The Kings of the Wyld

by Nicholas Eames

Twenty years ago, Saga, the greatest of all the "bands" (groups of mercenary adventurers in the Dungeons and Dragons style) fought and rose to great heights, then faded away. Now, twenty years later, they are just five aging, past-their-prime men scattered over the land, having lost touch. Clay "Slowhand" Cooper, who uses a formidable mystical shield, is retired with a family in Coverdale. Their frontman, Gabriel, a.k.a. "Golden Gabe," arrives unexpectedly to beg Clay for help: his daughter, Rose, is trapped in a distant city besieged by an innumerable army of various monsters. Reluctantly, Clay joins him and they gather the others: Moog, a klutzy wizard; the dagger-wielding, drunk, overweight, henpecked Matrick, who has become a cuckolded king; and Ganelon, the deadly swordsman whom they all left behind, to their shame. They embark on a quest across a monster-filled forest known as the Heartwyld. If the army of monsters wasn't enough to fear, they also encounter an old enemy, Lastleaf, an immortal Druin (think: Dark Elf) who bears quite a grudge against them.

As is obvious from the nicknames, the story treats mercenary groups like rock stars who draw massive crowds and inspire epic ballads. It's an amusing premise, and the book has flashes of genuine humor and excitement. Unfortunately, it didn't click for me. The "rock star" metaphor is tired and never really quite fits in a fantasy setting, but that's a minor quibble. The real problem is the laziness of the world-building. Time and again, the novel resolves obstacles through convenient contrivances rather than believable storytelling. The band has supposedly been out of contact for decades, yet Moog suddenly remembers a magical portal directly to Matrick's castle, a portal that also deposits them at precisely the moment an assassin strikes. Other ideas are introduced only to fizzle out. The entire country is plagued by a deadly and incurable disease called "rot" that is meant to be an emotionally-resonant plot arc, but it proves to be of no consequence. Matrick is depicted as terribly out of shape, but when the fighting starts, he is a veritable superhuman, as are they all; their age and rustiness, though often referred to, barely affect them. None of the wounds or sacrifices the band makes ever stick; there are therefore no stakes, and no suspense. Even the comedy often misses its mark. Moog's insistence that owlbears are real is treated with derision, as if he's insane, but they live in a world populated by literally any kind or combination of monster imaginable; the joke just has no place to land. Or the conceit that Saga's bards always die on quests, so they've had dozens over the years!  Spinal Tap got there first. Eames is trying to have it both ways here, a fantasy-setting Hitchhiker's Guide and the high fantasy of a Joe Abercrombie. The result is certainly entertaining in places, but I found its clever premise resting on a foundation too flimsy to support the adventure it wanted to tell. 

two stars 

The Extinction Of Irena Rey

by Jennifer Croft

A beloved and bestselling author, the titular Irena Rey, has the habit of gathering and sequestering all her translators at her house in Poland, where they all work on the translations of her current works together. This time, they gather to translate the work Grey Eminence, a novel warning about the dangers of human intelligence putting the world on the road to extinction. Specifically, Rey is known for fighting against the culling of her beloved Bialowieza, a primeval forest that has been the site of logging by the government. However, something is awry — Our Author (as the besotted narrator of the book styles her, in deistic caps) is missing, and the translators, who initially only know each other by their target languages rather than names, are left to their own devices. Should they go ahead with their work without her? Rifle through her belongings for a clue to her whereabouts and identity? Go get a drink at the local bar? Hunt down her family? As her absence continues, things get stranger with each new development, and the various translators form alliances and enmities, until the atmosphere is something along the lines of a surreal bacchanal.

Croft is herself a Booker Prize-winning translator of the Polish Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, as well as of Argentinian authors, so her reflections on, and parodies of, the art of translation are incisive and shrewd. One of the conceits of the book is that is is written by Rey's Spanish translator Emi, but what we are reading is the English translation of that book by Alexis, who was also there, and gives a few insights or corrections of her own in footnotes. (I wonder what they do in the Spanish translation of this novel?) Emi speaks for all the translators as a collective, but at some point it seems clear that Emi's slavish adoration is not the norm among her peers. The novel has several motifs and recurring themes. It touches on stewardship, veneration, fungi, parasites, love, amadou, and more. It's not a novel for everyone, having more in common with the French absurdists, and Tokarczuk's flights of mixed-genre imagination, than any straightforward narrative. It plays with language, throwing out ideas and innuendo and genuine anxieties about political concerns with abandon. Some stick, and some don't. Some scenes lag or fall flat. But this is such a vivacious and original novel that I generally forgive its misfires. If it's taken as an absurdist play, full of inane, bumbling characters caught in a situation they don't understand, rather than some sort of real-world mystery, it works. 

three stars 

The Racketeer

by John Grisham

2012 

Malcolm Bannister was a small-town lawyer until a bad real estate deal connected him to a criminal conspiracy and landed him in federal prison for a crime he didn't (knowingly) commit. When a federal judge is murdered and the FBI has no leads, Malcolm reveals that he knows who killed him, but only if the government agrees to release him and give him full immunity and a new identity. What follows is an intricate game of leverage, deception, and revenge as Malcolm manipulates the FBI, federal prosecutors, and the real killers, all while concealing an even larger scheme of his own. Each revelation upends what seemed certain, and Malcolm proves himself several steps ahead of everyone trying to use him.

