A Book for Today

Micro by Michael Crichton ****

2012-02-11T11:25:00.000-08:00

Over the years, I've always felt the Michael Crichton was and wanted to be a science fiction author. In his final novel, finished posthumously by Richard Preston, the question is put to bed with a resounding, "Yes, hell yes." Micro is the adventure of seven Harvard graduate student getting down and dirty with the teeming life of the rain forest. Plants and animals armed and dangerous with myriad weapons. The best of evolution battles it out on the forest floor, some with mandibles and pincers, but most with chemical weapons used to entrap, to kill, and to digest. Of course, the most dangerous threat to our students is a full-size homo sapiens sapiens - sub species: mad scientist.

WARNING: To enjoy this book, you have to accept a "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" shrinking ray that reduces the graduate students and anything else (e.g. shelters, food, weapons, vehicles, etc.) by a couple of orders of magnitude leaving them completely functional.

The science of life on the floor of a rain forest is fascinating and the story of millimeter-sized graduate students versus the evil mad scientist is pretty good, but Michael Crichton's thriller magic is missing. Even though the body count is high, characters drop like fly (my apologies for that one), and the majority of all characters die by the end, the suspense is low. Why? First the characters are not very interesting, and second they die suddenly and predictably with the emphasis postmortem gore.

As a science fiction story, the narrative falls into the #1 SF trap, almost inevitable with seven competitive graduate student suddenly shrunk and dropped in the rain forest. The dialogue is seemingly a endless stream of these graduate students showing off to each other how smart they are, how much they know about rain forest ecology, evolution, and biochemistry, occasionally augmented with their favorite theories and personal scientific musings. Realistic? Yes. Boring? Like a textbook.

This book is more likely to end up on a science reading list, that anyone's best books list. But it is the great master's last effort, and all his fans should certainly read it.

The Foreigners by Maxine Swann ***

2012-02-05T12:38:00.000-08:00

In The Foreigners, set in contemporary Buenos Aires, author Maxine Swann's main character, Daisy, often returns the various methods used to control alien species that invade an ecosystem, especially adding other alien species to control the undesirable foreigners. This theme is reflected in the ambiguous feeling the foreigners have about the native Argentinians, such as a support group for wives who married Argentinians, and each other.

This novel centers around three women, Daisy, an American running away from a traumatic divorce, Isolde, an Austrian looking for a much better life, and Leonarda, an Argentinian free spirit. These three women struggle to find a personal niche in Buenos Aires.

All three scattered their seeds/spores far and wide. Daisy befriending a gay prostitute, Isolde frequenting cultural events and high-society parties, and Leonarda taking up with a famous author. While single women making their way in the world, and the full range of sexual and personal relationship explored might speak for independence and freedom for women in the
21st century ... that is not the case for this book.

The only character to reach a satisfactory conclusion for her quest, and maybe the only one to achieve victory over the ecological battle, settles into an classical marriage where she retires from the world in exchange of a home and hearth and little else.

Anyone looking for an early retirement from life might find this to be a cautionary tale and encouragement for a stable, though uneventful, marriage.

Wife-in-Law by Haywood Smith ****

2012-01-30T10:54:00.000-08:00

Betsy Calliston grew up taking care of her mother, a hoarder who never left the house. Her father left when Betsy was eight, but the divorce judge awarded custody her mother. Thus began Betsy's Candide-like adventures where her polite tea party is picketed and she is arrested for assaulting the protesters, her best friend's husband get shot and later fatally sick, and her cheating husband leaves and marries her best friend (thus the title: Wife-in-Law).

This latest "bad things happen to good people" novel by Haywood Smith follows sweet, optimistic, innocent, self-effacing Betsy from crisis to crisis, until the string of evil abruptly ends, and, as if my magic, everything is wonderful. Betsy and her girlfriend Kat get makeovers at fancy salons, go shopping at expensive department stores, and enjoy a "Cougar" cruise. (Spoiler Alert:) In the end, Betsy's mother even fully recovers and her long-lost father returns.

Until the final chapterS of fairytale bliss, the book is a page turner. At the end, diabetics must be warned to keep their insulin close at hand.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu ****

2012-01-28T08:49:00.001-08:00

Charles Yu joins the ranks of Terry Pratchett, Frank Herbert, and Harry Harrison, as a creator of a unique and captivating world: Minor Universe 31 - only accessible by time machine, and peopled by virtual characters and an Operating System named TAMMY with personality issues (all an self-referential metaphor for the book).

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu combines traditional Sci Fi (especially world building and time travel) with postmodern metafiction. In this case, the science fictional universe(this book) is discovered and explored within the narrative. While this might sound convoluted and paradoxical, it is meant to be.

My favorite author is this genre is the Jasper Fforde author of the humorous and ironic Thursday Next and Nursery Crime series. As a science fiction writer, Charles Yu takes a slightly more serious approach and tends to run long and philosophical on the obvious topics of time travel and paradoxes.

I found the world engaging but the plotting weak. I look forward to the next installment.

Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen *****

2012-01-21T16:48:00.000-08:00

Jimmy Stoma, front man for Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, an 80s rock band, died while diving in Bahamas. Jack Tagger, reporter for the Union-Register, has been banished to the obituary page, for reasons too convoluted to report here. Cleo Rio, Jimmy's widow famous for a single MTV video featuring her pubic hair, didn't mourn enough for Jack's sensibilities. So Jack, his boss Emma, and Jimmy's sister Janet band together to get Cleo for murder. On Cleo's team is "record producer" Loreal with tresses down to his waist, and Jerry, who lost an eye in a fight with a dead monitor lizard named "Colonel Tom" - again too convoluted to report at length.

This gives you a sense of Basket Case by Carl Hiaason. Deep inside this fantastic novel, the author lets his inspiration slip out - Fargo. Yes that's it: senseless crime performed by idiots and out of control with mayhem beyond any rational expectations with results that would be pitiful and pathetic, were it not for the string of corpses that pile up along the way.

The only thing that slows down the pace of this page-turner is the delays for hilarious laughter and dumbfounded head scratching.

The People's Tycoon by Steven Watts *****

2012-01-15T13:16:00.000-08:00

Around 100 years ago Henry Ford had an idea that made him a billionaire. Today's business folks (aka Republicans) seem to have forgotten the concept entirely: "The people who consume the bulk of the goods [and services] are the people who make them. That is a fact we must never forget - that is the secret of our prosperity," and, I add, the antithesis of "trickle-down" economics.

This and so much else is included in the recent Henry Ford biography, The People's Tycoon, by Steven Watts. Though it's not mentioned or implied, Henry Ford's life reads like a dyslexic with Asperger's Syndrome. Ford didn't read and probably couldn't - given the opportunity to read in a court trial, he refused. His staff learned to that he preferred to hear their ideas, and probably wouldn't read them anyway. This aversion to reading included mechanical/architectural drawings, where the successful presented their boss with scale models.

While this theoretical dyslexia might have been a drawback, the possible Asperger's, like that of many successful entrepreneurs, perhaps even the Republican front-runner (written in January 2011), allowed Ford to push forward his business with little regard to family, associates, and employees. For example, Ford Motor Company, was his third automotive start-up. In all three cases, he pushed forward with no regard for his partners, who either lost their investment when the enterprise failed, or were forced out when the enterprise was a success.

While he was undoubtedly a mechanical genius, outside the development labs, he managed his company with a reign of chaos, pitting managers against managers, embarrassing and belittling his family members, and hiring thugs that terrorized everyone.

In his public life he championed a wide range of causes including promotion of 19th-century Victorian values and lifestyles - in sharp contrast to his own life which included many estares with all the modern conveniences, usually including a private power plant, and a long-term mistress living on an estate nearby. His also funded a cruise to Europe to prevent World War I, and extensive antisemitic publications and activities.

On numerous occasions FMC went against public opinion, such as when Henry Ford refused to abandon the obsolete Model-T or join the war efforts. In these cases, the company finally came around. In Ford's later years, the author ascribes this independent behavior to oncoming dementia, but this pattern of ignoring people seems to have been a constant from the beginning.

I found book to be comprehensive and fascinating. Though the author's intent was clearly to be positive, the undertone was certainly dark and dangerous. The always brief mentions of emotional and physical pain caused by Ford's actions and inactions seemed to be just the tip of an iceberg of a darkness that was funded by Ford's millions.

Overall an excellent books, that explained everything, except how did this insensitive person become one of the richest and most influential people of the 20th century? Or maybe that is the explanation...

Thinking, Fast and Slow ****

2011-12-29T06:53:00.000-08:00

As a popularizer of Economics and Statistics, no one surpasses Steven Dubner (Freakonomics etc.), but that didn't stop Daniel Kahnman from adding his more rigorous and erudite contribution to the genre: Thinking, Fast and Slow. Of course you wouldn't expect light reading from a Nobel prize winner, would you?

As a psychology professor, Kahnman's book is packed with fascinating experiments and observations. Consider the case of praising good behavior versus punishing bad behavior ... in this specific case, the subjects were Israeli fighter pilots, but that is not really important. Kahnman observed that praising good performance was following by a decreased level of performance, while castigating poor performance was followed by an improvement. Clearly a rebuttal of the positive reinforcement crowd!

But ... as Kahnman explains in exhaustive detail, this is a fault of the human tendency to see cause and effect where none exists. Both above average and below average performances are always followed by average performances. The positive or negative feedback is irrelevant. The instructor could just as well have praised the below average and ranted against the above average.

This book is packed with similar examples and experiments, each followed with detailed analyses backed by Economic, Statistical and Psychological theory, together with the historical evolution of these theories. I found that I was retelling this fascinating vignettes to anyone who was within earshot.

The astute reader might notice that I haven't mentioned thinking, either fast or slow. This book as actually a collection of stories is packaged in four parts: Don't trust what you think, Don't trust statistics, Don't trust experts, and Everything else. The final sections reveals the book as a biographical retrospective covering Kahnman's life work.

The title comes from the first section which introduces System I, the fast, automatic thoughts that control much of human interactions and responses, all below conscious thought, and System II, the slow, conscious thought processes that aspire to rationality and logic. While this is really interesting and insightful, much has been reported on NPR and it is mostly irrelevant to the remaining 75% of the book.

I began the book expecting to learn some new paradigm of thought and action, but instead I found a collection of experiments and observations surrounded by rigorous analyses. As an intellectual omnivore, I found the mixture of serious Statistics, Economics and Experimental Psychology a pleasure to read. For the eclectic dilettante, this is a nice compromise between the popular fluff of Steven Dubner and the dead weight of college textbooks.

Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen *****

2011-12-20T18:36:00.000-08:00

What can I say about Nature Girl? Humor and Hyperbole. Everyone in the story has recognizable motives: the telemarketer who wants to be a successful salesperson, the 12-year-old boy who want to fit in, the fishmonger who wants to sleep with his assistant, the wife who wants a XXX video of her cheating husband, the schizophrenic lady who tracks down the telemarketer, tricks him into flying to Florida, and invents an EcoTour scam to get him out on an isolated island to teach him a lesson. Recognizable, though not necessarily reasonable or believable.

Here are people with everyday desires for successful careers and relationships, and maybe a little sex, but so strange as to be laughable or cry-able. But do not worry, this is a comedy and most characters arrive at a happy ending. In the interim, their adventures are, well, adventures. While most characters survive, the characters a subjected to a wide variety of abuse - groins are subjected to cactus spines, hammering, and a taser; heads crash into a garbage truck, are hit with a tree branch, 2x4, and a guitar. Conventional weapons include a sawed-off shotgun and semi-automatic pistol.

So ... a comedy of zany adventures and and lots of mayhem. If you start it, you won't be able to put it down.

Bill and Dave by Michael S Malone ***

2011-12-18T17:53:00.001-08:00

Bill & Dave, as anyone who grew up on Silicon Valley knows, is Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. Michael S Malone's book is part history, part business advice and part hagiography.

Let's start with the history. You younger reader might not remember this, but in the early 1940's, most of the industrial world was blown to smithereens ... basically everything except the United States. This asymmetry meant laid the groundwork for the greatest period of economic success and expansion the United States has ever or will ever experience. HP was one of the many companies that benefited from this historical accident. This book chronicles how they internalized their success as unique and validation of genius, in spite of the later difficulties when a more normal conditions were restored.

The business advice. If you are a busy business person looking for advice, the author correctly assumes you don't want to wade through the swamp of praise and rationalization. The 100-200 business advice one-liners are collected in the back of the book with gems like:

In high tech especially, it is vital to be revolutionary, but dangerous to be Utopian.

and

Take care of your smallest clients - they may one day be your biggest.

And finally the hagiography. The case of beatification is stated over and over citing such miracles as an early foray in X-Y plotters (if you don't know, don't ask) laying the groundwork for PC printers, and desktop calculators doing the same for PCs. Assumptions only the faithful can believe.

I'm sure retired HPers will love the book, and other Silicon Valley veterans might enjoy the history, though it is biased and repetitive. Otherwise, not much to recommend it.

Disclosure: I benefited by HP's mismanagement in the 1980s when they became a source of well-trained engineers and managers for many Silicon Valley start-ups.

Bill & Daev by Michael Malone ***

2011-12-18T17:48:00.001-08:00

In high tech especially, it is vital to be revolutionary, but dangerous to be Utopian.

and

Take care of your smallest clients - they may one day be your biggest.

Bill & Dave by Michael S Malone ****

2011-12-18T15:44:00.000-08:00

In high tech especially, it is vital to be revolutionary, but dangerous to be Utopian.

and

Take care of your smallest clients - they may one day be your biggest.

The Discovery of Jeanne Baret by Glynis Ridley ****

2011-12-11T01:57:00.000-08:00

Baret ... a woman who dressed as man; a female botanist in a male-dominated field; a working-class woman who traveled father [sic] than most aristocrats. How could the eighteenth-century mind classify someone who refused to be bound by her gender or her class?

The Discovery of Jeanne Baret by Glynis Ridley chronicles to life of the extraordinary first woman to circumnavigate the world. Baret lived the life of an explorer and a scientist on an expedition similar to Darwin's , but over 50 years before the voyage of the Beagle. This is a story that foreshadows today's questions of career and family. In addition to the eighteenth-century expected hardships of manual labor, starvation and disease, Baret also suffers gender-specific challenges of sexual harassment and twice has to up a child that is not compatible with the life she has chosen. In the end she retired with a "government stipend for man of science."

