Into the Twilight, Endlessly Grousing

 

Into the Twilight, Endlessly Grousing by Patrick F. McManus 225 pp.

I've read a number of Patrick McManus books over the years and found them all entertaining. McManus is a long time writer for Outdoor Life Magazine and his stories have frequently been compared to Mark Twain in humor. This collection didn't seem quite as good as some of the others. However, it does have episodes that include some of the "usual suspects" like Retch Sweeney and Rancid Crabtree. There are frequent outdoor mishaps recalled from childhood and adulthood along with unsuccessful fishing trips. If you're looking for a light, amusing read, that doesn't require a lot of brain power, this is the book for you.

NOTE: The grousing in the title can and does mean complaining and/or hunting the elusive grouse. 

Hotel Angeline

Hotel Angeline by Kathleen Alcalá, Matthew Amster-Burton, Kit Bakke, Erica Bauermeister, Sean Beaudoin, Dave Boling, Deb Caletti, Carol Cassella, William Dietrich, Robert Dugoni, Kevin Emerson, Karen Finneyfrock, Clyde Ford, Jamie Ford, Elizabeth George, Mary Guterson, Maria Dahvana Headley, Teri Hein, Stephanie Kallos, Erik Larson, David Lasky, Stacey Levine, Frances McCue, Jarret Middleton, Peter Mountford, Kevin O'Brien, Julia Quinn, Nancy Rawles, Suzanne Selfors, Jennie Shortridge, Ed Skoog, Garth Stein, Greg Stump, Indu Sundaresan, Craig Welch and Susan Wiggs. Foreword by Nancy Pearl. Introduction by Garth Stein 258 pp.

In 2011 the Seattle7Writers Project for Literacy concocted a scheme where 36 authors in the Pacific Northwest came together to write a novel on stage in one week. The result could have been a total mishmash, unreadable, and incomprehensible. Instead they created an intriguing story of a 14 year old girl who takes on adult responsibilities to keep the eclectic "family" of artists, anarchists, and eccentrics living in the run down Hotel Angeline safe and keep the hotel from being sold after her mother is no longer able to run it.  Every author added a new twist to the story while keeping it flowing, enjoyable, and interesting. I was totally absorbed by the story and would have listened to the whole audiobook at one sitting if I could.

Edison's Ghost

Edison's Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness of History's Greatest Geniuses by Katie Spalding  342 pp.

Does genius cover all aspects of a genius's life? It is apparent in this book that it does not. Often it seems that great intelligence precludes common sense. Nicola Tesla, the electrical genius responsible for our power system being AC current, lived in multiple hotels, getting evicted when he didn't pay his bills. He also fell in love with a pigeon. Albert Einstein loved to sail but was very bad at it and often capsized and needed rescuing because he also couldn't swim. Isaac Newton stared into the sun and blinded himself for three days. The Curies carried Radium around and kept it in their bedroom and desk drawers leading to Marie's death. These and many more examples of what could be called the stupidity of genius are featured in this book. Spalding pulls no punches in relating these stories in what is a hilarious account of our "best and brightest". . . or not. The only problem with this book is the frequent comparisons to popular culture which is going to limit the book's relevance ten years down the road. 

The new new thing

The new new thing: a Silicon Valley story / Michael Lewis, 269 pgs.

Jim Clark is described as "an American treasure," "insufferable," and "infuriating."  He is also the guy who headed three billion dollar businesses, and made his fortune by seeing what was coming and jumping on it way before there was a bandwagon and before anyone saw that he was right.  In depth and covering less of the economics that Lewis in known for, you get a look into Clark but what we see is so confusing, I'm not sure I learned much.  Still fun to read and hard to imagine, the idea of hopping into a helicopter with this guy is scary but Lewis never hesitated.

As I go back and re-read and read some for the first time, I'm still amazed at how Lewis can make seemingly any topic interesting to me.

Homer and Langley

Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow  208 pp.

Homer and Langley Collyer were real people. In 1947 the eccentric brothers were found dead in their N.Y. mansion filled with old newspapers and the other detritus of their bizarre habits. Doctorow created a fictionalized version of the story narrated by Homer, the brother who loses his eyesight as a teenager. Langley goes off to fight in WWI and is severely injured by mustard gas. He returns home changed both physically and mentally to find his brother living alone in their Fifth Avenue mansion with the servants. Their parents died during the Spanish flu epidemic. Their home becomes a haven for tea dances, Langley's cockeyed projects, musicians, gangsters, hippies, a Model T in the dining room, and others who wander through the lives of the brothers. Fights with the health department, utility companies, and banks cause an increased sense of paranoia in the brothers who end up shuttering their house and booby trapping it to stop unwanted invaders. Doctorow takes liberties with the story by having the brothers live long past 1947. Their lives in the story are marked by the succession of wars up through Vietnam. Who knows what made the real Collyer brothers live like they did? Doctorow's speculation makes for a good story.

Birdseye Bristoe

Birdseye Bristoe by D. Zettwoch  68 pp.

This short graphic novel is fun. The parodies of ads like you used to see in comics are funny. The artwork and characters are interesting. And there is even a "centerfold" (of a cellphone tower). Birdseye Bristoe refers to the towns near where the eccentric main character "Uncle" lives. Uncle is a major landowner in town and is allowing a massive cellphone tower to be built on his property with the addition of a giant crossbar making the tower into a huge cross. The story begins with the destruction of the tower and flashes back to 3 months earlier when his great-niece and nephew came to visit. The illustrations are what really makes this slim book a winner because there is so much detail to look at.

Island Practice

Island Practice: Cobblestone Rash, Underground Tom, and Other Adventures of a Nantucket Doctor by Pam Belluck 274 pp.

Dr. Timothy J. Lepore (rhymes with peppery) is the type of doctor you don't find anymore. He is similar to the old time country doctor, on call pretty much 24/7 (except for during the Boston Marathon), he treats just about every ailment, and performs surgeries (sometimes with a handmade obsidian scalpel) that he and the small hospital on the island of Nantucket can handle. He's the high school football team doctor, medical examiner, and an expert on tick-borne diseases. Occasionally his practice isn't always confined to people. Now in his late sixties, it won't be long until Nantucket loses the services this gem of a man. He's treated the famous and the unknown and been paid in cookies, antique guns, or nothing at all. He has unusual hobbies like collecting roadkill for his falcon and knitting dog hair sweaters. He is a self proclaimed gun nut with a large collection of firearms. He is a walking contradiction in that he is rabidly conservative but gives cancer patients marijuana cookies and performs abortions. In this biography, Belluck gives an honest portrayal of this unusual man with all his expertise, eccentricities, faults, successes, and failures.