Hominids - Robert Sawyer

2002; 413 pages. Genres : Mostly sci-fi (parallel universes), but it drifts a bit. Awards : 2003 Hugo Award. First book in the "Neanderthal Parallax" trilogy. Books 2 and 3 are titled "Humans" and "Hybrids". Overall rating : C.

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Physicist Ponter Boddit's quantum computer project goes awry, transporting him into a parallel universe where incredibly, the slow-witted and long-extinct gliksins still exist. They seem equally amazed to see him, since he's a Neanderthal. And the primitive gliksins are ...well... us.

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What's To Like...

Hominids examines what would've happened if we Cro-Magnons had died out, and the Neanderthals became the dominant species of man. He's the first author to portray them as evolving into a race every bit as intelligent and advanced as us. Previous novels, such as Auel's Clan Of The Cave Bear and Crichton's Eaters Of The Dead, invariably present them as brutes. Gifted brutes, perhaps. But brutes nonetheless.

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Sawyer does a nice job of fleshing out the modern Neanderthal world. Homes have mossy floors; woolly mammoths still roam the countryside, and the Neanderthals haven't discovered the splitting of the atom. Their world isn't utopian - they have a flawed judicial system, and believe that the best deterrent to crime is to monitor every person 24/7. They have pet wolves, and the hominid population size is kept in check by unwavering adherence to the rhythm method that would bring tears to the Pope's eyes.

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OTOH...

The book really drags when Sawyer steers it away from sci-fi. There is a tepid romance thread that runs throughout the book, as "our" Mary Vaughan interacts with Ponter. The romance is still in the "wishful" stage at the end of the book, but it isn't hard to see where its going, given the title of the third book in this series.

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Even worse is Sawyer's "preachiness". The lectures about the Big Bang Theory, the existence of God, our faux pas of allowing all sorts of animals to become extinct, etc. are frankly boring and ill-fitting.

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Worst of all is Sawyer's pre-occupation, bordering on obsession, with anything to do with reproductive organs. There is a graphic and gratuitous step-by-step rape at the beginning which is unnecessary and without any redeeming value. Crime in Neanderthal-land is punishable by family castration. Time is measured by a synchronized, world-wide menstrual cycle. I cringe to think of what similar surprises await the reader in the next two books.

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I go, Hugo, we all go for Hominids...

For all its minuses, I still enjoyed the story. I just kinda tuned the philosophical blather out, and tiptoed through the gratuitous scenes as quickly as possible. The Alt-Universe portions of the book are excellent. But reviews of the two sequels to this indicate Sawyer isn't finished telling me his opinions on everything in life, so I doubt I'll read the rest of the trilogy We'll give Hominids a "C", and wistfully muse on how good it could've been if the author had taken a cold shower and put his philosophy discourses in a different book .

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P.S. Note to Robert Sawyer. On page 353, one of the characters wants to stink-out a building. You rightfully have her reject Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) because it might kill everyone. Unfortunately, you therefore have her choose Ammonium Sulfide (ASD). Very, very bad move. ASD is nearly as toxic as H2S. I should know. My company produces ASD. Substituting ASD for H2S is about the same as getting shot by a 18-man firing squad instead of a 20-man one. In spite of the decrease in lethality, you're still gonna end up quite dead.

Two for the Dough - Janet Evanovich

1996; 312 pages. A Stephanie Plum novel. A "Lula" recommendation, which is much more reliable than an "Oprah" recommendation. Genre : Crime; Beach Novel. Overall Rating : B..

    Fledgling bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has two jobs : looking for bail-jumper Kenny Mancuso and finding 24 stolen bargain-bin caskets. Joe Morelli and Ranger are around for hunk-appeal. Lula finds filing at Vinnie's better than walking the streets. And Grandma Mazur packs a pistol, appoints herself Stephanie's partner, and becomes the worst nightmare for all funeral parlors in New Jersey.
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What's To Like...
    If you enjoyed One For The Money, then you'll happily find 2FTD is more of the same. There's witty banter; a couple of plot twists to keep you on your toes; a realistic bounty hunting portrayal (lots of sitting and waiting), and a plucky heroine determined to make it in a tough neighborhood. The sexual tension between Plum and Morelli flows nicely through the whole book, without ever sinking into "Chick Fic" territory. There is the obligatory nude scene with an unexpected climax. Finally, there is Grandma Mazur, a spinster with a 'tude, and who frankly steals the show.

.OTOH...Most of the role players here are black or white. If they don't hit it off with Stephanie, you can pretty much write them down as being baddies. There are some believability issues (repeated appendage slicing at the funeral homes; the bad guys missing Granny's concealed weapon, etc.) and some unresolved loose ends (Steph's jeep gets stolen, stays stolen, and no one seems too concerned).

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I'm going to the beach. What book should I take?If James Patterson's Alex Cross books are airport novels, then Stephanie Plum books are beach novels. Something to pass the time while working on one's tan. There's nothing deep, but it is satisfyingly entertaining. Ten years from now, you won't recall any of the details about Two For The Money, but you will remember that you enjoyed it.

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An excerpt...
"Bars, funeral homes, bakeries, and beauty parlors form the hub of the wheel that spins the burg. Beauty parlors are especially important because the burg is an equal-opportunity neighborhood caught in a 1950's time warp. The translation of this is that girls in the burg become obsessed with hair at a very early age. The hell with coed peewee football. If you're a little girl in the burg, you spend your time combing out Barbie's hair. Big gunky black eyelashes, electric-blue eye shadow, pointy outthrust breasts, and a lot of platinum-blond phony-looking hair. This is what we all aspire to." (pg. 149)

Snow - Orhan Pamuk

2004; 463 pages. Translated by Maureen Freely. Genre : Contemporary Literature. Awards : One of the NY Times "10 Best Books of 2004"; Pamuk won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. It was the first Nobel Prize in any category ever awarded to a Turkish citizen. Overall Rating : A-.

    .An exiled poet named Ka returns from Frankfurt to Kars, a small, impoverished city close to Armenia in eastern Turkey. His official reason is to do investigative reports on the upcoming local elections and the wave of suicides by teenage girls reportedly protesting the head scarf ban. But he also wants to look up an old flame, Ipek, now recently divorced from an Islamist. Things get complicated when a touring actor, along with a hometown Colonel, stage a local coup and begin arresting anyone who isn't a loyal nationalist.

