Rage

by Stephen King (as Richard Bachman)

This is the one Stephen King book that is no longer in print. It was taken off the market by Mr. King himself after it was found in the locker of a high school shooter. It is also the first novel published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.

Everything plays out during one morning in May. Charlie Decker, who recently had gotten in trouble for hitting a teacher over the head with a pipe wrench. This is the day he decided to 'get it on', a phrase used multiple times in the book and back in the 1970's it probably did not quite have the now universally agreed sexual meaning.

Charlie sets his locker on fire, then walks into a class room, shoots the teacher and walks in. When another teacher looks in to make sure that everyone clears out because of the fire, he is shot as well. Collateral damage. Those will be the only two deaths.

The rest of the morning - up until 1pm - Charlie holds an entire class room hostage, but none of them appear to be all too worried about it. The don't believe that Charlie poses a threat to them - and he doesn't. They start to talk about some of their issues - with each other, with family, with sex. Two girls get to physically fight it out and clear the air and end their beef then and there. In fact, only one of the students wants to have Charlie taken down, Ted Jones. The dynamics in the class, however, shift against Ted pretty quickly.

Outside, all hell breaks lose. Charlie is repeatedly contacted via the intercom, making it clear to whoever is trying to talk him down that he is in control. Even when he gets shot through the window by a sharp shooter, he keeps it together without killing anyone else. The bullet would have killed him it it weren't for the heavy lock he took from his school locker and kept in his breast pocket. During his last talk via the intercom he says that after clearing up one last issue everyone will be allowed to walk out at 1pm.

He explains himself to his class mates by talking about the troubles he has with his abusive father. With a half hour to go he asks who knows what is left to do. Eventually, everyone raises their hand - except for Ted. They all agree that the only thing left to do is make Ted realize that he is in the wrong. The way they do this is by ganging up on him and hitting, kicking, stuffing paper in his mouth. When they leave, Ted stays behind sitting against the wall, staring into space. The experience leaves him in a semi-catatonic state.

The local police chief is the one walking into the classroom, gun drawn. Charlie, who is unarmed by now, having unloaded the gun and put it in a drawer, moves as if to retrieve something (a weapon, in the police man's mind, which is the point) and gets shot three times, but survives. In the last chapter, Charlie gives a brief statement about his state of mind and daily routine.

I am glad I have a copy because I rather like this one. But I get why it has been pulled.

7/10

Matcha & Coupland

Dave Eggers: US writers must take a stand on NSA surveillance

Read the article at The Guardian's online presence.

Ned Vizzini, 1981-2013

Ned Vizzini, author of It's Kind of a Funny Story (which was also made into a film with Zach Galafinakis), died of an apparent suicide.

Writer Ned Vizzini has died at 32

Quote. Deb Olin Unferth

That he counted as the second day he followed her.

Other seconds: helpings, hands, rates, but mostly having to do with time, the time it took for one thought to follow another (her, her, her), and other followings, such as heartbeats, blinks, steps. Many of them asked together or separated. He felt them. Not the minutes, mind you, but the seconds.

from Vacation

Ishmael

by Daniel Quinn

A man answers an add in a paper that reads, "TEACHER seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person."

When he gets to the address given he is taken aback by who or what the teacher in the add is. It is a West African gorilla, Ishmael. The man is even more taken aback when the gorilla starts communicating with him, not actually talking but somehow relating his thoughts.

Over several weeks, the two talk about humanity, the creation myth, Genesis, different peoples and human supremacy. The premise is for the man to talk about how humanity came to be the way it is. That is really all it is. The man and the gorilla talking.

Until one day, after having missed a few sessions, the man comes to the usual meeting place and finds the gorilla gone. After making several phone calls he finds him again with a traveling circus. For the remainder of the sessions, the man now visits him there, sitting in front of the cage.

After the come to the point when Ishmael tells the man to do what he has been doing with the man - teach students in the same way, by talking and making them reach the conclusions themselves. Then Ishmael tells them that he is done with the man. While the man tries to scrape together the money to buy the gorilla from the circus, the animal dies from pneumonia.

This is not as out there as it sounds and a surprisingly fluent read.

7/10

11 Rare Children's Books from the Library of Congress

One of the cooler sites on the web, Mental Floss, ran this article about 11 Rare Children's Books from the Library of Congress.

Man, would I like to get my hands on some of these.

George's Marvellous Medicine

by Roald Dahl

Leave it to Roald Dahl to invent a little boy that gets the best kind of revenge against his mean old grandma. George is left alone with the bitter old hag while his mother goes into town for groceries and his father, a farmer, is out in the field.

George is responsible for giving his grandma her medicine at 11 o'clock. Until then, there is still plenty of time for the old woman to torture her grandson by sending him for tea (one spoonful of sugar, no milk), then for extra sugar, then a saucer, then a spoon. When she lets on that she may be a witch, George loses nerve and backs out of the room

He then has an idea to cook his own patch of medicine to serve up to grandma. He goes through all the rooms in the house, throwing every kind of liquid and creme into a huge saucepan - everything from shampoo to shoe paste. To get the color right, he adds brown paint to the brew. When his grandmother has a spoonful of it, she suddenly starts growing, and growing, and growing, until her head breaks through the roof. When she insists that she grew due to her alleged magic powers, George proves her wrong by giving some medicine to a chicken that then grows to enormous height, as well.

