Category: Uncategorized

Hatching Magic – Ann Downer, 2003

Quite good fantasy set in modern-day Cambridge, MA (where we lived for many years). There are lots of references to familiar landmarks (the NECCO factory, Rosie’s, Harvard Square) which made it extra-enjoyable for me, and the depiction of the struggling academic lifestyle is accurate. The wyverns are believably animal-like as well as magical and seem like great pets!

The Supernaturalist – Eoin Colfer, 2004

I’ve yet to read any of the Artemis Fowl books, so I was glad to try something by Colfer. I didn’t like it much. It’s got the choppiness/terseness I hate in much contemporary YA fiction, combined with a kind of macho action-overkill/emotional flatness; beyond-bogus “science” (viruses that reproduce in millions instantly, for example); and a future world so dystopian that I couldn’t understand how the protagonists could even survive. Lots of the plot didn’t make much sense. Some good satirical bits though–for example, in this future world lawyers are like a private police force and paralegals are the muscle.

My sister Elisabeth had recommended this, and then it made it to the list of the teen Summer Reading group (“Joust Read”) which I participate in to help out the Children’s Librarian. Great book, a truly original fantasy. (The language is a little choppy for my taste, but less so than much YA fiction nowadays). Re-interpretation of fairy tales (this is “Cinderella”) are a dime a dozen, but this one is so original that the characters come alive in a remarkable way. Ella’s predicament–she is cursed with obedience and must obey any direct order given her–feels genuinely alarming, and her skill in languages (and the importance of language to the ogres especially) is a great touch. My favorite little bit was the giant’s wedding ceremony:

The giants pantomimed their lives together. They framed and built a house and brought a series of older and older children from the audience into the imaginary home, and then more babies for grandchildren. It ended when they lay down in the grass to signify their deaths together.

We also watched the movie, which is nice enough but a totally different animal from the book. It’s all played for laughs and jollied up with silly anachronisms and impossiblities–a farce instead of an emotionally-realistic fantasy. Slannen the elf and the magic book are travesties who bear no resemblance to the characters in the story. And there’s nothing special about Ella (no gift for languages, for one thing)–she’s much more of a traditional fairy-tale princess with a good heart. Nonetheless, I liked the way the movie resolves Ella’s overcoming her curse much better; it doesn’t feel symbolically convincing enough in the book.

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West – Gregory Maguire, 1995. I couldn’t finish this, though I tried. I found it draggy and unfocused (hard to put my finger on; it’s not poorly written), and the political and social travails of Oz, though theoretically interesting, were in fact not. But it did get me onto a Wizard of Oz kick.

The Rule of Four – Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason, 2004. Read in large print on the elliptical trainer, and it really did motivate me to keep coming back. Very similar to The DaVinci Code but quite a bit better.

Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief: The Astonishing True Story of a High-Society Cat Burglar – Bill Mason with Lee Gruenfeld, 2003. I thoroughly enjoyed this although it’s a little long and self-congratulatory. Interesting: how easy it was for Mason to get by “unbeatable security systems” by simply thinking outside the rules (buildings with incredible arrays of alarms and locks on the front door, but the door to the roof isn’t even locked) and how baffled the owners and police were (akin to “Aliens must have helped them!” reactions to ancient technologies sophisticated in ways we no longer use). Thought-provoking: the way his first wife chooses not to know what’s going on until he’s arrested (and even after). Mason makes a big deal of how scary it was for her for the police to show up when she had no idea he wasn’t on the up and up. Yet it was clearly unmistakable he was doing something illegal (lots of money, lots of free time, lots of shady friends, “c’mon we have to leave right now,” etc. etc.) Reminds me of complicit Mafia wives and especially the Catherine Zeta-Jones character in Traffic.

Little Things Long Remembered: Making Your Children Feel Special Every Day – Susan Newman, 1993. A small book of good-to-great ideas for family rituals which cement connection. Example: taking a picture of your child’s room periodically (doesn’t have to be clean!) so they’ll be able to remember what it was like at various ages. Wish I had that! Some are a little generic or platitudinous, but they are all concise so you can quickly move on to the next.

Sigh… been in another writing slump. Too bad, because there have been thoughts I wanted to write about as I read many of these books, but the backlog is hanging over me so I’m going to catch up with batches of brief listings. I keep telling myself that just a list of what I’ve read is more than I ever did before I started this blog. And who’s reading it, aside from people who think I’m Hilary Duff? I am going to try putting at least a brief comment on each title; 2x better than nothing!

