Beginner's Greek

By James Collins

This is a story of star-crossed lovers that, despite a plethora of obstacles, manage to find true love, a modern romance with an old-fashioned happy ending.
Peter Russell falls in love at first sight when he meets Holly on board an airliner. The attraction is mutual and he leaves the plane with Holly's phone number in his shirt pocket. In his hotel room later on, Peter is dismayed to discover he has lost the phone number and he doesn't know Holly's last name or where she lives.
Years later and Peter's best friend Jonathan shows up with a new girl friend. Surprise, the new girl friend is Peter's Holly. Too late for Peter because Holly is now involved with his best friend and they end up getting married. Peter gives up and marries Charlotte, a woman he doesn't really love but he does care for her and figures they will have a good life together. At their wedding reception, Jonathan is killed by a bolt of lightning. Now Holly is a widow and Peter is a newlywed. Once again it seems the fates are against them. As much as he would like to, Peter doesn't abandon his new bride and run after Holly. He feels it would be too cruel to treat Charlotte thus.
Meanwhile, things are not going well for Peter at work. He unknowingly ticks off his boss and his boss goes after him for it. He forces Peter to assist a marginal employee's nutty plan to turn cereal box tops into the new worldwide currency. To make things worse for Peter, the wealthy owner of the business starts dating Peter's true love, Holly. Seems like Peter just can't get a break.

This is fun story, and you find yourself pulling for all the many decent characters that populate the book. It's hard watching Peter and Holly just miss each other all the time. Will Peter stand by his wife? Will Holly find love with another man? Will poor Charlotte discover that her husband is in love with another woman? Will Peter's rat bastard boss succeed in destroying Peter's career? Will Holly let herself be swept away by a rich man's charm and wealth? It's really enjoyable reading about these charming people and their struggles to find true love and to do the right thing.

Review by Amy Scribner on BookPage.

New Words
Cicatrix: a scar; an elevated, rigid spot. "All the while that Jonathan spoke, Peter had been staring at a tear in the back of the taxi's front seat...The cab, making the usual sudden starts and stops, jounced Peter around, but he kept staring at this cicatrix.
Trig: clean-cut; neat and smart in appearance. "Jonathan managed to look both more trig and less stiff than Peter."
Démarche: a diplomatic representation or protest. "M. Becqx denied it and threatened an angry démarche from his government."
Soignée: polished and well-groomed; showing sophisticated elegance. "She was dressed and made up, and she looked soignée, Peter thought."
Dolmen: a prehistoric megalithic tomb typically having two large upright stones and a capstone. "She loved the nearby castles, villages, churches, ruins, dolmens, and caves."
Putti: winged cherubs. "A painting or fresco containing innumerable gods and putti, all twisting and turning dramatically, covered the ceiling."
Epigone: an heir, descendant, or successor, frequently an inferior successor. "'I thought that after so many generations of having so much money, families were supposed to decline and produce weak, effete, coupon-clipping, zillionth-copy epigones of the founding titan.'"
Apposite: being of striking appropriateness and pertinence; an apt reply. "Having gone shooting once in his life, he was able to discuss with Thorndale the tricks of working setters and retreivers together; he made an apposite comment when Bernard, a philatelist, mentioned that he had just acquired a misprint from the Kingdom of Naples."
Predella: Spanish footstool or kneeling stool. Also foot of an altarpiece for kneeling. "Holly and Arthur talked about a couple of people at their table; Holly asked Arthur about the predella she and Peter had admired earlier, and he said that it was funny she should have noticed it because it had always been on of his favorite pieces."

Darkfever

By Karen Marie Moning

MacKayla is a typical young American woman, enjoying life, working on her tan, when it all changes with the murder of her sister in Ireland. When the police investigation bogs down for lack of evidence, Mac goes off to Ireland to try to convince the police to not give up. But the police just don't have the time or resources as they are dealing with an epidemic of murders and disappearances.
Mac has a message on her phone from her sister, telling her that she must find the Sinsar Dubh. Not only does Mac not know what the Sinsar Dubh is, she doesn't even know how to spell it. Trying to discover just what it is, she runs into Jericho Barrons, a shady and threatening character with a bunch of secrets. He knows what the Sinsar Dubh is. In fact, he wants to find it for himself.
As she stays in Ireland, trying to chase down her sister's killer for herself, she starts seeing strange, terrifying creatures, creatures that apparently no one else can see. Jericho enlightens her as to what she is seeing and enlists her reluctant help in his efforts to contain these creatures by finding the Sinsar Dubh.

This is a romance story, although it is also a horror story. I don't read romance novels for the most part as they just don't appeal to me. So I wasn't familiar with a branch of romance fiction known as paranormal romance. It was kind of disconcerting to be in the middle of a horror story, only come across a detailed description of the outfits Mac and Jericho are wearing. Despite these typical romance novel aspects, this is a pretty creepy story full of scary monsters and vile characters. I found the story rather depressing and I don't know if I will read the next in the series. This is not surprising since I don't generally enjoy either romances or horror. People who like paranormal romances will probably like reading this series which is exciting and inventive although a bit too much for me.

Review by Chelsea on Vampire Book Club.

New Word:
Metempsychosis: a philosophical term in the Greek language referring to the belief of transmigration of the soul, especially its reincarnation after death. "They believed day followed night, and held to a credo of metempsychosis in which the human soul does not die but is reborn in different forms."

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

By Joshilyn Jackson

Laurel loves her life. She loves her beautiful home, her teen daughter Shelby, her sometimes distant husband David, and her work designing and sewing artistic quilts. She especially loves the fact that since she moved to her new house in Victorianna, she never sees the ghost of her Uncle Marty anymore.
Her cozy life is turned upside down the night she sees a new ghost, Molly, a friend of her daughter. Turns out Molly is dead, drowned in Laurel's backyard swimming pool. Drastic times call for drastic actions, and Laurel undertakes the drastic action of inviting her sister Thalia to visit to help Laurel cope with the death of Shelby's friend Molly. The trouble with Thalia is that she is trouble. She criticizes Laurel's life, as she feels Laurel is stifled by her marriage, and Laurel's husband, who Thalia refers to as a robot, a guy that is all brain and no heart. Thalia really doesn't have room to criticize though, she comes off as supremely selfish, as evidenced by the night Laurel was sleep walking and Thalia let her walk out of the house and into a rain storm just so Thalia could follow her and observe how a sleepwalker behaves. Thalia is a serious actor and will do anything for her art, including endangering her sister's life. This episode caused a serious rift between the two sisters and put Thalia on David's shit list.
As Laurel looks into Molly's death, which has been ruled accidental by the authorities, she is certain there is more to the story. She suspects her daughter knows more than she is saying and she also suspects the local creepy guy may be involved too. But as she looks closer, with Thalia's prickly help, she finds that many of the things she assumed were true are not, past and present.

Although I did enjoy this story, I can't say that liked most of the characters, especially Thalia, Laurel and Shelby. About the only character that made sense to me was the husband David, and Shelby's cousin, Bet. I thought Laurel was a flake, Thalia is just mean and Shelby seemed pissed off all the time for no good reason. David was the real rock in the story and all my sympathy was with him and the pathetic hanger-on, Bet. Despite not caring much for the main characters, I still liked the book, which is really the story of two deaths, that of Uncle Marty and the teen girl, Molly.

Review from Kirkus Reviews.

Adam

By Ted Dekker

FBI agent Daniel Clark is on the trail of an unusual serial killer known as Eve. Eve didn't stab, shoot, torture or abuse any of his sixteen victims, he infected them with an unknown form of meningitis. The FBI knows very little about Eve, yet Daniel Clark is determined to stop him, anyway he can.
They finally get the break they are looking for and manage to get to Eve's latest victim before she has died. Daniel and a coworker, Lori Ames, are driving the woman to the hospital when their vehicle is waylaid by a man with a gun. The man, Eve, shoots Daniel and tries to shoot Lori but only wings her. He then grabs the victim and makes off with her. Lori starts CPR on Daniel and he is revived later at the hospital. Lori didn't get a look at Eve, as she was trying to give medical aid to the victim, who was already dying of the meningitis-like illness. Daniel was the only one who saw Eve's face, but he cannot remember it due to the trauma of his near-death experience.
Eve knows Daniel Clark is on his case and starts leaving scary messages with Daniel's ex-wife, Heather. Daniel must be getting closer to catching him and Eve snatches Heather, knowing Daniel will come after her. Daniel falls into his trap and finds himself locked in a cellar with the very creepy killer, a killer who demands that Daniel open himself to the same dark spirit that has possessed Eve for so many years, a spirit named Eve.