At this point, his parents return and while horrified by grandma's appearance, George's father is fascinated by the huge chicken and the marketing possibilities that comes with it. He wants to recreate the medicine with George, but the boy cannot seam to remember all the ingredients and the next patches make the trial chickens' legs or neck grow and - on the last try - shrink completely. The family is ready to give up.

It is then that the mean grandma thinks the family is keeping what she thinks to be tea from her and snatches the entirety of the last patch of medicine and gulps it down. This concoction makes her shrink and shrink and shrink until she disappears into thin air.

7/10

Word!

We Have Always Lived In The Castle

by Shirley Jackson

Constance, her younger sister Mary Katherine (called Merricat) and their wheelchair bound elderly Uncle Julian live on the edge of a small town. A few years back, a tragedy occurred in their house. The entire rest of the family (the girls' parents, younger brother and Uncle Julian's wife) died from arsenic poisoning. The arsenic was mixed into the sugar and the family used it generously over their desert fruits - except for Constance, who never takes sugar, and Merricat, who has been sent to her room without dinner. Their Uncle simply ate to little of it.

Constance was tried and acquitted for the crime and the trio are shunned by the town folk, who wish they would simply disappear. They even made up a small rhyme about the incident. It is tomboy Merricat's responsibility to go for groceries once a week, an outing during which she is given sideways glances and is bullied. Conversations stop wherever she enters. Visits to the house are limited to one woman coming to tea on a regular basis.

The delicate balance gets upended when Cousin Charles visits the girls and their Uncle. Initially he is pleasant enough but soon he starts feeling and behaving like the head of the family. Merricat disliked him from the get-go and wished him away, while Constance is more open to welcoming him into their lives and more patient with listening to his ideas. She does, however, change her mind gradually.

Charles has the annoying habit of smoking a pipe that eventually causes a fire at the house. He brings the local fire department and with it a mob of town people, who all want to witness the dreaded house's total destruction. Much to their disappointment, though, the fire fighters do their job properly. But as soon as the fire is extinguished, the mob starts throwing stones at the house and pushes inside to cause some serious destruction, until a handful of reasonable people get them all to stop and leave.

Poor Uncle Julian, frail even before the fire, dies during the incident. The sisters return to what remains of their house and make the remaining rooms inhabitable again and lock themselves in and shut themselves away, finally, from the outside world.

The people of the town, feeling guilty for their behavior, start dropping off food at the doorstep as penance. The story of the family tragedy drifts more into legend and the house is set to become the stuff of lore, the kind of house children dare each other to go up to.

A most excellent read.

8/10

You Shall Know Our Velocity

by Dave Eggers

Will and Hand (real name: Sven) recently lost their best friend Jack and try to cope with the loss in the only way they know how. Will came into money some years ago (how is never detailled) and they now decide to spend a week to fly to as many countries as possible to hand out cash. They believe their destinations of choice to be sufficiently poor and the people they hand the cash to in need of it.

Due to their last minute and poor planning, they are unable to go to their original first destination, Greenland. The flights are grounded because of heavy winds, so they fly to Senegal instead, where they want to spend about one day and then move on quickly to the next poor nation. However, they get sidetracked almost immediately.

They make up elaborate concepts they don't follow through on. For example, they want to tape money to donkeys with a cryptic message. They expect the donkeys to just stand around unattended, but never find any that fit their expectations. The duo does get rid of wads of cash at times. Once, they put it in the pockets of pants hanging on a clothesline. Then they hand it to a kid they played basketball with. When they get desperate they have cabs drive them around the block and overpay them.

Moving on to the next destination is not as easy as they expected. They are somewhat suprised that there would be no daily flights to just anywhere. Worse still, they are supposed to acquire visa for certain destinations. In the end, they decide on Estonia, via London. There, unsurprisingly, they have similar difficulties.

Their elaborate one-week trip around the world (more or less) ends with them only making two countries. Then Hand has to return to his job in St. Louis and Will has to move on to Mexico for a wedding.

As strange as all of this may sound this is a quite moving books about two friends that cannot quite deal with the loss of their friend and their inability to save him despite their thinking outside the box and the willingness to (literally) give everything they have for it.

7/10

Annual Book Sale

The Shining

by Stephen King

The original plan was this: Watch the Kubrick version of The Shining and then re-read the book. The first time I saw the film was shortly after I had finished reading the novel for the first time and I absolutely hated it. If you have read and loved the book you will understand.

Basically, the film version focusses on about one quarter of the book. Here's the thing, though: it is the other three quarters that set the tone, create the atmosphere and introduce us to the family stuck in the Overlook Hotel. Hence, the film totally misses the point.

Anyway, it turned out differently than originally planned. I though I was just going to read a few pages, knowing fully well that barely any of it would be in the film anyway and then stop before I hit the bits that were. But as it is with Stephen King books for me...once you start you cannot stop. So, I abondoned my viewing plan and have shelfed it until the time the book is no longer so fresh in my mind and I can finally watch that Kubrick thing and evaluate for what it is. This should take no longer than, I don't know, two years....?

This book is fantastic. It is definitely among King's best. It tells of the troubles of Jack Torrance, his alcoholism and the strained relationship with his wife and young child. The boy, Danny, is gifted with what the Overlook's cook Halloran refers to as "the shining". The cook himself has a touch of it, but nowhere near as powerful as Danny.

