Capital Crimes by Jonathan & Faye Kellerman
Category: Crime Short Fiction Grade: C+
I really wish these two would stop this. The Kellermans are a husband and wife team who write mysteries separately and together. Separately, their books are great. Her's feature Rina and Peter Decker - she's a lifelong Orthodox Jew and he's an LAPD detective who, as a young adult, learned he had been adopted from an Orthodox family and is trying to reset his roots. Jonathan's books feature Alex Delaware, a psychologist who works with the LAPD. Their books are almost always enjoyable - fast paced, interestingly plotted, great character development.
This is the second time they've tried to write a book together and it hasn't really worked either time. The problem isn't, I don't think, that they can't work together. Rather, the problem is that, both times, they've tried to write two novellas instead of one novel. They write pretty low density work -- lots of dialog; short paragraphs. In addition, with both of them, character development is always at least as important as plot progression. They haven't given up either low density or characters in the new book (Decker and Delaware even make appearances). Unfortunately, what suffers is the plot progression. They don't seem to have adjusted their plotting to the shorter format. They start with interesting stories and then spend a lot of time letting us get to know the detectives involved and a few of the key characters. The problem is they get lost in this. Its like, in each of the novellas, they got about 125 pages in and realized that, unlike their novels, they were almost out of space! In both stories, they drop an artificial and abrupt solution on the crime. In both cases, the murderer turns out to be someone we didn't get to know at all.
I'll keep reading their individual novels and I'll probably even keeping trying their short format work to see if they get it right. I just wish they'd try collaborating on a full length novel - I think it could be good. This book isn't.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Accelerando
Accelerando by Charles Stross
Category: SciFi Grade: B
This is the geekiest book I've read in years. It's part of sub-genre of SciFi called CyberPunk - an arena that was kicked off by incredible book years ago called Neuromancer by William Gibson. The key element to the genre is so-called "augmented" humans - people who have been enhanced with computer technology to improve their ability to remember, think and communicated (hence the "cyber"). The entire book is in geek-speak. E.g. early in the book, instead of eating breakfast, the main character "mechanically assimilates a bowl of cornflakes". See what I mean?
So bottom line -- I can't imagine there's more than one or two of you out there reading this who will put up with this for more than a few pages. And its kind of a shame because its not a half bad book. If you've been following this blog for a while, you might remember me talking about a book called The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil. That was a non-fiction speculation about the convergence of various technologies in the coming century that would increasingly blur the lines between "natural" and artificial intelligence. Its fascinating and scary stuff and will pit our grandchildren and their children up against decisions about what constitutes human.
Accelerando is a fictional (and sometimes comical) treatment of the same subject. It's spans the first three or four centuries ahead of us. Fairly near term, the human race as invented the ability to add external improvements to their mental ability (not far fetched and not too far down the road). Once this starts, you quickly end up with two classes of humans - augmented and unaugmented. In almost any field, the augmented humans outperform their less capable brothers and sisters because they can think orders of magnitude faster. Of course, we're in to slippery slope territory here and, what comes with augmentation is the ability to back up, copy and continually enhance our "selves". It addresses issues like - what happens if I go star traveling and, while I'm gone, a copy of "me" runs in to debt or gets in to trouble. What's my responsibility when I get back?
You can see that the story is going to get very twisted. Between the complex story line and the geeky language, its very hard to follow but, in the end, worth it. I can't imagine any of you will read this and its a shame.
Category: SciFi Grade: B
This is the geekiest book I've read in years. It's part of sub-genre of SciFi called CyberPunk - an arena that was kicked off by incredible book years ago called Neuromancer by William Gibson. The key element to the genre is so-called "augmented" humans - people who have been enhanced with computer technology to improve their ability to remember, think and communicated (hence the "cyber"). The entire book is in geek-speak. E.g. early in the book, instead of eating breakfast, the main character "mechanically assimilates a bowl of cornflakes". See what I mean?
So bottom line -- I can't imagine there's more than one or two of you out there reading this who will put up with this for more than a few pages. And its kind of a shame because its not a half bad book. If you've been following this blog for a while, you might remember me talking about a book called The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil. That was a non-fiction speculation about the convergence of various technologies in the coming century that would increasingly blur the lines between "natural" and artificial intelligence. Its fascinating and scary stuff and will pit our grandchildren and their children up against decisions about what constitutes human.
Accelerando is a fictional (and sometimes comical) treatment of the same subject. It's spans the first three or four centuries ahead of us. Fairly near term, the human race as invented the ability to add external improvements to their mental ability (not far fetched and not too far down the road). Once this starts, you quickly end up with two classes of humans - augmented and unaugmented. In almost any field, the augmented humans outperform their less capable brothers and sisters because they can think orders of magnitude faster. Of course, we're in to slippery slope territory here and, what comes with augmentation is the ability to back up, copy and continually enhance our "selves". It addresses issues like - what happens if I go star traveling and, while I'm gone, a copy of "me" runs in to debt or gets in to trouble. What's my responsibility when I get back?
You can see that the story is going to get very twisted. Between the complex story line and the geeky language, its very hard to follow but, in the end, worth it. I can't imagine any of you will read this and its a shame.
Friday, April 06, 2007
TV - Planet Earth
Planet Earth on The Discover Channel
Category: Nature Documentary Grade: A+
I don't write about television shows much. That's really because most of the TV I watch is just junk. For the most part, I watch TV to be entertained, not educated. (Although, as an aside, if Sanjaya wins American Idol and Frankie wins The Apprentice, I'll probably give up on reality TV).
Once in a while, however, a show comes along that is so stunning that I've just got to tell people about it. Discovery's Planet Earth could easily be the most amazing TV show I've ever seen. I know what you're thinking -- what could be more boring than a "nature" show. Well, you're wrong. To make this series of eleven episodes, the crew used incredible, state of the art and beyond equipment including satellite imaging, gyro-stabilized cameras on helicopters and balloons, amazing long distance photographic equipment with everything filmed in high-definition. Most amazingly, the crew had vast amounts of patience sometimes sitting in barely tolerable conditions for weeks just to get a few seconds of video.
There are things in this series that, at least according to the narrator, have never been filmed before -- a snow leopard on the hunt, birds of paradise up close, a polar bear and her cubs as they break out of their hibernation cave. But even things that are familiar become mind-boggling in the detail that's shown. You really spend most of the hour with your mouth hanging open. Each episode focuses on a particular type of habitat. So far we've watched Deep Ocean, Mountains and Pole to Pole. Every time you think you've seen the ultimate, they throw something even better. These shows are likely to end up with their own section of our recorder permanently so we can watch them over and over.
One of the interesting things they've done - the shows are just over 45 minutes apiece. Each is then following by a brief "making of" documentary, also in HD. Seeing what the crew went through, the technology they had to use and exhilaration they felt when the "got the shot" is fascinating.
Two warnings about this series:
Category: Nature Documentary Grade: A+
I don't write about television shows much. That's really because most of the TV I watch is just junk. For the most part, I watch TV to be entertained, not educated. (Although, as an aside, if Sanjaya wins American Idol and Frankie wins The Apprentice, I'll probably give up on reality TV).
Once in a while, however, a show comes along that is so stunning that I've just got to tell people about it. Discovery's Planet Earth could easily be the most amazing TV show I've ever seen. I know what you're thinking -- what could be more boring than a "nature" show. Well, you're wrong. To make this series of eleven episodes, the crew used incredible, state of the art and beyond equipment including satellite imaging, gyro-stabilized cameras on helicopters and balloons, amazing long distance photographic equipment with everything filmed in high-definition. Most amazingly, the crew had vast amounts of patience sometimes sitting in barely tolerable conditions for weeks just to get a few seconds of video.