I did enjoy this story, although I found the unprofessional behavior of the two FBI agents, Daniel and Lori, a bit unbelievable. Also, although I didn't know this when I picked up the book, it is a story about demon possession, which is a subject I generally avoid due to a folk saying I read long ago, "Touch the devil and you can't let go." That's my philosophy, don't mess with the devil and hopefully the devil won't mess with you. Nonetheless, by the time I realized where the book was heading, I wanted to see how it came out. Like I said, I did enjoy the story, which I found compelling and involving. I think I read this book in two days, which says a lot about it.

The Tin Roof Blowdown

By James Lee Burke

A Dave Robicheaux novel.

As fans of the series know, Dave Robicheaux is a former New Orleans police officer who now works for the New Iberia police force. Set at the time of Hurricane Katrina, Dave has to deal with the aftermath of looting that involves his best friend Clete Purcel and his adopted daughter, Alafair.
Water and chaos fill the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. A group of hapless looters think they have struck the motherlode when they discover the walls of the house they are looting are filled with bundles of cash, drugs and diamonds. While making off with their loot, two of them are shot by what appears to be a vigilante. One is killed and the other is paralyzed when the bullet pierces his spinal cord. A third looter stashes the loot and manages to get the wounded man, his brother, to a medical facility. What the men don't know is the house they stole the loot from belongs to notorious New Orleans crime boss Sidney Kovick. Some very bad people are anxious to get their hands on the property the looters made off with and will do almost anything to get it. Standing in the way is Dave Robicheaux and his best friend Clete Purcel.

A fascinating look at the aftermath of the hurricane that devastated south Louisiana, one can feel the author's grief at the fate that has fallen his beloved country. The hurricane serves as the blank canvas against which the callousness and cruelty of humankind are painted as Burke tells a tale of evil men doing evil for their own corrupt ends. Like the previous Robicheaux stories, this one is well worth reading.

Review from Leslie Budewitz for BookPage.

New Word:
Boudin: A Cajun sausage filled with anything from meat to crawfish, mixed with rice, and temptingly seasoned. It comes in two varieties: boudin rouge, which is blood sausage; and boudin blanc (white boudin), which is made with pork shoulder. "In a booth at the back of the club I saw a young black man sitting by himself, a beer and a length of microwave white boudin unwrapped from its wax paper in front of him."

Duma Key

By Stephen King

Edgar Freemantle was almost killed when a crane crushed his pickup truck. He received brain injuries and lost an arm and nearly lost his leg. He spent months in the hospital and, as a result of his brain injury, has violent rages and memory loss. His wife finds his rages terrifying and she leaves him. He becomes depressed and, on the recommendation of his doctor, opts for a change of scenery, so he rents a house on Duma Key.
Duma Key is a small Florida island. The beachfront home Edgar has rented, which he calls "Big Pink", is owned by a rich old woman who lives farther down the beach. The woman, Elizabeth, has lived her whole life on Duma Key. Frail and becoming senile, Elizabeth has a caretaker, Wireman, a man who is also dealing with a tragic past.
Edgar takes up painting to occupy his time and as therapy. He finds that his paintings have the power to change reality. One of the things he does with his paintings is to heal Wireman of the disability caused by a botched suicide attempt that occurred before Wireman came to Duma Key.
Edgar's talent clues him into the mysteries of Duma Key. He starts to realize that some evil force is at work on the key, a force that has smashed lives in the past and is awake again. It wants Edgar Freemantle and it will reach into the lives of those dearest to Edgar, causing death and destruction.

In Duma Key, King has written a compelling story about evil and one man's struggle to do the right thing, even through events that would crush most people. I really enjoyed reading this story. It may not be high art but Stephen King is a great storyteller.

For a synopsis of the novel, check out Wikipedia.

Review by Alison Flood for The Guardian.

New Words:
Juco: An acronym for junior college.
Docent: A docent is officially defined as a professor or university lecturer, but the term has been expanded to designate the corps of volunteer guides who staff many of the museums and other educational institutions in the world.

The Stories of John Cheever

By John Cheever

This collection of short stories won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1979.

John Cheever's stories are cruel and mean and nasty and occasionally slightly amusing. Very rarely do they end happily. Mostly they are about ordinary yet creepy men and the women who like to make their lives a misery. According to the Wikipedia article about Cheever his most famous stories are "Goodbye, My Brother", "The Enormous Radio", and "The Swimmer." The only one I was previously familiar with was "The Swimmer" which was made into a movie starring Burt Lancaster and which I saw on TV as a kid.
In "Goodbye, My Brother", a family gets together at their summer home on the beach. One brother is a spoilsport who always has some critical comment to make. His brother gets fed up with his sourpuss brother and clonks him on the head with a chunk of wood.
In "The Enormous Radio", an old radio gets replaced with a new radio. It has such an acute receiver that it picks up the conversations of the other tenants in the apartment building. The wife listens in to these conversations and is shocked and dismayed at all the shameful things going on in the superficially happy homes of her neighbors. Her husband chides her, pointing out her own foibles.
In "The Swimmer", (which doesn't appear til almost the end of the book) a man is attending (or thinks he is attending) a pool party when he decides to swim home using all the neighborhood pools via a route he calls the Lucinda River in honor of his wife Lucinda. He does swim home but when he gets there the house is abandoned.

I found these stories interesting and engaging, even if they are a rather twisted view of ordinary people. I didn't find the book hard to read, even though I don't care for short stories for the most part.

