Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor by Hali Felt

Posted on August 22, 2012 by pagesofjulia

I’m so glad I picked this book up (and bought it for the library where I work). It sounded like just the sort of thing I appreciate: a biography of a little-known historical figure who made an important contribution to the world as we know it but was herself forgotten. In this case, the “remarkable woman” of the subtitle is Marie Tharp, whose meticulous study and cartography of the ocean floor established the concept of plate tectonics that science now recognizes as fact, but was at best a blasphemous and ridiculous notion before Tharp came along. Her achievements, however, were minimized by a scientific culture in which women did not belong. This biography is additionally appealing to me for its mood: author Hali Felt takes a whimsical, dreamy, almost fanciful tone at times. She describes her own attraction to Tharp’s story (born in part of Felt’s mother’s, and her own, fascination with maps) and the relationship she felt to her subject. She dreams of Tharp coming to her to explain the mysterious and unspoken parts of her life. This book is nonfiction, but it’s honest, personally related, and warm.

There is also an enigmatic love story of sorts hiding within Soundings: Tharp’s career and life were both tied to a man named Bruce Heezen. Heezen was her coworker, then her technical superior; but they shared a partnership in work, in science, in discovery, and apparently in all things. It is known that they were a couple, although they never married and the details of this side of their relationship are very few.

Felt follows Tharp from her childhood with a science-minded father she adored, through her education in English, music, geology, and mathematics, and to her first job in the oil & gas industry (oh, how familiar to this Texas girl). But she was held back: this was the 1940’s, and women in science were mostly expected to make copies, compute numbers, and brew coffee. Eventually Tharp found her way to New York, to Columbia University and the Lamont Geological Observatory. This is where she would meet and work with Heezen and quietly make history.

The science in this book is very friendly and accessible to a general reading public; the story that Felt set out to tell is more that of a woman’s life and accomplishments despite the limitations of her society, than that of tectonic plates per se. For that matter, Felt shows that it was Marie’s combined backgrounds in art as well as science that made her perfectly suited to play the role she did in history. Her meticulous re-checkings of data and attention to detail were indispensable – but so was her interest in visually representing the data available in a way that would show the general public (not just academics) what she’d discovered. So her achievement was artistic as well as scientific. Soundings does make the science side clear, but doesn’t dwell, and is never dry. Rather, Marie Tharp comes to life: she is a precocious child; an ambitious, able, frustrated student; a dedicated scientist; a life partner; an eccentric aging woman caught up in her own past, campaigning to honor and preserve the legacy of her other half.

Hali Felt was honest about the role she plays in the story she relates. She begins in her Introduction by briefly describing her own attraction to maps, and then follows a chronological format, beginning with Tharp’s childhood and following her life, and eventually her death. And then Felt returns to the story: her discovery of Marie Tharp’s existence, her interest, her decision to follow that interest, her research, her relationships with the living descendents of Tharp and Heezen’s world (the “Tharpophiles”), and in the Acknowledgements at the end, she even hints at the process by which she came to write and publish this book. I found all of these Felt-related details interesting too.

In a word, this is a lovely biography, and the style and tone of it may be my favorite part.

Rating: 9 double-checkings of data.

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The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger (audio)

Posted on August 20, 2012 by pagesofjulia

In October 1991, a number of factors converged to create a storm of inconceivable strength off the Massachusetts coast. Vessels large and small struggled in its path, and a few didn’t make it out. Sebastian Junger follows a few of the men, women and boats involved in this remarkable work of nonfiction. He begins by introducing us to Bobby Shatford and his girlfriend Chris, and their town of Gloucester, Mass. Bobby and Chris wake up hungover – Bobby has a black eye – and drive around town, visiting with friends and Bobby’s mother Ethel, bartender at the Crow’s Nest, and making final arrangements for Bobby’s departure on the Andrea Gail, a small fishing boat with a crew of six. We then follow Bobby’s path and that of his fellow fishermen: the two men who get funny feelings and refuse to sail with the Andrea Gail, and the five who join him on her for an intended 4-week fishing trip. We track their fishing, the decisions made by their captain Billy Tyne, the radio communications between Tyne and other fishing boat captains. We watch the storm approach, checking in with meteorologists and getting quick lessons in storm formation, and we visit other boats as well, including the Satori, a 32-foot sailboat, and the Eishin Maru, a Japanese longliner, both fated to have complications and exciting moments. We also get to know two rescue crews, made up of Air National Guard pararescue jumpers and Coast Guard rescue swimmers. I won’t give too much away (although, all of this being a matter of historical record, it’s out there), but not all of the characters introduced survive the storm.

