Category: Book Reviews

Greater Nowheres

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Finkelstein, Dave and Jack London. Greater Nowheres: a Journey Through the Australian Bush.New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988.

The premise of Greater Nowheres is simple. Dave Finkelstein and Jack London are on the hunt for a mythical yet terrifying and elusive crocodile in the Australian bush. Despite their lackadaisical searching Finkelstein and London never really meet up with the famed creature (sorry to disappoint – Jack sees it but Dave doesn’t). Instead, Greater Nowheres becomes an eye opening account of a region in Western and Northern Australia few have traveled just for the fun of it. Finkelstein and London take turns writing chapters about their adventures and it is interesting to see their differing styles on the page (London is much more descriptive, in case you were wondering). One thing they both comment on is the inhospitable climate of the Australian Bush, a place where temperatures can soar and stay elevated (above 100 degrees) even at 10 o’clock at night. There are two seasons – the Wet and the Dry and both wreak havoc on travelers and residents alike. After awhile you sense a pattern, every place Jack and Dave visit is desolate but fiercely loved by the people who call it home.

As an aside, before I started reading Greater Nowheres I wondered if London’s drinking would play a part in the story. Neither Finkelstein or London shy away from mentioning London’s love of drink, even while in the arid deserts of the outback. Jack makes reference to his hangovers and the local pub being the only place he did his best verbal sparring.

Quotes that stuck with me, “Once again small athletes had come up short, but such narrow mindedness may soon be a prejudice of the past, at least in Australia, where the rapidly proliferating sport of dwarf-throwing is winning fans and enthusiastic devotees” (p 143), “To refer to Wyndham as a dead end is to make it sound a more appealing place than it actually is” (p 172), “We passed through a town called Kumarina without even realizing it” (p 192),

Reason read: Jack London’s birth month is in January.

Author facts: Finkelstein once was a Chinese interpreter and London once was an English professor.

Book trivia: there are no photographs to speak of in Greater Nowheres. Just illustrated maps.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Australia, the Land of Oz” (p 28).

Shot in the Heart

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Gilmore, Mikal. Shot in the Heart. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

Mikal Gilmore has an incredible story to tell. But, here’s what I can’t wrap my brain around – the fact that his story is about his own brother. True, they didn’t know each other very well due to their age differences growing up and the fact that Gary was always either behind bars or on the run. Mikal had to rely on an older brother’s memories to fill in the gaps.
Everyone knows the story of Gary Gilmore, thanks to Norman Mailer’s biography The Executioner’s Song (and subsequent made for television movie of the same name). Everyone has heard of the controversy surrounding Gary Gilmore’s time on death row. What makes Mikal’s account so different is his family bond. This is his history as much as it is his brother’s. Gary was born Faye Robert Coffman and from the very start his life was surrounded by rage. Mikal wraps this story inside the history of the bloody beginnings of Mormon Utah. It’s as if the Gilmore family was destined to fail. Gary’s fame aside, Shot in the Heart is worth reading for Mikal’s story. As I mentioned before, it is as much Mikal’s history as it is Gary’s. Spoiler alert: don’t expect a happy ending. Mikal doesn’t really tie up his own tale in a neat bow. I found myself asking, what now? Where is Mikal now? More importantly, is he happy? Has he escaped the profound destruction and despair that tortured and ruined the rest of his entire family?

There were many different passages I would have liked to quote, but I limited it to just these:
He would not stop fighting the battle that he knew he could never win” (126), “It was a time when most Americans hadn’t yet armed themselves in fear of the world outside” (p 137), and “There are so many sounds that make so little sense in the silences of a deep night” (p 179). That last one is probably my favorite.

Reason read: Gary Gilmore was (finally) put to death in the month of January.

Author fact: Gilmore wrote for Rolling Stone magazine. He even wrote a piece reviewing The Executioner’s Song.

Book trivia: Unlike other biographies that clump photographs together Shot in the Heart includes a photograph at the beginning of each chapter. They are black and white and intensely sad.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 300s” (p 67).