New Words:
Fitch: Polecat; dark brown mustelid of woodlands of Eurasia that gives off an unpleasant odor when threatened. "Irene Westcott was a pleasant, rather plain girl with soft brown hair and a wide, fine forehead upon which nothing at all had been written, and in the cold weather she wore a coat of fitch skins dyed to resemble mink." From "The Enormous Radio".
Vitiated: Marred, made imperfect, corrupted. "Hills blocked off the delicate, the vitiated New Hampshire landscape, with its omnipresence of ruin, but every few miles a tributary of the Merrimack opened a broad valley, with elms, farms, and stone fences." From "The Summer Farmer".
Plangent: Loud and resounding. "He mowed, cultivated, and waxed angry about the price of scratch feed, and at that instant when the plangent winds of Labor Day began to sound he hung up his blunted scythe to rust in the back hall, where the kerosene was kept, and happily shifted his interest to the warm apartments of New York." From "The Summer Farmer."
Snath: The long wooden shaft of a scythe. "Then the wet wind climbed the hill behind them, and Paul, taking one hand off the snath, straightened his back." From "The Summer Farmer."
Copore sano: Latin for "sound body". "They were people who emphasized copore sano unduly, Baxter thought, and they shouldn't leave Clarissa alone in the cottage." From "The Chaste Clarissa".
Sumptuary laws: Laws intended to restrain or limit the expenditure of citizens in apparel, food, furniture, etc.; laws which regulate the prices of commodities and the wages of labor; laws which forbid or restrict the use of certain articles, as of luxurious apparel. Sumptuary means regulating or controlling expenditure or personal behavior. "He dressed -- like the rest of us -- as if he admitted the existence of sumptuary laws." From "The Five-Forty-Eight".
Banlieue: French for outskirts of a city. "I served four years in the Navy, have four kids now, and live in a banlieue called Shady Hill." From "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill."
Parablendeum: a kind of plastic wrap; a word that may have been created by the author. "I went to work right after the war for a parablendeum manufacturer, and seemed on the way to making this my life." From "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill".
Schuhplattler: A traditional folk dance from Bavaria and Austria. "It seemed to me that if it had been my destiny to be a Russian ballet dancer, or to make art jewelry, or to paint Schuhplattler dancers on bureau drawers and landscapes on clamshells and live in some very low-tide place like Provincetown, I wouldn't have known a queerer bunch of men and women than I knew in the parablendeum industry, and I decided to strike out on my own." From "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill".
Riggish: Wanton. "I was thinking sadly about my beginnings -- about how I was made by a riggish couple in a midtown hotel after a six-course dinner with wines, and my mother told me so many times that if she hadn't drunk so many Old-Fashioneds before that famous dinner I would still be unborn on a star." From "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill".
Gymkhana: A meet at which riders and horses display a range of skills and aptitudes. "I'm having a little gymkhana next month, and I want your children to ride in it." From "The Bus to St. James".
Soubrettes: A soubrette is a stock female character in opera or theater; in theater it is a vain, girlish, flirty comedy character. "On Saturdays after the movies they go into one of those bars called Harry's or Larry's of Jerry's, where the walls are covered with autographed photographs of unknown electric-guitar players and unknown soubrettes, to eat bacon and eggs and talk baseball and play American records on the jukebox." From "The Bella Lingua".
Upzoning: The process, often controversial, of changing the zoning in an area, usually to allow greater density or commercial use. Sometimes the term is used to mean the opposite -- changing the zoning in a broad area to limit growth and density. "The Wrysons' civic activities were confined to upzoning, but they were very active in this field, and if you were invited to their house for cocktails, the chances were that you would be asked to sign an upzoning petition before you got away." From "The Wrysons".
Rubato: To play with a flexible tempo. "He threw the tempo out the window and played it rubato from beginning to end, like an outpouring of tearful petulance, lonesomeness, and self-pity -- of everything it was Beethoven's greatness not to know." From "The Country Husband".
Neurasthenics: Neurasthenia is an old-fashioned unspecific word usually meaning weakness of the nervous system or nervous exhaustion. Not a phrase that is used much these days. "They took so many hot baths that she could not understand why they were not neurasthenics." From "Clementina".
Hoardings: A temporary wooden fence around a building or structure under construction or repair; a billboard. "All scornful descriptions of American landscapes with ruined tenements, automobile dumps, polluted rivers, jerry-built ranch houses, abandoned miniature golf links, cinder deserts, ugly hoardings, unsightly oil derricks, diseased elm trees, eroded farmlands, gaudy and fanciful gas stations, unclean motels, candlelit tearooms, and streams paved with beer cans, for these are not, as they might seem to be, the ruins of our civilization but are the temporary encampments and outposts of the civilization that we -- you and I -- shall build." From "A Miscellany of Characters That Will Not Appear".
Laconic: Crisp, brief and to the point. "In closing -- in closing, that is, for this afternoon (I have to go to the dentist and then have my hair cut), I would like to consider the career of my laconic old friend Royden Blake." From "A Miscellany of Character That Will Not Appear."
Contumacious: Wilfully obstinate; stubbornly disobedient. "It was one of those places where lonely men eat seafood and read the afternoon newspapers and where, in spite of the bath of colored light and distant music, the atmosphere is distinctly contumacious." From "The Ocean".
Suffragan: An assistant or subordinate bishop of a diocese. "Should he ask the suffragan bishop to reassess the Ten Commandments, to include in their prayers some special reference to the feelings of magnanimity and love that follow sexual engorgements?" From "Marito in Città".
Tufa: A type of stone. "The tufa and pepperoni and the bitter colors of the lichen that takes root in the walls and roofs are no part of the consciousness of an American, even if he has lived for years, as Bascomb had, surrounded by this bitterness." From "The World of Apples".
Orison: Prayer. "The man's face was idiotic -- doped, drugged, and ugly -- and yet, standing in his unsavory orisons, he seemed to old Bascomb angelic, armed with a flaming sword that might conquer banality and smash the glass of custom." From "The World of Apples".
Lordosis: An exaggerated inward curvature of the spine; also called swayback. "Her back and front were prominent and there was a memorable curve to her spine that could have been a cruel corset or the beginnings of lordosis." From "The Jewels of the Cabots".

Humboldt's Gift

By Saul Bellow

This book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for 1976.

Poor Charlie Citrine. His life is a shambles. A petty gangster has pounded Citrine's beautiful car to a pulp. Charlie's ex-wife is suing him for a bigger share of his assets and a judge has frozen Charlie's money telling Charlie that Charlie can always make more money. It is true that Charlie has been successful in the past but lately he hasn't done much of anything except sit around his house and meditate on death and the afterlife. Also, Citrine's girlfriend is angling for a marriage proposal and Charlie doesn't care to commit himself again. Charlie and the girlfriend are supposed to head off to Europe but Charlie has to deal with a legacy left to him by his old, estranged friend Humboldt. Humboldt was a failed poet with an alcohol addiction and mental problems so severe that he had to be committed. Humboldt and Charlie became estranged when Charlie wrote a play that was based on Humboldt's life without his permission. The play was very successful and made Charlie a lot of money.
Charlie is a strange fellow, a kind of walking encyclopedia, with literary allusions constantly falling from his lips. He is involved in something called Anthroposphy and he worries about death and about life after death and about art and destiny and reincarnation and philosophy.

Supposedly, the Charlie character is based on Bellow and the Humboldt character on his friend and poet, Delmore Schwartz. Bellow won the Pulitzer for this book, but in the story, this is what the Humboldt character says about the Pulitzer Prize: "The Pulitzer is for the birds -- for the pullets. It's just a dummy newspaper publicity award given by crooks and illiterates." That's probably one of the funniest things in the whole book.
Frankly, this book was a giant pain to read. There is practically not a page where some literary name (or two or three) is not dropped. In fact, I made a list of most of the names; you can see it below the list of new words. It includes names of books and other works and fictional characters and mythological characters. Too much of the book is about Charlie and his philosophy or search for a philosophy. I had never read Saul Bellow before and, after reading this book, I never want to read him again. Too much gobbledygook. I guess this book is just too sophisticated for me.

Review by Richard Rayner in the Los Angeles Times.

New Words
Grenadier: A member of the British Grenadier Guards or a soldier formerly bearing grenades. "With grenadier tails they [cats] bounded to sharpen their claws on trees."
Busby: A tall, full-dress, fur hat worn in certain regiments of the British Army. "His head was shaped like a busby, a high solid arrogant rock covered with thick moss."
Crepuscular: Of or like twilight; hazy, dim. "They brought crepuscular fortune to people down in the streets."
Anthroposophist: A spiritual philosophy based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner which postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development. "Under my head I put a needlepoint cushion embroidered by a young lady, ... a Miss Dora Scheldt, the daughter of the anthroposophist I consulted now and then."
Orphic: Of or ascribed to Orpheus; mystic, occult, esoteric. "He got a Rationalistic, Naturalistic education at CCNY. This was not easily reconciled with the Orphic. But all his desires were contradictory."
Sortilegio: Sortilege is the art or practice of foretelling the future by drawing lots; sorcery; witchcraft. "'What? Sorcery! Fucking sortilegio!' 'It's not sortilegio. It's mutual aid.'"
Morphology: The biological study of the form and structure of living organisms. Protoplasts: The living material of a cell as distinguished from inert portions. Ergastic substances: Metabolically inert products of photosynthesis, such as starch grains and fat globules. "I obtained a large botany book by a woman named Esau and sank myself into morphology, into protoplasts and ergastic substances, so that my exercises might have real content."
Attainder: The loss of all civil rights legally consequent to a death sentence or to outlawry for a capital offense. "The hereditary attainder rule was very strict."
Relume: To make bright or clear again. "I remember the shine of his [Humboldt] eyes when he dropped his voice to pronounce the word "relume" spoken by a fellow about to commit a murder, or when he spoke Cleopatra's words 'I have immortal longings in me.'"
Antinomian: In theology, the idea that members of a particular religious group are under no obligation to obey the laws of ethics or morality as presented by religious authorities. "But it was only antinomian, not free."
Theosophy: Religious speculation dealing with the mystical apprehension of God, associated with various occult systems; or the doctrines and beliefs of a religious sect, the Theosophical Society, incorporating aspects of Buddhism and Brahmanism. "If he added theosophy to literature and the insurance business, what would become of him?"
Exousiai: In anthroposophy, based on the teachings by Rudolf Steiner, the Exousiai represent the sixth realm of the Christian angelic hierarchy of the Roman Catholic tradition. This hierarchic level of divine spirits is immediately above the three levels comprising the Angels, Archangels and Archai/Principati. The role of the Exousiai in spiritual evolution is essential, since the human Self has emanated from them. Having their residence in the spiritual spheres of the Sun, the Exousiai are specially devoted to the development of Earth and humanity. "But when Humboldt cried, 'Life!' he didn't mean the Thrones, Exousiai, and Angels."
Havelock: A cloth covering for a cap, having a flap to protect the back of the neck. "On her head was a garrison cap and a Sam Browne belt crossed her chest --the works: fleece boots, mittens, her neck protected by an orange havelock, her figure obliterated."
Tinia crura Tinea crura is a fungal infection in the skin of the groin. "And Dr. Tim Vonghel gave me a bucket of gentian violet to sit in. He told me I had a bad case of tinia crura."
Hydrostatics: The statics of fluids, especially incompressible fluids. Statics is the equilibrium mechanics of stationary bodies. "He was quite old now, and the unkind forces of human hydrostatics were beginning to make a strained and wrinkled bag of his face, but his color remained fresh and he was still the Harvard radical of the John Reed type, one of those ever-youthful lightweight high-spirited American intellectuals, faithful to his Marx or his Bakunin, to Isadora, Randolph Bourne, Lenin and Trotsky, Max Eastman, Cocteau, André Gide, the Ballets Ruses, Eisenstein -- the beautiful avant-garde pantheon of the good old days."
Mansard: The upper story formed by the lower slope of a mansard roof, which is a roof having two slopes on all four sides. "Renata was still criticizing the mansard room."
Inductive: Of reasoning; proceeding from particular facts to a general conclusion. "'It isn't mysticism,' I said. 'Goethe simply wouldn't stop at the boundaries drawn by the inductive method.'"
Epistemologies: Epistemology is the philosophy that investigates the nature and origin of knowledge; a theory of the nature of knowledge. "Five different epistemologies in an evening. Take your choice. They're all agreeable, and not one is binding or necessary or has true strength or speaks straight to the soul."
Tremor cordis: Irregular heart beat. "I recalled how he had looked in Connecticut, when he quoted me King Leontes in my yard by the sea. 'I have tremor cordis on me: my heart dances; but not for joy, not joy.'"
Carabiniere: A military body that polices both military and civilians. "Thaxter's carabiniere costume looked sick by comparison."
Soutane: A cassock worn by Roman Catholic priests. "'Priests' pockets are picked under the soutane.'"
Chandala: An untouchable; especially someone engaged in the profession of carrying of dead bodies and in the process of cremation. "I knew all of that would-be Shavian wit you could hear at dinner tables on Lake Shore Drive: they wanted to make an untouchable and a chandala of Flonzaley, a scavenger, but he would take their gold into the gloom with him, and he would be a Prince there -- that sort of stuff I could do without."

