Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

By Alexander McCall Smith

Precious Ramotswe's van is on its last legs and she is afraid if she tells her husband he will just junk the van instead of repairing it, not wanting to waste his time on such an old vehicle. Plus Grace Makutsi, Mma Ramotswe's assistant detective has found out that her old enemy and rival, that nasty piece of work Violet Sephotho, has gotten a job at the Double Comfort Furniture Shop. Seems like Violet, an attractive single woman, has decided to settle down and who better than Grace's well-off fiancé, the owner of the Double Comfort Furniture Shop? Grace knows she is outclassed when it comes to looks by the vile Violet, but will her fiancé stay true?
And the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency has an important new client, the owner of a football team who needs to know why his team is suddenly experiencing a losing streak. The owner suspects a traitor is on his team and he wants the two lady detectives to take on the case. Precious and Grace are not too sure they are the right ones to handle the case since neither of them know anything about football. But after talking it over they decide it couldn't hurt to try and so another detective adventure set in the country of Botswana is off and running.

I have enjoyed every book I have read in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series and this book is no exception. Dipping into the lives of these people is both exhilarating and relaxing. For one thing, in these gentle detective stories, you know there will be no gore, no murder, no extreme cruelty, just a good, engrossing and captivating story. It's like a mini-vacation, fun and comfortable and a real good time.

The Graduate

By Charles Webb

Benjamin Braddock has graduated from college and he couldn't care less. A child of privilege, his life suddenly seems to him to be a huge waste. His plans to attend graduate school are up in smoke.
But his proud parents are clueless and throw a graduation party were they invite all their friends. Ben attends unwillingly. And just as unwillingly drives one of the guests home in the brand new sports car that his parents bought him for graduation. When he drops the guest off at her house, she talks him in to coming inside for a drink and then she attempts to seduce him, unsuccessfully. As he makes his escape she makes it clear that any time he wants to the woman, Mrs. Robinson, is up for it.
Later, after spending days lazing around the house getting drunk and floating in the backyard swimming pool, Ben calls Mrs. Robinson and they arrange to meet at a hotel. Once in the room, he tries to back out but then Mrs. Robinson talks him into and thus begins their affair which lasts all summer and into the fall. Meanwhile, Benjamin is still sour on life and still freeloading off his very tolerant parents, getting drunk, watching TV and screwing Mrs. Robinson, whose husband is Benjamin's father's business partner.
Mr. Robinson really likes Benjamin and he and Ben's parents pressure Ben into making a date with Mr. Robinson's daughter, Elaine. At first, Ben is churlish and rude and takes Elaine to a strip club for their date. She is hugely embarrassed and starts to weep when the stripper twirls her tassels in Elaine's face. Ben immediately regrets his bad mood and makes amends to Elaine.
Mrs. Robinson get ugly about Ben dating her daughter and threatens to cause him problems if he continues. But Ben has decided that Elaine is to be his bride and he won't take no for an answer, even after Mrs. Robinson tells Elaine that Ben got her drunk and raped her. He pursues Elaine over the objections of the Robinsons, over the objections of his parents, who want to put him in a mental health clinic, and over the objections of Elaine herself, chasing her even as she walks up the aisle to wed another man.

Benjamin Braddock is a creep. Screwing the mom, then chasing after the daughter, abusing his parents' hospitality. When the truth comes out, Mr. Robinson dissolves the business partnership with Mr. Braddock. But what does Benjamin care! He has to do what he has to do and to hell with the consequences. The guy is the epitome of selfishness. He is a single-minded fellow with no thought for how is actions affect the lives of others. Yeah, he gets the girl in the end, but you got to feel sorry for the girl, getting stuck with that jerk. The book has its lighter moments and it's a pretty good story but mainly, with such a repulsive hero, it's hard to care about what happens to him.

Lycanthia or The Children of Wolves

By Tanith Lee

Christian is dying and he wishes to die alone. So he takes himself off to a mansion in France that he has inherited with the desire to shut out the world and then kill himself when he can no longer bear the pain.
It's an uncanny and strange place where this mansion is located and the locals seem fearful and suspicious of Christian. There are peculiar icons and odd crosses and the stained glass window in the church of the Virgin Mary doesn't seem quite right.
Christian then encounters a weird family, the de Lagenays, a man and a woman. They claim to be werewolves and turns out they are. Christian becomes quite involved with these two people, even to the extent of firing the staff at the mansion and letting the de Lagenays move in.
The villagers are not happy to see Christian and the de Lagenays getting so cozy. Christian's ancestors and the de Lagenays have an ancient history and the villagers are worried history is repeating itself. And they are going to stop it, even if they have to commit murder.

This was an OK story. Christian turns out to be selfish and the werewolves turn out to be very nonthreatening. It's hard to see what the villagers are so riled up about, these werewolves are not man-killers. They are only occasionally man-nippers. Anyway, Christian goes his selfish way and the whole thing ends rather sadly. Isn't it irritating when escapist literature tries to take itself too seriously?

New Words

Memento mori: Memento mori is a Latin phrase that may be translated as "Remember that you are mortal," "Remember you will die," "Remember that you must die," or "Remember your death". 'The memento mori of this was intolerably banal to him.'

Galvanic: electric, affected by emotion as if by electricity; thrilling. 'Unbound from its prim butcher's roll, her hair lay over her shoulder blades; coarse, dun peasant hair, but strong and galvanic.'

Auberge: hostel, a hotel providing overnight lodging for travelers. '"Some auberge will be open for business, no doubt."'

Hiroshima

by John Hersey

Hersey interviewed survivors of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. In this book, he describes the lives of six of these survivors and the hell that they experienced from this devastating attack on their community.

While it can't really be called a "good" read, it is more of a grim read, but it is an important book and brings home in detail the human suffering of the victims of war. It is tough going, reading about the horror of these people's lives but it needs to be read.

New Word

Diathermy: Production of heat in a body tissue by a high frequency electrical current. 'He did, however, have all sorts of modern equipment: an x-ray machine, diathermy apparatus, and a fine tiled laboratory.'

Truck A Love Story

By Michael Perry

Perry ruminates on his cooking, his garden, his girlfriend, his friends, his health and his truck. He cooks his food, plants his garden, dates his girlfriend, visits his friends, goes to work and sometimes works on his truck with his brother's help.

Not the most dynamic book ever written, still it muddles along, with Perry commenting on the details of his life. I was expecting something a little more amusing and a little less self-involved. Ultimately the story is about Perry with the truck and everyone else coming in a far second.

New Words

Poppadam: a thin Indian wafer, sometimes described as a cracker or flatbread. 'I have craved coriander and poppadams ever since, but stop short of calling myself a "curryholic."'

Garam Masala: literal meaning is 'hot spice' it's a basic blend of ground spices. 'This one I used, if only to make my own Garam Masala, which sadly came down on the side of sawdust.'

Parotid: the largest of the salivary gland. 'The play of sun and shadow on a grapelike cluster of Sweet Millions miniature tomatoes is so mustily conveyed that your parotids clench at the thought of the skin popping under the pressure of your molars and the subsequent sweet gush of pulp.'

Melisma: A passage of several notes sung to one syllable of text, as in Gregorian chant. 'There are guys on the fire department capable of melisma.'

Occluded: closed or obstructed. Zerk: A grease fitting, which is a small fitting that acts as the connection between a grease gun and the component to be lubricated.
'Faced with an occluded grease zerk, I could replace it, even tune up the threads with a tap wrench.'

Punji: A sharpened bamboo stick set in the ground to wound or impale enemy soldiers. 'True enough: whereas I would quite gladly honeycomb the yard with squirrel-sized punji pits and perch in the walnut tree with a blowgun, Charlie faithfully lugs enough corn into his backyard to feed a half-dozen beefalo."

Rain stick: A percussion instrument that is made from a dried cactus branch that is hollowed out and filled with small pebbles and capped at both ends. 'In the backseats and cargo areas you will spot fishing poles and Frisbees, and here and there a rain stick.'

Falsa blanket: a blanket with a typical Mexican striped design. 'Many of the passengers exit the cars carrying rainbow falsa blankets and Guatemalan tote bags.'

