A Book A Week - Week 52: I Think We All Learned Something

This week's book:
  A Look Back

  Grade:  A

I know it's a trite trope for the year-end, it's the lazy man's journalism, it's participating in the modern list-ification of things, but I think my exercise in A Book A Week needs a summary.  A recap.   A book-end, if you will.  So here are a few questions, and my answers:

 Which was your favorite book?
   It's hard to say, I read many excellent books.  My overall favorite fiction was A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood.  But that was published before I was born.
  My favorite fiction which was published in the last three years or so... it would have to be a three-way tie, between The Golem and The Jinni by Helene Wecker, The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan, and City of Bohane by Kevin Barry.
   My favorite non-fiction was Detroit by Charlie LeDuff.  I really liked almost all of the non-fiction I read, though.  Almost all. 

Was it difficult reading a book a week?
   Not at all.  Except for a couple of very long books - and a few confusing or enraging ones - I generally finished each book in five or six days.  A couple of hours a day is all it takes.  Turn off the TV and the clock becomes your friend.

Did you discover anything about your tastes?
   Yes.  I surprised myself with how easy it was to move beyond what I thought my type of book was.  I also learned that a good book is a good book no matter where it's shelved.  Same goes for a bad book.

What would you have done differently?
   I think I would have planned the first months better.  I was just flying by the seat of my pants there, kind of reading anything that crossed my path.  After April I tried to look ahead at the lists and see if anything new or exciting was coming out.  I liked reading first novels.

Which was your least favorite book?
   That one's easy, the hands-down winner.  Why I Jump.  Pure garbage.
   My least favorite fiction was another tie, between Ready Player One and Inferno.  Sure, I could have said Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey, but why beat a dead horse?  Everyone knows those books are terrible.
   Aside from 'Why I Jump,' my non-fiction choices were all pretty good.  If I had to pick one least favorite, it's Good To Great.

What did you discover about the business of books?
   Popular does not necessarily mean good.  Or even passable.  And good does not necessarily mean commercially successful.  I think if you chase commercial success you might get it, but you almost certainly won't produce anything good or lasting.  You really do have to stay true to your vision and yourself, let the weasels and bean-counters worry about commercial.  The best books I read were the most honest, the worst were the most obviously commercial.

Would you recommend A Book A Week to others?
   Yes.  Do it.  I bought most of my books, but that's not necessary.  Libraries are fantastic places, and librarians are your quiet, subversive advocates.  They want you to check books out and read them.  They also want you to bring them back on time, deadbeat.

How can I get my kids to read?
   Set the example.  You need to read.  In front of them.  If your kids see you reading, they'll get the idea that reading is what people do.  If they only see sitting on your ass, watching Access Hollywood or Maury, they'll think that's what people should do.  And people really should not. 

Which book surprised you the most?
   As far as for-real twists and psychodrama in fiction, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  I can usually figure out plots pretty quickly, but not with this one.
   For non-fiction it's Undisputed Truth by Mike Tyson.  Surprisingly insightful.
   As far as surprising my expectations, it would have to be The Last Buccaneer by Lynn Erickson.  It's a Harlequin Romance, and nothing at all like I expected.

Would you do it again?
   Absolutely.  Next year I may just post a few more reviews.  Not one a week, though.  That's work.

Next week:
My Book A Week for a year exercise is over.  I think I'm not going to read anything next week.  Or maybe I will.  Just not on a schedule.

A Book A Week - Week 51: George Washington's Secret Six

This week's book:
  George Washington's Secret Six   by Brian Kilmeade*  with Don Yeager

  Grade: B-

I'm no Revolutionary War scholar, but this book brings a new dimension to my understanding of the Founding Fathers and exactly how they won the war.

It's established fact in primary education that the Patriots were outmanned, outgunned, and out-supplied for almost every military engagement of the Revolutionary War.  The stories of the privations of Valley Forge, for instance, are common knowledge.  And the conventional wisdom - perhaps taught, perhaps not - is that the Patriots just had more pluck, luck, courage, and fortitude than the British.  That Americans won their independence through grit and determination more than anything else.

And that may be true.  Mostly.  But it did always seem to me a very simplistic explanation.  Very rarely does the complete underdog overcome the kind of odds the Patriots faced without some kind of secret advantage.  Turns out that advantage was spies.

General Washington was no stranger to a guerilla war, he did fight for the British in the French Indian War.  But this book shows how he pressed his advantage, which was the entrenched population of New York, to build a spy network that provided him a strategic and intelligence advantage the British could not overcome.  Not that they didn't try, they turned General Benedict Arnold to their side, after all.

This was an enlightening read, and well done.  I had to give it a B-, though, because it's classed as an 'historical novel,' whatever that is.
    Basically, the author(s) chose to make the narrative more of a story than an account of facts.  Which I can't really fault them for, I've read some very dry non-fiction this year.  I have to give them a thumbs-up for trying to mix it up to make the facts of the story more appealing to masses.

