The Eloquence of Blood, by Judith Rock

AnnMarie from Circulation Services ends the week with this review:

Historical fiction can take you back in time to other eras, and historical mysteries can take you back in time while you stay up late trying to find out “who did it.”  “Staying up late” is exactly what happened to me when I read The Eloquence of Blood by Judith Rock.  This historical mystery combines interesting characters (both real-life and imagined), an intriguing murder-mystery, and wonderful historical details into a book that was hard for me to put down.  It is set in Paris in 1686—the Paris of the people, not the Paris of the glittering court of Louis XIV.  The hero and detective is Charles du Lac, a former soldier, who is studying for the Jesuit priesthood and is a teacher at the Louis le Grand, a Jesuit school for boys.

Despite being part of the Jesuit holdings, the school could use an infusion of funds and there is a rumor that a bequest to the school from the Mynette family will become available.  While on a visit to a local family, Charles du Lac meets Martine, a young woman who also has a claim on the same inheritance, though the papers proving her claim as an adopted daughter have gone missing.  The next day Martine is found murdered. Her murder incites anti-Jesuit sentiments and protests against the school.

Father Le Picart, head of the school, asks Charles to help the police discover the murderer.  While the motivation of Le Picart is to preserve the school’s and the Jesuits’ reputations, Charles’ motivation is to find justice for a murdered young woman.  During Charles’ journey to find the killer, he encounters quite of range of Parisian society, from respectable and not-so-respectable businessmen to street people begging on every corner.  One of the real-life characters in the book is Nicolas de La Reynie, the first head of the Paris police, with whom Charles develops a friendship.

As a student of dance history, I especially enjoyed reading about the Jesuits and their role in the development of Baroque dance (the beginnings of modern ballet). The Jesuits believed in developing both the minds and the bodies of their students and dance was considered essential training for future gentlemen. Their students regularly participated in productions featuring music, choral works, drama, and dance.

The Eloquence of Blood is Rock’s second book featuring Charles du Lac.  His first adventure is The Rhetoric of Death.  I haven’t read the first book yet, but that did not diminish my enjoyment or cause any confusion by reading The Eloquence of Blood first.  I’m looking forward to reading the first book as well as Charles’ future adventures!

Check the WRL catalog for The Eloquence of Blood

In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

Alan continues the Circulation Services week with this review:

You would think it somewhat odd and improbable that one of America’s greatest books of crime reportage was written by an author known as much for his precious public persona as for his mastery of various literary genres.  However, this is exactly what Truman Capote achieved with In Cold Blood,  published in 1965.  The book’s subtitle, “a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences,” neatly outlines the story Capote tells, a story that is banal, cruel, senseless, evil, and inevitable.  In its most basic form the book recounts how two small-time drifters, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, killed Herbert Clutter, his wife, and their two teen-age children during a robbery in their home in Holcomb, Kansas, on November 15, 1959, their subsequent flight, eventual capture, trial, and execution.

However, what makes In Cold Blood so compelling and a classic of its kind (besides the quality of the writing) is how Capote used and shaped his material to construct a narrative that achieves the literary outcome he envisioned.  He did not wish to write a lurid true-crime story, but rather a  tragedy, both moral and human, that affected all who came into contact with the crime and its aftermath—the victims, the townspeople, the law enforcement personnel, and the killers.

Capote’s research was extensive and unusual.  He spent time in Holcomb getting to know the town and its inhabitants, the law enforcement personnel involved in the investigation, and friends and acquaintances of the murdered family.  He was also given access to the killers and gained their trust to such a degree that he was able to obtain much information about their upbringing and formative years, private papers, psychiatric evaluations, and day-to-day thoughts and experiences during the period immediately preceding and following the night of the murders.

Because Capote never met the victims, they do not come across as vividly  and “alive” as the people he did meet and get to know.  Rather, they serve as a tragic backdrop in the story of their own hideous personal tragedy.  The most fully drawn and human characters are Alvin Dewey, the lead criminal investigator, and the two killers.  What is most striking about Hickock and Perry is the utter paltriness, baseness, shabbiness, futility and waste of their lives.  In different ways the four victims and the two killers were doomed.  On one level (that of a Greek tragedy) it is almost as if Capote believed that these six people were fated to be brought together.

But read the book for yourself to see what a master can do with the material at hand.

Check the WRL catalog for In Cold Blood

 

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick

Mandy of Circulation Services provides today’s review.

I enjoy the work of children’s book author and illustrator Chris Van Allsburg, particularly his 1984 book The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.  This is not your average children’s picture book; instead, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick is a series of 14 exquisitely detailed, black and white illustrations, each accompanied by an enigmatic title and caption. Alternately whimsical and haunting, the illustrations in this book inspired me (and countless other readers) to invent stories to explain what was going on in the pictures.  Recently, I had the opportunity to revisit a cherished part of my childhood by reading The Chronicles of Harris Burdick, an illustrated short story collection in which 14 authors, including Stephen King and his wife Tabitha King, Sherman Alexie, Lois Lowry, Gregory Maguire, and Cory Doctorow, have contributed stories inspired by the illustrations in The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.

