Month: December 2024

System of the World

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Stephenson, Neal. System of the World: Vol III of the Baroque Cycle. HarperCollins, 2004.

Reason read: to finish the series started in honor of Stephenson’s birth month in October.

The System of the World can be called a historical novel. It is epistolary in nature, satirical, and a roman flueve all in one. Before we dig into the plot, a little book trivia. Stephenson was nice enough to remind us of the story thus far (from Quicksilver and The Confusion).
Back to the plot: We begin with Book Six: Solomon’s Gold. Daniel Waterhouse, founder of the institute we know today as MIT, has been sent back to London to resolve a feud between Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton. The two brainiacs are squabbling over the invention of calculus. To utter anything about calculus, much less pinpoint who invented it, is to commit a grand faux pas of epic proportions. Jack Shaftoe is back as Jack the Coiner. Historically, the Whigs and Tories are about to face off. The irreconcilable dispute between science and religion rages (very reminiscent of “Inherit the Wind” by Lawrence and Lee). There are moments of sly humor that you might miss if you are not careful. My favorite: one of Mr. Threader’s spiels is the equivalent of the legal fine print on a contract.

Line I liked, “Daniel felt something very strange was happening to his face: he was smiling” (p 165).

Author fact: not to stereotype bald heads and beards but pictures of Stephenson on the internet make me think he would make a great bad guy in an action film.

Book trivia: System of the World bears the same title as a book of Isaac Newton’s. Another piece of trivia: System of the World won a Locus Award.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Neal Stephenson: Too Good To Miss” (p 214).

Vampire Lestat

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Rice, Anne. Vampire Lestat. Ballantine Books, 1985.

Reason read: to finish the series started in November in honor of Interview with the Vampire‘s movie release.

In her second book of the Chronicle of the Vampire series, Rice takes us back to the beginning of Vampire Lestat’s life. Readers first meet him towards the end of her bestseller, Interview with the Vampire. This time Vampire Lestat guides the audience deeper into what it means to be a vampire. He shares what happens to him physically (hair and nails don’t grow any longer than at the point of immortality but if either hair or nails are cut, they will grow back to that prescribed length), as well as what happens to a vampire mentally. To be immortal takes a toll. To no longer walk among humans is a sacrifice. To constantly be on the hunt for fresh blood is a chore. Lestat makes interesting choices. He invites his mother to become a vampire, but holds best friend Nicholas at bay.
Rice is really clever to include Interview with the Vampire in Vampire Lestat as a pack of lies.
Confessional: Lestat is a whiny brat in the beginning of the novel. I was sick of his crying until he became a vampire. I was also growing weary of the Dark Gift, the Devil’s Road, the Children of Darkness, and the amplified amounts of whispering and weeping. It was like reading a horror soap opera full of dramatic sighs and posturing.

Best line, “The world around me had become my lover and my teacher” (p 329).

Author fact: There are a total of eight books in the Chronicles of the Vampires series, I am not reading any except the first two.

Book trivia: Vampire Lestat was never made into a movie.

Playlist: Bach’s Art of the Fugue, and Mozart.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213).

Case-Book

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes: The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Doubleday & Company, 1922.

Reason read: to complete the series started a long, long time ago in honor of Doyle’s birth month.

The best stories come to life when the personality of Sherlock Holmes gets to shine through his investigative brilliance. It is in Case-Book that readers are reminded that Sherlock is his most human self when he relaxes in a Turkish bath.

As an aside, Sherlock reminded me of Nero Wolfe in The League of Frightened Men when he refused to help Colonel Damery.

The stories:

  • Adventure of the Illustrious Client – Baron Gruner is known as the Austrian murderer who supposedly killed his wife. Will he kill his latest fiancé? Why is the woman dead set (pun intended) on marrying this man?
  • Adventure of the Blanched Soldier – crime is not always at the root of a case for Holmes. This time a man hides his pale face for a completely different reason.
  • Adventure of the Mazarin Stone – the theft of a missing crown jewel.
  • Adventure of the Three Gables – a tale of what one person will do to keep their reputation clean.
  • Adventure of the Sussex Vampire – a mother is accused of being a vampire.
  • Adventure of the Three Garridebs – a weird scam so that a villain could acquire a counterfeiter’s printing press.
  • The Problem of Thor Bridge – a woman is found dead. Could the murderer have been her husband’s younger and more beautiful mistress?
  • Adventure of the Creeping Man – what would make a respected professor act like a monkey?
  • Adventure of the Lion’s Mane – Did a man kill his friend over a woman?
  • Adventure of the Veiled Lodger – What happens when a murder plot goes horribly wrong.
  • Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place – how far would a man go to hide his sister’s demise?
  • Adventure of the Retired Colourman – A man experiences the ultimate betrayal…or did he?

