Ti: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

(HC release 06/09/09)

Au: Katherine Howe

Bookmark: the giant wrap-around back cover thingee on the ARC ed.

A very early reviewer (also being a staffer at my illustrious workplace) compared this book to Monster's of Templeton, and for this review was granted space on the splash page of the ARC. I have to agree with his assessment. Both stories boast a fairly similar heroine and both manage to bring elements of the fantastic into the "real" world where the books are set in a very casual way - as if giant lake monsters and actual witches in colonial Salem are everyday stuff. I think 'Monsters' accomplishes this in a more subtle way - as the townspeople don't seem particularly shocked by the monster (although the outside world is), while Connie is continually taken aback by what she finds as she pursues the Physick Book. I suppose this makes 'Physick' more realistic and 'Monsters' more fun.

Connie is a graduate student in colonial american history who gets sucked into trying to pull together her dead grandmother's abondoned, centuries-old house near Salem Mass., while her hippy-dippy mother spends her time reading auras on the west coast. All the while, she's supposed to be figuring out what to do for her dissertation. While picking through the items left in the house (an electricity and phone free house), she comes across the name of a Deliverance Dane. Luckily armed with professional-level histrical research skills and a cute boy who does restorations for a living, Connie tries to track down records of Deliverance, thinking that this little character would be a great start on her original disseration. She finds pretty quickly that efforts have been made to erase Deliverance from certain records completely, which brings her to understand that this character was not only involved in the Salem trials, but was also somehow set apart from the other accused women in the minds of the populace at the time.

Meanwhile, we flash back to the 1690's and watch Deliverance herself moving through life, as well as eventually following some of her descendants. The result is a picture of a long line of no-nonsense ladies. Gotta love the girl power.

I liked each of the story lines in this novel, but in a different way. The modern day action moves more quickly (as you might expect), and draws you in with it's speed, but not necessarily with it's depth. The flashback scenes I found more compelling and think that their slower speed may have even helped add to the sense of stress, burden and foreboading that present themselves at different points in the history.

I'm not sure how to characterize this book. It's not "literature." It might be a historical novel with a thriller twist. I hate to call this chick-lit, because it's better than that, but I'm afraid the abundance of strong ladies in the book might scare off many gentlemen readers, just as if they were stuck in room with all the characters.

Ti: An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church's Strangest Relic in Italy's Oddest Town
(ARC ed; HC pub Jul 2009)
Au: David Farley

Author Farley, who writes for travel pieces for mags and somehow manages to use that to support living abroad for periods of time (don't we all wish), becomes focused on trying to find out what happened to a vanished Catholic relic - the foreskin of Jesus Christ. Yup. The only piece of Christ's flesh that could have reasonably been left behind on earth when he ascended after the resurrection, and the Church had it (and for a while, had like 10 or more of them in different locations around medieval Europe), but then they lost it, or so the story goes.

Farley settles into a really eclectic Italian village where the recognized true foreskin had been in residence until 1986 when it was supposedly stolen by two mysterious villagers, or reclaimed by the Vatican, or sold by the priest, or hidden away because the Church wanted to downplay such items. The fate of the foreskin depended on which tipsy, hippy-dippy, obsessed or skittish resident Farley asked in this nutty town, known for having a lot of "outsiders" from other parts of Italy and the world living there. It would seem that if you move more than 50 miles in Italy, you are an outsider to the residents of whatever town you land in. The Church, as one might expect, had nothing much to say.

I liked the book. It was light, entertaining, and gave some good history about the Church (while not Catholic myself, I have to concede that until my ancestors protested against it [and in some cases against both the Catholics AND Martin Luther, boy were they lonely] Catholic history covers a huge part of all Christian history), and gave fun descriptions of eccentric people and nifty places I can probably never hope to see. And that's what travel writing should, yeah? Not high lit or anything, but it gets the job done.

