Collected Miscellany

If you have an interest in China and you enjoy photography I would highly recommend you check out China: People Place Culture History recently released by DK Publishing:

In the tradition of the photographic essay, China will take you through time and across borders by way of informative text, historical voices, rousing poetry and more than 700 specially commissioned images by world-class photographers. China threads its way through the country’s storied 4,000 year culture and compels the reader to rethink his concept of China and its people.

The book is full of stunning photography, fascinating culture, and informative history. With over 350 glossy pages this book makes for a gorgeous coffee table book, but – as the publisher points out – it is more than that:

As the world’s oldest continuous civilization and most populous country, with the fastest-growing economy, China is experiencing profound social, economic, and political change. A detailed exploration of the country’s long, rich history paired with its complex present makes China a one-of-a-kind reference that offers an eye-opening, thought-provoking and authoritative visual guide to one of the world’s great nations.

My parents recently spent a couple of years teaching English in China and the pictures and stories they brought back were beautiful, often strange, but always captivating. I plan on buying a copy of this remarkable book for them as I know they would enjoy the chance to continue to explore China’s people, places, cultures, and history.

(Not that You Asked): Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions by Steve Almond

Publishers Weekly

This collection of essays on everything from Oprah’s Book Club to the joy of being a new father displays all the qualities that have made Almond’s short stories (The Evil B.B. Chow) and nonfiction (Candyfreak) entertaining. The wicked humor of Dear Oprah features an in-your-face attack on the Savior of Publishing and her book club, followed by equally obsequious apologies, including a gift of trust to her of his baby daughter. A section titled About My Sexual Failure (Not That You Asked) offers brutally honest dissections of his sexual obsessions as well as those of past girlfriends, including chest waxing, fake breasts and masturbating in the family pool. Demagogue Days is a hilarious look at Almond’s experience with Fox News that displays an abiding disgust at current arbiters of cultural and political life in America as well as an enduring empathy for the underdog. But best of all is a beautiful and angry essay on The Failed Prophecy of Kurt Vonnegut (and How It Saved My Life), a look at Vonnegut’s career-long concern over whether mankind would survive its own despicable conduct that serves as a summation of Almond’s personal and literary ethos.

Stop Dressing your Six-Year Old Like Skank by Celia Rivenbark

Publishers Weekly

In some 32 short essays on the ridiculousness of modern life, Rivenbark (Bless Your Heart, Tramp; We’re Just Like You, Only Prettier) wanders through Tweenland at the mall, thinking a better name would be “Lil Skanks.” She thinks that the Cruise/Holmes pregnancy has an “indescribably delicious” Rosemary’s Baby feel to it and recalls that Monica Lewinsky hosted a TV dating show–in which she “didn’t get the guy.” Rivenbark riffs on America’s crazier obsessions–the painful but obligatory pilgrimage to Disney World, the new attention to “buttocks cleavage,” coffee makers calling themselves baristas, or those celebrity moms who have “bumps” instead of babies. Rivenbark describes herself as a “slacker mom” and reminds readers to learn something from men–“because no matter how slack a dad is, if he does the least little thing, people gush over him.” This is a hilarious read, perhaps best enjoyed while eating Krispy Kremes with a few girlfriends.

Madeleine L’Engle has passed away. NYT:

Madeleine L’Engle, who in writing more than 60 books, including childhood fables, religious meditations and science fiction, weaved emotional tapestries transcending genre and generation, died Thursday in Connecticut. She was 88.

I remember reading A Wrinkle in Time when I was younger but it has been a long time. I feel like I should re-read some of her work to see if I might appreciate it more now. Of course, soon I will be reading such books to my daughter. That is the beauty of these types of works.

She seems to have been a writer through and through:

Her deeper thoughts on writing were deliciously mysterious. She believed that experience and knowledge are subservient to the subconscious and perhaps larger, spiritual influences.

“I think that fantasy must possess the author and simply use him,” she said in an interview with Horn Book magazine in 1983. “I know that is true of ‘A Wrinkle in Time.’ I cannot possibly tell you how I came to write it. It was simply a book I had to write. I had no choice.