BookLust Twist: this will be the last time that will I say this does not come from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 123). The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes is not listed.

Ultimate Guide to Rapport

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Ernsund, Stig. The Ultimate Guide to Rapport: How to Enhance Your Communications and Relationships with Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere. Self Published, 2024.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to review all sorts of interesting books.

Whole books have been written on the subject of the evolutionary importance of human connection. It has been proven that newborn babies thrive when held and talked to while neglected or ignored children become sickly and even perish. The foundation for the saying, “it takes a village to raise a child” is bonding which enables the community to work together.
The Ultimate Guide to Rapport is a concise twenty-nine pages of how to build a connection when it is “extra useful” or necessary. It promises to deliver the following: a definition of rapport, the theories, neuroscience and psychology of rapport, methods for building forms or levels of rapport, the value of rapport, an strong argument for rapport supported by theories and explanations and examples of added value of rapport. While I do not necessarily think it is the “ultimate” guide to rapport, it is packed with useful information.

Author fact: Stig Ernsund is a Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Master Practitioner.

Book trivia: Ernsund’s introduction ends with a gentle sales pitch on life coaching and communication counseling.

Carringtons of Helston

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MacDonald, Malcolm. The Carringtons of Helston. St. Martin’s Press, 1997.

Reason read: so…this is a weird one, so hang on. I am reading The Carringtons of Helston because it takes place in Cornwall. Every December 23rd the townspeople of Mousehole, Cornwall, celebrate a festival called Tom Bawcock’s Eve. Bawcock was a 16th century fisherman who was rumored to have saved the town of Mousehole from starvation by going fishing during a storm. His boat was small but his courage was mighty and he caught more than enough fish to save the entire village. There you have it.

This takes place right before World War I in Cornwall, England. To give you an idea – tomatoes have just been deemed nonpoisonous. It is a society where people dance around topics in a valiant effort to not say what they really mean to say – all for the sake of politics, politeness, or both. The cat and mouse games people play are humorous during this era especially when each party takes a turn being the cat. But, don’t be fooled by the prim and proper society of Helston, Cornwall! MacDonald makes sure to include very real human desires and jealousies of all his main characters. Leah, the Carrington daughter, is a young woman with modern thoughts. Old enough to be a spinster, she wants friends with benefits. She doesn’t want the marriage, just the intimacy with a good man. A good dose of humor is peppered throughout the story. Housemaids are saucy. Gentlemen are not above acting the fool on occasion. Characters are so well drawn I could see this being a PBS or BBC show (something a little spicier than Downton Abbey).

Lines I liked, “Of course, any old building must have been a silent witness to the whole gambit of human activities and emotions” (p 35).

Author fact: The Carringtons of Helston is the only MacDonald book I am reading for the challenge. He wrote many others.

Book trivia: The language and mannerisms of The Carringtons of Helston characters is so modern I kept forgetting what era the story took place.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Cornwall’s Charms” (p 71)

Everywhere That Mary Went

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Scottoline, Lisa. Everywhere That Mary Went. Narrated by Teri Schnaubelt. HarperAudio, 2016.

Reason read: Pennsylvania became a state in the month of December. Everywhere That Mary Went takes place in Philadelphia.

Mary DiNunzio has a problem. She is pretty sure she is being stalked by a stranger. Weird hang ups on her office and home phones, strange notes left at her desk, and a mysterious black car constantly following her all contribute to her growing sense of paranoia. As if these troubling events are not enough, Mary will not report them for fear of tarnishing her chances for a promotion at her law office. She’s up for partner. Meanwhile, she is still grieving the loss of her husband less than a year ago and she has hardly anyone to confide in. Her twin sister joined a convent, her personal assistant has troubles of his own (it is the 1990s and AIDS is running rampant) and her best friend disapproves of Mary’s new boyfriend, a fellow lawyer at the same firm. Mary’s life is a mess. When violence escalates Mary is forced to take action. Her life may very well be on the line.

Author fact: Scottoline used her experiences as a lawyer to start the Rosato & Associates series.

Book trivia: Everywhere That Mary Went is the first book in the Rosato & Associates series. I am reading two others, Mistaken Identity and Killer Smile. A fourth book, Final Appeal, is a stand-alone mystery.

