Wheedle on the Needle

by Stephen Cosgrove

illustrated by Robin James

-A Serendipity Book-

(Los Angeles: Price Stern Sloan, 1974)

Library Binding, 32 Pages, Children’s

ISBN: 9780843105643, US$2.95

ABCD Rating: ACQUIRE

Dedicated to Seattle, Washington, a wonderfully warm place for a Wheedle to stay.

From the Cover: Wheedle is a very grumpy Sasquatch, and with Seattle’s growth, finding a quiet place to sleep is close to impossible. When he heads for the top of the Space Needle and unleashes a never-ending rainfall, everyone stays indoors, and the city is quiet once again. Now, it's the Seattleites who are grumpy—who wants to stay inside all the time? Is there a solution that makes everyone happy?

My Review: I was born and raised in California. A year after my wife and I were married we moved to Seattle, Washington. After four years in Seattle, we moved to Utah to help family and so I could return to school. Now, in 2009 after finally completing my Bachelors degree, we have returned to the Pacific Northwest so that I could go to grad school in the English Masters program at Western Washington University. All of this is to say that even growing up in California I have always been in love with Seattle and Washington and everything that the city and state embodied. Even though both my wife and I are native Californians, we consider ourselves honorary Washingtonians and associate more with the Pacific Northwest as a home than we do with either California or Utah.

This is the long way around the barn to explain why, at the age of 33 and in 2009 I am just now hearing about Wheedle on the Needle. 2009 represents the 35th anniversary of this book and—more importantly—a return to the original message and Seattle-centric plot of the book. Apparently, back in 2002, when Wheedle was rereleased that eliminated the environmental message and made the Wheedle not native to the Puget Sound region. I can’t imagine how this might have looked, since it seems to me that the Seattle-ness is absolutely essential to the story. After all, the Wheedle became a Seattle icon and institution and was even the mascot for the Seattle Sonics basketball team from 1978-1985.

Anyway, after a 15 year long legal battle with the publishers, author Stephen Cosgrove has finally regained the rights to the book and it has been restored to its original Puget Sound local and there was a big to-do on Evening Magazine about a month ago celebrating the 35th anniversary of the book and its restoration, and believe it or not I have been in the hold line for this book at my local library for all that time.

As with There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Trout, Wheedle on the Needle has become a bedtime staple for my children. My son (age 4) especially loves the book, and now anytime he sees the Space Needle he says “Hey! Daddy! That’s where the Wheedle lives!” He’s very excited that we live close to Seattle and keeps asking me if we can go to Seattle to go to the Needle to see the Wheedle.

I cannot recommend this book enough for those of you with small children. It is especially good for those of you with kids that are beginning to learn to read as the words are nice and simple, and easy for children to pick up on. While I’m not a literal native Washingtonian and only a transplanted Pacific Northwesterner, my heart belongs to The Evergreen State and Wheedle on the Needle is now a big part of my love of this region.

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Trout

by Teri Sloat

illustrated by Reynold Ruffins

(New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1998)

Hardcover, 32 Pages, Children’s

ISBN: 9780805069006, US$15.95

ABCD Rating: ACQUIRE

There was an old lady who swallowed a trout

That splished and splashed and thrashed about.

From the Cover: Everyone has head about the old lady who swallowed a fly, but there is something particularly fishy about this old lady. … Beautiful illustrations in this story capture the scenery and wildlife of the Pacific Northwest. The buoyant text jumps along as the old lady swallows a salmon, an otter, a seal, a walrus, and more, until eventually she swallows the entire sea and the trout swims free! With a unique and fascinating setting, this pure flight of fancy gives a fresh look to a familiar poem.

My Review: This is one of those gems of a book that I found at the last minute in the library. I was in the process of checking out at the self-check out station and this book was being displayed at the folklore section (which is next to the check out) and the title so tickled my fancy that I scooped it up. Little did I know that it would soon become my childrens’ favorite book of 2009? No joke.

My kids have absolutely fallen in love with book, so much so that we have bumped it to the top of Book to Buy list for them. They love reading it, and it has become a must read for bedtime … each and every night. The big plus, though, is the fact that even though I have more or less read it every night at bedtime for the last month not only have they not grown tired of it, but I have not grown tired of it! And that is a major plus.

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Trout is a simply marvelous book. I absolutely love the different spin on the old poem and (at the risk of spoiling) the fact that the Old Lady doesn’t die at the end of this particular incarnation of the poem is a very good thing. The other aspect of this book that I absolutely love is the artwork. Ruffins’ Pacific Northwest-esque art is delightful and adds to this book the air of legend, like it was an Inuit or First Nations legend (which is probably why it was in the folklore section of the Children’s wing of the library).

This is a very fun book, and one that I highly recommend for the child in your life; if they are anything like my son and daughter they will fall in love with this book.