Ancient Rome on 5 Denarri a Day

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Matyszak, Philip. Ancient Rome on 5 Denarri a Day: Your Guide to Sleeping, Shopping and Sightseeing in the City of the Caesars. London: Thames & Hudson, 2007.

If you have plans to get into your time machine and visit ancient Rome, this is the book for you. Just make sure you go in the time of the Caesars (200 AD). By reading this book you can learn how to don a new toga or tunic, attend the best circus, avoid drinking feces tainted water, visit a brothel, see the tomb of St. Peter and so much more. Read every word so you don’t miss the humor (especially in the section of useful phrases. My personal favorite: “Vel vinum mihi da, vel nummos mihi redde or I want my wine or my money back”). How’s this for tongue-in-cheek: “The oldest and largest of Rome’s sewers is the Cloca Maxima, which runs under the forum and is large enough to take a boat through, if that is your idea of fun” (p 34). See what I mean? It’s a small book but it’s packed with good fun!

Reason read: December is a good time to visit Rome, or so they say…

Book trivia: maps, photography, illustrations. Like any decent tour guide, this book has it all.

Author fact: Matyszak also wrote a book about visiting ancient Athens. I read that one two years ago.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Just So Much Greek To Me” (p 120). This is another one of those “in the wrong place” books. This has nothing to do with Greece.

Changing It Up January

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A new year deserves new things; new ways of thinking and new ways of doing. Here is the list I promised in December. Instead of separating the list into “finished” and “still to go”, I thought for this go-round I would just cross off the titles I finished. This system will force me to stay on top of the books I add, but we’ll see…Just testing something…

As an aside, I gave up completely on Robert Jordan. Sorry.

  1. Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan (DNF)
  2. In a Strange City by Laura Lippman
  3. By a Spider’s Thread by Laura Lippman (AB)
  4. Recognitions by William Gaddis (DNF)
  5. Maus by Art Spiegelman
  6. Lady Franklin’s Revenge by Ken McGoogan
  7. Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao* by Junot Diaz (AB)
  8. Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
  9. Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
  10. Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan
  11. ADDED: A Good Doctor’s Son by Steven Schwartz
  12. ADDED: Drinking: a Love Story by Caroline Knapp
  13. ADDED: Ancient Rome on 5 Denarii a Day by Philip Matyszak
  14. ADDED: Nero Wolfe Cookbook by Rex Stout
  15. ADDED: Treasure Hunter by W. Jameson (ER)
  16. Maus II by Art Spiegelman (Jan)
  17. Wild Blue by Stephen Ambrose (Jan)
  18. Shot in the Heart by Mikal Gilmore (Jan)
  19. Greater Nowheres by David Finkelstein/Jack London (Jan)
  20. ADDED: Alma Mater by P.F Kluge (Jan)
  21. Good Life by Ben Bradlee (Feb)
  22. Underworld by Don DeLillo (Feb)
  23. Her Name Was Lola by Russell Hoban (Feb)
  24. Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton ((Feb)
  25. Fires From Heaven by Robert Jordan (Feb)
  26. Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce (Feb)
  27. At Home with the Glynns by Eric Kraft (Feb)
  28. Polish Officer by Alan Furst (Feb)
  29. Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan (Mar)
  30. Chasing Monarchs by Robert Pyle (Mar)
  31. Murder on a Kibbutz by Batya Gur (Mar)
  32. Bebe’s By Golly Wow by Yolanda Joe (Mar)
  33. Lives of the Muse by Francine Prose (Mar)
  34. Broom of the System (David Wallace (Mar)
  35. Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan (Apr)
  36. Two Gardeners by Emily Wilson (Apr)
  37. Royal Flash by George Fraser (Apr)
  38. Fifties by David Halberstam (Apr)
  39. Binding Spell by Elizabeth Arthur (Apr)
  40. Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan (Apr)
  41. Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan (May)
  42. Flash for Freedom! by George Fraser (May)
  43. Murder in Amsterdam by Ian Buruma (May)
  44. Petra: lost city by Christian Auge (May)
  45. From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman (May)
  46. Jordan by E. Borgia (May)
  47. Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill (May)
  48. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (May)
  49. Flash at the Charge by George MacDonald Fraser (May)
  50. Castles in the Air by Judt Corbett (Jun)
  51. Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson (Jun)
  52. Thirty-three Teeth by Colin Cotterill (Jun)
  53. Millstone by Margaret Drabble (Jun)
  54. Winter’s Heart by Robert Jordan (Jun)
  55. Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan (Jul)
  56. Disco for the Departed by Colin Cotterill (Jul)
  57. Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme (Jul)
  58. New Physics and Cosmology by Arthur Zajonc (Jul)
  59. Grifters by Jim Thompson (Jul)
  60. Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (Jul)
  61. Snow Angels by James Thompson (Jul)
  62. Ararchy and Old Dogs by Colin Cotterill (Aug)
  63. Flashman’s Lady by George MacDonald Fraser (Aug)
  64. Possession by AS Byatt (Aug)
  65. In the Footsteps of Ghanghis Khan by John DeFrancis (Aug)
  66. What Just Happened by James Gleick (Aug)
  67. Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett (Aug)
  68. Curse of the Pogo Stick by Colin Cotterill (Sep)
  69. Flashman and the Redskins by George MacDonald Fraser (Sep)
  70. Queens’ Play by Dorothy Dunnett (Sep)
  71. Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (Sep)
  72. Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie (Sep)
  73. Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Sep)
  74. Then She Found Me by Elinor Lipman (Oct)
  75. Merry Misogynist by Colin Cotterill (Oct)
  76. Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett (Oct)
  77. Flashman and the Dragon by George MacDonald Fraser (Oct)
  78. Dark Hills Divide by Patrick Carman (Nov)
  79. Love Songs from a Shallow Grave by Collin Cotterill (Nov)
  80. Flashman and the Mountain of Light by George MacDonald Fraser (Nov)
  81. Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett (Nov)
  82. Andorra by Peter Cameron (Nov)

