The Dain Curse

This book is not Dashiell Hammett's best novel, but is greatly enjoyable nevertheless. My personal favorite is The Thin Man with its hard-boiled drama combined with a healthy dose of humor. The Dain Curse is very sparse with the humor and heavy with the hard-boiled terseness of the genre (which I happen to like!). Body count is high and there's lots of gunshots and grumbling mystery.

Highly recommended for fans of hard-boiled detective novels. Would recommend others to read The Thin Man or The Maltese Falcoln for examples of Hammett's writing with broader appeal. Mystery readers who don't like stories where the detective has knowledge not related through the text of the story probably won't like this one.

Ender's Game

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is a terrific book. To detail it's plot or underlying themes in a brief review would likely detract from the enjoyment of those who might not have read it. This is a classic example of science fiction at its best!! Action, psychological drama, and more - this book's got it!

Very Highly Recommended for all readers. Especially recommended to read or re-read for people who "used to be" science fiction fans. It will renew your faith in the genre!

Girl Sleuth

This is a recent book by Melanie Rehak. See? I do read things other than the classics and children's books!! Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her is much more than a biography of the women involved in writing and updating the Nancy Drew mystery series. It also describes the business of ghostwriting many of the most popular children's series created in the United States as well as presenting a portrait of "appropriate" roles for women throughout the majority of the 2oth Century.

Especially recommended for those interested in publishing &/or the complexities of women's roles and opinions during the 20th Century (and Nancy Drew fans too!). An enjoyable read for most other non-fiction fans.

Journal of a Plague Year

I enjoyed this book largely because at the time I was getting sick with the cold/flu that all my friends and co-workers had. I kept thinking that I "had the distemper" and that "the pestilence was sweeping over us." Not so bad that anyone thought it was God's way of cleansing Southern California, but everyone was coughing and sneezing and generally sounding awful.

Journal of a Plague Year by Daniel Defoe (better known as the author of Robinson Crusoe) recounts the events that took place during the outbreak of plague in the mid-1660's - the year before the Great Fire wiped out a good portion of the city.

Highly recommended for all plague buffs. Also highly recommended for readers with an interest in medical history and/or municipal response to a biological disaster, this will prove very illuminating. Other readers may find the lack of chapters and most other breaks in the text distressing in addition to phrasing differences between contemporary English and Defoe's English.

Heavy Words

When I requested Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme by Chris Roberts, I confess that I was hoping for something a little more pithy. However, the book is very enjoyable and spends several pages discussing each rhyme, though some rhymes I think are more popular in the UK than here in the States. The glossary of UK slang words was very helpful (and entertaining). The most interesting thing about the book as a whole is the introduction of rhyming slang, in which the slang is the word in the phrase that doesn't rhyme with the object it refers to - e.g. calling a five pound note (a fiver) a "lady" because "Lady Godiva" rhymes with "fiver" in some British accents. Intriguing!

Recommended for the curious. Those expecting more studious, less glib analysis should look elsewhere.

Winnie the Pooh

Another children's classic I never read as a kid. Pretty good, but definitely a kid's book. Disney stays semi-faithful, but it's worth reading since Pooh is such a cultural icon. I did enjoy the use of capitalization - especially when Pooh and Piglet are trying to think of a Cunning Trap to catch a Woozle (or was it a Heffalump? I can't remember).

Highly recommended for all children (I think it'd be a great read-aloud book for grown-ups and kids to share). Recommended for adults who haven't read it before cause it's fast and it's a big part of children's culture in the US and Britain.

nonrequired reading

Wistawa Szymborska is best known as a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature for her collections of poetry. Apparently, though, she also writes a column in a Polish newspaper that reviews a broad and refreshing scope of books. From how-to guides on hanging wallpaper to history texts for the educated layperson, Szymborska seems to tackle them all in her column. This book is a collection of selected columns.

I found this collection very refreshing because I tend to think of those people who've won prestigious prizes for literature (and other fields) as being literary and profound all the time. It seems as though they must be able to appreciate all literature with their ultra-astuteness. The refreshing part comes in doses where Szymborska isn't able to finish a book because it bores her so much - or she hates a book for being too fluffy (or too serious about a fluffy topic). It unfolds through this series of columns that she's a regular person who loves reading and has very eclectic tastes. Awesome!

Recommended for bibliophiles looking for the next good book.

Haunting of Hill House

This short novel by Shirley Jackson (better known as the author of the short story "The Lottery") is spoiled somewhat by the film adaptations that have been produced over the course of the last 40 years or so. The book isn't so much horror as an eerie book in which you can't be sure of the sanity of the main characters - much like James' Turn of the Screw. Subtle references to lesbianism make this novel stand out among similar creepy novels of its time.

