book beginnings on Friday: The Black Box by Michael Connelly

Posted on September 28, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

The new Harry Bosch novel by Connelly comes out in November! Aren’t you excited? Here’s the first two teaser sentences for you:

By the third night the death count was rising so high and so quickly that many of the divisional homicide teams were pulled off the front lines of riot control and put into emergency rotations in South-Central. Detective Harry Bosch and his partner Jerry Edgar were pulled from Hollywood Division and assigned to a roving B watch team that also included two shotgunners from patrol for protection.

Naturally we jump right into the action. I do like Connelly; and his latest does not disappoint.

What are you reading this weekend?

This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

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Lost Antarctica: Adventures in a Disappearing Land by James McClintock

Posted on September 27, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A warning about climate change wrapped in a tender package of stories about penguin chicks and fur seals.

Zoologist James McClintock has spent his career in the Antarctic, lovingly examining and meticulously documenting the wildlife, from the leopard seals and emperor penguins to the tiny sea butterflies and plankton, while recording changes in ocean conditions. Lost Antarctica collects a selection of his experiences: deep-sea diving, storms at sea, sightings of creatures large and small and other discoveries of tiny, crucial instances of evolutionary genius. Although he takes his time getting there, McClintock’s most important point is cautionary: Antarctica, he says, is an early warning for the rest of our world.

McClintock has observed climate change firsthand and can lend his firsthand knowledge to other studies that document and explain the crisis. He also addresses “the other CO2 problem”–the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in our oceans that lower the water’s pH levels. The combination of ocean acidification, rising temperatures and melting ice threatens many species and their delicate relationships with one another–and the consequences extend even further, as some organisms that live only in Antarctica have been shown to yield chemicals that can help fight cancer and influenza.

While Lost Antarctica is an alert about climate change and ocean acidification, it ends on a surprisingly hopeful note. McClintock’s message is reasoned and well documented–and his descriptions of a wondrous world of coral, starfish, sea sponges, fish, crabs, penguins and birds of prey make this important scientific message accessible to the general reader.

This review originally ran as a *starred review* in the Sept. 21, 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: 6 degrees Fahrenheit.

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A Wanted Man by Lee Child

Posted on September 26, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Jack Reacher’s extraordinary expertise intersects full-speed with the FBI and an unknown threat in rural Nebraska.

A Wanted Man is Lee Child’s 17th novel starring retired military police officer Jack Reacher, who roams the country with a toothbrush in his pocket, defeating bullies, defending the weak, solving problems and charming women. Following on the action of Worth Dying For, Reacher is trying to hitch his way cross-country to find a woman whose voice attracts him from afar. But the driver and passengers in the car that picks him up are not what they seem. Soon, Reacher is pulled into a rural Nebraska murder investigation that somehow draws the interest of the FBI, the CIA and the State Department.

Beautiful and talented women, paramilitary threats, an unidentified murder victim, kidnappings, carjackings and a child at risk allow Child’s hero to shine: Reacher knows to use his brains and investigative skills as well as his brawn and weapons training to overcome the enemy. His skill at arithmetic–what Reacher called in an earlier novel a “junior idiot savant” gift for numbers–is particularly useful here.

A Wanted Man delivers expertly paced building of tension, thrilling, full-throttle action and kick-butt fight scenes, all wrapped in a tautly structured mystery with military flavor and international implications. Fans love Reacher because he’s smart, physically unbeatable and chivalrous, and here they’ll find everything they’ve come to expect. Newcomers will have no problem joining mid-series; as usual, the hardest part is waiting for the next installment.

This review originally ran in the Sept. 18, 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: 6 shots fired.

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Teaser Tuesdays: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

Posted on September 25, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

So after quitting on Gold, I am enthused and relieved to be listening to Jenny Lawson’s “mostly true memoir” (probably a great, and safe, description of many memoirs), Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. You may know Jenny better as the Bloggess. She’s hilarious.

My father lifted the large bird off of the hood with more than a little exertion and tucked him under his arm, saying, with a surprising amount of dignity for a man with a turkey under his arm, “Sir, this bird is a quail, and his name is Jenkins.”

I confess I chose this teaser not only for its bizarre quality which so perfectly represents this book as a whole, but for the name Jenkins, which happens to be Husband’s name as well, making this whole chapter (entitled “Jenkins, You Motherf*ker”) extra funny to me personally.

