I read it because of the NPR interview. And it was rather funny, though it also made me feel really cynical about publishing. The story centers around one Peter Tarslaw. When Pete learns that his college girlfriend is getting married, he decides to become a famous novelist to embarrass her at her wedding and never have to work again. To do this, he studies up on what sorts of things sell, and writes a novel with as many of the elements as possible: murder, road trips, wise old people, unexpected love, tornadoes, and more.

Here and there is a turn of phrase which made me chuckle. The "bestsellers" list he makes up sounds like a real one, only perhaps a little more overblown. I feel like I've read a lot of them. Some of the authors are made-up, but he does here and there mention a real one. It sounds like a completely cynical book, but towards the end, Pete has the sort of small epiphany he earlier derided serious novelists for writing about. On the way, though, there's a lot of snark.

I'm trying to decide whether I actually liked this or not. I'll have to think on it some more.

My friend Liz lent this to me on Saturday, and by the end of Sunday I was done. It's fast and it's gripping. Susan Wicklund, her career path shaped by a terrible abortion experience in 1976, began medical school in 1980 as a single mom, and eventually became an abortion provider. She traveled around the northern Midwest, the target of protesters, harassment, death threats, etc. They barricaded her driveway; they terrorized her daughter; they would lie in wait for her at airports and outside clinics.

Through all this shines Wicklund's obvious love for her work and for her patients. Having been subjected to an abortion where the doctors and nurses treated her like a piece of meat (she regrets the circumstances but not the abortion itself), she was always careful to include patients in their procedures, to make sure they absolutely wanted the abortion and were making a free choice, and that they knew what was happening at all times. She sounds like the gold standard of patient care, and I hope and wish that all providers treat their patients the way she does.

Abortion is a big issue at the moment (as if it ever stopped being one), and it seems clear to me that there's a long fight ahead to keep abortion legal. In many parts of the US it is extremely difficult to obtain one between the lack of providers and the various legal rigmaroles, and even in liberal Massachusetts, where the clinics have 30-foot safe zones around their entrances, parental notification laws are still in effect.

This was an excellent book for the human face of abortion--the providers, the patients, Wicklund's love and care even at the expense of nurturing her own family. It was clear that although she regrets not being there for her daughter and husband (who she married after graduating from medical school), if there hadn't been such a dearth of providers she wouldn't have had to work so much. And the reason for that is obvious--the extreme tactics of the antis, many of whom are dangerous extremists willing to murder people for their beliefs. Only a very strong, courageous person could be an abortion provider in this day and age.

Slavomir Rawicz was a cavalry officer in the Polish army when Germany invaded. Though he was from eastern Poland, he fought on the Western front against Germany. However, after the Soviets "liberated" Poland, they arrested him as a spy even though he denied ever crossing the border into Russia, at least since he was a teenager. After torturing him for months, the Soviets convicted Rawicz and sent him to a gulag in Siberia, with about 5,000 other political prisoners--all men, and mostly Poles, with some Lithuanians, Finns, Latvians, and members of other nationalities. After being transported packed into train cars, the prisoners were shackled to chains and forced to march hundreds of miles into the Siberian wilderness, ending up north of Lake Baikal. His life for the next few months was just as described in Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Only twenty-five years old, Rawicz could not stand the thought of his twenty-five year sentence. He began thinking of escape not long after arriving at the prison camp, in the brutal Siberian winter. Secretly he got together a small band of intrepid men and one night they all seven escaped, running south. South was probably the one direction their pursuers wouldn't think to look for them, because that way lay only more Siberia, Mongolia, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, and the Himalayas. What followed was a grueling trek over some of the most hostile terrain in the world. It's unbelievable that they made it all the way to India, a distance of about 4,000 miles, and all on foot, but Rawicz lived to tell the tale.

In the desert, they were many days without water, longer than I'd have thought humans could survive. At one point he says they were 12 days without water, and they had nothing to carry it in. Perhaps his thinking was a bit muddled---they didn't really have any way to keep track of the days. On the other hand, people have managed some pretty extraordinary feats, so perhaps he is correct. This book is an amazing story; they even saw some Yeti in the Himalayas. I want to believe it, so I'm going to take him at his word.

It begins with dawn, the sun rising over the ancient city of Rome, in the year 115 CE--the reign of Trajan. Angela takes the reader on a tour of ancient Rome, poking into the houses of the wealthy and the poor, investigating the lives of slaves and gladiators. What do Romans eat? What do they wear? How do they bathe? Angelo answers all these questions and more.

This is social history at ground level. You'll find very little about great deeds and battles here. The basics of home construction, a little history of the Colosseum, the ingredients of ancient lipstick, that's the sort of thing this book includes. I didn't want it to end.

