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.

Angle of Repose

By Wallace Stegner

This novel won the Pulitzer Prize for 1972.

Lyman Ward is a disabled older man, who, in order to occupy his time and also to help him understand himself and his family better, writes the life of his pioneering grandmother Susan. Lyman is divorced, his wife left him shortly after his surgery to removed his diseased leg. His wife left him for his surgeon and Lyman is understandably bitter. His son thinks Lyman should forgive and let the ex back into his life if for no other reason than that Lyman needs someone to look after him.
The grandmother, Susan, is a gentlewoman, raised on the East Coast and planning on a career as an artist/illustrator in the 19th century. She falls for an engineer from the far West, Oliver. Her friends fear she is throwing herself away when she marries Oliver Ward. Too bad for Susan that she enters her marriage with an unrealistic expectation of what their lives together will be. Susan thinks that she and Oliver will have to spend, at the most, ten years in the west, while Oliver makes his fortune. Then, as she sees it, they will move back east and take their place in the East Coast artistic, genteel society that Susan craves. But that doesn't happen.
Oliver goes from job to job, location to location, always chasing after the success that continually eludes him. At first, Susan goes happily along, but as the years pass she loses confidence in her husband. Her feelings become even more bleak as Oliver turns to alcohol to ease his disappointment and frustration. Feeling miserable, Susan becomes involved with her husband's friend and assistant, Frank.
The story weaves between that of Susan and her trials and that of her grandson, Lyman and his problems. Lyman looks at his grandmother's unhappiness and mistakes and tries to figure out what went wrong in his own marriage

The "angle of repose"is a geologic term, referring to the place where moving rock stops sliding downward, like in a rockslide. It is usually a precarious position, that the least change may cause to deteriorate. In Stegner's story it not only refers to a place of rest in the Ward's marriage, but also to the place of rest reached by Lyman in his slide downward in his life, his marriage and his illness. This is an interesting tale of two marriages in two different centuries, but concentrating mainly on Susan Ward. It is a rather long story but well worth the time it takes to read. Stegner based his story on the real life pioneer, Mary Hallock Foote. In fact, the letters in the story are taken from Foote's letters. Reading her letters made me want to read about her. Makes me wonder how closely Stegner's Susan Ward's life matched Foote's.

For two other reviews see ReadingGroupGuides and Grandpoohbah.

New Words:

Epicene: effeminate. "In the 1870s he was gentle, thoughtful, amusing, a spirit that glowed through a frail, almost epicene body.
Madrone: a plant, the arbutus. "In the night she may have heard the wind sighing under the eaves and creaking the stiff oaks and madrones on the hillside behind."
Charivari: shivaree. "'There was some talk about a charivari,' Oliver said. 'I gave them money for a couple barrels of beer. So now I'm going to take Sue home and barricade the doors.'"
Theodolite: a surveying instrument. "She could not bear to think of him down there in the blackness, dropping his thousand-foot plumb lines, gluing his eye to the theodolite eyepiece while an assistant held a candle close, and while the bob, suspended in water to make its motion minimal, moved in its deep orbit hundreds of feet below and the wire which was all he had to measure by shifted its hairbreadth left or right."
Tommyknockers: Welsh or Cornish version of a brownie or leprechaun. They live underground and wear miner's garb and are mischievous. "'Tommyknockers. Little people who go through the mine tapping at the timbering to make sure it's sound.'"
Wobblies: a Wobbly is a member of a union, the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World. "I suggested the I.W.W. parallel to Ada, who being a miner's daughter knew about the Wobblies."
Argillaceous: soils which are predominantly clay or abounding in clays or claylike materials. "Decades later, over the mountain at Permanente, not too far from New Almaden, Henry Kaiser would make a very good thing indeed out of the argillaceous and calcareous that Oliver Ward forced into an insoluble marriage in the winter of 1877."
Proud flesh: the swollen tissue around a healing wound or ulcer. "Slack's, at the end of the steel, was as ugly as proud flesh, a gulch of shacks and tents and derailed cars, its one street a continuous mudhole, every square foot of flat ground cluttered with piles of ties, rails, logs, rusty Fresno scrapers, wagonbeds, spare wheels, barrels, lumber, coal."
Lacunae: gaps, blank spaces. "Mice have gnawed Grandmother's Leadville letters and created some historical lacunae."
Attenuated: weakened. "Anyway I'm not sure I could stand being attenuated in Mr. James's fashion. I was half glad he didn't appear, isn't it awful?"
Democrat wagon: a high, lightweight, horse-drawn wagon, usually having two seats. "Oliver met us with a democrat wagon at Kuna, the end of the line."
Meeching: Hiding; skulking; cowardly. "Vexed by the unpleasantness of her own laugh as much as by Mrs. Briscoe's absence, she looked over her shoulder, afraid that meeching pig-like presence might be behind her."
Fourierist phalansteries: Fourierism is a system for social reform advocated by Charles Fourier in the early 19th century, proposing that society be organized into small self-sustaining communal groups or phalanges. A phalanstery was the building designed by Fourier to house the community. See Wikipedia. "'Plato,' I said. 'In his fashion. Sir Thomas More, in his way. Coleridge, Melville, Samuel Butler, D.H. Lawrence, in their ways. Brook Farm and all the other Fourierist phalansteries. New Harmony, whether under the Rappites or the Owenites. The Icarians. Amana. Homestead. The Mennonites. The Amish. The Hutterites. The Shakers. The United Order of Zion. The Oneida Colony. Especially the Oneida Colony.'"

