Napoleon's Hemorrhoids - Phil Mason

   2010; 243 pages (including the Introduction, but not the Index).  Full Title: Napoleon’s Hemorrhoids – And Other Small Events that Changed History.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Historical Trivia; Non-Fiction; History - Anecdotes.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    There is a famous proverb titled ”For want of a nail”.  Wikipedia says it’s been around since the 13^th century, and it comes in many variations.  One of the shorter versions is:

 

   “For want of a nail the shoe was lost;
    For want of a shoe the horse was lost;
    For want of a horse the battle was lost;
    For the failure of battle the kingdom was lost—
    All for the want of a horse-shoe nail.”

 

    The principle of the proverb is that small changes in seemingly insignificant actions can sometimes have major impacts on history-making events.  Sounds far-fetched, doesn’t it?

 

    In Napoleon’s Hemorrhoids, Phil Mason offers up a slew of examples of this, in all sorts of fields such as history, politics, business, sports, science, and even the arts.  Wacky things, such as Napoleon’s hemorrhoids flaring up on the morning of the Battle of Waterloo, may have changed the course of history.

 

    Over and over, you’ll find yourself “what if such and such an incidental event had never occurred"?

 

What’s To Like...

    Napoleon’s  Hemorrhoids consists of ten chapters, each spotlighting a different area.  They are:

    Chapter 01: Detours in the Match of History

    Chapter 02: Politics – Fates and Fortunes

    Chapter 03: History’s Tricks – Accidents, Illnesses and Assassinations

    Chapter 04: The Fog of War

    Chapter 05: Science – Inspiration, Invention and Intrigue

    Chapter 06: Chance Beginnings

    Chapter 07: Artistic Strokes (of Luck)

    Chapter 08: “Unlucky, Sport!”

    Chapter 09: Crime – Missed Demeanours

    Chapter 10: Business – Enterprise and Intuition

    None of the chapters are in the least bit boring, and it's no surprise that Chapter 4, The Fog of War, is the longest one, logging in at 47 pages.

 

    The author is lives in England, which means the book is written in "English", not "American".  So you encounter spellings like tranquillity, centred, tyres, licence, 40-storey, and have to figure out what the phrase “cock a snook” means, which is given below.  The entries are generally short – sometimes just one or two paragraphs, occasionally as long as a page or two.

 

    I was already aware of some of the entries, such as:

    The Battle of Gettysburg was an accident and only happened because all because one army wanted some boots.

    In Central America in 1969, a war was fought over a soccer match.

    How rabbits were introduced, and then ran like a plague unchecked over Australia.

    The USA ignored numerous warnings leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor,

    How Post-It notes were developed.

    Captain Oates’ final Antarctic walk.

 

    But most of the entries were new to me.  I learned lots of new trivia, such as:

    How the Alaskan city of Nome got its name.

    Bayer once marketed heroin as a commercial product.

    The last words of Albert Einstein.

    The controversy about the naming of Uranus. <snickers>

    How close we came to starting a nuclear war in 1962.

 

    There’s a 14-page index in the back which came in quite handy while I was reading the book.  Don’t be misled by the text’s overall lighthearted tone and the fact that its target audience is the British public.  There are a lot of wonderful and little-known historical anecdotes here that really will make you pause to wonder how big a part serendipity played in history down through the millennia.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Cock a snook (v., phrase) : to openly show contempt or a lack of respect for someone or something..

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.1*/5, based on 520 ratings and 184 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.36*/5, based on 1,304 ratings and 71 reviews.

 

 

Excerpts...

    The change of weather from the heat of Algeria to a European winter gave Arnaud a terrific cold.  As he led his forces to confront a mob resisting the coup he is said to have caught a coughing fit.  As it ended, he cursed “Ma sacrée toux” (“My damned cough!”).  The head of the Guard misheard it as “Massacrez tous” (“Massacre them all”) and launched an assault on the crowd.  Up to 800 people are believed to have been killed.  It was the pivotal moment in turning the tide of the coup.  (pg. 9)

 

    The West African state of Benin had its entire air force destroyed in 1988 by a single errant golf shot.

    Metthieu Goya, a ground technician and keen golfer, was practising on the airfield during a lunchtime break when he sliced a drive.  Th ball struck the windscreen of a jet fighter that was preparing to take off, causing it to career into the country’s other four jets neatly lined up by the runway.  All five aircraft were write-offs.  (pg. 68)

 

New York became British because of a Dutch obsession with nutmegs.  (pg. 5)

    The quibbles are minor.

