I'm almost caught up on the book reviews, so....

Fables: Legends in Exile.  by Bill Willingham and others

Amusingly tongue-in-cheek.  I liked it enough to read another one and will go put it on my wish list now.

I always thought it was a cop-out to steal characters created by others and continue their stories, but in this case, it was a public service.  Come on--haven't you always wanted to know what happened to Cinderella and Snow White after the honeymoon?

(And, incidentally, the destruction of their world.)

Undecided but recommended. Maybe.

Magic's Child by Justine Larbalestier



If I were a teenager again I would love, love, love! this trilogy.  The final book put magic in it's place with finality, and oh, thank the heavens it wasn't a preachy place.  (Any more would give things away, so I shut up now.)

You'll like the characters, you'll absolutely love Reason despite of--or maybe because of--her stubborn fealty to the one lesson her mother taught her.  Run. Run away.

Book #69 not to skip

Stranger With My Face by Lois Duncan.



Back on the list.  And happy to be there--this was a great teen book.  In one of the later pages someone had inserted a tiny scrap of notebook paper edging with the green-inked words, best part ever!  I agreed.

It's a timelessly scary for teens and I recommend it.  The "lessons" were so understated they might not have been lessons at all, just things that happened because they ought to.  She tied up just the right number of her loose ends--not too many, not too few.  Yeah.

Still catching up

Need to review Magic Lessons, the second book in the Magic or Madness trilogy, but I don't know what to say.  It went by so quickly.

It lacked the suspense of the first, and the surprise.  The ending was clearly a pause on the road to a conclusion...it guaranteed you'd have to read the third.  I'd almost suggest--if this didn't have to be a teen book and therefore limited to 300 pages, the second and third books should have been combined.

So--got to stop now.  The TV's back on and it's too loud to think in here.  I'll get some supper and read.  The thrilling finale--stay tuned.

Not a book to read for pleasure

The Boys of the Dark by Robin Gaby Fisher








I'd read the horror stories--the true horror stories--so I was kind of afraid to read the book.  But they had it at the library so....

It's a brief history of the Dozier Reform School For Boys near Marianna, Florida, combined with the story of the two courageous men who exposed the torture and abuse that went on there.

If one believed a place could be evil, this would be the place.  It was Florida's first reform school, built in the late 1890s.  From 1900 until its final closure in the 1980s, it was a hellhole of pain and death--death by disease, by fire, savage beatings, occasional murder.  The first report came in 1903--three years after it opened, it was pronounced a failure.  Young boys were being kept in irons like common criminals.  Which was humane treatment compared to what came later. The boys who survived would hide the scars and try not to think of the place; never speak of it.  On top of their suppressed fear and rage was a secret shame--the shame of those powerless against irrational evil.  They couldn't fight back, couldn't escape, couldn't help their friends.  They couldn't even help themselves.

The two men of the narrative tell their stories briefly, then describe their attempts to come to terms with the nightmares, fits of rage, and hidden self-loathing.  After years of silent suffering they want to remember it clearly, get past it, and try for once to live normal lives.  And help the many others with the same hidden pain.  And to get an admission from the sunshine state of Florida that something had been wrong, shamefully wrong, for so many years.

One note to the author--as much as I loved the story and admired your book, resist the urge to foreshadow.  We know it's going to get bad--we read the cover.  You don't need to hint about it.

Catching up on books

Is it possible to read too much?  Probably so, and probably I am.  So here's the latest:

 
City of Thieves by David Benioff

Well.  That was something.  I feel drained, like you do at the end of a well-made war movie.

It's World War II and we're in Russia, in beseiged Leningrad. A young man is arrested for looting the body of a dead German paratrooper.

He and his cellmate Kolya are granted a reprieve, to go on a quest...an impossible quest where failure means speedy death or self-imposed exile.  Their search for the golden fleece--uh--eggs--may take them across a frozen, empty country, to the front line, into occupied territory, maybe into Nazi Germany itself.

But what is the greater danger--Nazi death squads, freezing cold, or their own Russian army?

A short book review

 
Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier




Take Halloweentown.  (fyi, the Disney made-for-TV movie series)

Darken it.  Add madness.  Make all of the characters two-dimensional (good AND evil).  (Except the bad guy--he's simply evil.)

