Tag: book review

How to be a Patient

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Goldberg, Sana. How to be a Patient: the Essential Guide to Navigating the World of Modern Medicine. New York: Harper Wave, 2019.

Reason read: as part of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing, this is the selection for the month of December.

The highest compliment I can pay any uncorrected proof is the desire to buy the book when it is finally published. I will be buying How To be a Patient in March. Despite the myriad of typos and less than stellar editing, the rest of the book is a worthwhile read even without the index and graphics. The very first thing Dr. Goldberg wrote that struck a chord with me is the fact no one is taught how to be a patient. You take classes to learn a skill, but no one ever walks you through how to be when you are sitting in the examination room of any medical facility. It’s eye-opening to think here is a medical professional who wants you to get it right the first time you meet anyone in health care. Hell, she wants you to have the right health care professional to begin with. Be warned though, her advice isn’t always practical. In theory it would be great to bring a “health advocate” like a friend or family member to every appointment, but who has time for that?
Goldberg’s language is approachable (to the point where she writes the word “dude” and uses profanity ). She doesn’t talk medical speak where every sentence is laden with technical jargon. Her advice is so down to earth I’m reminded of the commercial when a woman is urging herself to speak up, to tell her provider about the pain she is really feeling instead of downplaying or ignoring certain symptoms.

Disclaimer: like any medical advice, this book should not be seen as the end all, be all bible of personal health management. I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on television. I am just a woman urging you to take Goldberg’s information with a grain of salt, a healthy amount of skepticism, or whatever it takes for you to think rationally about taking care of yourself.

Author fact: once I read that Dr. Goldberg liaises between academia and clinical practice, her stance on teaching someone how to navigate the medical world made sense. I have yet to see her Tedx Talk.

Book trivia: my uncorrected proof indicated there would be an index. This is slated to be published in March 2019.

Take This Man

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Busch, Frederick. Take This Man. New York: Ballantine Books, 1983.

Reason read: February is Busch’s death month. Read in his memory.

This is a love story in its purest form. Simple plot: Ellen LaRue Spencer is on her way to California to see her soldier fiance who hasn’t shipped out to war yet. Her car breaks down in a barren midwest town where she meets hapless Tony Prioleau. Despite his unsuccessful business ventures and his thing for television (he wants to harness the power of television to assist in the war effort), Ellen is attracted to him and ends up in his bed..but she still leaves him for her fiance. Ten years later, a son shows up on Tony’s doorstep and the love Tony buried all those years ago comes bubbling back up. He accepts the boy as his own, no questions asked.
I don’t think it is a spoiler alert to say that Ellen herself comes back to Tony. But not without complications. She is still married and still confused about the depth of her attraction to Tony.
Confessional: the last twenty pages are heartbreaking.

Vivid lines, “…poured an unfresh breath into Prioleau’s face to say…” (p 46). I just love that image.
Other lines I liked, “And you cook like a mass murderer” (p 55). I don’t know what that would taste like. I’m guessing not good. And. And! And, “Twenty years later, and she was still in transit, collecting men at the edge of the sea (p 156) and “…but he was frightened as he stepped up onto the side porch to get hugged home” (p 192).

Author fact: Take This Man is Busch’s eighth book.

Book trivia: The cover of Take This Man is intriguing. Two people are adrift in a rowboat. In my mind it symbolized Tony and Ellen’s relationship. It was never solidified or tethered to reality.

Nancy said: absolutely nothing.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Frederick Busch: Too Good To Miss” (p 48).

Beekeeper’s Apprentice

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King, Laurie R. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice: On the Segregation of the Queen. Read by Jenny Sterlin. Recorded Books, 1995.
King, Laurie R. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice: On the Segregation of the Queen. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.

Reason read: January is Female Mystery month. Take that anyway you want.

Such a clever plot. Take an established character like Sherlock Holmes and re-imagine him after retirement, living in the country and tending his beloved bees. Although he is only in his late 50s Holmes wants nothing more to do with solving crimes and revealing the truth behind mysteries…until he meets Mary Russell. She is ever bit the investigator he had been in his heyday and then some. He cannot help but be drawn to her keen sense of observation, her energized brain and her innate talent as an investigator.
Despite being nearly three times her age, it is interesting to watch Homes get closer to Mary emotionally and how she reacts to it. When there is physical contact between them Mary is clutched by sudden awareness of his physicality. There is a subtle shift to their relationship and what each wants from it.
The final mystery in The Beekeeper’s Apprentice threatens the lives of both Mary and Holmes. They are in so much danger people around them start paying the consequences. It takes everything in Sherlock and Russell’s combined powers of investigation to stay alive.

