1. The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway: By far, The Gone Away World was my favorite summer read. It is full of wonderful randomness and lots of new words. This is one of the rare books I will read again!

2. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman: I think I’m in a British phase, but I enjoyed the humor immensely.

3.  A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner: This is the latest book in The Queen’s Thief series. See Liz’ review of this series.

4. The Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson: I usually avoid mystery novels and New York Time’s Best Sellers, but I admit I enjoyed all three. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo DVD was released this week. I will most likely watch it just to see how they portrayed  Lisbeth Salander on-screen.

Verdejez put the first romance novel into my hands, Charlie All Night, during a Very Bad Year in the life of my graduate student career. And damn! It wasn’t even Crusie’s best effort. Kind of like if you are sending a friend to their very first opera, it should be La Boheme or Die Zauberflote, if you are sending a friend on their first romance, Crusie is a safe place to start. She writes the sex and happy endings, but also includes decent plotting, characterization and dialogue (I happen to know that a certain male roommate of mine snuck into my room and secretly read through my selection). I find that Romance requires a highly selective filter. I may be unfairly judging, but I’m not willing to venture into category romances, especially those with apostrophized titles, e.g. The Multi-Millionaire’s Virgin Mistress, or any title that includes sheiks, secret babies, billionaires/millionares, bosses, secretaries, tycoons or mistresses (exception: several of Kathleen O’Reilly’s Harlequins are pretty great and have awesome titles like Hot Under Pressure).

Romance is the most prolific, popular, and broadly mocked and maligned genre of all time. Romance fans are sensitive about this issue; they feel Romance is disrespected because it centers on topics of interest to women. There is truth in the argument. Think of Jonathan Franzen’s ungracious response to Oprah’s selection of The Corrections for her Book Club. He thought he was heir to the Great Male Writers and did not belong among those woman books. I can’t see that the bulk of the genre is more poorly written or more fantasy-fulfilling than Dan Brown’s bestsellers. However, when pressed on improbable plot lines and characterizations, the fan base says, I don’t care about credibility, I want to enjoy my fantasy. And that conflict, more than the great titles and cover art, makes romance novels mockable. I find it best to stick with recommendations, and authors I know and trust.

The Economist

Not just for business folk.

The Time Traveler’s Wife

A co-worker recommended it, but I had doubts, even as I made myself patron 263 on the library waiting list. I judged it unfairly by its apostrophized title and overweening popularity. I had to change my mind. Besides compulsively readable (terrible phrase, isn’t it? I promise not to use it again), it is beautifully crafted. Niffenegger sewed two different chronologies together and all the stripes met. I could have gone for a bit more science and philosophizing however. She’s indeterminate on determinism. Her genetic and evolutionary explanations for Henry’s time-traveling are garbled and nonsensical, but I’ll give her a pass. Good effort.

Anathem and Cryptonomicon

All science and philosophizing, all the time, by Neal Stephenson.

The Thief

I’ve already babbled on about this one in my post on Megan Whalen Turner.

Science Magazine

I recommend the gossip news and perspectives pages of Science.

The Splendid Table

Lynn Rossetto Kasper has that wonderful rolling voice. I want that voice. I want to channel it. She’s doesn’t sound like Terry Gross or Ira Glass or other heavies of the public radio nation. She’s not channeling anyone but herself apparently, as she was a cookbook writer before The Splendid Table, not a radio host. What has this to do with literature, you ask? Every week the website sends me a recipe with Lynn’s advice on adaptability and making it work. I am not a foodie or a cooking show connoisseur, but I do enjoy adventures into personal culinary frontiers. I like to believe that in cooking, as in most quarters of my life, I combine dad’s engineering style (probably the best choice for baking, but can lead to anxiety and nitpicking) with mom’s laissez-fair/ creative style (fun and sometimes brilliantly successful, but can end in burnt pasta, burnt toast, odd flavor balance, and just really bazaar concoctions, failures), but the truth is I lean toward the laissez-fair. While I enjoy reading cooking books, I have an aversion to following recipes. Especially really involved recipes. They remind me of Work, and frequently involve Troubleshooting. The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper is compiled of quotes, tips, and adaptable, simple recipes: suggestions.