That’s about all I want to say about the events detailed here; you can find out more by reading the book yourself (or listening to the audio, as I did – more on that in a bit), which I highly recommend. And here’s why. This is an incredibly adrenaline-pumping adventure tale. There are sad endings for some of the men and women involved, yes, but there is also great heroism, amazing skin-of-your-teeth survival, drama, even a love story or two mixed in. The human interest, in other words, is huge. For excitement, really, could you ask for more than rescue swimmers jumping out of a helicopter into the storm of the century to rescue men and women from sinking ships or from the open ocean? I submit that you could not.

In addition, the story is told in a unique way. Junger jumps subjects throughout: we meet a few characters in Gloucester, then we review the fishing history of the town of Gloucester, then we study up on commercial fishing for a bit, back to the characters… eventually we get lessons in meteorology, the physics of boat building, wave formation, and what exactly happens when a person drowns. As I wrote before, Junger is fairly strict and journalistic in following the facts. Where parts of the story he tells are unknown, he doesn’t claim to know, but he does interview people who have been through similar scenarios and survived; so we get an educated estimation of what the players might have been through, while making nothing up. It’s a method I respect; I found it both dramatic and fully-wrought, and reliable.

The audiobook I listened to is excellent, too. Read by Richard M. Davidson, it has all the taut, tense action it needs without ever feeling over-dramatized. And as a bonus, it includes a recording of the author speaking about the making of the book. This flows like his-side-only of an interview; I imagined someone in between asking specific question. Like the foreword, I found this a substantial addition. At the time of the storm, in 1991, Junger was working as a high climber, taking trees down for a tree company, and selling freelance magazine articles for a living. The storm inspired him, and he wrote a chapter about it, initially for a book he conceived about various dangerous jobs: the commercial fishermen of Gloucester would have been joined by loggers, smokejumpers, forest-fire fighters and the like. But his agent landed him a deal for a whole book about “the perfect storm” – whereupon Junger became anxious. How would he fill a whole book with just the storm? he wondered. (I loved hearing the author, in his own voice, discuss his nerves! And the whole process, really.) So he decided to follow all the sub-plots and related topics he could, to flesh it out, and this is why we are treated to the lessons in weather, boats, the fishing industry, etc. What struck me about this is that it is a rather Moby-Dick method, and ironically, while that classic work of fiction is notoriously difficult to read (come on, even its fans admit this, right?), this work of nonfiction – even though readers often fear nonfiction will be dry or cumbersome – flowed delightfully and effortlessly. Those subplots mightily enriched the whole. Even the questions left unanswered, about the fates of those who disappeared and whose remains were never found, Junger turns to advantage. As he says, because he investigated the experiences of others who lived through similar situations, we get a richer, more layered story than had he interviewed a sole surviving fisherman.

Sorry for another long review! (Usually this means I really liked the book.) In a nutshell: moving, emotional, adrenalizing, scientific, faithful, thrilling! Check it out.

Rating: 8 swordfish.

EDIT: I also reviewed the movie, here.

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Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

Posted on August 16, 2012 by pagesofjulia

In an abrupt about-face from yesterday’s hefty subject matter, here’s another round of great silliness from P.G. Wodehouse. I’ve reviewed a number of Wodehouse’s Bertie-and-Jeeves stories here (search “Wodehouse,” you shall see), so just a moment of background: Bertram Wooster is your archetypal harebrained British peer, and Jeeves is his archetypal “man,” his gentleman’s gentleman, who repeatedly has to swoop in and save the day. Bertie’s problems generally involve girls threatening to trap him into marriages, his aunts’ unreasonable demands, and his old school friends’ shenanigans; he will usually be pressured to steal some small object from an intimidating older gent (usually nobility), issuing in new threats and hilarity. And hilarity is the point. The characters are silly caricatures (with funny names to boot), and the odd positions Bertie gets himself into are always ridiculous. Jeeves is priceless.