But the facts suffer for it.  There are accounts of conversations, for example, where there is no record of any such conversation existing.  Or accounts of the thoughts of real, historical figures without the corresponding backing documents.  The book aspires to scholarship, and it does shed light on a previously dark part of American history, but it muddies the academic waters with liberal dramatic license. 

 * yes, I know he's a Fox News shill.  I prefer to treat them better than they treat others, and assume that Mr. Kilmeade may have something to contribute despite his reprehensible day job and my opinion of how he does it.

Next week:
I have no idea what I'll read for the last week of Book a Week.  We'll see what Santa brings tomorrow.

Too Little, Much Too Late

As of today, Christmas Eve, 2013, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II granted a pardon to Alan Turing.

His crime?  Being gay in Britain in the 1950's.

Yes, in the 20th Century Mr. Turing was convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to be chemically castrated.  The British government forced him to take estrogen in order to curb his baser animal urges.  You know, because he was rampaging around the English countryside gay-raping everyone he could get his hands on.*

While I appreciate the effort and the sentiment, pardoning Mr. Turing for a 'crime' that was as much an offense as me being brown-eyed or right-handed sends the wrong message.  The message is that the authorities weren't wrong in the first place when they convicted Mr. Turing of being gay.  They were nothing but wrong, and a pardon - even an extremely rare one from the Queen herself - is not justice.  The only justice would be to commute the sentence, or vacate it, or whatever they call it over in England when the judiciary realizes they've been party to a gross miscarriage of justice and they need to make it right.
    So, thanks, Your Majesty, for at least giving it a go.  But you needed to do better.

Who was Alan Turing?  A towering genius, a truly remarkable man whose achievements led to the very device you're using to read this blog right now.  Essentially, he invented the idea of electronic computers, along with the methods for programming them.  Without him the modern world would be a very, very, different place.  If you don't already know who he was, you need to find out right now.  It'll make you appreciate the difference one man can truly make, and what happens when small minds and petty bureaucracies interfere.
     Wikipedia is a good place to start.


* for the sarcasm-impaired, this is sarcasm

A Book A Week - Week 50: Brown Dog

This week's book:
   Brown Dog   by Jim Harrison

Grade:  A

I've said before that I like my fiction to be muscular, to have a mustache and whiskey breath and know how to change a tire and fell a tree.  Well, I found my kind of story with Brown Dog.

This book is actually a collection of short stories published from the 90's to 2010, though they're set even earlier, in the 70's.  Brown Dog is the main character, a man who never quite grew up or settled down.  You might think from the name that Brown Dog is Native American, but he isn't, not even a little bit.  But that doesn't stop him from taking advantage of the misunderstanding when it suits him.

I've been trying to think of an adjective to describe both the character of Brown Dog and the quality of the narrative, because they're echoes of one another.  'Charming' isn't even close to right, 'engaging' sounds too pleasant, and 'captivating' is far too fey.

Rakish.

That's what the narrative is, and that's what Brown Dog is.  Rakish.  Brown Dog lives in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, he's constantly broke, falling in love or having his heart broken, and getting in trouble because he only nurtures his baser urges.  Everyone knows a guy like Brown Dog, except in real life their misspent lives usually come back on them.  Brown Dog lives in the moment, and he's getting by all right.

The prose is rakish too, and I loved reading it.  If Brown Dog makes no apologies, then neither does Mr. Harrison.  His hero is flawed, and weak, and noble, and all too human, and the words reflect that.  This is prose the way prose was meant to be, evocative, startling, and familiar all at once.  The first story is written in first-person but the rest are third-person.  I think it's a suitable intro to the character and Mr. Harrison's style.
   Honestly, I was reminded of Hemingway when I read this.  Not so much for the spare prose, but for the brawny way the author wrestles with his words.  Plus, I don't really care for Hemingway and I like Mr. Harrison's writing a lot.  But with Mr. Harrison, just like with Hemingway, you get the sense that the man writing those words knows how to do things, other than sit at a keyboard and tap out stories, that he's not all that far removed from his main character.

I think I found a soft spot when, in one of the stories, Brown Dog owns a '72 Chevelle.  My first car was a '72 Chevelle, a genuine POS that I loved more than life itself, and that I miss to this day.  I like to think that, because of that car, the fictional Brown Dog and I have at least one little thing in common. 

Next week:
  George Washington's Secret Six   by Brian Kilmeade
Even though this sounds like a really great comic book, this is non-fiction.  It's about spies during the Revolutionary War. 

A Book A Week - Week 49: A Single Man

This week's book:
   A Single Man   by Christopher Isherwood

Grade: 100

I'm glad I found this book on week 49 of my Book a Week, because if I'd found it earlier I'm not sure I would have continued.
   Yes, it's that good.  I could say I loved this book, but that's not nearly enough.  Let me try again.
   I've read forty-eight other books this year, and with each of them I thought that I could do just as good as the author and in some cases much, much better.  Not once did I read a book and think 'man... I'm not sure I could do this.'  Until I read 'A Single Man.'  That's how good this book is.

