tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75769737586067917422024-03-05T17:02:11.816-08:00Reading With (an) Attitudelittlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-77790308466257212222012-04-28T12:55:00.002-07:002012-04-28T12:56:11.403-07:00Slight technical diffculties...For some reason, the paragraph formatting on this blog is not working right today. To read the review of <b>Life</b>, by Keith Richards, with James Fox, please visit my general blog, <a href="http://littlemissattitude.blogspot.com/">I Was Just Thinking</a>. With any luck, the formatting over here will get back to normal shortly.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-27297082953420154292012-04-17T08:49:00.001-07:002012-04-17T08:52:20.985-07:00Review: "Role Models", by John WatersI don't know why I am so surprised that John Waters is as good a writer as he is.<br /><br />I checked his collection of essays, <strong>Role Models</strong> (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010; 304 pages) out of the library after someone online recommended it for the essay it contains about Manson Family member Leslie Van Houten. I mentioned reading that essay here previously. I didn't know what to expect, exactly, and found a thoughtful and insightful, if slightly naive, defense of one of the women convicted of killing Leno and Rosemary LaBianca during a two-night murder spree in August 1969. I hadn't expected to read the rest of the book, but after that 46-page introduction to Waters' writing, I wanted more.<br /><br />As the title suggests, Waters writes here about people he admires for one reason or another, who he considers role models. And those role models run the gamut from singers Johnny Mathis and Little Richard to what Waters calls "outsider pornographers" to fashion designer Rei Kawakuro, also quite the outsider in many ways, to writers - there is a short but thoughtful essay about Tennessee Williams here - and artists, to heroes from his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. Waters also treats us, in the final essay in the collection, to an offbeat description of the cult that he would create.<br /><br />Along the way, we learn that Waters is a compulsive reader and book collector with, at the time he wrote the essay, a personal library of 8,425 books. Reason enough, as far as I can see, to like the man. He writes about the art he collects in his various homes as his "roommates". On the other hand, there is very little in his essays about his film making here, something that surprises me less now that I've read the book. Waters is a man of wide interests and enthusiasms. not all of them respectable in polite society, something I'm sure he is fine with, but most of them fascinating, if sometimes morbidly so.<br /><br />I also have to say that I didn't find all the essays equally fascinating, but that had more to do with my level of interest in the subject matter than it did with Waters' writing. For example, I had trouble getting through the essay about Rei Kawakuro, mostly because I have just about zero interest in fashion.<br /><br />I also feel constrained to warn that this book is not for everybody. Waters says things about religion that would shock and offend a certain segment of the population. His essay about outsider pornographers would offend some and make some others uncomfortable. So would some of the language that appears from time to time.<br /><br />Still, there are rewards to be had here, reading <strong>Role Models</strong>. It is obvious that Waters is well-read. Even better, he is expert at drawing on what he has encountered in his reading and applying the knowledge he has gained there to seemingly unrelated situations in relevant ways. In fact, as I read, I kept being reminded of the <em>Natural History</em> essays of Stephen Jay Gould, who was wonderful at pulling together topics that appeared on the surface to have nothing to do with each other, going on tangents that could make the reader wonder what he was going on about, and end up with a universal conclusion in which the disparate elements of a particular essay fit together seamlessly. Here, Waters demonstrates that he can do substantially the same thing with very different subject matter.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-53439364164781818622012-04-14T15:17:00.002-07:002012-04-14T15:21:38.937-07:00"Restless Souls": a review and some thoughtsI just finished reading <strong>Restless Souls: The Sharon Tate Family's Account of Stardom, the Manson Murders, and a Crusade for Justice </strong>(itbooks, and imprint of HarperCollins, 2012; 381 pages), by Alisa Statman with Brie Tate.<br /><br />I don't know that I can call it a good book. It was put together, apparently, largely from writings about the case by Ms. Tate's mother, father, and one of her sisters, all now deceased. Those writings were, also apparently, not edited at all from the way they were left by their authors. This is understandable but not necessarily wise, as the writing is, in some cases, riddled with cliches and odd word usages that made it difficult reading at times because, for me at least, those platitudes and usages repeatedly jarred me out of the story and made me want to put on my editor's hat and sharpen my red pencil. Still, it was an informative book and a compelling read, and useful as a look into the minds of those whose lives were affected forever afterward by a series of horrible, gruessome and infamous crimes.<br /><br />It was also a disturbing book.<br /><br />I wanted to sympathize with Ms. Tate's family. As someone who not only remembers exactly where I was when I first heard radio reports of the crimes (on the pier in Oxnard, California, fishing with my family), as well as someone who lived just a few miles from the Spahn Ranch, where Manson and his followers were living at the time they killed Sharon Tate and her friends and the LaBiancas, and who knew people who had spent time at the ranch, I was horrified at the details of the killings, and once arrests were made and the perpetrators went to trial, at the behavior of the accused, then and in some cases afterward.<br /><br />By the end of the book, however, I just couldn't say, Yes, that is how I hope to react if ever in the same position. I can understand their hatered for the people who killed their daughter and sister and the others. I have developed, over the years and fairly extensive reading about these crimes, a healthy hatred for Charlie Manson. However, I hope that I wouldn't convert any hatred I would have for anyone who killed someone I loved into the hardened position that the perpetrator or perpetrators of such a crime could never regret the crime, could never come to the understanding that what they did was wrong. And that, as far as I could see in my reading of the book, is the attitude that permeates Sharon Tate's survivors. By the time I got to the end of the book, reading the conclusions of her neice, Brie, that attitude had seemingly hardened into the attitude that anyone who was even at Spahn Ranch at the time of the killings, whether they participated in them, or even knew about them, before or afterward, is guilty of the murders and should be locked up forever.<br /><br />The two things that seemed to unite the family members were paranoia and entitlement: paranoia that remaining Manson followers were going to come and kill them next, and the feeling that just because their loved one was murdered, that the family is entitled to get whatever they want, whenever they want it. The former attitude is understandable to an extent, if the reader can believe their reports of threats from Manson followers. The latter, I don't believe, is acceptable. Yes, they went through a horrible experience in the murder of their family member. That does not mean that they should be able to call up government officials, record producers and others and be immediately obeyed. That is, I know, a hard judgment to level on them. But it really isn't the way life works.<br /><br />Who is to say if any of the murderers have really come to an understanding that what they did was wrong? The women involved have all said they have. To my knowledge, neither Charlie nor Tex Watson have, although for years Tex claimed to have gotten religion and functioned as a preacher in prison, implying that this meant he was a changed man. There were statements in the book from various members of the Tate family that they did not believe for a minute that any of the murderers were any less vicious years later than they were on the nights they committed their crimes. Basically, they have taken the position that no one can ever change. Ever. Their conclusion, and their fervent belief, was that the statements from Leslie Van Houten, from Patricia Krenwinkle, from Susan Atkins, were nothing more than coldly calculated attempts to gain parole so that they could go out and commit more murders. Which for all I know, might be the truth. I maintain, however, that those Tate family members cannot know the true minds of those women any more than I or anyone else can, and to maintain that they know that is awfully presumptious of them.<br /><br />It was interesting to read this book at a time when Charlie was once again denied parole and cannot reapply for fifteen years, when he will be somewhere in his 90s. It was also interesting to read, while I was reading this book, an essay by film director John Waters, in his book <strong>Role Models</strong> (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), advocating for the fact that she is, in fact, rehabilitated and should be released on parole. Apparently, Waters has become friends with Ms. Van Houten and corresponded with her and visited her in prison many times over the past twenty years or so. Waters makes a good case for his point of view (and is a much better writer than I ever imagined; I'm currently reading the other essays in his book and enjoying them very much). However, it also seems that he might be slightly naive on the subject and so not necessarily unbiased on the subject.<br /><br />I feel badly that, in reading <strong>Restless Souls</strong>, I've come to such a harsh judgment about Sharon Tate's family. Surely, they never asked for any of this to come to them. And just as surely, it is not surprising that they reached the positions that they have, after having their family torn apart in many ways by the aftermath of Ms. Tate's murder. However, I found the way in which they seemed to insist that their role as survivors gave them some special knowledge and insight into the minds of the murderers disturbing. I think the worst was the apparent glee that Sharon's niece felt that Susan Atkins was not given a compassionate release when she was dying of brain cancer in 2009.<br /><br />Not, certainly, as disturbing as the fact that Charlie or someone like him could gain such control over other people that he could convince them to go out and murder for him. I don't know if it frightens me more than someone would attempt to control people like that, or that there are people who are apparently so weak-minded, for whatever reason, that they would allow themselves to be controlled to such an extent that they would kill just because that someone asked them to do so. And maybe, we should all blame Charlie (and the others, but especially Charlie) for the extreme positions that members of the Tate family have taken in the past and, if the statements of Brie Tate are to be taken at face value, continue to take today.<br /><br />Mrs. French, my third-grade teacher, used to say to us that "Two wrongs don't make a right." She was right, of course. What Manson and his followers did on those two nights in Southern California, and in some other cases that ended in murder, was certainly wrong. But trading hate for hate, as Sharon Tate's family seems to have done, doesn't seem exactly right, either, no matter the extremity of the provocation. It just becomes a vicious cycle, in which hate begets hate begets more hate. And there is already more than enough hate in the world.