Grisham here moves from his typical milieu, the courtroom, to try his hand at the caper and confidence game, with mixed results. The novel is less concerned with legal arguments than with strategy, hidden motives, and carefully timed revelations. Malcolm is an intriguing narrator: intelligent, patient, and morally flexible. However, Grisham also occasionally switches to a third-person omniscient narrator, so he can keep various revelations hidden until it suits him, repeatedly forcing the reader to reassess what they thought they understood. The excitement in the novel comes from watching Malcolm outmaneuver institutions that believe they hold all the power. I wasn't overmuch impressed with this book, however. The secondary characters beyond Malcolm are more functional than memorable. Most FBI agents, prosecutors, and secondary figures exist primarily to move the machinery of the plot, and the emotional stakes never run especially deep. But the main reason for my lukewarm reception is that narly everything in the book strains credulity. The plot relies heavily on coincidence, unlikely events, and highly questionable reactions on the part of law enforcement. As Grisham writes in his author's note, "almost nothing in the previous 340 odd pages is based on reality." This is an understatement. It's a two-star plot, bumped to three stars due to Grisham's easy, readable style that keeps the pages turning.  

three stars 

IQ

by Joe Ide

In South Central Los Angeles lives Isaiah Quintabe, a 26-year-old African American man, whose brilliant mind justifies his initial-nickname of IQ. After his beloved older brother was killed in a hit and run, the young IQ drifted into illegal activities until he realized he could use his computer-like mind to solve the problems of people in his neighborhood, taking on cases the police won't or can't. IQ has known, as his spiritual godfather Sherlock did, the temptation of recreational drugs, and his understanding of the criminal mentality is based on experience. (His involvement in crime was typically idiosyncratic, stealing items like feline epilepsy strips with low security but high resale value.) But all this comes in flashbacks. Satisfyingly to us Sherlockians, the main plot line of this novel adapts some elements of The Hound of the Baskervilles: a superstar rapper, Calvin Wright, faces an attempted assassination by a 130-pound monster of a pit bull, who seems to have been bred by an enemy for murderous purpose. IQ uses street-smarts, near-perfect recall, and inductive reasoning to find answers to who is behind the threat. IQ's sidekick Dodson fills a Watson-like role, in that he does his part and is capable of providing backup in the form of a gun.

The setting, the voice, and the characters are all high points of the novel. Ide has a gift for sharp observations and memorable details (the rapper's belongings include "a bundle of rolled-up antique Persian prayer rugs from his two weeks as a practicing Muslim"), and the novel is packed with lines that are funny without feeling as though they are trying too hard to be funny. IQ feels grounded as a character, fleshed-out with his own foibles and weak spots. The flashbacks showing how he became who he is are often more compelling than the central mystery. The mystery itself is solid. Ide lays out the clues fairly, and the solution emerges logically rather than through arbitrary twists. Watching IQ think is consistently entertaining. At times, however, the novel stretches credibility. Some of Isaiah's movements through particularly hostile environments feel easier and safer than they ought to. As a non-black author, Joe Ide seems fairly oblivious to how carefully a young black man must perforce maneuver through certain white-dominated situations. I don't mean that IQ shouldn't be confident, but these scenes in particular don't ring true. I also thought that a few of the character interactions seem shaped more by the needs of the plot, or even slapstick, than by reality. I enjoyed the novel's portrait of a community, its exploration of grief and responsibility, and the chemistry between IQ and the exasperating, scheming Dodson. This isn't a brilliant book, but it's a novel take on an old trope, with an engaging protagonist and an ending that promises more.  

three stars 

Pledging My Time: Conversations With Bob Dylan Band Members

by Ray Padgett

Rather than focusing on Dylan himself, Ray Padgett interviews forty musicians, collaborators, and fellow travelers who spent time onstage, in the studio, or on the road with him. The result is not a standard profile of the man; it's a portrait assembled from the edges inward. The book spans virtually Dylan's entire career, from the folk scene of the early 1960s through Rough and Rowdy Ways and the Never Ending Tour. Padgett's interview subjects range from major figures such as Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Richard Thompson, Larry Campbell, and Benmont Tench to one-off collaborators who found themselves unexpectedly swept into Dylan's orbit.