Here, we return to Totleigh Towers, where the action of The Code of the Woosters took place. The plot is a continuation of that earlier story: Stiffy and Stinker are still engaged, unable to marry until Stinker gets a vicary, and the indomitable Sir Watkyn Bassett is reluctant to bestow it. Gussie Finknottle is still engaged to the soupy Madeline Bassett, but until their marriage is official, Bertie is always on the hook: she expects to marry Bertie if not Gussie, so Bertie has great motivation to see them married. And Aunt Dahlia (the more palatable of Bertie’s aunts, but still a threat) will eventually come up with another scheme to steal from Sir Watkyn – who is of course a competitor with Uncle Tom in collecting whatnots. Add to this an American girl who turns up on the scene and catches Gussie’s eye, and another of Stiffy’s crackpot schemes, and Bertie is as usual in trouble.

There is nothing novel in this plot, but it’s okay, because the plot is just a device to see Bertie get put in ridiculous positions (hiding behind a couch, ready to jump out a window but for the Aberdeen terrier waiting below) so that Jeeves can go to lengths to rescue him (impersonating a Scotland Yard detective; serving temporarily as butler to the enemy). The dialogue – and again, the funny names – are where Wodehouse shines.

I continue to be amused, and will continue to pick up Bertie and Jeeves (or Psmith, he was fun too) wherever I can. I have one complaint, though. I have been blown away by Jonathan Cecil’s narration of a few Jeeves audiobooks, and frustrated that I can’t find more. I’m addicted; Cecil is the Wodehouse voice in my mind, and I can’t tolerate any other reading. Why so few? I went and checked, and unfortunately my man Cecil left us in 2011. Am now mourning. If you see any Cecil readings of Wodehouse, I highly recommend. But if you get addicted, be aware, there is a limited supply. 😦

Rating: 5 funny names.

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Escape From Camp 14 by Blaine Harden (audio)

Posted on August 15, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Shin Dong-hyuk was born in 1982 inside Camp 14, one of North Korea’s no-exit political prison labor camps. He was raised in the camp, starving, ill, beaten, and forced to work for his life. His education was meager and consisted of the bare understanding of camp politics necessary to make him a compliant worker; he was trained from birth to snitch, to betray his classmates and relatives, to serve his masters. The concepts of love, kindness, trust, and familial relationships were unknown to him. At age 23, he escaped the camp and traveled on foot out of North Korea, into China, and would eventually make his way to South Korea and later, the United States. As far as we know, Shin is the only prisoner ever born in one of these camps to escape.

Blaine Harden is an experienced journalist, who covered North Korea for years, as well as other declining nations. He tells Shin’s story in a professional manner. Many of the details of Shin’s life, and camp life generally, cannot be confirmed or denied, because we have so few sources of information on the subject. (North Korea maintains that there are no such camps, although they are visible on satellite photographs.) Harden treats this information as a professional journalist, researching and confirming where possible, and giving his well-thought-out reasons for believing (or not) those details that are not confirmable. More difficultly, in this book, Shin recants an important fact about his life as he had claimed it for years. I felt that Harden made a reasoned case for believing the later story given. I was impressed with how he handled the problems of his source’s reliability, which I found an interesting issue. Additionally, Shin does not speak English, so Harden conducted his many interviews with interpreters; this of course raises new questions. When Harden says Shin chooses a certain word to describe a certain time in his life, I wonder who in fact chose that word. Naturally it was the interpreter who chose the word, and not knowing Korean, I can’t know how literal a translation it was, or whether there were several English words that might have been used. I don’t mean this as a criticism of Harden’s (or the interpreter’s) work; I just want to note that I’m always intrigued by the questions raised.

Shin states that Kim Jong-Il (and his successor) is worse than Hitler, because while Hitler tortured and killed his enemies, North Korea does so with its own people. This book makes that argument: the atrocities committed at these labor camps are appalling. It’s true, I was not well educated on North Korean conditions before I found this book. I suspect there are many of us who could learn a lot on this subject. I am not sure I can communicate to you here how shocking the details are – I’d really rather you go out and get a copy of this book – but I will tell you that no one is spared, no human dignities are allowed, there is murder and torture. These details are not spared, either, so be prepared for the graphic explanation of the torture Shin endured leading up to his mother’s execution. It’s not an easy book; but I do think it’s important that we know, so still I recommend it.