While the story is a fascinating look at the eighteenth-century science of the French Enlightenment, the book suffers from the author's uncertainty as to the nature of the text. At times the book is straight history with in-text references, while in other places, historical blanks are filed with fabrications of feeling and motivations. Most disconcerting is a third case where inferred events are loaded down with conjecture and interpretation. In this third category is a gang rape, not in the historical record, but that Ridley discusses at length.

A great story with a flaw presentation.

Dog On It by Spencer Quinn *****

2011-12-06T15:24:00.000-08:00

Forget Watson or Grace Makutsi, the new detective sidekick is Chet. On the plus side, Chet is full of optimism, enthusiasm, and love. No matter how bad things might get, Chet lives in the moment, a skill aided by his ignorance complex issues like money and numbers, and his Alzheimer's-like lack of medium term memory. On the negative side, even though he seems to solve the crimes ahead of everyone else, his lack of effective communication skills leaves everyone else wondering what's happening. Oh yes, Chet is a dog.

In Dog On It by Spencer Quinn, Cheat and Bernie solve a missing person case involving a teenage girl and Russian gangsters. Since Chet is the narrator, some of the details are unclear, because at some critical junctures, Chet might smell an abandoned hamburger or hear the bark of a she dog, and completely loose interest in the current witnesses, clues, or even the entire case.

Wherever the case leads, Chet has a wonderful time, whether running through the woods, riding shotgun with his face in the breeze, playing with Bernie's son, or interrogating suspects, Chet has pretty much to same reaction, "What was more fun than this? Huh? I ask you."

For a wonderful guilty pleasure, spend a few hours with Chet, a dog is is never guilty about his pleasures.

The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Heidi W Durrow ****

2011-12-02T14:30:00.000-08:00

Just a few days short of my estranged daughter Heather Jasmine Ehrlich's birthday I finished The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Heidi W Durrow. The girl from the title is Rachel. Rachel grows up with many questions, but the one which touched me at this time of year is: "Where is... who is my father?"

For many good hearted reasons, Rachel hears very little of her father as she grows up. Much like my own story, even when she finally gets some news, the result is ambiguous and inconclusive.

This novel, like real life, is richer and deeper than just a missing father, and each revealed truth is accompanied by a harder follow-on question. Rachel's mom is Danish and her father is African American. She's already in school when the family moves from Europe to the United States. Both Rachel and her mother have to adjust to a culture where Rachel is now considered to be Black and that is now her defining characteristic.

Rachel adjusts better than her mother who throws herself and her children off the top of their apartment building. Rachel survives and moves in with her grandmother - her father's mother. By now she is in junior high and she needs to adjust to her maturing sexuality.

Through all of this her family and friends take turns supporting and sabotaging her. In the end I have no better idea about Rachel's future than I do about Heather Jasmine Ehrlich's, or anyone else's for that matter. A wonderful story of growing up in a real world.

Spider Web by Earlene Fowler ****

2011-11-28T12:12:00.000-08:00

What do you think of when you hear Morrow Bay, Pismo Beach, and Cal Poly? If you're from California, you think of San Luis Obispo. If you're a fan of mystery writer Earlene Fowler, author of Spider Web, you might think of San Celina, completely recognizable to anyone who has been near San Luis Obispo as SLO itself, as the locals refer to this delightful college/agricultural town in central California (in the no-direction's-land between Northern and Southern California, and not to every be confused with the Central Valley).

One again Benni Harper solves an interlocking set of mysteries with her unique emphasis feelings and suspicions in a plot where the sweet and sentimental are more often hiding in the shadows than anything evil, or even slightly impolite or naughty. A fantasy for anyone who believes that people are basically cute and cuddly - rhe we-are-all-kittens-and-puppies-inside school of sociology.

A wonderful story for Cal Poly alumni and readers of zero-body-count mysteries.

Late for Tea at the Deer Palace by Tamara Chalabi ****

2011-11-24T11:31:00.000-08:00

Late for Tea at the Deer Palace by Tamara Chalabi is a family history/memoir that reads like a James Michener novel of the last 100 years of Iraqi history -- by following the ups and downs of the Chalabi family. This is a must-read for anyone the least bit interested in the Iraqi situation.

The story begins before Iraq: when Mesopotamia was a province of the Ottoman Empire. At the beginning of the 19th century this had been the case for over 400 years. While thousands of years ago, this area had been the cradle of western civilization, by the early 1900s, it was a patchwork of tribal territories between the Ottoman powers in Turkey and the Persian powers in Iran. While predominantly Arab (vs Persian) and Muslim (vs Christian), the popular sentiment was up for grabs with with minorities favoring the West (Britain or US) or the East (Communists), or a smattering of other allegiances, such as smaller religious groups and fascism.

By this time everything was in place for today's conflicts: Kurds, Sunni domination of Shi'a, and even oil. The story opens with World War I and the British liberation of Iraq, with eerie parallels to the US liberation almost 100 years later.

Through the eyes of the well-to-do, connected, Shi'a family, the book traces the ups and downs, successes and disappointments of the Iraqi middle class. The role of the west is especially cyclical and disturbing, with the interest in oil reserves and ignorance/disregard of the people.

Overall this is a richer picture of Iraq then available in news - both fascinating and enlightening, as all history should be.

Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks ****

2011-11-13T19:55:00.001-08:00

Alexica and Agnosia, Prosopagnisia, Strabismis and Stereopis headlne in neurologist Oliver Sack's latest offering, The Mind's Eye, on rare and fascinating brain behaviors. As usual, he has written a fascinating volume of lesions and plasticity.

However, since these essays are centered around case studies, the book is accessible to a general audience that might be lacking in medical, scientific and Latinate background. Interestingly, such people are rarely included in his cases; most people discussed seem to be accomplished artists or people with medical degrees.

The book open with three case studies, a concert pianist, an artist, and an author, all with variations of alexia (the inability to recognize words) and agnosia (the inability to recognize objects). These are all cases where eye sight - lens, retina, optic nerve, etc. - is fully intact and the problem is traceable (with brain imaging: CAT scans and fMRI) to some brain abnormality, such as PCA - posterior cortical atrophy. As might be expected the book is long on Latin descriptions with a few causes (stroke) and no real mechanisms.

Brain science has made tremendous progress through the use of brain imaging which means scientists no longer have to wait for the patient to die to see what is happening. While some areas of the brain have been identified, progress is hampered by two poorly understood phenomena.

The first is variability: human behavior and abilities vary widely, and these case studies seem to include those beyond the 3-sigma range - certainly no place to find principles to apply to the general population.

The second is the near mystical term: plasticity. Brain science is torn between innate and acquired abilities. When a lesion consistently causes the same deficit (alexia) or an ability seems to be in place from birth (facial recognition), the scientists talk of innate structures. However, when someone recovers from serious brain damage or overcomes blindness or deafness, plasticity reigns supreme.

In some cases, both are intermixed to explain some difficult conundrum. The most interesting example of this is alexia. There is clearly an area of the brain consistently responsible for word recognition. But how can this be when word recognition is too recent to have any impact on evolution. Based on this problem, Wallace, the other discoverer of evolution, declared this to be proof of God's hand in the creation of humans.

The unconvincing scientific argument is that the brain has innate pattern recognition - the (dubious) support for this is that some computer program declared that all alphabets/characters share common characteristics (hopefully) determined by these innate brain structure and everything else associated with reading is plasticity. Scientifically this is an improvement on "the hand of God," but still need some research.

A wonderful book of odd diseases and science; only marred by a long chapter transcribed from the author's journal which is missing much needed composition and editing. A chapter easily skipped.

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht ***

2011-11-10T15:21:00.000-08:00

In The Tiger's Wife, author Tea Obreht deals with the horror of the Serb-Croatian conflicts from the perspective of Natalia, a young doctor who lives within the conflict. This is not a story of blood and battle, but of fear and misunderstanding.

when confounded by the extremes of life ... people would turn first to superstition ... to stitch together unconnected events in order to understand what was happening.

This is a story with ghosts and a deathless man that double-crossed the devil and can't not die, but knows when others are going. Of course, there is also the Tiger's wife who we only know by all the rumors around her, her abusive husband, and a tiger that may or may not exist, and may of may not have escaped from the zoo, that may or may not open again.

It is also a story of hope and hopelessness.

When your fight has purpose - to free you from something ... - it has a hope of finality. When the fight is about ... your name, the places where your blood is anchored ... there is nothing but hate ...

This surreal tale highlights the horror of the people living within the war zone, their terror and frustrations and the ordinary things that continue within the fighting. Happy things like reading a favorite book book and sad things like chronic diseases.

Tea Obreht brings war alive with the daily lives of those behind the front lines and outside the battle, but certainly not outside the emotional distress.

The Myth of the Rational Market by Justin Fox ****

2011-11-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

The Myth of the Rational Market by Justin Fox is just what it claims to be: a history. However, since this is the (checkered) history of an idea that has never been fully accepted or rejected, don't expect any narrative arc, climax or resolution.

The concept of a rational market at various times has meant that markets are correct, will soon be correct, or might be correct eventually. It might also imply that no one can beat the market, or those that beat the market were just lucky, or to beat the market consistently is very hard. Regardless of the interpretation, academics and practitioners have used this investigation to earn Nobel prizes and/or billions of dollars. Sometimes the focus is on the future (usually during boom times) and at others on the past (usually after crashes).

Justin Fox is an exhaustive researcher and covers the ground in detail with adequate mention of every significant economist, policy wonk, financial analyst, and money manager of the 20th century. Harvard, MIT and Chicago get the most mentions but many other schools are also mentioned.

If you are interested in the history of economic and finance, you will not be disappointed.

If you are interested in investing advice, here it is: Buy and hold index funds. This has been the answer since Vanguard introduce such funds in 1976.

If you want to know if it is possible to do better, the answer is a resounding yes; markets are inefficient and a few very smart folk with enormous resources beat them from time to time.

If you want to know whether you can do better, forget it!

Those are the short answers. The long form also makes interesting reading.

Dead Zero by Stephen Hunter **

2011-10-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

Dead Zero by Stephen Hunter is another novel in the continuing saga of Bob Lee Swagger, USMC sniper. However, it seems that, by his own confession in the acknowledgements, Hunter has run out of ideas. This plot is borrowed from Death of a Thin-Skinned Animal by Patrick Alexander (out of print, 1976), updated and made very silly.

SPOILED ALERT, SPOILER ALERT

The plot, full of Hunter's standard fare: macho Marines, catalogues of armaments and accessories, and violent fire fights, all builds to a bizarre climax with a Rube Goldberg device to target a missile at the Rose Garden, a location certainly well known within the accuracy required for the available kill zone. A wonderful example of the unbelievable motivated by the unnecessary, but this is what happens when a popular author is out of ideas.

Still , if you are a fan of USMC sniper Bob Lee Swagger, this is probably the next must read in the series.

D is for Deadbeat by Sue Grafton ****

2011-10-26T08:58:00.000-07:00

"D" is for Deadbeatby Sue Grafton is another murder in Santa Teresa solved by Kinsey Millhone. As usual, a pleasant read.

Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr ****

2011-10-23T05:50:00.000-07:00

Set in the desert of southwest New Mexico and western Texas, near Carlsbad Caverns (where the book was purchased), Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr opens as Anna Pidgeon, National Park Service (NPS) ranger, discovers the corpse of another NPS ranger, apparently killed by a mountain lion. While the NPS, the FBI, and local law enforcement all accept this at face value, Anna finds many of the details suspicious.

First, the corpse was found in the midst of an area of saw grass, yet the corpse was free of scratches. Even more suspicious, the experienced ranger had packed for hiking in the back country, but didn't pack any water. This sets the tone for the story that follows. Anna is a careful observer of life in the desert. This is a murder where the clues are delivered by the unique environment of the southwestern desert: climate, terrain, flora and fauna, making this book as much an enjoyable excursion into the desert as a whodunit.

The only flaw (certainly unavoidable and forgivable) is the obsolete technological plots points from 1993. This includes the limited pictures on a roll of film and the delays required for them to be developed. Also the challenges of finding a public telephone.

Overall a fine nature book and western yarn.

The Dinosaur Hunters by Homer Hickam ***

2011-10-16T06:53:00.000-07:00

You remember Homer Hickam, the author of the memoir Rocket Boys, which was made into the movie October Sky. His latest novel is The Dinosaur Hunter. Mike Wire is a former LAPD Homicide Detective (stop me if you heard this before), now living as a ranch hand in eastern Montana. As you might have guessed to setting and characters are comfortable and familiar: taciturn, tough, independent ranchers, mistrusted outsiders, survivalists concerned about black helicopters, guns, rodeo, two-stepping, ...

The new wrinkle is Dr Pickford, a paleontologist, with his two sexy lady assistants. Indeed, much of the book is dedicated to the details of paleontological field work, theories about the life of T Rex, of course, the famous K-T extinction - incidentally not caused by the meteor this time.

This is a book with written with Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park etc.) in mind, but I felt that thriller/mystery part of the formula was patched on with rather flimsy plotting and resolved in a deus ex machina way.

In this end, this is a pleasant read of comfortable cliches about modern cowboys and the idyllic life of the untamed west. If you expect no more than a pleasant few hours of reading, you will not be disappointed.

The Home for Broken Hearts by Rowan Coleman ***

2011-10-13T18:52:00.000-07:00

The Home for Broken Hearts by Rowan Coleman chronicles Ellen Wood and her son Charlie a year after the tragic death of her husband Nick. In order to balance her budget she takes in three boarders: Sabine, on trial separation from her husband, Allegra, septuagenarian writer of hot romance novels, and Matt, a writer for a sleazy men's magazine. Into this mix is added, Hannah, Ellen's much younger sister.

Amid much angst and introspection, Ellen works through her grief and resulting agoraphobia, Matt struggles with his life as a exploiter of women, and everyone else does their best to play their unsurprising, stereotypical roles.

From the Book Club Guide:

Ellen's pivotal moment of power, confidence, and clarity occurs when she dons her green dress and sexy undergarments. Go to your book club meeting dressed up in the outfit that make you feel your most self-assured.

Aside from the obvious, my biggest disappointment was the lack of resolution around the dead husband Nick. Nick was a possessive, controlling, demanding, and cheating husband. He isolated Ellen from all outside contact and interests and then abandoned her emotionally. Her agoraphobia was much in place before he died. As the poster child for an abusive husband, he got off very lightly. Much more was said about the emotional risks of sexual fantasies and consensual sex.