Danny, at five, knows but sometimes doesn't quite understand what his parents are thinking. He also gets visits by someone or something called Tony. His parents call Tony his imaginary friend, but Tony does much more than give him company. Rather, he warns him of things to come and brings (sometimes terrifying) glimpses of the future. Not fully able to distinguish between what will happen and what could be avoided and absolutely not understanding the power of the Overlook hotel and the spirits that haunt it, Danny has only minor qualms of moving in with his parents. But gradualy, things start to deteriorate and Danny sees spirits (ghosts?) that can, despite initially believing that they will go away if you close your eyes for a bit, actually physically hurt him.

The Overlook has ways of bringing the past back in snatches. Jack spends too much time in the basement going through old newspaper articles that detail the tragedies of the hotel and slowly gets taken over by some entity representing the building. And Jack takes drinks in a full bar that should not be full - neither of people nor of drink.

As the story builds up to its desasterous climax within the hotel, the cook has been called by Danny and desperately tries to make his way through the Colorado snow storms to help him in any way he can.

Gratifying in a way the film could never be.

9/10

Quote. Dave Eggers

Out my portal the plane wing was silver and shining like it would have fifty years earlier, carrying happier and simpler people. All of them smoking and speaking loudly - musically barking every last word - and wearing expensive hats. When did we start flying like this? So cavalier like this? I should have known, but didn't. Hand would know. Everything like that Hand knew, or pretended to know. So many questions. Did the flotation devices really float? Did planes actually float long enough for us to get out, jumping down those wide and festive yellow inflatable slides? And also: Would it be easier to kill someone who was beautiful, or someone who was ugly? What if you had to do it with your own hands, hovering above? I think there would be a difference. And why, when we see a half-broken window, do we want it all broken? We see the shards rising from the pane and we long to knock them out, one by one, like teeth. Questions, questions. Did Vaclav Havel have emphysema, or was I imagining that? Who had emphysema? Someone over there.

from: You Shall Know Our Velocity

Book vs. Film: The Shining

Ullman was waiting for them just inside the wide, old-fashioned front doors. He shook hands with Jack and nodded coolly at Wendy, perhaps noticing the way heads turned when she came through the lobby, her golden hair spilling across the shoulders of the simple navy dress. The hem of the dress stopped a modest two inches above the knee, but you didn't have to see more to know they were good legs.

'Well, Ullman fired her on account of her saying she'd seen something in one of the rooms where...well, where a bad thing happened. That was in Room 217, and I want you to promise me you won't go in there, Danny. Not all winter. Steer right clear.'

The mallet came down again with whistling, deadly velocity and buried itself in her soft stomach. She screamed, suddenly submerged in an ocean of pain. Dimly she saw the mallet rebound. It dame to her with sudden numbing reality that he meant to beat her to death with the mallet he held in his hands.

To Major Tom: A Novel in Letters

by Dave Thompson

I'm guessing that this is an obscure book. I was not even remotely aware of its existance until I dug it out of a bargain bin. The reason I finally bought it is that I kind of like David Bowie. Mind you, I was never the devotee that Gary (the letter writer) is - I was too young for that, only taking note around the time Let's Dance came out. According to the book, this marked the beginning of a dry spell for David Bowie, musically speaking.

In the end, I stayed up late to finish it and loved it. It also reminded me of my most significant brushes with David Bowie, which are...

Absolute Beginners was the very first 45 I purchased with my own money. Whenever someone (mostly celebrities) gets asked about their "first album/first single" more often than not they have to own up to something embarassing (a close friend has to answer with David Hasselhoff, poor thing). I can answer with David Bowie, which is really kind of awesome.

I bought tickets for his tour supporting the 1st Outside album, not because I wanted to see Bowie but Morrissey was supposed to open for him. However, Morrissey canceled the tour early on (this is addressed in the book). This show made me a fan despite the fact that I knew a total of two songs played at the concert (Jump They Say and Under Pressure), since the man does not revel in nostalgia and play greatest hits shows. 1st Outside is my favorite Bowie album now (not a popular choice, I know).

For me, the most memorable moment of the Freddie Mercury memorial concert was David Bowie getting down on one knee and saying The Lord's Prayer. Gave me goosebumps. So did reading about that moment again in the book.

Under Pressure is possibly the greatest musical collaboration of all time. (Can you tell I am a Queen fan?)

Also this:

8/10

Fast Food Nation

by Eric Schlosser

I have been a vegatarian (and sometimes vegan) since 1991 and for the longest time I haven't had the desire to eat meat and this book confirmed many aspects of my beliefs.

It was a simply read. However, sometimes I just couldn't stay with it and my mind would start drifting. What meat packaging firm received infested meat from which slaughterhouse, that consequently was closed down only to reopen again within days etc. dragged on and on. And on. At times I felt like I was stuck in a loop of repetitive information and not only did I lose track but I also lost intrest in the political and financial ramifications.

The personal stories hit closer to home...the high school kids working for fast food chains, the farmer showing his land and the threats lingering behind the next slope, the kids sickened and even killed by infested hamburgers. Those stories are closer to the bone and if the author's intent is to make people stop eating fast food, this would probably be a better tool than stories about corporate crime.

The level of surprising new information was well below the level of disgust. I believe (or at least I want to believe) that most people know that they eat crap when they eat fast food.

6/10

I'm a vegetarian. I haven't eaten meat in more than 15 years and after reading this book I have no intention to ever taste it again (ok, so I never really had the desire to after going veg, anyway). Normally, I tend to shy away from reading non-fiction books that are not in my first language (German) because you often are confronted with terms that you have no way of recognising if they are in a foreign language. This was an easy enough read, though. However, sometimes I just couldn't really stay...

