Bragan reads still more books in 2014, part 3

It's a new thread for the third quarter! And I'm starting it with a very old book, or, at least, one that'd been on my TBR pile so long I no longer have any idea just when or how it got there:

79. The Bridge by Iain Banks



After experiencing a terrible car crash, a man finds himself -- or dreams he finds himself -- with no memories and no identity, on a bridge that stretches out into a vast, unknown distance at either end. It's a strange, layered, somewhat abstract novel, one that shifts back and forth between reality and something else, full of dreams-within-dreams. To what extent it all comes together in the end as a coherent narrative, I'm really not at all sure. There are definitely elements whose meaning, if there is one, is not entirely clear to me. But it's a strangely compelling read, and one that's well-written, imaginative, and interestingly complex.

Rating: 4/5

80. Barrel Fever by David Sedaris



I enjoy David Sedaris's personal-anecdote essays a lot more than his short stories, generally speaking. So it was a little unfortunate for me that this collection of stories and essays from 1994 really was mostly stories. The essay section was pretty short, and mostly dominated by "SantaLand Diaries," about his experiences working as a department store elf at Christmas time. And I'd already read that one in Holidays on Ice, as well as having heard an abridged audio version of it on This American Life. It is pretty terrific, though; even on the third go-round, it still made me laugh.

The stories are mostly short character pieces about truly awful people, and tend to sit uncomfortably on the line between blackly humorous and simply unpleasant. They're not bad, just not quite to my taste. I often enjoy black comedy, but the cumulative effect, for me, was more depressing than funny.

Rating: Trying to be a bit objective, I'll call this 3.5/5.

OH, here you are!!! The Bridge sounds beautifully odd.

>3 avidmom: Hello! "Beautifully odd" might not be too bad a description of The Bridge, really.

81. Embassytown by China Miéville



The eponymous Embassytown is a settlement of humans located on an alien planet whose inhabitants are notable for their unique language. It takes two mouths to speak it, and it's impossible to lie in it... and those are not the weirdest things about it.

The exact nature of that alien language, which is at the heart of the novel and drives everything that happens in it, requires a heck of a suspension of disbelief, or at least it did for me. When you get down to it, the basic idea behind it is more mystical than logical. It reminds me, more than anything, of fantasy stories in which magic works on the principle that everything in the world has a True Name, a name that is not just a label that human beings have given it but is somehow inherent in the very nature of reality. Which, while it's a strangely powerful concept, doesn't actually make any scientific sense. At all. Still, what Miéville does with it is interesting, and certainly does invite some deep thought about language and meaning.

The world-building, in general, is also very good, as one might expect from China Miéville. It feels more restrained to me than the surreal, unpredictable landscapes of the Bas-Lag novels, but that's not a bad thing. If anything, I'd say this world feels just the right amount of alien for the story he's telling with it. I also like the way he just drops the reader into this world, as seen from the point of view of someone who grew up there and feels no need to explain what she expects everyone to know, and trusts us to pick things up as we go along. I find that both more believable and more entertaining than being spoon-fed loads of exposition, and it wasn't too long before I got the hang of everything and started to feel quite at home.

The plot, I must admit, varied a bit in how well it held my attention over the course of the novel, but despite that, and the way it made me sort of shake my head and go, "Yes, but language not only doesn't work that way, it surely can't work that way!", I still found it very much a worthwhile read.

Rating: 4/5

Followed you here and starred the thread...

>6 OscarWilde87: Welcome to part 3! :)

Excellent review of Embassytown Betty. It's on my radar.

>8 baswood: It's worth having on the radar, I think, even if it's not exactly perfect. I'll be interested to see what you think of it if and when you get to it.

82. Across the Pond: An Englishman's View of America by Terry Eagleton



Terry Eagleton considers America, what characterizes it as a nation, and how it differs from Great Britain and Ireland. He's not talking about individual Americans here, of course -- we no doubt differ just as widely as people anywhere else -- but about the culture in which Americans live. His ruminations on the subject range from flippant and frivolous comments to some fairly deep analysis of American thought patterns and how they have evolved from the country's puritan roots. There's also quite a lot of space in the middle where it's not always possible to tell just how serious he's intending to be -- a characteristic he would insist is extremely British, or at least very not-American.

It's an interesting and provocative little book. I found my reactions to it ranging all over the place: "That might be a little bit offensive" would quickly be followed by, "But that is funny because it's true," and "True or not, that's freaking hilarious." "That is a good and relevant observation" alternated a lot with "I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this, but it's certainly thought-provoking" and occasionaly "What on earth is he on about now?"

I'm not sure it's possible to give a sense of this book without quoting a bit of Eagleton's writing, so here's a sample:

Because of the all-powerful will, Americans are great believers in the fraudulent doctrine that you can do anything you want if you try hard enough. In no other country on earth does one hear this consoling lie chanted so often. If you want to fly to Rio and there is no airport to hand, simply want it as hard as you can and feathers will sprout spontaneously from your biceps. When the United States finally killed Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama declared with mathematical predictability that it was an example of how the country could do anything it set its mind to. He did not mention that ten years is a rather long time for the omnipotent will to creak into action. One wonders why the nation does not put its mind to abolishing poverty, if all of its mental strivings are guaranteed to succeed. The United States has a larger proportion of its population in prison, higher levels of mental illness, greater rates of teenage pregnancy, a lower level of child well-being, and higher levels of poverty and social exclusion than most other developed nations. Perhaps this is because its people have not been exercising their wills in concert. Perhaps a date and time should be appointed for, say, the willing away of criminal gangs, when great hordes of people can emerge civic-mindedly on the streets and bend their collective mental efforts to this end.

I should point out that by no means is all of it that negative. But I think that paragraph right there is probably enough to tell you whether or not this is a book you'll appreciate.

Rating: 4/5, not because I agree with everything in it, but because it's interesting and frequently very funny, and because it's always good to get an outsider's perspective.

>10 bragan: Your excerpt from this book certainly convinced me to read it!

However, the subtitle however dredges up one of my favourite beefs. When did the United States become America? Is America like the weather maps you see on US television where Canada and Mexico are eliminated and weather systems magically appear from the ether? Hundreds of millions of other people live in the Americas, so to take that geographical appellation for itself effectively eliminates all of them. Perhaps someday we can have more clarity by referring to the country as the US or the United States once more. Referring to the people who live there as Americans doesn't seem to cause any confusion as it has always been thus, but please Americans, you don't occupy two continents.

Titles like this just compound the problem. Why couldn't it be "An Englishman's View of the United States of America", or if that's too long "An Englishman's View of the United States? Notice that he's not saying "A British Man's...", but carefully distinguishes himself as English.

Maybe it's all Bill Bryson's fault!

>11 SassyLassy: Funnily enough, he does address that same point in the book, with a certain amount of eye-rolling.

For my part, as an American, I concede the point, but am far, far too lazy to fight prevailing linguistic trends, myself, especially as so many of the alternatives take longer to type or say. It helps it feel a bit less embarrassing if I think of it as simply a shortening of the country's full name, rather than a reflection of the attitude that we're the only important thing on two continents. But however arrogant it may sound, and however illogical it may be, the difference between "North America," "South America," the Americas" and "America" as they're commonly used isn't really ambiguous, just annoying.

>10 bragan: Reading your review I was wondering how much it enforced the stereotypical view that some of us this side of the pond have of U S culture. Betty I am sure you would not be able to answer that and so I would have to read the book to find out.

Do you think the book is aimed at English people wishing to visit America as a kind of "what to expect"

>13 baswood: I think the answer to that is probably "yes, but in a fairly nuanced way." I will leave it to those on your side of the pond to compare it to their own impressions, though. And it doesn't really have a "what to expect" kind of feel to it at all. I think it's probably aimed equally at both Americans and Brits.

>10 bragan: Americans are great believers in the fraudulent doctrine that you can do anything you want if you try hard enough.

Too bad he thinks this is a "fraudulent" doctrine. Dale Carnegie be damned! haha! His choice of flying to Rio as an example of doing anything you want misses the point and is probably not what the average "fraudulent" thinker thinks when he thinks about doing anything he wants. I think a better word than "do" would be "accomplish." And obviously nothing is accomplished without some level of determination.

