Tag: october

Gardening Under Lights

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Halleck, Leslie F. Gardening Under Lights: the Complete Guide for Indoor Growers. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, 2018.

Reason read: this book was sent as an Early Review for the LibraryThing program.

Right away, the first thing to notice about Gardening Under Lights is how gorgeous is the physical book. The colors, fonts and photographs are beautiful. The second thing to notice is Halleck’s humor and easy going language. The information is a mix of Let Me Break This Down For You and technical and expert information. The first chapter, Why Plants Need Light, offers a simple explanation for the premise of the entire book. From there, the information is thorough and detailed. Every aspect of growing plants is covered, from growing conditions to containers; from diseases to how deep to dig; from selecting the right lighting bulbs to sowing, watering, culling, cutting, rooting, transplanting, harvesting, and propagating. My favorite section was in the middle about edible plants like herbs (I struggle with cilantro bolting)  and vegetables, but the section on diseases was a close second.

As an aside, I plan to loan this book to a friend and I have a suspicion I won’t get it back!

Call It Sleep

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Roth, Henry. Call It Sleep. New York: Penguin Classics, 2006.
Roth, Henry. Call It Sleep. Read by George Guidall. Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books, 1994.

Reason read: The Yom Kippur War in October.

[For my own state of mind I really should ban reading overly sad books with traumatic endings.] Told from the perspective of six year old David Schearl, Call It Sleep relates the hardships of immigrant life in turn of the century gritty New York City. In the prologue, David and his mother arrive from Austria to join her abusive and angry husband. This is the of the few times the narrative is outside little six year old David’s head. The majority of the story is a stream of consciousness, skillfully painting a portrait of inner city life from a child’s point of view.
As an aside, in the beginning I questioned why David’s father would abhor David to the point of criminal abuse. It took awhile to figure out why.
But, back to little David. His young life is filled with fear. He is overwhelmed by language differences between Yiddish and English, overly sensitive to the actions of his peers, clings to his mother with Freudian zeal. I found him to be a really hopeless child and my heart bled for him. While most of the story is bleak, there is the tiniest ray of hope at the end. The pessimists in the crowd might have a negative explanation for what David’s father does, but I saw it as a small gesture of asking for forgiveness.
As another aside, Roth’s interpretation of the Jewish Austrian dialect was, at times, difficult to hear in my hear. Listening to George Guidall was much easier.

Quotes I liked, “Go snarl up your own wits” (p 157), “David’s toes crawled back and forth upon a small space on the sole of his shoe” (p 186), and “…clacking like nine pins before a heavy bowl of mirth they tumbled about the sidewalk” (p 292).

Author fact: Henry Roth is often confused with Philip Roth. I’m guilty of doing it a few times. The real Author Fact is that Henry Roth didn’t write another novel after Call It Sleep until he was 88 years old, sixty years after Call It Sleep was first published.

Book trivia: Call It Sleep was Henry Roth’s first novel, written when he was under thirty.

Nancy said: Nancy simply explains a little of the plot of Call It Sleep.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Jewish American Experience” (p 133).

Tandia

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Courtenay, Bryce. Tandia. London: William Heinmann, Ltd., 1991.

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

This starts off as the story of Tandia Patel. Like Peekay in The Power of One, Tandia’s life begins with violence, prejudice and corruption. Her father, a famous Indian boxing referee, fathered her with his African American mistress. A racially mixed offspring in hyper color-sensitive South Africa is only asking for trouble. While Patel was alive, Tandia’s identity was one of confusion – going to school as Indian but coming home to be a black servant to her father’s household. After his heart attack and subsequent death, Tandia is predictably banished from his household and must rely on the kindness of strangers, much like Peekay did when he was a child. And speaking of Peekay, his life story continues in Tandia. Fans of Peekay’s character will not be disappointed. He only grows more and more admirable as he moves from boxing champion to lawyer, champion to the black community.
Other Power of One similarities include the kindness of an obese and jolly woman, the loyalty of a devoted and deformed servant, and the hatred of a powerful bigot and bully.