<br /><br />I'm not going to say that they should have forgiven, or should ever forgive, Ms. Tate's murderers. That would be presumptuous of me. I do think that it was, and continues to be, presumptuous to maintain that they know what went on, and continues to go on, in the minds of the murderers.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-39599861327847013042012-04-06T10:02:00.004-07:002012-04-06T10:42:42.726-07:00"A Discovery of Witches", By Deborah HarknessSo, I finished reading <strong>A Discovery of Witches</strong> (Viking, 2011; 579 pages) by Deborah Harkness. I mentioned that I was reading it last time I posted. In that mention, I said that I would be very disappointed if the book did not maintain its high level of quality as it progressed.<br /><br />I am very happy to report that I am not disappointed.<br /><br />I just want to repeat that: I AM NOT DISAPPOINTED. <strong>A Discovery of Witches</strong> is the best fiction I've read in a long time. Ms. Harkness has written a fascinating, absorbing, rollicking good story, and has done so in high style. The characters are vivid and three-dimensional, the plot is involving, and...and it's just a damn good book.<br /><br />Her female protagonist, Diana Bishop, is a witch who has mostly ignored her powers since her parents were killed when she was seven years old. Oh, she will use them to fix her washing machine or to get a book she cannot otherwise reach off of a high shelf. But she doesn't feel a real connection with it and has no desire to develop her talents. She is a historian and a professor and loves her work.<br /><br />But, in the course of her work, which as the book opens involves research into very old alchemical manuscripts, she discovers one manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, that has been missing for a very long time. When she touches the manuscript, however, she can feel the spell that has been put on it. She does what she needs to with it for her work and then quickly sends it back to the stacks.<br /><br />Simply touching it, however, has sent out the alert to other witches, as well as to the vampires who have also been looking for it, that it has surfaced, and soon the Bodleian's reading rooms are stacked to the gills with witches, vampires, and daemons who want that book.<br /><br />One of those who wants the book is Matthew Clairmont, a vampire who is also a physician and a geneticist. But he quickly falls in love with Diana and takes the role of protector. Within very little time, Diana has also fallen for Matthew, and that's where the real trouble begins. There is a Congregation of witches, daemons, and vampires that long ago decreed that relationships between creatures who are not alike are forbidden. So, not only is Diana being chased for her access to the manuscript, which is again missing, and so that the witches of the Congregation can learn the extent of Diana's hidden powers and talents, but because she and Matthew are breaking a basic rule by becoming involved romantically. So, the two of them go on the run, first to Matthew's family home in France and then to Diana's home in the United States, involving both their families in the conflict that threatens to tear apart the world of creatures and expose them as never before to the world of humans.<br /><br />Aside from the wonderful story Ms. Harkness tells, it is difficult to resist a book that includes a yoga-practicing vampire and a sentient house that lets everyone know whether or not it likes the people inside it and can add rooms when it senses that someone new is coming to stay...and knows they are coming before the living, breathing residents of the house. And then there are all the ghosts that also inhabit the place. Oh, and then there is Tabitha the cat, who hates just about everybody but takes an instant liking to Matthew, even though vampires, as he points out, get along much better with dogs than with cats.<br /><br />If you like fantasy, especially urban fantasy, at all, read this book. And if you don't like fantasy, but like romance novels, read this book. Even if you don't like fantasy (I do) and don't like romance novels (which I generally don't), read this book. It is that good.<br /><br />Fair warning, though. There is a sequel to <strong>A Discovery of Witches</strong> that will not be out until July. I'm going to be urging my library system to buy the sequel, because that's the only way I'll get to read it, since my budget cannot stretch to buy new hardback novels right now.<br /><br />Now that I've finished reading Ms. Harkness's book, I've started reading Kraken (Ballantine Books, 2010; 509 pages), by China Mieville. I've barely started it, so I'm not sure yet how I'm going to like it. It also has to do with something that has gone missing...a giant squid, which has disappeared from London's Natural History Museum. Do I detect a theme in my current fiction reading?littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-28450281919490425552012-03-26T11:12:00.005-07:002012-03-26T11:58:07.428-07:00Detectives, witches, vampires, and a little anthropology...Again, it's been a long time between books read. I hate to use the excuse, again, that I'm busy. But I've been busy. I'm working on two writing projects, one fiction and one non-fiction, and I've been putting a lot of time into both of them this month. I've even been doing a lot of reading as research for the non-fiction project, but bits here and bits there, but not usually in the way of reading a book all the way through.<br /><br />Some of the books I've been in for that include:<br /><br /><strong>Evolution: The Human Story</strong> (Doring Kindersley Limited, 2011; 256 pages), by Dr. Alice Roberts<br /><br /><strong>The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors</strong> (Doubleday, 2006; 306 pages), by Ann Gibbons<br /><br /><strong>The Fossil Trail: How We Know What We Tink We Know About Human Evolution</strong> (Oxford University Press, 1995; 276 pages), by Ian Tattersall<br /><br />I've read Gibbons's book, and Tattersall's, in their entirety in the past; this time I'm mostly just mining data and checking facts with them. The book by Dr. Roberts is very up-to-date as far as checking dates and catchng up on the (almost) latest theories and discoveries. I've also been reading a lot of joural articles online, especially thanks to my library system's remote access to their online databases. I have a love/hate relationship with the Internet, but I love being able to do research without having to drag myself down to the downtown library in person to access journal articles.<br /><br />Aside from all that (I'm pretty sure you really didn't want an update on the state of my writing life), I have done some recreational reading this month. Not much, but some.<br /><br />I read Jonathan Kellerman's most recent Alex Delaware novel, <strong>Victims</strong> (Ballantine Books, 2012; 338 pages). Since it is a mystery, I won't go into details. Instead, I'll just say that both Alex and his LAPD detective friend, Milo Sturgis, are in top form looking for a serial killer with a particularly gruesome way with his victims. I'm not as big a fan of Mr. Kellerman's as I am of his wife, Faye Kellerman, whose books I've reviewed here recently. But I couldn't put this book down, and in fact stayed up until late at night trying to finish it and ended up falling asleep with th light on when I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. It's one of his better recent outings.<br /><br />Now I'm reading A Discovery of Witches (Viking, 2011; 579 pages), by Deborah Harkness. I'm very particular about the fantasy I read, and so I rarely pick up a fantsy novel just by browsing the flyleaf description at the library. I've discovered most of my favorite fantasy novelists this way - Tim Powers, Kage Baker, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro among them - but I'm not quick to take a chance on a writer I've never heard of before within the genre. So far, however, I'm really glad I decided to take a chance on this book. I'm 127 pages in and enjoying it thoroughly.<br /><br />A Discovery of Witches is the story of Dr. Diana Bishop, Oxford-educated historian and witch. Dr. Bishop, the daughter of a powerful witch and an equally powerful wizard, is trying her hardest to be a regular person and not use her powers. However, as the story opens she is back at Oxford on sabbatical from her teaching job in the United States, researching old alchemy manuscripts. One day, while working in the Bodleian Library, she encounters a manuscript that has had a spell cast on it. Her touch overrides the spell and she is able to open and examine it, but the volume frightens her, and she sends it back to the stacks, which reactivates the spell. However, while it was in her hands, every witch in the vicinity becomes aware of its existence. And so does every daemon and every vampire within range. While Dr. Bishop just wants to forget she ever saw the book, all the other creatures (as opposed to humans, who are just oblivious) want to get their hands on it.<br /><br />One of the vampires who wants the book is Matthew Clairmont, a physician and geneticist, who has been alive at least since the time of Henry VIII. But complication arise when in his efforts to secure the manuscript for himself, he begins to fall in love with Dr. Bishop. Thus, he finds himself protecting her from the crowd of other vampires, daemons and witches clogging the reading rooms of the Bodleian, watching Dr. Bishop and waiting for a chance to pounce on the manuscript, just as the students are returning for a new term.<br /><br />Also complicating matters is the fact that except for a very few individuals, witches, vampires and daemons do not get on with one another and are, in fact, actively hostile. Even within each group, there are animosities, and just where I am reading now, it becomes increasingly clear that some witches are not above intimidating and threatening their own to get that book.<br /><br />I'm enjoying Ms. Harkness's writing immensely. The characters are well drawn, and the story is moving right along. I'm going to be very disappointed if the rest of the book is not as good as the beginning has been.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-32959027589155280022012-03-12T15:22:00.005-07:002012-03-12T15:46:05.583-07:00"The New Book of Lists"I think I've probably mentioned before here that I love books of lists. If I haven't, let me do that now.<br /><br />I love books of lists.<br /><br />So, I'm not quite sure how I missed the fact that David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace, to of the three compilers of the original <strong>Book of Lists</strong>, published in 1977, put out a new volume, <strong>The New Book of Lists</strong> (Canongate; 600 pages) in 2005.<br /><br />The original, which I loved just for the sheer novelty of it, spawned several sequels and numerous and varied imitators of differing quality over the years. I've read, or at least perused, a lot of them. Maybe it's because I love trivia, or perhaps it's because I'm a list-maker myself. Whatever it is, I can't seem to put books like this one down. When I got this new volume home from the library, I sat down to glance through it, just to see what was new. I ended up spending over two hours with it, thumbing through it and read what seemed most interesting to me at the time.<br /><br />That is another thing that I think attracts me to this sort of book: They don't need to be read in sequence, from cover to cover. That has a lot of appeal to someone like me, who more often than not reads a magazine back to front and who often writes longer pieces of writing from the middle out. With books of lists, you can pick them up, turn to a page, and start reading. Additionally, you can pick up a book of lists for five minutes if that's all the time you have to spare (and if you can stand to put it down after so short a time), or you can spend hours with it and not get bored.