I see how provocative this book might be, and therefore how interesting! Thanks for a very informative review!

>15 Poquette: He's deliberately exaggerating with the "flap your arms and fly to Rio" example, of course. I do think there's valid and important point there about the pervasive idea that anyone can do just about anything if they only set their mind to it sufficiently, and the often unstated corollary to that, which is that any failure is a failure of will. At its extreme, that sort of attitude gives rise to pernicious nonsense like "The Secret," the equation of poverty with moral failure and laziness, and cancer patients being taken to task for not generating enough positive thinking to cure themselves. (Barbara Ehrenreich does a good job of exploring the dangers and annoyances of this sort of thing in her book Bright-Sided.)

On the other hand, it is equally true that it's very difficult to accomplish anything if you refuse to try, and Eagleton does actually talk about that side of things, too, acknowledging that the American can-do attitude has gotten the country pretty far, and that the British, by contrast, are perhaps inclined to give up too easily.

83. Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues by Diana Rowland



The sequel to My Life as a White Trash Zombie picks up a few weeks after the first book ended. Our hero, Angel, having recently become undead, is still trying to turn her life around. She's doing pretty well at it, too, despite having to deal with various problems at work, at home, and with her love life... Not to mention the bizarre conspiracy she's just stumbled into.

Yes, it's all a bit ridiculous, really. And the plot requires entirely too much explaining of what just happened at the end. But who cares? It's a quick, entertaining, utterly effortless read with a likeable protagonist, and for one of those days when that's exactly what I want out of a book, it's perfect

Rating: An unapologetic 4/5.

>12 bragan: Up here when we're speaking of the United States, we just say the US, or more informally, "the States", both abbreviations of the country's real name, both clear on which part of the Americas you mean. US strikes me as about as short and unambiguous in an American context as you can get. Maybe you have to be on another side of your borders for it to be important.

Like bas, I will have to read it for the perspective from outside.

Good to see an Iain Banks book (first post) I haven't read. I will have to look for that one too. You may just be setting up my last summer reading.

>18 SassyLassy: Here, I can't help but suspect people might look at you funny after a while if you made a point of never calling it "America." What exactly that says about the US, I don't know, but it probably does say something.

Always glad to help with the summer reading! The Bridge is such an odd and interesting novel... I'll be interested to hear what you think of it if and when you get to it. And there are far, far too many Banks novels I haven't read, but which I hope to get to eventually.

I usually say "the US" but it's difficult to get away from saying "Americans" -- I mean, what alternative is there?

>20 rebeccanyc: I've seen "USians" used in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way, but it's not exactly very pronounceable, is it?

84. The Dangerous World of Butterflies by Peter Laufer



Peter Laufer is a journalist who has written a lot about war and other deeply depressing topics, and one day he concluded a real downer of a talk about his work with a joke: "That's why my next book is going to be about butterflies and flowers." Afterwards, an audience member wrote and invited him to her butterfly farm in Nicaragua. And thus, without quite intending to, he ended up writing a book about butterflies, after all. Except that it turns out that even butterflies aren't an entirely happy topic, and he ended up writing about butterflies whose habitats are shrinking or are located in troubled countries, the world of endangered butterfly smuggling, and bitter disputes between butterfly enthusiasts with a look-but-don't-touch approach and those willing to stick pins in them.

It's a great origin story for a book, and, although I don't have any special interest in butterflies, I often enjoy this kind of book, where an author digs deep into the unfamiliar aspects of a familiar subject. But while this one was reasonably interesting, for some reason it never really gripped me all that much. I'm not sure if it's that Laufer's writing, while perfectly decent, lacks zing, or whether I just wasn't in quite the right mood for it, or what. I also find the lack of a photo section regrettable, as it would have been nice to have pictures of the butterflies he's describing.

Rating: 3.5/5

Interesting discussions about Across the Pond! I made a point to stop calling the US America a while back but haven't really had trouble from a grammatical point of view. In general in the US we're much more concerned with our state or region or city than with the US as a whole, especially given the huge variety in cultures, so being American often takes second place. There definitely needs to be more emphasis on the luck element of the "American Dream" and the fact that many people will never be in the position to even attempt to achieve their dreams.

>23 mabith: One of the things that Eagleton suggests -- and I think it's a good point -- is that a lot of the flag-waving and patriotic rhetoric that Americans seems so fond of when compared to most of the rest of the world serves the role of creating a sense of unity in the face of all that regional diversity and local focus.

Probably, but I'd say less than half of Americans fit in that ultra patriotic category. That's states rights for you. If one state can have drastically different laws, what on earth is the point of being one country. Cultural diversity is one thing, but different laws really mess us up.

>22 bragan: A lack of pictures in a book about butterflies would be a definite flaw!

Except for their beauty, I don't know much about butterflies. I do try and plant things in my flower garden that will attract them and still don't see as many around as I would like. :(

For Mother's Day one year, I bought my mother the Disney movie "Wings of Life" which is a beautiful thing to watch. And bonus: it's a great cure for insomnia and/or anxiety if you don't find Meryl Streep's narration annoying (which some folks do). Of course, most TV remotes have that lovely "mute" button .....

>25 mabith: Even if it is true of half of individual Americans or less, it still makes for an overall culture that's very, well... flaggy. :)

There are undoubtedly pros and cons to our political setup with federal and individual state laws, but I don't even begin to have the energy to do a deep analysis of that.

>26 avidmom: I guess it's expensive or difficult to include a photo section? I don't know, but it seemed as if ever a book needed one...

I'd never heard of Wings of Life. Maybe I should check it out sometime. If it's full of shots of flying butterflies, it might be something I could watch with my cats. :)

It's been a while since I've watched "Wings of Life." It's about flowers and how the "winged" things around them, bats, bees, hummingbirds and butterflies (i.e. "pollinators") help them survive. Think "flower porn." :)

It is a gorgeous film.

it might be something I could watch with my cats. :)

Ha!

85. Countdown City by Ben H. Winters



This is book two in the trilogy that started with The Last Policeman, which is set in a world facing impending catastrophe in the form of a distressingly large asteroid. In this installment, civilization begins to deteriorate in earnest as doomsday looms ever closer, and our hero Detective Palace is out of a job. But when the woman who babysat him as a kid comes to him asking for help finding her missing husband, he just can't say no.

Like the first one, this has a decent detective story plot, but it's most interesting for the pre-apocalypitic setting, and for the character of Hank Palace, a guy who just can't stop doing what he does even if the world is about to end. And, like the first one, it's a quick, enjoyable read. It also leaves things set up interestingly for the final volume. I'm looking forward to reading that one soon.

Rating: 4/5

>27 bragan: an overall culture that's very, well... flaggy

Great word! This description is really noticeable in folk art from the US. Rugs, quilts, wooden carvings, you name it: flags and/or eagles feature in so many of them, as do red, white and blue. This seems to go right back to the Civil War. Elsewhere the predominant themes may be fish, birds, animals, flowers and fruit, just about anything found in nature, depictions of working life, but flags are very rare.

Interesting story about how Peter Laufer came to write about butterflies. I think I will look for that book.

>30 SassyLassy: Yes, Eagleton makes a claim that I've often heard elsewhere: that in any other country people would find that level of, uh, flagginess -- or even plain old literal flag-flying -- uncomfortably embarrassing.

If you do pick up the butterfly book, I'll be interested to see if the writing grabs you more than it did me. I see that the reviews for it on LT are pretty mixed, so it might not just have been me. Although the subject matter is interesting.

86. Flim-Flam!: Psychics, ESP, Unicorns and Other Delusions by James Randi



Magician and skeptic extraordinaire James "the Amazing" Randi examines and debunks all kinds of way-out-there stuff, from people who claim they can levitate by means of meditation, to "psychic surgery," to the Bermuda Triangle. He also details a number of experiments he conducted to test whether people with claimed paranormal powers could demonstrate them under controlled conditions. (Spoiler alert: They couldn't.)