There are things in this series that, at least according to the narrator, have never been filmed before -- a snow leopard on the hunt, birds of paradise up close, a polar bear and her cubs as they break out of their hibernation cave. But even things that are familiar become mind-boggling in the detail that's shown. You really spend most of the hour with your mouth hanging open. Each episode focuses on a particular type of habitat. So far we've watched Deep Ocean, Mountains and Pole to Pole. Every time you think you've seen the ultimate, they throw something even better. These shows are likely to end up with their own section of our recorder permanently so we can watch them over and over.
One of the interesting things they've done - the shows are just over 45 minutes apiece. Each is then following by a brief "making of" documentary, also in HD. Seeing what the crew went through, the technology they had to use and exhilaration they felt when the "got the shot" is fascinating.
Two warnings about this series:
- They're probably not suitable for small children. This is raw nature programming so, while there's not a lot of gore, there's a lot of predators going after their prey. I hate for kids not to see this but, watch it first before you show it to them.
- If you don't already have high-def, I hesitate to recommend this. Its probably still gorgeous in standard-def, but this is the kind of programming that high-def was made for. You may find yourself heading to Best Buy to upgrade!
Infamous Scribblers
Infamous Scribblers by Eric Burns
Category: History Grade: B
With so much discussion today about the political leanings of the press, its helpful to realize that the concept of an unbiased press is really a pretty recent one. This book, whose subtitle is "The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism", makes it pretty clear that, during the time of the Revolutionary War, impartial journalists were a breed that just didn't exist. It also makes clear that, in service to a cause, journalists of this period didn't care much about things like fairness, political correctness, independence or even, in many cases, truth.
Some of the worst offenders are some of the most well known names of the period. While Benjamin Franklin himself seems to have been opinionated but honest in his writings, his older brother and his grandson never let truth stand in the way of making a point. Among the worst, however, was Samuel Adams - one of the strongest of the Sons of Liberty and absolutely vitriolic in print. He went after his targets with a vengeance and, when he didn't have things to say that made them look bad, he just made things up.
Interestingly, one of the most venerated founding fathers was also one of the most underhanded when it came to using the press for political purposes. Thomas Jefferson not only secretly funded a republican newspaper, he gave the editor a no-show federal job to help make ends meet and then lied about his involvement, denying it until his death. He wasn't alone among the politicians of the day. Many of them, including Hamilton, Madison and even Adams, were prone to funneling information to the press and even directly writing for publication under pseudonyms. In public, Washington was just about the only one above the fray but, in his private correspondence, he was vocal about the press. In fact, the title of this book Infamous Scribblers came from a letter written by Washington.
The books reasonably well written and, if you like reading history about this period, I'd recommend it.
Category: History Grade: B
With so much discussion today about the political leanings of the press, its helpful to realize that the concept of an unbiased press is really a pretty recent one. This book, whose subtitle is "The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism", makes it pretty clear that, during the time of the Revolutionary War, impartial journalists were a breed that just didn't exist. It also makes clear that, in service to a cause, journalists of this period didn't care much about things like fairness, political correctness, independence or even, in many cases, truth.
Some of the worst offenders are some of the most well known names of the period. While Benjamin Franklin himself seems to have been opinionated but honest in his writings, his older brother and his grandson never let truth stand in the way of making a point. Among the worst, however, was Samuel Adams - one of the strongest of the Sons of Liberty and absolutely vitriolic in print. He went after his targets with a vengeance and, when he didn't have things to say that made them look bad, he just made things up.
Interestingly, one of the most venerated founding fathers was also one of the most underhanded when it came to using the press for political purposes. Thomas Jefferson not only secretly funded a republican newspaper, he gave the editor a no-show federal job to help make ends meet and then lied about his involvement, denying it until his death. He wasn't alone among the politicians of the day. Many of them, including Hamilton, Madison and even Adams, were prone to funneling information to the press and even directly writing for publication under pseudonyms. In public, Washington was just about the only one above the fray but, in his private correspondence, he was vocal about the press. In fact, the title of this book Infamous Scribblers came from a letter written by Washington.
The books reasonably well written and, if you like reading history about this period, I'd recommend it.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Category: YA Novel Grade: B
Back to the Young Adult category. This is a very popular book right now and is in the process of being made in to a movie. Its a fairly simple story about a boy living in the back passageways of a railroad station who befriends a man named Melies, a real life film maker in the late 19th century who, supposedly, has become something of a hermit operating a toy shop in the railroad station. (Side note - Melies most famous image - one of the first to show the fantasy possibilities of film - was a segment of film where a rocket lands in the eye of the "man in the moon").
What Selznick has done is to produce a book that is half way between a novel and a graphic novel. The intimidating size of the book (almost two inches thick) doesn't affect the reading since almost two thirds of the pages contain hand draw pictures. The pictures are definitely cinematic -- they are sequential views of scenes that tie the text together. Interestingly, the pictures are part of the story, rather than illustrations of the story.
Without the pictures, this would have been a forgettable book. With the pictures it was interesting way to pass a couple of hours. Highly recommended for the 10-14 year old reader.
Category: YA Novel Grade: B
Back to the Young Adult category. This is a very popular book right now and is in the process of being made in to a movie. Its a fairly simple story about a boy living in the back passageways of a railroad station who befriends a man named Melies, a real life film maker in the late 19th century who, supposedly, has become something of a hermit operating a toy shop in the railroad station. (Side note - Melies most famous image - one of the first to show the fantasy possibilities of film - was a segment of film where a rocket lands in the eye of the "man in the moon").
What Selznick has done is to produce a book that is half way between a novel and a graphic novel. The intimidating size of the book (almost two inches thick) doesn't affect the reading since almost two thirds of the pages contain hand draw pictures. The pictures are definitely cinematic -- they are sequential views of scenes that tie the text together. Interestingly, the pictures are part of the story, rather than illustrations of the story.
Without the pictures, this would have been a forgettable book. With the pictures it was interesting way to pass a couple of hours. Highly recommended for the 10-14 year old reader.
Helen of Troy
Helen of Troy by Margaret George
Category: Biographical Novel Grade: B
Margaret George is, without a doubt, the best biographical novelist out there. Her books are typically huge - 800 page plus and really bring her subjects to life. She's done masterful jobs on Henry the VIII, Mary Queen of Scots, Cleopatra and, most recently, Mary Magdelen. Her research is impeccable and the books are all readable immersions in the life and times of her subject.
Her latest, though, is a little bit of an odd duck. Fortunately, Helen of Troy is as well written and, in many ways, as entertaining as her previous books. The problem (which she discusses herself in an author's note at the end) is that Helen of Troy is more a mythical, than a historical person. There's no strong evidence that these stories, portrayed so vividly in the Iliad and the Odyssey, actually happened. In addition, these stories, which George is retelling, contain a lot of material that relate to the interaction between the gods of the day and the mortals in the story. George faced the decision of whether to pitch this story as a complex story about people - Helen, Achilles, Odysseus, Menelaus, Paris and other's familiar to anybody who has studied the classics - or to more closely reflect Homer's world of active gods. George chose to fall somewhere in the middle, but Zeus, Aphrodite and all their cohorts do play a visible roll in the book. Ultimately, what you end up with is book that can't quite decide whether its a history or a fantasy. For this reason, I don't think this book measures up to her past efforts. However, if you enjoy reading about this period of time, and you can't bring yourself to tackle Homer, it's still a good book.
