I couldn’t do it. I wanted to like this book so much! In fact, I think I should just send you over to Raych’s review of Popular Crime, because I’m about to repeat everything she said, but about a different book. It’s funny how that works.
Mañana Forever? had a great pull for me. I was excited about getting to know “Mexico and the Mexicans” better; I like Mexico and the Mexicans, and I think they’re as apt as any country-and-its-people to make good book-fodder. The first bad sign was the preface, which dragged on and on in academic-speak, which rather goes against the impression I got (from product descriptions) that this books was written for Regular People. It also purported to outline the book’s goal, but instead went round in circles, as if still deciding what that goal might be. It listed and outlined the chapters, then told an anecdote involving H1N1 (the “swine flu”), and then GO chapter one. I began the book frustrated by the preface but ready to move on into the good stuff.
The first chapter nearly killed me. I like the idea of Nancy Pearl’s Rule of 50, but I couldn’t do it. I was too frustrated by chapter 1, which ends on page 33. (Ah, but the preface was 15. Do I get to claim 48 pages? That should be close enough. Really, two pages weren’t going to convince me. I promise.) Castaneda is Mexican-American himself, but just as I don’t belong to the camp that feels it’s okay for black people to call each other the n-word, I didn’t take to the negative lean of this chapter. It’s entitled “Why Mexicans Are Lousy at Soccer and Don’t Like Skyscrapers,” and the answer is, because they’re staunch individualists, always, no exception. Thus, no teamwork (soccer) and no sharing (apartment buildings – which aren’t necessarily synonymous with skyscrapers in my head, but whatever). He’s a bit critical, but more outrageously, he’s pretty vague in his justifications for his argument. When he completely lost me, though, was with math. Excuse me for holding an author of nonfiction (and an established academic, professor, PhD, and former foreign minister, in his third book) to this kind of standard, but. I offer you this sentence.
Out of a total of roughly 1 million homes delivered between 2004 and 2008, 800,000, or 97%, included one or two dwellings per plot, whereas only 32,000, or 3%, were vertical, multifamily homes, or in plain English, apartment buildings or ‘projects.’
1 million = 1,000,000. 800,000 is very easily divided into this number. I see 8 out of 10, is what I see. I’m no math major, but I’m pretty sure that 800,000 out of 1,000,000 is NOT 97%. I’m pretty sure that’s 80%. He lost me there, and lost me more in the next sentence, in which he says x over y “takes up much more space and thus more square feet.” After this, it was all I could do to not take out a red pen and start circling things. (This is a library book.) Rugged individualism is “often nearly always” self-sacrificial and self-destructive, and the chapter closes with this:
The individualism we have rapidly portrayed and criticized is just one of the multiple traits, though perhaps the most important one, that has become no longer just an obstacle, but an insurmountable hurdle to the country’s progress, as well as the heart of its past glory and unending fascination for the foreign regard.
No longer just an obstacle, but a hurdle! Gasp! No, Castaneda, you did not “rapidly” portray. These were the most difficult 33 pages I’ve read in recent memory. Sentences like this one required that I reread; I kept losing my place. This is the kind of writing I’m willing to be pretty forgiving of in galley copies (you know, pre-publication, don’t-quote-from-this-copy, still to be edited), but this isn’t a galley. I’m not sure if you should fire your editor, or if s/he should fire you. You have failed to grasp a reader who was eager to be grasped. The End.
Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: DNF, nonfiction | Leave a comment »
A hard-boiled legal thriller with lots of laughs and an accent that’s all Jersey, but with a sensitive side as well.
Accomplished D.C. lawyer Ron Liebman evokes a sharply realistic and very funny New Jersey underworld in his second novel, Jersey Law (following Death to Rodrigo). Fans of Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer will enjoy the well-meaning but mildly rule-bending team of Mickie and Junne, criminal defense attorneys for inner-city Camden’s drug dealers and lowlifes. They defend drug kingpin Slippery Williams; they spar with the DA; and they carefully balance the letter of the law with watching their backs. Junne (short for Junior), our narrator, places us firmly in the Camden streets with his conversational style, what he would call “street jive.” Don’t mind the sentence fragments; they make the book breathe in Junne’s terse Jersey voice.
Mickie and Junne have been friends since middle school, and have their practice down to a fine art. When one of their clients decides to testify against another, however, their loyalties are tested. If they warn the client, who is an old friend, men will certainly die, and they will have broken client confidentiality; if they don’t, it may mean their own demise. And then there’s their new secretary to worry about: Tamara is working hard to keep her nephew off the streets and out of the gang life. Tamara is an excellent example of one of Liebman’s strengths as a novelist: he creates funny, sympathetic characters we care about in spite of their flaws.