This book is almost fifty years old, published in 1964.  Christopher Isherwood, the author, died back in 1986.  But this book could have been written now, it's that relevant and that timeless.  Mr. Isherwood was a British expat, gay, living in Los Angeles, and teaching writing at CSULA.  His protagonist George is a British expat, gay, living in Los Angeles, and teaches writing at a university.  The story is a day in George's life, which the author slowly reveals to be both less than what George wants and more than he expects.  George is trying to keep going after his partner, Jim, has been killed in a traffic accident.  In today's terms George is depressed, and doesn't realize it.  Or doesn't care.  He goes through his life with little relish, aside from what small amount of joy he gets from being around the young people he teaches.

Sounds boring?  Far, far, from it.  This is prose the way prose should be.  Always.  The author has an eye for detail and interpretation that make his words pop.  And his insights are genuine.  Every page has an amazing tidbit.  Every single page.  Let me share one or two:

• It's just that George is like a man trying to sell a real diamond for a nickel on the street.  The diamond is protected from all but a precious few, because the great hurrying majority can never dare stop to believe that it could conceivably be real.

• All the middleman wants are its products, its practical applications.  These professors are suckers, he says.  What's the use of knowing something if you can't make money out of it?  And the glum ones more than half agree with him and feel privately ashamed of not being smart and crooked.

• Oh, the bloody battles and sidewalk vomitings!  The punches flying wide, the heads crashing backwards against the fenders of parked cars!  Huge diesel-dikes slugging it out, far grimmer than the men.  The siren-wailing of the police; the sudden swoopings of the shore patrol.

I have no criticism, there's nothing about this book I would have asked the author to do differently.  It's product of its time, but it reads like it was written yesterday.  And the author's insights are as valid now as they were fifty years ago.
  I wish every English major would read this book.  I wish every writer would read this book.  I wish you would read this book.  Right now.

It was Hemingway who said 'All you have to do is write one true sentence.  Write the truest sentence you know.'
   'A Single Man' is a book made up entirely of true sentences. 

Next week:
  Brown Dog   by Jim Harrison
I hope I am not doing a disservice to Mr. Harrison by reading his book after 'A Single Man.' I'll keep an open mind.

A Book A Week - Week 48: A Modern Family

This week's book:
   A Modern Family  by Socrates Adams

Grade:  A-

Lots of interesting fiction coming out of England and Ireland lately, and this one is no exception.

Much like City of Bohane, I can guarantee you have not read this kind of novel before.  Much like The Panopticon, this novel is uniquely British.
   Pink Floyd - requoting Thoreau - said 'hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way' and this novel is all about that hanging on.  I liked it.

The story is about an upper-class English family, and how they don't really function much like a family at all.  The father is a television presenter - he is the only one never given a real name* - who hates his job but isn't really smart enough or motivated enough to do anything else.  His wife, Prudence, used to be a television producer but hasn't worked for over a decade.  She feels she should be closer to her family than she is, but she takes none of the responsibility for their failures.  The daughter, Ellen, is disconnected from everyone but her friend Tracy, who she thinks she may be in love with.  The son, Bobby, sells pages out of dirty magazines in school to feed his World of Warcraft habit.  He can't really hold a conversation with anyone and never looks anyone in the eye.

A pretty disreputable lot, right?  Surprisingly, at least it surprised me, the author makes then very sympathetic.  I know in my head I should hate them all, I should be disgusted by the way they limp through their privileged lives, accomplishing nothing.  Feeling nothing.  But I can't help but hope for the best for them.  I want it all to turn out okay.
    I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying it doesn't.

This novel is short, 122 pages on my iPad, which is good, but also necessary.  I don't think this kind of format could sustain a much longer narrative.  It's written in third-person omniscient point of view, which is very, very, very hard to pull off even remotely well, let alone convincingly.  The author makes it shine.  You feel the family's disconnectedness, you hurt for them when they're not able to hurt for themselves, and you want to grab each of them and shake some sense into them in practically every scene.

I said earlier that you have not read a novel like this.  I'd like to amend that to 'you have not read a modern novel like this.'  The more I think about it, the more this resembles a novel of manners, done up in Twenty-First Century clothes, with modern problems and sensibilities.
  I think, like a novel of manners - think 'Pride and Prejudice' - the lack of any clear objective might put some people off.  Particularly Americans, who prefer a prize to aim for.  But I also think that, like a novel of manners, the journey is the point here, not the destination.  It's a peek into the lives of people the author clearly pities, and wishes would do better by themselves and their relatives, but who, for social and cultural reasons, aren't able to get past their own circumstances.

If you prefer plots with a 'football,' that is, a thing that the characters are after, like a Maltese Falcon or revenge or a new home, you may not like this book.  If you like plots that wrap up and characters who grow, you might not like this book, but then again you might.  If you like reading something new, you will absolutely like this book. 

* given the character's job and colleagues, it's pretty clear he's supposed to be James May.  If you don't know him, look him up. 

Next week:
  A Single Man   by Christopher Isherwood
Another book not in my genre comfort zone.  But it's set in 1960s LA, which is always good for mood and tone.