Shin’s story is mind-boggling. It is perhaps too obvious to state, but he had terrible luck to be born in the camp, and terrible things happened to him there; but his escape began a run of rather astonishing good luck. Harden puts the escape, and Shin’s overland journey (as well as many other parts of this story) in perspective by interjecting the accounts of other escaped prisoners and scholars on the subject. In this case, he describes the political climate at the time of Shin’s escape, showing how much luck it took for him to make it out of the country as he did. His good luck, though, mostly applies to his physical escape. Not surprisingly, his mental, emotional, psychological escape is still underway. As Harden points out at the beginning, most survivors of the Nazi death camps, the Soviet labor camps, and other centers of atrocities tell a story that has three parts: a relatively good life before capture; horrors on the inside; and then attempts at recovery after escape or release. Shin’s story is fundamentally different. Having been raised for 23 years on the inside, from birth, his release was to a world unknown. The trauma he is still trying to repair is staggering, unimaginable to the rest of us. Apparently Shin is like many North Korean defectors in being inclined to refuse psychological treatment – related to difficulties with trust – and his road has never been an easy one. His story as told here does end with a modicum of hope. But he is still struggling.

Again, this is a deeply disturbing book to read (or in my case, listen to), but I think it’s important to know what Shin and other North Koreans are going through. Please look out for Escape from Camp 14. I recommend the audiobook, which Harden reads himself. His delivery is matter-of-fact but that serves his story well.

Rating: 8 grains of rice.

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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Posted on August 13, 2012 by pagesofjulia

I was vaguely aware that the movie of several years ago was based on a book by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A new copy (the movie tie-in one, of course) crossed my desk at the library and I cracked it open. It’s a short story, as it turns out, just a little thing that they presumably built upon a great deal for the movie. I did not see the movie (I see very few movies), but I got the impression that it was more of a love story. This is not so of Fitzgerald’s original.

In the year 1860, Roger Button is dismayed, horrified and disgusted that his wife gives birth not to a screaming, red-faced infant but an old man, with the appearance of a 70-year-old. (And thus ends the role of Mrs. Roger Button in this story, strangely.) The little old manbaby is mildly disappointed, as well, with the strange reactions of his parents and, indeed, the world at large. Mr. Button tries to make Benjamin play with toys and other little boys, but neither man is pleased with the results. Benjamin is driven out of kindergarten by the disapproval of the teacher, but eventually finds a happy place at his grandfather’s side, smoking cigars and discussing what is wrong with the world today.

As the years pass, Benjamin grows younger. Roger sends him off to college at Yale, where he passes the examination but is turned away for his appearance: he looks like a man of fifty, despite being just 18. This works out fine, however, because he and his father get along swimmingly and find that they have much in common. Benjamin goes to work in the family business and makes a great success. He meets an attractive young woman at a dance and miraculously, she is attracted to 50-year-old men! (I can’t help but observe that male authors like to write this fantasy) and they marry. But as the years pass, he finds her unattractive as she ages, and she is exasperated by his appearing younger and younger. She seems to take this personally. He becomes a real man about town, going out, charming the young ladies, partying, and eventually neglecting his business concerns. He goes off to the Spanish American War, and earns a rank of lieutenant-colonel. Upon his return, he is feeling so young and spry that he gives college another whirl, this time at Harvard. In his freshman year he is a big hit, mature for his age, the star of the football team; but by his senior year, he finds the classes hard and he can no longer play football because his peers are bigger and stronger.

When he returns home, his wife has taken off, so Benjamin moves in with his son. The years pass, and a grandchild is born, and Benjamin becomes young enough to play with his grandson as peers. They attend kindergarten together, until the grandson moves on to first grade and Benjamin remains in kindergarten… until, in his third year, this becomes too challenging for him and he retires to be cared for by a nursemaid. He ends his life as an infant in a cradle, unaware of his surroundings.

It is a strange tale, imaginative, and well told; Fitzgerald knows his way around a phrase. There is a wryly funny tone to the early parts, with Roger Button trying to make an infant and a little boy out of an old man. Later, sadness becomes the dominant sentiment. There is an episode when the Army calls Benjamin back in for service, as a general; but when he shows up as a 13-year-old (or thereabouts) boy in a general’s uniform, he is laughed at and turned away in tears. Towards the end, as Benjamin begins to lose hold of his memories of the good times (newlywed happiness, military glory, playing football at Harvard), I thought of Flowers for Algernon.

This is a short, easy, very worthwhile story by a fine storyteller, and I recommend it. I do not feel especially interested in the movie which I fear is different, not as good, likely to disappoint – and maybe I’m wrong, but that’s my pro-book prejudice, and probably explains why I don’t watch more movies. Anybody have a movie review for me? Anybody both read and watched, and can make a comparison?