Don't waste you time.

Chocolate Wars by Deborah Cadbury ****

2011-10-10T07:56:00.000-07:00

Chocolate Wars by Deborah Cadbury is a dense, comprehensive history of chocolate candy. Comprehensive? Yes! Topics include: development and manufacture of a wide variety of current and historical chocolate products, international aspects of growing and marketing chocolate, political, social, and business history, family histories, and biographies of the major players. The book includes the major chocolate companies: Hershey, Mars, Cadbury, Lindt, Houten, Nestle, and others. So comprehensive that most readers will find some parts of great interest and other parts that are best skimmed over.

As might be imagined by the author's name, the main thread is the cradle to death history of Cadbury. The company was started by Quakers. The beginnings were touch and go as they struggled to find a business and product formula that might be successful. In the 19th century, many companies were struggling to find a chocolate product that could be manufactured consistently, delivered to consumers without spoiling, and tasty.

Once the company was successful, the challenge was to deploy their riches in a way consistent with their Quaker ideals. At the turn of the 20th century, their goals coincided for the growing labor and public welfare movements. In England, the various Quaker businesses had a positive impact on public policy.

However, starting with World War I, the business climate changed with the rise of bigger, profit-oriented businesses. This was the beginning of the decline of Cadbury as moral force and an independent organization. The final demise did not occur until almost 100 years later.

This is an excellent book which can be read as general history, evolution of social policy, condemnation of modern business, or, even, the history of chocolate candy. Truly, something for everyone.

Summer the South by Cathy Houlton *****

2011-10-07T10:40:00.000-07:00

Summer in the South by Cathy Houlton opens with Ava Dabrowski, grown daughter of peripatetic, hippie mom Clotilde, struggling to write a novel which writing while working at an ad agency in Chicago. In frustration she quits her job and accepts a room for the summer in rural Tennessee from a friend from school, Will Fraser, with an old southern family. Imagine the child of a live-for-moment hippie in with a family who consider everyone who made their money after the War of 1812 to be new money.

This is a great novel, not because it is yet another obituary for the antebellum south, though it is partially that; nor because it is yet another condemnation of an arrogant aristocracy, though it is partially that also. At its core, Summer in the South, is about finding identity in the 21st century.

The protagonists are struggling to find themselves in a world of overwhelming parents and ancestors. Eva constantly tries to reconcile her life with her mother's and her estranged father's, while Will is saddled with 200 years of family history and secrets. In the end both have to break with the past, and learn to be their own person. The way this unfolds makes this novel compelling and enlightening.

I found the climax and resolution surprising, believable and hopeful.

Proofiness by Charles Seife **

2011-10-03T15:57:00.000-07:00

Proofiness by Charles is a goofy, hyperbolic book about other people using math in goofy and hyperbolic ways. Think of as a meta snake oil about the sale of snake oil.

Much of the book is a rehash of old stories about Vietnam War statistics, gerrymandering, interpolation of the census, the Bush-Dole election, capital punishment and other predominantly liberal issues. If you haven't followed these issues from a quantitative point of view, you might find this interesting.

I found the detailed analysis of the Franken election in Minnesota fun reading. I was even able to get past the author's love of cutesy invented vocabulary such as proofiness, fruit packing, and Potemkin numbers.

I found the book more goofy than proofy, but since so much was redundant, it was a very fast read.

Solar by Ian McEwan ****

2011-10-02T07:03:00.001-07:00

Popular psychology is littered with theories correlating business success with various conditions from Asperger's to sociopathy. Ian McEwan's latest book, Solar, offers a fictional version of these theories. The protagonist, Nobel laureate Micheal Beard, follows in the tradition of Dostoyevsky's Raskolnikov (who my illiterate spell checker wants me to replace with Kalashnikov of AK-47 fame) - intelligent, self-obsessed and amoral.

This book is a cautionary tale, so expect Michael Beard to meet a tragic ending. While the dust jacket advertises this as a "darkly satirical" novel, my experience with entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley found the story to be closer to the truth than the author realized or was willing to admit. Especially revealing is Michael Beard's moral gymnastics balancing his accomplishments against the litter of damaged human lives left in his wake.

Note to Science Fiction readers. This is book is perilously close to being SF with its plot dependence on quantum physics, global warming, and speculative approaches to solar energy. Of course, the publisher prefers 'darkly satirical' to 'science fiction', as the latter severely limits the book's financial potential. Read this one and nominate it for a Hugo.

If you enjoy hyper-intelligent psychopaths, and who doesn't, this is a good choice.

Pampered to Death by Laura Levine ****

2011-09-29T17:46:00.000-07:00

What's not to like about a witty, sarcastic heroine named Jaine Austen and her spoiled cat named Prozac trapped in a weight-loss spa with movie stars, a supermarket checkout clerk, and the diet Nazi? In between her snide judgements on everyone in sight and her escapades to procure snacks for herself and Prozac, she solves the murder mystery.

Pampered to Death by Laura Levine is certainly a guilty pleasure kind of book. Jaine Austen's mixture of self-deprecation, brutal self-honesty, and superiority to everyone else is endearing. When the diet Nazi confiscates her snacks, and even meaner, Prozac's treats, I felt like I should run to cupboard to gobble down a sympathetic treat. When Prozac stole one of the spa's koi, I was rooting for her to dine on her purloined catch.

But in line with Jaine Austen's tolerant attitude, except for the required death to make this a murder mystery, everyone else turns out just fine.

A good book to accompany Ben & Jerry and hot fudge sauce.

Echo by Jack McDevitt **** 2010 370

Echo by Jack McDevitt ****

2011-09-27T14:13:00.000-07:00

Echo by Jack McDevitt is new science fiction in the classic optimistic model (as opposed to the classic dystopic model). This is a novel of space exploration during a time of intergalactic peace. Science and technology have solved most problems except the human kind: hubris, jealousy, greed, and guilt. McDevitt's well-drawn characters demonstrate ample quantities of these qualities and many other of the timeless human foibles.

McDevitt has put together an intricate mystery of first contact - certainly a classic theme. While the characters visit the far reaches of the galaxy, they do it with a minimum of exposition. This is a particularly classic touch, as many of the newer SF writers seems so enamored with their tech that they forget to be storytellers and fall back on stilted textbook exposition.

The mystery is also wrapped up at the end with several clever reveals - making this book a pleasure from beginning to end. If you love SF from the 50s and 60s, you'll love this too.

Wicked River: the Mississippi by Lee Sandlin ****

2011-09-22T10:53:00.000-07:00

Wicked River: The Mississippi by Lee Sandlin recounts the history of the Mississippi during the first part of the nineteenth century from before the War of 1812 through the Civil War. Even though Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were a published decades later, this is the period Mark Twain wrote about.

Rather than telling the story chronologically, Sandlin covers the period with chapters on different aspects of the culture and historical events, including pirates, the Madrid earthquake, commerce, the Battle for Vicksburg, slave insurrections, and panoramas.

Panoramas? What was a Mississippi panorama? The panoramas were typically canvas paintings 20 feet high and several hundred yards long. They contained paintings of life and scenery along the river. These were the precursor to movies. People gathered in theaters and watched the panorama scrolled scrolled across the stage to the accompaniment of a narrator and music. The scenes included dramatic wilderness and current events like floods.

I found the book fascinating with its combination of hard history and details from daily life. Sandlin draws on a wide variety of sources from old newspapers and broadsheets to diaries and letters. This is a casual reader with each chapter relatively independent of the others.

Quantum Man by Lawrence M Krauss ****

2011-09-18T17:47:00.000-07:00

Like many boomers, I have are morbid fear of acting my age, especially as my age keeps increasing. I constantly strive to join the next generation or the one after that - the generation of my kids and even my grandkids. Some times I succeed, like playing War of Warcraft, but others ... like rock climbing for example ... I am just resigned to be left behind.

One such generational challenge is physics. My generation learned physics (I took two years of the stuff at MIT) before quantum electrodynamics (QED) really took hold. In order to catch up, I try to read a (popular) book on quantum physics every few year in the hope that eventually it will become clear to me.

Quantum Man by Lawrence M Krauss is just such a book. The author follows the discovery and evolution or QED and QCD through the life story of Richard Feynman, one the the great physicists of the 20th century. Unfortunately the book is neither science or biography, but a mixture of both, and left me wanting more science and more biography.

I felt that the author was so close to his subject - he is a physicist and knew Feynman personally - that he assumed too much of his readers. Even with my previous knowledge of QED and Feynman, I found many sections too abbreviated. Many biographical points were touched just briefly, as for example Feynman's long relationship with strip clubs, and many points of quantum physics were described as historical disagreements without ever clearly presenting the ultimate resolution.

The biography and science presented were interesting, even if incomplete.

The Choir Director by Carl Weber ****

2011-09-11T06:09:00.000-07:00

The Choir Director by Carl Weber opens with the departure of a mega-church's choir director, immediately leading to a decline in attendance (and offerings) and a financial crisis. As might be expected from a fast-moving romance/thriller, things get worse both for the personal lives and the church. The romance centers around the new choir director - the sexy Aaron Mackie - and three women: spoiled rich girl Simon, slutty Porche, and prime and proper Tia. In addition to the ubiquitous "romance," there is plenty of mayhem: murder/suicide, embezzlement, fraud, and blackmail. For the final quarter of the book, I couldn't put it down.

For thriller fans, the plot has many twist and turns and surprising reveals, much from characters (and the reader) making mistaken assumptions leading to detrimental consequences. For the romance fans, a warning: the author is male, thus the women are perpetually in heat and the men in control.

Finally, the book can be easily improved by skipping the prologue, which I imagine was added late in the game to satisfy some aging, out-of-touch editor, and includes much irrelevant and embarrassing gay bashing.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell ****

2011-09-08T14:12:00.000-07:00

Eva Bigtree is the youngest daughter of the Bigtree tribe, home schooled and in training to follow in her mother's wake swimming through and wrestling with the alligators at the family business: Swamplandia! - a tourist attraction in Florida. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell is the surrealistic tale of of the aftermath of the death of Hilola Bigtree, Eva's mom and the star of Swamplandia!

When Hilola dies, Swamplandia! attendance decreases until the ferry from the mainland no longer makes the stop at Swamplandia! Grandpa Sawtooth is shipped off to the Out to Sea rest home. Patriarch Chief Bigtree disappears on an extended business trip. Eva's brother Kiwi goes off to seek his fortune at the competition: World of Darkness - a hell-themed amusement park. Her sister Osceola falls in love with a ghost and elopes.

As the last remaining Bigtree at Swamplandia!, Eva sets off to find her sister on a voyage across the swamp reminiscent of Odysseus. In a parallel journey, Kiwi searches for his place among the mainlanders and the Chief. In this upside world of dysfunction, children are responsible to rescue their parents and older siblings.

Russell evocatively mixes poetic writing, all too human emotions and the fantastic for a wonderful tale of a family under stress - an uplifting testament to the strength in all of us.

How I Killed Pluto by Mike Brown *****

2011-09-01T16:31:00.000-07:00

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is a wonderful mixture of love, intrigue, and science recounting the events leading up to the demotion of Pluto from planet to dwarf planet - the reduction in the number of planets from nine to eight.

Planets (meaning wanderers) originally included the seven wandering celestial lights commemorated in the seven days of the week: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. As our view of the solar system changed, the Sun and the Moon were removed from the list, and Earth was added. New discoveries led to additions (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto) and deletions (when the first asteroids were discovered the were declared to be planets, temporarily bring the total in the neighborhood of a couple of dozen in the 19th century). Ultimately all the asteroids were demoted to ... asteroids.

As Mike Brown discovered more large bodies beyond Neptune (a.k.a. The Kuiper belt), it was deja vu all over again bringing us to our current understand of the solar system (starting are the Sun: four terrestrial planets, the asteroid belt, four giant planets, and the Kuiper belt).

But this book is so much more than the science - during this time Brown courted and married his wife, had a baby, and had one of his discoveries stolen through an Internet hack. In addition, the decision to reclassify Pluto was wrapped up in the politics of the International Astronomical Union - the society of astronomers responsible for keeping track and naming the stuff out there, re-defining Barycentric Dynamical Time (huh?), and other issues generally important to very few people.

If you are interested in science, research, or scientists, this is a book of people and principles. I recommend it especially to anyone with middle school children who might be interested or can be interested in a career in science - any science.

The Tudors by G J Meyer ****

2011-08-30T12:25:00.000-07:00

If you associate Tudors with a golden age of progress in 16th century England, with the English Reformation led by King Henry VIII, and the Shakespearean triumphs of Elizabethan England, G J Meyer would like you the consider the history, not the "propaganda." As I read this modern history, I was often more reminded of contemporary history than the 16th century.

The reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I included such modern innovations as the dismantling of the public safety net for the poor and sick, along with restricting opportunities for education of those who could not afford the cost. Of course there were no public schools or hospitals, or unemployment insurance in the 16th century. These functions belonged to the (Roman Catholic) church, which had been performing these functions admirably for centuries until King Henry VIII closed and confiscated church properties and institutions to fund the crown and benefit his friends.

During this time, while the gap between the rich and the poor widened, the poor were no longer the responsibility of society, but people to be scorned and punished. Those out of work were branded V (for vagrant), and if this didn't convince them to get a job in a declining economy, anyone could collect them and brand them S (for slave) and put them to work.

Throughout this period, anyone who disagreed with the King or Queen and their cronies, could be accused to being unpatriotic and executed - literally thousands. It was a crime to have different religious beliefs than the government approved. During this time torture was justified to track down enemies of the state. Taxes were cut for the rich and the economy suffered. Foreign wars were started and the debt increased.

However, the most sobering thought is that this period has been seen as a golden age leaving one to wonder what will be taught in charter schools a hundred years from now. G J Meyer's The Tudors: The Complete Story of England's Most Notorious Dynasty is a fascinating read where the historical narrative chapters are interspersed with background chapters on 16th century life and issues of the day. A fascinating read, if you can ignore that it seems so much like political satire in the tradition of Gulliver's Travels, Brave New World, and 1984.

