This year, I kept track of the number of books I read.
It was... an astonishing number.
111. One Hundred Eleven Books.
I'm very pleased with this. I'm pleased with myself for the big number. Pleased with the fact that I kept track and reviewed most of them. Though, going over the list... I noticed a few times I wrote "review coming soon." Oops.
Keeping that list makes me think I should have an easier time coming up with a Best Books of 2010. Though putting lists of favorite things in order is never my strong suit.
Heading into the new year, I want to read even more books. I want to review more of them here. Even if the reviews I write are short paragraphs, or even reposts from Twitter.
And... I am going to use the number of books to make a donation to the NYPL. $1 per book. More of that in an upcoming post.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Nine books to make the season bright (Christmas round-up)
Nine books to make the season bright
Reviewed by Elizabeth Willse
for the Newark Star-Ledger 12/19/2010
Whether you decide to put these seasonal books under the tree for your favorite reader, or curl up with one yourself, the following celebrate the spirit of the holiday season.
With secret spy messages in a plum pudding and a bantering romance that verges on screwball comedy, The Mischief of the Mistletoe (Dutton, 352 pp., $19.95), by Lauren Willig, is a terrific romp, even for newcomers to Willig’s Pink Carnation series of smart historical romances. The central pair isn’t the typical romantic couple. But that’s what makes acerbic and level-headed Arabella Dempsey and earnestly blustering Reginald “Turnip” Fitzhugh so much fun.
The Christmas Cookie Club (Simon and Schuster, 274 pp., $15), by Ann Pearlman, will make you feel like you know Marnie and her friends, who meet to exchange homemade holiday cookies every year. During the cookie exchange they catch up, share memories and deal with some tough midlife issues with candor and humor. Best of all, there are recipes that might inspire you to start a tradition of exchanging holiday treats with your own friends.
Christmas With Tucker (Doubleday, 192 pp., $15.99), by Greg Kincaid, is a warmly nostalgic story about a boy growing up on a farm and the dog who loved him. Twelve-year-old George, still mourning the death of his father, arrives at his grandparents’ farm just before Christmas and one of the worst blizzards anyone can remember. Trying to help keep the farm running and the roads plowed, George is too busy and too cold to think of Christmas spirit. Tucker is a lonely and neglected Irish setter, instantly devoted to George, just when they both most need a friend.
For history buffs, there are two excellent perspectives on Christmas during World War II.
In the Dark Streets Shineth: A 1941 Christmas Story (Shadow Mountain, 56 pp., $19.99), by David McCullough, captures the events of Christmas 1941, days after Pearl Harbor. Richly illustrated with archival photographs, McCullough tells the story of the meeting between Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt, as well as tracing the origins of now-classic Christmas songs such as “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
Christmas 1945: The Greatest Celebration in American History (History Publishing, 220 pp., $24.95), by New Jersey author Matthew Litt, gives detail and context to the story of Christmas 1945, when the troops were starting to come home and people felt like celebrating for the first time since the war began. Litt does a beautiful job of evoking wartime Christmases, with shortages and sacrifices, and adults putting on brave, celebratory faces for the children.
It’s hard to write about a change of heart at Christmas without coming across as overly sentimental. An Amish Christmas, by Cynthia Keller (Ballantine Books, 256 pp., $16), finds a perfect balance between a good story and a good message.
When her husband loses his job and squanders their savings, Meg Hobart and her family have to pack up and leave their gorgeous house and wealthy life behind. Meg’s teen kids are being brats about having to give up their gadgets when a car wreck on a snowy road strands the family on an Amish family farm. The honesty of all the characters, even the whining kids, makes this story work, as the Hobarts adjust to the hard work of a simpler life.
Anyone who was expecting holiday cheer from Augusten Burroughs hasn’t read his earlier essay collection, “Running With Scissors.” You Better Not Cry (Picador, 224 pp., $14) is grouchy, sarcastic and sometimes demented (a drunken one-night stand with a pervy French Santa Claus; you’ve been warned). In spite of Burroughs’ raunchy exploits, some of his stories are awkwardly sweet, even tender. Mystery lovers can choose between a short story anthology and a hilarious satire this season.
Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop (Vanguard Press, 256 pp., $24.95), edited by Otto Penzler, collects the mystery stories he’s commissioned for his holiday greeting from such bestselling writers as Ed McBain and Lawrence Block.
Each story celebrates New York and the holiday, while telling a thrilling tale.
The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir (Dutton. 288 pp., $19.95), by Ken Harmon, is a goofy send-up of Christmas lore and hard-boiled detective stories. After Gumdrop the elf gets fired, having been charged with stuffing bad kids’ stockings with lumps of coal, he wants revenge.
But when the parent of a naughty kid winds up dead, Gumdrop knows he was framed. You’ll have as much fun catching references to Yuletide pop culture as you will following Gumdrop’s adventures as he races to unravel the mystery.
Elizabeth Willse is a freelance writer from Manhattan.
Reviewed by Elizabeth Willse
for the Newark Star-Ledger 12/19/2010
Whether you decide to put these seasonal books under the tree for your favorite reader, or curl up with one yourself, the following celebrate the spirit of the holiday season.
With secret spy messages in a plum pudding and a bantering romance that verges on screwball comedy, The Mischief of the Mistletoe (Dutton, 352 pp., $19.95), by Lauren Willig, is a terrific romp, even for newcomers to Willig’s Pink Carnation series of smart historical romances. The central pair isn’t the typical romantic couple. But that’s what makes acerbic and level-headed Arabella Dempsey and earnestly blustering Reginald “Turnip” Fitzhugh so much fun.
The Christmas Cookie Club (Simon and Schuster, 274 pp., $15), by Ann Pearlman, will make you feel like you know Marnie and her friends, who meet to exchange homemade holiday cookies every year. During the cookie exchange they catch up, share memories and deal with some tough midlife issues with candor and humor. Best of all, there are recipes that might inspire you to start a tradition of exchanging holiday treats with your own friends.
Christmas With Tucker (Doubleday, 192 pp., $15.99), by Greg Kincaid, is a warmly nostalgic story about a boy growing up on a farm and the dog who loved him. Twelve-year-old George, still mourning the death of his father, arrives at his grandparents’ farm just before Christmas and one of the worst blizzards anyone can remember. Trying to help keep the farm running and the roads plowed, George is too busy and too cold to think of Christmas spirit. Tucker is a lonely and neglected Irish setter, instantly devoted to George, just when they both most need a friend.
For history buffs, there are two excellent perspectives on Christmas during World War II.
In the Dark Streets Shineth: A 1941 Christmas Story (Shadow Mountain, 56 pp., $19.99), by David McCullough, captures the events of Christmas 1941, days after Pearl Harbor. Richly illustrated with archival photographs, McCullough tells the story of the meeting between Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt, as well as tracing the origins of now-classic Christmas songs such as “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
Christmas 1945: The Greatest Celebration in American History (History Publishing, 220 pp., $24.95), by New Jersey author Matthew Litt, gives detail and context to the story of Christmas 1945, when the troops were starting to come home and people felt like celebrating for the first time since the war began. Litt does a beautiful job of evoking wartime Christmases, with shortages and sacrifices, and adults putting on brave, celebratory faces for the children.
It’s hard to write about a change of heart at Christmas without coming across as overly sentimental. An Amish Christmas, by Cynthia Keller (Ballantine Books, 256 pp., $16), finds a perfect balance between a good story and a good message.
When her husband loses his job and squanders their savings, Meg Hobart and her family have to pack up and leave their gorgeous house and wealthy life behind. Meg’s teen kids are being brats about having to give up their gadgets when a car wreck on a snowy road strands the family on an Amish family farm. The honesty of all the characters, even the whining kids, makes this story work, as the Hobarts adjust to the hard work of a simpler life.