Behind the Scenes at the Museum

by Kate Atkinson

A most excellent read.

This book is rather morbid and ocasionally very sarcastic (and so am I!) but I had a huge smile on my face throughout most of it, although at times I felt a bit guilty about enjoying myself as much as I did. If the writing style and genreal appraoch weren't that light-hearted this would be a very, very sad story.

Things like Ruby (the narrator) actually considering splitting up her dead sister's Christmas presents on the very day of her demise were written in a manner that made me snicker (and feeling guilty about it).

Generally, Ruby had very much a "good riddance" attitude towards most of the family members dying - and there were quite a few of them.

The most hilarious part was George's death. Dying of a heart attack while commiting adultery with a waitress...who then innocently asks Ruby, who witnessed the episodes, "Do you know who he is?" and then asking George's wife, "Did you know him?".

I wish there were more stories like this.

8/10

Please Don't Come Back from the Moon

by Dean Bakopoulos

The story is set in Maple Rock, a small town near Detroit, that gets hit with econimical troubles in the early 2000s (the so-called naughties). The fathers up and leave one after the other, leaving their families in confusion as to where they disappear to. One of them leaves a written note saying that he will be going to the moon. From then on the people of Maple Rock think of them as having gone to the moon.

The book focuses on Michael, one of the left behind sons who has to come to terms with living in a community where teenage boys like himself suddenly have (or want) to act like adults - getting jobs and going out for drinks.

The struggle of the mothers to adapt to this new reality is burdened with the worry that one day their sons too will disappear. The years go by and life becomes something resembling normalcy again unthil the now grown-up sons have families of their own and they start feeling the pull of the moon themselves.

Decent read.

7/10

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found

by Suketu Metha

Suketa Metha's account of his search for the city of his youth takes us into the underbelly of Bombay (or, if you prefer, Mumbai).

India as a whole, and Bombay in particular, is one of those distant, mythical places that we as Westerners may never understand. To me, it is one of those places I want to one day visit but my idea of it is very abstract and clouded by stories in book and film, that can only ever capture a tiny fragment of this unknown world.

The book is split into three parts. In the first one the author interviews a multitude of "bad guys" that run the city as an alternative governing body and one of the policemen that tries to fight crime rather than arrange himself with the gangsters.

Part two is about the bar dancers and Bollywood, but reaches back into part one again and again, because the criminal vanes of Bombay run through those worlds, as well.

The final part tells the story of a Jain family that decides to leave all earthly comfort behind - a stark contrast to the lives described in parts one and two.

Fascinating.

7/10

The Circle

by Dave Eggers

In this, his latest, book Dave Eggers paints a picture of a future that feels so near one can almost touch it.

The protagonist is Mae who, thanks to her friend Annie, has found a coveted job at The Circle, a corporation that is like an exaggeration of Google/Facebook/Twitter and any other major online presence rolled into one. She starts her job with one computer screen on which she answers customer questions followed by immediate numbers on customer satisfaction. Soon, a second screen gets added. This one to stay in contact with other people within the corporation. Then a third. A fourth. A fifth.

What The Circle stands for, most prominently, is total transparency. Online presences are no longer anonymous. The assumption is that people behave better when they know they are acting under their real names. This evolves into cameras being placed all over. First, to monitor precarious political situation and to offer stunning visuals for people that may be unable to venture out into the world themselves for some reason or other. But then this turns into a means to watch everyone at anytime and anywhere. Because you monitor yourself when everyone sees you.

After a brush with law enforcement and Mae's realization that she would not have gotten in trouble had she known that a number of cameras were watching her, Mae joins the ever growing ranks of people that have gone "transparent", meaning that she starts wearing a camera around her neck so that people can follow her every move. This practice has become particularly popular with politicians, trying to prove they have nothing to hide from their voters.

Increasingly, she found it difficult to be off-campus anyway. There were homeless people, and there were the attendant and assaulting smells, and there were machines that didn't work, and floors and seats that had not been cleaned, and there was, everywhere, the chaos of an orderless world. [...] Walking through San Francisco, or Oakland, or San Jose, or any city really, seemed more and more like a Third World experience, with unnecessary filth, and unnecessary strife and unnecessary errors and inefficiencies - on any city block, a thousand problems correctible through simple enough algorithms and the application of available technology and willing members of the digital community. She left her camera on.

The corporation grows at a remarkable speed and encorporates more and more aspects of daily life, with Mae becoming something of a poster child for the movement. Her initial unease with The Circle's expectancy that she participate in every social event on campus soon falls away and she gradually becomes convinced that her employer's ideas will improve the world - after all, SECRETS ARE LIES.

All this, of course leads to a small group of people opposing and refusing The Circle taking over their lives, but they are vastly outnumbered. Mae gradually alienates her own parents, who are simpy not comfortable with being watched 24/7, and her former boyfriend Mercer, who eventually goes off grid. She also becomes involved with a mysterious stranger, whose alliances are not quite clear to her. (I guessed correctly as to who this guy is.)

Eventually, her own doings lead to a tragedy, but everyone involved convince themselves that they did no wrong whatsoever. They venture on with their blinders towards they plane of a totalitarian system of everyone having access to all knowledge. But - how much information is too much?

Really, really great book.

"Now we're all God. Every one of us will soon be able to see, and cast judgment upon, every other. We'll see what He sees. We'll articulate His judgment. We'll channel His wrath and deliver His forgiveness. On a constant and global level. All religion has been waiting for this, when every human is a direct and immediate messenger of God's will. Do you see what I'm saying?"