2011-08-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

Back in high school or maybe during a summer break from college, I wrote a play. As only a teenager can, I was suffering from unrequited love and this was my self-assigned therapy. The play - I believe I still have a copy in a box of keepsakes in the garage, along with the newspaper story with a picture of me winning my only wrestling match and another about my more successful venture in competitive math - was called Irrational Irreversible. It had an ensemble cast of failed relationships - all the characters shared a single fatal flaw - all refused the accept their break up and all were uniformly miserable as a result.

While there were no happy endings for any of the characters, the therapy was a success and I moved on to new loves and never again got stuck wishing the past could be changed.

Philip Roth's new novel Nemesis reminds my of my play and I hope the therapy is a successful for Philip Roth and his readers. The story is about the Polio epidemic in Newark, NJ in 1944 (and mentions the hospital where I was born). Eugene 'Bucky' Cantor was a playground supervisor that summer, a hyper-responsible playground supervisor. When the epidemic hit his playground, he felt personally responsible.

Bucky's fatal flaw is illustrated in his impeccable logic. This epidemic is too awful to be caused by God, so I don't believe in God. I've done everything I could do to prevent the epidemic, but it came anyway. QED - therefore, it's all my fault. As in the Irrational Irreversible, Bucky never changes - nothing brings acceptance. Roth's brilliant writing and characterization pushes Bucky in to deeper and deeper depths of misery, but nothing brings redemption.

And just in case, you don't get the message, the book ends with a little sermonette.

The guilt in someone like Bucky may seem absurd but, in fact, is unavoidable.

P.S. BTW, I have one of those Polio Pioneer cards.

I'll Take You There by Joyce Carole Oates ****

2011-08-18T16:29:00.000-07:00

Set in the 60s, I'll Take You There by Joyce Carol Oates, is not another chronicle of drugs, sex and rock & roll, but an intimate exploration of what happened to most of the rest of us. The sixties were a time when roles and rules evaporated - not even evaporated - sublimated. Societal structures went directly from the rigidity of ice blocks to the invisibility of water vapor. While some took the psychedelic route, others tried to understand and even impact the changes. This latter group included civil rights activists, anti-HUAC protesters, women consciousness raising groups, and ban the bomber.

But mostly, this latter group consisted of those of us who struggled to make their personal way through the uncharted wilderness. Joyce Carol Oates' nameless protagonist - she can't even find her own name - faces three personal journeys to discover her role in this world of steam and fog.

First she joins a white, Christian sorority. She, who grew up with three brothers, has a notion that she would like to have sisters. They would like homework help and to increase the house GPA. Second, she falls in love with a black graduate student in Philosophy. Finally, she drive her used VW bug across the country to see her father before he dies.

As might be expected from introspective intellectual (nerd in the current vernacular), each adventure has a sad ending, but Joyce Carol Oates would be the acclaimed writer she is if that's all she gave us. While the plot line goes from one emotional disaster to another, we can also see how this young lady grows and is destined for a successful life as a writer. (At this point the reader wonders if this is the author's most autobiographical novel.)

As many of us who came of age in the sixties, we didn't benefit from the media fantasy of free love, but we grew up stronger and lived wonderful lives based on the foundation that learned to float on air.

Tom Clancy's Op-Center: Games of State by work-for-hire *

2011-08-16T21:43:00.000-07:00

Games of State (Tom Clancy's Op-Center, Book 3) is a 200 page, author-less thriller packed into 500 pages. In this comic story, the bad guy is the cliched reclusive, megalomaniac billionaire planning to take over the world ... with the aid of video games and neo-nazies.

The good guys are special forces types, aided by an assortment of heroes, including a man in a wheel chair aided by a female cinema intern, who together defeat a crowd of heavily armed bad guys. Into this mix is added a mixture of old girlfriends and murders for what passes for character development and motivation.

Without spoiling this comic book plot or the 68 boring cliff hangers, the good guys win.

All of this might be tolerable, if not for the dearth of action. Most of the book is silly discussions of politics, paranoid and conspiracy pontification, and characters tell other characters, at length, information known to the both characters and the reader.

...tell me again why I'm going to France.

If you decide the waste your time on this stuff, feel free to skip every other paragraph and every third page. You will, however, get a good laugh at the pre-Google Internet using FTP and modems and other silly technology like the T-rays that read documents on the other side of 6" stone walls.

A Decadent Way to Die by G A McKevett ****

2011-08-07T15:25:00.000-07:00

In A Decadent Way To Die by G A McKevett (pseudonym for Sonja Massie), Grandma Helene Strauss is a very rich and feisty doll maker, but yet someone is trying to kill her. Could it be granddaughter Emma with inappropriate metal-rock musician boyfriend Kyd, or niece Ada who obviously wants to take over the doll making empire, or nephew Waldo is just wants to stay high on drugs forever?

Savannah Reid, the transplanted southern belle, retired southern California cop, solves this mystery with her assistant vegetarian-drinker-of-organic-water Tammy, and her perennial, not quite boyfriend Dirk. For this special occasion Tammy also has an inappropriate boyfriend: Chad.

The main attraction in this whodunit, as usual in this series, is Savannah and Dirk.

You talk too much. ... They say women speak twice as many words ... as men do.

That's because men don't listen and we have to repeat everything.

However, underneath this light mystery is a serious message about battered women with advice and references at the end.

Delightful summer reading and a possible gift for that friend of yours in an inappropriate relationship.

National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).

1215 The Year of the Magna Carta by Danny Danziger ***

2011-08-04T15:24:00.000-07:00

In 1215,

The medical science fashionable at the time taught that conception only occurred when male and female sperm coalesced,

and that women produced sperm only as a result of pleasure.

This was why, men said, prostitutes did not get pregnant.

In a mixture of the traditional history of kings and wars with the newer history of everyday life,
1215: The Year of Magna Carta chronicles 12th and 13th century England - a period familiar to you as the reign of King John, brother of Richard the Lion Hearted, and mythical foe of Robin of Locksley.

While this time period occurs in the middle of the "dark ages," it was a time of much progress. England was become less rural with the foundation of many market towns, women gained the right to inherit property, and Classical and Muslim treatises on mathematics (Arabic numbers, algebra, algorithms) and science were being rediscovered in Europe. The great English universities of Cambridge and Oxford were founded. Among educated people the earth was a sphere.

Much of today's political climate traces back to this period. Of course, the Magna Carta was the beginning of rule by law instead of arbitrary rule by a King. But this period was also the beginning of the systematic invasion and abuse of Ireland and Palestine. Certainly the conflicts in Northern Ireland and the Middle East trace to this period.

All in all this is a compact history book of a forgotten period with something for everyone.

Transition by Chaz Bono **

2011-07-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

I am sure there are many good books about the transgender experience; this isn't one of them.

First, consider the "recovery" experience. As someone who has been to 1000s of 12 step meetings, I can recognize early recovery symptoms from the first narcissistic, optimistic fabrication. This book documents this chaotic, euphoric, and fragile, stage of early recovery.

12 step groups support this stage (Fake it 'til you make), but it doesn't make good reading with its irrational repetition of self-justification and fabrication - often simultaneously. People in recovery must learn to like themselves and take control of their lives. Support groups do just that: support - unconditional love.

A poignant story I still remember from decades ago was a women in her early 20s with many problems. After missing a few meetings, she returned and happily reported that she had had a hysterectomy because her current (inappropriate) boy friend didn't want children. We cheered. That was non-judgmental support and unconditional love.

The second problem is perspective. A FTM (female-to-male) transition is a major change and certainly requires some time to pass the gather perspective. This book was written to fund the necessary surgery, thus necessarily had to be started before the advance could be received to get that surgery. Thus, written in the midst of the transition, this book has all the perspective of reality television, but without the drama.

How can such a story lack drama? Though ghost-written by Billie Fitzpatrick, the book reads like the straight transcription of audio tape - jumping around in space and time, indulging in irrelevant tangents, and lacking narrative direction. As I said in the opening, I am sure there are great books written on the important subject of transgender people.

On a more personal note, I can clearly remember when Chastity Bono was born to Sonny and Cher in 1969. For me the 60s were coming to an end. I was working for the Department of Defense in a Top Secret research lab and planning to start graduate school (also funded by the DoD) in September. I remember thinking - Chastity? what an name to give a child? I wonder what will happen when she goes to school? [Historical note: Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue" by Shel Silverstein, top the charts that summer.]

Well this book answers my question: Chastity rather quickly became Chaz - or Fred for a while - and the name was the least of her challenges.

Fun fact (without comment): Sonny Bono had four children (with first wife) Christy, (with second wife Cherilyn aka Cher) Chastity, (with third wife) Chesare and Chianna.

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall Smith *****

2011-07-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party is the newest No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novel by Alexander McCall Smith. In my previous post I gave a mini-rant against episodic novels where the characters never grow or change - much like the justifiably maligned sitcoms. Now, faced with another such novel, the 12th in this case, I support the art form because Precious Ramotswe and her assistant Grace Makutsi are just wonderful and I never want them to change.

In this peaceful detective story, the only violence is the maiming of a farmer's cattle - certainly serious in Botswana where a man's status and station might be judge by how many cattle he owns and how he treats them. While Mma Ramotswe is hired to solve the mystery of who attacked the poor cattle, she spends most of her time with a surfeit of suspects worrying about the social implications of accusing one or the other. Her challenge is to to discover the real problem and solve that problem, while maybe never solving the crime.

"She was not the sort of detective - or person, indeed - who needed to get anywhere fast."

As usual, Botswana is a traditional place where people live in small villages, and everyone knows everyone and is often related by blood through distant cousins. The book is delightful and the mystery solved quite surprisingly and satisfactorily.

Death of a Valentine by M C Beaton ***

2011-07-16T16:32:00.000-07:00

Death of a Valentine by (Ms) M C Beaton marks police sergeant Hamish Macbeth's silver anniversary as a small-town bachelor in the Scottish Highlands. Due to the constraints of unending collections of episodes or sequels (as in the case of sitcoms for example, or James Bond), I'll assume your new to Hamish Macbeth - becasue if you read the previous 24 volumes, you don't need a review of volume 25.

When I read one of these episodic installments (such as Sue Grafton's M is for Malice, or Batman whatever), I'm frustrated by the constraint for the main characters to live unchanged and unchanging forever for the sake of the franchise. One of the strengths of fiction is to illustrate and elucidate characters' growth and change - the essence and challenge of human existence. This is why the great novelists (you know who your favorites are) create new characters for each volume.

But there is a commercial pressure to exploit popular characters by featuring them in longer works, but even the Harry Potter series comes to an end (at least for the moment.)

Back to Hamish Macbeth the bachelor. When Josie McSween, the young policewoman, moves into town with her matrimonial guns aimed at Hamish, no astute reader imagines for a moment that she will be successful. But, just in case the reader might be a little slow, Josie turns out to be neurotic, incompetent, alcoholic, and generally unlikeable. It is as if the author feared she might develop a life of her own and snare Hamish, so the author guaranteed her failure from her first entrance.

Forgetting for a moment the literary drawbacks of sitcoms and other unending episodic works (what should they be called?), the writing is charming much in the style the Alexander McCall Smith (another Scottish writer - No 1 Ladies Detective Agency). An indication of the sweetness of the story is the fact that even with a high body count, the reader never feels anxious or concerns for any of the characters (nothing bad every happens in Disneyland).

Overall? Pleasant, but not the best investment of your reading time.

A Time to Kill by John Grisham *****

2011-07-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

A Time to Kill is John Grisham's first novel and clearly places the legal-thriller author in the class of talented writers who seemed to be fully matured and excellent from the very beginning. See Famous First Novels for more examples. I wonder if many (most) authors never get beyond that first novel regardless of the quality - excellent writers don't get worse and mediocre writers don't get better. The being a strong argument against the massive "writer's workshop" industry - if you're not Steven King or Jane Austen now, you're never going to be. What do you think?

This novel, also available as A Time to Kill (movie) with Sandra Bullock, Kevin Spacey, and Samuel L Jackson, asks the question whether a father is justified in killing the men who raped his preteen daughter. Set in rural Mississippi, post-civil-rights racism, both benign (can there be benign racism?) and violent, is portrayed throughout - clearly a book targeted at mature audiences.

John Grisham fans will recognize his wonderful characters, suspenseful subplots, and, of course, detailed, dramatic descriptions of courtroom procedures. The one thing that separates this from his later works is the pat, conclusive, fantasy ending. While most John Grisham novels end ambiguously, as one should expect from legal battles, this one ends with an old testament meting out of punishments.

Regardless, if you are a John Grisham reader and missed this one, you should rush to your "Friends of the Library" used-book store and pick up a copy.

Dust to Dust by Tami Hoag ****

2011-07-10T08:37:00.000-07:00

Well-dressed homosexuals, sensitive homosexuals, homophobic homosexuals, gay-bashing homosexuals, closet homosexuals, homosexuals with exotic sex habits, embarrassed homosexuals, proud homosexuals, homosexual murderers, dead homosexuals … homosexuals everywhere. It almost seems as if, in Dust to Dust, author Tami Hoag was challenged to see how many different characters can have their motivation explained by their sexual orientation. As the body count mounts homosexuals murder each other and anyone else who gets in the way.

If I wanted ascribe a moral to this story, it would be that homosexuals are just like everyone else (in Tami Hoag’s particular variation of the violent thriller).

Regardless, Tami Hoag is one of the best writers in this genre. Even when, halfway through, the mystery appears through the fog of red herrings and casual clues, the characters and subplots keep up the suspense and the pages turning. An excellent summer read for long plane ride or a short vacation.

Buzz by Katherine Ellison *****

2011-06-23T16:50:00.000-07:00

ADD, ADHD, ODD, a few of the various label applied K-12 students, mostly boys, who have trouble sitting quietly and following the rules. Over the decades, the nature-nurture pendulum has swung back and forth. Today, much like the wave-particle dichotomy of quantum physics, both are simultaneously true and false.

In Buzz, the mother-author presents the latest self-help advice in the form of a memoir, a year-long history of her attempts to help and understand her middle-school son. The presentation is balanced and humble, until the last few pages, where the temptation to assume the role of authority and expert takes over and she passes judgement on all advice from the lofty heights of a published author - though after reading the book we know this is a mother whose 10-year-old son spent the bulk of his time on XBOX, drinking highly-caffeinated Red Bull, not budging unless he was bribed.