Quotes to quote: ” I refuse to accept gallant stupidity in place of rational necessity” (p 165) and “When in ignorance, consult a library” (p 301)..

Author fact: King is a native to San Francisco, California.

Book trivia: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice is the first of a series of books about Sherlock and Russell.

Nancy said: Pearl says she loves King’s series involving Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the great chapter called “Ms Mystery” (p 169).

Freedom in Meditation

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Carrington, Patricia. Freedom in Meditation. New York: Anchor Press, 1977.

Reason read: January is traditionally the month everyone tries to hit the reset button. Yoga and meditation are high on resolution lists. I’m reading Freedom in Meditation in honor of good intentions.

The very first thing I learned about meditation while reading Carrington’s book is that meditation is not just meditating on a mat in a near-dark room. It is not sitting quietly and emptying the mind while incense swirls about your ears. Consider the clinically standardized meditation taught in two sessions. Or the Benson method which has supposed health benefits like lowering blood pressure and even a lowering of metabolism. In truth, meditation success depends on the personality. But also true to every kind of meditation locale and atmosphere (vibe, if you will) are important. Every technique recommends having plants nearby, the burning of incense and candles, maybe even bell ringing, but above all else, calm and quiet. Meditation can be seen as a rebirth, a companion to hypnosis even. Carrington goes on to to talk about the science of meditation, the therapist’s opinion of meditation, and even the misuse of the practice which I found interesting.

Author fact: At the time of publication, Dr. Carrington was a clinical psychologist who taught at Princeton.

Book trivia: There are only two illustrations in Freedom in Meditation. Both are showing you what to do with your hands during meditation.

Nancy said: Pearl mentions Freedom in Meditation first in her list of zen books. She says it is “probably the best book written about meditation” for beginners (Book Lust p 255).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Zen Buddhism and Meditation” (p 255).

To Lie with Lions

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Dunnett, Dorothy. To Lie with Lions. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.

Reason read: to continue the series started in August in honor of Dunnett’s birth month.

We are now deeper into the fifteenth century. The year is 1471 and Nicholas de Fluery is insistent on climbing to the top of the mercantile empire but as usual he has competition with the other “lions” of industry and he has bigger and more personal problems closer to home.
Niccolo kidnaps the child he believes is his flesh and blood away from his estranged wife, Gelis. This becomes a 15th century “war of the roses” when Nicholas and Gelis spar back and forth for control over their son. They have been at odds since their wedding night so both are skilled at harming each other and take great pleasure in it.
The title of the book comes from Nicholas’s skillful ability to play both sides of the game. For a while he literally serves two different kings at the same time.

My only gripe about this installment? Nicholas’s kid at times seems like a toddler and at other times seems older or younger. His motor skills and speech were not consistent.

Author fact: I believe I skipped an author fact last month. I’m going to skip it again since I have a couple more times to talk about Dunnett in later blogs.

Book trivia: as with other installments of the Nicholas de Fluery saga, To Lie with Lions includes a map of the region, an extensive list of characters, a genealogy chart, and an overview of previous plots in the story.

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything specific about To Lie with Lions since it is part of a huge series.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the same old chapter called “Digging Up the Past Through Fiction” (p 79).

Amber Spyglass

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Pullman, Philip. The Amber Spyglass. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

Reason read: to end the series started in November in honor of National Writing Month (Fantasy).

In Amber Spyglass, the last installment of the His Dark Materials trilogy, Lyra, who started off as an ordinary kid in The Golden Compass, is seen as the most important child who has ever lived according to the church. Their fate depends on Lyra’s journey into womanhood. She may be important but she is also seen as a threat as she is in the position of biblical Eve as the temptress of man’s downfall. Heavy, right? Remarkably, young Lyra is on the cusp of introducing the concept of sin (Dust) to the world. She must be stopped before the Dust (sin=evil) takes over. When we first catch up with Lyra in The Amber Spyglass, she has been hidden away and kept drugged and sleeping in a cave by her mother (remember Mrs Coulter?). But. But! But, is Mrs Coulter all that evil? She acts the grieving mother as she recounts how she almost killed Lyra earlier.
This is an epic battle between good and evil with lots of fight scenes and dying declarations (just wait until you get to the land of the dead). The references to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden are laid on pretty thick, but Lyra is coming into her own as a young woman and she has an equally adulting young man as her companion…
The good news is that many of your favorite characters are back even if they died in an earlier installment. Iorek Byrnison the armored bear is back with his army! I was excited to see the bears and the witches but there are plenty of new creatures like harpies and ghosts. Probably my favorite characters to imagine are Gallivespians. They are small, slender spies able to ride hawks and dragonflies.

