Where’d You Go, Bernadette, by Maria Semple

A 2013 Alex Award winner (meaning its a book in the adult section found to be highly appealing to teen readers), Where’d You Go, Bernadette is a laughable and adventurous satire packed with hilarious characterization and witty dialogue mostly in the epistolary fashion using email correspondence, letters, police reports, report cards, and other documents.  Modest readers might find some strong language offensive yet very in-character when utilized.

You’ll find hilarious characters, some to love, some to hate, and some to drive everyone crazy!  Semple pokes fun at Seattle’s subcultures of anti-fashionable, pro-geek, tech-talking, community-oriented, hyper-diverse, ultra-green, alternative-lifestyle embracing citizens.  Semple herself is a transplant to the Seattle region from Los Angeles, as is the character Bernadette, where she wrote screenplays for “Beverly Hills, 90210,” “Ellen,” “Mad About You” and “Arrested Development.”

Caution, spoilers (because the events are revealed asynchronously and non-chronologically): Bernadette Fox has escaped her failed career as a genius architect by isolating herself in a crumbling fortress of a home where she can’t sleep and torments herself with self-pity.  She’s become so anti-social that she’s hired a virtual assistant to handle even the most mundane logistics of her life.  For years, her precious 15-year old daughter Bee has been Bernadette’s only reason for living.  Bee’s been promised this trip to Antarctica as an award for her perfect report card (Her Microsoft-guru dad can afford it).  Now, she’s having a panic attack brought on by the prospect of accompanying Bee through the sea-sickening Drake passage, “the roughest and most feared water in the world,”  and this leads to a series of outrageous circumstances that culminate in a final resolution that just might restore Bernadette’s artistic passion.

The narration, and actual singing, by actress Kathleen Wilhoite, is extraordinarily energetic and adds much to the listening experience of the audiobook version, which I was whizzed through completely enraptured with joyous laughter.  When hearing her voicing the hysterics of the ‘gnats’ (aka the condescending moms of Bee’s classmates at Galer Street School), I was reminded of Tea Leoni’s over-the-top character in the movie Spanglish.

Check the WRL catalog for the print or large print versions, too.

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Refresh Refresh, by Danica Novgorodoff

For the last review this week I am looking at a graphic novel. Refresh Refresh is by far the darkest and saddest of these stories. Like Operation Oleander, Refresh Refresh is set in recent history. Josh’s father and Cody’s father are Marine Reservists who are deployed to Iraq. They live in a small, unnamed Oregon town where a lot of the men have gone to war. For many of the families the men’s absence is a financial as well as practical burden. Cody’s power is cut off even though his mother has a job and his father is being paid by the military. His mother says that they are in financial trouble from losing his father’s overtime pay, although she works extra hours at the factory, so she is hardly ever home for him and his small brother.

The title, Refresh Refresh, comes from the action of refreshing the computer browser to see if any email has arrived and at the beginning both boys do this continuously, almost obsessively. As I said in my post on Operation Oleander, electronic communication is both a blessing and and a curse. In wrenching panels we see the boys repeatedly looking at their computer screens and seeing the cheerful but heartbreaking message, “Welcome! You have 0 unread messages.”

Refresh Refresh does a good job of portraying the complex feelings military service creates in the families left behind. Josh and Cody are about to graduate from high school, but in their small town there are not many opportunities open to them. Most of their friends feel they have to work in a local factory–”the plant”–or join the military. The boys resent that their fathers are gone and see the negatives of military service, but at the same time are proud of them, leading to ambivalence, “This is what we all wanted: to please our fathers, to make them proud–even thought they had left us.” Josh wants to go to university–a fact that he hides from his friends. His distant mother and stepfather are willing to pay for college, but if he gets bad news from Iraq what decision will he make?

The artwork reflects the dark subject matter, with severe lines and somber, drab colors, mostly in army green and grey. Try Refresh Refresh for a stark and uncompromising look at military family life, especially for reservists. Refresh Refresh is a violent and often disturbing graphic novel suitable for adults and older teens.

Check the WRL catalog for Refresh, Refresh.

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Sea of Glory, by Nathaniel Philbrick

Nathaniel Philbrick is one of our most readable chroniclers of American history. While less well known than his breakout book, In the Heart of the Sea: the Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex and focused on a more obscure event than later works like Mayflower, The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and 2013′s Bunker Hill: a City, a Siege, a Revolution, his book Sea of Glory: America’s Voyage of Discovery: the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 is one of his best. The fact that the history of this expedition has mostly been forgotten by modern Americans only makes the book more astonishing.

The Exploring Expedition, often known as the U.S. Ex Ex, would journey down the U.S. and South American coasts, continue into Antarctic waters, then cross into the Pacific and chart South Pacific islands and portions of America’s Northwest coast, including the mouth of the Columbia River before returning via the reverse route over four years later. It would make contact with many native populations, create sea charts that would be used well into the 20th century, and bring home an astonishing number of scientific specimens that would ultimately form the start of the Smithsonian’s collection. It would do all of this in an era when propulsion was still by sail, cold weather gear was substandard, and navigation was hazardous. Pretty good for an expedition unknown to most modern Americans!