Category: Biographical Novel Grade: B
Margaret George is, without a doubt, the best biographical novelist out there. Her books are typically huge - 800 page plus and really bring her subjects to life. She's done masterful jobs on Henry the VIII, Mary Queen of Scots, Cleopatra and, most recently, Mary Magdelen. Her research is impeccable and the books are all readable immersions in the life and times of her subject.
Her latest, though, is a little bit of an odd duck. Fortunately, Helen of Troy is as well written and, in many ways, as entertaining as her previous books. The problem (which she discusses herself in an author's note at the end) is that Helen of Troy is more a mythical, than a historical person. There's no strong evidence that these stories, portrayed so vividly in the Iliad and the Odyssey, actually happened. In addition, these stories, which George is retelling, contain a lot of material that relate to the interaction between the gods of the day and the mortals in the story. George faced the decision of whether to pitch this story as a complex story about people - Helen, Achilles, Odysseus, Menelaus, Paris and other's familiar to anybody who has studied the classics - or to more closely reflect Homer's world of active gods. George chose to fall somewhere in the middle, but Zeus, Aphrodite and all their cohorts do play a visible roll in the book. Ultimately, what you end up with is book that can't quite decide whether its a history or a fantasy. For this reason, I don't think this book measures up to her past efforts. However, if you enjoy reading about this period of time, and you can't bring yourself to tackle Homer, it's still a good book.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Jokes My Father Never Taught Me
Jokes My Father Never Taught Me by Rain Pryor
Category: Memoir Grade: D
Rain Pryor is the half-black, half-Jewish daughter of Richard Pryor. You'd think that'd be interesting ground to cover. Unfortunately, it isn't. There's almost nothing here that isn't well known about Pryor and, frankly, Rain isn't terribly interesting. In addition, she's a pretty run-of-the-mill writer. Skip this one.
Category: Memoir Grade: D
Rain Pryor is the half-black, half-Jewish daughter of Richard Pryor. You'd think that'd be interesting ground to cover. Unfortunately, it isn't. There's almost nothing here that isn't well known about Pryor and, frankly, Rain isn't terribly interesting. In addition, she's a pretty run-of-the-mill writer. Skip this one.
You Suck - A Love Story
You Suck - A Love Story byt Christopher Moore
Category: Comic Novel Grade: B+
Just a brief review of this since, if you're not a Christopher Moore fan, you probably won't be interested. This is actually a sequel to his previous comic vampire novel, Bloodsucking Fiends. I know the titles are terrible, but the books are really funny. This continues the story of Thomas C. Flood, the former leader of the vampire-hunting night crew from the grocery store where he used to work. Since the last book, Thomas's girlfriend, Jody has turned Thomas in to a vampire and the two of them are now out to find some minion's since somebody has to do the day time work.
I know it sounds really stupid and, basically, it is. But its a short easy read that'll have you laughing out loud. Not Moore's best (that's position still held by The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove), but good for a laugh.
Category: Comic Novel Grade: B+
Just a brief review of this since, if you're not a Christopher Moore fan, you probably won't be interested. This is actually a sequel to his previous comic vampire novel, Bloodsucking Fiends. I know the titles are terrible, but the books are really funny. This continues the story of Thomas C. Flood, the former leader of the vampire-hunting night crew from the grocery store where he used to work. Since the last book, Thomas's girlfriend, Jody has turned Thomas in to a vampire and the two of them are now out to find some minion's since somebody has to do the day time work.
I know it sounds really stupid and, basically, it is. But its a short easy read that'll have you laughing out loud. Not Moore's best (that's position still held by The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove), but good for a laugh.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Exile
Exile by Richard North Patterson
Category: Novel Grade: A
When I was in junior high, we studied Texas history. I've read a lot since then about the early days in Texas and about the Alamo, San Jacinto, William Travis, Sam Houston, Davey Crockett and the other heroes of the War of Independence from Mexico. Back to junior high, I remember coming home one day and Mom asked me what we had studied that day. I was excited about the stories of the revolution. Mom got kind of a funny look on her face. You see, she grew up in Mexico and, to her, having received her early education in Mexico, the revolution I was so proud of was a rebellion; the heroes I thought were so cool were criminals, even terrorists. This was my first introduction to perspective as a major part of history. Usually, only the winner's perspective survives to become history, but widely different perspectives can create huge difficulties in trying to solve the world's problems.
And so, we come to Exile, Patterson's latest book. Let's dispose of the easy part first. Patterson is a great writer of what I'd call political thrillers. I've enjoyed every one of his books and this one is no exception. As a storyteller, he's terrific. This book is well paced, covers a lot of ground and has enough twists to keep you glued. Purely as a novel, I'd recommend this book.
A brief plot summary - the primary character in the book is David Wolfe, a well connected, Harvard-educated lawyer in San Francisco who is on track to enter politics within a few years and who, before ever running for anything, is already being talked about as possibly the first Jewish President. He's engaged to Carole, the socialite and politically active daughter of a Holocaust survivor with whom David has also become close. The skeleton in David's closet is a law-school affair with a beautiful Palestinian woman, but that's been over for almost 15 years. Carole and David host a small dinner for the visiting Israeli Prime Minister - a man who is the main backer behind striking a "land-for-peace" deal with the Palestinians. The day after the dinner, the PM is assassinated in a suicide bombing in the streets of San Francisco. A few days later, Hana, David's law-school paramour, is charged with complicity and David ends up representing her, effectively ending his political career. All of this takes place in the first 10% of this book so I haven't given away much that you couldn't get from the jacket cover.
To this point, it looks like Patterson has a good shot at bringing home another of his interesting, but not terribly important books. It'll sell well and everybody will love it. However, Patterson is looking for more this time. He's done painstaking research on the issues of the Middle East, traveling throughout the region and, obviously, listening closely to everybody who would talk to him. And here we get back to my junior high lesson on perspective -- we learn pretty definitively that common perspective is something that just doesn't exist there. The obvious variances are between the Israelis and the rest of the region, but what we see here is also the wide differences within the communities that make achieving a lasting peace so difficult. Both sides have groups that see the need to accommodate each other -- among the Palestinians there are those who are willing, supposedly, to leave Israel in peace if granted a country of their own; in Israel there are those who are, supposedly, willing to accommodate a dual state solution in order to secure Israel's borders. However, both sides also have the "God's will" groups - in Palestine, groups like Hamas, whose goals are built around the destruction of Israel, while in Israel, the right-wing groups that believe that God granted "Greater Israel" to the Jewish people and the needs of the Palestinians are irrelevant to that right.
What makes Patterson's book so affecting is that, rather than preach at the reader, Patterson sends his protagonist to listen and let's the reader overhear. By doing so, he personalizes all of the various perspectives. He listens to Israeli's who have lost loved ones to suicide bombers. He listens to Palestinians who have known no life outside of a refugee camp. He listens to settlers who will fight before they will abandon homes they believe are gifts from God. He listens to terrorists who believe they are fighting an occupying army. Frankly, it leaves the reader with very little hope of seeing a Middle East peace in our lifetimes.
I almost never use quotes from the books I talk about, but I'm going to here. Fairly late in the book, David is meeting with one of his Israeli contacts and summarizes what he's learned:
Category: Novel Grade: A
When I was in junior high, we studied Texas history. I've read a lot since then about the early days in Texas and about the Alamo, San Jacinto, William Travis, Sam Houston, Davey Crockett and the other heroes of the War of Independence from Mexico. Back to junior high, I remember coming home one day and Mom asked me what we had studied that day. I was excited about the stories of the revolution. Mom got kind of a funny look on her face. You see, she grew up in Mexico and, to her, having received her early education in Mexico, the revolution I was so proud of was a rebellion; the heroes I thought were so cool were criminals, even terrorists. This was my first introduction to perspective as a major part of history. Usually, only the winner's perspective survives to become history, but widely different perspectives can create huge difficulties in trying to solve the world's problems.
