Book Review: First Case In the Dresden Files...

Storm Front by Jim Butcher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


After years of being told that I should read The Dresden Files, I finally remembered and picked this up at the library.



I loved it.



Think hard-boiled detective novel meets fantasy, with a touch of humor. I really liked Dresden - everything from the way I pictured him to the way he spoke and the slight twist on what otherwise might be cliche. Butcher takes stereotypes (ie, the hard-nosed private investigator) and makes them more interesting with innovative twists (ie, oh yeah, he's a wizard. And a gentleman.).



The book is well-paced, a page turner that kept me flipping to the end, and the story was very easy to follow. Butcher balances the details of his world nicely, too. There are places where Dresden explains aspects of the world to the reader (like a detective narrative), but there are others where he doesn't - and he doesn't need to, the details are sprinkled in and it's easy to pick up what's important and move on. Nor is he shy about setting Dresden up for failure (or a little pain) which had me pulling for the wizard even more as I got to the end.



I recommend this book to anyone who's ever enjoyed even light fantasy, detective stories, or someone who's just up for a unique twist on old ideas.



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Book Review: (Crazy + Lonely Planet)/Communist China in 1986 = 2 stars

It's hard for me to say that I fully enjoyed this book (which was chosen by my book club a while back), but it did tell a unique story, at times in language that took my breath away. Which might rate it three stars. 


But I gave it two. Here's my review of "Undress Me In The Temple Of Heaven," a memoir by Susan Jane Gilman (aka, Susie, aka, "Sushi").





Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven by Susan Jane Gilman

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I have some conflicted feelings about this book.



To start: the writing is beautiful. Gilman not only gives an account of visiting the other side of the world, she shares the experience of being there in 1986, just after China opened its borders to independent travelers.



After graduation, Gilman and a friend pack malaria pills, water purifiers, picky appetites, and some naivety, and hop on a plane to Hong Kong. The goal? Travel around the world. Stop 1: China. Gilman describes a route that most people would not take, mixing in their experience with local culture and her encounters with the surprisingly large (but also small) backpacking community. It's almost shocking to read about how they travel now, not just post-9/11 - something that Gilman does address briefly - but the decisions they make that I can't imagine choosing (even in my early 20s).



There is also a lot of bat**** crazy in this book.



And the crazy is what kept me reading, because for most of the memoir, I found Gilman's friend - and at times, Gilman herself - aggravating and unlikable.



To Gilman's credit, she's the storyteller, and she doesn't sugarcoat the areas where she behaves badly/questionably/etc. And when I think about it, I might not have continued reading without that element of realness (or, if I felt I was getting a very sanitized account). I really want to write this review without spoilers, so I won't go into more detail. But that aggravation did at least keep me reading, if only from the desire to see if/how the women changed.



So at the end of the day... fantastic writing style, pretty imagery, and a unique story/setting... but difficult to read because at times, Gilman and her friend just make me want to walk away.



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Book Review: When the mind becomes a blank slate... every... morning.

My Book Club (the awesome ladies at HoCoBoCo) chose Before I Go To Sleep as our pick for August. As I was describing the book to a friend, she said, "Huh, it sounds like Momento."


Kind of, but it's better. Trust me.


Discussion isn't for a few weeks, but here are some of my initial thoughts...




Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson


My rating: 4 of 5 stars




"Before I Go To Sleep" is a psychological thriller that plays on the triumphs and faults of human memory and the vulnerability that comes from forced reliance on others. SJ Watson takes a sometimes-overdone plot convention (amnesia) and, with strong writing and an excellent sense of balance between suspense and reveal, creates a story that drives the reader through to the end.


From the outset, Watson dumps the reader into the question mark that is Christine's life. Red flags pop up relatively early, but there are so many that tracking them leads the reader down the same false roads as Christine. The unreliable narrator (Christine) is a critical handicap and a means for building both frustration and suspense, but - importantly - not at the cost of belief.


Not until the last fifty pages or so, when the "less-resolved" warning signs more clearly point to the direction of the plot, does the ending really become clear. I did find myself wishing that the ultimate resolution came at the hands of Christine herself, not the outside forces at play, but at the end I was happy with the way Christine changed. And I really liked where Watson chose to end the story.


I'd recommend this book as a fast-paced, entertaining read, particularly for those who like trying to puzzle out a mystery on their own ahead of the narrator.






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Book Review: Blindness, and the occasional problem with art for art's sake

Hey, fun fact... GoodReads has a publish-blog option! Since I've recently gone on a borrowing spree at my local public library, I figured I'd share my thoughts on the books I've enjoyed.


Blindness by José Saramago


My rating: 3 of 5 stars




Ok, about Blindness.


First of all, I loved the premise and I really liked the story. As horrific as it was at points, it seemed very real, very immediate and desperate when I was able to immerse myself in the narrative. Questions - and a real desire to see the protagonist come out of the situation - kept me turning the pages.