Captains Courageous and Kim

Sometimes classics really are classic.

Outliers

You feel like you’re being hoaxed, but you are seduced anyway. Malcolm Gladwell is a master of non-offensive rhetoric. And his theses are interesting, too. See Gladwell and Steven Pinker face-off in the New York Times Sunday Book Review.

Sunshine

Although Robin McKinley wrote several of my favorite childhood novels- books I return to in times of distress- I hesitated on this one. Vampires? I said. Really, Robin? But this vampire novel is Different. The vampires are scary, ugly and vicious, even the “good” one. The protagonist, while bringing a fair amount of whupass during the course of the story, is uneasy and unhappy about her new situation. Fighting and killing are psychologically damaging. She would prefer to return to her regular life baking cinnamon roles at her family bakery. McKinley’s work since Sunshine has been a bit blah in comparison. Dragonhaven had a cool concept, but rambled in execution, and the narrator’s voice resembled that of Sunshine too much. Meaning it resembled the author’s too much, I deduce, a risk authors run when choosing to write in first person.

Allen & Mike’s Really Cool Backcountry Ski Book (also: Telemark Tips and Backpackin’ Book)

The Really Cool Backpackin’ Book looked really silly. I wouldn’t have cracked it if a hard-core backpacker had not insisted it was for real. Then the Big Haired Woman who sold me her telemark gear threw in the Telemark Tips, and I became acquainted with the brilliance of Allen and Mike.  O’Bannon and Clelland know a lot about outdoor adventures; they’ve spent years in the wilderness of Wyoming, among other hard-core places, and teaching at NOLS. The hard-core Washington Alpine Club used the Backcountry Ski Book as a text for their winter backcountry travel course. And the cartoons do serve to describe some things better than words.

The New York Times

This is embarrassing, but I never read newspapers until I had graduated from college and moved to Boston, and had a roommate who held a subscription to the Times. I worked my way out from the Arts section, and soon developed a fine periodical addiction.

Slate’s Culture Gabfest

OK, there is no prose tie-in here, but it includes discussion of literature, and they are sponsored by Audible! So there is always a (audio) book recommendation. I love podcasts- I’m restraining myself, here- and this is a great one if you like semi-formal gossipy discussion of tv, books, film, art, music, pop-culture, and magazines. You know: elitist liberal cultural stuff.

*Special Bonus Best-of*

Best Journalistic TMI of 2009

See: the 29 Dec. 2009 post at inkyfreshpress.com

Still, Dan was not 100 percent enthusiastic, at least at first. He feared — not mistakenly, it turns out — that marriage is not great terrain for overachievers. He met my ocean analogy with the veiled threat of California ranch-hand wisdom: if you’re going to poke around the bushes, you’d best be prepared to scare out some snakes…

So instead of speaking our harshest truths, for six weeks running Dan and I pursued the lesser offense of making the other sound crazy. Holly cooperated, too, offering feedback that we used to confirm our sense that the other was neurotic.

~Elizabeth Weil, Married (Happily) with Issues

1.  American Gods by Neil Gaiman (his books are all great if you like a little sci-fi)

2.  Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris (this is a series, i think i read 2 others in the series as well)

3.  The Green Rider by Kristen Britain

4.  A History of Genetics by A. H. Sturtevant (nerdy, i know, but i enjoyed it!)

5.  Genome by Matt Ridley (really fun, written for the general public)

6.  The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

7.  Banana by Dan Koeppel (if you like bananas, it’s worth the read)

8.  Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

9.  On the Road by Jack Kerouac

10.  The Princess Bride by William Goldman

clearly these are not actually books from 2009, in fact, none of them were released in 2009.  i’ve also read a lot of cookbooks, but they are all old as well.