9/10 

Songs for the Missing

by Stewart O'Nan

Stewart O'Nan has a quiet way of telling stories about desperate people. He also seems to habitually focus on the ones left behind rather than the real victims (see also: The Good Wife).

I buy it. Never having been in or near a situation like the one the Larsen family finds itself in, I can only imagine what it could feel like. I can also imagine that people might react like the people in the book do.

Although the parents and little sister of the missing girl, Kim, all tray to come to terms in their own way - be it through throwing yourself into your work, shutting down or simply trying to comfort the ones left of your family.

Not an easy subject matter by any means. And no neat solution, which I am sure bothers a lot of people. For me, O'Nan can hardly do any wrong, though.

7/10

A Wolf at the Table

by Augusten Burroughs

This is yet another autobiographical book by Augusten Burroughs about his unusual and unusually disturbing childhood. But unlike the previous volumes A Wolf at the Table has nothing of the hilarity and scurility that one has come to expect from him.

The book focusses on his father and the difficult (and sometimes non-existant) relationship he had with him, made even worse by the absence of his older brother, John Elder Robison, who had a different way of dealing with the father or avoiding him altogether.

The man was distant, uninterested and brooding. Little Augusten struggles to get him to simply pay attention, barely ever reaching for something as big as love or even care.

One episode that I feel will forever stay with me is this:
The boy realizes that when his father comes home he is always happy to encounter the family dog. In a desperate attempt to make his father smile at him as he does the pet, he puts on a dog mask and behaves like a canine.

My heart broke a little with ever page.

9/10

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

by Rebecca Skloot

If you are not working in the medical field, you might not have ever heard of the HeLa cells. I don't remember how I heard of them myself, but I had a vage awareness of their existence before I came across this book.

And a great book it is, especially for non-scientists (like me), since although it does cover the scientific aspects fo the story it does so in layman's terms. The bigger portion of the book is dedicated to the struggles of the Lacks family and the author's uphill battle in earning their trust.

It is a very emotional story, as the family themselves were kept in the dark about what was going on with the cells taken from Henrietta Lacks, or that indeed they had been harvested for scientific use in the first place. It is a sad and tragic family history that is uncovered - mostly through assistance of Henrietta's daughter Dorothy. The most emotional and hardest part to read was when they finally learn the story of little Elsie. I might have shed a few tears over that.

The basic info about HeLa cells can be found on wikipedia (of course). The story has also been made into a documentary that can be viewed online in its entirety here.

Very interesting read.

7/10

Thirteen Reasons Why

by Jay Asher

This was a pretty quick read and ok for a debut novel, I guess.

I have read some reviews of people having a hard time with the constantly changing perspective between the narrator and the voice on tape (Hannah, the girl that killed herself). Personally, I didn't have any trouble with this.

For some reason, though, it didn't ring true to me (if that makes sense). It didn't feel like the voice of a girl that committed suicide. I would have expected more of a downward spiral and not this "and at that point I decided to do myself in" moment. I would have liked a more compelling reason for Hannah to commit suicide.

The narrating boy felt much more real and sad and desperate. He is ultimately what made this compelling.

5/10

I didn't have any trouble with the constantly changing perspective between the narrator and the voice on tape (I have read some reviews of people that had a hard time getting into that style of writing). It was a pretty quick read and fine, really. For some reason, though, it didn't ring true to me (if that makes any sense). It didn't feel like the *voice* of a girl that committed suicide. I would have suspected more of a downward spiral and not this "and at that point I decided to do myself in

Bad Monkeys

by Matt Ruff

After reading Fool on the Hill I thought Matt Ruff has enormous potential as a writer. The story was original, clever and referenced Lord of the Rings before the film trilogy made it cool. So my hopes for this book were very high indeed.

What it is is a sci-fi thriller of sorts. One Jane Charlotte is accused of murder and in a number of sessions with a psychotherapist tells a tall tale. She claims to be a member of The Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons and gives an account of the work she does for the institution, which is murder, for the most part. The weaponry is nifty (NC gun = gun that kills with Natural Causes) and the story is unlikely and confusing. She may be a member of the Bad Monkeys organization, devoted to fighting evil. Or she may simply be insane.

So far, so weird.

After the initial intrigue the story gets less and less interesting until we reach the final 'real' chapter (I don't want to get into that too much at this point). There is a bad Jane/good Jane on X-drugs showdown that goes off in all directions and isn't all that interesting. Probably would work in a film, I guess, but in a book? Not so much.

As many before me have said: starts off strong, ends very weak. What a waste of talent.

4/10

House of Sand and Fog

by Andre Dubus III

When I read House of Sand and Fog, although I had not yet seen the film based on it, I was aware of who was to play the main roles. So throughout the book, I kept picturing Jennifer Connolly and Ben Kingsley facing off over the house that one lost and the other bought. Whereas this can be a negative in many ways, in this case I actually found it beneficial because both actors felt like such a great fit for the roles.

The story is - for the most part and for both sides of the continuous argument - devastating. What came as a shock to me is what happened to the son. I did not at all see that coming. Everybody loses.

The copy I read of this book was borrowed but I ended up liking it so much that I got my own to re-read it at some point.

I have since seen the film and it is most excellent, too.

8/10

Dandelion Wine

by Ray Bradbury

Another of my "left overs" from my goodreads reviews.

So, this is the other side of Ray Bradbury - the non sci-fi one.

