Collected Miscellany

Here are some reviews I have enjoyed around the web:

– Lawrence Henry reviews Tales From Q School by John Feinstein. Here is a taste:

Feinstein faces one sort of challenge writing about sporting events — and sporting figures — already well known. He has to find and create drama where the big, on-stage drama has already taken place in public, and is already known to the fan. At this task, discovering the stories behind the flash, he has no peer.

In Tales From Q School, however, Feinstein faces another problem entirely: How to make us care about a bunch of golfers who — for the most part — nobody knows at all. He has succeeded so brilliantly that Tales From Q School becomes the very best of tension-fraught adventures, with some episodes literally hair-raising in intensity.

Mary Grabar compares the “easy atheism” of Christopher Hitchen’s God Is Not Great with “the great works of literature written by Christian authors.” She comes to an interesting conclusion:

I am sad to say that if you go into a Christian bookstore you will not see Dostoyevsky on the shelf. Instead, you’ll find pastel-covered saccharine tomes, the pious stories of easy Christianity that the devout Catholic Flannery O’Connor disparaged.

Of course, easy Christianity is vulnerable to easy atheism, which is what is offered in Hitchens’ tome. It’s a shame the great works of Christian literature are not to be found on the shelves of Christian bookstores. It’s a bigger shame that they haven’t done any good on Christopher Hitchens’ bookshelf either.

– Sally Thomas explores Hippies of the Religious Right . A snippet:

Their conversions to Bible-believing Christianity were not the sort to rejoice the hearts of suburban, middle-class parents. The intelligence that one’s runaway daughter had given her life to Christ, been baptized in a bathtub, and taken up residence with a bunch of barefoot, long-haired, guitar-strumming, tongues-speaking twenty-year-olds in a place called Maranatha House was only marginally less disturbing to the average Methodist mother than the news that the same daughter had moved in with a professional tabla drummer and changed her name to Windflower.

Or so, at least, argues Preston Shires in his recent book Hippies of the Religious Right. Hippies, he maintains, did not leave off being hippies simply because they had traded their drug high for Jesus. As a first-century Gentile converting to Christianity did not have to undergo circumcision, so the typical late-1960s truth-seeking, grass-smoking beach dweller was not required, on conversion, to cut his hair, don a white short-sleeved shirt with a black necktie, and sing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” The churches, instead, would have to change their dowdy old playlist; they had to understand that the convert was bringing them the gift of his authentic young self and his hippie code of virtues: Love thy neighbor and be an individual.

Here are some reviews I have enjoyed around the web:

– Lawrence Henry reviews Tales From Q School by John Feinstein. Here is a taste:

Feinstein faces one sort of challenge writing about sporting events — and sporting figures — already well known. He has to find and create drama where the big, on-stage drama has already taken place in public, and is already known to the fan. At this task, discovering the stories behind the flash, he has no peer.

In Tales From Q School, however, Feinstein faces another problem entirely: How to make us care about a bunch of golfers who — for the most part — nobody knows at all. He has succeeded so brilliantly that Tales From Q School becomes the very best of tension-fraught adventures, with some episodes literally hair-raising in intensity.

Mary Grabar compares the “easy atheism” of Christopher Hitchen’s God Is Not Great with “the great works of literature written by Christian authors.” She comes to an interesting conclusion:

I am sad to say that if you go into a Christian bookstore you will not see Dostoyevsky on the shelf. Instead, you’ll find pastel-covered saccharine tomes, the pious stories of easy Christianity that the devout Catholic Flannery O’Connor disparaged.

Of course, easy Christianity is vulnerable to easy atheism, which is what is offered in Hitchens’ tome. It’s a shame the great works of Christian literature are not to be found on the shelves of Christian bookstores. It’s a bigger shame that they haven’t done any good on Christopher Hitchens’ bookshelf either.

– Sally Thomas explores Hippies of the Religious Right . A snippet:

Their conversions to Bible-believing Christianity were not the sort to rejoice the hearts of suburban, middle-class parents. The intelligence that one’s runaway daughter had given her life to Christ, been baptized in a bathtub, and taken up residence with a bunch of barefoot, long-haired, guitar-strumming, tongues-speaking twenty-year-olds in a place called Maranatha House was only marginally less disturbing to the average Methodist mother than the news that the same daughter had moved in with a professional tabla drummer and changed her name to Windflower.

Or so, at least, argues Preston Shires in his recent book Hippies of the Religious Right. Hippies, he maintains, did not leave off being hippies simply because they had traded their drug high for Jesus. As a first-century Gentile converting to Christianity did not have to undergo circumcision, so the typical late-1960s truth-seeking, grass-smoking beach dweller was not required, on conversion, to cut his hair, don a white short-sleeved shirt with a black necktie, and sing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” The churches, instead, would have to change their dowdy old playlist; they had to understand that the convert was bringing them the gift of his authentic young self and his hippie code of virtues: Love thy neighbor and be an individual.

