Pleasure to Burn

The posting may be sporadic, but the reading continues. Always, because that is what I do. Although perhaps it is more accurate to say that is who I am, especially given that a lack of reading on any given day tends to make me cranky.

Picking up where I left off, here's what I've read so far this year.

38. A Shred of Honour - Tom Connery
39. The Soldier's Tale - Samuel Hyne
40. The Candlemass Road - George MacDonald Fraser
41. Elizabeth & Mary - Jane Dunn
42. Quicksilver - Neal Stephenson
43. Feeding the Monster - Seth Mnookin
44. Old Man's War - John Scalzi
45. The Confident Hope of a Miracle - Neil Hansen
46. The Confusion - Neal Stephenson
47. Flesh and Gold - Phyllis Gotlieb
48. The Last Quarry - Max Allan Collins
49. The Dark Tower - Stephen King
50. The Guns of Heaven - Pete Hamill
51. The Protector's War - S.M. Stirling
52. Imperial Grunts - Robert Kaplan

Off The Shelf

What I've read so far this year. As usual, actual reviews will follow at (undoubtedly lengthy) interval.

1. Void Moon - Michael Connelly
2. Ghost Wars - Steve Coll
3. Shoedog - George Pelecanos
4. The Five Gold Bands - Jack Vance
5. Across the Wall - Garth Nix
6. Armageddon: the Battle for Germany, 1944-1945 - Max Hastings
7. Hitler's Peace - Philip Kerr
8. Viriconium - M. John Harrison
9. Old Boys - Charles McCarry
10. Not A Good Day To Die: the Untold Story of Operation Anaconda - Sean Naylor
11. A German Requiem - Philip Kerr
12. The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece - Victor Davis Hanson
13. Into the Valley - John Hersey
14. Deadwood - Peter Dexter
15. More Than Honor - David Weber (ed.)
16. Gates Of Fire - Steven Pressfield
17. The Silver Sun - Nancy Springer
18. Killing Pablo - Mark Bowden
19. How Right You Are, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse
20. My Name Escapes Me - Alec Guiness
21. Cash: The Autobiography- Johnny Cash
22. Predator's Gold - Philip Reeve
23. The Rat On Fire - George V. Higgins
24. Not For Glory - Joel Rosenberg
25. Damnation Alley - Roger Zelazny
26. A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born - Harry Harrison
27. The Lonely Silver Rain - John D. MacDonald
28. H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life - Michel Houellebecq
29. Showdown At Yellow Butte - Louis L'Amour
30. Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King
31. Ghosts of Tsavo - Philip Caputo
32. The Dark Frigate - Charles Boardman Hawes
33. The Godfather Returns - Mark Winegardner
34. Knife of Dreams - Robert Jordan
35. Song of Susannah - Stephen King
36. Kennedy For The Defence - George V. Higgins
37. Black Mass: The Irish Mob, The FBI, And A Devil's Deal - Dick Lehr & Gerard O'Neil

Leigh Brackett

I'm a long-time science fiction fan, so I'm not unfamiliar with the name of Leigh Brackett. But I have to confess I've never read any of her work, and I was completely unaware that she wrote for the movies, let alone for some of my favorite movies. Unaware anyway, until I read Queen of the Martian Mysteries: An Appreciation of Leigh Brackett. Here's an excerpt about Brackett and Howard Hughes:

It was a tribute to Howard Hawks that he wasn't phased by the famous revelation that the guy he had hired for The Big Sleep was actually a gal in a gingham dress. Hawks was as famous for his regard for strong women as he was for his
exploitation of weaker ones. And Leigh's steady integrity impressed him. She stayed on the picture. There are many who believe she materially helped make it the classic it became. She worked with Hawks and Wayne on movies like Hatari! (about which she had some hilarious stories) and Rio Lobo, as well as the classic Rio Bravo and she also wrote for television.

A little bit more about Brackett and Hughes:

Only once, with The Empire Strikes Back, did she ever script a science fantasy tale. In a sense she had the privilege of self-imitation, just as she had when doing Eldorado, which she knew was a rehash of Rio Bravo. At one point she had suggested to Hawks that he simply change the names of her previous script and save himself some money.

Considering that Empire is easily the best of the Star Wars films, it's a shame she didn't write the screenplays for all of them. Consider this:

But, of course, Leigh was also influential in Hollywood. Her contribution to Star Wars wasn't limited to the script she did for The Empire Strikes Back. When I saw the first Star Wars movie I was disappointed. I had expected something as good as Brackett. What I got was a dilute of Brackett and the Brackett style. Han Solo's origins lie, it seems to me, in those tough, semi-piratical spacers who took the interplanetary work nobody else would do. I suspect they all looked a bit like Bogart in Leigh's mind! Which says something for Bogart, I'd say, since Leigh got to know him when she was working with Faulkner on the The Big Sleep. She and Bogie enjoyed each other's company. They were the same kind of tough-talking romantics. Her spacegoing heroes were not a million miles away from the seagoing Bogart of Key Largo.