Add a door between worlds--or really--time and place, where time is a twelve-hour jetlag (doorlag?) and the places are Sidney, Australia and the East Village, New York City.

Add a couple of slightly bland teenage romance interests.

And..wah-la!  A thumpin' good read.  Note I call this a "read" in the sense I take it to mean--quick, light, funny and forgettable.  A beach book.

(That's a recommendation, by the way.)

This Living House by George Ordish

This was a re-read for me, and a good one.  It lacked the surprise of herb-and-pepper rub but retained the meaty, succulent core.

Simply put, it tells the natural history of a house.  An English country house built in 1555 and occupied more or less continuously until 1985 (and, presumably, now).  The environment was dominated by Homo Sapiens most of the time, as Mr. Ordish describes, but oh!  Human beings are such a minor part of it all!  Humans built it, but the first inhabitants were the wood-borers: Lyctos beetles, furniture beetles, and ambrosia beetles.  As the house began to age, the death-watch beetles visited, waiting for the right time to invade.  And that's just the second chapter.

Earwigs, mice, clothes moths, springtails, flies, swallows, cats--only six out of a menagerie of critters who made their home at Barton's End.  And they're all in this book.

The author, George Ordish, is listed as an "economic entymologist".  He's written a companion volume called The Living Garden.  I want.

I found a survivor in the garden-

Lemon grass.  (I have no idea why the picture is sideways)
What to do with it?

Yummy Sunday afternoon escape

The Girl With the Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts--this book rocked.  I sucked in down in a couple of hours and wished for a sequel.  Recommended for any young teen or young-at-heart teenage wannabe.

All that said, I really disliked the writing in here.  The story rocked, but the writing got on my nerves.  I don't think it's Ms. Roberts' fault--she wrote Don't Hurt Laurie and there was nothing wrong with the writing in there.  I think the problem was that someone or something convinced her that she couldn't write in first person and have the book be taken seriously.

Seriously, schmeriously--this book clamored for a first person perspective.  I don't recall any point where the action took place outside the observance on the main character.  We were always in her head, but sometimes, we didn't always feel like we were in her head.

Another book that wasn't on the list--shoot me.

I had time for another book outside the challenge.  This makes me think the challenge was too easy or else I'm just rushing through books and not taking the time to savor them.  It's a fault I have--rushing--but on a book as gripping as this I didn't have much choice.

Behind The Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo.  Two families share a back wall of their crumbling stone shacks...their lives and fates cross and crumble even as their wall stood firm.  It's reality TV that's actually real...painfully real, way too real.

As Westerners in a big country with a Puritan tradition of law and justice, we don't understand sometimes what it's like to live in an environment where power exists to help the powerful and justice can be bought--no--must be bought.  I'm not so naive as to believe that many an American policeman or a council member or a minor official can't be bribed, but neither are we living in a culture of bribery.  (At least not among our minor officials; Congress may be a different animal.)

By the way, this book should be read by anyone administering an overseas charity.  If you really want to be sure that your contributions to educate the poor children of India are going to a good cause, ask for followup data.

Ghosts I Have Been by Richard Peck

Blossom Culp, a girl with a unstoppable eye for adventure, decides to impersonate a ghost and stop a group of Halloween pranksters from tipping outhouses.  Little does she guess how soon she'll be seeing real ghosts....

Another "if only" -- if only I'd read this as a kid, my imagination would have made it into an after-bedtime miniseries with a second, third and fourth season.  I'd be heading to the library to get the rest of the series now.

This book belongs on any list containing Tom Sawyer and Pippi Longstocking.
And mine.

This little fellow

...came to visit for a time.  I found him in the laundry after the Florida trip.  I doubt if he hails from Florida--I suspect he crawled into the garage and took shelter there.  He probably--sorry!--went through the laundry cycle and dryer.  (He was in the delicate clothes, and I only dry them for ten minutes.)
We've let him free.

Meanwhile, my big dog Werewolf stumbled and took a sudden fall on our walk this evening.  He got right up and didn't seem hurt.  Poor old boy.

Not to be believed. But true.

After posting a couple of my recent book reviews, I've gone back and read other people's posts and felt like I ought to change my mind.  Mostly in the negative direction--people would point out things that had annoyed me, but I'd overlooked in favor of my overall good impression.  But sometimes the opposite--I felt bad for not appreciating a book that other people loved by heart.  Not that I'm saying my impression isn't valid, just that it's sometimes hasty and might benefit from a rewrite.