That having been said, this was a book I would have preferred to read in one sitting. This is mostly because of the style - minimal dialogue tags/dialogue smashed within a paragraph, etc - that made it difficult to pick up after time away. That device - along with the lack of names, which I thought worked well with the dehumanizing aspect of the story - disappeared from notice after a few pages.


More annoying was the occasional intrusion of the phantom narrator, which seemed to serve nothing more than commentary on the plot (a la Jane Austen style narrating - it doesn't actually forward the plot or shed more light on the situation, it just tells the reader what the author is showing). Page 94 is a great example of where I was reading, and then was suddenly slammed out of the story by a direct address from the narrator.


I think this is a great book with a fascinating story and the potential to drive really compelling discussion about human nature and the ability of literature to amplify aspects of that nature that are both great and horrible. I do offer the caveat, though, that for me, the dedication to "art" - the format, the narrator - made the book harder to read at times, took away from the immediacy of the story, and left me questioning some of Saramago's choices.






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The Reader's Dilemma

Not too long ago, I found myself in a book store. Book stores are happy places. They're also dangerous, because I usually leave with at least one book.


I left Daedalus with three.


All in all I was happy with my purchases. I spent about an hour browsing (seriously. I can kill time in a bookstore like nobody's business) and left with very different books.


The first, "Bluebird: a Novel, or, The Invention Of Happiness" was a pretty good historical fiction piece. I would call it a quick, enjoyable read. The ending kind of irritated me, but I think that's the clash of modern sensibilities versus the values that were more realistic to women at the time (the book takes place around the French Revolution, give or take a few decades at either end). 


I brought the remaining two books with me when I went away this past weekend, because I like to switch between nonfiction (linquistics book, upper right) and fiction (bottom).


I'll get to linguistics later. What I want to talk about here, today, is the novel - "Lipstick Jungle."


I bought this expecting something along the lines of "The Devil Wears Prada" which was actually a wonderful read, and was in novel-form far superior to the movie. What I got with Lipstick Jungle was something different.


Now, let me pause for a minute and explain. I will normally give a book 60 pages before I set it aside. More if I know the payoff is worthwhile. This is not an adversarial attitude. If I'm even remotely interested, I keep reading. 


I gave Lipstick Jungle 65.


I do want to say, I don't normally give negative reviews. If I don't like something, I usually just don't write about it. And I will also say that, even though I was in the mood to read "chick lit," the whole "Sex in the City" franchise (show/movie/etc) is not really my thing, which means the book was probably not meant for me anyway. Another reader might enjoy Lipstick Jungle (also an NBC series), and disagree with my assessment below.


The entire first 65 pages consisted of "strong on the surface but about to shatter" female protagonists, and men that were either potential sex objects or actively trying to keep a sistah down. A series of cracks about how hard it is to make it in a man's world littered the pages, but not even in a way that points to the truth - instead, the novel seemed to take a stereotype feminist line.


I did like how the author, Candace Bushnell, slowly ratcheted up the pressure on her characters so that we could see the cracks forming. There was a sense of foreboding, of the proverbial lipstick about to hit the fan. There was just one small problem.


None of the protagonists were sympathetic, or really even likable, to me in those first chapters, which meant I didn't really care if their lives turned upside down. At one point, one of the three protagonists offended me with a fairly racist thought (this would be a different story if that POV/perception were integral to the plot or character development, but all signs pointed to "No"). 


So why am I bothering to talk about Lipstick Jungle here?  And why did I give it an extra 5 pages over my normal limit?


Well, you see, there was one line.


One sentence that struck a chord. It created an awesome image. It was a great piece of dialogue. It actually gave me some ideas for working through an issue in my current novel.


I can't tell you that line word for word, because at page 65 I more or less threw Lipstick Jungle across the bedroom and left it there. To paraphrase, one of the characters was describing to a journalist what it's like to live a lie, and how doing so bruises the soul a little more each day.


So here's my dilemma.


Should I, as a reader, go back and give it a chance, based on that one line that stuck with me? Could there be more things along the way that I appreciate about the writing, or maybe even the story? Was I too quick to judge (especially since this is not a genre I typically read)?


I already know my answer. Now I'm curious about yours. What would you do? 

The Art of Racing in the Rain

I read this book in about a day. I started at ten o'clock in the morning, and I finished about ten o'clock at night. "The Art of Racing In The Rain" by Garth Stein was the selection for my book club this month.

To be honest, I went a little too fast.  But I do want to say...

This book has the best hook I've ever read.

It's about an old dog - and if you have a dog, you're probably going to experience the same. Within the first eight pages, I had tears in my eyes. Matt looked at me, looked at the book, and then shook his head. I actually had to put the book aside, take a few breaths, and calm down.


The next chapter was better. And because of that intense emotional connection, I was sunk. I had to know what was going to happen. I cared about the characters and I hated those that wronged them with palpable fury. It didn't hurt that the narrator (Enzo the dog) peppered the narrative with soul-piercing tru-isms that ring especially true with my experience from the last few years.


