Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Stories

by Wells Tower

(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009)

Hardcover, 238 Pages, Short Fiction Anthology

ISBN: 9780374292195, US$24.00

ABCD Rating: ACQUIRE

From the Cover: Viking marauders descend on a much-plundered island, hoping some mayhem will shake off the winter blahs. A man is booted out of his home after his wife discovers that the print of a bare foot on the inside of his windshield doesn’t match her own. Teenage cousins, drugged by summer, meet with a reckoning in the woods. A boy runs off to the carnival after his stepfather bites him in a brawl. In the stories of Wells Tower, families fall apart and messily try to reassemble themselves. His version of America is touched with the seamy splendor of the dropout, the misfit: failed inventors, boozy dreamers, hapless fathers, wayward sons. Combining electric prose with savage wit, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is a major debut, announcing a voice we have not heard before.

This collection contains the following stories: “The Brown Coast,” “Retreat,” “Executors of Important Energies,” “Down Through the Valley,” “Leopard,” “Door in Your Eye,” “Wild America,” “On the Show,” and “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned.”

My Review: This is another recommendation that I got because I listen to the Slate Political Gabfest. Every week the contributors each give their “Cocktail Chatter”—the one thing they’re going to chat up over the weekend (and you can talk up by proxy) and a couple of weeks ago David Plotz chattered about this book, and his description of the title story—about Vikings-cum-middle-managers—was so intriguing that I had to pick it up. Luckily one of my local libraries had ordered it, and I was the first to check it out.

Let me get this out up front: I love short story collections. There is nothing better than sitting down and reading through a complete story, beginning to end in one sitting … and maybe even finishing three or four of them if you get lucky and have some real uninterrupted time.

I ground right through these stories, they’re that short … but by no means equate “short” with “easy” or “simple.” These are some very complex stories. For example, “Executors of Important Energies” is one of the shorter entries in the collection, and yet it is a very complex story about the relationships between a father suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s and his wife and his son as they try to go out for a nice dinner. It is every bit as stressful as it sounds, and it is masterfully written.

I also had a very interesting experience with Tower’s stories (and doesn’t that name sound like a pseudonym?). The story “Leopard,” is written in second-person perspective (“You got up, you looked in the mirror, you saw your hair” etc., etc.) which is a voice that I DO. NOT. LIKE. AT. ALL. I have written about it in a review in this blog before and I was not kind. (these were my exact words: “It is my personal opinion that this sort of writing is better served penning true confession stories and letters to Penthouse Forum, rather than actual fiction (popular or otherwise)” and much to my eternal consternation the author of that particular story commented on my review (in a comment that was, looking back on it now, rather passive-aggressive)). However, you all saw an “however” or a “but” coming, didn’t you? However, Tower managed to make me completely forget the fact that the story was told in second-person and got me involved in the story. It was actually two or three paragraphs into the story before I realized that it was told in second-person, so … kudos to you Mr. Tower.

The stand-out piece in the collection is, as David Plotz chattered about, “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned” which is a Viking story that turns everything you think you know about Vikings on its head. Tower’s Vikings are more or less “weekend warriors” who would rather stay at home, working on the house or futzing about in the garden than going and raiding the nearby monastery. It is a very compelling look at what is a traditionally macho stereotype.

This is Tower’s first short story collection, and I am eagerly awaiting his next, whenever that may be, because Tower is an exciting find. As some of you may or may know, I am this September I am headed up to Western Washington University to get my Masters in Literature and eventually headed on to get my doctorate with the intention of teaching literature somewhere and honestly, as I was reading Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned I was thinking of how I could incorporate it into a class on the Contemporary American Short Story. I guess once I turned that part of my brain on it’s hard to turn it off.

Shakespeare's Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook

by Francine Segan

(New York: Random House, 2003)

Hardcover, 272 Pages, Cookbook

ISBN: 9780375509179, US$35.00

ABCD Rating: BACKLIST

“Now, good digestion wait on appetite, And health on both!”

(Macbeth, III, iv, 39-40)

From the Cover: Francine Segan introduces contemporary cooks to the foods of William Shakespeare’s world with recipes updated from classic Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century cookbooks. Her easy-to-prepare adaptations shatter the myth that the Bard’s primary fare was boiled mutton. In fact, Shakespeare and his contemporaries dined on salads of fresh herbs and vegetables; fish, fowl, and meats of all kinds; and delicate broths. Dried Plums with Wine and Ginger-Zest Crostini, Winter Salad with Raisin and Caper Vinaigrette, and Lobster with Pistachio Stuffing and Seville Orange Butter are just a few of the delicious, aromatic, and gorgeous dishes that will surprise and delight. Segan’s delicate and careful renditions of these recipes have been thoroughly tested to ensure no-fail, standout results. The tantalizing Renaissance recipes in Shakespeare’s Kitchen are enhanced with food-related quotes from the Bard, delightful morsels of culinary history, interesting facts on the customs and social etiquette of Shakespeare’s time, and the texts of the original recipes, complete with antiquated spellings and eccentric directions. Fifty color images by award-winning food photographer Tim Turner span the centuries with both old-world and contemporary treatments. Patrick O’Connell provides an enticing Foreword to this edible history from which food lovers and Shakespeare enthusiasts alike will derive nourishment. Want something new for dinner? Try something four hundred years old.

My Review: Two aspects of my personality have converged to make this book an inevitability for me: (1) I am a Shakespeare nerd and (2) I am a foodie. So, when I saw it on the shelf at my local library as I was browsing cookbooks, I had to pick it up.