.What's To Like..
    .The character development is excellent. Our hero Ka, for instance, is a mixture of dark and light. He is artistic and idealistic, yet naive and not very loyal. He can manipulate disparate factions into signing a proclamation protesting the coup, yet is equally manipulated by the Islamists, the coup leaders, and the secret police. He's handsome and charming enough to convince Ipek to move to Germany with him, yet his idea of "love" is for him to enable Ipek to go shopping for western clothes in Frankfurt, at the cost of her being hopelessly dependent on him because she's so far removed from her family in Turkey.
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The story subordinates to Pamuk's look at the deep and varied issues and forces that pull at modern Turkey. The forces include militant Islamists, Kurdish separatists, secularists ("atheists" if you aren''t one), the Army, the Secret Police (which isn't the same as the military), the Attaturk nationalists, and the family unit. The issues include the wearing of the head scarf, suicide as an unpardonable sin in Islam, finding God, "east versus west", the hopeless plight of the Turkish poor, the widespread wiretapping and bugging of Turkish citizens, and something we in the USA can't relate to - how to live with recurring military coups.

.Amazingly, Pamuk treats all these forces and issues impartially. None are "all white"; none are "all black". If anything, he succeeds in painting them all the same shade of gray. You won't find any answers here, but you will gain deep insight into the complexity that is Turkey.

.We're Not Stupid; We're Just Poor.I have present- and past-life ties to Turkey, so I found Snow to be fascinating. It reminded me of Toni Morrison's Beloved though. If you can relate, it's great. If Turkey and head scarves and Kurds and modern-day Islam don't hold much interest to you, then this may be a slow and tedious read.

.An excerpt...
"People might feel sorry for a man who's fallen on hard times, but when an entire nation is poor, the rest of the world assumes that all of its people must be brainless, lazy, dirty, clumsy fools. Instead of pity, the people provoke laughter. It's all a joke : their culture, their customs, their practices. In time the rest of the world may, some of them, begin to feel ashamed for having thought this way, and when they look around and see immigrants from that poor country mopping their floors and doing all the other lowest-paying jobs, naturally they worry about what might happen if these workers one day rose up against them. So, to keep things sweet, they start taking an interest in the immigrants' culture and sometimes even pretend they think of them as equals." (pages 298-99)

Cross Country - James Patterson

2008; 406 pages; 158 chapters. Genres : Action-Crime; Airport Novel. Overall Rating : C.

   .When two families in Washington D.C. are hacked to pieces with machetes, it's up to Detective Alex Cross to track down the killers. And he's determined to do so, since one of the victims is his ex-GF. The trail leads to Africa, where the tables are turned, and Cross finds hinself treading on the home turf on a lethal, well-connected foe.

.What's To Like...
    Not enough action in the last book you read? Then this one's for you. It's no exaggeration to say that every page has some sort of killing, beating, shooting, chase, or other assorted danger.

.It's also obvious that Patterson wanted to write about the plight of Africa, a continent that seems to be cursed by God. He manipulates the story to take Cross to places like Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Darfur. He also manages to avoid blatant stereotyping. Our hero is a black cop, raising two kids, and living together with his GF. And Al-Qaeda terrorists don't get blamed for any of killings.

.OTOH, there are some serious lapses of believability. Two families get the benihana treatment, and the CIA says, "Back off; we'll handle this"? Sorry, but that would never happen. Then Cross decides to handle it on his own (cliché!) and flies to Nigeria, but without seeing any need to contact the authorities there for help? Uh-uh; not a chance.

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Finally, there's the Ultimate Evil himself. Most of the foes in the earlier Alex Cross stories are complex, crazy, and diaboloically clever. Our UE here has all the personality of Idi Amin.

.The Bane of Authors - Airport Novels.
The best way to read this book is as an airport novel. Pretend you're boarding a plane; shut down your brain; and go with the flow. You'll be done in no time - the PCQ ("Patterson Chapter Quotient") here is about 2½ (406 pages ÷ 158 chapters), and half of each Chapter Title page is blank space. If you try to read it as anything else (say, as a piece of literature), you'll rate this book very low.

.So I'm giving Cross Country a "C", because it was enjoyable escapism, and because Patterson deserves kudos for trying to give us a glimpse of the horrors going on in Africa. But if you've never read one of Patterson's Alex Cross books, this is not the one to start with. Instead, pick up Pop Goes The Weasel, Jack And Jill, or Along Came A Spider to see how good of a story he used to write.

The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde

2004; 373 pages. The third book in the Thursday Next series. Genre : Literary Fantasy. Overall Rating : B+..

    With Spec-Ops, Goliath Corp., and Aornis Hades after her; and since she's with child and without her husband; Thursday decides to get into a book. Literally. It's a great place to hide. Caversham Heights is an atrocious yawner of a novel that no one in his right mind will ever read.
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Of course, the peace and quiet is short-lived. Murder and mayhem are afoot, and Aornis implants a memory worm in Thursday's head, meaning all her recollections about her hubby Landen are fading fast.
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What's To Like...
    98% of the book takes place in the literature world that Fforde's created. And what a world! The generics (minor characters initially without any character development) are cool. Grammasites run rampant, not to mention a 420-pound, 7'4" feral Minotaur. There's murders to be solved and lots of book-jumping.

.Splitting hairs over loose ends...
    Fforde manages to tie up most of the plotlines he creates in WOLP, but no progress is made on any of the loose ends carried over from the first two books of the series. Landen is still MIF (Missing In Fiction); Thursday's dad is still on the run, and her brother Anton's death promises to be a major topic at some point in the future. About all that's changed by the end of WOLP is that Thursday has trouble buttoning her pants.

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The 923rd Annual Bookworld Awards ("Bookies")...
   The book culminates with this spoof of the Oscars. Dastardly deeds are laid bare, and the murderer is unmasked, but it's the awards that steal the show. Among the hundreds of Categories are : Most Implausible Plot in SF; Most Creepy Character in a Dickens Novel; Most Troubled Romantic Lead; Best Talking Cat; Most Incomprehensible Plot; The Shakespearean Character You'd Most Like to Slap; and Best Dead Person in Fiction. Hey, I'd certainly tune in to watch this Awards Ceremony.
.In summary, WOLP is good, but not great. The plot takes a while to get going, and the book has the overall feel of existing merely to set up the next one. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it, what with all its book-jumping and literary allusions. Perhaps the whole series will only appeal to a dyed-in-the-wool bibliophile.

The Fifth Elephant - Terry Pratchett

2000; 370 pages. Genre : Satiric Fantasy. 24th book in the Discworld Series. Awards : #153 in the "Big Read". Overall Rating : C+..

    The Dwarfs' "Scone of Stone" has been pinched by miscreants unknown. For that matter, a replica of the Scone of Stone has also been pinched. The newly-elected Dwarven King of Uberwald can't be crowned without it. This is a job for Sam Vimes of the Night Watch, although he doesn't think so. So the Patrician deftly appoints him Ambassador to Uberwald, and Sam finds he has to go to there, and has to learn something called "Diplomacy" to boot.

What's To Like...
    It's Discworld; it's Terry Pratchett; it's cool. There's a sharp, talking dog named Gaspode who is probably the brightest bulb in the book. There's a slew of Frankensteinish Igors who prove to be useful servants in all sorts of roles. There are werewolves, and vampires, dwarves and trolls, humans and DEATH. Only the Hobbits and Treebeard are missing.