Simone Goes to the Market: A Children's Book of Colors Connecting Face and Food

by David Westerlund

(Bellingham: Applied Digital Imaging, 2008)

Paperback, 25 Pages, Children’s

ISBN: N/A, US$15.00

ABCD Rating: ACQUIRE

From the Cover: Newborns instinctively connect food and face. But as we grow up this connection erodes or even disappears. This book is my contribution to the strengthening of this connection for our little ones. My hope is that you and your little ones will rediscover the texture, joy, and meaning found in eating food from your neighbors. The story takes the reader with Simone to the local farmer’s market as she meets the farmers and buys fresh, colorful produce from them. My book is relevant for all ages—for infants learning to focus on faces, small children learning colors, kindergarteners learning to read, and all of us relearning the joy of eating locally.

My Review: We were in a local toy store the other day, doing some Christmas shopping for the kids and as I was purchasing everything, they had this book next to the register. We were already over budget for the kids’ presents that I wasn’t able to pick up a copy, but the next time we were at the library, lo and behold, there was a copy.

In the last four years or so (more or less since the birth of our son) we have tried to live a more sustainable lifestyle. We recycle, buy organic and natural, avoid companies like Nestlé, have tried to cut our carbon-footprint, and eating more locally. This was hard to do in Utah (it is not the most green-friendly state in the Union) but here in Bellingham we’ve found it much easy to try and live more sustainably and in an eco-friendly manner. Part of that has been frequenting the Bellingham Farmers Market whenever we could and getting our produce from a more local source. (We’re not perfect, yet but we have made great strides in changing the way we live.)

Now, bringing it back to Simone Goes to the Market, Westerlund’s book is simply marvelous. Our kids always loved being at the market, looking at all the produce, running up and down the walkways between the stalls, listening to the buskers, picking out treats for themselves and so now that the BFM is closed until April 2010, Simone Goes to the Market is a fun way to remind our kids about the fact that food should and does have a face more than just the checker’s at the local supermarket.

The photography (all of which was taken by Westerlund) is absolutely gorgeous and the colors are simply beautiful. My daughter loves looking at the brightly colored foods and my son, who has always been interested in growing food in the garden (and has been a great help to my wife as she manages our garden plot) has asked if we can plant purple pole beans or yellow patty pan squash in “our garden.” Thus, Simone Goes to the Market definitely passes the “Kid Test.” They have loved this book, and as for me, I too have fallen in love with this book.

As a fun little surprise, I was leafing through the book, and all of a sudden there was a picture of a friend of ours from the playgroup Alisa and the kids belong to who sells coffee at the Market.

I cannot recommend this book enough. If you want a copy, and don’t live in the Bellingham area where you can go to the Market or one of the other local stores that carry Simone, then for a $3 shipping fee you can order a copy at the following email: david@faceandfood.com, and if it helps to seal the deal, 60% of the proceeds from the sale of Simone goes to: Food to Bank On, Growing Washington, Community to Community and Tierra Nueva’s Family Support Center.

Stephen King's Top 10 Books of 2009

The following comes from the Cemetery Dance Insider Newsletter that I’ve subscribed to, and they in turn got it from EW.com. Now, it comes from about a week-and-a-half ago at Entertainment Weekly, but I just got the CD newsletter today, so … just ignore King’s statement that “book lovers on your shopping list will thank you for the gift of any of these rockin’ reads.”


Stephen King: My Top 10 Books of 2009
Take it from your Uncle Stevie—book lovers on your shopping list will thank you for the gift of any of these rockin’ reads
by Stephen King, December 18, 2009

10. Rough Country by John Sanford, hardcover, $26.95
King’s Thoughts: “This tale is rich, satisfying, and frequently hilarious.”
About the Book: “Rich with the brilliant plotting and compulsively readable prose that are his hallmarks, Rough Country is another immensely satisfying tale by one of our very best suspense writers.”

9. Ravens by George Dawes Green, hardcover, $24.99
King’s Thoughts: “When Green isn’t making you laugh, he’s making you bite your nails down to the bleeding point.”
About the Book: “The Boatwrights just won $318 million in the Georgia State lottery. It’s going to be the worst day of their lives.”

8. Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child, hardcover, $27.00
King’s Thoughts: “Child’s writing is lean and wiry.”
About the Book: “New York City. Two in the morning. A subway car heading uptown. Jack Reacher, plus five other passengers. Four are okay. The fifth isn’t. In the next few tense seconds Reacher will make a choice—and trigger an electrifying chain of events in this gritty, gripping masterwork of suspense by #1 New York Times bestseller Lee Child.”

7. Drood by Dan Simmons, hardcover, $26.99
King’s Thoughts: “This is a beautifully realized historical novel, but it’s also a modern tale that chronicles the descent of a great mind into dope-fueled madness.”
About the Book: “On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens—at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world—hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever.”

6. Shatter by Michael Robotham, hardcover, $24.95
King’s Thoughts: “The most suspenseful book I read all year.”
About the Book: “In Michael Robotham’s latest thriller, psychologist Joe O’Loughlin tries to prevent a suicide and finds himself locked in a deadly duel with a very clever killer. With pitch-perfect dialogue, believable characters, and intriguingly unpredictable plot twists, Shatter is guaranteed to keep even the most avid thriller readers riveted long into the night.”