DNF = Did Not Finish;AB = Audio Book; ER = Early Review

So, right off the bat I see something I don’t like. When I add new books they don’t get their “day in the sun” so to speak. I add them to the list and then cross them off immediately. That doesn’t seem fair.

Treasure Hunter

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Jameson, W.C. Treasure Hunter: a Memoir of Caches, Curses, and Confrontations. 2nd Ed. London: Taylor Trade Publication, 2014.

Reason read: LibraryThing and the Early Review program.

Author fact: Jameson has written over 25 books on buried treasure and over 15 books on other subjects such as poetry, food and biographies.

Book trivia: Treasure Hunter has minimal photographs; mostly of Jameson as a young (and very handsome) treasure hunter.

First, the good news.Jameson is a great storyteller. His flair for detail makes every gold or silver ingot expedition come alive. You are right there with him and his crew in the desert, crawling through caves, avoiding snakes and spiders and, of course, the law. Right away, three things about Jameson are apparent. He values privacy due to his semi-outlaw status, he is proud of his semi-outlaw status and he wishes his treasure hunting days weren’t drawing to a close. He wants to go back for the gold or silver he left behind. Which brings me to the bad news. Every expedition may start off differently: different state (mostly in the southwest) or different country (Mexico), but they all end the same way – the bulk of the treasure (sometimes all of it) is left behind for one reason or another. It’s as if Jameson is daring us to get out there and look for it ourselves. Every chapter ends with “the treasure is still there, waiting” or something like that.

As an aside, I wasn’t surprised to see Jameson has authored a few cookbooks as well. The way he describes food in Treasure Hunter lets you know he savors his meals.
UPDATE: Did you see the news?! Famed treasure hunter Tommy Thompson was arrested this week. He’s been on the run for years. Could 61 year old Thompson be Jameson’s “missing” partner? The news certainly got my wheels spinning!