There are a lot of terrific anecdotes, from gushing, grateful unknown musicians given a chance to play on stage by Dylan himself, to baffled sidemen wondering why they got hired (or let go). There are terrific asides from talented musicians about how great a guitar player or piano player Dylan is. Others marvel at his breadth of musical knowledge (one guitarist recalls having to ask various friends about all the obscure folk and blues artists Bob talks about are in order to keep up: "if I knew half of what he's forgotten, I would be one of the most well-educated musicians on the planet"). There is very little communication from the man himself. Players are called up unexpectedly to jam, go home, and then find the jam session was an audition, and they're going on the road, or a late-night talk show, tomorrow. If there's a central idea to the book, it's to serve as an answer to this question: Why do so many accomplished musicians speak of playing with him as a career highlight? Dylan's reputation among casual listeners is built on his songwriting and distinctive voice, not on instrumental virtuosity. Yet interview after interview describes the experience as exhilarating. Musicians recount being thrown onstage with little preparation, confronted with shifting arrangements, unexpected keys, and performances that seem perpetually on the verge of collapse. Yet the disorder is rarely random. As you read the various experiences, it becomes clear that Dylan creates conditions that force musicians to listen, react, and create in the moment, producing performances that feel spontaneous yet require the most intense focus. The interviews also reveal Dylan as a director-like figure, choosing musicians not simply for technical ability but for the musical worlds they carry inside them. Dylan's encyclopedic knowledge of blues, country, folk and more becomes both a shared language and an audition process. As an interviewer and editor, Padgett is exceptionally well prepared, asks the right questions, and keeps the focus on music rather than gossip. As a result, the book sheds light not just on Dylan's career but on his creative process, which is fascinating to the Dylan devotee.  

five stars 

One Fat Englishman

by Kingsley Amis

Roger Micheldene, the titular fat Englishman, is a publisher visiting a fictional prestigious college with the oddly-chosen name of "Budweiser" (a stand-in for Princeton). Ostensibly he's there on a business trip to acquire the rights to a novel or two, but his real aim is to eat and drink far too much, bed as many women as possible, and belittle Americans with displays of British erudition and contempt. He spends most of the novel shuttling between New York and Budweiser, leaving unsatisfied women and unimpressed undergraduates in his wake.

This is the kind of novel that isn't written much any more, a character study and satire of manners. Unlike the tremendous Lucky Jim, this novel's main character isn't the least bit sympathetic and holds no youthful idealism. He's a creep, a seducer, a drunkard who leads women on and insults them for being needy, holds grudges against small children, and so on. There's no plot, except in the sense that Roger goes through a wringer and leaves America only slightly more humble and resentful. Roger may be an exaggerated portrait of Amis himself, but knowing that doesn't change my impression of the book; watching this boorish ass weave in and out of cocktail parties putting down others, only to end up looking ridiculous, isn't as interesting as Amis seems to think it is. Yes, it's a satire of both America and Britain; what Roger never sees is that he embodies all the bad qualities he adumbrates in defining Americans; he's childish, illogical, and emotional. A game of Scrabble against a young boy exemplifies this, as he upturns the board in a fit of pique when his British spellings aren't accepted. The consequences of Roger's actions annoy him, but they never instruct him. This is meant to make him funny, but I mostly found him tedious. It was also difficult for me to sympathize with any of the other characters. Take Helene Bang, the object of his most desperate amorous attentions; since he treats her with utter contempt, why does she allow him within ten feet of her? The American college students who puncture Roger's inflated ego with silly pranks are similarly smirking and supercilious. I enjoyed the witty writing, as far as it went, but I didn't find it particularly funny, nor did I think it has anything original to say about academia or the Anglo-American chasm. In the end, this is less a satire than a character study of a man trapped by his own habits and resentments. It's clever, but unappealing, much like Roger himself. 

three stars 

Holding the Note: Profiles in Popular Music

by David Remnick

A florilegium of eleven profiles and essays, mostly from The New Yorker, on legendary musicians centered around the uncomfortable question: what keeps an artist going after the peak years are behind them? The subjects are largely figures from the deep canon with decades-long careers, who in and of themselves represent an era or musical genre: Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Aretha Franklin, Mavis Staples, Buddy Guy, Paul McCartney, Keith Richards (this one is largely a panning of Richard’s self-serving memoir), and Luciano Pavarotti. This is not traditional musical criticism, but examinations of impact and character. What drives Springsteen to keep playing marathon concerts in his sixties? Why did Cohen continue writing and touring into old age? How does Buddy Guy shoulder the burden of preserving an entire musical tradition? In addition to delving into the history of gospel, blues, and rock, Remnick investigates, the stubborn need to keep creating, to keep "holding the note." Memorably, he also presents a "Unified Theory of Bob Dylan," positing that Dylan's entire raison d'etre is to absorb, keep alive, and rework the American musical tradition.