First - how fucking cool is it to find a line, a connection between a Bogie character and Han Solo? Is this not why the internet was invented, to delight geeks worldwide?

Ok, anyways... Harrison Ford's Han Solo is clearly the star of The Empire Strikes Back. I have no idea if this was intentional or not, but like Eli Wallach's Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Han Solo in TESB is a secondary or supporting character who leaps to the forefront and dominates the picture . Not only does he have the best lines in the film (again like Tuco) but he seems to be more fully realized. Luke Skywalker and The Man With No Name are archtypes (or cardboard cutouts depending on your taste in movies) - great fun to watch but a bit one-dimensional. Han Solo and Tuco seem like real people, however odd it may be to apply the term 'real' to movie characters. Luke is a whiny farm boy on your standard Joe Campbell hero quest; The Man With No Name is a mysterious stranger, with no past to speak of*, who laconically shoots a whole bunch of people. Han and Tuco, in contrast, have personality. They have a past, sometimes only hinted at, that the viewer can imagine occurring off screen before the film starts, and a future too. Don't you wonder what Tuco got up to after 'Blondie' rode off and left him in the graveyard? You know just know what Eastwood's character did - shoot some more people. But what kind of trouble did Tuco get into? What kind of scams did he think up? You wonder because you think of him as real. And you get mad when Lucas changed the Cantina scene to have Greedo shoot first because goddamit you know Han Solo, you know there's no freakin' way he'd let Greedo get the drop on him like that.

*I think the reason that Unforgiven and The Outlaw Josey Wales are my favorite Eastwood films are because they seem to me to round-out the Man With No Name character that made Eastwood famous.

A Year in Books V: 2005

At last we come to the end... at least the end of last year's titles.

66. The Bounty Hunters - Elmore Leonard
Elmore Leonard became famous for his crime fiction but he started out writing westerns, switching genres when the market for westerns began to disappear. His novel-length westerns have been in print for some time and his short stories were recently compiled in hardcover. Several of Leonard's crime novels have been made into movies (such as Get Shorty) and some of his westerns - Hombre and Valdez Is Coming - made the same leap.

All of this is to say that Leonard's westerns are every bit as good as his later work. The Bounty Hunters is short, sharp and entertaining.

67. Boyos - Richard Marinick
Boyos received a lot of local press when it was published - not surprising considering the author is a former Massachusetts State Trooper who served time in prison for an armored car heist. The novel centers around John 'Whacko' Curran, a member of the Southie underworld, who finds himself at odds with crime boss Marty Fallon - a thinly veiled Whitey Bulger figure.

Marinick fills his book with a lot of Boston flavor and plenty of 'inside' information. The old adage 'write what you know' is in full force in Boyos and the reader is treated to fascinating yet informative scenes, such as the proper planning of an armored car heist. The characters and the action match-up as well, leaving me looking forward to more from Mr. Marinick.

68. Road to Purgatory - Max Allan Collins
So... Max Allan Collins penned the graphic novel Road To Perdition which was turned into moving starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman, for which Collins also wrote the novelization. In Road To Purgatory Collins picks up the story of the O'Sullivan Family, looking back to Michael O'Sullivan Sr.'s (the Hanks character) early involvement with John Looney (the Newman character) and forward to Michael Jr.'s return from WWII and search for vengeance. I've written elsewhere about how much I enjoy Collin's work, so it'll come as no surprise that I like this one.

69. The Tears of Autumn - Charles McCarry
In 2004 Charles McCarry published Old Boys, his first book featuring master spy Paul Christopher in over a dozen years. The book did well, and the resulting press brought McCarry's name to the attention of many readers like myself who had never heard of the man. The result was that I checked out The Tears of Autumn from the library, took it home, and devoured it. McCarry takes a shop-worn fictional device - the murder of JFK - and runs with it in an entire new direction.

Like John LeCarre, McCarry was once a player in the secret world he writes about, and like Alan Furst he has a fine eye for the telling detail. I fully intend to work my way through the rest of the exploits of Paul Christopher. If you like 'spy stories' I advise you to do the same.

