Spurious

Spurious by Lars Iyer 188 pgs.

Lars and W are a gloomy pair of philosophers who don't really have any good ideas.  They are know they lack genius and will never amount to anything so they talk about it.  A lot. And hilariously. 

For example:  

"So how fat are you now?", says W., "you must be really fat.  Are you eating at the moment?  What are you eating?"

and:

"One of us is dragging the other down, W. and I decide, but which one?  Is it him or me?  His friends say that since he's been hanging out with me, his work's really gone downhill.  People are avoiding us, says W.  They can smell failure."

We don't have this book in the collection but we DO have the follow up Dogma which I intend to read.  With friends like each other who knows what will happen to Lars and W.

The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flannagan

The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flannagan. The Ranger's Apprentice, Book 1. 249 pages. Will, an orphaned ward of Baron Arault, wants desperately to join the recruits at the Battleschool and train as a warrior in this medieval world, but instead he is chosen to be the Ranger's apprentice. The Rangers are not held in high regard by Will and his friends, but he gains respect for them as he trains. There is one Ranger per fief in the Kingdom of Araluen, and they are the spies, the silent killers, and the special forces of the kingdom. Morgareth, a rebel lord with an army of inhuman beasties is threatening war, so Will and his master, Halt, need to train fast. We listened to this on our last vacation and then finished up reading it at bedtimes. I've heard great things about the series, and since there are like 14 books, I'm looking forward to listening to them if we go anywhere this year, and to reading them all with the boys. Check our catalog.

The Black Echo by Michael Connelly

The Black Echo by Michael Connelly, 482 pages.

This was Connelly's first novel back in 1992, and features his long-time character, Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch. Bosch and partner, Jerry Edgar, investigate the death of a junkie found in a storm drain. The first officers to the scene and the medical folk all assume it's an accidental overdose, but when Harry recognizes the dead man as a fellow "tunnel rat" from Viet Nam and notices some oddities at the scene, he begins an investigation. The evidence points to the dead guy being tied to a big bank robbery from several months back and that brings in the FBI and sets Harry in the sights (not for the last time) of Deputy Chief Irving. A good framework for this book and the rest of the series. Check our catalog.

Satan is Real: the Ballad of the Louvin Brothers by Charlie Louvin and Benjamin Whitmer

Satan is Real: the Ballad of the Louvin Brothers by Charlie Louvin and Benjamin Whitmer. Country music memoir, 305 pages. I'm not a big fan of country music, and I've never really heard of the Louvin Brothers, but the book had an interesting cover, some cool things said about it by people I respect, and a first chapter that grabbed me, so I read it. The first chapter, where Charlie beats the hell out of his older brother for getting drunk and disrespecting their mom, was the best part. The rest of it was mildly interesting, and probably best for someone who has actually heard of the duo and has some interest in their music. Check our catalog.

Swamplandia by Karen Russell

Swamplandia by Karen Russell, 315 pages. One of the three, along with David Foster Wallace's The Pale King, and Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, that made the news by being a finalist in a year without a Pulitzer. It was better than some of the past Pulitzer winners, but it isn't among my favorites from last year. I was drawn in as the book went along, liking it more and more, but then felt a little let down by the ending. Probably at least partly due to all the hype that was surrounding the book as I was reading it. Kiwi, Osceola (Ossie), and Ava Bigtree have recently lost their mother to cancer. They, and their father, all try to make things better and to hold on to their island Alligator theme park. Check our catalog.

City of Bones by Michael Connelly

City of Bones by Michael Connelly, 393 pages. Detective Harry Bosch and his partner Jerry Edgar are given the case when a child's bones are found in a shallow grave in the woods above a residential neighborhood. The bones were buried twenty years before, and forensics show that the child had suffered years of abuse before he died. Not the most pleasant read, but not as horrible as some child murder books. As the book opens, Bosch becomes romantically involved with a woman who had just joined the force. Given Bosch's history of relationship dysfunction, the reader doesn't expect a sunny end, but there are some surprises here. This one falls somewhere in the middle of the series, Bosch is about 50 and working out of the Hollywood division. I have read some of the older books in the series and the two or three most recent books, so it is kind of fun to randomly pick from the (many) that I have missed, and read those. Check our catalog.

