Review: Beastly Things by Donna Leon

Author: Donna Leon
Publisher-Format: Grove Atlantic e-galley
Year of publication: 2012 (April)
Subject: crime, meat processing
Setting: Venice Italy
Series: Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries
Genre: mystery - police procedural
Source:  Net Galley (e-file from publisher)
Recommended? for mystery fans, lovers of Venice, and devoteès of the series


The latest Brunetti adventure. Donna Leon has been subtly (maybe not so subtly) leading up to the subject matter of this one for awhile: the safety of the beef being marketed, and the treatment of the cattle being slaughtered.  As we listened in to dinner conversations in the Brunetti household in previous episodes, we have become very aware of Chiara and Raffi's vegan leanings, and their outrage over practices in the industry, we've watched Paola and Guido roll their eyes over questions of what food is safe to eat, and whether the kids are over-reacting. We've agonized with Brunetti over the increasing pollution in the sacred canals of his city.   In Beastly Things, the latest in the series, Commissario Brunetti is called on to solve the murder of a well-loved veterinarian who was working part-time as a meat inspector at a local beef processing plant.  Leon manages to give us just enough gruesome detail to make the abattoir venue real, without gagging us with gore.

The plot is singularly uninspiring however, and I found myself asking "Is that all there is?"  Leon seems to be running out of gas.  The story is formulaic, the main characters certainly aren't advancing.  Brunetti, in spite of his horror at what he sees in the beef packing plant, goes right out and eats meat again.  In fact, he and Paola seem almost not to want to discuss the subject--sort of if we don't talk about it, we won't have to deal with it. We continue to watch Brunetti wrestle with his conscience over Signorina Eletra's ongoing tip-toeing around the law to find information by sometimes shady means, but other than that, we see little of the other characters in the Questora-- no LT Scarpa, only a brief appearance by Patta,  no in-laws, and very little even of the family.  Those of us who are fans of this series have come to look forward to the family dinners, and the husband and wife give and take over politics- both academic and office.  Obviously Brunetti, with Vianello's help,  is going to solve the mystery, but the story is one that seems carved out of cardboard, lacking in the charisma we expect from Guido Brunetti, and singularly uninspiring.

If you haven't read this series, I'd sure start with one of the earlier ones, and let's hope if Leon is going to take on other burning issues in Venice, they are woven into stories more in the mode we have come to expect.  A real disappointment.

Review: A Thousand Lives: An Untold Story..... by Julia Scheeres

A Thousand Lives:An Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown

Author:Julia Scheeres
Publisher Format: Simon and Schuster, Free Press, e-book galley, 320 pages
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: Jim Jones leader of the People's Temple, and the organization's structure and activities
Setting: San Francisco, and Guyana
Genre: historical narrative
Source: e-galley from publisher via Net Galley

Publisher's marketing copy:

"They left America for the jungles of Guyana to start a better life. Yet what started as a Utopian dream soon devolved into a terrifying work camp run by a madman, ending in the mass murder-suicide of 914 members in November 1978.

In A Thousand Lives, the New York Times bestselling memoirist Julia Scheeres traces the fates of five individuals who followed Jim Jones to South America as they struggled to first build their paradise, and then survive it. Each went for different reasons-some were drawn to Jones for his progressive attitudes towards racial equality, others were dazzled by his claims to be a faith healer. But once in Guyana, Jones's drug addiction, mental decay, and sexual depredations quickly eroded the idealistic community.

It's been 33 years since this tragedy occured, in which 914 people died in a mass suicide/murder scheme in November 1986, and the story still is repugnant to me.  I can perhaps understand that individuals might choose to commit suicide for a variety of reasons, but I'm not able to comprehend participating in a mass suicide event that included killing hundreds of innocent children.   Julia Scheeres has done extensive research, including interviewing survivors, and its shows in the details she was able to uncover to give us so much of the story behind the headlines.  She begins with the young Jim Jones and traces his "call" to ministry, his education, and his founding of the People's Temple.

But she doesn't stop with Jones' story.  By telling us the story of several members of the church - young, old, black, white, married, widowed, divorced, single, recovering addicts, paroled criminals - we begin to understand why people felt wanted, needed, and hopeful that here was an opportunity the world was not offering anyplace else.  As she follows these members through the years from California to Guyana, we witness the increasing megalomania of Jones and the tension, the uncertainty and the terror of those who finally come to realize that there is no way out of the situation in which they have placed themselves. 

It's terrifying, shocking,and appalling, but it's mesmerizing, spell-binding, and absolutely compelling. It was so depressing to see that the promise of hope so many accepted was perverted by someone purporting to be God, and that people could believe such a person could in fact lead them to eternal happiness.  Watching Jones turn disatisfied people into sub-human creatures who could turn on their own spouses, and children, was not a pleasant reading experience, but it was a story that once started could not be put down.

I only wish the review copy I received had been better edited, but I'm sure the publisher cleaned up those glitches by the time it was released.  It's a powerful story, and one that deserves to be shown to the world, if for no other reason than to prevent it happening again.