But what makes the story even more astonishing is that it succeeded despite the inept, self-aggrandizing leadership of young Charles Wilkes. Wilkes was barely 40 years of age, only a lieutenant, but won command of the expedition through diligent campaigning and the general opposition to the expedition of most of the Navy’s officers. When political wrangling back at home refused him the honor of a Captain’s rank even after he was away with the expedition’s five ships, Wilkes became ever more of a martinet, pretending to have achieved rank that he didn’t have so he could play the other young officers of the expedition against each other. He would often arrange the traveling order of the ships so that he could claim personal discovery of major sites or ignore the successes of other officers. He resorted to corporal punishments at the least offense and subverted the work of the expedition’s scientists.

I’ll let you discover the expedition’s many events for yourself, but I will hint at a bit of the ending. Wilkes returned home to find a different president than the one who backed his expedition, many dismissed officers waiting to level charges against him, a Navy determined to have him court-martialed, and powerful enemies in the country’s political leadership. The last part of the book considers the events of the case made against him. Wilkes may have been a disaster, but modern readers will be enthralled by the adventures of this little known expedition. This is an enthralling history that reads like a suspense novel.

Check the WRL catalog for Sea of Glory

We also have Sea of Glory in large print or audiobook on compact disc formats

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The Aubrey-Maturin Series, by Patrick O’Brian

Not to stretch a naval metaphor, but I’ve been in a reading doldrums. Nothing satisfies. At these times I fall back on one of two tried-and-true authors: Terry Pratchett or Patrick O’Brian. Pratchett pops up pretty regularly on Blogging for a Good Book, but I am amazed to see that we have never written about O’Brian, whose 20-volume Aubrey-Maturin series fills an entire library shelf.

Set in the world of the royal navy during the Napoleonic wars, O’Brian’s novels are first and foremost the portrait of a lifelong friendship between Jack Aubrey, affable and resolute ship’s captain, and Stephen Maturin, surgeon, naturalist, and intelligence agent. The series pretty easily finds its audience of men (and women) who are interested in age-of-sail adventures on the high seas; I’m not sure it always finds its audience of women (and men) who enjoy Jane Austen’s prose style, well-crafted sentences and characters, or the complications of Regency-era manners.

The New York Times may have called them “the best historical novels ever written,” but I avoided this series for years based solely on the infernal diagram of sails that opens every volume. No one wants to have to memorize sailing terminology just to get into a good story. Even as I began to be won over by O’Brian’s carefully-chosen words and dry humor, I simply refused to care which sail was a spritsail.

Fortunately, there is so much more than sails to care about as you turn the pages: there are also debauched sloths. Battles, mutinies, French prisons, typhoons, desert islands, music, birds, rich vocabulary, and a whole Dickensian roster of colorful secondary characters. There is indeed a lot of naval jargon, but the reader is not beat about the head with it, or if he is, he has a sympathetic ally in his ignorance in the person of Stephen Maturin. Stephen is also a landlubber, an outsider looking in to the regimented world of the royal navy, and he does not care any more about how many masts a ship has than I did.

Jack is famously lucky at sea, a skilled, courageous ship’s captain who will take, burn, and destroy the enemy at every opportunity, while on land, he is easy prey for speculators or a pretty face. Stephen is an Irish-Catalan physician with a passion for natural philosophy, and is forever cluttering Jack’s ship with beetles, wombats, and diving bells. If you cross him, he will fleece you at cards. If you double-cross him, he will find you, he will shoot you, and then he will dissect you. Their world of naval battles and subversive intelligence work occasionally collides with the domestic sphere and the polite drawing rooms of Jane Austen, usually with disastrous results, and then they are back to sea to escape debt, lawsuits, wives, sweethearts, and mothers-in-law.

And if you do begin to care about spritsails, there are many fine books to help you explore Aubrey and Maturin’s world, whether you’re interested in the vocabulary, the geography, the ships, or even, heaven help you, the food (probably the only cookbook in the library with a recipe for rats in onion sauce).

Check the WRL catalog for Master and Commander.

Or try the audiobooks. Patrick Tull and Simon Vance are both fantastic readers.

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Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

A vicious intergalactic war rages on in this epic fantasy vs. sci-fi standoff. The inhabitants of Landfall, the largest planet in the galaxy, bear vestigial wings and are technologically advanced. They have forever been in conflict with the population of Wreath, Landfall’s moon, who have horns like sheep and a mastery of magic. Each side recruits other planets and races to join their side in the battle, constantly expanding the battlefield throughout the universe.

Alana was a Landfall soldier, sent to guard prisoners on the distant planet of Cleave. Marko was a foot solider for Wreath, but surrendered as a conscientious objector and was sent to Cleave. Within twelve hours of meeting each other, Alana and Marko flee together. Their union produces a daughter named Hazel, who serves as occasional narrator to the story, and has both wings and horns.

Treachery such as theirs can’t go unpunished, and soon both sides are tracking the new parents, who want nothing more than a peaceful place to raise their child. The fragility of the new life they have created strengthens their resolve to, somehow, survive. Landfall sends Prince Robot IV, a humanoid with a television set for a head, to bring them to justice while the Wreath military hires a freelance bounty hunter named The Will. For reasons yet unknown, the Wreath side wants Hazel brought back alive. Another bounty hunter, a former lover of The Will, is also sent by the Wreath forces to track down Alana and Marco. Prince Robot IV and The Will are soon at odds, with The Will swearing to destroy his blue-blooded nemesis.

