“In a merciless summer of biblical heat and destructive winds, Gabrielle Fox’s main concern is a personal one: to rebuild her career as a psychologist after a shattering car accident. But when she is assigned Bethany Krall, one of the most dangerous teenagers in the country, she begins to fear she has made a terrible mistake. Raised on a diet of evangelistic hellfire, Bethany is violent, delusional, cruelly intuitive and insistent that she can foresee natural disasters – a claim which Gabrielle interprets as a symptom of doomsday delusion. But when catastrophes begin to occur on the very dates Bethany has predicted, and a brilliant, gentle physicist enters the equation, the apocalyptic puzzle intensifies and the stakes multiply. Is the self-proclaimed Nostradamus of the psych ward the ultimate manipulator, or could she be the harbinger of imminent global cataclysm on a scale never seen before? And what can love mean in ‘interesting times’? A haunting story of human passion and burning faith set against an adventure of tectonic proportions, “The Rapture” is an electrifying psychological thriller that explores the dark extremes of mankind’s self-destruction in a world on the brink.”
I found The Rapture reasonably difficult to get into at first, with it taking until around page 60 for the story to have grabbed my attention properly. The first chapter didn’t seem quite real, with the psychotic teenage murderess, Bethany Krall, seeming to me more like a comic book villain than a supposedly accurate character. As you read further into the book though, Bethany’s character does become more real and you start to understand her way of thinking more.
At points in the book I found some of the events to be too far-fetched, and perhaps more at home in a fantasy or science fiction genre.
I was a little disappointed when I first started reading this, as I expected it to be different in some way. But saying this, I did really enjoy reading it, and despite it’s oddity, I would still highly recommend it.
I thought I’d finally get around to giving my book review on the above tome. For the purposes of background I have not seen the film although it is sitting on Sky Plus ready for me. I did want to read the book before watching the film.
I’ve read a number of books on Nixon and Watergate. The classic All The President’s Men is probably the one most have heard of (the book is, by necessity, more detailed than the film and doesn’t stop in 1972). I’ve read a much more detailed account called The Wars of Watergate by Stanley Kutler that was much more complex and took an age to plough through but was fascinating in its detail, and also the biography of Nixon called “The Arrogance of Power” in which the behaviour in the 1970s was traced back to the performance and personal life a couple of decades before.
What you always wonder with Nixon, as a total lay-person on him, Watergate and American politics of the time, is how on earth, if everyone professed to know what he was like, did he get elected to the office of President of the United States, let alone be re-elected in 1972 with 60% of the vote and carrying all of the 50 states except Massachusetts (and DC) in a landslide of epic proportions. This was a man who seemed devoid of charisma, devoid of charm, devoid of interpersonal skills, and a crook and a liar.
That is the dilemma I face, and is probably why I am, in this age of fluff, spin, superficiality and banality so fascinated by a character like Richard Nixon and will lap up much that is written about him. I find him more interesting than a JFK or the current incumbent because he seems to be a politician who ascended to the top despite himself. The comparisons with Gordon Brown aren’t worthless, but there is just no way Brown is ever going to garner that sort of support that saw Nixon sweep the 1972 election. Even if Paul Daniels was the Conservative candidate.
I have never seen the Frost / Nixon interviews, probably because I wasn’t interested so much in what happened after Watergate. Hence this book was something new to me, and the subject matter was another addition to my knowledge of this character, as told through the not unsympathetic eyes of David Frost. You sense Frost knew that he owed a lot to this interview and the interviewee, and you also read of a man very sure of himself even if others weren’t. That’s where the book is really good – Frost as the conduit for others. For the Zelnicks of this world who wanted to see Nixon in the dock and wanted to nail him, but knowing they couldn’t do the work for the interviewer (and their reaction to the early interviews and Nixon’s legalese style thwarting Frost are really good parts). Also this interview did wonders for John Birt, which is probably, in hindsight, one of its downsides!
What you got from the book was the sense of tension. The parts of the book relating to arranging and selling the interviews were fascinating, Frost’s take on Nixon’s style of interviewing also really interesting. The transcripts at the back are pretty good, but I felt, in some way, they took a little away from the drama in the first part. That is a minor criticism.
Nixon was Nixon, and you felt a little sorry (well I did) for him as a sort of tragic figure when other leaders, post-him, have got up to malevolence and not been subjected to anywhere near the opprobrium. I don’t know, maybe it’s the softy in me, because in The Arrogance of Power, he comes across as an utter bastard, and I probably think that’s correct. This book made me feel as though the world, not content with ousting an incumbent President, wanted to stick the boot in, and Frost used a scalpel rather than DMs to do it.
Good read, well worth your time if you are interested in this sort of thing.
Is everybody and their mother writing a book? Now I think I know why Sarah Palin rushed hers to print. Notice the special words Mr. Paulson has for Palin.
Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott, Riverhead Books, 2007.
I love you, Anne Lamott. You open yourself and your life to us, wringing beauty and grace out of the confused and pathetic pile of feelings and mistakes and heartache that is this life. You make me want to be a more careful writer, a more mindful observer, a more generous friend, and a better person. Thank you for opening up your own brokenness so the rest of us don’t feel so alone and ashamed, and rendering beautiful the mess of it all.
The parts of this book about grace were a gift to me. I don’t know how you make yourself so vulnerable. It takes great courage to expose your inward panic and problems–but that vulnerability in life makes God’s grace possible, and the corresponding vulnerability on the page makes you and your writing a means of grace for me, your reader.
I was especially struck this time, this book, by the parts about motherhood. You capture the desperate floundering about that I feel in my own parenting, as well as the absolute joy and delight in my son’s life and discoveries. You give voice to my feelings of helplessness and worry over his well-being and my own, and your words were a beacon of grace to me. You made me feel like I’m not crazy. Or, better, that I am probably crazy, but at least I’m not the only one.
Thank you for the grace that flows through this book.
Pandemonium
by Daryl Gregory
ISBN – 13: 9-780345-501165 Rating: 4.5 ♥ / 5 ♥
It is a world like our own in every respect . . . save one. In the 1950s, random acts of possession begin to occur. Ordinary men, women, and children are the targets of entities that seem to spring from the depths of the collective unconscious, pop-cultural avatars some call demons. There’s the Truth, implacable avenger of falsehood. The Captain, brave and self-sacrificing soldier. The Little Angel, whose kiss brings death, whether desired or not. And a string of others, ranging from the bizarre to the benign to the horrific.
As a boy, Del Pierce is possessed by the Hellion, an entity whose mischief-making can be deadly. With the help of Del’s family and a caring psychiatrist, the demon is exorcised . . . or is it? Years later, following a car accident, the Hellion is back, trapped inside Del’s head and clamoring to get out.
Del’s quest for help leads him to Valis, an entity possessing the science fiction writer formerly known as Philip K. Dick; to Mother Mariette, a nun who inspires decidedly unchaste feelings; and to the Human League, a secret society devoted to the extermination of demons. All believe that Del holds the key to the plague of possession-and its solution. But for Del, the cure may be worse than the disease.
Pandemonium was my purse-book. Meaning I kept it in my purse to read during lunch breaks at work, doctor’s office visits, car rides (where I wasn’t driving, for once) and the occasional long line-up. As such, I’ve been reading it for almost a month. Sometimes this backfires on me and I lose the flow of the book. With Pandemonium, I was just able to better digest what I was reading.
Daryl Gregory’s debut novel, Pandemonium is a captivating and thought-provoking example of science fiction literature. I will definitely be picking up The Devil’s Alphabet at some point in the near future.
What drew me in initially (besides the amazing synopsis) was Daryl Gregory’s writing style. His writing is beautifully descriptive and draws you into the story and lives of the characters. I was never bored and often had to drag myself away. The main character, Del, goes through such a trip during the course of the novel and gregory’s writing drags you right along with him, every step of the way.
Besides the style of Gregory’s writing, the way in which he writes had me holding breath at one moment, wondering what the hell was actually going on (in a good way) in another, and then having those perfect “ah-ha!” moments in which plot points are tied together and questions are answered. I don’t want to spoil anyone who hasn’t yet read Pandemonium, so all I’m going to say is that all the little details that Gregory spreads throughout the book lead up to one wicked “ah-ha!” moment where you finally know for sure exactly how/why Del is “the key” – the main point of the story, really. I was not disappointed, at all.
I may not have mentioned this yet, but I have a horrible habit of reading the end of a book, first. And not just the last page, either – the whole last chapter (or more) usually. I had been doing good lately, but I caved with Pandemonium, and read the last chapter when I was half way through the book. I didn’t understand any of it. Pandemonium is one book you need to read through in order to fully understand why and how things occured. I loved it.
The only thing that kept this book from being a five out of five rating for me were the few points where I lost track of who a couple characters were. Some of the more philisophical aspects of the story also left my head hurting in that way philosphy often does (but that’s just me). Overall, Pandemonium is an amazing novel and well worth the read.
What is the gospel? Is it the message we preach, the biblical books we read, the life we live, or a little of all three? What has the gospel become? In The Naked Gospel: The Truth You May Never Hear in Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), Andrew Farley tells his personal life-long story of wrestling with these questions. Farley’s journey began as a young adult with a driving obsession to share the gospel, but his reasoning for sharing was less a love for the lost and more a compulsion to fulfill “obligations” driven by fear, guilt and pressure. The formative years of his life were molded by the belief that he needed to do something to live the Christian life. What Farley terms as legalism dominated his thinking.