The List of References from Humboldt's Gift:

Adventures of Ideas by Alfred N. Whitehead
Aida opera by Giuseppe Verde
American Mercury magazine
Antony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare
Antigone by Sophocles
Balzac sculpture by Auguste Rodin
Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
Bonnie and Clyde movie
Carmen opera by Georges Bizet
Comédie Humaine by Honoré de Balzac
Deep Throat porno film
De Anima (On the Soul) by Aristotle
Diaries by Franz Kafka
Elégie song by Jules Massenet
Encyclopedia of Unified Science
Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce
From Hegel to Marx by Sidney Hook
Guernica painting by Pablo Picasso
Hamlet by Shakespeare
I Am Curious Yellow movie
Ils Ne M'auront Pas (They shall not have me) by Jean Hélion
Intimate Journals by Charles Baudelaire
King Solomon's Mine by H. Rider Haggard
Knock play by Jules Romains
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment by Rudolf Steiner
La Comédie Humaine by Honoré de Balzac
Les Amours Jaunes by Tristan Corbière
Letters by John Keats
"Liebestod" from Richard Wagner opera
Maja paintings by Francisco Goya
New World Symphony by Antonín Dvorák
Oedipus at Colonus play by Sophocles
Pagliacci opera by Ruggero Leoncavallo
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Pastorale symphony Ludwig van Beethoven
Phaedrus by Plato
Phenomenology by Georg Wilhelm Hegel
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
Revista de Occidente magazine
Satyricon movie by Frederico Fellini
State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin
Symposium by Plato
The Barber of Seville opera
The Dial magazine
The French Connection movie
The Godfather movie
The Great McGinty movie
The Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics by James Hastings
The Magic Flute opera by Mozart
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek movie
The Modern Theme by José Ortega y Gasset
"The Pardoner" (excerpt) by Geoffrey Chaucer
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Sense of Beauty by George Santayana
The Spoils of Poynton by Henry James
The Tempest by Shakespeare
The Triumph of the Therapeutic by Philip Rieff
The Winter's Tale by Shakespeare
Timaeus by Plato
Women's Wear Daily magazine
Abel, Lionel
Acheson, Secretary Dean
Adams, Henry & Mrs.
Adonais
Agamemnon
Ahriman
Aiken, Conrad
Alger, Horatio
Alighieri, Dante
Amin, General (Idi Amin Dada)
Amundsen, Roald
Antony, Mark
Apollinaire, Guillaume
Aquinas, Thomas
Ardrey, Robert
Aristophanes
Aristotle
Armstrong, Louis
Artaud, Antonin
Ash, Paul
Ashurbanipal
Atlantis
Babbitt (character by Sinclair Lewis)
Bach, Johann Sebastian
Bacon, Francis
Baedeker
Bakunin, Mikhail
Ballets Russes
Balzac, Honoré de
Baron, Salo Wittmayer
Baruch, Bernard
Batista, General Fulgencio
Baudelaire, Charles
Beethoven, Ludwig van
Bergotte (character by Proust)
Bernhardt, Sarah
Bernini, Gian Lorenzo
Berryman, John
Beyle, Marie-Henri
Binet, Alfred
Blake, William
Blavatsky, Madame
Bloomgarden, Kermit
Boehme, Jakob
Boito, Arrigo
Bolling, Edith
Bonaparte, Louis
Bonaparte, Napoleon
Bosch, Hieronymus
Botticelli, Sandro
Bourne, Randolph
Brecht, Bertolt
Bretonne, Restif del la
Browning, Edward West "Daddy" & Frances Heenan "Peaches"
Bryan, William Jennings
Buchalter, Louis "Lepke"
Buddha
Bukharin, Nikolai
Burnham, James
Burns, Robert
Burton, Sir Richard Francis
Caeser, Julius
Caliban (character by Shakespeare)
Carus, Titus Lucretius
Caruso, Enrico
Casals, Pablo
Chapman, George
Chaney, Lon
Chaplin, Charlie
Charlus, Baron de (character from Proust)
Chaucer, Geoffrey
Chekhov, Anton
Chiaramonte, Nicola
Christian (character by John Bunyan)
Churchill, Winston
Circe
Clair, René
Clarissa (character by Samuel Richardson)
Claudius
Cleopatra
Cocteau, Jean
Cohen, Morris R.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Colman, Ronald
Coolidge, Calvin
Corbière, Tristan
Corelli, Arcangelo
Corvo, Baron (Frederick William Rolfe)
Crane, Hart
Cutting, Sen. Bronson
Cyclops
Daniels, Samuel
Dante Alighieri
Darwin, Charles
Davies, Marion
Defoe, Daniel
DeGaulle, Charles
Closerie Des Lilas (restaurant)
d'Evry, Baron Hulot (character by Balzac)
Dimaggio, Joe
Dimmesdale (character by Hawthorne)
Dirksen, Sen. Erv
Disraeli, Benjamin
Don José (character by Bizet)
Donlevy, Brian
Donne, John
Dostoevsky, Fyodor
Douglas, Justice William O.
Dryden, John
Duncan, Isadora
Durkheim, Emile
Durnwald, Richard
Dvorák, Antonín
Dzerzhinsky, Felix E.
Eastman, Max
Eckhardt, Meister
Eddington, Arthur
Einstein, Albert
Eisenhower, Dwight
Eisenstein, Sergei
El Greco (Domenicos Theotokopoulos)
Eliot, T.S.
Ellenbogen, Wilhelm
Eller, Morris
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
English, Woody (baseball)
Eriksen, Erik
Eros
Escamillo (character from opera Carmen)
Fafnir
Fellini, Frederico
Ferenczi, Sándor
Fields, W.C.
Figaro (opera character)
Fitzgerald, Scott
Flaubert, Gustave
Ford, Henry
Fort Dearborn
Fowler, Gene
Freud, Sigmund
Friedman, Milton
Frost, Robert
Gabor, Zsa Zsa
Galli-Curci, Amelita
Galvani, Dr. Luigi
Genet, Jean
Gide, André
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
Goldoni, Carlo
Goodman, Paul
Goya, Francisco
Grey, Zane
Haggard, H. Rider
Hal, Frans
Halas, George
Hamlet (character by Shakespeare)
Hart, Liddell
Hastings, James
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Haydn, Franz Joseph
Hearst, Patty
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm
Heine, Heinrich
Held Jr., John
Hélion, Jean
Hemingway, Ernest
Herodias
Hickok, Wild Bill
Himmel, Richard
Hirschfeld, Al
Hobbes, Thomas
Hoffmann, E.T.A.
Holmes, Justice Oliver Wendell
Homer
Hook, Sidney
Hoover, Herbert
Hoover, J. Edgar
Hopkins, Harry
Houdini, Harry
Humphrey, Hubert
Hur, Ben
Ibsen, Henrik
Jacobsen, Dr. Edmund
James, Henry
James, Dr. William
Jannings, Emil
Jarrell, Randall
Javits, Sen. Jacob Koppel
Jenner, Sen. William Ezra
John of the Cross, St.
Johnson, Dr. Samuel
Joyce, James
Jung, C.G.
Kafka, Franz
Kahn, Herman
Kai-shek, Chiang
Kamenev, Lev
Kant, Immanuel
Karamazov (character by Dostoevsky)
Karo, Rabbi Joseph
Keats, John
Kennedy, Jackie
Kennedy, John
Kennedy, Robert
Keynes, John Maynard
Kierkegaard, Søren
Kinsey, Alfred C.
Koestler, Albert
Köhler, Wolfgang
Kun, Béla
Lardner, Ring
Laughton, Charles
Lawrence, T.E.
Leakey, Louis
Lear, King (Shakespeare character)
Le Corbusier
Lenin, Vladimir
Leontes, King (Shakespeare character)
Levi, Paul Alan
Lewis, Sinclair
Lincoln, Abe
Lindbergh, Charles
Lorca, Frederico Garcia
Lorenz, Konrad
Lovelace (character by Richardson)
Loyola, St. Ignatius
Lucretius
Lugosi, Béla
Luxemburg, Rosa
Lyons, Leonard
MacArthur, Douglas
Macbeth (Shakespeare character)
Machiavelli, Niccolò
Maja (Goya subject)
Mallarmé, Stéphane
Malraux, André
Malthus, Thomas Robert
Mammon
Manville, Tommy
Mao Zedong
Marais, Eugene
Marshall, Gen. George C.
Marvell, Andrew
Marx, Karl
Mosca, Count (from Stendhal)
Massenet, Jules
Masters, William
Mastroianni, Marcello
Matisse, Henri
McCarthy, Sen. Joseph
McCormick, Colonel Robert R.
McLaglen, Victor
Melville, Herman
Mencken, H.L.
Mill, John Stuart
Milton, John
Molière
Momigliano, Arnaldo
Monet, Claude
Monroe, Marilyn
Mostel, Zero
Mozart, Wolfgang
Murray, Mae
Mussolini, Benito
Nietzsche, Friedrich
Nobile, Umberto
Novalis
O'Banion, Dion
Olivier, Sir Laurence
Orpheus
Ortega y Gasset, Jose
Ouspenskaya, Maria
Paganini, Niccolò
Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da
Panofsky, Wolfgang
Pascal, Blaise
Pershing, General John Joseph
Picasso, Pablo
Pickford, Mary
Piguet, Audemar
Plato
Plautus, Titus Maccius
Pluto
Poe, Edgar A.
Polonius (Shakespeare character)
Pope, Alexander
Post, Emily
Pound, Ezra
Praz, Mario
Prospero (Shakespeare character)
Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph
Proust, Marcel
Prufrock, J. Alfred (TS Eliot character)
Psyche
Qaddafi, Muammar al
Rahv, Philip
Rameau, Jean-Philippe
Rasputin, Grigori
Reed, John
Rhadamanthus
Rhadames (character from Aida)
Richardson, Samuel
Richelieu, Cardinal
Rieff, Philip
Rilke, Rainer Maria
Robinson, Sugar Ray
Rockefeller, J.D.
Rodin, Auguste
Romains, Jules
Romberg, Sigmund
Rommel, General Erwin
Roosevelt, Franklin .D.
Rosicrucian
Rossini, Gioachino
Rostovtzeff, Michael
Roth, Cecil
Rothko, Mark
Roualt, Georges
Ruffo, Titta
Ruth, Babe
Santayana, George
Sarnoff, Gen. David
Sartre, Jean-Paul
Schaller, George
Schapiro, Meyer
Schipa, Tito
Schliemann, Heinrich
Schopenhauer, Arthur
Schumann-Heink, Ernestine
Schumpeter, Joseph
Schweitzer, Albert
Scott, Robert F.
Sebastian, St.
Sejanus (Lucius Aelius Seianus)
Shakespeare, William
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
Simon, St.
Sitwell, Edith
Smith, Red
Smith, Adam
Smith, Al & Johnny Walker
Smolny Institute
Snerd, Mortimer (Edgar Bergen dummy)
Socrates
Sombart, Werner
Sophocles
Sorel, Julien
Soutine, Chaim
Spens, Sir Patrick
Spinoza, Baruch
Stalin, Joseph
Stanton, Edwin M.
Steichen, Edward
Stein, Gertrude
Steiner, Rudolf
Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle)
Stevens, Wallace
Stevenson, Adlai
Stravinsky, Igor
Sturges, Preston
Suetonius
Sullivan, Louis
Swanson, Gloria
Swift, Jonathan
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
Tamiroff, Akim
Tawney, R.H.
Temple, Sir William
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
Teresa, St.
Thaw, Harry & Evelyn Nesbitt
Thompson, William Hale "Big Bill"
Thoreau, Henry David
Thucydides
Thurmond, Sen. Strom
Tiberius
Tillich, Paul
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Toklas, Alice B.
Tolstoi, Leo
Toynbee, Arnold
Triton
Trotsky, Leon
Tumulty, Joseph
Ustinov, Peter
Valéry, Paul
Vallee, Rudy
Van der Weyden, Rogier
Velásquez, Diego
Verdi, Giuseppe
Vesco, Robert Lee
Vico, Giambattista
Villa, Pancho
Virgil
Vishinsky, Andrei
Von Trenck, Pandour
Wagner, Richard
Walker, Johnny & Al Smith
Walpole, Horace
Weber, Max
Welles, Orson
Wharton, Edith
Wheeler, Sen. Burton K.
Wheeler-Bennet, John
Whitehead, Alfred North
Whitman, Walt
Wilde, Oscar
Wilmot, Chester
Wilson, Woodrow
Wilson, Earl
Wilson, Edmund
Wilson, Hack
Wimsey, Lord Peter (Dorothy Sayers character)
Winchell, Walter
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
Wordsworth, William
Yeats, William Butler
Yerkes, Robert Means
Yokum, Mammy (cartoon character by Al Capp)
Zarathustra
Ziegfeld, Florenz
Zinoviev, Grigory
Zuckerman, Solly Baron
(Whew!)