Parts of this book, mostly chapters that focus closely on one particular topic, are in-depth, fascinating, and entertaining to read. (Although I suspect that whether one finds the tone of humor-laced curmudgeonliness Randi takes throughout charming or irritating is likely to depend upon one's predisposition.) Other parts are rather disjointed, choose odd details to focus on, and display, perhaps, more passion than polish in the writing. It's also kind of dated, as it was first published in the 80s and features a number of subjects that were big topics then, but have been replaced with new pseudoscientific fads since. (When was the last time you heard anybody talking about biorhythms?)

Still, uneven or not, I deeply appreciate the fact that this book, and other books like it, exist, and that Randi is and has been out there doing the things he does. His book about Uri Geller, in which he devastatingly exposed all the famous spoonbender's tricks, was a real eye-opener for me as a youngster. I started reading it as someone who'd always simply accepted psychic claims (as well as any number of other dubious phenomena) at face value, and finished it as a more mature and significantly less gullible thinker. I say we need more books that can do that sort of thing. Many, many more.

Rating: 4/5

Sounds like (mostly) a fun read! And I loved your Spoiler Alert!

>32 bragan: It's possible it may only be fun if it's a subject you're already interested in but fortunately it qualifies for me. :)

Sounds like a scientist talking - your review of Flim-Flam! but I would probably agree.

>35 baswood: Well, a person trained in the sciences, if not an actual scientist, yes.

Interesting reviews of Flim-Flam! and Countdown City. I think I might give the The Last Policeman trilogy a try.

>37 OscarWilde87: Thanks!

I've just started the third book in the trilogy. I'm hoping for an ending that lives up to the first two books!

87. Landline by Rainbow Rowell



Georgie is a TV comedy writer who's finally been given the opportunity to create the show she's always dreamed of. Unfortunately, that means she has to bail out on a trip to spend Christmas at her in-laws' at the very last minute, putting additional strain on an already strained marriage. Then, when the battery on her cell phone dies, she tries calling her husband on an old rotary phone in her mother's house... and gets him, but not the version she was expecting. Inexplicably, she's now talking to a version of him from fifteen years ago, before they were married.

I really loved Rowell's Fangirl, so I was very much looking forward to this one, but, while it's not bad, I'm afraid it didn't do anywhere near as much for me. Partly I think that's because it was so much easier for me to relate to the protagonist in Fangirl, being a fangirl myself and seeing a lot of my own college experience in hers. Marriage and children and a dynamic Hollywood career, however, I have not done, so the setup here just didn't resonate as much for me. Except, that is, for the ways it resonated a bit too much, as I've been experiencing more than a little of the kind of midlife second-guessing that Georgie goes through here, myself, which I'm sure contributed to the often frustrated feelings I had about Georgie's situation and her reactions to it.

It didn't help that I kept getting interrupted by my own frustrating life while reading it, either. In fact, I think that if I'd read it under better circumstances, I probably would have enjoyed it more thoroughly than I did. Because I noticed a repeating cycle with my reading. I would pick up the book, start reading, and find myself focusing on the negatives: I didn't feel like I had a really strong handle on the husband's character. The reversal of traditional gender roles in the relationship -- with Georgie as the one whose career kept her from her family and her husband as the dissatisfied homemaker -- was laudable but entirely too obvious. The writing felt very YA-ish, which is not inherently bad and worked great for Fangirl, but seemed a bit too slight for this more grown-up story. There was some sentimental romance stuff, of which I am not a fan. I could see where things were probably going when Georgie couldn't, and it made me a bit annoyed with her. And so on.

And then, inevitably, as I read on, the story would start to charm me. I'd laugh at the touches of humor. I'd realize that, sentimental or not, the romance was endearingly realistic, rather than schmoopy. I'd start ruminating on how the things and people in our lives change and how strange and precious and irrecoverable the past is, and I'd begin empathizing with Georgie and her experience and even start to feel a little moved by it.

And then I'd get interrupted and I'd have to put the book down. And when I came back to it, even just a short while later, the cycle would start all over again. In the end, I liked it OK, really. But if I had read the whole thing in one sitting, would I have loved it? Not having the opportunity to revisit my past and make different choices, I suppose I'll never know.

Rating: 3.5/5

88. World of Trouble by Henry Palace



Book three in the pre-apocalyptic detective series that started with The Last Policeman. In this one, the end is now extremely nigh indeed, and Henry Palace goes searching for his sister, who still believes doomsday is avoidable, and finds one last crime to solve.

I found this a satisfying end to the series, and a rather affecting one. There is something almost unbearably poignant about Palace and his inability to stop being a policeman long after so many things have completely ceased to matter.

Rating: 4/5

(Note: This was an Early Reviewers book. Which makes me feel a little bad for not writing a longer review, but, really, I think that says it all.)

I think I'll put the trilogy on my wishlist... It's an ever-growing TBR pile.

>41 OscarWilde87: Boy, do I know about the ever-growing piles.

Sorry I'm a little late to the party here. Great review of the Eagleton book. I read him--and cited him--quite a bit at university, but I don't remember him being so cheeky. I will look at him with a new light.

I was going to post some comments, but then SassyLassy pretty much said everything I was going to say. And then Rebecca commented:

I've seen "USians" used in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way, but it's not exactly very pronounceable, is it?

For the last 20 years or so I've belonged to an international group of copyeditors--most who are much better educated and better read than I am, and most who are citizens of the United States. This "America" issue has been a big deal with them, and in our group discussions, they defaulted to using "USians" and have convinced me to do likewise. It is absolutely tongue-in-cheek, and as Rebecca points out, also unpronounceable.

>43 Nickelini: It's never too late! And I'd say "cheeky" is actually a pretty good word for the tone he takes in much of the book.

It hadn't even occurred to me to wonder how copyeditors and such consider the issue, but I can definitely understand that particular point of word choice being a big deal in that context.

89. Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics by Sasha Cagen



Sasha Cagen coined the (frankly ridiculous) term "quirkyalone" to refer to people who are comfortable doing their own thing and who feel no need to be in a relationship just for the sake of being in a relationship. Here she expands on what she thinks that means, shares stories of people who identify with the label, and offers various kinds of advice.

A friend of mine -- a fellow unattached introvert -- lent me a copy of this book, presumably because he found some personal resonances in it and thought I might, too. I'm afraid it didn't do very much for me, though. Don't get me wrong, I am very much in favor of striking back against the idea that married is inherently better than single and against the social pressure to pair off that all of us, especially women, feel at some point or another. But, well... For a book that's ostensibly about the idea of being happy and comfortable on one's own, this thing is overwhelmingly about relationships and romance. Places to look for them, different ways of conducting them, standards for them, what other people think about them, being optimistic and hopeful about them, and on and on and on. And I am so very not interested in that. I've done the relationship thing, and, while it certainly had its upsides, I've come to the conclusion that I really am much happier and better off on my own. Nor do I feel the need to justify that. Yes, that's right. I'm too much of a loner for the quirkyalones.

I also found the way the author spend pretty much the entire book bouncing around in ultra-perky fashion chirping about how she'd started a movement, OMG!, kind of off-putting. Although, at the same time, I think I feel kind of sorry for her, because as a movement, it seems to have fizzled. The book was published in 2004, and although I remember some buzz about the idea of "quirkyalone" at the time, I don't think I've heard the word used since.

I feel like I'm being slightly more negative here than I really want to be, though. Honestly, I can imagine this being a useful and positive reading experience for people who feel they need validation for not being in a relationship, or reassurance that other people feel the way they do, or encouragement to hold out for the right person instead of "settling" because it seems like the thing to do. But that's not me. And I can't help thinking there's something a little too doth-protest-too-much about the whole thing, somehow, as if the author is perhaps secretly hoping that if she says, "It's OK to be yourself, by yourself! Not having a boyfriend isn't a bad thing! It's because you're a special kind of person and because you have standards!" loudly enough and often enough, she'll manage to convince herself.

Rating: 2.5/5

>45 bragan: Nice review!

>46 NanaCC: Thank you! I feel a little bad being so negative about it, since I really do appreciate my friend thinking of me with it. But... yeah.

Great review of Quirkyalone. It seems that people can't help themselves: even when they are saying how beneficial it can be to be on your own, they can't help talking about relationships.