A Concise History of the Middle East

By Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr.

Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr. is a professor emeritus of Middle Eastern history at Penn State.

This book does not cover the ancient history of the Middle East. It starts with the era shortly before Muhammad and goes on from there. Like it says, it is a concise history, but still contains interesting details that help liven up what is basically a college text book for beginning students of Middle Eastern history. The author's style is very readable and his explanations some of the best and most clear that I have read. He lays out the history of this complex area simply and makes the connections apparent. This book gives the reader a really good, basic understanding of the region. I wouldn't mind having a copy of this book on my bookshelf.

Anansi Boys

By Neil Gaiman

This book is the sequel to American Gods but it stands on its own so it is not necessary to read the first to enjoy the second.

Fat Charlie Nancy has a problematic father. His dad is a joker, a fan of the practical joke. He made Fat Charlie's boyhood so embarrassing and painful that even though Fat Charlie is planning to get married he is not planning to invite his father. His father is the one who saddled him with the nickname Fat Charlie even though Fat Charlie isn't fat. When Fat Charlie hears that his father has died, he isn't exactly heartbroken. Still he goes to his dad's funeral and there he is told that his dad wasn't actually human. Fat Charlie's dad, Mr. Nancy, was a petty god, Anansi, the personification of spider, an African trickster god.
Seems like, back at the beginning, the animal god Tiger was in charge of all the stories. Tiger's stories are full of hunting, killing, blood and strife. Then Anansi gained custody of all the stories and stories became full of cunning and tricks and imagination instead. Tiger still wants to get the stories back and he hates Anansi.
Fat Charlie also finds out that he has a brother, Spider. Spider is everything that Fat Charlie is not. Spider has godly powers like their dad, Spider is cool, Spider is attractive, Spider gets everything he wants. Compared to Spider, Fat Charlie is a loser.
Spider shows up at Fat Charlie's and turns his life upside down. He gets Charlie in trouble at work and Charlie's nasty boss frames Charlie for the embezzlement the boss has been committing. Spider dates Charlie's girl and sleeps with her, something that she never let Charlie do.
Seeking to get Spider out of his life, Charlie makes a deal with the bird god and he gives her the bloodline of Anansi for her own. Foolishly he doesn't realize that this includes himself.
Charlie finds himself in jail for embezzlement and both Charlie and Spider are being attacked by hordes of birds every time they venture outside. A storm of birds swoops down on Spider and carries him off and he ends up being hunted by Tiger. It is up to Charlie to straighten out the mess, find his voice and discover what it means to be the son of the trickster god, Anansi.

This is meant to be a fun book, for the most part, and it is. Some of the funniest stuff is Charlie's comments about his girlfriend's mother. There are some folk stories featuring Anasi and Tiger which are pretty boring but I guess they are included to illustrate the two characters personalities and history. They might be interesting to people who like folk stories and mythology. The novel isn't all fun and games though. The part about Fat Charlie's murderous boss and Spider's struggles with the bird god and Tiger are pretty grim. Spider gets his tongue ripped out and is tied down for Tiger to kill. Despite these darker notes, this is a good, often funny and entertaining story, an enjoyable read.