The lesson Farley learned is this: we need Jesus and nothing but Jesus. The law—any law—is not applicable to the believer in Jesus Christ. There is nothing that we do so that we might be. For Farley, this is the “naked gospel:” Jesus plus nothing. It is a gospel message free from the unofficial rules, strict regulations, and artificial demands that Christians often times place on it.
He’s right.
We are who we are not because of what we do but because of what Christ has already done.
Farley spends quite a bit of his book arguing this point from a variety of commendable means including the use of the book of Hebrews, Paul’s lessons on the relationship between the law and grace, and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. Much of his discussion is helpful and reminds us that we have been once-for-all forgiven.
What I find interesting is that Farley spends most of the book arguing that the true gospel does not give us anything to do, but he spends occasional time discussing what else a Christian ought to be doing. Instead of dissecting belief in the “gospel” from our behavior, is it fair to ask how the message of the gospel affects every area of our life, including behavior?
We should be doing because of who we are. Christian behavior is important, but it doesn’t earn us anything. Grace is free or it’s not grace. Although it didn’t seem always to come out clearly, this is the message of The Naked Gospel.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a review copy of this book free from Zondervan. I was not required to write a positive review, and the opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
The Choice by Suzanne Woods Fisher, is a book I was hesitant to review, mainly because it is based on Amish lifestyle. Typically, books on the Amish lifestyle, whether fiction or non-fiction, to me tend to be on the bland side, unable to keep my attention. Suzanne Woods Fisher, proved me wrong.
I was intrigued with the the baseball storyline, after all, how does an Amish boy get recruited to play baseball? And what would it take for a young, in-love Amish couple to leave their families, homes, and everything they have ever known to pursue a dream of big league, money and fame, two totally contradicting lives.
Carrie Weaver is a young woman in turmoil. In the pages of The Choice, she runs the gamut of emotional, physical, and spiritual turmoil. Questioning her faith and her God at every turn, and with a “right” so to speak to do so. Many times her life as she knows it is ripped to shreds then put back together again, each time making her that much stronger, that much more resilient, that much more faithful, even if she doesn’t realize it. Bringing to mind the Nietzsche quote “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”. Carrie is exactly what Nietzsche was referring. Letting us know that we are never too old, young, or far away to come to God, as he is right beside us the entire time, no matter how grueling, heart breaking our trip might be, God is beside us, waiting for us to reach out to him.
I can’t wait until Suzanne Woods Fisher’s next installment in the Lancaster County Secrets is published in October 2010!
This book was provided to me by the great folks at Litfuse Group and Revell Books in exchange for a review.
To read other reviews on this book, http://www.litfusegroup.com/Blog-Tours/blog-tour-for-the-choice-by-suzanne-woods-fisher.html
ABOUT THE BOOK!
One moment, Carrie Weaver is planning to elope with Lancaster Barnstormer Solomon Riehl, leaving their Amish community behind. The next, she is staring into a future as broken as her heart. Now Carrie faces a choice. An opportunity. But will this decision, this moment in time, change her life forever? “Fisher kicks off a refreshing new series, Lancaster County Secrets, with characters that are strong, both in body and spirit. They also have weaknesses that develop into strengths with the choices they make.”
4 stars, Romantic Times
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Suzanne is a wife and mom, raiser of puppies for Guide Dogs for the Blind, and an author of Christian books, both non-fiction and fiction.
Her relatives on my mother’s side are Old Order German Baptist Brethren, also known as Dunkards. That’s where her interest in Anabaptist traditions began. Suzanne’s grandfather was born into a family of 13 children, started his career as a teacher in a one-room school house in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and ended it as one of the very first publishers of Christianity Today. “We called him “Deardad” even though he was a very stern fellow. Still, Deardad’s life inspired me to write.”
After college, Suzanne was a freelance writer for magazines and became a contributing editor to Christian Parenting Today. Her work has been featured in Today’s Christian Woman, Marriage Partnership, Worldwide Challenge, among others. She took the plunge into books a few years ago and now she’s hooked. To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website at www.suzannewoodsfisher.com
Hello and Happy New Year! So sorry my holiday break ended up being longer than anticipated. But it’s a new year, and I can’t wait. I have a really good feeling about this year, lots of changes for me, I hope. I need to shake things up, make a change, do something different. I am tired of doing the same thing, day in and day out. Life is too short….I don’t want to have another year like last year. I may not survive! Litigation is not for the weak of heart and I am trying to find my way out. Stay tuned…..
The holiday season was certainly a slow one in terms of Chick Lit. However, there were a couple of gems that came out right around Christmas, that held me over till the new year:
These are both fun books that are quick, enjoyable reads. The Overnight Socialite is a modern take on My Fair Lady that is funny and heartwarming. The Nanny Returns is the sequel to the best seller The Nanny Diaries; this one was a little more melancholy as Nanny and her former charge Grayer, have both grown up and are having a hrd time dealing with life’s more challenging obstacles.
Next up, on February 2, Kristin Hannah’s latest:
Did I miss anything over the holidays? Have you read anything good that my bookshelf is missing?? Let me know!
An Experiment in Love had me hooked from the very beginning. It is a wonderfully honest account of Carmel’s relationships, failings and misfortunes.
Carmel grows up in the North in poor circumstances. With a lot of hard work she makes it to Tonbridge Hall which is a Hall of Residence in London for university students, where the food is vile and pushes our heroine down an anorexic slide. Here she meets girls from a different class, ‘the Sophies’, Mantel calls them. Carmel wanted high marks but all around her there were girls like herself who “… wanted homes. Houses of our own. Babies, even: the milky drool of of saliva to replace the smooth flow of ink. We did not speak of it, but each corridor of Tonbridge Hall seethed with fertility-panic.” Young women experimenting with and experiencing new situations and unsure of what way they are supposed to be.
The novel is set in the late 1960s, early 1970s, and the time is accurately evoked and acutely observed. It was a year after Chappaquiddick, in June the Tories got in (“It wasn’t my fault; I wasn’t old enough to vote”), in July there was a dock strike and The Minister of Agriculture announced that housewives should shop around and “buy those things that are cheaper”. When Carmel’s mother heard this she threw her slipper at the television set and said “What goes he think folk generally do? Go down the market and say ‘What’s dear today, give me two pounds, will you, and a slice of your best caviare on top?
Mantel is a brilliant writer who can manage serious matters with a comedic tone. Helen Dunmore, writing in The Observer, call it “a bleak tale seamed with crackling wit” which about sums it up.
Just as cute, and a thousand times sweeter than the real thing, I totally fell for these panda cupcakes! Originally from the Hello, Cupcake! book, these little pandas were a little time consuming to construct, but well worth the effort. While perusing the grocery store for all of the decorating ingredients, I had to get a little creative because they don’t carry chocolate covered sunflower seeds and Oreo’s Cereal. So, for the ears I used Mini Oreos taken apart and cut in half, and just used black icing for the nose. The cupcakes themselves were made from scratch (from the vanilla cupcake recipe in the book), but store-bought vanilla icing was used for icing in an effort to cut out an extra half hour from the prep time.
I made twelve total. The first six came out a little deformed before i got the hang of the squeezey tube black icing. Of course once they’re all put together you don’t want to actually EAT them. But, once I did manage to start munching on them I was pleased. The vanilla cupcake recipe isn’t the best I’ve ever had, but it’s fine (I probably baked them for too long), and not really the point of this creation anyway.
Sort-of Book Review Blurb:
If you haven’t seen the Hello, Cupcake! book yet (or bought it and made everything in it yet), then what are you waiting for!? It’s been written about on just about every baking blog already, and it’s FANTASTIC! I can’t wait to make the sunflower cupcakes and the garden party cupcakes, and OH! the owl cupcakes!!! Ot was given to me for Christmas and I pretty much can’t stop looking at it. I want to start throwing parties and whipping up these babies as gifts and maybe even just get some beautiful ideas of my own.
On top of all of the super cute cupcake designs, the full-page full-color images of all of the creations, and the tips & techniques for creating them, there’s a selection of homemade recipes at the back of the book for cake and icings. There’s also a section dedicated to altering out-of-the-box cake mixes! Yay shortcuts! Oh, and supplies sources! This book rocks!!!
Here is the introduction and conclusion of a forthcoming book review I wrote:
Stanley E. Porter (ed.), The Messiah in the Old and New Testaments. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. Pp. 268, softcover. $29.00.
Although the title – The Messiah in the Old and New Testaments – suggests that the book deals only with messianism in the biblical books, chapters devoted to the Qumran documents and related literature of second temple Judaism demonstrate the breadth of treatment and the significant impact these have on understanding messianism approaching the New Testament. A product of ten capable scholars, the book divides into two sections: (1) the Old Testament and related perspective; and (2) New Testament perspective….