5. 2666 by Roberto Bolano, hardcover, $30.00
King’s Thoughts: “This surreal novel can’t be described; it has to be experienced in all its crazed glory.”
About the Book: “Three academics on the trail of a reclusive German author; a New York reporter on his first Mexican assignment; a widowed philosopher; a police detective in love with an elusive older woman—these are among the searchers drawn to the border city of Santa Teresa, where over the course of a decade hundreds of women have disappeared.”

4. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, hardcover, $25.00
King’s Thoughts: “This epic social comedy follows one of them through a lifetime of adventures worthy of Dickens.”
About the Book: “Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence.”

3. Hollywood Moon by Joseph Wambaugh, hardcover, $26.99
King’s Thoughts: “The best of Wambaugh’s Hollywood Station novels.”
About the Book: “Wambaugh once again masterfully gets inside the hearts and minds of the cops whose jobs have them constantly on the brink of danger. By turns heart-wrenching, exhilarating, and laugh-out-loud funny, Hollywood Moon is his most thrilling and deeply affecting ride yet through the singular streets of L.A.”

2. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, mass market paperback, $7.99
King’s Thoughts: “Skip the DVD; read the book.”
About the Book: “In the hopeful 1950s, Frank and April Wheeler appear to be a model couple: bright, beautiful, talented, with two young children and a starter home in the suburbs ... they have always lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner. But now that certainty is about to crumble.”

1. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, hardcover, $26.95
King’s Thoughts: “Several sleepless nights are guaranteed.”
About the Book: “Abundantly atmospheric and elegantly told, The Little Stranger is Sarah Waters’ most thrilling and ambitious novel yet.”


Bryan here. Quite a few of these are going on my ever-lengthening To Be Read list for 2010, Drood included (since there is no way I can read 600+ pages in the next 24 hours … although … maybe ...?) How about you? Any of these catch your eye?

My Christmas Loot

This is a post I’ve been meaning to do for a couple of days now, and only now I’m getting up the gumption to actually do the post. So, here it is…

My Christmas Loot

I got books for Christmas (no surprise there … my Mom once said that I was the easiest person to shop for for birthdays and Christmas because all one needed to get was books and/or art supplies). Here they are:


Shock!
edited by M.C. Allen
(New York: Popular Library, Inc., 1965)
Paperback, 144 Pages, Short Fiction Anthology
ISBN: N/A, US$0.50

From the Cover: Vivid as a flash of sheet lightning in a house of horrors these stories illumine the strange, the weird, the unnatural world of the greatest storytelling imaginations of our day.

This collection contains the following stories: “The Destructors” by Graham Greene, “Evening Primrose” by John Collier, “Miriam” by Truman Capote, “Earth to Earth” by Robert Graves, “The Small Assassin” by Ray Bradbury, “The Hunger” by Charles Beaumont, “Thompson” by George A. Zorn, “Suspicion” by Dorothy L. Sayers, “You Can’t Run Fast Enough” by Arthur Kaplan, and “The Man and the Snake” by Ambrose Bierce

My Thoughts: Shock! is one of those books that I couldn’t not own, and so it was on my Christmas List, and a very nice relative sent it to me. This collection has some of the greatest authors compiled into one place, and—surprise surprise—there are only two in this collection that I have read previously: Ray Bradbury’s “The Small Assassin” (which is one of the scariest damn pieces of short fiction I have ever read) and “The Hunger” by Charles Beaumont (which was in the short story anthology of the same name that I have reviewed here before) and it is one of the stories from that anthology that I actually remember and remember liking a lot while I read it. I’m looking forward to putting it on my To Be Read pile some time soon.



The Little People
by John Christopher
(New York: Avon Books, 1966)
Paperback, 224 Pages, Fiction
ISBN: N/A, US$0.75

From the Cover: The Little People—Elves? Demons? They speak German. They carry whips. And they are connected in some mysterious way with Nazi experiments carried out in the charming old Irish castle during World War II. When members of the vacation part are found to be missing from their beds, and when pleading cries ring through the halls of the great house, terror grips hearts and minds, and the vacationers are brought face to face with the unknown…

My Thoughts: This book first came to my attention through the blog The Groovy Age of Horror back in March 2007, and it’s been on my Wish List since that time, but it was only this Christmas that my patience was rewarded. How can you not want a book with such an awesome/awful/groovy cover on your bookshelf? I cannot wait until it makes its way to the top of my To Be Read pile!



HAWG
by Steven Shrewsbury
(Lakeside: Graveside Tales, 2008)
Trade Paperback, 289 Pages, Fiction
ISBN: 9780980133820, US$14.95

From the Cover: Reap what you sow! Blue collar tough Andrew White knows that in the rural community of Miller’s Fork ad things are best left in the dark. He soon learns that monsters wear many shapes. In a populace rife with vice and deception, something has broken loose … something hidden and feral. Set free from a neighbor’s barn, a force rampages through the locality. Hungry and insatiable, the berserk wrath unleashed from Mr. Solow’s shed holds a darker secret than anyone could imagine. Only a factory worker, a twisted biker, an unsure sheriff, and a wounded addict stand in the way of the beast. Can they put aside their differences and defeat what lurks inside them in time to defend what they love? Come, peer inside the soul of Miller’s Fork and see if they possess the courage to stop the primal fury that is … HAWG.

