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Oh, how I wanted to love this mystery, centering on a golden retriever who “testifies” in court to get his owner out of jail–in a completely realistic and believable way (ie no Lillian Jackson Braun-style anthropomorphization). It had great reviews so I ordered it for the library and put it on hold for myself; there was a hitch in the ordering so anticipation built for much longer than usual. And… it’s fine, no more. Lawyer Andy Carpenter, the narrator, has a not-particularly-funny wisecrack for every occasion. The story is told in present tense–bleurgh–is that popular simply because it allows authors to avoid the pluperfect? I’ve seldom/never found it to be anything but annoying as a technique. The solution was a little deus-ex-machina, especially because the dog, crucial in the beginning, is shuffled off to the side by the end. The golden rescue operation in the book is based on the author’s real-life Tara Foundation, but it’s only mentioned in passing. I would have loved more dog detail instead of rote courtroom scenes!

(Another large print read on the elliptical trainer.) Lamott can be a wonderful writer with interesting things to say…sometimes. Other times she is a good writer who’s gratingly narcissistic and overdramatic. I’m afraid most of these essays show the second style. Her willingness to expose her worst sides is admirable (although where is the line between emotional bravery and exhibitionism?), and she’s certainly handled more adversity than most–I feel almost guilty that she gets on my nerves.

There’s been a lot of "it’s just a jump on the Marley & Me bandwagon," and it’s true that at a skimpy 82 pages for $14.95, this is basically an essay posing as a book. But on the other hand, Quindlen writes rings around Grogan and compresses almost all the emotion in a fraction of the space. A good third of the book is cute dog photos, which is a little confusing because some of them do seem to be of her two dogs (Beau and Bea), but taken by the same professional pet photographer (Amanda Jones) who did many of the unrelated dogs. (Alas, my favorite (p. 6, a Bichon Frise whose eyes are totally concealed by fur) isn’t on the website). One hopes this wasn’t some kind of kickback. But no matter, if you love dogs, the book’s a winner. (My favorite dog book ever ever is still Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ The Social Life of Dogs.)

Reading biographies often takes me a long time. The people move into my mental landscape, and I feel almost like I’m living life along with them in real time. (I had to return Ackroyd’s wonderful Dickens to the library eventually, before finishing it, so he’s still hanging out in my brain at the peak of his career.) For the past month or so my companions have been Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, thanks to this engrossing book. (Eisler was recently at the Historical Society researching George Catlin and his family, and it turns out she knows my mother, hence my interlibrary loan.) O’Keeffe’s art doesn’t speak to me particularly, but Stieglitz’s photos, especially his portraits of Georgia herself, certainly do. The story of their relationship, the rise and fall of Stieglitz’s galleries (from 291 to An American Place), and O’Keeffe’s path to the Southwest (which seems so inevitable now) are particularly interesting, as are the canny ways they positioned and marketed themselves in the art world. Unsurprisingly, neither seems like someone you’d want in your own circle–all kinds of power corrupt. Eisler has chosen wonderful plates, and each chapter also starts with a painting or photo. I can’t think of any other woman whose image is more striking or iconic than O’Keeffe’s. Her little sideways smile haunts me still.

King is one of those writers I (usually) find compelling despite his flaws. But the worst of those flaws were barely in evidence in this book, one of his very best. Presumably because he’s drawing on his recent experience of recovering from a horrible accident, the non-supernatural characters and incidents in Duma Key are fully realized and believable. I particularly love stories of success, and Edgar Freemantle’s sudden flowering as an artist was delightfully involving; finding redemption and healing in creation clearly draws from King’s recovery as well, and it’s thrilling to watch unfold. The supernatural elements are still somewhat random and motiveless (which is why I fundamentally prefer fantasy and SF to horror–a lot of horror relies on not questioning WHY the Big Bad showed up and why it’s attacking the protagonists). King’s worst faults in my view: a) vulgarity; b) going for the cheap gross-out; c) an intrusive sort of verbal ticcing, where he repeats cultural or personal catch phrases (joking expressions, song lyrics, ad taglines) ad nauseam. The latter has its good side of adding texture and interest, and it’s realistic in the way the human mind works (mine included). In the recent Lisey’s Story, where he did it constantly, it was incredibly irritating. Here he manages to do it almost as much, but it works because it becomes a natural part of the exchanges between Freemantle and his friend Wireman. Duma Key also has a wonderful portrait of the love between father and daughter. I’m very glad King hasn’t retired, as he threatened to do years back, since he has books like this still in him.