Rating: 5 buttons.

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Dream Team: How Magic, Michael, Larry, Charles and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Sport of Basketball Forever by Jack McCallum

Posted on August 10, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A funny, respectful, expert, complete–and literary–examination of 1992’s Olympic Dream Team and its permanent effects on basketball.


The U.S. Olympic basketball team of 1992 was known as the Dream Team because it included the game’s biggest stars, including Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan.

Sports Illustrated‘s Jack McCallum (Seven Seconds or Less, Unfinished Business) brings these colorful personalities to life as he recounts the creation of the Dream Team and its path to Olympic gold. When a meat inspector from Belgrade came up with the idea of rescinding the amateurs-only clause of Olympics competition, it made it possible for the U.S. men’s basketball team, traditionally made up of college players, to become a squad of NBA All-Stars, characterized by outrageous and iconic players and an unusual vision of the game. As McCallum tells it, this team took its ambassadorial role seriously, as the superstars relinquished their playing minutes to the greater goals of victory, teamwork and honor in a manner arguably absent from today’s game.

Dream Team‘s tone is occasionally reverent, but just as McCallum begins to speak in mythic terms, he reminds us that these men were only human, tapping into their personal lives and private sides (when his shared history with them allows). McCallum is nothing if not opinionated, but always fair in his analyses, and the quotations and one-liners that pepper his text are pure gold in terms of entertainment as well as illumination of the fine sport of basketball.

This review originally ran as a *starred review* in the July 17, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 7 points.

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City of Ravens: London, the Tower and Its Famous Birds by Boria Sax

Posted on August 9, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A bird’s-eye view of the Tower of London’s famous raven residents and their role in history and myth.


The Tower of London combines commercial tourism, history and myth in a single site, and its iconic ravens are a part of all three functions. Legend has it that when the ravens leave the Tower, Britain will fall. Boria Sax’s City of Ravens blends a highly readable narrative style with academic research into Britain’s history, the study of birds and Sax’s own interest in animal-human relationships. Sax examines the ravens’ changing significance in London’s imagination, from being harbingers of death and doom as they fed off the bodies of those executed at the Tower to being heralded as guardians of Britain’s Empire–likely due to their role, during the Blitz, of warning of incoming bombs.

Sax’s research largely dispels the popular belief that ravens had been pets at the Tower since medieval times, and he is ambivalent about the accuracy of the historical raven record. After highlighting a few individual ravens’ personal histories, he finishes by considering the ecological questions raised by the captive birds whose wild counterparts have begun to repopulate London, weighing the options for protecting both the ravens and their mythical standing.

These musings, admittedly conjectural at times, draw on diverse resources including newspaper archives, popular literature, early tourist guides to the Tower and other historical sources–as well as fictional accounts. Part history, part deconstruction of myth, part bird study, always lovingly respectful of the birds themselves, City of Ravens is a whimsical, entertaining and informative journey into London legend.

This review originally ran in the July 13, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 5 wings.

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Houston Beer: A Heady History of Brewing in the Bayou City by Ronnie Crocker

Posted on August 8, 2012 by pagesofjulia

If you know anything about me, you should realize that Houston + beer = I will read your book. I am so enthused about my hometown, and about beer, and about my hometown beer (that is experiencing a huge boom as we speak – more on that to come, obviously), that all you would have to do to gain my undivided attention is write a book about Houston + beer. Even poorly written and sloppy. Luckily, I can say that this book goes a step further and does it properly.

Ronnie Crocker writes for the Houston Chronicle, and blogs for same under the name Beer, TX. His book is slim – under 150 pages – but not lightweight; he did his research, and uncovers new details about the history of beer in Houston. This is a surprisingly undersung (and under-researched) topic, apparently.

Beginning with the beginnings of the city (see my earlier teaser), Crocker studies us as a drinking city, and those who have served our thirst. Like many cities in this country, we had something of a boom going before Prohibition, and struggled to make a comeback after that failed experiment. We were a Bud town for a while, and Anheuser-Busch (in its new InBev-conglomerate form) still brews in Houston today, to the tune of …so many millions of barrels that it boggles the mind, and I can’t hold numbers that big in my head. [For more on the AB-InBev merger, check out my review of the excellent Dethroning the King.] Fast forward still more, and we’re seeing a veritable, and delightful, renaissance: the long-standing Saint Arnold Brewing Company (hey, seriously, 18 years is a long time in this business in these parts) joined by a promising handful of new brewers. My favorite is Karbach, of course, but I give a head-nod to Southern Star, No Label, and Buffalo Bayou, too. And I’m still anxiously awaiting the announcement that Yard Sale is in business!