And so, we come to Exile, Patterson's latest book. Let's dispose of the easy part first. Patterson is a great writer of what I'd call political thrillers. I've enjoyed every one of his books and this one is no exception. As a storyteller, he's terrific. This book is well paced, covers a lot of ground and has enough twists to keep you glued. Purely as a novel, I'd recommend this book.
A brief plot summary - the primary character in the book is David Wolfe, a well connected, Harvard-educated lawyer in San Francisco who is on track to enter politics within a few years and who, before ever running for anything, is already being talked about as possibly the first Jewish President. He's engaged to Carole, the socialite and politically active daughter of a Holocaust survivor with whom David has also become close. The skeleton in David's closet is a law-school affair with a beautiful Palestinian woman, but that's been over for almost 15 years. Carole and David host a small dinner for the visiting Israeli Prime Minister - a man who is the main backer behind striking a "land-for-peace" deal with the Palestinians. The day after the dinner, the PM is assassinated in a suicide bombing in the streets of San Francisco. A few days later, Hana, David's law-school paramour, is charged with complicity and David ends up representing her, effectively ending his political career. All of this takes place in the first 10% of this book so I haven't given away much that you couldn't get from the jacket cover.
To this point, it looks like Patterson has a good shot at bringing home another of his interesting, but not terribly important books. It'll sell well and everybody will love it. However, Patterson is looking for more this time. He's done painstaking research on the issues of the Middle East, traveling throughout the region and, obviously, listening closely to everybody who would talk to him. And here we get back to my junior high lesson on perspective -- we learn pretty definitively that common perspective is something that just doesn't exist there. The obvious variances are between the Israelis and the rest of the region, but what we see here is also the wide differences within the communities that make achieving a lasting peace so difficult. Both sides have groups that see the need to accommodate each other -- among the Palestinians there are those who are willing, supposedly, to leave Israel in peace if granted a country of their own; in Israel there are those who are, supposedly, willing to accommodate a dual state solution in order to secure Israel's borders. However, both sides also have the "God's will" groups - in Palestine, groups like Hamas, whose goals are built around the destruction of Israel, while in Israel, the right-wing groups that believe that God granted "Greater Israel" to the Jewish people and the needs of the Palestinians are irrelevant to that right.
What makes Patterson's book so affecting is that, rather than preach at the reader, Patterson sends his protagonist to listen and let's the reader overhear. By doing so, he personalizes all of the various perspectives. He listens to Israeli's who have lost loved ones to suicide bombers. He listens to Palestinians who have known no life outside of a refugee camp. He listens to settlers who will fight before they will abandon homes they believe are gifts from God. He listens to terrorists who believe they are fighting an occupying army. Frankly, it leaves the reader with very little hope of seeing a Middle East peace in our lifetimes.
I almost never use quotes from the books I talk about, but I'm going to here. Fairly late in the book, David is meeting with one of his Israeli contacts and summarizes what he's learned:
- "You know what amazes me, Zev? It's that so many Jews and Palestinians don't give a damn about one another's stories. Too many Palestinians don't grasp why three thousand years of death and persecution makes Jews want their own homeland, or how suicide bombings alienate Jews and extend the occupation. Too many Jews refuse to acknowledge their role in the misery of Palestinians since 1948, or that the daily toll of occupation helps fuel more hatred and violence. So both become cliches: Jews are victims and oppressors; Palestinians are victims and terrorists. And the cycle of death rolls on."
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty
Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty by Tim Sandlin
Category: Novel Grade: C+
Great premise for a book. The year is 2022 and the action takes place in Mission Pescadero, a retirement home. If you do the math, you'll see that the residents are, well, me and my fellow baby boomers. Since its California, there's a real mix of people all divided up by what they were up to the 60s. There's the Haight-Ashbury table (peace and love), the Haight-Ashbury table (drugs and revolution), the Berkeley table, the mid-West table, ... You get the drift. Even though the folks are "getting on in years", there's still lots of sex, drugs and rock and roll.
And, of course, there's "the man" - in this case, Alexandra, the director, who wants to keep everything quiet and controlled and will send any unruly resident, "through the tunnel" to the Nursing Care wing, where they are drugged in to oblivion. And there's "the pig" - in the case, Cyrus Monk, a local police lieutenant who believe his Vietnam vet father was driven to suicide by the hippies, represented in force by the residents of Pescadero. There's the inevitable revolution and takeover, the inevitable LSD spiked punch, the inevitable...
You get the picture -- pretty predictable. I had high hopes for this and it wasn't terrible. Just wasn't particularly good either.
Category: Novel Grade: C+
Great premise for a book. The year is 2022 and the action takes place in Mission Pescadero, a retirement home. If you do the math, you'll see that the residents are, well, me and my fellow baby boomers. Since its California, there's a real mix of people all divided up by what they were up to the 60s. There's the Haight-Ashbury table (peace and love), the Haight-Ashbury table (drugs and revolution), the Berkeley table, the mid-West table, ... You get the drift. Even though the folks are "getting on in years", there's still lots of sex, drugs and rock and roll.
And, of course, there's "the man" - in this case, Alexandra, the director, who wants to keep everything quiet and controlled and will send any unruly resident, "through the tunnel" to the Nursing Care wing, where they are drugged in to oblivion. And there's "the pig" - in the case, Cyrus Monk, a local police lieutenant who believe his Vietnam vet father was driven to suicide by the hippies, represented in force by the residents of Pescadero. There's the inevitable revolution and takeover, the inevitable LSD spiked punch, the inevitable...
You get the picture -- pretty predictable. I had high hopes for this and it wasn't terrible. Just wasn't particularly good either.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
House of Rain
House of Rain by Craig Childs
Category: History (sort of) Grade: A-
Childs has really written three different books in putting House of Rain together. Two of them are implied in the book's subtitle - "Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest" - while the third is sort of a side effect.
The first book - the one that caused me to buy the biij - is about the Anasazi. For those of you who aren't up on your Native American history, the Anasazi were a civilization of cliff dwellers in the southwest -- southern Colorado and northern New Mexico/Arizona. Legend has it that, one day in the 15th century, the entire people just disappeared. Its been a major area of research by archaeologists in that part of the world. Its hard not to be stunned when you seen these incredible constructs. Probably the most well known is in Mesa Verde in southwest Colorado, but these amazing little cities, or at least their ruins, appear all over the place. Its not completely clear what the cliff dwellings were used for - living space, defensive installations, religious sites or, most likely, a combination of all the above. Childs, in this book, ends up talking to lots of prominent archaeologists, and gets many theories on the table of what happened. What comes out is a picture of a migratory people who moved back and forth across the landscape and, seemingly, ended up heading further and further south, mostly as a result of drought. It remains a mystery, but probably not the cut-and-dried "disappearance" that is the popular story.
The second book - the side-effect book - tells the story of the methods that the archaeologists use to do their research. In a lot of ways, this was the most interesting of the three books. Its amazing what can be gleaned (guessed?) by looking at the design and decoration of pottery. Practical stuff carries a very different message than ornamental (and, therefore, probably religious). By tracking, where pieces of pottery show up and when, archaeologists can get a pretty good picture of migration patterns of various peoples. Other techniques that I found especially interesting:
If you have any interest in Native history, archeology, early civilizations or just good writing, this is a book you might enjoy.