This is a simply marvelous book. I sat down and read through it one night as the kids were going to sleep and I could not put it down. I kept waking my wife up to read her various recipes. She may have been put out with me, but she was also interested, tired as she was, because in spite of it all, these recipes are both delicious and fascinating in their flavor combinations, and as an added bonus, Segan has included in certain instances the original recipes for these Elizabethan dishes, and these are absolutely delightful to read. Take, for example, the following period recipe for “Courage” Tart, which Segan states refers to sexual prowess and was a recipe for an aphrodisiac:

Take two Quinces and two or three Burre rootes, and a potaton, and pare your Potaton and scrape your rootes and put them into a quart of wine, and let them boyle till they be tender, and put in an ounce of Dates, and when they be boyled tender, draw them through a Strainer, Wine and all, and then putte in the yolkes of eight Egges, and the brains of three or foure cocke Sparrowes, and Straine them into the other and a little Rose water, and seeth them all with Sugar, Synamon and Ginger, and Cloves and Mace, and put in a little Sweete butter, and set it upon a chafingdish of coles, betweene two platter, and so let it boyle till it be something bigge. —The Good Huswifes Jewell, 1587 (215)

Isn’t that great? Quince tarts with sparrow’s brains. Of course, Segan omits the brains from her contemporary version of the recipe. I also love the actual text of the 1587 recipe. The language is so beautiful, isn’t it? Is it just me?

Anyway, this is a great cookbook with lots of fun and tasty-sounding recipes, as well as a lot of fun history, commentary and plenty of original recipes—all in the vein of “Courage” Tart. Segan also includes an appropriate Shakespearean quote with each recipe, as well as a little color commentary. It really is a book that is a lot of fun to read through, and one that is perfect kitchen addition for the Shakespearean fan, foodie, or both in your life, or just for yourself if that Shakespearean fan/foodie is you. It really is a treat to look through, and perhaps it can give you some inspiration for your Shakespearean birthday celebration this next April the 26th … The Bard of Avon will be 446 in 2010, and perhaps you and your guests would like to celebrate with some of “Queen Elizabeth’s Fine Cake,” Banbury Cake, Sweet Beets in Puff Pastry with Crème Fraîche and Ginger, or maybe even some “Courage” Tarts. Let me know if you try them with the sparrow brains.

The Composer is Dead

by Lemony Snicket

illustrated by Carson Ellis

read by The Author

with music composed by Nathaniel Stookey

(New York: HarperCollins, 2009)
Hardcover, 36 Pages, Children’s Fiction

MP3 Audiobook, 56.5 MB, 30 Minutes, Fiction

ISBN: 9780061236273, US$17.99

ABCD Rating: ACQUIRE

The composer is dead. “Composer” is a word which here means “a person who sits in a room, muttering and humming and figuring out what notes the orchestra is going to play.” This is called composing. But last night, the Composer was not muttering. He was not humming. He was not moving, or even breathing.

This is called decomposing.

From the Cover: There’s dreadful news from the symphony hall—the composer is dead! If you have ever heard an orchestra play, then you know that musicians are most certainly guilty of something. Where exactly were the violins on the night in question? Did anyone see the harp? Is the trumpet protesting a bit too boisterously? In this perplexing murder mystery, everyone seems to have a motive, everyone has an alibi, and nearly everyone is a musical instrument. But the composer is still dead. Perhaps you can solve the crime yourself. Join the Inspector as he interrogates all the unusual suspects. Then listen to the accompanying audio recording featuring Lemony Snicket and the music of Nathaniel Stookey performed by the San Francisco Symphony. Hear for yourself exactly what took place on that fateful, well-orchestrated evening.

My Review: I have to admit that I love Lemony Snicket. The man’s writing is simply wonderful, I loved A Series of Unfortunate Events (in spite of my misgivings about the final book in the series) and The Composer is Dead is no exception to that love of Snicket’s writing.

This is a delightful book that walks the Reader through the orchestra pit—on the premise that the composer is dead, and the Inspector is investigating that death and questioning all of the orchestra’s various sections. Along the way to the conclusion (this is C.S.I.: Orchestra Pit or maybe Law & Order: Orchestral Investigation) the Reader (ideally parent and child together) learn all about the various jobs of the instruments in the orchestra, what they do and how they sound. It’s learning, but it’s fun!

Even better, the book comes with a CD which includes a reading of The Composer is Dead by Lemony Snicket himself accompanied by the Nathaniel Stookey and the San Francisco Symphony. Usually, a reading by Lemony Snicket (a.k.a. Daniel Handler) is something dreadful, a word which here means that Daniel Handler is a poor performer and his readings sound overly scripted and stilted and are not pleasurable to listen to in the least. However, Handler has obviously been working on his reading out loud skills as his performance of The Composer is Dead is top notch and quite enjoyable (or perhaps it is the fact that he is not following in the footsteps of Tim Curry as he was in the A Series of Unfortunate Events).

In fact, my only complaint about the book is that Brett Helquist, the illustrator for A Series of Unfortunate Events, did not illustrate this book, because while Carson Ellis’ illustrations are nice, they lack the whimsy and sheer beauty of Helquist’s for the exploits of the Baudelaire orphans.

All-in-all I have to highly recommend this book to any and all comers. This is a very fun book to read through, especially with the youngsters in your life, and would make a wonderful bedtime story. Or, bring the book and CD along with you in the car during a trip and enjoy a wonderful half hour together with a great book and some wonderful music.

Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible

by David Plotz

read by The Author

(Newark: Audible, Inc., 2009)

MP3 Audiobook, 145.1 MB, 10.5 Hours, Nonfiction

ISBN: N/A, US$24.95

ABCD Rating: ACQUIRE

“Whoa, good Bible.” —Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly episode 6, “Our Mrs. Reynolds”

From the Cover: Like many Jews and Christians, David Plotz long assumed he knew what was in the Bible. He read parts of it as a child in Hebrew school, and then attended a Christian high school where he studied the Old and New Testaments. Many of the highlights stuck with him—Adam and Eve, Cain versus Abel, Jacob versus Esau, Jonah versus whale, forty days and nights, ten plagues and Commandments, twelve Tribes and Apostles, Red Sea walked under, Galilee walked on, bush into fire, rock into water, water into wine. And, of course, he absorbed from all around him other bits of the Bible—from stories he heard in churches and synagogues, in movies and on television, from his parents and teachers. But it wasn’t until he picked up a Bible at a cousin’s bat mitzvah—and became engrossed and horrified by a lesser-known story in Genesis—that he couldn’t put it down. At a time when wars are fought over scriptural interpretation, when the influence of religion on American politics has never been greater, when many Americans still believe in the Bible’s literal truth, it has never been more important to get to know the Bible. Good Book is what happens when a regular guy—an average Job—actually reads the book on which his religion, his culture, and his world are based. Along the way, he grapples with the most profound theological questions: How many Commandments do we actually need? Does God prefer obedience or good deeds? And the most unexpected ones: Why are so many women in the Bible prostitutes? Why does God love bald men so much? Is Samson really that stupid? Good Book is an irreverent, enthralling journey through the world’s most important work of literature.

My Review: It should come as no surprise, to those who know me at least, that I read and listen to Slate.com. One of the podcasts that I subscribe to is the Slate Political Gabfest, in which David Plotz, who is also the editor of Slate participates. It was through the Gabfest that I was first introduced to Plotz’s book—Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible—and it was as a loyal listener of the Gabfest that I was “rewarded” with a free download of Good Book from Audible.com (the Gabfest’s sponsor).

Needless to say I jumped at the chance to download an audio book for free, though this can often be a crapshoot. However, in this instance I was well rewarded. David Plotz’s Good Book is one of the best books that I have read/listened to this year. Hands down. To set it up, Plotz—a Jew—was at a family member’s bat mitzvah and bored and so picked up a copy of the Torah and opening up to a random passage, started reading. What he came across was the story of Dinah, daughter of Jacob/Israel. If you do not know the story, it is in Genesis 34. If you do know the story, then you can understand why Plotz would be shocked and dismayed at reading the story and wondering why he had never heard it before. It was, in Plotz’s experience conveniently left out of both the Hebrew school he attended and the Episcopalian school he attended. It was then that the seed of Good Book was planted. Plotz began to wonder what other stories in the Bible he did not know were in there, and so, he started reading and began chronicling his discoveries and reactions at Blogging the Bible, from there, it turned into Good Book.

(One caveat up front, as a Jew, Plotz skips the New Testament and reads only the Torah or Old Testament, so when he says “Bible,” he means the Hebrew Bible.)

Anyway, what I liked most about Good Book was Plotz’s openness to the stories and messages in the Old Testament. Much of what is in there is very different from the Sunday School versions we are all taught (which are often “cleaned-up” for young ears) and which we think we know. Plotz approaches the Bible as something in which he doesn’t really believe, but which he respects and which he can understand why people treat it the way they do. He is respectful of other’s beliefs in the Biblical stories, even if those beliefs are not his own. I bring this up and emphasize it because I find it very agreeable. At about the same time I started listening to Good Book, Bill Maher’s Religulous arrived in our mailbox via Netflix. Unlike Plotz, who approaches religion from a standpoint of respectful skepticism, Maher’s supposed documentary and inquiry into religious beliefs across the world is not respectful in the least. Maher comes at religion from a stance of complete disbelief ad disrespect. There is no courteousness in Maher’s approach. He treats all those in every religion he “investigates” as insane and stupid for their beliefs. We turned it off after about 20 minutes.

Back to Plotz. In spite of my own belief in God and the stories in the Old Testament, I found Plotz’s experiences with and commentary on his reading of the Old Testament to be enlightening, fascinating and refreshing. Just for my own background, I am LDS (Mormon) and, as a Sunday School/Gospel Doctrine teacher have taught the Old Testament at least three times over, so I guess you might say I am relatively knowledgeable about the Bible and Old Testament. So, to hear Plotz’s take on these 39 books was, as I said, refreshing, because unlike a lot of other books about the Old Testament, Plotz came to it as a complete neophyte. By his own admission, his past experience with the Torah was very limited, and so when he decided to read the Bible from cover to cover, he eschewed all Biblical commentary and extraneous reading and decided to take the Old Testament on, mano-a-mano. Good Book contains only Plotz’s and his Bible and his own personal reactions to and thought on the stories he is reading.

It was a fascinating listen, especially since it is Plotz himself who reads the audio edition, and really, would you want anyone else reading such a personal book? Plotz has a friendly and likeable style that greatly adds to the engrossing tale he is telling as he goes chapter by chapter through the books of the Old Testament.