Throughout, Remnick combines deep knowledge with elegant prose, curiosity, and humane humor. It's readable, fascinating, extremely thorough, and holds surprises even for those who, like me, have read about some of these icons extensively. My favorite piece is one devoted not to a superstar but to jazz scholar and radio host Phil Schaap. A brilliant obsessive who devoted his life to preserving the legacy of Charlie Parker, Schaap embodies another kind of artist: the guardian of memory. Through him, Remnick explores not only the beauty of total devotion but also the melancholy reality of jazz's decline as a mass cultural force. 

four stars 

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

by Philip K. Dick

In a near-future dystopian America (the impossibly far-flung year of 1988!) ruled by a brutal police network, civil liberties have collapsed, prisoners go to forced labor camps, students are criminals and colleges besieged, minorities have been all but exterminated, and identification is everything. (Sounds sadly familiar, actually.) The story follows Jason Taverner, a famous and beloved TV talk show host and singer. After an attack by a disgruntled ex, he wakes up to find that no one knows who he is. He has no ID, his show never aired, he doesn't exist in the files, and not even his friends remember him. Taverner goes underground to piece together what's happened, and the novel spins out into a surreal, psychological journey involving shifting realities, drug-induced revelations, strange coincidences, and the growing suspicion that something metaphysical is at play.

This is familiar ground for PKD in a few ways: the paranoiac who happens to be correct about his paranoia, the drug use, the uneasy sense of being unmoored from reality, the psycho-babble exposition, the futuristic gadgets side by side with vinyl LPs and phone booths. The book's main hook, the terror of waking up in a universe where one doesn't exist, is intriguing. And there's a lot of tense exploration of identity and power. You can feel Dick’s fear of authoritarianism baked into every scene, especially the ones involving the brutal, manipulative cops. But he also can write with real emotional vulnerability. There are sections about grief and loss that don't really jibe with the novel's whole vibe, but are weirdly tender and you get the sense that Dick is grappling with what it means to be known, to be loved, to exist at all. As with a lot of Dick's work, it gets messy. The plot spirals and loses momentum, and there are strange narrative turns that distract from the overall story arc. It's not exactly an enduring SF classic, but it's not a self-indulgent oddity either, which some Dick stories are. It's emotionally resonant and succeeds at creating a suspenseful, tense world ruled by fear of authority. Definitely worth reading, especially if you're into cerebral, reality-questioning science fiction; just be prepared for some druggy meandering.  

four stars 

I'm Down

by Mishna Wolff

A memoir of the author's childhood up to about the age of 14. She is the white daughter of European-white parents, but her father apparently wanted to be close to black culture, so lived in a black neighborhood, had black friends, played dominoes, listened to soul music, and had black girlfriends. At school, Wolff is mocked for being white and clueless, but later on she scores highly on some aptitude tests and is moved to a private school with rich, white students, who find her mannerisms a little strange, Through it all, Wolff must deal with her father, who comes across in the memoir as a loving but hard-ass loser who can’t finish projects or hold down a job. When he marries a girl only ten years older than Mishna, the stepmother demands Mishna get a job at the age of 14, despite her maintaining a 4.0 at school and being involved in several extracurriculars.

I picked up this book because I thought it might have something interesting to say about race in America, how Wolff was too white for the black kids and too black for the white kids, but it only very briefly touches on race. Why was her father so interested in a culture that wasn’t his own? What kinds of cultural barriers were erected by her living in the neighborhood? These questions aren't answered or even addressed. Is race a huge factor in her social standing? Not really, she makes friends in both schools with no more trouble than most quiet, introspective kids. It is a funny memoir in parts, but in other parts I had to put it down briefly, the demands her father and stepmother putting on her so hostile as to edge on to emotional abuse. This isn't a book about race or culture; it's the memoir of a girl living in a poor neighborhood, who went to a rich school. It's told in an episodic manner, with the stories not building on each other or leading to any real insights. It certainly must also be at least a little fictionalized, as her lengthy conversations at the ages of 10-14 can’t be all that accurately recorded years later. 

Crook Manifesto

by Colson Whitehead

2023

A tryptich of tales of crime and corruption in Harlem, from 1971 to 1976. Ray Carney, a former fence now a successful furniture salesman, is dragged reluctantly back into the life when a bent cop from his crook days comes asking for favors, and gets quite forceful about it. Two years later, a firebug acquaintance of Carney's hires Pepper, a taciturn muscle for hire, to watch over the Blaxpoitation movie he's making, and when the movie's star goes missing, Pepper goes looking for her, hitting the streets in his own unrelenting way until he gets the attention of an aging crime boss. Then, in 1976, amid the bicentennial fanfare that rings so hollow in Harlem, Carney hires Pepper to look into an arson which hurt one of his tenants, and they end up uncovering a wide and nasty network of corruption that puts them both in danger.