The writing and the artwork for this series successfully contrast the tenderness and intimacy between the parents against the violence of the worlds around them. There are a lot of ideas introduced in this first volume, which can be tricky to maintain, but Brian K. Vaughan is an experienced writer and this volume is a promising beginning. Fiona Staples’s artwork is simple yet striking, and she manages to make several different, distinct alien worlds, bathing the images in contrasting teals and oranges and greens. Recommended for fantasy and science fiction readers, and anyone who enjoys an against-the-odds romance.

Check the WRL catalog for Saga.

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Alone on the Ice, by David Roberts

Crunch crunch crunch crunch tang tang tang tang crunch crunch.

Tang is the sound your boots make when you are stomping about in the Antarctic, and suddenly you are no longer stomping on solid ice, but rather on a thin layer of snow disguising a crevasse of unknown depths. Sometimes the snow “lids” are thick enough that you can walk over these pits without danger. Sometimes they aren’t.

Crevasses are the essential theme of Alone on the Ice, a riveting account of Douglas Mawson’s 1911-1914 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE). The AAE was contemporary with Scott’s and Amundsen’s race for the South Pole; when Scott and his men were dying in their tent in the middle of nowhere, Mawson and his men were tentbound in the same blizzard in another part of nowhere. Geologist Mawson and his band of Australians and New Zealanders were not interested in the South Polar holy grail, however; they were in Antarctica for science. Amassing specimens and data, they scattered across the inner blank of the continent in several parties, mapping, geologizing, and falling into crevasses in every direction.

Irrepressible young photographer Frank Hurley, who would later take such memorable photographs of Shackleton’s Endurance expedition, actually admires the “unearthly beauty of the abyss” while he hangs about awaiting rescue. Mawson, starving and alone in his crevasse with no one to rescue him and no strength to haul himself up, has one great regret: that he didn’t eat all of the rest of his food the night before.

The first of Mawson’s sledging companions, Belgrave Ninnis, drops into a gaping abyss along with the strongest of the dogs, the tent, and nearly all of the food. Xavier Mertz succumbs to starvation, or possibly to vitamin A poisoning from eating dogs’ liver. Mawson continues on. Despite having no real hope of survival, he saws his sledge in half with a pocket knife and rigs a windsail out of his dead comrade’s trousers. He even gets out of his crevasse, quoting Robert Service as he climbs: “it’s dead easy to die, it’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.”

Meanwhile, at base camp… Mawson’s men build their winter base in, literally, the windiest place on earth (you can watch them struggling in Frank Hurley’s silent film). Against all odds, they manage to erect a radio tower and establish rudimentary communications with the men staffing an almost equally cold and lonely outpost on Macquarie Island, but! in a Hitchcockian turn, the only man who knows how to operate the radio begins to lose his mind. Descending into paranoia, he accuses his companions of hypnotising him, threatens them with death and lawsuits, refuses to wash, and begins to collect his urine in small bottles.

Roberts, the author of several books on mountaineering, quotes from letters, diaries, and Mawson’s account, The Home of the Blizzard, to tell this story. Exciting, horrifying, and full of human interest, it’s a great read for anyone who enjoys tales of exploration, and especially for Shackleton fans, who will recognize many of the expeditioners. That’s right… some of them went back!

Check the WRL catalog for Alone on the Ice.

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Spirited Away

I don’t usually watch Anime, but my daughter enthused about Spirited Away, so we sat down on the couch to watch it together on her laptop. That became a nudging, pushing, “Turn the screen this way” experience for  both of us, so I was very pleased to discover that my library owns it on DVD. The library copy usually has several holds, so I had to wait. But it was worth it! This movie proves that a great story is a great story, no matter its format.

Ten-year-old Jahiro is unhappy about moving to a new house in a new town with a new school. As they are driving to their new home her father decides to take a short cut and the road ends at a strange, abandoned building. Jahiro doesn’t want to enter, but her parents seem strangely compelled. A short while later, without realizing it, they have entered a new world, peopled with odd, grotesque spirits. Jahiro is terrified, but her parents are unaware that anything is wrong and are soon trapped. From here the story gets compelling and creepier and creepier. Jahiro will need help to navigate this world and save her parents. But who is really her friend, and who is pretending to help her for their own ends?

I enjoyed the snippets of Japanese culture, that may have been so ingrained in the creators’ minds that they didn’t realize that they were showing something that might be different in other places. For example, on several occasions I noticed that in the midst of drama and action and danger, the characters stop to take off their shoes before going inside. Even in an emergency they can’t imagine running into a bathhouse with their shoes on.  Other details were also intriguing, such as the night clothes and driving on the left.  To me this shows that the creators were portraying what they saw around them, and not what an outsider might think a place is like.

This movie was animated the old-fashioned way with drawings, rather than being computer generated. I found the animation painterly, rather than the gaudy, flashing, flatness of some Disney movies. I loved the details – I could even recognize the bushes in the background and name hydrangeas, daphne, camellias and rhododendrons (not a quality appreciated by my family in the middle of a movie!).