Recommended for horror genre fans who are serious readers (rather than just the blood & guts type). Also recommended for fans of psychological fiction - this is a good modern example without being blugeoned over the head with angst, mental illness, etc...

Dragon Rider

Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke is a great children's book. Orphans, cranky fair folk, dragons, adventure - what more do you want in a children's story?! :)

Highly recommended for all young fantasy readers. Adult fantasy readers may enjoy this as long as they enjoy a lighthearted story.

Wrinkle in Time

Another book that was praised to me over and over again when I was in grade school, but never read. I suppose I was just being contrary. :) Anyway, Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time is a great book and though written for children contains very adult themes (of distopian Big Brother-type societies and people fighting against them). Really, it sends the message that it's important for us all to have differences, but to not let those differences get us down too much (there will always be people who love you).

Highly recommended for children - especially those who enjoy stories where "ordinary" children do extraordinary things (fighting evil and whatnot), though this story doesn't have magic. Extraordinary things happen through science more advanced than our own at present. Also highly recommended for adults who like this kind of story and are looking for a quick read (ax. 2 hours).

Christmas Stories

Unbeknownst to much of the American population, Charles Dickens wrote several other stories that take place around the Christmas and New Year's holidays. I made my way through these during my recent flights to O'Hare and back.

Only recommended for true Dickens fans. There is a reason that Dickens' other Christmas Stories are not as well known - they're just not as well put together. Too much sentiment and "Do unto others..." is crammed into them without the great plot devices of A Christmas Carol - and not as much Christmas. I just didn't like them that well - and I really like Dickens. These are not an example of his best work.

Christmas Carol

I can hardly believe it (since I've read quite a few of Charles Dickens' novels) that I hadn't read A Christmas Carol before. Reading through, though, I was amazed at how true to the text of the novella many of the movies are! (I watched one on TMC a couple weeks ago and even the dialog was almost word-for-word).

Must read - even though most of us in the U.S. know this story, it's such a classic that it's a shame not everyone's read it. It's short, so there's no excuse!

Secret Garden

Even though my sister loved this book and was in a (very good) production based on this Frances Hodgson Burnett novel, I only just read it this past week. The Secret Garden is a classic of children's literature for a reason. A great book that doesn't talk down to its readers.

Highly recommended for children and anyone who likes uplifting books about orphans. :)

Ascending Peculiarity

Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey edited by Karen Wilkins. This book is a compilation of interviews people have conducted with Edward Gorey over the years. It's very interesting to see how described himself to others (regardless of how much of that description is "put on"). As is the nature of interviews, many people ask similar questions, so some of the transcriptions in the last quarter of the book are repetative, but still interesting.

Unless you're an Edward Gorey fan, you probably won't be interested.

Earthsea Series

I began another classic children's fantasy series and again was not disappointed! The Earthsea series by Ursula LeGuin begins with A Wizard of Earthsea and continues with The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, Tehanu, The Other Wind, and Tales of Earthsea. I've now finished the entire series.

LeGuin's writing style is very different from Lloyd Alexander's. I'd say his tone is almost like that of an oral storyteller while LeGuin's is a little more literary. The main character for much of the series is Sparrowhawk, a young wizard whose destiny takes him all over his world. The main theme is light vs. darkness in the depths of the human soul, but it's treatment isn't preachy. Now that I've finished the series, my early conclusions about not wanting to see any dramatizations thereof are confirmed. There's just no way they could have nearly the value - the kind of dark & personal intimacy as reading the books has. That being said, I hope the movie will draw more people to these books. Another interesting aspect is that though the books are sequential, the later books don't start right where the last one left off - or tell you much about what's happened in between the books. Very interesting.

Highly, highly recommended. Absolutely a must read for fantasy fans! I cannot praise this series enough.

Hiroshima

Hiroshima by John Hersey has become a required reading book for many high schools. I think part of that is due to its brevity, which makes it more likely that teenagers will read it. However, its subject matter - the stories of several survivors of the US bombing of Hiroshima is not light. Hersey depicts the moments before and after the bombing as well as following up on the later lives of each person depicted.

The book is not as poignant as The Diary of Anne Frank. It almost seems as though the author is waving a wild finger, pointing, saying, "look what you did!" The book really has many of the same qualities as an in-depth newspaper articles where the author remains objective. It relays the facts of what happened and the pain, but not really the horror of it. Maybe it was just me - Hersey's writings just didn't engage me emotionally. That, and I am irritated with his scolding tone in describing the lives of those survivors who didn't completely devote themselves to others and enjoyed as much of a regular life as they were able to. Of course those particular stories ended less happily than that of the woman who became a nun and the priest's story. It was if he went out of his way to say "that's not how you should grieve. See these people? They did it the right way." I found that annoying.