Under the title it reads "Inspired by 21 illustrations by Gustave Dore." This is an odd little book...Moers has taken these beautiful illustrations and written a story about a boy named Gustave, who wants to be an artist when he grows up. Gustave goes on a crazy adventure, where he meets naked damsels, monsters, a talking horse, Death, and various allegorical creatures like Anxiety, Time, and the sciences. It almost seems like a writing exercise, though. A teacher could give the student some pictures, and tell them to write a story about them. It wouldn't be as good as Moers' writing, but it would be the same sort of thing. It was a quick read and it was interesting, but no great shakes.</style>

November, and I'm only on book 67. This is sad, but to be expected since I've been working two jobs all year. There are so many awesome books out there, and I want to read as many of them as I can!

Empire of Ivory sends Laurence and Temeraire off on another desperate mission, where they learn that all is not as it seems in the heart of Africa, and learn about more modes of human-dragon interaction. I love how in this series colonialism is well-nigh impossible when the colonized people have dragons as well. They do mention the "colonials" in North America (who by this time have won their independence), so I hope she gets to explain why that colony worked while the Incas are still a powerful civilization and other attempts at colonization in other places have met with disaster. I think this was the most exciting book yet, maybe because it didn't have as much fighting in it as the others, but more adventure.

Victory of Eagles got me really sad for the dragons. It seems like dragons mostly fight for their countries because their captains do, and even though the dragons are sentient they don't really question it much, apart from Temeraire and some of those he has influenced. Mostly Temeraire uses his influence to get dragons to fight rather than not fight, anyway. Of course, thinking about this brought home the fact that all soldiers are basically fighting for their own country because that's where they happened to be born. So they go off and die all for an accident of birth. This is true in reality as well as in books...This book has a lot of battles, and seems to be a section of "dark night of the soul" for Laurence. I hope it gets more cheerful in the following books.

The saga of Laurence and Temeraire continues, as the pair are given a puzzling mission and must set out overland from China to Turkey, having adventures along the way. More swashbuckling and dragons ensues. Later, the Napoleonic War comes back into view, and I wish I knew more about the real history of it. When did Napoleon start to contract? Was it not until the Russian campaign in 1812? It's still 1807 in this book I think, so they have a long way to go. Plus, the dragons could really change things, so I don't know what's going to happen in the long run.

I'm fascinated how the relationships between humans and dragons develop here. Laurence and Temeraire get into fights in this book, and it's almost the way romantic partners interact. I'm sure this is deliberate; Laurence would have a hard time getting married, not only because it would be a hard life for his wife, but because Temeraire is his first love, and this is true of all the aviators. I love how when he talks to Temeraire he calls him "my dear."

For the second book in the series, the Chinese have realized that their egg went astray, and they want Temeraire back! Laurence the human and Temeraire the dragon must struggle not to be separated, and they embark on a freakin' long voyage together. On the way, Temeraire learns about different systems of dragon treatment and becomes resolved to improve the lot of dragons back in England.

Here is where this really diverges from McCaffrey: the dragons really are enslaved, and at least one realizes it. I don't know what will happen when Temeraire begins trying to start a movement, but in McCaffrey, I can't remember dragons ever questioning their role in life. They do what they were bred to do and even though they are sentient, they don't seem to think much about what they want to do. I guess the pressing concern of Thread is enough to fill their minds, but I love how dragons in these books are thoughtful and questioning, or at least Temeraire is. He does seem to be the smartest dragon around, but it's hard for anyone to question when they don't know different ways are possible.

I have already started the next book, Black Powder War. I love how fast these go - it makes me feel like I'm getting somewhere. 

When naval captain William Laurence finds a dragon egg in a newly captured French frigate, his life is suddenly and irrevocably changed. In Novik's re-imagined past, most countries have dragons and use them as a sort of air-force. In 1805 England is menaced by Napoleon, and Laurence will not shirk his duty to protect his country, though now it will be on the back of a dragon instead of a ship.

Novik's writing is engaging and the story is thrilling. I suppose one could consider this a cross between The Dragonriders of Pern and Master and Commander, but I read the Dragonriders books so long ago, I don't remember them clearly. These dragons don't have a mystical psychic link with their riders, but they do bond with one person, sometimes to their own detriment as the person may not necessarily be as attached to them.

This book was a fun read, though I've been debating with myself whether to recommend them to my neice. There are some fairly graphic battle scenes, where people and dragons are hurt and sometimes killed. Also, the dragons are mostly fed by letting them chase down cows or sheep, which totally makes sense but can make for somewhat gruesome reading, and my neice is sensitive. On the other hand, she is a big McCaffrey fan. I will have to think on it some more.