All of the stories are original to the collection with the exception of Stephen King’s “The House on Maple Street,” which originally appeared in his 1993 book Nightmares & Dreamscapes.  The stories themselves are not linked by any recurring characters or situations, so readers shouldn’t feel that the stories need to be read in any specific order.  Like Van Allsburg’s illustrations, each story has its own unique tone and style; some are dark, like Jules Feiffer’s “Uninvited Guests,” while others, such as Louis Sachar’s “Captain Tory,” are sweet and poignant.

One of my favorite stories in the collection was M.T. Anderson’s “Just Desert,” the tale of a boy named Alex who, on the eve of his 10th birthday, discovers that nothing in his world is as it appears. I felt the authors did a fine job of capturing the surreal atmosphere found in Van Allsburg’s illustrations.  Lemony Snicket’s introduction is also a real hoot.  Readers who are unfamiliar with The Mysteries of Harris Burdick will find Van Allsburg’s introduction to the 1984 book as well as the illustrations and captions in this collection.

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick is a good, quick read that should appeal to young adult (and, for that matter, adult) readers who grew up intrigued by The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.

Check the WRL catalog for The Chronicles of Harris Burdick

Check the WRL catalog for The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

The French Revolution: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

Lisa of Circulation Services provides today’s review:

The History Channel has, at times, strained the bounds of what can be considered historical topics in the shows they air. A portion of the shows put on, however, are worth watching, and luckily, many of these shows are released on DVD.

In 2005, the network aired a documentary, The French Revolution: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, which examined events leading up to and during the French Revolution. The documentary can be broken into two sections; the first illustrates the causes of the French Revolution, while the second discusses the events of the Revolution.

Narrated by Edward Herrmann, this documentary illustrates the influence of the Enlightenment on the Revolution, notably the concept that people could improve their lot in life, something that had not previously been an option for the majority of the population. And while this wave of change brought new ideas and people to the forefront of French politics, it also brought the Terror.

Historians throughout the film explain the role of the French Revolution in the 19th and 20th centuries. Many revolutions in the Western hemisphere in the 1810s and 1820s were sparked by the same flame that swept France a few decades earlier. The ideals of 1789 also also gave rise to movements that would pave the way for revolutions elsewhere into the 20th century.

A few criticisms of the film include the failure to adequately transition into the period of Napoleon. While the focus understandably remains on the Revolution and its immediate aftermath, a bit more should have been included to illustrate how the country shifted from a surge of democracy and republicanism into rule by an emperor. The Napoleonic era requires another documentary altogether, but a transition to demonstrate how the events of the French Revolution led to the rise of Napoleon would have been instructive.

Additionally, the failure to mention the newly formed United States gives an incomplete global view of the French Revolution. While the American Revolution was in a class of its own, it did help to influence the way in which events in France would gain momentum in the inevitable landslide toward revolution. The assistance which France provided to the United States during the American Revolution contributed to the already destitute socioeconomic situation in France. The American point of view also demonstrates the mixed feelings that the Revolution evoked. The newly formed country stood divided in its view of the French Revolution, particularly once the Reign of Terror began. Some Americans felt that France deserved complete support, while others were reluctant to support what they considered to be a bloodbath as the 1790s progressed—an intriguing perspective coming from a new nation emerging from a revolution against a monarchy. The film does not pay these topics much, if any, lip service, but would benefit from their inclusion.

The documentary, taken as a whole, definitely merits viewing. It gives a thoughtful presentation of the French Revolution without getting too bogged down in minute details, which can drag a film down (and should probably be saved for historical monographs).   At 100 minutes, the film would be an alternative for the classroom, or just an informative film for those who find themselves enjoying the delights that a night of documentary-watching and monograph-reading can offer.

Check the WRL catalog for The French Revolution: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

Macbeth: the graphic novel

John of Circulation Services starts the week off with a graphic novel:

The other day, while putting away some graphic fiction in the young adult section, an illustrated version of Macbeth caught my eye. Its cover announced that the play was available in three versions—the original, plain text, or quick text. The one I held was the original and I was intrigued to see that it promised to be the unabridged original play in full color. When I was a boy, (and I’d rather not say how many eons ago that was) the old Classics Illustrated series gave me my first taste of Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, Dickens, and other greats. They opened up new worlds for me before I heard from anyone that these writers were challenging and hard to grasp. I was just a boy seeking new adventures and willingly paid my fifteen cents (almost a third of my weekly allowance) for the thrill. But however remarkable those texts were, they never delivered the full work. That had to be left for future discovery. Could this new Classical Comics series fulfill that high goal? The answer, at least for Macbeth, is a resounding yes.

The book starts with an illustrated “Dramatis Personae” that helpfully introduces each character’s image. The authors also provide a brief introduction to the play’s action to help the reader understand both the time period and the political turmoil that is the play’s unspoken “back story.” Then, with a flash of lightening, we’re on the heath with the three witches and the play’s opening question, “When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” In that very instant you know you’re in for a treat—Shakespeare’s words married flawlessly to a cinematic flow of brilliant illustrations in vivid color.

One might ask what makes a graphic novel better than watching the play on DVD.  I would offer that the reader controls the pace. Didn’t quite catch a line? One can re-read. Didn’t understand the action? One can study the picture. And happily even the meaning of unfamiliar words is often revealed in the illustration’s context.

