Susan Orlean has written a book for everyone who has ever set foot in a library and gone back for more in The Library Book (#788). Although the central focus here is on the catastrophic 1986 fire in Los Angeles' Central Library, Ms. Orlean does not take a direct path through her topic. Rather, she meanders through all kinds of interesting subjects - history, fires, anecdotes, characters real and fictional and personal memories along the way. It seemed to me the equivalent of strolling through a library's rooms and stacks, stopping to examine anything that caught her eye along the way. It's somewhat disjointed, but absolutely fascinating, because so much of what she feels and experiences is relatable to any book lover.
I enjoyed this book so much I was sorry to come to the end of it, but determined that if I ever am in Los Angeles again, the Goodhue building of its Central Library is on my "Must See" list. If you're reading this blog, I'm recommending The Library Book. You'll come away with a wealth of new knowledge.
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Monday, November 19, 2018
The Good Pilot Peter Woodhouse
Alexander McCall Smith's name on the spine of a book is enough inducement for me to pick it up. The Good Pilot Peter Woodhouse (#787) is a stand alone novel which takes place during WWII and the ensuing forty years. The eponymous Peter Woodhouse turns out not be an actual pilot, but an English farm dog. So how does Peter Woodhouse wind up becoming a flying mascot for the American Air Force? Ah, thereby hangs a fascinating tale of love, privation, bravery and integrity.
Val Eliot is an English "land girl" who meets and falls in love with Mike Rogers, an American pilot flying reconnaissance missions over Europe. Ubi Dietrich is a German soldier stationed in a small town in Holland as the war winds down. Peter Woodhouse plays in role in bringing these disparate characters together in life-changing ways.
These is not an epic novel; it's quite easily read in a short period of time, but the decency of ordinary people faced with the sufferings of war infuse this story with a warmth that lasts long after you close the cover. Reading Alexander McCall Smith, especially a book like The Good Pilot Peter Woodhouse is enough to restore one's faith in humanity. Good things come in small packages.
Val Eliot is an English "land girl" who meets and falls in love with Mike Rogers, an American pilot flying reconnaissance missions over Europe. Ubi Dietrich is a German soldier stationed in a small town in Holland as the war winds down. Peter Woodhouse plays in role in bringing these disparate characters together in life-changing ways.
These is not an epic novel; it's quite easily read in a short period of time, but the decency of ordinary people faced with the sufferings of war infuse this story with a warmth that lasts long after you close the cover. Reading Alexander McCall Smith, especially a book like The Good Pilot Peter Woodhouse is enough to restore one's faith in humanity. Good things come in small packages.
Friday, November 16, 2018
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
Since I don't use social media much, a lot of Hank Green's novel went over my head, but I understand its influence enough to be glad I avoid it after reading An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (#786).
When mysterious statues appear simultaneously all over the world in major urban centers, no one knows what to make of them at first. But April May, who is the first to discover one in New York City, dubs him Carl, and decides to make a fun video with her best friend Andy to post on their YouTube channel. When the video goes viral, things begin to spiral out of control with April and Andy coasting the wave of publicity in front of the story.
It doesn't take long for things to get ugly, as factions develop online, and conspiracies abound about the statues' origin. You can see echoes of this every day on the news, but this novel makes the point in a way anyone can understand. Plus it's a heck of a good story! Where DID the Carls come from? You'll just have to read this book to find out. Honestly, it's just what Hank Green wants me to tell you!
When mysterious statues appear simultaneously all over the world in major urban centers, no one knows what to make of them at first. But April May, who is the first to discover one in New York City, dubs him Carl, and decides to make a fun video with her best friend Andy to post on their YouTube channel. When the video goes viral, things begin to spiral out of control with April and Andy coasting the wave of publicity in front of the story.
It doesn't take long for things to get ugly, as factions develop online, and conspiracies abound about the statues' origin. You can see echoes of this every day on the news, but this novel makes the point in a way anyone can understand. Plus it's a heck of a good story! Where DID the Carls come from? You'll just have to read this book to find out. Honestly, it's just what Hank Green wants me to tell you!