~Diana Wynne Jones, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland

Shortly after happening upon The Tough Guide to Fantasyland in the Dewey stacks of my local library, I saw it referenced somewhere, as you see a thing everywhere once you’ve become aware of its existence. It was mentioned as being brilliant but hard to find. I found it, I swear, shelved in the travel section. Or maybe just near the travel section, which isn’t far from poetry in the Magnolia stacks. Were I a librarian I would misshelve it to have my little joke, but I suppose that would be breaking the librarian code of honor.  I do not mean to slander the Magnolia librarians. I’m sure they shelved it correctly. Once a book goes to the non-fiction stacks it is simply not likely to be seen again. The Guide is structured as a mock encyclopedia of all the elements found in your average fantasy adventure novel, pitched as if to a noob embarking on a Tour. Jones, herself an author of numerous fantasies for kids including the wonderful Howl’s Moving Castle, knows whereof she writes. Entries are alphabetical for easy reference, e.g.:

“DARK LORD (dread lord (OMT)). There is always one of these in the background of every Tour, attempting to ruin everything and take over the world. He will be so sinister that he will be seen by you only once or twice, probably near the end of the Tour. Generally he will attack you through MINIONS (forces of Terror, bound to his will (OMT)), of which he will have large numbers. When you do get to see him at last, you will not be surprised to find he is black (see COLOUR CODING) and shadowy and probably not wholly human. He will make you feel very cold and small. Actually, when it comes down to it, that is probably all he will do, having almost certainly exhausted his other resources earlier on. You should be able to defeat him, with a little help from your COMPANIONS, without too much effort. However, the Rules state that at this stage you will be exhaused yourself and possibly wounded by MAGIC. So be careful.”

It’s basically hilarious if you have read a significant volume of fantasy. Jones nails the classic side-kick types. The horses that never fidget, shy, mate, or require feeding. The way red-haired women are always Special, Talented or otherwise Magical (colour coding) and smells alert the traveler to evil afoot. The way sex works out to each sex’s fantasy- with satisfying emotional attachment for women, without attachments for men, and without any consequences for anyone. How no one gets inconvenient cases of the trots, or menstruates, or dies of festering gut wounds. The entry on Swords takes four pages and includes such subheadings as: with RUNES, with Souls, with Appetites, in stones, and incomplete.

“CONCLUSION. For this you will have to undertake the third (or possibly the fifth) Tour of the trilogy. If you do not immediately book for the whole set, you may well find yourself stranded halfway across the continent without having completed your QUEST or discovered your BIRTHRIGHT. And the DARK LORD will still be a menace. A little extra money will soon dispel these inconveniences, and you may then have the pleasure of seeing the continent torn asunder in the FINAL CONFRONTATION. This is a spectacular sight and should not be missed.”

This is why the fans of George R. R. Martin accost him in the street, threatening to stalk him until he completes the next 800-page installment of Song of Ice and Fire. Prompting Neil Gaiman to declare “George R. R. Martin is not your bitch“. To which I say, if you are going to sequel-bait that blatantly, you deserve the harassment from your many loyal fans who wish to shower their dollars upon you. They just want to finish the adventure sometime, maybe in ten or twelve Tours. At least if he, God forbid, dies with all his plots dangling, his publisher/heirs will probably hire someone to wrap them all up nice.

I walked into the bookstore with the hope that the dusty shelves would hold our October read (see RevDrLiz’s post here). Although it was not to be, the kind (yet rusty) book peddler was happy to assist me in my search.

It went a little something like this:

“Do you guys happen to have The Arsonist’s Guide to Writers Homes in New England?”

“Arsonist’s Guide? Hmm…” He looked around, scratched his balding head. Then, his eyes lit. “You know, I think we have that. Yep, it’s in home repairs.”