<br /><br />As with the original volume, the lists in this book span the breadth of topics and the complete spectrue from the sublime to the ridiculous. You can read about "15 Notable Events That Happened Under the Influence of Alcohol" (including the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Little Bighorn, and the failed 1991 coup in the former Soviet Union). Or, you can learn about "20 Famous Gurus and Their Former Jobs". Did you know that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (who famously taught Transcendental Meditation to the Beatles in the 1960s) had a BS in Physics? It is less of a surprise that Werner Erhard, the founder of the EST movement, was once a used-car salesman.<br /><br />While those examples lean more towward the ridiculous end of the spectrum, a little more sublime is the list of "9 Valuable Art Works Found Unexpectedly". This list includes the couple in a Milwaukee suburb who discovered that the van Gogh reproduction hanging on the wall in their living room for years was not a reproduction, but an original that brought $1.4 million at auction. Or the librarian in Hollywood who found 665 handwritten pages in an inherited steamer trunk that turned out to be part of Mark Twain's original handwritten manuscript of <strong>Huckleberry Finn</strong>.<br /><br />And then there are the lists that are just outright funny, like "36 Great Slips of the Tongue in American Politics." Some of these are familiar, and some are not, but I would be willing to bet that it is impossible to get through the entire list without laughing...and becoming more than a little frightened if, indeed, there is any valididity to the concept of the Freudian slip.<br /><br />I suspect that every word in <strong>The New Book of Lists</strong> is probably not strictly true; a few of the entries seem to be a bit tongue-in-cheek. Still, it is a fun book that I would recommend to anyone who needs a break from serious, linear, plot-driven reading.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-35549563786424361842012-03-10T12:42:00.003-08:002012-03-10T12:58:42.071-08:00What have they done to my library?I just got back from a trip to the central branch of the county library downtown,and don't know right now whether to be sad, or frustrated, or angry.<br /><br />They've remodeled, and as port of that remodeling, they've gotten rid of a lot of books. A lot. The adult non-fiction section doesn't seem to have suffered as badly as the adult fiction section, although both are considerably reduced. It is the state of the adult fiction section that has me dispirited, possibly because the non-fiction section has never been as up-to-date or inclusive as it could have been. But the fiction section seems to have been reduced by at least half and hidden in a back, ill-lit corner of the library. It seemed so...forlorn.<br /><br />They have also gotten rid of over half the table space for patrons to sit down and read a book or work on projects. There are plenty of computers, and table space reserved only for those who have brought a laptop to work on. Which is not a bad thing. But the lack of seating makes the place seem much less welcoming.<br /><br />I don't know what he idea is behind the changes. Maybe they've decided that no one really reads anymore. Or, perhaps, that the only people in the future who will have a right to read are those who can afford an e-reader. And perhaps they are trying to make the library less hospitable to the homeless. If that is so, I think it is unfortunate.<br /><br />I don't know what they've done to the children;s and young adult sections. I was afraid to look, after seeing what they've done to the adult collections. I might not want to know.<br /><br />I can't really write any more about this now. I'm still too upset about the changes to be entirely coherent.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-83734242294019394922012-03-09T16:37:00.005-08:002012-03-09T17:22:29.406-08:00The Book that Wouldn't End...It is probably appropriate that <strong>Blood and Ice</strong> (Bantam Books, 2009; 675 pages), by Robert Masello is a vampire novel. More or less, anyway. Because it was the book that wouldn't end. It went on forever.<br /><br />Sometimes I like that in a book. When it is a really good story, for instance. Other times...well, let's just say that I only finished this book because I had promised myself I would. I've got to quit doing that.<br /><br />Now, it wasn't a bad book, exactly. It has an interesting premise: Vampires in the Antarctic. And it cuts back and forth between the story of the two vampires, who come from the mid-1800s, and how they got to be vampires, and the present-day story of the Antarctic research station where writer and photographer Michael Wilde has come to get his career as a journalist back on track and forget that his girlfriend is lying in the hospital in a persistent vegetative state after a climbing accident that he wasn't able to save her from. Only, I found the present-day story much more interesting than the story of Eleanor, a nurse with Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War, and Sinclair, the soldier who should have fallen during the Charge of the Light Brigade. We find out how they met, how they were parted, how they came back together. But we are given only the slightest hint about how they became vampires. Not all that interesting, at least to me.<br /><br />The bigger problem with Masello's book was that the end was awfully anti-climactic. I won't say more about that, but while the journey was moderately diverting, the destination left a lot to be desired.<br /><br />I only picked up <strong>Blood and Ice</strong> in the library because of the blurb on the front cover of the paperback edition, from USA Today, which described the book as "What would happen if H. G. Wells, Stephenie Meyer and Michael Crichton co-wrote a suspense novel." Sounded interesting. H. G. Wells was promising; whatever you thought of him personally, Michael Crichton did write books that kept me turning the pages, and I figured that the Stephanie Meyer reference meant vampires, and I do like vampire stories. Just not hers. Unfortunately, there was more Stephanie Meyer here than either Wells or Crichton.<br /><br />Maybe that'll teach me to read cover blurbs, or at least to not take them seriously.<br /><br />*****************************************<br /><br />Now, to catch up with what else I've been reading.<br /><br />I finished my re-read of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's <strong>Hotel Transylvania</strong> (St. Martin's Press, 1978; 252 pages). A much better vampire novel than Masello's book. I had been going to write a joint review of the two books, but this is so much better than Masello's book that I couldn't even begin to compare the two.<br /><br />If I recall my chronology correctly, this was the second of Yarbro's Count Saint-Germain novels, following <strong>The Palace</strong>, which I wrote about here previously. This one takes place in Louis XV's court in France, where Saint-Germain takes on a group of Satan-worshipers in order to save a beautiful and innocent girl whose father, a former member of the group, had promised to them to do with as they pleased. I don't love this novel as much as I love The Palace and some of Yarbro's other entries in this series, but it is a good book and I enjoyed the re-read.<br /><br />I've also recently read a delightful Star Trek novel by Barbara Hambly, <strong>Ishmael</strong> (Pocket Books, 1985; 256 pages), which sends Spock back in time to the universe of another television series, "Here Come the Brides". I just recently became aware of the book, and considering that I was a fan of both shows as a young girl, I had to read it. If you have any fondness for either show, read this book. It captures the atmosphere of both of them very well, it tells a good story. And we find out something about Spock's ancestry that I found sort of delightful.<br /><br />Hambly seems to have gotten the idea for the book from the fact that the same actor who played Spock's father in the series, Mark Lenard, also played the resident villain in Here Come the Brides. It was a good idea. Although I am a fan, I don't habitually read Star Trek novels. I'm very glad I read this one.<br /><br />Another book I finished in the past week or so was <strong>Hangman</strong> (HarperCollins, 2010; 422 pages), by Faye Kellerman. Another good novel, one in her Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series of police procedurals, some of which I've mentioned here in the past. Kellerman is one of my favorite writers, and this series continues to please.<br /><br />This installment actually is the book preceding <strong>Gun Games</strong>, which I wrote about here a few weeks ago. It tells the story of how Gabe Donatti, the son of a physician and a hit man, came to live with Decker and Lazarus, at the same time Decker is investigating a series of murders that seem to point to there being a serial killer on the loose. Except that it very soon starts looking like there are two serial killers instead of one, operating independently. Decker and his team have to sort out the threads of that case at the same time he and his wife are trying to sort out whether or not offering Gabe a place to live is a good idea, considering his family situation, and as Decker gets ready to celebrate his 60th birthday.<br /><br />As always, with Kellerman's books, I can just say, read it.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-18793373588409604102012-01-31T09:50:00.000-08:002012-01-31T10:15:26.034-08:00Not keeping up...Time gets away from me sometimes...<br /><br />I finished reading <strong>Lucy's Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins</strong> (2009, Harmony Books; 309 pages), by Donald C. Johanson and Kate Wong, a few days ago and haven't yet written about it. It's the third book, after <strong>Lucy</strong> and <strong>Lucy's Child</strong>, chronicling Johanson's discoveries of early hominid fossils in East Africa, mostly in Ethiopia but at Olduvai Gorge as well. I read it as part of research for a writing project, but I enjoyed it as a good read as much as I did because I'm interested in the subjects of paleoanthropology and human evolution.<br /><br />Only the first half of the book chronicles Johanson's experiences in the field, and some of that is recap of the first two books, in which he talked about discovering the partial skeleton of a hominid individual that came to be known as "Lucy" and others of her species. The rest of the books looks at the history of other fossil hominid finds in Africa, in Asia and in Europe, hominids that lived both before and after the lifespan of Lucy's species, <em>Australopithecus afarensis</em>, which lived from about 3.9 to 3 million years ago. All of this comes with Johanson's commentary and his assessment of what those finds mean within the history of human evolution.<br /><br />It is a good book, but it is also an example of the contentious nature of paleoanthropology, where discoverers of different species will vociferously advocate that their fossil is on the direct line of human evolution and the species others have discovered might be cousins of ours but probably not direct ancestors. As long as you read it from the perspective that Johanson is advocating for the species he discovered and realize that this might color some of his assessments of other, there is good information here, presented in a readable manner. In other words, the information presented is good but it is probably a good idea to take Johanson's opinions about other finds and other paleoanthropologists as biased to a certain extent.<br /><br />So, now I'm reading (and am more than halfway through) <strong>Hotel Transylvania</strong> (1978, St. Martin's Press; 252 pages), by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. It's a re-read, but I first read it within a few years of its publication. I'm not sure I'm enjoying it as much this time around as I did the first time, but it is still holding my interest enough that I'm determined to finish the re-read.