…Although it is quite clear that messianic expectation was not monolithic, it is interesting that the book is divided into two sections: Old Testament and related literature perspective (singular) and New Testament perspective (singular). These essays have sufficiently demonstrated that there are actually perspectives (plural!) even within these broader canonical frameworks. Additionally, the editor’s introduction calls attention to at least one significant passage that is never given any treatment in the book (i.e., Gen 3:15) (5). The reader is left wanting with regard to this often (ab)used passage. These qualms aside, the present volume keenly shows the diversity of messianic thought that pervades the biblical and related literature. To the extent that this diversity is understood and appreciated, modern readers can better come to terms with how Jesus could be understood as messiah within the biblical milieu.
I received a complementary copy of Joshua Harris’ new book, Dug Down Deep, in exchange for reading the book and posting a review on our blog.
Overall, the book is very well-written. The book addresses a much-needed topic within the modern American church. The subtitle of the book is “Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters”. That sums up the purpose of the book.
In the first chapter, Harris explains how young people grow up within the church and accept the Christian beliefs of their parents but they do not really understand what Christian doctrine really means and how it should affect their lives. At the end of the first chapter, Harris sums up the purpose of the book with these words: “This book is the story of how I first glimpsed the beauty of Christian theology. These pages hold the journal entries of my own spiritual journey – a journey that led to the realization that sound doctrine is at the center of loving Jesus with passion and authenticity. I want to share how I learned that orthodoxy isn’t just for old men but is for anyone who longs to behold a God who is bigger and more real and glorious than the human mind can imagine.” (p. 16)
In the subsequent chapters, Harris addresses different Christian doctrines and how it should practically affect the lives of believers. For example, Harris deals with the importance of Scripture and talks about how it should be the final authority and rule in the lives of believers. “The most common way people cut and burn God’s Word is to strip it of the quality it claims for itself. So if I say that although Scripture is inspired, it has errors, I can claim a great regard for the Bible, but I’ve essentially made myself the judge over it. If it’s possible for some part of it to be untrue, then I am now in the role of choosing what I will and won’t listen to in Scripture.” (p. 67)
In another chapter, Harris deals with the importance of the cross…even in the lives of believers. It is not enough to realize your sinfulness, accept salvation, and then forget the importance of the cross after that. The power of the cross must affect every area of life…even after you are saved.
Harris deals with the topics of the Holy Spirit’s work in the lives of believers, the importance of understanding Jesus as God-man, and the importance of starving the flesh, among other topics. Harris’ book is definitely worth the time it takes to read the book. Harris’ writing style is easy to read; he includes plenty of personal stories, illustrations, and humor to keep the chapters moving quickly.
I would definitely recommend this book as dealing since this book offers an easy-to-read yet compelling read on Christian doctrine.
If you would like to purchase a copy of this book, please visit the publisher to buy a copy of Dug Down Deep by Joshua Harris.
BOOK REVIEW: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow
Tor Books, 2005, ISBN 0-765-31278-6
A good friend whose opinion I value recommended that I read something by Cory Doctorow. I had seen his name mentioned in passing and on various fantasy fiction lists over the years, but had never really had the itch to pick up one of his works. However, since Monica had recommended him, I hopped right on my library site and ordered up a passel of his books; Someone Come to Town, Someone Leaves Town was the first one to arrive.
About halfway in, I wasn’t sure if I was glad it had. Shortly thereafter, I wasn’t sure I would be able to make it any further. But by the end, I was pretty sure I had witnessed something miraculous.
Something Comes to Town, Something Leaves Town is not an easy book to read. Some parts of it are pretty darned technical for simpletons like me; other parts were so pervasively ugly that I could almost taste fetid flesh emanating from the pages. But it is so marvelously written that it’s hard to put down, even as you have to screw your courage up to turn that next page.
Doctorow is able to weave this twisted yet accessible tale by keeping a firm footing in normalcy even as reality splinters around us. Were he to present this tale to us in a voice less “ordinary”, it would have been absurd to the point of being unacceptable. Yet Doctorow’s main character relates his odd story in such unflinchingly normal terms that we can relate to it, so we accept what we generally would reject; what we would blanch at viscerally becomes horribly tragic rather than tragically horrible. That, in my opinion, is no less than genius.
At the very onset of the book, we meet Alan, a middle aged, somewhat eccentric (but neighborly) entrepreneur, who has just bought a house in a bohemian section of Toronto, who sets about refinishing the house with enthusiasm and a meticulous thoroughness. The first pages go into exquisite detail on the loving way that Alan finishes the wood in the house – floors, banisters, ceiling beams – in preparation for the myriad of bookshelves that will be installed with his abundance of books. It’s understandable, then, that the first inkling that he may be more than he seems (“Alan’s father, the mountain, had many golems that called him home. They lived round the other side of his father and left Alan and his brothers alone, because even a golem has the sense not to piss off a mountain, especially one it lives in.”) is almost easy to miss, or to shrug off as some kind of nonsensical metaphysical musing that will be explained later.
It is not very much later that we learn that this is no metaphysical musing, but a simple statement of being, unusual for most but very normal for Alan – as is the fact that his mother is a washing machine, and his brothers include a fortune teller, an island, a dead man, and a trio of nesting dolls. Accept this – without drama, as Alan does – and you enter a world where a young boy moves to adulthood as unobtrusively as possible, becoming adept at spinning lies and alternate realities so as to pass through ordinary settings such as the nearby small town and the local school, to eventually leave and find a job and even open various businesses in metropolitan Toronto.
With a meandering timeline that moves between present day Alan, and the Alan of his childhood where he takes care of his younger brothers, Doctorow jostles us between the ordinary-ness of coffee houses and the punk/goth/beatnik community of Kensington with the strangeness of living in a cave, dressing in clothes found by the side of the road or filched off of clotheslines, speaking to a father by wading in a subterranean pool, and a mother who comforts her children by rocking them with “her gentlest spin cycle”. This movement between the accepted and the absurd makes it easier to allow the oddities in Alan’s adult life, including his chance association with a visionary technopunk who wants to blanket metropolitan Toronto with ParasiteNet (a free wifi service built out of connections who’s hardware is scavenged from municipal dumpsters) and his next door neighbors (a student, her slacker younger brother, a young woman with concealed bat-like wings that regrow after they have been cut off, and her sadistic boyfriend).
But Doctorow also likes to keep the reader off-balance by other devices than just a bizarre background story and a kinetic timeline. One very effective device is to “float” the names of Alan and his brothers. At any given time, Alan could also be known as Avery, Andy, Adam, Adrian, etc. His brother Billy may be Bob or Brian or Brad; Charley may be Chris or Chad or Cameron; Davey may be Darrell or Doug or Dan, even in the space of one paragraph. While the characteristics of each brother remain unchanged, this fluctuation of names is a constant reminder of their underpinning eccentricity, and hints at their impermanence, or perhaps at their lack of need of identification inside – or outside – the familial unit.
It is, then, the bizarre dynamic between the brothers that brings not only the uncomfortable, but indeed, the sinister into the story. It’s not just the creepiness of the three brothers that live inside each other (Edward, Frederick and George… or Eric, Frank and Gary, whatever), or the strangeness of a brother who can see what will happen but refuses to interfere (Billy), but for the most part, the pure evilness of Davey that sets the stage for the horrific events that unfold in Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.
Writes Doctorow, Davey was a hateful child from the day he was born. “He screamed from the moment he emerged and Alan tipped him over and toweled him gently dry and he didn’t stop for an entire year.” As he grew, he got worse. He was suspended from school for maliciously throwing rocks, he gleefully butchered Billy’s pet rabbits, and was constantly finding ways to attack and inflict pain on his barely tolerant brothers. Eventually he grew feral and violent with no conscience or remorse, threatening the safety and security of the insular family. Driven to desperation, the brothers finally rise against Davey with Alan delivering the fatal blow. But in true monster fashion, death was not the end for Davey, and it is his vengeful return that drives the most visceral action in the book. Doctorow’s descriptions of Davey and his malignant actions are truly horrifying; the decay and desiccation that is this monstrous being and the callous way he exacts his revenge is what kept me from reading the book after dark – it was simply too squicky.
But brilliant. Just when the story would get too much (with either horrific detail, or with technological detail in the passages regarding the ParasiteNet venture), Doctorow would ease back to the more “normal” human side of the story, keeping us from teetering too close to the edge of whatever abyss was looming, slowly building the tension (and the otherworldly aspect of the story) until the final crescendo, where all the disparate parts of the narrative finally converge and…. Well, you’ll just have to read it for yourself.
This book, for me, was harrowing and at times I frankly didn’t enjoy reading it. It was difficult – not that it was challenging – Doctorow is masterful in being able to explain complex issues in simple terms, without it seeming to be a lecture. Rather, it was a difficult book to read because it did not romanticize violence nor did it give the reader an “easy out” with shallow characters and ambivalent actions. And it was ugly. But it was also an extremely rewarding experience, one I hope to repeat when I read Cory Doctorow’s next book. And I hope I get the chance soon.
If you don’t mind your fantasy fiction sometimes being dirty and grimy, and if you are willing to make an effort to experience rare talent, then do read Cory Doctorow’s Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town. It may not always be a pretty book, but it will stay with you and fill you with a true sense of wonder. Uneasy wonder at times, but wonder.
God tells us in Scripture, “Be holy, for I am holy.” Many of us struggle each and every day with what it means to be holy. Do we follow a list of do’s and dont’s? If so, whose list do we follow? If not, how do we live holy? “The Pursuit of Holiness” by Jerry Bridges helps answer these questions and does from a realistic and Scripture viewpoint.