Whitehead's range as a writer is extraordinary. During the reading of this novel I occasionally imagined I was reading S.A. Cosby and not the erudite, literary prose master of The Intuitionist and John Henry Days. He's a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, so it's no surprise that he can inhabit a crime writer's world with ease. I did not know when I began this book that it is a sequel seven years after Harlem Shuffle, also about Ray Carney, which I have not read, but this novel is easily enjoyed on its own. The capers are crackling with raw noir energy, the Harlem is populated with a vast assortment of crooked characters with nicknames and idiosyncratic predilections, even those who show up in name only, and the drama and suspense come in unnerving bursts. There's plenty of sly humor among the seedy criminality, as well: "the flamboyant quotient in Harlem was at a record high these days, thanks to manufacturing innovation in the synthetic-material sector, new liberal opinions vis-à-vis the hues question, and the courageousness of the younger generation." But it's more than just a crime novel leavened with black humor, of course; a writer as talented as Whitehead wouldn't be satisfied with that. It's also an examination of power and race in America; in the background of the skull-cracking and gunplay there are rumblings of disquiet at the injustice and power differentials that Harlem, and America, are built on.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

by Susan Cain

This readable and insightful book combines scientific research, historical analysis, and personal anecdotes to make a strong case for recognizing, accepting, and nurturing the quieter, or introverted, personalities among us. Cain cites, among dozens of others, Jerome Kagan's studies on temperament, which show how introverted and extroverted traits are biologically rooted in sensitivity to stimuli, and Anders Ericsson's research on expertise and deliberate practice, which emphasizes the importance of sustained, focused, and — most importantly, for this purpose — isolated effort in achieving mastery in any field. Cain highlights this work to counter the myth that extroverted traits like charisma and social dominance are essential for success. She argues that introverts are not anti-social at all, but differently social, and shows how both introverts and extroverts seek out and are supported by different external conditions (in her metaphor, introverts, like orchids, thrive under specific, supportive conditions but falter in the wrong environments). She also points to historical figures such as Rosa Parks and Mahatma Gandhi as examples of introverts who changed the world, emphasizing the power of quiet strength.

I liked this book's clear, firm messaging. Building off the psychological and sociological studies, Cain has advice for work leaders, parents, and teachers. She advises organizations to rethink open-plan offices and team brainstorming sessions, as these often stifle introverts' creativity. She stresses the importance of creating spaces where independent and solo thinking is valued, citing, for example, Steve Wozniak's hours of isolated work in making the home PC. Parents are encouraged to respect their introverted children’s natural tendencies, avoiding over-scheduling and teaching them that their quieter ways are a strength rather than a flaw. For educators, Cain emphasizes the need to avoid bias toward extroverted students in classrooms. I myself have definitely been guilty of advising children to "talk more in class" without trying to reframe any biases. Why see the quiet kid as shy, someone who needs to break out of their comfort zone? Yes, they need to engage in the world, but why not first value their wisdom in analyzing a situation, being reflective, not just leaping in? This is an essential shift in outlook for anyone who wants to nurture confidence in young children. Overall, this book is an inspiring call to embrace the full spectrum of human temperaments, offering practical strategies to empower introverts and build more inclusive environments in homes, schools, and workplaces. 

 four stars

On Beauty

by Zadie Smith
2005

In the college town of Wellington, Massachusetts, two academic families, the Belseys and the Kippses, are ideological and personal opposites whose lives become deeply intertwined. Howard Belsey is a politically liberal professor of art at Wellington College, a white Englishman married to an African-American woman. Their three children — Jerome, Zora, and Levi — grapple with their own identities and conflicts in the face of their parents' tumultuous marriage. Howard, an atheist and iconoclast, has not published recently, and brings chaos to his marriage with infidelity and his outlook which rejects the important or sacred; he seems not at home in the world.  In contrast, Monty Kipps, a British-Caribbean art historian, is conservative, confident, larger than life, popular, and successful.  When the oldest son, Jerome Belsey, becomes romantically involved with Monty's daughter, Victoria, an awkward entanglement of personal, political, and professional conflicts is set in motion. As the story unfolds, and minor characters flit in and out of the families' orbit, the characters confront themes of race, privilege, identity, and fidelity while struggling to reconcile their ideals with the messy realities of life.