70. The Lost World - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Some books, even good or great ones are like work: you labor through page after page until you reach the end. And other books are a pleasure from start to finish, like beer by the sea side on a hot summer day. I've read that Doyle came to dislike writing his stories of Sherlock Holmes, but a sense of boyish delight fairly leaps off the pages of The Lost World. Professor Challenger, who leads an expedition to the Lost World of the title, is if anything a more arresting character than the famous denizen of Baker Street. This past weekend I labored through Peter Jackson's ponderous King Kong and I couldn't help thinking that The Lost World would make a vastly more interesting epic for the screen.

71. The King of the Jews - Nick Tosches
While it's not unusual to start a biography at the beginning of the subject's life, it is perhaps less customary to start a biography at the beginning of the subject's religion. But in The King of the Jews, a biography of the notorious Jazz Age gambler Arnold Rothstein, Tosches does exactly that, exploring the roots of the Jewish faith. He continues on in that vein, mixing in Rothstein's life story with rants on New York's smoking ban and other ruminations on life in 21st century America. If you're looking for a conventional biography this ain't it.

72. The Master of Rain - Tom Bradby
A serviceable historical noir set in turn-of-the-century Shanghai. I think I would have enjoyed this book far more had the author dropped the whole serial killer plot line and instead drew more story elements from the setting and historical background.

73. The Two-Part Invention - Madeline L'Engle
This is the final volume of L'Engle's autobiographical and meditative Crosswick Journals. L'Engle writes of her courtship by, and marriage to, Hugh Franklin - and his final illness and death.

The Two-Part Invention is my favorite of the three Crosswicks Journals I've read so far; I took it in slowly, savoring every word. Frankly I'm struggling to adequately express my thoughts on this book. I think in this short format it's best for me to just say I've yet to read a better book concerning love and grief.

74. The Black Stranger, and Other American Tales - Robert E. Howard
Like Lord of Samarcand this is another collection of Howard stories published by the University of Nebraska Press; in fact it is the first volume in their Works of Robert E. Howard Series. The tales in this collection from the sword-and-sorcery that made Howard famous, or from his lesser known historical adventure stories. These are horror stories, set for the most part in the American south and west, and are closer in spirit to Poe than to Tolkien.

75. At All Costs - David Weber
I like Weber's Honor Harrington series - space opera is just fine with me - but damn if his novels aren't becoming more and more... dense, with a corresponding slow-down in the pace of events. I'm along for the ride, but newcomers to the series should sample one of the earlier Harrington tales to see if the series is to their taste. If so, they're more likely to enjoy the intricacies of the later novels in the series.

76. The Curved Saber - Harold Lamb
Harold Lamb was both a respected historian and a pulp author. His historical adventure stories, largely published in Adventure, inspired writers from Robert E. Howard to David Drake. Much of Lamb's fiction has been out of print for half a century (though Bison Books is due to re-issue some of it); I came across this copy of The Curved Saber tucked away in the Thomas Crane Library. The book features stories of Khlit the Cossack, Lamb's most famous character. If you enjoy the likes of Bob Howard, Rudyard Kipling, or Conan Doyle, you'll be right at home tucking into this book.

77. Overlord - Max Hastings
Overlord stands in stark contrast to works like Stephen Ambrose's D-Day. While Ambrose presents the Normandy invasion as a simplistic triumph of western democracy over the fascist war machine, Hastings details exactly how difficult the invasion and subsequent struggle to move inland was to achieve. He goes to great lengths to show that, despite the truly evil nature of the Nazi regime, the German army which served that regime, was perhaps the most professional and accomplished fighting force of the war. Far from seeing the Allied victory as inevitable, the reader comes away with an inkling of how costly it was to subdue such a difficult foe.

Book Blogs

Submitted for your consideration: two book blogs I've takem to reading.

The University of Nebraska Press Blog

The Powell Books Blog

I should also note that Powells has sections for interviews, essays and Q &As, all from authors, and all worht checking out to see if there's anything of interest from your favorite writer(s).

Hop in the Wayback Machine

Here's a post featuring some 'old skool cover art' of science fiction and fantasy paperbacks. Not only did this scratch my weird itch for vintage cover art (I'm still not sure what it is about old paperback covers that fascinates me - maybe the incredible variety of images) it made me a trifle nostalgic. Way back in the day when I was a young sprout, prowling the used book store with my precious five dollars clutched in hand, thesewere the kinds of books I found and devoured.

(lva)

A Year in Books IV: 2005

Wouldn't it be nice to finish the short reviews from 2005 and start on those from 2006 before 2006 is over? (Here are parts one, two and three.)