Continue reading ‘“The Pursuit of Holiness” by Jerry Bridges’ (This link takes you to a different site, the Christian Book Lounge)
Summary: Big Blue Whale is a non-fiction children’s book that tells the reader us about the characteristics and lives of Big Blue Whales. The colorful illustrations, music CD, and facts guide the reader into the wonderful undersea world of blue whales through information, story, and music. The book opens the reader’s imagination into the magnificent creature and life of the blue whale. The blue whale is the biggest creature that has ever lived on earth bigger than an elephant or even a dinosaur. It is a unique creature that breathes, sings, and experiences life through the senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Fewer than 10,000 blue whales remain on earth. Hunting of the blue whale is now banned, but their numbers are growing. Humans can travel the ocean for a year and never see a single blue whale “because in the vastness of the green seas, even a blue whale is small and hard to find..
Characterization: Blue whales are portrayed as admired and unique creatures, mammals who travel the oceans of the world as the seasons change. They are uniquely and wonderfully created creatures, made for their home in the ocean.
Plot: The reader views the creature, the Blue whale, as it lives its life in the ocean in relation to human life upon dry land. Humans and whales occupy the same world, yet humans who are smaller in size dominant and impact the life of this beautiful creature.
Theme: The story provides us with informational facts about the characteristics of the Blue whale and its habitat and way of life.
Point of View: The story is told from the perspective of a storyteller.
Style: The story draws upon poetic prose and graceful illustrations to tenderly tell the story of the largest creature on earth, one that requires our admiration, respect, and care. The harshness of this story is in human’s disregard for the blue whales beauty and place in the world as a unique creature.
Perspective on Gender/race/economic/ability: Illustrations are breathtaking. They display the beauty and size of the blue whale and the way of life in our oceans. As the story is experienced, there is a sense of awe. You want to thank God for the uniqueness of each creature and our relationship of dependency and responsibility in the God’s world. The whales are referenced as it; a somewhat disturbing use of a pronoun. Blue whales are in fact male and female mammals, real creatures in God’s world.
Scripture: Genesis 1:24-2:4, Psalm 8, Luke 12:22-34
Theology: The book is a powerful expression of the wonder of God’s creation and loving providential care. The Blue Whale is uniquely made by God to survive and enjoy life in the oceans of God’s world; the cold of arctic waters and the heat of the waters of the equator. The Blue Whale may be large, but it still enjoys God’s world with humanity. Creation depends on life cycles. We are called to be stewards of God’s creation and grateful for God’s love and care.
Faith Talk Questions:
Why do you think God made Blue Whales?
What is life like in the ocean?
What one thing do you find most amazing or unique about the Blue Whale?
How does God take care of the Blue Whales?
How do we hurt Blue Whales?
Why should we take care of Blue Whales?
How do the Blue Whales care for us?
What one question do you want to ask God about the Blue Whale? Why?
Review prepared by Kim Stamey, MDiv/MACE, Entering cohort Fall 2003
After last week’s post about the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMO’s), I found myself thinking about the topic all week. The human race is in the process right now of deciding how to handle the ability to modify genetics, and our ultimate decision has nearly unfathomable consequence for the world.
While the study discussed last week raised legitimate concerns over the safety of GM foods, it is important to remember that much scientific data exists in support of genetically engineering plants and animals. Let’s look back a little bit, and discuss some terms, in order to better understand the debate.
For millennia, man has been selectively breeding and otherwise controlling plants and animals in order to produce desirable traits. For example, one might decide to breed one heifer whose milk production is especially high, while never breeding a heifer who only produced little. Or, man has been propagating especially tasty apples by electing to graft the branches of their trees onto new trees (the only way to ensure the same apple will grow). There is little controversy with these methods.
More recently, we took the step to modifying the genes of plants and animals in order to express certain genes. For example, one apple might be resistant to a particular pest, but taste terrible. If the gene responsible for the pest resistance can be isolated, it can be inserted into the DNA of another, more tasty apple.
The next step was introducing a gene from one species into something completely different. The common example of this is Monsanto’s transgenic corn, into which they inserted a gene from the microorganism bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) which codes for a toxin that kills off certain pests. Since this pest is killed by the corn’s “natural” defense, less pesticide is needed. Using less chemicals is one important argument in favor of GM plants.
I encourage everyone to get a basic understanding of the topic, including the legitimate arguments for both sides, so that we can collectively decide how to handle this contentious debate. One good resource is the book Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics and the Future of Food by Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchek. Here is a review of the book I wrote for the website www.farmbrarian.com.
Know of some other good resources? Let me know in the comments.
Just in Case by Meg Rosoff
Plume, 2008. 246 pages. Source: Personal copy
After saving his toddler brother from falling out a window, fifteen year-old David Case is fraught with worries about the “what if’s” of life. He renames himself Justin and takes up track in an attempt to hide from and outrun what he believes is Fate’s grasp. A series of events leads him away from his home and into the company of the photographer Agnes, a slightly older teenage girl he believes to be a human good luck charm, and the family of Peter, Justin’s sole friend from school. Add in an invisible dog gone missing and unnervingly huge rabbit named Alice and you’ve got yourself one wild journey down the rabbit hole.
My copy’s cover of the book has a blurb from The Times (London) proclaiming it a “modern Catcher in the Rye.” Justin did remind me of Holden Caulfield, and my mind also kept flickering back to Adam Farmer of I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier (1977), another narrator whose incessant biking reminded me of Justin’s compulsion to run. The book also brought to mind such varied works as Alice in Wonderland, Survivor and Fight Club by Chuck Palanhiuk, and even Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief. Despite sharply recalling each of these previous reading experiences while making my way through Just in Case, the book never felt like a pastiche. The writing is lyrical, fresh, and exciting. It’s the type of book where the beauty of the language is almost a tease; you want to hurdle ahead with your reading for the story, but poetry of it demands that you slow down and savor. I read this one overnight in the dim light of a train and can’t think of a better place to have experienced this story.
Just in Case joins Rosoff’s How I Live Now (2004) as a strangely beautiful and thought-provoking YA novel of recent years. I was, however, a bit taken aback to see Rosoff described within her author bio on Penguin’s website as being “formerly a YA author.” (You’ll have to scroll past the introductory paragraphs to see the bio, but don’t scroll down further than the bio if you don’t want spoilers. The interview reveals some major plot points.) I know The Bride’s Farewell (2009) is an adult novel, but I really hope she hasn’t left behind YA forever. Can anyone shed more light on this statement?
In Bookshelf Detritus, I read & review yellowed, often forgotten paperbacks that manage to find their way onto my bookshelf. The goal is to unearth pulpy diamonds. Expect lots of old school romance.
The reason for my picking up Obsession can be summed up with three words, two of them hyphenated: Tap-dancing vampire. Someone in a thread at Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books mentioned a romance in which the vampire hero spends his lonely nights attempting to replicate Gene Kelly’s “Singing in the Rain” dance, and I immediately ordered a copy. “Tap” and “dancing” are pretty much the magic words, as far as I am concerned.
Because Obsession was published in 1990, I was also hoping to get a vampire romance that doesn’t fit the subgenre conventions that’ve solidified in the last five years: the lifemates, the telepathy, werewolf sequels. That’s not to knock all the wonderful books that are still coming out (Keep writing them, ladies, and I’ll keep reading them). Sometimes it’s just nice to read something so out-of-step with the current trends as to be bizarre and delightful.
It was different from what I’m used to, all right.
There were so many good bits of ideas floating around in this novel. David, the tap-dancing, publicity-shy director/vampire. Virginia, the virginal, naive young reporter out for a scoop. If Hertner were writing this book now, she could have poor little Virginia working for a semi-sleazy celebrity gossip site, and it would be amazing. Can you imagine that TMZ headline? “EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Famous Director Caught Sucking Blood of Young Virgin!” In another nice touch, the hero’s friend/fuck buddy, a blonde, French Betty Boop, clad in Dior, clambors into the house through a second story window. William Shakespeare is somehow involved in the backstory? These were all very promising signs!
But sadly, the book was a bust with me. First, I got my hopes up for something more madcap, in the style of Diana Wynne Jones’s Deep Secret (LOVE). Tap dancing! French vampires! Urban fantasy! Journalism! Wrong. This is a classic, 80s-style romance. Alpha male ambivalent about his own impulses seduces virginal young girl because they are soulmates. There are troubles. They recover from said troubles.
Now, I often love this storyline, when it’s well executed. But David’s kind of an obnoxious prude, and she’s a dreamy nerdgirl stereogirl. She has such a vivid imagination that the world always disappoints her! But he is the PERFECT MAN. And he yearns for youth and purity that only SHE can provide, because she is UNTOUCHED. Jesus, codependent, much? To be fair, it’s not the author’s fault that this sobby emo business just makes me roll my eyes in a paranormal. For some reason, romantic melodrama just works better for me without the vampires and the blood and the element of “the horror, oh the horror.”
Also, this:
It is a type of transformation, I suppose,” David said, his eyes melancholy, yet luminous with reflected moonlight. “You won’t be quite the childlike creature you are now, I’m sure. I’ll miss the old Veronica but welcome the new. This can only bring us closer, unite us in body as well as spirit.