Review: Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

Publisher/Format:Viking Adult (2011), Hardcover, 320 pages
Characters: Bethia Mayfield,  Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck
Subject: relations between Native American and English settlers; religous bigotry
Setting: Martha's Vineyard, and Cambridge Massachusetts 1650-1720
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: ARC from Viking Press

Geraldine Brooks write so well, and she chooses very interesting and often obscure topics from history to fictionalize.  When I finished this I had a feeling of satisfaction in that I was impressed with how she handled the topic of women in this time period: how they were often uneducated; given in marriage or indentured to others by their male relatives with often no say on their part; how often they died in childbirth.  But....

But ...the book was supposed to be about Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, a young Indian brave who is brought to live with the family of Preacher Mayfield so he can be Christianized and educated. He eventually went on to become the first Native American to receive a degree from Harvard.  His friendship with Bethia Mayfield, the daughter of the family forms the framework of Brooks' tale.  Despite the title, the story is really about Bethia, about women's struggles, and about the less than honorable way whites treated Native Americans.  It is a story of two cultures clashing, of religion being used to justify murder, rape, slaughter, and torture.  The publisher's blurb touts this as a tribute to Native Americans who went to Harvard, and I guess we're supposed to feel grateful that Harvard established an "Indian College" back in the late 1600's.  The fact that this was a cash cow for Harvard (money being sent from England from the wealthy bible societies) makes it less celebratory in my mind.

The book was released to coincide with the Harvard commencement ceremony last week during with Tiffany Smalley, evidentally the first member of the Martha's Vineyard tribe since Caleb received her degree.  It only took 350 years!!!

The fictionalized account of Indians "crossing" leaves the reader pondering.  What was crossed?  Who crossed?  It's impossible for me to celebrate this crossing without a great deal of sadness that it cost so much in human dignity, life, and respect.  The story is well worth reading, if for no other reason than to encourage an on-going discussion of the lives described, and the nuances of religious wars.  It certainly highlights that we are still facing many of these same issues today, and with all the education we've acquired, we still don't seem to have come very far.

In spite of all this, I do think this is Brook's best work, and I think I've read them all. Many thanks to Viking Press for the opportunity to review this and for the giveaway copies awarded last month.

Review: Ape House

Author: Sara Gruen
Publisher/Format: Spiegel & Grau (2010), advanced review copy 306 pages
Audio:  Books on Tape, 11 hours, 14 minutes
Narrator: Paul Boehmer
Characters: Isabel Duncan, John Thigpen; the Bonobos: Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena
Subject: Linguistic and cultural studies of great apes
Genre: fiction
Source: print: review copy from Publisher; audio - public library
Challenge: ARCs completed

This is the heartwarming story of six endearing Bonobo Apes, who are being nurtured and observed at the Great Ape Language Lab.  These primates are highly intelligent, able to communicate with humans using ASL (American Sign Language) and special computer programs.  They are engaging, charming, and pull the reader right into the story as they cavort, order cheeseburgers, watch movies, and engage in frequent sexual antics.  There are two human stories running at the same time, and it is here that I felt less interest.  Isabel Duncan, the linguist who is working with them is not an appealing character.  She comes across as whimpy and naive.  When the Bonobos are stolen during a raid following an explosion at the lab, Isabel is critically wounded and spends a large chunk of the book mending. She just doesn't come across as the major player she should have been.Her whole life leaves me with tons of questions...like where does she get all the money to just sit in a nice hotel for weeks on end when she's no longer working?


In the meantime, John Thigpen, a journalist who meets the Bonobos just hours before the explosion, has his own demons to chase.  His wife's career isn't going well, his mother-in-law is a royal pain in the sit-upon, and he is suddenly unemployed.  In his pursuit of HIS story (he still considers the story of the apes to be HIS) he has to deal with Russian exotic dancers, meth-lab heavies, idiot editors, and a series of close calls that reminded me of an episode of The Rockford Files.

The reader is subjected to a rather contrived tail of employment woes on the part of John and his wife all the while wondering what on earth happened to the Bonobos.  Isabel plays shrinking violet and allows herself to be maneuvered by a group of young computer hackers who all want to rescue the missing Apes. Thank goodness the youngsters are honorably motivated. The three stories eventually come together with a suitable ending for everyone, but I really had to wonder for a while if it would.  All in all, it's still an excellent read if only because one falls in love in the opening pages with these beautiful creatures and wants life to be good again for them in the end.

I both read and listened to this one, and in a rare departure for me, I vastly preferred the print edition.  This particular narrator did nothing for me.

Mailbox Monday

It's Mailbox Monday, a fun weekly meme, begun by Marcia at The Printed Page. Mailbox Monday is touring through blogs in the upcoming months. In August it will be hosted by Chick Loves Lit.   Just as the post office or mailbox is a place to gather to share the news, this gives readers  a chance to share the books that came into their house last week.  This has been a bonanza week for Tutu.  My daily trek to the Post Office proved well worth it.  Here are the four I got:

The Good Psychologist

By Noam Shpancer

 An ARC from Henry Holt and Company - due out this month.  I saw this one on Shelf Awareness last week, and am anxious to be among the first to read this on.