54. Dies The Fire - S.M. Stirling

The kernel of this book is a big 'What If? - as is often the case with science or speculative fiction. In this case: what if modern technology - electricity, gun powder, the internal combustion engine, even steam engines - suddenly ceased to work? What then would happen to this complex society we've created if we were reduced to what is basically medieval level of technology? How would we feed, shelter and protect ourselves?

Well, a lot of sword fights and chaos for starters. Stirling follows the trials and tribulations of his cast of characters as they try to survive in the ruins of 21st century North America. Not only survive, but re-create a working society while fending off those who see the chaos as an opportunity for empire building. Dies The Fire (the first of a series of three) is fast-paced and engaging, without insulting the reader's intelligence - kind of like a solid action movie a la Ronin.

55. Mortal Engines - Philip Reeves

If you take the time the browse of shelves of what is termed 'young adult' fiction, you can find a lot of very entertaining reads. I'm starting to think that books containing elements of fantasy or the fantastic, that are not obvious Tolkienesque knock-off and contain no sex, are for some reason automatically categorized as being for younger readers. Perhaps this is due to the success of the Harry Potter books (Got magic and/or a 'weird setting? No Sex? Young protagonists? The kids will love it!) but I still find it odd that the works of Madeline L'Engle and Garth Nix, for starters, are confined to the literary and limiting ghetto of 'young adult' fiction.

Mortal Engines too suffers from this fate; I suspect it would find a broader audience were it shelves in the fantasy/science fiction section or your local bookseller. The concept is strikingly original: in a post-apocalyptic future, giant wheeled cities survive by preying on smaller wheeled cities and town - a concept referred to in the book as 'municipal Darwinism.' Yeah, kids will enjoy it - and adults will enjoy the sharply-drawn characters and the imaginative setting. I'm looking forward to the forthcoming books in the 'Hungry City Chronicles.'

56. The Patriot Game - George V. Higgins

George V. Higgins, like Elmore Leonard, is famed for the dialogue of his characters, but where Leonard's characters tend to be terse and sardonic, a Higgins character is talkative with a capital T. A Higgins novel is largely dialogue and setting - much of the action takes a place off-stage' and the reader learns what happens through the interaction of the characters.

The above-mentioned setting is Boston first, and New England second. The characters move from the Quincy Quarries, to Southie bars, to swanky golf courses. Native New Englanders will not only recognize many of the locales, but many of the characters as well. Higgins, a former reporter, lawyer, District Attorney and Assistant U.S. Attorney, wrote of the tribal world of politics and crime in Boston and of the murky crossroads where crime and politics intersect. The Patriots Game is set in the early 1980s, and is about the efforts of an F.B.I. agent to track down an I.R.A. gunrunner active in Boston.

If your taste runs to this sort of thing, you'll find Higgins addictive.

57. House of Reeds - Thomas Harlan
This is the second volume in a series the author has titled In the Time of the Sixth Sun; the first book (The Wasteland of Flint) was reviewed here (see #1). Simply put (and to repeat myself), this is good old-fashioned Space Opera, and in my experience either you love this kind of story or you have no use for it. Not sure where you fall? You can sample the first few chapters of House of Reeds here.

58. Killing Rain - Barry Eisler

If you haven't noticed, there's a lot of books from ongoing series on this list. Killing Rain is one of them; Eisler's previous entry was reviewed here (see #10). As far as thriller writers go, I can't speak highly enough of Eisler (though Stephen Hunter comes close) and his stories about John Rain have only gotten better, largely due to the addition of recurring characters who are as interesting as Rain himself.

59. Now I Can Die in Peace - Bill Simmons

One of the many many books that came out in the wake of the Red Sox 2004 World Series victory, and one of the few I can honestly recommend - despite it being largely reprints of Simmons' columns originally published during the 2004 season. There are two reasons this collection is worth purchasing. The first is the series of footnotes the author went back and added to his columns - all sorts of extra details and interesting details. The second, and more important reason, is the columns dating prior to the 2004 season. As I understand it, these columns date back to Simmon's pre-ESPN days at Digital City, and I, for one, had never seen them before. If you were not a serious Red Sox fan prior to the 2003 season (and by 'serious' I mean 'following the team's fortunes on a daily basis') you may not recall the scorched earth that was Red Sox baseball following the 1995 pennant - and how much fun (and how important) the coming of Nomar, Pedro and Manny were to this franchise.

60. The Right Madness - James Crumley

The Right Madness is the second Crumley title I read last year (see #32) and what I said then still holds. If you claim to be a fan of crime fiction, you need to start working your way through Crumley's books. Now.