Category: History (sort of) Grade: A-
Childs has really written three different books in putting House of Rain together. Two of them are implied in the book's subtitle - "Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest" - while the third is sort of a side effect.
The first book - the one that caused me to buy the biij - is about the Anasazi. For those of you who aren't up on your Native American history, the Anasazi were a civilization of cliff dwellers in the southwest -- southern Colorado and northern New Mexico/Arizona. Legend has it that, one day in the 15th century, the entire people just disappeared. Its been a major area of research by archaeologists in that part of the world. Its hard not to be stunned when you seen these incredible constructs. Probably the most well known is in Mesa Verde in southwest Colorado, but these amazing little cities, or at least their ruins, appear all over the place. Its not completely clear what the cliff dwellings were used for - living space, defensive installations, religious sites or, most likely, a combination of all the above. Childs, in this book, ends up talking to lots of prominent archaeologists, and gets many theories on the table of what happened. What comes out is a picture of a migratory people who moved back and forth across the landscape and, seemingly, ended up heading further and further south, mostly as a result of drought. It remains a mystery, but probably not the cut-and-dried "disappearance" that is the popular story.
The second book - the side-effect book - tells the story of the methods that the archaeologists use to do their research. In a lot of ways, this was the most interesting of the three books. Its amazing what can be gleaned (guessed?) by looking at the design and decoration of pottery. Practical stuff carries a very different message than ornamental (and, therefore, probably religious). By tracking, where pieces of pottery show up and when, archaeologists can get a pretty good picture of migration patterns of various peoples. Other techniques that I found especially interesting:
- by taking a core sample of wooden pillars and beams, scientists can analyze the rings from the source trees and use them to provide pretty good accuracy as to when the construction took place.
- in one of my favorites, scientists take advantage of the fact that isotopes in teeth are deposited as the teeth are created, but isotopes in bones turn over about once a decade. By using the teeth and bones found in ruins, scientists can identify where people were born (teeth) and where they migrated to (bones) - again providing a method for tracking migration
If you have any interest in Native history, archeology, early civilizations or just good writing, this is a book you might enjoy.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
The Looking Glass Wars
The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor
Category: KidLit Grade: B+
I tend to be a sucker for books like this. Beddor has taken the story everybody knows of Alice in Wonderland and written a fantasy (aimed at teens) that purports to tell the "real" story. It turns out, according to Beddor, that Lewis Carroll actually mangled the story told to him by Alyss Heart (even misspelling her name). Alyss ended up in Victorian London after escaping from Wonderland during a the battle in which her Aunt Redd forcefully took the crown of the Queen of Hearts from her sister, Alyss's mother. Carroll's silly version does, however, turn out to be just enough of a clue for the head of Heart Security, Hatter Madigan (get it?), to find Alyss and help her get back to Wonderland to reclaim her crown.
OK, I grant you it sounds silly, but its actually a lot of fun. Beddor has used the characters of Carroll's book as a a starting point to create some great characters and a really amazing world in which people travel by looking glass, card soldiers are real and the main aristocratic families of the world are the Hearts, the Spades, the Clubs and the Diamonds. The story is engaging, especially when it has characters from Wonderland trying to make their way in "our" world. Beddor gets a little carried away when he's over describing some of the weapons in the world and that kept him from getting an A, but he's definitely got my attention and I eagerly await volume two of this trilogy.
Category: KidLit Grade: B+
I tend to be a sucker for books like this. Beddor has taken the story everybody knows of Alice in Wonderland and written a fantasy (aimed at teens) that purports to tell the "real" story. It turns out, according to Beddor, that Lewis Carroll actually mangled the story told to him by Alyss Heart (even misspelling her name). Alyss ended up in Victorian London after escaping from Wonderland during a the battle in which her Aunt Redd forcefully took the crown of the Queen of Hearts from her sister, Alyss's mother. Carroll's silly version does, however, turn out to be just enough of a clue for the head of Heart Security, Hatter Madigan (get it?), to find Alyss and help her get back to Wonderland to reclaim her crown.
OK, I grant you it sounds silly, but its actually a lot of fun. Beddor has used the characters of Carroll's book as a a starting point to create some great characters and a really amazing world in which people travel by looking glass, card soldiers are real and the main aristocratic families of the world are the Hearts, the Spades, the Clubs and the Diamonds. The story is engaging, especially when it has characters from Wonderland trying to make their way in "our" world. Beddor gets a little carried away when he's over describing some of the weapons in the world and that kept him from getting an A, but he's definitely got my attention and I eagerly await volume two of this trilogy.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Trouble
Trouble by Jesse Kellerman
Category: Fiction Grade: F
This was a lay down. Jesse, the son of authors Faye and Jonathan Kellerman, doesn't have any where near their talent. He relies on shock value to keep the reader interested and it doesn't work. The book tells the story of a surgical intern who, supposedly saves a woman's life from a street attack by killing her attacker. There's plenty of nauseating detail about surgical procedures. If that weren't enough, the woman he saves (sorry for the spoiler) turns out to be a masochistic psycho-chick. The descriptions of violent sex finally turned me off completely and I put the book away. Only go here if you've got a really strong stomach (and don't tell me that you decided to read the book - I don't want to know).
Category: Fiction Grade: F
This was a lay down. Jesse, the son of authors Faye and Jonathan Kellerman, doesn't have any where near their talent. He relies on shock value to keep the reader interested and it doesn't work. The book tells the story of a surgical intern who, supposedly saves a woman's life from a street attack by killing her attacker. There's plenty of nauseating detail about surgical procedures. If that weren't enough, the woman he saves (sorry for the spoiler) turns out to be a masochistic psycho-chick. The descriptions of violent sex finally turned me off completely and I put the book away. Only go here if you've got a really strong stomach (and don't tell me that you decided to read the book - I don't want to know).
Palestine - Peace Not Apartheid
Palestine; Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter
Category: International Affairs Grade: B
I'm probably going to get in trouble for this review. I don't usually talk politics publicly - its really a no-win thing to do. Former President Carter has just been lambasted by the main stream press and American Jewish leaders. There's a lot wrong with this book, but the reaction reminds me a lot of the broad inter-generational attitude in the 60s summed in the bumper sticker slogan - "America - Love it or Leave it". Alan Dershowitz commented on Carter's book - "he blames everything on Israel and nothing on the Palestinians". Unfortunately, as in the 60s, there's a strong push, in the United States, to take the opposite view. The strength of the American Jewish lobby has defined the slightest anti-Israel statement as fundamentally anti-Semitic. Disagreements and discussions that are fairly common within the Israeli people - settlements or no settlements, land for peace, the wall - are condemned without discussion in the United States.
There is strong international support, reflected by repeated UN resolutions and repeated multi-party agreements, that Israel, as a country has a right to exist in peace. Carter never suggests otherwise. While his biases are clear and, as I gather from a little research, sometimes wrong, his fundamental point seems simple and, to me, pretty obvious. This area of the world will never know peace unless some just solution is found for the million plus refugees that have been created by the creation and expansion of Israel. Whether the expansion is justified, and what the Israeli borders should be doesn't change this basic fact. Maybe expelling these people from their homes and settling them in foreign countries, long term refugee camps or occupied territory is a necessary evil for the long term security of the Israeli people. It doesn't change the fact that a million rootless people are a permanent breeding ground for unrest and international terrorism. The "war on terrorism" is not a battle that can be won with missiles and tanks. Its a hearts-and-minds battle. Creating a permanent underclass in the region is not a viable solution.