The Riddle of St. Leonard’s by Candace Robb is the fifth book in the Owen Archer mystery series. It keeps with the excellent tradition of story telling established by the four previous books.

Here is the basic premise of the book from the author’s website:

Anno Domini 1369. The much loved Queen Phillippa lies dying at Windsor, and in the city of York the harvest has failed and the plague has returned. Welcome to the world of Owen Archer.

In the atmosphere of fear and superstition which grips the city, rumors spread that a spate of deaths at St. Leonard’s Hospital is no accident. Several “corrodians” – elderly people who have paid a dear sum to St. Leonard’s hospital to care for them until they die – have died suspiciously, and there have been a number of thefts from the hospital as well. Sir Richard de Ravenser, Master of the Hospital, returns from Westminster painfully aware that scandal could ruin the hospital and his own career. Anxious to address the crisis, he presses one-eyed spy Owen Archer into service to investigate the mysterious goings-on.

With plague rife and the city’s inhabitants daily besieging his wife, the apothecary, for new preventatives and cures, Owen is unwilling to become involved. There is too little to link the victims to one another: the riddle seems unsolvable. But careful inquiries reveal a further riddle, spoken by one of the dead, that might be the key Owen needs. Three seemingly separate mysteries intertwine and Owen Archer must solve them all if he is to decipher the Riddle of St. Leonard’s.

As usual, Robb does an excellent job of bringing life in Medieval York to life for her readers. She captures the fears of the townspeople on the arrival and spread of the third wave of the Plague. As she describes, many left the town or at the very least sent their children into the country if they had the means to do so.

I hope you get a chance to enjoy this wonderful historical mystery.

The Riddle of St. Leonard’s by Candace Robb is the fifth book in the Owen Archer mystery series. It keeps with the excellent tradition of story telling established by the four previous books.

Here is the basic premise of the book from the author’s website:

Anno Domini 1369. The much loved Queen Phillippa lies dying at Windsor, and in the city of York the harvest has failed and the plague has returned. Welcome to the world of Owen Archer.

In the atmosphere of fear and superstition which grips the city, rumors spread that a spate of deaths at St. Leonard’s Hospital is no accident. Several “corrodians” – elderly people who have paid a dear sum to St. Leonard’s hospital to care for them until they die – have died suspiciously, and there have been a number of thefts from the hospital as well. Sir Richard de Ravenser, Master of the Hospital, returns from Westminster painfully aware that scandal could ruin the hospital and his own career. Anxious to address the crisis, he presses one-eyed spy Owen Archer into service to investigate the mysterious goings-on.

With plague rife and the city’s inhabitants daily besieging his wife, the apothecary, for new preventatives and cures, Owen is unwilling to become involved. There is too little to link the victims to one another: the riddle seems unsolvable. But careful inquiries reveal a further riddle, spoken by one of the dead, that might be the key Owen needs. Three seemingly separate mysteries intertwine and Owen Archer must solve them all if he is to decipher the Riddle of St. Leonard’s.

As usual, Robb does an excellent job of bringing life in Medieval York to life for her readers. She captures the fears of the townspeople on the arrival and spread of the third wave of the Plague. As she describes, many left the town or at the very least sent their children into the country if they had the means to do so.

I hope you get a chance to enjoy this wonderful historical mystery.

What seems like billions of pixels have been spilled to debate the relative merit of, for lack of a better term, online book coverage. The battle lines seemed to have been drawn between the upstarts online and the elders of print (Despite the fact that the lines are not so clear). Various “experts” with haughty opinions have weighed in about what is or isn’t good for “literature” or “books” or “reading.” They have often leeped to the defense of so called professional, or perhaps traditional, newspaper book review sections. One organization mounted a campaign to “save” these sections (must stop using quotation marks). Which is all well and good except so many have felt the need to take snide swipes at blogs and other online sources. Uninformed, unprofessional, biased, gossipy, etc.

The online folks have risen to their own defense to a degree. Some have recognized valid criticisms others have pointed to the equally uninformed opinions of the denizens of print. Insults and barbs have been traded and emotions have run hot and cold.

This whole thing strikes me as silly. The format involved is mostly irrelevant. Does it matter whether a book review is online or in the paper? The format is simply a distribution tool. Obviously, those who make a living doing the distributing will want to think seriously about the future and debate how best to move forward. But for those of us who just enjoy books and book reviews, I fail to see how it matters. We are just looking for interesting, thoughtful, and varied discussion of books. Where and how means little in the long run.

If I want to get a sense of what a book might be like whether I go to my local newspaper, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, a local independent bookstore’s website, or a blog doesn’t really matter. What matters is if the source is one I can trust and has the information I need. Seeing as tastes and perspectives vary greatly, a reader needs to find a source that lines up with their own needs.

As anyone who has read this blog with any regularity knows, I am fascinated by the “professional” mini-reviews of places like Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus, etc. For one, I admire the skill it takes to capture a complex book in a few sentences. Not all of these reviews do that but those that do are quite impressive. I have a hard time squeezing all my thoughts and reactions down into a finely honed paragraph. So I admire those that can do so and still effectively communicate about the novel in question.

