Category Archives: Fiction

The Best American Short Stories of 2012, edited by Tom Perotta

Just finished the 2012 edition of “The Best American Short Stories of 2012″ (or to those who are hip “BASS 12”, just so you know, from one who is not hip.) I read BASS every year. I love short stories and there is always quite a variety depending on who the editor is that year. One can sample a bunch of different authors both known and unknown. What is cool is that the authors provide a brief bio and a few sentences about their included stories. Those are almost as interesting as the stories themselves.

Of course in a buffet like this book there are going to be some stories I like and others I don’t. I finished all but one of the stories. The best ones to me was a little sci fi “Beautiful Monsters” by Eric Puchner about genetically raised children who never grow up who encounter a full grown man for the first time (they smell awful!) and “What is Important is Feeling” by Adam Wilson about an almost famous Indie Film hanger on and his frustrated career.

Anyway if you like short stories check this out.

Enhanced by Zemanta

“Riddle of the Sands” by Erskine Childers

You know trying to pick out a book to read from the ocean that is available is tough. I heard about Erskine Childer’s “The Riddle of the Sands” published in 1903 and I had to read it. The thing that piqued my interest is that it has been considered the first English spy novel and was an influence on Ian Fleming, John Le Carre, and Ken Follett. Also the book was very influential on the British public because he described the the vulnerability of Great Britain by an attack from Britain.. The thing that hooked it for me was that the author was executed by an Irish firing squad in 1922 for possession of a firearm in violation of martial law during Irish Civil War. It’s all terribly complex and I refer you to Erskine Childer’s Wikipedia page for reference.


The book itself is marvelous. It is about two young guys in a sailing craft of shallow draft who while sailing along the German North Sea coast get more and more suspicious of what they see. The book is full of sailing references and chart entries, tides, currents, canals and such and it is easy to get lost but hang with it. The atmosphere and tension of the novel gets denser and darker as time goes on. The prose is dense and deep as I find books from the pre-television era are. 


I found the book to be the perfect combination of story and back story. I give it four stars out of five.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Stolen Prey by John Sandford

Stolen Prey has everything, meth addict muggers, horse manure thieves, a money laundering Spanish language software company, gold smuggling, machine guns, and a gang of Mexican narcos who arrive in the north country to find out where there dang money went and go about killing and torturing in order to get what they need. The action is driven by a motley group of computer hackers who have figured out how to hijack the money laundering activities for their own gain. John Sandford ties all this together in this novel. This book has lots of irony, I love irony, a complicated, but not too complicated, plot and lots of crossing and double crossing.


I give this book four stars out of five. It is a very satisfying read. I got mine at the library. 

Holes by Louis Sachar

I picked up Holes by Louis Sachar an oldie but goodie at our son’s Book Fair at school. It is written for pre and early teens and crusty gas guys.

Poor old Stanley Yelnats (palindrome anybody?) is falsely accused and unjustly found guilty of stealing and is sent to Camp Green Lake for rehabilitation. There is no Green Lake at Camp Green lake just a dry lake bed. The rehabilitation at Camp Green Lake consists of digging holes. Each boy has to dig a hole a shovel deep and a shovel wide, every single day, no days off. What they are digging for, only the warden knows, and she isn’t talking.

There is another parallel story set a long time before that strangely enough involves one of Stanley’s ancestors. Somehow the long time ago gets all wound up with the present and couple that with one of Stanleys’ fellow inmates campers goes walkabout and Stanley has to go help….

Anyway, the book is an award winner. Will adults like it, maybe but I rated it three stars out of five. For kids, it might be a four. At least you don’t have to worry about language in this book.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

I’m a big Audrey Hepburn fan but I was never much of fan of the movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” There didn’t seem to be anything to it, just a lightweight romantic comedy. I read an essay about the book, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” though and how it wasn’t really anything like the movie. It was darker, with an edge. That is more of what I would expect from Truman Capote. So this book has been on my TBR list for some time.

The book is really a novella. And indeed it is darker. Holly Golightly is basically a prostitute. I mean she accepts money from men as a price for her companionship, lots of men (about $35 to $50, to “tip the lady’s room attendant.”) She also gets paid about $100 a week for about an hour of work visiting a crime boss in Sing Sing and giving and receiving coded messages. The book is about the friendship between her and an unnamed narrator over the course of a year or so. They are both tenants in a brownstone. They guys like Holly and they spend some time together and she is a fun girl to be with.

Anyway, she gets in trouble because of the business with the crime boss, and the book ends pretty suddenly and no loose ends are tied up.

I loved the book. It has an edge to it. I just can’t see Audrey Hepburn playing a prostitute though.

I give the book at 3.5 stars out of five. Give it a shot. Your library has it. Won’t cost you a thing. I’ll be reading more Truman Capote. He is most famous of course for “In Cold Blood.” I am not sure that I’m up for it quite yet.

Enhanced by Zemanta