Anyone who was expecting holiday cheer from Augusten Burroughs hasn’t read his earlier essay collection, “Running With Scissors.” You Better Not Cry (Picador, 224 pp., $14) is grouchy, sarcastic and sometimes demented (a drunken one-night stand with a pervy French Santa Claus; you’ve been warned). In spite of Burroughs’ raunchy exploits, some of his stories are awkwardly sweet, even tender. Mystery lovers can choose between a short story anthology and a hilarious satire this season.
Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop (Vanguard Press, 256 pp., $24.95), edited by Otto Penzler, collects the mystery stories he’s commissioned for his holiday greeting from such bestselling writers as Ed McBain and Lawrence Block.
Each story celebrates New York and the holiday, while telling a thrilling tale.
The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir (Dutton. 288 pp., $19.95), by Ken Harmon, is a goofy send-up of Christmas lore and hard-boiled detective stories. After Gumdrop the elf gets fired, having been charged with stuffing bad kids’ stockings with lumps of coal, he wants revenge.
But when the parent of a naughty kid winds up dead, Gumdrop knows he was framed. You’ll have as much fun catching references to Yuletide pop culture as you will following Gumdrop’s adventures as he races to unravel the mystery.
Elizabeth Willse is a freelance writer from Manhattan.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
All Clear
I'm not quite halfway into All Clear, Connie Willis's follow up to Blackout. It's not a sequel, it's a continuation, of a book the author realized was so large in scope that it extended across two lengthy novels. Time traveling historians study the daily life and social history of World War II, while hoping that their presence as people from the future doesn't alter history so much so that they endanger themselves. These are historians who could know so much, and feel so insulated and detached by their studies. And yet, the dual perils of avoiding paradox and just navigating wartime's unpredictable life are sources of constant tension and danger.
In both stories, Willis manages a density of detail that makes me forgive a few moments of confusion jumping between members of the ensemble cast. (I think I definitely lost track of Polly's backstory in between novels.) Willis's descriptions of the ordinary facts of wartime life are so meticulous that I can practically feel the texture of a prized pair of nylon stockings, or hear the boom of planes dropping bombs mercifully somewhere else.
I've read both these books in a way that doesn't do them justice. I put them on my waiting list at the library, so I didn't read them as a continuous whole, but had about 2 months in between. All Clear picks up immediately where Blackout breaks off, and I could have done with a little bit more grounding, a few more references to the contexts and past events for each character.
Clearly, I have to go back and reread the books without a gap, as they were meant to be.
Only then, after being so deeply drawn into their World War II story, I am sure I will feel like a time traveler myself.
In both stories, Willis manages a density of detail that makes me forgive a few moments of confusion jumping between members of the ensemble cast. (I think I definitely lost track of Polly's backstory in between novels.) Willis's descriptions of the ordinary facts of wartime life are so meticulous that I can practically feel the texture of a prized pair of nylon stockings, or hear the boom of planes dropping bombs mercifully somewhere else.
I've read both these books in a way that doesn't do them justice. I put them on my waiting list at the library, so I didn't read them as a continuous whole, but had about 2 months in between. All Clear picks up immediately where Blackout breaks off, and I could have done with a little bit more grounding, a few more references to the contexts and past events for each character.
Clearly, I have to go back and reread the books without a gap, as they were meant to be.
Only then, after being so deeply drawn into their World War II story, I am sure I will feel like a time traveler myself.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
The Last Sherlock Holmes Story
The Last Sherlock Holmes Story
Michael Dibdin
Oxford University Press
Paperback $6.95 72 pages
I read this book, and wrote a review of it, longhand on notepaper, about a week before I saw the new BBC Sherlock Holmes, where Benedict Cumberbach turns Holmes into a modern genius. I was enthralled from his first supercilious text message, and am rethinking my usual stuffy stance on Holmes adaptations, including what I wrote in this review.
A good reimagining of Sherlock Holmes works with the spirit of the original, the atmosphere and language as well as the characters. Call me a purist, but I want to see Holmes and Watson obeying the cadences of Conan Doyle's original language, behaving in ways that extend from the patterns Conan Doyle set up in A Study In Scarlet and Hound of the Baskervilles. To tell a completely new story while honoring its origins takes a fine, balanced hand.