Absurdistan

By Gary Shteyngart

Misha Vainberg has a problem. He is in Russia but he wants to be in the United States. Too bad for Misha that the US won't let in. Seems like his father, the gangster, has murdered a citizen of the US and thus Misha is not welcome. Sons of murderers can just stay home.
Misha is not a stranger to America. He went to college there. But now he is back in Russia where his father wants him. Next thing he knows, he father is blown up by a rival gangster and Misha is free to do as he pleases except the only thing he wants is to get back to America.
Misha is told that if he goes to the former Soviet satellite country of Absurdistan he can buy a Belgian passport and use it get to America. Happily he heads off to Absurdistan and gets his Belgian passport. He is scheduled to leave the next day when a revolution breaks out and Absurdistan's borders are closed. Misha is now trapped in the crazy political crisis that has overtaken Absurdistan and he finds himself allied with the very people who have engineered the country's downfall. Getting to America is farther away than ever.

One of the biggest jokes in the story is Misha's weight problem and his gluttony. His eating habits are minutely described and the gyrations of his blubber are gone into in depth. All of which was very gross and akin, I think, to pointing and laughing any disabled person's trials. I did not find it amusing. Another big joke is the political double dealing that is the theme of the whole Absurdistan experience. Again, I did not find it amusing. I just don't find liars and corruption to be funny. Still, this book does have its funny moments. It wasn't exactly my cup of tea but it paints a vivid picture.

Review by Patrick Ness in The Guardian. 

