Bellwether Revivals

Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood, 420 pages

Eden Bellwether is a strange man. He's rich, talented, and more intelligent than can be believed. He's also narcissistic and believes he has the ability to hypnotize and possibly heal people through music. Our protagonist, the blue-collar Oscar, is initially taken with Eden, but as he spends more time around Eden and his "flock" of friends, the less comfortable he becomes and the more sure Oscar is that something bad is going to happen.

Bellwether Revivals reminded me a bit of The Great Gatsby and Atonement in its portrayal of the upper echelon, though the suspenseful buildup of the story would almost place it in the horror genre. I had trouble getting through this one, but I suspect that has more to do with the other things going on in my life than with Wood's writing. I wish I'd read it when I had more time to devote to it.

The age of desire, by Jennie Fields

An imaginative treatment of a real period in the life of Edith Wharton.   At 45, Edith, who has her own inherited money, has for many years been in a loveless marriage to Edward “Teddy” Wharton, a wealthy man of no great intellectual depth.  They live somewhat separate lives.  They winter in Paris, which she loves and Teddy hates, and summer at “The Mount,” their country estate, where Teddy is happiest.  They also maintain a couple of apartments in New York City.  In Paris in 1907, she is introduced, by her great friend Henry James, to William Fullerton Morton, an American journalist working for the Times in Paris.  Fullerton, as she calls him, is younger, dashing, and irresistible.  He’s also a bounder, bisexual, and amoral, as we come to learn after Edith falls into a passionate affair with him, a true sexual awakening for her.  Edith had an unhappy childhood, mitigated by her governess, Anna, who is German.  Anna remains with Edith and becomes her secretary, friend, and the “first reader” of Wharton’s increasingly successful novels.   During this period, Teddy begins to exhibit what today would be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, his ill health intensified by the suspicion that his wife is under Fullerton’s spell.  Anna, who loves both Edith and Teddy, is torn by the conflicting desires that surround her.   I found the book fascinating.  I believe I’ve only read Ethan Frome of Wharton’s many books, and it reading this novel will drive me to read Wharton’s longer and more complex books (or maybe watch the movies!).   The author weaves the actual events skillfully in with the imagined conversations and scenes.  During this period, both Anna and Edith form life-changing emotional attachments that threaten to destroy their bond, and it is this relationship that the book is truly centered upon.   368 pp.

You are the love of my life, by Susan Richards Shreve

Lucy, a single mother of 12-year-old Maggie and 5-year-old Felix, is living more or less happily in New York.  She has had a long-term, somewhat hopeless relationship with the children’s father, who they all call “Uncle Reuben.”  She is a noted children’s book author, and the older, married Reuben is her editor, who she met in her early twenties.  She found her own father, a suicide by hanging, when she was quite young and it has made her a very private person.  Her mother, who was French, is also long dead by 1973, when the action of the book takes place.  Lucy decides to leave Reuben and her New York life for the charming Washington DC neighborhood where she still owns the house her father died in.  It is the time of Watergate.   The women of the neighborhood form a tight-knit group around one central queen bee figure, but not just Lucy has secrets to protect as it turns out.  OK for a vacation read but not great …  304 pp.

Green Arrow: Year One/Andy Diggle

Green Arrow:  Year One by Andy Diggle and Jock; graphic novel; 160 pages

For my first foray into Green Arrow, I thought I should start at the beginning (or at least, one of the more interesting of the many origin stories for this character).  Oliver Queen is a billionaire playboy not unlike Bruce Wayne's public persona.  The difference is that if the scratch the surface of Olive Queen, you find...more surface.  He's a thrill-seeking, hard-drinking womanizer who cares for little beyond his own pleasure.  But all of that changes when a double-cross lands him stranded on a deserted island, forced to fend for himself and fight off the forces of nature for his own survival. 

Loved this book!  I'm glad I went with one of the more recent GA origins, as this seemed to really fit what little I know of the character (I've only caught peripheral glimpses of him through Batman and Birds of Prey, but I like what I have seen!).  Of course there's more going on on the island than my blurb would lead you to believe, but that would be telling.  This is a fun book that manages to pay homage to the older versions of Green Arrow (boxing glove arrow, anyone?) without being too campy.  Yes, there are a few moments where I had to stretch my sense of disbelief (like the fact that Ollie is shooting with a broken arm, or that his "English long bow" is, in fact, quite short), but overall, this was a quick, fun introduction to the character. 

The World's Greatest Idea

The World's Greatest Idea: the fifty greatest ideas that have changed humanity by John Farndon 317 pgs.

This book is chock full of great ideas that have changed the world from weaving and spinning to the Internet.  I loved the short lesson on each and why it is important.  I've never tried to develop a list like this and probably couldn't so am glad that John Farndon and his panel of big brains have done it for me.  Fun to read and enlightening.

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Let's Pretend This Never Happened

Let's Pretend This Never Happened (a mostly true memoir) by Jenny Lawson  318 pp.

