Juliet, Naked

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby   406 pp.

Hornby's latest is not his best. It's okay. It has amusing, touching, and entertaining moments--not all at the same time but I kept thinking there could have been more. Annie & Duncan live in a small English seaside town and have been a couple for 15 years. During the entire time a third person has been an integral part of the relationship. The third person is Tucker Crowe, a Dylan-like musician with a cult following who disappeared 20 years before. Duncan lives and breathes all things Tucker Crowe, running a website for other rabid fans and embarking on pilgrimages to locations supposedly important in the musicians life and career.  Annie & Duncan split and Annie finds herself in an on-line friendship with non other than the missing musician who has lived the past 20 years in multiple marriages & relationships and fathering children by a string of different women. When Tucker arrives in England, Duncan must learn to deal with the truth about the man he has been fanatical about for so many years.

Quest of the Spider / Kenneth Robeson

Quest of the Spider by Kenneth Robeson (Doc Savage #3, May 1933). 150 p.

This entry has a particularly lame plot, so I'll skip recapping it--except to mention that at one point it involves a character crawling around the swamp in a stuffed alligator suit. With a zipper. When I can't enjoy the action or the plot, I focus on the cultural details of the story. In this one there's a fair amount of airplane travel. I wish I knew more about 1930's commercial airline standards, because a plane some minor characters take is described as having wicker seats and a parachute provided for each passenger! At another point they're driving fast--60 mph--in a car with the windscreen down, and since the passengers don't have goggles they have difficulty seeing due to the wind (except for Doc, of course). Why on earth wouldn't you put the windscreen up, then? Am I missing some significance here?

First appearance of: Doc's thin-walled capsules of anesthetic gas, scattered about for bad guys to step on. "Brain operations" as part of the treatment turning criminals into upright citizens.

How I Killed Pluto / Mike Brown

How I Killed Pluto (and why it had it coming) by Mike Brown. 267 p.

Brown is the discoverer of Eris, the Kuiper belt object whose size caused the discussion that led to the vote "demoting" Pluto from its planetary status. He's a charming narrator, which makes this book a lot of fun to read. His scientific explanations are always quite clear; no reader should be intimidated by any perceived difficulty of the topic. I was particularly interested by the section where he describes the controversy over who discovered the object later named Haumea. His discussion of how scientists--at least, those in his area of study--determine when to announce discoveries, and the factors that go into deciding why, how, and when to make those announcements, is fascinating. Also, many of the bits he discusses about his personal life are hilarious. My favorite is his description of trying to determine whether his wife was actually in labor or just "cramping" (her vote was for cramps): "I plotted some graphs."

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A little history of the world

A little history of the world/E. H. Gombrich (translated by Caroline Mustill) 284 pgs.

This should have been "my kind of book". Truly a little history that starts way before man shows up on earth. Each chapter is short and sweet and takes into account a major era or personality in history. However, I had a very hard time getting through this book. I got stuck on Charlemagne's rule at the new year and just didn't get back to it for awhile. I am glad that I finished the book. It has a refreshing perspective...very little American history here...this is really about the WORLD. In the end, I'm really glad that I finished the book just to get a better idea of the relationship in time of some of the major world events. Maybe my hesitancy to get back to this one has more to do with the lack of a "plot" driven narrative. Each chapter really sort of stands alone. - Christa

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The Passage/Justin Cronin

The Passage by Justin Cronin; post-apocalyptic 766 pages

Before I say anything else, let's just get this out of the way...Justin Cronin's The Passage has vampires in it. Now before you ignore the rest of this post because you are as sick of vampires as I am, let me say a few things on the subject: None of the vampires in Cronin's post-apocalyptic epic sparkle in the sunlight or fall in love or conscientiously object to the drinking of human blood. Cronin's vampires are brutal, feral, and 100% deadly. Although Cronin's undead antagonists are constantly referred to as vampires (as well as jumps, smokes, dracs, virals and many other nicknames) they seem a lot more like zombies (a genre that still has quite a bit of life left in it, no pun intended). I don't think Cronin's intention was to hop on the Twilight bandwagon, because he doesn't even mention vampires in the blurb on the jacket (a fact I am happy about, because I probably would've thought of the book as another lame Twilight ripoff if he had).

Cronin's The Passage is the a brilliant epic spanning a hundred years that paints a very vivid picture of humankind in its struggle against the overwhelming odds of a vampire infestation. The first 200 pages deal with the cause of the infestation (a virus that is released from a government facility) and the origins of one of the story's protagonists, Amy, a young orphan girl with a mysterious past.