EYE ROLL. I think if a dude tried to calm my virginal nerves with that speech, I’d either laugh in his face or run away. Either way, the mood would be deader than David.
It’s easy to forget just how quickly the romance genre shifts, and just how much more assertive heroines have become in the last two decades. I’m accustomed to ass-kicking post-Buffy paranormal protagonists. Kresley Cole and Sherrilyn Kenyon heroines aren’t all slayers and martial artists, but they act–they don’t just react. Even Christine Feehan, who writes relatively traditional gender dynamics, has comparatively lively heroines. And once you’ve gotten used to active, independent protagonists, it’s hard to go back. Virginia’s willingness to let David “initiate” her is pretty appalling, especially since he explains it like so: “You would be like my slave. You would be able to refuse me nothing. Where I was concerned, you would have no free will.” No thanks!
And finally, as a side note: Oh god, the journalism. The ethics violations. Sleeping with a source is frowned upon, deary. Also, you do NOT offer to let the subject of the profile review it. The irony is that today’s newsrooms and magazines are the perfect breeding grounds for the stressed-out-career-girl-who-wants-to-quit-and-just-have-babies-with-a-cowboy that was such a hallmark of the 80s romance. (See also: Early Elizabeth Lowell.)
I almost squealed with delight when I saw this book in the library. No, I had never heard of it nor anyone had ever recommended it to me. But what made me happy was that this book was written by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Till I read this book , I had no clue that they were colleagues or even friends!!
The novella tells the story of a the crew and passengers on the ship The Golden Mary that is sailing towards the Californian coast. There is a motley group of passengers – a man looking out to make money in the gold rush, an estranged fiancé, a mother and her child heading to meet the father. The ship is tragically struck by an ice berg and sinks. Luckily all the crew and passengers are moved safely to two life boats.The people though alive are far from safety as they float stranded on the open sea with minimum food and water between them.
Apart from the captain and the first mate , through whose eyes the story is told , an extremely important character is Golden Lucy. She is the only child on board and everyone’s favorite. She presents purity and happiness when the ship was afloat and hope and spirit when survivors hung between life and death in the lifeboats.
Dickens brings out interesting aspects of human behavior under this severe living condition and creates vivid characters in such short story telling. One of the steps the survivors take to keep their spirits alive as days pass by without the sign of another ship , is to tell each other stories. 5 such stories all contributed by 5 different writers form the body of the novella.
For some time I have been very interested in Traditional Chinese Medicine. About six years ago I had a very positive experience with acupuncture which made me even more curious about Traditional Chinese Medicine. Once I started learning to be an esthetician I wondered if there were any books available that would discuss Traditional Chinese Medicine and skincare. I found Michelle O’Shaughnessy’s book Nourish Your Skin & Body with Traditional Chinese Medicine to be a comprehensive introduction to the subject of Traditional Chinese Medicine as it relates to skincare.
My first comment about the book would be – I want more! I wish the book was twice as long and went into greater detail. Having said that it is a great introduction to how Traditional Chinese Medicine principles and philosophies can be applied to taking care of your skin. The information in this book is certainly not limited to use by the trained professional. Anyone interested in both Traditional Chinese Medicine and skincare will find useful information this book.
What made the purchase of this book extremely worthwhile for me was the pressure point massage or the facial acupressure massage as it is called in the book. Each step of the massage is clearly outlined and explained. Each step also has an accompanying photo. I tried the massage both on myself and on a client who suffers from acne. As estheticians know a “regular’ facial massage might be too stimulating for a client suffering from acne. Estheticians usually do some sort of pressure point massage on clients who have acne. The client that I tried this facial acupressure massage on really enjoyed it and found it very relaxing. I plan on incorporating some of the pressure points from the facial acupressure massage into my “normal” facial massage that I do on most clients.
Though the book is only 162 pages it manages to cover a wealth of topics including (but not limited to) the history of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chinese herbs (with photos – very helpful), tongue diagnosis, an introduction to acupuncture and facial acupuncture, and recipes for soups that nourish and help the skin. I found the chapter about the meridians of the body very interesting. As it will become very clear from reading this blog I am personally very interested in acne so I found it fascinating to read about the ren meridian. This meridian is in charge of most female issues. Women who suffer from monthly breakouts on their chins can “blame” this on an imbalance in the ren meridian.
Bottom Line: A great introduction to how Traditional Chinese Medicine relates to skincare. The facial acupressure massage is wonderful! You don’t need to be an esthetician to take advantage of this massage. Anyone can practice on themselves.
Links and Extras:
I purchased my copy of Nourish Your Skin and Body with Traditional Chinese Medicine through amazon.com at a reasonable price. I was surprised to see the price for the book when I looked for it today on amazon.com. A little research lead me to Michelle O’Shaughnessy’s clinic’s website. Through her website you can purchase her book Traditional Chinese Medicine: An Esthetician’s Guide. So what is the difference between that book and the one I have reviewed above? The book I own was published in 2009 and is 162 pages long. The book that can be purchased through Michelle O’Shaughnessy’s website was published in 2008 and is 132 pages long. Without having seen the second book I cannot really comment about how different they are.
I found it very interesting to look at the blog section of Michelle O’Shaughnessy’s website. The case study presented in the blog is fascinating. I just wish the blog had been updated. The last entry is from almost two years ago!
One final note. Michelle O’Shaughnessy will be speaking at the Face & Body Conference in Chicago in March, 2010.
If anyone has had any experiences with Traditional Chinese Medicine as it pertains to skincare I would love to hear from you.
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Ursula Le Guin is the daughter of Alfred Kroeber, an anthropologist, and Theodora Kroeber, a psychologist and writer. It’s easy and accurate to say that her parents’ interests inform her brilliant writing, and that cultural anthrpology and Jungian psychology are at the core of her writing. Those writings are too extensive for a single article; instead, I’ll focus on just one set of novels, the Earthsea Series.
The series opens with Wizard of Earthsea. It is a study in Jungian psychology. But the book isn’t a treatise. It’s a wonderful, well-told story of a young man, Ged, coming of age in a world where words can have the power of magic and dragons are as real as earthquakes. There is nothing didactic about this story; Le Guin’s writing is compelling and her characters are vivid: Ogion, the Mage of Silence, whose word had stilled an earthquake; Vetch, who helps Ged on a deadly quest for no reason but friendship; Murre, Vetch’s sister; Yevaud, the dragon of Pendor; and Skiorh, possessed by a gebbeth.
Earthsea doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Le Guin constructs a deep and textured history, and her characters act in ways that are consistent with that world. She manages the trick of writing a mythic tale without falling into the traps and foibles of sounding like you are trying.
The climax is straight from Carl Jung, but you don’t need to know Carl Jung from Steve Young to appreciate it.
From time to time, religious groups call for this book to be banned from school libraries, claiming it promotes witchcraft. Nonsense. This is a book every teenager should read. It speaks to self-understanding, nothing more.
And some feminists criticize Le Guin because Ged is a male character. Again, nonsense, Ged is an archetype, and his gender matters not at all.
The second book in the series is The Tombs of Atuan. Sparrowhawk, the protagonist of “Wizard of Earthsea,” the first book of the triology, is a secondary character here; important but not the focus. This is the story of Tenar, a young priestess at the Tombs of Atuan.
Earthsea has places where there are elder powers present. Readers of “Wizard of Earthsea” will have encountered one in the Terrenon. Tenar, as an infant, is given to the elder power of the Tombs. Her name is taken from her and she becomes Arha, “the eaten one.” She serves as a priestess to a nearly forgotten religion that treats the power of the Tombs as a god. But everything Tenar has been told is twice a lie; her religion is almost forgotten and the Power is anything but a god.
This is the story of how Tenar came to understand that her life, all of what she had been and most of what she believed was a lie. LeGuin makes it utterly convincing, in a spare, terse way that is stark and persuasive. Sparrowhawk plays a crucial role in all this, but he is not the protagonist. Sparrowhawk may have been the catalyst for Tenar’s changes, but like a catalyst he is mostly unchanged by the process. It is Tenar who is changed. This is Tenar’s tale.
Can you imagine how devastating it must have been for Tenar? How many of us could accept and understand that what we had been taught was evil or, worse still, utterly meaningless? Could you do as well if, say, Christianity were revealed to be an utter fraud? LeGuin makes it vivid. Any thoughtful reader is left in awe of Tenar’s strength and resilience. And in awe of LeGuin’s writing.
LeGuin’s third book in her Earthsea series is her most ambitious. Her thesis: you can only become whole by facing and accepting death, the darkest shadow. Lifted straight from Jungian psychology, this is the hardest and the important part of being whole. Sparrowhawk knows most of this truth already: remember the climax to Wizard of Earthsea. Arren, the young prince who accompanies Sparrowhawk on the epic voyages of this third book, has not yet learned this harsh lesson.
You don’t need to know anything about Carl Jung to read and enjoy this book. At one level, this is a children’s tale. But this book has many levels. Consider: the last king, Maharrion, had prophesied that there would be no king to succeed him until one appeared who had crossed the farthest shore. I’m not giving anything away by telling you that the farthest shore is physical – the western shore of the westernmost isle of Earthsea – and metaphysical – death. And readers of earlier books know that for the wizards of Earthasea, there is a low stone fence that separates the living from the dead.