Playlist: “HM Pinafore”, Prince, Madonna, and George Michael’s “Father Figure.”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest” (p 25).

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

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Joyce, James. The Portable James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Viking Press, 1981.

Reason read: James Joyce was born on February 2nd. He and I share the same birth date. I also needed a book for the 2024 Portland Public Library Reading Challenge in the category of a book someone you know did not like. Portrait was an easy choice. Not many people like Joyce.

Stephen Dedalus, being James Joyce’s alter ego, is a study in personal and spiritual growth. The subtext is one of sexual awakening; a coming of age, if you will. Stephen navigates life with contradictory moments of trepidation and vigor. He believes that in order to be a great artist one needs to suffer for the art. A self imposed exile and abandonment of family is critical for success. Not unlike Joyce’s own journey to becoming an accomplished author.
The trick to reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is to not take every sentence as gospel. Every detail is not going to be on some final exam. Read Joyce like you are on an acid trip. Tiptoe across the run-on sentences and uber microscopic details and you will be just fine. If it helps, Joyce was experimenting with different ways to write literature. They didn’t always make sense.

Lines I liked, “He wanted to meet in the real world the unsubstantial image which his soul so constantly beheld” (p 77), “Pride and hope and desire like crushed herbs in his heart sent up vapours of maddening incense before the eyes of his mind” (p 335).

Author fact: Joyce’s full name was James Augustine Aloysius Joyce.

Book trivia: The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was adapted into a film in 1977.

Playlist: “Lily of Kilarney”, “O, Twine Me a Bower”, “Bluest Eyes and Golden Hair”, and “The Groves of Blarney”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Joyce an influence on all other Irish writers.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapters called “Irish Fiction” (p 125) and “100 Good Reads, Decade By Decade: 1910s (p 175).

Would You Rather?

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Tooker, Michelle. Would You Rather?: True Crime Edition. Michelle Tooker, 2024.

Reason read: every now and again I get to review interesting books as part of LibraryThing’s Early Review program. This is one such book.

Would You Rather? True Crime Edition boasts of “1,000 thought-provoking questions and conversation starters on serial killers, mysteries, crimes, supernatural activities and more” and is the “ultimate true crime gift.” All that is true…for the right audience. Tooker knows a great deal about serial killers, unsolved crimes, and unexplained mysteries. Like more than the average person. There were many people (both criminals and victims) I had never heard of before. Some of the Would You Rather questions I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know the case. Thanks to Tooker, I am going to do down a rabbit hole of television shows, documentaries, and true-crime nonfiction to bring myself up to speed!

Book trivia: the illustrations are interesting, a ski mask, dead body…

One Year Without Sugar

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Hamn, Matthew. One Year Without Sugar: Unlocking the Secrets to Weight Loss. Self Published, 2024.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing, I review interesting books.

I have to be honest. I don’t know if I would buy this book if I discovered it and happen to flip through it in a bookstore. The photographs and daily diet journal are somewhat repetitious. I couldn’t identify some of the foods and a couple of the photographs were blurry. If you are not familiar with the wild fit program you will not lose the overall context, but the knowledge would be a nice frame of reference.
Confessional: I am still not finished reading One Year Without Sugar. So far my favorite parts are when Hamn includes interesting facts about himself. In this way he connects with his readers very well. For example, he is sheep herder who goes into the mountains for two to three days at a time and he gained a bit of weight after giving up cigarettes. (That makes total sense because smoking is such an oral activity! As a hand to mouth activity putting food in one’s mouth is a natural substitution for smoking.) I appreciate his personal narrative and his motivation more than the journal of what he ate. His journey is an inspiration! Confessional: I did learn a little bit. For example, the fifty-six different names for sugar. If I ever want to cut out even twenty-five percent of the sugar I consume I now know what to look for in the list of ingredients.

Rubber Band

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Stout, Rex. Rubber Band. Bantam Books, 1986.

Reason read: to continue the series started last month. Also, Rex Stout was born in December.

The immediate mystery in Rubber Band is that $30,000 has gone missing from a Vice President Muir’s desk drawer. He is convinced he knows who took it. Anthony D. Perry, President of Seaboard Products Corporation, takes offense to the accusation because the alleged culprit, Miss Fox, is his alleged mistress. The secondary mystery involves a group known as the Rubber Band. They are owed money for freeing a man destines for hanging. George Rowley killed a man but escaped punishment due to a seemingly cooked up story about an inheritance. He bribed his way to escape then conveniently never paid the group who freed him. Miss Fox is involved in both cases.
Here are the things I appreciate about the Wolfe series: Rex Stout pays homage to Arthur Conan Doyle by having a picture of Sherlock Holmes over Archie’s desk and the consistencies – Archie, who has lived with Nero for eight years, will always go on and on about Wolfe’s weight. Nero’s time with his beloved 10,000 orchids never varies (9am – 11am and 4pm – 6pm), nor will he alter this schedule for anyone or anything.