(for those of you who may know who this is, I will be forwarding this to soon-to-be-Dr. Ms. C. Kovacs - just seems like it's up her alley :-)

Ti: The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride
(ARC Ed, HC pub Jun 09)
Au: Daniel James Brown
Bookmark: Dogeared corners, b/c I'm racist against ARCs

I had never read or heard much about the Donner Party, and only knew the most basic of details about what they resorted too. That was my main reason for picking up the book, and had I already known quite a bit about the history, I might not have finished this account.

The author tries to tell the story, not really from the perspective of one member of the party, Sarah Graves, but does focus on her quite a bit, I suppose as a way to humanize it. Somehow, the author manages to wander around in the zone between a solid history and a telling of one person's experiences without really managing either. Granted, in his intro, he explains nearly all of the issues I had with the book, so I can't blame him for missing the mark - he wrote what he was aiming for: its not meant to be a comprehensive history, Sarah left little of her own writing, and so some things had to be inferred. While I'm sure the author is correct in saying that he can use universal human reactions to certain situations such as extreme cold and hunger to describe what the pioneers went through, he somehow does it in a squishy, timid way that just makes me feel deeply the fact that it's inferred and not altogether a solid fact about what was happening to anyone at the given time described.

All that said, what solid history he does cover is covered in an engaging way, and I wanted to read the whole thing to find out what happened to these people. Even though it was hard to connect what he described to Sarah in my mind, I was pretty fascinated by the physical, emotional and psychological reactions he describes people having in the face of these extreme conditions.
I wanted to really like this book, as it falls into one of my favorite reading categories of "creative non-fiction," but in the end I have to give it a high meh.

The Traveler John Twelve Hawks
Paperback released c. 07/06 (HC c. 07/05)
First book of a proposed "Fourth Realm Trilogy"

(for this and future posts, I would like to just let you know, in case we haven't met, that I can't spell. i know I can't spell, and have stopped worrying about it, mostly. it's probably going to drive you nuts, and I apologize in advance)

Present tense. Big brother is watching you...again...sorta. The Tabula, or Bretheren, are tapped into every known electronic resource on the planet and can track your every move, if they cared so to do. Obviously, some people who have bothered to realize this are quick opposed, and choose to live "Off the Grid" as much as possible. Leading among these people are the nearly extinct Travelers, who can project their neural energy into the 5 other realms of existance, as mentioned in Buddhism (apperently). They come back with the wisdom and leadership to make the people rise up against the establishment (the Tabula, basically, although the average soul doesn't understand it that way). Therefore, the Tabula have been hunting down and killing travelers and have nearly succeeded in wiping them out, which is made easier by the fact that the gift usually runs in families. Trying to prevent the Travelers' demise are the Harlequins, who are highly trained fighters, usually from the same families, who don't have any special powers and are therefore stuck in the "Fourth Realm" all the time, with the rest of us. Recently, the Tabula have changed their mind about killing the Travelers and have found a way to use them to Tabula advantage, and that's about where the story gets going.

Now...

The book is entertaining. I read the whole thing, and felt somewhat drawn to do so. However, I think the author is trying to mix a few too many themes into his creation. Among them:

- The Tabula as Big Brother (probably the most obvious)
- new survalence technology, like embedded chips that unlock doors for you (somewhat related)
- Alien life (in other realms in this case, instead of planets)
- The Da Vinci Code (someplace in the book there's a little section about Jesus being a traveler and maybe the Knights Templar being Harlequins, but I found it so annoying and discontinuous that I don't really remember the details...it's been done, and done and done already.)
- genetic mutation, forming "splicers," or crazy, overgrown, homicidal hyenas (we learned it from the aliens)

I think that this book might have been pretty sweet if the author had managed to weave all of these ends in more seemlessly, and made it a little scarier. I haven't read 1984 recently, but it seems to me that the fact that Big Brother was so ominous gave that book it's staying power. In the Traveler, the Tabula are controlling the masses and world events without the knowledge of the general population, all while watching their electronic lives....all of which could totally be going on right now and somehow just doesn't pack much of a punch. Each little theme listed above, plus more I'm probably forgetting, kinda stuck out in an obvious manner, instead of being a part of a seamless, believeable reality. Nonetheless, I'm a little impressed that the author managed to incorporate all of those things at all, so I'm not saying it wasn't rather creative, just not very well presented.