Watership Down – Richard Adams, 1972. Still holds up; a true epic. Notes I made: “his face…was a mask of blood, foam, vomit, and earth…” No no no! Rabbits are physically incapable of vomiting, which is why hairballs are a problem for them. Adams relied on R.M. Lockley’s The Private Life of the Rabbit for his research (which I read many years ago), and it must not have mentioned that. I marked another page, but I don’t remember why. The climactic moment when Bigwig tells General Woundwort that his Chief Rabbit has told him to defend the run still gives me the thrill it did when I was eleven.

The Look of Architecture – Witold Rybczynski, 2001. I like Rybczynski as a writer, but parts of this book reflect what I think is wrong with modern architecture. He seems blind to the truths Christopher Alexander recognizes and shares.

Gifts – Ursula K. Le Guin, 2004. Brilliant. I want to re-read this anyway & will write about it then, I hope.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke, 2004. As others have said, slow going to get into, then grabs you. A wonderful book. Captures the eerie, scary, not-at-all-cute true meaning of “fairy” like nothing else I’ve read. Beautiful and haunting; scenes I will never forget, like the stone statues in York Cathedral talking, and the ships made of rain.

A Calculated Risk – Katherine Neville, 1992. Not-very-good thriller with lots of unbelievable stuff about “teckies” (one of the reasons I read it), although the author supposedly was a systems consultant for IBM, Honeywell, etc. The heroine goes from a “computer ignoramus” to a “full-blown technocrat” in one weekend. If only!

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference – Malcolm Gladwell, 2000. Believe the hype–this is a fascinating book. I can’t wait to read Blink. My favorite kind of book, full of amazing tidbits to talk about. I need to read it again!

French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure – Mireille Guiliano, 2005. Basically the same message as The Fat Fallacy, more fun to read, but not as explicit as the typical American probably needs on the COOK FROM SCRATCH, DON’T EAT PROCESSED JUNK message. (She does say that; but IMO lots of people believe a frozen entree which claims to be “natural” and “heathy” really is, and don’t fully realize how different it is from the same dish cooked at home). The recipes look good, though I didn’t try any. My favorite thing about the book is how distinctive and French her voice is; it made me nostalgic for my years there.

This “brief comments” format seems like a decent compromise… I’m starting with the library books (except Watership Down) so I can return them!

The subtitle is so long I couldn’t fit it in the post title: “Why Your Papers, Books, Clothes, and Other Possessions Keep Overwhelming You–and What To Do About It.” As a slowly-recovering slob and clutter hound, who also has a soft spot (in my head!) for self-help, I’m a sucker for books like this. Making Peace ranks somewhere in the top third of organizing books I’ve read; it’s good, it’s useful, it actually has a new and different take on things (or Things as Glovinsky calls them), but it didn’t motivate me quite as much as I hoped it would. Some of that may be resistance; Glovinsky is really good at analyzing “Thing Addiction” and unpacking the many excuses, escapes, and evasions that people like me are prone to. She makes the excellent point that before diving in to declutter and containerize, the most important step is to change our habits of piling up new Things. I should re-read this book in a few months and maybe I’ll absorb more of it. The analysis of the types of problems people can have dealing with Things, which she describes as Trouble Tuning into Things, Trouble Seeing Things, Trouble Thinking about Things, and Trouble Moving Things, are especially useful.

A great companion to Fast Food Nation, not quite as entertaining a read but just as informative and scary. Critser traces the intersection of factors, operating from the 1970s on, which have resulted in a US environment that promotes obesity: the Secretary of Agriculture whose policies to deal with inflation, as well as corn and soybean surpluses, resulted in lots of cheap calories; the food manufacturers who turned to high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oil to raise their profit margins; the dysfunctional government health agencies which kept weakening requirements for exercise and diet; the school budget cuts which led administrators to eagerly seek “pouring contracts” with soda companies and to put fast food on lunchroom menus. Ignoring socio-economic differences, Critser says, exacerbates the situation. Public health messages don’t address poor people’s lack of access to the support systems that rich people have (high-quality, varied food; fees and transporation to excercise facilities; safe places to walk and play outside). Yet concerns over anorexia (a relatively rare disease if you’re not white and middle-class, he argues) lead to softening of counter-obesity messages. I don’t buy everything he says, especially when he claims that Krispy Kreme targets Latinos and supports his claim by idiotic quoting of their Spanish-language menu:

Everywhere the Latin flavor was pushed: “Chocolate iced custard filled” became “Rellena de crema pastelera y cubierta con chocolate.” “Cinnamon apple filled” became “Rellena de manzana y canela.”