Outro: In music, a portion of music at the end of a song; like an intro, but at the end instead of the beginning. 'The outro on Dwight Yoakam's version of "Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues"; a stone fence in Wales; the pale wallpaper in Oscar's apartment in reruns of The Odd Couple; the smell of tinder-dry pine needles warmed by the sun; the first notes of Liszt's Liebestraum no. 3 in A-flat, not that I would recognize the rest of it if I heard it in the dentist's office.'

Hesperides: In Greek mythology, the Hesperides are nymphs who tend a blissful garden where grown golden apples. 'Never mind that the series [The Rockford Files] was shot between 1974 and 1980 and we're hardly talking the garden of the Hesperides.'

Purlins: Framing members that sit on top of rafters, perpendicular to them, designed to spread support to roofing materials. 'A hinged ladder beside the tub leads to a mattress stuffed in a cubby hole wedged between the beams and purlins.'

Papa-san chair: A papasan chair is a large rounded bowl-shaped chair with an adjustable angle similar to that of a futon. 'I once responded to missing an important meeting by hurling the top half of a papa-san chair across the room like a gigantic Frisbee.'

Doula: A support person, usually female, with no medical or midwifery training, who provides emotional assistance to a mother or pregnant couple before, during or after childbirth. 'The doula, a woman I may never meet whose role as I understand it was to operate somewhere between coach and midwife.'

Hyperacusis: An abnormal degree of discomfort or aversion to sounds that would not be regarded as loud by average standards. 'In addition to the eye and the testicle (specifically, its benign epididymal cyst, otherwise known as a lump), my inventory includes sand in the gears of my neck (I find myself checking blind spots in traffic by pulling half a chin-up on the steering wheel and then rotating my cranium, neck and shoulders as a single unit)(very little-old-man), a frayed rotator cuff, persistent tinnitus, hyperacusis, a world-record kidney stone, transient numbness of the left leg, a partially detached clavicle, a little click in my thumb that has lingered since I jammed it in someone's shoulder pads during a Friday night football game in roughly 1982, and yes, here lately, in both big toes but particularly the right, the first twinges of uric acid accumulation.'

Edematous: swollen. '"The white spot looks like it might have been there for a long time, but the rapid onset of your blind spot doesn't jive with slower infections or an edematous process."'

Ameliorism: the desire to solve social problems by reforming individuals; also, responding by making things better. 'I recall that at some point during the discussion Nolte said something about ameliorism and the copper roof on Bob Dylan's mansion, so I am going to read up on these ameliortists and see where that takes me, but at some point you have to ditch the interior yip-yap and grab a shovel.'

Trompe l'oeil: This French term literally means to "trick the eye". It comes from "tromper" meaning to deceive and "l'œil" meaning the eye. The term refers to an object or scene rendered so realistically that the viewer believes they are seeing the actual objects. 'The stage is draped in a vintage hand-painted backdrop that creates a trompe l'oeil forest.'

Sacerdotal: priestly. 'After obtaining the all-clear from the local clerk of courts and the Wisconsin state attorney general herself, Bob submitted an electronic application to the Web site of the Universal Ministries, lately of Milford, Illinois, and withing moments found himself selected, appointed, ordained, and granted the power to perform sacerdotal duties including the legal sanction of marriages in the state of Wisconsin.'

The Crucible

By Arthur Miller

Set in the Salem of 1692, this play takes a look at those infamous witch trials that, based on the testimony of a bunch of hysterical children and duplicitous adults, resulted in the deaths of many innocent citizens.
As portrayed by the author, the main impetus behind the accusations was one girl's desire to destroy her lover's wife, backed up by others who had motives of greed, envy and jealousy. This is just dramatization, since the real girl was only 11 at the time, a tad young to have taken a lover, much less plot her rival's death by false accusation. Still, the argument behind the drama is true today, that hysteria and accusation must not be an excuse to behave in gross and uncivilized manner, condemning people without any solid evidence, pressuring people to confess to crimes and deeds they did not commit.
The odd thing about the witch trials is that those accused who confessed to witchcraft were not put to death, it was only those people who refused to confess who were executed. I would think that would be a pretty strong argument for one's innocence, that they would rather die than confess to deeds they did not commit. But apparently the authorities thought otherwise back then.
Anyway, I have read that the impetus behind Miller's play was to strike out against the "witch hunt" of his day, the Communist hysteria that took hold of the United States soon after the end of World War II and lead to the formation of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA) and the interrogation and blacklisting of many artists and show biz people in the 1950s.

As to the play, it is interesting if a bit inaccurate, and is clearly written to get Miller's point across about hysteria and rushing to judgment. But still it is a pretty good read and the most interesting and true thing about it, I think, is the way the authorities went along with the hysteria and stupidity and how they threw common sense out the window in their fear of the devil and witches. Lives were blighted for the lack of a little common sense.

The Last Unicorn

By Peter S. Beagle

So there's this unicorn and one day she realizes that it has been yonks since she has seen another unicorn. She decides to investigate and she shortly discovers that all the other unicorns are gone. She then decides that she must find out what happened to them and where they are. So she sets out on her quest.
Well, she doesn't get far before she is captured by an unscrupulous witch who puts the unicorn into her carnival as an exhibit and there the unicorn stays until she talks the witch's inept magician into helping her escape. And escape is vital because the witch has also captured a harpy and the magic holding the harpy captive is weakening and it will soon burst free and destroy anything in its path. Fortunately the unicorn manages to slip away when the harpy gets free and goes after the witch.
The harpy & the magician resume the unicorn's quest and the magician has a quest too. He wants to find his true power and become a real magician instead of a fake, carnival magician.
The unicorn found out that the other unicorns were driven away by the Red Bull and that the Red Bull serves King Haggard, a blighted king who rules a blighted kingdom. So the unicorn, the magician and a thief's moll they acquire along the way set off for Haggard's kingdom to confront him and his fearsome Red Bull. And in the process each will grow and discover things about themselves they never realized and the unicorn will find out what it is like to be vulnerable.

This is a take on your standard fairy tale, with monsters, magic, a handsome prince, an ensorcelled kingdom, a fair maiden (and a not-so-fair maiden), a wizard and a not-so-happy ending. It was a really good read, engrossing and often fun, and not really your standard fairy tale.

New Words

Theorbo: a larger type of lute typical of Renaissance music. "Their seven servants had set up a scarlet canopy beneath a tree, and the royal young couple ate a box lunch to the accompaniment of lutes and theorbos."

Lamia: a monster with the head and breasts of a woman and the lower half of a serpent, which ate children and sucked the blood from men. "'Unicorn, mermaid, lamia, sorceress, Gorgon - no name you give her would surprise me, or frighten me.'"

Afreet: a cunning demon or spirit from the djinn world. "Long years later, when Schmendrick's name had become a greater name than Nikos's and worse than afreets surrendered at the sound of it, he was never able to work the smallest magic without seeing Prince Lír before him, his eyes squinted up because of the brightness and his tongue sticking out."

Re-birth

By John Wyndham

Hundreds of years or more after a devastating nuclear war, humans are struggling to survive, living on the fringes of land far enough from the blast sites to maintain life.
A quaint religion has sprung up among these people, a religion based on Christianity but twisted. For these people the greatest sin is to be different, to be a mutant. So mutated crops, farm animals, even humans re dealt with harshly. The animals and crops are destroyed by fire and the human mutants are sterilized and cast out to live in the marginal land bordering the badlands where life is a struggle just to survive. For these people living right means having no mutant crops, no mutant animals, and especially no mutant children. For the woman who three times bears a mutant baby is, like her offspring, sterilized and cast out. Any deviation from the standard is looked upon as sin.
Into this straight-laced society are born several children who look perfectly normal. But they are different. They are telepathic. They can't hear normal people but they can hear each other and communicate over long distances.
Even from the time they are little, they know they must keep their ability hidden. But eventually, inevitably, their secret is exposed and some of them are forced to flee. The situation looks hopeless. But among their number is a young girl who is such a strong telepath she is able to summon help from halfway around the world.

This was an interesting story at the beginning as the main character David, who at the start of the story is just a little boy, learns to cope with his gift and keep himself and his friends safe from their enemies and especially from his own implacable and self-righteous parents. The story got to be less interesting once the character of the powerful telepath is introduced and it often degenerated into a lecture about the stupidity of ordinary humans and the inevitability of their replacement by a better breed of humans, namely the telepaths.