Each act and scene has a title, making the play’s progress easy to follow. Shakespeare’s use of dramatic technique is handled simply but clearly. When a character is speaking aloud, the lines are in solid bubbles. If a character is speaking only to himself, the bubble is wavy. If a character is thinking, but not speaking aloud, the bubble is curly. If a character is whispering or speaking to another, but not heard by all present, the bubble is dotted. Musical notes in the bubble reveal lines that are meant to be sung. This technique allows for a closer study of the play’s soliloquies. The soliloquy moves frame by frame with various cinematic angles or close-ups. So, instead of just “hearing” a character think, the reader sees clues in the illustration to what the character feels. Thus, a series of frames gradually reveals Macbeth’s growing fear, desperation and submission to evil in the “Is this a dagger?” soliloquy.

The same is true in all the play’s famous scenes. We see Lady Macbeth’s bloodthirsty ambition, Banquo’s loyal devotion, and the gatekeeper’s drunken description of hell itself. We admire Macbeth’s courage, but fear his growing descent into reckless evil. Later, when his wildest fears begin to be realized, we still hope for his return to the better man he was. This is so poignantly revealed in the way the illustrations portray Macbeth’s “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” soliloquy. His trap is set, he knows the doom is of his own making, yet he faces what is to come with all the dignity he can muster.

Macbeth is always a tough play to stage. Over the years I’ve seen four or five sort of satisfying versions. Staged versions often have to leave out something. Director’s insights or points of emphasis might eliminate scenes or important lines. There are two film versions, one directed by Orson Welles and the other by Roman Polanski. Both are very good, but also heavily influenced by the director’s vision. There are several filmed staged versions on DVD. There are excellent recorded versions. Verdi even wrote an operatic version. This slight book might seem humble in such company, but I would have to rank it right up there with the best. It’s true the reader may miss a great actor’s interpretation of a line, but Jon Haward’s illustrations and Nigel Dobbyn’s coloring and lettering help the reader to grasp the character’s core, to see the action, to reveal the motives, and to catch the play’s sweep.

There are many stunningly illustrated passages, but one of my favorites is a scene often left out of staged versions. In it, the witches are scolded by their queen Hecate for revealing so much to Macbeth. In a scene of wild fantasy and demonic maneuvering, they plot a way to draw Macbeth in closer and thus seal his doom. This scene occurs right after Macbeth has seen the ghost of Banquo, the friend he had murdered to seal his hold on the throne. In the final frame of that scene, we see the images of the three witches behind Macbeth leering at his climatic realization that he is “…in blood stepp’d so far, that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.” That one frame brilliantly ties both scenes together.

In addition to the play’s full text, there are end articles on Shakespeare’s life, the historical background behind the play, and an insightful history of Shakespeare’s version of the events and the political reasons he may have altered key facts. There is also a fascinating article on how the pages of this book were prepared and how the lines were worked into the illustrations. The book illustrates the difference in the three different versions—original text, plain text, and simple text. I must confess, the book made me long to be a teacher again. How wonderful it would be to have a resource like this to introduce young readers to Shakespeare’s glories.

Check the WRL catalog for MacBeth: The Graphic Novel

The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach

I’m not much of a sports fan, although I appreciate baseball more than any other.  Not as in a George Will Men at Work paean to the pastoral roots and nobility blah blah blah, but as a game which is simultaneously simple and incredibly complex and which comes with beer and a hot dog.  And even though every sports novel ever written or sports movie ever made ends with the underdogs defeating the champs, books like Shoeless Joe or The Natural still grab me in a way other novels with the same themes don’t.

But The Art of Fielding isn’t a baseball novel.  Even though shortstop Henry Skrimshander drives the action, the story feels more like a baseball team working behind a pitching machine instead of a human being.  Henry is a cipher – he comes from a nowhere place and it is only an accident that his skill is discovered before he joins the blue-collar life of his home and family.  His presence on the campus of Westish College (home of the Harpooners!) doesn’t leave a ripple.  He is no scholar, ladies’ man, partier, frat boy.  The only book he owns is The Art of Fielding, a Zen-like meditation on the shortstop’s place in baseball.  He exists only for the season, and there he is a certified genius, playing with effortless intuition and bringing his teammates up to and beyond their potential.  He even starts a streak of error-free games that seems destined to match that of Aparicio Rodriguez, author of The Art of Fielding, and that attracts the attention of agents and Major League scouts.  Even as he becomes the center of attention to people in the story, the story does not revolve around him.

If anything, the novel centers on the almost magnetic appeal of Westish College itself.  Mike Schwartz, Henry’s advocate, coach, and role model, is a dedicated scholar whose skill at sports bought him a ticket out of a Chicago slum to Westish, along with permanent injuries and an addiction to painkillers.  Pella Affenlight, daughter of the college’s president, comes to Westish to escape an oppressive marriage and to find the purpose in her young life.  Pella’s father, Guert, whose academic career began and (he hopes) will end at Westish, has fallen irretrievably in love with a student, who happens to be Henry’s gay roommate Owen.  Only Owen, a  serene and self-possessed scholar-athlete, seems to resist Westish’s appeal and demands,  flagrantly flouting college norms and planning for his post-Westish life.  As Guert learns from Owen about love and about the late-life discovery that he too is gay he also learns Westish can be cloistered and oppressive to some, nurturing and supportive to others.