It is not a spoiler alert to warn readers of the horrific violence Tandia suffers at the hands of white policemen. I had a hard time reading those early scenes.
As an aside,like some other reviewers, I was disappointed by Courtenay’s ending. It was almost as if he didn’t know how to end it and I have to wonder if he was leaving himself room for another sequel.

Author fact: Courtenay died in November of 2012.

Book trivia: settle in to read Tandia as it is a healthy 900 pages long.

Nancy said: Nancy said Tandia as the sequel to The Power of One is, “just as good” (More Book Lust p 3).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Africa: a Reader’s Itinerary (p 2).

Finding the Dream

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Roberts, Nora. Finding the Dream. New York: Severn House Publishing, 1996.

Reason read: to finish the series started in August in honor of dream month.

Finding the Dream ends the Templeton trilogy.  Just to recap: In Daring to Dream flamboyant Margot Sullivan found love. In Holding the Dream Serious Kate Powell found love. In Finding the Dream finally, it is practical Laura Templeton’s turn in the spotlight. Would she find love again after all she had been through? Here is my favorite part of the entire series: throughout the pages of Daring to Dream and Holding the Dream, Laura’s bad marriage and equally awful divorce had been playing out. It’s the one story line that successfully weaved its way through the entire trilogy (aside from the cheesy Seraphina treasure hunt). Peter Ridgeway, a Templeton employee, seduced Laura when she was a teenager. He only wanted to marry her so that he had a permanent “in” with the family hotel business. But after cheating on Laura and stealing their two daughter’s inheritance he flew the coop, marrying a Templeton rival. (Another story line that ran through all three books but was unsuccessful.) Now, it is time for Laura to climb out of the ashes of a failed marriage and find a true love for herself. Just as Margot and Kate had climbed out of the wreckage of their own personal traumas. And just like Margot and Kate, Laura finds a love interest who is wrong for her in every way. True to the Nora Roberts formula, refined Laura and rough-around-the-edges Michael Fury clash at every turn. How will they ever fall in love?

Author fact: Roberts has written as J.D. Robb for her Death series.

Nancy said: nothing specific.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Romance Novels: Our Love is Here to Stay” (p 203).

The Chronoliths

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Wilson, Robert C. The Chronoliths. New York: Tor, 2001.

Reason read: October is “Star Man” month and The Chronoliths is sort of about time travel…

Scott Warden as an old man is writing his memoirs about his involvement with the Chronoliths. When he begins his story the year is 21st century. The place is Thailand. Scott and his family are hanging out in a beach side town “busy doing something close to nothing” when a huge 200 foot structure in the form of monument appears in the jungled interior. This is no ordinary monument. Its arrival changed the climate, destroyed acres worth of trees and spewed ionizing radiation. But even more curious is the inscription, commemorating a victorious battle sixteen years into the future. Then, another monument appears in downtown Bangkok, killing thousands. Again it commemorates a victory years into the future. Because Scott and a friend the first ones to arrive on the scene of the original monument, they are irrevocably linked to the phenomenon. A scientist from Scott’s past recruits him to study the structures in an effort to thwart a future warlord from destroying society.

The Chronoliths is futuristic enough to acknowledge the world had progressed but not so much that it wasn’t recognizable to the reader. Some examples: Scott lived in a society where smokers needed to hold an “addict’s” license. Wilson makes some interesting predictions about human behavior and advances in technologies. Portable communication technologies are very similar to what we have today but were virtually unheard of in 2001.
But interestingly enough, the world had also regressed (the draft was introduced in 2029).

As an aside – I wish the editor had done a little better job of catching inconsistencies. Adam on page 146 was eighteen but by page 149 he was seventeen.

Quotes to quote: “But what the hard admits isn’t always what the heart allows” (p 60) and “Adulthood is the art of deceit” (p 153).

Author fact: Wilson is an American-born science fiction writer living in Canada. Given the climate of today, lucky him.

Book trivia: the disclaimer reads, “This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or used fictitiously.”