The novel draws heavily on its academic setting, portraying the complexities of campus politics, ideological divisions, and personal hypocrisies. It's densely layered yet is a smooth, alluring read, has a mordant wit, and the prose style is beautiful.  It won the Orange Prize, was nominated for the Booker, and ended up on countless Best of the Year lists.  Smith acknowledges an explicit comparison to E.M. Forster's Howard's End in both its plot and its concern with human relationships, but I haven't read that novel, so perhaps I'm missing something.  I very much enjoyed reading it, and I think Smith is an excellent communicator of complex subjects.  I liked especially the critiques of intellectualism's failings regarding the hard realities of the world, and the nuanced depiction of race, especially Kiki's experiences as a non-academic black woman in a white man's academic world.  I was put off, somewhat, by the overstuffed narrative, with its many subplots and secondary characters vying for attention.  I am also the type of reader who seeks some form of closure to be fully satisfied, and this novel, essentially a slice of life, albeit a complex one, begins in media res and ends with all possibilities open.  In sum, this is a masterfully-written work that I enjoyed reading, but upon completing it, I felt a bit let down, as if I'd had a whirlwind dance with someone I can now no longer find.

four stars

Nod

by Adrian Barnes

2012

One day, without explanation, everyone on Earth loses the ability to sleep. Everyone, that is, except a select few, perhaps one in a thousand, who still can recharge their bodies and minds. Paul, a writer of books on etymology, is one such lucky soul. Tanya, his girlfriend, is not. In a maximum of four weeks, the Awakened will die, their bodies and brains taxed to the maximum. But before that happens, civilization will collapse and millions of people who start to get very desperate, erratic, and insane. Paul finds that his latest, unpublished work, Nod, has fallen into the hands of a charismatic nutcase who leads a band of followers, and he tries to navigate a tricky line between placating the horde who see him as a prophet and saying the wrong thing and being martyred by madmen. And then there's the tricky problem of the children he wants to save...

This is a wonderfully eerie apocalyptic nightmare scenario. It's such a simple idea, but so open to horrible possibilities. A world of brainless zombies is one thing; a world of cunning, crazed, sleep-deprived iconoclasts, jealous and suspicious of your ability to sleep, is something rather more frightening. At least you know where you stand with zombies. The book is a quick read, with a taut, heavy atmosphere of dread, and depictions of real cruelty, leavened slightly by Paul's expounding on interesting old words and ruminations about what life, in the regular old world, was really about. Barnes isn't interested in "hard science fiction" ideas about what in reality cause such a doomsday scenario or why some might be unaffected; this is more in the way of speculative apocalyptic horror with an faintly optimistic outlook. Sadly, Barnes died of a rare cancer right after publishing this book, so we'll never know what other gems he might have written. 

four stars

The Ministry of Time

by Kaliane Bradley

2024

In a near-future London, the protagonist (who is never named) takes on a government job about which she is told nothing. It turns out that the UK has discovered the secret of time travel (from the past to the future only), and our protagonist is hired to be a "bridge" to the present for her charge, a man from the Navy presumed dead in 1847. This is real-life Commander Graham Gore, who perished in the infamous Franklin expedition. Along with the other bridges and time-displaced persons she teaches her expat about such soul-shaking Spotify, the looser morals of the age, and the end of the British Empire. Gore takes it all calmly, considering, and soon he and the bridge (called "little cat" as a pet name by Gore) find themselves falling in love. But there are a lot of secrets that Little Cat is yet to discover about the Ministry; clearly, the government has an ulterior motive in using time travel, and soon she and Gore are in grave danger.

I enjoyed how the novel explores the consequences of defying history, and I loved the characters from diverse eras, especially the spunky 17th century farm girl and the quiet, guilt-ridden homosexual from 1916. Key themes include colonialism (the author is of Cambodian descent, and her characters have diverse backgrounds and perspectives), climate change, generational trauma, and complex identities, all handled with a mix of historical realism and humor. All good so far. However, I personally am not into romance novels at all, and this is easily a romance novel as much as a science fiction or speculative novel. I found this subplot frankly boring. Then, too, I am never patient with characters who don't see the obvious; when, for example, Little Cat hears about an obviously futuristic weapon in the Ministry, she dismisses it utterly as a mistake, despite the fact that, well, she just learned that time travel is possible, right? I felt as though the book never really got itself fully together; I liked how Gore adapted to the present, but the secrets and subplots that followed felt rushed and unsatisfying to me. The book was overlong, tedious in its pacing in some parts, and rushed in others. Alternating chapters which tell what happened to Gore in the past are not particularly interesting and have no bearing on how he acts or thinks in the present. And, as a minor gripe, the author relies way too much on metaphors, some rather silly. A good editor probably could have made this book more readable, but as it is, I was disappointed and often put it down out of boredom.