However, ignoring the last few pages, this Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist offers a excellent overview of the problems of raising an ADD child and the various therapies offered from mainstream to laughable, from scientific to silly. For the most parents in a similar situation, this will be a feel good story, much like sitcoms and soap operas - "My life isn't that bad."

Lots of good information such as the Federal protection for ADD children and the requirements for schools to support them, the generally excellent response to medications with the accompanying side-effect of reduced growth - short stature, and complex nature of the family ecosystem and how the chaos impacts all family members and at the same time how the each family contributes.

Overall, an excellent book for all parents.

The Confession by John Grisham *****

2011-06-20T17:59:00.000-07:00

In a three-part saga, John Grisham, undoubtedly one of the best authors of the legal-thriller genre ever, unfolds a story of an innocent black high school student who is convicted of the murder-rape of a white cheer leader and ultimately put to death by lethal injection in Texas. The Confession part one is The Crime - largely imagined since the body is never found. Part two is The Punishment - recounting the ordeal of life on death row in Texas - the reigning leader in death penalty executions of all democratic jurisdictions internationally. (spoiler alert) Part Three is The Exoneration where almost everyone connected with this miscarriage of justice gets their just desserts and comeuppance.

This third section reads like a cautionary tale for Texas, its law enforcement, judiciary, and political organizations and staffs. Alternately, the book might be considered anti-death penalty porn, where all their pleasurable and vengeful fantasies come true. As a member of the Board of Directors of the Innocence Project, the author has a clear point of view, but the swift old testament justice meted out to all guilty parties and the saintly new testament forgiveness by all the innocents gives this novel a distinct gloss of fantasy fulfillment.

Regardless, John Grisham tells a wonderful story and all but the most pro-death penalty will find it a wonderful read.

The Charming Quirks of Others by Alexander McCall Smith ****

2011-06-13T14:09:00.000-07:00

The Charming Quirks of Others is by Alexander McCall Smith, author of the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency novels. However, this book is about, Isabel Dahlhousie, editor and owner of the Journal of Applied Ethics and general busy-body. In this installment she investigates three men applying to be headmaster of a private boys school who have been generally accused of wrong doing in an anonymous letter.

Isabel spends her time either jumping to wild and speculative conclusions about these men - one cut a rope allowing a fellow climber to fall to his death and another wrote the suspect letter to improve his own chances. These intuitions are interspersed with ethical musings, such as:

Was it possible that he was ... transsexual. . . . although she, of course, might not be prepared to convert a heterosexual relationship ... into a lesbian relationship with [her] former [lover].

Though more ideas than action, similar to much hard science fiction, the story is a fine mystery with logical, but surprising, reveals at the end.

Pleasant light reading for more educated and academic readers.

At Home by Bill Bryson *****

2011-06-07T10:18:00.000-07:00

Bill Bryson's new book: At Home: A Short History of Private Life raises his unique mixture of etymology, short biography, and historical trivia to new heights and depths. This volume is loosely organized around rooms in Bryson's family home in East Anglia, England, built in 1851. How loosely? Consider the chapter on the cellar which includes trivia and history of the Erie Canal, cement, log cabins, bricks, and stucco, coal, and steel.

For the reader of such literature, some of the material is repetitive, such as the etymology of crapper - not named after the inventor Thomas Crapper, and the observations of Elizabeth Wayland Barber in the absolutely best book of this genre: Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times.

However most of the material is fresh and fascinating, including a tidbit about the aspidistra - found in most Victorian parlors because it was the only plant able the survive in an environment lit by gas, and a argument that the oft repeat theory that parental attachment to children, and even the idea of childhood itself, is a recent invention is a theory not supported by any historical facts and most likely a fanciful fiction.

This book ranks as one of Bryson's best, though my all time favorite is still The Mother Tongue: English and how it got that way with its explanation of how English with its largest lexicon, impossible spellings, chaotic grammar ended up as the international lingua franca.

While all the information I could confirm independently appeared correct, the book did contain one serious mathematical error. In giving the dimensions of 20 cords of wood, the example was actually 20^3 or 8,000 cords of wood. Regardless, I recommend this book without any other reservation.

Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons by Blaize Clement ****

2011-06-01T18:38:00.001-07:00

Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons is a straight forward mystery without any plot twists or turns. The bad guys got rich running a Ponzi scheme centered about Florida real estate, smuggling illegal immigrants, and other unspecified dastardly deeds. They are willing to drop people into the ocean from their private plane and to kidnap government witnesses and their babies if anyone gets in their way. In the end, they are found guilty of every bad thing anyone suspected.

But none of this can be considered a spoiler, because fans of Dixie Hemingway, the protagonist, ex-deputy and pet sitter, all know she is never wrong and never fails. With a zero body count, one of the bloodiest scenes is when Dixie, not much at home in a kitchen, attempts to chop onions for a lasagna that is doomed to be replaced by takeout.

This delightful book is all about the people: Guidry, her current beau wants her to move to New Orleans with him, her brother Michael - the cook in the family - and his partner Paco, Opal the baby and her parents, and of course all the pets Dixie take takes care of in between apprehending the bad guys.

If you like cats and/or dogs and plots reminiscent the 50s sitcoms, this is the book for you.

Dirty Sexy Politics by Meghan McCain *****

2011-05-28T18:13:00.000-07:00

Dirty Sexy Politics is Meghan McCain's memoir of her father's campaign for the presidency in 2008. As a new college graduate from Columbia (Art History), Meghan joined her father's campaign before the Iowa caucuses (i.e. at the beginning). Her drive to contribute more than just being the daughter-of, who, in her words, could be replaced by a cardboard cutout, led to conflict with the professional politicians and herself. More than anything else, this is personal remembrance. If, because of the title or something else, you're looking for gossip or sex, forget it! Meghan, a "passionate Christian," took a vow of celibacy for the campaign and the totality of drugs comprised a single Xanax tablet.

This is a wonderfully human story of a young women's foray into today's world of national politics. Like many young people, and some older folks, she is pretty disgusted at the state of discourse in general, and the Republican party specifically. While she is Pro-Life, she thinks it is foolish to or worse to be Pro-Life without being Pro-Contraception. From beginning to end, she repeats her view that "the [Republican] party needs to wake up to gay marriage being a civil rights issue." Seeming to follow the dictate - if you can't say something nice, don't say anything all - her mentions of the Palins are few, understated, and discreet. This is not a tell-all, kiss-and-tell book.

McCain's personal concerns about bus seats, clothes, and proper behavior showcase a young lady searching for a role in a tough world of old men. She is constantly torn between her desire to be an individual (in style and beliefs) and the demands of public life in today's media world. This book mostly tells-all about Meghan McCain and how she grew up on the campaign journey - about her too candid magazine interview, her misplaced expectation for a visit to the Bush White House, and her failed efforts to be everybody's best friend, especially the Palins.

You don't have to be young or female or Republican to enjoy this book.

Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel ****

2011-05-26T15:34:00.001-07:00

Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel a meta-novel about the Holocaust. It opens with author Henry's unmarketable concept for a flip book (a single binding containing two book with two front covers - this was popular in the days of pulp fiction, but now only survives for comic books) about the Holocaust. The volume would include a fiction book and a non-fiction book. In pitching this idea, Henry remarks on "how little actual fiction there was about the Holocaust."

Eventually Henry meets a taxidermist, also named Henry, who has written a play, also unmarketable, and also about the Holocaust. The two Henrys discuss writing and the Holocaust. The whole thing comes full circle, Beatrice and Virgil being fiction about the Holocaust and about the fictional pieces of fiction with the same subject and approach. Two fictional treatments and three non-fictional treatments, each inside each other.

In the non-fiction (essay) parts of Beatrice and Virgil, a question raised as whether the horror of the Holocaust can better be communicated by fiction or non-fiction: is the emotional impact of Schindler's List more or less than the impact of two talking animals - Beatrice the donkey and Virgil the monkey? Which form but communicates/invokes the Truth of the Holocaust. What do you think? Reporting or talking animals?

I don't know the answer, but I can tell you that, though at times uncomfortable, I sat through Schindler's List in its entirety. However, I was not able to read the full story of the talking animals, there were paragraphs and pages I found to be too much to even skim - I just jumped ahead.

Do not be fooled by the talking animals. This is a serious book about literature and its role in society. Not for the faint-hearted or lazy.

All the Lives He Led by Frederik Pohl ****

2011-05-23T17:49:00.000-07:00

Science Fiction in the classic style: All the Lives He Led by Frederik Pohl, an author who pioneered classic science fiction, has won every science fiction award, and has been doing this for over 70 years. What is classical science fiction? A dystopic world and a narcissistic male. In this case it is 2079 and the world ecology has been destroyed by the re-eruption the the Yellowstone super volcano - a pleasant respite from the traditional evils of malevolent governments, aliens, and out-of-control technology. But, the protagonist, Burt Sheridan, is quite traditional - a loner against the world, more interested in self-preservation and sex, than saving the world, which, as usual, is both unsavable and unworthy.

Like the true master he is, Pohl creates a fascinating world - the center piece of which is the bi-millennial celebration of the explosion of Pompeii - in a virtuoso combination of history, technology, and satire (directed mostly at amusement parks). 2079 is a time when the population has bifurcated into refugees and indentureds and the bottom and the very rich and the security forces at the top. Entertainment technology is heavy of holographic virtual displays and low-energy technologies such as dirigibles and bio-tech. While the volcano tipped the scale to disaster, the immediate problem is a man-made plague.

Pohl, a science fiction master, manages the technology with out bogging down the in the swamps of explanation and explanatory digression. However, he does not overcome the challenge of a protagonist who is basically a self-obsessed loner. However, if you miss the heyday of Heinlein and Pohl (!) and the others, this is the book for you.

The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking ****

2011-05-14T17:28:00.000-07:00

Did you physics education stop at F = ma; aka Newtonian "clockwork" physics circa 18th century? Or are you a little younger, or studied a little longer to get to e = mc^2; aka Einstein "relativity" physics circa early 20 century? In either case, you've heard of quantum physics, but it never made much sense. You might even have read Steven Hawking's A Brief History of Time, but certainly that didn't help. Finally Hawking's new book The Grand Design written with Caltech professor Leonard Mlodonow makes sense of it all - waves vs particles - probabilities - 10 dimensions - the big bang.

This is a small book with fancy production values: beautiful artwork, color illustrations, and heavy paper. Anyone who has wondered about quantum physics will enjoy and appreciate this clear and concise explanation of the physics of the 21st century. The only drawback is the final chapter - which can easily be skipped - that waxes poetic about a 40 year old computer computer simulation grandly called "The Game of Life." If you're interested in this book, you've most assuredly heard of this little exercise decades ago can certainly skip another amateurish effort to explains the universe in terms of this toy.

My advice? read this wonderful explanation of quantum physics and, if you bought your copy, simply tear out the final chapter.

Hot: The Next 50 Years by Mark Hertsgaard ****

2011-05-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth by Mark Hertsgaard reports on a wide range of successes in the battle against rising carbon dioxide and oceans. The Dutch have been fighting off the ocean for centuries and their cultural history, political structures, and engineering enable them to plan for the long-term and stick to the plan. Proactive leadership in Seattle has made broad changes to reduce emissions (make neighborhoods more walkable) and water use (reduce grassy areas). Hertsgaard is an excellent reporter and these case studies are both readable and informative.

However, as an advocacy for "global warming," and clearly this was one of the goals, this book fails. First, it is so partisan and repetitive, it is difficulty to take the emotional exhortations seriously. Second, when a scientific point is discussed, the text substitutes an "authority," many of whom are clear biased, in place of discussions of the science. Third, woven throughout the book are melodramatic referrals to the author's young daughter and how sad it is for her to grow up in the 21st century (leaving me to wonder if the first or eleventh would have been preferred). Fourth, the author randomly jumps off topic to advocate questionable causes like eating local food and railing against corn syrup. Fifth, published in 2011, the "frightening news" is often out-of-date: "Plasma TV's take three times more power ... and more and more people are buying them." In fact, 84% of TV sales are energy efficient LCDs. Finally, the book editing matches its fact checking - both needing improvement. Example paragraph: "... In Asia, at least 500 million people obtain some of their ... water from ... the Himalayan mountains. ... In Asia, an estimated 500 million people obtain some of their ... water from ... the Himalayan snow pack. ..."

Bottom line: If you skip over the silly parts, the books contains extensive reporting from around the world on how different group are responding to climate change - some inspiring and some frightening.

The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman *****

2011-04-28T15:25:00.001-07:00

Did you ever wonder if winning the lottery would change you? In the late 20th century, literally 1000s of folks in Silicon Valley and other high-tech centers won the IPO lottery and many of them felt like the characters in The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman.

The strangely titled book follows two sisters: the all-business high-tech CEO/entrepreneur and the save-the-trees philosophy grad student at UC Berkeley. As one who purchased several of those expensive lottery tickets, I found the story realistic and insightful. The hope before the IPO, the euphoria of the IPO - especially how the success is internalized - and finally how the random gyrations of the stock market subtly replace all other human circadian rhythms.

This is a novel in the model of the 19th century. While the jacket alludes to Austen, I felt the way the diverse characters came together at the end was more reminiscent of Dickens.

Rain at last. Much-needed rain, the weatherman called it. Rain drummed the little houses skyrocketing in value in Cupertino and Sunnyvale.

If you remember the world behind this opening sentence, you'll love the book. If not ... "You had to be there."

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova *****

2011-04-18T03:53:00.000-07:00

Is it ever heroic, or even acceptable, after culminating your education at the top of the class at Harvard Business School, to abandon your highly-paid, 80-hour-a-week executive position to be a stay-at-home mom? Can an author advocate a 60s style retreat to the rural life of imagined pre-industrial simplicity without sounding like someone trying to set feminism back 100 years?

In Left Neglected, author Lisa Genova accomplishes this transformation of Sarah Nickerson with an auto accident and little-known traumatic brain injury called Left Neglect - where the patient, otherwise just fine, has no perception of the left parts of their body or the left side of their visual field. In this situation it seems acceptable to abandon to rush the executive nirvana in favor of some more modest goal: life in the mountains and a part-time job.

The remote possibility of a debilitating auto accident makes this alternative an acceptable fantasy, and Genova's characters with their expected defects (son has ADHD, mother is depressed) smooth over the underlying message that women belong on the farm, not in the office.