One of the best things about the 60s was that it taught people that love of country did not require unconditional acceptance. Rather, the survivability of democracy requires constant skepticism about the things done in our names. The lesson for today is that, especially to an American Jew, support for Israel can not demand blind allegiance. Don't accept the branding that Carter has received. Read the book for yourself; do the research; make up your own mind. Otherwise, don't criticize.
Category: International Affairs Grade: B
I'm probably going to get in trouble for this review. I don't usually talk politics publicly - its really a no-win thing to do. Former President Carter has just been lambasted by the main stream press and American Jewish leaders. There's a lot wrong with this book, but the reaction reminds me a lot of the broad inter-generational attitude in the 60s summed in the bumper sticker slogan - "America - Love it or Leave it". Alan Dershowitz commented on Carter's book - "he blames everything on Israel and nothing on the Palestinians". Unfortunately, as in the 60s, there's a strong push, in the United States, to take the opposite view. The strength of the American Jewish lobby has defined the slightest anti-Israel statement as fundamentally anti-Semitic. Disagreements and discussions that are fairly common within the Israeli people - settlements or no settlements, land for peace, the wall - are condemned without discussion in the United States.
There is strong international support, reflected by repeated UN resolutions and repeated multi-party agreements, that Israel, as a country has a right to exist in peace. Carter never suggests otherwise. While his biases are clear and, as I gather from a little research, sometimes wrong, his fundamental point seems simple and, to me, pretty obvious. This area of the world will never know peace unless some just solution is found for the million plus refugees that have been created by the creation and expansion of Israel. Whether the expansion is justified, and what the Israeli borders should be doesn't change this basic fact. Maybe expelling these people from their homes and settling them in foreign countries, long term refugee camps or occupied territory is a necessary evil for the long term security of the Israeli people. It doesn't change the fact that a million rootless people are a permanent breeding ground for unrest and international terrorism. The "war on terrorism" is not a battle that can be won with missiles and tanks. Its a hearts-and-minds battle. Creating a permanent underclass in the region is not a viable solution.
One of the best things about the 60s was that it taught people that love of country did not require unconditional acceptance. Rather, the survivability of democracy requires constant skepticism about the things done in our names. The lesson for today is that, especially to an American Jew, support for Israel can not demand blind allegiance. Don't accept the branding that Carter has received. Read the book for yourself; do the research; make up your own mind. Otherwise, don't criticize.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Category: Classic Fiction Grade: A
And so we continue with the effort to try to read some of the classics that, when we had to read them as kids or college students, we hated.
Almost everybody knows the basic premise of this book -- painting ages, real person doesn't. The theme has been used repeatedly in various formats, but this is the first time (or at least the first time I remember) that I read the original. The first really surprising thing is that the book reads like it was written last year, not 115 years ago. I guess it shows that true "wit" is ageless. Wilde is an amazingly good writer. Wilde was one of the leaders in promoting a hedonistic, i.e. pleasure first, lifestyle in late 19th century England. Of course, the homosexual undertones of the book had to be masked enough that publishers would accept his book for publication. Wilde eventually ended up imprisoned because of a homosexual affair he had about five years after writing this book.
The common view of the book - an aging painting leaves the subject young and beautiful is actually only half the story. As the book develops, the painting becomes far more than a stand in for Gray's beauty. It becomes first his conscience, then a repository for all the less-than-beautiful things that make up Gray's hedonistic life. It's unusual in that, essentially, Wilde ends up condemning the life that he himself lived.
This is one of the books that will encourage you to continue finding all the classics that you really should read before you die.
Category: Classic Fiction Grade: A
And so we continue with the effort to try to read some of the classics that, when we had to read them as kids or college students, we hated.
Almost everybody knows the basic premise of this book -- painting ages, real person doesn't. The theme has been used repeatedly in various formats, but this is the first time (or at least the first time I remember) that I read the original. The first really surprising thing is that the book reads like it was written last year, not 115 years ago. I guess it shows that true "wit" is ageless. Wilde is an amazingly good writer. Wilde was one of the leaders in promoting a hedonistic, i.e. pleasure first, lifestyle in late 19th century England. Of course, the homosexual undertones of the book had to be masked enough that publishers would accept his book for publication. Wilde eventually ended up imprisoned because of a homosexual affair he had about five years after writing this book.
The common view of the book - an aging painting leaves the subject young and beautiful is actually only half the story. As the book develops, the painting becomes far more than a stand in for Gray's beauty. It becomes first his conscience, then a repository for all the less-than-beautiful things that make up Gray's hedonistic life. It's unusual in that, essentially, Wilde ends up condemning the life that he himself lived.
This is one of the books that will encourage you to continue finding all the classics that you really should read before you die.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
The Ancestor's Tale
The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins
Category: Science Grade: B+
Well, we have a first. Occasionally, Dan will recommend a book to me and I've learned over the years that he likes to read on a different intellectual plane than the rest of us. I've tried reading Salman Rushdie and Anthony Burgess and just couldn't get going. I guess they fly right over my head. But finally...
Writing a good book about science for a lay audience is really tough. Most scientists (or engineers or musicians or just about anybody), have their own jargon. Stripping out the jargon so us normal people don't get lost without stripping out the content at the same time is a task that most science writers just aren't up to. Most science books I've tried to read go to one of two extremes - they either read like children's books or they read like textbooks. Neither approach is likely to hold somebody's interest.
Dawkins has really accomplished something in this book. He's managed to explain evolution in an interesting and engaging way that keeps you reading for some 600+ pages. He's used two gimmicks to frame the science that are, in large part, responsible for keeping things approachable. First, he tells the story of evolution backwards. That is, he starts with humans and works backward through time chronicling each different group of living things from which our evolutionary path sprang. He speculates about what he calls our concestors - a creature that is, possibly, a common ancestor of us and the newly joined branch. It takes a little getting used to the fact that time is moving backwards but, given the way evolution works, each step is relatively small (in the grand scheme).
The second gimmick is to use Chaucer's Canterbury Tales as a model for his story telling. At each branch point, Dawkins picks one of the creatures from the new branch and uses that creature to give us a relevant and almost always interesting lesson.
First thing I have to say about this book -- if you can read this and come away without a firm conviction that evolution is the way things happened, you're just not paying attention. Although its called the "theory" of evolution, there's so much documented evidence, so many interesting experiments, that its just inconceivable that evolution isn't a good model of how the earth turned in to the environment that we know. With the time frames we're thinking about here - hundreds of millions of years - of course, we'll never have unchallengeable proof of the theory, but its so elegant and fits what we do know so perfectly that, while there may be more and more details that we discover with better research tools, the framework of evolution is the way things happened.
Think about simple things - front, back, up, down, left and right. Most animals that we're familiar with have a front and a back. Since most animals move to find food, its logical that animals who had their food intake portal (call it a mouth) in the "front", would be more likely to survive to adulthood and breed. Once that happens, animals who's waste removal portal is the farthest from their mouths - i.e. where it won't contaminate their food supply - are, again, more likely to breed. Similarly, if you think about most environments, up is very different from down. Attacks from predators are more likely to come from "up" as is light. "Down" is usually somewhat more protected and somewhat darker. So, creatures with protection like a shell or spikes, on the "top" will breed. If you think about most fish, they tend to be darker on the top than the bottom. This would seem to be because, given that light comes from "up", this kind of shading provides better camouflage. It just makes sense if you've got millions of years to breed for the most effective bodies. Oh, and left and right? For almost all animals, left and right don't pose different threats or advantages so most animals are side-to-side symetrical!
This isn't an easy book to read. Even though Dawkins has definitely made it approachable, there's a lot of long, Latin names to get through and even a fair amount of math in some sections. If you like science, though, this is a terrific broad brush view of evolution with a lot of biology, biochemistry and even some physics thrown in.