New Words:
Agitprop: Communist term meaning revolutionary agitation and Propaganda. Khui: Penis. "After decades of listening to the familial agitprop of our parents ('We will die for you!' they sing), after surviving the criminal closeness of the Russian family ('Don't leave us!' they plead), after the crass socialization foisted upon us by our teachers and factory directors ('We will staple your circumcised khui to the wall!' they threaten), all that's left is that toast between two failed friends in some stinking outdoor beer kiosk."
Laphroaig: Scotch whiskey. "In the next 318 pages, you may occasionally see me boxing the ears of my manservant or drinking one Laphroaig too many."
Popka: A Russian term for a baby's behind, considered more polite than ass. "'Because there's no future in this country for a little popka like you.'"
Oblomov: Oblomov is a character in a novel of the same name written by Ivan Goncharov. Oblomov is indecisive and lacking in will power and self-confidence. "The Oblomov inside me has always been fascinated by people who are just about ready to give up on life, and in 1990, Brooklyn was an Oblomovian paradise."
Vitrine: Cabinet with a glass door. The sides and top may also be of glass, and it is designed to store and display china and curios. "She reminded me of a lovely olive-colored mannequin I had seen in a store vitrine."
Shapkas: A Shapka is a Russian fur cap with ear flaps that can be tied up to the crown of the cap, or tied at the chin to protect the ears from the cold. "I had seen a dozen kindergarten pupils trying to cross the boulevard, each bundled in a jaunty collection of misshapen coats, their shapkas falling off their tiny heads, their feet encased in monstrous hand-me-down galoshes."
Oligarch: Oligarchy is government by the few, especially by a small faction of persons or families. "The Yeltsin era was still ten years away, but already Papa was angling to become an oligarch."
Shtetl: A small Jewish town or Jewish enclave within a town in eastern Europe. Klezmer: A style of Jewish or Yiddish music. "It was a shtetl funeral, in many ways, a kind of impromptu klezmer act minus the musical instruments."
Shawarma: A Middle Eastern-style sandwich featuring shaved lamb or chicken or other meats. The typical shawarma is pita bread filled with meat, hummus, tomato, cucumber and toppings like tahini. "The windswept Fontanka River, its crooked nineteenth-century skyline interrupted by the post-apocalyptic wedge of the Sovietskaya Hotel, the hotel surrounded by symmetrical rows of yellowing, waterlogged apartment houses; the apartment houses, in turn, surrounded by corrugated shacks featuring, in no particular order, a bootleg CD emporium, the ad hoc Mississippi Casino ('America Is Far, but Mississippi Is Near'), a kiosk selling industrial-sized containers of crab salad, and the usual Syrian shawarma hut smelling invariably of spilled vodka, spoiled cabbage, and some kind of vague, free-floating inhumanity."
Baldachinos: A baldachino is a canopy. "The palaces of Nevsky Prospekt, wishing to properly say goodbye to me, dusted themselves off and bowed their chipped baldachinos in my direction..."
Superannuated: Obsolete; antiquated. "After we'd boarded and the plane had hobbled down the rutted runway and ascended, we looked down at the country beneath us, at the strange shaped of superannuated factories squatting below."
Payess: The uncut sideburns worn by male Orthodox Jews. "By the time they started boarding our flight to Svanï City, he had curled me a nice set of payess."
Fin de siècle: Of or characteristic of the last part of the 19th century, especially with reference to its artistic climate of effete sophistication. "I could even make out the fin de siècle Parliament building on the Pest side and the old Austro-Hungarian seat of power on the Buda..."
C'hai: A Hebrew symbol and word which means "living" and it is worn as a medallion. "He was wearing nothing but sweatpants, his naked chest sporting a standard Orthodox cross and a Jewish c'hai."
Dyophysitism: A theological term refering to the two natures of Jesus Christ, human and divine. Monophysitism: The theological position that Jesus Christ has only one nature which combines both the human and divine. "She used complex terms to describe the religious differences, such as 'dyophysitism' and 'monophysitism,' along with frequent allusions to some Holy Council of Aardvark that rocked the region in A.D. 518, not to mention that whole Good Thief, Bad Thief hullabaloo."
Knout: A leather scourge formerly used for flogging criminals in Russia. "I was ready to reach for my knout."

Her Last Death

By Susanna Sonnenberg

This is a memoir about the author and her mother, called in this story Daphne, not her real name. Daphne seems to truly love her two daughters, of which Susanna is the eldest. Daphne has a volatile personality and a tendency to abuse drugs and alcohol which leads to some sad and terrifying moments in her daughters' lives. Daphne also has a voracious sex life and she shares the intimate details with her daughters. Daphne has a pathological need to be in the spotlight and goes so far as to manufacture fake rapes and fake illnesses like cancer and leukemia. Living with Daphne had to have been a real burden.
One of the cruelest things Daphne did to her daughters was to expose them to sex at an early age. Not only did she describe her intimate sexual trysts to her children, she wanted Susanna to get fitted for a diaphragm at the tender age of thirteen and she tried to set Susanna up to lose her virginity on the occasion of her sixteenth birthday.
The list of Daphne's sins is too long for me to recount. Still, Susanna remembers tender moments, fun moments, times when it is clear that her mother loved her kids in her own warped, peculiar way. The story starts out with Susanna getting the bad news that her mother has been in an accident and is in a coma and may not survive. Susanna makes the hard decision not to go see her mother in the hospital. Sometimes, when dealing with an addict, the only thing you can do to protect yourself from their lying and manipulation is to simply cut them out of your life. It's harsh but necessary and that is the decision Susanna made and this book is the story behind that decision.

Susanna led quite a life before settling down to motherhood and responsibility in Montana, thousands of miles away from the hotshot lifestyle she used to lead in New York City. Before she met her husband, Susanna was well on her way to living a lifestyle very similar to her sex-obsessed and drug-addled mother. What a story!

Review by Carolyn See in The Washington Post.

New Words:
Cristofene: a tropical West Indian vine, Sechium edule, of the gourd family, which bears small white flowers and produces an edible fruit. Also called christophene, chouchou, chayote. "She'd [Daphne] pluck a grilled cristofene from my plate, and the smell of her tea rose perfume overwhelmed the fragrance of the food."
Vaporetto: a motorboat for transporting people along the canals in Venice. "Hubert de Givenchy was staying there, too. My mother said, 'He just got on that vaporetto!'"

The Last Hero

By Terry Pratchett

Set in Discworld, this illustrated novel sees the ancient Cohen the Barbarian and his Silver Horde of octogenarian heroes returning fire to the gods. In the Greek legend it was Prometheus who stole fire from Zeus; on Discworld it was Mazda who stole fire and he received the same punishment that Prometheus did: chained to a rock to have his liver eaten everyday by eagles. Cohen and his crew, who have a grudge against the gods, have decided to return the stolen fire to the gods, but in the form of an extremely explosive device, a Discworld version of a WMD.
The wizards of Ankh-Morpork are concerned that Cohen's actions could result in the destruction of the whole world. The Patrician, Lord Vetinari, sends two of his best men and one of his worst to deal with the gang of aging heroes, the Silver Horde. His two best men are the genius Leonard of Quirm, the Discworld version of Leonardo da Vinci, and Corporal Carrot, the true blue captain of the City Watch. His worst man is Rincewind, failed wizard (or as Rincewind spells it, wizzard) and unwilling world traveler. Rincewind knows Cohen and the boys and it is thought he may be able to persuade them not to blow up the world.
Cohen and the Horde are headed to Dunmanifestin, the city of the gods, located atop the impossibly high mountain, Cori Celeste. In order to get there in time to stop the Horde, Carrot, Leonard, and Rincewind will have to fly there in a machine designed by Leonard of Quirm. This flying machine, a space ship really, is propelled by the fiery breath of swamp dragons. Using this ingeniously powered vehicle, they will attempt to reach Dunmanifestin and halt Cohen's misguided attempt to get back at the gods.
This oversize illustrated novel is packed with drawings by Paul Kidby. I actually didn't care that much for his drawings, they are just too cartoony, I think. Also, I know that Cohen and the Silver Horde are heroes, but I just can't believe that even a hero could survive for long in a snow drift wearing a loin cloth and little else. After all, they are not super heroes.

I always enjoy Discworld stories. However, I find the stories about Rincewind just a little less enjoyable. This story held true to that trend. For one thing, it seemed truncated, like it needed more detail. I know I found the story kind of choppy and abrupt in parts. I have never really cared for Rincewind, he is my least favorite Pratchett character. Despite these points, I enjoyed this Discworld story.

Review from Publishers Weekly.

The Natural History of the Land of the Bible

By Azaria Alon

This book takes a look at the plants, animals and climate of the modern state of Israel, with reference the biblical land of Israel. It has lots of photos, some in color. I do wish all the pictures had been in color. For instance there are several photos of wildflowers that are in black and white, very disappointing. Anyway, the book doesn't go into a lot of detail; it is a good, basic reference to introduce the land of Israel and its unique situation in the natural world at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa.
Azaria Alon is the author of more than thirty books about nature and environment and he has been a leader in the preservation of Israel's natural resources.