“It was only after it was written that I realized what some of it meant.”

And as it seems with so many famous authors, it was almost not to be:

What turned out to be her masterpiece was rejected by 26 publishers. Editors at Farrar, Straus and Giroux loved it enough to publish it, but told her that she should not be disappointed if it failed.

Thank God for FSG! And thank God for Madeleine L’Engle.

Regular readers will be familiar with my affection for Young Adult Fantasy Fiction and my appreciation for well designed books with strong illustrations. So it should come as no surprise that I enjoyed D.M. Cornish’s Foundling (Monster Blood Tattoo, Book 1) released today in paperback.

As other critics have noted, this debut novel and first in a series, is a rather unique blend of Dickens and Tolkien. We have an orphan, Rossamund Bookchild, on the cusp of independence struggling with his funny name and with the daunting task of making his way in the dangerous world outside the orphanage door. But this is no ordinary world. In the Half-Continent Cornish has created an fascinating alternate universe populated by man and monsters.

The Dickens reference obviously comes from the orphan plot line and the semi-Victorian feel. But also from the strong characters. We see Cornish’s world through the eyes of Rossamund, a good natured, loyal, and often brave young man. But there are a number of interesting secondary characters: the beautiful and kind orphanage parlor maid Verline; the tough but loving dormitory master Fansitart; the evil sea captain Poundich; the strange, rather cold, and yet beguiling monster killer Europe; and the kind and sympathetic postman Fouracres. Cornish skillfully develops Rossamund as a character not only through his own thoughts and actions but through his relationships and encounters with other characters. Because each character is drawn with a history, a unique perspective, and relationship with Rossamund the world seems natural and organic rather than artificial.

The Tolkienesque aspect comes from the complexity and detailed nature of Cornish’s creation. The world of the Half-Continent has a depth and level of detail that is rare in YA fantasy. This depth is reinforced by Cornish’s own attractive black and white illustrations of the main characters as well as the “Explicarium” or glossary provided at the back of the book. This addition provides over 100 pages of detailed explanations of the people, places, and creatures that make up this world as well as detailed maps, uniform sketches, and ship illustrations.

I think the School Library Journal summed it up well:

Cornish’s world-building efforts show a depth and intricacy reminiscent of the work of J. R. R. Tolkien or Robert Jordan. While the elaborate jargon may bewilder some, the unique and fascinating Half-Continent, where ships with organic engines sail caustic vinegar oceans and monster-hunters gain supernatural powers through dangerous surgeries, is a delightful, refreshing standout in a sea of cookie-cutter fantasy worlds.

I for one can’t wait for the next book in the series.

The Flawless Skin of Ugly People by Doug Crandell

Publishers Weekly

Hobbie, the narrator of this endearing debut novel, prefers the company of his beloved mutt, Terry, to the companionship of most humans. Hobbie, who has a blistering case of chronic acne, and Kari, his obese girlfriend of 20 years, continually aggravate their situations: Hobbie picks at and further inflames his bad skin while Kari eats in response to a shared tragedy from their youth. When the novel opens, Kari’s ensconced at a weight-loss clinic hundreds of miles from their temporary north Georgia home, and Hobbie lives like a hermit until he’s attacked by a bear. While recovering, he’s sucked into the messy world of Kari’s father, Roth, and slowly, clumsily becomes part of Roth’s family once Kari goes missing from the clinic. Crandell has an exquisite eye for small details–Kari’s letters home are written on lined paper, the same kind we wrote love notes on–that lend a tender feel to what could easily be overwrought. Though the novel turns on some unconvincing plot twists (particularly in the concluding section), the characters and situations are so simultaneously moving and unique that a bit of contrivance doesn’t sink this tale of misfit love