Suddenly, the story completely changes pace and the timeline shifts almost 100 years into the future after the vampires have eliminated or turned most of humankind. The story after this point reads the same as many post-apocalyptice dystopian novels that have come out before it. The narrative changes to a story about a misfit band of survivors on a journey to save humanity from the dangers of the vampires and the virus that spawned them. Although this type of story may seem overused, I believe that it is Cronin's storytelling that truly sets this epic tale apart. Plenty of end-of-chapter cliffhangers and flashbacks that act as exposition for a variety of Cronin's very detailed characters (which fans of the TV show Lost will definitely enjoy) contribute to making this the best story I've read in a long time, if not ever.

For those of you who haven't read it yet, pick up a copy. The book is excellent, and although it is extremely long, the gripping prose will keep you reading and screaming for more when you read the last page. Luckily, there will be more, because Cronin has said that The Passage is only the first in a trilogy, the second, The Twelve is scheduled to be released in 2012.

The Bards of Bone Plain/Patricia A. McKillip

The Bards of Bone Plain by Patricia A. McKillip; fantasy; 336 pages

I love all things Patricia McKillip. Her writing style is very dreamlike and figurative--so much so that it's sometimes possible to lose track of the action, but at that point I'm so lost in the poetry of her prose that I don't care anymore.

I've read most of McKillip's books, and this one was heavily reminiscent of my favorite, The Alphabet of Thorn. Bards is two linked stories: In one, a student researches ancient legends for his final paper, and slowly becomes obsessed with Nairn, the mythic bard who cannot die. In alternating chapters, Nairn's real story is laid out--his rise to fame, his obsession with a forgotten language, and the epic contest whose loss cursed him forever. The story isn't something to be read quickly, but savored in small portions--a chapter or two at a time. The prose is beautiful, as always.

If you love Robin McKinley's books, or C. J. Cherryh's fantasy novels, give McKillip a try.

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Salem Brownstone

Salem Brownstone: All along the Watchtowers by John Harris Dunning & Nikhil Singh 96 pp.

I stumbled across this graphic novel in the library catalog while looking up a different author named John Dunning (The Bookman's Wake, etc.). The premise was intriguing--a laundromat manager receives word that his estranged father has died and he must come claim his inheritance, a spooky old house. He arrives and the creepy stuff starts happening involving a crystal ball & a bunch of sideshow freaks from a carnival. The artwork is suitably dark and spooky and well suited to the story. The large format resembles a rather dark picture book. The problem with it is there is so much more that could have been done with the story. Too many details were introduced and not expanded on. I was left with the feeling that the authors just got tired of working on it and decided not to flesh it out.

How to beat up anybody

How to beat up anybody: an instructional and inspirational karate book by Judah Friedlander 208 pgs.

I've been thinking about some personal defense training lately and so was happy to see this instructional book on the cart. There is a pretty good chance that Judah Friedlander is completely nuts but really, who am I to judge? I did appreciate the defense and offense lessons in the book. I now know how to beat up 4 people at once on a rooftop, how to beat up a gang member, how to beat up someone on a unicycle, and defend myself against a home ninja attack. Even though that covers a lot, there is also a chapter on staving off a backyard Bigfoot attack. But most important for me, there is a chapter dedicated to the self defense needs of women. Here, the world champion reveals how to take back the streets from male scum...an he does it in drag. I admit, I'm feeling pretty invincible now that I've studied this book so be careful around me. - Christa

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The forgotten garden, by Kate Morton

I'm not quite sure why I reserved this book, but did enjoy it in a guilty sort of way. It was a bit like A. S. Byatt Lite crossed with Rebecca. In 1913 a very young girl is found on an Australian wharf knowing neither her name nor where she is from. Raised by the wharf master and his wife as "Nell," ultimately her history leads her granddaughter, Cassandra, back to the girl's real family in England where they live in a great house in Cornwall. There are mazes and secret gardens; Dickensian orphans; changelings; and interspersed throughout the story are fairy tales written by "the authoress" who abandoned Nell on the ship bound for Australia. Charming in an old-fashioned kind of way and a pleasant way to spend a couple of cold winter nights. 559 pp.

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett 355 pages

I was deep into this book when I heard that the author, Sir Terry Pratchett, is this year's winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award. He is honored by the Young Adult division of the American Library Association for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature. This is just the most recent in a long stream of major awards including England's Carnegie Medal, LA Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, etc. He is most well-known for the Discworld Series, 40 books about a planet created by Pratchett. This book is about one of his reoccurring characters, Tiffany Aching. Tiffany is a young witch who is trying to live on her own. Her brand of witchcraft which is taking care of the poor and downtrodden keeps her very busy and unappreciated. Her good actions are easily misunderstood when she helps the Baron in his hour of need achieve a "good death". A mysterious evil force begins stalking her. The stakes are high, the action robust and the characters are lively. Recommended