I recommend Jenny’s work (blog and book) because although it’s bizarre and hilarious, it also has a serious message to impart. More to come in my review, soon.

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did not finish: Gold by Chris Cleave (audio)

Posted on September 24, 2012 by pagesofjulia

You might recognize Chris Cleave’s name from the significant success of his 2009 bestseller, Little Bee. I did not read that one. But his new book, Gold, appealed to me: for starters and most obviously, it stars two female Olympic track cyclists. This is a rather obscure sport (particularly in the US) that I have competed in. Also it came recommended to me personally. Of course I was going to give it a go.

Hm. I wanted to like this book, for its subject matter if for nothing else. But there are two flaws in that thinking: first, subject matter alone rarely makes for an enjoyable read. Just because a book is about baseball won’t necessarily do it for a baseball player or fan. Secondly, as it turns out, I was too close to this sport. I’m sure Cleave did some research – he had some terms and concepts down, certainly – but he made several errors of inaccuracy that I believe are due to track cycling’s obscurity, and the public’s low awareness. These errors will go unnoticed by a large percentage of the average readership. In this respect I’m far from the ideal reader: I’m so close to the sport that I spot the errors and to me they are egregious. They rankled.

Unfortunately that’s not all that bothered me about this book. I found the characters to be a little one-dimensional (all good, all bad) and unbelievable. Really, the Olympic gold medalist is also model-gorgeous and could make a living posing for photographs?? Come on. (Okay, I guess there’s always Lolo Jones…) And the dialog was stiff, too. Particularly the parent-child dialog: every conversation was a heart-to-heart. I don’t think children really open up and get earnest and profound every time they talk to their parents (at any age). It didn’t feel real, because there were no mundane moments. And here’s the final kicker, fair warning to any who may be sensitive to such things: there is a (fairly central) little girl with cancer. That was a bit much for me personally, considering that I work full-time at a cancer hospital and therefore see enough of this. Just a personal reaction.

I made it a little better than halfway through this book, which sort of surprises me. I was certainly frustrated, annoyed, exasperated with it much earlier than that: in fact, I can pinpoint it for you. I was impatient with the first chapter’s interactions between Zoe and her coach, Tom; but I was really annoyed for the first time on page 11, when Jack relates that Zoe has won her first sprint and he has to get off the phone because her second is starting. The second ride of gold-medal round sprints should follow the first by more than an hour; putting them right back-to-back like that is completely unrealistic and was the first sign that the reality of track cycling would not be taken too seriously in this book.

But I made it past halfway. Why? I’m not sure. I was hoping it would get better? I cared what happened to the characters? But I didn’t, really; I’ve walked away not knowing the outcome of OH so many dramas, and that’s okay. Cleave failed to make me invest in his characters because he failed to make them fully human.

I didn’t read Little Bee; maybe it’s better than this. But Gold didn’t work for me at all.

Minor redemptive points: Emilia Fox’s audio narration was fine. And the only character I liked, related to, felt was human, was the coach. Some of his moments of self-doubt and retrospection felt real. More people like Tom in my fiction, please.

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book beginnings on Friday: Real Man Adventures by T Cooper

Posted on September 21, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

This book begins with an appropriate quotation, and I’m going to share that with you as well as the beginning of Cooper’s writing.

“It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, thought they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory.” –Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

I am a visible man. By all appearances white, middle-class, heterosexual. Male.

I like the parallel drawn, and the contrast noted, to Ellison’s work. I haven’t read Invisible Man, but I’d like to. (It fits into a recent reading pattern of mine. And I’ve finally worked out Ellison’s Invisible Man vs. H.G. Wells’s, whew.) I think the essence of this book is well foreshadowed in those brief words of Cooper’s, too.

What are you reading this week?

This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

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Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction, edited by Lee Gutkind

Posted on September 20, 2012 by pagesofjulia

This is an excellent and succinct tool. It first offers some discussion of the parameters of creative nonfiction by a man “often referred to as ‘the godfather behind creative nonfiction,'” Lee Gutkind. It’s just what I was looking for. Gutkind’s introduction muses on the definition of the genre (difficult to pin down, of course, as these things always are), and addresses the concerns sometimes raised about the conflict between creativity and nonfiction. He also acknowledges some of the literary controversies (James Frey, Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, etc.) that have hurt the genre’s credibility. And then the bulk of the book begins: writing advice. “The ABCs of Creative Nonfiction” move from “Acknowledgement of Sources” through “Writers’ Responsibility to Subjects” (the contributing writers apparently didn’t want to force the issue by contriving a Z, for which I respect them).