Great Cities of the Ancient World

By L. Sprague de Camp

A look at the history of various cities: Thebes, Jerusalem, Nineveh, Tyre, Babylon, Memphis, Athens, Syracuse, Carthage, Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople, Anurâdhapura and Pâtaluputra. Very readable and informative, the only thing I didn't care for were the fiction inserts from the author's novel which I didn't think they belonged in a book like this. All the chapters were interesting and full of fun nuggets of info. The only chapters I had trouble with were the chapter on Thebes, which had detailed and dull descriptions of the buildings of Thebes. The other chapter was the one on Constantinople which seemed very long. Other than that, I enjoyed reading this book.

Review from Kirkus Reviews.

The Cipher

By Diana Pharaoh Francis

Lucy Trenton is a minor member of the ruling family of Crosspointe and a customs official. Crosspointe is a place where magick flows wild and free and is a threat to those who perchance encounter it. Since she was a wee child, Lucy has had the unique ability to sense the presence of what is called a cipher, a kind of magic spell disguised as a common object. No one believes her when she points out the presence of these ciphers and so she grows up keeping her talent hidden.
Lucy works as a customs agent at the harbor. She has another secret, besides her hidden talent. She has a highly illegal collection of true ciphers. She is drawn to these ciphers and is unable to resist their attraction. If anyone found out about her collection not only will she be exiled but she would bring down disgrace on the royal family.
While working one day, Lucy is drawn to the presence of a true cipher. When she approaches it, it erupts out and fastens itself to her arm. Most of these true ciphers are bad news and result in death and destruction to those to whom they attach. Lucy knows she is in big trouble. The news keeps getting worse, though, because now Lucy finds herself being blackmailed by someone who knows about her illegal collection of ciphers. Lucy, with the help of a few friends, has to rid herself of the attached cipher and cope with its deadly powers, get rid of her collection, save the royal family and her country from invaders and find her true love, all in one book.

This is a big story and pretty interesting although somewhat of a mishmash. It was diverting following the trials and tribulations of intrepid heroine, Lucy Trent. Unfortunately, Lucy's trials seem to involve a lot of vomiting and soiling and injuring herself. After awhile, I got pretty tired of that. I also thought the ending was disappointing in that Lucy never gets to directly confront her blackmailer. But other than that, I enjoyed reading about Lucy and her odd little world.

For a contrary view, see Dear Author.

New Word:
Archivolt: A decorative band or molding around the face of an arch. "FARADAY was inlaid in small flowing brass letters in the archivolt above the polished oak doors of the shop."

The Kite Runner

By Khaled Hosseini

Amir grew up in Kabul, Afghanistan. His closest companion was the son of his father's servant. The boy, Hassan, was about the same age as Amir. Not only was Hassan Amir's closest companion but he also prepared his breakfast, cleaned his bedroom and took care of his clothes.
All his life Amir had ambivalent feelings about Hassan. Amir spent most of his time with Hassan, yet he did not consider him his friend. Amir went to school but Hassan did not and was illiterate. Yet even though Amir had book smarts, Hassan was no fool and Amir was aware of this and rather disconcerted by it. After all, Hassan was his servant and thus shouldn't be better than Amir at anything. But Hassan was better at lots of things. He was athletic, intelligent, kind, gentle, brave and loyal. Amir was also intelligent but he was not the athlete Hassan was nor was he as good a person. Another thing that bothered Amir was that his father seemed to approve of Hassan but seemed to be disappointed in his own son, Amir.
Every year in Kabul there was a kite flying contest. The boys would fly their kites and attack each other's kites and the last kite left flying was the winner. As the defeated kites fell to the ground, the kids would run after them and claim them for their own. Hassan excelled at running down and finding the falling kites, he seemed to know where they would land by instinct.
One year, Amir entered the kite contest and Hassan promised him that if Amir won, Hassan would run and catch the final defeated kite for a trophy for Amir. Amir won the contest and Hassan ran off to find the fallen kite. He was gone for a long time and Amir went looking for him. He discovered Hassan being sexually assaulted by a neighborhood boy that has bullied the two boys in the past. Amir hid and watched the assault but was too frightened to intervene.
Amir can't cope with his feelings of failure and guilt. He can't face Hassan knowing he did nothing to help him. So he framed Hassan for a petty theft and Hassan and his father leave. Amir's father is very upset that Hassan and his father won't stay.
When the Russians invaded Afghanistan, Amir and his father fled to the United States. Amir's father, who was an important and wealthy man in Afghanistan, could only find work at a gas station. Amir settled in to American life pretty well, going to college, working with his father selling stuff at a flea market to make a little extra money. He met an Afghani woman and fell in love and married. His father became ill and died. Amir and his wife try to have kids but can't.
One day, Amir was summoned back to the Middle East by an old friend of his father's. He told Amir that Hassan is dead, killed by the Taliban, and that Hassan's son is in an orphanage. He wanted Amir to get the boy, Sohrab, out of the orphanage. Amir agreed to go back to Afghanistan and rescue the little boy, and in the process faced his own failings and personal demons.

This was a pretty good book. The first part, about Amir's childhood and the last part, where Amir comes back to Afghanistan to rescue the orphan were more interesting than the middle part, where Amir is in America going to college and meeting the woman he will marry. That part was kind of draggy. It was interesting to get a glimpse of Afghani culture as portrayed in the novel. It is hard to understand how a group like the Taliban could ever appeal to anyone. Reading a book like The Kite Runner may not help one understand that, but at least it is an introduction to a very different society than what is in the West.

Review by Sarah A. Smith in the Guardian. 

New Word
Caracul: Hardy coarse-haired sheep of central Asia; the lambs are valued for their soft curly black fur. "Baba was wearing a green suit and a caracul hat."

The Sorcerers' Plague

By David B. Coe

Book One of Blood of the Southlands Trilogy

Although this book is the start of a new trilogy by Coe, it was preceded by a five part series, Winds of the Forelands. This new trilogy stands on its own but it is helpful if you have read the Forelands series. I know I had a bit of a struggle figuring out just what an Eandi, Mettai, Qirsi and Y'Qatt were. Also, the story of Grinsa and Cressane from the previous series is briefly touched upon and knowing about that might have helped in understanding their characters more fully.

In an Eandi village, a strange, reclusive, scary old woman packs up her baskets and suddenly departs on a trip. This woman, Lici, tells no one she is leaving. As the weeks pass, the villagers wonder if she is ever coming back. The rumor is that she has amassed a small fortune and the villagers are eager to search her tiny house for the treasure. One of the village elders, Besh, searches the house and finds a diary written by Lici's adoptive mother. In the diary he finds out the reason for Lici's strange ways and he figures out that Lici is on a mission of destruction.
Lici came to the village as a terrified child, refugee from a disaster that struck her home village. She was emotionally scarred by her experiences and, although she lived most of her life quietly, as she entered her seventies she put into motion a plan she had been working towards her whole life. Using her terrible magical powers, she has enchanted a lifetime's work of baskets. The baskets are cursed and anyone who has one in his home will shortly die. Taking her baskets, Lici has set forth to visit the villages of the people she hates, the Y'Qatt. As the villagers buy her baskets, which are beautiful and very well made, the curse is released and nearly everyone dies as Lici makes her way to the next unknowing village. Besh knows Lici has to be stopped before her actions sparks a war between the local peoples. He and his son-in-law set out on her trail.
Meanwhile Grinsi and his woman, Cressene have newly arrived in the area. Grinsi is a Weaver, a kind of wizard of great value to the local people. Grinsi and Cressene are captured by a nomadic tribe because Grinsi is a Weaver. They refuse to let him leave but he makes a bargain with them. He will track down whoever it is that is spreading what they think is a plague (but it is Lici's cursed baskets) and stop them and then the nomads will let him and Cressene go.

This was an OK book. The plot seemed pretty thin. It hardly seems to have enough substance to expand into a trilogy. I found the Grinsi subplot boring. In the novel's favor, though, I must say that it doesn't rely on the typical fantasy storyline. (You know, some implacable evil force using vile demonic creatures is trying to take over the world and a poor lad of humble origin, who is really a powerful wizard of royal blood although he is not yet aware of that, has to fight it singlehandedly, using his powers and nearly dying in the process. Oh, and dragons. Mustn't forget the dragons!) So that was refreshing. I should add that I am not really a person who reads a lot of fantasy novels and I am not a fan of them for the most part. Maybe someone who likes fantasy would like this book more than I did.

Review from Publishers Weekly.

New Word:
Osier: Any of various related species of willow, whose twigs are used in making baskets.