His style is made all the more likeable due to the “every man” reaction he has to the stories he is relating. In describing Biblical stories, figures, events, and laws, Plotz endlessly makes references to pop culture and modern life, including (in no particular order): 9½ Weeks, Abercrombie & Fitch, The A.C.L.U., Adam Smith, After-School Specials, All About Eve, Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Bar Scene, Big Brother, Bob Dylan, The Branch Davidians, Brokeback Mountain, Bugsy Siegel, The Byrds, Casablanca, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Cinderella, Cold Fusion, The Congressional Medal of Honor, Cormac McCarthy, C.S.I., David Koresh, Divorce Lawyers, Doctors Without Borders, Donald Trump, Edgar Allan Poe, Entourage, Ernest Hemingway, Flowers in the Attic, Frat Rushes, Freddy Krueger, The Gap, George Orwell, The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, Good Cop-Bad Cop, Grifting, Hippies, How To Win Friends and Influence People, Hustler Magazine, Jack Nicholson, Jane Austen, Judge Dredd, The Justice League, K-Rations, A Knight’s Tale, Last Tango in Paris, Law & Order: SVU, The Life of Brian, The Lifetime Network, “The Lottery,” Macrobiotic Diet, Madame Bovary, The Madness of King George, Maoist Economics, Married, with Children, Martha Stewart, Mata Hari, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Midnight Cowboy, Michael Jackson, Miss Manners, The Miss Universe Pageant, Monty Python, Morgan Freeman, Muhammad Ali, The New Yorker, Nixon’s Historic Visit to China, Oprah Winfrey, Penélope Cruz, Penthouse Forum, P.E.T.A., Pete Seeger, Pimp My Ride, Pol Pot, Portrait of a Lover, Pretty Woman, Project Runway, Pro-Wrestling, Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Real Estate Deals (Crooked and Otherwise), Restraining Orders, Rogaine, Salma Hayek, The Saw Franchise, Self-Help Books, Shirley Jackson, Soap Operas, Sports Talk Radio, Stage Moms, Stephen King, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court Justice David Souter, Three Dog Night, The Three Stooges, Total Home Makeover, Ty Pennington, Viagra, William Shakespeare, Woody Allen, The X-Men, “Yo Momma” Jokes, Yuppies, and in what is quite possibly my favorite statement in the book, Plotz refers to Ezekiel as “the Groovy Whole-Grain Hippie Prophet,” and, even more amazingly, he makes it all work and seem natural to the stories of the Bible.

Another fun aspect of Good Book is Plotz’s Appendix, which contains Useful, and Not-So-Useful Bible Lists:

• The Bible’s 12 Best Pick-Up Lines
• The 11 Best Miracles in the Bible and 1 Very Lame One
• The Bible’s 13 Most Spectacular Murders
• The Bible’s 9 Best Parties
• 10 Bible Prostitutes
• 11 Biblical Heroes You Don’t Want to Be Named After
• 9 Truly Hellacious Biblical Punishments
• The Bible’s 8 Trippiest and Most Important Dreams
• 9 Weird Biblical Laws
• The Bible’s 6 Most Important Business Deals
• 6 Abuses of Animals Rights in the Bible
• The Bible’s 10 Most Important Meals

These are pretty self-explanatory lists and actually a lot of good-natured fun with the Bible.

My only complaint in all of what Plotz has to say about the Bible was his over use of the word “feckless” (which, according to dictionary.com, is defined as: “1. ineffective; incompetent; futile 2. having no sense of responsibility; indifferent; lazy”) in describing at least five Bible personages that I can think of off the top of my head, and there is possibly more that I can’t remember. It is not because it was in any way offensive to the person, or my personal belief about them, they were all apt descriptions of these people, it was just an overexposure to the word that I took a dislike to. Kind of like Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” … it was alright the first time you heard it at the end of Titanic, but after it played on the radio ad nauseum you were sick of it, and it grated every time you heard it. That’s the way it was with the word “feckless” in Good Book.

Other than that one, little nitpick, I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent listening to Good Book, and I found the conclusions that Plotz makes upon finishing his reading of the Bible to be very inspiring and thought-provoking, coming as they do from a starting place of disbelief and no faith and even skepticism. It made me rethink my belief in the Old Testament and the stories it tells, not in a bad way, but in a way that challenges my faith and makes me want to strengthen my own conclusions about God and the Old Testament’s teachings, moral and otherwise, and those things I took on “blind faith” and what I thought the Biblical story was saying and teaching.

I don’t care whether you’re religious or not, skeptic, atheist or believer, whether your belief is Christian, Jewish or Whatever … Good Book, at the risk of a cliché, has something for everyone, and I guarantee you’ll enjoy the journey of one man’s quest to read “every single word of the Bible.” (And for a real treat, you have to try it out on Audio. Plotz’s intimate reading is a wonderful experience.)

The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia

by James Palmer

(New York: Basic Books, 2009)

Hardcover, 274 Pages, Biography

ISBN: 9780465014484, US$26.95

ABCD Rating: CHECK OUT

From the Cover: In the history of the modern world, there have been few characters more sadistic, sinister, and deeply demented as Baron Ungern-Sternberg. An anti-Semitic fanatic with a penchant for Eastern mysticism and a hatred of communists, Baron Ungern-Sternberg took over Mongolia in 1920 with a ragtag force of White Russians, Siberians, Japanese, and native Mongolians. While tormenting friend and foe alike, he dreamed of assembling a horse-borne army with which he would retake communist controlled Moscow. In this epic saga that ranges from Austria to the Mongolian Steppe, historian and travel writer James Palmer has brought to light the gripping life story of a madman whose actions fore shadowed the most grotesque excesses of the Twentieth Century.