Noogie’s Time to Shine by Jim Knipfel

Publishers Weekly

Memoirist Knipfel (Slackjaw and Ruining It for Everyone) here presents Ned Noogie Krapczak, a friendless, 35-year-old schlub who works as an ATM re-stocker and repairman, lives with his mother and is obsessed with old movies. It’s clear from the beginning that Knipfel is knowingly drawing on affable loser stereotypes, particularly when he has Noogie steal his first $20 from one of the cash machines entirely by accident. The magnitude of Noogie’s theft, however, soon sets him apart: working piecemeal, Noogie steals close to $5 million in $20 bills before being forced on an elaborate road trip with his cat, Dillinger. The book’s first half traces Noogie’s haphazard flight through unremarkable American towns and has an oddball charm: the possibility that Knipfel’s sad creature might have gotten away with such a simple, substantial crime provides real renegade pleasure. In the second half, however, Knipfel shifts focus to the cops and FBI agents trying to track Noogie down: their crews feel thin and underrealized in comparison. Nevertheless, Knipfel’s talent for empathizing with the underdog, evident is his earlier work, makes Noogie’s adventures poignant and funny.

Fire Bell in the Night

Publishers Weekly

One of the two winners of the Gather.com First Chapters contest, Edwards’s provocative debut begins in the summer of 1850 as the debate over the expansion of slavery into the Mexican Cession territory prompts threats of secession and war. A slave revolt and rumors that the leader of the uprising is roaming the countryside recruiting an army further frays nerves in Charleston, S.C. When a local farmer is caught harboring a runaway, he is charged with a capital crime. The New York Tribune sends young reporter John Sharp to cover the trial; he quickly befriends planter Tyler Breckenridge, the scion of one of the most powerful families in Charleston. But as Sharp and fellow reporter Owen Conway uncover clues of a covert militia buildup, Sharp begins to suspect that Breckenridge is involved. As the emotionally charged fugitive-slave trial unfolds, Sharp and Conway rush to expose the secessionist conspiracy and head off war. Edwards fills the gaps in the record of the Crisis of 1850 to produce a plausible scenario that eloquently captures the fear and rivalries of the antebellum era, though many passages could use a healthy pruning. For fans of historical fiction–and Civil War fiction particularly.

Those of us who have enjoyed Olen Steinhauer’s Eastern European crime series continue to be perplexed by their failure to break out into mainstream success. Although the books have been shortlisted for a variety of awards, they seem unable to break free of their genre label and reach the larger audience they deserve.

This week marks the release of the fifth and final book in the series, Victory Square. Appropriately, the book not only brings the series full circle by again featuring the lead character from the first book, but it also brings Steinhauer back to the subject of his first attempts as a novelist.

After getting his MFA and spending a year in Romania on a Fulbright scholarship Steinhauer returned to finish what he hoped would be his first novel. The resulting manuscript – a “sprawling epic” set during the Romanian Revolution of 1989 – revealed enough talent to spark some interest but it clearly needed work. Agents asked: got anything else?

The answer was yes. Inspired by reading Raymond Chandler, and his time in Romania, Steinhauer had decided to write a “straight story” something that didn’t set out to be the “experimental” novel of a recent MFA grad. This non-experimental experiment became The Bridge of Sighs a hardboiled detective story set in an unnamed country in communist occupied post-war Eastern Europe.

As it turned out, Bridge of Sighs was the first in a five book series centered on the homicide division of the People’s Militia in this unnamed country. Each book focuses on a new character and brings us forward a decade. In Bridge of Sighs Emil Brod is a 22-year old rookie investigating his first case, the murder of a popular national songwriter, when he uncovers evidence that a party leader worked for the Gestapo during the war. He ends up marrying the songwriter’s widow and sending his killer, the disgraced party leader, to a labor camp.

Victory Square, the fifth and final book, returns the focus on Emil and brings the series to a close. And it also brings Steinhauer back to the subject of that first manuscript: the revolutionary year of 1989 in a country very much like Romania.

Emil, now homicide chief, is called by the Ministry for State Security to complete the paper work for an apparent heart attack of one of their officers The stubbornly persistent Emil, however, uncovers evidence of foul play and a list of six people all connected to the very first case of his career. Two of the six have recently turned up murdered and the party leader Emil had sent away has disappeared. The other important name on the list? His own.

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