The Killer Angels

By Michael Shaara

This novel won the Pulitzer Prize for 1975.

In this story, we revisit the battle of Gettysburg in 1863, looking at the battle through the eyes of the generals who led the fight. We are privy to the decisions, misgivings and hopes of the men who led thousands of young soldiers to their deaths. We are there as Lee consults with his generals and then makes his own, fatal decision. We are there as the Union line stands against the Rebel onslaught.

In this book, Shaara explains how Lee messed up and why. He looks at the actions of various generals, Rebel and Union, on the battlefield. He also explores their private thoughts and reflections, which gives the novel a very human touch.

When I was researching this book before reading it, I was dismayed at the subject matter. Battles, wars and strategy hold no charm for me. As for the details of the battles, I am no judge. But, despite the unappealing subject matter, this was a really good book. I was totally surprised at how enthralling it was and I learned a lot more about the battle of Gettysburg. The Killer Angels is a great book.

For a more detailed review of the book, see Plant's Review of Books.

New Words:
Guidon: Originally the flag that marched at the head and to the right of the first rank for the troops to guide on. Usually carried by a cavalry or artillery company and swallow-tailed in appearance. Carried by some infantry companies as flank markers. "It [the army] came out of a blue rainstorm in the east and overflowed the narrow valley road, coiling along a stream, narrowing and choking at a white bridge, fading out into the yellowish dust of June but still visible on the farther road beyond the blue hills, spiked with flags and guidons like a great chopped bristly snake, the snake ending headless in a blue wall of summer rain."
Enfilade: Gunfire directed along the length rather than the breadth of a formation. "The guns to the right, on the Rocky Hill, would enfilade the line."
Vedette: A mounted sentry or outpost. "He [Longstreet] found Goree, sent him off to Hood, telling him to send vedettes ahead to scout the ground."
Napoleon: A smoothbore, muzzle-loading, 12-pounder cannon, used by both sides in the Civil War. "The line was a marvelous thing to see: thousands of men and horses and the gleaming Napoleons, row on row, and miles of wagons and shells."

The Optimist's Daughter

By Eudora Welty

This novel won the Pulitzer Prize for 1973.

Laurel Hand comes home from Chicago to Mississippi when her father needs to have eye surgery. He has a torn retina and after the surgery he will be confined to a hospital bed for several weeks and he has to keep absolutely still or his eye may not heal.
Laurel's mother Becky died years ago and her father remarried to a woman Laurel's age, Fay. Fay is shallow and selfish and she regards Laurel and Laurel's dead mother Becky as her rivals.
After the surgery, while Laurel's father, Judge McKelva, lays motionless in bed, Fay complains that she is missing the Carnival. Always, her first thought is for herself.
Judge McKelva starts to decline. He becomes remote and somewhat unresponsive to his wife and daughter. Laurel sits at his bedside reading to herself as he doesn't seem to want her to read to him. Laurel thinks that "her father seemed to be paying some unbargained-for price for his recovery...his face looked tireder every morning."
One night, Fay gets fed up with the Judge's unresponsiveness and tries to give him a good shaking, as she says later, "I tried to make him quit his old-man foolishness. I was going to make him live if I had to drag him!" He dies shortly thereafter. Laurel feels that Fay caused his death by shaking him like she did.
The Judge's body is taken to his house and all the friends and relatives stop by to pay their respects. Fay's family also shows up, coming all the way from Texas. In the novel, they are supposed to be lower class people than Laurel's people. They just seemed like ordinary folks to me, no worse or better than most.
After the funeral, Fay decides to go home for a visit for a week leaving Laurel alone in the house, the house that Judge McKelva left to his wife and not to his daughter.
Laurel goes through her father's desk and her mother's papers. She thinks about their marriage and about her mother's death. When she was dying, Becky felt, probably unreasonably, that her family was betraying her. The last thing she said to Laurel was, "You could have saved your mother's life. But you stood by and wouldn't intervene. I despair for you." Laurel also recalls her own brief marriage to a man who died in WW II.
Laurel had planned to be gone by the time Fay came back from her trip but Fay comes home early, perhaps because she want to confront Laurel, to establish her dominance and ownership over the house that Laurel grew up in. They have an argument that almost turns violent. But Laurel realizes that Fay will never understand her because Fay is "without any powers of passion or imagination in herself and had no way to see it or reach it in the other person...[Fay] could no more fight a feeling person than she could love him."

I just plain didn't like this book at all. The wake part of the book lasts so long that it was almost like being there, and not in a good way. A lot of the motivations of the characters are left unspoken, disguised in language that just sorts of hints at what is going on. I found this book tedious and overly subtle.

Review from Kirkus Reviews. 

New Words
Feist: a small, nervous, belligerent mongrel dog. "She [Fay] had round, country-blue eyes and a little feist jaw."
Packthread: a strong three-ply twine used to sew or tie packages. "Laurel was halted. A thousand packthreads seemed to cross and crisscross her skin, binding her there."

Book of the Dead

By Patricia Cornwell

Number 15 in the Kay Scarpetta series, in this book Dr. Kay Scarpetta has set up her own lab in South Carolina after the Florida deal went kaput. She is still being helped by ex-cop Pete Marino, ex-FBI Benton Wesley, her genius niece Lucy and her old secretary Rose. Kay is part of the investigation of the murder of a teen tennis star in Italy. As the investigation proceeds, Kay finds that the murder is linked to a local murder involving a little boy who was starved, abused and his body dumped in a swamp. The murders are also linked to loony shrink, Dr. Self, a woman who has a big grudge against Kay.
In this story, Benton has asked Kay to marry him and she has agreed. This sends Marino off the deep end and he starts hanging around with a very nasty woman who is a real bad influence on him. Lucy and Rose are both revealed to have tumors. Lucy's is not fatal but Rose has lung cancer. Kay is trying to make a new life for herself in Carolina but her hostile neighbors are not making it easy.
As I was reading this book, I found myself wondering why the "good guys" never seem to have a pleasant word to say to each other. They are always having to deal with hurt feelings and misunderstandings and everyone is continually saying and doing the wrong things. Kay, Lucy, Pete and Benton all seem miserably unhappy. The murderer is the only guy who is having any fun in this story and it is never explained just what his problem is and what his obsession with sand is about other than that he served in Iraq and was traumatized by it. The story is disjointed, shallow and once again the killer is linked to Kay personally, this time through that obnoxious pill from Kay's Florida days, Dr. Self and through Benton's boss.

I just can't recommend this book. I don't think Cornwell likes her characters anymore as she never lets them have a moment of peace or happiness. It appears Cornwell is going to replace the Marino character with the new character, the handyman and gardener, Bull. Lucy has a brain tumor and no compunctions about doing whatever is needed which may be her undoing. Rose is dying. Looks like the whole cast of characters is headed for a shake-up, which may be a good thing if it inspires the author to get back to the quality that this series used to have.

Review by Bruce Tierney in BookPage.

Cancer Vixen

By Marisa Acocella Marchetto

This book is called a "graphic novel" but it is the true account of Marisa's bout with breast cancer, presented in the form of a comic strip. Marisa was in her early 40s and newly engaged to her now husband, Silvano Marchetto, owner of New York restaurant DaSilvano. She discovered a small lump in her breast. She later went to the doctor (not because of the lump, though) and the doctor noticed the lump. At which point Marisa began her cancer journey.
Following Marisa's story gives a clear picture of the options available to women facing this disease. Marisa decided to have a lumpectomy followed by eight chemo treatments and radiation and five years of the drug tamoxifen. She details the misery of the treatments, which was pretty much what I feared they were. I didn't know that neulasta, the blood cell boosting drug they give cancer patients, had such nasty side effects. Apparently it makes you feel like you've been beaten up by a gang of thugs. Marisa, who had hoped to have children, finds out that while on tamoxifen, she should avoid becoming pregnant. By the time she gets off the drug, she will probably be too old to conceive. Plus one of her ovaries shut down during chemo.

Marisa still manages to remain upbeat most of the time and that is one of the best things about her book. While dealing with a disease that is a killer and also with the effects of September 11, 2001 (she wonders if she was exposed to some toxic agent then that may have caused her cancer), Marisa still tells her story with humor and insight. Her drawings of emaciated New York fashionistas are a hoot!
Lots of info is available about dealing with breast cancer. Marisa's graphic book presents the information in an upbeat and funny way. I enjoyed reading her story and sympathized very much with her struggle. And I also enjoyed the glimpse of her fast-paced New York lifestyle.

For another review of her book see the The Guardian.