My Thoughts: I first heard about this book through the Pod of Horror podcast that Mark Justice runs through Horror World. He interviewed “Shrews” and they plugged this novel, and since I love big, out-of-control, monstrous animal novels (like Jaws and Jurassic Park and their ilk) I had to get my hands on HAWG. Like The Little People, HAWG is one of those books that has been on my Wish List for a while, and a wonderful relative finally decided to fulfill my “wish” to own a book titled HAWG.



Opening Atlantis: A Novel of Alternate History
by Harry Turtledove
-Atlantis Series, Book 1-
(New York: ROC, 2008)
Paperback, 519 Pages, Fiction
ISBN: 9780451462015, US$7.99

From the Cover: Atlantis lies between Europe and the east coast of Terranova. For many years, this land of opportunity has lured dreamers from around the globe with its natural resources, offering a new beginning for those willing to brave the wonders of the unexplored territory. It is a new world indeed, ripe for discovery, for plunder, and eventually for colonization. But will its settlers destroy the very wonders they journeyed to Atlantis to find?

My Thoughts: This past year, I have really and truly discovered the genre that is “alternate history” and for the most part, have taken to it. Opening Atlantis was a late addition to my Christmas List, but I’m glad to have gotten it, because the premise sounds fascinating (if you look closely at the cover image there, you’ll see that the Eastern Seaboard of the United States is what constitutes Turtledove’s “Atlantis” and so I’m looking forward to see how that plays all plays out, especially given that Book 2 in the series is titled The United States of Atlantis and Book 3 is Liberating Atlantis.


Last but not least … especially in weight and length …


Under the Dome
by Stephen King
(New York: Scribner, 2009)
Hardcover, 1074 Pages, Fiction
ISBN: 9781439148501, US$35.00

From the Cover: On an otherwise normal, beautiful day, the town of Chester’s Mill, Maine is suddenly and inexplicably sealed off from the rest of the world in Under the Dome, Stephen King’s biggest, most riveting novel since The Stand.

My Thoughts: How could I not want this novel, and how could any one who knows me and loves me and claims to be related to me not know that this is the one book that would be a MUST on my Christmas list? I am really looking forward to getting my teeth into this book … it will be in audio format, though, because that is the one sure way that I can get through it, as opposed to trying to read all 1,074 pages (it is King’s longest) as I work on negotiating my second quarter of grad school … both classes and teaching.

A-Z Wednesday: Usher's Passing

A-Z Wednesday is hosted by Reading at the Beach.

Here are the rules: Go to your stack of books and find one whose title starts with the Letter of the Week and post the following:

1. A photo of the book
2. Title and synopsis
3. A link (Amazon, B&N, etc.)
4. Come back here and leave your link in the comments

If you’ve already reviewed this book, post a link to the review as well. Be sure to visit other participants to see what books they have posted and leave them a comment (we all love comments, don’t we?) Who know? You may find your next “favorite” book.

THIS WEEK’S LETTER IS: U

My “U” Book is:

Usher’s Passing

by Robert R. McCammon

(New York: Ballantine Books, 1985)

Paperback, 407 Pages, Fiction

ISBN: 9780671769925, US$3.95

From the Cover: The House of Usher has towered over a century with its apocalyptic warning against the powers of madness and evil. Yet the House of Usher is no mere tale. And neither did it really fall. Today the House of Usher is a multibillion-dollar corporate empire standing poised on the brink of its most devastating onslaught against an unsuspecting world … crafting fantastic superweapons that can level the planet … summoning demons of destruction from the darkest reaches of the earth. Unless one young heir to the House of Usher can, at long last, break the unyielding spell of terror. Before it breaks him.

My Review: My first thought for “U” was to post Stephen King’s new novel Under the Dome … but then I remember this book, and I figured I should get back to my habit of posting obscure books.

So, Usher’s Passing is a book that my brother recommended to me a number of years ago, so of course I immediately ordered it online (from ABE Books) and started reading. It’s been a number of years since I read Usher’s but I remember liking it, and what I loved the most about the book was that McCammon explored the background to Poe’s infamous story, and then extends out from Poe and takes Poe’s story into all new directions and goes about “explaining” certain aspects of “The Fall of the House of Usher” and giving Poe’s original story all kinds of new depth and meaning. Quite honestly, I love it when an author does that … Dan Simmons has done that in both The Terror and in Drood and I think that that is one of the things that I loved so much about those stories.

McCammon, as I remember, pulls out all the stops and makes a pretty damn scary novel and has some genuinely frightening moments. It’s harder to find than the more common McCammon books, such as Boy’s Life, Gone South, Swan Song, or some of the more recent releases (I’ve never seen Usher’s in a book store, used or otherwise) but I will say that it is well worth the effort that you’ll need to expend in order to track it down.