Either way, the college seems to be an unchanging place even as the characters discover that their lives and purposes are evanescent.  Affairs, dreams, creative expression will all appear and vanish in moments.  But, as one character observes, only Henry’s performances constantly occur in public venues where people are rooting for his failure.  It is at those times that Henry’s intense focus is necessary.  And when Henry loses that focus in a bizarre accident, it seems that his potential professional career will disappear like a fastball into a catcher’s mitt.  Redemption – for Henry, for Mike and Pella, and for Owen and Guert – is possible, and when Chad Harbach achieves it, it is not only organic to the story but points all of the characters to the next act of their lives.

Check the WRL catalog for The Art of Fielding

All the Best Books Compilation, ABBC 2.0

Compilation of all the best-books-of-the-year lists and awards into one handy, sortable Excel spreadsheet continues here at Blogging for a Good Book. We’re happy to present the ABBC, version 2.0.

Since the first version of the ABBC, picks from Barnes and Noble, Brain Pickings, the Christian Science Monitor, Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, the Fiction_L listserv, the Globe and Mail, the Guardian, Quill and Quire, the Romance Reviews, the San Francisco Book Review, the San Francisco Chronicle, Slate, the Telegraph, the Toronto Star, the Vampire Book Club, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post have been compiled. To date, that means that 1470 different books published in 2011 in the United States have been recognized as a best-of-the-year that have been compiled.

The compilation will continue for some time, and we’ll post updates here every couple of weeks. For analysis of the books at the top of various genre and subject categories, please wander over to Book Group Buzz and search for ABBC entries there.

 

The Ballad of Tom Dooley, by Sharyn McCrumb

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang down your head and cry.
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley,
Poor boy, you’re bound to die.

If you don’t recognize the words to the folksong as recorded by The Kingston Trio you have seriously misspent your life.  A #1 hit in 1958, it sold 6 million copies, has been added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress, and been credited with starting the folk music revival of the early Sixties.  That revival gave rise to people like Harry Belafonte, Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, and other staples of the Civil Rights and anti-war movements.  In turn, they led the way to the singer-songwriters like (brace yourselves) The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead, John Denver, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morrisette.  Quite a legacy for one song recounting the true story of a post-Civil War murder.

Except it wasn’t true, or at least the song isn’t accurate.  As a ballad it has the necessary elements – one murderer, one victim, one crime.  Real life is so much messier, as I learned when I accidentally heard a pair of folksingers at the National Folk Festival in Richmond.  They had a completely different take on the story, which involved multiple lovers, syphilis, and a corrupt sheriff.  Not so easy to sing about in three minutes, but closer to the story the people of Wilkes County, NC, still remember.  They’ll also correct another important aspect – the man’s name was Tom Dula, not Dooley.

Sharyn McCrumb has taken the seeds of that story, added important details from the trial transcripts, and reflected upon the human nature of the community affected by the murder.   She has also given a central place to a formerly minor character who drives the tragedy forward.  In doing so, she has not given us a traditional mystery but, as she calls it, a close parallel to Wuthering Heights.  (She also tells us that careful readers will find echoes of Emily Bronte’s language – I don’t know enough to spot those.  Sorry.)

Pauline Foster, a servant girl, becomes the new voice of the story, reciting a tale of love, jealousy, infidelity, and prejudice.  The community is overshadowed by the intense poverty of Appalachia in the 1860s, and by the aftereffects of the Civil War.  In that time of uncertainty and continued fear, she uses people’s emotions to manipulate them into conflict and confrontation.  Since she herself is not afflicted by those emotions, she does not care about the consequences.

Interestingly, McCrumb intersperses Pauline’s narrative about events leading to the murder with the recollections of former North Carolina governor Zebulon Vance, who defended Tom Dula in two trials.  Like the people surrounding Tom and Pauline, Vance is scarred by the South’s loss of the Civil War, and is trying to rebuild his reputation by taking on the high profile case.  The contrast between Vance, the ambitious mountain boy who grew to the halls of power, and the squalid lives of his former neighbors is especially telling, and in some ways Vance’s ambitions make him sound like Pauline.  I wonder if he would be offended if he knew that the name of his defendant would live on even as his own receded into history.

This is neither a mystery nor infused with the sense of the supernatural that many of McCrumb’s other books have brought to readers.  It does have that powerful sense of place that characterizes her Appalachian writing, and the clear-eyed view of the good and bad in the people who reside there.  This atmospheric and character-driven book is a great complement to her other stories.

Check the WRL catalog for The Ballad of Tom Dooley

Island of the Sequined Love Nun, by Christopher Moore

No question about it, Christopher Moore has a penchant for weird titles.  And within those weird titles are books that combine satire and horror and that put Christopher Moore in a class by himself.

Island of the Sequined Love Nun sounds like it would fit right in there.  Maybe not the horror…maybe a little tropical island sex?  Even the cover seems to suggest content of a more salacious kind.  It’s the classic bait-and-switch, but this time it works out in the reader’s favor.  (And anyone who says, “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” has never met a publisher’s marketing department.  Just sayin’.)

Tucker Case is a pilot living and working on a tropical island.  He’s there not by his own choice, but because the backside of the world is the only place he can go to escape his former boss’s vengeance.  (Hint to would-be pilots: joining the mile-high club while you’re tanked and the plane isn’t is a good way to draw unwanted attention to yourself.  Especially if the plane is pink.)  There isn’t much to do on that island, since he’s more or less the prisoner of The Sorcerer and The Sky Priestess.