Noam Shpancer's stunning debut novel opens as a psychologist reluctantly takes on a new client—an exotic dancer whose severe anxiety is keeping her from the stage. The psychologist, a solitary professional who also teaches a lively night class, helps the client confront her fears. But as treatment unfolds, her struggles and secrets begin to radiate onto his life, upsetting the precarious balance in his unresolved relationship with Nina, a married former colleague with whom he has a child—a child he has never met. As the shell of his detachment begins to crack, he suddenly finds himself too deeply involved, the boundary lines between professional and personal, between help and harm, blurring dangerously.
With its wonderfully distinctive narrative voice, rich with humor and humanity, The Good Psychologist leads the reader on a journey into the heart of the therapy process and beyond, examining some of the fundamental questions of the soul: to move or be still; to defy or obey; to let go or hold on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Keep the Change:

A Clueless Tipper's Quest to Become the Guru of the Gratuity

by Steve Dublanica

published by ECCO imprint of Harper Collins pub date 11/2010

Another interesting pitch from Shelf Awareness got me interested in this.  Thanks to Rachel Bressler, the publicist at ECCO for the ARC.  Her blurb:

For the many fans of Steve Dublanica's debut, the New York Times bestselling Waiter Rant, KEEP THE CHANGE is a natural foll up with all of the humor, wry observation and flat out honesty Steve's writing has come to be known for.  In this book he turns his sights on a subject rife with secrecy, confusion and general nervousness -- tipping.

In America, more than 5 million workers depend on tips to make a living, and Americans spend $66 billion dollars in tips each year.  That's right - billions. But who feels comfortable when it's time to leave a tip, and who knows how much is enough, not enough, or too much?  Dublanica aims to assuage all fears in his quest to become (as he calls it) The Guru of Gratuity.

I read the first 10 pages (the prologue) and I'm gasping for breath I'm laughing so hard.  This one is definitely going into the "read it quick" pile.  I know I'm going to love it!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eighteen Acres 

by

Nicole Wallace

This is an ARC I received from the Atria Galley Grab, pub date Oct 19,2010.  From the back cover:

To the world, it is simply know as "The White House."  To the staff who regularly clock twelve to fifteen hours a day there, it's the "Eighteen Acres"....Melanie Kingston, the White House Chief of Staff; Dale Smith, White House Correspondent, and Charlotte Kramer, the nations' 45th President, have made it to the top only to see all the accomplishments jeopardized by deception, infidelity, and one tragic mistake.  At the moment that the White House should have been securing the President's re-election, Kramer's administration implodes under rumors of her husband's secret love affair and a grave error of judgment on the part of her closest national security advisor....

After spending....five and a half (years) working in the White House, Nicolle Wallace is uniquely qualified to have written Eighteen Acres.....not just a story of a presidency, it is a study of a family, of relationships conducted under the bright lights of fame, and of the corrupting influences of ultimate power.

 I love political novels, and can't wait to get started on this one.  Thanks to ECCO for the ARC.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and finally................how fun................an audio book I won in one of Bookin With Bingo's many giveaways.  Be sure to click her button over on the left hand side bar to enter and win something on your own.  I got

BackSeat Saints

by

Joshilyn Jackson

I really enjoyed Jackson's Gods in Alabama, and I understand that one of the main characters in this one was introduced back then.  I loved her then and really can't wait to get to know her better in this one.  It is going to be the perfect book to listen to as I sit on the beach for three days in Ocean City, MD watching my granddaughter dig sand castles.  I can't wait.

Many, many thank you's to Karen (aka Bingo).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Review: Red Hook Road

Author: Ayelet Waldman
Format: Hardcover 352 pgs
Characters: Two families: The Copakens and the Tetherlys
Subject: socio-economic class structure; dealing with grief
Setting: small town coastal Maine
Genre: fiction
Source: ARC from the publisher Doubleday Books
Challenge: ARCs completed

I live in a small town in coastal Maine so I had high expectations of this book and its setting. On the whole, it did not disappoint. Ayelet Waldman has done her homework and presents us with a deeper than surface glimpse into the relationships, economic reality and culture of such a life.

The story begins rather slowly.  In fact, the only part of the story I found tedious was the beginning.  Essentially it boils down to a wedding - the bridal party stays behind to have pictures taken.  The wedding guests go off to the Grange Hall for the reception.  But the bride and groom never get to the reception because the limo is involved in a fatal accident. This isn't a spoiler - it's the beginning of the story.

The story isn't about the bride and groom at all, but rather the story of their families and how this wedding, this romance, and these deaths impact the families--both inside each family, and towards the other family.  It is a story of relationships and people. In addition to the native vs. "from away" conflict, there are religious issues (the bride's family is Jewish), there are issues of aging (the bride's grandfather- a world class violinist - is now suffering from Parkinson's), there is marital discord - the bride's parents have drifted apart due to the mother's overbearing need to control everyone and everything and the father's lack of backbone and refusal to stand up to her.

There are issues of class- the groom's mother cleans house for the bride's family, but doesn't feel the bride's family is deserving of being seen as 'from here' since they live in New York.  There are grieving siblings who are left to fend for themselves emotionally, and who are struggling to find their own lives while trying to live up to their brother's and sister's dreams.

The best part of the story surrounds the relationship that develops between Samantha (the flower girl) , a nine year old Cambodian orphan who was adopted by the groom's aunt, and Mr. Kimmelbrod, the grandfather, who discovers Samantha's incredible musical talent and takes her under his wing to mentor and encourage her.