All that editorializing aside, I can see why the book is on many reading lists. It is one of the few books that describes the bombing of Hiroshima from the point of view of the Japanese civilians living there. Recommended, but if interested in this part of history, I'd also pick up another book that's illustrated - funny that we don't see too many pictures of the destruction wrought by the US here and so many illustrations, History Channel programs, etc... about the Nazi concentration camps. Sigh...

Grimms' Fairy Tales

The edition I read was The Annotated Brothers Grimm edited by Maria Tatar. I recall having an edition of Grimms' Fairy Tales as a kid, but I don't think I got very far with it because there weren't many pictures and the type was very tiny so all the stories could fit into a smaller volume.

As an adult with a semi-scholarly bent, I found the introduction and annotations very insightful. Each tale has a brief introductory statement to set the stage for personal contemplation. Most of the tales are pretty short, which makes it an ideal book to read during lunches or on breaks at work. The book also has references at the back if anyone wants to do further research on fantasy in children's literature, the use of fantasy and fairy tales in helping children conquer fears, etc... very interesting stuff in those annotations. There's also illustrations from various editions of the Tales, which are much appreciated! :) It's also interesting to see how children's book illustration has changed over the years!! (Pick up a copy of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and compare - very funny book by the way!!).

Highly Recommended for all readers. It's especially interesting to read the "original" versions of popular tales and the comments on them, even though we've all grown up with alternate versions of these stories that are more fleshed out. Much more violent than I remember from my childhood. Also, according to the notes, a lot of the violence was added by the Grimms even while they expunged a lot of the sexual content for their young reading audience. Weird.

The Bell Curve

I am more than halfway through this book. I'll republish after I've finally finished it. Thus far, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Richard J. Hernstein and Charles Murray is a very thorough meta-examination of many of the scholarly studies regarding intelligence conducted by various agencies throughout the 20th century.

Findings are clearly explained and statistical terms and methodologies are explained in text boxes in the middle of the text, but have lengthier, more thorough explanations in the Appendices. The volume also contains extensive endnotes for those of a more scholarly bent - or interested in further investigating some of their controversial findings. Thus far, I've found the book to be very thought-provoking, though I do not take this work as gospel truth. I think the purpose of the book was to generate dialog and for readers to self-examine their own position in society and the preconceived ideas we have about intelligence, social problems, and how they may - or may not - correlate. I think Hernstein and Murray have accomplished this task.

While very interesting, this book is rather lengthy and though not difficult for the educated layperson, it's not light or easy reading either. This one is a challenge, but will give you some good conversation topics for debate.

Recommended - especially for those with an interest in sociology or economics.

Peter Pan

Another children's book. They're on my mega-list of lifetime reads, so I figured I'd knock a few quick ones out of the way during the month that I moved and am prepping for Christmas and my wedding! All this aside, Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie was a fun, but very quick read. Definitely written for children, it would probably be much better as a read-aloud title for younger children (maybe 6-9 years old?). As an adult, I can see where it would be appealing to children, but isn't written at a level where "kids of all ages" can enjoy it (whereas Lloyd Alexander, J.K. Rowling, Cornelia Funke, and others don't "dumb down" their writing).

Recommended - at the very least to somewhat counter the Disney version and as a piece of our cultural heritage. :)

Prydain Series

During November I've also finally read the Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander. This series consists of The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, and The High King. These books were first recommended to me by my friend Wolf (yes, this is his real name & not some weird RenFaire thing gone awry) during the 3rd or 4th grade. I finally read them and really enjoyed them - even though they're obviously intended for younger readers.

This is a fantasy series with some relationship to Welsh mythology, but mostly focuses on growing up, maturing (not always the same as growing up), and finding one's way in the world. As I've said above, I really enjoyed this series! You won't find detailed settings or character descriptions, instead enough details are given so that the reader is able to make their own mental images of how the characters look and the settings of where they might be. What character descriptions exist are almost Homeric in nature and these descriptions are largely the same throughout the series. The characters grow and change and find both joy and grief in this satisfying series.

Very highly recommended for fantasy readers and fans of Harry Potter looking for another series to read. I am not a particularly fast reader and was able to finish each book in ax. 3 hours (some a little more, others a little less), so this is only a quick fix for readers more used to Potter-length books (e.g. it took me ax. 9-10 hours to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). Very enjoyable nevertheless!!