Teaser Tuesdays: Dickensian People

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Well, I’m still working my way through Drood … not because it is a bad novel or boring, but I’ve just been rather listless this last week and just haven’t been able to get myself to do much, that’s particularly bad not only because I have a 777-page book to get through (which ain’t gonna happen to count it for 2009) but I’ve also got a syllabus to re-jigger for the Winter quarter and, well … you don’t care about my woes … here’s this week’s Teaser from Dan Simmons’ Drood:

Drood

by Dan Simmons

(New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009)

Hardcover, 777 Pages, Fiction

ISBN: 9780316007023, US$26.99

MY TEASER: “(Even that impertinent mayfly young Mr. Dickenson seemed a character out of a Dickens novel—orphaned, with his rich Guardian and Chancery-endowed fortune, listless, aimless, given only to reading and lazing about. What extra stretch was there to believe in a ‘Mr. Drood’ with his leprous appearance, missing fingers and eyelids, and lisping utterances?)” (60).

Happy Holidays for 2009

“Christmas at Hogwarts” © Mary Grand-Pré

Merry Christmas to You and Yours from Bryan’s Book Blog

May your holiday be a magical one!

The Flock

by James Robert Smith

(Waterville: Five Star, 2006)

Hardcover, 363 Pages, Fiction

ISBN: 9781594143779, US$25.95

ABCD Rating: DITCH

From the Cover: SALUTATIONS USA is the ideal town built by Berg Brothers, the studio that for generations produced family films. Constructed on a parcel of the decommissioned site of what was the Edmunds Bombing Range, it is the great Studio’s intention to create a place that is what America once was, with room to expand. But the land beyond Salutations is wilderness—450,000 acres protected from development because of its former military status. Other forces struggle against the company for control of those acres. Vance Holcomb, billionaire ecologist wishes to construct a research center, saving the rare habitats. Winston Grisham, retired Marine colonel, wants all parties away, capitalist exploiters and meddlesome tree-huggers alike; he and his militia wish to be left alone. Ron Riggs, Fish & Wildlife officer wants to know what is lurking at the edges of Salutations. And the lawyers slug it out in the Florida courts. Unknown to most, this backcountry is home to the last population of a creature believed extinct: Titanis walleri, a predatory ground bird of saurian form. The creatures, possessed of near-human intelligence, have hidden since the first Native Americans came from the north. With humans on the doorstep, knocking to come in, the Flock does not wish to be disturbed. The Flock is the story of the conflicts between developers and protectors, between warriors and thinkers, between Mankind and a creature not unlike the theropod predators they so resemble in body and spirit; an adventure and suspense novel of epic proportion.

My Review: Recently, my son has become obsessed with prehistoric mammals: Smilodon, mammoths, megatherium, glyptodonts, etc. etc., so when we saw the BBC’s video Walking with Prehistoric Beasts at the library, he had to get it. In one of the series’ segments, it has a pair of “Terror Birds” stalking a baby Smilodon. My son loves to look at pictures online of his various obsessions, and after seeing the Terror Birds, that’s what he wanted to look at online. So, as I was finding pictures of these prehistoric creatures one of the images that Googled up was the cover of a book called The Flock (it turns out it was posted in the comments section of a blog post on ancient giant birds, and was James Robert Smith promoting his book). Since my local library had a copy (two, in fact, one in large print) I snatched it up and started reading.

There is a line in a famous movie from 1942 wherein, after being reproved by his mother, a secondary character repeats his father’s lesson of “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” I won’t fully adopt the “Thumperian Principle” in my review of The Flock, but it will direct the following comment: The story is very compelling, and in spite of the fact that I could not stand the writing … I read the book in just about four days, because the premise was good and I kept hoping that Smith would transcend his writing and make something out of this great premise. Unfortunately (and here’s where I abandon the “Thumperian Principle”) he doesn’t.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I both read the same book: Meg by Steve Alten. It is the story of a Megalodon found in modern times. (This is a theme of this genre of novel going all the way back to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World.) Meg is book with such a great premise and piss-poor execution that my wife and I use it as a baseline for comparison of bad books (“At least it wasn’t Meg” or “It was worse than Meg”). Well, unfortunately, The Flock is worse than Meg, and is my new baseline for bad books.

The writing and plotting in this book are so awful and so very stereotypical for a novel of this genre (with one notable exception, and we’ll get to that in a moment) that I just could not believe that this book has seen the light of day. It is all so contrived: all the women are beautiful, all the men are manly, all the moneyed individuals are richer than God, the politics are so black-and-white, all the executives are ruthless, there is very little grey room in this novel. Hell, Smith even tells what probably amounts to a third of the story from the damn terror birds’ point of view. The narrative from an animal’s point of view never works. I have never read a book where this is done convincingly … not even Stephen King (who is William-Freakin’-Shakespeare when compared to Smith) manages to pull it off, and the portions of Gerald’s Game and The Stand and Cujo where he attempts to tell the story from a dog’s point of view fall flat. Smith’s sections that are told from the birds’ point of view, however, fall right through the book and out the bottom. The birds have names (Egg Mother, Egg Father, Scarlet, Walks Backwards, etc.), they have a culture (Egg Mother and Egg Father “tell” their flock’s history), they have distinct personalities … it’s all very distracting, especially since the birds have more personality than the human characters which never arise above being stereotypes: the frosty Amazon, the eccentric billionaire recluse, the militant retired general, the cut-throat studio executive, the butch woman in a man’s job, the bumbling government official, the corrupt Senator, the drunk and divorced journalist … they’re all there.