My library’s double disk set included a Japanese documentary about the making of the movie. At the time the documentary was made in 2001 Spirited Away was the highest grossing film in Japanese history. It was dubbed into English without changing the original animation at all, which is unusual.  The English language version won the Academy Award for an animated feature in 2003. The director, Hayao Miyazaki had his sixtieth birthday while Spirited Away was being made, but he still wrote,  drew and directed for it. The documentary shows a meeting when they are working on a scene where Jahiro needs to give a pill to a dragon to save it. Miyazaki asks, “Has no one given a pill to a dog?” When it turns out only one person has even owned a dog, he mutters, “Pathetic!” and takes them all to a veterinary hospital to see all sorts of dogs dosed. I think this attention to detail shows all the way through this gripping, exciting and usual movie.

I recommend Spirited Away for everyone! It is suitable for children, but the gripping story, creepy events, great art and wonderful music will entertain young and old, even those who never watch this sort of thing.

Check the WRL catalog for Spirited Away

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Shadow and Bone, by Leigh Bardugo

Shadow and Bone is the first in the new Grisha Trilogy that takes place in the land of Ravka. Alina is unremarkable in every regard. Raised as an orphan alongside a single friend, Mal, only to become a sub-par mapmaker for the First Army, Alina has no illusions of grand beauty or remarkable skill.  Her only pull is towards Mal, who has grown to become a very handsome young tracker for the Army. They both serve together for Ravka, a land torn by war and the darkness of the Shadow Fold. Created by an evil Darkling, the Shadow Fold is a sea of complete darkness, full of flesh-eating monsters, that cuts Ravka off from the True Sea.  The Second Army, made up of those with magical abilities, has been working to undo the Shadow Fold as well.  But it seems all their power is useless against the darkness.

During an Army-led excursion attempting to cross the Shadow Fold, Alina and Mal come under attack from the “Volcra,” vicious monsters that fly out of the sky to kill anyone trying to cross the Fold.  While trying to save Mal, Alina spontaneously emits a strong radiating white light. Its raw energy leaves her unconscious and when she awakens she is among the Second Army (the Grisha). However unbelievable it may be to her, Alina is in fact a Sun Summoner, one who can call and control light.  She is the only person who has the ability to destroy the Shadow Fold and the Volcra. Taken to a Grisha training area and introduced to a whole new way of life, Alina isn’t sure how to proceed and has little faith in her own gift.  Only after extensive hard work and a close relationship with the beautiful Darkling himself does Alina began to hope she is the one who can save Ravka.

But everything may not be what it seems and Alina’s gift might turn into a curse she never could have imagined.

Check the WRL catalog for Shadow and Bone

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Brave (2012)

I’ll watch most any Pixar movie, at least once, just because it is Pixar. Pixar Animation Studios is known for its excellent animation, fun stories, and interesting characters. In these respects Brave finds its mark. Set in Scotland, the story focuses on Princess Merida, daughter of the refined Queen Elinor and the earthy King Fergus. The plot follows a fairly traditional storyline. Merida is loved by her parents, but eventually she rebels against them when her role as princess gets in the way of her desire to make decisions for herself. I don’t think it’s revealing too much to say that when Merida learns she is expected to marry an unappealing suitor, she gets upset. What ensues, while not unpredictable, is well choreographed. Merida does some rash things and then bravely and effectively deals with the consequences. There’s magic, mayhem, malady and madness to be sure.

One thing to enjoy about this animated feature are the characters. While zany at times, when it matters they all prove to be grounded in “real life.” For example, King Fergus is an over-the-top Scotsman, full of bluster and boast, but when his family is in trouble, he’s totally focused and dedicated, willing to lay down his life to protect those he loves. Even Merida’s horse has elements of realism that I liked. Okay, the magic is not as true to life.

The casting also is well done. Anyone familiar with Billy Connolly’s work will immediately recognize him in the role of Fergus. He’s as entertaining, loud and silly as ever. Emma Thompson brings her usual elegance, wit and sophistication to the part of Elinor. Kelly Macdonald, as Merida, is strong, sassy, rebellious and smart.

For me the most appealing aspect of Brave is the animation. Not only are the human characters fun to watch, the animals come alive in and of themselves. Especially impressive is the scenery; buildings, trees, vistas, even the sky, are all drawn with care and beauty. Apparently, the animation is so spectacular because Pixar wrote new software to make it that way.

Because this is a Pixar (and Disney) production, you can be sure that eventually everything will be set right. Getting there is the story. Brave offers fine coming of age and family values messages. Like most animated movies of this genre it gives the viewer a story filled with excitement, remorse and some touching moments. In short, Pixar’s movie Brave tells a good story in a fun and entertaining way. With animation that is astounding, the movie can be enjoyed by anyone, whatever your age.

Check the WRL catalog for Brave

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Tower Heist (2011)

This movie has plenty of star power in it. For me, that has generally suggested a less than stellar movie. I always figure producers try to compensate for a weak script by hiring big named actors. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Tower Heist. It is smart, funny, well acted, and entertaining. The script doesn’t talk down to the viewer and stays away from making the characters behave as fools or dullards.

