Confession: 13 Books I Should Have Written Full Reviews For...but Didn't

I have been remiss. I've been reading and not reviewing. Not because what I've been reading sucks (please see sidebar) but because I am so scatterbrained I've let myself fall behind.

So, to wrap up - the 13 books that have been on a sticky on my desk for me to review for MONTHS. Seriously. Since the spring.

I've decided mini-reviews are the way to go. Just to give you a taste. All of these are recommended. Trust me.

In alphabetical order:

 Eoin Colfer (who's first name is pronounce "Owen") has taken it upon himself to fill the Very Large Shoes of Douglas Adams and write another installment to the Hitchhiker's Saga. We return to meet all of our good friends as Earth is -yet again - being exploded. Everyone has gone on to lead their own lives and are very surprised to find themselves back together again. Antic ensue. Colfer has captured Adams' voice nicely and the book didn't disappoint me. Of course, I also think that Mos Def and Zooey Deschanel make the best Ford Prefect and Trillian to date, so that tells you my opinion of the state of things. Enjoy!

Ah...Jenny McCarthy. You either love to hate her or hate to love her...or count her among your guilty pleasures. This little memoir (essays, mostly) about her journey through pregnancy is full of pre-vaccine angst and is quite amusing. I haven't felt as cute as she looks, though, and I think I hold that against her. If you find yourself in the family way, this is a fun read (you can do it in an afternoon). If not, then I wouldn't bother. It just won't resonate unless you, too, experience what she's talking about.

The Gears (yes, they're married) are experts in their subject: paleo-indians living right around the end of the last ice age in what is now Canada. It's Young Adult, but don't let that sway you. It's full of archeological tidbits woven into a compelling plot about a civilization on the brink of destruction. There's even some nice tribal warring to spice things up. I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment.

This one should be titled: "A History of Tectonics and the Settling of the West...and a Few Chapters About The Great California Earthquake of April 1906." Dense, rife with information that you missed in High School Earth Science/Geology, this took me a loooooong time to read. But I did read it - cover to cover. And I now feel like I know a little bit more about the ground upon which I live. Even better that currently that ground houses the San Andreas Fault and I have a better understanding of earthquakes. I also have added a few places to my "must travel" list - places where the earth is so new it hasn't even hardened yet. If you're at all nerdy, this is a book you should at least take a stab at.  Good stuff.

Like all of Green's recent novels, this one is about people who are putting their lives back together the best way they know how. There are also nice sub-plots: romance, intrigue, general life-happenings... She gives back story on every  recurring character and that helps make them all the more real. It's a good beach/pool/bedrest book. More interesting than your basic fluff, but not so taxing that you miss what's going on if your poolside beverage is a little boozy.

Read. This. Series. Start with One For The Money and keep going. You've got LOTS to catch up on. With the exception of number 7 (which was great, but certainly not the best) there are guaranteed laugh out loud moments. Murder, mayhem, an ex-ho, an ex-special ops guy who is now a bounty hunter, a cop who makes everyone drool (in a good way) and generally pathetic criminals...what's not to like? Oh, and did I mention the crazy grandmother whose favorite passtime is going to funerals? It's a recipe for delightful. Trust me.

This one addresses my love of what realtors refer to as "The Handyman Special." The title refers to a family house that has been allowed to fall into disrepair...it also refers to the woman who's going to fix it. She's just been the unwitting pawn in a gigantic financial scandal and she flees home with her tail between her legs. She's got romance trouble, family trouble, financial trouble, and a giant decripit house- complete with a cantankerous old sqautter - buried deep in the South where people want to know who your "people" (relatives) are before they want to know anything else about you. I read this one by the pool in Vegas (ok, in the bath, but by the pool sounds much better) and then I was sad that I read it too quickly. Andrews delivers exactly what you're looking for: a feel good book with just the right amount of suspense, intrigue, and home-repair/antiquing tips.