   .OTOH, there's a lot less zaniness and wordplay here than in the earlier Discworld books. It's certainly darker than Guards! Guards!, and there's a lot of killing going on. The themes of T5E are rather serious : diplomacy, racial prejudice, and interspecies dating.

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And for the first time for me, there were some irritations. All the Igors speak with a lisp. "Ith thith yourth, mathter?" and all that. Funny the first time; tiresome the thousandth time. Then there are the vampires, who replace W's with V's. "Ve vill vant you to vatch our vishing vells." Here's hoping you are enamored by Sergeant Schultz on Hogan's Heroes.

   .Finally, there are the plot lines themselves, normally a forte of a Discworld book. Sam deduces what happened to the true Scone of Stone, but never really proves it. And the subplots just sort of fizzle out into oblivion. The Night Watch office is plagued by disappearing sugar cubes. By the end of the book, they're down to only one. But if Pratchett ever gave an explanation for this, I didn't catch it.

   .Still, a mediocre effort by Pratchett is better than most fantasy books, and the insight he gives on the three themes listed above will make you sit back and re-evaluate your opinions about them. I think I've read somewhere that the Discworld series gradually evolves from silly spoof to a subtler shade of satire as it goes along, and I guess I'll have to get used to this. We'll give T5E a "C+". but recommend that your first Discworld book be something else, like Guards! Guards!

American Gods - Neil Gaiman

2001; 588 pages. Genre : Contemporary Fantasy. Awards : 2002 Hugo Award; 2002 SFX Magazine Award; 2002 Bram Stoker Award; 2004 Geffen Award. It cleaned up, man. Overall Rating : A..

    The story follows Shadow, a somewhat naive and sunny-dispositioned chap, after he gets out of prison and falls in with a bunch of long-forgotten gods, the main one of which is named Wednesday, and whom we quickly figure out is an incarnation of the Norse god, Odin. Wednesday's rallying lots of old, forgotten gods and legends (like Johnny Appleseed) in preparation to a war against the "new" American gods - such as the Internet; the Media, etc.

What's To Like...
    There's a slew of complex plotlines, all of which Gaiman manages to deftly tie up by the end of the book. The plot-twists will leave you mumbling, "I didn't expect that". I found almost all the characters - whether they were major or minor; good or bad; humans or gods - to be 3-D and interesting. Finally, it's a mythology-lover's smorgasbord. Gaiman pulls in gods and folk characters from all sorts of nationalities - German, Norse, Egyptian, Slavic, American Indian; India Indian; Arab, and more.

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Can't you say anything negative?...
    Not a lot. The book reads like a mini-trilogy. The first 200 pages are fantastic; and so are the last 200. The middle 200 pages (where Shadow is hanging out in Lakeside) drag just a bit. And call me a prude, but the sex scenes were a tad raunchy and unnecessary. They could've been edited out, and Gaiman would still have a bestseller on his hands, but it would now be something that a High School Lit class could read and discuss. I didn't need to know the lurid details about how Salim and the Ifrit managed to meet and swap identities.
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What kind of plotlines are there?
    #1 : Shadow is on a quest to figure out who he is.
    #2. : Shadow is trying to find out who his father was. Mom never talked about him.
    #3. : Shadow's wife passes away (in a most Garpian manner) right before he's let out of prison. She's now a ghost (insert plug here to watch 'Ghost Whisperer' on Friday nights); and Shadow is most persistent in trying to find a way to bring her back from the dead.
    #4. : Why are kids disappearing at the rate of one a year from Lakeside?
    #5. : How can Odin (or any other god) be hanging out in America and at the same time have people still believing in him back in Scandinavia?
    #6. : How can the new American gods be overcome?
    #7. : That whole Armageddon/Ragnarok thing.

    .And they all get resolved by the end of the book. No 11-part series here. We'll give American Gods an "A" and look forward to reading the kinda-sorta-but-not-quite sequel, Anansi Boys, in the near future.

Ariel - Sylvia Plath

1965; 85 pages. Genre : Poetry. Overall Rating : B..

    A collection of poems, often rushed out at the rate of two or three a day, by Sylvia Plath in the last months of her life, and while alone with her children (Ted Hughes had left her for another woman) and freezing during a bitter London winter.

What's To Like...
    What can I say? Plath is a maestro with words. Here she writes about a variety of subjects. There is the warm love she has for her children. There is also some darkness - especially when she's writing about her Dad and her straying husband. Death makes its appearance as well, but there are not as many lines devoted to it as I had feared. And last but not least - she throws in some cool chemical compouinds - Carbon Monoxide, Arsenic, and Acetic Acid. Yeah go ahead, name any other poem that has the phrase 'Acetic Acid' in it.

   .Although it's a short read, there is almost no rhyming here, and very little meter. That makes it tough on a traditionalist like me. Some of the poems are too vague for me. You almost need notes to understand them. Ariel, for instance, is not about the Shakespearean sprite; it's about a horse she rode at a nearby riding academy. Berck-Plage is about a veteran's hospital she visited in France. There's 4 or 5 poems about bee-keeping. It helps to know Plath had a bee colony in her backyard, and was a member of a beekeeper's club. I've yet to discover why a yew tree keeps showing up in this book.
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Don't buy this book!!
    This 1965 version of Ariel was edited by Ted Hughes, who took the liberty of deleting 12 of the poems and replacing them with a dozen of Plath's earlier works. He also decided Plath didn't know the proper order to put them in. Plath's daughter Frieda later put out a version with the correct poems and correct order. When I was at Borders over the weekend, I found there is now a "Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath" which, at 200+ pages, includes everything from Ariel and Colossus, and a bunch of other assorted poetry she penned. All for less than $20. So the version I read is obsolete.

   .In the end, I'd give Ariel an "A" for its biographical insight. But when I step away from that, a lot of these poems could use a bit of polish. I know everything Plath wrote is sacrosanct to her devotées, but objectively, penning 2-3 poems a day means they could've been improved with time and effort. Therefore I give this Ariel a "B", partly cuz it isn't perfect, and partly cuz it's Hughes' inferior version.

   .Ariel has sat on my TBR shelf for quite some time. I read it now because earlier this month, Plath's son, Nicholas Hughes took his own life by hanging after losing his battle with depression. It seemed fitting to pay my respects to him by reading a book of Plath's poetry.

Sick Puppy - Carl Hiaasen

1999; 513 pages. Genre : Witty crime. Overall Rating : C+..

    Greedy lobbyists and unscrupulous land developers want to turn an unspoiled island on the coast of Florida into golf courses, condos, shopping malls, and high-rises. But first they need to pull some political strings to get funding for a new bridge to connect it to the mainland.