>48 baswood: I know! They're just as obsessed as anyone else. It's a little bit depressing, really.

90. Shelf Life: Fantastic Stories Celebrating Bookstores edited by Greg Ketter



As lifelong lover of bookstores and one who regards them as at least a little big magic (if only metaphorically), I found the whole idea of this anthology deeply charming. But the stories themselves, while most of them are decent enough, don't include anything that stands out as particularly exciting or memorable. And, although the fantastic elements vary from story to story, after a while there started to be something of a feeling of sameness about it all.

Rating: 3.5/5

91. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin



This this volume about Lincoln's life, his presidency, and the complex group of people who made up his cabinet has received a lot of praise. And I can understand why. It's clearly written; it focuses on the human aspects of things rather than just on the dry whats, wheres, and whens; and it's full of lots and lots of detail. If you have a particular interest in Lincoln or the American Civil War, this is probably a book you want to read.

I confess, though, that it might have had a little too much detail for me, to the point where I got bogged down a bit in the middle and sometimes had trouble keeping the large cast of characters straight. The truth is, I don't have a burning personal interest in this particular period of history. I picked this book up partly because I like good non-fiction and was attracted by the glowing recommendations I'd seen for it, and partly because I feel as if I should perhaps read books like this as a way of offsetting the damage done by badly taught high school American History classes.

And I do feel like I've accomplished some of that in reading this. If nothing else, I now feel like I have a much better sense of Lincoln -- not just the myth of Lincoln, but the man. Although maybe, in this case, the man and the myth actually aren't all that far apart. I know that I came away from the book feeling a tremendous liking and admiration for Lincoln, to the extent that I found myself positively dreading the end of the book, knowing what was in store for him and desperately not wanting it to happen.

Rating: Despite the fact that I found it such slow going, I'm going to give this one a 4/5, as I can't help but feel that any problems I had with it were my own, and in the end I'm very glad I read it.

"I know that I came away from the book feeling a tremendous liking and admiration for Lincoln"

Sorry you didn't love the book, but it seems you got something valuable out of it.

I loved the book, but felt the same way you did about it. Lots and lots of details and couldn't keep the characters straight. There were so many of 'em and more kept coming!!!

I do have a great interest in Civil War history and the Lincolns in general so I kept on. And, I can't remember, but either I saw the movie, "Lincoln" right before I read TOR, or was it after?.... Whatever the case was, there was a lot of Lincoln hype in the atmosphere; it helped.

I found myself positively dreading the end of the book, knowing what was in store for him and desperately not wanting it to happen.

Yep. It was the way Seward figured out Lincoln was gone that I found so moving.

My sweetie was a also big fan of Team of Rivals and of Lincoln's political approach.

>52 dchaikin: I definitely did! Reading it was a bit of a mixed experience, because, yes, there was a point where I found myself starting to get tired of it, but in the end I did come out of it feeling very much as if I got something valuable from it. Probably several somethings, really.

>53 avidmom: I'm glad to know it wasn't just me having some trouble keeping everyone straight. Goodwin really does describe them vividly, so it seemed as if I ought to have no problem. But, well...

And I immediately went and put Lincoln on my Netflix queue as soon as I finished it, as I found myself thinking that I really wanted to be able to see this man I'd just been reading about, even if it was only an actor's re-creation of him.

As for Seward and Lincoln's death... God, yes. That was an incredibly poignant moment.

>54 rebeccanyc: It seems like a political approach worth being a fan of. Lincoln actually seems, by at large, to have been that rarest of things: an honest politician. Honest, but very far from naive.

92. Carrie by Stephen King



Even if you've never read this book or seen either of the movie adaptations, the odds are good that you know more or less how it goes: Teenage girl is abused and humiliated by both her religious-nut mother and the popular girls at school. Girl develops telekinetic powers. Everything ends in blood and catastrophe on prom night. (And if you diddn't, well, none of that is particularly spoilery, in any case, as King basically tells you right from the beginning how it's all going to end.)

This was King's first novel, and I do think it shows. The writing isn't terribly polished, and the levels of horror and tension are well below the heights that King, at his best, is capable of. Plus, he seems to have conjured up Carrie and her classmates from memories of his own youth in the 50s and 60s, which makes everything feel slightly off for a story supposedly set in 1979.

All that having been said, though, there is something about it that strikes a chord; it certainly resonated with my own painful memories of school bullying. And, although she's really only a very lightly-sketched character, it is impossible not to feel empathy for poor Carrie. So, while this is by no means a great book -- I'd categorize it more as "okay" -- I can understand, I think, how it lodged itself so firmly into popular consciousness and started Stephen King off on his career of being Stephen King.

Rating: 3/5

>56 bragan: King was interviewed a year or so ago for Mentalfloss. Here's what he said about Carrie:

Forty years later, even King is critical of his debut. “It reminds me of a cookie baked by a first grader,” he later said. “Tasty enough, but kind of lumpy and burned on the bottom.”

>57 lesmel:: LOL! Not a bad description. And possibly a good indication that he has gotten better with words since then.

>58 bragan: I loved Carrie mostly because it scared to ever-loving crap out of me. I had a much more active imagination in college, I think. Still, I notice the differences between Carrie and The Stand - which is my favorite King novel.

>59 lesmel: I think Carrie does at least have the benefit of being a much quicker read than The Stand, though, whatever the differences in writing quality. That one took me some effort to get through. (Possibly I shouldn't have opted for the extended version.)

93. Mr. Tall by Tony Earley



A collection of six short stories and one novella, all set in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.

The novella, "Jack and the Mad Dog," is a sort of meta-fairy tale, and very much my sort of thing. It's clever and funny and thoughtful, with a real punch of an ending. The other stories, despite a brief appearance by Bigfoot, are more realistic, and are all well-written, with believable characters. A couple of them, as is often the case for me with slice-of-life literary stories, left me sort of thinking, "Yes, and...?" at the end, as if something in my brain were still waiting for the author to include some sort of plot or point. Others, however -- probably half of them -- are perfectly self-contained little gems.

Overall, a good collection, and well worth a look.

Rating: 4/5

(Note: This was a LibraryThing Early Reviewers book.)

>61 bragan: I like it when there is a good mix in a short story collection, especially "... perfectly self-contained little gems." Sounds like a great ER win.

>62 VivienneR: That was one I actually hesitated for a moment before requesting, as it sounded like it might be something I would enjoy, but it was hard to tell for sure. I'm always glad when when I go for one of those and it ends up really working out.

I think Carrie does at least have the benefit of being a much quicker read than The Stand, though, whatever the differences in writing quality. That one took me some effort to get through. (Possibly I shouldn't have opted for the extended version.)

When I was around 18 (1981-ish), I was really into Stephen King. Carrie was a way better version of other books I'd read a few years earlier. There are actually some really good bits to it ("dirty pillows", "first comes the blood, then comes the boys"--creepy woman!). But I still think his masterpiece is The Stand. I read it 3 or 4 times before they released the extended version, and I was so disappointed! The original editor definitely knew what he or she was doing! The edited book is far better. I read a lot of King, a long time ago, and I can't really imagine reading him anytime soon, but I certainly have wonderful memories of many of those books.

>64 Nickelini: I had some issues with The Stand that would have been there no matter what, but it was very clear to me, reading the uncut version, that cutting was probably a good thing for it. It wasn't that any of the individual parts were bad and needed to go, just that it all added up to a book that felt far too bloated.

I had some issues with The Stand that would have been there no matter what

No doubt you're right. I haven't read it since whenever that extended version came out (early 90s), and my reading education has certainly grown since then! I am happy to just keep my nice memories rather than revisiting the book.

Hate to say this, but I've never read a Stephen King book. Of the movies I've seen I liked Misery best, so if I give him a try, I might start with that one. I've forgotten a lot of the details anyway.

>66 Nickelini: A perfectly reasonable approach, I'd say!

>67 VivienneR: I haven't seen the movie version of Misery, or not more than a little bit of it, anyway. And it's been a while since I read the book. But I seem to recall that it was pretty good. I think, of the ones that I've read, I'd name The Shining as his best.