Another for the Sony Reader. I read dozens of Comtesse de Ségur books in the Bibliothèque Rose when I was a kid, but this is the one I remember best (I was going to say aside from the passages about the Great Pyrenees dog in L’auberge de l’ange gardien, which I now realize I have confused with Belle et Sébastien.) I still to this day identify with poor silly, greedy, impulsive Sophie who is always getting in trouble, but this is a strange book to modern eyes. The children are tiny (Sophie turns five in the book) but behave, and are expected to behave, like much older kids. For example, Sophie has a little pocket knife with which she enjoys cutting up all kinds of things (good and bad). (This may be what influenced me to loan my little brother, who was 5 at the time, a “knife” I had made from a ripped metal can embedded in a piece of styrofoam, on the condition that he be careful and not cut himself. Of course he did and I got in trouble, but I was angry at him for breaking his promise to me! I was 7.) Sophie and her cousin Paul keep all sorts of pets which always meet a bad end by the end of the chapter. No sugar-coating death in the 19th century, no siree. Everything is a moral lesson about “le bon Dieu.” But it’s still extremely readable today–lots of dialogue, and very realistic portrayals of child characters. A wonderful way to time travel.

Like many people I’m fighting some middle-aged spread–it’s no lie that a few extra pounds are harder to get rid of after you hit 40, alas. Health books are perenially interesting to me, and this one caught my eye at B&N.; It looked sensible and very amusing from a quick flip-through. Now that I’ve read the whole thing: yes, it is. Good input from pros–“Chef Terry” gives some great coulis recipes for steamed vegetables. Wonderful “cheat sheet” in the back–“a summary of every pearl of wisdom in this book.”

I’m trying going back to one entry per book, even if it’s a short one. Picked this up at the Penguin Putnam warehouse sale (catnip for booklovers, and one of the GREAT things about living in the Binghamton NY area!) because I remember liking The Blue Sword years ago. The young-woman-hero-fantasy genre is well-populated now, and McKinley is one of the people who paved the way. Excellent, almost LeGuin quality, with memorable characters (including a wonderful horse, Talat). I can’t believe this hasn’t been made into a movie–it deserves the full Peter Jackson treatment. Actually, this would be perfect for Joss Whedon…sigh…if only… I also did not know McKinley is/was married to Peter Dickinson, whose Changes trilogy I found compelling but disturbing as a child–haven’t gone back to those yet…

Wish I could keep up with this—or that I could download thoughts directly from my head—but at least I will try to continue to list titles. So, to catch up:

Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre, 1847
Read on my Sony Reader. One of my all-time favorites.

Arthur C. Clarke
Dolphin Island: A Story of the People of the Sea, 1963
Re-read because of a query that came up on Project Wombat. Led me to this page about Mary Watson. [gone now and can’t reach through Wayback, but here’s a replacement]

Michael Crichton
The Great Train Robbery, 1975
Sphere, 1987
Crichton is so darn readable, but he holds up less and less well as I get older. I don’t think I’d actually read GTR before; it over-relies on contemporary slang for color, but I enjoyed that part most of all.

Mark Doty
Dog Years: A Memoir, 2007
Large print, read on the elliptical trainer. Well-written if a little self-indulgent.

Sue Grafton
T is for Trespass, 2007
Grafton writes as well as ever but my taste for her is fading. Is time passing so slowly in Santa Teresa (it’s now January 1987) because she doesn’t want Henry to die of old age? Not that I blame her—he’s a great character. Suprisingly action-filled ending.

Maria Dahvana Headley
The Year of Yes: A Memoir, 2006
It took me a while to get used to the author’s voice, but I loved it! Fascinating, especially to see the world through the eyes of someone who is constantly propositioned (I grew up in NYC and thankfully had a very different experience) and apparently has very little need to sleep. She crammed an incredible range of experience into her 21st year.

Ursula LeGuin
Powers, 2007
One of the strongest of her novels in years. Truly great. The “Annals of the Western Shore” almost live up to the Earthsea books.

Nigel Marsh
Fat, Forty, and Fired, 2007
Ehhh… Wanted to like it, but I had to skim big chunks. The comparison to Ray Romano on the jacket flap is right on.

Jean Shepherd
In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, 1966
I hadn’t actually read this all the way through before, but I remembered “Hairy Gertz and the Forty-Seven Crappies” making me laugh out loud in the bookstore. Still somewhat funny, but no long rip-snortingly so for me. The photo on the back of the book makes him look totally unlike his author personality. Now that we have YouTube and Google Images I have a better sense of him—check out this clip.

Delightful and fascinating, with wonderful cartoons by Roz Chast. The brillian Erin McKean, editor of Verbatim and rock-star lexicographer, gives just the right amount of information on each word—sometimes tantalizing, sometimes thorough—to make the book easy to read cover-to-cover, as well as fun to dip into. Essays on linked words (beginning with Z, relating to pigs, for diseases) are sprinkled in. Word stuck in my head now: mammothrept, a spoiled child (from “raised by one’s grandmother”). A