Nero Wolfe Cookbook

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Stout, Rex. The Nero Wolfe Cookbook. New York: Viking Press, 1973.

This is one of those cookbooks I would call “unique” just because it isn’t just a bunch of recipes with a common theme. This cookbook is for the diehard Nero Wolfe fans who really want to submerge themselves in his world. It’s a great concept. I don’t know how many readers actually tried to cook these meals, but they are real, honest-to-goodness recipes, albeit with weird ingredients like kummel, kirschwasser, sauterne, and pig livers. There is a whole chapter on just corn (note to self: try the roasting of corn in their husks instead of the traditional steaming). Throughout the recipes are little snippets of Wolfe’s unique relationship with food. I found it interesting that he can’t stand to have hungry visitors, even if those same visitors are thought to be suspects. Of course, it isn’t Nero doing all the cooking. He has his trusted cook, Fritz Brenner for that.

Reason read: Rex Stout was born in December. This was a quick “read” for the end of the month.

Author fact: According to the author info in The Nero Wolfe Cookbook, Stout had a passion for hotdogs. Okay.

Book trivia: I will admit 100% that I have read this at the wrong time. Having only read one Nero Wolfe mystery thus far (Fer-de-Lance) these recipes meant nothing to me. What saved me from quitting saving this for later were the quotations from the books in reference to each recipe.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

A Good Doctor’s Son

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Schwartz, Steven. A Good Doctor’s Son. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1998.

First and foremost, I could not put this down. I came to care about David Nachman. Even worse, I really worried about him. I think I read this book in one week’s time. Told from the retrospective first person, David Nachman, at nine years old in 1960s Pennsylvania, wanted to become a doctor like his father. Stoic and gentle, Dr Nachman did not discriminate patient care at a time when crosses were burning on some front lawns and the whites were moving out to the suburbs. You get the point – he was a good doctor and a good man. David wanted to be just like him. However life had other plans for young David by the time he reached his teens. Desperate to fit in, David joined a group of fellow teenagers for nights of gambling and crude sex jokes. Inwardly shy, it really wasn’t his thing but he wanted to belong somewhere so he played along. One terrible mistake changed his course of history forever. At a time full of protest and war, David has his own inner conflict to contend with. Now in his forties, David recounts his coming of age years in a slow and careful cadence. While his remembrances are gentle, it is impossible to ignore the growing undercurrent of guilt.

Line that lingered, “Either way…we wouldn’t talk about what was right in front of us” (p 13). How many families live like that, ignoring what is blatantly obvious and impossible to ignore?

Reason read: Pennsylvania became a state on December 12th, 1787.

Author fact: Schwartz wrote another book called Therapy but sadly it isn’t on my list. Another sad fact, another reviewer reviewed Schwartz (said he was an ass) in addition to giving his/her opinion of the book. It’s always cool when author AND book are great, but that doesn’t always happen.

Book trivia: Is this a movie? Because this should be a movie. I don’t know who would play David, but I see Richard Dreyfus as dad.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Big Ten Country: the Literary Midwest: Pennsylvania” (p 140).

Drinking: a Love Story

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Knapp, Caroline. Drinking: a Love Story.New York: the Dial Press, 1996.

Reason read: Prohibition was repealed in December

It is difficult to ready any story about a fall from grace, especially one written as honestly and bluntly as Caroline Knapp’s. The story winds its way around different out-of-control drinking; when Knapp drank, why she thought she drank so much, the people she affected with her drinking, the denials along the way. At times her stories seemed repetitive and meandering but that perception comes from the why of it all. Knapp was clearly in pain and had trouble rationalizing her rage. She brought two points home: you don’t need to have suffered a trauma to become addicted to anything and once you recognize your problem, your addiction is never again a normalized behavior. In the world of alcohol, most people think nothing of having a cocktail with friends, a beer after work. All of that became off limits to Knapp once she accepted her addiction. IAnd speaking of addiction, it is clear Knapp had an addictive personality. She was drawn to obsessions and performed rituals while drinking, rituals about food consumption to the point of anorexia, rituals in how she fought with her boyfriends. Even after sobriety, Knapp was drawn to obsessions concerning cleanliness and being constantly aware of how large a role alcohol plays in our society. Even the words “champagne bunch” grated on her abstinence. This latter point I often refer to as the “pregnant woman” syndrome. Fearing pregnancy or craving pregnancy causes one to see pregnant women everywhere. It’s all in the level of need want. In the end, Knapp was resolved to take one day at a time. She couldn’t set large goals for herself while her drinking was larger than her resolve. She was smart to know that every day was a major victory. Her story ends unresolved but hopeful.