94. Weird Al: The Book by Nathan Rabin, with Al Yankovic



This coffee table-sized book provides a brief look at Al's life and career -- nothing too in-depth, but it's a nice overview, with a few interesting bits of trivia. My only complaint is Rabin does get a little embarrassingly overzealous at heaping on the praise. Which is entirely understandable -- I can get pretty fangirly over the guy, myself -- but is wholly unnecessary. I don't think anybody willing to pick this book up needs Nathan Rabin to tell us how great Al is; the brilliance of his comedy speaks for itself.

The biggest appeal in this book, though, is in the pictures -- including lots of photographs, album art, and other visual delights -- and in Al's own contributions. He wrote all the photo captions himself, and has also sprinkled the book liberally with samples of his tweets and some silly top ten lists, which are, predictably, very funny.

I wouldn't call this an essential addition to any Al fan's library, but it is a fun one, and well worth a look.

And, while I'm at it, hearty congrats to Al on making the #1 slot on Billboard with his newest album. It is well deserved!

Rating: 4/5

>69 bragan: There's a book about Weird Al?!?!
*does little happy dance*
It would make a perfect gift for someone I know. Come to think of it, most of my book-gifts have come from your thread! HA!

>67 VivienneR: I liked Misery, the book, better than the movie. Both are good, but the creep-factor is higher in print, even if Kathy Bates nailed that role in the movie!

>70 avidmom: There is! And it would no doubt make a great gift for an Al fan.

I am always glad to help you out with your gift-book-buying needs!

95. Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson



As a Peter Pan prequel this is, perhaps a little odd. With its not-at-all-fey Peter and its science-fantasy explanation for Peter's eternal youth and Neverland's magic, it has a very different sensibility from Barrie's original story. What it does share with the original, though, is a great sense of adventure and fun, and the ability to appeal both to kids and to adults who are willing to let their inner child out to play. Since I very much qualify on that score, I found it wonderfully entertaining, and am now looking forward to reading the sequels.

Rating: 4/5

Only just found this thread for some reason, but I'm sure I'll end up adding far too many books to my ever growing wishlist reading it. We seem to have quite a few books in common. I'm reading Flim Flam at the moment. Embassytown has been on my wishlist for a while, and your review has reminded me of it again. I've yet to read any of China Mieville's work though.

>73 valkyrdeath: I will apologize in advance for adding to your wishlist, then! But given how often other people have added to mine, it's probably only fair, really. :)

I like Mieville a lot. His books are just so deeply, wonderfully weird. I think Perdido Street Station is probably my favorite of the ones I've read, although I have a real soft spot for Kraken. Embassytown is downright restrained by comparison.

Perdido Street Station is one of the books I already have access to, so maybe that will be a good place to start. Thanks!

96. Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution by Richard Whittle



This book provides an in-depth history of the Predator drone, from its earliest conception up through the present day.

Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where, once I started reading, I turned out not to be nearly as interested in the subject as I thought I might be. I do think the ethics of drone strikes is an important topic, and I was interested in some of the technology, but all the business and military operations details... not so much. There were a few engaging stories, and the chapters describing how drones were used to hunt for (and sometimes find) Osama bin Laden well before 9/11 certainly caught my attention. But in general, I found it very slow going.

Which isn't to say that it's bad. It's clearly written and covers a lot of ground that's bound to be of interest to people who are, well, more into this sort of thing than I am. The entire time I was reading, I kept thinking how much an ex-boyfriend of mine, who was absolutely fascinated by military aviation, would probably love it. But if you're not sure whether it's a subject you're a whole book's worth of interested in, it might perhaps be one to skip. Then again, it's possible that's just me...

Rating: A sadly unobjective 3/5

Note: This was an Early Reviewers book. Which I now feel slightly bad about requesting.

97. The 1987 Annual World's Best SF edited by Donald A. Wollheim



I've read several of these World's Best SF anthologies from the 80s in the last couple of years, and this is definitely the best of them so far. Just a really solid collection, featuring meaty. well-written stories with lots of good world building, all of which have aged remarkably well. Even the weakest stories are interesting, and the best of them are great.

Some brief comments on the individual stories:

"Permafrost" by Roger Zelazny: On a planet where winter lasts for fifty years, a man returns to the site of an expedition where things went very wrong for him a very long time ago. An interesting story set on an interestingly alien world, with a nicely creepy ending. But, while Zelazny is a very good prose stylist, it almost feels like he's trying a little too hard in places here.

"Timerider" by Doris Egan: The story of a woman whose job is to travel through time to observe, or to snatch away objects or people. I liked this one a lot, not least because it somehow manages to use a lot of very familiar elements without the story itself ever feeling the least bit tired or clichéd. My one complaint is that, even though it's a good-sized story, it ends before it feels quite finished, and left me thinking that it might work even better as a novel.

"Pretty Boy Crossover" by Pat Cadigan. A sharp, well-written little piece set in a world where hip, young, pretty boys have the chance to be hip, young, and pretty forever, possibly at the expense of their souls. The editor's note refers to it as "cyberpunk" (albeit with some snarky bemusement about what that term even means), and I suppose it is, but, unlike a lot of cyberpunk, it does not feel at all dated, shallowness and exploitation having sadly not yet gone out of style.

"R & R" by Lucius Shepard: A soldier fighting a near-future war in Guatemala takes some leave in a small, squalid town and contemplates desertion in this dark, oddly mystical, very literary-feeling novella about the insanity of war. Seems a bit long to be included in a collection like this, but I'm not complaining, because it's darned good.

"Lo, How an Oak E'er Blooming" by Suzette Haden Elgin: A woman commands an oak tree to burst into miraculous bloom in the middle of winter. It does. Scientists are baffled, and the Establishment is not pleased. It's a decent little satiric metaphor of a story, but some grumpy part of me wants to complain that it's fantasy, not science fiction. Although I think I'd care less about that if the sheer stupidity of the editor's note preceding it, embracing examples of utter bunkum that supposedly "confound conservative scientists," hadn't resulted in me feeling rather hostile when I started it.

"Dream in a Bottle" by Jerry Meredith and D. E. Smirl: A spaceship is run by disembodied brains who live in fantasy worlds, controlling the ship with the actions they take in their dreams. It's a potentially interesting (albeit logically pretty ridiculous) idea, but the execution is only OK. There's more of an old-fashioned SF feel to this one than in the previous stories, I think, with less carefully crafted prose and more exposition. It's also not quite as cleverly twisty as it seems to think it is.

"Into Gold" by Tanith Lee: A marvelously creative variation on a familiar fairy tale, set not long after the fall of Rome. As with the oak tree story, this one is clearly fantasy, rather than science fiction, but by this point I was back to my usual disinclination to quibble about genre definitions. Which is fortunate, because the important thing here is that it's really, really good.

"The Lions Are Asleep This Night" by Harold Waldrop: A glimpse into an alternate history where mammoths still roam an unpopulated North America and European colonialism in Africa never fully took. It's an odd little story, and one I'm not sure has any point beyond, "Hey, look, I made a world where white people didn't screw everybody else over!" Which is probably a worthwhile exercise, but it didn't work for me nearly as well as most of the other stories here, I'm afraid. Although it does have the advantage of featuring a bookish kid as a protagonist, which always holds some appeal for me.

"Against Babylon" by Robert Silverberg. Aliens land in California, accidentally set it on fire, and come between a slightly xenophobic firefighter and his hippie-chick wife. Not Silverberg's best, by any means, but the way it takes a very human angle on what otherwise feels like a B-movie scenario is interesting.

"Strangers on Paradise" by Damon Knight: A writer working on a biography comes to the planet Paradise, where everything is beautiful, there is no disease, and happy immortality is looking like a very real future possibility. Of course, you can't help but spend the entire story tensely waiting for the other shoe to drop... and I found it surprisingly effective when it did.