Nancy said: The Chronoliths is included in a list of other books about time travel that might be enjoyed.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Time Travel” (p 220). As an aside, I should note, humans do not time travel but monuments celebrating military victories twenty years into the future randomly appear, at first across Asia and then North America.

Always a Distant Anchorage

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Roth, Hal. Always a Distant Anchorage. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1988.

Reason read: October is Library Friend month. I had to borrow this book from Byfield, Massachusetts; a town I have never heard of before.

Hal and Margaret Roth had an epic mission to sail around the world. Good thing they had the kind of relationship that could withstand being trapped together on a boat for nearly two years (46 months)! Their boat, Whisper, was a 10.7 meters long, black hulled fiberglass vessel that weighed 7.2 tons.
Their journey took them from the coast of Maine to Bermuda and the Virgin Islands, though the Panama Canal, across the South Pacific, winding through Tahiti and Fiji, crossing the Coral Sea and Australia, Bali, Africa, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, and finally back through the Atlantic and the Caribbean, ending in Somes Sound, Maine. The amazing thing is, Roth did not come from a sailing background. Luckily, he was a gifted writer and this is his account of that epic journey (with excerpts from Margaret’s journal thrown in). Weather, fishing, the mechanics of boats and sailing, the culture and customs of each community and port, getting to know and establishing relationships with other sailors, even being shipwrecked on coral reef and observing drug runners. Everything Roth writes about is fascinating. He loves the word “squally.”

As an aside, Roth’s description of Greece makes me want to visit even more.

Quote to giggle over: from Margaret’s journal, “I don’t know why men have to swear when they fix things” (p 81).
Another quote, “I don’t mind the prayers and the ritual washing that used up my buckets of fresh water, but I wished the pilot had made some sign to me that he was giving up steering” (p 219). One last quote, “What was life anyway but a collection of new timbers, the seasoning and shaping into a useful hull, the long voyage, a gradual collapse, and the final rotting away (p 303)?

Author fact: Roth also wrote We Followed Odysseus which I will be reading a few years.

Book trivia: the hand drawn maps are fantastic, but the photographs are great too! I wish there had been more of the couple. On the back cover there is a photograph I must describe because it is so intimate and lovely: Margaret is cradled between Hal’s legs. She is clutching his bare foot while he has one arm casually slung over her shoulder. His hand barely brushes her breast…

Nancy said: Always a Distant Anchorage is “the perfect choice for those who dream of one big voyage” (p 201).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “See the Sea” (p 201).

No Villain Need Be

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Fisher, Vardis. No Villain Need Be. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran, & Company, Inc., 1936.

Reason read: to finish the series started in August in memory of Butch Cassidy robbing a bank in Idaho in August 1896.

Confessional: I could not wait for this series to be over and done with! I found Vridar a very selfish and troubled man throughout the earlier books. He pushes his wife to suicide at the end of We Are Betrayed and then spends more of No Villain Need Be trying to sort out his guilt. Another trait of Mr. Hunter’s that I could quite reconcile is his lack of parenting. True, those were different times but when he moved to Baltimore all I could ask was, what about his sons? This does not get any better in No Villain Need Be. His common law wife at one point asks him if he is going to see his children and he replies that he is “not ready yet” to face them. In case, you are wondering – his parents have his two sons back in Idaho.
But, back to the plot. Vridar is now a so=called grown up. He keeps gin in the bathroom, has written more than half a dozen books and is teaching at a college. He has obtained his doctorate in philosophy and even has a common law wife, Athene (whom I’ve already mentioned). Athene is an admirable character. She seems the most honest, being above the game playing. She helps Vridar behave as a more mature adult. Despite all the drama in the earlier installments, the series ends without much fanfare.
A curiosity: Vridar teaches philosophy while his brother, Mertyl, teaches Psychology. Even more curious, Mertyl lives and teaches wherever Vridar happens to end up.