Written by a PhD in neuroscience, the clinical and therapeutic story is fascinating even if the retro-message about women is a bit disturbing. It might have been different if the Sarah had made this decision on her own, but driven to it by an Old Testament wrath-of-god/act-of-god accident mars an otherwise delightful book.

Scarlet Nights by Jude Deveraux ****

2011-04-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

What happens when a multi-generational family of con artists sets their sights on Sara Shaw, a young women living in a small town in Virginia (Edilean)? These two cultures, both with centuries of history and tradition clash in the age old battle of city sophisticate versus small town innocent. As the story opens Sara is smitten with Greg Anders against the advice of the entire town. Florida detective Mike Newland comes to woo her away from Greg Anders and discover the mystery: what is the goal of this elaborate con?

Scarlet Nights by romance writer Jude Deveraux is an excellent mystery novel with a smattering of love and humor. Don't let the romance packaging (passionate pink cover etc.) fool you. This is a fine mystery with all the plot twist and turns you might expect and some you might not.

Deception by Jonathan Kellerman ***** 335 2010

Deception by Jonathan Kellerman *****

2011-04-06T15:05:00.000-07:00

Deception by John Kellerman opens with a dead substitute teacher discovered in a bathtub of dry ice and a DVD accusing three teachers at the exclusive prep school where she worked of sexual harassment. Against the world of privileged kids vying to gain entrance to selective colleges, detective Milo Sturgis and his unpaid assistant psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware follow the trail of murder and arrogance along with assorted sex, blackmail, and cheating.

As the the best mysteries, the suspects come and go, as different crime are uncovered and discarded as ultimately irrelevant to the murder. [Micro-spoiler follows:] With so many expensively educated suspects, the geek in me was happy that the Caltech student turned out to be one of the good guys, not innocent - no one is innocent in this fable - but not a murderer.

An excellent book for a long plane ride or a short vacation.

Royal Blood by Rhys Bowen ****

2011-04-04T17:16:00.001-07:00

It's the 1930s and European royalty still celebrates weddings in grand style. Lady Georgiana, 34th in line to the throne of England, is selected to represent the Queen for a wedding in an isolated castle in Transylvania. She is joined by her promiscuous mother and girlfriend, both of whom encourage her to marry and bed someone from the selection of princes in attendance, not necessarily in that order, along with a Prince who she has already turned down but is still interested, and a chubby girl from boarding school who is now the beautiful bride and princess, and

Though over twenty and still virgin, Lady Georgiana is more interested in solving murders. Two happen within in days of her arrival. Comic relief comes in the form of the poor cockney girl Lady Georgiana hired as a maid when she discovered there was no way to avoid her attendance.

Maid? This was 1932, merely 15 years following the first patent for the zipper and no lady could dress herself with long rows of buttons and hooks down the back of most formal dresses. I can still remember the 50s and into the 60s, when women would says, "Dear, please zip me up," as even this important sartorial invention did not free formal women from the need for assistance getting dressed and undressed.

In this delightful context of castle with hidden passages, royalty with rigid manners, secret sexual liaisons, and possibly even vampires, Rhys Bowen unfolds a fascinating a whodunit: Royal Blood.

The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card ****

2011-03-25T17:29:00.000-07:00

Adolescence and isolation and angst combine to form the basis, should I say cliched basis, of so many novels, it takes an accomplished story teller like Orson Scott Card (author of the perennial high-school favorite Ender's Game) to provide a fresh view on these sensitive years.

Danny North has run away from home. His parents want to kill because he has no magical powers, but if he lets them see his powers, they will have to kill him. During his travels, he explores his emerging sexuality, his responsibility to take care of himself, and the difficulties in knowing who to trust and who is a real friend.

In The Lost Gate, Card constructs a world of mages and gods and gates to other realms from a mixture of the old gods like Loki and Zeus and his own magic. But his literary magic goes beyond world creation, it includes his eye for details, like the ultimate embarrassment and terror in the gym class where students are expect to climb a rope.

However all of Card's wonderful characters and details and fabulous world building could not save this book from the death trap of so much science fiction. The introspective and endless self-examination - no action - no conflict - no plot - just exposition about its internal machinations - how does a mage manipulate a gate? endless disclosure and consideration.

If have never read Card, start with Ender's Game. If you love him, this is more of the same and you'll love this too.

One for the Money by Janet Evanovich *****

2011-03-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

One for the Money is the first of a long series of light-reading novels about Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter. Each title includes a number in ever increasing order - the latest being Smokin' Seventeen. Stephanie Plum has several love interests, but like many other characters in continuing series and sitcoms, she cannot commit, so she strings these guys along, though occasionally, but not very often, she takes them to bed.

The two main guys: Joe Morelli, the cop, and Ranger, the private security guy, are introduced in this first book. The first book also includes the tough Lula when she was still a street prostitute and not yet Stephanie's wise-cracking sidekick. Stephanie Plum fans who came late to the party will enjoy this inaugural novel as well as the later ones. If you've never read any of the series, this is as good a place to start as another.

The Gold Coast by Nelson DeMille ****

2011-02-27T07:13:00.000-08:00

The Gold Coast by Nelson DeMille (with many nods to The Great Gatsby) traces to decline of John Whitman Sutter - a poor American aristocrat whose family settled on Long Island in the seventeenth century, and, yes, included Walt Whitman - and Frank Bellarosa - a Mafia Don, head of a major organized-crime family. The love triangle is completed with Susan Stanhope Sutter - a rich American aristocrat with a penchant for acting out detailed and varied sexual scenarios. With the lives of the rich and powerful as a background, DeMille weaves a tale not in the classical tragic flaw of hubris, but with the more modern weakness of boredom.

Viewed more concretely, the story answers the question: what do you get for someone who has everything? A challenge! ... and risk. The same needs that keep high-stake casinos profitable, bring Susan and John into the lair of Don Bellarosa, and Bellarosa into the trap of U.S. Attorney Ferragamo. The telling of the tale leaves open the possibility that all these conflicts could be imaginary, but in the end, it doesn't really matter.

I found the descriptions and commentary on the super rich and powerful to be stereotypical and cliched, as if the book was written for the 1950s or even the 1930s. However, the stock characters were well-written and served the plot to deliver an engaging tale and a pleasant read. This book will be very enjoyable if it is approached as light reading rather then the social commentary it pretends to offer.

Veracity by Laura Bynum **** 2010

2011-02-11T08:49:00.000-08:00

In Veracity, by new author Laura Bynum, the reader is presented with an updated dystopia in the tradition of 1984 and Brave New World. In this 21st century version the government removes all civil liberties in response to an external threat. In a literary attempt to remove the book from topical politics and the recent Bush administration, the external threat is a fabricated pandemic instead of the obvious terrorists. This sets up the main conflict between the resistance with their Book of Noah and the government that controls everyone with a electronic "slate" attached to their neck to monitor and censor every spoken word.

This book reminds me that some myths are so attractive that they refuse to die in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence. Examples that drive intellectuals to tears or laughter include: young earth and creationism. But these same intellectuals readily embrace the Whorfian Hypothesis that language determines thought. At its base, Veracity is a paean to this 19th century hypothesis in its most discredited form.

Veracity excels in science-fiction world building, but lacks something in its science and characterization.

The First Rule by Robert Crais *****

2011-01-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

The First Rule by Robert Crais opens with the murder of very nice family, husband Frank Meyer, wife Cindy, little Frank, 10, and Joey, 6, plus their nanny. A seemingly random murder, collateral to a home invasion burglary. The police are baffled and this incident just adds to a series of similar unsolved crime on Los Angeles.

But, in this case, Frank had a friend: Joe Pike, a retired special forces soldier with mystical and deadly super powers, to move without possible detection like a ghost, and to disarm and kill at any distance from hand-to-hand to William Tell/Robin Hood accuracy with a sniper rifle. Once Pike is involved, vengeance is assured.

In a well written plot that mixes conflicts between organizations and individuals the story twists and turns to the expected and satisfying conclusion.

What makes this book stand out from all the similar ones - if you've read this far, you must know many authors churning out similar fare?

Joe Pike, in addition to being the archetypal warrior, is also soft and affectionate. When faced with the task of caring for screaming infant, the following interaction highlights Pike's softer side.

Pike said, "You good?"
He lifted the baby out, and snuggled it to his chest. He took out the cotton plugs [previously inserted in the baby's ear in anticipation of a loud fire fight]. The crying and screaming stopped. The baby settled against him. Pike rubbed its back.
"That's it buddy. I got you."

So if you'd like a little human love and affection with your murder and mayhem, this is the book.

Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen by Marilyn Chin ****

2011-01-14T12:07:00.000-08:00

Mei Ling and Mooncake went to Stanford and Harvard to study medicine, but beyond that they break all the stereotypes of of conservative, studious Chinese-American women. Marilyn Chin's debut novel, Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen, presents a mosaic of growing up Chinese in California - 41 tales - some fables - some contemporary - all woven together to give a deep view of a culture both insulated and integrated with American popular culture.

The view is a post-feminist world where powerful women seduce the good guys and slaughter the bad guys. This includes not only Mei Ling and Mooncake, but also their grandmothers. In a book explicitly titled "a novel," the author unfolds short stories about delivering Chinese food from the family restaurant - Double Happiness - on New Years Eve and fables of mythical ancestors who visit the girls in their dreams.

A wonderful collection of stories both unique to the Chinese-American experience and universal to the women in contemporary American culture.

Worst Case by James Patterson ****

2011-01-06T12:44:00.000-08:00

James Patterson is an artist at producing thrillers without high body counts, excessive violence, or gratuitous sex. His stories combine the plotting of a mystery with a steady stream of conflicts and resolutions. With a minimum of ickiness, the story grabs the reader and doesn't let go until the end.

Worst Case is about a killer in New York City who abducts and murders adult children of the rich and powerful. The corpses are each marked with the black cross of Ash Wednesday. While victims are presented as a kidnappings, the end result is a dead child. Aside, from the null hypothesis that this is the work of a crazy person, nothing else seems to fit the evidence. So in true mystery fashion, the reader is driven to discover the motivation, since the identity of the killer is revealed early.

The ending is surprising and satisfying. A wonderful book for a long airplane ride or a very short vacation.

The Grave Gourmet by Alexander Campion ***

2011-01-02T08:42:00.000-08:00

"With the consummate petulance endemic to opera divas ..." The is hardly the kind of pedantic verbosity, I want to see as the first sentence of a mystery novel. However, after several pages of this writerly insecurity, Alexander Campion's first novel, The Grave Gourmet, settles down into the mystery formula: insightful detective, multiple suspects and motives, a little violence, a little sex, and a revealing summary that ties everything together (almost).

In this particular case, the detective Capucine , has become bored of financial cases, and is on her first murder. The plot twists includes the jealousies among the rarified staff of 3-star Parisian restaurants, industrial espionage, and traditional love triangles. While the story gives a fascinating view of haute cuisine, in the end this is just another mystery with little that rises above the many mysteries published each year.

This is the first novel and I imagine with time subsequent novel might be less self-conscious with fewer multisyllabic words and flights into metaphoric ecstasy. In between the beginning and the end, I found to an enjoyable read.

Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich *****

2010-12-24T08:22:00.002-08:00

What is your guilty pleasure? Mine is Janet Evanovich's heroine: Stephanie Plum. Stephanie Plum tracks down FTAs (failure to appear) for Vinnie's Bail Bonds, with office manager Connie, and file clerk, one-person swat team, former ho, and perpetual dieter Lula.

The latest chronicle is Sizzling Sixteen, a story of explosions, fire, gun shots, and kidnapping.

The Woman Who Fell from the Sky by Jennifer Steil *****

2010-12-24T08:22:00.001-08:00

What do you know about Yemen? Nothing? If you follow the news closely and have a good memory, you might remember the USS Cole bombing and Yemen as a safe haven for Al Qaeda. A fundamentalist Muslim society if there ever was one.

Now try to imagine an American woman as editor and manager of a newspaper, directing the men and women reporters, a single woman, a drinker, a New Yorker. This book provides an intimate view of life in Yemen and a small glimpse of a hopeful future where east and west, Christian and Muslim, men and women can live in peace.

Jennifer Steil's book The Woman Who Fell from the Sky chronicles her year in Yemen running the Yemen Observer, an English-language newspaper. As a member of a third sex, not male, not female, she is welcome at qat chews where men meet to share a stimulating drug so popular in Yemen, and at women weddings where you can be "too over-dressed, or too under-dressed."

The picture of Muslim-American relations is positive and in sharp contrast to the nightly news. Steil's observations find many similarities. For example, when she prepares to visit Yemen, she adds more modest clothing to wardrobe, as most tourists to the Middle East are advised. However, when one of her female reporters prepares for a fellowship in the United States, she does exactly the same. The tight jeans and t-shirts she wears beneath her abaya are too revealing for casual wear in Mississippi.

In addition to the many wonderful insights into Yemen, this is a story of women balancing career aspirations with her biological clocks and the various pressures of society both in the East and the West.

The book is good humored and optimistic about the future, both for women and the world. A wonderfully uplifting read.

Hello Kitty Must Die by Angela S Choi *****

2010-12-13T12:46:00.001-08:00

Hello Kitty Must Die is a delightful, entertaining and humorous story about about Fiona Yu, lawyer, Yale graduate, still single and living at home in San Francisco. If you like your feminism light and dark, like a drugged latte or a blond corpse, you won't be able to put this book down.

Fiona negotiates pressures at home to get married and at work to put long hours with the help of her serial-killer, high school buddy Sean Killroy. Together they leave a trail of corpses with poignant humor and naive good-will not seen since Bonny and Clyde.

While you might agree with Fiona's view that women should not be "a hole in a mattress" or a Hello Kitty... you might differ with her on some of her logic and methods ... or maybe not.

I hate [Hello Kitty] for not having a mouth or fangs like a proper kitty. She can't eat, bite off a nipple or finger, ... or lick herself. She has no eyebrows, so she can't look angry. She can't even scratch your eyes out. Just clawless, fangless, voiceless, with that placid, blank expression topped by a pink ribbon.

Simply delightful.

From the Closet to the Courtroom by Carlos A Ball *****

2010-11-30T07:50:00.000-08:00

Why come out? The underlying basis of discrimination is invisibility. Discrimination encourages invisibility (some even posit that the goal of discrimination is to promote invisibility) and invisibility allows discrimination. Before civil rights, blacks were substantially invisible. The same can be said of women before feminism ... and sexual minorities before Stonewall.