Each of these sections is concise – the whole book barely makes 150 pages – but packed with good advice. Legal and ethical issues receive more than a few pages, which I think is appropriate. Although the central recommendation there seems to be “when in doubt, get a lawyer,” there’s more to it than that: they cite legal precedent and explore the definition of libel, which I found useful and informative. There were also sections addressing interview techniques and the pros and cons of note-taking vs. tape recording (or other audio recordings). There are bits of creative-nonfiction-specific guidance, like how to get inside the heads of characters who are not you and still stick to the facts. And finally, certain chapters deliver straightforward writing advice: how to show, not tell; find a voice; structure a story; and set a scene.

This is not a book for a professional journalist, necessarily, although I could be wrong; maybe those professionals should read this book, too. It’s certainly brief and informative. But I get the impression that it is more geared towards people like me: laypersons without journalism backgrounds who are interested in writing creative nonfiction and want to know the basics. I found it a valuable piece of instruction at just my level; it gave me things to think about, books to put on my list, and actually inspired me to jot a few passages down towards my own project. I recommend it.

Rating: 7 pagesofjulia.

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Watership Down by Richard Adams

Posted on September 19, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Remember I read Tales from Watership Down a while back? And noted that this was probably really one to have read in order, meaning *after* Watership Down? I was so right. I wonder if I’ll find the time to go back and reread it now; I’d certainly like to.

This is a charming story. It’s about rabbits – but wait, come back! It’s a story of adventure, battles and bravery and trying new things, stepping into the unknown, making new friends. It’s exciting. And while it is enough when read for the explicit story of these rabbits of Watership Down, it can also be considered allegorically, if you’re so inclined.

At the beginning, a rabbit named Fiver has a premonition of something bad coming to the Sandleford warren where he lives. His friend Hazel has learned to trust Fiver’s intuitions, and the two of them attempt to warn the Chief Rabbit; but he will not be warned. Hazel (a leader type) and Fiver (more shy and withdrawn) gather a small group and leave the warren headed for parts unknown. Their comrades include Bigwig, a trained fighter; Blackberry, a cleverer rabbit than most; Dandelion, an accomplished storyteller; and Pipkin, even smaller and less impressive than Fiver. This unlikely crew faces the dangers of traveling through the open, through the woods, and over a small river; they move into a peculiar but welcoming warren for a time, until they discover the strange danger that dwells there, and have to move on again. As a group, they become closer, learn one another’s strengths and weaknesses and learn to work as a team. Finally they settle at Watership Down, and begin to build an idyllic new life, but there’s a missing piece: without does (female rabbits) to bear their kittens, their warren is doomed to extinction. So our friends launch yet another expedition…

As an adventure story, Watership Down has it all: likeable characters with developed personalities; a plot with beginning, middle, and end, during which those characters grow and mature; suspense, danger, excitement, bravery, personal sacrifice, bad guys, good guys, strange and wondrous creatures and happenings. It’s great fun, and I stayed up too late one night because I wanted to know what happened next (always a good sign). This is an enjoyable story.

And then there is the allegory. Much has been written on the topic, and for the most part I’ll leave it for others to cover the concepts of religious symbolism, historical allegory, and the like. I prefer it as a “straight” story of adventure fantasy as experienced by this gang of rabbits. But I will say that I enjoyed the epic-hero aspects, and the fact that the larger rabbit society has its own set of myths, proverbs, and stories passed down through the generation. Story-telling and the remembering of mythical heroes (and the creation of new ones!) play a large role, and this was familiar to me, as I have long loved the ancient Greek myths. Watership Down has been compared especially to the Aeneid; I actually thought of the Lord of the Rings trilogy-plus-one (to include The Hobbit), in terms of the building cadence of action. (Side note: Adams includes a number of quotations and allusions to classical works, lending credence to the idea that he had some of this explicitly in mind.) Also, I found myself musing from time to time on the statements Adams (or his rabbits) might be making about human civilization. The four warrens we see in this story embody four different cultures and styles of organizing citizens; some work better than others. I’ll say no more, because if you read this book, I believe you might enjoy making your own connections as you will. But yes, there is plenty of opportunity to consider allegory at work in Watership Down.