Spoken by Vridar, these statements have some truth to them – “Love sets out to lick the world and ends up by pushing a baby-buggy to Mobile (p 40) and “I don’t believe in legislating people into heaven” (p 93). Amen, brother. Earlier in the tetralogy I agreed with Vridar’s opinion of Greek life. Now in No Villain Need Be I applaud his stance on academic commencement ceremonies. We both think they are silly.

Another quote I liked, “Pleasure as a manic depressive, asylumed in Manhattan” (p 210).
Finally, I want to thank the University of Massachusetts (Amherst campus) for sharing Vardis Fisher’s tetralogy with me.

Author fact: so far I have told you this about Mr. Fisher: he was born and raised in Idaho and that he was married three times. Last fact: Mr. Fisher wrote a great deal more beyond the life of Vardis Hunter. Sadly, I’m not reading any of it.

Book trivia: No Villain Need Be‘s title came from George Meredith: “Tis morning: but no morning can restore what we have forfeited. I see no sin: The wrong is mixed. In tragic life, God wot, No villain need Be! Passions spin the plot: We are betrayed by what is false within.”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Idaho: and Nary a Potato to be Seen” (p 121).

I Will Bear Witness

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Klemperer, Victor. I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933 – 1941. Translated by Martin Chalmers. New York: Random House, 1998.

Reason read: Klemperer was born on October 9th in 1881. He started keeping a diary at 17 years of age. I Will Bear Witness was read in his honor.

No matter how you dress it up, this is a hard book to read. Mainly because hindsight is 20/20 and we know what a travesty the Nazi years truly were to the German-Jewish people. Today, more than ever, reading Klemperer’s journals are valuable lessons in fortitude, courage, and grace. Despite everything he remained committed to documenting his world around him…even as it slowly fell apart. I see similarities to modern day America. At first the indignity was small, a blip: the loss of admittance to his library’s reading room. No Jews allowed. Then, the indignities became too big to ignore – the loss of his teaching position at the university, then use of the beloved automobile, then they had to move from their new dream house. Every creature comfort was slowly stripped away. His typewriter, tobacco, even new socks. Can you imagine smoking blackberry tea or filling an application for used socks? What is so admirable is, in the face of all this humility, Klemperer still recognized and drew attention to the civility his enemy occasionally displayed.

From the very beginning, although he was only 52 years of age at the start of I Will Bear Witness, Klemperer was convinced he had not long to live. He made comments like, “I no longer think about tomorrow” (p 15), and “My heart cannot bear all this misery much longer” (p 17). He was sure his heart would give out any day. It was if each passing birthday came as a shock to him because he could see the future of Germany’s political landscape. How would he survive it? Yet, every day he strove to improve his life and that of his wife of 45 years. Buying land, building a house, learning to drive a car, taking Eva to her beloved flower shows, keeping a diary and continuing to write throughout it all. These are the little triumphs of Klemperer’s life.

Confessional: Because his sentences were so choppy, it took me some time to get into the rhythm of his words.

Favorite line, “The man is a blinkered fanatic” (p 41). One guess who he was talking about! Another line I have to mention, “I do not know whether history is racing ahead or standing still” (p 79). This, after Hindenburg’s death. The magnitude of the implications! One last quote to quote, “It cannot be helped, one cannot live normally in an abnormal time” (p 227).

Author fact: In the end Klemperer’s heart did betray him. He died of a heart attack in 1960 when he was 79 years old.

Book trivia: This is truly trivia, but I love, love, love the photograph of Eva and Victor Klemperer on the spine of I Will Bear Witness. Both are standing behind their beloved automobile with smiles on their faces. Victor is hunched in such a way he actually appears to be laughing. He has an impish look on his face.

Nancy said: Klemperer was “one of the best observers whose records we have of those terrible, and ordinary, years inside Germany” (p 131).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Journals and Letters: We Are All Voyeurs at Heart” (p 130).

In the Valley of Mist

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Hardy, Justine. In the Valley of Mist: Kashmir: One Family in a Changing World. New York: Free Press, 2009.