As an aside, Pullman is a huge fan of the word anbaric. As far as I can tell it is derived from the Greek and refers to the electrostatic properties of amber. Yup.

Author fact: Pullman also wrote another trilogy of thrillers featuring Sally Lockhart.

Book trivia: Amber Spyglass wraps up the His Dark Materials trilogy.

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything specific about Amber Spyglass.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Romans-Fleuves” (p 208).

Fire Watch

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Willis, Connie. Fire Watch. New York: Bluejay International, 1985.

Reason read: to make up for the missed short story in Time Machine, the anthology edited by Bill Adler, Jr.

Fire Watch is made up of twelve short stories. It is her first short story collection. The stories are as follows:

  • Fire Watch – favorite line, “The past is beyond saving” (p 35).
  • Service for the Burial of the Dead – imagine attending your own funeral. This is a dark story and probably one of my favorites.
  • Lost and Found – line I liked, “What else had he missed because he wasn’t looking for it?” (p 76).
  • All My Darling Daughters – probably the most disturbing short story in the entire book.
  • The Father of the Bride – the other side of a fairy tale.
  • A Letter from the Clearys – read this one two or three times!
  • And Come from Miles Around – everyone gathers for the eclipse of the century.
  • The Sidon in the Mirror – a creepy tale about copying someone to the point of being twins.
  • Daisy, in the Sun – a family copes of post-nuclear war.
  • Mail-Order Clone – you know the saying, “if you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything”? Well, this is the blind leading the blind.
  • Samaritan – can you baptize an orangutan? The church treats him like a human so why not?
  • Blued Moon – a comedy of error after error about coincidences.

Author fact: Connie Willis went to the University of Northern Colorado.

Book trivia: There is a scene in the movie American President (starring Annette Bening and Michael Douglas) when Douglas wants to send Bening flowers; specifically the state flower of Virginia where Bening’s character is from. He ends up sending a dogwood which is reported to be a tree and a bush (“sir”). I was reminded of that scene when I found out there are two Fire Watch publications. It’s a book and a short story. I was supposed to read the shorter version in December, but the book is also on my list so what the hey.

Nancy said: nothing specific about Fire Watch.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Connie Willis: Too Good To Miss” (p 246).

Renunciation

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Rodriguez Julia, Edgardo. The Renunciation: a Novel. Translated by Andrew Hurley. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1997.

Reason read: Puerto Rico’s Hostos Day is in January; to celebrate the birthday of Eugenio María de Hostos.

The year is 1753 in colonial Puerto Rico. Bishop Larra, desperate to bring calm to a slave population on the verge of revolt, arranges a marriage between Baltasar Montanez, a poor slave leader and Josefina Prats, the wealthy and white daughter of the secretary of state. The idea is to make the destitute population believe they can too can marry their way into wealth and equality; to calm black indignation and for a while it seems to work. There is peace in the community because if Baltasar can marry up…. Until Montanez’s true personality comes to light. He is not the hero everyone thinks he is. [As an aside, I tracked all of the different words and phrases used to describe Baltasar: enigma, hero, declasse, upstart, benefactor, traitor, puppet, emancipated slave, peacemaker, verbsoe, rhetorical, slightly pompous, of great intelligence, well-pleased, cynical, intruder, black, cane-cutter, handsome, a figure of profound historical significance…I could go on.] Here is a commentary on not only Puerto Rico’s political climate in the eighteenth century, but a study in human nature. Was the marriage orchestrated by Bishop Larra? Was the bride’s father involved from the beginning? Who holds the lie and who lives the truth?
A word of warning. Obviously, as most arranged marriages go, Baltasar and Josefina’s marriage is not a sexual one. Her enjoyment comes from peeping through the keyhole to spy on Baltasar’s legendary yet unimaginative orgies.

Author fact: Julia has received a Guggenheim fellowship.

Book trivia: The Renunciation is Edgardo Rodriguez Julia’s first English-translated work.