Schindler's Ark

By Thomas Keneally

Based on true events, this is the fictionalized account of Oskar Schindler, a German who did not turn his back on the Holocaust but who, through his and others efforts, managed to shepherd some 1100 Jews through those deadly years to safety.
Oskar Schindler would not be anyone's idea of a saint, given as he was to chasing women and boozing. But apparently, under that hedonistic exterior, was a deeply compassionate heart. A heart that was moved to help, in his own way, the Jews of the Cracow ghetto as they faced their unspeakable cruel enemy, racism. Racism that allowed millions of people to profit from the destruction of millions of their fellow humans. Even today, in many parts of Europe, the feeling towards the Jewish people is one is mistrust and hatred. Even today, these people would most likely rejoice to see Jews destroyed, just as their fathers did in the 1940s.
Oskar Schindler went to Cracow to make money. He took over a factory that made metal dishes and supplied the German army with mess kits. Later he added some munitions to his production line, mainly to guarantee the survival of his factory and thus the survival of his Jewish workers.
One day Oskar was out horse riding in the hills around the Cracow Jewish ghetto when he witnessed an act of cruelty and violence, Jews pulled from their homes and shot in the street. This was his awakening to the truth of the Nazi regime. Almost immediately he hit upon a plan to spare as many Jews as possible from the Holocaust. Seeing the writing on the wall and learning about the reality of the death camps like Auschwitz, Schindler had his own camp built for his workers. From the outside, it looked like any concentration camp, with barracks, and fencing and guard towers with Nazi guards armed with guns. But inside the camp, his workers had more food, cleaner and healthier conditions and, since Schindler did not allow the Nazis to enter camp whenever they wanted, his Jews enjoyed freedom from the casual executions that were the order of the day in the other camps.
As the war ran on and the tide turned against Germany, in Cracow, with the Russians drawing ever nearer, it was decided that vital industries must be moved closer to Germany. And so came about the Schindler's list for which the dramatization of this book into a movie was named. For Oskar Schindler submitted a list to the Germans of his workers that he vitally needed for his new factory to be opened in Brinnlitz. The list was a tissue of lies, since it contained not only workers, but their wives and children, which Schindler swore to the authorities were absolutely vital to his factory's continued manufacture of munitions for the war effort. Unfortunately, Schindler was not in charge of transferring his people from Poland to Brinnlitz in what is now the Czech Republic. His Jews had to be turned over to the SS and the Nazis and they spent some time in Auschwitz before finally arriving in their new location in Brinnlitz. Many of the women languished for months is Auschwitz before Oskar was able to convince the authorities to send them to him. By the time they got to Oskar, many were just days away from dying of disease and starvation.
As in Cracow, Oskar set up a miniature concentration camp for his workers as before. The machines to manufacture armaments were also set up, but this time with a slight maladjustment so that they were never able to produce any munitions that met specifications. In this manner, Schindler was able to stall the authorities, provide a safe harbor for thousands of Jews and keep them safe until the Germans were soon forced to surrender and not build another munition for the Germans.
How did Oskar manage to pull it off? Mainly through bribery. Officials were willing to look the other way, to bury their heads in the sand for money, jewels, liquor, foodstuffs. Oskar spent hundred of thousands in dollars bribing people, buying black market food and medications and liquor to be used, not only for the Jews he was striving so mightily to protect, but as bribes to the corrupt officials that made up the German command.
In the end, Oskar saved thousands of Jews who would have surely died otherwise. In gratitude, the Jewish people brought him to Israel decades later where he was given a hero's welcome. Since Oskar spent his fortune saving them and since he was never able to recoup those loses, the survivors lobbied the West German government for a pension for Schindler in recognition of his heroic efforts on their behalf. He was awarded a monthly pension of $200 and given the Papal Knighthood of St. Sylvester by the Archbishop of Limburg.
Even though he was a hero to millions of Jews, to the Germans he was regarded as a traitor. When the German newspapers carried stories of Oskar's wartime efforts to save Jews from the death camps, Oskar's fellow Germans reacted angrily. In Frankfurt, he was pelted with stones. He was reviled and told he should have been burned with the Jews...

This is a worthy book about a hero who refused to go along with the herd and stand meekly by while millions of people were hunted down and murdered simply because they were Jews, simply because they were a little different, simply because they were not of the same religion as the rest. Oskar Schindler was no doubt a magnificent human being, despite his flaws and weaknesses. He was the perfect man to do what needed to be done. And he wasn't the only one. Here and there, throughout the whole area, human beings struggled to protect and save their fellow humans, the Jews, from the unspeakable Nazi "final solution." Read it and learn the truth about man's inhumanity and about man's humanity.

New Words

Quotidian: Daily; occurring or recurring every day; common, ordinary, trivial. "Not to stretch belief so early, the story begins with a quotidian act of kindness, a kiss, a soft voice, a sugared bar."

Bosky: Having abundant bushes, shrubs or trees. "Czechoslovakia was such a bosky, unravished little dumpling of a republic that the German-speakers took their minority stature with some grace, even if the Depression and some minor governmental follies would later put a certain strain on the relationship."

Internecine: Mutually destructive; most often applied to warfare; Characterized by struggle within a group, usually applied to an ethnic or familial relationship. "But it cannot have been too internecine a household."

Orotund: Bombastic: ostentatiously lofty in style. "At Christmas 1939 Oskar found them simply a relief from the orotund official line."

Herbata: Polish word for tea. "Stern and Levartov would, if given the leisure, have sat together for hours over a glass of herbata, letting it grow cold while they talked about the influence of Zoroaster on Judaism, or the other way round, or the concept of the natural world in Taoism."

Toper: Drinker: a person who drinks alcoholic beverages (especially to excess). "'He was,' says Oskar with a customary toper's primness, 'a notorious drunkard.'"

Immortality Inc.

By Robert Sheckley

The year is 1958. A man, driving along a highway at night, crashes his car. He feels the steering column pierce his chest. He feels his head smash into the windshield. He dies.
But he doesn't. He awakes in a hospital bed. He feels fine. He has no scars or wounds from the crash. And he soon finds out that it is not 1958. It is 2110. The man is told he is part of an experiment. His living mind has been snatched from the moment of his death and brought into the future and placed into the body of a volunteer who sold his body to support his family and had his mind erased.
Naturally our man is upset and uncertain. He doesn't know what to do with himself and the corporation that performed the experiment has now backed out for fear of government reprisals. He is on his own, a man with obsolete skills living in a world vastly different from what he knew before.
And if that wasn't bad enough he is now being plagued by a zombie and by a ghost. These creatures are side effects of the mind transference process. Now the man not only has to adapt to future society he also has to figure out what the zombie wants and why the ghost is out to get him.
And a strange society it is where people sell their bodies to be used as hosts for rich people's minds and where science has proven the existence of the afterlife, although they don't have a handle on what the afterlife actually is, they just know it is real. So death is a lot less frightening, in fact there is even insurance that will guarantee the policy holder's entrance to the afterlife.

This was an OK book. It has a lot of interesting ideas about death and the afterlife. It was written in the 1950s so it is dated, for instance, a giant computer that uses paper tape and punch cards. I guess I'd say it was a fair read.

New Words

Hebephrenic: hebephrenia is a form of schizophrenia. "The forms of ghostly madness could be categorized like madness on Earth. There were the melancholics, drifting disconsolately through the scenes of their great passion; the whispering hebephrenic, chattering gay and random nonsense; the idiots and imbeciles who returned in the guise of little children; the schizophrenics who imagined themselves to be animals, prototypes of vampire and Abominable Snowman, werewolf, weretiger, werefox, weredog."

Teredos: marine worms that damage untreated wood by drilling holes in it. "Then you look the boat over. You see that the frames are cracked, teredos have gotten into the rudder post, there's dry rot in the mast step, the sails are mildewed, the keel bolts are rusted, and the fastenings are ready to let go."

Saturday Night

By Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad

A look at the long running NBC TV show, from 1975 when it began to 1985. Points out all the infighting and stress among the principals involved, whether actors, writers, directors, producers. Although it looked like a lot of fun apparently it wasn't that much fun, especially after it became a big hit in its third and fourth years. Competition for recognition and respect became more brutal and some were left bleeding by the wayside. It stopped being a happy little family and turned into an anger factory. Some of the antics that occurred are just unacceptable. And the viciousness, that was disheartening to read about. But if it is details about the first ten years you are looking for then this is the book to read. It is chock full of lots of interesting and surprising details and was an amazing and captivating read.