My first "adult" book by Miéville is set in a city called New Crobuzon, the map of which looks a suspiciously like London. It seems to be set on Earth, but in a far future time, perhaps. New Crobuzon is a police state, where various races of sentient beings live in uneasy semi-peace. Isaac der Grimnebulin is a rogue scientist, performing his experiments in a warehouse space he shares with two other scientists, a pet badger, and a cleaning construct. His secret lover is Lin, a member of the khepri race, who have human bodies and insect heads. Into Isaac's lab one day asks a client with a special request - and Isaac's actions begin a chain of events that will tear apart the city and Isaac's own life.

This was a very complicated novel, with numerious minor characters, and various sections of the city are described. I got the sense that Mieville was trying to create depth with his added details, much like Tolkien does by mentioning old legends and minor characters who are never heard from again. However, from Mieville it was a bit overloading. I had a hard time keeping everything straight in my mind. On the other hand, I appreciated the imaginativeness of it all - the glass dome where the cactus people live; the area called Bones, which is dominated by the rib cage of some ancient massive beast. I did care about the characters, about Lin and Isaac, and the others, and I liked that the ending was very dark and morally ambiguous.

While visiting Pandemonium a few weeks back, purchased The City of Dreaming Books on impulse, drawn in by the title and the cover: bookshelves with a little one-eyed creature peering through. Being German, it immediately reminded me of The Neverending Story, though it's not that similar except for being a fantasy novel involving books.

The book itself is the memoir of Optimus Yarnspinner, a Lindworm (a dinosaur) from Lindholm Castle where everyone is an author. Young 77-year-old Yarnspinner, searching for the writer of a mysterious manuscript, travels to Bookholm where below the city lie millions of books in the endless catacombs. After a few adventures in the city, he finds himself below and everything grows even more fantastical. Moers's imagination is prodigious, creating new kinds of books, monsters, and disasters. I love the idea of catacombs filled with books that grow progressively older as one travels further from the surface.

I don't want to spoil it, and I still recommend the book heartily, but I didn't love the way it ended.

This was meant to be part of the last combined post, but I didn't remember to put it in. Feeling the need for some serious comfort reading last week, I cracked open my new copy of L'Engle's third Time book. As a young teen, I read it so many times that the copy I had wore out, and I finally had bought a new one at Pandemonium Books & Games (yay local business!). It has a lovely cover with a unicorn hatching out of an egg.

I've read the Time Trilogy so many times that the Murrays feel like my literary family. Their old New England farmhouse with Mrs. Murray's lab out in the old dairy, the twins' vegetable garden, the stone wall, the star-watching rock...they are part of my imagination too. I think I'm getting more soppy as I get older, because I cried more than before at the end of this reading. No objectivity here at all; the Time Trilogy is the best YA series ever written (and I know it's really the Time Quartet, but I discount Many Waters).

I’ve gotten behind again, and I want to get through the last few because I’m reading one now that will need writing about while it’s fresh in my mind. So here we go:

56. King Rat by China Miéville. This was Miéville’s first book, and I think it shows. I checked it out of the library on the strength of the first book of his I read, Un Lun Dun. Now, Un Lun Dun was YA fiction, and honestly one of the best YA novels I’ve read in a long time. King Rat, while also urban fantasy, was much darker and grosser. The story is thus: a young man named Saul returns home to find his father dead, and himself the primary suspect for the murder. He subsequently discovers that he is actually half rat. King Rat, his new mentor, teaches him to be a rat, which includes very disgusting passages about eating garbage and traversing sewers. Unfortunately, King Rat and his colleagues Loplop the King of Birds and Anansi the King of Spiders (thus reminding me strongly of Gaiman’s books, though I think this came first) are threatened by an age-old enemy who only Saul can hope to face. I enjoyed the novel but found it somewhat limited in scope. I wanted all the characters to be a bit more well-rounded, but it was well-imagined and very dark and disturbing in places.

57. The Changeling of Finnistuath by Kate Horsley. When I saw this in the library, I thought, “A girl raised as a boy?! Sign me up!” I love anything to do with cross-dressing and gender-bending. However, it wasn’t that good. It’s medieval Ireland and baby girl is born to a woman whose husband swears he will kill the next child if it isn’t a boy. To save her baby, the mother gives her baby a boy’s name and raises her as a son. The child herself isn’t aware of the switch until puberty, though she seems to transition rather easily into being a girl. Unfortunately I just didn’t think the story was all that gripping and the writing was mediocre.