As an aside, someone went through my copy of Drinking and marked a bunch of interesting passages. Here are a few, “Perception versus reality. Outside versus inside” (p 15), “”It is not so much that people like me hide the truth about our drinking from others (which most of us do, and quite effectively); it’s that we hide from others (and often ourselves) the truth about our real selves, about who we really are when we sit in our offices dashing off memos and producing papers and preparing presentations, about what is really churning beneath the surface” (p 16-17), and “…tension would hang over the room like a fog, a preoccupied silence that always made me feel wary, as though something bad was about to happen” (p 36).
My favorite line was “Add venom and stir, my own personal recipe for rage” (p 168).

Author fact: As I was checking out other reviews for Drinking I kept noticing reviewers would refer to Knapp in the past tense, “she was a writer.” Turns out, she died of lung cancer when she was just 42 years old. Strange how her smoking wasn’t really part of the story, and yet it was another addiction.

Book trivia: no photographs.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Lost Weekends” (p 147).

Lady Franklin’s Revenge

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McGoogan, Ken. Lady Franklin’s Revenge: a True Story of Ambition, Obsession and the Remaking of Arctic History. London: Bantam Books, 2006.

Lady Jane Franklin is right up there with Freya Stark and Isabella Bird when it comes to fearless lady travelers – except Stark and Bird were barely born before Franklin started her travels. She truly exemplified a pioneer in female expedition. Although Nancy Pearl doesn’t include Franklin in her chapter on the subject in Book Lust, Franklin was the first to venture to far off places such as Russia, Africa and the wilds of Australia at a time when Victorian women were expected to stay at home, be dutiful wives and raise docile families. Jane Griffin was different. From a very young age she couldn’t be bothered with such domestic pursuits. She wanted an education, an adventure, and to be an outspoken voice. Even after marrying John Franklin and becoming an instant mother to his four year old daughter, Jane Franklin felt no parental responsibility for Eleanor and continued to travel on her “own” (servants and escorts not counted). It was only after her husband, now Sir John Franklin, disappeared in the Arctic that another obsession besides travel of Lady Franklin’s was realized- to bring her husband home. She spared no expense (even her stepdaughter’s inheritance) and pulled out all the stops to convince high-powered officials that her husband’s expedition was worth searching for. At a time when America and Great Britain were not on the best of terms, Lady Franklin worked deals with both countries to send rescue expeditions into unknown waters. She worked tirelessly to keep the missing ships in the minds of everyone on both sides of the pond. Even after the mystery of Frankin’s disappearance had been solved, Lady Franklin insisted his name should carry on as the discoverer of the Northwest Passage.

Can I just say I wish I could have known Lady Franklin? For some reason I find her incredibly cool. While I don’t admire her selfish behavior and prejudice ways, I value the strength in her independence, her tenacity and resolve.

Quoting my favorite lines, “She cloaked her need in the language of love, thus deluding even herself” (p 53), and “In her twenties, the studious Jane Griffin not only read prodigiously, but began keeping a special notebook, updated annually, in which she listed books and articles she perused” (p 63). I, too, keep a journal of such lists. Only my journal is updated monthly and I don’t include articles. Just books.

Reason read: Jane Griffin Franklin was born in December. Reading Lady Franklin’s Revenge in her honor.

Author fact: Ken McGoogan also wrote a biography of Samuel Hearn, another adventurer fascinated with Arctic exploration.

