Review of Welcome to My Planet: Where English Is Sometimes Spoken (Paperback)

What a fabulous book, capturing the TRUE essence of being a 30 something female in the year 2000!I read it all afternoon,lying by the pool.It's the first time I have read a book of this size in one sitting.Isimply couldn't put it down!I could so identify with the main character, Shannon,a woman in her mid 20's to early 30's, who deals with gradschool, credit card debt,a quirky mom she sometimes resents and sometimesclings to,boyfriends who aren't "the one",and trying to make sense of it all in therapy. The realest coming of age story I have everread.I can't wait to pass it on to my friends to read,and I can't waitfor the author,Shannon Olson, to write her second novel.



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Review of The Crooked Man (Paperback)

This novel is rather unlike anything I've ever read before. At best, I could compare it to Camus' The Stranger, as it shares the same dark, surreal quality of narrative. However, in The Crooked Man, the protagonist, Harry Fielding, does manage to make a hint of peace with his circumstances, but it's a hellish sojourn before he obtains even that much.

Fielding is employed by the M15 to do someone else's dirty work, which puts him outside of the law, more or less. Although Fielding manages to escape the legal consequences reserved for ordinary citizens, his deeds do not go unpunished. As he goes through his existence making choices according to a half-anesthetized morality, he begins to become aware that he, as an individual entity, is being eclipsed by the shady manipulations of his unscrupulous boss. That sense of powerlessness breeds in him desperation, and as he makes his slow and steady way toward damnation, he discovers that potential exits are really deceptions that lead him back to his previous course and there are no u-turns to go back and undo past deeds. He also finds a singular yet grim consolation in knowing that he is not alone in being punished far more than he deserves, and becomes a sympathetic witness to the desperation, fear and suffering of others, from incidental strangers to his neighbors, friends and family. In the end, Fielding manages to thwart fatal resignation and comes to terms with his situation, acknowledging wryly the twisted means of his survival in a world dominated by desperation, confusion and moral ambiguity.

Author Davison's pithy and direct writing style is effective in evoking the sense of desperation and confusion felt and witnessed by the narrator. It's also a notable accomplishment by the author to have been able to capture the protagonist's disorientation so effectively while making the novel so readable. Additionally, Davison has a much more profound understanding of irony then many of his contemporaries, which affords some of the novel's most quotable bits. He does an equally commendable job in creating sympathetic, believable, even haunting characters, including smaller, marginal ones such as the drunk carrying the bag of coal. These characters are disturbingly memorable, as they become as etched into the reader's mind as in the protagonist's. Overall, this is an excellent, recommendable book, providing a poignant and unforgettable narrative of a very flawed and very human individual making his 'crooked' way in a very grey world.

Product Description
Harry Fielding is an understrapper-a sort of odd-job freelancer for the British intelligence agency, MI5. One night he watches his neighbor exacting murderous revenge on her brutal brother-in-law-a premeditated act, for which she is sentenced to prison. Not long after, Harry witnesses a different murder: a crime of passion committed by a cabinet minister. Harry must help clean up the crime scene, turn the dead woman into a Missing Person, and ensure the guilty man does not become a suspect.

In The Crooked Man, Philip Davison offers fans of contemporary Irish literature something wonderfully unexpected-a wry, grim thriller with a dark sense of humor, of depravity, and of humanity.

"Harry Fielding, the narrator, is a gem. World-weary and clueless, knowing and blind, he's the perfect escort through this memorable and very accomplished book." (Roddy Doyle, author of A Star Called Henry)

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Review of Aquagenesis: The Origin and Evolution of Life in the Sea (Paperback)

I bought this book after reading the author's previous "Search for the Giant Squid". Giant Squid was very good. This book however,is a double edge sword, it has great illustrations and the topics look interesting, BUT many facts are wrong!

Examples: page 2, states that the Dinosaurs "disappeared hundreds of millions of years ago" (65 million years would have been correct.) Page 117 identifies the Mississippian Age Bear Gulch Formation as Devonian Age. Page 51 and 52 and 53 list Horseshoe crabs as dating from 200 million years ago but there are well known horseshoe crabs as old as 370 million years old!
Page 53 also lists Aglaspids as being horseshoe crabs when they are not considered to be.

I teach, and the accuracy of material is important. I don't want to present ideas to my students if they aren't right. The book is interesting, but the errors I see at a quick skim make me pause.



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Review of The Heart of the Order (Penguin Sports Library) (Paperback)

Thomas Boswell hits another home run with this graceful collection of his top writings from the 1980's.This Washington (DC) Post sportswriter takes us into the locker room and the board room, letting us get to know figures such as Earl Weaver, Tommy John, Rod Carew, Edward Bennett Williams, Gary Carter, Davey Johnson, etc.We see Joe DiMaggio emerge from semi-reclusiveness at age 68, and Ozzie Smith add verbal acrobatics to those he performs on the field.These warm pages flow with humanity, delve into tragedy (Dick Howser's death from cancer), and remind us that in the 1980's top stars made "only" $2 million per season.Boswell offers a host of predictions, focuses heavily on the Baltimore Orioles, and as often happens in the media, barely mentions the non-glamour teams (Twins, White Sox, Pirates, Mariners, etc.).But the author captures the romance of baseball, which engulfs him as solidly as it does so many of us fans.

This is superb baseball writing, as were his earlier books, WHY TIME BEGINS ON OPENING DAY and HOW LIFE IMITATES THE WORLD SERIES.




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Review of Roscoe (Paperback)

Roscoe Conway, a fixture of the Albany political machine for 26 years, from post-World War I through the Depression and Prohibition and World War II, wants out. As the country celebrates V-J Day and the end of the war, Roscoe finds himself weary of wheeling and dealing. Unmarried and still pining after his first love, who married his best friend, Elisha Fitzgibbon, Roscoe questions the meaning of it all.