Junne’s large Italian family, Mickie’s womanizing and their shady lawyer-landlord fit perfectly in with the scenery. By turns poignant and suspenseful, Jersey Law is consistently funny, ending on just the right note for a sequel.
This review originally ran in the June 28, 2011 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!
Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: legal thriller, Shelf Awareness | Leave a comment »
A new guest reviewer! I asked my mother to share her thoughts about the movie we saw together, initially thinking she could help me develop my own review; but I think she merits her own post here.
Paris is sweet and softly lit in the late hours of the 1920’s, but the hard truth of the present is clear. The plot of Midnight in Paris concerns a trip to Paris by our hero with his fiancé and her parents – a family of snobby rich American tourists who don’t like Paris most of the time – like when it rains – and focus mostly on shopping. The story has our hack Hollywood writer dreaming of the pure Paris artistic air and following the path of Hemingway or Fitzgerald. He wanders the streets at midnight, and gets in a taxi to the twenties.
Woody Allen’s twenties Paris is a spectacle. It’s a fun romp, and adorable. What fun it must be to put together the words of the great Americans who were there in the bars and Gertrude Stein’s salon. He throws out the lines and the audience laps it up, especially the fun poked at Papa.* We share the lives of these artists who didn’t know where they were going, didn’t know that they lived in the Golden Age, and it’s our lovely secret. It’s also the secret of our hero, who is clearly the alternative Woody Allen. He tries to milk his opportunities, getting advice from Stein, schmoozing with the Fitzgeralds, and romancing Picasso’s girl. He even considers staying, but we’re a bit hopeful that he might grow up.
Salvador Dali is a grand character, super-mustachioed and enigmatic. Hemingway is larger than life – but isn’t that what he really was? Cole Porter appears, and Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald are all that they must have been, gay, charming, and ready to dash off at a whim, probably into the abyss. Luis Buñuel gets a film concept from his own future, through our hero/fan. Gertrude Stein rules her salon and there is no doubt that she’s the regent.
It was never going to work out for the couple, and if this is a spoiler, you’re missing the gorilla in the bedroom. It’s a little silly that this innocent was ever attracted to the scolding fiancé we see. The plot is obvious, but we’re here for the fun. Paris is every artist’s dream and muse; we love those dreamers who sucked up life when it was at its best. There’s a carpe diem moral here, and idealism waiting to be tested. Also just good looking.
*I think this is a poke at me, too. I was eating up Papa’s lines – yes ridiculous, but true to life! I may take him too seriously. 🙂
Thanks Mom, you did it beautifully.
Filed under: musings | Tagged: Hemingway, Mom, movies | 3 Comments »
I just need to interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to clear up what appears to be a common misconception.
I have this shirt.
Pretty rad, right? It totally draws conversation, and has resulted in me meeting a few very cool fellow librarians when out on the town, too. (Hi, Rob & Shannon!) But it also tends to expose people’s misunderstandings about what’s pictured there.
The picture in that image above is of a card catalog, y’all. It’s a card filing system, and it contains (or contained) cards, on which were printed information about items in a library’s collection. The joke on the t-shirt – “never forget” – is a reference to the fact that card catalogs are pretty much dead. Gone. We now have electronic catalogs that have the same library function: to find what books we have by title, author, and more bibliographic attributes, as well as by subject. Card catalogs. Gone.
But I keep hearing people mention Dewey when they see this shirt. There is no Dewey on this shirt, folks. Let me help.
The Dewey decimal system is a classification system, meaning a way of classifying books (or other items) by subject, and coding subjects, in this case, by a series of numbers. We group books together by subject, so that if you find the one book you want, you can find a bunch of other similar books parked next to it on the shelf. In this way, 796.63 stands for “Mountain biking (All-terrain cycling).” 636.76 stands for toy dogs, including the chihuahua. This classification system does not need cards, or a card catalog. It is alive and well in many libraries today, including the one I work in. We use an electronic catalog, not a card catalog, but Dewey, all the same. My books on true crime [homicide] sit happily together at 364.152. Right now. Dewey. Not Gone.
See the difference?
If your eyes aren’t glazed over yet, I’ll tell you that when I couldn’t find a print copy anywhere of Irrepressible Reformer: a biography of Melvil Dewey, I started reading it through Google Books. (This book’s Dewey number, by the way, is 020.92. You’re welcome.) I didn’t get to finish, because Google Books offers only a preview, which turned out to be something like 100 pages, if memory serves. But I read enough to tell you that Dewey, creator of the system, was a fascinating character. He was a reformer and an innovator of a number of systems, not only classification of books but library practices generally, the metric system, spelling, higher education, and library schools. He’s also a pretty controversial figure, having used very questionable business practices and even in the most generous of light, taken advantage of his benefactors. (For example, he set up various organizations and bureaus in pursuit of his various causes, but they all shared one money pool, so that donors to one cause often ended up funding an entirely different one.) As part of his crusade for simplified spellings (thru for through, etc.), he changed his name from Melville Louis Dewey to Melvil Dui. That Melvil was an interesting guy.