Book trivia: One of the great things about McGoogan’s Lady Franklin is the variety of photographs included. Something as simple as a photograph of a replica of the dress Jane would have worn as a young woman was appreciated. It added texture to the text, if you will.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “To the Ends of the Earth: North and South” (p 232).

Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

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Diaz, Junot. The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Diaz. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007.

From the very first pages of The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (which I will from now on refer to as “Wondrous” because the title is too long), you are sucked in. The narrator goes on and on about “fuku” curse and the superstition of it all. It’s amusing and chilling all at once. All the while, you are hoping fuku doesn’t set its sights on you. But if it does, you also hope to have a little zafa (counterspell) hanging around.

When we first meet Oscar, he is seven years old and the year is 1974. He is the “GhettoNerd at the End of the World” trying to have two girlfriends at once. The story switches gears for chapter two (1982 – 1985). Oscar’s sister, Lola takes over the story in first person. She is a feisty runaway girl with typical teenage angst. From there, the narratives keep changing. Each voice tells a new story (just wait until you get to the story of Lola and Oscar’s mother, Belicia from 1955 to 1962). Through the generations, all the while the fuku is circling this doomed family. The writing of Wondrous is rich and enveloping. You cannot help but get completely drawn into the lives of every character.

Favorite lines (and there are a few), “The talkback blew the fuck up” (p 6), “You don’t know the hold our mothers have on us, even the ones that are never around. You don’t know what it’s like to grow up with a mother who never said a positive thing in her life, not about her children, not about the world, who has always been suspicious, always tearing you down and splitting your dreams straight down the seams” (p 55-56), and “Even at the end she refused to show me anything close to love” (p 208).

Reason read: New Jersey became a state on December 18, 1787.

Author fact: Junot also wrote Drown which is also on my list.

Book trivia: Pearl recommended listening to the audio of The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao so I did both. I listened to the audio to and from work and read 10-15 pages on my lunch break. Also, Wondrous won a Pulitzer.

Audio trivia: The audio is read by Jonathan Davis and an unknown female…unless Davis does an extraordinary job sounding like a woman?

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Cavorting Through the Caribbean” (p 54).

Maus: a Survivor’s Tale

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Spiegelman, Art: Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale. My Father Bleeds History. New York: Pantheon Books, 1973.

Maus I is such a curious conundrum. On the one hand, you are mostly looking at pictures. The very idea of a “comic book” is something out of childhood and inherently considered “light reading.” Definitely not something to be taken seriously. On the other hand, you have Spiegelman’s story itself: a son interviewing his father to get the perspective of a Polish Jew who survived the Nazi concentration camps of World War II. Fear, starvation, distrust, torture, suicide, execution, genocide. All pretty heavy subject matter and without a doubt, difficult to read in any context. Even in his characterization Spiegelman plays with our perceptions. He uses enemies in the natural world to drive home the story; using cats for the Germans and mice for the Jews; pigs for the police.
Here’s the underlying truth, the war never leaves Spiegelman’s father. Even though he survived the war, survived the concentration camps, survived to tell his tale, he lives in the shadow of memory. He worries constantly about money; is distrustful of his own family’s intentions (trying to steal from him). Betrayals of the past run deep and dictate how he trusts others.

Reason read: Pearl Harbor anniversary is Dec 7th (Remembrance Day). Confessional: I started this in November in honor of Veterans’ Day.

Stop and think line, “He survived me my life that time” (p 80). Even though we would normally say, “he saved my life” I think this phrasing, saying the word “survived” carries more weight.

Author fact: Check out the author info in Maus I. There is a lot going on in the illustration.

Book trivia: My favorite part was the comic within the graphic novel. The styles were so vastly different. The importance of the comic was clearly illustrated.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter “Graphic Novels” (p 103).

Recognitions

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Gaddis, William. The Recognitions. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.