Ah...the Mommy Memoir. I picked this one up based on a recommendation from my Aunt and the title. Because it's true. As with Belly Laughs, though, if you're not a mom/parent I'm not sure it would resonate with you. If you are, however, it's a fun little afternoon on the couch book. Interesting tidbit: Kogan's son plays young(est) Spock in the new Star Trek. He's very good for the five and a half minutes he's onscreen. Well, done! Also - I love that she whips around town with her kids on her Vespa. She's lived all over the world and she's not afraid of a little traffic. It's inspiring.

When I was seven or so, I was home sick from school one day and my mom brought me this book. Twenty (or so) years later, I still pull it out to read whenever I'm not feeling well. Morning sickness that lasts for months on end counts. It's a fairy tale - but this princess is not one dreamed up by Disney. She's quite plain looking and she has a distinct awkward phase, but she's full of moxie and isn't afraid to stand up to her parents when they decide that a dragon being allowed to lay waste to the countryside is the only way to marry her off. Finally, a princess I could relate to! Obviously this book is awesome because I have it memorized and still read it from time to time. You will, too. Especially if there's a seven year old girl who secretly wants to be a rebellious princess living inside you.

Why this book has been banned I will NEVER understand. It's got math, grammar, moral lessons...AND a talking dog with a clock in his side. I will be reading this one to my kids when the time comes. Assuming they don't mistake it for homework and grow bored with it on principle, that is.

Yes, they keep writing more of these. It's still Christmas, they're still in St bath's, and someone is still trying to off our Heroine. I'll admit that I was shocked at who the culprit was, but I'm not giving it away. The books are significantly better than the lame web-series they put together. Save your five-minutes-at-a-time streaming attention span and READ these instead. You'll be much, much happier. These are for the Seventeen year old girl who secretly wants to be a rebellious princess living inside you.

The last in the Ivy League/Secret Society Girl series. And still very good. Start with Secret Society Girl and work your way through.  They're based at a very poorly disguised Yale (Eli University) and follow the senior year of the first group of girls admitted to the exclusive Rose and Grave Secret Society. Antics, near-death experiences, love-affairs...the stuff good summer reading is made of.

This is not the first in the series. I read it anyway - having read not one word of Alexander's work before. I was not disappointed. A murder mystery set in the late 1800s, told from the perspective of a female amateur detective (in this book she is on her honeymoon, having recently married a professional detective.) They are, of course, wealthy and connected. They are, of course, eventually wanted dead - but that doesn't happen until after they try to solve a murder that has taken place in the Sultan's palace. Yup. There's a Sultan involved. I may have to start at the beginning with these and see where they lead me.

So there you have it. Thirteen VERY late reviews.

Happy Reading!

The Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl

I feel, in the spirit of full disclosure, that I should admit how much I adore Roald Dahl. He’s dry and witty, his writing is tight. His plots have morals without sugar-coating the immorality of (often) more than half of the characters...and even his heroes aren’t always clear-cut Good Guys.

Take Mr. Fox. He’s a thief. Yes, he’s stealing to feed his family, and he’s a fox so it’s assumed that that’s what he’d do...but he’s still a thief. And when it’s pointed out to him he rationalizes that it’s the only way to feed his family. It’s steal or starve to death. And after all, the people from whom they are stealing are three Very Bad Men, so it’s really not harmful.

And that’s the gist of it, really: three awful farmers (and to hear Dahl tell it it’s amazing they manage to have farms, employees, and spouses) get fed up with the fox stealing from them nightly and set out to do something about it. Namely: kill the fox. They chase Mr. Fox into his hole with his family and, when shooting and digging prove not clever enough, decide to starve him out.

I won’t tell you how it ends, except to remind you of the title of the book. It’s a little chapter book, it would take barely an afternoon for an adult to read, but could be spread out over a week for a young reader. I wouldn’t hold back from giving this to your kids to read, either. Certainly before the movie comes out. Dahl doesn’t sugar coat things, but he doesn’t discount virtue, either. It’s a worthy read.

