that takes place during the reign of Alfred the Great in 9th century England. This is a time when the Danes had invaded and established a major foothold, slowly driving out the Saxons who had previously defeated the Britons. The story focuses on Uhtred, the warrior from Northumbria, who had been captured by and later befriended by the Danes. Its left to Uhtred to decide whose side he's really on as Alfred prepares to attempt the retaking of the kingdom.
This is definitely the England of Camelot as seen in the movies. Being more realistic, its the tale of filth, blood, petty rivalries, witchcraft and pagan religions. Unfortunately, this book also doesn't have the style and intensity of Cornwell's terrific Arthurian trilogy. Don't know whether Cornwell is trying to knock out best sellers or whether he's losing some of his abilities, but, frankly, the writing is pretty juvenile. I did finish the book because the story is reasonably interesting and, in fact, I'll probably buy the third volume of this trilogy when it comes out, but it'll be more out of curiosity about how the story ends than a desire to read a really great book.
If you're in to this period of history or you read The Last Kingdom and want to get on with the story, you'll probably pick this one up no matter I say. For the rest of you -- there's better stuff out there.
Category: Historical Fiction Grade: C+
In this sequel to The Last Kingdom, Cornwell continues the story that takes place during the reign of Alfred the Great in 9th century England. This is a time when the Danes had invaded and established a major foothold, slowly driving out the Saxons who had previously defeated the Britons. The story focuses on Uhtred, the warrior from Northumbria, who had been captured by and later befriended by the Danes. Its left to Uhtred to decide whose side he's really on as Alfred prepares to attempt the retaking of the kingdom.
This is definitely the England of Camelot as seen in the movies. Being more realistic, its the tale of filth, blood, petty rivalries, witchcraft and pagan religions. Unfortunately, this book also doesn't have the style and intensity of Cornwell's terrific Arthurian trilogy. Don't know whether Cornwell is trying to knock out best sellers or whether he's losing some of his abilities, but, frankly, the writing is pretty juvenile. I did finish the book because the story is reasonably interesting and, in fact, I'll probably buy the third volume of this trilogy when it comes out, but it'll be more out of curiosity about how the story ends than a desire to read a really great book.
If you're in to this period of history or you read The Last Kingdom and want to get on with the story, you'll probably pick this one up no matter I say. For the rest of you -- there's better stuff out there.
Team of Rivals
Team of Rival by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Category: History/Biography My grade: B+
I haven't read much about the Civil War. My experience has been that most Civil War books, both fiction and non-fiction, are heavily battle oriented. They're bloody, intense and, with the constant descriptions of battle details, they can, frankly, get kind of boring. Most recently, I tried reading Doctorow's book The March about Sherman and couldn't get past the first 20 or 30 pages.
Goodwin's Team of Rivals has made a good start on changing my level of interest in this period of history. Her focus is on Lincoln and his cabinet - a cabinet whose core members were the people who Lincoln beat out for the 1860 Republican nomination for President. It was a totally unexpected move on Lincoln's part - to bring his rivals in to his administration. (Side note -- this political strategy popped up in fiction again last week on the TV show West Wing when Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) named his Republican opponent Secretary of State - interesting.). Goodwin spends more time writing about the people and their interaction than she does about the events of the day. As an example, the Gettysburg Address and how it came to be takes almost 10 pages while the Battle of Gettysburg takes less than a page.
With the main focus on Lincoln and his four top cabinet members - Seward at State, Chase at Treasury, Stanton at War and Bates as Attorney General - Goodwin has some terrific characters to work with. The cabinet mixed radical abolitionists with very conservative politicians. Lincoln emerges as the master manager of people and politics. His homespun wasy really hid a brilliant political mind that understood in the miniscule details of getting elected and getting new and potentially radical changes accepted not only by Congress but by the people as well.