For another review, see Time.com.

The Confession

By James E. McGreevey

James McGreevey was the governor of New Jersey who resigned when his love affair with another man was about to be revealed to the public. In The Confession McGreevey tells of his life, starting with childhood and how he hid his homosexuality and how he became interested in politics and how it all ended up so badly.

So this is his confession, but more than his confession, it is an insider's look at making it in politics. Reading this book was a revelation. The amount of time and energy McGreevey put into running for and maintaining public office was just astonishing. From what he says, that is par for the course for politicians. It is a constant round of meetings, dinners, speeches, parties, gatherings, special occasions, public occasions, schmoozing, boozing, shaking hands, making nebulous promises, raising money, oiling the movers and shakers...it's just nuts. Beats me how anyone does it.
As far as deceiving his wife and cheating on her with a man and on some of the questionable practices done in fund raising, McGreevey tries to sound repentant. But it just comes across as a tad stagy and insincere, like Jimmy Swaggart's teary confession in front of the cameras. Yeah, he's sorry, they're all sorry...sorry they got caught!
Still, even though I didn't buy into McGreevey's contrition, I did like reading his book. The stuff about the rat race of politicking was really an eye-opener and just that part alone made the book worth reading.

New Words
Babka: A sweet Polish yeast bread that usually features almond and raisins; recent variations feature chocolate and cinnamon. "'This is the strangest looking soda bread I've ever seen,' I [McGreevey] remarked brightly. He [a Polish pastor] was aghast. 'Soda bread? What soda bread? This is babka.'"

Ad hominem: In an argument, this is an attack on the person rather than on the opponent’s ideas. It comes from the Latin meaning "against the man." "The New Yorker made fun of him [Congressman Michael Huffington] for 'washing his hands frequently,' a nasty little jab at his masculinity that even George Will, no friend of gay rights, condemned as 'ad hominem."

Consigliere: A counselor or advisor, especially to a mafia boss. "They agreed to the appointment, which would make him [Golan Cipel] part scheduler, part policy strategist, part consigliere."

An Accidental Goddess

By Linnea Sinclair

Gillie is not your average woman. She has magical powers, she is a powerful Kiasidira, which is like a wizard. She is the protector of the Khalar people and enemy to the Fav'lhir who wish to destroy the Khalar.
During a battle to wipe out the Fav'lhir sorcerers, Gillie's spaceship took a hit that pushed it through a rift in space and about 350 years into the future. Her crippled ship was found and towed to a Khalaran deep-space station, Cirrus One. Gillie was unconscious when the ship was rescued and woke up to find, to her dismay, that she was declared a goddess some 350 years in the past when she supposedly sacrificed herself to save the Khalar people. Fortunately, no one realizes Gillie is the goddess, the Lady Kiasidira, and Gillie wants to make sure on one ever does. As the protector of the Khalar people, she is loath to destroy this religion they have built around her actions in the past. It would be disconcerting to their society to be told they have been praying to a fraud for hundreds of years. Also, even though she is a very special person, Gillie just wants to be treated like any other person. She doesn't crave the spotlight or adulation. Also, she has developed a crush on the hunky Admiral in charge of the station, Mack, and she fears the truth would destroy a very promising relationship. All she wants is some time to allow her ship to repair itself, with her help, and to get to know Mack a lot better. But this is not to be when Gillie realizes that the Fav'lhir, whom she thought she'd taken care of, are back and are once again moving against the Khalar, whom they regard as inferiors since they do not possess powers like the Fav'lhir and like Gillie's people, the Raheira. And they are launching their offensive at the station, Cirrus One, with the help of some infiltrators inside the station. Once again, Gillie has to sally forth to do battle to protect the Khalar and in the process has to reveal her true colors.

An interesting combination of romance and fantasy and science fiction, at first I was rather dismayed at the romantic element as I thought it would be the main driver of the story like any romance novel is. But that was not the case. The romance is an important part of the story but it is not the main focus. There is plenty going on in this story besides the romance (which is not explicit, I am glad to say) and plenty of action and magical confrontations and it is all pretty exciting and quite a good story to read. I did feel it kind of had a slow start but after a while it really caught my interest and I enjoyed it a lot.

New Word

Phratry: Family; people descended from a common ancestor. '"It's a very old phratry. Carries a significant amount of power behind it."'

Homunculus

By James P. Blaylock

Everybody wants the homunculus. This little man-like creature from outer space has strange powers including the power to animate the dead and the power to drive men insane. Trapped fifteen years ago in a small box on a flying blimp powered by a perpetual motion machine, now the the blimp's course is declining and may soon come down on Hampstead Heath in London. Good guys and bad guys are all aiming to get their hands on this damned illusive homunculus, no matter the consequences.
Set in Victorian era Britain, this strange novel features an evil hunchbacked zombie-creating doctor who can even reanimate a skeleton using a gland he harvests from a live carp, a debauched millionaire with a string of brothels, a pimply-faced punk with delusions of grandeur and an obsession with an innocent young woman, a crazed evangelist who thinks he is the second coming of Christ and who wants the doctor who reanimate his mother who has been dead for many years, and numerous zombies who subsist on blood pudding.
The good guys are not as striking or as interesting but include a scientist who is building his own space ship and really, really wants to find the homunculus' space ship which has been hidden away in one of the millionaire's brothels. There is also a toymaker who builds fancy toy boxes and ingenious devices which feature prominently in the story as the homunculus is imprisoned in one of these puzzle boxes but which box no one but the toymaker knows for sure.
So the good guys and the bad guys are plotting against one another and they all want the homunculus which may soon be landing in London. Lots of head bashing, slogging through London's sewers, grappling with one another, gun play, kidnappings, consumption of mass quantities of alcohol, bombs going off, buildings demolished, interspersed with comedic moments and wrapped in a Victorian atmosphere that would make you swear the novel was written in the 1880s and not the 1980s make for a story that is unforgettable. Not to mention the Marseilles pinkle!

I enjoyed this book quite a lot, especially the more ridiculous parts. Still it was rather disappointing that the homunculus, the focus of so much desire and greed, makes only the briefest of appearances, despite serving as the title character of the book. What it was doing on Earth, how it had such impressive powers, how it could survive for years trapped in a little box with no food or water are never addressed. Perhaps the book only rates a "fair read" but it is a really memorable tale, kind of like reading Dickens for the first time, so I guess I should really rate a "good read."

New Words

Serried: Crowded together in rows; shoulder to shoulder. "Leaves and dust and bits of paper whirled through the darkness, across Battersea Park and the pleasure boats serried along the Chelsea shore, round the tower of St. Lukes's and into darkness."

Costermongers: A costermonger is a street seller of fruit and vegetables. The term, which derived from the words costard (a type of large ribbed apple) and monger, i.e. "seller", came to be particularly associated with the 'barrow boys' of London who would sell their produce from a wheelbarrow or wheeled cart. "The city was stirring. The carts of ambitious costermongers and greengrocers already clattered along to market, and silent oyster boats sailed out of Chelsea Reach toward Billingsgate."

Bummarees: A bummaree is a dealer at Billingsgate fish market or a porter at Smithfield meat market. "It was with the dawn that the blimp was sighted over Billingsgate. The weathered gondola creaked in the wind like the hull of a ship tossing on slow swells, and its weird occupant, secured to the wooden shell of his strange swaying aerie like a barnacle to a wave-washed rock, stared sightlessly down on fishmongers' carts and bummarees and creeping handbarrows filled with baskets of shellfish and eels, the wind whirling the smell of it all east down Lower Thames Street, bathing the Custom House and the Tower in the odor of seaweed and salt spray and tidal flats."

Spindrift: Spray blown up from the surface of the sea. "The street was silent and wet, and the smell of rain on pavement hung in the air of the tobacco shop, reminding the Captain briefly of spindrift and fog."

Latakia: An aromatic Turkish tobacco. "Nothing, it seemed to him, was worth losing your sense of proportion and humor over, least of all a steak pie, a pint of ale, and a pipe of latakia."