One final note - if you're a creationist and are easily offended, skip this book. Dawkins is convincing enough that he'll make you feel silly and, on occasion, he does rub it in a little. But, I have to say, if you're a creationist because of a belief in a God who created all this - wouldn't you really rather believe in a God that could design an incredible system like evolution than a God that could make a platypus?
Category: Science Grade: B+
Well, we have a first. Occasionally, Dan will recommend a book to me and I've learned over the years that he likes to read on a different intellectual plane than the rest of us. I've tried reading Salman Rushdie and Anthony Burgess and just couldn't get going. I guess they fly right over my head. But finally...
Writing a good book about science for a lay audience is really tough. Most scientists (or engineers or musicians or just about anybody), have their own jargon. Stripping out the jargon so us normal people don't get lost without stripping out the content at the same time is a task that most science writers just aren't up to. Most science books I've tried to read go to one of two extremes - they either read like children's books or they read like textbooks. Neither approach is likely to hold somebody's interest.
Dawkins has really accomplished something in this book. He's managed to explain evolution in an interesting and engaging way that keeps you reading for some 600+ pages. He's used two gimmicks to frame the science that are, in large part, responsible for keeping things approachable. First, he tells the story of evolution backwards. That is, he starts with humans and works backward through time chronicling each different group of living things from which our evolutionary path sprang. He speculates about what he calls our concestors - a creature that is, possibly, a common ancestor of us and the newly joined branch. It takes a little getting used to the fact that time is moving backwards but, given the way evolution works, each step is relatively small (in the grand scheme).
The second gimmick is to use Chaucer's Canterbury Tales as a model for his story telling. At each branch point, Dawkins picks one of the creatures from the new branch and uses that creature to give us a relevant and almost always interesting lesson.
First thing I have to say about this book -- if you can read this and come away without a firm conviction that evolution is the way things happened, you're just not paying attention. Although its called the "theory" of evolution, there's so much documented evidence, so many interesting experiments, that its just inconceivable that evolution isn't a good model of how the earth turned in to the environment that we know. With the time frames we're thinking about here - hundreds of millions of years - of course, we'll never have unchallengeable proof of the theory, but its so elegant and fits what we do know so perfectly that, while there may be more and more details that we discover with better research tools, the framework of evolution is the way things happened.
Think about simple things - front, back, up, down, left and right. Most animals that we're familiar with have a front and a back. Since most animals move to find food, its logical that animals who had their food intake portal (call it a mouth) in the "front", would be more likely to survive to adulthood and breed. Once that happens, animals who's waste removal portal is the farthest from their mouths - i.e. where it won't contaminate their food supply - are, again, more likely to breed. Similarly, if you think about most environments, up is very different from down. Attacks from predators are more likely to come from "up" as is light. "Down" is usually somewhat more protected and somewhat darker. So, creatures with protection like a shell or spikes, on the "top" will breed. If you think about most fish, they tend to be darker on the top than the bottom. This would seem to be because, given that light comes from "up", this kind of shading provides better camouflage. It just makes sense if you've got millions of years to breed for the most effective bodies. Oh, and left and right? For almost all animals, left and right don't pose different threats or advantages so most animals are side-to-side symetrical!
This isn't an easy book to read. Even though Dawkins has definitely made it approachable, there's a lot of long, Latin names to get through and even a fair amount of math in some sections. If you like science, though, this is a terrific broad brush view of evolution with a lot of biology, biochemistry and even some physics thrown in.
One final note - if you're a creationist and are easily offended, skip this book. Dawkins is convincing enough that he'll make you feel silly and, on occasion, he does rub it in a little. But, I have to say, if you're a creationist because of a belief in a God who created all this - wouldn't you really rather believe in a God that could design an incredible system like evolution than a God that could make a platypus?
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Distribution change
Folks -- I'm changing the way these reviews get delivered to your mailbox. You should see almost no difference. Sometime in the next half hour or so, you should get another post using the new method. If you don't see that post, check your "junk mail" folder to see if the email was flagged as junk and tell your spam filter that it's a legit email. If you don't see the message there either, drop me an email and I'll try to figure out what's going on.
Monday, February 05, 2007
The Hunters
The Hunters by W.E.B. Griffin
Category: Military Fiction Grade: A
This can be a really short review since, at this point, either you read Griffin or you don't. I counted up and its pretty clear that I've read more books by this guy than anybody else I read. He's written 38 books and I've read all 38 - all broken in to series of 6-10 books; all with military themes. They are uniformly well written and entertaining, whether he's talking about World War II, Korea, Viet Nam or even, in one series, stories of the Philadelphia police department.
The Hunter is the third book in the "Presidential Agent" series. It takes place now and involves a special group of agents, led by Charlie Castillo, who work directly for the President and do jobs that aren't quite within the standard operating procedure of existing intelligence organizations or, occasionally, within the law. Castillo and his crew travel all the world turning over rocks to deal with the things that crawl under them.
Griffin's books aren't "high literature", but I'll keep buying them and reading them as soon as they come out. Hopefully, he's got another 38 books in him.
Category: Military Fiction Grade: A
This can be a really short review since, at this point, either you read Griffin or you don't. I counted up and its pretty clear that I've read more books by this guy than anybody else I read. He's written 38 books and I've read all 38 - all broken in to series of 6-10 books; all with military themes. They are uniformly well written and entertaining, whether he's talking about World War II, Korea, Viet Nam or even, in one series, stories of the Philadelphia police department.
The Hunter is the third book in the "Presidential Agent" series. It takes place now and involves a special group of agents, led by Charlie Castillo, who work directly for the President and do jobs that aren't quite within the standard operating procedure of existing intelligence organizations or, occasionally, within the law. Castillo and his crew travel all the world turning over rocks to deal with the things that crawl under them.
Griffin's books aren't "high literature", but I'll keep buying them and reading them as soon as they come out. Hopefully, he's got another 38 books in him.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Walt Disney
Walt Disney by Neal Gabler
Category: Biography Grade: A
So, in the middle of reading this book, Liz posed the question to me - "Why do read biographies?". Good question. Ultimately, a biography is no different from any other book -- it needs to be well written, tell a good story and cover a topic that's interesting. The added plus, to anybody that likes to read history, comes when the author uses the framework of a biography to make a personal story out of the times when the subject lived. Most of the time, the subject of a biography has had some kind of major impact on the world around and has, in turn, been impacted by the things that happen in the world during his or her life. If the times are interesting and the impact is large, then you've got the potential for a great book. If a talented writer gets their hands on the story, then a biography can be full of insights that you don't find in a broader history of the times.
It's hard to imagine anyone in the arts that, ultimately, had more impact on the world than Walt Disney. My generation grew up watching him on Sunday nights showing us clever animations, interesting live-action stories and, of course, Davy Crockett. Our children's generation grew thinking of Disneyland and DisneyWorld as the most sought after vacation destination. It's pretty amazing when you think of all the "firsts" that can be attributed to Disney's company and, as you learn in this book, really to Walt himself -- first personality-based animation, first feature length animation, first "theme" park and on and on. Throughout the 50s and most of the 60s, he was America's Uncle Walt.