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-55220299002237619202012-01-17T10:03:00.001-08:002012-01-17T10:18:39.273-08:00Book Review: "Red Mist"I'm still not sure I'm going to finish reading Preston's <strong>The Codex</strong>. I've tried to pick it up again several times and just haven't been able to get back into it.<br /><br />However, I did finish <strong>Red Mist</strong> (2011, G. P. Putnam's Sons; 498 pages), by Patricia Cornwell. Interesting novel, which I can say very little about without spoilers. I will say that I did like that it was constructed in large part of a series of conversations, with not that much action. I like to read novels like that sometimes. I suppose some people find that kind of writing too slow, but sometimes it can be a nice break from non-stop action. On the other hand, Ms. Cornwell chose to write this novel in the present tense, which bugs the hell out of me. It's a tribute to the strength of the story that I stuck with it and read the whole thing.<br /><br />I also have to say that I'm kind of ambivalent about Ms. Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta mysteries. I've read several of them, and I just have a hard time liking Scarpetta. The way Ms. Cornwell has written her, the character seems to have problems with grandiose thinking. She seems to think that everyone else is either stupid or naive. In this book, at one point, she is about to enter the apartment of someone she has known for some time and who she is nearly positive is dead, and the narrative has her thinking, "It's what I sense right before I walk into a place where death quietly and finally waits for me to tend to it as only I can." It's as if she thinks she is the only medical examiner in the world, or at least the only one who knows anything. Like I said, she has a bit of a problem with grandiose thinking.<br /><br />Still, I liked <strong>Red Mist</strong>. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have stayed up late into the night two nights in a row reading it.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-51556239960261177892012-01-08T10:14:00.001-08:002012-01-08T10:17:25.246-08:00Two Book Reviews, or Starting the year out right...I'm starting out the year on a bit of a reading binge, apparently. Since the beginning of the year I've finished two books. Already mentioned in an early post, I finished <strong>Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood 1910 - 1969</strong> (2001, Viking; 422 pages), by William J. Mann, on Friday night.<br /><br />It is an interesting book, well worth reading despite the fact that there are times when it takes a scorecard to distinguish the players. The problem is that Mann, in an admirable attempt to be comprehensive, tends to throw out names one after another, then refers to them sometimes by first name and sometimes by surname, which becomes confusing at times.<br /><br />But, he is comprehensive and he isn't engaged in gossip-mongering, which is something I was afraid he might be when I first picked up the book. When he identifies someone active in the entertainment industry as gay, he provides evidence, and when there is no evidence that someone who has been presumed to be gay actually was, he says so. Additionally, he spends very little time on top stars who were either admittedly or rumored to be gay, and instead traces the history of movie-making through all aspects of the industry. He does write about actors, both male and female, but he also writes about directors, writers, producers, editors, art directors, agents, publicists, and all the other people it takes to put a movie on the screen. If Mann had been aiming at a sensationalistic account, he would have spent much more time on the Hollywood names everyone knows.<br /><br />Along the way, Mann also addresses the ups and downs of the acceptance of open gays and lesbians in Hollywood, and the terms under which they were accepted, when they were. He also points out the essentially conservative nature of the top executives and some of the top stars in the industry, something that blocked the complete acceptance of homosexuals and homosexuality in the industry even when the society as a whole really didn't worry so much about what movie makers did in the privacy of their bedrooms.<br /><br />The most difficult times for gays in Hollywood, according to Mann, were the years when the Hays Code, the production code that severely limited what themes movies could explore, how those themes could be explored, and what could be said and shown on-screen, and what could not even be hinted at, from about 1930 to 1941, and during the McCarthy era of the late 1940s and 1950s (essentially the first years of the Cold War), when life for gays in all segments of society was especially difficult.<br /><br />I highly recommend Mann's book for anyone interested in film history or gay history.<br /><br />After I finished reading Behind the Screen on Friday night, I wasn't ready to go to sleep just yet, so I picked up Faye Kellerman's <strong>Gun Games</strong> (2012, William Morrow; 375 pages). This is the latest entry in Kellerman's series of novels about LAPD detective Peter Decker and his wife Rina Lazarus. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to admit that this is one of my favorite mystery/police procedural series, by one of my favorite writers in the genre.<br /><br />In this novel, Decker and Lazarus have taken in a young piano prodigy whose father is a gangster (in the old-fashioned sense of the word) and whose physician mother has gone off to Africa to have a baby with another man. At the same time, Decker and his team are looking at the suicides of two high-school students who may or may not be linked and who may or may not have been helped along in their suicides.<br /><br />I won't say more, as I don't want to provide any spoilers, but I will say that the book is a fast, good read. If I have any quibbles with it, it is that the teenage characters sometimes don't speak much like any of the teenagers I know, sometimes sounding much too adult. It is a minor quibble, however, overshadowed by a plot that moves right along. It certainly kept me turning pages late into the night.<br /><br />---------<br /><br />As an update, I'm now reading <strong>The Codex</strong>, by Douglas Preston (2004, Tor; 404 pages). I'm only about 60 pages in, and I'm not sure yet that I like it much. I'm going to try to stick with it, however. I started but did not finish way too many books in 2011, and I'm going to try to be better about that in 2012.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-76105231413635710862012-01-04T11:27:00.000-08:002012-01-04T11:54:04.003-08:00The first update of the New Year...Since I've been working on a writing project, I haven't gotten too much other reading done yet in the New Year. I'm a little over 150 pages from the end of <strong>Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood 1910 - 1969</strong> (2001, Viking; 422 pages), by William J. Mann. It isn't the gossip-fest that I feared when I picked it up, and there are more names I don't recognize in it than those that were household names. The big bonus is that Mann not only talks about actors, but about writers, directors, art directors, costumers, set dressers and the rest of the people who are as important (or more) in the making of movies than are the actors. I'm pretty sure I'll have more to say about this book when I'm finished reading it.<br /><br />As far as the research I've been doing for my writing project, I've been dipping into several books, including the <strong>Cambridge Illustrated History of Archaeology</strong> (1996, Cambridge University Press; 386 pages), edited by Paul G. Bahn; <strong>The Practical Archaeologist: How We Known What We Know About the Past</strong> (2nd edition, 1999, Facts on File; 186 pages), by Jane McIntosh; and <strong>Archaeology: A Brief Introduction</strong> (1999, Prentice Hall; 306 pages), by Brian M. Fagan. All very interesting stuff, but I'm mainly on a mission right now to construct a list of archaeologists through history and to gather a glossary of key terms, as I'm essentially writing a study guide for beginning students. Eventually, I'll move on to cultural anthropology and biological anthropology, as I'm wanting to do either an overall study guide for all three branches of anthropology or to do a separate one for each subfield. It's a fun project, as it's what I'm educated in, but I'm having to do much more research than I had counted on (it's amazing how much detail one loses a few years out from taking classes). That's fine; it's just taking more time than I had hoped to do the writing, which I'm doing as I research along, or trying to.<br /><br />It's not original work by any means, but it's something I wish I'd had access to when I was taking my first courses in these subjects. My theory is that since I actually knew quite a bit about these topics when I took those classes because I'd done a lot of reading, students who are jumping into these classes without much prior knowledge would find such a reference, all in one book (either for all three or for each subject separately), valuable. Something like this might already exist, but if it does, I haven't found it. So, I'm writing my own.<br /><br />I just wish I could get more up-to-date reference materials from my public library system. There is more recent stuff in the local state university library, but there are logistical problems in getting there (no close, free parking, mostly). So, I'm doing all the work I can from older sources, and then will spend some intense work days at the university library, updating what needs to be updated, with a list in front of me of just exactly what I need to find, so that I won't get off-topic and end up browsing among the stacks. Don't laugh. Going and playing in the library is one of my favorite things to do.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-31807871138671439882011-12-30T23:43:00.000-08:002011-12-30T23:50:38.013-08:00Reading: A wrap-up for 2011It's time to wrap up my year in reading.<br /><br />I didn't read nearly as many books as I had hoped to this year. Part of that had to do with the fact that I started reading a lot more books than I actually finished, some because I only intended to read part of them for things I was researching and some because I just couldn't get into them. I started out the year trying to keep track of the ones I started and just couldn't make myself finish, but it got entirely too depressing.<br /><br />Just two books this year were re-reads, <strong>My Name is Asher Lev</strong>, by Chaim Potok, and <strong>The Palace</strong>, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. I enjoyed both of them just as much as, and possibly more than, the first time I read them.<br /><br />I reversed my usual trend and read more fiction than nonfiction this year. This could very well be due to the fact that it hasn't been that great a year for me, and so I was using my reading as a way to escape the real world that I wasn't that thrilled with. By actual count, I read 15 novels, 12 non-fiction books, and 4 volumes of manga. Thirty-one books total. However, I would definitely say that I read parts of more non-fiction books by far than I started but did not finish novels. My major disappointment among the novels I did not finish was not being able to get into Neal Stephenson's <strong>Cryptonomicon</strong> when I tried to re-read it, since I loved it so much the first time through. It's a really, really (really,really) long book, though, and I just couldn't stick with it this time around. Maybe another time.