Reason read: the Kashmir earthquake of 2005 happened in October.

Just to orientate you: Kashmir separates India and Pakistan. Both areas had been warring over this beautiful area for decades. Meanwhile, a separatist insurgent group within Kashmir also sought independence. By 1989 rising tensions finally gave way to major conflict. Justine Hardy wanted to tell the story of the innocent families living within the conflict. With their blessing, via In the Valley of Mist, she attempts to expose the corruption and controversy caught between three very different worlds. Everything, from manner of dress to religious convictions, are examined.

As an aside, I tend to count things when I get annoyed by something. This time it was how often Hardy referred to the region’s beauty, calling it pretty or sweet or beautiful. I think she wanted to emphasize it’s attraction to starkly contrast it with the ugliness of war and the utter destruction after the 2005 earthquake.

Author fact: Hardy was a British journalist of over twenty years who has written six books. I am reading just this one.

Book trivia: In the Valley of Mist has a great collection of photographs, most of them include the author’s handsome face.

Nancy said: In the Valley of Mist “takes place against a backdrop of Calcutta and a sea voyage” (p 213). I think Pearl was reading an entirely different book. For starters, Calcutta is nowhere near Kashmir (Calcutta is south of Kashmir by nearly 1,700 kilometers) and I didn’t see any “sea voyage” as a focal point. The jihad, the insurgency, the oppression of women. Those were the main points of In the Valley of Mist in my mind. True, the family Hardy spent time with lived on houseboats, but they were on the Dal lake, not the ocean.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust to Go in the chapter called “Sojourns in South Asia: India” (p 213).

Discarded Duke

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Butler, Nancy. The Discarded Duke. New York: Signet Book, 2002.

Reason read: In the spirit of romance novels, I am reading The Discarded Duke in recognition of Jane Eyre being published in October. I know, it’s a stretch…

Confessional: I am not a fan of romance novels.

Like any good romance, there has to be a love triangle. Here’s Discarded Duke‘s triangle of love: point A. = Beautiful widow Ursula Roarke, looking for a new husband, point B. = pretty Damien Danover (the Duke of Ardsley), looking to finally settle down with a suitable mate and, point C. = the ruggedly handsome shepherd, William Ridd, who just wants to take care of wool producing sheep in peace and quiet. As you can guess, Beautiful widow wants to seduce rich duke but can’t help the animal attraction she feels towards poor rough-around-the-edges shepherd. Can you see where this is going? Like any good romance the characters are stereotypical in attractiveness and sex appeal. The Widow Ursula, despite being a widow, is still a young and voluptuous, willful and fiery redhead determined to get her way. The dainty Duke is powerful, attractive, wealthy, slightly persnickety and described as a man who can look like he’s smelled a week old fish or behave like a dry old stick. William the innocent, minding-his-own-business sheepherder is bronzed by the sun, doesn’t own the beloved sheep he tends (one guess who does!), has a wry sense of sunny humor but has a dark and stormy past. Of course he does. What decent hero does not? Except Ridd has the scars to prove the violence. Of course Will and Ursula exchange barbs like two elementary school kids on the playground. But, like any good romance, there are secrets galore and assumptions to be made on all sides of the isosceles.
But wait! There’s a fourth point to the triangle. Huh? Now, technically, it’s a rectangle of love. Judith Coltrane, former friend and potentially past love interest of Ardsley’s from back in the day. She has waited in vain for the Duke to return after he ran after from a tragedy on the home front twelves years ago. See, everyone has a secret. So when the Duke rolls back into town with Lady Ursula all this time later…

Probably the best element of Butler’s story is the character development. Yes, they are all slightly stereotypical in their socioeconomic positions (everyone looks down on poor, come-from-nothing William Ridd, obviously. Insert eye roll here.). But every single character has a dark and vulnerable side. And. And! And, they are all likeable characters.

Okay, okay! Having said all that, I admit it! As far as romances go, this one wasn’t that bad.

Probably the best cringe-worthy quote, “It was difficult to have a proper argument when one was naked” (p 209).