Yellowface

by R.F. Kuang

June Hayward, a struggling white author whose career has stalled after the lackluster performance of her debut novel, is frenemies with Athena Liu, a successful and photogenic Chinese American writer, whose books hit the bestseller lists with regularity. One night, over drinks, Hayward watches Athena die in a freak accident. Impulsively, she grabs an unfinished manuscript she sees on the desk (with a few other items), and decides to edit it, massage the wording, and claim it as her own. Changing her name to the more exotic "Juniper Song" is the cherry on the cultural appropriation cake. At first, all goes better than Hayward's wildest dreams, as the book — a historical novel about Chinese laborers in World War I — takes off as a critical and commercial darling. But, of course, oh what tangled webs we weave and all that; soon June faces an acid reception from the Asian writing community, accusations of cultural appropriation and plagiarism, leading to intense backlash from the literary community, social media, and — somewhat dubiously —even Athena's apparent literal ghost, which seems to haunt her every move. As the pressure mounts, June grapples with guilt, paranoia, and the ethical implications of her deceit.

I was caught up in this story very early on. It's an enthralling, sharp, and even unsettling exploration of the ethical dilemmas surrounding cultural appropriation, identity, and the politics of the publishing industry. Kuang deftly tackles these complex issues with a provocative array of viewpoints and not a little black humor. The novel is also a thrilling story, as pulse-pounding in its way as an action thriller, as we wait to see what will befall Hayward, who as the novel progresses seems to become more and more defensive of her actions. I found her inner monologue honest and nuanced, and while I don't think she can be called a sympathetic narrator, at times I couldn't help hoping she'd land on her feet. I very much admire Kuang's masterful description of the internal conflict, putting on display the ambition, envy, desperation, terror, and defiance that comes from such an ugly act of theft. As for the ending, I found it rather unlikely, a bit cartoonish, and somewhat jarring, not matching the realism of the rest of the novel. However, overall this is a fantastic jeremiad of a novel, scathing and insightful, shedding light on the biases and power dynamics that shape which voices are heard and which are marginalized. 

four stars 

The Thursday Murder Club

by Richard Osman

Joyce, a recent resident of an upscale retirement home, is invited to join the Thursday Murder Club, a group of three other pensioners. Elizabeth, a woman whose past hints at secret service work, Ron, a former union leader, and Ibrahim, a retired psychiatrist, like to go over police cold cases as a hobby. When the local greedy yuppie land developer's right hand man turns up dead, the four unlikely but still sharp amateur detectives are excited to take on a current case. Managing to get into the reluctant good graces of the actual police investigating the case, they make good progress, but when more bodies start turning up, things get really complicated.

This debut mystery captivated me instantly. It's witty, fast-paced, full of twists and turns and red herrings, and had a large cast of endearing characters with their own quirks and secrets. Extremely clever, genuinely funny, and even poignant at times, when it discusses loss, friendship or death. The authorial choice to alternate between one first-person narrator (Joyce) and a third-person narrator that keeps things teasingly ambiguous is original and fun. The characters are vivid and the plot is dizzying. It just might be a five-star book, but I ding it one star for "cheating" the reader by using previously unknown information to reveal one of the mysteries (oh yes, there's more than one whodunit here). I may say this a lot, but I really do want to read more of this sly, moving, lively series. 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

by Tom Stoppard

1966

What happens to minor characters when they're not on stage in a drama? Well, for the hapless Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of "Hamlet," they're stuck in a theatrical limbo, an empty stage on which they wonder what their purpose is. Sure of nothing, not even their names, with only fragments of memory as to their task of delivering Hamlet to England, they encounter the play's dramatists, who give them only cryptic answers, and only every now and then the main characters of "Hamlet," who sweep past them, engrossed in their own roles.

It's a little bit "Waiting For Godot," a little bit "Six Characters in Search of an Author," and a little bit "No Exit." Ros. and Guild. have, for the preponderance of the play, only themselves to talk to, annoy, console, and baffle in turn, and in this case it does turn out that hell is other people. But this play is brilliant in its own right, with its meta-textural humor, surrealism, and frank contemplation of death. I'll tell you one thing, though. Death is not being on a boat. Possibly, however, at times it is not-being on a boat. 

five stars

The High Window

by Raymond Chandler

1942

In the third Philip Marlowe book, a bilious, dipsomaniac widow hires the sleuth to track down a very rare and valuable coin, which she believes has been stolen by her estranged daughter-in-law. He soon finds out that the job includes being accosted by the woman's ineffectual son, who still loves his wife, and by her timorous, neurotic secretary, for their own reasons. There's even another detective on the case, a cheerful but clumsy fellow, and two murders later Marlowe is checking in with the criminal classes to see what they have to say. He gets along with them better than he does the widow.