 

    As noted, Napoleon’s Hemorrhoids is written with the British reading audience in mind.  Thus the chapters generally start out with entries that involve English activities, then follow with ones involving the rest of the world.  This was generally not off-putting to a Yankee reader like me, except for the chapter on sports which led off with a number of entries about the quaint but unfathomable sport of cricket.

 

    Also, Phil Mason rarely if ever lists the sources of the small-but-impactful events he cites.  True, in these days of Google and Wikipedia, researching something on your own is easy, and yes, if he had devoted 50 pages to “Notes and Sources” I’d be bitching about how many trees he was killing to produce those pages (I read the hardcover version).

 

    The most egregious of this came on page 28, with an anecdote about a “would-be minister who has remained unidentified” blowing a one-on-one interview given by the British Prime Minister because the applicant was in “fawning mode” too much.  Exactly how could there by a source for that?

 

    That’s about it.  Napoleon’s Hemorrhoids is an incredibly clean read.  The lone cussword was on page six, and was a “lavatorial allusion” attributed to Martin Luther, and the lone typo I caught was the often-encountered “loose/lose” mix-up.

 

    Overall, Napoleon’s Hemorrhoids was exactly what I was looking for.  It wasn’t an in-depth scholarly treatise, but it was never intended to be.  What it was, was both an enlightening and a fun read.

 

    7½ Stars.  One last thing.  As Americans, we are given a decidedly slanted viewpoint when it comes to teaching United States History.  Basically, we never did anything stupid or wrong.  So it was interesting to read the more objective viewpoints of a British author concerning our country's actions.

Blue Christmas - Emma Jameson

   2019; 262 pages.  Book 6 (out of 7) in the “Lord and Lady Hetheridge Mystery” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Traditional Detective Mysteries; British Crime Fiction.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Lord Tony Hetheridge and his wife, Lady Kate Hetheridge have both left their London police careers behind, albeit for somewhat different reasons.  For Tony, it’s to pursue his dream of being a "PI" (Private Investigator).  To be his own boss, pick his own cases, investigate and hopefully solve the crimes in whatever manner he deems best.

 

    For Kate, the reasons are much darker.  In her final case for the police, she was beaten nearly to death, leading to extended stays in the hospital, and a year’s worth of grueling rehab.  The emotional injuries ran even deeper.  Kate withdrew from the world, and now it doesn’t seem like she'll ever come out again.

 

    But now Kate’s ex-partner in the police force, DI Paul Bhar, has just contacted them to see if they’d both want to rejoin the severely understaffed detective force, even if on a temporary basis.  The investigation of a recent murder could definitely use their experience and attention.  Alas, neither of the Hetheridges are keen on it.

 

    Then Paul mentions that the killer rigged up the most bizarre murder weapon he’s ever seen, and if they don’t believe him, Tony and Kate should come right over to the crime scene and judge for themselves.

 

    And just like that, they’re back on the job.

 

What’s To Like...

    Blue Christmas is the sixth book in Emma Jameson’s Lord and Lady Hetheridge Mystery series, but it's my introduction to this author.  The story is set in London, and it's written in what I’ll call “Harry Potter style”, meaning that the spellings are “American”, as in: neighboring and offenses; as are the measurements (miles, not metres); but the lingo is decidedly “British”, as in:  the loo, ASDA, spendy, windcheater, half-five, prawn crisps, and many more, the best of which are listed below.

 

    The tale has a delightful “feel” of being in England, so I was surprised to find out that the author is American.  I learned that England’s equivalent of our "9-1-1" is “999”, that the “Michelin Man” has recently lost a lot of weight, and got a chuckle when my favorite British phrase “and Bob’s your uncle”, showed up.  Alas, American culture has infiltrated the UK.  Both Facebook and Skype come into play, Frasier is a popular TV show, and the “STEM” educational curriculum is in use across the pond.

 

    Amazon lists the genre as a “Traditional Detective Series”, and that seems accurate, but cozy mystery fans will also be comfortable with it, as I noticed only two instances of cussing throughout the entire book.  Yes, we get to see the murder victim at the crime scene and yes, Kate and Tony have a couple of rolls-in-the-hay, but it’s all tastefully done.

