Category Archives: Books

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

Whew, just finished “New Moon.” I thought it was never going to end. I was reading Sweetie’s copy in amongst the library books that kept coming in.

OK, I’m not the target market for this book and I know that many of my woman friends love this book but I have to tell you it is awful. If teenage girlhood consists of whining and sulking and you like reading hundreds of pages of whining and sulking then this book is for you. If you like reading books where things actually happen and the story actually has a drive to it then go read something else.

To be fair there is a great 25 page short story embedded in these 563 pages. Go see the movie. The movie is not bad.

I give this book half a star. If it weren’t for the 25 interesting pages, it wouldn’t get any stars. Shame on me for reading the dern thing.

Dogtown – Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town by Elyssa East

Dogtown is one funky little book. It is a non-fiction book about an inland area named Dogtown near the City of Gloucester, Massachusetts. The area was a village in the colonial era but was soon abandoned and has not been inhabited since. It is legally a commons area, owned and administered by the city, but it has been pretty much ignored. The area has inspired some famous artists (Marsden Hartley is the most famous) and poets but there has been some strange stuff including a very brutal murder. The book is ultimately about whether places in and of themselves can be evil.

It’s an interesting question. It seems that some places we find good or inspiring. The Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, Mesa Verde have all been described as great places. Why can there not be evil places. I don’t know. Back in my pipeline construction days there were some areas that just gave me the willys and there other areas I loved. While geocaching out in the boonies right on the Red River which is the Oklahoma – Texas border I found myself in an area that spooked the crap out of me. Researching it later I found that was a popular body dumping spot and there were allegations of satanic rituals carried out in a nearby Indian cemetery. I didn’t know any of this when I was at the site. I do know, I found the cache and got out of there as fast as I could.

Years ago, I was scouting a route for a pipeline in southwest Louisiana in a very remote swampy snaky area. I was going down a dirt road that kept getting worse and worse and came upon an area where there were a lot of shacks. The shacks looked like they had been relocated from somewhere else and just scattered randomly across a field. Some of them didn’t have doors or windows. It looked kind of abandoned. For some reason my pucker factor was pretty high. I came up on a group of about a dozen kids. They looked to be about three or four years old up to about 10. The thing was, none of them were wearing a stitch of clothing. They were totally naked, boys and girls both. They looked at me then started throwing dirt clods at the car. So I backed up quite a ways back to the main road.

I routed the pipeline clear around that area. I still wonder what the deal was.

Anyway, I don’t know why a guy in Oklahoma found a quirky history of a ghost town in Massachusetts so interesting except I am interested in the power and energy of places.

I give the book 2.5 stars out of 4. I liked it.

London Boulevard by Ken Bruen

I just got through reading London Boulevard by Ken Bruen. I started today about  2PM and finished at about 10:30 tonight. Its only 250 pages but I just couldn’t stop reading it.

It is a retelling of  the movie Sunset Boulevard but amped up, made more explicit, set in modern day London and given a few twists. The protagonist is not a movie writer, he is Mitchell, a small time but dangerous criminal just out of prison after a three year term of aggravated assault. The older lady is not Nora Desmond but Lillian Palmer a former star of the stage who has been waiting for the right vehicle for her return to stardom. She is tended to by her loyal butler Jordan.

I found the book to be fantastic and give it a rare four stars out of four. I’ll be checking out more of Ken Bruen’s books!

“Too Much Happiness” by Alice Munro

“Too Much Happiness” is Alice Munro’s latest book. It is a collection of short stories and it is marvelous.

This is the type of book that makes reading almost effortless. She is so smooth and compelling in her writing that I’m drawn in just a few pages and it doesn’t even seem like I’m reading.

The book is chilling, lots of secrets presented in ironic ways. The secrets stay secrets but the characters are forever changed by them.

If you like short stories read this book. I rate it 3.5 stars out of 4.

9 Dragons by Michael Connelly

Harry Bosch is back folks. The bull in a china shop Los Angeles Police Department bad boy detective is back in  business. He has a murder to solve. The owner of a liquor store was gunned down. It looks like the work of a Triad. Triads are Chinese organized crime syndicates who specialize in protection schemes. They get violent when the payments are made.

There is a few things that make Harry wonder about it. But Harry is a man of action not thought. He likes to keep things moving. Those that sit and ponder, are wimps. Plus it looks like the Triad is making things personal. Very personal. You don’t mess around with Harry. You especially don’t make it personal. So Harry has to make a whirlwind trip to Hong Kong to straighten out his personal affairs. Those Chinese guys find out that they made a big mistake with Harry.

He comes back and resumes his murder investigation. Oops, uh, Harry made some mistakes. Maybe he should have done a little more thinking.