At its heart, Tower Heist is a caper flick. The not-so-far-flung premise has Josh Kovaks (Ben Stiller) as manager of an exclusive apartment building in New York City. Kovaks and his staff cater to the every need of their residents, especially the penthouse occupant Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda). When Shaw is arrested by the FBI, they assume it is a misunderstanding. It is not. Shaw is the mastermind behind a huge Ponzi scheme. Sound familiar?

Like everyone else, Kovaks believed Mr. Shaw to be a nice, self-made man, who looked out for the little guy and could be trusted. That’s what prompted him to ask Shaw to invest the employees’ pension fund. With the Ponzi scheme collapsed, the pensions are gone. Kovaks is angry at Shaw. Tower staff are angry at Kovaks. Basically people’s lives are in ruin, since their retirement funds have vanished. That’s when the movie gets a bit less like real life and more like a movie. Kovaks wants redemption, revenge and repayment. Together with a gang made up of Slide, a childhood acquaintance, turned thief (Eddie Murphy); Mr. Fitzhugh, a down on his luck Wall Street broker (Matthew Broderick); and his ne’er do well brother-in-law Charlie (Casey Affleck), Kovaks hatches a plan to get everyone’s pension investments back. What ensues is not consistently realistic, nor completely plausible, but is perfectly enjoyable. There are story holes in anything of this sort, but we’re suspending disbelief here.

For me, pieces of Tower Heist were reminiscent of the 1999 Thomas Crown Affair remake, offering some good twists and reasonable writing. Mind you, not the entire movie, but certainly elements. Stiller’s portrayal of Kovaks as an earnest, well intentioned person is believable and heartwarming. Unlike many of his recent acting attempts, Murphy plays a character that is both smart and obnoxious (rather than just the latter). Slide reminded me more of the parts that made Eddie Murphy famous than anything he’s done in years. Alan Alda plays his part perfectly. Characterizations throughout the movie were sometimes exaggerated, however, generally not so much so that I wanted to turn away.

Impossibilities and improbabilities aside, this was fine entertainment. It is, after all, just a movie. There’s humor, retribution, a little action, and even some romance. I’m not giving anything away to write that by the end of Tower Heist the good guys win and the bad guys lose. If you a have an extra 104 minutes and enjoy light comedy/action genre movies, Tower Heist may be a good match for you.

Check the WRL catalog for Tower Heist

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Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett

The building of cathedrals in Europe was often a multi-generational task, a labor of love and worship that illustrates the tenor of those times.  Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth is its own labor of love and worship, although in a different way.  As he explains in his introduction, the book was a huge departure for him.  Known as an author of thriller— including Eye of the Needle, one of my favorites —Follett took a risk writing this book, but based on the way readers have embraced it, his risk paid off.

Pillars is the story of one cathedral and the events of the nearly forty years it took to build.  It centers around five people: a cleric, two artisans, and two from the ranks of the nobility.  (An additional character from the peasantry probably would have made the plot unwieldy, but Follett deals with that problem early on.)  During the period he writes about—1123 to 1174—there was an international struggle to determine whether kings ruled with the blessing of the church, or whether the church existed under the protection of the kings.  That struggle trickled down to the local level, where philosophy yields to the daily fight for land and money.  At the same time, guilds were exercising their economic power by restricting membership, enforcing apprenticeships, and setting fees for specific jobs.  Both church and nobility feared the repercussions of a wealthy educated class, but the guilds were also limited by the need for armed protection and desire for religious approval.  At various times power shifted among the three, but no single one emerged victorious.  But struggles were not limited to the competing factions:  clergy maneuvered amongst themselves for power and income, nobles conspired against each other to increase their holdings, and the guilds evolved through trial and error that produced losers and winners.

Follett’s span of the 12th century begins with the tribulations of Tom Builder, a mason whose job is unexpectedly terminated, forcing him to take to the roads with his family, searching for work.  Like the peasants of his time, he is helpless in the face of lawlessness and misfortune, until every day becomes a quest for survival against the slow starvation overtaking his family.  After his wife dies in childbirth, Tom becomes involved with Ellen, a mysterious woman who lives in the forest with her son Jack.  When Tom’s path crosses that of the newly-elected Prior Philip of the Kingsbridge monastery, both their fortunes begin to rise.

Philip is a motivated, intelligent, and inspired man whose dedication to the church manifests itself in his desire to revive the fallen fortunes of the monastery with a plan to eventually build a cathedral.  But the opportunity presents itself sooner rather than later, and the project is underway. Philip is an innocent in many ways, but no more so than in his belief that his sincere efforts on God’s behalf are respected and shared by other clergy, including the driven and ambitious Waleran Bigod, who is destined to become his bishop.  However, he becomes adept at his own kind of politicking and makes several enemies along the way.

One of them is William Hamleigh, the would-be Earl of Shiring, which encompasses Bishop Bigod’s diocese and Prior Philip’s growing town.  Hamleigh’s family rose to the earldom during the civil war between King Stephen and Empress Maud.  William is a brute who does not hesitate to use force and treachery, even cold-blooded murder, to achieve his aims.  But his inability to think beyond the short term hampers him, and he is easily manipulated by the bishop for his own ends.  He’s not a subtle character, but William also serves a valuable role in the story, demonstrating the effort and expense it took to maintain the military force that an earl was required to bring to the king.