Ummm, what?  Yes, The Sorcerer and The Sky Priestess, who in real life are Sebastian and Beth Curtis, are the deities in the island’s cargo cult.  With 20th century flash/bang special effects, the ability to grant or cut off supplies at will, and a team of Japanese guards protecting the fenced-in compound, the Curtises live a life of privilege and ease.  All they have to do is make the occasional flight, cargo and destination unknown.  And that’s where Tucker comes in.

As foolish as he acts, Tucker isn’t a fool, and he begins to scratch around the edges of the Curtises business, with the aid of a ghost and a talking fruit bat.  It is, after all, Christopher Moore.  When he discovers the truth of the flights, he sets in motion a plan to end the shenanigans.  The fact that it involves sailing across the open ocean, stealing a 747, and landing on a tiny runway is no obstacle to the newly-matured Tuck.

While many of the outlandish ingredients of his other books are there, to me this is a darker tale closer to real life than any of Moore’s other books.   It also seems to me that this is the first book that shows the promise behind his wackiness.  With Island of the Sequined Love Nun, Moore’s off-beat humor and off-the-wall plotting took on the sharper edge of an author who has transformed himself into a writer.

Check the WRL catalogue for Island of the Sequined Love Nun

Fed Up with Lunch, by Sarah Wu

There are some stereotypes that cannot die out, and one of them is “the lunchlady”.  She is a large woman dressed in a greasy uniform, with a hairnet and a perpetual expression that suggests she’d like nothing better than to throw you in next week’s Mystery Meat as the main ingredient.  I went to enough schools to understand the source of that stereotype, but since my own kids have been in school, I’ve come to see the reality – these ladies (and I’ve only ever seen women in the cafeterias) love being around children.  If lunchladies today seem harried and harrassed, perhaps it’s because their roles have changed over the years.  That change is one small part of the school lunch scandal that Sarah Wu reports on.

Wu, a Chicago elementary school teacher, forgot her lunch one day.  Thinking she’d make do with the cafeteria offering that day, she picked up a tray of “food” – a bagel dog, Jell-O, six Tater Tots, and chocolate milk.  The experience of eating bland unappealing food of questionable nutritious value appalled her.  After debating with herself and trying to work out the work and family ethics of the experiment, Wu started to anonymously observe cafeteria food for one year.  Each day, she would purchase lunch, photograph it during her free period, and write about the meal when she got home that night.  Her blog attracted attention from advocates for nutrition, green schools, the locavore movement, and student cooking, even as she struggled to maintain her alter-ego, “Mrs. Q”.

That first day’s meal was a revelation, but by no means was it an exception.  The above meal was packaged for efficient shipping, not for genuine nutritional value.  The hot dog was wrapped in a bread-like substance and sealed in plastic.  The tater tots, which count as the vegetable, were microwaveable.  The chunks suspended in the plastic Jell-O cup masqueraded as the fruit.  And of course, the chocolate milk was the dairy.  Not exactly the Food Pyramid that kids learn about in that same school, is it?  Strangely enough, the US Department of Agriculture, which created the food pyramid, also represents corporate farming operations and multi-national food service companies, and treats school lunch programs as a profitable outlet for their clients.

So teachers get children who’ve been hopped up on processed sugar then sent back into the classroom.  Students get unappetizing food served without input from real cooks.  Parents get the illusion that their children are eating healthy and filling meals.  The community gets immense amounts of waste from individual packages, utensils, and wasted food.   Food service contractors get the profit from turning food into a disposable commodity served almost literally on the run.  (In many school systems, students have less than 30 minutes to make their way to the cafeteria, stand in line to be served, eat, and still have some form of relaxation time. )

Thankfully Wu’s book not only details the failure of the school lunch program, but identifies people and organizations creating ideas for better school nutrition.  She also talks about how parents can get involved in transforming the culture of bottom-line bottomfeeding into a system that replaces the current foodlike substances with nutritious and attractive alternatives.  And she writes about school systems that are leading the way back towards affordable and healthy school lunches centered on the needs of growing children.  The most important partner parents can call on? Lunch ladies.

Check the WRL catalog for Fed Up With Lunch

The Last Testament: A Memoir by GOD (with David Javerbaum)

Humor is hard to do.  It probably ties with horror as the hardest type of story to develop and sustain through the end of the book.  Thankfully, both God and amanuensis David Javerbaum, a veteran of The Daily Show, are able to pull it off.  For one thing, God is aware (as one would expect from an omni-omni being) of his own sense of humor, although he occasionally suspects that it may border on the sociopathic.

So now we have, from his own lips, the truth of the stories collected in the Book that has the highest sales in the history of the world, even though the royalties don’t quite match the revenues.  We learn the truth about Creation – yes, it was Adam and Steve – the zing that’s going to greet new arrivals at the Golden Throne, and the greatest Broadway show of all time.  And hey, God does have favorite sports figures, with drastic repercussions for The Second Coming.

In the midst of this tell-all confession, God opens up about his relationship with his children.  Yes, plural.  Jesus is the middle child.  His older brother Zach is nicknamed The Holy Ghost for his favorite trick, sneaking up his brother and yelling, “Boo!”  His younger sister is Kathy, whose envy of Jesus’ sacrifice led her to beg her Father to allow her to do the same.  (You’ll have to read the Book to find out how they accomplished it.)  But Jesus is not only His favorite, he’s the only one who can overcome His Father with The Look.