There is another wizard – humiliated by a younger Sparrowhawk – who has both great power and a terror of death. And he has worked a spell that will devastate the world, by denying and avoiding death. But by denying death, he has denied life, and magic, song, joy, reason and even life are draining out of the world. That spell must be undone before it is too late. And that task falls to Sparowhawk and Arren. Prince Arren must learn to understand and accept that death is necessary. Not just in the abstract but personally. He must cross that low stonewall with no hope of returning. He must cross the final shore.
This story has dragons, despair, joy, loss, discovery and marvelous surprises. Like all of the Earthsea books, it is sparely but beautifully told. The deepest of the first three books, it is an absolute joy. And for a thoughtful, reflecting reader, it might be even more. This is a book that can change a reader’s life.
The fourth book is the most difficult. Tehanu was written a 18 years after “The Farthest Shore.” Every character in it has suffered loss and tragedy; each must somehow move on. Because we have seen two of those characters as heroic, it makes a difficult read.
Tenar was the triumphant White Lady at the end of “The Tombs of Atuan.” When “Tenahu” starts, about 25 years later, she is a widowed farm wife who has suffered the death of two persons very important to her: first her husband, and then Ogion, the Mage of Silence.
Sparrowhawk returns from the events of “The Farthest Shore” and, despite his brave words, faces life after the loss of the power of magic that has defined him and made him the greatest archmage since Erreth-Akbe. And Tenahu herself, raped and maimed, burnt, discarded and scarred has even less trust and joy than Tenar and Sparrowhawk.
LeGuin tells that story of how these characters interact among themselves and with their few neighbors, and how they react when great danger from Sparrowhawk’s past threatens to destroy them. Unlike the first three novels, there is no magic here; or rather, the only magic is evil and is used to attack Sparrowhawk and Tenar, who are incapable of defending themselves. Only Tenahu, the mysterious and maimed one, can act. Will she? How can she?
This is as dark-toned a fantasy novel as you may find. Those who want swords and sorcery, fur jock straps or light sabers should go elsewhere. This is a minutely observed, carefully developed story of how you cope with loss, grief and helplessness. I think many of the very negative reviews here come from misplaced expectations. LeGuin had said this was the last Earthsea novel. Happily, she was wrong.
Eleven years after “Tehanu,” Leguin published Tales of Earthsea. In the collection of short stories, LeGuin develops other themes and characters from the past and present of Earthsea. The tales are evocative, resonant and at once mythological and personal in tone. The reader will have an image of a LeGuin, with a larger volume in her lap, telling you the stories that catch her eye. You will sense there are many, many more stories to be told.
While it’s not required, you won’t thoroughly understand the references to the Ring of Erreth-Akbe unless you have read the earlier books. The last short story, “Dragonfly,” may bewilder you unless you have read “Tehanu.”
At the end of the stories, there is a summary of the peoples, languages and history of Earthsea, modelled loosely on the famous Appendices to “The Lord of the Rings.” I suppose the history consists of the stories that will never be told as novels or short stories, which is really too bad. The dry narrative of Erreth-Akbe, the greatest of Earthsea’s heros, would have made a wonderful tale.
I was struck by LeGuin’s subtle touches. The small cabin that was the summer home of Otter in the first tale, when the school of wizardry at Roke was founded, becomes the temporary home of Irian in the last story, which is set immediately following “The Farthest Shore.” Roke Knoll, which always reveals things to be what they truly are, plays a role in the first and last tales, too.
In her delightful foreword, LeGuin warns us, “Authors and wizards are not always to be trusted: nobody can explain a dragon.” Perhaps, but you can always trust LeGuin to entertain and enrich a thoughtful reader. And if anyone can satisfactorily explain a dragon, it would be LeGuin.
And the final Earthsea novel, at least so far, The Other Wind, Leguin does explain dragons. This novel is special. Have you ever read a book that was so well crafted that at the end of a chapter, instead of charging into the next one, you paused and reflected on what you have read? Have you ever read a book where you were at the edge of laughter and tears on the same page? You can with this novel. Le Guin has taken the loose ends of the four earlier Earthsea novels and short stories, combined those loose ends and your favorite characters from them with some serious thinking on the life and death, and created the finest Earthsea story to date.
Alder is a “mender,” a repairer of broken pots, a mere sorcerer, one who should never see the low wall that only wizards know, the wall that separates the living from the dead. Yet the wall and the dead torment his sleep. The dead call to him, asking to be set free and, most shockingly of all, his dead wife has kissed him across the wall of stones, something unknown in the history of Earthsea. The Patterner, one of the eight great wizards of Roke, the wizard’s isle, has sent Alder to Ged. And while Ged may have lost his power of wizardry and be done with doing, his heart goes out to the tormented young man. He counsels him, finds him a temporary solution to his nightmares, and sends him to Havnor, to the King Lebannen. For Ged thinks that Alder may herald a change for Earthsea, one even greater than those Ged wrought.
Alder meets other characters in his quest. Some are old friends of the reader: Tenar, from “The Tombs of Atuan” and “Tehanu;” Tehanu herself, who is somehow the daughter of Kalessin, the eldest dragon; Lebannen, the young king from “The Farthest Shore.” Some are acquaintances from “Tales from Earthsea,” most notably Irian, now Orm Irian. Others are new but no less wonderful: the young princess of the Kargish lands and, of course, Alder himself.
Le Guin takes these characters, lets them grow and age, shows us time’s marks upon them, and brings them into Alder’s life and Alder’s quest. And as Alder’s quest grows beyond himself, to involve the living and the dead, indeed all the souls of Earthsea, so does the book’s sense of wonder. Until, like Ged, in the moment just before the climax of the story, we will smile a little because like him we like that pause, “that fearful pause, the moment before things change.”
This is a masterly work, not just because of the clever use of characters or the wonderful plotting, but also because of the depth of the thinking that lies beyond and inside the story. It’s about even more than life or death; it’s also about the things we assume and take for granted because they have always been so, without ever asking if they are truly right. Alder’s love for his dead wife has the power to change the world. What’s no less wonderful is Le Guin’s power to move the reader, to challenge and provoke us.
The Earthsea series is among the finest fantasy written. Brilliantly developed, superbly written, powerful and subtle. If you read no other Leguin, if you read no other fantasy, read this series. It’s that good.
Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris (Southern Vampires 4)
Rating: 4/5 – Excellent You might like this is you like: Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series; vampires, paranormal/supernatural
Synopsis:
Sookie comes to the rescue of a naked, amnesiac vampire – and ends up in the middle of a war between witches, werewolves and vampires! Sookie Stackhouse is a small-town cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She’s pretty. She does her job well. She keeps to herself – she has only a few close friends, because not everyone appreciates Sookie’s gift: she can read minds. That’s not exactly every man’s idea of date bait – unless they’re undead – vampires and the like can be tough to read. And that’s just the kind of guy Sookie’s been looking for. Maybe that’s why, when she comes across a naked vampire on the way home from work, she doesn’t just drive on by. He hasn’t got a clue who he is, but Sookie has: Eric looks just as scary and sexy – and dead – as the day she met him. But now he has amnesia, he’s sweet, vulnerable, and in need of Sookie’s help – because whoever took his memory now wants his life. Sookie’s investigation into what’s going on leads her straight into a dangerous battle between witches, vampires and werewolves. But there could be even greater danger – to Sookie’s heart, because the kinder, gentler Eric is very hard to resist.
Review:
This is actually my favourite of the first four books in the series. Seeing a vulnerable, sweet Eric is wonderful – it’s a whole new side of him that we haven’t seen before (of course, is it really him when he has no memory of who he is? Or is this actually the real Eric?), and who could blame any hot-blooded female for softening towards him? I know I certainly would!
But amnesiac Eric isn’t the only draw – there’s such a lot going on in this installment that it’s real seat-of-the-pants stuff: We have Witches, Weres and Vamps all battling it out and poor Sookie is caught right in the middle of it; Jason going missing is another major event that will change the course of his and Sookie’s lives (as well as the course of the series) completely; and Sookie has to really step up and do things she never thought she’d have to do – she really shows she’s made of steely stuff!
It really is jam-packed full of a plot so good I didn’t want it to end and it’s left me gasping for more, so I’ll be going right ahead and continuing with the rest of the series instead of taking a little break as I had planned!
Club Dead by Charlaine Harris (Southern Vampires 3)
Rating: 4/5 – Excellent
You might like this if you like: Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series; vampires; paranormal/supernatural
Synopsis: There’s only one vampire Sookie Stackhouse is involved with – at least voluntarily – and that’s Bill. But recently he’s been a little distant – in another state distant. His sinister and sexy boss Eric has an idea where to find him, and next thing Sookie knows she’s off to Jackson, Mississippi, to mingle with the underworld at Club Dead. It’s a dangerous little haunt where the elusive vampire society can go to chill out and suck down some Type O – but when Sookie finally finds Bill caught in an act of serious betrayal she’s not sure whether to save him, or to sharpen some stakes.
Review:
For me, this is where the series really starts picking up the pace! More happens in this installment than in either of the previous two and its damned exciting to boot!