 

    The promise of “most bizarre murder weapon ever” proved to be true, and suckered me into guessing the wrong suspect.  Tony and Kate both eventually suss out the perpetrator, albeit via somewhat different paths of logic.  In the end, they both discover that their transition back into the London police system has gone rather smoothly.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Skeevy (adj.) : unpleasant, squalid, distasteful.

Others: gimcrack (adj.); fanny about (v. Britishism); giddy goat (n., phrase), winkle out (v., Britishism); bog (n., Britishism); rozzers (n., plural, Britishism); skint (adj., Britishism); schtum (adj.); up the duff (phrase); bellend (n., obscene).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 2,290 ratings and 343 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.37*/5, based on 1,743 ratings and 183 reviews.

 

 

Excerpts...

    They were keenly aware that a case’s evidence could be adulterated or destroyed altogether by witnesses, police officers, or even medical personnel, and strove to photograph, bag, and preemptively collect as much as possible.  Any break in the chain of custody would be exploited in court by the defense.  Such barristers certainly weren’t above suggesting to a jury that if Constable Cockup had breathed on a bloodstain, the DNA in the real killer’s blood might have magically transmogrified into that of the poor, innocent man standing in the dock.  (loc. 2089)

 

    “I hope nobody takes offense, but look around.  Old man Galen was a bitter pill.  He dumped piss-pots in our garden once a week.  He chased dog-walkers.  He used to taunt Selma about her oxygen tank and say when you can’t breathe, take a hint and drop dead.  He told one of Leona’s man-friends that she had syphilis…”

    “Ebola, actually, but the intent was the same,” Leona broke in.  “And that was my ex-husband.”  (loc. 2527)

 

“Your grandchild will be a wog!  We’re calling it Woggie McWogface!”  (loc. 1921)

    There are some nits to pick.  Blue Christmas focuses on both the mystery element – how to figure out who murdered an old man when everyone in the neighborhood disliked him, and the human element – will Kate ever be able to put the traumatic events of the previous book behind her?  Sadly, the balance of that focus is heavily weighted towards the human issues.  In fact, the first 10% of the book is devoted exclusively to that.  So if you’re anxious to get started solving the murder case, as I was, you’ve got quite a wait at the outset.

 

    There's not a lot of tension and excitement in the ending.  All the suspects are called to a neighborhood meeting where Tony and Kate present the results of their investigations.  The perpetrator is identified on logical but flimsy evidence, yet conveniently and inexplicably gives a full and unforced confession.  The whole thing felt contrived.

 

    But perhaps I just haven’t caught the gist of this series yet.  Maybe the personal lives of our two protagonists are just as important, and get just as much attention, as the crimes they investigate.

 

    We shall see.  I’ve got two more books from this series sitting on my Kindle, and I’m betting I’ll have a better idea of what a typical Emma Jameson story entails after reading them.

 

    7 Stars.  Blue Christmas was my “Holiday read” for 2021, and I note in closing that the Epilogue was appropriately heartwarming and Christmassy in a Dickensian sort of way, with nary a “Bah humbug!” in sight.

Belly of the Beast - Scott Baron

   2021; 433 pages.  Book 2 (out of 5) in the “Warp Riders” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Space Opera; Science Fiction; Space Exploration.  Overall Rating: 7*/10.

 

    Thus far, the galactic reconnaissance mission has been an utter failure.  Just ask Captain Sadira Perez.

 

    They've been sent out on a mission to locate the homeworld of a spaceship that had the gall to fire preemptively at Sadira’s ship, and the first thing to happen was a warp malfunction that booted Sadira and her crew into a who-knows-where-we-are part of the galaxy.  Her star charts are useless, as is the AI that controls all the vital functions of the spaceship.  Finding those hostile aliens is now Priority #2; Sadira would settle for somehow finding her way back home.

 

    But look!  Out there, dead ahead!  There’s an alien spaceship headed right toward us!  It’s different from the one that fired at us earlier, but maybe they have some star charts that would help Captain Sadira figure out where in the Milky Way we're at.

 

    Man, that ship is huge!  I wonder how many miles long it is.  And now, what looks like a giant mouth is opening up.  Jeez, it's so big it could swallow our ship whole.  It’s getting dangerously close now, and we seem to be headed right for that entryway!

 

    GULP!

 

What’s To Like...

    Belly of the Beast is the “sequel-to-the-prequel” in Scott Baron’s Warp Riders Space Exploration series.  I read the first novella-sized book, Deep Space Boogie, a couple months ago; it is reviewed here.  Sadira’s entire crew from that book are back for more thrills-&-spills: Hellatz, Moose, Holly, Goonara, Hump, Ace, and of course, Turd.