<br /><br />Although I had hoped to read more books this year, I didn't actually set a goal this year. Over on Ravelry, the fiber arts website and forum I spend entirely too much time at, there is a group that invites readers to set a goal for the number of books read during the year and then keep a list detailing that reading. Some people read enormous numbers of books during the year. I did not. However, I think I'll be setting a goal for next year. Since I read 31 books this year, I think I'll attempt to reach a goal of reading 40 books in 2012. Not quite a book a week, but close, at a book every 1.3 weeks. If my math is correct. We'll see how that goes.<br /><br />I did read at least one book each month, although in June and again in July I only managed one per month. I don't know why those months were the ones during which I read the least. Well, June I can understand. It was a busy month. But I was home alone for the entire month of July and had no transportation except the bus and rides from friends to a few events, mostly Tuesday knit nights and to an evening at Shakespeare in the Park here locally. I had plenty of time to read, and there are plenty of books in the house.<br /><br />Aside from the manga, I read 9,547 pages in the books I completed. And, with that little statistic, here is the list of books I read in 2011. As I said, I hope to read more in 2012, and I plan to write more often here, both about the complete books I'm reading and about the other things I will read as part of my ongoing research for writing projects I'm working on.<br /><br /><strong>January</strong> <br />(1) <strong>American Conspiracies</strong>, by Jesse Ventura (228 pages) <br />(2) <strong>Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution</strong>, by Richard Fortey (284 pages) <br />(3) <strong>The Miracle Detective</strong>, by Randall Sullivan (450 pages) <br />(4) <strong>Sight Unseen</strong>, by Budd Hopkins and Carol Rainey (406 pages) <br /><strong>February</strong> <br />(5) <strong>Exile on Main St.: A Season in Hell With The Rolling Stones</strong>, by Robert Greenfield (258 pages) <br />(6) <strong>Dexter is Delicious</strong>, by Jeff Lindsay (350 pages) <br /><strong>March</strong> <br />(7) <strong>The Reversal</strong>, by Michael Connelly (389 pages) <br />(8) <strong>The Lost Symbol</strong>, by Dan Brown (509 pages) <br />(9) <strong>The Devil’s Triangle</strong>, by Mark Robson (391 pages) <br /><strong>April</strong> <br />(10) <strong>The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures</strong>, by Anne Fadiman (341 pages) <br />(11) <strong>Digital Fortress</strong>, by Dan Brown (431 pages) <br />(12) <strong>Mystery</strong>, by Jonathan Kellerman (320 pages) <br />(13) <strong>LEGO: A Love Story</strong>, by Jonathan Bender (270 pages) <br />(14) <strong>9 Dragons</strong>, by Michael Connelly (377 pages) <br /><strong>May</strong> <br />(15) <strong>Java Man</strong>, by Carl Swisher, Garniss Curtis and Roger Lewin (256 pages) <br />(16) <strong>Library Wars 1</strong>, by Kiiro Yumi (manga) <br />(17) <strong>Library Wars 2</strong>, by Kiiro Yumi (manga) <br />(18) <strong>Library Wars 3</strong>, by Kiiro Yumi (manga) <br />(19) <strong>Library Wars 4</strong>, by Kiiro Yumi (manga) <br /><strong>June</strong> <br />(20) <strong>Break No Bones</strong>, by Kathy Reichs (339 pages) <br /><strong>July</strong> <br />(21) <strong>Weird Hollywood</strong>, by Joe Oesterle (237 pages) <br /><strong>August</strong> <br />(22) <strong>My Name is Asher Lev</strong>, by Chaim Potok (369 pages) <br />(23) <strong>The Scarpetta Factor</strong>, by Patricia Cornwell (572 pages) <br />(24) <strong>Treasure Box</strong>, by Orson Scott Card (372 pages) <br /><strong>September</strong> <br />(25) <strong>Weird California</strong>, by Greg Bishop, Joe Oesterle, and Mike Marinacci (299 pages) <br />(26) <strong>The Palace</strong>, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (376 pages) <br /><strong>October</strong> <br />(27) <strong>The Man Who Found Time: James Hutton and the Discovery of the Earth’s Antiquity</strong>, by Jack Repcheck (246 pages) <br /><strong>November</strong> <br />(28) <strong>Flash and Bones</strong>, by Kathy Reichs (278 pages) <br />(29) <strong>Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base</strong>, by Annie Jacobsen (521 pages) <br /><strong>December</strong> <br />(30) <strong>Impact</strong>, by Douglas Preston (364 pages) <br />(31) <strong>Blasphemy</strong>, by Douglas Preston (414 pages)littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-50486730263691410122011-12-24T13:17:00.000-08:002011-12-24T13:39:36.117-08:00Catching up...In the past couple of weeks, I've read two novels by Douglas Preston, <em>Impact</em> (2010, Forge Books; 368 pages) and <em>Blasphemy</em> (2008, Forge Books; 416 pages).<br /><br /><em>Impact</em> starts out following three apparently separate stories, a meteor (or is it meteorite? I never can remember which is before it hits and which is after it impacts the earth) impact off the coast of Maine and a young woman's search for the remnants of the space rock because she knows how much it is worth; the search in Cambodia for the source of some radioactive gems; and the murder of a space scientist and his protege's investigation of what the scientist had been working on, the source of gamma rays that seemed to be coming from Mars, somewhere they should not have been originating. As it turns out, all three situations are part of the same story, and getting to the bottom of it all includes a boat chase in a storm, an encounter with a former Khmer Rouge leader, and the possibility of an alien threat to Earth. If it all sounds sort of silly stated this way, the story is interesting and it certainly kept me turning the pages, and I would recommend it to someone who is looking for a good adventure to read on a cold winter's night.<br /><br /><em>Blasphemy</em> is a techno-thriller, in which a team of scientists have constructed a super-computer in a cavern on a mesa on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. But they're having trouble getting the computer up and running, and the president's science advisor has sent Wyman Ford, who was looking for radioactive gems in <em>Impact</em>, out to find out why it is taking so long to get the project on track. Meanwhile, one of the scientists on the team leaves the project mysteriously and then kills himself out in the desert, and some fundamentalist Christians have decided that the leader of the project is the Antichrist and must be stopped at all costs. The Navajo aren't happy with the project either, after many of the promises made to them in return for building the computer on their land have not been honored.<br /><br />There is a lot more substance to <em>Blasphemy</em> than there is to <em>Impact</em>, as Blasphemy raises some tough issues about things like the nature of religion and of science, when does religious devotion cross the line into terrorism, and did god create the universe, or did humans create both god and religion? I wouldn't recommend <em>Blasphemy</em> to anyone who is offended by the portrayal of a certain wing of fundamentalist Christianity as fanaticism that could easily devolve into mob violence. Nonetheless, I would recommend it as an exciting story that takes some surprising turns.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-35074165115434802352011-11-20T11:23:00.000-08:002011-11-20T11:26:05.585-08:00Book Review: "Area 51", by Annie Jacobsen<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmQ15rm7ASKknWz7r6P-sOV57BSvdZpwE_cI3ExywH5EkjlvNpPlg7z8L3s5y8yawXI_RNmm9JH2P235JpKc0vMm4L6fFxTa-mOZDSJ-NAq86xgWKkUmE_lCKIGY0cSC7-iCnsPU-aNXBB/s1600/Area+51+Jacobsen.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 160px; height: 224px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmQ15rm7ASKknWz7r6P-sOV57BSvdZpwE_cI3ExywH5EkjlvNpPlg7z8L3s5y8yawXI_RNmm9JH2P235JpKc0vMm4L6fFxTa-mOZDSJ-NAq86xgWKkUmE_lCKIGY0cSC7-iCnsPU-aNXBB/s320/Area+51+Jacobsen.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677161125035991682" /></a><br />Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base (Little, Brown and Company, 2011; 521 pages), by Annie Jacobsen, is a strange book. This starts with the fact that, in my local library at least, it is shelved with the UFO books, despite the fact that there is little about UFOs in the book, and what Ms. Jacobsen does have to say about the subject has nothing to do with extraterrestrials. I'm not sure what goes into the assigning of Dewey Decimal classifications to books, but if I were the one doing it, I'd be much more likely to put this book in with the books on espionage or the Cold War, with both topics given plenty of room in Ms. Jacobsen's book.<br /><br />Most of the book, in fact, is given over to information Ms. Jacobsen gleaned from declassified documents about the legendary Nevada site that some claim the US government has still never admitted to maintaining, and from extensive interviews with those who worked there on various projects over the decades. And it's interesting stuff. Much of the work done there has had to do with the development of surveillance aircraft such as the U-2 and other high-altitude, high-speed spy planes. Ms. Jacobsen also writes about nuclear testing that was conducted in the area, which also includes the Nellis Air Force Range and the Nevada Test and Training Range, where numerous above-ground and underground tests of nuclear devices took place from the 1950s up until testing ended (maybe, according to Ms. Jacobsen) with the implementation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty by President Clinton in 1993). There is some information, as well, about tests of thermonulears weapons in the Pacific in the 1950s, which were connected to Area 51 through pilots flying sampling planes that were tested at the secret base.<br /><br />The book also details the decades-long disputes between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Air Force over who would control the base. While the two agencies cooperated very briefly during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963, for the most part, they engaged in an ongoing competition at the highest levels of government over who would develop the latest-generation spy planes and therefore control activities at Area 51. The details Ms. Jacobsen includes show that even the most powerful men in the country, and in the world, are not above playing petty politics.<br /><br />In Area 51, then, Ms. Jacobsen appears to paint a fairly straightforward history of activities at Area 51, told by the people who were there and who feel free to talk about their experiences now that the papers connected to the activities they participated in there have been declassified. At least, this is true up until the final chapter of the book. Then the tone of the book changes to one of conspiracy theorizing.<br /><br />Near the beginning of the book, Ms. Jacobsen introduces the idea that the vehicle in the Roswell crash in July 1947 was not an extraterrestrial vehicle, as some UFO believers maintain, nor was it the weather balloon that the government has always used as a cover story for what happened there, but a Soviet experimental craft that was sent as an attempt at psychological warfare, trying to induce panic in the US population akin to that generated by the Orson Welles "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast in October 1938. That dramatization of H. G. Wells's science fiction novel about invaders from Mars had much of the country believing, for a few hours on the night before Halloween, that the Earth actually was under attack from outer space.