For a start, we get a little more of Eric (sexy, brooding, mysterious vampire), less of Bill (Sookie’s slightly dull vampire boyfriend), and the introduction of Alcide (sexy werewolf who’s just a tad more “normal” than the vampire crowd Sookie has been hanging around with!). All this adds up to some great sexual tension – who will win Sookie’s attentions, if any of them? There’s also another appearance made by Bubba (who, although not a main character is one of my personal favourites!), which always adds a little sparkle to the storyline, even in the instances where he’s only there for a few pages.
There’s also a glimpse at how being part of the supernatural world is affecting Sookie’s abilities to function in the more human one. She’s being taken away from her job at Merlotte’s more often to do work for the vampires; as a result, her finances are suffering a little, so following on from that, Sookie is more than a little tense when it comes to the daily grind (aren’t we all when we have money troubles?). It all goes towards establishing her as being very realistic, and her temper flares reinforce that too – she’s no shrinking violet, nor is she the classical heroine – she’s a gal that has to live in the real world and knows how tough that can be sometimes. These little flashes of “normality” make the thick of the action all the better.
Cat’s Meow has received a 4 ½ kisses review from Merrylee of Two Lips Reviews
“Cat’s Meow by Nicole Austin is an engaging opening to her Predators series and one emotional, action-packed adventure not to be missed! The story snagged me on page one and didn’t let go till the very end. It has everything from simply hot heroes to very vile villains. Throw in a good deal of hot sex and loads of intrigue, and there isn’t much missing from the story…
“Their (Micha and Becca) passion is red hot in the beginning and only gets hotter. The sex is almost unremitting, but the scenes are written well, with lots of emotional components, and never overdone, especially considering that Micah’s lion is an insatiable horn dog. I loved him, especially in the rabbit scene.
“This is a great book, and I can’t wait for more! Nash will be featured in book two of this series, Eye of the Tiger. Ms. Austin, please don’t make me wait too long for its release. As a cat lover, I’m not sure this old heart of mine can take the anticipation for very long.”
Thank you for the fabulous review, Merrylee. The Predators series is one I’d wanted to write for more than a decade. Both Cat’s Meow and Eye of the Tiger are now available. The final book, Foxy Lady, should be releasing within the next month or two. And the gorgeous are Syneca created are my favorites of all my book covers.
What a way to come back from Christmas break: one snow day, two school days, two more snow days! At my house we loved being able to go sledding. But now we’re hoping that it warms up enough for us to get back to school on January 11th. If you’ve curled up with a good book during your snow days, let me know about it by leaving a comment below! Here are a couple recommendations from last week that you might enjoy reading, too:
Do you like horses? Do you like to DRAW horses? Well, if you do, you will like the book Draw 50 Horses by Lee J. Ames! Draw 50 Horses is a step by step drawing book. You will learn how to draw different breeds, poses and ages of horses!
If you read this book you will be able to draw masterpieces! Submitted by Allison V.
In the book The Invention Of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, twelve-year-old Hugo lives alone in a train station. His dad used to be the clock fixer there, but he died when he was young. He taught Hugo how to fix clocks. Now it’s Hugo’s job. Hugo has to steal food and all the stuff he has. But the story is still sad and adventurous.
I loved the book because it is adventerous and goes through his life. If you like adventure, you should read this great book because I like adventures and I liked the cop chase. It’s a good book. Submitted by Kameron W.
After my most recent book review, on Walter B. Cannon’s classic book “The Wisdom of the Body,” I said I was going to read Jay Schulkin’s book “Rethinking Homeostasis.”
Pretty cover!
I’ll be completely honest with you. I got about halfway through the 170 pages of text (the other 160 pages of the book are all references!) before I started to skim.
Schulkin reviews a lot of the literature about what he calls “allostatic” mechanisms in the body. For Schulkin, “allostasis” is the body’s management of forces to achieve stability – but primarily through physiological/behavioral mechanisms.
This is, for him, something that is in addition to Cannon’s concept of homeostasis (“stable through sameness”), which focused on the management of the “milieu interieur” (Claude Bernard’s term) – the interior climate of the body – through physic0-chemical processes (sodium balance, lipid (fat) carbohydrate and protein use/storage, etc.).
The proponents of allostasis aren’t saying that homeostasis needs to be chucked out the window, just that it’s an incomplete concept, and that the concept of allostasis (literally “stable through variability”) rounds it out, completes it, by including behavioral change designed to maintain the system’s internal stability, and physiological-systems change designed to do the same.
I had a very hard time, though, seeing the need for the new term. “Homeostasis” seems to fit the bill just fine, you’re just applying it to different processes/functions, that Cannon wasn’t aware of in his day.
Also, the writing is very dense with scientific terminology. But my biggest gripe about the book is that there’s little discussion about how the research that is described/discussed actually represents allostatic process(es), and/or how that process differs from homeostasis.
In all, skip it! If you’re really interested in homeostasis, read Cannon’s classic. Then, apply the concepts to other things (as Cannon does to sociology at the end of his book).
In a horrifying vision, Chelsea Adams has relived the victim’s last
moments. But who will believe her? Certainly not the police, who
must rely on hard evidence. Nor her husband, who barely tolerates
Chelsea’s newfound Christian faith. Besides, he’s about to hire the
man who Chelsea is certain is the killer to be a vice president in his
company.
Torn between what she knows and the burden of proof, Chelsea
must follow God’s leading and trust him for protection. Meanwhile,
the murderer is at liberty. And he’s not about to take Chelsea’s
involvement lying down.
Read an excerpt from chapter one at this link.
Second in the series is Dread Champion.
About Brandilyn Collins
Brandilyn Collins is a best-selling novelist known for her trademark Seatbelt Suspense®. These harrowing crime thrillers have earned her the tagline “Don’t forget to b r e a t h e . . .“® Brandilyn’s first book, A Question of Innocence, was a true crime published by Avon in 1995. Its promotion landed her on local and national TV and radio, including the Phil Donahue and Leeza talk shows. Brandilyn’s awards for her novels include the ACFW Book of the Year (three times), Inspirational Readers’ Choice, and Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice.
Brandilyn is also known for her distinctive book on fiction-writing techniques, Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn From Actors (John Wiley & Sons). The Writer magazine named Getting into Character one of the best books on writing published in 2002.
When she’s not writing, Brandilyn can be found teaching the craft of fiction at writers’ conferences. She and her family divide their time between homes in the California Bay Area and northern Idaho.
My Review: ♥ ♥ ♥
Collin’s novels are filled with suspense and surprize and keep the reader on the edge of his or her seat. This novel was no different in that respect. At times, I couldn’t put it down. I had to find out what happened next, and this novel was very well written. I could feel the emotions and tension throughout the book. The story did drag on a little in places but picked up at lightening speed in other places. The main fault I found is the ending left me unsatisfied. Too many loose ends weren’t tied up, and I felt myself upset with and sympathetic with the wrong characters. It was a good read though.
As an experienced traveler, there’s nothing I love more than a book about traveling. Not so much a travel book, as travel books suck. They are usually self-important and boring and, to be honest, you have to be pretty simplistic to think you could understand a culture you’ve barely spent any time in. But stories that take place within a wandering setting are fucking sweet. So here are the Disclaimer’s Top Five Road Books (That You Haven’t Read). This is what you want to read to get in the mood to travel. In no particular order.
1) Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.
Please don’t see the movie and then think, “Oh, I don’t need to read the book.” Because Sean Penn’s movie, awesome as it is, is kind of the cultural equivalent of giving Chris McCandless a blowjob. No, this true story about the ill-fated traveler who abandoned his family, burned his Social Security card, and spent two years tramping across America is much more complex than Penn’s movie, and Krakauer’s brilliant story-telling makes it one of the easiest non-fiction reads you’ll ever put your hands on. And it displays McCandless as a flawed idealist, rather than Penn’s unfortunate visionary.
2) The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub.
King and Straub’s fantasy tale follows an 11-year-old boy who can slip in and out or a parallel universe and must travel across the country – our U.S. and the parallel U.S. – to reach the Talisman, a mysterious object that will save his mother’s life. An absolutely bizarre book, but probably King’s best work, and it gives the King fan a sneak peak at what’s to come in his Dark Tower series, which he would finish 20 years later. I’d include the Dark Tower too, as it’s a road story, but the Talisman is shorter and better told, and frankly, each Dark Tower book gets progressively worse.
3) The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy
Ok, this is technically cheating, as it’s three books, but they’re all weaved together. The Crossing, the first, details the travels back and forth across the Mexican border of Billy Parham. All the Pretty Horses, details the travels and love affairs of John Grady Cole, and Cities of the Plain, the third, details the rest of the lives of both men. The first two are probably better than the third, but the reason they’re on this list is because each of them evokes fantastic imagery of the Southwest U.S. in the early 20th Century, at the end of the cowboy era. It’ll make you want to sleep in a tent under the stars with a cigar and a guitar. And, come on, it’s by Cormac McCarthy, the man’s a writing God.
4) Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien
A bizarre Vietnam War book by the guy who did The Things They Carried, about a Private who decides to go AWOL and walk to Paris. From Vietnam. The other members of his squad decide to follow him through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. More about war than travel, but a story so weird and exotic that you kinda want to go to Paris via Asia afterwards.
5) Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga by Hunter S. Thompson
Yeah, I know this isn’t really his “travel” book. I know his classic is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but this is books you haven’t already read, and if you haven’t read Fear and Loathing, you really should be shot in the forehead. Hell’s Angels was before he got deep into drugs – and I say that only relative to Thompson himself, not to what anyone else would consider deep – and it’s basically a non-fiction book on the Hell’s Angels in their heyday, before Altamont and the wars between motorcycle gangs. Thompson rode with them as only the King of Gonzo could, and eventually he got his ass kicked by them. The book is good, but I’ve never seen a piece of writing that made me want to get out and drive, windows down, like the last chapter.
This is very obviously an incomplete list. They’re books you SHOULD read, not the best of all time. I intentionally avoided anything I thought could have made a summer reading list at some point (okay, maybe Into the Wild, but Christ, DON’T just watch the movie). If you haven’t, though, check out the following:
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson
Think you’re too sophisticated for Young Adult (YA) fiction? Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow, will have you thinking again. Rife with techy jargon, textese, and Spanglish slang, the language of this book is as forward thinking as its subject matter. Though not a tome, this heart pounding, page-turning thriller is a comprehensive look at the issues plaguing our society today – namely the all-too-topical debate of privacy versus security. Although at times digressive hacking tips dilute the plotline, the action heats up as the book progresses.
Doctorow’s book begins with “the worst terrorist attack ever perpetrated on our nation’s soil” – the destruction of San Franciso’s Bay Bridge and its attendant tunnel under the bay. His choice of San Francisco is deliberate, emphasizing the similitude of the Civil Rights Movement with today’s struggle to uphold the first amendment in the amorphous realm of the Internet. Marcus, alias m1k3y, and his gaming pals are playing hooky from school when the attack occurs and they find themselves unpropitiously in the wrong place at the wrong time, leading to their incarceration. What results is an all out war against the totalitarian arrest-happy Department of Homeland Security thugs by an underground movement of high schoolers who find themselves in far over their heads.
My initial reaction to Doctorow’s work was to wish that it had been written for adults, as the subject matter is of extreme importance. But then I realized Doctorow’s genius in targeting the generation of tomorrow. By doing so, he subscribes to the mantra of Marcus and his friends to not trust “anyone over twenty-five” (another echo of the Civil Rights Movement). While the ideologies of adults may be set in stone, teenagers who read this work and quickly find Marcus to be a role model, will take the issues at hand into consideration and maybe even alter their attitude about security and privacy. If Doctorow can be blamed for making his protagonist slightly too altruistic, slightly too steadfast and dogmatic in his beliefs for someone his age, it can be forgiven in light of this larger goal.
Overall: A must read for anyone who has ever questioned the man.
Chetan Bhagat known for his youthful yet message -oriented novels, comes up with his latest creation ‘2 states –the story of my marriage’. The story is about how the two protagonists one from North India and the Other from South India love each other and get married with the permission of their parents. They face many hurdles first within themselves, then with both their parents and with their relatives.
The characterization of both the protagonists namely Krish and Ananya have been very tactfully characterized by the author to keep the novel going at a jolly good pace. Although the novel brings out certain serious issues on love and region bias, it is all coated with a layer of humour making the reader laugh at the sarcasm.
With already three novels to his credit, with ‘2 states…’ adding to it,Chetan Bhagat lives up to the readers’ expectations and delivers a delight as always.
Book Review: Desert Rose and Her Highfalutin Hog by Alison Jackson
Published by Walker & Co., 2009
Get ready to kick your heels while you read this fun, read-aloud Texan picture book! Rose was cleanin’ the pigs’ muck when she discovered a gold nugget. She bought the fattest pig she could find to enter the Texas State Fair. However, she took a shortcut and came across a creek. The pig would not get in the water, nor drink it. This starts a chain reaction–she asks many animals to help her such as a coldhearted coyote, a persnickety snake, a bothersome bronco, and an armdillo with an attitude. Finally, she coaxed the armadillo into helping her by rewarding it with a two hundred pound bag of bugs. Rose and her highfalutin hog win the prize at the fair.
This is a great book for retelling. Ask your child to tell you what happened first, next, which animals came next, and what happened at the end. Your child could even draw a picture about the book. This is also a fun book to read in a southern accent–make it up if you have to!
Gosh, I love doing these sorts of posts even though they are so cliche. So here it goes. Here’s what I want to accomplish/work on this year.
I want to read 100 books. As per my last post, I’m participating in the 100 book challenge to keep motivated. If anyone wants to participate with me, please let me know. Maybe we can have an online book club on second life or skype or something. I only got through maybe 82 last year.
I want to be more honest – with myself and with other people. It’s not that I’m dishonest. I guess what I’m saying is that I want to be able to say the hard things to people, even if they may not want to hear it.
In tandem with number two above, I want people to be able to tell me the hard things and I want to be able to graciously accept it, not fly off the cuff or be mean about it.
I want to limit my soda/coffee to two a day – one each. And limit alcohol consumption to once a week.
I want to avoid putting things on my credit cards, which I’ve been generally successful with over the past year because I am working on reducing my balances.
I want to blog everyday, unless I’m sick or in the hospital, both here and over at my review blog.
I want to get to the gym at least three days a week – and take classes there – yoga, aerobics, whatever.
I want to lose the last ten pounds of baby weight.
It is a fact: Major devastating solar winds in 2012; (Jan. 1st, 2010)
A nasty solar eruption (winds) is predicted on September 22, 2012 at midnight. Scientists at NASA published a report warning on high volume sun flare up. This flare up is not your run of the mill gorgeous aurora borealis in the Arctic. The sun will eject one billion tons of plasma of particles (ions and electrons) that will grill all electrical infrastructure and electrical machines in the northern hemisphere if no precautions are programmed. When solar winds come in contact with earth magnetic field then a major catastrophe sets in This solar eruption will be witnessed around the equinoxes (periods when the center of the sun faces directly the equator). Mind you that the sun is far hotter and much more active than it was a million years ago.
At the onset of the solar wind State governments will enjoy a window of opportunity to shut down all electrical power sources and facilities. The main decision is to prepare for the worst case scenario: the winds might last for over two weeks and potable water should be available for the duration of the eruption. People living in high rise building should be accommodated in makeshift camps for the period of the cataclysm because potable water cannot be pumped electrically.
In case no emergency policies are planned then, what are the effects after electrical power going dead? Potable water is the major immediate problem since most potable water is purified electrically and distributed electrically in urban centers. Citizens will have to survive for at least a year before electrical infrastructure and electrical equipments are renewed and fabricated. Urban people will try to relocate to regions enjoying clean potable water sources (which are becoming rare almost anywhere, even in Africa).
This “Sun winds” phenomenon occurred in 1859 (Carrington eruption) and lasted for 8 days; telegraph services were disrupted. Luckily, potable water and clean water sources were intact at the time. Thus, no transport relying on electricity in any part of it will function. Hospital will have to replace their generators after the solar wind episode; unless tight enclosures that are magnetic field proof are constructed. Mostly, modern health providing facilities will be at an end. Pharmaceutical industry will stop producing vital medicines for an entire year or as generators and infrastructure are renewed.
What do you think technology can offer to resolve the consequences of this solar wind hazard? In the meantime, diseases will spread; rats and roaches will invade urban centers in broad day light. Time to get used to eating rats but how to finding potable water? Best to be prepared for worst case scenarios since sun winds can be predicted ahead of time and start thinking of alternative technologies for pumping and purifying water.
Is everybody and their mother writing a book? Now I think I know why Sarah Palin rushed hers to print. Notice the special words Mr. Paulson has for Palin.
Pandemonium
What is the gospel? Is it the message we preach, the biblical books we read, the life we live, or a little of all three? What has the gospel become? In The Naked Gospel: The Truth You May Never Hear in Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), Andrew Farley tells his personal life-long story of wrestling with these questions. Farley’s journey began as a young adult with a driving obsession to share the gospel, but his reasoning for sharing was less a love for the lost and more a compulsion to fulfill “obligations” driven by fear, guilt and pressure. The formative years of his life were molded by the belief that he needed to do something to live the Christian life. What Farley terms as legalism dominated his thinking.
These are both fun books that are quick, enjoyable reads. The Overnight Socialite is a modern take on My Fair Lady that is funny and heartwarming. The Nanny Returns is the sequel to the best seller The Nanny Diaries; this one was a little more melancholy as Nanny and her former charge Grayer, have both grown up and are having a hrd time dealing with life’s more challenging obstacles. 
Did I miss anything over the holidays? Have you read anything good that my bookshelf is missing?? Let me know!
An Experiment in Love had me hooked from the very beginning. It is a wonderfully honest account of Carmel’s relationships, failings and misfortunes.
Here is the introduction and conclusion of a forthcoming book review I wrote:
. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. Pp. 268, softcover. $29.00.
Name of Book: Big Blue Whale
After last week’s post about the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMO’s), I found myself thinking about the topic all week. The human race is in the process right now of deciding how to handle the ability to modify genetics, and our ultimate decision has nearly unfathomable consequence for the world.
I almost squealed with delight when I saw this book in the library. No, I had never heard of it nor anyone had ever recommended it to me. But what made me happy was that this book was written by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Till I read this book , I had no clue that they were colleagues or even friends!!
Eyes of Elisha
by Brandilyn Collins
Book Review: Desert Rose and Her Highfalutin Hog by Alison Jackson