Confessional! What do you get when you combine these factors: a reading list still over 4,000 titles long, Book Challenge rules which address when to not read a book, and a book 956 pages long with a plot no one can explain? Me, quitting this book! I read plenty of other reviews urging me to “stick with it” and to “keep reading despite the nonsense.” Can’t do it. Not one of the reviews really told me what the book was about except in some obscure and round-about way involving art, religion and the postmodern condition, all the (many) characters are seemingly adrift with endless and pointless dialogues, and there never seemed to be an end to the literacy allusions and absurdity. There. I said it. Hated it with two thumbs down. Maybe, when I’m feeling a bit more scholarly and have all the time in the world, I’ll pick it up again. Or not.

Reason read: Gaddis was born in December…tried to read in his honor.

Author fact: As I mentioned before, Gaddis was born in December. He also died in December.

Book trivia: The Recognitions is a whopping 956 pages long. No wonder I didn’t finish it.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Postmodern Condition” (p 190). Interestingly enough, Gaddis won TWO National Book Awards for subsequent works. Neither title, Carpenter’s Gothic or A Frolic of His Own, is on my list. Instead, I’m supposed to read the book critics called a failure.

Edited to add: This cracked me up. I posted this review elsewhere and got the following comment, “Your recent excoriating review of my first novel really hurt my feelings. Do you think you could at least finish my novel before rendering such a harsh and summary judgment upon it? Please, I suffered long and hard for that book, I implore you to give it another chance, to finish it.

Best wishes,
Bill”
I’ve never had anyone implore me to do anything, except maybe an ex to take him back. This, from a ghost. Too funny.

Cradle of Gold

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Heaney, Christopher. Cradle of Gold: the Story of Hiram Bingham, a Real-Life Indiana Jones, and the Search for Machu Picchu. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010.

In 2008 Peru sued Yale University for the return of artifacts and human remains taken by Hiram Bingham. They claimed he stole over 46,000 articles. Yale claimed they had only a little over 5,000. Was that an admission of guilt? Heaney was fascinated with the case and decided to dig up the truth for himself. Here’s the thing, he knows how to grab the reader’s attention with the opening description of Indiana Jones. I like the idea of Hiram Bingham being the devil-may-care Indiana Jones of his time. It lends an air of intrigue to the story. He had the looks and the devil-may-care attitude!

Here are some things about Hiram Bingham: Hiram is an old family name. Our Hiram was the third. He sired a fourth. Hiram was also very prejudice. He thought he had “competition” when exploring the ancient Inca ruins until he realized the ones who went before him weren’t European white so they didn’t count. He was also a master thief. He was able to smuggle out additional crates of human remains and artifacts with the help of Peruvians he was able to bribe. His smuggling cracked open an age-old question, just who do these treasures belong to? The ancestors of the land or are the finders the keepers, as they saying goes?

Heaney’s story is rich with history and lore. The ghosts of past conquests walk among Bingham’s Machu Picchu ruins and beg to be remembered.

Quotes I liked, “Christianity no longer had a monopoly on the truth” (p 14), “Yet a pith helmet, compass, and a slap-leather spirit did not an explorer make” (p 29),
Reason read: Hiram Bingham was born in the month of November – read in his honor.

Author fact: Heaney has his own website.

Book trivia: While Cradle of Gold has some photographs, they aren’t very exciting. There aren’t that many of Hiram, despite the fact he was a good looking man.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Peru(sing) Peru)” (p 177).

Walk in the Woods

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Bryson, Bill. A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.