Review by Kirkus Reviews.

New Word:
Lubricious: "Fat Charlie realized that he knew the man in his dream, knew him from somewhere, and he also realized that this would irritate him for the rest of the day if he let it, like a snag of dental floss caught between two teeth, or the precise difference between the words lubricious and lascivious, it would sit there, and it would irritate him."
Lubricious means offensively displaying or intended to arouse sexual desire; or having a smooth or slippery quality.

House Made of Dawn

N. Scott Momaday

This novel won the Pulitzer Prize for 1969.

After I finished reading this book, I thought to myself that many parts of it were like reading blank verse and that it seemed rather disjointed and without much of a plot. Then I read online that the book originally started out as poetry, then as short stories and finally it was all tied together in the form of a novel. So my impression of it was confirmed by the facts.

In the novel Abel has come home to the reservation to live with his grandfather in New Mexico after serving overseas in World War II. He is pretty much of an alcoholic. During the short time Abel is home, he kills an albino man who he believes is a witch. He is sent to prison (his time in prison is completely skipped over) and after getting out heads to Los Angeles. At first he gets a job, but loses it. He runs afoul of an abusive cop and gets the stuffing beaten out of him. He is found by a friend and taken to the hospital. When he leaves the hospital, he heads back home to the reservation just in time to take care of his grandfather who is dying. Tending to his grandfather and listening to him talk helps Abel reconnect with his spirituality.

Even though I am neither a fan of poetry or short stories, still I enjoyed reading this book. The descriptions of the landscape were wonderfully evocative. I lived in New Mexico for a few years and reading this novel brought the beautiful and stark vistas back almost as if I were there again. I also enjoyed reading about the ceremonies and the dances, especially the story of the peyote service at the Los Angeles church. I even enjoyed reading the poems and songs. I do wish I had a study guide when reading it as I didn't understand parts of the story, especially the business with the albino. Also, there are a lot of Indian or Spanish words in the story. Still, though a lot of it didn't make sense to me, I really liked it.

For a more thorough summary of House Made of Dawn see the article about it at Wikipedia.

Review from Kirkus Reviews.

New Words (not the foreign words):
Sacristan: the man in charge of the sacristy and the vessels and vestments. The sacristy is the room in which these items are stored.
Peneplain: A flat, featureless landscape formed by a long history of erosion. "He made camp that night far down the peneplain and saw the stars and heard the coyotes away by the river."

The Fellowship of the Talisman

By Clifford D. Simak

This story is set on an alternate Earth where it's the twentieth century, but people are still living like it was medieval times. Duncan Standish, son of a lord, is on a mission. An ancient manuscript has been found. This manuscript is a diary of the life of Jesus Christ, written in ancient Aramaic. This eyewitness account could be the definitive proof that Jesus Christ was a real person and could bring inspiration and comfort to a suffering world. The only person who can authenticate the diary is in Oxenford (Oxford) and Duncan takes on the task of conveying the diary to Oxenford. His mission is urgent as the expert is a very old man in poor health. Duncan sets forth with his friend Conrad, a guard dog, a war horse, and a little donkey to carry the pack.
In this alternate Earth, evil is on the rampage. A mysterious, malign group known as the Harriers is killing everyone, destroying the countryside and Duncan's path lies straight through their territory. The Harriers are strange monsters and hellish creatures who are not of Earth. Their presence on Earth is the reason mankind has not advanced.
Duncan and Conrad head for Oxenford, encountering many strange creatures and have many battles with the Harriers. They are helped out by creatures that normally wouldn't help humans, like Scratch the demon, Snoopy the goblin, Nan the banshee, who all hate the Harriers more than they hate humanity. Somehow, though often out-numbered they manage to prevail against the Harriers. Duncan believes that the magic talisman he found on their travels is protecting them against the Harriers. Perhaps the talisman holds the key to the destruction of the Harriers. Or perhaps not...

This was an OK read. I got a rather tired of the endless battle scenes. I also didn't much care for the ending, it was a bit of a letdown. Other than that, it was an OK fantasy story.

Review from Kirkus Reviews.