Wes Anderson loves it so much that he’s written a screenplay and directed a stop-action film based on the book. From the trailer and the interview it appears that he’s given more story to the story, but that’s to be expected: a direct cinematic translation would be either full length and boring or thirty minutes and interesting. Staying true to Dahl’s vision is the trick, but I feel if anyone, Anderson is the man for the job.

Interview here:  

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120416136 

(there’s also an amusing anecdote regarding Anderson’s desire to shoot a sci-fi space movie on location at the end)

And Trailer:

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

I re-read this (and some other) classic children’s books during my two months “bed rest” and I enjoyed it. To clarify before you start jumping to conclusions - I just read this one, and not Through The Looking Glass, which came next and had the Jabberwocky in it.

Alice starts off being spectacularly bored by her older sister, as any child would be on a beautiful afternoon when there are more interesting things to do than read a book...so she drifts off for a minute until she is startled awake by the White Rabbit. I’m going to assume you know the story. Everyone does.

It’s not surprising that as I read I heard the soft voice and saw the cartoony characters that Disney put on the screen decades ago. And then I realized something when I was about halfway through the book…it had been Disneyfied! Lewis Carroll was on (HAD to have been, but I haven’t done the research. Forgive me) drugs. Opium, maybe? The caterpillar was. And it’s the only way to explain the baby turning into a pig (left out by Disney.)

I was also struck by how RUDE all of the adults were and how creepy everyone else was. I’ve had some weird dreams lately (yay hormones) but Wonderland puts them all the shame. Which is why the reader is never quite sure if Alice dreams it all or if it actually happens - which is one of the common threads I’ve found in the books that last: where the author decides that the reader is smart enough to figure it out.

That doesn’t mean that this book isn’t dated, because it is. Who curtseys anymore, when they’re not meeting the queen? The language and the lessons place it squarely in the place and time in which it was written, but that only adds to the magic and mystery of Wonderland. A lost little girl speaking a language that sounds like English but which isn’t as familiar as our own English encountering people who in turn are speaking an even less sensical version of the language. If you think too hard on it your brain might turn to mush.

It’s a short little book, and filled with lovely woodblock illustrations - I do recommend reading it before heading to the theatre to see the Tim Burton version. Relying on Disney as the yardstick against which to measure it...well, that will only leave you wanting.


Click here for the trailer of what could be the best possible cinematic interpretation.

This is only slightly related to the book, it's more of a family drama in which wonderland plays a role, but I watched it and I feel that everyone should.

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

Charlotte’s Web...a Children’s Classic written by a man who specialized in Children’s Classics. I picked this up to re-read after exhausting all of my in-house unread books and waiting for the next group to arrive from the library and Amazon. Unlike a couple of the others that I remember fondly from childhood - this one aged very well.
In case you grew up on a commune or in a third world country, here is the basic plot: 8 year old Fern rescues a pig (the runt of the litter named Wilbur) from an almost immediate death and nurses him to piggy adolescence, at which point Wilbur is moved from Fern’s kitchen to the farm down the road to live out the rest of his life...which is going to be Christmastime until a clever spider named Charlotte steps in and creates a spectacle out of Wilbur by spinning praises of the pig into her web. All of the farm animals are anthropomorphized, which is a nice touch for any children’s book.

As a testament to its awesomeness, this is a book that has been made into (according to IMDB.com) two movies and seven video spinoffs. None of which I’ve seen.

There’s not really a lot to say about this little book other than to reinforce it’s solid place in every child’s library. And by “child” I mean in both the chronological and the figurative sense.

The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King

Book Nine of the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series is every bit as good as book one. Better, even. King has matured and honed her craft to an even sharper edge (pick up The Beekeeper’s Apprentice and you won’t think it a possible feat, her writing already being top-notch.) As we open this latest installation we feel like we’re coming back to meet old friends as the return from a trip - they are literally returning from San Francisco via Japan - and we know their backstory and what to expect. And we like it.