Rating: 4/5

98. Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By by Anna Jane Grossman



An encyclopedia-style list of various technologies and customs that are either already gone or appear to be on their way out, ranging from the obvious (dial-up modems, asbestos) to the more surprising or debatable (nuns, phone sex) to the snarkily flippant (full words, aging). Many of the entries are really just one-sentence jokes, others feature longer discussions that might include a brief history of the technology in question, or some comments from people who were experts in whatever-it-is when it was still relevant. While those sections are sometimes actually informative, the book as a whole has a decidedly humorous, tongue-in-cheek sensibility. I did find it mildly amusing. But, although she states in the introduction that she's not going to, the author does sometimes give off a bit of a "Geez, kids today!" vibe, which is an attitude I find rather annoying and try hard to quash in myself. Also, inevitably, it all just makes me feel old. At 43, some of my own habits are already a little old-fashioned, and looking forward to the inevitable day when everything about me will seem ancient to the young and everything about the young will seem befuddling to me is almost too depressing to laugh at.

Rating: 3.5/5

Oh, I would find that "Geez, kids today" vibe annoying too, and I am considerably older than you. My one habit that I hope never to give up that seems quaint to my younger friends and relatives is that I like to talk to people on the phone. (Of course, texting is convenient sometimes, but it isn't a substitute, for me anyway.)

I'm pretty sure Grossman is wrong about phone sex there or confused about its place in the sex industry... I spend a lot of time rolling my eyes at my dad when he goes on about not understanding how young people like such and such. He's not really that bad, but even though one of his favorite maxims was "There's no accounting for taste," he's gotten to where if he doesn't like it then what's the point of it. Plus he insists on having "You can't get this anymore" things to complain about. When we tell him he CAN still get whatever it is, he doesn't actually WANT the thing and just picks another thing to complain about not getting.

The amusing thing technology wise is that when you look at brand-new children's picture books they'll still have rotary phones and record players. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for cell phones to be a normal thing in picture books. I like them staying behind technology wise though, because they won't become dated as quickly, generally, and of course not all children have access to the same tech.

>79 rebeccanyc: In fairness to Grossman, it's not exactly a strong and consistent vibe, but it does rear its head in places, after she basically promises that it won't. The rather snarky "nobody reads any more" jokes in the entry on "books" particularly irritated me, because it's already a cliche, and because it's not actually true.

Me, I've never, ever, ever liked talking on the phone, so when e-mail became a good way to talk to almost anybody, it was a godsend for me, an absolutely ideal way to interact with people. I've had so many great, long, thoughtful e-mail conversations over the years, some of them lasting years. One thing Grossman is definitely right about is that that kind of social e-mailing is on its way out, certainly among younger people, in favor of texting. And texts, while fine for letting someone know you're going to be ten minutes late or that you got home from the airport all right, are not a medium I want to hold an actual conversation in. I suspect that, in 20 years, wanting to talk to people via e-mail is going to be one of those things that will mark me out as a stuck-in-the-past old lady. Which is simultaneously amusing and depressing to contemplate.

>80 mabith: Yeah, I wasn't at all sure about the phone sex thing, either. I mean, I am definitely not an expert, but I would think that fills a slightly different need from most things it's easy to find for free on the internet.

I think it is so very, very easy, as we get older, to get kind of stuck in the past and just want to complain that things aren't exactly the way they used to be, the way we remember them. I find myself wanting to do it, even though I try not to.

I hadn't realized that about children's books! That's interesting. One thing I had thought about, looking back on my own childhood, is that even though the US had largely left its agrarian past behind, so many of the books and toys I had were all about farm animals and farm life. (The cow says "Moo!") As if that's the world they were expecting us to grow up into and wanted to prepare us for.

>81 bragan: That's so interesting about the way you've used e-mail -- for me, it is almost completely professional, with some personal/family stuff. Sounds like it was/is a wonderful medium for you.

>83 rebeccanyc: It so is. I hate talking on the phone. Especially the way a call interrupts you in the middle of whatever you're doing and holds your attention hostage, and the worry that you're interrupting someone else in the middle of something if you call them. E-mail doesn't only avoid that, it avoids awkward silences; it means that you can take the time to carefully consider and format your answer; that you can let the other person finish completely having their say and then respond to them point-by-point, if you want to, without interrupting them or derailing their train of thought (or having them derail yours); that you can skim over the stuff you might find boring or that they've told you about already without feeling like you're being rude; and that you can answer in your own time at your own pace and can keep a conversation going without necessarily being expected to respond to everything immediately. For introverted me, it's the best way of interacting with people ever invented. Alas, members of my family do not necessarily agree...

I'm always relieved to find it's not just me who hates talking on the phone so much. At home, I hate it so much that if I have to call somewhere I tell myself "Just a few more minutes and then I'll phone" continuously for hours. Emails were a saviour for me in that regard. Of course, the only job I've been able to get is working in a call centre.

I know that at least up to a couple of years ago you could pick up a magazine in the shops here about films, music or games and find four pages full of phone sex ads at the back of it. Judging by that, I don't think it's a fading industry.

>85 valkyrdeath: Definitely not just you! I've gotten better at it over the years; when I was young, I used to dread ever picking up the phone and seize on any excuse to avoid it, whereas now I usually just grit my teeth and do it. But I still don't enjoy it, and every time my phone rings, I still jump, and then immediately feel this moment of what I can only describe as a sort of trapped despair. Even if it's someone I actually do want to communicate with. Stupid phones.

Being a phone-hater and having to work in a call center has to be just about the ultimate in horrible irony.

My SO and I text each other to arrange phone calls. It just works better if we can talk during points during the day when we're both free. Texting is lovely. I text back and forth with my best friend (since high school) every day. There's an eight hour time difference and we're both reasonably busy, so this lets us keep in touch in conversation form. Sometimes, usually late evening for me, we manage to go back and forth in real time. And FaceTime has been wonderful for my son and him being able to keep connected with his friends back home. They play computer games together, while on FaceTime. Sometimes, if he can borrow a few phones, he'll have two or three lined up under the computer monitor.

I don't like it when the phone rings, either. Answering machines are great.

I LOVE my answering machine, and I LOVE caller ID. I remember when you had to answer the phone to find out who was calling and I hated that. I used to take the phone off the hook if I wanted to concentrate on something so that people would get a busy signal and call back. But I do like to actually talk to people sometimes; for me, e-mailing and texting are alternatives that work in specific situations but sometimes you just want to hear someone's voice! Call me old-fashioned.

Today's Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic seems amusingly relevant to this discussion.

>87 RidgewayGirl: I do a lot of that same kind of back-and-forth using e-mail rather than texting. There are several reasons for that, but one of them is, well... I fear my inability to type easily and comfortably on my phone is one of those things that are already starting to mark me out as a member of "the older generation." Sigh.

>88 rebeccanyc: Oh, god, caller ID! One of the best inventions, ever! I still feel entirely too guilty not to answer the phone if it's a family member, even if it's really inconvenient, but not having to respond to telemarketers is a huge boon. Not to mention at least being able to know who it is whose ring just made me jump, and to mentally prepare myself accordingly.

My mother says the exact same thing, as the reason she calls instead of e-mailing me: "I just want to hear your voice!" I personally think my physical voice is way, way less interesting and worth listening to than my written voice, but whatever makes her happy. :)

85 & 86 - Me too! everything you say . . . I just hate the phone. Other than a few very close people, I do not want to talk on the phone. E-mail and text are great for me. And yes, at one point, I had a job that made me talk on the phone all day. Ugh!

When I see people stuck to their cell phones (and you can see the ones who are just doing the quick call vs the always-on-my-mobile) I think "I am so glad I don't know you!1"

and I LOVE caller ID

Me too. Except most of the numbers that call me don't have an ID attached to them, so now it's almost useless. The other day I took a call from a "private number," thinking it might be my daughter calling from friend's house, and it turned out to be my loser brother who I've never had a relationship with, and he was asking me to give him money so he wouldn't get evicted. Not happy I took that call.

I figure if they're calling from a withheld number then they can bloody well leave a message! Of course, my children used the move to Germany to argue for phones of their own. My son was the most passionate, but now that he has one, texts me a lot. I guess it's good to know that he's still alive, based on his use of those annoying emojis?

>92 RidgewayGirl: I figure if they're calling from a withheld number then they can bloody well leave a message!

My philosophy, exactly! If you've blocked the number, it's entirely your own fault if you don't get an answer.