Fortunately, Gabler is a great writer. He's clearly done his homewhere, producing 600+ pages of detail. However, he's good enough at what he does to know that, for all the "firsts", this had to be a personal story of one man. Gabler spends a lot of time looking for the motivation behind Disney's ambition. Disney turns out to be, according to Gabler, somewhat insecure and working hard to correct for a childhood during which, he felt, he had little or no control over his own life. For him, the animations became a process where Walt was building worlds to his own specs over which he had complete control. For the early works, especially Snow White, the first feature length animated feature, Walt had his fingers on every part of the project. He could be viscious when he had to be to protect his vision of where the project was going. He pretty much never worried about money -- that was his brother Roy's problem. In fact, he worried so little about money, that company was almost always on the brink of failure until the parks started to open. The parks were Walt's ultimate effort to create a complete physical world where he could be God. He actually had an apartment above a store front on Main Street at Disneyland where he frequently stayed so he could observe.
Surprisingly, you don't learn a lot of negative stuff about Disney although you do suspect that Gabler may be playing down parts of that. Walt was definitely a tyrant on any project that he thought was worthy of his personal attention. As I've said, he had no real concept of money. In the mode of many artists, he wanted perfection and didn't really care, at least for the first couple of decades, whether Roy could manage to turn a profit as long as there was funding for his projects. He became very conservative and a staunch anti-Communist in his later days -- driven primarily by the animators strike at the studio. Walt needed the "communist conspiracy" to deflect what he ultimately felt was a betrayal by his friend's and co-workers.
This book and learning about Disney's life is probably not going to appeal to anybody much younger than 50. While the story is good and his impact was huge, the "I lived through it" is part of the appeal to a reader.
Oh - and the one downside of reading biographies? You know how they end. If you manage to push through a long detailed biography, its primarily because you formed an attachment of sorts to the subject. When the subject eventually dies, you actually feel it personally.
Category: Biography Grade: A
So, in the middle of reading this book, Liz posed the question to me - "Why do read biographies?". Good question. Ultimately, a biography is no different from any other book -- it needs to be well written, tell a good story and cover a topic that's interesting. The added plus, to anybody that likes to read history, comes when the author uses the framework of a biography to make a personal story out of the times when the subject lived. Most of the time, the subject of a biography has had some kind of major impact on the world around and has, in turn, been impacted by the things that happen in the world during his or her life. If the times are interesting and the impact is large, then you've got the potential for a great book. If a talented writer gets their hands on the story, then a biography can be full of insights that you don't find in a broader history of the times.
It's hard to imagine anyone in the arts that, ultimately, had more impact on the world than Walt Disney. My generation grew up watching him on Sunday nights showing us clever animations, interesting live-action stories and, of course, Davy Crockett. Our children's generation grew thinking of Disneyland and DisneyWorld as the most sought after vacation destination. It's pretty amazing when you think of all the "firsts" that can be attributed to Disney's company and, as you learn in this book, really to Walt himself -- first personality-based animation, first feature length animation, first "theme" park and on and on. Throughout the 50s and most of the 60s, he was America's Uncle Walt.
Fortunately, Gabler is a great writer. He's clearly done his homewhere, producing 600+ pages of detail. However, he's good enough at what he does to know that, for all the "firsts", this had to be a personal story of one man. Gabler spends a lot of time looking for the motivation behind Disney's ambition. Disney turns out to be, according to Gabler, somewhat insecure and working hard to correct for a childhood during which, he felt, he had little or no control over his own life. For him, the animations became a process where Walt was building worlds to his own specs over which he had complete control. For the early works, especially Snow White, the first feature length animated feature, Walt had his fingers on every part of the project. He could be viscious when he had to be to protect his vision of where the project was going. He pretty much never worried about money -- that was his brother Roy's problem. In fact, he worried so little about money, that company was almost always on the brink of failure until the parks started to open. The parks were Walt's ultimate effort to create a complete physical world where he could be God. He actually had an apartment above a store front on Main Street at Disneyland where he frequently stayed so he could observe.
Surprisingly, you don't learn a lot of negative stuff about Disney although you do suspect that Gabler may be playing down parts of that. Walt was definitely a tyrant on any project that he thought was worthy of his personal attention. As I've said, he had no real concept of money. In the mode of many artists, he wanted perfection and didn't really care, at least for the first couple of decades, whether Roy could manage to turn a profit as long as there was funding for his projects. He became very conservative and a staunch anti-Communist in his later days -- driven primarily by the animators strike at the studio. Walt needed the "communist conspiracy" to deflect what he ultimately felt was a betrayal by his friend's and co-workers.
This book and learning about Disney's life is probably not going to appeal to anybody much younger than 50. While the story is good and his impact was huge, the "I lived through it" is part of the appeal to a reader.
Oh - and the one downside of reading biographies? You know how they end. If you manage to push through a long detailed biography, its primarily because you formed an attachment of sorts to the subject. When the subject eventually dies, you actually feel it personally.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
The Shape Shifter
The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman
Category: Mystery Grade: B
This is Hillerman's 20th mystery novel centered on the Native American community. He has done two series - one featuring Joe Leaphorn and the other featuring Jim Chee, both Navajo tribal policeman. A couple of years ago, Hillerman brought the two characters together and the books since then have featured, or at least had appearances by both. Leaphorn, newly retired in this book, was sent as a young child to a school designed to integrate Native children in to the broader culture. Part of that education was designed to wean these children away from their own Navajo culture so, as its represented, Leaphorn is fairly assimilated and extremely skeptical of Navajo legends. Chee, on the other hand, is much younger and is trying to simultaneous be a policeman in the modern world and a Navajo shaman who knows the old ways.
Unfortunately, this book, while good, focuses on Leaphorn, with Chee only making a token appearance. What that means is the book is a fairly standard detective novel without much of dipping in to Navajo lore - the thing that makes most Hillerman books interesting. The story itself is a good one involving a "cold case" that Leaphorn starts looking in to mostly because he's bored with the retired life. The cold case fairly quickly becomes a current case with the commission of new crimes, but Leaphorn continues to work the case unofficially.
Bottom line -- nothing wrong with the book. It's entertaining and a good, fairly short diversion. It's just not the kind of multi-cultural story that Hillerman's fans have come to expect. Leaphorn is probably a character who has played himself out. It's time for Hillerman to focus on Chee and his new wife, Bernadette, also a policewoman. Hillerman can get enough of his traditional vs. modern tension between the newlyweds. Put Leaphorn out to pasture.
Category: Mystery Grade: B
This is Hillerman's 20th mystery novel centered on the Native American community. He has done two series - one featuring Joe Leaphorn and the other featuring Jim Chee, both Navajo tribal policeman. A couple of years ago, Hillerman brought the two characters together and the books since then have featured, or at least had appearances by both. Leaphorn, newly retired in this book, was sent as a young child to a school designed to integrate Native children in to the broader culture. Part of that education was designed to wean these children away from their own Navajo culture so, as its represented, Leaphorn is fairly assimilated and extremely skeptical of Navajo legends. Chee, on the other hand, is much younger and is trying to simultaneous be a policeman in the modern world and a Navajo shaman who knows the old ways.
Unfortunately, this book, while good, focuses on Leaphorn, with Chee only making a token appearance. What that means is the book is a fairly standard detective novel without much of dipping in to Navajo lore - the thing that makes most Hillerman books interesting. The story itself is a good one involving a "cold case" that Leaphorn starts looking in to mostly because he's bored with the retired life. The cold case fairly quickly becomes a current case with the commission of new crimes, but Leaphorn continues to work the case unofficially.
Bottom line -- nothing wrong with the book. It's entertaining and a good, fairly short diversion. It's just not the kind of multi-cultural story that Hillerman's fans have come to expect. Leaphorn is probably a character who has played himself out. It's time for Hillerman to focus on Chee and his new wife, Bernadette, also a policewoman. Hillerman can get enough of his traditional vs. modern tension between the newlyweds. Put Leaphorn out to pasture.
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