That isn't happening this time.  I loved The Favored Daughter: One Woman's Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future, and I care not for the opinions of others.

Is she the right person to become president?  I dunno.  Was a lot of the book a thinly veiled political speech?  Maybe.  Were there a few personal incidents that seemed glossed over, like she didn't want to be completely honest about her own mistakes?  Probably.

Forget all that.  It's a vision into worlds so different from mine that they could almost be fantasy.  It's a legacy for her daughters.  And all of us.

Book 64. Ahead of schedule again.

I substituted The Secret Of The Mansion by Julie Campbell for the next book on my list, which was to have been A Gift Of Magic by Lois Duncan.  A Gift of Magic was reviewed by many people as "okay, not one of her better books" and also, it was not at the library.  I would have had to order another mass-market paperback for $3.00 plus $3.99 shipping.

So I've cheated on my challenge twice--and don't feel guilty about it.  The book I read was the first in a long series of Trixie Belden mysteries and deserved as well as any to be on the list.  If I'd read it as a kid, I'd have searched out and gobbled down them all and it may well have launched me on a career to be a mystery writer.  My life from then on would have been very, different, thank you, and I wouldn't be sitting in a dirty, decrepit house watching sunlight reflect off drooping orange balloons to make ghostly apparitions on the walls.


Oh, yes--the book.  It's kid rather than teen, just like the last one, it's shallow, light, and friendly; and I loved it.   It proves you don't have to have Centaurs to write a great kid's book.  (Not that I've anything against centaurs.  I'm just saying.)

Quick read my buns

If I didn't hate the slangy, modern designation of books as "reads", I'd write off Elton John's Love Is The Cure as a "quick read."  It was quick.  Also honest; valuable; not likely to be read by the people who really needed to read it; slightly redundant at times yet realistic, and positive.  How do you get all that in a "read"?

He describes his life-changing encounter with a young AIDS sufferer, mentions his own rehab experience, then launches into the story of the Elton John Aids Foundation.  Established in 1992 in the U.S., it quickly spread its mission to England and then world-wide.   The foundation's focus is raising public awareness and money, then putting the money back into the community caregivers, hospices and projects in the most effective way possible.  It has maintained a 4-star (top) rating for its fiscal responsibility, good management, ethical behavior and transparency of operations.

The book contains much hope but occasional outrage.  The refusal of the big drug companies to manufacture AIDS drugs at a reduced profit even when he guaranteed them a bigger market.  The Bayer company's wilful dishonesty in selling a hemophilia medicine that was known to be contaminated with HIV.  It had been taken off the U.S. market but they still continued sending it to Asia and Latin American.  The Catholic church's obstinate ban on contraception even when they knew condoms could prevent needless suffering.  It was rumored that in many countries, the church deliberately spread misinformation that condoms would not prevent AIDS--tiny holes would allow the virus through.  The Florida governer and surgeon general who implemented "cost-saving" measures that would eliminate many people's assistance for ADHP therapy.  When Elton's John's foundation objected, the surgeon general proposed that Elton organize a benefit concert to make up the differnce.  He writes, "The American state of Florida, with its $69.1 billion annual budget, was proposing to outsource its AIDS efforts to a British musician."

But there are positive moments, too.  When the name-brand drug companies wouldn't lower the price of AIDS drugs, the Bill Clinton foundation took it to the generics manufacturers, who risked lawsuit to make it happen.    The second President Bush's global AIDS initiative--possibly his only legacy that we're not having to regret for years after he left office.  And in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI made a cautiously ambiguous statement admitting that in some cases, such as when a male prostitute uses a condom, it may considered a first step toward the return to morality.

And that's a lot to be said about a "quick read."

Konrad Lorenz revisited

On Life And Living,
Konrad Lorenz In Conversation with Kurt Mundl. 


What to say--and be fair about it?  I didn't enjoy it much, after the first chapter or so.  It wasn't anecdotal enough to suit me.  There were a few personal notes but a whole lot more essaying.  I wanted to know less of what he believed and more of why he'd come to believe.  Missing the human perspective, it seemed a little dry.

On the other hand, it wasn't written by him so he didn't have be benefit of revision  It was the answers to questions posed by Mr. Mundl, over an unspecified range of time and topics.