Trismegistus: Greek, it means "thrice-blessed" or "thrice-greatest". For more info visit this site at Roanoke. "There was no one beyond the seven of them whom they could trust, and no one, certainly, who had any business at a meeting of the Trismegistus Club."

Benthamite: A follower of Jeremy Bentham, an English utilitarian philosopher and social reformer of the 1700s. "It was his moneyed air that was so annoying -- an air that betrayed a sort of Benthamite smugness and superiority, that exclaimed its own satisfaction with itself and its faint dissatisfaction with, in this case, William Keeble, who had been surprised in his nightshirt and cloth cap and so was automatically one down."

Cheval glass: A vertical mirror hung between two vertical posts, also called a free standing mirror; a full length mirror supported by a frame and four feet. "Wind whistled beyond the casement while St. Ives squinted into the little cheval glass atop his nightstand."

General paresis: A form of neurosyphilis (syphilis affecting the central nervous system -- the brain and spinal cord). "There's a reference to a successful experiment in which he spawned mice from a heap of old rags, and another in which he revivified an old man from Chingford, who was dying of general paresis."

Anacharis and ambulia: water plants. "Trailing anacharis and ambulia, Pule wrenched at his fish, slamming it against the stone monolith as he rolled against it."

Choke damp: Asphyxiating gas, largely carbon dioxide, accumulated in a mine, well, etc. "Deener, wary of choke damp, breathed through a kerchief tied over his nose and mouth."

Treasure Hunt

By George Sullivan

Treasure! Laying on the ocean bottom, buried in mud and sand, lost Spanish galleons, wrecked on the reefs, their gold, silver, gems scattered across the sand. What a dream! To find those fabulous lost treasures!
But it ain't easy. First you have to figure out as close as you can the location where the ship sank. Then you have to spend tons of money on men and equipment searching the ocean floor for signs of the wreck. Sign include stones that served as ballast in these top-heavy vessels, bits and pieces of wreckage such as coins, dishes, urns, pottery. Even after finding these bits and pieces it may be years until the main wreck site can be located. This is because the ship may have been moved by the ocean during rough weather.
Mel Fisher is a man who had what it takes to spend many years and much money to track down and locate one of the wealthiest treasure ships to be discovered by treasure hunters. His divers recovered "almost 1,000 silver bars, each weighing about seventy pounds, some 140,000 silver coins. They also found 315 emeralds. And they found gold - bars and disks, coins and jewelry... Altogether, the gold, silver, and jewels were worth about $150 million. The treasure represented the climax of a sixteen-year search..."
This book details that search, the pain and effort, the cost and struggle and the thrill of discovery. It even briefly discusses the history of the Spanish in the Americas and the role the treasure played in Spain. It's an interesting and exciting story, and as the book points out, many Spanish ships sank in the waters around Florida, maybe even hundreds. And only a few a been found so far.

A Zoo in My Luggage

By Gerald Durrell

Gerald Durrell was an experienced animal collector, someone who goes out into the country and acquires animals which are then shipped to zoos. After doing this for a number of years for various zoos, he decided he wanted to start his own zoo back in England, his home country. A Zoo in My Luggage is his account of his collecting trip in the late 1950s to the Cameroons in Africa to gather animals for his own zoo. He kind of put the cart before the horse, acquiring animals before he had an actual zoo in which to place them.
So off he goes to the Cameroons, a place he had been to twice before, accompanied by his wife Jacquie, to Bafut, a mountain kingdom there. Relying mainly on local hunters, Gerald paid for interesting and unusual animals they captured. He and his companions often helped out with captures too, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
Of course, dealing with wild animals poses many problems. They have to be housed, fed, doctored; all their needs attended to. As his menagerie grew, the demands to keep them fed and healthy became greater and greater. Still, Gerald's experience collecting animals enabled him to successfully gather several hundred animals, monkeys, birds, lizards, snakes, apes, mongoose, toads and ship them safely back to Britain. Now if only he had some place to put them all ...

This was a pretty fun book to read. It has lots of funny stories about Gerald's collecting days, lots of stories about animal antics and stories about dealing with the locals. He did get his zoo started, in Jersey, and it exists to this day. Gerald was one of the first people to realize the threat posed to animal populations by human activities and to advocate for their protection. This book is a really enjoyable look back at another, more innocent time and well worth reading.

For another review see Curled Up.

New Words

Jiggers: The female sand flea (Tunga Penetrans) is also known as the chigger, jigger, chigoe, bicho do pé or sand flea. The female feeds by burrowing into the skin of its host. The flea’s abdomen becomes enormously enlarged so that it forms a round sac with the shape and size of a pea. They can infest humans and are mostly found on the feet. For more about jiggers see Feed the Children. "Two patas monkeys brought in; both had severe infestation of jiggers in toes and fingers. Had to lance them, extract jiggers and as precaution against infection injected penicillin."

Pottos: A potto is small primate (Perodicticus potto) from the tropical rain forests of Africa. For an image see Wikipedia. "Have found simple, rapid way of sexing pottos."

Ciné: Refers to one or more of the home movie formats including 8 mm, 9.5 mm, 16 mm film, and Super 8. "I poured out the drinks, and as we sipped them I explained the mysteries of ciné photography to the Fon, showing him how the camera worked, what the film itself looked like and explaining how each little picture was of a separate movement."

Eton wall-game: A vigorous form of football played on a strip of ground 5 meters wide and 110 meters long just beside a slightly curved brick wall and is played only at Eton College. For more info see Economic Expert "Uttering wild screams of fear they [monkeys] fled in a body to the farthest corner of the cage, where they indulged in a disgracefully cowardly scrimmage, vaguely reminiscent of the Eton wall-game, each one doing his best to get into the extreme corner of the cage, behind all his companions."

Lèse-majesté: the crime of violating majesty, an offense against the dignity of a reigning sovereign or against a state. "Later, when we got to know him [a dignified chimpanzee] better, he allowed us to become quite familiar with him and call him Chum [short for Cholmondeley St John], or sometimes, in moments of stress, 'you bloody ape', but this latter term always made us feel as though we were committing lèse-majesté."

Touracos: A touraco is a large brightly crested bird of Africa. "On the remains of what had once been a lawn, fourteen monkeys rolled and played on long leashes, while in the garage frogs croaked, touracos called throatily, and squirrels gnawed loudly on hazel-nut shells."

Marquee: A large tent with open sides, often used for outdoors entertainment. "But I was chiefly worried by the fact that winter was nearly upon us, and the animals could not be expected to survive its rigours in an unheated marquee."

Devil Bones

By Kathy Reichs

A Temperance Brennan novel

Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is called upon to investigate human remains that may be tied into devil worship or some pagan cult. In the process she reconnects with an old high school boyfriend and her boyfriend from Canada makes an appearance after having been out of her life for months and her ex-husband is getting married.
During the course of the investigation, one of the police officers is gunned down and her grief and guilt and frustration add up to a night of binge drinking for Temperance so serious that she experiences a black out and can't remember what she did during the binge.
After mouthing off to the media one too many times, Tempe finds herself without a job. Things can't get much worse but they do when the killer gets the jump on Tempe and on Slidell, a police investigator. Things just go downhill from there.

This was a pretty good story although I was kinda surprised that these crack investigators didn't tumble to the fact that the body found on the beach had been frozen before being dumped. I figured that out right away and I'm not known for my brains. Also I was disappointed when the killer turned out to be a very minor character. I don't like it when the solution to a mystery turns out to be some person who is only briefly mentioned. That just doesn't seem kosher. Still, the most interesting part of the story is Tempe herself and her own problems. Her character is what continues to draw readers to the stories, her character is what drives it and her dilemmas are the most fascinating part of the story.

New Words

Bimodal: Having two modes or forms. "A bimodal assortment of homes lined both sides of the street."