The book is made up of wonderful episodes in the lives of brothers Douglas and Tom that could have happened during one summer in the 1930s. Of course, there is too much going on for only one summer to hold - Bradbury himself addressed this in the foreword to the edition that I read. So, really, this is a 'best of' childhood summers.

The book is jockful of loveable characters and their little adventures - some hilarious, some sad, some scary.

7/10

Literary LOL

Hedy's Folly (Half a Review)

by Richard Rhodes

I didn't like this and here is why.

The full title of the book is Hedy's Folly - The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World.

Apparently, I was wrong to assume that the book was mainly to deal with the life and breakthrough inventions of Hedy Lamarr. Actually, at just over 200 pages I expected it to concentrate on the invention part, as there are other exhaustive biographies on her life out there.

What I did not bargain for, however, is the fact that half the book (up to the point I put it down, which was about halfway through) dealt with the less interesting (to me, anyway) life of struggling composer George Antheil. Now, I do realize that his involvement in the development of frequency hopping is essential and good for him but couldn't we have covered his background in a more structured and, well, shorter way. Say...one chapter?

So far I feel like I have learned much more about his decidedely mediocre carreer, his days in Paris among other artists, his living off of someone else's money, his letters of pompousness asking for even more money from his mentor and his courtship of his future wife than I have about Hedy Lamarr (you know, the one in the title?). What's more, everything we read about Mr. Antheil apparently has been lifted from his autobiography Bad Boy of Music. If I would have wanted to read about him, I might have tried to locate a copy of that. I didn't and I haven't and my guess is that it is out of print because nobody cares.

Frankly, I got bored. And let me point out again that this book has just over 200 pages which is ridiculously little to begin with.

This Is How You Lose Her

by Junot Díaz

This is a short story collection and the first book published by Díaz after he won the Pulitzer for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The collection has a similar tone and the stories play out in the same milieu as Oscar's (and his family's) story.

Most - but not all - stories are about Yunior, who lives with his mother and his dying brother Rafa. The men are all very much machos, none more so than Rafa (before he is stricken with cancer). And all stories are about relationships, of a sexual nature, of course.

To be quite honest, I did not like the first two - The Sun, the Moon, the Stars and Nilda - at all. It was only when the tales of Yunior started that I got into the book. The writing is yet again wonderful, but the language is a lot cruder than I remember from Oscar Wao.

Uneven but still pretty good.

6/10

Junot Díaz: "Orson Scott Card Is a Cretinous Fool"

Read an interview with Junot Díaz on Salon.com.

Stephen King: on alcoholism and returning to The Shining

Got to the Guardian website to read the article.

The Night Country

by Stewart O'Nan

It is the night before Halloween. And in the small town setting of The Night Country, this also marks the night before the one year anniversary of an accident that cost three high school students their lives.

The story is told mostly by one of them, Marco, with some commentary by the other two victims, Danielle and Toe. The three still live in their town as ghosts that will appear (but remain mostly unnoticed) by the side of people summoning them.

The ones that they visit, and also the main characters in the book, are:

Officer Brooks, the local cop that was involved in the accident. He is lauded as a hero, having saved young Tim's life (he didn't). In reality, though, he may have caused the crash, but how is only revealed very late in the book. The events of that fateful night haunt him and his wife eventually left him and he is not doing a very good job. In fact, he fully expects to lose his job any day now.

Kyle, who has survived the crash but just barely, left with permanent brain damage. He now has the mindset of a small boy and has to be treated as such by his devoted mother and also relies on Tim, whom he works with and who picks him up and drops him off when going to their job at a local supermarket.

Kyles' mom, whose life and plans have been put on hold ever since her son got injured. There is no more talk of moving away as soon as the kids are out of the house, because one of them probably never will be now.

Tim, who lost his girlfriend Danielle in the crash and feels that he should have died with his friends. He sets out to recreate Halloween from last year, going through every stop they made and, finally, hitting the same tree they hit back then. The plan is to take Brooks with him, having him follow the car the same way he did before.

Despite the presence of the ghosts, this is not a ghost story. It is the tragedy of the people left behind and their inability to cope.

Sad, so sad.

8/10

Quote. David Janssen, Edward Whitelock

Though it is cliché, it really is true that, in Dylan's life and in his art, a closed door points the way toward an open window. All that he asks of us is that we be willing to jump out the window with him. Sometimes we don't care for the new room and cannot wait for the new window. Other times it feels like we have to be dragged out of the rooms we like the most. Those of us who continue the journey with him, though, are richly rewarded more often than not, for in Dylan's Apocalyptic House there are many mansions. And that House continues to expand because he is still working on it.

from Apocalypse Jukebox: The End of the World in American Popular Music

The Testament of Mary

In his latest book, Colm Tóibín gives us a different take on the story of Jesus. This is an account given by his mother Mary, looking back on her son's last few months.It is a slim volume that wonderfully captures the quiet desperation of a mother that could not understand nor save her only child.

She makes a desperate effort to save him from what's to come at the wedding in Cana, but knows that it is no good when he dismisses her rather harshly. She calls into question the wonders ascribed to him, saying that, sure, one of the barrels brought to him was filled with water but who knows about the other four. She also tells of the tragedy of Lazarus, for whom death appears to have been a relief after long suffering in the darkness of his room. After he has been brought back to life his suffering continues and people become uncomfortable around him.

I quite enjoyed this.