The big issue, though, is the one that is fast approaching.  Although they don’t buy into Him, God is really impressed with the vigor with which the Mayans worship, so He’s decided to go with their calendar.  Humanity: October 28, 4004 BC – December 21, 2012.  RIP.  And just to prove that he’s not fooling around, he’s given us day-by-day warning signs.  (My favorite is August 11 – “Reenactors at Colonial Williamsburg declare independence from management, asserting their inalienable rights to “life, liberty, and employee discounts at Busch Gardens”.  Since CW employees already have discounts, we can check that one off as already accomplished.)

OK, so you’re not supposed to take it seriously.  There’s no doubt about that, even though God takes pains to tell us on several occasions.  The Last Testament is a parody that explores the gap between people’s interpretation of the Bible, and their actual knowledge of the Book, interpreted through the lens of a writer familiar with history, theology, exegesis, psychology, and current events.  And if you decide to take it any other way, check out Againesis 19:4.  With tongue firmly in cheek, David Javerbaum has delivered a funny book that succeeds in making the reader look at the world from a new angle.  And that’s why humor is hard to do.

Check the WRL catalog for The Last Testament

Farewell, Reginald Hill

It is always hard when a treasured author dies. The news puts an immediate and definite halt to the pleasure knowing that at some point you will have a new book to read by that person. I find it particularly sad when the deceased is an author I have only recently discovered. There is a feeling that you have lost a new found friend. This is they way I felt hearing of the death of crime novelist Reginald Hill on 1/12/12. I only came across Hill in the past few years, but was immediately drawn in to his rich, thoughtful, and at times funny, novels featuring Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe of the North Yorkshire police force. Our review of Hill’s A Killing Kindness discusses the appeal of the Dalziel/Pascoe novels, and anyone who enjoys character-driven crime fiction should try them out. Hill also wrote a series of novels featuring Joe Sixsmith, a black private eye in a north England city. Hill had an eye for description and an ear for dialog, and he used those tools to great effect. He also had a great affection for his characters and conveys that in a powerful way to the reader. You come away from Hill’s novel not just having enjoyed a good story but having spent time with people who are important to you. I will miss my time with these characters, and look forward to the occasional re-reading.

August: Osage County, by Tracy Letts

As August: Osage County opens, Beverly Weston, a one-book wonder poet and the patriarch of a large Oklahoma family, is in the process of hiring a native American housekeeper. A little drunk, he reveals some of his family’s dysfunction. His wife Violet has mouth cancer and is addicted to prescription drugs, and Beverly admits that these are only part of her larger problems.

Tracy Letts’ pitch black comedy drama won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007, along with the Tony, the Drama Desk Award, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, and pretty much every other award available to plays. It’s in the tradition of Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller, following the disintegration of an American family, in this case people of the central Plains, after years of slow decay from inside.

As the first act opens, we discover that Beverly has gone missing, and his three daughters, their spouses and fiancés, sister-in-law, and grandchildren have returned home to keep vigil. Violet is in terrible form, popping pills like candy and confronting her daughters with every ugliness in the family. Her barbs and those shot back by her daughters, especially the eldest Barbara, are hilarious, but so full of anger and pain that the laughter turns to acid in your mouth. Violet’s sister Mattie Fae bullies her 37-year-old son Little Charles, a boyish man, and bickers with her husband Charles. Barbara’s academic husband Bill seems nice, but he’s had an affair with a student and the couple are, unknown to the rest of the family, separated. Their daughter Jean is fourteen going on forty, pot-smoking, foul-mouthed, but not nearly as worldly as she’d like to believe. Beverly and Violet’s second daughter Ivy is soft compared to the other sisters, cowed by her mother’s bullying. Youngest sister Karen has had a life of unhappiness, but returns to the family with new confidence gained from her relationship with her older fiancé Steve.

Each of the family members are hiding a secret which comes out over the course of the long (for a play) and harrowing drama. It’s bitter, but epic, and like the best family sagas, the Westons are symbols of a deeper degree of societal rot. Violet is a terrifying matriarch, pushed beyond the breaking point and pulling the whole family down around her. She may be drug-addled and diseased, but she’s tough as nails and none of her family’s foibles have escaped her. The other twelve characters in this tragedy of dysfunction are all interesting too. Wait for a time when you can handle some darkness, but by all means, don’t miss one of the great American plays.

Check the WRL catalog for August: Osage County.

Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde

Welsh writer Jasper Fforde has never failed in coming up with remarkable settings, unique premises, and hilarious jokes for his tales. His first series, Thursday Next, features a future where people can enter into the stories of famous books and literary characters can escape into the real world. This world becomes the battleground for a competition between criminals and master spies. His second series, Nursery Crimes, moved hard boiled crime fiction into the world of nursery rhyme characters. Both series are successful, popular, and yet still somewhat unsatisfying for many readers. The payoff isn’t always as powerful as the premise.

I’d put Fforde aside as a writer who wasn’t quite for me, but I’m glad I relented and tried Shades of Grey, which begins a new trilogy. I think it’s his most satisfying yet.