 

    The book’s title alludes to the “swallowed by a whale” tales – both the biblical “Jonah” one and the Disney “Pinocchio” one.  Sadira and crew need to find a way out of a decidedly bigger whale which, they quickly discover, has gulped down lots of asteroids and other spaceships.  Exploring the interior of the behemoth is the first order of business, and since they didn’t die while being swallowed, there might be other survivors in the same situation, some of whom might have valuable information to share.  Of course, others may prefer to kill and eat them.

 

    Once again there are lots of alien species to meet and marvel at.  Some get developed more than others, but there’s a nice variety in their structural make-up, including being mechanized, microscopic, made of stone, and coming with various numbers of legs, arms, and eyes.

 

    I liked how the “communicating with aliens” technology was handled, and laughed to learn that, like me, Holly hates the expression “it is what it is”.  It was fun to learn about the “archer’s paradox” (arrows bend in flight in order to fly straight), and I liked seeing Cthulhu get a brief reference.  The writing was surprisingly sparse of typos, and I found the author’s practice putting teasers at the end of most of the chapters kept me turning the pages.

 

    The ending is what you’d expect: after an appropriate tension build-up, the good guys escape the belly of the beast (well, most of them do, anyway) and the bad guys don’t.  Things close with a nice epilogue, which is serves as a teaser for the next book in the series, Rise of the Forgotten.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Nut up (v., phrase) : to suffer in silence, without complaint or protest.

Others: Ghillie suit (n., phrase).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 37 ratings and 9 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.16*/5, based on 37 ratings and 9 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “You two go on ahead,” she told Hel and Moose.  “Clean up and get a decent meal in you.  And take a quick session in the med pod to up the oxygen content in your blood.  Both of you.”

    “But that thing’s in the med lab,” Moose said.

    “Yeah, and?  It’s strapped down and not going anywhere.”

    “It just creeps me out, is all.  Four legs?”

    “I have four arms, and yet you have no such issues with me,” Hellatz said.  “Or are you a secret limbist?”  (loc. 3562)

 

    “That’s his place,” the Pestri said, pointing to the marked domicile on Sadira’s tablet.  “Bestrus will probably be with a hunting party.  He will not be home.”

    “Are you sure of this?” Mahdus asked.

    “Sure?  Not at all.  I lost time in your ship.  I do not know which shift it is now.  But it is likely he is not there.  He only spends time in his home for two things.”

    “Sleeping and eating,” Hellatz said.

    “Sleeping, yes.  Eating, no.”

    “If not eating, then—”

    “Let it go, Hel.”  (loc. 6098)

 

Kindle Details…

    Belly of the Beast sells for $0.99 right now at Amazon, as does the prequel, Deep Space Boogie.  The other three books in the series each cost $3.99, and you have an additional option of picking up the first two books bundled together for just $0.99.  Scott Baron has several other series and short story anthologies to offer, with the books therein costing anywhere from $0.99 to $3.99.  Various bundles, containing anything from two to six books, range in price from $0.99 to $29.95.

 

“If that thing comes and sucks out my brains, it’s on you.”  (loc. 3579)

    There are some things to quibble about.

 

    After the initial ingestion, there’s lots of exploring but not much action over the first half of the book.  Even the “first contact” is rather bland, although the pace picks up when Varsu enters and then continues briskly through the end of the story.

 

    There are some telling/showing issues in the writing, although not to where it became off-putting. And if you don’t like a lot of cussing in your reading, be aware that I counted 26 instances in the first 5% of Belly of the Beast.  That extrapolates out to 560 cusswords total in the book.

 

     The timing of key events often felt a bit too convenient, particularly when it came to our mechanized heroes recharging or the AI entities rebooting.  The same “secret weapon” that carried the day in Deep Space Boogie once again gets used here.  And what ultimately enables Sadira and company to escape the belly of the beast is really just a deus ex machina.

 

    Finally, although the proofreaders did a great job here, I did chuckle at both a cameo appearance by Daisy, who's the protagonist in a different Scott Baron series, and something that gets put “through the ringer” instead of "through “the wringer”.