The one thing I didn’t appreciate about Stout’s writing. I was constantly considering the time of Stout’s writing. Archie is a little sexist referring to women as “little girls” and using other disparaging remarks.

Line I laughed at, “…she had the kind of voice that makes you want to observe it in the flesh” (p 10).

As an aside, I want to create an Archie Dictionary. Has anyone already done this? Here are some words I would include: bird=guy, bean=brain, pink=kill, faded=retreated, lamped=observed and brass=courage.

Author fact: Rex Stout was born in Noblesville, Indiana in 1886. As an aside, I am reading forty-two more Nero Wolfe mysteries. Hopefully, I will be able to find 42 more facts about his creator. Sigh. [As an aside, according to the back page of Rubber Band Rex Stout wrote 72 Nero Wolfe mysteries by the time he died. I am not reading the thirty short stories.]

Book trivia: the front cover of my copy of Rubber Band is humorous. Rex Stout is “the grand master of detection” and Nero Wolfe, complete with a portly silhouette, is “the world’s most brilliant detective.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout: Too Good To Miss” (p 227).

Empire Express

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Bain, David Howard. Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad. Penguin, 2000.

Reason read: November is Train Month.

Bain used an extraordinary list of sources for his epic history of the birth of the transcontinental railroad. Everything from autobiographies, essays, letters, biographies, trial transcripts, historical pamphlets, pioneer atlases, private papers, railroad reports, manuscripts, government documents, and periodicals…just to name a few sources. Not quite doorstop heft, Empire Express is an impressive true life, detail-dense, historical adventure, just shy of 800 pages. It covers thirty years of savvy entrepreneurship and brilliant engineering. He describes how Robert Mills proposed something resembling a steam train in 1819 while Asa Whitney was a firm believer in the 2,400 mile railway. The end of the Civil War brought a hunger to connect the East with the wild western plains. The Rocky Mountains proved to be a formidable obstacle so military topographical engineers sent out expeditions to solve the problem. These were the days of gold rush frenzies. By 1842 imaginations fused with innovation and the iron rails began to span the country. Bain included details of a buffalo hunt gone awry and white men wanting to witness a fight between “the hostiles” as if it is was a farcical Broadway musical. [Sometimes history is just ridiculous.] There was even a first hand description of a scalping. [As an aside, who in their right mind would tan a scalp and then put it on display in the public library in the children’s section?]

Author fact: Bain is from my home away from home state of New Jersey.

Book trivia: the series of black and white photographs in Empire Express are as beautiful as they are awe inspiring.

Setlist: “Waiting for the Wagon”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Riding the Rails: Railroad History” (p 200). Also included in More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Beckoning Road” (p 19). I would argue that this book does not belong in this section at all.

Big Dig

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Barnes, Linda. Big Dig. St. Martin’s Press, 2002.

Reason read: to finish the series started in October in honor of autumn in beautiful New England.

Carlotta Carlyle is back. This time she has an assignment to go undercover to monitor rumors of theft on a construction site in the heart of Boston. Only this isn’t your ordinary dig site. This is Boston’s famous Big Dig. Massachusetts residents will remember that tolls paid along the turnpike were supposed to fund this ginormous project to reroute traffic around one of the oldest cities in the nation. Only, the action isn’t hot and heavy enough for Carlotta. She seems to be monitoring the theft of…dirt. She decides to moonlight, taking on a missing persons case. Working two separate jobs seems like a win-win for Carlotta until she gets fired from the Big Dig assignment. Isn’t it ironic that Carlotta discovers that her undercover assignment is directly tied to her on-the-side case, the disappearance of a dog groomer/waitress? Now Carlotta must find a way back onto the Dig assignment to connect the cases and solve them both.
Big Dig is full of twists and turns. Both the events of Waco, Texas and Oklahoma City play a part in the action. Carlotta finds herself back in the presence of an old flame and finds time to fan a new fire.
Confessional: Big Dig is not entirely believable (big shocker). When Carlotta finds a guy hog tied and suffering from a pretty nasty head wound, she is not alarmed. Instead, she takes him home to have sex.