Over four summers, we watch as a marriage falls apart, a romance blooms, a musical career blossoms, and the mothers-in-law come to a grudging respect for each others' differences.  The ending was almost a made-in-hollywood scene designed to tie up the loose ends and make it come out 'happily ever after.'  It could have been more realistic, leaving the characters with some room to grow instead of just being able to walk away from problems.  Still in all, it was a great read, and a well done look at generational, class, and religious differences that can fester in a small town atmosphere.

My thanks to Doubleday for making the review copy available.

Review: The Executor

Author: Jesse Kellerman
Format: unproofed galley, 343 pages
Subject: philosophy, greed, loneliness
Setting: Boston
Genre: suspense novel
Source: ARC from publisher
Challenge: ARC to complete

The blurb says: Things aren't going well for Joseph Geist. He's broke. His graduate school advisor won't talk to him. And his girlfriend has kicked him out of her apartment, leaving him homeless and alone. It's a tough spot for a philosopher to be in, and he's ready to give up all hope of happiness when an ad in the local paper catches his eye. 'Conversationalist wanted', it reads. Which sounds perfect to Joseph. After all, he's never done anything in his life except talk. And the woman behind the ad turns out to be the perfect employer: brilliant, generous, and willing to pay him for making conversation. Before long, Joseph has moved in with her, and has begun to feel very comfortable in her big, beautiful house. So comfortable, in fact, that he would do anything to stay there? 

Jesse Kellerman writes in clear, crisp prose that gives us an immediate picture of Joseph Geist the protagonist in this thriller. This is a very difficult book to review without spoiling. The philosophical discussions the protagonist has with the woman, and with his girlfriend, and above all with himself, are often almost convoluted. Through them we see a tortured, insecure person who has never managed to accomplish anything in his life except to get out of the mid-West and into Harvard where he has wallowed for 8 years. The conversations are so pompous at times that I actually had to resort to a dictionary. The book has a back cover that says “A masterly inventive thriller from a remarkably assured young writer.”

There are 343 pages in my copy. At page 240, I was still waiting for the thriller part to kick in.

Then it did, and I haven’t been on a roller-coaster that exciting or terrifying in my life. It is a spectacular story, told so well that even when things are slowly building, you feel the tension, you sense that something is going to happen, you posit several different scenes, and then BAM! Nothing like I expected, but definitely heart-hammering, page–turning good. The author brings the story to a clean concise denouement that leaves the reader with a sense of justice and sadness.

It could have been, and I suppose in many ways it is, a depressing and sad book. But it is so well written that I came away only saying WOW, what a great story.

Review: Shot to Death

Author: Stephen D. Rogers
Format: 257 pgs
Subject: crime
Setting: various
Genre: short stories
Source: ARC from author
Challenge: ARCs completed

This is a delightful collection of short (3-8 page) stories. While the title and cover would leave one to believe they all have a murder (or at least a death by gun) as a central motif. Actually, they are much broader in their scope, their actions, their plots, and their resolutions.

The author suggests that this is not a book to be read straight through. Rather, each story stands alone and can (and should) be read separately. This is exactly how I read it. It is a perfect book to pick up when you have only 5-10 minutes to read. Each story is robust enough that it could be expanded into a decent novella, if not full length novel or mystery story. Each leaves the reader pondering what just happened and what might happen if there were 20-100 more pages. For example, there is the story where a woman is trying to hire a hit man.  We never know who she wants to kill, or why, and we are left wondering what would have happened next if the story had continued.

It would be an especially good book to leave on the nightstand of the guest room. Perfect for sleepy guests who just want a little something to read, and much classier than a magazine or guide book.

Thanks to Stephen Rogers for the opportunity to get an early look by providing a review copy.

Review: The Weight of Silence

Author: Heather Gudenkauf
Format: paperback review galley - 384 pgs
Characters: Calli, Deputy Sheriff Louis, Petra, Martin, Antonio
Subject: missing children, selective mutism
Setting: small town in Iowa

Genre: fiction
Source:  ARC from Mira books (pub date Aug 2009)


An absolutely heart-pounding read.  I picked it up last night to start it so I could get an idea of about how long it would take.  I finished it 3 1/2 hours later.   I was reluctant to start it since it dealt with missing children, and after some of the darker reading I've been doing, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to handle it.

Briefly (NO SPOILERS) Calli and Petra - BFFs- aged 7, go missing early one morning. Parents, police, and townspeople begin the search in the woods behind the girls houses, where they liked to wonder.  Ben, aged 14, Calli's brother goes into the woods to search.

Gudenkauf writes from knowledge of disabilities.  One of the little girls who is missing suffers from 'selective mutism.'  Much of the book deals with the mystery of why she is unable to speak.   There is an element of mystery, a poignant lost love, great emotional development of all the characters. I was on the edge of my chair throughout, unable to put the book down.

The results of the search for the girls, the well-drawn players and the predictable (no more) ending are well worth staying up half the night.


Challenge: ARC completion 
Many thanks to Mira Books (www.MIRABooks.com) for the review copy.

Review: The Khan Dilemma

Author: Ron Goodreau
Format: paperback ARC galley proof -282 pages
Characters: Rich Danko, Max Siegel,  Franny Rappaport
Subject: corruption, National Security, rogue intelligence
Setting: Las Cruces, California
Genre: crime fiction; suspense
Source: ARC from iUniverse publishing
Challenge: ARC cleanup challenge, Thrillers and Suspsense

An outstanding debut thriller. Cashing in on the abundence of homeland security rogue operations scenarios sweeping the literary and video world, Ron Goodreau, practicing DA and new author, gives us a tight, chillingly believable plot with a host of good guys/bad guys (who's who we're never sure), fast paced action, excellent dialogue, and characters you can definitely picture.