Nancy said: Pearl called The Renunciation “difficult but exhilarating” and if you are interested in colonial Puerto Rico you shouldn’t miss it (Book Lust To Go p 57).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Cavorting Through the Caribbean: Puerto Rico” (p 52).

The Good Times are Killing Me

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Barry, Lynda. The Good Times are Killing Me. New York: Harper Perennial, 1988.
Barry, Lynda. The Good Times Are Killing Me. Canada: Drawn & Quarterly, 2017.

Reason read: January is Barry’s birth month. Read in her honor.

This is a unique book that took me all of two days to read. When it ended so abruptly I thought there was some kind of scanning mistake (I was reading it as an ebook). I was startled. So much so that I borrowed a print version just to make sure I didn’t miss out on something. Then I read it again. And again.
Edna Arkins is a child is trying to grow up in the tumultuous 1960s. Her white neighbors are fleeing her urban Seattle neighborhood as other ethnic groups take up residence. She herself is white and doesn’t understand their prejudice. Told from the first person and using music as her Polaris, Edna struggles to work out her rapidly changing adolescence. In response to confusing and callous adult racism Edna forges a taboo relationship with a Black girl named Bonna. She thinks Bonna is beautiful. What is most captivating about Edna is her awkwardness and honesty as she navigates through changing relationships. I wanted Bonna and Edna to conquer the world together. I wanted them to break down just one barrier; to get one adult to accept and understand their friendship. My fervent hope for a happy ending made the truth that much more difficult to swallow.

Lines I liked, “I could always tell the difference between God and a streetlight” (p 11), and “Like all it was was any black girl slapping any white girl who had mouthed off to her, something that happened every single day and would just keep on happening, world without end” (p 139).

Author fact: Barry in known for her graphic novels.

Book trivia: The last section of The Good Times are Killing Me includes a thirty-four page “music notebook” full of biographies of famous and not-so famous musicians and styles of music. The illustrations are fantastic.

Nancy said: Pearl said Good Times are Killing Me touches on the themes of childhood and adolescence.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Graphic Novels” (p 103). Confessional: I deleted Good Times are Killing Me from my list because it is not a graphic novel. Pearl could have included it in the previous “Girls Growing Up” (p 101).

Cold-Blooded Business

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Stabenow, Dana. A Cold-Blooded Business. New York: Berkley Prime Crime, 1994.

Reason read: Alaska became a state in January.

Disclaimer: A Cold-Blooded Business is part of a series and since this is my first Kate Shugak mystery I feel like I jumped into it blind.

Kate Shugak is a private investigator for the Anchorage District Attorney’s office. In A Cold-Blooded Business her assignment is to go undercover at RPetCo, short for Royal Petroleum Company based in Prudhoe Bay up in the Arctic Circle. John King, CEO of RPetCo wants to know who has been dealing cocaine to his employees on company time. His main concern is overdoses are on the rise. There has even been a death by drowning linked to drug use. “Get that dope off my slope” he urges poetically.

Small pet peeve. Teeny tiny, really. On page 142 Kate is yearning for peace and quiet since her boyfriend’s young son, Johnny, “had the television on from the time he woke up till the time he went to bed.” However, not even eleven pages later Kate’s exposure to television is described as limited to Bernie’s television at the Roadhouse “eternally tuned into a basketball game” or Bobby’s set which existed “solely to be hooked up to a VCR” (p 152 – 153). I probably wouldn’t have squawked if the contradictory details weren’t so close together.

As an aside, what irked me from the beginning is that Kate is supposed to go undercover as a roustabout on the slope but within her first week on the job she meets a former medic/acquaintance from another job and a trooper who knows her name. She has to lie and say she’s no longer an investigator. Later she rushes to the first overdose on the job. Bursting into the room she encounters the victim is her cousin and he’s just as surprised to see her as she is him. Finally, Cindy Sovaluk, a woman she meets in the sauna turns out to know her grandmother. So much for undercover when four different people know your name or are related to you!
As another aside, are yearling bears really harmless enough to tug on their tails?

Author fact: Stabenow lives in Alaska and definitely knows the culture. That’s the obvious. What isn’t as obvious is just how many books Ms Stabenow has written. Check out her website here.

Book trivia: A Cold-Blooded Business is part of a series. I counted nineteen Shugak mysteries and I’m only reading two.

Nancy said: Pearl said Cold-Blooded Business is “her favorite Shugak mystery” (Book Lust p 18).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the unimaginative chapter called “Alaska” (p 17). I would have riffed off a Phish tune and called it “Alaska? I’ll Ask Her”.