According to Smith’s website, a Hollywood studio has bought the film rights to the book with the intent of making a film version of The Flock. I can only imagine that this means a monster-of-the-week movie on the SciFi Channel or a Direct-to-DVD release because that is about all that this book could sustain. There is just not enough substance here to support anything more than that.

The one bright point in the whole novel, other than the premise (which while intriguing, unfortunately, falls apart in the execution) is the ending. I have to admit that I did not see the direction that the ending took coming, which was a pleasant surprise. On the whole, though, this is a book that is best avoiding. If Twilight is Literary Crack (i.e. addictive but not good for you) then The Flock is Literary High Fructose Corn Syrup (i.e., something good and natural (the book’s genre) that has been perverted beyond what is healthy and good as found in its natural state). If you want to read this book, find Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park or, better yet, get your hands on a copy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, both of which takes this premise of the extinct-prehistoric-creature-alive-and­-well-in-modern-time and do so with élan and panache and style.

A-Z Wednesday: To Kill a Mockingbird

A-Z Wednesday is hosted by Reading at the Beach.

Here are the rules: Go to your stack of books and find one whose title starts with the Letter of the Week and post the following:

1. A photo of the book
2. Title and synopsis
3. A link (Amazon, B&N, etc.)
4. Come back here and leave your link in the comments

If you’ve already reviewed this book, post a link to the review as well. Be sure to visit other participants to see what books they have posted and leave them a comment (we all love comments, don’t we?) Who know? You may find your next “favorite” book.

THIS WEEK’S LETTER IS: T

My “T” Book is:

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

(New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1982)

Paperback, 281 Pages, Fiction

ISBN: 9780446310789, US$4.99

From the Cover: The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill a Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was alter made into an Academy Award winning film, also a classic. Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill a Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior—to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 15 million copies in print and translated into ten languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.

My Review: Once again, I break with my A-Z Wednesday tradition of posting obscure books from my collection and post not only a well-known book, but a classic among classics. Yet, how could I not post Lee’s perennial classic for the letter “T”? To Kill a Mockingbird has been one of my favorite books since I first read it in middle school … and my appreciation of it has only grown with time. It is as near perfect a novel as there is out there, the characters are completely likeable (well, maybe not the Ewells) and believable, the story is timeless and so very touching, and Lee’s prose is absolutely stunning. Scout is one of the best narrators that there is in literature to date (and I honestly don’t think a replacement will be coming any time soon … it’s certainly not Bella Swan), and there is just so much there that I fear I am gushing and incoherent and not doing the book any justice whatsoever.

There is so much magic in this novel, from Scout’s narrative voice, to the mystery of Boo Radley, to the overall message of tolerance and understanding, that it is no wonder that it has endured as long as it has. I love this book, it has worked its magic on me, and what’s more, I have seen it work its magic on others. Working, as I did, as an assistant teacher to seventh and eighth graders for three years, one of the novels that is required reading for the eighth graders is To Kill a Mockingbird, and I have seen even the most ardent self-professed “non-readers” become engrossed in and engage with Lee’s book, but, the most satisfying experience I have had with a student and Mockingbird was with a seventh grader, will call her K.B.

The teacher I work with did a classic novel reading unit wherein the seventh graders had to pick a “classic” novel from a list we had put together. Often students didn’t know what book to pick and would turn to either myself or the teacher for advice on picking a book. K.B. did just that, asking what novel I thought she might like. She is, without a doubt, one of the brightest students I have ever come across, and so I recommended To Kill a Mockingbird. She checked it out of the school’s library and immediately fell in love with it. In fact, she confessed to me afterward that she had racked up considerable fines from the library because she kept it over a month after the due date (she read it three or four times over). I ended up giving her her own copy of the book as a Christmas gift, just so she wouldn’t have to pay too much.

To Kill a Mockingbird really is one of the great American novels, and easily the equal of, say, Moby-Dick or The Scarlet Letter or The Catcher in the Rye.

I review it HERE, and the audio HERE.

Teaser Tuesdays: What the Dickens?!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

After finishing The Flock (review to come) I needed a new book. I wanted to read more of Dan Simmons after finishing The Terror and in a moment of delicious serendipity, Simmons’ most recent novel, Drood, arrived on hold for me at the library and so my dilemma was solved by the Greater Book Gods. I’ve cheated just a little on this week’s Teaser: you’ll notice there are three sentences there instead of the requisite two (and yes, that is just one sentence at the start) and I cheated because I didn’t open to a random page. I started Drood yesterday and when I came to the following sentences, I knew immediately that it would be my Teaser for the week. So, with that … enjoy the “Mysteries of Drood”!