<br /><br />Then, in the final chapter of the book, Ms. Jacobsen includes information from an anonymous source (the only interviewee she does not identify by name) who claimed that the supposed "alien" bodies from the Roswell crash were actually children whose bodies had been altered to look like aliens. In his account, the bodies, including two that were alive but in comas, along with the craft they were in ended up at Area 51 in 1951, where they were experimented on by US scientists to try to "reverse-engineer" what was done to them. This anonymous sources claims, additionally, that the alterations were carried out by Nazi scientists who had ended up in the Soviet Union, just as some Nazi scientists were put to work in the United States after World War II, mostly in the development of the US space program. Even worse, the source claims, the US did not just attempt to figure out what had been done to the children from the crash, but also continued to carry out its own secret tests on US prisoners and handicapped children at Area 51. He further claims that these tests weren't even "the half of it", of what went on there, but refused to talk more to Ms. Jacobsen, claiming that she did not have a "need-to-know."<br /><br />Frankly, it is as if the final chapter of the book is lifted from another book entirely and tacked on for, well, for who knows what purpose. And it has come in for criticism from some of those who cooperated with Ms. Jacobsen in the writing of the book, who have said they feel "betrayed" by her inclusion of that final chapter in the book. One of those men, radar expert T. D. Barnes, is quoted in an article at Huffington Post from August 7, 2011, as insisting that nothing like what the anonymous source claims ever took place at Area 51. However, Huffington Post writing Lee Speigel points out in the article there that the anonymous source claimed the experiments on the crash survivors too place in 1951, while Barnes did not arrive at Area 51 until 1968 and that, in any case, Barnes would not necessarily have known about such experiments even if they had taken place while he was there, especially if it was not directly connected to the work he was involved with. As Ms. Jacobsen points out several times in her book, Area 51 operates with a "need-to-know" culture in which someone working on a project does not even know about other aspects of that project unless it is determined by project supervisors that he needs to know about it.<br /><br />Overall, Area 51 is an interesting book and, I think, well worth reading. However, it does raise some questions, even aside from the issue around the final chapter and the controversy surrounding it. The main question is, how can a reader ever really believe anything written about the CIA? Now, that sounds like a question that would come from the mind of a conspiracy theorist. I realize that. However, considering that the intelligence agency (and, quite likely other government agencies) has been known to spread disinformation (information that it portrays as being the truth, but which is not true) in order to hide what it has done, I think it is a valid question. Another issue concerns what that, and other government agencies, allows to be declassified and that which it does not.<br /><br />As a case in point, there is a story in the book about a flier who was lost at sea during a nuclear test in the Pacific in 1952. His job was to fly in and out of the radioactive cloud after the bomb was detonated, sampling the air for the amount of radioactivity. For some reasons, some of the equipment on his plane failed during the flight and he couldn't locate the homing signal to get back to the base where he was to land. By the time he reacquired the signal, he ran out of fuel and was not able to get back to base. His plane crashed into the sea and neither it nor the pilot were ever recovered. When the documents relating to that series of tests were declassified in 1986, that pilot's name was redacted (blacked out) in all the reports. It took his family many Freedom of Information Act requests, which were repeatedly denied, until 2008 to convince the Air Force to tell them what had happened to him.<br /><br />One is left wondering exactly why the government was not willing for so long, even after releasing the rest of the information about that series of tests, to simply let a family know what had become of their son, husband and father. But, if for no other reason, books like this are valuable to keep the questions coming, and to hold the government, even the clandestine services, at least somewhat responsible for the things they do and the money they spend without telling the American people, the Congress, and sometimes even the President of the United States what they are doing in their names. This is not to say that agencies like the CIA should have to tell everything, all the time. There are reasons that some things should be kept secret for some period of time. On the other hand, when the reason that things remain classified for decades is simply to keep an agency from being embarrassed or held accountable for events that went wrong, or for events such as tests that went as scheduled but put people, both in and outside of the government, at unacceptable risk for harm or death, a case can be made that such secrecy is an abuse of power.<br /><br />Read the book, and make up your own mind.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-78892674073075246722011-11-13T14:03:00.001-08:002011-11-13T14:23:40.480-08:00Updates...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6oBCiXuabnf8o1nGIlWz4XrvCTZZxAA0W2CYrRvjwvnZXl7BeQNLJbK3Kkg-jp0jOhnn3FY5kfCdE-DbHvblJ1BpukjeQgKEqG7WtjtWQU01f_wXIAiSKyqFHpR35StB1X35QzzzmIWdW/s1600/NaNo+2011.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 180px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6oBCiXuabnf8o1nGIlWz4XrvCTZZxAA0W2CYrRvjwvnZXl7BeQNLJbK3Kkg-jp0jOhnn3FY5kfCdE-DbHvblJ1BpukjeQgKEqG7WtjtWQU01f_wXIAiSKyqFHpR35StB1X35QzzzmIWdW/s320/NaNo+2011.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5674609271169136930" /></a><br />Since I'm procrastinating on starting the day's NaNo writing, I thought maybe this would be a good time to post an update on my progress since my last report, on Day Eight.<br /><br />Day Nine saw me write 2,705 words, bringing my total word count to 20,597 words, but I took Day Ten off and recorded no word count. I felt kind of bad taking the day off, but I had an opportunity to spend a good part of the day at the library at Fresno State to do some research for a non-fiction project I'm working on (not much this month, but it's a long-term project, so the time off isn't a big handicap. I found some material that will be very valuable to the project, so I'm glad I went ahead and took the day to do that.<br /><br />It was difficult getting back in the saddle, so to speak, on Day Eleven, but I managed to write 2,167 words, to bring my total to 22,764 words. I wasn't especially pleased with what I wrote on Day Eleven, but I was pleased that I wrote, and that the story moved forward just a bit, even if there will be major revisions in the next draft. That's a given, so not a problem at all. As one of my Facebook friends said about giving hints ("Spoilers, sweetie!) about what you write in a first draft, everything will change anyway, so it doesn't really matter.<br /><br />Yesterday, Day Twelve, I wrote 4,023 words, by far my biggest one-day output, and my total now stands at 26,787 words. That means I'm halfway to the NaNoWriMo goal. It's a good feeling, especially considering that it isn't quite halfway through the month. I can see now that my first draft won't be finished by the end of the competition, but that doesn't really matter. The goal is to write 50,000 words in the month, not finish the draft in the month. So, since I wrapped up writing for the day late yesterday afternoon, I've been basking in the glow of being Halfway Done.<br /><br />But, now it's time to cut out the back-slapping and get back to work. I'm not going to try to equal yesterday's output. I'll be happy if I can do what seems to be my usual output of around 2,000 words today. Heck, I'll be happy if I make the daily average of 1,666 words that it takes to win NaNo if one writes every single day.<br /><br />One thing I do think is interesting is that I'm seeing, as I write, exactly where some of the changes will have to be made in the next draft. I'm starting to adjust my work as i write, so that the new work will be more in line with what I want the next draft to look like, especially in terms of the story's timeline. But I'm being very good, so far, and not trying to go back and fix things I've already written now. They'll still be there when I finish this draft and go back to do revisions. It's enough, right now, that I know the direction I want to go with the story and can see what I'll need to do in the next draft to point the beginning of the story more squarely in that direction. And, that I can see more clearly every day exactly what I'm going to need to do as this draft goes forward to get to where I want to be at the end of the story.<br /><br />The bad thing is (and I don't think it's really bad, just more ambitious than I had really planned in the beginning), I'm pretty sure that there is going to be more than one book before the whole story gets told. Which means lots more work ahead. Good thing I love the process as much as I do.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-77344811421738039042011-11-12T13:42:00.000-08:002011-11-12T13:48:06.633-08:00It's NaNo month, or not much time for reading just now......So, I haven't been doing much reading. But, I took a break last night and this morning, and read Flash and Bones (Scribner, 2011; 278 pages), by Kathy Reichs.<br /><br />This is a good book and a quick read, in which forensic anthropologyst Temperance Brennan solves several murders against the background of one of the biggest NASCAR races of the season. I won't say any more because I don't want to spoil the book for anyone. I'll just say, Go, find this book, and read it.<br /><br />Now, I'm ready to get back to writing my NaNo entry. I've written 22,764 words so far, almost halfway to the competition goal of 50,000 words. My personal goal this weekend is to hit the halfway mark.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-87474116972652234302011-10-24T12:17:00.000-07:002011-10-24T12:35:17.142-07:00Review: "The Man Who Found Time"I've mostly been reading for research lately, so I'm not doing that well with finishing any books. This explains the recent radio silence here.<br /><br />However, I have just finished reading a book that I picked up for research purposes but then found so fascinating that I read it through. It is <em>The Man Who Found Time: James Hutton and the Discovery of the Earth's Antiquity</em> (Basic Books, 2003; 247 pages), by Jack Repcheck.<br /><br />In one way, the title says it all. This is the story of how James Hutton, considered to be the "father of modern geology", figured out that the Earth isn't really 6,000 years old, which was the conventional wisdom among Western scholars when he was working in eghteenth century Scotland. While Hutton himself never ventured an estimate of the age of the Earth, his work opened the way for later scholars to figure the earth's actual age in years.<br /><br />One of the interesting details of the book, in fact, was that the current estimate of 4.6 billion years as the Earth's age was not reached until 1956, the year I was born, really not all that long ago in the wider scheme of things.<br /><br />But in other ways, the title of Repcheck's book falls far short of giving the reader a complete picture of what he or she will find in the book, since despite centering on Hutton and his theory of the Earth, there are plenty of other interesting subjects broached there. Repcheck gives us a tour of Edinburgh, where Hutton was born, attended university and did much of his work. But in addition, the reader is treated (and I mean that in the best way) to a brief explanation of the Highlander uprising of 1745 and 1746. The reader also gets an overview of the Scottish Enlightenment, during which an generation of Scotland's finest minds made huge strides in many areas of inquiry.<br /><br />So, I arrived for the geology, as an important side note to my research into the history of anthropology and archaeology, and found a delightful sketch of a period of time that I knew very little about, in a place that often seems to get short shrift in conventional histories.