Bill Bryson is one of those “collectible” authors. Meaning, I know I can read anything he has written and enjoy it on some level. A Walk in the Woods was no different. One day in 1996 while walking near his Hanover, New Hampshire home Bryson gets it into his head to hike the Appalachian Trail, starting in Georgia and working his way, 2,100 miles later, to Maine. He brings along an old buddy, Stephen Katz, someone he hasn’t seen in years. They make an interesting pair and their relationship is one of the best parts of the book, but there is a little of everything in A Walk in the Woods. Over the course of 870 miles, Bryson has the opportunity to tackle the serious with a touch of silliness. Case in point, the bears. Bryson jokes about becoming a snack for the hungry mammals but at the same time paints a pretty scary picture of what those beasts can do. While a great deal of the book is written in a humorous tone (can you just picture the “waddlesome sloth” he mentions on page 4?), Bryson also has a sobering commentary on the history of the trail, man’s devastating logging and hunting practices, and the sociological quirks of the regions he visits. His visit to Centralia, Pennsylvania is both haunting and disturbing. From the blundering beginnings of trying to buy the correct equipment (and use it properly) to the soberly fact the Appalachian Trail is over 2,000 miles long and they will never finish it, Bryson and Katz experience the best and worst of an iconic trail. Even though they end up skipping the AT from Gatlinburg, Tennessee to Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, the pair learn more about America (and themselves) than they bargained for. A Walk in the Woods made me want to find my own little piece of the trail and hike it, just to say I did.

Reason read: Bill Bryson was born in December. Read A Walk in the Woods in his honor.

Author fact: Bryson had moved his family to the other side of the pond. This hike was a “coming home” of sorts.

Book trivia: Supposedly, A Walk in the Woods is being made into a movie.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Bill Bryson: Too Good To Miss” (p 37). I have 13 different Bryson books to read. The one I am looking forward to reading the most is Palace Under the Alps.

In a Strange City

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Lippman, Laura. In a Strange City. Read by Barbara Rosenblat. New York: Recorded Books, 2009.

Here’s what is nice about In a Strange City: if you have skipped other books in the Tess Monaghan series, you can get caught up pretty quickly without repetitiveness in this book. When I last left Miss Monaghan in Butchers Hill, her best friend was in Japan, she was kind of seeing Crow, her aunt was jumping from man to man searching for the right relationship and Tess was in business with someone else. Now, Whitney is back from Tokyo, Crow and Tess practically live together (Tess is out of her Aunt’s place and in a real house now), her aunt is now dating Tyner and Tess has her own private investigation business (and she still has her greyhound. Yay!). Because Lippman is so smooth at bringing the reader up to speed, I feel like I just stepped out of the room for a minute. My only question – there was no mention of Tess rowing or working out at all. Did the fitness buff drop all that completely?

As a private detective, Tess Monaghan is back and this time she has taken on a case quite by accident. A man claiming to have been scammed in an antiques deal wants Tess to take his case. Although Tess refuses, Crow convinces her to check out the man’s claims. Through this interaction, Tess ends up witnessing a murder, finding out the would-be client doesn’t exist, and then she starts receiving strange gifts and messages at work and then at home. Somehow, she knows, the all of this is connected. She knows someone wants her on the case. She couldn’t stay out of it if she tried. Out of sheer curiosity she starts working the case…without a real client to speak of. It all hinges on the mysteriously “Poe Toaster”, a unknown man who symbolically has a drink with the ghost of famed author, Edgar Allan Poe, every January 19th.

Confession: I really liked the prologue, from the killer’s point of view. The descriptive writing was magical.

Reason read: to continue the series started with Baltimore Blues in September to honor Baltimore’s Book Festival.

Author fact: I am surprised Lippman hasn’t been voted Baltimore’s best voice. She crams more facts about Charm City into her books than anyone else I have ever read.

Reader fact: Narrator Barbara Rosenblat was deemed the “golden voice of the 20th century” by AudioFile magazine.

Book trivia: In a Strange City made the New York Times “most notable” list.

Audio trivia: So, I was checking out the info on the audio case and was very surprised to read, “In a Strange City is Lippman’s second Monaghan mystery.” My first thought was, “Oh crap! I’m reading this series out of order…again!” Leave it to me to blame myself first and foremost. I went to Lippman’s site and clicked on the Tess Monaghan tab and read In a Strange City is actually number six on the list. Number two is Charm City, which I skipped, thanks to Pearl. I’m going to trust the author is correct and say, with confidence, I am reading the Monaghan series in order. Lippman, of all people, should know the order of her series. Right?

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Baltimore” (p). Simple and to the point.