A young Pakistani, Raheem Khan, has been caught red-handed by a citizen neighbor at the scene of a double homicide in a quiet residential neighborhood. Rich Danko the current DA in Las Cruces is under investigation for corruption when he is approached by FBI agents to squelch Khan's indictment avoiding a splashy trial, and urged to make the whole thing go away. Hoping to work a quid pro quo with the Feds, he hands off what he considers to be a career buster mess to his hated rival and assistant DA Max Siegel. Max immediately smells a rat and enlists the help of his favorite investigator, retired Special Forces paratrooper Franny Rappaport. Both Max and Franny dislike the FBI's handpicked lackey Detective Dale Cox and set out to discover "the rest of the story."

The plot rolls along, the pages turn quickly, and within a few hours the incredible ending arrives. It's a story worthy of a movie script. I hope that Max Siegel, the hunky protagonist turns up in more books. He is a lawyer one could almost learn to love.

Many thanks to iUniverse for providing the review galley of this great read.

Review: Then came the Evening

Author: Brian Hart
Format:  262 pgs hardback
Characters: Bandy, Iona and Tracy Dorner
Subject:rebuilding relationships
Setting: Idaho valleys
Genre: fiction
Source: Bloomsbury publishers review copy
Challenge: ARC

This is an intense book. The setting is stark and beautiful--the wilds of Idaho.  I've never been there, but I had no trouble picturing the trees,the clouds,the winds,the gulleys,the old barns, and the valley.The scene is haunting.

The characters are intense.  There are three: Bandy, Iona, and Tracy.  While several others play more than cameo roles, these three broken, dysfunctional, hurting, needy people form the basis of the story and and keep us from putting down this book while we read how they try to mend their lives and the lives of those they hurt.

The story itself is intense. There are action scenes,and scenes of incredible stillness watching two or three people trying to puzzle out what to say, where to go, what to do next.  While there is no plot per se, there is a distinct beginning, a page-turning middle and a clear and dramatic end. The reader is pulled in from the very first pages and marches inexorably to an end at once fearful and hopeful.

Bandy Dorner, home from service in the Army, awakes from a drunken stupor in his crashed car, to find his house burned to the ground, and his pregnant wife running off with her lover. There's a struggle with the arresting law enforcement persons, and when next we see Bandy,the convicted felon sitting in a prison 18 years later facing the son he never knew he had.  Tracy, tired of living with his alcoholic mom Iona, has run to meet and claim his other parent.

Iona manages to provide for her son during those long years of Bandy's imprisonment by first marrying an OK guy, and moving to Washington State.  Then when that husband dies, Iona finds herself working a series of dead-end jobs, and moving in with her sister. Both ladies find it easier to 'bring home the bacon' by servicing gentlemen in their bedroom rather than waiting tables, or running a cash register, as long as the booze and drugs are well stocked.

As soon as he is old enough, Tracy sets out to find his roots.  After visiting his father in the prison, he returns to the original family homestead in Idaho and begins to rebuild.  When his father is released from prison, and his mother sobers up and comes to find the son she finds she misses, the three of them begin a slow waltz, circling each other, measuring how much effort building a relationship as well as a house will take.

Brian Hart gives us a gut-wrenching story in clean, clear, poetic prose.  There is pain, hurt, violence, and heart-breaking betrayal while at the same time there is love, forgiveness, tenderness, and reaching out to rebuild what has been lost.  We find ourselves routing for these people even as we fear the possibility of a train-wreck.

The ending is absolutely stunning.  We should all hope that Hart has more in his repetoire where this came from.  It's a keeper.

Review: The Book of William

Author: Paul Collins

Format: hardback, 247 pgs
Subject: Shakespeare's First Folio
Setting: England, New York, Washington DC, Tokyo
Genre: non-fiction
Source: Bloomsbury Publishing, review copy

Paul Collins writes an entertaining and enlightening tale of the First Folio of William Shakespeare. I am by no means a Shakespeare scholar, although like most educated Americans, I've been exposed to his works both in high school and in college. So I was unsure whether this would really interest me or not.  I am however interested in books, and how they are printed, published and distributed.

The story of how his works were published, and the tortuous journeys of these volumes is fascinating and presented with a clear and somewhat humorous narration.  Collins follows the folios throughout the world, tracking ownership, explaining the differences in different editions, and painting word pictures of these archival masterpieces, including the gravy stains and tea cup circles left on the (now) precious pages. I was especially interested in two aspects, the collection at the Folger Library in Washington DC, and the collection owned by the Japanese and held at the Meisei University in Tokyo.

I did my library science graduate work at Catholic University in Washington DC, growing up in that area, and living there for over 20 years of my adult life.  Shamefully, I must admit that I have never been to the Folger, and felt the loss as I read Collins' descriptions of the physical plant, and the incredible holdings.  The Folger is at the top of my list for places to go the next time I visit the area!