What's To Like...
    The story moves at a decent pace. There's a dopily adorable black lab (the "sick puppy"), and two living, breathing, cosmetically-enhanced, immigrant Barbie Dolls. It has an "Animal House" type ending. The demise of the hired thug is hilarious.

   .OTOH, as oxymoronic as it sounds, the predictable plot requires a huge suspension of belief. One example - the baddies kill their own "environmental specialist" for no discernible reason other than to establish that they're the baddies. Then there's the characters. Here's four of the main ones...
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Twilly Spree : Has anger-management issues and a thing about littering. Runs elderly ladies off the road for chucking a cigarette butt. Beats teenagers to a bloody pulp for tossing a beer can. Steals dogs. Sleeps with other men's wives.
Desie Stoat : Repeatedly betrays her hubbie's political deals, for no apparent reason. Cheats on him too.
Twilly's Mom : Sees nothing wrong with those two showing up at her house - with the badly beaten-up hubby. Helps tie him to a chair and puts a pillowcase over his head. Her parting words to Twilly when the three are leaving - "Try not to hurt him too bad, dear."
Skink : Ex-governor. Now runs around the Everglades like a psycho hermit. Beats up people to get information. Kills badly-hurt guys in a slow, painful way.

A Blacker Shade of Dark...
    Okay, you're probably not impressed with those four. Here's the deal. They're the good guys. Which gives you some idea how vile the bad guys are.
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    Twilly initially crosses paths with Desie's hubby (Palmer Stoat), when the latter tosses some fast-food wrappers out the car window. His vengeance - dumping 10 tons of garbage onto Palmer's Beemie convertible, and 7,000 dung beetles into his house. Is there some morality lesson I should be learning from that?
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    Weirdly, I eventually ended up pulling for Palmer, despite him having no redeemable qualities. The good guys keep beating him up. The bad guys keep beating him up. His wife and dog leave him. His expensive cigars are fake. All he wants to do is be a crooked deal-maker.
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    I am told that some of Hiaasen's other stuff is funnier. So we'll give Sick Puppy a C+ because there are just enough funny parts, and at least the good guys aren't pathetically boy-scoutish. And resolve to read at least one more of his books.

Ella Minnow Pea - Mark Dunn

2001; 205 pages. Full Title : Ella minnow Pea - A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable. Genre : Contemporary Literature. Overall Rating : A..

    Briefly : The idyllic life on an isolated island off the coast of South Carolina becomes dystopian when the tiles bearing the letters of a sacred phrase ("The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog") begin to become unglued, thus falling off and shattering.

What's To Like...
    The main delight of Ella Minnow Pea ("LMNOP") is the wonderful wordplay created by Dunn. It's sort of a literary mix of the poetry of Sylvia Plath and Ogden Nash. Have your dictionary handy when you read this book; Dunn introduces you to a lot of beautful-but-obscure words, and a bunch of mellifluous ones he simply made up.

.   The main message of LMNOP is this - don't blindly accept the edicts of the politicians and organized religion. Try the spirits, examine the prophecies, and evaluate the probability that a Deity has for some reason chosen them to convey a message to you. To quote a great slogan from an otherwise silly sect : "To question is the answer".

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    Another less-obvious hypothesis fleshed out in LMNOP is that a language is an organic, evolving entity. The natives of Nollop speak English, but due to their isolation, it's a bit different from our "American", and/or the King's "English". Similarly, I own a "How To Communicate In Autralian" phrasebook that exists because of that sort of isolation. Alas, as more and more of the letters of the alphabet become taboo due to Nollopian laws, their language suffers as well. By the end, when only five letters remain legal, speaking and writing are reduced to essentially a five-year-old's level.

Don't Read LMNOP If...
    If you're in the mood for a dystopian novel, don't read this book. Ditto, if you're looking for a complex storyline and deep character development. The dystopian setting and the letters written are merely vehicles for Dunn to develop the themes listed above. The fact that the oppressive bad guys give up their power after reading a single sentence is ample proof that this isn't a serious look at a Brave New World.

Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs...
    I enjoyed this book immensely, especialy since it agrees with my views on the themes Dunn addresses. The purpose of language is to communicate. Commas and semicolons should not be bound by silly rules; they're an art-form. And if you have an opportunity to make up a new word to convery your ideas more clearly (or use an existing word in a new connotation), well kewl beans! You're helping the generational evolution of English.

Dance of Death - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

2005; 560 pages. Genre : Action Thriller. Overall Rating : B-. Notes : Second book in the "Diogenes Trilogy". The first book was Brimstone, reviewed here.
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    Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast receives a message from his younger brother, Diogenes; who informs him of his plan to commit the Perfect Crime. He even tells him the date - 28 January. Alas, even with the "Who" and "When" filled in, the "What" remains a mystery, until one by one, Aloysius' friends and associates start to turn up murdered.
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What's To Like...
    This is "Sherlock Holmes vs. Professor Moriarty" moved up to the present day. Aloysius is Holmes, naturally; and NYPD Detective Vincent D'Agosta plays his Dr. Watson. Diogenes combines the mental acumen of Holmes' brother Mycroft with the pure evil of Moriarty. A most worthy opponent, with an undying hatred of his brother.
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    The book takes a while to get going, with only a grisly killing or three to liven things up in the whole first half. But when it finally kicks into gear, it's a great read, with lots of twists, humor, red herrings and action to keep you turning the pages.

.The characters are great. Aloysius isn't perfect. Indeed, for most of the book, Diogenes runs circles around him. And mention should be made of the reporter Smithback, who'll do anything for a scoop, but nicely is not cast into that Hollywoodian stereotype of being an arrogant stooge.

Oh no! It's The Two Towers Malaise...
    In the end, however, the book is drawn down by the fact that it's #2 in a 3-part series. So you know that, while Good must prevail, Diogenes is going to live to fight another day.
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    And while the Aloysius-vs-Diogenes storyline would get an approving nod from Conan Doyle, there's a Preston-Child omission here - the "Is It Natural Or Is It Supernatural" issue that came up in each of the other three books I've read by these guys. Sometimes it's the former; sometimes it's the latter. The fact that it could be either one is one of the real hooks in a Preston-Child story. In Dance Of Death, we get teased by the possibility of one of these, but like a morning Phoenician thundercloud, it gradually dissipates into nothing.
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    So we'll give this a B-, with the understanding that a mediocre effort by these two authors is still above-average when it comes to a killer-thriller novel. And advise potential readers of Dance Of Death to read Brimstone first.

Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde

2002; 399 pages. Genre : just as many as The Eyre Affair had. Overall Rating : B+..