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
The Silence of the Girls
I grew up reading and re-reading the Classics Illustrated version of Homer's Iliad. Pat Barker in her new novel The Silence of the Girls (#785) has brought a portion of that epic painfully and resoundingly to life. Here are the characters you remember: Achilles, Patroclus, Agamemnon, Nestor and Ajax, Priam and Hecuba, but center stage here is Briseis. Briseis, who was awarded as a prize of war to Achilles, yet whose very presence in the Greek camp caused a rift between Achilles and Agamemnon which nearly cost the Greeks the war.
Her story didn't matter to Homer, but her fate when her walled city is captured by Achilles is the fate of women in war. Men are slaughtered, but women have to live in the aftermath. Briseis' story sheds a whole new perspective on the Trojan War. What a remarkable achievement by Ms. Barker. She maintains the bones of the epic, even the presence of the gods in the conflict, yet the heroes here are mostly human in their scale. Except for Achilles. But then, his reward from the gods is eternal glory. Briseis manages to survive to tell their remarkable tale.
If you are at all interested in the classics of Greek literature, or if you simply love a compelling story masterfully told, don't miss The Silence of the Girls.
Her story didn't matter to Homer, but her fate when her walled city is captured by Achilles is the fate of women in war. Men are slaughtered, but women have to live in the aftermath. Briseis' story sheds a whole new perspective on the Trojan War. What a remarkable achievement by Ms. Barker. She maintains the bones of the epic, even the presence of the gods in the conflict, yet the heroes here are mostly human in their scale. Except for Achilles. But then, his reward from the gods is eternal glory. Briseis manages to survive to tell their remarkable tale.
If you are at all interested in the classics of Greek literature, or if you simply love a compelling story masterfully told, don't miss The Silence of the Girls.
Friday, November 9, 2018
Desolation Mountain
William Kent Krueger's latest Cork O'Connor mystery, Desolation Mountain (#784) is a nifty blend of political maneuvering and Ojibwa culture set in northern Minnesota.
Young Stephen O'Connor is greatly troubled by a vision in which he watches a boy shoot down an eagle from the sky, while he senses a fearsome monster at his back. When a Senator's plane crashes at nearby Desolation Mountain, killing everyone on board, Stephen knows there is a connection to his vision, but he feels powerless to have prevented it, or the aftermath.
Since Senator McCarthy was visiting Aurora to hold a town meeting concerning the application to re-open mines in the area, tempers are flaring between those who favor a return to former prosperous times in the area, and those equally set on preserving the wilderness of Boundary Waters National Park, and the untouched area of the Iron Lake Ojibwa reservation. There are plenty who have motives to wish harm to the Senator.
When the Indians closest to the crash site are the first to arrive and begin looking for survivors, Cork and Stephen O'Connor among them, but they are quickly ousted from the woods and bog as the FBI and a number of other mysterious governmental agencies arrive and take over. No one, including the sheriff, seems to know exactly who is in charge, but they don't seem to be asking the right people the expected questions, and when those witnesses begin to disappear, Cork O'Connor doesn't know who he can trust to find out what is happening in their remote county.
It's an enthralling read which will keep you guessing right up to the last page.
Young Stephen O'Connor is greatly troubled by a vision in which he watches a boy shoot down an eagle from the sky, while he senses a fearsome monster at his back. When a Senator's plane crashes at nearby Desolation Mountain, killing everyone on board, Stephen knows there is a connection to his vision, but he feels powerless to have prevented it, or the aftermath.
Since Senator McCarthy was visiting Aurora to hold a town meeting concerning the application to re-open mines in the area, tempers are flaring between those who favor a return to former prosperous times in the area, and those equally set on preserving the wilderness of Boundary Waters National Park, and the untouched area of the Iron Lake Ojibwa reservation. There are plenty who have motives to wish harm to the Senator.