I like to phone people, because it's usually good to talk. I am always suspicious that there too much hidden in an email. I like to pin people down and feel that phoning is the best way to do it. I never text and I do not use a cell phone.

I understand that people feel more comfortable texting and can do that at their leisure, but my friends are important and so if they want to speak to me then I will listen, whatever else I am doing. It's good to have more than one method of communication, but I prefer the phone call.

>94 baswood: I think part of my problem is that the people who most like to call me on the phone, socially, seem much more interested in making me listen to them taking about themselves than in hearing anything I have to say. At least with e-mail, I can get a word in edgewise.

You're also way more likely to get a pinned-down, coherent, sensible response from me via e-mail than over the phone, because I'll be thinking about the actual subject matter of the conversation, and not about the social awkwardness of the phone call. I admit, that may be a personal problem.

99. Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique



This is the story of two sisters from the US Virgin Islands: their lives, loves, dreams, and realities over the course of several decades, presented with a touch of what I suppose you'd call magic realism. It's well-written and involving, with good characters and an interesting, vividly realized setting. (Frankly, it made me sorry and a little ashamed to realize just how little I knew of these islands when I started, but also extremely glad of the opportunity to spend a little vicarious time there.) While I recommend it, overall, for those to whom this sort of thing sounds appealing, I feel I should point out that it does deal with some potentially disturbing subject matter, including incest and pedophilia. Although, honestly, that makes it sound much darker than it actually is.

Rating: 4/5

100. Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy



I don't know if rabies really is "the world's most diabolical virus" or not, but it's got to be a very strong contender. Certainly it's a disease I've always found horrifically fascinating, with its unusual means of making its way through the body, its essentially 100% fatality rate, its effect of modifying animal behavior to help itself spread, and its position high, high up on the list of awful ways to die.

I might have liked a little bit more science in this "cultural history" of rabies, but the chapters that do delve into the medical science of the disease are excellent, especially the one that explores, in detail, Louis Pasteur's development of the rabies vaccine. Other sections are much more focused on the cultural part, and sometimes drift a bit from the focus on rabies into such topics as other diseases that pass to humans from animals, humanity's mixed attitudes towards dogs, and the way that rabies may have inspired (and definitely resonates with) fiction and folklore about humans who become bestial, including werewolves, vampires, and zombies. It's mostly pretty interesting rambling, though, so overall I found it well worth the read.

Rating: 4/5

101. Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King



Eighteen-year-old Vera Dietz had been best friends with her next-door neighbor, Charlie, for most of their lives. Then Charlie betrayed her. And then he died. Vera knows something about the night he died, something that would clear his name of a terrible accusation. But she doesn't want to tell.

I have some mixed feelings about this one. On the plus side, it's a very fast read, entertainingly written, with some clever narrative quirks. Some of Vera's teenage angst feels almost painfully believable. And the story definitely held my attention, as I kept turning pages waiting to find out exactly what had happened between Vera and Charlie and what it was she wasn't telling.

But I also kept tripping up on little details that just didn't feel right. (For example: Vera talks a lot about her Vocabulary class, which seems to consist entirely of memorizing short lists of words and using them in sentences. Which... huh? Why is a high school senior doing this kind of elementary school exercise? And how the heck do you get an entire class out of that? It's amazing how how thoroughly this one stupid thing threw me right out of the story. Repeatedly.) It also has almost a little too much of an Afterschool Special kind of feel to it, seeming almost to go down a checklist of Important Teen Issues: abusive relationships, alcoholism, teen pregnancy, illiteracy, sexual predators, parental abandonment, falling in with the wrong crowd... It's not preachy, exactly, but it comes pretty close to it, especially with the "your parents really are hard on you because they love you" and "don't look the other way when something is wrong" messages.

Rating: 3.5/5

102. The Mauritius Command by Patrick O'Brian



Book number four in O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, set on the high seas during the Napoleonic Wars. This time, the intrepid Captain Aubrey is given command of a squadron of ships and directed to attempt to take the island of Mauritius from the French.

My one problem with this book is pretty much the same as with the previous books in the series: I have a lot of trouble following the action. I thought maybe I was getting better at that, but I'm not. It doesn't help that this one features a much larger number of ships and ships' captains to keep straight, either. Especially when a couple of the captains have similar names, and several of the British ships have French names, and ships seemed to be getting captured and changing hands almost constantly... At some point, I may have given up on ever being entirely clear just who was on what side. In fairness to O'Brian, though, he was being historically accurate, and I was being pretty dense. Which I often am about military action scenes. Still, it was a bit frustrating.

Fortunately, this one also features the things I liked best about the earlier volumes. There is, perhaps, a bit less emphasis on Aubrey and Maturin and their friendship, but there's still some pretty good character stuff. There's also a lot of wonderful, droll humor. Nothing nearly as laugh-out-loud funny as the sloth incident from the previous book -- I'll be surprised if the series ever tops that -- but a lot of quietly amusing moments.

I will definitely be carrying on with this series, in any case, even if I am making my way through it very slowly.

Rating: 3.5/5

103. Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Shulz



This book is an exploration of what the author calls "Wrongology": the ways in which we get things wrong, how we feel when realize we were mistaken, how we deal (or fail to deal) with our mistakes, and how we might benefit from accepting or even embracing our own capacity for error.

I've read a number of books on similar subjects, but this one has a somewhat different feel to it. It's less focused on psychological experiments and the exact ways in which our neurons misrepresent the world or our minds leap to irrational conclusions (although there is some of that), but instead takes a somewhat more philosophical tone. Schulz does still keep things fairly well grounded, though, in part by including detailed and interesting examples of people being wrong in various ways. It's also very engagingly written, with wit, intelligence, and heart. Definitely worth a look for, well, anybody who's ever been wrong about anything.

Rating: 4.5/5 (I had it at 4/5 initially, but I changed my mind.)

>99 bragan: You've reminded me that I need to read another of the Aubrey-Maturin series. I've only read the first and really enjoyed it. And I have several thanks to a library sale.

>101 NanaCC: The first one is actually my least favorite of the series so far, so if you really liked that one, I think you've got even better ahead of you!

And they seem to be really easy to find at library sales. Of the ten books in the series I have so far, all but one of them came from a library sale.

Delurking to say I am enjoying your eclectic reviews (as always!) and learning some stuff - I didn't know Louis Pasteur invented the rabies vaccine. Why didn't I know that?

>103 avidmom: Thank you!

And I didn't know that before I read the book, either. Or rather, I have the sad suspicion that I did in fact know that at some point in my life, and had forgotten it until now. Which somehow seems much worse.

104. Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee



Biting the Sun consists of two short SF novels from the 1970s: Don't Bite the Sun and its sequel Drinking Sapphire Wine. Collecting the two of them together was a good idea, as this is basically one complete story, and I don't think either half stands particularly well on its own. It's set sometime in the distant future on an alien world where humans live in domed cities, serious crime is non-existent, punishment is equally non-existent, all needs are provided for, death has been abolished, and the young are expected to live decadent, frivolous, carefree lives... within the bounds of certain social conventions. It's also a world without much in the way of meaning, creativity, or depth. Our main character, of course, chafes against this and, almost without realizing that's what she's doing, sets about looking for something more fulfilling in life.

This is a pretty familiar storyline now, and it was already a familiar storyline in the 70s. What Lee does with it isn't bad at all, though, and while there are definitely elements one can point to that are clearly a product of the 70s, it feels much less dated than a lot of SF from that era. I particularly liked her approach to world-building: it's very much of the kind that shows you a world from an inhabitant's perspective and expects you to figure it out without hand-holding. There are some interesting and surprising touches to the society she creates, too.

In fact, I think the fun of being immersed in that world and figuring it out as I went along was the best part of the book for me. Which, unfortunately, meant that once I had a good handle on it -- certainly by the time I got to book two -- I wasn't feeling quite as engaged as I was at the start. Which also meant that the things that didn't quite work for me started to bother me a bit more: a small but significant streak of religious mysticism, some ideas about gender that didn't sit quite right, one or two things that really could have done with a bit more description, and an important element towards the end that I found biologically improbable.

In the end, I can't say I found it completely satisfying, but it was worth the read, anyway.