My Review: This is another one of those books that jumped off the library’s NEW BOOK shelf and into my bag of books. The title was just too juicy to pass up. I am always fascinated by the “forgotten” stories of history, and Baron Ungern-Sternberg certainly classifies as “forgotten history.”

Everyone knows the stories of World War One and the horrors of the Western Front and the chaos of the Russian Revolution and the “antics” of Lenin and his Bolsheviks, but what I did not know (and would be willing to wager most of you out there didn’t know) is that while the fighting was going on on both the Eastern and Western Fronts the Russians were also doing a little bit of fighting in Siberia along the Manchurian border, and while the Bolsheviks and the Red Army were fighting in the streets in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the Whites were battling Bolsheviks in the steppes. (A bonus fact is that the United States even sent a 5,000-men-strong army—the American Expeditionary Force Siberia—to help stabilize the region and protect the peoples of the steppe (as well as fleeing Whites and Czech Legion members) from Bolshevik forces.) The major fighting in the steppes was centered around Baron Ungern-Sternberg and his Cossack-Mongol-Buriat horde. The accomplishments of the Baron are simply astounding. In the face of a much larger and better supplied force (the Red Army in the Soviet Union, as well as Chinese forces in Mongolia) the Baron’s horsemen again and again had win after win. The Baron and his couple thousand men even kicked the Chinese completely out of Mongolia, restored the Bogd Khan to his throne and became the de facto ruler of Mongolia.

He really is a fascinating man, if inhumanly brutal. If even half of half of the stories about the Baron as related in Palmer’s book are true, then Baron Ungern-Sternberg deserves to go down in history as one of the most inhuman human monsters in history; easily the equal of Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein or even Genghis Khan himself (who, it was often whispered by Mongols, had been reincarnated in the form of Baron Ungern-Sternberg). The brutality with which the Baron dispensed justice to suspected Bolsheviks, Jews, Chinese, Mongols, Russians and even his own men is simply shocking, and it is a wonder that he was able to inspire any loyalty, let alone the devoted loyalty of his Cossack and Buriat troops that he did. Conversely, he was revered by the Mongols as the God of War incarnate and one who would bring peace, independence and stability to Mongols.

While I enjoyed the story of the Baron and Palmer’s research seemed impeccable, I did have two small bones to pick with Palmer’s writing. Chiefly, I was somewhat dismayed by Palmer’s obvious skepticism of Buddhism (and religion in general). Throughout the book, whenever he makes reference to religion, Buddhist or otherwise, he dropped out of the “professorial” tone that he used and subtly, the religious passages were much more condescending. For a story that has mysticism and Buddhism and Christianity and Theosophy so deeply intertwined into it, such a tone is jarring to say the least. Now, I don’t know what Palmer’s own religious beliefs are, if any, or if this is intended or not, but this is the way the Palmer comes across at these moments. The second aspect I found jarring in an otherwise smoothly told story was whenever Palmer talked about the Chinese he was just as condescending about them as he was about religion. Again, this was jarring, and presented an obvious bias for the Mongols in the story over the Chinese “barbarians.” Justified or not, that is not something I expect out of a book of this type, and it broke the thread of the story every time it came up, and that bugged me.

Other than that, though, I really enjoyed this story. It is amazing how many of the megalomaniacs and truly sociopathic slips through the cracks in history. Especially someone who created such a buzz in the 1920s as did Baron Ungern-Sternberg. He reminds me of Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett in this way. Not that they are in anyway the same, but the fact that they are two men who captured the world’s attention in the 1920s and in some way shaped the world around them in such a way as to be incredible. One mapped the Amazon River Basin, the other conquered Mongolia with a handful of horsemen.

As distasteful as it is, the Baron’s history is a fascinating one, and one that does not deserve to slip through the cracks, and I, for one, am glad that Palmer decided to chronicle the Baron’s exploits. They make for fascinating reading.

Her Story: A Timeline of the Women Who Changed America

by Charlotte S. Waisman, Ph.D. and Jill S. Tietjen, P.E.

foreword by Madeleine Albright

(New York: HarperCollins, 2008)

Hardcover, 259 Pages, Nonfiction

ISBN: 9780061246517, US$29.95

ABCD Rating: BACKLIST

From the Cover: Her Story is a vivid documentation of the breadth and diversity of American women’s achievements throughout U.S. history. This one-of-a-kind illustrated timeline highlights the awesome, varied, and often unrecognized contributions of American women since the 1500s. There have been women trailblazers throughout American history; women have had a profound impact on the intellectual, social, and political development of our society. But many of their contributions have gone unnoticed. Most people have heard of Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Margaret Sanger, and Eleanor Roosevelt. But did you know that a woman microbiologist discovered the bacterium responsible for undulant fever, which then led to the pasteurization of all milk? Or that a woman patented the paper-bag folding machine to make square-bottom bags (the grocery bag)? Or that a female mathematician’s work laid the foundation for abstract algebra? The women featured in Her Story range from writers, artists, actors, and athletes to doctors, scientists, social and political activists, educators, and inventors, and include women of all backgrounds and philosophies. The authors of Her Story, Charlotte S. Waisman and Jill S. Tietjen, have compiled an extraordinary collection of women and events that provides a unique view of history. Part of Her Story’s distinctiveness is the inclusion of hundreds of lesser-known women from all walks of life who have broken barriers and created paths of noteworthy and inspiring achievement. In her Foreword to the book, Madeleine Albright comments, “Spanning the centuries from 1587 ... this book will allow women and men to become more aware of and informed about the women who have been instrumental in giving us the quality of life we enjoy today. Often stepping outside of the expected modes of behavior for women during their lives, the profiled women were the pioneers for their causes, their professions, or their passions. Their accomplishments have advanced the arts, the sciences, politics, and business.” The timeline also includes snapshots of events and organizations that have shaped women’s experiences and women’s history and, thereby, the culture and history of America. The familiar and unfamiliar stories that unfold here—from Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, to chemist Stephanie Kwolek’s invention of Kevlar, the synthetic fiber used to make bulletproof vests—make Her Story a captivating look at champions that will resonate with women and men alike.