When the Indians closest to the crash site are the first to arrive and begin looking for survivors, Cork and Stephen O'Connor among them, but they are quickly ousted from the woods and bog as the FBI and a number of other mysterious governmental agencies arrive and take over. No one, including the sheriff, seems to know exactly who is in charge, but they don't seem to be asking the right people the expected questions, and when those witnesses begin to disappear, Cork O'Connor doesn't know who he can trust to find out what is happening in their remote county.
It's an enthralling read which will keep you guessing right up to the last page.
The King's Witch
I picked up Tracy Borman's novel The King's Witch (#783) because of its attractive cover art. The cover blurb promised the first of a planned trilogy by Ms. Borman, a historian, set at the end of the Tudor era and the beginning of the Stuarts. I thought it would be just my kind of book.
Turns out I was wrong. The heroine, Lady Frances Gorges, is an herbalist serving the dying Queen Elizabeth by easing her pain with her salves and potions. But her family has been marked by Lord Privy Seal Cecil for ruin. Even before Elizabeth's body is cold, he has already taken the road north to meet the new monarch, James, first of the Stuarts. James' passion for hunting out witches suits Cecil's agenda well as he seeks Lady Frances' death for witchcraft.
Although he does not succeed, Frances is forced to remain at court as a lady-in-waiting to the young Princess Elizabeth. While she grows fond of her young charge, she is always aware of eyes watching, and plots being hatched as courtiers vie for favors and patronage. Frances meets Thomas Wintour, a lawyer who acts for Queen Anne, but he has his own secrets to hide. Of course she discovers them, and is embroiled in a failed attempt to kill the king, the infamous Guy Fawkes Gunpowder Plot.
Much of the plot was telegraphed well in advance. When (Spoiler Alert!) Frances takes the doomed Thomas to her bed as he flees for his life, you just know that she will wind up pregnant and alone. But of course, that will be the next volume in this series. Also, from what I've read of Elizabethan history (and I've read quite a bit), William Cecil, Elizabeth's spy master, was loyal to her. Here, he is quite the villain; you wonder how anyone, especially Elizabeth, could have ever trusted him. That just didn't ring true to me. Obviously, Ms. Borman has a different opinion, and history is her discipline.
Frankly, I won't be reading any further. I found the tone of the novel relentlessly downbeat and depressing. I think we all face enough misery in our own lives to deserve a little happiness when we escape to a fictional world. I don't think you'll find it in this book.
Turns out I was wrong. The heroine, Lady Frances Gorges, is an herbalist serving the dying Queen Elizabeth by easing her pain with her salves and potions. But her family has been marked by Lord Privy Seal Cecil for ruin. Even before Elizabeth's body is cold, he has already taken the road north to meet the new monarch, James, first of the Stuarts. James' passion for hunting out witches suits Cecil's agenda well as he seeks Lady Frances' death for witchcraft.
Although he does not succeed, Frances is forced to remain at court as a lady-in-waiting to the young Princess Elizabeth. While she grows fond of her young charge, she is always aware of eyes watching, and plots being hatched as courtiers vie for favors and patronage. Frances meets Thomas Wintour, a lawyer who acts for Queen Anne, but he has his own secrets to hide. Of course she discovers them, and is embroiled in a failed attempt to kill the king, the infamous Guy Fawkes Gunpowder Plot.
Much of the plot was telegraphed well in advance. When (Spoiler Alert!) Frances takes the doomed Thomas to her bed as he flees for his life, you just know that she will wind up pregnant and alone. But of course, that will be the next volume in this series. Also, from what I've read of Elizabethan history (and I've read quite a bit), William Cecil, Elizabeth's spy master, was loyal to her. Here, he is quite the villain; you wonder how anyone, especially Elizabeth, could have ever trusted him. That just didn't ring true to me. Obviously, Ms. Borman has a different opinion, and history is her discipline.
Frankly, I won't be reading any further. I found the tone of the novel relentlessly downbeat and depressing. I think we all face enough misery in our own lives to deserve a little happiness when we escape to a fictional world. I don't think you'll find it in this book.
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