I also find it interesting how these quick hit reviews choose what to focus on; on how they balance the positive and negative. After all these reviews aren’t really literary criticism, but aimed at giving people a good idea of what the book is like and whether it might line up with their tastes.

But I think it is a mistake to view these sources as somehow tainted with the greed and lust of consumerism; to view them as logical outgrowth of a industry that treats books like any other widget (perhaps more on the larger idea behind this criticism in another post). It seems to me that there is room for a wide variety of book discussion and a number of different ways to approach book reviews.

Let’s face it, there are simple more books being published than one can get a handle on. In the face of this information overload, I think these mini-reviews serve a purpose. They summarize the plot and give one a sense of the style and skill of the author. I think they are a useful tool in making book buying decisions. Are they the only tool? Of course not, my own judgment, advice of friends, past experiences with the author, and more impact whether I buy, or read, a book.

I am sure there are plenty of people who don’t care for these brief takes on books. I am also sure that authors are frustrated with a system that tries to capture their work in a few sentences. But so what? Surely the internet is big enough that we can let a thousand flowers bloom. Can’t we have discussions and reviews of practically any size and scope? Can’t we enjoy and use multiple tools and sources depending on our need, tastes, mood, etc.?

Sometimes I enjoy a long essay-like book review that uses a book to discuss big ideas and that has the time and space to dig deeper. Sometimes I want a short take that simple lets me know what a book is about and gives me sense of its worth. Sometimes I enjoy, or want, the opinion of experts, of people who have spent considerable time on a subject, while other times I may enjoy reading the opinions of someone who simply enjoys books. And of course, there are a great many attributes in between expert and amateur.

And I think this is the beauty of online discussion of books, you can find practically anything you want. With the risk of sounding like a raging relativist, I think we can enjoy all sorts of things without labeling one style or format good and another bad.

Chasing the Rising Sun: The Journey of an American Song by Ted Anthony

Publishers Weekly

The song “House of the Rising Sun,” which became a chart-topping hit in 1964 by the Animals, has a murky history, said to have originated in Appalachia, maybe New Orleans and perhaps even England, as well as having a thriving universal afterlife among cover bands and karaoke singers. Anthony, an editor for the Associated Press, crisscrossed the globe in search of the twisted roots and many spreading branches of this lonesome ballad of unknown origins. The song’s ultimate odyssey began in 1937 when folklorist Alan Lomax recorded a version by 16-year-old Georgia Turner Connolly in Middlesboro, Ky. Lomax published the lyrics as “The Rising Sun Blues” and from there it grew in popularity and was performed and recorded by many, including Bob Dylan on his first record in 1962. The story seems promising, but Anthony’s narrative is an uneasy mix of memoir, dissertation-like detail (with tedious repetitions of multiple versions of lyrics), journalistic feature writing and esoteric trivia. Anthony at times unconvincingly adopts the authoritative voice of an American studies expert, and he also lacks the musical or poetic knowledge to dissect the song. This exploration will be of most value to those who share Anthony’s unbridled obsession with this ubiquitous ballad.

Light in the Dark Ages: The Friendship of Francis and Clare of Assisi by Jon M. Sweeney

Publishers Weekly

She was rudder to his sail and yin to his yang, but the relationship between medieval saints Clare and Francis of Assisi was hardly the love affair depicted in literature and film, as this joint biography makes clear. Sweeney, author of the St. Francis Prayer Book and The Lure of Saints, sketches the true nature of the liaison, which he says was marked by natural affection, but never led to marriage or an affair. There is little reason to believe that Francis and Clare shared any romance other than one that was jointly with God, Sweeney writes of the partners in the spiritual movement that revolutionized Western religion. Relying on early biographies of Francis by Thomas of Celano and Bonaventure as well as more recent scholarship, Sweeney examines Francis’s conversion and decision to marry poverty, showing how Clare, 12 years his junior, fled her family to embrace his radical way of life. Sweeney deals, too, with the controversy and dissension that erupted in the movement after just two decades as some followers softened the radical mendicancy espoused by Francis and Clare. Readers interested in an accurate portrayal of these two powerful figures will find this an excellent introduction to a movement that has captured the imaginations of moderns more than 700 years after the deaths of Francis and Clare.

Blue Sky Thoughts: Colour, Consciousness and Reality by Jamie Carnie

Book Description

For centuries philosophers have disputed whether the sky really is blue or whether this “blueness” is only in the eye of the beholder. But perhaps there is a better way to think about perception . . .

In this controversial and challenging book, Jamie Carnie introduces a radical new perspective on the way our senses operate, setting out to save our instinctive belief that colors, sounds, flavors, textures, and scents are features of the “real” world and not just mental constructs that disappear the moment we look away. A minimal model of the mind as a virtual machine helps us formulate Carnie’s universe.