Doesn’t matter, Harry straightens everything out but his life is changed. He has to take care of his teenage daughter now. Oops, can’t just chase after bad guys any more. You gotta make sure that somebody is picking up the kid. What’s he going to do. We’ll see with next book.

This is a great action detective novel. I give it 2.5 stars out of 4. Good, but not great.

Hey check out Michael Connelly’s web site. Lots of good info there.

“The Monster in the Box” by Ruth Rendell

“The Monster in the Box” is an English psychological murder mystery staring Inspector Wexford. Inspector Wexford is lots different from the American detectives in other books that I’ve been reading lately. His main technique is to ask suspects and witnesses lots and lots of questions and then ponder their answers. This is not to say the book is boring. It is very interesting. The emphasis is not on the action, its on the characters and their motivations, background, and character.

 This book has a serial murderer who Wexford thinks may have been killing or 30 years or more. The book involves a possible honor killing, an escaped pet lion, familial coverups, and lots and lots of questions.

Inspector Wexford is totally unlike some of the American detectives in fiction. He seems to have a stable home life, doesn’t drink to excess and he manages  his business without getting into a fist fights or a gun battles or seducing the principal suspect. Somehow, he is an interesting guy anyway.

I found the book quite compelling. It is the 22nd Inspector Wexford novel. I’ll be reading more.

I give the book 3.5 stars out of 4. I’ll be reading more of them.

BTW – This book completes the 2009 Pub Challenge for me to read at least nine books in 2009 that were first published in 2009. By my count I read 18 such books, so far.

Also, I have completed the Support Your Local Library Challenge. I also read 18 books on that list. There is a lot of overlap between the two challenges but not 100%.

“The Year of the Flood” by Margaret Atwood

Hey, its sometime in the distant future. We didn’t listen, we didn’t do anything. Global warming turned to global heating, the environment is a mess. Corporations have taken over the role of the government. They even run the military. Genetic technology has exploded but not for any good purposes, they have spliced lions and sheep together. They have given human neurons to pigs. Is there anything worse than a smart pig? (Sorry a little obscure pipeline humor there.)
The divide between the haves and the have nots has widened. The haves live in ultra secure gated communities run by their employers. Life is good! Unless they lose their job. Then its out the gate with you and your family.
Out the gate is scary; it is chaos. Then there is the God’s Gardeners. Led by Adam One. He has nine Eve’s and a bunch of followers. They worship and honor God and God’s saints. Saint Euell Gibbons, Rachel Carson, and Oklahoma’s own Saint Karen Silkwood. They quote the Bible and sing hymns. They don’t  eat meat, they are non-violent. They grow their own food.
This book is the story of the Gardeners. The book is fascinating. I give it three and a half stars out of four.
Check out the book’s web site. Lots of good information there. You can calculate your carbon footprint. You can enter YouTube hymn singing contest!

Rogue’s Gallery

authors

Authors of some of the books I’ve read in the last year and a half courtesy of librarything.com.

Tell you what, they are certainly a bookish looking lot if you ask me.

Recognize anyone! Let me know.

I admit that when I first looked at the pictures I didn’t recognize any of them.

War Dances by Sherman Alexie

I just love Sherman Alexie’s writing. I love the ironic humor in his fiction. Much of it is humorous but with a point, often a very blunt point.

War Dances is a collection of short stories and poems. Most of them involve Native American characters. Alexie is a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian. He wrote the screenplay to one of my favorite movies, “Smoke Signals.” One of the scenes in that movie has become an inside joke with Sweetie and I, “John Wayne’s Teeth.”

I loved this book. I read it in less than 24 hours. It’s 4 stars out of 4.

“Rough Country” by John Sandford

Rough Country is a new whodunnit by John Sandford. It stars Virgil Flowers, investigator for the Bureau of Criminal Investigation in Minnesota. Boy, I wish we had something like that in Oklahoma. It would be nice to apprehend more criminals. Virgil is quite a guy. He has long hair. For work he wears jeans and obscure rock band tshirts. He doesn’t like carrying a gun. He keeps it under the seat of his car. He talks to God every night before he goes to bed.

He is also pretty confident. Mostly about the women he pursues. He has “an active social life” as he describes it. He has this bad habit though of keeping his cell phone close to hand. One of the memorable lines in the novel is “Virgil . . . For God’s sake you left your phone on.” I think he likes his phone better than female companionship.

In this book Virgil has his work cut out for him. I’m not going to spoil anything for you. Lets just say he has to solve a murder that involves country music, multiple lesbian and heterosexual love triangles, some Deliverance type guys, old unsolved murders, fishing, gardening, boating, hunting dogs, and NASCAR. There is something in this book for everybody.

All kidding aside this is a great book. I rate it 4 stars out of 4.