Here are a few that made me stop and mark the corner (because I do that. Only in books I own, I promise.)

"Such a simple concept, yet so true: that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves." 

"These are the things that only dogs and women understand because we tap into pain directly, we connect to pain directly from its source, and so it is at once brilliant and brutal and clear, like white-hot metal spraying out of a fire hose, we can appreciate the aesthetic while taking the worst of it straight in the face. Men, on the other hand, are all filters and deflectors and time release. For men, it's like athlete's foot: spray a special spray on it, they say, and it goes away. They have no idea that the manifestation of their affliction - the fungus between their hairy toes - is merely a symptom, an indication of a systemic problem."

""Inside each of us resides the truth," I began, "the absolute truth. But sometimes the truth is hidden in a hall of mirrors. Sometimes we are viewing a facsimile, a distortion. I am reminded of the climactic scene of a James Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun. James bond escaped his hall of mirrors by breaking the glass, shattering the illusions, until only the true villain stood before him. We, too, must shatter the mirrors. We must look into ourselves and root out the distortions until that thing which we know in our hearts is perfect and true, stands before us. Only then will justice be served.""

"I know this much about racing in the rain. I know it is about balance. It is about anticipation and patience. I know all of the driving skills that are necessary for one to be successful in the rain. But racing in the rain is also about the mind! It is about owning one's own body. About believing that one's car is merely an extension of one's body. About believing the track is an extension of the car, and the rain is an extension of the track, and the sky is an extension of the rain. It is about believing that you are not you; you are everything. And everything is you."

The Art of Racing In The Rain follows the drama of a family following loss as seen through the eyes of the family dog. I'm not sure if it was the narrator, the fact that I was immediately invested, emotionally, in the story, or just that it was a compelling tale. What I enjoyed most about this book is how Stein made me intensely love the characters I was supposed to love, and how I hated the villains. I was enthralled.


Also, it was fun to see a non-conventional narrator at work. Stein addresses this. Enzo (the dog) is upfront about his humanness - it's central to the book, and brought up in the first few pages. But at the same time, he manages to color Enzo's narrative - the details noticed, the perceptions, etc - with an interesting perspective that was very believable, in our dogs at least.


I highly, highly recommend this book.




What are you reading this week? Have you read The Art of Racing In The Rain? Tell me in the comments below!

Medium Raw: Bourdain's Bloody Valentine.

You may have noticed on your daily analysis of "What's New on SwimWriteRun"... but in case you didn't, I'd like to point out that I've added a reading list. It's in the column to the right.


*point*


I know!  I figure it's a place to organize the queue of books that constantly threatens to overwhelm me. Oh, Howard County Library, why is your website/request-hold system so user-friendly?


Also, I definitely invite suggestions.  An overwhelming queue of books is rarely a bad thing.


-----


Last night, thanks to a bout with insomnia, I polished off the rest of Medium Raw, Anthony Bourdain's newest book.


Good news: he and Rachael Ray get along now.


Medium Raw was everything I've always loved about Bourdain's writing, plus some surprises.


I can't remember where, but I heard (or read) a quote by Bourdain that said he doesn't agonize over sentences, that his writing happens and then he's done. I'm not sure how true that still is (I definitely caught it in Kitchen Confidential), but the result is a style that's easy to read, conversational, direct. I never have to ask the question... "what is he trying to say here?"


Particularly on his rants, which are scattered through the book but also concentrated in a "Heroes and Villains" chapter, and the subsequent chapter where he explains why he thinks Alan Richman is a douchebag (or something else).


The Heroes and Villains Chapter was one of my favorites, because it was interesting to hear his take on so many different personalities. Some of it I expected, some of it I did not, but it was all clear, direct, supported argument for each case.


The mention of a passing encounter with Sandra Lee was highly entertaining.


Just after starting the book, I watched an episode of No Reservations where he traveled with his wife and daughter to Sardinia. It was a somewhat sentimental episode. By chance, the next chapter I read included some very personal reflections on his family and how the decision to have a child has changed (and will continue to change) his life. My response was: "Wow."


His perspective on the food industry, the rise of the celebrity chef, and current restaurant/dining trends was very insightful, and accessible to someone outside of the industry (that's me). He honestly evaluates where he's come in his career, and takes a hard look at the things he values in a food experience today.


Mostly, I enjoyed the lack of fear that was in this book. Bourdain doesn't often hold back, and he doesn't here - but his opinions are tempered with a reasonable thought process that left me nodding my head even when I did not agree. 


The last chapter is also highly reflective, and harks back to the book that gave him his beginning - not his novels, which came first, but Kitchen Confidential. It brings the 'story line' of Medium Raw back to the beginning, which I found satisfying, and interesting.


Medium Raw was an excellent read.




Have you read Kitchen Confidential?  Medium Raw?  You might also enjoy...


A Cook's Tour - chapters in part recap much of his travels for the show, linked by some interesting personal perspective on what it means to eat and share a meal.


Les Halles Cookbook - the only cookbook I've read cover-to-cover, twice.