I was touched by his seemingly authentic desire to help, and vaguely intrigued by the assumption that a guide to arson would be in the home repairs section.

“Um…Actually, it’s a novel.”

“Oh.” I sensed chagrin. Obviously, a novel about arson was far less exciting than the prospect of a diminutive arsonist getting her start in his shop. “Well all right then, let’s take a look, shall we?”

While the other B baked in the car, the owner and I waded through piles of Mary Higgins Clark, looked beneath filthy paperbacks (the smutty cover wasn’t the filthy part) and ran our fingers over the ‘new’ fiction section that showcased novels printed when I was prenatal.

It was like a treasure hunt. The Arsonist’s Guide, although only a few years old, could have been in his shop, and the possibility filled him with energy and me with amusement. Sadly, even our combined forces couldn’t find the book in question.

Rather than leave empty-handed, I picked up a different book: A Confederacy of Dunces. I bought it, got a wink and an eye twinkle from the peddler, and left happy.

A Confederacy of Dunces, written by John Kennedy Toole, was published 11 years after his suicide in 1980. According to the foreword, by writer Walker Percy, Toole’s mother begged him to take on her son’s book. Ever reluctant, Percy only agreed to read the book after she stormed his office. Once he started reading it, he recognized it as a masterpiece and got it published.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book, and I was pleasantly surprised from beginning to end. Through a thick layer of satire, Toole describes the people and city of New Orleans, mostly via the yellowing eyes of the very large Ignatius J. Riley. Ignatius spends much of his time writing his genius thoughts down on notebooks that litter his bedroom floor, until his mother decides that it is time for Ignatius to get a job.

There is a constant stream of conversation, peppered with the city’s dialect and Ignatius’s own crisp tone. The parade of characters ranges from an irate hot dog vendor to a flamboyant homosexual, and all of them are annoyed with Ignatius at some point during the story. Not that you can blame them. He is fat, lazy, pretentious, delusional and…brilliant?

You’ll have to read it to find out.

Although touted as a comedy, Toole’s social commentary isn’t a slapstick show designed for pure entertainment, it is a statement of how the most ridiculous, the most painful events of our lives are connected to the lives of other people leading equally ridiculous and painful lives. It is sad and amazing, and I loved it.

Read A Confederacy of Dunces. Let me know what you think.

Soooo…end-of-the-year/ end-of-the-decade “best of” lists are everywhere. I’m feeling inspired. I think we should weigh in with our important “best of” opinions too. But, rather than selection by voting or some method democratic and tedious, or editorial dictatorship (by me), I am thinking free-for-all, post-what-you like anarchy would work best for us. Please, pretty please, consider considering the following question in a book-club blog post (or two):

What writings are your “best of” 2009 and (or) the aughts?

You may interpret that as broadly or narrowly as you like. For example. Your post could be titled: “Best nature writing of 2000-2009″, “Best gothic steampunk air-balloon romance of 2009″, “Best (10) books evar“, “Most delicious culinary literature of 200x”, “Most alluring cover art of the year”, or “Only novel I had time to read in 2009, fucking school”. Top 10 vampire novels? (I’m looking at you, verdejez). Short stories, graphic novels, non-fiction, and magazine articles are all eligible. My only stipulation is that the number of items on your list be between 1 and 10. If you need help starting a new post, lemme know (special to Mel: we need to invest you with blog authorship powers). Your post need not be as long and wordy as mine; don’t be intimidated by my shining brilliance. OK?

login here!

Cheers! I love you.

LL

The Edge of Impropriety is a romance without a typically lurid romance cover, going instead for the zoomed-in nineteenth century portraiture with cut-off head look. The marketing department may have targeted more of a mass-market fiction than romance audience; readers who like light romantic fiction but don’t shop the romance aisles. The design reminds me of Lauren Willig’s The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, which I usually see shelved in “Fiction”. The prose of Edge flows smoothly and elegantly, developing the characters without recourse to fits of descriptive detail, backstory dumpage, or excessive reliance on stereotyped romance tropes. And the sexxoring, when they get down to it (chapter 7), is HOT. Hawt even. Which I do not find to be typical. Did I hold the story to higher standards because the aforementioned elements were good? Perhaps, for the plot bored me, though in summary, it does not appear more boring than the average historical romance.