Author fact: Nancy Butler’s real name is Nancy Hajeski.

Book trivia: this is the kind of book I would hide at the bottom of my bag and would never, ever be seen reading in public. The cover is of a passionate couple in a lovers’ embrace. It could be worse. Neither individual is in a state of partial undress. Not even in the least. No glistening chest, no bared shoulder. No exposed thigh…Adding to my good fortune is the fact I had to request this book from outside my network so it arrived with a book strap and a warning, “do not remove!” Wouldn’t think of it!

Nancy said: The Discarded Duke is “a good example of well-developed characters and a gripping plot” (p 207). I would agree completely.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Romance Novels: Our Love Is Here To Stay” (p 203).

Sense of the World

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Roberts, Jason. Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler. New York: Harper Collins, 2006.

Roberts, Jason. Sense of the World. Read by John Curless. Price Frederick, MD: Recorded Books, 2007.

Reason read: James Holman was born in October.

Fourth-born Britain James Holman was destined for the clergy. Instead, he got bit by the travel bug. Like any decent explorer, James Holman bucked authority. After inexplicably going blind at the age of 25 he refused to stand still. When doctors wanted him to languish in the warmer climates of the Mediterranean for his health, Holman instead ignored their advice and set out for France by himself.  Naturally Holman didn’t stop there. He joined the Navy to continue his travels through far reaching places such as Siberia and Africa.
Despite Holman’s remarkable ability to perceive the world as though sighted he was mostly viewed as a novelty and when he passed away his fifteen minutes of fame were quickly up. Roberts decided to resurrect Holman’s biography because he simply couldn’t believe the world had forgotten about this remarkable, yet blind, traveler. He best describes Holman as such, “Alone, sightless, with no prior command of native languages and with only a wisp of fund, he had forged a path equivalent to wandering to the moon” (p 320). Pretty remarkable.

I must start of by saying I learned a great deal from reading this book. For starters, I was unaware that there was a point in history when you could buy your rank: for a gold star on your uniform it would cost you an average of 400 pounds. On that same note I must confess I didn’t know what a phaeton looked like so I had to look it up.

Quotes I liked, “What nature wishes us to guard with care, it wreathes abundantly in pain receptors” (p 56), and “It was time to learn how to be blind” (p 67).

Author fact: Jason Roberts was a journalist at the time of Sense of the World’s publication.

Narrator & audio trivia: I couldn’t get over the way John Curless pronounced the word ‘lieutenant’. Must be the accent.

Book trivia: There are some fabulous portraits of Holman in Sense of the World. The coolest thing is for every portrait Roberts describes there is a picture to refer to.

Nancy said: Nancy included Holman in her list of travelers but disagreed with Roberts on the subtitle, How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler saying it is “somewhat arguable” (p 84).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the simply chapter called “Explorers” (p 83).

Breakfast on Pluto

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McCabe, Patrick. Breakfast on Pluto. New York: HarperFlamingo, 1998.

Reason read: October is the best time to visit Ireland and this time, I have it from a reliable source. According to a born and raised Dubliner, October is the best month and Breakfast on Pluto was written by an Irishman.

Confessional: I had to read the Prelude a second time to make sure I wasn’t confusing Patrick Braden with Patrick McCabe.

This story will unhinge you a little. Patrick Braden starts his life as a babe left on the doorsteps of a church where he is taken in by Father Bernard McIvor, who just so happens to be Patrick’s real father. Not knowing what else to do with the child, the pastor takes Patrick to an abusive and alcoholic foster home. It is around this time that Patrick decides he is a transvestite and starts calling himself “Pussy”. While Pussy shares his life story in lighthearted, sometimes amusing, sometimes matter of fact anecdotes, there is always a dark and violent undercurrent. That can’t be helped when the protagonist’s boyfriend is murdered, Pussy becomes a prostitute and gets involved in terrorism. Need I say more?