From the Closet to the Courtroom by Carlos A Ball traces how LGBT lawyers and activist used the courts to increase visibility for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, and conversely how this increased visibility helped in courts.

In a very readable and engaging account, Ball explores the intricate legal subtleties considered by the Supreme Court from due process to rational basis to liberty and equal protection. The author presents these fine legal points in a way that is both clear and exciting.

In reviewing five cases: rent control in New York, student harassment in Wisconsin, discrimination in Colorado, marriage in Hawaii, and sodomy in Texas - this book traces the evolution of LGBT civil rights over the last 25 years. In addition to a civil rights story, an underlying theme is the growing understanding that sex involves more than reproduction; sex involves each person's identity, relationships, and dignity.

An excellent book with a boring title.

Pink Brain, Blue Brain by Lise Eliot *****

2010-11-24T06:50:00.001-08:00

Pink Brain, Blue Brain by Lise Eliot starts off with a math lesson: even if two populations (boy and girls in this case) have statistically significant differences (boys are better at math), a large portion of both populations can be non-stereotypical (40% of girls are better at math than the average boy). Thus, over and over Lise Eliot finds ways to remind the reader, that even when the statistics point to some difference between boys and girls, a number of actual children will not follow the statistic.

This is a book by a scientist for scientists (40 pages of notes, over 40 pages of bibliography), but also for parents - explaining the fallacy of drawing conclusions based on "statistical differences," and/or top-performers. However, if you aren't interested in all the math and research, each chapter ends with practical tips for parents and teachers.

I don't recommend the "read the chapter summary approach" approach, as the research is very interesting and interspersed with enlightening anecdotes. For example, to illustrate the gender stereotypes of 5-year-olds, a boy is quoted: "Everyone has a penis; only girls wear barrettes."

To demonstrate that gender stereotypes and attitudes can change, she points that Veterinary students have increased from around 9% in the early 1970s to 74% today.

And some of the best tips are buried in the text: "video games are actually good for kids, especially girls."

On the other hand, the author is both a scientist and a parent, and sometimes she uses the same statistical fallacies that she mocks to make some point based on observation of her children rather than scientific research.

Over all EXCELLENT. If your children are still in school, buy this and read it all.

13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson ****

2010-11-15T08:05:00.001-08:00

What makes Cinderella such a universal story? Many might discuss the popularity of the stepmother as a villain, but I believe the key to Cinderella is the Fairy Godmother! No matter your domestic circumstances, everyone dreams of a unknown relative or benefactor that suddenly appears and fixes everything, be it a magical fairy godmother or a suddenly discovered (dead) rich uncle.

13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson is a charming story of a suddenly dead aunt who sends Ginny Blackstone on the adventure of her teenage life, from her uneventful suburban home to wander throughout Europe. Each step of the adventure begins with a letter that must be completed before the next can be opened.

In a story with generous helpings of travelogue (London, Paris, Amsterdam, Corfu, ...) and coming of age (yes, there is a "boyfriend"), Ginny learns about her artist aunt and herself and life. I can recommend this to anyone planning student travel (hostels, rails) or growing up. However, as someone who is past staying in hostels and growing up - I've done both - I still found the adventures enjoyable and entertaining.

A delightful read.

The Wolf at the Door by Jack Higgins **

2010-10-31T12:28:00.001-07:00

What was the biggest terrorist story ... before 9/11? Irish Republican Army? Russian Mafia? Algerian arms dealers? The Russian secret service? Why bother to decide, just throw them all together in a plot that is both transparent and confused ... and you have The Wolf at the Door - the latest novel by Jack Higgins, who I suspect is stuck in the twentieth century, as suggested by his publicity photo sitting in front of a typewriter - and a manual one at that!

The story - not actually a thriller as there is no suspense or tension - follows an aborted assassination plot from several points of view, none of which I found particularly engaging. This is certainly a case where the synopsis far exceeds the reading. Lots better is available, unless you've read everything else about the cold war and miss it terribly.

The Lost Art of Gratitude by Alexander McCall Smith ***

2010-10-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

The books by Alexander McCall Smith are steeped in profession and place, as exemplified by the successful series set in Botswana: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency: A Book for Today: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith. While the author's fascination with Botswana adds to the charm of that series, his familiarity with his home country and profession, Scotland and philosophy respectively, leave the series of Isabel Dalhousie, a Scottish philosopher, flat. The author's many descriptions of Scotland and observations on philosophers seem mechanical and strained - descriptions by a native either modestly bragging or trying to imagine what might interest a visitor.

The Lost Art of Gratitude is a travelogue by a local guide full of pride and inside observations, and without the life and excitement of a genuine visitor seeing everything for the first time. This, together with a plot centered on philosophical introspection, left me disappointed, especially since I so enjoyed the Botswana series.

Homer & Langley by E L Doctorow ****

2010-10-10T06:46:00.001-07:00

Homer & Langley by E L Doctorow is ostensibly the story of two brothers born around the beginning of the twentieth century, following them through WWI, the roaring 20s, the depression, WWII, the hippies of the 60s, and beyond. If this is what you expected, you would not be disappointed, for Doctorow packs the book with vignettes from all these periods with observations on technology, politics, and urban culture. But Homer & Langley is not historical fiction.

The two brothers, independently wealthy, live in a large home on Fifth Avenue facing Central Park. But this is not a story of wealth and advantage. The brothers are recluses and protesters, taking on the water company, Con Edison, and the police. They are more comfortable with hippies than their neighbors. But this is not a story of counter-culture.

Homer is blind and Langley is OCD. This is a story of two brothers and their long decline into disability and death. If there is some universal truth here, it is not presented in bright, flashing banners like some prurient web site. The truth is more traditional, before pop-up and animated GIFs: an intricate story of people, simultaneously unique and universal.

Evidence by Jonathan Kellerman ****

2010-10-07T18:59:00.000-07:00

Evidence by Jonathan Kellerman begins with the murder of a couple apparently in the midst of making love on the top floor of an unfinished mansion in the exclusive Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles. From there, like a chaotic fractal, the plot branches and expands, with each vector revealing more directions for further investigation. Each sub-plot expands into further sub-sub-plots, seemingly recursively without end. Just a sampling: the rumored, long-ago disappearance of a blond girl seen in the company of an oil-rich playboy from south-east Asia, the fruitless FBI investigation of eco-terrorism in the pacific northwest, a high-school romance gone bad, the murder of a part-timer in the Medical Examiner's office, and another murder of a crazy old man who believed the unfinished mansion rightfully belonged to him.

But, in a wonderfully Dickensian fashion, none of these are feints or red-herrings. For in the end all is revealed to be part of a single unified story!

A fine tale of relationships and Los Angeles.

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimanada Ngozi Adichie *****

2010-09-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie populates the interface between Africa and the United States with a pride of characters who are simultaneously innocents and sophisticates. This volume of short stories includes: an arranged marriage between an Afro-American doctor and the village girl sent from Nigeria to be his wife, the victim of tribal violence who refuses to use her murdered son's story to support her request for asylum in the United States, and the attendee at an African-writers' workshop being told her stories were not "real stories about real people."

Ms. Adichie delivers universal characters in a rich and informative African setting. While the stories come from the contemporary African experience, they certainly will resonate for immigrants of other times and other places.

I am reminded of working in Silicon Valley in the 1980s when my company hired Asian immigrants, and the first thing Human Resources did was assign new hires "American" names; Tran became Tom, etc. The same incident is repeated in a missionary school in Africa in this book. The right of the powerful to name to weak goes all the way back to Genesis and Adam naming the animals.

Ms. Adichie is an insightful and accomplished writer. This small book is both poignant and pleasurable and I recommend it highly.

The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall ****

2010-09-24T16:58:00.000-07:00

With the liberation and independence of its colonies, the British Empire is a thing of the past. However the Empire still lives in the exploitation of former colonies by a contemporary club of British ex-pat authors. The newest member of the club is Tarquin Hall, author of The Case of the Missing Servant. He joins Alexander McCall Smith of the successful series on the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency: A Book for Today: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith.

The similarity between these two series, the former in India and the latter in Botswana, are too numerous to tabulate. Most noticeable is the exploitation of the native cultures and customs of these two former victims of British dominance. The books are rife with generalizations and stereotypes put in the mouths of native protagonists.

Jadugoda was virtually indistinguishable from tens of thousands of other little roadside settlements to be found across the length and breadth of India.

Aside from the caricatures of local people and practices with the implied insults, both books are delightful light-weight detective novels, quick reads, and pleasantly upbeat. If you enjoyed No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, you'll enjoy this new series.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger *****

2010-09-19T13:15:00.000-07:00

Two twin girls, 20 and irresponsible, receive a thick envelope from a London solicitor; they've inherited the estate of their mother's twin sister, who they've never met, but the inheritance comes with conditions. Thus starts a story of compulsive relationships, relationships that span time and space and even death. In this tale of love and ghosts, we're constantly asking the question: How important is this relationships and what psychic lengths should be taken to maintain it? Or is this a relationship better off destroyed?

In Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffenegger (Time Traveler's Wife), precipitates compelling characters out of a mixture insecurity, deceit, and innocence. From the OCD husband who can not leave his apartment to the procrastinating lover who will not complete his thesis, the men in this story provide stage dressing for the intertwined lives of two set of twin sisters.

The result is

one of those rare moments when understanding of the world alters and a previously impossible thing is admitted, if not understood.

A fantastic story with characters so human and engaging that the fantasy materialized and fades without notice ... over and over until fantasy seems as real as ...

Blonde Bombshell by Tom Holt *****

2010-09-08T13:29:00.000-07:00

The king is dead; long live the king. Since Terry Patchett was diagnosed with dementia, I've wonder what will come after Discworld? Well I sure many of you will not be surprised by the answer, but I just discovered it more than a decade late: Tom Holt. In a style reminiscent of Terry Pratchett, but simultaneously unique and closer to hard science fiction, Tom Holt writes comedies of intergalactic proportions. The latest of which is: Blonde Bombshell.

This is a delightful story of hyper- but artificial - intelligent bombs, panspermia, intergalactic love. As with Terry Pratchett the fun is as much in the language and details as in the wacky characters and plots.

Another thing she'd gathered, from archival data and personal observation, was that a man in love would infinitely rather dismantle and repair the cylinder-head gaskets on his beloved's car just to earn a fleeting smile than talk for five minutes about the true nature of his feelings.

Of course, I'm not the right person to ask. When I was at school, you could do astrometaphysics or you could learn ballroom dancing. I'm quite a good dancer, as it happens.

So if you're an astrometaphysician or a ballroom dancer, this is just the book for you.

The Winds of War by Herman Wouk ****

2010-08-31T08:01:00.000-07:00

The great mystery on World War II is how so many missed seeing Hitler as a serious threat. In Herman Wouk's great historical novel The Winds of War, we see this most human blindness through the eyes of a German General (Roon), an American Navy family (Henrys), and a Jewish family living in Europe (Jastrows). Each within the context of their society explains the actions of Nazi Germany to minimize the threat to the status quo and the importance of the breaking news.

The Winds of War starts with the 1940 invasion of Poland and ends with the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. At each turn these characters explain events in a way to maintain their own group's integrity and perspective. General Roon admires the prosperity Hilter has brought to Germany. The Henrys comfort themselves with the great distances that separate the US from Europe. And finally, the Jastrows take the historical perspective of how the Jew have survived in Europe over the centuries.

I don't know what was more frustrating: when the embassy staff in Moscow ignored reports of genocide because the reports might be British propaganda to force the US into the war or because they feared the American public would oppose fighting Hilter if the goal was to protect Jews. In either case well-meaning and knowledgeable officials did nothing.

With its narrow focus on 1940-41 and US decision to support the Allies, The Winds of War provides a rich view of the people and the politics that lead the US into World War II. This is historical fiction are its best.

A History of Private Life II by Philippe Aries et al ****

2010-08-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

I'm looking for a new house in southern California where wood-burning fireplaces are outlawed because of air quality concerns. Yet most houses boast at least one fireplace. What ancient instinct requires an open flame in the great room, formerly called living room or family room or den? The answer can be found in History of Private Life, Volume II: Revelations of the Medieval World by Philippe Aries et al.

I personally find the history of private life fascinating. These chronicles ignore the kings and tyrants, politicians and generals, scientists and explorers. The private life historians research the day-to-day life. A couple of good examples are: A Book for Today: Ho for California edited by Sandra L Myers and the excellent Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times.

The current volume (spanning 1100-1500) explores the changing balance between private and public power, the emergence of the individual, and the use of private space. The final topic sheds light on the archaic fireplace in my new house.

We don't have to go back to the cave and the fire to ward of beast to understand this anomaly. Back in the middle ages, taxes were based on hearths; that is how important the fireplace was. The hearths were the very definition of a home. Even the poorest peasant hovel had a hearth, but the noble homes had several. When one moved up the economic and status ladder more rooms were heated as fireplaces moved beyond the kitchen to halls (living/dining rooms) and chambers (bedrooms). Thus, to show your success in the world your house needed more fireplaces on the inside and more chimneys on the outside.

As we all aspire to be lords of manors, we want that fireplace to differentiate our hearth from the lesser folk who can not afford one. Thus, the fireplace is a status symbol from 500 years ago.

This fascinating book is full of many other details from medieval life. Any excellent source for fantasy writers and anyone else interested in what life was really like long ago.

The Quants by Scott Patterson ****

2010-08-18T21:18:00.000-07:00

What caused our recent financial difficulties? Greed? Stupidity? Wall Street? The Government? The Quants by Wall Street Journal reporter Scott Patterson places the blame squarely on PhD Mathematicians. PhD Mathematicians!

There have been other theories about the causes of our economics woes, equally convincing, but this is particularly interesting for its emphasis on mathematics and mathematicians.

I found two points surprising. First, how did the financial powers put trillions (12 zeros!) of dollars in the hand of mathematicians? Second, how did the mathematicians make a mistake when the flaw in their models was published almost 50 years ago by none other than Benoit Mandelbroit. Don't be too concerned if you've never heard of Mandelbroit, ALL the mathematicians certainly had.

