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.