This is an astonishing feat of writing. These books aren't whodunits in the traditional sense; they aren't even noir, really. Marlowe is a genre unto itself, with original and self-assured writing that constructs a labyrinthine plot, but isn't really about the plot at all. A man confesses to a murder he didn't commit; later he'll recant and the murder will go cold and unsolved. Marlowe helps a lady in distress as far as he can. He also maybe helps another fellow get away with murder. Maybe the victim deserved it. Who's to say? Not Marlowe. "The white moonlight was cold and clear, like the justice we dream of but don't find." 

five stars

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

by Christopher McDougall

The author, a sportswriter who runs but finds himself constantly injured, goes to several sports doctors to find the reason why. They tell him the same thing: after a certain age and at a certain weight, running is bad for your body, period. Unsatisfied with this bad news, he seeks answers in other areas, eventually stumbling upon a Mexican desert tribe called the Tarahumara, who run hundreds of miles a week as a daily routine, even into late middle age, and seem to never get injured. This discovery leads to McDougall hearing of a mysterious American called Caballo Blanco who lives among these people and has adopted their ways and diet. Once an article about this man is published, it sparks a new interest in the largely hidden and unknown Tarahumara in several of ultra-marathoning's top figures. Eventually, a race is set up between the bravest of American athletes and the top Tarahumara runners, a race filled with drama and surprises, which no one except the participants and the few townsfolk near the race area ever see.

The story is indeed dramatic, but the lily is gilded by the author's style. It is written in a very sensationalist tone: everything is the best, the most nutritious superfood, the most dangerous remote location, the highest town, the most capable humans, the toughest. McDougall is definitely not a just-the-facts type of writer. Every meeting has to be earth shaking, every character has to be larger than life. However, the book has everything, and it has it in copious detail. There is a cast of extremely quirky characters, there is serious medical data on the benefits of running barefoot, there’s criticism of the Nike sneaker industry for deliberately perpetuating bad running, there is the personal journey and breakthrough that the author goes through (along with practical step-by-step plan which the reader can copy to improve his or her running), there is the trove of historical tidbits and fascinating anecdotes about the limits of human endurance, and of course there’s the stars of the show, the Tarahumara themselves and their fascinating way of life and how it makes them such amazing athletes. Plus some American super-athletes. And a lot of data about the benefits of a vegetarian diet. Even evolutionary biology. Quite a lot. And thus we come to the raison d'etre of the book: according to the evidence McDougall cites, humans are evolutionarily created to run. We have the right ligaments, buttocks, and feet to run, and if we don't run, we are destroying ourselves with heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. It's a tall order. But McDougall seems to have interviewed everyone remotely connected with the race, or runs great distances, or the science of running, or the running tribes, and the book is both marvelously entertaining and informative from beginning to end. It gets a little corny and quasi mystical near the end when the race reaches a climax, but chalk that up to a runner's high. I don’t have the knowledge to debate the veracity or debunk or support some of the wilder claims, and the author is prone to depict detailed visuals and conversations for which he was not present. That said, taken at its face value it is a superb book. 

five stars

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of Their Lost World

by Steve Brusatte

The author, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh, covers hundreds of millions of years of biological history, from the pre-Cambrian to the latest Cretaceous (a fun phrase to say, by the way), explaining in lucid prose the story of the dinosaurs. Brusatte writes with the infectious giddiness of the young geek he still is; his informative chapter on T. Rex in particular is breathless in admiration for "the king." There's almost too much history and discovery for Brusatte to cover, so wide is his scope and excitement. He tells in vivid detail about the two great extinction events (the second, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, is confirmed in his account by a layer in the ancient rock of iridium that had to come from outer space). He explains how the ponderous sauropods grew so huge (fast growth, light bones, and most interestingly their birdlike lungs, which allowed them to take in both oxygen on inhalation and exhalation). He discusses the unfortunate and bizarre episode known as the "Bone Wars," in which eccentric 19th-century natural scientists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marshand (they had such great names back then) let their rivalry for glory overcome their desire for scientific advancement. Brusatte also makes clear the now accepted theory that birds are dinosaurs.

Considering the vastness of the subject and the amount of explanation required to lay everything out for the layman (including the required background knowledge on Pangaea, climate change, evolutionary adaption), this is a brilliantly written book. Sometimes Brusatte's excitable authorial voice made me wish he would slow down and lay things out a bit more slowly. He also spends valuable page time on very brief biographies of some of the paleontologists across China, Eastern Europe, and America whom Brusatte admires and works with – all fine people, I am sure, but I really don't care if one affects dandy clothes and listens to the Doors or if another loves to dance at techno clubs. I also would have liked a more in-depth look into the best guess on why only bird-dinosaurs survived the asteroid and not a single other true dinosaur species, while reptiles and mammals did. Still, these are minor complaints; Brusatte's book is probably the best complete overview of what the world of the dinosaurs was like.