Lifeguard

By James Patterson and Andrew Gross

Ned Kelly is sure that his luck has just turned from bad to good. He is in love with a lovely woman, Tess, and she loves him too. Plus Ned's friends have come to him for his help in pulling off a sweetheart of a heist that will net them each a million dollars. What could go wrong? Everything.
The million dollar deal turns out to be a setup and the only thing Ned's friends get is dead. Ned escapes their fate but learns that someone has murdered Tess. Now Ned finds himself the chief suspect in the failed heist, and the murders of his friends and of Tess. The cops are sure they are on the right track and that Ned Kelly is their man. However FBI agent Ellie Shurtleff thinks the heist was an inside job and that Ned and his gang were just patsies. Together Ellie and Ned work to figure out who was the brains behind the heist and why his friends were killed and if or how the murder of Tess figures into it all. And who is Dr. Gachet?

I read the condensed version of this novel and I think it must have left some important details out because I found the story confusing and hard to follow at times, especially towards the end as Kelly's search for the truth zeros in on the elusive Dr. Gachet. Other than that, it was an interesting story. Ned Kelly isn't really a criminal, but when his friends come to him with a million dollar sure thing, it is easy to see how he couldn't resist.

Review from Publishers Weekly.

Looking for Peyton Place

By Barbara Delinsky

What does Looking for Peyton Place have to do with the novel Peyton Place? Other than that it is set in a small New England town, not much. Peyton Place was an exposé of the secrets and scandals of life in a small town. The only scandal in Looking for Peyton Place is the mercury pollution and cover-up at the local mill. True, the heroine of this story likes to imagine that the author of Peyton Place, Grace Metalious, speaks to her and gives her advice. That is pretty much just a plot device to tie this story to the original novel.
In Looking for Peyton Place, the main character Annie Barnes believes, as does the whole town, that Metalious based her novel on their town. Annie believes her mother was the basis for the main character, Allison, in Peyton Place. Annie's mother settled down in her home town and raised three daughters, Annie, Phoebe and Sabina. Annie left home and became a writer and her two sisters stayed home. Sabina got married and works at the mill and Phoebe works at her mother's dress shop.
At the start of the novel, Annie comes home after her mother has died of a mysterious illness with symptoms similar to Parkinson's Disease. Annie finds out that her sister Phoebe is now afflicted with the same symptoms as their mother. She begins to suspect that some kind of toxic substance is at work when she discovers that many folks in town have gotten ill and some have died. Annie is pretty sure that the source of the pollution is the mill.
As she starts to investigate further, Annie runs into a lot of anger and resistance. The townsfolk are convinced that Annie is writing an exposé like Peyton Place. She is even threatened by the local police and runs afoul of Aidan, one of the sons of the mill owner. She had a bad experience with Aidan in the past. Nevertheless, she carries on the investigation, with the help of an unknown informant, whom she only knows as "True Blue".
Despite being stonewalled by most of the locals, Annie becomes convinced that mercury is the reason behind a lot of the illness in town. She also finds herself falling for one of the enemy, the mill owner's other son James. She really likes James, but is he involved in his family's cover-up of the mercury pollution at the mill? She wants to trust him but she finds it hard to believe he isn't one of the bad guys.

I didn't really care for this story. I thought it was predictable and dull. I didn't feel that the story really had much connection to its namesake and that the author just wanted to capitalize on the previous novel's notoriety.

Review from Publishers Weekly.

Teta, Mother, and Me

By Jean Said Makdisi

Makdisi takes a look at the history of the two most important women in her life, her grandmother and her mother. Makdisi is a Palestinian Christian who lived through the upheavals in Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt. Her grandmother was born in 1880 in Syria. Her father (Makdisi's great-grandfather) was an Arab Protestant minister in Syria. Previously the family had been Greek Orthodox Catholic but he was educated at a Protestant mission school and converted. Makdisi's grandmother and mother and Makdisi herself were all educated in Protestant mission schools. It is Makdisi's contention that the skills and values communicated to herself, her mother and grandmother were intended to created modern women of them and they succeeded in turning the three women into typical examples of modern middle class women. But Makdisi feels that they were alienated from the traditional Arab culture that, according to Makdisi, values women's place in society more than modern culture. She says that her mother and grandmother became isolated and redundant once their duties of childcare were over: "She existed in an empty, undefined space created by the new structure of society, and it was a space that provided little comfort or status for women who had no husband and no property. Teta [her grandmother] was dispossessed of the high status traditionally granted to Arab matriarchs precisely by that society which she had helped to form." She feels that the 'veil' of modesty taught to her as a child, was a "veil far darker and more impenetrable, and far more durable, than that outer cloth which covered the faces of ... Muslim girls..." She says the mission schools created a "system which repressed, rather than liberated, women..." Makdisi's mother also felt betrayed by the modern society that was supposed to make her life better, and that "Mother wrote grimly that she did not think her children had appreciated her hard work, her hospitality or her contributions to their lives." Somehow this is all the fault of a Western society imposed on Arab culture by the racist mission schools, according to Makdisi.