My Review: This is one of those books that you pick up at the last minute off the library’s New Book Shelf on the way to the checkout counter because the cover catches your eye and it’s not like you have enough books in the library bag as it is without adding a two-pound, 259 page, hardcover book to the already shoulder-busting collection, but you just can’t resist it for some reason. Or is that just me?

Her Story is just such a book, and one that I am genuinely glad that I stopped to pick up. It was, ostensibly, for my wife but after sitting in bed turning page after page into the wee hours of the morning as she and the kids slept, it turns out that it was just as much for me as it was for her.

This is an absolutely engrossing collection of accomplished women who made a difference in America. All-too-often we hear about the Founding Fathers and the men who fought in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, not to mention WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam; the Presidents and Congressmen and diplomats and tycoons of industry and business and writers and artists who made a difference (for either good or bad) in America, and the accomplishments of the women who were their wives and contemporaries and co-citizens go unnoticed and unlauded. Her Story corrects that gross oversight and presents us with some of the most fascinating, compelling and interesting women to have walked across the stage of American history.

As I said, I was utterly engrossed by this book’s collection of women and what they have done throughout history, and found myself wanting a copy of this book to give to my daughter upon her graduation from high school to give to her as a gift to show her what she can do if she only puts her mind to it. Who knows, one day maybe she will grace the pages of such a book in the future through some amazing accomplishment that she makes by standing on the shoulders of those who came before her in the sisterhood of women making a difference in America.

In fact, that may not be a bad idea. Get this book for the young woman in your life, be it daughter, granddaughter, niece or what-have-you, and give it to them as a gift to show them what they might accomplish should they only put their mind and might to it. It would certainly be a more inspiring book to them than the Twilight series. The so-called accomplishments and dreams of Bella Swan (so lauded and extolled as the “Paragon of New Millennium Feminism” (as I heard her described in a presentation at the 2009 PCA-ACA Conference in New Orleans this past April)) pale in comparison to the accomplishments of astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1912), physician Emeline Horton Cleveland (1855), activist Mary Breckenridge (1925) and historian Drew Gilpin Faust (2007) to pick just a few at random from the book, and not to mention the better-known Susan B. Anthonys, Amelia Earharts, Abigail Adamses and Hillary Rodham Clintons.

This is truly a special book that, really, you’d have to be a hard-hearted, dyed-in-the-wool male chauvinist to not appreciate, and if that is you, then my heart is sad for you, because there are truly remarkable women that have come before you and around you now and will come after you, and you will not recognize them for who they are simply because of their gender and plumbing instead of for their minds and their works.

Her Story should be standard issue with every girl’s high school diploma because if the girls and young women of today model their lives on the women in this book then there is nothing that they won’t be able to do tomorrow, and that idea, that vision of the future (looking at my own daughter and the middle-school girls I’ve taught over the past three years) gives me hope.

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon (Audio)

by David Grann

read by Mark Deakins

(New York: Random House Audio, 2009)

MP3 Audiobook, 138.2 MB, 10 Hours, Nonfiction

ISBN: 9780739376980, US$39.95

ABCD Rating: ACQUIRE

“At times all I need is a brief glimpse, an opening in the midst of an incongruous landscape, a glint of lights in the fog, the dialogue of two passerby meetings in the crowd, and I think that, setting out from there, I will put together, piece by piece, the perfect city … If I tell you that the city toward which my journey tends is discontinuous in space and time, now scatter, now condensed, you must not believe the search for it can stop.” —Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

From the Cover: A grand mystery reaching back centuries. A sensational disappearance that made headlines around the world. A quest for truth that leads to death, madness or disappearance for those who seek to solve it. The Lost City of Z is a blockbuster adventure narrative about what lies beneath the impenetrable jungle canopy of the Amazon. After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, acclaimed New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve “the greatest exploration mystery of the 20th Century”: What happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest for the Lost City of Z? In 1925 Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization, hoping to make one of the most important discoveries in history. For centuries Europeans believed the world’s largest jungle concealed the glittering kingdom of El Dorado. Thousands had died looking for it, leaving many scientists convinced that the Amazon was truly inimical to humankind. But Fawcett, whose daring expeditions helped inspire Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, had spent years building his scientific case. Captivating the imagination of millions, Fawcett embarked with his 21-year-old son, determined to prove that this ancient civilization, which he dubbed “Z,” existed. Then he and his expedition vanished. Fawcett’s fate, and the tantalizing clues he left behind about Z, became an obsession for hundreds who followed him into the uncharted wilderness. For decades scientists and adventurers have searched for evidence of Fawcett’s party and the Lost City of Z. As David Grann delved ever deeper into the mystery surrounding Fawcett’s quest, and the greater mystery of what lies within the Amazon, he found himself, like the generations who preceded him, being irresistibly drawn into the jungle’s “green hell.” His quest for the truth and his stunning discoveries about Fawcett’s fate and Z form the heart of this complex, enthralling narrative.