He was the boy I had given birth to and he was more defenceless now than he had been then. And in those days after he was born, when I held him and watched him, my thoughts included the thought that I would have someone now to watch over me when I was dying, to look after my body when I had died. In those days if I had even dreamed that I would see him bloody, and the cowd around filled with zeal that he should be bloodied more, I would have cried out as I cried out that day and the cry would have come from a part of me that is the core of me. The rest of me is merely flesh and blood and bone.

6/10

Quote. Stewart O'Nan

Come, do you hear it? The wind - murmuring in the eaves, scouring the bare trees. How it howls, almost musical, a harmony of old moans. The house seems to breathe, an invalid. Leave your scary movie marathon; this is better than TV. Leave the lights out. The blue glow follows you down the hall. Go to the window in the unused room, the cold seeping through the glass. The moon is risen, caught in nodding branches. The image holds you, black trunks backlit, one silver ray fallen across the deck, beckoning. It's a romance, this invitation to lunacy (lycanthropy, a dance with the vampire), elemental yet forbidden, tempting, something remembered in the blood.

from The Night Country

'Salem's Lot (2)

by Stephen King

Once we have reached part 2 of 'Salem's Lot it is clear that we are in full battle mode. The fighters on behalf of the human race (at least the members of the human race that live in Jerusamlem's Lot) are a small group, which is quite a common device in King's output.

Ben Mears is still very much a part of the group, but his new girlfriend Susan is one of the first to fall victim to the Marsten House and the creature that lives therein. Before she is bitten, though, she teams up with little Mark Petrie, whom we have previously met in part 1 of the story but who only now becomes a major player. Mark is one of many, many heroic children that also become a common theme in Stephen King's books. They are mostly boys. Only very few main players are young girls (Firestarter, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon). Also joining in are the now bedridden Matt Burke (who will shortly succumb to a heart attack), his doctor Jimmy Cody and the priest Father Callahan.

From my first read I didn't remember Father Callahan showing up so late in the narrative. I thought him to be a larger presence. Not that his part is insignificant. No, he actually saves little Mark from the very claws of the beast by offering himself to the Barlow. Callahan, however, never turns agains his posse (or humanity), bless him.

After having suffered a number of big losses (including poor Mark's parents) the group decides it will be best to find the hiding places of those infected, mark the area to come back and take them out the next day (in broad daylight) with the stakes that are being manufactured by Ben while the others are out searching.

All the while they also have to locate Barlow. The only thing to go on is what Mark remembers from being in his claws - blue chalk. At first they are thinking schools, but the color of the chalk is what stumps them. Until they make a connection to a pool table stored away in the cellar of the boarding house Ben is renting a room in.

In the end, the group will be reduced to only Ben and Mark (badly shaken at this point), who take on the task of clearing as much of the town as they can.

Thus dies Jerusalem's Lot.

7/10

'Salem's Lot (1)

by Stephen King

Onward with the large project of rereading Stephen King's books in the order they were published in. I have often professed my adoration for the man and to those not giving him his due credit, I offer this (and it is not even scary):

The telephone wires make an odd humming on clear, cool days, almost as if vibrating with the gossip that is transmitted through them, and it is a sound like no other - the lonely sounds of voices flying over space. The telephone poles are gray and splintery, and the freezes and thaws of winter have heaved them into leaning postures that are casual. They are not businesslike and military, like phone poles anchored in concrete. Their bases are black with tar if they are beside paved roads, and floured with dust if beside the back roads. Old weathered cleat marks show on their surfaces where linemen have climbed to fix something in 1946 or 1953 or 1969. Birds - crows, sparrows, robins, starlings - roost on the humming wires and sit in hunched silence, and perhaps they hear the foreign human sounds through their taloned feet. If so, their beady eyes give no sign. The town has a sense, not of history, but of time, and the telephone poles seem to know this. If you lay your hand against one, you can feel the vibration from the wires deep in the wood, as if souls had been imprisoned in there and were struggling to get out.

If you say that what you just read there is not beautiful writing, then you are wrong.

Now, about the book at hand:

Part I of 'Salem's Lot is called The Marsten House and sets the stage, if you will, for the horrors to come. We are introduced to the small town folk of Jerusalem's Lot, the kind of place where everyone knows their neighbor and people watch out for each other. There is, however, this dark spot in the town's history. Years before, when the Marsten House was occupied, four children disappeared (some of their bodies turned up later giving a perfectly reasonable explanation as to their destinies).

Now, the Marsten House has been bought by two business associates that are about to open an exclusive antique shop. Only one of the men, a Mr Straker, is ever seen in public while the other, Mr Barlow is away 'on business'.

Also new in town is Ben Mears, a writer with one successful book under his belt. He spent some time in town with his aunt when he was a boy and is back now to about the town and the house. We meet a host of characters, like local law enforcement, the man Straker bought the property from, Susan Norton, who Ben starts up a relationship with and some of the kids of the town.

Then one night, little Ralphie Glick disappears while out with his brother Danny. Danny told Ralphie about ghost in the forest to scare him but when Ralphie claims to see something that might be a ghost, he becomes just as scared as his little brother. Back home he cannot remember what happened to Ralphie and shortly after gets sick and - just when he appears to be getting better - drops dead.

And by the end of the chapter school teacher Matt Burke gets the first sense and hears the sounds of what may be a vampire sucking blood right on the other side of the door.

Stephen King’s Family Business

Here is a lovely story about the King family, from the New York Times.