Of course, the major issue of the time was slavery. The major surprise of the book to me was the level, at least early in his career, Lincoln avoided the issue of abolition. While he appears to have morally opposed slavery, politically he believed strongly that the Constitution supported the right of the Southern states to continue the institution. He fought the extension of slavery in to new states but, before the Civil War, never proposed abolition in the South. His initial rational for the Emancipation Proclamation was military, not moral. The Proclamation freed the slaves only the rebellious states of the South. His theory was that, by freeing the southern slaves, he would force southern soldiers to perform the "grunt" work being done by the slaves - cooking, packing, hauling - or, in the best scenario, would force many soldiers to return to their homes since they no longer anyone to bring in the crops. Lincoln believed that his constitutional powers to wage war trumped the constitional right to hold slaves! It was only later in the war that the increasingly radicalized Lincoln made complete emancipation (by constitutional ammendment) a condition of the reentry of the southern states in to the Union.
These, to me, are the interesting insights of this period. Goodwin writes in great detail about these kinds of issues. For example, she spends much more time on the politics of changing generals in the Union army than on the battles that were won and lost. She also spends a lot of time telling the fascinating stories of some of the women of the period - Mary Lincoln, Seward's abolitionist wife Frances and Chase's society daughter, Kate.
I really enjoyed this one. It would have gotten an "A" in the new grading system except for a couple of things. First, its a major project coming in at about 800 pages not counting notes and references. Secondly, Goodwin has a habit of giving us way to much detail about the lives of people that never show up in her history again.
Those fairly minor quibbles aside, I recommend this one to all the history buffs out there.
Category: History/Biography My grade: B+
I haven't read much about the Civil War. My experience has been that most Civil War books, both fiction and non-fiction, are heavily battle oriented. They're bloody, intense and, with the constant descriptions of battle details, they can, frankly, get kind of boring. Most recently, I tried reading Doctorow's book The March about Sherman and couldn't get past the first 20 or 30 pages.
Goodwin's Team of Rivals has made a good start on changing my level of interest in this period of history. Her focus is on Lincoln and his cabinet - a cabinet whose core members were the people who Lincoln beat out for the 1860 Republican nomination for President. It was a totally unexpected move on Lincoln's part - to bring his rivals in to his administration. (Side note -- this political strategy popped up in fiction again last week on the TV show West Wing when Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) named his Republican opponent Secretary of State - interesting.). Goodwin spends more time writing about the people and their interaction than she does about the events of the day. As an example, the Gettysburg Address and how it came to be takes almost 10 pages while the Battle of Gettysburg takes less than a page.
With the main focus on Lincoln and his four top cabinet members - Seward at State, Chase at Treasury, Stanton at War and Bates as Attorney General - Goodwin has some terrific characters to work with. The cabinet mixed radical abolitionists with very conservative politicians. Lincoln emerges as the master manager of people and politics. His homespun wasy really hid a brilliant political mind that understood in the miniscule details of getting elected and getting new and potentially radical changes accepted not only by Congress but by the people as well.
Of course, the major issue of the time was slavery. The major surprise of the book to me was the level, at least early in his career, Lincoln avoided the issue of abolition. While he appears to have morally opposed slavery, politically he believed strongly that the Constitution supported the right of the Southern states to continue the institution. He fought the extension of slavery in to new states but, before the Civil War, never proposed abolition in the South. His initial rational for the Emancipation Proclamation was military, not moral. The Proclamation freed the slaves only the rebellious states of the South. His theory was that, by freeing the southern slaves, he would force southern soldiers to perform the "grunt" work being done by the slaves - cooking, packing, hauling - or, in the best scenario, would force many soldiers to return to their homes since they no longer anyone to bring in the crops. Lincoln believed that his constitutional powers to wage war trumped the constitional right to hold slaves! It was only later in the war that the increasingly radicalized Lincoln made complete emancipation (by constitutional ammendment) a condition of the reentry of the southern states in to the Union.
These, to me, are the interesting insights of this period. Goodwin writes in great detail about these kinds of issues. For example, she spends much more time on the politics of changing generals in the Union army than on the battles that were won and lost. She also spends a lot of time telling the fascinating stories of some of the women of the period - Mary Lincoln, Seward's abolitionist wife Frances and Chase's society daughter, Kate.
I really enjoyed this one. It would have gotten an "A" in the new grading system except for a couple of things. First, its a major project coming in at about 800 pages not counting notes and references. Secondly, Goodwin has a habit of giving us way to much detail about the lives of people that never show up in her history again.
Those fairly minor quibbles aside, I recommend this one to all the history buffs out there.
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