"I have to change my life, do something that engages my soul before I die," Roscoe tells Elisha, who observes that Roscoe has kept his discontenthidden. Roscoe explains, "I have no choice. I have no choice in most things. All the repetitions, the goddamn investigations that never end, another election coming and now Patsy wants a third candidate to dilute the Republican vote. We'll humiliate the Governor. On top of that, Cutie LaRue told me this afternoon George Scully has increased his surveillance on me. They're probably doubling their watch on you, too. You'd make a handsome trophy."

This statement establishes William Kennedy's mid-century Albany in the seventh book of his Albany cycle - a city run by a small, closed circle whose primary function is to maintain power, constantly besieged by similar cabals whose goal is to grab that power for themselves. The weapon of choice is the scandal, of which there are plenty to go around, real or manufactured. And the best defense is a ferocious boomerang of a spin, at which Roscoe excels. The reasons he wants to retire are the same reasons why he can't. Roscoe's life is inextricably entwined with the Democratic Albany machine and both Roscoe and his city are ailing.

Albany is run by a triumvirate of boyhood friends - Roscoe, Elisha Fitzgibbon and Patsy McCall, none of whom hold office. Hours after Roscoe announces his intent to retire, his friend Elisha commits suicide. Puzzled and shocked, Roscoe's political antenna tells him Elisha had a good reason, probably to do with protecting his family. He postpones his retirement to help Veronica stave off a nasty family scandal, his youthful hopes of romance rekindled.

As the Republicans position themselves for attack, and Roscoe plies his skills, Kennedy splices the teeming past into the melodramatic events of the present, history repeating itself with infinite variation. Roscoe's World War I experiences (and his first foray into "spin"), the numerous internecine battles among New York state's and Albany's democrats, the roles of big politicians like Al Smith and FDR and the big criminals like Legs Diamond, the opportunities of Prohibition and the ever-present dangers from muckrakers and power grabbers from outside the machine and feuds and jealousies within among the cops, judges, civil servants and vice purveyors who keep things volatile, all of it feeds the machine. The cast of characters is big and the novel's scope is vast but Kennedy engages the reader with his own fascination for history and ambitious, unscrupulous men.

Kennedy, an Albany native and winner of the Pulitzer for "Ironweed," gives us a portrait of a man and a city, mirror images, both full of heart and wit and delight in clever scheming. Roscoe is Albany, his fate rooted deeply in the city's. His father before him was a cog in the machine and Roscoe's first steps were orchestrated by (and a tribute to) his father's ambitions. When Roscoe says he never had a choice, it's the truth. He can no more escape the clutches and drive of Albany than Albany can shed the machine that makes it run. As the reader recognizes this, Roscoe is driven to greater feats of political brilliance and sleight-of-hand. But no man can control the passions of others or the quirks of fate.

Kennedy's prose is as big and ebullient as his sprawling story. In Kennedy's hands Albany history has a legendary, mythic feel. Though the cast of characters and dizzying panorama of events sometimes taxes concentration, Kennedy's black humor, sharp irony and the perverse likability of rascally Roscoe continually enthralls, right up to the final irony of the perfect ending.



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Review of Dreams of Sleep (Contemporary American Fiction) (Paperback)

i loved this book, especially the characterization of Alice. She makes me feel normal, with her strange outbursts and feelings. She's a woman who goes by omens, including what's carved by strangers' fingernails on afrozen package of chicken. She strangely salivates as she picks at herdaughter's head for scalp buildup. This isn't all what the story's about,but i just couldn't put the book down. Josephine makes each of the threecharacters a star for one chapter, so you can really get inside their headsand receive information that the other characters don't know. It's abouthope and despair and human relationships, the darkness of marriage and thelight at the end of it. I loved how Alice follows Claire around, almoststalking her that way, like the wife does with the other woman. i like howshe smokes just as it gets dark, when she feels the most despair. i reallyrelated to alice. i think josephine is a very gifted writer.

Product Description
Alice Reese knows that the cheerful sounds of her family eating breakfast mask a ten--year marriage falling apart.As Alice and her husband, Will, struggle to understand--and perhaps recapture--the feelings that drew them together in the first place, their interior lives are sensitively and convincingly explored.

Winner of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award

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Review of You Bright and Risen Angels (Contemporary American fiction) (Paperback)

I loved it. I'm sure I didn't understand all Vollmann wanted me to. The writing style, while difficult, is extraordinary.

I do not have the literary background to do justice to any deep analysis, so I'll just give you a reader's appraisal. The closest comparison I can make is to David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest". The method of writing and the characters reminded me of "IJ" within a very few pages. I feel safe in saying that if you do not care for DFW, you will not care for this book.

We are taken on a journey in an unrecognizable USA (and world). There is a bare bones description of what is happening to people and places other than that necessary for us to follow the characters through their travails. The list of characters at the beginning is of benefit so you can remind yourself of who is on what team.

The other reviewers have done an excellent job of describing the story and the other literary devices.I read this at about a third of my regular reading speed, and at times had to go back to reread a page or two because I had lost the thread.

To put it in a nutshell - I had fun reading this, which is my goal with any book I read.



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Review of The Rituals of Dinner (Paperback)

Margaret Visser's advice has been quoted on Sage Asian Advice on Soup Etiquette, and the advice looks to me entirely misleading.It reads: "A Chinese banquet often begins with fruit and ends with soup."Being a Chinese myself and have attended numerous banquets, I have never seen fruit being served at the beginning and soup at the end.It will help if Ms. Visser can clarify what kind of banquet she had actually observed or attended.The regular way is soup being served close to the beginning after the cold and hot appetizers, and fruit is served at the very end together with dessert.



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