Eddie Russett is a middle-class young man in a dystopian future dominated by strict social classes and a set of byzantine rules that have developed since some cataclysm began to unravel the world. In this world, one’s class is controlled by which color spectrums one can see (most people can only see one color clearly, and many can’t see any). In a world where color is dwindling, recycled from the artifacts of dead cities, the ability to appreciate it is given great, albeit arbitrary, value.

Eddie’s father is a swatchman, a doctor who cures ailments by showing people various color swatches. He’s been sent to fill in for another swatchman killed in mysterious circumstances in a frontier town. Eddie is sent along as part of a punishment for being vain and testing a few too many of the boundaries in a society governed by mysterious overlords. To teach him a lesson, he’s to conduct a census of the chairs. Eddie expects a dull time in a sleepy town that will stall his attempt to climb the social ladder by courting an upper class girl, but instead he finds that the locals of East Carmine are even more shrewd, complicated, and strange than the people of his hometown. He also finds himself strangely attracted to the rudeness and mystery of Jane, a lowly Grey who dares to flaunt social class despite personal danger, and who may be involved in revolutionary activities.

The delight’s in the details of Fforde’s quirky world and the sly social satire of his comedy of manners, both of which are so extensive as to be difficult to summarize here. I found myself gawking at his sheer inventiveness throughout, laughing at his cheeky humor, and invested in a complicated but satisfying plot. Whether he’s writing about the increasingly rare teaspoons used as currency and birthright, the dangers of carnivorous plants, the terrors outside of city limits at night, a nude man who everyone pretends not to see, or the life-and-death plotting that accompanies courtship and marriage, he makes this book work every step of the way. Because he reveals the logic of his world slowly and it’s not a terribly logical world to begin with, the reader really has to pay attention, but the work is worth the effort. This time, I found the payoff utterly worth the challenge, and this is just the first book in a saga. I’ll be ready for the next!

Check the WRL catalog for Shades of Grey.

The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater

The best fantasy writing makes you believe completely in the validity of the story, and by that criteria, Maggie Stiefvater’s young adult novel The Scorpio Races is certainly a winner.

The story is set on Thisby, a mythical island off Ireland or Scotland in an otherwise normal world. Thisby is a misty, Brigadoon-like mecca for horse lovers because it’s the place where the capaill uisce, the beautiful, terrifying water horses, emerge from the sea. For unclear reasons, they come ashore every November, when some of the most daring locals dare to capture and ride them in the annual Scorpio Races. The races are both thrilling and horrifying, a bloody spectacle in which some riders are inevitably killed as the capaill uisce charge along the beach, bite each other and anything else in reach, and frequently resist their riders to plunge back into the ocean.

The atmospheric island has little else to recommend it. Sure, it’s scenic, but it’s also a difficult place to make a life, with wild weather, little food, entrenched ways and only a few wealthy landlords who dominate the other locals. Most young people leave the island for adventures on the mainland or in America, and as the novel opens, Puck Connolly’s older brother Gabe announces that he plans to leave as well. That’s a problem because Puck, her somewhat compulsive younger brother Finn, and Gabe are orphans left behind after their parents were killed by the water horses and Gabe has been supporting them. To stall Gabe’s departure and perhaps to win enough money to save their home, Puck decides to ride in the Scorpio Races, although a woman has never competed and she’ll have to ride her speedy but undersized mare Dove instead of a capaill uisce.

One of her competitors is Sean Kendrick, a young man who has won more Scorpio Races than any other rider, but who has been trapped by Terence Malvern (the same man who is foreclosing on Puck’s house) into working in his stables. Sean loves riding Corr–the fierce red water horse on which he’s won so many races–more than anything else, but Malvern owns Corr and keeps Sean in line by refusing to sell him. Sean’s tenth share of his race winnings have made him wealthy by island standards, but not compared to Malvern who still controls the only thing Sean wants. Sean’s life is further complicated by the jealousy of Malvern’s horrible son, Mutt.

The lives of these two riders become entwined as the book continues and they rise from mutual frustration to grudging respect to romance, but their survival is constantly threatened, their personal problems seem insurmountable, and their final goals are in conflict. Surrounding them with quirky islanders, a mysterious American visitor, and the sometimes thrilling, sometimes terrifying water horses, Stiefvater weaves a tale that will keep you enthralled from start to finish. I felt like I’d run in my own Scorpio Race by the time I was done, and I certainly came away a winner.

Check the WRL catalog for The Scorpio Races

Or try The Scorpio Races as an audiobook

Feynman, by Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick

The late physicist and free spirit Richard Feynman has been depicted again and again in books: his own disjointed but charming memoirs collected in Classic Feynman: All the Adventures of a Curious Character; James Gleick’s fine biography Genius: the Life and Science of Richard Feynman, or the more scientifically focused Quantum Man: Richard Feynman’s Life in Science by Lawrence M. Krauss to name a few. Feynman’s quirky way of thinking, his enthusiastic cheerleading for the value of science, his gifts for explaining complicated subjects to laypeople, and his sometimes bizarre personal behavior all make him a subject for the ages.

There’s always room for one more good book about a person this complex, as writer Jim Ottaviani and artist Leland Myrick demonstrate in their new graphic biography, Feynman. It’s actually very fitting that Feynman should get the graphic treatment: one of his great achievements in science was to find new visual ways to depict equations, and he always claimed to see equations with a kind of synesthesia, visualizing them swirling around him with different parts in different colors. The artist here does this legacy fine justice, with different background colors making the book into a slowly progressing rainbow and Feynman himself drawn with wiry, jaunty, approachable grace.