61. Bangkok 8 - John Burdett

The genre of the mystery novel is a fertile one, giving birth to all sorts of baby or sub-genres, one of which is 'the mystery novel set in a foreign land with a foreign protagonist.' Some of these can be extremely generic, just standard mysteries with some exotic trappings mixed in with the plot and setting. The best of these - and Bangkok 8 is one of the best - use the foreign setting, characters and culture to come up with something new and different. And Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep is different - the son of a prostitute, the only honest cop on the Bangkok police force, and a Bhuddist who occasionally sees other people's past lives.

62. The World Turned Upside Down - Drake, Flint & Baen (eds.)
If I needed to describe this book in a few words, I'd say it's full of the 'good ole stuff.' The editors science fiction writers David Drake and Eric FLint, and publisher Jim Baen - selected some of their favorite science fiction short stories from the 1930s and 1960s for inclusion in this anthology. Some of the selections will be familiar to long-time fans of the genre - Arthur C. Clarke's Rescue Party comes to mind but other choices are more obscure. I found Who Goes There (by famous pulp editor John W. Campbell) to particularly enjoyable.

63. Captain's Rangers - Elmer Kelton

When it comes to my appetite for Westerns, I usually get my fix from Louis L'Amour, but Captain's Rangers was a perfectly serviceable, though unremarkable, oater. The Captain referred to in the title is LH McNelly, a historical figure, and frankly I found the history I gleaned from the novel to be the most interesting part.

64. The Judgement of Deke Hunter - George V. Higgins

I guess this novel qualifies as an 'average' effort from Higgins. The Judgement of Deke Hunter was good for a couple hours of entertainment - it's a slim volume of about 150 pages or so - but didn't quite draw me in as other Higgins' books have.

65. The Digger's Game - George V. Higgins

The Digger's Game was Higgins' second novel, following The Friends of Eddie Coyle and one of my favorites so far. The 'Digger' of the title, the central character is a blue collar worker, who runs a bar in Southie, and a blue collar crook, who engages in the occasional heist. The novel finds the Digger deep in debt after a junket to Las Vegas, and the plot follows his efforts to untangle himself from financial difficulties before he comes to bodily harm.

The Year in Books III: 2005

Here are parts one and two; now, on with the countdown....

44. Majic Man - Max Allan Collins
I think that this was the last Nathan Heller mystery I read last year, the end of a fiction bender of sorts. The pleasure of the Heller mysteries is not the prose or the characterization - both of which are solid but not superlative - but Collins' clever way of mixing real history into his fast-moving plots. This volume of the series is set in 1949 and finds Heller working for Secretary of Defense James Forrestal and looking into strange doings at Roswell, New Mexico.

45. Five Days In London May 1940 - John Lukacs
John Lukacs' believes that the pivotal moment of WWII, THE turning point, came in the spring of 1940, when Winston Churchill was called to form a government as Prime Minister. England alone could not defeat Hitler's Germany, but by keeping England in the war - preventing Hitler from making a clean sweep in the west - Churchill denied Hitler the chance for victory.

Lukacs also believes that this turn of events was not, as popular myth would have it, inevitable - that Churchill's government could very easily have fallen or been forced into negotiations with Nazi Germany. In short, when Churchill assumed power he was on very shaky ground. Lukacs shows how over the course of those five days Churchill grabbed the reigns of power and steered his cabinet away from a negotiated peace.

46. Songbook - Nick Hornby
I like Nick Hornby's writing. I like pop music. So this book was pretty much inevitable. Songbook is a light and enjoyable read - the print equivalent of listening to Hornby himself talk about his many musical enthusiasms.

47. In The Moon of Red Ponies - James Lee Burke
By the way, and in case you didn't know, we're living in what amounts to a Golden Age of Crime Fiction. New work from Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Michael Connelly, and James Crumley are all available at your local book store, along with this title from James Lee Burke. In the Moon of Red Ponies takes place in the Bitterroot Mountains features Billy Bob Holland, an ex-Texas Ranger turned attorney. Prior to reading this, the fourth of Burke's novels featuring Holland, I had never really taken a liking to the character, preferring Burke's earlier creation Dave Robicheaux. But in this book Holland intermingles with some very striking characters, including a psychotic rodeo clown who's found Jesus, characters that set In the Moon of Red Ponies above its predecessors.

48. Thunder Run - David Zucchino
Think Black Hawk Down in Baghdad. Zucchino was a reporter who accompanied the soldiers of the 2nd Brigade (Spartans) of the 3rd Infantry Division (Mech.) on their 'thunder runs' into Saddam's capital. Going against the conventional doctrine that armor shouldn't operate in urban areas, the Spartans seized and held ground in the middle of Baghdad. Zucchino, a Pulitzer winner, brings the battles to vivid life.