Lamb in Love

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Brown, Carrie. Lamb in Love. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 1999.

Reason read: the television show “All Creatures Great and Small” first aired in January. A lamb is a creature.

Vida Stephen at forty-one years of age is considered a spinster in her rural English village. She lives a simple life of being the nanny to a mute young man with mental challenges. She has cared for Manford Perry practically all his life after his mother died young and his father is often away for long periods of time, traveling overseas. Vida and Manford are all alone in the gigantic Southend House with its myriad of dusty and dim unused rooms. In truth they are all they know. The community collectively shakes its head and tsks, of the opinion Vida is wasting away caring for Manford all alone in the sad and crumbling mansion.
Then there is Norris Lamb. He thinks differently of Vida. Even though he has known her (and her situation for years) he has begun to slowly, slowly fall in love with her. Like Vida, he is single with seemingly one purpose in life, to be the village’s postmaster. His world centers on stamps. They represent the wonderment of worlds untraveled. When his love for Vida takes him in new directions it is as if he doesn’t recognize his old life anymore.
Vida, Manford, and Norris all go through a metamorphosis of sorts. I don’t think it is a spoiler to say this changing, by the end of the story, offers hope for a new beginning for each of them.
Brown’s writing had the ability to make me change my mind several times about each character. I oscillated between wanting triumph and hoping for failure and back again.

As an aside, I loved the way the moon was almost another character in the book. It is not a plot spoiler to say I loved how the moon caused Vida to dance with wild abandon at the fountain and kept Norris company on his lonely walk home. Additionally, there is the fact that on July 31st of that summer a man has done the unthinkable by actually walking on the moon.

Quotes I just have to mention, “And you don’t see a nearly naked woman dancing in the moonlight in a ruined garden and then just go about your business as though nothing has happened, do you?” (p 3), “And then he’d stopped, and his face had taken on a surprised expression, as if the feeling that pressed up out of his heart at that moment was transforming him into a different man” (p 53), “She felt indebted to a ghost and under constant surveillance” (p 59) and one more, “The ugly shape of jealousy was arranging itself in his heart (p 265).

Author fact: Brown also wrote Rose’s Garden and Confinement. The latter is on my Challenge list.

Book trivia: this book challenged my perception of love, romance, and relationships. It should be a movie.

Nancy said: Pearl just described the plot of Lamb in Love. She never really explains who has the interesting character.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the delightful chapter called “Real Characters” (p 197).

Daisy Bates in the Desert

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Blackburn, Julia. Daisy Bates in the Desert: A Woman’s Life Among the Aborigines. New York: Vintage Departures, 1995.

Reason read: Australia Day is January 26th.

Julia Blackburn became fascinated by Daisy Bates quite by accident. In the beginning of her book Blackburn imagines Ms. Bates’s feelings and memories but by the middle of the book there is an odd shift in perspective and suddenly Blackburn assumes the role of Bates, talking in the first person as if she IS Daisy Bates. It was a little unsettling until I settled into the narrative…and then she switches back.
Through Blackburn’s words Daisy Bates became this larger than life figure; a woman trying to save the natives of Australia. At times it was difficult for me to understand her motives or her successes, but I learned to understand her passions. She truly cared for the people of the desert. 

Line I had to quote, “I suppose it would have been awkward to pack and easily broken and anyway the skull of a good friend would not provide much comfort when one was feeling lonely” (p 95). On a personal note, when my first cat was ailing I seriously considered taking her to a taxidermist for eternal preservation. I loved her that much.
Another line I liked, “The sky was breathing; I could feel the cavity of the night expanding and contracting around me as if I was in the belly of the universe” (p 122). I feel that way about Monhegan sometimes.

As an aside, I am not sure what to do with the image of naked women with dingo puppies tied about their waists.

Author fact: Blackburn wrote several books which won awards. The most successful were Thin Paths and The Leper’s Companions. Neither are on my Challenge list.

Book trivia: Disappointingly there are not a lot of pictures of Daisy Bates. The best one is of her on a swing.

Nancy said: Pearl called Daisy Bates in the Desert “fabulous” (Book Lust To Go p 28)

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Australia, the Land of Oz” (p 26).

Well-Read Black Girl

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Edim, Glory, ed. Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves. New York: Ballantine Books, 2018.

Reason read: as part of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing, this was the November selection.