 

    7 Stars.  Despite the quibbles, I enjoyed Belly of the Beast.  Realistically, you probably would do a lot of exploring if caught in such a large area before crossing paths with a relatively small number of other survivors.  And realistically, if you were to escape by the hair on your chinny-chin-chin, lucky timing probably would be a factor.  So what if this is more of a beach-read than a work of hard science-fiction?  It was a fun read.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling

   2005; 652 pages.  Book 6 (out of 7) in the “Harry Potter” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Fantasy; YA; Adventure.  Laurels: Winner – 2006 British Book of the Year Award; 2006 Royal Mail Award for Scottish Children’s Books for Ages 8-12; 2005 Quill Award for Best Book of the Year.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    It’s going to be a good year at Hogwarts for Harry Potter.

 

    For starters, he’s entering his sixth year there, and I guess he’s now an upperclassman, since the normal full term for studying there is seven years.  That means he's now eligible to take Apparition lessons, the somewhat dangerous but extremely useful art of disappearing from one spot (“disapparating”) and popping up someplace else (“apparating”).

 

    Harry’s also been appointed to be the Quidditch captain for House Gryffindor.  The upside to that is that those who want to be on the team will be sucking up to him.  The downside is that those who don’t make the team might hold it against him.

 

    Then there’s the rumor flying around Hogwarts that Harry’s “The Chosen One”.  That happens to be true, but it also means everybody’s going to be looking at him like he’s some sort of freak.  Except for Headmaster Dumbledore, who's said he'll be giving Harry one-on-one lessons on the things he needs to know in order to fulfill “the Prophecy”.

 

    Good luck, Harry.  You might not like some of that information that Dumbledore's going to impart.

 

What’s To Like...

    Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth, and next-to-last, book in J.K. Rowlings’ ultra-popular fantasy series and for Hogwarts habitués that means the times they are a-changin'.  A lot of background information about Lord Voldemort’s rise to infamy is revealed to Harry, courtesy of Dumbledore’s “Pensieve”, which gets used extensively here.  The final showdown is approaching, and Harry needs to prepare for it as best he can.

 

    At the same time, Harry and his friends are growing up, and feelings of “teen love” are sprouting up all over the place.  Quidditch takes a back seat: Gryffindor’s final and deciding game is missed entirely by both Harry and the reader.  The Order of the Phoenix plays a lesser role than in the previous book, as do Hagrid and the House Elves.  Classes outside of the Apparition lessons and Potions receive less attention, giving way to a frantic research effort to figure out what horcruxes are.  The tone of the book is understandably dark, although some bright spots still shine through, such as Arthur's term -of-endearment, "Mollywobbles".

 

    As always, J.K. Rowling weaves together a bunch of plot threads to keep you turning the pages.  These include: a.) how did Dumbledore injure his hand, b.) what mysterious dark object is Draco trying to get repaired, c.) who poisoned Katie Bell and Ron Weasley, d.) how and why does Draco periodically disappear, e.) who’s side is Snape on and what is his “Unbreakable Vow, f.) what memories is Slughorn hiding, and g.) why is Harry having trouble getting into the Room of Requirement?  But the most important question of all is: who is/was the Half-Blood Prince?  It is a credit to J.K. Rowling’s writing ability that all these threads are addressed and answered.

 

    There are a slew of characters and critters, both new and recurring, to cross paths with.  I thought there was a subtle object lesson in how Fleur was treated.  Anglicized spellings are nicely converted to American-ese, but British phrases remain untouched, including wotcher, wozzgoinon, pip pip, innit, Blimey, taking a shufti, and a dab hand.  Really, fellow Americans, we need to assimilate those into Yank-Speak, especially that last one which I’d never heard of before until encountering it twice in the past two months in books I was reading.

 

    The ending is both somber but satisfying.  None of the main baddies get their comeuppances, but the overarching “good-vs.-evil” conflict is now in the spotlight, and we get a glimpse of what is coming in Book Seven, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  I for one am looking forward to it.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Shufti (n.) : a look or reconnoiter, especially a quick one (a Britishism).