49. Oh, Play That Thing - Roddy Doyle
This is the second volume of a cycle Doyle dubs 'The Last Round Up.' I'm not sure if there is a third volume forthcoming. The first volume took the protagonist Henry Smart from childhood in the slums of Dublin, through the Easter Rising and the Tan War, to his departure from Ireland on the eve of civil war. Oh, Play That Thing picks with Henry's adventures in New York and points west, where he runs elbows with the likes of Louie Armstrong and Dutch Schultz. The introduction of these historical elements makes the books of The Last Roundup a big departure from Doyle's earlier work such as the The Commitments.

50. Karate-Do: My Way of Life - Gichin Funakoshi
A biography of the Okiniwan sensei who was largely responsible for exporting the art of karate to Japan, and modernizing the teaching of modern arts. This is not a book I'd recommend to the general reader; it's likely to be of interest only to someone practicing karate or another art.

51. Drama City - George Pelecanos
George Pelecanos should be declared the poet-laureate of Washington DC - he's that good. Now that we have that out of the way, let's admit Drama City is a solid 'B' effort - not quite up to the standards set by The Sweet Forever and Shame the Devil. Still, a 'B' from Pelecanos is better than an 'A' from most authors.

52. Lord of Samarcand - Robert E. Howard
The name 'Robert E. Howard' probaby draws a blank from most of you. Robert who? Now if I say 'Conan the Barbarian' - that's a different story. Conan, like Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, and James Bond, is a character who has lived on and crossed over into different media long after the author and creator of the character laid down his pen.

In a brief writing career, lasting barely a dozen years before his suicide at the age of thirty, Howard wrote hundreds of stories for the pulp magazines of the 20s and 30s. In addition to the sword and sorcery of the Conan stories, Howard also wrote horror, western, boxing, detective and adventure stories. Lord of Samarcand is a collection of historical adventure stories set against the back drop of the Crusades.

Howard is one of my favorite authors. One of these days I'll get around to the giant post(s) about this man and his work that's been percolating inside my head.

53. The Barbaric Triumph - Don Herron (ed.)
A collection of critical essays on the works of Robert E. Howard. There's not much to say about this one - either you know and love the man's works, and will therefore find these essays fascinating, or you've never heard of Howard or read any of his many stories.

Best of Both Worlds

Now this is the ideal home improvement project. It combines two great things: books and booze. It solves every bibliophile's dilemma: how do I store all these books that I'm unable to stop acquiring? And where will I put my drink?

Bookbat: it's the next big thing.

The Year in Books II: 2005

More short reviews from this year's reading...

28. The Lone Samurai - William Scott Wilson
A biography of famed swordsman and martial artist Miyamoto Musashi, author of The Book of Five Rings. Musashi is famous in Japan (hundreds of movies have been made about his life and career) but remains largely unknown in the west. This is not a lengthy biography, but it's a sound introduction to the man and his times.
29. The Man Who Was Thursday - G.K. Chesterton
Part comedy, part spy novel, part Christian allegory and all rather dry and dull. The reader should be able to see the ending coming from the middle on - the rest is just work to get there.
30. Chicago Confidential - Max Allan Collins
Yet another Nathan Heller mystery makes the list - I told you I got hooked on these things. This time it's 1950 and Nathan Heller is doing his best to avoid a subpoena to testify in front of the Kefauver Committee about the Chicago underworld.
31. The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty - Buster Olney
The narrative is structured around Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, but Olney covers the rise of the Yankee Dynasty from 1995 through the final out of the 2001 Series. I doubt there is anything new and startling in here to the dedicated Yankee fan or the kind of baseball fan who knows everything about every team, but I enjoyed this book for the same reason I enjoyed Harper's portions of A Tale of Two Cities - it was full of stories and details I missed the first time around.
32. The Final Country - James Crumley
James Crumley is the best mystery writer you've never heard of. With authors like George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly writing, one can argue that we're enjoying a 'golden age' of crime fiction. All of the above cite Crumley as a primary influence. So what are you waiting for?
33. Mirror, Mirror - Gregory Maguire
Way back when Maguire shook the world of Frank L. Baum's Oz upside down and produced the highly entertaining Wicked. Since then, he's 're-imagined' a other fairy tales, such as Cinderella. Mirror, Mirror takes the tale of Snow White and drops it in the Italy of the Borgias. Not a bad read, but not up to the caliber of Wicked.
34. Angel in Black - Max Allan Collins
This installment of the Memoirs of Nathan Heller finds him working in Los Angeles - investigating the Black Dahlia murder.
35. Blood and Thunder - Max Allan Collins
Heller leaves the chilly streets of Chicago for the heat of Louisiana, to serve as Huey Long's bodyguard and protect him from assassination.
36. The Family Trade - Charles Stross
Two fairly common story elements in fantasy fiction are: another dimension/world that is parallel to but connected with our world; during the story the protagonist learns he (or she) possesses a previously unknown power(s) or heritage. Stross combines both of these in a solid novel that come out like a cross between The Godfather and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I'll be following with the sequel to this one.
37. The Mating Season - P.G. Wodehouse
See (12) in the post below. Bertie fucks up; Jeeves comes to the rescue; there is much hilarity.
38. Defending Middle Earth - Patrick Curry
A fascinating book - if you're a serious Tolkien geek.
39. The Polysyllabic Spree - Nick Hornby
I have been an unabashed fan of Nick Hornby since I read High Fidelity. Rather than fiction, The Polysyllabic Spree is a series of essays on what Hornby himself read over the course of a year.
40. The Way to Glory - David Drake
David Drake continues his space opera take on the Aubrey/Mathurin stories.
41. Shakespeare's Kings - John Julius Norwich
Norwich compares the plots of Shakespeare's works about English monarchs, to the actual historical events. He notes where Shakespeare altered events and historical personages, speculates on why this was done, and also looks at the Bard's own historical sources.
42. China Marine - E.B. Sledge
A sequel to With The Old Breed (Sledge's first-hand account of the horrific fighting on Peleliu and Okinawa), China Marine deals with Sledge's post-war garrison duty in China, his return home, and his difficulty re-integrating into civil society.
43. Crown of Slaves - David Weber & Eric Flint
A stand-alone novel set in Weber's 'Honorverse.' Good stuff, but then for me space opera/science fiction of this sort is the written equivalent of comfort food.