58. Tomorrow’s World by Davie Henderson. I’ve read dystopic novels before, of course, but this one seemed very disturbingly possible. Humankind’s greed and short-sightedness have led to ecological disaster, and now humans have to live in havens. Electricity and food are limited, and the outside air must be heavily filtered to make it breathable. Living outside would kill a person in a matter of weeks. Even in Scotland, where the novel takes place, the outside heat is uncomfortable year-round. People are divided between “Names” and “Numbers,” the latter of whom are genetically engineered because numerous birth defects and sterility caused by pollution have jeopardized the continuation of the human race. It might have been bleak and boring were it not for the murder mystery. I enjoyed this book and liked the characters, especially Paula, the Number who works with the protagonist Travis. Unfortunately the ending was kind of dippy, but I still think this book is worth reading.

Rupert Isaacson's son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism at the age of three. As his parents watched, he seemed to slip further and further into himself. Every overwhelming stimulus was met with a screaming tantrum; he could not be potty-trained; he seemed indifferent to other children. Rupert and his wife, Kristin, seemed to lose their lives into caring for him since Rowan could not be apart from both his parents and no babysitters could manage him. Life for the parents of an autistic child is exhausting. As time passed, the parents found two things that seemed to help. Rupert, who was a travel writer and worked with the Bushmen on human rights, took Rowan to a gathering of shamans in California, and noticed that Rowan seemed to improve a bit - becoming able to speak lucidly and interact with people, although the gains went away afterwards. The parents also noticed that Rowan had a direct line with animals, that the animals could sense as well, and horseback riding calmed him. Every day Rupert would take Rowan on long rides on a neighbor's horse who Rowan particularly connected with.

Because of these two things, the horseback riding and the shamans, Rupert determined to take Rowan to Mongolia, where they could combine the two. The trip happened when Rowan was almost six, and almost too big to share a saddle with his father. They had several ceremonies with various shamans in Mongolia, and rode into the wilderness to find the most powerful shaman, who was part of a reindeer-herding group in northern Mongolia.

Whether it was the shamans, the trip, or whatever, the experience apparently really helped Rowan. His symptoms grew a lot less, and though he is still autistic, he seems not to be imprisoned by his overwhelming feelings anymore. Isaacson, as a travel writer, did an excellent job describing the countryside of Mongolia and the journey they took, including the incredible frustration of dealing with Rowan, and the incredible joy when Rowan made any step to healing. I also appreciated that the parents don't want him to stop being autistic, because that is part of who he is, but they want him to be able to deal with life - to be able to take himself to the bathroom, and manage his feelings, and make friends.

Miss Conduct is the nom de plume of the Boston Globe's etiquette columnist, Robin Abrahams. I had read a few of her columns, because she is a friend of the fats. She's a very good writer. In this book Abrahams covers such universal etiquette-needing topics as health, entertaining, children, and pets. Basically her premise is that in a modern, diverse age, having good manners requires thought. She's not talking about high-falutin' things like which fork to use or how low to bow to the Sultan of Bhutan, but how to treat people with common courtesy. For example, people with disabilities are to be call that, and not "disabled person," and if you meet one who uses a mobility aid, never touch it without their permission, just as you'd never touch someone's body without their permission. It's more than just rules, though. Abrahams really encourages her readers to think.

She also addresses what many people complain is an empidemic of rudeness in our modern era. There may be no way to measure this (and every generation thinks the next one is incredibly rude), but if people are ruder now it's probably because our lives are so much more hectic. Also, she points out that this is the first time that courtesy has been expected to extend to everyone - including gay people, certain minorities, people with disabilities, etc. So some people may feel they are living in a more courteous era than before.

The Tea Rose was Donnelly's first offering in this series; this is the second. There may be more in the future, but I'm not sure I'll want to read them. This was another book whose action seemed to be propelled by the stupidity of its star-crossed lovers, who seem willing to assume the worst of each other despite their experience of the contrary. Because of that, they spend far more time apart than necessary.

It's 1900, and India Selwyn Jones is a passionate young doctor from a genteel family. The family wants nothing more than to get her to stop practicing medicine, marry well, and settle down. Freddie is a highborn but poor young man, a rising politician, who professes to love India but really just wants her family's money. Sid Malone is an underworld crime boss with a heart of gold. The doctoring parts were most interesting - India goes to work for a shady doctor among the poor of Whitechapel, where she tries to moralize and get them to eat porridge and broccoli, with predictable results. The book was long, and never boring, but the story was contrived.