Others: Prat (British, slang); Satsuma (n.); Tea Cozy (n., phrase).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.9*/5, based on 27,206 ratings and 7,916 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.57*/5, based on 2,500,382 ratings and 44,933 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Harry could not get near the shelves.  He stared around, looking up at the boxes piled to the ceiling: Here were the Skiving Snackboxes that the twins had perfected during their last, unfinished year at Hogwarts; Harry noticed that the Nosebleed Nougat was most popular, with only one battered box left on the shelf.  There were bins full of trick wands, the cheapest merely turning into rubber chickens or pairs of briefs when waved, the most expensive beating the unwary user around the head and neck, and boxes of quills, which came in Self-Inking, Spell-Checking, and Smart-Answer varieties.  (pg. 116)

 

    “I haven’t found one single explanation of what Horcruxes do!” she told him.  “Not a single one!  I’ve been right through the restricted section and even in the most horrible books, where they tell you how to brew the most gruesome potions — nothing!  All I could find was this, in the introduction to Magick Moste Evile — listen — ‘Of the Horcrux, wickedest of magical inventions, we shall not speak nor give direction. . . .’  I mean, why mention it then?”  (pg. 381)

 

“And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.”  (pg. 56)

    There’s very little to nitpick about with a megahit like Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  It is sometimes labeled a “children’s fantasy” book, but I think “YA fantasy” is more fitting.  The book is incredibly clean – I noted just five instances in the entire book, and those were limited to three “hells” and a pair of “damns”.

 

    One minor plot thread is left unresolved: the identity of the mysterious “R.A.B.” who absconded with a horcrux and left a note for Voldemort.  But I assume this was deliberate, as it also serves as a teaser for the next book.

 

    My last quibble is both the biggest and the shortest: the fox dies. (pg. 20).

 

    9 Stars.  To put things in perspective, Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince set records both for Amazon pre-orders (1.4 million copies) and sales within the first 24 hours after release (9 million copies) on July 16, 2005.  That latter record would last for two years before being shattered by – guess what – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Backpacked - Catherine Ryan Howard

    2011; 278 pages.  Full Title: Backpacked: A Reluctant Trip Across Central America.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Travel; Central America; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Backpacking.  An alternative way to visit get the “real feel” of an area you’re visiting for the first time.

 

    Throw everything you need into a giant fabric pack that's made to be carried around on your back.  And not some pansy-wansy Boy Scout-sized knapsack.  It has to hold everything you’d normally stow in one or more suitcases, because you’ll be dispensing with that amenity.

 

    This isn't the same as "roughing it".  You don't have to sleep on the ground out in the forest or cook your own meals over a rustic campfire.  Youth hostels, inns, and hotels are all acceptable, as are cafés, restaurants, and even fast-food joints, depending on your budget.  You can even party-hearty and partake of alcoholic beverages, all in the name of socializing with the locals.  Doesn’t this all sound like a heckuva lot of fun?

 

    Nope, not to me.  But I’d love to read a book about someone else who’s done it.

 

What’s To Like...

    Backpacked chronicles Catherine Ryan Howard’s 2008 travels throughout Central America in 2008 with her friend Sheelagh.  By her count, over a nine-week period they visited five countries, saw twenty-two different places, stayed in seventeen different rooms, taken ten different modes of transport, dipped their toes in four different bodies of water, and all without wearing a scrap of make-up.

 

    Both the author and Sheelagh are Irish, hence the book is written in English, not American.  So temperatures are given in degrees Centigrade, speeds are in kilometres-per-hour, at times you can’t be arsed, and if you come down with diarrhoea, you'll be forced to use the loo.

 

    Backpacked is a travelogue, so it's written in the first-person point-of-view of the author.  The 278 pages are divided into seventeen chapters (plus a prologue and an epilogue), all of similar length, and further grouped into five sections which correspond to the Central American nations the two wayfarers visit: Guatemala (chs. 1-9), Honduras (chs. 10-13), Nicaragua (chs. 14-15), Costa Rica (ch. 16), and Panama (ch. 17).

 

    I liked the “balance” between the adventures and misadventures that Catherine Ryan Howard experiences.  Some of the people she crosses paths with are obnoxious, others are a treat to meet.  Some situations she finds herself in are downright dangerous, others induce complete relaxation.  Some of the places where she stays are ratty, others are picturesque.  Sometimes there’s a cool breeze, other times the weather is unbearably hot and humid.

 

    The author’s opinion about outdoor activity matches up closely with my own (see the first excerpt below), so does the fact that she’s both a bookaholic and an introvert.  It was fun to learn about chicken buses (see the second excerpt below) and tuk-tuks, and I’d really love to be able to see the white haze of the Milky Way at least once while stargazing.  I’d never heard of the word “frienaissance” and didn’t have a clue who Liz Lemon was, so had to look up both of those terms.