A cool thing about Breakfast on Pluto: it references a lot of music. It prompted me to take a journey to YouTube to look up the song “Breakfast on Pluto” by Don Partridge as well as the music of Vic Damone and the theme song to A Summer Place.

Author fact: McCabe has written thirteen books but I am only reading this one for the Challenge.

Book trivia: Breakfast on Pluto was made into a movie starring Cillian Murphy in 2005. Patrick McCabe was one of the writers on the project. I, of course, have not seen it.
Another piece of trivia: Breakfast on Pluto was short listed for the Booker Prize in 1998.

Nancy said: Breakfast on Pluto was a “good novel” set in Ireland.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Irish Fiction” (p 126).

Aristotle Detective

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Doody, Margaret Anne. Aristotle Detective. Great Britain: The Bodley Head, Ltd., 1978.

Reason read: October in Greece; in honor of Ochi (Ochi/Ohi = no, it’s not okay!) Day. It is Greece’s response to Mussolini’s demand to occupy Greece during WWII. Their refusal to give in to Axis power is celebrated every October 28th. Very cool.

Picture this. The year is 332 B.C. and Athens is under the thumb of Alexander the Great. Closer to home, an Athenian citizen is found with an arrow clean through his jugular. A clear case of murder for no one stabs themselves to death with an arrow, so deduces the citizen public. What is not so clear is how Philemon, a young man already in exile for an accidental death in a barroom brawl, is fingered for the crime. Just how can an absent man commit such a heinous act? The task to prove his innocence falls to Philemon’s cousin, Stephanos. Under Athenian law, inexperienced and naive Stephanos must defend the family name in Philemon’s absence. Here’s where Aristotle comes in. Once Stephanos’s mentor, Stephanos knows he can trust Aristotle to guide him to the truth. Like all gripping suspense stories, all evidence points to Philemon’s guilt and clearing his name becomes a Herculean task. It’s the proverbial David and Goliath story with Stephanos the clear underdog. Stephanos is impetuous, emotional and faced with never-ending bad luck. Like the unrelenting surf, he is pounded with one set back after another. Of course this makes for a great mystery! How will Stephanos clear his family name?

Confessional: can I just say how much I loved seeing Pheidippides as a character in Aristotle Detective? And how is this for tongue-in-cheek? “Pheidippides must have been something of a runner” (p 278). I’ll say!

Quote I could relate to very well, “I turned over clothes in the press, and looked into jars and under furniture – into well-swept and barren corners, in the stupid manner of all personal looking for a lost object” (p 83). Been there!

Author fact: It is rare to not see an “about the author” blurb somewhere on a book: back cover, inside flap, somewhere usually with a smiling photograph to accompany it. Aristotle Detective does not give any clues as to Doody’s personal life except for the dedication. She has a sister named Mary Elizabeth Howell-Jones whom Doody considers a “real” classicist.

Book trivia: Aristotle Detective is the first in a series and is Doody’s first fiction. It’s the only Doody book I am reading.

Nancy said: Nancy called Doody a “classicist” and described the Aristotle plot.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Classical World” (p 59).

All Hallows’ Eve

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Williams, Charles. All Hallows’ Eve. New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1948.

Reason read: This is a spooky story so I’m reading this for Halloween, of course.

This is a love story that thrives beyond the grave. Lester and Richard were married only the day before when Lester is killed by a falling airplane. What are the chances? Now Lester is caught between two very different worlds – the living world where Richard still walks about grieving and Lester’s dead and silent world in limbo. She hasn’t made it into either heaven nor hell. Some people can sense her and some can even see her outright. Still others, she can walk clean through and they wouldn’t feel even the slightest whisper. Lester feels alone but she is not. Not really. Also killed in the bizarre crash was her living best friend, Evelyn. Both seek the afterlife forgiveness of a third girl, Betty, who Lester and Evelyn were cruel to in school. Betty is under the spell of evil in the form of her mother, Lady Wallingford, and religious and biological Father Simon Leclerc. Father Simon, better known as The Clerk, is seen as a prophet, a religious leader, a powerful orator able to sway large masses with his preaching…a devil in disguise who practices magic. He has Evelyn under his power as well. She turns out to be the evil one.