Rating: 3.5/5

105. Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle by Douglas J. Emlen



Emlen, a biologist who studies beetles, examines the evolution of natural animal weaponry, mostly the kinds of weapons animals use against other members of their own kind, such as the antlers of deer. It's not particularly detailed or technical -- no descriptions of exactly what's happening on the genetic level, for instance -- but it is a pretty good high-level overview, explaining the evolutionary pressures that shape animal weapons in a way that makes sense. It covers such topics as why some animals develop elaborate horns or antlers while others don't, how evolutionary arms races can lead to some pretty extreme results, and how those arms races can end or even reverse themselves. There are lots of interesting examples, complete with excellent black-and-white drawings of many of the animals described.

Emlen also draws comparisons between the evolution of animal weaponry and that of human weapons technology. A few of these seem like a bit of a stretch, but most of them are apt and interesting. The last few chapters, in which the focus shifts all the way over to human weapons, do feel kind of extraneous, however, although perhaps worth it for the good (if highly depressing) points about weapons of mass destruction he makes at the end.

Rating: 4/5

Note: This was a LibraryThing Early Reviewers book.

Animal Weapons sounds pretty interesting and very accessible. I'll have to look for it soon, I'm due for something more science related

>107 mabith: Definitely accessible. I was actually a little disappointed at first it wasn't a little more in-depth and technical, but I fairly quickly came to appreciate it for what it is.

Presumably there are some more technical books out there on the same subject? I like having a bit of a loosey goosey one as the first read.

>109 mabith: I'm sure there are more technical books on evolution that deal with the subject. Maybe not necessarily any just devoted to that one specific aspect of evolution.

106. Peter and the Shadow Thieves by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson



The second book in the Peter and the Starcatchers series, which is a prequel of sorts to Peter Pan. Although possibly it should be described instead as a "re-imagining," since many of the characters don't feel much like Barrie's originals, and it has a mythology that's very much its own.

This one's a not-bad kids' book, with an interestingly creepy bad guy and some very nice illustrations. But I didn't find it nearly as charming as the first one, and not remotely as quick and engaging a read. I think partly that may just be due to not having been in quite the right mood for it, but I think it's also true that the pacing is slower, and the plot is somewhat less interesting than Peter's origin story was.

Rating: 3.5/5

107. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie



This one just won the Hugo award, and was urged on me with great enthusiasm by a friend, so I went into it with high expectations. I'm pleased to say I wasn't disappointed!

The plot involves an artificial intelligence who was once embodied as a starship and its scores of human-bodied "ancillaries," but who has now lost everything she had and is reduced to inhabiting one single body. Chapter by chapter, we gradually find out both what happened to bring her to this point, and what it is she's currently up to.

That description really doesn't remotely do it justice, but not only is it all a little difficult to explain, it also probably works better if you figure it out as you go along, anyway. The reward for doing so involves fantastic world-building, great characters, complex moral conflicts, and a fun, twisty plot. It also does some really excellent, thought-provoking, very deftly handled things with language, mostly involving the way the main character's native language entirely lacks gendered pronouns. (Or, more accurately, lacks a sex-based system of gender.)

Honestly, the only unsatisfying thing about this novel is that the ending is left wide-open for a sequel, and I do not yet have that sequel in my hands. Someone needs to get on that right now.

Rating: 4.5/5

108. The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by J. Maarten Troost



Troost shares his experiences of the two years he spent on Tarawa, a tiny island lost in the middle of the Pacific, where his girlfriend was employed by an NGO aid organization, and he was employed not writing a novel. Tarawa, and the nation of Kiribati to which it belongs, is a place with a lot of problems: overcrowding, poverty, pollution, bad government, disease. But Troost writes with a real fondness for the place and the people, and with a lot of often self-deprecating humor, making this a delight to read, even if I'm glad not to be the one having lived it. (Because, seriously, nobody should have to dig flies out of their wounds. Nobody.)

Rating: 4/5

>112 bragan: & 113 Those both sound really good. If I ever saw The Sex Lives of Cannibals somewhere, I'd probably have to read it, just for the title alone!

>114 avidmom: I know! The title is irresistible, isn't it? Although it's also a little misleading. There's very little sex in the book, and really only one brief mention of cannibalism. Well, unless you count canine cannibalism. It, uh, may not be the best book for dog lovers.

The next book of his adventures, Getting Stoned with Savages is also pretty good, although it loses strength when they move to a more populated area than Vanuatu.

>116 RidgewayGirl: I've already put that one on my wishlist.

Sex Lives of Cannibals is definitely my favorite of his. I liked his Lost on Planet China more than Getting Stoned with Savages, and it's certainly a travel book, since they didn't live in China.

I actually realized, only after I'd started Sex Lives of Cannibals, that I'd actually read some Troost before, because I did read Lost on Planet China quite a while back, but hadn't realized it was by the same person. I remember enjoying that one, too.

Finally caught up with your thread. Intrigued by your last two. Ancillary Justice sounds like a scifi I could read.

>230 I'd say Ancillary Justice is probably one for established SF fans, if only just for how complex the world-building is, but for anyone at all comfortable with the genre, I definitely recommend it.

109. Allison Hewitt is Trapped by Madeline Roux



Allison Hewitt is trapped. Specifically, she's trapped in the bookstore where she works by the start of the zombie apocalypse. But, hey, at least she's able to blog about the experience!

Objectively, I can't call this one particularly good. It's full of not-quite-right, suspension-of-disbelief-breaking details, starting with the whole idea of the hero being able to blog right through the apocalypse. The writing often attempts to wax philosophical or poetic and just comes across as overdone or silly, instead. The characters seldom react in ways that feel believably human. And it adds absolutely nothing new to the zombie genre. The one semi-original wrinkle is the blog format, but if the back cover hadn't helpfully informed me that the story in fact started out as a blog, I'd be wondering why on earth the author bothered, since it doesn't do much of anything interesting with the format. (And if you've got a craving for a story featuring bloggers and zombies, trust me, you don't want this one, you want Mira Grant's Feed trilogy, instead.)

All that having been said, though, and despite being highly aware of all those flaws the entire time I was reading, I still found it reasonably entertaining, in a stop-thinking-and-keep-turning-pages kind of way. Mostly I think that's because I am, for reasons I do not understand, ridiculously easy to please when it comes to zombie stories. But the bookish angle also helped; Allison actually gets out of the bookstore fairly quickly, but the literary references continue throughout the novel, most notably in the chapter titles. And there's a scene, early on, where she comes very, very close to getting eaten because she's desperately trying to grab some books when she's supposed to be grabbing food. It's actually a bit of an eye-rolly moment, and I like to think that, unlike Allison, I would not be remotely stupid enough to put down my weapon and walk away from it while flailing around for books. But, well, that aside, I think there's an extremely good chance that's exactly how I would die in a zombie apocalypse. And that flicker of fellow-feeling took me a surprisingly long way.

Rating: I'm calling it 3/5, although that's probably more than it really deserves.

In Allison's defense, being stuck without a book while trapped by zombies has got to be worse than being stuck in the waiting room of the DMV without one.

>123 RidgewayGirl: Believe me, I do not remotely disagree! She just should have kept hold of her axe while stocking up on reading material. :)

And here's a freaky coincidence. I put down Allison Hewitt Is Trapped, I pick up the next book, a serious volume about science and medicine, I glance at the acknowledgements page at the front of the book, and right there, the first sentence begins, "I would like to acknowledge the efforts of Allison Hewitt for her help..." Whoa!

I have started a new thread for the last quarter of the year here.

Ah, great - I have just bought Ancillary Justice on the basis of a discussion I heard on a podcast, so it's good to have your positive review too. (I thought I'd seen the sequel for sale on amazon, btw).

I am reading The New Dead at the moment, which I am pretty sure was a recommendation from you - really liking the breadth of the stories, but it's made me realise that I am quite squeamish!

>127 wandering_star: Yes, the sequel is out, and as of yesterday, I now own a copy! I'm looking forward to reading it. I hope you like the first book as much as I did.

The New Dead was almost certainly a recommendation from me; I remember reviewing it very favorably here. I can definitely see squeamishness being a bit of a problem there, though. :)