Best quote ever:
           The collective stupidity of man is incredible.

Classic for real

Understood Betsey is the kind of utterly charming kid's book I should have read forty years ago.  It was written in 1917 and tells of a little girl who's being raised by a spinster aunt--a proper lady who learned all about raising kids from how-to manuals.  (Incidentally, she appears to have gotten her knowledge of the world from sensationalist journalism.)

The good part starts when the Aunt has to send Elizabeth Ann (Betsey) to stay with her earthy, uncouth, farming relatives, who actually expect kids to do work. (No way!)  They might even expect kids to figure out how to do things by themselves.

It's lovely.  Kids of today might be put off by the intrusive narration.  If you can stand Little Women, you'll love this.  And if not, bear with it--it gets better.   Just be sure you're under 12 or have a soft spot for kids books.

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

I thought I'd read this before, but that's impossible--I would never have forgotten it.  Much like Island of the Blue Dolphins, it's about a girl surviving on her own in a wilderness.  And surviving quite nicely.  In both books the girls show ingenuity, curiosity and courage; they take chances; fall down and climb back up again; and more than anything else, strike up a friendship deeper than family with the animals who share their lives.

But...balderdash! you say.  Girl kids can't survive on their own in a wilderness. Maybe a boy, a Huck Finn on the Mississippi or an exiled Kung Fu master in the Old West.  But not a girl!

Wrong on all counts--this story could have happened.  Maybe this kind of fantasy is a result of the overactive, wishful imaginations of a young women when they suddenly realize that their tree-climbing days are over--now they've got to grow up, live for others and forget they had a dream.  Or maybe not.  I've known many happy old ladies who live alone, do what they want and dream what they please.

They might even build a snow sled out of frozen caribou skin.

I guessed right.

I was about halfway through    Year of Wonders (by Geraldine Brooks)
when I added it to Goodreads and noticed some of the comments -- an equal mixture of "riveting masterpiece" and "dreckage".  The number of people who "hated, hated, hated!" the ending and wanted to throw it across the room surprised me.


I went back and read the beginning again, then finished the book...and now I can guess from whence much of the hatred emanates.  And in response I'll quote Tim Minchen:

"If you open  your mind too much your brain will fall out."

Which won't happen to any of the haters of this book.

So be it.  I liked it.  Many the ending was a little unrealistic, but hey--the poor heroine deserved it.

Ah, vacation!

Wild birds in Florida seem to be getting used to the intrusive impertinence of man--this was at Disneyworld, seen from the ferry.  I saw many more up close to the park.

When I read other peoples' reviews of The Immortal Life, I realized that some of my own disappointments in the book could have persuaded me to rate it a 4-star, instead of 5.  I'm not changing it, though.  Perfection in style and execution does not a 5-star book make.  Story does.

Now I'm sneaking in another "off the list"--Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks.  It's a novel that a lot of people on Goodreads loved until the last 55 pages, then hated it with a fury.  I can guess what's coming...we'll see if I'm right.

"The Immortal Life" could have been twice as long for me

Since I'm still a couple of books ahead of schedule, I snuck in another book that wasn't on the list.  I may suffer for this later, but right now I'm delighted.  I was a book not to be missed.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

Science writing that reads like a novel.  A family history that might be your own.  A pair of unlikely detectives, pursuing history--the jagged, spotty, and sometimes dangerous history of the HeLa cells and the woman who created them.


It's hard to say anything more without giving away the plot--and doesn't that say it all?  this is a non-fiction book, do they even have plots?

You bet they do!

The only thing I didn't like about this book is that I bought it on Kindle.  I may have to buy a hard copy so I can loan it to all my friends.

Peppers after vacation

Status update

I survived Metrocon 2013 and my pepper plants did, too.  But I don't have any pictures--the new camera is not playing well with the old cable.


Also I managed to sneak in a book that wasn't on the reading list--
My Life In France by Julia Child.


Very good, maybe even very very good.  I didn't take it on the trip, but I finished it today with great satisfaction.  Since it's an autobiography rather than a biography, it didn't start with her birth and end with her death--and I liked it that way.  It started with France (and a little bit of back

story) and ended with her leaving France.  Not unhappily, either.  She has a lovely "every ending is a new beginning" attitude in her writing, and, I think, in her life.