Michael Dibdin honors the Holmes legend while pushing its boundaries. Dibdin restlessly prowls the foggy world of 19th century London, invoking Holmes' keen intellect, Watson's loyalty sometimes tempered with exasperation, incorporating the real-life events of Jack The Ripper.
Best of all, Dibdin doesn't head for the facile conclusion a Holmes vs. Ripper showdown could have had. It could have been an ordinary pure dichotomy: good versus evil, clues, chase, crime solved.
What Dibdin builds is a much more thoughtful exploration of the Holmes character, and even the Ripper's psyche. It raises probing questions about Holmes' character for both Watson telling the tale, and the reader, putting it into the context of the larger Holmes narrative.
Other Holmes adaptations I like:
Sherlock- the BBC series. I started watching the DVDs on Monday and was floored. Sherlock! Texting! Taking nicotine patches instead of cocaine! But still being his arrogant self! Watson! An Afghanistan vet! God, it's perfect!
The Italian Secretary- Caleb Carr. No surprise that the author of The Alienist has a terrific ear for recreating Conan Doyle's language, while telling a new, almost whimsical story. (Anything involving a parrot is at least somewhat whimsical. Blame Monty Python.)
Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders-Larry Millett. It took a while to get used to the idea of Sherlock Holmes visiting America, or in the sparse, somewhat frontier setting of Minnesota. I picked this up at the library by chance. (And had the entirely unworthy thought of comparing it to the Book of Mormon, in that it took literary figures far from their accepted setting, to construct a wholly new mythology.) The mystery and characterization grabbed me, though. I had no idea there were others. I might read them.
The Art of Detection- Laurie R. King. Detective Kate Martinelli investigates a murder within a community of Sherlock Holmes-obsessed enthusiasts. I wish Laurie R. King would write more Kate Martinelli books. I know she's done extensive volumes of her own Holmes adaptation, starring Mary Russell, but I find the idea of Married!Holmes decidedly creepy.
Michael Dibdin
Oxford University Press
Paperback $6.95 72 pages
I read this book, and wrote a review of it, longhand on notepaper, about a week before I saw the new BBC Sherlock Holmes, where Benedict Cumberbach turns Holmes into a modern genius. I was enthralled from his first supercilious text message, and am rethinking my usual stuffy stance on Holmes adaptations, including what I wrote in this review.
A good reimagining of Sherlock Holmes works with the spirit of the original, the atmosphere and language as well as the characters. Call me a purist, but I want to see Holmes and Watson obeying the cadences of Conan Doyle's original language, behaving in ways that extend from the patterns Conan Doyle set up in A Study In Scarlet and Hound of the Baskervilles. To tell a completely new story while honoring its origins takes a fine, balanced hand.
Michael Dibdin honors the Holmes legend while pushing its boundaries. Dibdin restlessly prowls the foggy world of 19th century London, invoking Holmes' keen intellect, Watson's loyalty sometimes tempered with exasperation, incorporating the real-life events of Jack The Ripper.
Best of all, Dibdin doesn't head for the facile conclusion a Holmes vs. Ripper showdown could have had. It could have been an ordinary pure dichotomy: good versus evil, clues, chase, crime solved.
What Dibdin builds is a much more thoughtful exploration of the Holmes character, and even the Ripper's psyche. It raises probing questions about Holmes' character for both Watson telling the tale, and the reader, putting it into the context of the larger Holmes narrative.
Other Holmes adaptations I like:
Sherlock- the BBC series. I started watching the DVDs on Monday and was floored. Sherlock! Texting! Taking nicotine patches instead of cocaine! But still being his arrogant self! Watson! An Afghanistan vet! God, it's perfect!
The Italian Secretary- Caleb Carr. No surprise that the author of The Alienist has a terrific ear for recreating Conan Doyle's language, while telling a new, almost whimsical story. (Anything involving a parrot is at least somewhat whimsical. Blame Monty Python.)
Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders-Larry Millett. It took a while to get used to the idea of Sherlock Holmes visiting America, or in the sparse, somewhat frontier setting of Minnesota. I picked this up at the library by chance. (And had the entirely unworthy thought of comparing it to the Book of Mormon, in that it took literary figures far from their accepted setting, to construct a wholly new mythology.) The mystery and characterization grabbed me, though. I had no idea there were others. I might read them.
The Art of Detection- Laurie R. King. Detective Kate Martinelli investigates a murder within a community of Sherlock Holmes-obsessed enthusiasts. I wish Laurie R. King would write more Kate Martinelli books. I know she's done extensive volumes of her own Holmes adaptation, starring Mary Russell, but I find the idea of Married!Holmes decidedly creepy.
Arthur: At the Crossing Places
Arthur: At The Crossing Places
Kevin Crossley Holland
This was a lovely, lyrical follow-up to Arthur: The Seeing Stone. Arthur of Caldicot's life is still mysteriously intwined with the life and legend of King Arthur. Young Arthur sees visions of the famed king in his obsidian seeing stone. These images and departures from his own life give the story a sometimes dreamlike quality which is gorgeous, even though it can get confusing. How are Arthur and King Arthur connected? What about Merlin, appearing in both vision and reality? What do you call narrator-Arthur when writing a book review?
Young Arthur (as opposed to King Arthur) is growing up, wanting to be betrothed and to join the Crusades. His visions show him King Arthur, and some familiar Round Table knights like Percival, Gawain, and Lancelot, as well as Guinivere and Morgana.
Each story, Boy-Arthur and King Arthur, is gorgeously told, with imagery and poetry I wanted to savor, rather than read fast. The Round Table is described as a giant, crystalline, polished stone, with sparkles of light and shadow floating in its depths. Guinevere and Lancelot's inevitable tragedy (at least I think it's inevitable, from what I know) seems almost hopeful, it's so beautiful.
Boy-Arthur's adventures are fascinating as well, a window into the historical life of the time, the daily routines of training to be a page, while also nurturing the education of a scholar. The castle's rhythms of feast days and the divisions between lords and the people. Each scene has such rich detail, it's easy to imagine, and tremendous fun to read.
I don't remember whether I mentioned this while reading the first book, but this trilogy seems like spiritual and thematic kin to Mary Stewart's Merlin books. The language and imagery work in similar ways.
Will have to put volume three on my library list.
Kevin Crossley Holland
This was a lovely, lyrical follow-up to Arthur: The Seeing Stone. Arthur of Caldicot's life is still mysteriously intwined with the life and legend of King Arthur. Young Arthur sees visions of the famed king in his obsidian seeing stone. These images and departures from his own life give the story a sometimes dreamlike quality which is gorgeous, even though it can get confusing. How are Arthur and King Arthur connected? What about Merlin, appearing in both vision and reality? What do you call narrator-Arthur when writing a book review?
Young Arthur (as opposed to King Arthur) is growing up, wanting to be betrothed and to join the Crusades. His visions show him King Arthur, and some familiar Round Table knights like Percival, Gawain, and Lancelot, as well as Guinivere and Morgana.
Each story, Boy-Arthur and King Arthur, is gorgeously told, with imagery and poetry I wanted to savor, rather than read fast. The Round Table is described as a giant, crystalline, polished stone, with sparkles of light and shadow floating in its depths. Guinevere and Lancelot's inevitable tragedy (at least I think it's inevitable, from what I know) seems almost hopeful, it's so beautiful.
Boy-Arthur's adventures are fascinating as well, a window into the historical life of the time, the daily routines of training to be a page, while also nurturing the education of a scholar. The castle's rhythms of feast days and the divisions between lords and the people. Each scene has such rich detail, it's easy to imagine, and tremendous fun to read.
I don't remember whether I mentioned this while reading the first book, but this trilogy seems like spiritual and thematic kin to Mary Stewart's Merlin books. The language and imagery work in similar ways.
Will have to put volume three on my library list.
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