Still more to come...

The Year in Books I: 2005

A belated account of what I've read so far this year.

1. Wasteland of Flint - Thomas Harlan
Old-fashioned space opera that would not have been out of place in Amazing Stories c. 1950. The author takes familiar ingredients - galactic empires, space marines, ancient alien civilizations - and fashions them into a fresh story.
2. The Shadow of Saganami - David Weber
More space opera, set in Weber's Honor Harrington universe, which in turn borrows heavily on the tales of Horatio Hornblower and the history of the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars. Solid but not outstanding.
3. Dark Voyage - Alan Furst
The latest offering from the master of the 'historical espionage thriller.' I've recommended Furst before, and really can't do so enough. Like Patrick O'Brian, Furst has the uncanny knack of transporting readers back to his chosen period, in this case Europe of the 1930s and 1940s.
4. Flights of Passage - Samuel Hynes
The author's account of his training and time as a dive-bomber pilot during the Second World War, this book would mostly appeal to aviation buffs and the like.
5. Banewreaker - Jacqueline Carey
The first volume of a new fantasy from the author of the Kushiel's Legacy trilogy. I enjoyed Banewreaker, and will read the sequel, but didn't find the setting or characters as compelling as her Kushiel books.
6. The Million Dollar Wound - Max Alan Collins
Collins writes what could be called historical detective novels. He sends his protagonist, Nathan Heller, into the midst of real-life cases where the detective runs shoulders with all manner of historical figures on both sides of the law. In this the third volume of the series, Heller returns from service on Guadalcanal and becomes mixed up with Frank Nitti's Chicago mob and an attempt to infiltrate Hollywood. Fast-paced and based on solid research, this one hooked me (as you'll see).
7. Flying Blind - Max Alan Collins
Out of all the Heller books I've read this year, this one might be my favorite. Collins' Chicago detective becomes tangled up in the life, then disappearance of Amelia Earhart. The author's theory about the famous aviatrix's fate makes for compelling reading - this was an 'up-to-3AM' book.
8. The Final Solution - Michael Chabon
I loved The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and Chabon clearly has a love for 'genre' stories, so I was delighted to hear he'd written a novel about Conan Doyle's immortal detective Sherlock Holmes. I wasn't exactly disappointed, but I wasn't exactly thrilled either.
9. Ripples of Battle - Victor David Hansen
This is basically a book-long argument for the importance and primacy of military history, which probably sounds a lot drier than it really is - Hansen's style of writing history is very accessible to readers with only a casual interest in the subject.
10. Rainstorm - Barry Eisler
Eisler's conflicted assassin is pretty much the best thing going in the thriller business these days. Exotic locales, believable characters and plenty of action.
11. True Detective - Max Alan Collins
The first volume in the 'The Memoirs of Nathan Heller', True Detective takes readers from the end Heller's career as a detective on the Chicago P.D. pick pocket squad through the beginning of his friendships with both Eliot Ness and Frank Nitti.
12. Jeeves in the Morning - P.G. Wodehouse
It takes an extremely talented writer to write the same story repeatedly and make it fresh and funny each time; Wodehouse is the master of this trick. His Jeeves/Wooster stories all have the same plot: as a result of some (or several) misunderstandings amiable dolt Bertie Wooster finds himself in danger of becoming married or otherwise domesticated; his faithful and wise servant Jeeves must extricate him.
13. Moneyball - Michael Lewis
Do I even need to say anything about this book? If you're a baseball fan, you've no doubt heard of it. If you're not a baseball fan, you probably won't be interested.
14. True Crime - Max Alan Collins
Nathan Heller finds himself mixed up with outlaws Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson and John Dillinger, as well as Federal Agent Melvin Purvis. Contains an interesting theory on the final fate of John Dillinger. (Most of the Heller novels contain an alternate theory on the crime the book centers around.)
15. The Reckoning - Charles Nichol
According to history's reckoning, Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe was murdered - stabbed in the eye - in a brawl over a tavern bill. According to Nichol's reckoning, Marlowe was murdered as a result of his involvement in the dark world of espionage and intrigue. The Reckoning is a careful and scholarly reconstruction of the events and circumstances leading to Marlowe's demise that reads like a LeCarre novel.
16. Why Not Us - Leigh Montville
Why Not Us is less an account of the 2004 season than it is a love letter to the experience of being a life-long Red Sox fan. An infinitely more satisfying read than the lackluster Faithful (see below), and an ideal way to introduce an outsider to the passion, drama, and loyalty that make up Boston fandom.
17. Last Citadel - David L. Robbins
A boiler plate historical novel set amidst the Battle of Kursk during WWII. Decent enough company for a plane ride or the like.
18. A Tale of Two Cities - Massarotti & Harper
Two beat reporters, one from Boston, one from New York, combine to pen an account of the season-long struggle in 2004 between the Red Sox and the Yankees. The authors alternate chapters and points of view, and oddly enough I found the New York side more interesting - probably because much of that material was new to me (whereas I read Massarotti throughout 2004).
19. Bodyguard of Lies - Anthony Cave Brown
This book is extraordinarily and long and dense with facts - the kind of book that keeps the reader constantly referring to the index. That being said Bodyguard of Lies is a riveting book, detailing the espionage and counter-espionage efforts surrounding the Allied invasion of Normandy.
20. Faithful - King & O'Nan
Prior to reading this book I would have thought it impossible to write a dull book about the 2004 Red Sox and their march to the title. I failed to take into account Stewart O'Nan, his dry-as-dirt game recaps, and his never ending quest for more foul balls. I'm sure O'Nan is a fine fellow, and he may indeed be, as the jacket copy proclaims, a 'promising young novelist,' but he should stay the hell away from sportswriting.