To wit: Marina, Countess of Gorham, having been cast off by the heirs of her late husband, gets by in tony Mayfair on the proceeds of her wit, sophistication and notoriety. That is, she writes society novels and “puffs” them with parties, rumors and well-managed affairs. Insert mildly tetchy authorial commentary on popular novels that may not be intellectual but tell a good story, e.g.:

“A scholar, a stickler for old-fashioned family honor…too high-minded to read anything penned during the last two millennia. Which would seem to leave out such popular entertainments as she was paid to write for strivers, mushrooms, and lord knew whom else. And which—she reminded herself defiantly—she wrote with all the wit and intelligence she could muster.”

The heroine-as-authoress romance type always says or thinks some version of this, and I must say. It annoys me. Anyway—Marina had been the second wife of Gorham, his plaything really, and is not quite respectable (if the Earl is dead, is she still a Countess? Hmmm…I don’t care to look it up). Mr. Jasper Hedges, classicist and former adventurer, spends his days caring for his beloved, orphaned niece, and managing his rakish nephew’s debt-ridden estate. The nephew—who is actually Jasper’s son, but let’s not confuse the issue—Baronet of somewhere, pretends to be Marina’s lover for the further puffery of her novel (the protagonist is drawn in his image) and for his own amusement. Marina’s publisher requests an introduction to Mr. Hedges in order to commission a book on Greek antiquities, and a meeting at one of Marina’s puffery parties is engineered. However, Marina and Jasper first espy each other anonymously wandering among the Elgin marbles. Sparks, mad longings, wild animal sex, and love, of course, ensue.

Ms. Rosenthal: kudos for creating a mature, ink-stained hero who is not the duke of anything! And a heroine who is also all grown up. No kudos for the evil villain, whose point of view we get to share briefly. Why? Why bother with the villain P.O.V.? If not to build the villain into an actual human-like character? You don’t have to do it just because Jayne, J.R. and Le Nora do. This is a time for the august words of Elmore Leonard (rule #10): “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip“.

The Thief (1996) 304pp

“I can steal anything”, says Gen, the eponymous thief of Megan Whalen Turner’s excellent children’s adventure. He captured my imagination, against my inclination.  The title threatened an adorably disreputable ne’er-do-well character from the fantasy stockroom. Tricksters (see Joseph Campbell) make entertaining protagonists, but I’m wary of the stereotype. They are often too cute, lacking the dangerous unpredictability that a Raven, a Loki or a Monkey brings to myth (and thief heroes are rarely found in modern settings, where B&E appears less adorable). Turner’s thief avoids this problem through clever plotting, although I will complain that, like many literary thieves, he is almost magically talented in his thief skills. The world of The Thief is not heavily fantastical and has no magic or magical beasts. Turner elaborated on archaic Greek culture, inventing nations and pantheons of gods, and adding apocryphal technology, to produce a story something like myth, if myths were narrated in the personable voice of a boy hero.

The Queen of Attolia (2000) 368pp

The choice of first person point of view is the cleverest tactical decision of the author, and I will let you learn why for yourself- the plot of The Thief is highly vulnerable to spoilage. I read the series inside out and backwards, starting somewhere in the middle of The Queen of Attolia, then picking through The King of Attolia before starting over properly with The Thief, and so I knew of several important plot twists before the plot revealed them. Having deprived myself of the surprise and suspense, I still enjoyed novels so much I read them twice, but I was rather sorry to have missed out on the orderly progression of revelations. I recommend that innocent readers do not do as I did. Inside-out may allow you to appreciate Turner’s craft and style, but you can admire her clever construction on your second reading. Let Gen narrate The Thief at his own pace. Don’t even peek at the cover blurbs on the sequels!