Feynman fascinates. He was one of the leading scientists of the twentieth century, a man closely involved with important events like the Manhattan Project and the investigation of the first space shuttle explosion, but at the same time was famous for quixotic quests like playing instruments at Carnival in Rio, trying unsuccessfully to visit a little known region of Russia, or appearing in court to defend the topless bar where he liked to sit and think. Ottaviani does a fine job here of balancing Feynman’s scientific importance with all the qualities that made the man unusual and sometimes difficult.

Nearly a quarter of a century after his death, Feynman continues to captivate us, perhaps for the pure light of his genius, perhaps because he’s difficult to pin down, or perhaps because there’s something in his legacy to capture almost anyone’s imagination. This new book is perhaps the easiest entry point I’ve seen yet for your own pursuit of a truly curious character.

Check the WRL catalog for Feynman

The Black Book, by Ian Rankin

In Inspector Rebus, Ian Rankin created one of the all-time great characters in crime fiction. Rebus lives and breathes, a man of contradictions, frequently making mistakes, especially in his bumbling personal life, but with a gift for finding the right path for catching the criminal and ultimately doing the right thing. Rankin put his character aside after 17 consistently satisfying adventures, although the door is still open just a crack for his return at some later date.

His fifth book in the series, The Black Book, finds Rankin in fine form. (There are small linear developments in the lives of Rebus and the secondary characters, that you’ll enjoy more if you read the series in order, but I’ve skipped around without feeling like I missed too much). Rebus is pulled into further surveillance of an old nemesis, Big Ger Cafferty, a detail that he dreads because he suspects that it is doomed to failure because Cafferty is good at covering his tracks and a rival Inspector named Flower is leading the stakeout and is likely to make mistakes. Rebus is more interested in other crimes–an attack on one of his subordinate officers in the parking lot of an Elvis-themed restaurant and a much older crime, an arson in a crime-ridden hotel, probably used to cover the murder of an unidentified man whose body was found in the ashes. With common figures swirling in the darkness around the edges of all of these cases, Rebus can’t help but think their might be some connections.

On one level, Rebus can be an almost unstoppable force: he takes his blows and keeps coming. But what I love about him is that on other levels, he’s often quite befuddled. In this book, he doesn’t know what to do with a brother just out of prison, so he settles him, awkwardly, in a flat that he has also rented to a group of students. When Rebus’s long-suffering girlfriend Constance kicks him out for making her second to his work one time too many, Rebus himself moves into the flat, sleeping on the couch because he can’t bring himself to kick any of the students or his brother, who is getting along marvelously with the students, out. There are personal costs to be paid for dedication to crime solving, and Rebus–in this book and others in the series–pays again and again, but still stays in the game, finishes the case.

You can also read this series for its gritty, compact storytelling, for its believable portrayal of police force politics, for its clever turns of phrase and sly humor,  or for its fond depiction of Edinburgh’s seedy side. Whatever the reason you try it, I think you’ll come back again for another helping.

Check the WRL catalog for The Black Book.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

This week’s posts are from WRL Development Officer, Benjamin Goldberg.

I finally got around to The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.  The book has been praised by many and now I can see why.  It’s an excellent story.  Knowing I would never find the time to read it, I decided to listen to the audio version.  This turned out to be a great choice.  Paul Michael reads exceptionally well, giving added life to each character by expertly using different voices for each one.  This also allows the listener to recognize when characters are speaking, so I could literally hear the voices as I made my way through the book.

Since this is a mystery, I don’t want to give too much away.  The hero is Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who finds himself unwittingly pulled into an ancient mystery that he is uniquely qualified to solve.  His knowledge of Holy Grail lore, Catholic Church history, and most importantly, the use of symbols in art, religion, and a secret society named The Priory of Sion, make him key to solving the puzzles laid before him by museum curator Jacques Saunière.  Joined in the hunt by cryptologist Sophie Neveu and Grail expert Sir Leigh Teabing, the trio trail blaze through France and Great Britain seeking answers.  Their quest is made all the more compelling because they are being pursued not only by the French police (Langdon is accused of murder), but also by a fanatical Opus Dei monk named Silas.  Further, Silas’ actions are directed by “the Teacher,” a character who stays in the shadows for most of the story.

Brown writes excellent descriptions, delightful dialogue, and maintains an attention to detail that is critical to keeping the plot on track.  He moves the plot along at a lightening fast pace.  It is easy to miss that the main action occurs in fewer than 36 hours.  Robert Langdon is believable as an Indiana Jones style character, albeit more academic and less adventuresome.  Like a ballerina whose every move has purpose, each of the supporting characters are included to expand the story in ways that are both ingenious and entertaining.

After reading or listening to The Da Vinci Code, you may wish to check out the library’s copy of Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind the Da Vinci Code edited by Dan Burstein.  It can help you sort out which parts of the book are research-based, which are entirely fabricated and which fall somewhere in between.  Brown took great care to blur the lines between “truth” and fiction, which again adds to the readers’ experience.  The Da Vinci Code is a tightly knit mystery that includes plenty of action, a little romance, and a surplus of puzzles within puzzles.

Check the WRL catalog for The Da Vinci Code