 

    The book closes with a neat Epilogue, detailing how this trip led to a career turn in Catherine Ryan Howard’s life, and where Sheelagh ended up the following year.  If you’ve ever had any aspirations to be a self-published indie author (full disclosure: I don’t), you'll probably find the epilogue to be motivational.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.0/5 based on 258 ratings and 247 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.68/5 based on 774 ratings and 87 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    I hate anything that involves jumping, diving, falling, climbing or the need for a life jacket, and I only run if it’s away.  The sum total of my environmental efforts is watching An Inconvenient Truth – on board a less than half-empty 747 somewhere over the Atlantic, I kid you not.  I think being stoned all the time makes you… well, stoned all the time, or looking like a glassy-eyed, giggling idiot to me.  I don’t much like random strangers, which is to say that I’m not convinced that befriending the drunken guy in the corner and letting him talk to me for an hour about how we should all “believe in the trees” is the best possible use of my time.  (loc. 222)

 

    A chicken bus is, typically, a former US school bus – if you’re not American, those are the yellow buses you see in movies and on TV – that has been aesthetically reinvigorated with a colourful, occasionally psychedelic paint job and then released into the closest thing the country has to a public transport system.  Although they’ll deliver you to your destination for practically nothing - $1 or less – you’ll probably spend your journey with your face in someone else’s armpit and a chicken on your lap.  (loc. 2191)

 

Kindle Details…

    Alas, Backpacked is no longer available for the Kindle, which is also true of the author's other non-fiction books.  An Amazon reviewer in December 2017 also noted this, so I gather it is not a recent development.  Catherine Ryan Howard does offer five e-novels at Amazon, for the very reasonable cost of $0.99 apiece.  They appear to be mostly in the suspense-thriller genre.  You can pick up the paperback version of Backpacked at Amazon for a whopping $303.68 (*).  I assume that’s an entrepreneurial way of saying the book’s out-of-print.

 

    (*): Update: between writing that section and posting this review, the price for the paperback has dropped to $19.99.  Apparently, whoever’s been holding on to two copies of the paperback has decided to get real.

 

You can’t win an argument against an idiot because they don’t have to stick to the facts and you do.  (loc. 2977)

    I couldn't find much to quibble about in Backpacked.  It’s an incredibly “clean” book; I counted just eleven cusswords in the whole book.  Catherine and Sheelagh occasionally partake of a glass of wine or other alcohol, and they both smoke Marlboro Lights, but I don’t think little Tommy and Suzie are going to take up take up either vice due to reading this book.

 

    There is the usual amount of “spellchecker errors” found in self-published books.  Typos like peaked/peeked, Columbian/Colombian, wonder/wander, and two that made me chuckle: inequity/iniquity and tinkle/tinker.

 

    That’s about it for the nitpicking.  Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Backpacked, particularly since the previous travelogue I read was annoyingly negative (that review is here).  I can’t say this book made me want to go out and buy my own backpack, but I was left wondering whether there are any cruises around Central American available.  Maybe down the Caribbean side, through the Panama Canal, and up the Pacific side.  That would be awesome.

 

    8 Stars.  It's not for me to tell any author how to market their books, but methinks it's time to offer this book, and its “prequel”, Mousetrapped: A Year and A Bit in Orlando, Florida, in e-book format.

The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart - Lawrence Block

   1995; 372 pages.  Book 7 (out of 12) in the “Bernie Rhodenbarr” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Crime Humor.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Meet Bernie Rhodenbarr, a burglar extraordinaire.  Or slightly more accurately, an ex-burglar, since he’s retired now, having found a new career as the owner of a used-book store.  It doesn’t pay as well as his old profession did, but the job security’s better and the police don’t hassle him as much anymore.  Bernie has found contentment.

 

    Now a new customer in the bookstore named Hugo Candlemas wants to hire Bernie for his burglary skills, for one night only.  But the pay is extremely lucrative, and the job sounds easy enough: break into an apartment, hunt for a portfolio, find it, and steal it. 

 

    Hugo Candlemas has taken several steps to make the heist as foolproof as possible.  He’s figured out a way to get around the pesky doorman, and assures Bernie that apartment's tenant will be out the entire evening.  What could possibly go wrong?

 

    Plenty, Bernie.  Plenty.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart follows Lawrence Block’s usual recipe for a Bernie Rhodenbarr mystery: an easy heist is planned, things go awry, Bernie and the police both try to solve the crime with grudgingly minimal cooperation, and everything eventually comes to a head with a bookstore meeting of all the suspects called by Bernie once he’s figured everything out.  It's a good recipe.