A Dirty Job

By Christopher Moore

Charlie's life is in crisis. He has just lost his young wife, who suddenly and unexpectedly died shortly after giving birth to their daughter Sophie. If it wasn't for the baby he might well have given up. Then, in addition, he finds himself with an unexpected and troublesome new responsibility: picking up the souls of the recently deceased and shepherding them into their new body. Fortunately, this new sideline fits right in with Charlie's current job for he is the owner of a secondhand shop.
This requires a word of explanation. In the world of this story, souls do not necessarily come attached to a baby when it is born. In fact, most people live for decades before they acquire a soul. Also, the soul is contained within an inanimate object which can be something as mundane as a music CD or as weird as silicone breast implants. So Charlie is mystically given the name of a person who will soon be dead and he goes to them and acquires their soul which is contained in some object, like a necklace, and he puts the object in his shop where it will be bought by some body that needs a soul. I know, it sounds really peculiar. But that is the major premise of the story.
Anyway, not only does Charlie find himself ferrying souls, he also has to deal with the forces of darkness which are stealing souls and devouring them to make themselves stronger so they can take over the world. This part of the story is just your typical nebbishy good guy with unknown special powers taking on the bad scary demon guys (or gals, in this case) intent on ruling the world and making things hard for humanity. But with the help of his friends and even of his little daughter and some hell-hounds, Charlie may be able to save the world.

The author tells a pretty good tale and has quite an imagination. The novel has its lighter moments though the tone is pretty dark overall. The novel has a kind of a half-assed happy ending, not too satisfying but somewhat amusing, at least the author probably thought it was amusing. But this is a guy who thinks the term fuck puppet is amusing, or at least that is what I guess since he uses it over and over. Overall, I found the story interesting and even occasionally funny, though a lot less funny than I was hoping it would be. Or maybe its humor just didn't appeal to me.

New Word

Bricolage: A term used in several disciplines, among them the visual arts and literature, to refer to the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things which happen to be available; a work created by such a process. "Well, it wasn't really a bookstore anymore - it still had a couple of tall cases of books, but the rest of the store was a bricolage of bric-a-brac, from plumbing fittings to football helmets."

Diary of a Chav

By Grace Dent

First off, what is a chav? A chav is a poor, working class person in Britain. More especially, it's those kids who hang out on the street wearing track suits and hoodies and athletic shoes and lots of flashy jewelry and who are regarded by their elders as a menace to society, what we used to call juvenile delinquents. For a deeper look into the word, see Michael Quinions' website, World Wide Words.
So, in this case, the chav (which she strongly denies being) is Shiraz, a young British teen (she's 15) who has brains and talent but no ambition to speak of. Except of someday starring on Big Brother because she has a big mouth and thinks she could bring a lot of controversy to the show and makes heaps of money so doing.
The book is presented in diary format with entries describing the trials and tribulations of her young life: a smelly brother, an alienated older sis, a loud mouth mother and a quiet father, an obese pet dog, small breasts, fears of being a lesbian (she isn't), and friend who gets so wrapped up in a boy that she forgets to be a friend. Still, in the end, after some hairy adventures, one of which involves a mashed rat, Shiraz gets her act together and manages to bring a little more peace and understanding to her family at the same time.

Hey, it's not a deep read but it's the kind of thing that teens would probably enjoy reading a lot. I liked the book, mainly for its look at a pretty average teen's life in Britain today. Very interesting, I felt.

The book is chock full of British teen slang but the author provides a glossary at the back, which really came in handy, some of which I have included here in my new words list.

New Words

Baps: breasts.

Barney: an argument.

Bashment: a party.

Bhaji: any of various Indian dishes of fried vegetables.

Bint: annoying woman.

Blank: to ignore someone.

Blinding: amazing, incredible.

Boffins: scientists, engineers, and other people who are stereotypically seen as engaged in technical or scientific research.

Bogtrots: diarrhea.

Bredren: brothers or brother.

Busking: performing in public places for money; doing street perfomances.

Buzzing: feeling really excited.

Chattering classes: people who write newspapers and TV shows and who seem to know everything.

Chuck a sickie: call in to work sick when you're not.

Chuffed: happy, pleased.

Cotch: to hang out or stay someplace.

Dossing: being idle, doing nothing.

Duffers: elderly people.

Earwigging: listening in to other people's conversations.

Eid: the annual Islamic festival that ends Ramadan.

Fangita-eater: lesbian.

Fit: handsome.

Fizzing: angry, irate.

Flash: fancy, posh.

Flog: to sell something.

Front someone out: stand up to someone.

Gaff: house, home.

Geezer: a man, a guy.

Get the hump: take offense.

Gob: the mouth; also to spit.

Gobby: talkative.

Goolies: testicles.

Grass someone up: tattle on.

Grime: a type of UK rap, dance music.

Grime collective: a group of people who make grime music.

Gutted: to be very disappointed.

Hacked off: annoyed.

Hackiest look: a dirty look.

Have a butcher's at someone: to take a look at.

Keema nan: bread stuffed with a layer of minced meat curry then baked.

Kip: sleep.

Knackered: tired.

Knob: penis.

Kofta: meat or vegetable ball popular in the Balkans, the Middle and Far East.

Lairy: aggressive, ready to fight.

Lemon: lesbian.

Liberty: a person who does whatever they want.

Lush: handsome, gorgeous.

Mardy: sulky.

Minge, Minging: ugly.

Minger: ugly person.

Mufties: female crotch.

Mush: the mouth.

Narky: in a bad mood; takes offense easily.

Norks: breasts.

Pakora: a fritter.

Passanda: a mild curry.

Pepperami: a pork sausage snack.

Pikey: a gypsy or any poor person.

Pissed: drunk.

Quids in: rich, wealthy.

Rabbit on: talk too much.

Rudegirl: tough girl, gang girl.

Scrounging: begging.

Skint: broke, no money.

Skiving: skipping work or school.

Skunk: marijuana.

Slagging: talking bad about someone.

Snog: kiss.

Staffy: bull terrier.

Strop: a hissy fit.

Swot: a studious student who gets good grades.

Take the mikey: to make fun of someone or have a joke with them; tease.

Tat: junk, garbage, worthless stuff.

Trackie: track or sweat suit.

Trollop: a woman of loose morals.

Up the duff: pregnant.

Waffling on: talking on and on.

WAGs: wives and girlfriends, said of football players' women.

Well: very.

Well butterz: very ugly.

Welly: plastic, waterproof boots.

Wind-up merchant: someone who enjoys playing tricks on people or getting people all wound up or annoyed.

Whinge: whine, moan, complain.

Wishful Drinking

By Carrie Fisher

A memoir, adapted from the author's one-woman stage show, in which she explores what it is like to deal not only with addiction but with mental illness and with the consequences of her parents' fame and her own fame.
A daughter of privilege and of a broken home, Fisher's life came with a lot of baggage. Add to that the instant stardom brought about by that famous movie, Star Wars at the tender age of 19 and it's a life that could be a stumbling block for anyone, no matter how self-possessed and stable they may be. And Fisher apparently wasn't all that stable although she managed to star in three blockbuster movies and write several novels, while abusing alcohol and medications and suffering from undiagnosed bipolar disease.
All this the author skates over lightly, cracking jokes the whole time but never really getting too personal, never really getting into much detail. If you want to read a down-and-dirty memoir of addiction, read Cupcake Brown's. Fisher takes a lighter approach, which reads more like a comedy act, not unsurprisingly. Still it was an amusing and yet sad read that gives the reader a little glimpse of life in the limelight. I enjoyed it.

Six Moon Dance

By Sheri S. Tepper

At a time in the future and after humanity has spread to the galaxy, on a certain planet a new social order has been created. Females are more rare on this planet and thus are more valuable. A man wishing to marry must pay a dowry for his bride. Further, men are required to wear veils that hide their faces when in public lest their naked faces tempt women into uncontrollable lust.
When people first settled on to this planet, Newholme, extensive surveys has shown no intelligent life on the planet. But later, suddenly, intelligent natives appeared. Legally, people were forbidden to settle on planets that already had native populations. Frightened of losing their planet, the people hid the fact there was an indigenous population from the central authority, the Council of Worlds (COW for short).
But word leaked back to COW and an investigator was sent to Newholme. This investigator, part machine and part human and known as the Questioner, has the power of life or death over the people of Newholme. So the people are frantic to hide what they have done and they order all the native peoples into hiding.
What the locals don't know is that there are no native peoples. There is just one native person and all the little natives running around are just extensions of itself. Living everywhere, nothing occurs on Newholme that this entity doesn't know about. And it is pleased to learn of the arrival of the Questioner. Not because it wants the humans punished for invading its planet. It is pleased because it needs the Questioner's help and human help to solve a very big problem, a problem so serious that if not dealt with very soon will cause the annihilation of the planet Newholme.