Stephen King, on the other hand, could probably write his grocery list and make it a thriller.
21. The Game - Laurie R. King
Sherlock Holmes turns up again in my reading. Laurie King has written a series of novels featuring the aged detective - and his (much) younger and (equally) brilliant wife, Mary Russell. The Game features another famous fictional character borrowed by King - Holmes and Russell go in search of one Kimball O'Hara.
22. Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse
See (12) above.
23. The Lessons of Terror - Caleb Carr
Though better known as the author of The Alienist Caleb Carr is also active teaching and writing as a military historian. This slim volume presents his views on the use of terror to achieve military and political ends.
24. Jeeves and the Tie that Binds - P.G. Wodehouse
See (12) above.
25. Hero - Joel Rosenberg
Passable science fiction - reminded me of The Four Feathers in it's themes of cowardice and duty.
26. The Professor and the Madman - Simon Winchester
This was a best seller a few years back I think. A popular history of how a lunatic and convicted murderer contributed to the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary.
27. The Thirty Nine Steps - John Buchan
More famous as a film (adapted by Hitchcock among others) this is the most famous of Buchan's Richard Hannay stories - all of them spy novels of the British Empire adventure type. Good fireside reading, if you can get past the many dated aspect. Like the British Empire, for starters.


More short reviews to come later...

Grazing the Open Pages: All That We Have

Towards the end of Nick Tosches' biography of Arnold Rothstein, King of the Jews, there is a brief rumination on death and writing, which concludes thusly:

"But something else also occurred to me. It occurred to me that everything I knew and loved seemed to be drifting away: a whole way of living, loving and being. It occurred to me that anyone who wastes one single breath is a fool. Life is all the we have, and we must live it, for real: like leopards, like beautiful creatures, like stars that pass through the nighttime sky over the wildest, darkest, deepest sea."