When the story begins, William’s anticipated marriage to the Lady Aliena, daughter of the current Earl, is broken off.  Her father did not want to force her into a political marriage, and the humiliation leads the Hamleighs to denounce the Earl and seize his holdings. When William gains the upper hand, he rapes Aliena, kills her protector, and scars her younger brother.  But Aliena will not accept that as the last word, and her determination, cleverness, and willingness to take risks give her opportunities to rise above the merely social standing she would have had as a noblewoman.  Her success also illustrates the power that the trade associations— both among merchants and among skilled craftsmen—could wield.

Finally, there’s Jack, the unusual son of the outlaw woman Ellen, adopted by Tom Builder and put to work on the cathedral site.  His intelligence and insight not only make him a valued craftsman, but allow him to develop a friendship with Aliena.  They also bring him to the attention of Prior Philip, who is determined to bring Jack into the monastery, but at a high cost to Jack.  Jack is also a vehicle for Follett to explore Continental culture from pilgrimages to Moorish influence in Spain to the revolutionary design of French cathedrals.  The vision he brings back puts the crowning touch on what ends as a glorious building.

Follett’s description of the various styles and the engineering feats it took to build these enormous buildings is done lovingly and with a real sense of awe. It makes the reader long to turn to an illustrated source that captures in images what Follett has described for us.  And my next entry will talk about that very thing.

Check the WRL catalog for Pillars of the Earth in regular print, as well as audio, a television mini-series, and e-book.

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Alanna, The First Adventure, by Tamora Pierce

Tamora Pierce is an award-winning and bestselling fantasy author of young adult literature.  She has written stand alone books and short stories as well as multiple series.  Her first young adult novel, published in 1983, was Alanna, the First Adventure.

This story opens with Alanna and her twin brother Thom unhappy about their father’s decision to send them away for school.  It’s not that they don’t want to leave home and have new experiences, it’s that they wish their father would consider what they want to do.

Alanna doesn’t want to go to a convent and learn all the boring necessities of being a lady.  She wants to be a knight, a warrior maiden.  And Thom really doesn’t enjoy sword fighting and battle strategy, he’d rather be a great sorcerer.

The two decide to take their fates into their own hands and switch places.  With the help of two dedicated servants, Alanna heads to Duke Gareth of Naxen as “Alan of Trebond” to serve as a page while Thom goes to the City of Gods to study magic.  Their negligent father is none the wiser.

Alanna pays attention and learns her lessons well.  She also shows she has a strong character and doesn’t let others fight her battles.  Mixed in with the lessons and sword fights are court politics, sorcery, and the continual stress of hiding her true nature from her friends.  I kept expecting her secret to be revealed at every new scene — how long would the boys believe that “Alan” was just a small-framed boy with a fear of swimming with the group?

Alanna is a great role model — she embodies all the good qualities of a knight — but the book ends before she completes her training.  You’ll have to keep reading the series!  And don’t think just because Alanna has the makings of a hero that she’s boring.  There is plenty of mischief to keep the story clipping along.

While this book is recommended for ages 12 and up, I enjoyed the fast-paced action driven story as an adult. I listened to the books as well as read them because I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen next.  The audiobook, read by actress Trini Alvarado, is only 5 disks.

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Ashen Winter, by Mike Mullin

A very important question for people who love to read is, can the sequel ever be as good as first book? And in this case the answer is a resounding ‘Yes’!

I blogged on Mike Mullin’s debut novel Ashfall in April, and I have been anticipating the release of the sequel Ashen Winter ever since. In Ashfall a supervolcano erupted under Yellowstone National Park and sixteen year old Alex sets off on an odyssey from his home in Iowa to find his family in Illinois. The ash has destroyed the plants, killed the livestock (from breathing the ash), and poisoned the water. In Ashfall  some people are kind, and Alex meets Darla who will become the love of his life. Ten months on in Ashen Winter people’s desperation is growing. No summer came, possibly presaging the beginning of an unbelievably long and cold volcanic winter. Stored food is running out, and the last supplies of necessities we take for granted like antibiotics and gasoline are also running out. Alex struggles to stay true to the values he didn’t even know he had. In a world full of human cruelty and even cannibalism  he wants to save everyone who is innocent. Even his previously mild, spineless father resorts to violence leading Alex to think, “The disaster had warped the landscape of our minds – perhaps even more than it had altered the physical landscape.”

Ashen Winter is as dark as Ashfall and goes at the same breakneck pace. The problems of survival are just as intense, and the characters continue to change and grow in a believable way. I find some apocalyptic books, movies or TV series fascinating in the beginning as the characters deal with how to survive their disasters. Then too many of them descend into soap opera, where the story centers around who is hooking up with whom, rather than who will actually be able to survive to be able to hook up with anyone.

Like its predecessor Ashen Winter is an apocalyptic read that is a good choice for both older teens and adults. It may be too violent and disturbing for younger teens. Try it if you enjoyed The Hunger Games or older apocalyptic titles such as On The Beach or even less well known books like Monument 14.