Author fact: Every time I went to look up information about Linda Barnes I kept running into the character from Criminal Minds…

Book trivia: as with all Carlotta Carlyle mysteries, Barnes includes a plethora of real landmarks of Boston in Big Dig.

Playlist: Chris Smither, Frank Sinatra, Robert Johnson, Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Bessie Smith, and Wagner.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter “New England Novels” (p 177).

Inherit the Wind

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Lawrence, Jerome and Robert E. Lee. Inherit the Wind. Ballantine Books, 2007.

Reason read: two reasons, actually. John Jay was born in December. Inherit the Wind is about a trial. Second reason – I needed a play for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge.

The title of the play, Inherit the Wind, comes from Proverbs, “He that troubleth his own shall inherit the wind…” (p 126). Bert Cates, a young schoolteacher, is jailed for deliberately telling students about Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species. In this deeply religious town, Cates knew he would cause trouble. Brady comes to town to prosecute this willful lawbreaker. Even though this takes place in the 1920s, some things never change. The verdict of this trial could change the course of politics for it is an election year…
Stage direction: it is important for the concept of the play that the town always be visible. The town serves as a reminder for the audience that the entire community is vested in this trial.
Inherit the Wind was originally copyrighted as an unpublished work in 1950. In my 2007 copy the reader is cautioned that the story is not a history but rather inspired by true events of the Scopes/Monkey trial.

Lines I liked, “You never pushed a noun against a verb except to blow something up” (p 127).

Book trivia: the play was performed in New York City in 1955 starring Tony Randall and Ed Begley. It was performed again in New York City in 2007 starring Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy. As an aside, Brian Dennehy played the father in one of my favorite laugh-out-loud stupid movies, Tommy Boy.

Author(s) fact: Lawrence and Lee met in 1942 and wrote four screenplays together.

Songs: “Marching to Zion”, “Gimme That Old Time Religion”, and “Go Tell It On the Mountain”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “What a Trial That Was!” (p 243).

Streets of Laredo

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McMurtry, Larry. Streets of Laredo. Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Reason read: to finished the series started in June in honor of McMurtry’s birth month.

By all accounts, no one should love Woodrow Call. He is small-framed, cantankerous, old and weary. He keeps to himself; a self-confirmed bachelor and loner. He does not suffer fools and hates conversation, even with the smarter ones. Since the death of his best friend, Augustus McCrae, in McMurtry’s previous book, Lonesome Dove, Woodrow Call has given up cattle ranching and is spending his twilight years as a bounty hunter. Never one to shy away from danger, he is now on the trail of a young train hustler who has a death wish. Except Call has lost his speed and agility. He is no longer the feared Texas Ranger. He is no longer the spirited cattle rancher. He is only a man hellbent on bringing a violent man to justice.
Streets of Laredo is a return to violence. Luckily, strong women like Lorena play a pivotal role in keeping the plot from becoming a bloodbath.

Missed opportunity: a large gathering of crows is not called a crowd. As cool as that sounds, a group of crows is actually called a murder. That would have been the perfect name for a town.

Line I liked, “He knew that women were sometimes fond of cats, though the reason for the attraction escaped him” (p 42).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Western Fiction” (p 240).

Confusion

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Stephenson, Neal. The Confusion. Harper Perennial, 2005.

Read read: to continue the series started in October in honor of Stephenson’s birth month.

The Baroque series continues. I suppose we should be grateful that Stephenson did not want to confuse us too much with two tales running back to back. The decision to synchronize Juncto and Bonanza keeps the reader firmly planted in the correct timeframe. The year is 1689 and Jack Shaftoe is longing for escape from a slave ship. The King of the Vagabonds a.k.a. Half-Cocked Jack always has a plan that does not disappoint. Full of adventure (and misadventure), Jack’s scheming will take him around the world to places like Egypt, India, Japan, Algiers, and Mexico. Meanwhile in Europe, the Countess de la Zeur (Eliza) is desperately trying to get back her stolen fortune. Newton and Liebniz are up to their usual tricks.
All in all, The Confusion is an age old-tale of being lured into a trap for love and money. When will we ever learn?

Quote to quote, “The plan does not allow for finding gold where we expected silver” (p 357).

Author fact: there are a few interviews with Stephenson out there in which he explains the writing process for the Baroque series.

Book trivia: True to form, The Confusion has plenty of sex, violence and humor to entertain even the most jaded reader.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter obvious called “Neal Stephenson: Too Good To Miss” (p 214).