All right, hope you’re still with me. Let’s review. Card catalog:
A physical thing. Large. Heavy. Cumbersome. Mostly dead and gone. [Also, I want to own one of these very badly.]
Dewey:
A system of categorizing and organizing books. The catalog that leads a person to a book using Dewey can be electronic, and today, almost certainly is. Not dead and gone. [Although if you tempt me I may tell you about the Library of Congress‘s alternative classification system…]
Filed under: musings | Tagged: librarians, libraries | 12 Comments »
EDIT: You can check out my mother’s review too here.
I saw this one weeks ago; I don’t know what’s taken me so long. Maybe I was up too far past my bedtime in order to see it, and lost it in my dreams. It was a lovely night out with my mother (while Pops is off traveling the world) and a really delightful movie; we both enjoyed it very much.
You’ve heard of this one. It’s the Woody Allen movie in which Owen Wilson takes on the Woody-role, a young man named Gil, traveling in Paris on business, who wants to sink into 1920’s Paris and finally write his novel. His materialistic and unsympathetic (in both senses) fiancé, Inez, thinks this is ridiculous; she wants him to hurry up and get back to making oodles of money writing the Hollywood scripts that he feels are soul-killing. Amid his dreaming about the perfection of interwar Paris, with its meeting of literary and artistic minds, Gil finds himself actually transported there via vintage Peugeot. He plays and parties with Hemingway and the Fitzgeralds, gets his manuscript reviewed by Gertrude Stein, and takes on Pablo Picasso as a romantic competitor – among a flurry of other storybook meetings.
Corey Stoll as Hemingway
Overall a dreamy and very pleasant adventure. If more movies made me feel this way, I would go to more movies.
Filed under: musings | Tagged: Hemingway, movies | 4 Comments »
Police corruption, gang violence, family ties and a nascent romance entangled in this breathless, emotional ride through Atlanta’s underbelly.
Karin Slaughter’s latest work of suspense has all the elements her readers have come to expect: likable, well-developed characters; an array of strong women; fast-paced action; and surprising plot twists. This story of family relationships, with its underlying threads of romance, violence and taut suspense, will satisfy fans of Lisa Gardner or Lisa Scottoline as well as Slaughter’s own.
When Georgia Bureau of Investigations Special Agent Faith Mitchell arrives at her mother’s house to pick up her daughter, Emma, there’s blood on the door, and the baby’s been hidden in the shed. Retired Atlanta police captain Evelyn Mitchell is missing, but her house is not empty; Faith goes in with guns blazing, and the blood flows.
The clock ticks in the search for Evelyn as the case is further complicated by shifting suspicions and questioned loyalties. We share Faith’s concern for her family and her need to be involved, despite a clear lack of professional detachment. Her partner, Will Trent, aches to help her, but his past investigation of her mother’s unit compromises their relationship. Sara Linton, a local doctor with ties to law enforcement, struggles to balance her role in the case with a budding personal relationship with Will. Meanwhile, Amanda Wagner, Will’s boss and Evelyn’s best friend, might be playing both sides of the fence.
Slaughter weaves intense and unrelenting suspense while compelling readers to care about the very real and human characters involved, whose backgrounds and conflicting loyalties we sympathize with even as we see their flaws.
This review originally ran in the June 24, 2011 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!
Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: mystery, Shelf Awareness, thriller | 3 Comments »
Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages 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.
Back to Jeeves, we are! I so enjoyed Thank You, Jeeves that I picked this up on an evening when I was feeling a little down and not quite ready for bed. Thankfully, Wodehouse will cheer a girl up. Since I listened to the first on audio (and LOVED the narrator), I had that voice (and accent) to read this one in, inside my head. I’m loving it. We begin:
“Jeeves,” I said, “may I speak frankly?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“What I have to say may wound you.”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Well, then –”
No — wait. Hold the line a minute. I’ve gone off the rails.
I like it. 🙂 If you haven’t checked Wodehouse out yet, I recommend him for purely silly, clever British humor.
Filed under: book beginnings | Tagged: humor | 2 Comments »
Today we’re visiting my father again, who’s traveling this summer. I put the screws on to compel him to buy a copy of Fire Season for himself to read on the road because I loved it so much (see here). I promised to buy it off him if he regretted the purchase; and I may, anyway, because I want to own a copy. Actually, though, I don’t know if it’s for sale. He did like it. I’m compiling some of his thoughts via email to share with you; they’re mostly in response to my original post (see link above) but I thought his slightly different perspective was worth sharing. Here’s Pops.