Crocker’s book is admittedly reluctant to criticize; it leans towards the positive, even approaching boosterism. And it ends strangely, with an exhortation to support (i.e. buy from) your locals. But I’m with him! I, too, am excited about Houston beer. So, perhaps Houston Beer isn’t impartial journalism – but it’s an invaluable, unique history. I found it enjoyable, just what I wanted and no, never poorly written or relying on my devotion to the subject to keep me engaged. And it was great fun to see a number of people I know pictured, as a bonus!

Rating: 5 pints.

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84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

Posted on August 6, 2012 by pagesofjulia

This is a truly delightful collection of correspondence. At the time these letters were written, Helene Hanff was living in New York City and scraping together a living writing freelance. She opens with a letter to a bookshop at the titular address in London, naming herself a struggling writer with a taste for difficult-to-find, often out-of-print books, and asking for inexpensive copies of several. This begins a 20-year conversation with several bookshop employees and various others (family, friends) that is rich in many aspects. For one thing, Hanff is often hilarious. She pokes and needles her main correspondent, Frank Doel, “trying to puncture that proper British reserve.” She rails about inferior translations and offensive abridgements. The friendships that develop are heartfelt and helpful: during the years following World War II, when the British rationed meat, eggs, and nylons, Hanff sends her new friends care packages regularly. They reciprocate with lovely, thoughtful gifts, including (of course) books. The bookish angle is, obviously, not the least of this volume’s charms – we are all book nuts, no? My reading actually does not intersect Helene’s (I am switching to her first name, as do Frank et al, as I feel we are now friends) very often, but I appreciate the sentiment, and her reading certainly gives me a feeling for her personality. Yet another angle of interest is the cultural divide: Helene requests that her bills be “translated” into dollars as “I don’t add too well in plain American, I haven’t a prayer of ever mastering bilingual arithmetic.” Currencies form only one of the challenges, of course. Later, Frank’s wife will instruct Helene in making a Yorkshire pudding. (For which I thank her, as I know understand a little better what that is supposed to be.)

A very easy read, these 90-ish pages took me just over an hour. (Remember they’re letters, mostly short ones, so very few of those pages are filled with text.) I found this to be a book of great sentiment. It is sweet, heartfelt, funny, and made me nostalgic for what was in some ways a simpler time.

If you’re interested in a little further reading, there is a website here dedicated to research of the bookstore and its employees, the characters in the drama that is 84, Charing Cross Road.

To whatever book blogger it was that made me go out and buy this book, thank you. It was worth it.

Rating: 6 pagesofjulia.

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preview chapter: Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (audio)

Posted on August 2, 2012 by pagesofjulia

As noted yesterday, there is a teaser chapter at the end of Stephen King’s The Wind Through the Keyhole for his upcoming book, Doctor Sleep. I am giving this one chapter its own post here because it grabbed me hard. Good job, Mr. King, you have me salivating for a book that’s not out til 2013. Thanks.

Doctor Sleep will be a sequel to King’s huge 1977 hit, The Shining, upon which was based the 1980 Stanley Kubrick / Jack Nicholson movie by the same name. I have neither read nor watched The Shining, but after listening to King’s reading of the first chapter of Doctor Sleep, I will. I have a copy of the audiobook (sadly, not read by King) on its way to me now. I got the storyline of both the book and the movie, and the differences between the two, off Wikipedia. I won’t regurgitate what I read; if you too need the background, go read up (book – movie).

Doctor Sleep opens with Danny Torrance seeing dead people again, a few years after the death of his father and other frightening events at the Overlook Hotel. Dick Hallorann comes to town to help him deal with the trauma and the apparently very real risk of the ghosts (are they ghosts? these decaying corpses?) doing him bodily harm. Dick arms young Danny with a tool to protect himself, but the chapter ends with a sort of “and then they were safe… or were they?” moment. Oh the suspense!

Here I am pimping Stephen King, I suppose, and I don’t think he needs my help. But just the one chapter held my interest so thoroughly that it began to eclipse the wonderful Wind Through the Keyhole that I had just finished. I am impressed, am I intrigued, I am seeking out more Stephen King. Check him out.

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