The author was really trying to make this into a novel with fantasy/sci fi themes, instead of a sci fi novel. This makes sense if you want to broaden your audience, and it got me to read it, so I guess it's working. However, he doesn't really have the polished writing to get away with it, nor does the book have the staying power or any real lasting effect that you would want to feel from a good novel. You can get away with this stuff from a mass market sci fi book. On the other hand, maybe the author was just going for a quick entertainment fix, but given the publicity and reviews the book received, I don't think that's the case.

All in all, a pretty good, creative read just for the light entertainment factor of it, or if the genre is a favorite of yours. Two things that did strike me while I was reading it:

- all that electronic survalence is probably pretty realistic
- NPR did a story on those implanted ID chips while I was reading the book, which caused a mental double take, but I quickly got over it.

Oddly enough, the author does give a pretty good description of a small religious group, the "Jonesies, " who believe that a certain martyrd Traveler named Jones was indeed the last, and follow him as their prophet the way Christians follow Jesus Christ, although without the divinity part. Some Jonesies will help Harlequins and some won't, and on and on with politics and hurt feelings and so forth.

Book: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (PB released March 2006)





I think what I enjoyed most about this book is the level of detail and research that went into it. While being a good story, it also provides (what I hope is) a fairly accurate picture of Chinese women's lives at that point in time. The author includes poems and songs and things that reflect how the women talked to each other. Part of the story's focus is nu shu or "women's secret writing," and entirely seperate written language that developed in a particular region of China. Family and friends used it to write letters when they were seperated, as most women, it would seem, were always "married out" to a different town than the one she grew up in.

I think I was surprised that the women had such complex social structures, given how "worthless" they were considered to be...the point of a woman was to have a son. But they did have very complex rituals and social groups and traditions that almost amounted to things like bridesmaids and such. It's also interesting just how ingrained the culture was into these women. It makes me wonder a bit about cultures where roles and traditions are so well defined that you don't have to think about much of anything. You just know what you're place is and how you should related to other people. Does that make it easier for everyone to get along, or harder for people to be happy?

One that seemed odd about the language of the book was that even though the main characters are followed from about age 6 until their 40's and beyond, the style of their speak doesn't seem to change much. Granted, the narrator is about 80, but it's hard to understand just how young the girls are at the beginning because of the way they talk.

The passages about foot binding where just plain disturbing. Not disturbing bad, I guess, but just unimaginable. I couldn't help googling it after I read that part.

In the end, it's another story-of-women's-relationships-hardships-etc. It'll will be a big book club book. But it's done pretty well with lots of back-up for what goes on (the research, etc). Since I'm a total history dork, I like the fact that I can feel like I'm getting an accurate glimpse of what the life was like. The paperback versiion also includes a narrative about the author's time in China doing research for the book, which was pretty interesting.

Book: Brief History of the Dead (released 02/14/06)





First I will say that several people who like fiction, have read way more fiction than I have and probably have better taste in ficion than I do (being as in general I just don't enjoy it all that much...) think that this is a really excellent book. I will take it to mean that it's well written, even though I personally found some of the decriptive details overbearing and distracting near the end of the book. In the beginning they seemed like vivid and interesting pictures, near the end it got old. However, as I said, I may not be the best judge of all that.

I did think that this was a very interesting perspective on something that everyone wonders about: what happens after you die? This author took inspiration that he probably got from the description of what an particular civilization thought to be the various travels of the dead (as noted in the beginning of the book) and put it into a specific context that is very relatable to the modern world. After a person dies, they appear in a city of the dead, and remain there until the last person on earth who remembers them also dies, and the cycle continues. In the city, the dead are reunited with people they knew when they were alive, and live normal lives, as if they were still on earth.

Meanwhile, on earth, a disaster of a grand scale is befalling mankind. I don't think the author specifically states a time frame for this book, but I will say that it's somewhere between 50 and 100 years in the future. Entire new security forces roam the streets just to watch for terrorists. Alarm systems warning of attack are already so old hat that people ignore them unless they continue to sound after several minutes. At any rate, as terrible things happen down below, the inhabitants of the city being to see rapid changes, and have only the overwhelmed newly dead to tell them what's going on.