 

    There are plenty of plotlines to keep the things moving.  Corpses show up along the way; all of the suspects seem to have hidden pasts; and things disappear, including Bernie’s attaché case, his latest love interest, and the coveted portfolio.  When the attaché case does resurface, it has an enigmatic message scrawled on it.  It’s meaning seemed obvious to me, but not to Bernie, and it turns out I was obviously wrong.

 

    The book’s title references Bernie’s current cultural craze: watching oodles and oodles of Humphrey Bogart films at the local theater, preferably with a beautiful female companion accompanying him.  Booklovers will enjoy the many literary nods Lawrence Block scatters throughout the tale, including the novelist P.G. Wodehouse (Jeeves), the poet Winthrop Mackworth Praed (who?), and the loquacious historian team of Will and Ariel Durant, co-authors of an 11-volume, 13,549-page compendium called the Story of Civilization, which Amazon offers in e-book form for a mere $99.99.  There’s even a recurring playful wink at Sue Grafton’s “alphabetical” series with the facetious titles of ‘A’ is for Train, ‘Q’ is for Gardens, and ‘I’ is for Claudius, and it wasn't until writing this review that I "got" those bits of wit.

 

    Along the way we learn that Bernie’s middle name is ‘Grimes’, his favorite charity is the AHDA (American Hip Dysplasia Association), and the patron saint of burglars is St. Dismas.  One of the characters is fond of the word “anon” and the use of the subjunctive case, which meant I liked him immediately.  There really is a small village in New York called Quogue (pronounced "kwog"), but the "Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization" and the short-lived post-WW1 nation of "Anatruria" are both figments of Lawrence Block’s imagination.

 

    As always, the story is told in the first-person POV (Bernie’s), and as always the witty dialogue, Bernie’s charisma, and the plethora of interesting characters – some new, others recurring – kept me turning the pages.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Loid (v.) : to open (a locked door) by sliding a thin piece of celluloid or plastic between the door edge and doorframe to force open a spring lock.

Others: Thaler (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 122 ratings and 58 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.89*/5, based on 2,628 ratings and 149 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    What can I say?  I steal things.  Cash, ideally, but that’s harder and harder to find in this age of credit cards and twenty-four-hour automatic teller machines.  There are still people who keep large quantities of money around, but they typically keep other things on hand as well, such as wholesale quantities of illegal drugs, not to mention assault rifles and attack-trained pit bulls.  They lead their lives and I lead mine, and if the twain never get around to meeting, that’s fine with me.  (pg. 4)

 

    “What’s on the program, a poetry reading?”

    “Not exactly.”

    “Because I didn’t know you were into that.  I read some of my own stuff a while back at a little place on Ludlow Street.  Café Villanelle?”

    “Black walls and ceiling,” I said.  "Black candles set in cat-food cans.”

    “Hey, you know it!  Not many people even heard of the place.”

    “It may take a while to find its audience,” I said, trying not to shudder at the memory of Emily Dickinson sung to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas” and a lifetime supply of in-your-face haiku.  (pg. 285)

 

“You Assyrian guttersnipe.  You misbegotten Levantine dwarf.”  (pg. 291)

    There’s only a sprinkling of cussing in The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart.  I noted only 11 of them in the first quarter of the book, which included only one f-bomb.

 

    I was a tad bit disappointed in the ending.  Yes, it was both twisty and complicated – and that’s always something to look forward to in a Bernie Rhodenbarr mystery.  And yes, I’m happy to say I picked up on the key clue, although I didn’t know what to make of it, whereas Bernie did.  So what's my gripe?

 

    Well, I cringed at the final resolution of all the skullduggery.   Crimes were committed, perpetrators were unveiled, but even though the NYPD was present, no arrests were made.  What kind of object lesson is that?  Yeah, I know.  Picky, picky.

 

    Nevertheless, overall I still enjoyed The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart.  I'd call it a good, but not great, addition to Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr series.  It kept me entertained, despite the bit of stumbling at the end.

 

    7 Stars.  One last chuckle about The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart.  I chuckled at the “euphemisms for a euphemism” coined by Carolyn.  Instead of “a roll in the hay”, or other, more direct descriptive phrases, she opts for “a flop in the feathers” and “a tumble in the feathers”.  It’s little things like this that have made me a fan of this series.