I finished Fire Season yesterday while I was camping in the finest of the rain forest valleys in Olympic NP, the Hoh river. I found it as exceptional as you said. The timing was impeccable; e.g. I was reading his passages about the magical meditative element of long walks… (or, I would say, endurance activities – you could read Bill McKibben’s Long Distance for a bit of the same; I found it wonderful, and you should know who McKibben is anyway for his potential to be one of the great environmental soothsayers of our time) …and it helped me decide a plan for my Monday walk: a full 10 hour day of wandering up and down the valley in rain and mist marveling at the magical forest – when I wasn’t daydreaming. I loved how he wove in stories of Kerouac, Edward Abbey, Chief Victorio, Alice the dog, Aldo Leopold, Cormac McCarthy, Gary Snyder (new to me) – and others. And we certainly learn about wildfires. Thanks for the tip.
So glad you liked it!! [And, incidentally, what safety precautions are you taking on 10-hour walks? Do you call Mom to let her know you’re going off on such things, and then call in when you return?]
And have you made the connection with current events? – with a massive fire burning for weeks now in eastern Arizona (the western borders of Fire Season) and today all around the Carlsbad Caverns area in NM (within the eastern horizon view of Fire Season).
Maybe not specifically those fires; but West Texas has been ravaged for months and it made my reading of the book a touch more personal. This spring race series, we raced two races in a row only to hear that the race course saw a wildfire start as we were leaving. (We promise we didn’t start these fires.) One was in Arksansas, one in central Texas. And we have a friend/teammate who tried to race in Ft. Davis, but the event was canceled due to one of the bigger fires we’ve seen; it swept across a considerable part of the state we’re used to driving and riding through. Close to home.
Did you also make the connection that we all went camping in the Gila Wilderness twice when you were 3 and 4 yrs old? (and that, because we had been there before you were born)
No, of course I don’t remember that, but very cool!
I really endorse what you said about his eclectic voice, and the many priceless vignettes he blends into his story. (I really wish I had read it with a highlighter!)
I also found him to be an endless stream of contradictions (perhaps we all are?) – he could be a sedentary slug for hours/days on end, but was also often driven to minimalist walks & overnights (an evening walk from a summit inevitably involves a serious down & UP!); he obviously functioned well in cities & bars, as well as wilderness; he became well versed in much wilderness language, yet succumbed to the elementary, pitiful, dreadful trap of the young fawn.
I cried over the fawn.
And, re: your comment about the contradictions. I am reminded of David Guterson’s The Other as well as Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild (the first, fiction, the latter non) – both books about young men going into the wilderness, thinking they wanted to get away from it all, but also strangely and paradoxically clinging to certain odd elements of society. As the protagonists of both books came to unpleasant ends, I think perhaps Connors has found the perfectly balanced way to do it! In fact, I think I mentioned balance in my initial review. The writing in his book is balanced; and his interactions with his world are balanced. His saintly wife helps him be balanced. I daresay we all aspire to a lifestyle like this; I know I do, and I think, Pops, that you do. But then, you’re closer than most of us right now!
Based on your and my reactions, I’m guessing that readers will appreciate many different aspects of this book. You particularly noted the lessons about wildfire & forest policy, which I knew much of already. I loved the many references and new details about Kerouac, Snyder and the various personalities of the Beat generation who so influenced my 60s & 70s, and subsequent characters like Edward Abbey and Dave Foreman.
You barely mention Alice! I thought she was an elusive minor character, disappearing for times but playing a key role at many turns. Moments were familiar to Barley’s world; like her unilateral retreat to accompany Martha home from the lookout summit, and her personality change from city to wilds. Most poignant – Alice evoked my most secret lonely moments, far up a mountain trail without Barley’s companion spirit, spunk and relentless energy. “Alice is the only living being I know who will take a forty-mile walk in the woods without any need of cajoling, planning, or consulting a calendar.”
My apologies to Alice; you’re entirely right… she was a special creature and character, and a neat side-story proving (yet again) that dogs are our best friends and offer relationships unlike what we humans can offer one another. Here, I’ll treat our readers to a picture:
Hops (brown) & Ritchey (short white hair) who live with Husband and I, and my parents' Barley (scruffy white hair)
Finally: “…the movements of my limbs help my mind move too, out of its loops and grooves and onto a plane of equipoise… If I weren’t a walker I suppose I would be a television addict, a dope fiend, a social butterfly.”
Because I had to look it up, I’ll share. Equipoise: an equal distribution of weight; even balance; equilibrium.
Thank you for your musings, Pops. I hope we’re (still) encouraging folks to find this book! I think I’m ready to call this my best read of 2011 to date.
Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: creative nonfiction, fire and firefighting, memoir, nature, nonfiction, Pops | 11 Comments »
pagesofjulia 