This is definitely an enjoyable read. Early in the book the pace is measured, as we get to know our characters and invest in their fates; when the cards are on the table later on, the pace ratchets up (this is where I didn’t go to bed on time). I thought it was very enjoyable when read “straight”, and would work as a children’s book. But it also offers fodder for serious thought and discussion. I can see why this one has remained in print for so long! Now to track down Tales of Watership Down again…

Rating: 7 bunnies.

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Teaser Tuesdays: Keep It Real, edited by Lee Gutkind

Posted on September 18, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

What a quick-reading gem of nonfiction writing advice I’ve found here. I like this one for its imagery:

Brevity editor Dinty W. Moore asks his writers for sharp description and careful distillation. “I like to imagine a brush fire, deep inside a national park,” he explains. “The reader is a firefighter, and the writer’s job is to parachute that reader directly to the edge of the blaze to encounter flame and smoke immediately. There is no time for the long hike in.”

I confess my interest in fires and firefighting, especially in the national parks, didn’t hurt the effect this passage had on me. Review coming shortly. I will be recommending this one.

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Meat Eater by Steven Rinella

Posted on September 17, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A loving exploration of hunting–and meat–in human history, and its role in our lives today, from the host of the Travel Channel’s The Wild Within.


Steven Rinella (American Buffalo) grew up hunting, trapping and fishing with his two older brothers. Hunting has played many roles in his life, from a source of income and food to a form of recreation and lifestyle. In a world that increasingly gets its meat from a supermarket, Rinella offers a passionate and reasoned ode to what he calls humankind’s oldest endeavor.

In a series of vignettes, Rinella recounts experiences from childhood through parenthood. He relates the first buck he didn’t get and the experience of trailing mountain lions in Arizona and Dall sheep in Alaska. He describes his first entrepreneurial scheme to trap small mammals and sell their fur, as well as a regretted dalliance with illegal hunting methods. He discusses hunters’ ethics, the rules upon which they do not universally agree, and the idea of “fair chase.” Occasionally, he offers tasting notes on various animals’ flesh, which may be useful to his fellow hunters along with his instructions on preparation–they may also help non-hunters understand the appeal of eating, say, squirrel (not to mention “camp meat”).

“Hunting stories are the oldest and most widespread form of story on earth,” Rinella observes; thus historical anecdotes about Daniel Boone and early hunter-gatherers accompany him in his evolution from hunting for fun and profit to hunting as a way to feed his own family efficiently and mindfully. Meat Eater is a book for the nature lover or the hunter as well as the uninitiated.

This review originally ran in the Sept. 10, 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!

Further thoughts: I just wanted to expand upon the above review, written for Shelf Awareness, and share my personal reaction. I came to this book not entirely ready to ally with the idea of hunting (or even meat eating) as a lifestyle. I eat meat – but I am sympathetic to the vegetarian’s and the vegan’s position, and I was curious about Rinella’s perspective. So what did I find? I found that his arguments and his outlook were both reasonable and well-presented. I was able to sympathize with just about all he had to say. Even my best vegan buddy states that, if he were to eat meat, better that it should be hunted in the wild than captured from one’s grocery store. Still, the facts of our present-day situation – a limited amount of land space and a huge and still-growing population – make a plant-based diet much more efficient. It takes less land to feed a human plants than it takes to feed the animals that will then feed the human. This is more an argument in favor of agriculture than against hunting wild creatures, I know. But still, Rinella’s method works best because he is the tiny minority that he is. We can’t all go hunting in the backcountry for our dinners; the world would not support us all in that way. And just because our ancestors did things a certain way for hundreds or thousands of years, doesn’t mean we should do it that way today. In fact, just the opposite: the world has changed so greatly that it requires different methods of us.

Also, I had to part ways with Rinella when it came to hunting mountain lions. I’m going to stick firmly with Edward Abbey on this issue.

But all that said, this was a good book: well-presented arguments, relatively convincing (even though I’m not ready to sign up for the Rinella Way, he earns my agreement with many of his points), and enjoyable to read, not to mention educational. I had no problem writing the complimentary review, above.

Rating: 7 squirrels.

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