We lived in Japan for almost 5 years, although before the Meisei's massive collection of Shakesperiana was begun.  I found the descriptions of the area quite true, and also was intrigued by his descriptions of Japanese theatre and how Shakespeare has been adapted to it over the past hundred plus years.  I am familiar with kabuki, and with the marvelous Japanese puppet shows: Bunraku.  He explains:

Along with such alien notions as soliloquies, the poetry, the English system of meter and accent, didn't make much sense in Japanese. ...Japanese words are consonant-vowel, and because of the confoundment of R and L, Hamlet became Hamuretto, and Shakespeare himself turned into Sheikusupia.

Puppets provided an excellent solution to the problem.

Collins' love of early printing, and the Folios in particular, is evident throughout the book.  It is well researched, and provides additional resources at the end. I just wish he'd presented a bit more framing up front so I could have figured out earlier what he was attempting to tell us.  It took me almost 100 slowly dragging pages before the light went on and then the story snowballed. For book lovers and students of Shakespeare this volume will provide hours of enjoyment.

Challenge: ARC


My thanks to Bloombury Publishers for the review copy.

Review: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Author:William Kamkwamba with Bryan Mealer
Format: ARC paperback, 347 pgs
Subject: growing up, famine, science experiments, building windmills
Setting: Malawi Africa 2000-2008
Genre:  memoir
Source: Review copy from Harper Collins


At the age of 12, William Kamkwamba is literally dying of starvation. His country, Malawi, a small land-locked slab of sub-saharan Africa is suffering raging famine exacerbated by totally corrupt and inept rulers.  The Kamkwamba family (parents and 4 children) has been reduced to eating one small meal a day consisting of a small handfull of a grain concoction and sometimes the addition of a pumpkin leaf.  William, the only son, has been forced to drop out of secondary school because his farming family cannot afford the tuition. The erratic rain patterns (too much, then too little) of the past year have meant that their tobacco and maize crops failed.  No food, no money to buy food, no crops to sell to make money, malaria and cholera adding to the mix, and no work for William or his father.  Life could have been very dismal.

But William is a curious and basically happy child.  He returns to the local grade school where the village library is housed.  There he spends his days reading everything he can get his hands on so he won't be too behind if the chance to return to school ever happens.  He finds books that came in a shipment from America, among them Integrated Science and Explaining Physics.  His world expanded, and he immediately realized that if they could have electricity, his father could run a pump that would allow them to manage their water supply and have not only one, but two harvests a year.  His family would not have to spend money on kerosene to have light at night, nor would they have to go to bed when it got dark at 7pm if the kerosene were running low.

Inspired by his reading and by seeing bicycle lights glowing from the energy generated from the dynamos run by pedals, he set about to build a windmill to generate that electricty for his family.  It never occured to him that this was something many would consider impossible.  The story of how he scavenged, begged, borrowed or found enough work to pay for parts and tools, and then built a working windmill is only the beginning of this inspiring story. Once the windmill became reality, and his house was 'wired', his family became the local cell phone charging outlet, and visitors began arriving to see this strange contraption made of a bicycle wheel, a bamboo tower, melted PVC pipes for blades, and hundreds of feet of bare metal wires.  My favorite part was the 'insulated' light switch made from a discarded flip-flop.

The story of his adventures out of his village after he was 'discovered' by scientists and philanthropists is even more endearing.  His first airplane ride, sleeping on a real bed in a hotel, and most of all discovering computers and the internet are joyfully related. Now in his 20's, and a university student, William is determined to bring electricity and education to his entire country.  I can't wait to see him succeed.

This is a book that can be enjoyed by readers from about age 10 through adulthood.  It is an uplifting tale that affirms our belief in human nature.  It would make great extra credit reading for a basic high school physics class.

Many thanks to Harper Collins for the review copy.

Challenge: ARC

2010 Challenges - ARC Catch UP

A RC Catch up..........

Well................we all have a stack of ARCs waiting to be read, and several websites are featuring all kinds of challenges with rules to say how to count them.

I'm just challenging myself to catch up on the list below and then STAY CAUGHT UP --that is, no ARC will sit unread for longer than 6 weeks.  At the end of 2010, there will be no more than 10 ARCs or Early Review copies left.

Let's do some definitions:

ARCs are books received from authors or publishers given with the expectation of a published review.
"Catching up" is defined as reading, reviewing and posting the review of the book.

Books won in contests sponsored by bloggers are not considered ARCs unless the rules of the contest specify that a review is expected.

Here's the list of what is sitting on my shelf right now

1. Night Gardener by George Pelecanos
2. Book of William by Paul Collins
3. My Name is Will by Jess Winfield
4. Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf
5. Half Moon: Henry Hudson and the Voyage that redrew the Map of the New World by Douglas Hunter
6. Boy who harnessed the wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba
7. Artist in Treason: The extraordinary life of General James Wilkinson by Andro Linklater
8. Mercury in Retrograde by Paula Froelich
9. Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser
10. Maze Runner by James Dashner
11. Lovely Bones by Alice sebold
12. When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the present by Gail Collins
13. Who Turned out the Lights: Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis by Scott Bittle
14. Broken Road to disaster recovery by Keifer Bonvillain
15. Triangle of Deception by Haggai Carmon
16. Moonlight in Odessa by Janet S. Charles
17. Bible Salesman by Clyde Edgerton
18. Exit Music by Ian Rankin

I hope to really get these caught up this year. I'm going to read the new ones as soon as I get them, so the behind list doesn't grow any longer. I am promising myself to be a bit more selective about what books I take on for reviews, and to stop accepting ARCs if I get behind.  It's not fair to authors who want a review to give me a book if I can't get a timely review out there. 