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-13536305126303719942011-09-25T16:08:00.000-07:002011-09-26T07:45:10.883-07:00Reveiw: "The Palace", by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXQyCI6rWuskXaXwc42Ve9o_AewPPJUKr4-krz14nCRHjyxuPmp6UITEpNB9Rkx7hlUqYjplTGjCaQxjpVV0GOaUmTZyf9vtvcyi_TmZzVgs-5qAEEIlQX2S_QixewoKK9Snd7h8YjO9rT/s1600/The+Palace.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 186px; height: 270px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXQyCI6rWuskXaXwc42Ve9o_AewPPJUKr4-krz14nCRHjyxuPmp6UITEpNB9Rkx7hlUqYjplTGjCaQxjpVV0GOaUmTZyf9vtvcyi_TmZzVgs-5qAEEIlQX2S_QixewoKK9Snd7h8YjO9rT/s320/The+Palace.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5656449357970194082" /></a><br />Chelsea Quinn writes, among other things, vampire novels. But these are vampire novels with a twist: her vampire, the Count Saint Germain, is the good guy. So, if you like your vampires menacing, cruel, and villainous, you probably want to give <em>The Palace</em> (St. Martin's Press, 1978; 376 pages) a miss. But, if you like good writing, a great story, well-researched historical backgrounds, and vampires that don't sparkle, you'll likely enjoy Yarbro's series of vampire novels, most of which feature the Count.<br /><br /><em>The Palace</em> is the second in the series, which has grown to a number of volumes since she wrote the first installment, <em>Hotel Transylvania</em>, which is also very good. But <em>The Palace</em>, which is the second book in the series, is my favorite, and the one I've gone back to read most often since I discovered these novels quite by accident. I was at the library, and just cruising the fiction stacks and pulled it off the shelf and read that it is set in Renaissance Florence. I'm a huge Michelangelo geek, so that was enough to get me to check the book out of the library and give it a chance; the fact that it was a vampire story was of secondary importance to me.<br /><br />The story begins as Saint Germain, who is a friend to Lorenzo de'Medici, the unofficial ruler of Florence, is building a palace in Florence. But Lorenzo the Magnificent's health is failing, and Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican monk whose fire and brimstone preaching comes with a heavy dose of guilt and prophecy, is starting to hold sway over more and more of Florence's population. Savonarola has predicted both that Lorenzo will die, and when, and that the French will come and try to rule the city. When both predictions come true, Savonarola is on his way to several years as the de facto dictator of the city.<br /><br />This development makes it more and more difficult for Saint Germain to live in Florence, because along with more and more rigorous religious laws, foreigners are less and less tolerated. Finally, after the sister of Sandro di Filipepi, known to the art world as Botticelli, with whom Saint Germain has had an ongoing liaison, confesses her sins in a way that implicates the Count in her debaucheries, Saint Germain must flee the city. He returns, posing as his own nephew, to rescue his student, Demetrice, who has come to live with Saint German after the death of Lorenzo and because of her ties to him has been accused of heresy.<br /><br />It is worth reading <em>The Palace</em> for the wonderful writing and exciting story alone. But besides good storytelling and history that is impeccably researched and woven into the story without the huge passages of info-dumping that so many historical novels suffer from, Yarbro has inserted into the story a major subtext regarding the dangers of excessive and fanatic religious devotion. She explores, without sacrificing story or storytelling, the dangers that can come when religious fervor overtakes good sense and mixes with politics.<br /><br />Savonarola is presented as a sort of a Renaissance version of a televangelist, preaching doom and gloom and prophesying the end of the world, or at least the end of Florence. He insists that any pleasure is vanity and offensive in the sight of God. He urges detailed confessions of sins, especially those of a sexual nature. He demands that the citizens of the city destroy anything that isn't strictly utilitarian, that they wear drab plain clothes, and that they attend church and strictly observe all feast days. If you are not familiar with the career of Savonarola, as I was not when I first read <em>The Palace</em>, Yarbro's portrayal of him threatens to read like an anachronistic parody. It is not.<br /><br />Long after my first reading of <em>The Palace</em>, I wrote a paper and did a class presentation on the career of Savonarola. As part of my research for that project, I read translations of some of the sermons Savonarola gave in Florence during the period in which the novel takes place, and the words that Yarbro puts in his mouth sound very much like the records of his sermons read. There is no exaggeration there, as far as I can see; he really was that fanatic, that judgmental, that full of fervor.<br /><br />It is a mark of Yarbro's skill as a researcher and a writer that she has managed to insert this subtext, this social criticism, into <em>The Palace</em> without making it read like an historical treatise or a propaganda piece on the dangers of fanaticism of any sort. It is all integral to the story.<br /><br />I will warn you of one thing. If you do read <em>The Palace</em>, there is a strong possibility that you will find yourself looking for other books in the series. I've not liked all of Yarbor's Saint Germain books as much as I like The Palace, but I've not regretted the time I've spent reading any of them.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-49990807296598827182011-09-06T12:09:00.000-07:002011-09-06T12:13:50.674-07:00Review: "Weird California"A couple of months ago, I read a book called <em>Weird Hollywood</em> and enjoyed it a lot. I picked it up at the library because I like reading about Southern California, since I was born there and because I like reading about, the, well, I suppose unusual is a good enough word for it.<br /><br />I was also drawn to it because I remembered seeking another book, <em>Weird California</em> (Sterling Publishing Co., 2006), by Greg Bishop, Joe Oesterle, and Mike Marinacci, in a bookstore a few years ago. The covers were very similar, and I figured both were part of the same series. In paging through <em>Weird California</em> back then, I saw that a site just down the street from where my grandmother lived when I was growing up was in the book. So, after reading and enjoying Weird Hollywood, I decided to track <em>Weird California </em>down and read it as well.<br /><br />I ended up having to request the book from the library because none of my local branches carried it. But, it finally came, and it ended up being my Labor Day weekend reading. It was perfect for that, nothing too deep, not much that was very serious, and entertaining throughout.<br /><br />Of course, the first thing I did when I got my hands on the book was to look through it to see if I had remembered correctly about the Bottle Village down the street from my grandmother's house was really part of the book, and it was. That brought back memories of watching the woman who built the place, Mrs. Prisbrey, now known as Grandma Prisbrey, going back and forth to the dump in town to gather building materials for her work. To be honest, I think she was regarded as an eccentric back then by the people in the neighborhood, but that was a more live-and-let-live time in the United States. If she were building today what is considered folk art and has been featured in books and exhibits worldwide, there would have probably been people after her to tear it down because it was an "eyesore". And, in fact, there were once plans to tear the place down, and the Northridge earthquake in the early 1990s did a fair job of wrecking the place. But, it is now on the California and National Registers of Historic places and a preservation group owns the property and is making an effort to restore Bottle Village to its former glory.<br /><br />But I digress. There is all sorts of weirdness in <em>Weird California</em>, from the expected hauntings, monsters, and UFO stories here. There are cults and murders and oddities of various kinds. There is a roll-call of cemeteries for people, for pets...and one for airplanes, in Mojave.<br /><br />There are also other places I know besides the Bottle Village. There is Maze Stone, near Hemet, which as far as anyone knows is an example of Native American petroglyphs. There is Zzyzx, a defunct health spa out in the high desert near Baker. While I've never been there, the sign for Zyzzx Road, which leads to the site, was always a landmark we watched for on Interstate 15 during family trips to Las Vegas. There is a long section on Mount Shasta, which is reportedly the site of many odd occurrences, including UFO sightings and sightings (and mysterious disappearances) of supposed survivors of the lost continent of Lemura and of a race of Lizard People. Which all sounds very woo-woo'y. On the other hand, a couple of years ago I drove by Shasta on a trip to Oregon, and I have to say that the area gave me an uneasy feeling and I was glad to get past the area. Same for the supposed curse of Pacheco Pass. I've never seen or experienced anything odd the times I've traveled that road. On the other hand, it can be eerie and unsettling to drive through there at night.<br /><br />Aside from the usual logical reasons for taking the stories in <em>Weird California</em> with a grain (or a full shaker) of salt is that there is one story there from a town I lived in for 28 years, a story of a ghost that haunts a stretch of road looking for her children after they were all killed in a car wreck in the area. The implication is that everyone in town knows the story and is spooked by the area. Except that, as long as I lived there, I never heard a word about it. Additionally, I drove past the road near where the haunting is supposed to take place on a regular basis for a couple of years on my way to school in Reedley, the next town over, and I never saw, heard, or felt anything strange. On the other hand, it seemed like some of the smaller roads down there in the river bottom seemed to have a habit of disappearing. I'd find an interesting stretch of road on drives in the area, and then not be able to find them again when I went back to look for them. So, you know, who knows.<br /><br />It isn't actually required to believe in any of the odd things presented in <em>Weird California</em> in order to enjoy the book. Really. It's a fun journey through some of the out-of-the-way parts of the state, and a reminder of some of the weirdnesses that have become legendary parts of California culture.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-38075723849842065932011-09-02T14:06:00.000-07:002011-09-02T14:26:20.347-07:00Review: "Treasure Box" by Orson Scott Card<i>Treausre Box</i> (HarperPaperbacks, 1996; 372 pages), by Orson Scott Card, tells the story of Quentin Fears (pronounced, it is pointed out more than once, as "fierce"), a software millionaire and recluse who turned his back on most of humanity after his sister was killed in an accident when he was a teenager. He has reached his thirties without ever having had a real relationship. Then he meets Madeleine, who appears to be the perfect woman. She is smart, beautiful and is as reclusive as he is.
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<br />It only takes a short time for them to marry, and then Madeline finally takes Quentin to meet the family that she has so far carefully kept him from meeting. They are an odd family, eccentric to the point of strangeness, living in a remote old house along the Hudson river. Madeleine has warned Quentin that she is "not herself" when she visits there, and it doesn't take him long to discover exactly how accurate that characterization is, and Quentin soon finds himself fighting to keep an ancient evil from being unleashed on the world.