Drood

by Dan Simmons

(New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009)

Hardcover, 777 Pages, Fiction

ISBN: 9780316007023, US$26.99

MY TEASER: “In this manuscript (which, as I have explained—for legal reasons as well as for reasons of honour—I intend to seal away from all eyes for more than one hundred years after his death and my own), I shall answer the question which perhaps no one else alive in our time knew to ask—‘Did the famous and loveable and honourable Charles Dickens plot to murder an innocent person and dissolve away his flesh in the pit of caustic lime and secretly inter what was left of him, mere bones and a skull, in the crypt of an ancient cathedral that was an important part of Dickens’s own childhood? And did Dickens then scheme to scatter the poor victim’s spectacles, rings, stickpins, shirt studs, and pocket watch in the River Thames? And if so, or even if Dickens only dreamed he did these things, what part did a very real phantom named Drood have in the onset of such madness?’” (4).

Musing Mondays: My Name is Bryan and I Suffer from C.S.S.

Today’s Musing Mondays is not from just one more page… as Rebecca is on holiday hiatus, so it comes from Mizb17 over at Should be Reading and is as follows: When you buy books, do they immediately go onto your bookshelf to wait until you’re ready to read them (even if that means months/years from then!), or do you read them right away? What makes you do this? If you’re a “shelver,” why do you think you don’t read books right away? Do you ever feel guilty for letting books sit there unread? If you’re a “read-‘em-now” person, why do you feel they have to read right away? Do you give away the books when you’re done too?

My name is Bryan and I suffer from C.S.S.: Chronic Shelver Syndrome. I am a chronic shelver, or at least I was when I had bookshelves (we sold them all when we moved from Utah to Washington State); now my books are stacked thirty to forty tall against two walls of the office/sewing room. However, when I do get books, they go through a journey: they will usually sit next to my laptop for a week or two before I get around to cataloging them on the list I keep, and then they’ll make it into the office and sit on one of the chairs or tables in there, and then I’ll get around to shelving them in their appropriate spot (alphabetical by author’s last name then by book title (unless they belong to a series, then they’re in series order)). I typically don’t read them off the bat because I usually already have a book on my plate (two or three if it’s the middle of a semester/quarter and I’m reading for classes) and so they are put on my Perpetual To Be Read List.

Do I feel guilty about shelving books? No. They will all get read at some point, and so I see no need to feel guilty about buying a book and not reading it immediately. I almost never usually give books away … though as I’ve mentioned recently on the blog (I think it was even a previous Musing Mondays (I’m too lazy to look it up right now)) I’ve given away books recently in an effort to “lighten the load” as we moved, but as well as being a sufferer of Chronic Shelving Syndrome, I am also a Book Hoarder.

When I do give them away it’s usually to a “good cause.” I typically drop them off at the local library, though this past summer I offered some of my former middle school students first dibs (and severely-reduced prices) on those books I was giving up, and I took a bunch of “classics” and history books I was going to cull from the herd to the teacher I worked with for her classroom.

Worlds That Weren't: All-New Novellas of Alternate History

by Harry Turtledove, S.M. Stirling, Mary Gentle and Walter Jon Williams

(New York: ROC Books, 2002)

Hardcover, 295 Pages, Fiction

ISBN: 9780451458865, US$21.95

ABCD Rating: CHECK OUT

“History is something that never happened, written by a man who wasn’t there.” —Anonymous

From the Cover: In this all-new collection of original novellas, four award-winning masters of alternate history turn back time, twisting the facts with four brilliant excursions into what might have been by traversing Worlds That Weren’t. Under the influence of the philosopher Sokrates, the Athenian general Alkibiades leads his soldiers to victory over the Spartans in New York Times bestselling author Harry Turtledove’s “The Daimon.” Set in the same universe as The Peshawar Lancers, “Shikari in Galveston” by national bestselling author S.M. Stirling features an Angrezi aristocrat’s hunting expedition into the wilds of Texas—and his growing admiration for the natives who dwell there. In 1453, a rather different Turkish Empire raised the flag of Astarte’s Bloody Crescent over Constantinople. Four years later, European mercenaries find themselves stranded on the coast of North Africa—with an embarrassing corpse—in “The Logistics of Carthage” by Mary Gentle. In Walter Jon Williams’ “The Last Ride of German Freddie,” a mysterious Old World figure stalks Tombstone, Arizona, as a cardsharp, trading philosophy—and lead—with the likes of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.

My Review: I’m going to get this out up front: I’ve never been one much for science fiction, especially the hard science fiction kind of stuff. However, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the Alternate History (though I was put off by the hanging left turn into so-called “hard science fiction” that Robert Charles Wilson’s Darwinia took). “What Ifs” have always tickled my imagination bone ever since I first encountered them in Marvel Comics’ aptly titled “What If…?” editions, so after reading S.M. Stirling’s The Peshawar Lancers and then discovering that Stirling had written another story that took place in that universe, I had to read it. Luckily, my local library had a copy of the anthology.

Honestly, Stirling’s story is the stand-out piece in the anthology (though that may just be my personal predilection for stories that contain cannibals as villains) and I loved that King and Singh come back to star in this prequel to Peshawar. However, Williams’ “The Last Ride of German Freddie” was a very close second, though again it may be the soft-spot in my heart for Westerns and Friedrich Nietzsche.