2010-Books Won Reading Challenge

TeddyRose at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time has come up with this challenge and I would be ashamed of myself if I didn't participate.  I have 11 sitting here right now and I'm dying to get to them, so having this challenge will spur me on.  This is where we read the books we were lucky enough to win by entering blog giveaways.  I've been especially lucky this year.  In addition to 8 Early Review books from LT (all read and reviewed thank you) there are still this pile so...Here's my List:

Beat the Reaper
Fitzgerald Ruse
School of Essential Ingredients
The Calligrapher's Daughter
Supreme Courtship
Gift of an Ordinary Day
The Woman who named God
Amigoland
A Separate Country
Heretic's Daughter
Sand Sharks


This would put me at the gold level.....and they count toward my TBR and Reading from the Shelves Challenges too.  A couple might even count toward Thrillers and Suspense.

I'm a firm believer in multi-tasking.....

Review: Sicilian Tragedee by Ottavio Cappellani

Not a book for everybody, particularly the homophobic, this is one of the funniest, most original I've read this year. Cappellani gives us a cast of characters that seem to have come from "the Sopranos", "Soap", and "The Birdcage". There are competing mafiosi, bitchy wives and mistresses, divas and queens (of both genders), contessas, barones and other assorted broken down aristocrats and enough bumbling politicians to populate a good sized congressional committee staff. And you have to love every one of them.

I've spent several weeks in Catania Sicily (the setting for the book) and visited much of the surrounding area, so this one was especially fun for me. However, I don't think you need to have been there to enjoy it.

Billed as a farce, and a take-off on Romeo and Juliet (try Romeo and Mercutio as the love interest!!), it involves the courtship of a mafioso's daughter Betty by another up and coming 'business man'.  Betty's father desparately wants to get her married off and out of his hair, and Betty's gay companion Carmine trys to help this endeavor along.  In addition to marrying off Betty, we are treated to the attempts by an over-drugged and highly emotional director/producer (Cagnotto) to find financing and sponsorship-as well as a venue-for his less than standard production of Shakespeare. He must also convince a bunch of aging actors (and one outrageous actress) of the wisdom of his "vision", all the while trying to maintain the affection of his latest lover "Bobo"  When you insert the meddling of the aging and devious Contessa Salieri, you have the ingredients for a true soap opera. Here, for example is her philosphy on giving parties (pg.132):

The contessa says that the guests, before they arrive at the party must be tested: first you make it hard for them to find a place to park, then you make them walk down a dark path lit by candles and (lined) with the gay waiters, and finally, when they arrive, you treat them badly and don't acknowledge their presence.  The Contessa says the point of this is to get the husbands and the wives to quarrel, so that they won't say a word to each other all evening, but will talk to other people out of spite, and then you have a good party.

A murder or two (it is the mafia after all) brings in more 'family members' as the plot keeps twisting. In the end it is a farce so exuberant in its mockery, that I suspect Shakespeare would have loved it.

Be warned: it is ribald, naughty, bawdy, raucous, coarse, vulgar, crude rude and lewd, and probably will be offensive to many (there is certainly a generous sprinkling of the 'f' word) but if you can take it as a spoof, or a glorious Sicilian soap opera, it is uproariously funny.  Yes, I'm Italian, and my father's generation probably would not particularly care for this portrayal except that it's set in Sicily, and for them, that's not quite Italian.  If you're looking for a good belly-laugh and very clever plotting, try this one.  I don't think it will disappoint.

Review: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

Normally, I don't have a great interest in witches, witchcraft, or even the Salem history about them.  But this book is so well written that it really has whetted my interest to find out more.  While not exclusively historical fiction, it is fictional and does have as its central theme witchcraft and the question of whether it was responsible for the events that occurred in Salem Massachusetts in the late 1600's.

Connie Goodwin, a PhD candidate at Harvard, is trying to define the topic she will develop for her dissertation. As summer opens, her mother, living in the Southwest, phones to ask Connie to please spend the summer cleaning out her dead grandmother's vacant but furnished house in Marblehead.  Urged on by an academic advisor whose motives become more suspect as the story unfolds, she begins her dissertation research at the same time she moves to the house. While there, Connie discovers that the house has no electricity, no phone, a mountain of grime encrusted furniture, a collection of filthy bottles, and a jungle-like yard, completely hiding the house from the road. 

The principle discovery on her grandmother's shelves is a Bible and key.  Inside the key, there is a tiny curled piece of paper with the name Deliverance Dane.  Connie's search for information about "Livvy" Dane leads her to various libraries, archives, auction houses, as she becomes more and more anxious to find Dane's missing 'receipt' book.  In the process, she meets Sam the steeple climber who is an old house restoration expert. 

Howe skillfully interweaves the story of Deliverance and her decendants -- and the story of her book-- with the present day story of Connie and her immediate antecedants -- and the story of her search for the book in alternating chapters.  We are lead inexorably to a climax where evil, romance, reconciliation, and historical conformation all meet. We are also lead to the ultimate question "Is Connie a witch? Does she possess certain mysterious powers she's only now discovering?"  We are left to decide on our own.  This  was a powerful, emminently readable, and exciting book: one I highly recommend.