One thing in particular that I thought was interesting was a short discussion on just how many people you meet in your life, even just briefly. At one point, one of the dead characters tries to count up how many people he was acquainted with when he was alive, and even when he hits the tens of thousands keeps remembering additional little pockets of people like all the mail carriers, or the extendend families of his siblings-in-law, or people he had a passing familiarity with at the first gym he had joined.

For a novel, this is a quick read. I was drawn in enough to want to know the ending and read it in one day, though I can say that I was definately more involved in the earth story line than the one in the city, even though I think the city plot and little side narrations were more intereseting in some ways. I was more interested in knowing the ending than following the story because I started skimming near the end, as I sometimes do. It's not heavy, but I think it's a fairly intelligent treatment of one author's idea of what might happen to our souls after they are done with our bodies.

I think it will have a slow beginning nationally, but look for it to pick up steam. I'm not sure its blatently emotional enough to work as a book club title (it doesn't explore a characters inner journey and eventual life renewal or any of that stuff), but I do hope it finds a niche among readers for just that reason: it's a fresh story line.

Book: Good Grief

published: april 2005 (paperback)



i read this book at least a year after it was published. i happened to have an advanced readers copy lying around my apartment and grabbed it one day at random. it's pretty much chick lit, although deeper than average chick lit, definately. not really my usual thing, but it kept me reading, so that's a good sign. fiction in general doesn't always keep me reading.

the first part of the book was the best, in my opinion. the lead character loses her husband and goes into a downward spiral that lands her into a perminant pajama mode (hence the book cover). she depiction of her fall into depression is almost scary becuase i could totally picture myself or someone i know going to that place if something that terrible happened. it was very a clear and heavy desciption, despite wry humor tossed it. the best way i can describe how it got to me: as i was sitting on my bed reading this, i a couple times had to break it up into groups of a couple pages in order to get through it, and it made me miss mark. it made me lonely.

now, not that the rest of the book is bad. it's just less poignant. the lead character is a young-ish woman who is spunky (once she gets out of her pj's) and gets herself into all sorts of scrapes and picks up a teenager to mentor who keeps her on her toes. the second half of the books continues the wry humor and has also a nice first-person tone...you can picture a person actually thinking these things.

i will say that the ending seems a bit too perfect, but i suppose not entirely unlikely. it manages to not be entirely cheesy.

all in all i liked it enough to make it a staff pick for the store, both because the first part of the book affected me so much, but also because it's the kind of thing that sells well as a staff pick, i'll admit it.

Movie: Jarhead

starts: 11/04/05 (saw free sneak preview)



I hadn't intended to start this with a movie, but since i actually saw a movie today...here we go.

Jarhead is based on book written (i think) by a marine who was involved in the first gulf war (is it just called the gulf war now, and we're calling the current nonsense the iraq war in order to distinguish?).

it's hard for me to give a good comment on this because in general i have a hard time with war movies. i find it difficult to sit through scenes of people waiting to have their heads blown off their shoulders or people who already have had their head blown off there shoulders, or people having total mental breakdowns 'cause they can't handle some of the above. should i ever be unfortunate enough to be waiting to have my head blown off my shoulders, i am nearly positive that i would go stark raving friggin' nuts.

i imagine that there will be a few government types who won't care for the movie, as it depicts the marines as not having enough or functioning equipment a few times. i think that these are important things to point out, i just wonder, with the u.s. military being such a seemingly untouchable giant, what difference it makes if all the civilians knew that all the non-civilians are each doing their own unique sitting duck impression.

at any rate, it definately held my attention, definately made liberal use of all the sorts of language (love that f-word) and bizzare activities you would expect out of a group of men under bizzarely high stress (and/or druken fraternity boys...hazing, drinking, naked for no reason...) and isn't going to make anyone think "gee, this war stuff is pretty neat", which i think is quite good.

get a professional opinion: NPR review