Quote. Henry Rollins

Girls aren't beautiful, they're pretty. Beautiful is too heavy a word to assign to a girl. Women are beautiful because their faces show that they know they have lost something and picked up something else.

from Smile, You're Traveling: Black Coffee Blues Part 3

Lipshitz 6, or Two Angry Blondes

by T Cooper 

This is the story of the Lipshitz family. Hersh and his wife Esther leave their native Russia to flee the pogroms that are steadily increasing and cost Esther's sister-in-law and her little niece their lives. Hersh and Esther set out for the new world with their four children to join Esther's brother Avi in Texas.

As they arrive on Ellis Island, while waiting in line, they suddenly realize that their young son Reuven, a boy unusually blonde for a Jew, is missing. They don't find him again on that day. Nor do they find him in the months they spend in New York after. Finally, they continue their journey to Texas, leaving behind not only Reuven but also their oldest, Ben.

One day Esther visits a man that reads palms. The man tells Eshter that Reuven is still alive, she will however not be reunited with him but will recognize her son when she hears of him. There will be great tragedy in his life but he will survive it. Gullible as she is Esther believes every word.

Then in 1927, when Charles A. Lindbergh becomes America's hero for his flight across the Atlantic, Esther becomes convinced that Lindbergh is in fact Reuven. From then on she follows his career closely, sending letters warning of impending tragedy to him and his family. Tragedy, of course, does strike and has been well documented.

Esther gets so caught up in her quest to warn Lindbergh and maybe some day reunite with him, she alienates the rest of her family. Hersh, her meek husband, does not quite know how to help her, or indeed, what is even wrong with her. He ends up working first for Avi's family and later for his son-in-law Sam's business. Ben, who was the only one informed of his mother's belief of who Reuven is in one of her rambling letters, returns to his family eventually, also working for Sam. Shmuel, the second oldest, goes off to war and perishes of sickness right before coming home to Texas. Their youngest, Miriam, marries the successful business man Sam.

The writer, T Cooper, is Sam and Miriam's grandson and wrote this fictionalized account of his family story.

But then....

After the tale of Esther and her misguided beliefs wraps up the book starts into an autobiographical, well...rant by T Cooper, that may be telling of how he came to write the story but does it in an extreme and weird change of voice. From beautifully told family struggles to full-blown swearing....

In conclusion I loved part one and hated part two.

6/10

The English: Are They Human?

Is this real? I need this to be real.

Vacation

by Deb Olin Unferth

I really enjoyed this book. Partly because it is non-linear, which I sometimes dig and partly because the writing is brilliant.

Soon after they got married, Myers' wife starts calling to say she has to stay late in the office - a job that requires no special skills and never requires her to stay late. Her husband, of course, is suspicious and starts following her, most evenings. She appears to be walking through New York without going anywhere, sometimes she stops for tea or coffee. It takes Myers a few weeks to realize that she is following a man. But she doesn't know the man or, indeed, the reason she tracks his movements. Her husband, however, realizes that he knows him from college. The man's name is Gray.

Gray has his own marital troubles. He left his wife and young daughter and now strolls around New York. After a few months of man following woman following man, Gray leaves again, leaving the wife stranded and the marriage of the Myers in tethers. Eventually, Myers decides to leave. He sets out to find Gray to execute some sort of revenge. The journey takes him to Syracuse, NY, where Gray lives but has just left for Nicaragua.

The two men are in e-mail contact and Myers follows Gray to Nicaragua. The final destination is one Corn Island aka 'the most beautiful island'. Only, it appears to be very difficult to get to, with multiple stops along the way and boat after boat after boat. Canceled credit cards and injuries suffered in an earthquake make the journey all the more difficult for Myers, who loses his real purpose along the way. And Gray is not actually in Nicaragua but only thinks he is.

Then there are two stories of daughters looking for their fathers, one is linked to Myers, whom she saw out of a train window in Syracuse and recognizes later in a photo showing her father. The other is Gray's daughter, now grown, still looking for him in Nicaragua years later.

It will all make sense in the end.

8/10

The Collector

by John Fowles

Wow. Fred/Ferdinand/Caliban couldn't have picked a shallower, more self-righteous snob to kidnap than this Miranda.

Reading her part of the book (part 2) was so exasperating I was constantly on the verge of throwing it against the wall in frustration. Not that the writing was bad, mind you, but that woman is such a stuck-up idot! Fancies herself superior to, well, everyone, really (although she does admit at one point that she is only smarter than most men, not all). Also, she is constantly oozing drivel about one G.P., who apparently is the be all and end all. He sounds like the same arrogant idot she is to me.

The collector himself is, of course, a weirdo with no social skills whatsoever. After all, he kidnapped a girl to basically just look at her and be her friend. But I find it easier to sympathize with him than with his victim.

But then, maybe that was the point.

6/10

Quote. Jonathan Franzen

For the last week or so before she was hospitalized, my mother couldn't keep any food down, and by the time I arrived her refrigerator was empty of almost everything but ancient condiments and delicacies. On the top shelf there was just a quart of skim milk, a tiny can of green peas with a square of foil on top, and, next to this can, a dish containing a single bite of peas. I was ambushed and nearly destroyed by this dish of peas. I was forced to imagine my mother alone in the house and willing herself to eat a bite of something, anything, a bite of peas, and finding herself unable to. With her usual frugality and optimism, she'd put both the can and the dish in the refrigerator, in case her appetite returned.

from Meet Me in St. Louis (published in How to Be Alone)

Richard Matheson, 1926-2013

Richard Matheson, whose books and short stories spawned many a film adaptation, has passed away at 87.

Did You Need Another Reason to Love This Man?