This is a fascinating story. Tepper has some imagination. Her strange human society seems like it would work, in some weird, creepy way. Reading about the people of Newholme was very interesting. Also her aliens are very alien and yet not so alien that they are unsympathetic or incomprehensible. She tells an engrossing story with lots of detail and lots of mysteries to wonder about and discover the truth about later in the story. Especially intriguing was the fauxi-dizalonz, a part of the native being of Newholme, a pool where its old parts are melted down and reassembled good as new; and it so happens this pool works on humans too!
One thing I didn't like about the story was not the conclusion, but the ending. At the end of the story, the Questioner is given the opportunity to enter the fauxi-dizalonz and be reborn. It's pretty clear the Questioner will end up entering the pool but the story ends before that happens and we never get to know how it would affect the part-human, part-machine being. I would really liked to have known that!

New Words

Hispidity: Hispid means covered in short, stiff hairs; bristly. 'Haraldson further provided that persons must not only advocate but assure personal rights for all races, and that they must not discriminate against born, hatched, aggregated, or budded creatures on the basis of species, morphology, color, hispidity, gender, age, or opinion, except as species, morphology, gender, et al. provably altered the consequence of any given situation.'

Corpora callosa: The corpora callosum is the band of nerve fibers that connects the right and left cerebral hemispheres of the brain. 'Because it [the Questioner] held three human brains and unlimited memory, complicated corpora callosa and storage units of enormous capacity were required, but the solutions to these and other problems of structure and design were uniformly inspired.'

Brachiate: Swing from one hold to the next (like a monkey). 'She [the Questioner] was enormously strong; she could swim, dive, fly, brachiate, crawl, or climb mountains.'

Miscible: Capable of mixing or blending. 'Clothing, ideas, fads, convictions, all had been transitory and miscible.'

Analects: Collection of moral and social teachings of Confucius, including the concept of the Five Relationships. '"I am memorizing whole book of Confucian analects."'

Marmoreal: Resembling marble or a marble statue. 'The seating area sloped down to an oval dais with a curved back wall against which stood the three effigies of the Hagions, marmoreal images four times the height of a woman, each the likeness of robes draped around a female figure, but with only an emptiness inside.'

Adits: Entrances or passageways. 'Instead he was in a maze of passageways that branched opening onto narrow catwalks that crossed open space to small, dark balconies from which, ascending or descending by ladders, one came upon narrow adits leading to crawlways the went hither and thither in all directions through the ancient fabric of House Genevois.'

Ramified: Divided or branched out. 'No effort had been made to map the ramified and interpenetrating layers.

Neap: The lowest high tide of the month. 'A two big-moon neap, full or dark, was low, but a three big-moon neap was lower, and an all-moon low sucked the water out of the bays to leave mud flats extending to the horizon.'

Squamous: Scaly. '"It's a scale," she said. "From some sort of squamous creature."'

Eidolon: 'She was a perilous eidolon, a symbol of marvel and romance.

The Parrot Who Thought She Was a Dog

By Nancy Ellis-Bell

Nancy is an animal lover. So when the opportunity to acquire a blue and gold macaw came along, Nancy just had to take it, despite the difficulties presented. One of which is that the bird was captured in the wild and during the capture its leg was damaged so badly that its foot had to be amputated. Also, it is aggressive and bites. Further, Nancy's home is pretty small and this is a big bird. She has two dogs and two cats in the home already.
But she brings the bird home and names it Sarah and proceeds to fall in love with it. She can't really touch the bird since it bites and its beak is powerful enough to take off a finger. In fact, it likes to crack bones and eat the marrow, which I guess is common with macaws.
Somehow, she and her husband and her pets manage to adapt to the big bird. Nancy decides to let the bird out of its cage and gives it the freedom of the house, making every one's life more complicated as the bird harasses the dogs and cats. Giving Sarah more freedom makes Nancy feel good. So good that eventually she lets the bird go outside, relying on the bond she has established with the bird to keep it from flying away. Even though she has been warned by a good friend and parrot fancier that, "If you free-flight your bird, it's only a matter of when, not if, the bird will be lost or die."
Nancy cannot resist the idea of giving Sarah the freedom she lost when she was captured and she lets the bird out. She is justified when Sarah sticks close to home, never venturing too far away and always coming back into the house when Nancy calls her home. They spend a lot of time outdoors together, since Nancy is an avid gardener. They have a special relationship although Sarah is still too aggressive to be touched or handled. Still there is a strong, loving bond between the two.

This was a pretty good book. I didn't really sympathize with the author much, bringing that big, noisy and aggressive bird into her little and already crowded home. And I especially didn't sympathize with Nancy's desire to give the bird its freedom. (Bit of a spoiler here.) In the end it's the bird who pays the price for Nancy's hubris. I guess Nancy learned her lesson, though. Her new bird, a scarlet macaw, is not a wild captured bird nor is it allowed to fly free outside. Too bad Sarah had to die to teach her that.

Greasy Rider

By Greg Melville

When it came time to get a second car, freelance journalist Greg Melville fancied a big shiny red pickup truck. His wife Ann Marie nixed that idea. Instead she suggested he get an old diesel vehicle and convert it to run on waste vegetable oil. So Greg bought a 1985 Mercedes diesel station wagon for $4000 and then spent about another $4000 getting it repaired and getting the veggie oil converter installed.
Then Greg got a brilliant idea. Why not take that car and drive it across country, from his home in Vermont to California, running it solely on oil scrounged from the grease dumpsters of restaurants? Since Greg is mechanically challenged, he talked his buddy Iggy, who is good with cars, into coming along.
So they load up the wagon with several gallons of oil and they headed to California, making stops along the way at various locations where people are trying to reduce energy consumption. Iggy also challenged Greg to continue to explore greener alternatives in various side trips taken after the jaunt to California is over.
Among some of the places visited are Al Gore's mansion in Nashville, Tennessee; where it appears Gore is all talk and no action especially when Greg finds out Gore's huge mansion uses about 190,000 kilowatt hours of electricity in a year compared to about 10,800 for the typical family home.
They also stop at Fort Knox, where a conversion of the heating and cooling to ground source heat pumps has cut the heat & air conditioning bill by about 50%. Another stop is a wind farm in Minnesota and a "green Walmart" in Texas.
One of the highlights of the trip has to be the Google headquarters in California where they have gone all out to make their operation not only Earth friendly but also employee friendly. The perks their employees get must make working there a dream.
The hardest part of the trip is getting and dealing with the waste grease. Often the grease is rancid and they have to live with the foulness of it, which they keep stored in the car. They often end up smelling like garbage. Plus the grease has to be pumped and filtered and stored in 5 gallon jugs and if it has any water in it, it can ruin the car's engine. It is really hard on the car's suspension, carrying those big jugs of grease and it eventually goes out. Still the trip goes on and they do make it to California.

This was an interesting book, entertaining while being informative. His description of the benefits of wind generated electricity made me wish I had a wind powered turbine to provide my home with free electric. It was also inspiring reading about the changes that green technology can bring about. I do have to say that the grease car did not appeal. Handling stale, often spoiled grease, pumping it, filtering it, storing it, the stench; it just sounds like too much. But it makes for a good story.

New Word

Swiftboat: To attack a politician with specious claims; To trick, scam, or swindle. '"They want to swiftboat Al Gore, not get the truth."'

Inside Job

By Connie Willis

Rob and Kildy are debunkers. They investigate psychics, mediums and channelers and other such con artists and prove they are scammers. Kildy has recently discovered a channeler who is a little different. This woman, Ariaura Keller, usually channels an entity she calls Isus. Lately a different entity has spoken during the sessions and this entity rails against channelers and reviles the fools who believe and waste their money on them.
Ron thinks this is just a publicity ploy but Kildy thinks that Ariaura might be channeling an real spirit. She and Rob attend one of the sessions at which this entity does appear and it commences once again to rail at the audience:

"But fear not," Ariaura said, "for a New Age is coming, an age of peace, of spiritual enlightenment, when thou -- doing here listening to this confounded claptrap?" ... "It's a lot of infernal gabble," she said belligerently. ..."This hokum is even worse that the pretentious bombast you hear in the chautauqua," the voice croaked. ... "But there you sit, with your mouths hanging open, like the rubes at an Arkansas camp meeting, listening to a snakecharming preacher, waiting for her to fix up your romances and cure your gallstones --" ... "Have you yaps actually fallen for this mystical mumbo-jumbo? Of course you have. This is America, home of the imbecile and the ass!" ... "You sit there like a bunch of gaping primates, ready to buy anyth--" Ariaura said, and her voice changed abruptly back to the basso of Isus, "--but the Age of Spiritual Enlightenment cannot begin until each of thou beginnest thy own journey."