In this book, Standage has written of the impact of food on the history of humanity. It's not so much about the food itself, but the way food has shaped our history, from the advent of agriculture, to the spice trade, to famines. Interestingly written, though Standage had decided it's ok to use words like "mankind" to refer to humanity (which in this day and age is indefensible).

He makes a case for GMO foods, which is that nearly everything we eat is genetically modified because it has been domesticated; the only major exception is fish, and to a lesser extent wild berries. Also, conventional agriculture allows us to feed far more people than organic agriculture can, unless we devote more land to farming, and although it causes pollution, techniques can be modified to minimize or even eliminate the pollution. I think I agree with that - humans need to eat, and if there's not enough food it won't be me (here in a rich country with well-stocked supermarkets and enough money to purchase food) who feels the pinch.

I've gotten behind in updating my livejournal, and I finished this over a week ago. It was about Napoleon's invasion of Russia, and the typhus epidemic that helped to turn the largest army in history into a straggling band of gaunt survivors. It was a little unfocused, because it seems that different historians have different ideas of what exactly it was that ruined Napoleon's chances, and no doubt there were a number of factors. I suppose the typhus had been previously overlooked. Military history not being a big interest of mine, all I previously knew of Napoleon's foray into Russia came from Eddie Izzard.

Before reading this book, I knew basically nothing of typhus, since it's somehow not as romantic as plague. That makes no sense; but I've never read a novel that features typhus - there are several about plage, notably Doomsday Book by Connie Willis and Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. Typhus is probably the only disease more deadly than plague, and it tends to flourish in cramped conditions like armies. It's probably won a number of wars.

The Illustrious Dead goes into the history of Napoleon's army, and of typhus, and tells the story of the Russian campaign in some detail, especially the battles. Like all battle accounts, these ones bored me (I always skip over Helm's Deep when reading The Lord of the RIngs). I was far more interested in reading about the soldiers and the disease, and the reactions of the Russians who went so far as to burn their own capital to the ground. I was also inspired to take a better listen to the 1812 Overture, since it is about this campaign, from the Russian point of view.

I spent several hours yesterday finishing this because I couldn't do anything else until it was done. Partly it was gripping, and partly I was incredibly irritated that I figured out what was going on halfway through, and the characters didn't figure it out until someone explained it to them. And I had all the information they did! Granted, they are in a stressful situation; maybe they're not thinking clearly, but OMG it is their lives on the line here! That would a a bit of incentive to think a little harder!

Clare drops numerous little clues that make the whole thing bleeding obvious, and stupid Clary (the main character) just doesn't get it. I'd rather have characters make logical leaps with less evidence (like Mulder used to do on a regular basis) then have them be mysteriously dense just so the story can keep going. So you don't want the characters to figure it out so early? Don't have so many obvious clues! In a story like this, a character should be able to go, "Oh gee, this person apparently dyed his hair using nonpermanent dye; maybe that means he's not who he says he is; and maybe that means he's EVIL!" But no, it's all, "oh, I wonder why his hair turned my fingernails black, oh well, I'm going to conveniently forget about that for now. Doo-de-doo." Argh!

I'm not sorry I read this series - I got a lot of entertainment out of it, but it was that sort of embarrassing entertainment that one gets from reading trashy fanfic. The characters are sexy, but you know it's kind of bad. Also, the story didn't end up being nearly as slashy as I'd hoped, although I didn't hope too hard since I knew Clare wasn't a slash writer.

The second book in the series, this one was a little more enjoyable than the first because it could skip a lot of exposition and go straight to the story. A very swashbuckling story, with betrayal, passion, and misunderstood teenagers.

While I was reading this book, I learned that the author got her start writing Harry Potter fanfiction, and suddenly I realized that it reads very much like fanfiction. None of the characters is exactly like Harry Potter characters, but there is a definite similarity of mood, and there are some obvious parallels, for example that the teenage characters are dealing with their parents' previous sins and problems, and that characters who seem good and true are mistrusted by grown-ups because of who their parents were or are. There's also a moment of serious fanfic cliche where the characters get into a scrape and the only way out is for two of them to kiss - which is so incredibly contrived that I was rolling my eyes. I do enjoy a lot of the characters, though - the paternal werewolf, the glam warlock, the villain who is totally a combo of Lucius Malfoy and Voldemort. Oh, did I say that?

Y'know, when I was in high school I was obsessed with the soap opera General Hospital, and I knew it was cheezy and ridiculous, but I had to keep watching to find out what happened. I feel a little that way with this series. I want to keep reading, and it's fulfilling some need for cheese and drama I have, but it's very silly at the same time. Well, ok, it's better than a soap opera, but it is a bit soapy, if you know what I mean. There's one more book, and it's on hold for me a the library right now.