Do you think you might be able to understand when fooled all these PhD mathematicians? Certainly you can! Consider the distributions of sequences of heads and tails from flipping a coin. Most often the sequence is HTHTHT, but rarely you might see HHHHHH or if you kept flipping for a very long time you might see 100 heads in a row. This is called a Normal Distribution and this is the distribution all these PhD mathematicians used to model the financial system. The important characteristic of this distribution is: if you flip the coin one more time, nothing much can change over all.

Mandelbroit discovered another distribution than looks a lot like the Normal Distribution, except things like 100 heads in a row are more common. This distribution is not like flipping coins, but more like asking people their annual earnings or net worth. Imagine we walk down the street in Seattle and asking people how much money they have. After thousands of people we might find the average to be $200,000. After a thousand more, it might still be close to the same number. As opposed to the coin flipping where one more flip can make little difference, if this case, if the next person we meet is Bill Gates, the average will jump to over $10,000,000. This process is most certainly not a Normal Distribution, and more closely models financial systems.

Certainly a big OOPS.

The story is fascinating for anyone with an interest in numbers and dollars.

One Day at a Time by Danielle Steel ****

2010-08-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

One Day at a Time by Danielle Steel is a character driven story with a minimum of description. In Florence they visited The Uffizi Gallery and ate at a restaurant recommended by the hotel. None of the lengthly and flowery descriptions I'd expect in a romance. The sex is similarly terse and only mentioned at the few appropriate occasions. I found both of these attribute pleasant.

One Day at a Time follows Colette Barrington aka Coco, her 11-year senior, lesbian, pregnant sister Jane, and her 62-year-old mother Florence who has a 38-year-old boyfriend. The characters, their lives and interactions keep the story moving along.

Two small writerly things interrupted my enjoyment. First, while not written from an omniscient POV, the POV changed erratically whenever the author felt like jumping into one character's head or another's. This occasionally happened mid-paragraph and I found it jarring.

The other thing was Coco's love interest. It was Hugh Grant's movie persona! I suppose if you need to write a lot of books to keep your millions of fans happy, you need to take inspiration from anyplace. Still it seemed a bit lazy to me.

A pleasant summer read.

La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith ****

2010-07-25T12:21:00.001-07:00

In England, primary school children are taught their island is shaped like a man riding a pig. East Anglia (Norfolk and Suffolk counties) is the back end of the pig and given little respect throughout Great Britain. Years ago I worked in East Anglia, flat farming country, in a small market town called Saxmundham for more than a millennium. Change comes slow to this part of the world; their website shows the same town I recall from two decades ago.

This agrarian setting is perfect for Alexander McCall Smith author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series set in a similar milieu half-way around the world in Botswana. La's Orchestra Saves the World takes place during World War II and follows Lavender Stone, newly widowed, in her efforts to fit into life in East Anglia and adjust to the war.

As with the Botswana books the simple folks separated but aware of the bigger world provide a backdrop to the individual micro-crises for a wonderful variety of ordinary characters. The attraction of these books is the juxtaposition of the ordinary course of life against the larger picture that tries to exert itself, but somehow fails.

A most enjoyable read.

Abigail Adams by Woody Holton ****

2010-07-20T19:38:00.000-07:00

Coverture is the legal principle that husband and wife are one person - the husband. In Abigail Adams by Woody Holton we see a detailed example of a 18th century woman who believed coverture was unfair and successfully worked around it for herself and her female relatives.

There is undoubtedly more documentation on Abigail Adam's life two centuries ago than there is for yours or mine. Two factors contributed to the treasure trove of over 1,200 letters documenting her life. First, she lived in a time of written communications: letters, not the ephemeral verbal and electronic communication of today. But more important, and specific to Adams, for much of her life she was separated from her husband John Adams as he worked on the Declaration of Independence, United States Constitution, international negotiations with France and England, and the job of Vice President and President of the United States. The geographical separation of husband and wife, in a time before telephones and Internet, yielded a extensive volume of letters.

Most interesting, these letters revealed how Abigail amassed a large personal (contrary to the principle of coverture) fortune and used these resources during her life-time and managed to pass it on to her female relatives.

The book provides a unique view of the founding of the United States from the female point-of-view. Perhaps of more interest is Adams life-long drive to provide education and financial resources to all women.

The extensive source material is a two-edge sword: one the positive side, much is known about the life of Abigail Adams. One the negative side, so much detail slows the narrative, as much of daily life is reported in repetitive detail.

An excellent choice for history buffs.

Night and Day by Robert B Parker ****

2010-07-01T12:35:00.000-07:00

Did you ever notice that most hardback novels are the same size? 9 1/2 " x 6" and 1 1/4" How does this work? It's done with font size, line spacing, and margins - all tricks students now learn in junior high when writing 5 page essays. Publishers can also fudge the paper thickness. Compare Night and Day by Robert B Parker with under 300 pages and 50,000 words (hardly a novel at all, maybe a novella) with Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult with over 400 pages and 150,00 words - both virtually the same physical size.

Night and Day is the eighth novel (novella?) featuring Jesse Stone, a Jimmy Stewart-like character who's clipped sentences make me imagine the author is being charged by the word. He's certainly no Dickens, who was paid by the word.

Anyway what is this mystery about: Sex - preadolescent sex. A junior high principal who checks the girls for appropriate underwear, a peeping tom, a swinger's club, and, of course, Jesse's ex-wife who sleeps with whomever might advance her career. Given the contents, don't be surprised that much of the other dialogue concerns immature sexual innuendos and much sophomoric tittering.

Maybe, my best recommendation is that it is short and without surprises.

This Time is Different by Carmen M Reinhart & Kenneth S Rogoff ***

2010-06-29T10:33:00.000-07:00

This Time Is Different is a heavy Economics book, full of dense text and graphs. What could possibly be learned from this academic tome? Three things: First, the financial crisis of 2007 and on-going is just more of the same as demonstrated from 800 years of data from 66 countries around the world. Second, that same crisis is on the large end of the scale and there is no reason to think recovery will arrive this year or next. Third, I was an Economics major in college because I find this stuff fascinating, something I have denied since graduation.

If you didn't just love the Economics courses you took in college, or if you didn't take any Economics courses in college, you can safely skip this one ... otherwise the graphs were scintillating and the time lines can keep you up at night. ROFL.

9 Dragon by Michael Connelly *****

2010-06-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

What's your least favorite plot device? As a father of two daughters and two granddaughters, mine is kidnapping daughters. I can see its recent popularity as a recognition of the increased value of daughters in the modern world. Daughters are no longer burdens or second-class progeny. Also, these story lines tend to have more competent fathers than the usual insensitive bumblers. However, regardless of these pluses, I still prefer not to see daughters threatened in any way. It seems like such a gross demand for emotions, up there with killing babies (baby animals included).

With that caveat, Nine Dragons is another wonderful novel by Michael Connelly. In a mystery centered around a liquor store murder in South LA and the already mentioned kidnapping of Harry Bosch's daughter in Hong Kong, the action is fast, investigation detailed, and the plot refreshingly logical. Also, the kidnapping, while ever present, is not over played and the daughter's jeopardy is mostly off page.

Michael Connelly is a brave writer who is not afraid to kill off supporting characters and an economical one who resolves subplots sooner rather than later. Both these keep the tension and pace moving quickly. Don't start this book if you have a lot of commitments over the next few days - perfect of a down weekend.

Pride and Avarice by Nicholas Coleridge ****

2010-06-21T11:37:00.000-07:00

Have you ever read a book where you just wanted to shake the characters and scream, "No! Don't do it!" Certainly Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is one of the most popular and well-done of this genre. Pride and Avarice by Nicholas Coleridge is another, though beyond the character's inability to see the consequences of their action, nothing else seems to support the similarity of the titles.

Pride and Avarice tells the story of two very rich men, one evil and the other good, and their wives and children. This is a book of middle-school emotions and Sunday school morals. In the end, the good are rewarded and the evil are punished, and unfortunately, justice is meted out by the chance and circumstance, rarely by the direct actions of the characters, with accidents and illnesses playing a major role.

However, don't let the flat characters and transparent plotting deprive you of the joy of this fast moving and entertaining read. Anyone can enjoy the voyeuristic thrill of the rich as they compete in fashion, parties, recreation, and business. When the author is describing shooting parties, holidays in the Mediterranean, fancy dress, or boardroom intrigue, his eye for detail is precise and fascinating.

I also found a (guilty) superior pleasure being so much smarter than these ultra-rich. Well-written and fast, this is a summer read than can be enjoyed by all.

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith ****

2010-06-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

Botswana. What do you know about Botswana? Did you answer "Botswana? It's in Africa, isn't it?" I'm certain the answer would be more confident for the Kalahari Desert, which comprises the majority of the land in Botswana and featured prominently in the popular The God's Must Be Crazy. Recently Botswana was also popularized by an HBO special based on the charming books by Alexander McCall Smith.

From the first book: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency to the tenth: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, this series unfolds the tales of Mma Precious Ramotswe (a traditionally-build pillar of wisdom and tranquility) and Mma Grace Makutsi (a cyclone of perfection and innocent prejudice) as they solve the human mysteries in their corner of Botswana.

The books combine the charm of Botswana, with low-key, non-violent investigations into suspected infidelities, petty theft, and misunderstandings. Without the body count so prevalent in today's mysteries, the adventures of these two ladies hold the reader's interest while intertwining the culture of Botswana.

A pleasant read for all ages and a reason to visit Botswana as soon as possible, before it becomes like Kenya - a tourist trap of staged culture and high-pressure sales.

Alex & Me by Irene M Pepperberg *****

2010-06-08T17:51:00.000-07:00

Irene Platzblatt and I were at MIT at the same time. We never met, but her autobiographical book Alex & Me reminded me how MIT manages to attract lost souls who are some how destined to succeed in spite of their alien, unearthly nature. But this book isn't merely a paean to nerds (aka tech tools); that is just an extra bonus. The star of this story is Alex.

Alex is an African Grey parrot who single-handedly, with the help of Irene (now Pepperberg, though divorced), changed to meaning of bird-brained and challenged to hegemony of primate (or mammalian) intellectual superiority.

"Want a nut." Alex was obviously getting more than a little frustrated. ... He looked at me and said slowly, "Want a nut. Nnn ... uh ... tuh."
I was stunned. It was as if he were saying, Hey stupid, do I have to spell it out for you?

A wonderfully written book about animal intelligence and science. I can not recommend it more highly.

Huckleberry Finished by Livia J Washburn ***

2010-06-08T17:37:00.000-07:00

Huckleberry Finished by Livia J Washburn is pleasant whodunit that delivers on half the promise of Delilah Dickinson's Literary Travel Agency. It delivers a breezy, though possibly over-commercial, visit to Hannibal, MO - a current tourist destination for fans of Mark Twain and recreated kitsch. The product placements for museums and theaters are reinforced by an appendix swooning over these tourist fabrications along with their web addresses. I may be wrong, but I feel like these recreations (historical zombies) sponsored the novel.

As for the literary angle - my primary interest - the information about Mark Twain is limited to a few quotations, mostly already popularized to the level of cliches. It seems more is said about the Mark Twain impersonation business than the author himself.

A quick summer read for the omnivorous and indiscriminate reader of light-weight mysteries.

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett ***

2010-06-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

The real question about Unseen Academicals (Discworld) by Terry Pratchett is "Why is it cataloged as Science Fiction?" I feel it is more akin to literary fantasy, similar to Jasper Fforde, with its erudite word play and literary allusions.

The chant of the goddess Pedestriana is a parody of the wonderful poem 'Brahma' by Ralph Waldo Emerson, but of course you knew that anyway.

Or it might be just plain fantasy with its orcs, goblins, and magic and such. But, Science Fiction? The only hint at SF is Discworld, a place that is certainly not earth and might not even share the same laws of Physics, not that Terry Pratchett would feel much allegiance to any Laws of Physics, or any other laws, for that matter.

What Terry Pratchett delivers is irrelevant humor and fun, and this serving of this long running series pokes fun at universities and football (aka soccer). A fine read for the Pratchett fan or new reader. No reason to start the series at the beginning, just jump in and enjoy.

Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult ****

2010-05-25T20:15:00.000-07:00

Voyage or Destination? Quest or Reward? Learning or Report Card? Life or Funeral? Good advice says Live Today Today - A life well lived is its own reward. Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult makes me believe the rules should be different for lives lived in fiction.

Real people are subject to unknowable forces: tragic (even fatal) accidents, chance meetings, and extraordinary luck. On a drive to the store, the brakes can fail, leading to death, crashing into a future spouse, or a rich insurance settlement. In real life, one never knows.

But a novel is different. The author is God. So when a novel ends in an arbitrary way, we readers feel disappointed. We even have a technical term for this: deus ex machina - God from a machine. We don't like it.

Thus, Handle with Care has wonderful characters who live through with the challenges of osteogenesis imperfecta - brittle bone disease. Along the journey they examine the issues of medical malpractice and abortion. The journey is thought provoking and enlightening. However, the ending is arbitrary and nihilistic, and, for me, this spoils the journey.

Faces by Martina Cole *

2010-05-17T06:37:00.000-07:00

A science fiction meme posits that Neandertals were not brutish cave people, but gentler folk driven to extinction by aggressive, violent homo sapiens sapiens. Now that scientists have discovered Neandertal DNA in modern humans, we can wonder the meaning and implications of this ancient interbreeding.

I imagine Faces by Martina Cole shows us those unfortunate (for the rest of us) humans who did not benefit from the infusion of Neandertal compassion and empathy. The novel is peopled exclusively by brutish, violent, self-obsessed, rationalizing characters. If you enjoy violent murders, unfeeling brutality, and simplistic excuses for mayhem, this is your book.

I think of this story as a chronicle of the race that drove the gentle Neandertals to extinction without the benefit of interbreeding - a cautionary tale from the past.

In a Gilded Cage by Rhys Bowen ****

2010-05-02T21:25:00.000-07:00

In a Gilded Cage is a (women's) historical novel by Rhys Bowen. You should not imagine the book is of the fashion and feelings genre written for a certain class of feminine readers. This is a novel about women's history.

Set in 1902, almost 20 years before women got to vote, its chronicles the lives of young graduates from Vassar College, some who get married and others who try to make it on their own. The protagonist is Molly Murphy, an Irish immigrant and a detective. While all the history has been carefully researched, the story is a detective novel, with the expected murders, suspects, and surprising ending.

I found this to be both enjoyable and enlightening.