Read this book! It's laugh out loud funny in that taxidermied animal, squirrel hand puppet, anxiety attack, dog mauling, couch etiquette, alligator pirate, argue with your spouse sort of way. In other words, if you have a quirky sense of humor you will meet your match in blogger, Jenny Lawson. I haven't laughed so hard reading a book in a long time.

Einstein's Dreams

Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman 140 pp

This book is a fictional series of dreams about the bending of time. They are dreams that the patent clerk, Albert Einstein may have had while developing his theory of relativity. In the "dreams" time is circular or runs backwards, slows down, and sometimes stops. Each dream has a deeper meaning about life and how we choose to live it. It's a thought provoking book.

Batman: Earth One/Geoff Johns

Batman:  Earth One by Geoff Johns (story) and Gary Frank (art); graphic novel; 144 pages

Earth One retools both Batman's origin story and his "year one" into something much darker than what we've come to know as cannon. Bruce Wayne here is a spoiled, self-absorbed child whose temper tantrum results in his parents' death; Alfred is a grizzled war veteran who specializes in personal security, and trains a teenage Bruce in how to fight a war; and Bruce himself--well, he starts out as the noble, idealistic hero we all know, but one of the first things he learns is how to be cruel and cunning, and not always fight fair.  It's an interesting take on the Dark Knight, but I found myself really enjoying it.  Johns changes enough to make a familiar story fresh and exciting, and Frank's art is a perfect fit for the dark, brooding story.  This isn't Batman for the whole family--with serial killers, guns, and more, it's definitely better for mature fans who are looking for something a little darker, but not as heavy-handed as, say, Frank Miller.  

Red Robin: The Hit List/Fabain Ncienza

Red Robin:  The Hit List by Fabian Ncieza (Red Robin 3); graphic novel; 128 pages

In the third Red Robin collection,Tim Drake is setting up shop as an independent crime fighter in Gotham.  He has a lot to figure out:  where to live, who his allies will be, and who to fight.  For the latter, he makes the titular hit list, a set of plans designed to set up a new villain's capture for each one Red Robin brings down. 

I'm still really enjoying this character, and was sad to learn that (a) there's only one more collection after this, and (b) it came out only a few months ago, so it's not eligible for ILL.  :(

This book sets up Red Robin as a proper superhero, not just a temporary persona for Tim to use while searching for Bruce Wayne.  He even starts to accumulate some bad guys of his own, including Anarky (a new one), and the mysterious Lynx (who, as Tim points out, has the potential to become his very own Catwoman).  I also had a lot of fun with the interactions between the Wayne family members--Bruce, Tim, Dick, and Damian. 

Batman: Knightfall, vol 3

Batman:  Knightfall volume 3:  Knightsend by a whole bunch of various authors and artists; graphic novel; 652 pages

In the conclusion to the Knightfall epic, Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham, but must relearn much of that martial arts skills and physical agility he lost when Bane injured him.  Following a grueling physical training program with the notorious Lady Shiva, Bruce must fight to reclaim the mantle of the Bat and the role as protector of Gotham from the now-insane Azrael.

This book was a good change from the previous volume, which contained a whole lot of Jean-Paul Crazy.  In this volume, we move back and forth between Bruce, Azrael/Batman, and Robin & Nightwing, who are working as a support unit to Batman.  The inevitable defeat of Jean-Paul comes in the middle of the book, with the second half devoted to the aftermath of Jean-Paul's actions.  Another interesting arc was the final twelve issues collected here:  the Prodigal storyline, in which Bruce, having just reclaimed his role as Batman, inexplicably abandons it for several months, and leaves Dick Grayson to fill in.  Reading this next to the more modern Batman stories (in which Bruce Wayne is presumed dead, and Grayson once again must take on the role of Batman) is really surreal:  Grayson expresses similar complaints and fears in each instance, but in the Morrison arcs seems to be having those thoughts for the first time, so that was weird.  Was there a reboot somewhere between 1994 and 2008 that I'm unaware of?  Leaving aside the strange and unexplained disappearance of Bruce Wayne for the latter half of the book, this is a satisfying conclusion to the story, though once again I found myself wondering what was left out of this collection.

A final note on the art:  there's a lot of different artists involved here, so it's hard to make blanket statements about anything (except Nightwing's mullet, which is consistently hilarious).  However, if you were to just look at the cover, you'd never know there was actual good art inside.  I understand choosing an image of Batman and Azrael facing off as the cover of the collection (this is also the cover of the issue in which they clash), but surely we could have picked something that uses proper perspective, and that doesn't look like Azrael is about to crack is spine.  I'm not even sure what Batman is doing there--a bizarre dance of some kind? 

TL;DR:  I'm glad I read this classic story, but it's not something I'd recommend to the casual comics fan, or even the beginner comics reader.  Getting through this takes some dedication.