My Review: It seems that every summer I tend to read more nonfiction. That is probably because my Falls, Winters and Springs are filled with fiction and novels due to the fact that I am an English-Literary Studies major, but it is also because I love learning and love to learn new things. In particular, I love learning about things I have never heard of before, and Grann’s book definitely falls into that category. I’m not sure where I first heard about this book, but I know I saw it promoted on a number of the late night talk shows (Grann was on The Colbert Report in particular) and he was interviewed in a couple of the podcasts I listen to, that, coupled with the fact that the book sounded so damn interesting, and that it is set in Brasil, which has a special place in my heart, meant that I had to read this book. Well, in this case, “read” meant “listen to” and since it ended up being a free download from Audible (thanks to the Slate Culture Gabfest podcast) I figured this was as good a way as any to absorb Grann’s book.

And absorb I did. This is, without a doubt, the single most fascinating story you have never heard of. Percy Harrison Fawcett was the last of the great Victorian explorers and his exploits were legendary in the period just before and just after the First World War. This is a man who would walk into the Amazon Jungle and months later walk out again and have detailed maps and descriptions of locations that had never been seen before. As fascinating as the explorations of Ernest Shackleton and Admiral Byrd, Fawcett’s, in my mind—after reading Grann’s book—eclipse them by a wide margin. Fawcett was a man easily on a par with the likes of Dr. David Livingstone, H.M. Stanley, and Sir Richard Burton, to name just a few. The things that Fawcett accomplished in his life and at the time that he did (i.e. without the benefits of modern technologies) in a landscape as harsh and unforgiving as the Amazon Rainforest is are nothing short of amazing.

However, what is most compelling about Fawcett’s story is his complete obsession with the lost civilization and city (which he named “Z”) which he became convinced was in the heart of the Amazon, somewhere within the Xingu River Basin. He spent a lifetime trying to discover Z, and ultimately it consumed him, because—and this is not a spoiler in any sense—in 1925 Fawcett, his oldest son and his son’s best friend walked into the Amazon and the Xingu and … disappeared. It is, as the back of the book says, a “grand mystery,” and a helluva ride to take. (It reminded me of Martin Dugard’s Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone.)

Grann talks about getting “bit by the Fawcett Bug” and I have to admit that he is right. Listening to (or reading) The Lost City of Z is to get bit by the Fawcett Bug and to get swept up in the story and, if you are anything like me, wonder what it would be like to outfit an expedition (as Grann ended up doing) to follow Fawcett’s trail into the jungle and try and discover what happened to the explorer and see if you can’t uncover the mystery of Z yourself. Then reality comes crashing in when the audiobook is turned off/book is closed, but those hours spent under its spell give rise to some pretty ambitious dreams, to say the least.

I was surprised to learn (and you might be too) that I had been “bit by the Fawcett Bug” long before ever hearing about the Amazonian explorer, since his adventures inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write The Lost World, and even informed Indiana Jones and his adventures and in one particular crossover in the novel Indiana Jones and the Seven Veils the archaeologist-adventurer finds the lost Fawcett and together the pair discover the Lost City of Z. (I recently ordered a copy of Seven Veils and will report back here on it as soon as I am able). However, as fun and adventurous as Indy and Doyle can be, Fawcett’s story is all the more compelling because it is a true one and one, for all intents and purposes, without an ending (in that Fawcett disappeared and has never been found (dead or alive)) and therefore is all the more satisfying. Though, without spoiling anything, Grann’s discoveries following Fawcett’s trail into the Xingu in Brasil put a nice little bow on the package that is Fawcett’ story, and that’s all I’m sayin’.

My only nit to pick with the book is Deakins’ pronunciation of the Brasilian towns and cities referenced time and again in the book. As a fluent speaker of Portuguese, it bugged me to no end when Deakins said, for example, mah-NOOSE instead of mah-NOUS in pronouncing the capital city of the Brasilian state of Amazonas, Manaus. It’s a little thing, I know, and one that most people would not catch, but it is something that bothered me immensely.

However, the bottom line here is that you need to pick up Grann’ book for yourself and become immersed in the world of Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett and get bit by the Fawcett Bug for yourself. I promise you that you will not be disappointed. The Lost City of Z is, by a wide margin, the most satisfying book I have finished so far this year and will be very hard to top.

Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures

by Bill Schutt

illustrations by Patricia J. Wynne

(New York: Harmony Books, 2008)

Hardcover, 325 Pages, Nonfiction

ISBN: 9780307381125, US$25.95

ABCD Rating: BACKLIST

“… The blood is the life …” (Deuteronomy 12:23)