    Thursday Next's life has become rather hectic. She's pregnant, and her hubby's been time-napped. Someone is trying to kill her with coincidences. The Spec-Ops cops and Goliath Corp. consider her a liability. Uncle Mycroft has retired and Daddy is still on the run, stopping by only to tip her off that Armageddon is coming in the form of a pink sludge.
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What's To Like...
    The primary literary import this time is Miss Havisham, the man-hating dowager from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. Fforde brings Havisham into the 20th Century and adds delightful depth to her character. She has a passion for anything with a powerful engine, and you are advised not to get into any vehicle that she's driving/steering.

.   Equally engaging is the Cheshire Cat, who reminds me a lot of the orangutan Librarian in the Discworld series. Indeed, LIAGB is rife with literary references - besides Great Expectations, the following are either visited or export characters to Fforde's book : Kafka's The Trial; Alice In Wonderland; Poe's The Raven; and even Beatrix Potter's Peter Cottontail series. Another half-dozen books make cameo appearances. I dare say that Fforde does for classic literature what Disney animated movies and cartoons do for classical music.

.   There is the same zaniness and wit as was in The Eyre Affair, and the same plethora of plotlines. Alas, Fforde seems to have developed Robert Jordan Syndrome. That is, he starts a lot more plotlines than he finishes. The drove me crazy in the Wheel Of Time novels.

.   The ending is a bit contrived, and only ties up one of the loose ends. There isn't a lot of romance here, what with Next's husband having been spirited away to parts and times unknown.

   .Fforde uses a different approach to the classics in this story. There's a lot more time/dimension travel, a lot more classics visited; but no altering-of-endings that I could discern. That's probably for the better, as it opens the door for Fforde's creativeness.

   .I enjoyed Lost In A Good Book just as much as The Eyre Affair, and since my local library carries all five books in the series, it is likely that I'll read the gamut. Book 3 is titled The Well Of Lost Plots, which is a repository for all those storylines that were thought of, but never published. One can only imagine what the fertile mind of Fforde will do with that.

A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson

1998; 274 pages. Genre : Anecdotal. Overall Rating : B..

    Bill Bryson's witty recounting of his attempt to hike the entire Appalachian Trail, despite being 44, not in shape, and not knowing anything about hiking. He's joined by his boyhood friend, Stephen Katz, who is even more out-of-shape and unknowledgeable than Bryson.

What's To Like...
    As usual, Bryson self-deprecating humor had me chuckling out loud. There's the savings-draining trip to the sports store, trying to pack without breaking one's back, the foibles of a pair of urbanites camping in the wilderness, and a guffaw-inducing meeting with a moose. Fortunately, the bears, ticks, and poisonous snakes stayed away.
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    You also get to share his joy as he beholds sunrises and mountain ridges essentially untouched by the human hand. And Bryson shares his research into the history of the trail, the US National Park Service, the fauna and flora, and the very mountains themselves.
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    Unfortunately, the chuckles-per-page diminish in the second half of the book. Maybe Bryson had difficulty finding something funny about almost dying from hypothermia. So the first half of the book (Georgia thru Virginia) rates an "A"; while the last half (Pennsylvania thru Maine) rates a "C".

.

You dare to call yourself a hiker?!
    The Appalachian Trail is 2200 miles long. Almost all of it is up-and-down mountains on barely discernible paths. I once did a 10-mile hike in Boy Scouts, over mostly level eastern-Pennsylvanian terrain, in perfect weather, and at a leisurely pace. It took most of the day.
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    Bryson ended up walking 890 of those 2200 miles. That he'd write a book about this feat seems to have ticked off a bunch of self-styled "serious hikers". Personally, I'm quite impressed. I didn't enjoy AWITW quite as much as I did The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid, but it's still an entertaining book, and a recommended read.

The Bancroft Strategy - Robert Ludlum (kinda)

2006; 708 pages. Genre : Spy Novel. Author : anybody's guess. Overall Rating : B..

    Robert Ludlum died in 2001, but five years later, using a ouija board and a magic marker, he communicated The Bancroft Strategy to his Estate. I know this, because his name is plastered on the cover of the book in huge, gold letters.

.    Todd Bellknap is no Jason Bourne, but when his mentor and best friend in the Consular Operations agency is kidnapped, he is forced to go rogue to go to the rescue. Meanwhile, Andrea Bancroft suddenly finds herself 6 million dollars richer, with just one catch. She has to sit on the board of her estranged family's Bancroft Foundation. When their two paths inevitably cross, they have to learn to trust each other in order to track down the sinister and elusive "Genesis".

What's To Like...
    It's the classic Ludlum storyline - one lone agent up against a sizable and mysterious conspiracy, on the run from his agency, and never knowing who's good and who's bad. There are lots of plot twists, lots of action, and lots of worldwide settings. The overall ending surprised me (although in retrospect, it shouldn't have), and at the very, very end, there's a neat little ethical twist that will make you smile.

.    OTOH, the book is 700+ freakin' pages long. Where was the editor in all this? And if you've read one-too-many Bournish "one agent beats all the other trained killers in the world" books, you might find this a slow go.

.I'm as paranormal as the next guy.
    Okay, I lied. Despite the bookcover, Robert Ludlum didn't write TBS. In small print, on the credits page, it says, "Since his death, the Estate of Robert Ludlum has worked with a carefully selected author and editor to prepare and edit this work for publication."
.
    Most of the criticism of this book has to do with the authorship. Some people felt suckered in by Ludlum's name splashed across the cover. Others felt this was a poor copycat of the Bourne plots. Those points have merits, I guess.

.   Personally, I enjoyed ths book, despite its length. Most people who read this genre know Ludlum passed away a while back, so one shouldn't feel duped. And if you can forget about the Bourne trilogy (all six books of it), and read The Bancroft Strategy for its own merits, it's pretty good. I even have some sympathy for the unknown author. He writes a good book, and no one will ever know.

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

2006; 287 pages. Genre : Contemporary Literature. Awards : 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; 2006 James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Fiction); Oprah's Book Club selection for April 2007. Soon to come out as a movie, starring LOTR's Aragorn. Overall Rating : B+..

   "He lay listening to the water drip in the woods. Bedrock, this. The cold and the silence. The ashes of the late world carried on the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void. Carried forth and scattered and carried forth again. Everything uncoupled from its shoring. Unsupported in the ashen air. Sustained by a breath, trembling and brief. If only my heart were stone."

   .In a post-apocalytpic world (most likely done in by a hit from a comet), a dying father and his son struggle just to survive another day. Ash is everywhere; all plant life is dead, as are most animals; the weather is unchanging : cold, rainy, and blowing ash; and the few remaining humans scrounge desperately for whatever scraps of food might still be found.

What's To Like...
    The father and son are two great character studies. The former remembers "the world before", but refrains from telling the son about it, for fear of depressng him about their current lot. Ironically, the son (who apparently was born right around the time of "the event") has a lot more hope and humanity within him than the dad. Yet the father's stoniness is driven by his love for the son, and his resolve for the boy to somehow survive.