I am not a Black girl, nor am I a girl anymore. So. So what am I doing requesting to read and review Edim’s anthology, Well-Read Black Girl? I’ll tell you why. As a librarian, I want to be prepared for anyone of any color, of any age, of any self-identified gender, anyone at all to ask me for a book recommendation. Librarians, take note: Edim puts together a well-crafted and thoughtful list of books to read. Like Nancy Pearl in her Lust books, Edim compiles recommendations for all types of reading: genres like classics, fantasy, science fiction, plays and poetry; or themes like feminism, childhood, and friendship. There is a book for that. And that. That, too. Despite the wealth of information in Edim’s various lists I actually loved the essays even more. Women with varying careers and backgrounds and life experiences weigh in on what book meant the most to her or had a lasting impact while growing up. You hear from not just authors, journalists and playwrights but an activist, an actress, a producer; people outside the realm of putting pen to paper. It is a joy they share their thoughts with eloquence and grit. Their stories truly bring a deeper meaning to the books they mention. Their words make you want to go back and reread the stories with a different perspective.

Interesting overlap – I had just finished reading Four Spirits by Sena Jeter Naslund when I got to Barbara Smith’s essay, “Go Tell It.” When talking about her own childhood Smith remembers Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Carol Denise McNair.

The Turk

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Standage, Tom. The Turk: the Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth-Century Chess Playing Machine. New York: Walker & Company, 2002

Reason read: Wolfgang von Kempelen was born in January. Read in his memory.

Picture a bygone era ripe with new inventions. This was the industrial revolution. Everyone is coming up with something practical to make life easier or something clever to wow the public’s imagination. Wolfgang von Kempelen’s creativity was sparked when he attended a conjuring show at the court of Austria-Hungary’s empress, Maria Theresa. Kempelen felt he could impress the empress further with his own ingenuity. She gave him six months to prepare a show of his own and at the end of the six months a mechanical Turkish dressed chess player was born. Outfitted with a high turban and a long smoking pipe, the automaton appeared to be capable of thought as he singlehandedly beat even the most skilled chess player at his own game. Kempelen allowed his audience to peer into the machine’s inner workings and yet they still couldn’t figure it out. the automaton became even more lifelike and mysterious when his second owner, Johann Maezel, introduced speech. The Turk, as the mechanical chess player became known, could talk! Instead of nodding three times, the automaton could tell his opponents, “check” in French further adding to his mystique. Like the boy who came to life in Pinocchio, the Turk was pure magic.
For eighty-seven years the Turk wowed audiences all across Europe and the eastern United States (Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston primarily) before a raging fire extinguished his career. The mystery was not the how the automaton worked. Not really. The bigger and better mystery was how, for all those years and kept by multiple owners, the secret did not get out.
It is sad to think the Turk is not squirreled away in some fantastic museum. I fantasize about turning a corner, coming into a dusty room and standing face to face with the mechanical man in a turban who could say, “echec.”

Author fact: Standage also wrote a book called The Victorian Internet and even though it sounds fantastic, it is not on my list.

Book trivia: There are some interesting and revealing illustrations.

Nancy said: Pearl said Turk is “a most entertaining account of a marvelous invention” (Book Lust p 150).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Mechanical Men, Robots, Automatons, and Deep Blue” (p 150).

Foundation

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Asimov, Isaac. Foundation. Read by Scott Brick. Santa Ana, CA: Book on Tape, 2004.

Reason read: Asimov’s birth month is in January.

The premise of Foundation is thus: Hari Seldon is a psychohistorian (a person who uses a scientific way of predicting the future through history). His mathematical sociology tells him the Dark Ages are fast approaching. In order to curate humanity’s integrity he establishes two foundations, one at either end of the universe. Each foundation is comprised of creative and engineering people capable of preserving the characteristics of the current universe.

As an aside, Fred Pohl saved the Foundation series. Because of conversations with him, Asimov worked on the series for the next decade. It was only supposed to be a trilogy. Thirty years passed between the trilogy and subsequent novels. Asimov, according to his introduction to Foundation, said he needed to reread the series to really remember where he left off.

Author fact:  “The Mule” is Asimov’s favorite part of the series (according to the introduction).

Book trivia: Foundation went up against The Lord of the Rings Trilogy for the Hugo award for best three connected novels and won.

Nancy said: Besides describing the plot, Pearl said the only “must-read” is Foundation (Book Lust p 214).

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