Williams is a strange author. His storytelling is dense and sometimes confusing. I likened it to hacking through a thick and oppressive jungle with a dull machete. You spend a lot of time slogging through the narrative and sometimes miss the finer nuances of the story. I found myself frequently rereading passages if only to orient myself to time and place.

Quotes (or imagery) I liked, “The two dead girls went together slowly out of the park” (p 22), and “She did not dichotomize; mechanics were not separate from spirit, nor from imagination, nor that from passion” (p 225).

Confessional: I had to look up two words from this book: sacerdotalism and susurration. Learn something new everyday.

Author fact: Williams wrote All Hallows’ Eve as part of a series called “The Aspects of Power.” It is #7 in the series and is the only one I’m reading for the challenge. for once, I am glad to be missing out.
Second author fact: Williams died following an operation.

Book trivia: All Hallows’ Eve has been compared to James’s Turn of the Screw. Second piece of trivia: T.S. Eliot wrote the introduction to All Hallows’ Eve.

Nancy said: Nancy called All Hallows’ Eve a “lost classic” (p 99); “Williams’s own spiritual beliefs lend a spellbinding conviction to the ensuing struggle between good and evil, magic and art” (p 100).

BookLust: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Ghost Stories” (p 99). True enough.

Beautiful Children

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Bock, Charles. Beautiful Children. Read by Mark Deakins. New York: Random House Audio, 2008.

Reason read: As some of you know, my cousin was homeless and lived under the neon in Las Vegas. In October of a certain year he was found dead. Beautiful Children was read in his honor, but now I have a new event to memorialize: the Las Vegas concert massacre earlier this month. October is a cruel, cruel month and Beautiful Children is a cruel, cruel book.

I don’t know how to review this book. I was not expecting to dislike every character, even the missing kid, Newell. I hated that I liked him least of all. The premise of the story is twelve year old Newell goes missing on the streets of Las Vegas. Vegas gives Bock a huge canvas to work with. Think about it: the seedy and spectacular people, the gritty and shiny atmosphere, the ever-lurking potential for danger around every corner. It’s Sin City, after all! Bock does take advantage of the expanse of his canvas but not in a good way. It’s almost like he had too much space so he overfilled it with garbage. Story lines are jumbled and discombobulated. Like marbles scattering in a hallway, Bock careens from one time and place to another. Yes, there are criminals, strippers, homeless kids, drug addicts, pawnshop owners, gamblers, sex addicts, comic book illustrators, beggars, liars, thieves…all of them sad and pitiful. The center of this story is supposed to be focused on a missing kid. Yes, the parents are grief stricken and the marriage suffers, but not enough attention is paid to the here and now of that intense drama. Instead, Bock delves into what intense sadness does to to a sex life. There are no FBI agents anxiously hovering over wire-tapped telephones while hand wringing, pale faced parents look on. There are no episodes of pounding the streets, littering them with Have You Seen Me? fliers. Instead, Bock focuses on the underbelly of the beast; a world where pedophiles and pornographers feel at home.

Maybe it’s because I listened to this on audio. Maybe it’s because the sex scenes were practically pornographic. Maybe it’s because the story couldn’t stay linear for two minutes. Maybe it’s because I couldn’t find a character to love or even like. I suspect, if I look for the truth closer to home, I didn’t like Beautiful Children because, for all of his over the top, down and dirty descriptions of Las Vegas, when it came right down to it, he was describing my cousin’s last home. My cousin could have been that homeless kid on page 122.

Author fact: Charles Bock is a native of Las Vegas.

Narrator fact: Mark Deakins has appeared on the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Never saw an episode.

Book trivia: Beautiful Children was Charles Bock’s first novel.

Nancy said: Nancy described the plot but also mentioned the sins in Beautiful Children are not the ones you would expect of Vegas.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the very simple and obvious chapter called (drum roll) “Las Vegas” (p 129).