White House Burning: Our Founding Fathers, the National Debt, and Why It Matters to You by Simon Johnson and James Kwak

White House Burning: Our Founding Fathers, the National Debt, and Why It Matters to You by Simon Johnson and James Kwak, Economics, 352 pages. Johnson and Kwak explain how the US government has traditionally used debt to fund wars and growth. They show how while our current debt is historically high, it is not unprecedented. They show how more of the debt we currently carry has to do with tax cuts than with the TARP spending. They also believe that our country would be worse off without the TARP spending. A well-reasoned set of arguments that probably won't convince opponents of the current administration. Check our catalog.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: A Novel in Cartoons by Jeff Kinney

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: A Novel in Cartoons by Jeff Kinney, 217 pages. Juvenile fiction. This is the first book that I read on the advice of my eleven-year-old. He said "Dad, I really think you should read this. It's really good." I had heard about it over the years and was never really interested in reading it. It was better than I thought it was, mostly because of the obliviously unlikable main character. A fun read. Check our catalog.

Don't Put Me in Coach: My Incredible NCAA Journey from the End of the Bench to the End of the Bench

Don't Put Me in Coach: My Incredible NCAA Journey from the End of the Bench to the End of the Bench by Mark Titus, sports Memoir, 257 pages. Titus was an AAU basketball star. His team won a lot. Maybe they were champions, I don't remember (I just looked at the pictures in the book again and there is one of them holding the AAU trophy, so yeah, they were). He blames his high-school coach for his not getting into Harvard, though he admits to ambivalence about wanting to play college ball, and does point out that though his coach was an a-hole, telling him that he was one was not the best career move. Even though Titus knew there was a good chance he would not play in a big-time college basketball, he ended up foregoing any of the mid-majors that offered him a scholarship and decided to attend Ohio State with his AAU teammates, Greg Oden, Mike Conley, and Daequan Cook. His joy comes when he makes peace with the fact that he won't be playing for Ohio State except in those last moments of blow-out games and he decides to not take it all too seriously. He starts blogging about being on the bench and starts his "Club Trillion" based on his game stats, 1 minute of playing time and a string of zeroes for points, assists, rebounds, etc. He is mostly funny, funnier than Tom Davis, but not as funny as Tina Fey (on the scale of humorous memoirs I have read in the last year). Check our catalog.

Immortal Bird: A family memoir, by Doron Weber

All of our children are exceptional, but Doron Weber’s son, Damon, was also exceptional, in a bad way, from birth.  Born with a serious heart defect and with some organs reversed, he survived early surgeries in infancy to grow into a young teen with a mop of red hair, short stature from these early problems, and an unusually bright and creative mind.  His father, a writer whose day job is directing programs for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, chronicles Damon’s courageous struggle to live as his condition worsens in his teens, ultimately necessitating a heart transplant.  It is a family story as well, as his mother and younger brother and sister are obviously affected by Damon’s situation.  The memoir is well-written and the father’s suffering, as he researches Damon’s uncommon illness and fights to save his son, makes it painful to read.  However, the family’s great fortune at knowing Nobel Laureates and famous doctors, who step in to give access to world-class care, as well as movie stars and TV producers (Damon gets a small part in the series Deadwood), occasionally make the reader wonder how a less well-situated family would fare in helping a seriously ill child who, to them, is also exceptional.  Despite one’s sympathy for the author and his pain, it is often hard to like a man who routinely browbeats over-worked medical staff and questions the wisdom of most doctors, or to believe that Damon was the quite paragon he is portrayed as being.    358 pp.