That Makdisi doesn't like the West or its values comes through pretty clearly. That is understandable, given that she is Palestinian. It is not a very balanced look at the effect of modernity on Middle Eastern women. Plus, it is just not a very interesting book. The writing is dry and dull and full of a lot of boring details, except about herself. Although she does talk about her childhood, Makdisi skims over her adult life. I found this book a chore to read and I was glad when I finally got through it.

For another review of the book, see Christianity Today.

The Confessions of Nat Turner

By William Styron

This novel won the Pulitzer Prize for 1968.

In 1831, a slave called Nat led a rebellion in Virginia. Nat and his followers killed 57 whites; men, women and children. Nat was an intelligent man who learned to read at time when it was forbidden to teach slaves to read. Nat was very religious and prayed and fasted in order to become closer to God. He experienced visions which he believed were God leading him to rise up against slavery. He was convinced that the whites needed to be slaughtered and that it was the only way to obtain his people's freedom from white oppression. Sadly, his failed rebellion resulted in the revenge killings of hundreds of innocent blacks and the enactment of even stricter rules against blacks in the South, freed men and slaves.
William Styron was born in Virginia not far from the site of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner. I suppose he was aware of Nat from the early days of his life and it is not surprising that he decided to write this fictionalized account of Nat's life and the rebellion he masterminded. It was perhaps presumptuous of Styron though. At the time the novel was published, he was criticized and called a racists by many in the black community. They felt his portrayal of Nat distorted the motives that drove Nat to take the drastic steps that he did. After reading this novel and reading about Nat Turner, I think they are probably right. I don't think Styron really understood what drove Nat to rebellion. A lot of what he wrote about Nat comes off more as fiction than as fact, especially the stuff about Nat's fantasies about white women. Also Styron completely omits the fact that Nat was married. In the book, he paints Styron as a frustrated enamored man lusting after a white girl. This book does present the bare facts of the rebellion but it seems off base in its depiction of Nat. However, if you look at this novel as just a work of fiction, then it is pretty interesting.
Nat's rebellion is an important event in history and illuminates the desperation of people who feel they have been dealt with unfairly and unjustly and seek redress even to point of murder of the innocent and the not-so-innocent.

Review from Kirkus Reviews.


New Words:
Quiddities: "'The essence -- that is, all the quiddities of detail are the same -- or at least I hope they are the same.'" Quiddity means the essence of a thing.
Casuistry: "'Merciful God in heaven, will such casuistry never end! Is not the handwriting on the wall?'" Casuistry means subtle but misleading reasoning.
Crepuscular: "I seemed to be walking alone at the edge of a swamp at nightfall, the light around me glimmering, crepuscular, touched with that greenish hue presaging the onslaught of a summer storm." Crepuscular means that time of day at dawn and twilight.
Majuscules: "'I stress and underline that word. I put that word in majuscules!'" Majuscules means capital letters.
Sedulous: "Though usually the sedulous snoop, I had paid no attention to the conversation, fascinated instead by Benjamin, wondering if this would be one of those evenings when he fell out of his chair." Sedulous means diligent.
Coffle: "The slave coffle had halted at the side of the road, not far below the clearing where the wagon trace began." Coffle means a line of slaves or prisoners chained together.
Calcimine: "I heard the ladder make a faint tap-tapping as they set it against the side of the house and quickly I tested it for balance, gripping it tight by a chest-high rung, then without a word began my climb up the side of the house, past the newly whitewashed clapboard timbers that hurt my eyes in a calcimine lunar glare." Calcimine means whitewash.