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!

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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

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 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

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

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

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.

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 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

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