I think why these two stories stood out to me more than Turtledove’s and Gentle’s is that unlike Turtledove’s and Gentle’s stories, one did not need to have a good grasp of history to understand what was going on, or where the Point of Divergence was in “Shikari in Galveston” and “The Last Ride of German Freddie.” For Stirling’s story, a reading of Peshawar Lancers might be helpful (to understand all that the author is getting at, talking about Peacock Angels, France-outre-mer and the Empire of Dai-Nippon and why the capital of the English Empire is in Delhi and not London (and why they are called the Angrezi Raj)) but not really necessary. And for Williams’ story all you really need to have is a layman’s understanding of the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral to know what Williams changes.

They are both stories that are a lot of fun.

Turtledove’s and Gentle’s, on the other hand … are not fun. I know that saying that about a Harry Turtledove story is tantamount to blasphemy as Turtledove is the Great-Grandmaster of Alternate History Fiction, but both he and Gentle choose events in history that are—to me at least, and I would bet to quite a few readers—little known: the Athenian general Alkibiades’ battles against Syracuse and Sparta and the Turkish invasion of North Africa? I had a hard time staying in these stories because I had no idea what I was supposed to know was different and where their respective Points of Divergence entered into the stories.

Luckily, all four authors include an Afterword to their stories where they discuss what they changed in history and why they chose those points in history … but I’m still a little fuzzy on Turtledove’s and Gentle’s stories. They just weren’t as enjoyable as Stirling and Williams’ stories. Therefore, my recommendation to you, Constant Reader, is don’t pick this up at your local bookstore unless you are a die-hard alternate history fan. Otherwise, pick it up at your local library, read Stirling’s story, read Williams’ story and then decide if you want to read Turtledove’s and Gentle’s stories if you really want to.

The Friday 56: From the Personal Diary of Dr. Harry D.S. Goodsir

The Friday 56 is hosted by Storytime with Tonya and Friends

RULES

1. Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
2. Turn to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like).
5. Post a link with your post to Storytime (and here on Bryan’s Book Blog, I’d like to know what book you’ve got at hand).

This week, Dan Simmons’ The Terror is the closest book at hand (I was looking up spelling for my review of the audiobook edition of the novel) and the fifth sentence on page 56 comes from “the private diary of Dr. Harry D.S. Goodsir”:

“All the men are aboard, and although last-minute Preparation is still going on around the clock for tomorrow’s Departure—especially with the stowing of what Captain Fitzjames informs me is more than eight thousand cans of tinned food which have arrived only in the nick of time—Sir John conducted Divine Service today for us aboard Erebus and for as many of Terror’s crew who wished to join us, I noted that Terror’s captain, an Irishman named Crozier, was not in attendance” (56).

Friday Finds: December 18, 2009

Friday Finds (hosted by Should Be Reading)

What great books did you hear about/discover this past week?

Share with us your FRIDAY FINDS!

Well, here we are again after a bit of a hiatus from Friday Finds with a whole new batch that I’ve been saving up.

First up is B is for Bad Poetry which is just hilarious and is a must for any poetry-phile (did I just coin a new word?) and falls under the category of it’s so bad it’s good. The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein is, as is the case with a number of the books in this week’s Finds, one that I just happened across as I was browsing the shelves of my local bookstore. The title intrigued me, the synopsis sounded interesting and the author’s name rung a bell (I later remembered that I had already read and reviewed one of his books on this blog: his brief biography of Edgar Allan Poe). Cryptid is one I found while looking for information on The Flock (my current read, and another of this week’s Finds), and it sounded interesting, like The Terror, but not as good.

Devil’s Trill is another shelf browse, and after reading The Terror I wanted to find more Dan Simmons novels, and Drood looked fascinating. The Flock is the book I’m currently reading and came about because my four-year-old son as grown interested in prehistoric animals (post-dinosaur) and on a BBC special we were watching they showcased Terror Birds. Looking up information and pictures on Titanis walleri for my son, I came across Smith’s The Flock, my local library had a copy, and the rest is history.

That brings us to what is possible The. Best. Book. I have EVER posted on this blog: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies. This is the single most funny book I have ever seen. With “new” carols such as “Deck the Halls with Parts of Wally,” “I Saw Mommy Chewing Santa Claus,” “We Three Spleens” and “Zombie, the Reindeer” how can this not become an instant Christmas Classic? (Check it out HERE.)

Finally, Poseidon’s Steed, The White Cascade and The Wilderness Warrior are all shelf browses, and all books that look absolutely fascinating. How can you not want to know more about the history of the seahorse (did you even know it was an issue?) and I always love reading about Teddy Roosevelt. The man is simply amazing, and The White Cascade occurred here in Washington State, and I always love reading about the history of my home.

So, with that, here are this week’s Friday Finds:

B is for Bad Poetry by Pamela Angela Russell
The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd
Cryptid: The Lost Legacy of Lewis & Clark by Eric Penz
Devil’s Trill by Gerald Elias
Drood by Dan Simmons
The Flock by James Robert Smith
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies: A Book of Zombie Christmas Carols by Michael P. Spradlin
Poseidon’s Steed: The Story of Seahorses, from Myth to Reality by Helen Scales, Ph.D.
The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America’s Deadliest Avalanche by Gary Krist

The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America by Douglas Brinkley