Those sneaky Krispy Kreme executives, using translation to suck in customers!

Some of the most thought-provoking bits are the studies showing that when more food is available, people eat more, and that only the very youngest children can be relied on to choose just what they need. Anything that provides a boundary seems to help people eat less, whether it’s parental supervision, small portions, tight clothes, inflexible armchairs, or even a rope around the waist. Fast food merchandisers found that “price and value–not taste and presentation–were the key” to selling more. Gulp–that’s a personal weakness; I used to choose books to buy by how many pages I could get for my money, which is fine, but I do that with treats too, and that’s not so fine. (At least I’ve succeeded in resisting the temptation to buy the incredibly cheap 36-count boxes of candy bars at warehouse stores, though it’s been a struggle.) Fat Land is a fascinating book, and it’s also very well researched and documented.

I’m a dabbler who wants to know “something about everything,” so I love books like this. The one hundred things are all over the map but are each given just a few pages, which results in lots of detail for some (“wash your hands”) and ridiculous oversimplification for others (“eat right,” “get organized”). The gimmick is that an expert of some kind writes each section, so Grete Waitz talks about jogging, Dean Ornish about relaxing, etc. The only chapter I learned something new from was “wash your hair” (Frederic Fekkai), which says to apply conditioner only from the ears down, and that to have really glossy hair, you should rinse in cold water. That explains why washing my hair in the sink, which I don’t like but had to do when we lived in France, felt like it was good for my hair.

Not as funny as I hoped it would be. These cute variations on fairy tales (“Hamster and Gerbil,” “The Three Little Penguins and the Big Bad Walrus”) rely heavily on the inherent laughter value of reworking the familiar tales. Bones are tossed to adults (the sexpot Hollywood-bound sheep in “Rumplesnakeskin” is called Norma Jean, Little Red Robin Hood’s grandma lives in a retirment apartment complex), and kids will like the irreverent humor, but it’s a little old hat after Stinky Cheese Man etc. My favorite was “Goldiefox and the Three Chickens,” which had a few bits that made me laugh out loud and also a very happy ending.

It’s a strange fact (maybe an outgrowth of reading too much) that I love reading descriptions of books I’ve already read. I suppose it lets me enjoy them again in an incredibly efficient way! So I read this book cover-to-cover, though it’s just an assemblage of brief reading lists with some commentary. Pearl (best-known perhaps as the model for Archie McPhee’s shushing librarian action figure) has very eclectic tastes (yay!) which don’t overlap with mine very much (too bad for me…) I’ve added a few to-reads to my ever-growing list, but I’m actually relieved there weren’t more (I couldn’t possibly make a serious dent in the list before I die, especially since I’m very attached to RE-reading). But if you don’t have such a list, this is a great way to start one; with segments from the Alices (Adams, Hoffman, Munro, Sebold, Walker, etc.) to Zero (books on the counter-intuitive concept that revolutionized mathematics), there’s something for most everyone. Especially intriguing: “Too Good To Miss” sections which highlight Hamilton Basso, Frederick Busch, George MacDonald Fraser, Robert Heinlein, Ward Just, P.F. Kluge, Mark Kurlansky, Jonathan Lethem, Elinor Lipman, Ian McEwan, Merle Miller, Iris Murdoch, Lewis Nordan, Richard Powers, Van Reid, Rex Stout, Ross Thomas, Gore Vidal, and Connie Willis. Heinlein and Fraser are the only two I’ve read; I agree with her on Heinlein (this book is what led me back to Red Planet, the only H. juvenile that was missing from my collection, though I don’t think it holds a candle to the later ones), not on Fraser, but reading at least one each of the others would be a good goal.

Recommended by the Adult Reading Round Table as a “Sure Bet”–and it was. A satisfying thriller, not great, but very hard to put down. One morning, everyone (his boss, his friends, his family) want Dave Elliot dead, and he has to figure out why while staying alive in the skyscraper where he works. Par for the course for a not-great novel: four brand names on the first page of the opening scene (Pratesi sheets/Panasonic clock radio/Nikes/Rolex president watch–it’s not just lazy, it’s obtrusively silly), cardboard characters, painful dialect (“Whut else can yew tell me ’bout him?”) But the popcorn-cruncher in me enjoyed it a lot.