Rob is pretty sure it is all just another aspect of Ariaura's con game but still he and Kildy do some checking up and discover that the unwelcome spirit spoiling Ariaura's meetings bears a striking resemblance to an early 20th century newspaperman, H.L. Mencken.
Is it really Mencken? Rob works up a list of questions and the spirit is able to answer them all correctly. It even pronounces Baltimore, Mencken's hometown, the way he did: Bawlmer. So what is really going on? Is Ariaura a ultra-devious and intelligent scammer or is she really involuntarily channeling H.L. Mencken? Rob and Kildy investigate further and their investigations just may cause an unhealable rift between the two good friends.

This was a pretty good though short read. (It's only 99 pages long.) It was fun reading about Mencken and it was interesting reading about the channeling sessions. A lot of people have strong opinions about Mencken but the author must be a fan of his and after reading this book it has made me more curious about that very opinionated man, Mencken. An interesting and thought-provoking book!

For another review see Bookotron.com.

New Word

Papuliferous: having pimples. '"The problem is, if you prove you're Mencken," Kildy said earnestly, "then you're also proving that Ariaura's really channeling astral spirits, which means she's not --" "--the papuliferous poser I know her to be." Exactly," Kildy said, "and her career will skyrocket."'

Southern Living

By Ad Hudler

When Margaret's domineering mother died, Margaret found herself the owner of a rather run down house in the town of Selby, Georgia. On a whim she decides to move to Selby and she finds a job working on the local newspaper where she publishes a column called "Chatter" which contains the call-in comments and complaints of the local citizenry. A Yankee and raised to be an independent woman, Margaret finds the adjustment to Southern Living to be challenging and enlightening. For one thing, even though she is a talented cook and trying to start up a catering business, the locals are not interested in her "foreign" dishes which are low fat, spicy, and garlicky. For another, used to a more driven Northern lifestyle, she finds Georgians laid back and relaxed attitude puzzling and misleading. She thinks it means they just don't give a damn but instead they are approaching things from a different point of view.
Margaret isn't the only woman we get to know in this novel. Featured also are Suzanne, former poor girl and now married to a successful neurosurgeon. Suzanne is going off the deep end trying to cope with her indifferent husband, her own social-climbing desires and the neighborhood dogs who keep messing on her lawn. Add in a pretend pregnancy and it is clear Suzanne is heading for a huge fall.
The other star of this story is the once-beautiful former beauty queen Donna. Before the accident that left one side of her face scarred, young Donna had everything she wanted: a hunky boyfriend and her dream job selling makeup. But after the accident she lost the makeup sales position and the hunky boyfriend because of the drastic change in her appearance and now finds herself working in the produce department of a grocery store, a job that at first she absolutely hates. But as time passes and she brings her natural talent for design to bear she finds that this job can be as exciting and even more rewarding than her previous job at the makeup counter.

Following the story of these three women was truly enjoyable. Watching Margaret find herself at home in the Southern culture was heartwarming as was seeing Donna come into her own as she rises to manager of the produce department and learns that true beauty is on the inside, not the outside. And poor nutty Suzanne, trying to be all things to all people and failing spectacularly but still, in the end, managing to land on her feet. It was all charming and inviting and makes one long to be there with them. I truly enjoyed this book.

For another review see Bookreporter.

New Words

Soppressata: Coarse Italian salami, like headcheese. 'Margaret longed for Wegmans, her supermarket in Buffalo, and she wanted soppressata and passion fruit and soba noodles.'

Tabbouleh: cracked wheat salad typically made with parsley, tomatoes, cucumber, and mint. 'She wanted some interesting, pro-choice couple to invite her to dinner for tabbouleh and grilled eggplant.'

Fermata: a small arch (with a dot beneath it) placed over a note that indicates the note should be sustained longer than its ordinary duration. 'She was at the highest point in this chronological arc of humanity, midway through the life cycle, and, oddly enough, the petite woman looked a lot like Suzanne, who was nearly thirty-four with small facial features, plucked, fermata-shaped eyebrows, breasts that Suzanne considered too small, and black, shoulder-length hair, just long enough that she could pull it back with a bow on Sundays for church if she wanted to.'

Nori: toasted seaweed sheets used to hold sushi rolls together. 'Michael brought his fingers to her lips -- they gently brushed her mouth as he found a firm hold on the sushi. "Okay," he said. "Bear down on that nori. Cut it with your teeth. Good." Freed from embarrassment, she closed her mouth and chewed.

Coffered ceiling: a ceiling with recessed square panels, bordered with trim for ornamental purposes. '"They need a coffered ceilin' in that room," she said. "That room's got too big a feel to it. That high ceilin' probably makes 'em feel like little kids."'

The Road

By Cormac McCarthy

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2007

Something terrible has happened to the Earth, some huge ecological disaster or perhaps a horrible war. Whatever it was it has left the world, cold, barren and burned.
A few people have managed to survive, hanging on mainly by preying on each other. One man and his young son have clung to survival for as long as they can where they currently live but things are getting very desperate. The man decides to head out to a new locale, some place where food and shelter can be found, southward and to the ocean. He doesn't have much time because he is ill and knows he is probably dying. He just wants to get his son to safety. So they embark on a dangerous trek, hiding out against marauders, stumbling across timely caches of food and supplies. The man does the best he can but sometimes things go really hard for them. But they struggle onward to the promise of some kind of life and security.

Well, isn't this a cheerful little book? People roasting newborn babies over campfires. Charred burned corpses littering the highways. Hopelessness and despair and impending death. Yup, a real hoot.
Lots of readers found this book uplifting and inspiring. To me it was just so depressing and gruesome. I couldn't take it and had to set it aside for several months. I don't need to be hit over the head with a brick, which is exactly what this book does to the reader. Not to my taste at all.

For another review, see The New York Times.

New Words (Apparently the author is fond of unusual words. These definitions may not be accurate as some of these words are very hard to track down.)

Gryke: also grike; a fissure. 'He descended into a gryke in the stone and there he crouched coughing and he coughed for a long time.'

Meconium: greenish substance that builds up in the bowels of a growing fetus and is normally discharged shortly after birth. 'The improbable appearance of the small crown of the head. Streaked with blood and lank black hair. The rank meconium.'

Rachitic: of, relating to, or affected by rickets; resembling or suggesting the condition of one suffering from rickets. 'He was lean, wiry, rachitic.'

Siwash camp: a camp out without a tent or supplies. 'When it was a bit lighter he rose and walked out and cut a perimeter about their siwash camp looking for sign but other than their own faint track through the ash he saw nothing.'

Claggy: sticky or tacky. 'The gray and rotting teeth. Claggy with human flesh.'

Parsible also parsable; parse means to break a sentence down into component parts. "He'd had this feeling before, beyond the numbness and the dull despair. The world shrinking down about a raw core of parsible entities.'

Intestate: having no legal will, one who dies without a will. 'He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth.'

Patterans: any of several coded signs left along a road or on a non-gypsy house by one gypsy comrade to another. 'They began to come upon from time to time small cairns of rock by the roadside. They were signs in gypsy language, lost patterans.'

Pampooties: soft shoe, moccasin or slipper, usually made of leather. 'They'd wrapped their feet in sailcloth and bound them up in blue plastic pampooties cut from a tarp and they left strange tracks in their comings and going.'

Salitter: essence of God. 'He walked out into the road and stood. The silence. The salitter drying from the earth.'

Crozzled: crushed, squashed, shrunken. 'The incinerate corpses shrunk to the size of a child and propped on the bare springs of the seats. Ten thousand dreams ensepulchred within their crozzled hearts.'

Hydroptic: swollen. 'The ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be. The sweeping waste, hydroptic and coldly secular.'