Ashen Winter was so eagerly anticipated that it had a Blog Tour before its official release date. One blog, My Reading Room, had an interview with Mike Mullin. When asked who is his favorite character in Ashen Winter, Mike Mullin replied “I love Rita Mae, because, well, she’s a librarian.” For a librarian, obviously this is the best answer he could give and shows his good sense and taste!

Check the WRL catalog for Ashen Winter

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Micro, by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston

From watching Jurassic Park it seems plausible that Michael Crichton thought, “Hey, what if dinosaurs and people had been around at the same time? People are so helpless. We are small, with no claws and teensy teeth.  We’d just get eaten!”  Which made an exciting (albeit gory) story.  I am guessing that the idea for Micro started in a similar way.  Michael Crichton thought, “What if people were as small as insects? We’re just soft and squishy.  No exoskeleton and only two legs.  We’d just get eaten!”

And sadly for the characters, that is exactly what happens in Micro.  Not for the faint hearted or the weak stomached, Micro is extremely violent and extremely gross. Have you ever seen a nature documentary where the parasitic wasps lay their eggs in the caterpillars, then the larvae hatch and eat the caterpillar from the inside out?  Yuk!  You can’t get much grosser than that.  But imagine the victim isn’t a caterpillar, but a person?  My stomach is uneasy just typing this.  But it doesn’t stop there, the many other nasty ways that insects have of killing and eating each other are explored in exciting, but grisly, detail in Micro.

Michael Crichton died in 2008 before Micro was finished.  To complete the book they selected Richard Preston, whose best books are non-fiction books about diseases and science, try The Hot Zone or Wild Trees.  I think this was an inspired combination.  The book has Michael Crichton’s thrilling pace and Richard Preston’s eye for plausible biological detail.

Micro was an exciting, escapist read that I consumed in one weekend.  Perhaps it is not great literature, and it didn’t receive very good reviews, but when you add an evil corporation, a mad scientist, an exotic tropical location, and a budding love affair, it kept me reading.

Check the WRL catalog for Micro.

 

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Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie

Confession time?  I never read anything by Salman Rushdie until I picked up Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002.  I found his essays on everything from “Being Photographed” to “Going to Electoral College” to be funny, pointed, and written in approachable, engaging language.  So what was holding me back?  Perhaps it was that intimidating glare, which makes him look as if you’re going to disappoint him no matter how hard you try.  (Of course, looking for the picture I was thinking of yielded only photos of a smiling, avuncular wiseman.  Strange.)

On a whim, I picked up Haroun and the Sea of Stories and began reading it aloud to my wife.  It quickly became a standing date–9pm each night we’d sit down and I’d dive into The Sea.  Rushdie’s enchanting story drew us along right to the wonderfully satisfying end.  It practically defines what I love to see in totally escapist reading, but with a punch that few writers can pull off.

Haroun is the son of Rashid, a famous storyteller who lives in his own imagination and sometimes visits the “real” world to perform the pieces he finds in his fancy.  Haroun’s mother Soraya sometimes frets over money, but is largely happy until a nasty neighbor poisons her image of Rashid, and the two run off together.  Haroun rejects his father’s fantastic view of the world, and Rashid loses his storytelling facility.

Unfortunately, it’s election time in the country Alifbay, where Rashid has been hired to enchant voters so the politicians can tell equally large whoppers to earn votes.  Without his skill Rashid cannot perform, and only professional pride makes him go to his last gig in the isolated Valley of K to entertain provincial voters.  Haroun talks them onto a wild bus ride with a driver named Butt, who delivers them to their putative employer Snooty Buttoo and his fantastic houseboat.  But aboard the houseboat, Haroun finds himself flown away to an invisible moon that houses the Sea of Stories.  An immense ocean whose currents of standard storylines flow together to create new tales, the Sea is also being poisoned by “popular romances” which have turned into “long lists of shopping expeditions, and “talking helicopter anecdotes” that are spoiling the rich imaginative source that has nourished both tellers and listeners for all of human history.  The poison leads back to the enemy of storytelling, “Prince of Silence and the Foe of Speech” Khattam-Shud, whose name means “The End.”

With Haroun’s assistance, the good Guppees, the Plentimaw fish, and the people of P2C2E (Processes Too Complicated to Explain) defeat Khattam-Shud and his Chupwalas, and balance returns to the moon.  With the Sea of Stories saved, the world undergoes a transformation that ensures the defeat of the colorless and the victory of the whimsical.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is called a children’s story, but it would be an exceptional child (indeed an exceptional reader of any age) to catch all the puns, literary allusions, political caricature, and meaningful verbal tics Rushdie gives his magical characters.  Haroun is a marvelous stand-in for readers living in the dull world.  His sudden gift of a wildly psychedelic experience reminds of what we set aside as we “grow up.”  It must have been a Chupwala who decided it belonged outside the realm of those who need it most.

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The Ask and the Answer, by Patrick Ness

My friend and colleague Charlotte previously recommended the first book in Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy, The Knife of Never Letting Go. If you haven’t read that book, you ought to stop here, read this post about the series starter and come back to The Ask and the Answer after you’ve read it. Spoiler alerts for anyone who reads on in this post! Still, this YA series is so good that it deserves a second entry.