The King of Attolia (2006) 432pp

As The Thief opens, Gen has been sitting in the king’s prison long enough to have lost track of the days and grown thin, weak and filthy. His bragging led to his conviction and imprisonment for stealing the king’s seal, and now leads the king’s scholar and advisor, the magus, to extract him. The magus needs a thief. A disposable thief. He wants to steal a legendary relic, once used to confer the sovereignty of the kings of the neighboring kingdom of Eddis. The magus would like to confer sovereignty of Eddis on his own king of Sounis. The relic may be hidden in yet another rival kingdom, Attolia. Adventure and intrigue ensue.

Embrace the opening exposition. If you are lazy like me you may have no patience for exposition without encouragement. I have a bad habit of skipping past opening chapters until I love the characters and story enough to catch them on the second pass. The exposition may be lyrical, it’s detail development essential, but coming at the very opening of a book, it has the problem of not having yet earned my interest. Genre novels tend to solve the problem of reader impatience by jumping straight into action, which does grab the attention, but may cost it later. Or maybe the problem is not a problem. I generally enjoy the story even after robbing myself of the proper framing. If the novel is wily and complicated, I am forced to go back and address the opening the author staged for me, and if it isn’t wily, then maybe it doesn’t need the exposition anyway.

Instead of Three Wishes: stories (2006) 160pp

Before I digress further and wander into spoiler territory, I want to comment on format. I borrowed the Thief series and Turner’s short story collection, Instead of Three Wishes, from the digital holdings of the Seattle Public Library. Downloading the files as I lounged on my couch, long after hours for the local library branch, had decided instant gratification appeal, but yoked me to my laptop until I finished. The Adobe ePub format has functional pagination and clickable table of contents, is searchable and bookmarkable, and looks good- but I admit, it is not as satisfying as holding the paper copy in my hand. Even the crappy paperbacks I bought (because the library copies totally sold me) with their cheap acid paper and smudged ink and bindings that are already ungluing. Rather sorry print quality for a Newberry Honor book, I think, although the cover art is very nice (but what is the appeal of the cut-off head look that is so very popular now?).

Spoiler-full discussion begins below the fold.

Coming soon….

The narrator, Sam, made himself infamous at 18 when he burned down the Emily Dickinson House, by accident he says, with two people in it. Ten years in prison were not enough to appease the poetry lovers of Amherst, (although amongst the scholarly diatribes are a number of requests from New Englanders for Sam to burn down their own historic writer’s houses) and the hate is heavy. His humiliated, literary parents wish he would go away and not come back. So Sam goes to college, where he studies packaging science and meets a nice girl, and somehow fails to inform her of the felony thing and the deaths and the prison term (apparently she is not a curious person). They marry and have a child, and Sam hides from his sordid past in a ticky-tacky suburb called Camelot. But his bland, prepackaged existence rips when the son of his victims makes a visit. And someone else is burning writers’ homes in New England.

So I’ll see you all back here on Halloween. By commenting below, you agree to read! In the meantime, someone appoint yourself as Dictator for the month of November.

Although I haven’t read Chocolat (yet), I figured that anything written by the same author would at least be interesting…And I was right!

Set in 17th-century France, Holy Fools follows Juliette, a carnie girl-cum-acrobat turned nun. (No joke.)

After living the wild life with various traveling circus groups, Juliette, pregnant and single, turns to a nunnery to raise her little girl. When the Abbess dies, a strict new Abbess and her mysterious Confessor take charge of the lax nuns.

Chaos ensues!

There is plenty of mayhem – including illicit sex, kidnapping, suicide, and ghostly figures.

I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll stop there.

Let me know if you read it! I’d love to hear what you guys think.

-B