    .Then there's the concept of Character Development, something almost unheard of in stories anymore. The father gradually succeeds in instilling in his son the skills and the mindset to cope with the bleak world, and in the end, their roles are almost reversed.
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    The "e.e. cummings" literary style takes some getting used to, and some of the technical details are hard to believe - such as a dog somehow managing to survive for 10 years or so without anyone eating him. Also, if you're not in the habit of watching The History Channel's "end of the world" shows, you may find some of the horrors of this foodless world repulsive. Such as the "shish-ka-baby" scene.

"Mankind is only about three missed-meals away from degenerating into savagery."
    Cormac McCarthy is 75 years old, and this book is dedicated to his 8-year-old son. The Road seems to me to be a message to that son from a father who recognizes he won't be around for most of his kid's life. The fact that McCarthy weaves that message into an end-of-the-world setting and writes it in a unique style makes this book worthy of its Pulitzer Prize. The book offers much to think about in this world where most of us would starve in a couple days if the supermarkets and Circle-K's disappeared. But in the end, you will enjoy The Road more if you focus on the people, and not the post-apoc events.

The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde

2001; 374 pages. Genres : a whole slew of them. Overall Rating : B+..

    "I was born on a Thursday, hence the name. My brother was born on a Monday, and they called him Anton - go figure. My mother was called Wednesday, but was born on a Sunday - I don't know why - and my father had no name at all - his identity and existence had been scrubbed by the ChronoGuard after he went rogue. To all intents and purposes he didn't exist at all. It didn't matter. He was always Dad to me."
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    This is a unique and ambitious book. It incorporates at least eight genres - Romance, Alt. History (okay, "Parallel Universe" if you want to split hairs), Time Travel, Action-Thriller, Dimension Travel, Literary Fiction, Vampires, and last but not least, Satire.

.What's To Like...
    First of all, you don't need to have read Jane Eyre to enjoy this book. For us unread yokels, Fforde gives a brief synopsis of JE as the storyline heads "into" that book. If any of the aforementioned genres appeal to you, you'll find TEA a delight. And there's four more in the series (maybe five now), all involving classic literature rewrites.
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    Other highlights : pet dodo birds; an independent Republic of Wales, a bunch of likeable good guys along with some interesting bad guys, some really kewl inventions by Thursday Next's Uncle Mycroft, and Shakespeare's Richard III done in a "Rocky Horror Picture Show" fashion.
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    There are a few weaknesses. When you have eight genres and maybe a dozen plots and sub-plots flowing through the story, it is well nigh impossible to give enough attention to all of them. The time-travel seems superfluous, as does Wales' being an independent nation. Perhaps these are more fully developed in the sequels.

    .My gut feeling is that Fforde's ultimate goal in writing The Eyre Affair was to rewrite the ending to Jane Eyre. One can't just up and do that; people would call you presumptuous. So he invented an incredibly complex universe and storyline, and used them as a vehicle to alter the ending. Was Fforde successful in this? In my opinion, yes.

One for the Money - Janet Evanovich

1994; 320 pages. Genre : Crime Fiction. Overall Rating : B-..

    Stephanie Plum needs a job, so she schmoozes her cousin Vinnie and gets hired on as a bounty hunter. Unfortunately, she knows nothing about the vocation, so she needs a gun, needs to learn how to shoot it, and needs to figure out how to haul someone in. Most of all, she needs the $10,000 finders fee for bringing in Joe Morelli; who's a cop accused of murder, a hunk, and who as a kid, conned Stephanie into playing the New Jersey equivalent of "doctor".

What's To Like...
    Evanovich has created a strong, female protagonist in Plum. She can use her brain, which comes in handy as she learns her new profession. Indeed, it was refreshing to see her outfox Joe Morelli in order to bring him in, instead of having to resort to her feminine wiles or (worse yet) romance.

.   There is vein of light humor that runs throughout the book, and wonder of wonders, we're not dealing with someone who suffers from job burn-out. It's also a nice change to follow a bounty hunter instead of a cop or detective in a crime novel. Morelli is another good character study, although it is evident early on that he's not really a murderer.

   .Unfortunately, the great character studies come at the expense of a humdrum storyline. Stephanie gads about, searching for Morelli and bringing in easy, but low-paying bail-jumpers. Meanwhile, no progress is made on the main murder until the tail-end, when the real killer of course blabs all the details to Stephanie right before he intends to kill her. Don't bad guys ever watch Austin Powers movies?

.

    There are believability issues. The entire New Jersey police force can't find Morelli, but Stephanie manages to do so - not once, not twice, but four times. Then there's her visit to a boxing gym, where the "champ" decides to attempt to sexually assault her for no particular reason and in front of everyone else working out at the gym. Yeah, like that happens all the time.

Cogito, ergo Plum...
    The Stephanie Plum series has been highly successful for Evanovich, and I noted that the latest one (something like #15 or so), "Plum Spooky" was #1 on the NY Times best seller list last week. It may be interesting to see how her character develops along the line. Presumably, she gets more adept at bounty-hunting with time.
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    If you're looking for an entertaining story, with a bit of humor and a good, strong, thinking female lead, One For The Money may be your cup of tea. OTOH, this isn't the book to read when you're wanting spine-tingling suspense or wish to solve a whodunit alongside the protagonist. As long as you're more interested in what happens to Stephanie and her bounty-hunting than who-killed-who and why, this is a pleasant read.

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

Full Title : "Good Omens - The Nice And Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch". 1990; 398 pages. Genre : Fantasy Satire. Overall Rating : B+.

.

Armageddon is coming! Aliens are descending, Atlantis is rising, and Tibetans are tunneling. Far beneath the abyssmal sea the kraken stirs, and ten billion sushi dinners cry out for vengeance. The 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse (War, Famine, Death and Pollution. Pestilence retired when penicillin was discovered) have gathered and there's just one small problem - the Antichrist seems to have been mislaid.

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What's To Like...

This is delightful silliness with a bunch of very likeable characters. Among them are the eventually-found Antichrist and his playmates; Newton Pulsifier (witchfinder), and Anathema Device (professional descendant and occultist). The main stars are two angels - Aziraphale (who moonlights as a rare-book collector) and Crowley (who did not so much fall as to saunter vaguely downwards). These two have counterbalanced each other for 6,000 years and 15 minutes. Over time, a friendship has developed and neither one is very keen on the End of the World happening just now.

.

The storyline is well-structured. There are a slew of threads that converge nicely at the end. Gaiman and Pratchett make a good team, although I think Pratchett wrote the majority of Good Omens. You can find his trademark mangled metaphors here, and his always-witty footnotes. And Death, who always speaks in UPPERCASE LETTERS, is a direct import from Discworld.

.

"It was going to be a dark and stormy night."