The second book picks up with Todd and Viola waking to discover that Mayor Prentiss has arrived at Haven and holds them separately captive. The Mayor has changed tactics somewhat, and is now working to win Todd and Viola over to his cause. What follows are chapters full of subtle psychological games, as Todd and Viola try to confirm each other’s safety and reunite, while the Mayor plays both good cop and bad cop in his nasty but subtle style.

The unusual conceit of the series is that a virus left men on this planet unable to hide their thoughts from others. In their heads, each can hear what everyone else is thinking. Women don’t broadcast their thoughts but can hear those of men, an inequality that makes Mayor Prentiss particularly hard on them as he struggles to maintain control. Some residents of Haven give in quickly to his armed dictatorship, but others begin to engage in vicious guerilla warfare, hiding under the mysterious moniker of The Ask. The Mayor responds with his own Gestapo-like organization, The Answer. Not just Todd and Viola are at risk, everyone in Haven is in danger, and the future of the whole planet’s up for grabs, as another wave of colonizing ships is due soon. To make matters worse, the Mayor has discovered a method of masking his thoughts at time, using them like a weapon at others.

Todd, along with the Mayor’s bullying, ne’er-do-well son Davy, is put to work rounding up the planet’s other species, the strange Spackle, and monitoring their forced labor. Viola must recover from injuries, then begins to learn healing arts herself, all the while searching for both Todd and those with whom she could ally to fight the Mayor.

Ness writes masterfully, leaving the reader unsure of whom to trust. Todd, in particular, undergoes a dark journey in this novel, suffering manipulations that lead him to behaviors that give him great shame. The suspense of the outcome of the ongoing war becomes almost secondary to the question of whether Todd can even save his own soul. If you’ve ever wondered how people can become twisted enough to perpetrate the heinous deeds committed during wartime, this book will provide an unforgettable example. There’s drama, suspense, action, and an enduring romance at the core of a series, which should be enjoyable to all adults, whether they’re young or not.

Check the WRL catalog for The Ask and the Answer

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Y: the Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra & Jose Marzan, Jr.

Yorick Brown is on the phone trying to propose to his girlfriend, who is away doing research in Australia, when a catastrophic event wipes out everything with a Y chromosome. In the blink of an eye, Yorick and his monkey Ampersand, for reasons that are unclear, are the last surviving males on the planet. That’s the starting point for Y: the Last Man, a comic series written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Pia Guerra and Jose Marzan, Jr.

In the ensuing chaos, planes fall from the sky, highways are cluttered with cars full of dead men, and the few women of congress (one of whom is Yorick’s mother) battle for control of the U.S. Presidency, as the only female cabinet officer, the Secretary of Agriculture, is reluctant to take up the role. Various plot lines follow Yorick’s attempt to reach his mother and girlfriend, the battle for control of Washington, the mysterious agent 355, a genetic researcher whose work may be the only hope for repopulation, some militant Israeli army officers, and the emergency of Amazons, a group of women who interpret the disappearance of men as some kind of proof from God that males were scum and the proper order has been restored. It’s hard to say what will happen, but one thing is sure: Yorick, previously nothing much more than a third-rate escape artist, is now a very hot commodity.

This series isn’t particularly cutting edge. The art is nicely done but not revolutionary. I’m recommending it because the premise is intriguing and Vaughan delivers the fun. One good thing about graphic novels is that the serial format allows writers to explore complex, many threaded situations, like an apocalyptic event, in a way that can only be accomplished at the cost of great length in prose or film. In comics, the storytelling remains tight, with plenty of action, but there is room to explore many different aspects of this big gender die off without becoming ponderous. Y: the Last Man is fun and thought-provoking at the same time, without ever becoming too taxing on a reader looking for something that isn’t too heavy.

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On the Island, by Tracey Garvis Graves

Every summer, I gravitate toward at least one light beach read, but I don’t typically select Romance novels. On the Island caught my attention when a library user asked for it at the reference desk months before the print edition became available; the e-book had already become a bestseller.

Initially, I suspected it as a controversial storyline with a potentially inappropriate romance between an attractive female teacher and the sixteen-year old boy she is to tutor at his wealthy family’s vacation home on a Maldives island.  My verdict is that the romantic relationship is handled tastefully and might even be considered a soft read (although I haven’t read enough in the Romance genre to judge authoritatively).  There are interesting details about the characters and the plot that make this page-turner far more than a teenage boy’s “hot-for-teacher” fantasies come true.  T.J. recently survived cancer, Anna is not a sexual predator, and the two develop their strong friendship and survival bond long before any romance ensues.  You’ll have to read the book to find out how long they are on the island and whether or not they act on the attraction as mutually consenting adults.

The student and his tutor leave Chicago together, flying later than the rest of the family, and experience delays that result in a last-minute chance to fly on an unscheduled chartered seaplane.  They are the sole survivors washed up on an uninhabited island after their obese pilot dies of a heart attack and crashes in the Indian Ocean.  Some unbelievable coincidences seemed contrived to conveniently benefit the stranded castaways’ chances of survival, but I enjoyed the book without worrying over them too much.

On the Island is safely a fun novel that can be read in a single beach day or weekend.  Reading about this novel helped me learn a new word: robinsonade, a genre label for desert-island fiction named after Robinson Crusoe, of course.

Check the WRL catalog for On the Island.

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