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<br /><i>Treasure Box</i> isn't a bad book. But as I read there were things that bothered me about it, things that I couldn't quite put my finger on at first, and I was over halfway through the book before I realized what wasn't sitting right with me. What was wrong is that Card falls back on the old stereotype of women as manipulating their innocent, noble male victims. It doesn't just appear in the relationship between Quentin and Madeleine, but is hinted at in the relationship between Quentin's parents and stated more boldly in the relationship between Quentin's attorney and his wife, who is portrayed as cheating on the attorney while insisting that he is the one who is cheating.
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<br />I probably wouldn't have finished the book if it had become clear earlier exactly what Card was using the story to say about male-female relationships, but I kept reading in hopes that the subtext wasn't really what I was interpreting it to be. Yet, there it was, right up until the end of the story, with the added jab that the women who were manipulating Quentin were witches but the woman who he finds himself attracted to at the end of the story is not.
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<br />I don't know if Card did this consciously, or if such attitudes are so ingrained in him that he wasn't aware that he was dividing his female characters in the traditional bitch-whore/virgin dichotomy, with the whore presenting as virginal, literally in this case, in order to manipulate him before he saw through the deception. He is a man who holds very conservative values regarding family, and portrays his "good" characters as living out those values.
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<br />Despite the ideology lurking in the story, <i>Treasure Box</i> is a well-told tale, although I prefer a little more ambiguity in characters, and not the kind that was used here, where any contradictions in the characters' behavior was explained by their being "enthralled" by the witches rather than by the fact that few people are consistent in their behavior all the time.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-63669525868703612992011-08-24T10:17:00.000-07:002011-08-24T10:40:45.999-07:00Reading update...I picked up a couple more books by Patricia Cornwell at the library the other day, thinking that because I enjoyed reading Th<em>e Scarpetta Factor</em>, I would give more of her work a try. Yeah. Not so much.
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<br />I gave <em>Predator</em> (Berkley Books, 2005) most of 100 pages, but I could not stick with it. The main problem with the book, from my point of view, is that it is written in the present tense. That hardly ever works, and in this case it not only did not work, it bugged the crap out of me. My brain kept switching the verbs to past tense, but then reading along that would mess the whole sense of a paragraph off. I refrained from throwing the book against the wall, because the wall hadn't done anything to me and I couldn't see inflicting that on it. But, the book is now back on the library, no doubt lurking on the shelf and ready to snag some other unsuspecting reader.
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<br />I still have <em>Scarpetta</em> (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2008) out of the library and might give it a try later today. I hope it is better...and not in present tense.
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<br />Meanwhile, I've been reading in <em>Medieval Women Writers</em> (University of Georgia Press, 1984), edited by Katharina M. Wilson, not as recreational reading, but in beginning the research for a project called (I think) the 50 Challenge, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Society for Creative Anachronisms (SCA), of which I am a member. The idea is for members of the SCA which, for those of you who are not familiar with the organization does medieval re-enactments, to celebrate the founding of the group by doing 50 of something tied in to each person's interests in the Middle Ages. For example, to learn to do 50 things that someone living in the time of the individual's society persona would know how to do, or to make 50 items that their persona would have used or, in my case, to write a 50-page research paper on some aspect of the medieval period.
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<br />Choosing to write about women writers in the Middle Ages was a fairly easy decision for me, as I am both a woman and a writer, and because I don't really know that much about women who wrote in that era. So far, what I'm finding is fascinating. There were more women writing in that period that I expected, and not all of them were nuns. This surprises me, I suppose, because of the general perception that the only way a woman in the Middle Ages could gain an education was by entering the religious life. Apparently, this was not always the case.
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<br />I expect, however, that it will be a challenge to find sources for research, and that I'll probably end up spending some time in the library at the local CSU. Which is fine, since I love to play in libraries. The parking situation over there is hideous (knowledge I gained while living right across the street from the school for five years), but a main bus line goes right to the campus, so I'll probably just take advantage of that.
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<br />I've also been doing some other reading in history, as I'm gearing up to do some general writing on history, part of which will land up in a blog (once I figure out what to call the blog), and which is meant to end up as a book about exploring various aspects of history.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-28323215503363580682011-08-18T17:07:00.000-07:002011-08-18T17:15:20.755-07:00Reading Update: The Scarpetta Factor, by Patricia CornwellI just finished reading <em>The Scarpetta Factor</em> (Berkley Books, 2009; 572 pages), by Patricia Cornwell. I'm not completely sure how I feel about it.
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<br />There's no doubt that it kept me turning the pages. However, 572 pages to tell a story that takes place in about a day and a half sometimes seemed a bit excessive. And there were places in the story where two or three things were taking place all at the same time, and it was, occasionally, slightly difficult to follow. This could also have had to do with the fact that I have not read all of the other books in the series, and so probably lacked some background that could have made some of the relationships between characters easier to follow.
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<br />Also, I've had a sort of variable relationship with the books of Cornwell's that I have read. I've liked some of them a lot; others, not so much. This one probably isn't one I'll read again, but the journey was interesting, and I'm glad I picked it up at the library and read it.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-36451766004354696352011-08-10T14:19:00.000-07:002011-08-10T14:27:02.499-07:00Review: My Name is Asher Lev, by Chaim PotokWhen I read Chaim Potok's <em>My Name is Asher Lev</em> (Knopf, 1972; 369 pages) years ago, I loved it at least enough to buy a copy so that I could read it again someday. So, without anything else I wanted to read the other day, I picked it up and reread it. I hadn't been expecting it to capture my attention in the way it did, and spent a couple of nights up reading much later in the night than I should have done because I couldn't put it down until I got so sleepy that my eyes wouldn't stay open any more.
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<br />It is the story of Asher Lev, an Orthodox Hasidic Jew, who also happenes to be, almost despite himself, an artist. He shows promise in his drawings from a very early age, but in his community his talents - his genius, for he is a child prodigy - are not valued and in fact are considered a waste of time better spent doing other things. Those other things, in Asher's case, include following in his father's footsteps in promoting his branch of Judaism all over the world at a time (during the Cold War) as well as bringing Russian Jews out of the Soviet Union, which was a difficult and hazardous undertaking in the 1950s and 1960s, when the story takes place. He does this at the behest of his Rebbe, the spiritual leader of the branch of Hasidic Judaism that Asher's family belongs to. Asher is expected to go to school and learn the things he must to take over for his father someday, as Asher's father took over for his own father in doing this work on behalf of the Rebbe.
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<br />But art has hold of Asher and, after not drawing at all during the first years he in school, the art does not just take hold of him again. It seizes him. He sometimes draws without even knowing that is what he is doing. This is not just a problem for Asher, but for his whole community, which is very conservative and has set ideas of what boys like Asher should and should not be doing, with the "should not's" including drwaing picutres of the Rebbe in one of his religious books.
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<br />As Mr. Potok pointed out in a talk in 1986, "The Jewsih tradition is essentially an anti-iconographic tradition for the most part. Certainly it opoposes the making of any human image." He explained that this goes back to Mosaic monotheism and continued, saying "Therefore Jews have never participated in art of any kind that was connected to worship."
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<br />The Rebbe, though, sees that Asher has a talent that will not be denied and arranges for him to study with Jacob Kahn, an acclalimed artist who is a non-observant Jew but who counts the Rebbe as among his friends. Inevitably, the clash between Asher's artistic vision and his community becomes too much for the community to take, and as the book ends, Asher, still a young man, has acclaim as an artist but is asked to leave the Brooklyn community he grew up in and to return to Paris, to the yeshiva there where, the Rebbe says, "You did not grow up there. People will not be so angry in Paris."
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<br />In Mr. Potok's hands, Asher's story becomes about being an artist in a community that does not approve of being a visual artist and does not really understand what it means to Asher to be an artist. It is also about being an alien child to one's own parents. This is something I understand very well, having been my own mother's "alien child", who she did not understand after having grown up in a family that did not value any of the things I was interested in as a child and still am interested in as an adult. She never disapproved of my interests, as Asher's father does in Mr. Potok's novel, but she did not understand, either, why I couldn't be a "normal" child. We used to have what became a sort of ritual exchange when I was growing up.
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<br /><blockquote>My Mother: (to me, when I was reading, which was most of the time): "Go do something."
<br />Me: "I am doing something. I'm reading."
<br />My Mother: "Go outside and do something."</blockquote>
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<br />She wasn't a reader and to her, reading wasn't "doing something."
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<br /><em>My Name is Asher Lev</em> is a good book, told in Asher's voice and from his point of view. He never strays from his religious beliefs but, after his childhood break from drawing, never seriously strays from his determination to be an artist, although he wonders from time to time if his gift is, as he is told from time to time by others, from the Other Side, meaning that it is not from God but from more malevolent forces in the universe. The main flaw of the novel, from my point of view as a reader, is that sometimes years are glossed over in a few sentences. It is a trivial complaint, though, and I recommend this book highly.
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<br />There is a sequel, by the way, called <em>The Gift of Asher Lev</em>, and I'm looking for it right now so that I can read it again, as well.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576973758606791742.post-25399579404458926152011-08-08T17:32:00.000-07:002011-08-08T17:34:28.859-07:00And...I'm backYeah. It's been strange the past month or so, and I haven't been reading much. So there hasn't been anything to write about.
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<br />But...
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<br />I just finished reading "My Name is Asher Lev", by Chaim Potok. It's a re-read, actually, and I loved this book as much as I did the first time I read it, but I suspect that the reasons this time are entirely different from last time. I've got to go think about it for a little while, and then I'll be back to write more about this book and what it meant to me when I read it this time.littlemissattitudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09826943351455750612noreply@blogger.com0