As good as Good Omens is, it didn't fall into the "couldn't put it down" category for me. I think the weakness is the subject matter itself. Armageddon is just not that funny of a topic. It's kinda like Monty Python doing a movie about the Bubonic Plague. Yes, you can come up with some nifty one-liners ("Bring out your dead!"). But not two hours' worth of wit. The same applies here - it's very ambitious, yet well nigh impossible to write 400 pages of zaniness about Armageddon.

.

Nevertheless, Gaiman & Pratchett do an excellent job. Underneath all the satire, there are some very good eschatological (jeez, I've always wanted to use that word in a review) issues addressed here. So we'll give it a B+ rating and recommend it to anyone who isn't in deathly fear of the Book of Revelation.

Echo Park - Michael Connelly

2006; 427 pages. Genre : Murder-Mystery. Overall Rating : B+.

   .In 1993, Marie Gesto disappeared. Her car was found in an abandoned garage, her clothing on the front seat, neatly folded. For thirteen years, it has been Detective Harry Bosch's cold case. Now a psycho killer has come forward and confessed to the abduction and murder, even offering to lead the police to the body, in exchange for escaping the death penalty. So why does Harry feel like someone's blowing smoke across his eyes?
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What's To Like...
    In some mysteries, the perp is obvious after 20 pages. In others, it's as if the author just picks the bad guy at random at the end of the book. Echo Park finds the perfect balance. There are plenty of twists to keep you guessing, and Connelly goes easy with the lurid gore.

   .Echo Park is set in the greater Los Angeles area, where I lived for three summers, so it was neat to read about familiar environs. Finally, anyone who names his protagonist Hieronymus Bosch is kewl in my book.

   .There are some weaknesses. While Harry and the baddies are well-done, most of the rest of the good guys are a bit 2-D. Harry's partner is little more than the token gay girl, whose main role apparently is to take a couple bullets so Harry can stress out over catching her assailant.

   .This is my first Harry Bosch book. It started off great and quickly pulled me in. There are those who say it isn't the best in the series. If so, I may have to read a couple more of these.

Twice Upon a Time - Edited by Denise Little

1999; 309 pages. Edited by Denise Little. Genre : Anthology; Fantasy. Overall Rating : D.

.    "Everyone knows that fairy tales, no matter how dark, will always come through with 'happily ever after' resolutions, but are those endings happy for everyone involved? What about the witch, the wolf, the giant, and the other so-called villains who make their homes in the Enchanted Forest?"

.   So goes the prologue to 18 short stories, all fairy tale-themed, and all with a "twist" to them, including several that see how many different FT's they can bring into a single story. Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Prince Charming, and the Seven Dwarves. They're all here and more.

.The Best...
    How I Came To Marry A Herpetologist. Opening line : "When I first spoke in toads and snakes, I hated them and tried to kill them." For every word she speaks, out pops an amphibian or a reptile. A clever concept.

.   Leg Up. A take-0ff of the Tin Soldier tale. Done in Terry Pratchett style, but of course, not quite as good as the Discworld dynamo himself. Still, a nice story, with two endings.
.

    One Fairy Tale, Hard-Boiled. Rumplestiltskin done in "Detective Sam Spade" fashion. He searches for the melfeasant gnome, and runs into a bunch of other famous fairy-tale peeps along the way.
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A "D"?! How could you give this a "D"?!
    For starters, there's a couple of quite unnecessary cuss words. Given that this is a book of fairy-tales, one can expect young readers to pick it up. The F-word is uncalled for. Then there are the twists themselves. Perhaps being forced to warp a known FT is too confining. For instance, if you set out to re-write Hansel & Gretel, there aren't a lot of options available, other than turning the kids into brats or villains.

.    However, my main criticism is reserved for the editor herself. Of the 18 stories, three of them are a re-telling of Jack And The Beanstalk, all with the same twist. Jack's the bad guy, and the giant's the victim. Obvious the first time; royally irksome the third time. Is it too much to ask for 18 different take-offs?
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How important is the editor of an anthology?
    I can't recommend this book. I have nothing against Fantasy Anthologies. See here for one I enjoyed reading last month. Notice that Martin Greenberg was involved in both of those. I now have a greater appreciation for the impact he has on a quality compilation.
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    Twice Upon A Time seemed to me to be an amateurish effort. Very few of the stories reached out and grabbed me. I never heard of any of the writers. A lot of their "experience" seems to be collaborations. I wonder if this is a rite-of-passage for authors just breaking into the professional field. For one of them (Ms. Lupita Shepard), her submission here was her first published work. I'm sure that was exciting for her, but I kinda get the feeling she happens to be a personal friend of Denise Little.
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    Bottom line - there are much better anthologies out there than Twice Upon A Time. For now, I think I'll stick with Martin Greenberg ones.

Beloved - Toni Morrison

1987; 324 pages. Genre : Contemproary American Literature. Awards : Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 1988; winner of the NY Times "best work of American fiction in the past 25 years in 2008. Overall Rating : B.

.

This Toni Morrison book is based loosely on the story of Margaret Garner, who unrepentingly killed her 2-year-old daughter with a butcher knife rather than allow her to be forcibly returned to a life of slavery in 1856.

.

Beloved is set in 1873, after the Civil War has ended, and superficially centers on the mother-daughter relationship between Sethe and Denver, living at 124 Bluestone in Cincinnati, Ohio. The real theme however, is Toni Morrison dealing with the slavery in her geneaology. You can read Wiki's take on Beloved here. For me, the main motif is the way slavery can dehumanize a person. You can set them free, but the years of being treated as merely a piece of property leave enormous psychological scars. To become fully human, with a focused sense of self-worth, may take generations.

.

What's To Like...

This is great literature. The characters in Beloved are three-dimensional, and they all evolve in the course of the story. The question of "how can a mother murder her own child" is fully addressed. And there is a ghost to bring a tinge of the paranormal to the story.

.

OTOH, it is a slow read, and a difficult one. Flashbacks and flashforwards interweave with confusing frequency. It helped me to read the Wiki article to sort out who-was-who and what-was-when. The first 60 pages are especially trying, until Beloved shows up. Even then, there is little plot-advancement until the final 50 pages. Finally, there is the typical Morrison bleakness. Mother and murdered-daughter may come to understand each other, but what is left is two utterly dysfunctional lives.

.

What does it take to impress the Pulitzer committee? This is my fourth Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The other three were The Bridge At San Luis Rey (Thornton Wilder, 1928); The Grapes Of Wrath (John Steinbeck, 1940), and A Confederacy Of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole, 1981). The common thread I see in each book is a unique writing style by the authors. Storylines seem to be of small consequence; what counts is the ability to describe daily life and Americana in a fresh, new way.