Howe gives us a short but interesting list of sources to get us started on our own quest to find out more. 
This was an ARC I swapped with another blogger friend who highly recommended it.  Thanks to her (I can't remember who sent it to me) and to Hyperion Books who originally made it available. 

Review: The Christmas Cookie Club

This book was part of the BEA Atrium Galley Grab earlier this summer, but I just couldn't bring myself to read about Christmas cookies in the heat.  I grabbed it earlier this week, and can't say I missed too much by waiting. It has good recipes, great little non-fiction essays on the history of various ingredients, like flour, butter, almonds, chocolate, vanilla, etc, loosely tied together by the stories of the 12 women who form the Christmas cookie club.

They meet the first Monday of December to exchange cookies and catch up for the year. Their stories are wooden, formulaic, and re-hash many of today's "women's" issues (sex, divorce, pregnancy, widowhood, money, sullen teenagers, aging parents, etc etc) with nothing much new to say about them. The author could have done a much better job of building some character into these women. They all seem like wax figures from a museum who spit out their stories when someone winds them up and it's their turn.

There seems to be a glut of these women's support group books being published, and it really is going to take some effort to come up with an angle that allows the group to present something fresh. This just didn't work for me. I enjoyed the food parts, but could have easily skipped the soap opera.

Review: A Circle of Souls by Preetham Grandhi

All I can say is Wow!  Anyone who knows me can tell you that I don't normally read scary stories, stories about child murders, and I normally shun anything that is about the "paranormal."  So why am I reading so many of them lately?  A Circle of Souls was sent to my by the author Dr. Preetham Grandhi back in July and I'm ashamed that I haven't gotten to it sooner.  It's a winner!

I've finished it, and I'm not quaking in my boots, and I don't think I'm going to have nightmares.  While the subject matter is unpleasant, the writing is so crisp, clear and centered on the good guys that it quickly becomes a real page turner.

This debut book is extremely well-written, has a tightly woven plot, and well-developed characters.  Beginning with seemingly separate stories: a brutally murdered young girl and another young girl with hellacious nightmares, the author moves us inexhorably toward the meeting of these two separate stories and blends them believably into one.  In the beginning,  there are no clues to the murder, and no reason (either physical or mental) for the nightmares, but they are related, and the pychiatrist treating the young nightmare victim intuits their relationship from drawings made by his patient.  As he searches for the meaning of her drawings, and recognizes the locale in the pictures, he anguishes over how to help his patient and whether he should share his intuitions with the special FBI agent who has been called in to help local police investigate the case.

This is not a normal murder mystery suspense thriller.  The characters are the strong point in this story: even the bad guys are well developed, with sound background and motivation presented to pull the reader in.  There is a large dose of the paranormal entwined with Indian cultural traditions, and Jamaican/West African folklore.  There are several side issues and players building enough doubt in the reader's mind to make it interesting and challenging to figure out 'whodunit.'

It was written in short chapters that encouraged the reader to read 'just one more' before putting the book down, and in the end, to just continue reading to the climax.  Let's hope that Preetham Grandhi has more such well-written tales up his sleeve. 

Just a note:  I find it fascinating that two of the best books I've read this year are debut crime stories written by doctors...the other was "Wife of the Gods" by Dr. Kwei Quartey.  We may not be able to read their prescriptions, but their books are great.

Edited later to add a note:  I just found out that A Circle of Souls has just been announced as the winner of the General prize for Fiction in the 6th Annual National Best Books Awards sponsored by USA Book News. Congratulations to Dr. Grandhi.  It's nice to know others thought as much of this book as I did.

Review: Spellbinder by Helen Stringer

Move over Harry Potter!!  Belladonna Johnson is here!  This delightful book (an ARC) arrived earlier this week, and it looked so fascinating that I moved it to the top of the queue, and bumped a couple others I was reading to the side.  I finished this in a day.   It's billed for 9-12 yr olds, YA LIT, but this is going to be enjoyed by all ages from about 9 up (I'd be more inclined to say 10 or 11 but....)

Belladonna sees ghosts...she sees her parents, who died in an accident 2 years ago, but who still live at home with her and take care of her, although officially, she lives with her grandma who is still alive and who also sees ghosts. She sees the old man who used to run the launderette and various other friends no one else can see.  It can be embarassing though--all the kids at school think she's loony because she's always 'talking to herself.'

Things are going just fine, until her parents disappear to the Land of the Dead (THE OTHER SIDE) and she sets out to find them, and to prevent other dire and drastic occurences from happening.  She is accompanied in this adventure by another ghost Elsie, who 'died' tripping over a tennis net 100 years ago when she won her match, and by Steve--the school's bad boy who turns out to be very handy at breaking and entering and climbing and slaying hounds, and all those other things a spare manchild can be useful for.

This is a delightful book.  I don't read a lot of fantasy, but this one had me turning the pages as fast as I could gallop along to find out what happened next. There are beasties, and baddies, and wicked Queens, and spells, and elixirs, and magic rulers.  Everything one needs for a good old fashioned ghostie fantasy. It it due to be published this month, and I suspect it will become a runaway big seller.

Finally, I noticed--happily--that the ending left plenty of room for further adventures.  I hope so. Belladonna is a real winner.