From the Cover: For centuries, blood feeders have inhabited our nightmares and horror stories, as well as the shadowy realms of scientific knowledge. In Dark Banquet, zoologist Bill Schutt takes readers on an entertaining voyage into the world of some of nature’s strangest creatures—the sanguivores. Using a sharp eye and mordant wit, Schutt makes a remarkably persuasive case that vampire bats, leeches, ticks, bed bugs, and other vampires are as deserving of our curiosity as warmer and fuzzier species are—and that many of them are even ­worthy of conservation. Schutt takes us from rural Trinidad to the jungles of Brasil to learn about some of the most reviled, misunderstood, and marvelously evolved animals on our planet: vampire bats. Only recently has fact begun to disentangle itself from fiction concerning these remarkable animals, and Schutt delves into the myths and misconceptions surrounding them. Examining the substance that sustains nature’s vampires, Schutt reveals just how little we actually knew about blood until well into the twentieth century. We revisit George Washington on his deathbed to learn how ideas about blood and the supposedly therapeutic value of bloodletting, first devised by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, survived into relatively modern times. Schutt also tracks the history of medicinal leech use. Once employed by the tens of millions to drain perceived excesses of blood, today the market for these ancient creatures is booming once again—but for very different reasons. Among the other blood feeders we meet in these pages are bed bugs, or “ninja insects,” which are making a creepy resurgence in posh hotels and well-kept homes near you. In addition, Dark Banquet details our dangerous and sometimes deadly encounters with ticks, chiggers, and mites (the ­latter implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder—currently devastating honey bees worldwide). Then there are the truly weird—vampire finches. And if you thought piranha were scary, some people believe that the candiru (or willy fish) is the best reason to avoid swimming in the Amazon. Enlightening, alarming, and appealing to our delight in the bizarre, Dark Banquet peers into a part of the natural world to which we are, through our blood, inextricably linked.

My Review: Two or three weeks ago, a book about blood and blood-feeders seemed to leap off the New Books Shelf at my local library and into my library bag … seemingly of its own accord. It was only a matter of time before it made its way to the top of my pile of Books to Read, and now Dark Banquet has become one of those books that I am glad I have read … but wish I could unread. Or, to paraphrase Futurama: “YOU [READ] IT, YOU CAN’T UN[READ] IT!”

Schutt’s book is an absolutely fascinating window into the world of sanguivores and why they do it, and what makes them tick … no pun intended. His opening chapters trace the evolution of vampire bats, and the utter curiosity that they are: of the thousands of bat species, only three are hemophagic and those three live only in Central and South America. Schutt, a researcher and professor at C.W. Post College on Long Island, asks why these three species and why only in the New World? It is a fascinating question, one I had not paused to consider before reading Dark Banquet, and one that had not occurred to me. Ignorant me, I had thought that there were vampire bats in Africa and Asia as well as in the Americas. Shows what I know. This begs the question of is there a proto-vampire bat (Schutt say there were prehistoric vampire bats in the Pleistocene Era (one in particular, Desmodus draculae was a biggun’) but they, and Desmodus were already sanguivores and not transitional forms), so while there is no concrete conclusion on how bats become vampires, there are some leading theories that Schutt outlines in the book (as well as HERE, if you are interested).

From bats, Schutt moves on to leeches, and leaves the most fascinating parts of his novel (the bats) for the less NEAT-O/GEE-WHIZ portion and the more ICK portion. Not that the history of leeches isn’t interesting … it is. Surprisingly so. And even the leeches aren’t the worst part of the book. They are actually quite matter-of-fact and historical, making for some very compelling reading (especially for their suspected role in the death of George Washington (yes … that George Washington)). It is what comes after the leeches that left me scratching at phantom itches and squirming uncomfortably in my seat and eyeing every piece of furniture suspiciously.

Leaving leeches, Schutt moves into the world of bed bugs, ticks, chiggers and mites. Just thinking about these portions of Dark Banquet makes my skin crawl and make me feel like I need to itch my scalp and back and arms. It is absolutely awful, the information about these vampires that Schutt imparts … especially bed bugs. I can think of very little that I have read in my 30-some-odd years that rival the sheer ICK Factor of reading about the habits and lives of bed bugs, and I’ve read quite a bit Jack Ketchum and Bentley Little.

Bed bugs have to be living Hell Spawn sent to skitter across the Earth and torment the likes of us poor mortals. The pages wherein Schutt discusses bed bugs are horrific, to say the least. It is enough to make a somewhat normal individual like myself want to hermetically seal himself into a sterile chamber à la Howard Hughes. Learning what I have about bed bugs, I honestly wonder how I can go about functioning like I did before the knowledge, they are that bad! There is, seemingly, nothing that can be done to avoid them, short of going Howard Hughes, and—horrors of horrors—apparently books are a prime aggregation spot for them (he types while thinking about the 1600+ books sitting in boxes in the garage right now, awaiting the next move). It truly was horrific.

As I paraphrased above: “YOU [READ] IT, YOU CAN’T UN[READ] IT!” However, one just has to soldier on, and live as best as one can, não é? and they say forewarned is forearmed, so I just have to suck it up, and go on.

And on that note, the less said about the candiru the better, because even if the stories are just hearsay and anecdotal, they are still pretty damn bad.

Anyway, enough about my neuroses, and back to Dark Banquet. All-in-all, this is truly an amazing book, chock-full of fascinating scientific facts, though, I did have one complaint about Schutt’s writing style and that is the fact that Schutt is trying to write about a very complex scientific concept for the average layperson and so he tries to make the book “accessible” by trying to be “hip” and “funny,” much like Mary Roach. Unfortunately, unlike Roach, most of that “wit” falls flat and the book suffers for it, often miserably.

However, as with the bed bugs, this caveat is not to make you avoid the book, but rather to just forewarn you so you don’t give up on the book, because in spite of Schutt’s attempts at humor, the book is, in fact, very interesting and informative and one that should be picked up and read, because what could be more spellbinding than learning about how animals from bats to bugs to birds live on solely blood? Oh, yeah. Did I mention that there is a species of finch in the Galápagos Islands that lives on the blood of the blue-footed booby? Well. There is.