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Beloved is not a book to be read in a hurry, nor would I call it enjoyable. Perseverence is needed to get through the first 60 pages. In the end, I found it to be fully worthy of its Pulitzer Prize. But now I need a "cotton-candy book" to put some sunshine back in my reading

Bloody Mary - J.A. Konrath

2005; 338 pages. Genre : Witty gritty bang bang. Overall Rating : C+..

This is the second in Konrath's Jacqueline 'Jack' Daniels; series. A pair of detached arms show up at the county morgue. In handcuffs. More exactly, in a pair of Jack Daniels' handcuffs.


.Jack and her Viagra-popping partner search for clues to the victim's identity, and try to keep the latest Chicago serial killer's body-count from going too high. Meanwhile, Jack's mom decides to move in with her, and brings along Jack's ex- for company, which not surprisingly leaves her current beau a bit less than enthralled.
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What's To Like...
This is similar to James Patterson's Alex Cross detective series, but with more wit and snappy dialogue. There's lots of action, and gratuitous gore. Great literature, it ain't. But it's a quick read and keeps your attention. Wikipedia calls this sort of book an airport novel. While the storyline is typical murder-thriller stuff, you at least get to see how Konrath, a male author, handles his female protagonist and her soap-opera-ish life.
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If there's a downside, it's the story's believability. It turns out that Mr. Psycho-killer's been dismembering folks for many years, and getting away with it just fine. Why then does he suddenly feel compelled to leave body parts at the morgue, with purloined police equipment planted on them? Later on, after wiping out half of Chicago's police force, instead of making an easy getaway, he (you guessed it) heads straight for Jack Daniels' home for the epic confrontation. Yeah, that's smart.


Bottom Line...
Read Bloody Mary for its entertainment value only. There's at least five mixed-drink-titled books in this series, and I'll probably end up reading most of them. It's appparent that they all are going to have a standard serial-slayer plot, with Jack's personal life progressing a bit from one book to the next. I suppose that isn't a very ambitious goal, but Konrath is good at it, and hey, that same template is used by the scriptwriters of Cold Case, one of my favorite TV shows.

The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett

1986; 217 Pages. Genre : Camedic Fantasy. Overall Rating : B..

    As noted here, The Light Fantastic is the conclusion to the story started in The Color Of Magic. That fount of all wisdom (Wikipedia), assures me this won't happen again - all other Discworld books are self-contained.

What's To Like...
    There's just one tale here; not four somewhat unconnected ones like in TCOM. Pratchett apparently took some pains to refine his style for the series, and this is an improvement, even though it resulted in a 3-year wait for TLF to be published.

   .Once again, there's a lovable cast of characters. Rincewind and Twoflower are center-stage of course, and the sickle-wielding Death and the omnivorous Luggage are back as well. TLF introduces Cohen The Barbarian, who reportedly will show up in a number of subsequent books. He's 87 years old, doddering, with matchstick legs and varicose veins. And in desperate need of dentures. Eat your heart out, Arnold.

   .The storyline wraps up nicely, with our inept duo saving the cosmos. As always, there are some deeper, more serious themes interwoven in the Discworld silliness. Here, Pratchett takes on Doomsday Zealots and Blind Religious Fervor. Intelligent Design freaks will probably not like TLF.
.Some Excerpts...You can find everything in Discworld books - philosophy, romance, and for highbrows like me, gut-groaning puns. We'll close with an excerpt in each category.
.
Philosophy (pg. 36-37)
"I said : what is it that a man may call the greatest things in life?"
The warriors leaned closer. This should be worth hearing.
The guest thought long and hard and then said, with deliberation : "Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.".

Romance (pg. 81)
"A necromancer!" said Rincewind.
The old woman across the fire shrugged and pulled a pack of greasy cards from some unseen pocket.
Despite the deep frost outside, the atmosphere inside the yurt was like a blacksmith's armpit and the wizard was already sweating heavily. Horse dung made a good fuel, but the Horse People had a lot to learn about air conditioning, starting with what it meant.
Bethan leaned sideways.
"What's neck romance?" she whispered.
"Necromancy. Talking to the dead," he explained.
"Oh," she said, vaguely disappointed..

Plain Old Punnery (pg. 181)
"Yes, yes," said Bethan, sitting down glumly. ... "Rincewind, all the shops have been smashed open; there was a whole bunch of people across the street helping themselves to musical instruments; can you believe that?"
"Yeah," said Rincewind, picking up a knife and testing its blade thoughtfully. "Luters, I expect."

   .Even Milton can't write stuff like that. The Light Fantastic is, as usual, highly recommended, but only after first reading The Color Of Magic.

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

1980; 394 pages. Author : John Kennedy Toole (1937-1969). Genre : Contemporary Lit. Awards : 1981 Pultizer Prize for Fiction (posthumous). Overall Rating : B..

    After JKT committed suicide by running a garden hose from his car's exhaust to its interior, his mother hawked his unpublished manuscript to various writers. It caught the eye of author Walker Percy in 1976, who in turn touted it, whereupon it became a cult classic, then gained a widespread readership after winning the 1981 Pulitzer.

.Characters...
    ACOD is a slice of life of a group of lower-class characters in New Orleans in the early 1960's. The central figure is Ignatius J. Reilly, an overweight, overbearing, manipulative, egotistical, lazy, lying 30-year-old, still living with his mother and content to be going nowhere in life.
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    There's a host of supporting characters as well, including the dominating, drama-queen mom; a luckless, picked-on detective; a senile octagenarian woman still working at a pants factory; and a talentless wannabe stripper trying to work a cockatoo into her act.

Plot...
    PWP? Simon & Schuster had some early interest in the manuscript, but declined it with the note that it "isn't really about anything". Which is kinda true. There are a bunch of loosely-connected threads meandering through the book that make you wonder what Toole intends to do with them. It reminds me of Vonnegut's Breakfast Of Champions, where the "plot" is simply the (first-person) writer manipulating a couple characters to meet up with him at the end.

To Like or Not To Like...
    Judging from other reviewers, this is a love/hate book. Those who love it claim it is the laugh-out-loud funniest book they ever read. While there are some slapstick elements to it, I can't say it is anything more than mildly amusing. But to each his own.
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Those who hate it claim Ignatius is without any redeeming qualities and are just revolted about having to read 400 pages about his (lack of) exploits. I can see their point.

   .I give ACOD a "B" because, despite the multitude of flaws in Ignatius, I couldn't help finding him to be a likeable guy. Ditto for the rest of the people around him. They truly are a Confederacy of Dunces, yet I was unable to work up any antipathy towards them. They may be poor, downtrodden, mean, and petty; but I found myself warming to them anyway. Thank goodness I don't know them in real life.

   .Then too, I was impressed with Toole's ability to tie everything together at the end; and in a way that I wasn't expecting. So if you're looking for a book with rock-em/sock-em action, pass by ACOD. Pick this up when you're in the mood for an existential, character-focused look at ordinary Southern life, and see if you end up liking the unlikeable Ignatius.