Don’t worry, though. If this is your first foray into this series of unauthorized Holmes sequels, King gives you enough detail so that you’re not foundering. The unfamiliar reader would be able to read this one as a stand-alone novel, save for the need to read the next one.

On the cover, plain as day, this book brands itself as “a novel of suspense” and it doesn’t disappoint. From the inexplicable failure of one of Holmes’ beehives to the shadowy figure who appears on their porch asking for their help.The reader is grateful for the map in the opening of the book, because the adventure starts on the Southern Coast of England - in Sussex, where Russell and Holmes live - and takes us up to the northern tip of Scotland (in a hurricane, no less) with many, many stops in between.

We meet Holmes’ brother, Mycroft, again - perhaps his largest appearance in a single novel - and are also introduced more thoroughly to Sherlock’s sentimental side. Yes, it is told in the first person through the eyes of Mary Russell, but she would be no match for Sherlock Holmes if she were not brilliantly observant...and it helps that she becomes very emotionally involved in this particular case as well.

Because she is Laurie R. King, I have to say that I pick up her books merely based on her byline. I have never been disappointed. King falls into that category that only a handful of writers manage: “Books I Wish I’d Written”...or, on my more cynical writers-block filled days: “Stop Now Because You Will Never Be This Good.” Luckily, those days are few and far between and instead she is inspiration. Even if you’re not a writer, I have a feeling that you’ll find inspiration.

Ok - I don’t generally like spoilers, but I want to call attention to a particularly timely scene...so if you don’t want even the hint of a spoiler, stop reading now and go get this book. Otherwise:

There is a scene where Mary has apprehended a suspect...at the very least he is a man who has information that she very badly needs. So she trusses him up and threatens to leave him for dead. The setting is one in which not even the reader is positive she won’t. Yes, we all know that she would call to let someone know his whereabouts, but we can’t be sure she’ll do it in a very timely manner. Under the tenets set out by the Geneva Convention - what she does to extract information could be termed “torture.” Given the situation, I was completely on board. I rooted for her. Granted, what she did wasn’t appalling by any means, but her suspect was terrified and genuinely afraid for his life. Emotional/Mental torture, then. Granted, it is a work of fiction. And we all give fiction a lot of leeway because it’s made-up. But her situation is one that even the most mundane woman could find herself in. And if that woman were me...let’s just say I was taking notes. So go and read, and then come back and tell me what you thought. I have feeling it won’t be a debate, though...which makes me wonder about what anyone would do when pushed far enough.

That being said: READ THIS BOOK.

Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

Holden Caulfield is in mourning, but like any teenage boy who’s set on not being phony, he will not tell you this. Instead, he will tell you everything else about his life, the people in it, the movies, the cabs, the schools, and what he thinks of them. Repeatedly. In a single breath.

Salinger’s classic manages to get into the head of a truly angst-ridden and confused teenage boy so well that he has been emulated repeatedly through the decades. Just find the guy on the show/in the book who hates everything except one girl (in Holden’s case, his little sister) and who doesn’t care who knows it and you’re looking at someone who has interred a bit of Holden in himself.

The novel opens with the revelations that Holden has been expelled from yet another boarding school. We’re never sure how many schools he’d been to before Pencey, only that this latest expulsion is just one in a long line of them and he has no qualms about those that came before or those that are likely to come after. He doesn’t like school - it’s full of phonies. He doesn’t like his roommate, who is “yearbook handsome” but a phony, and an irritating womanizing phony at that. He doesn’t like his neighbor, who is a bore and a phony. Cab drivers are phony, bartenders are phonies, most of the people - with the exception of the brother he is mourning and his younger sister - are phonies.

In order to cope with his unsatisfactory world and to also put off the inevitable confrontation with his parents, Holden leaves school in the middle of the night, 4 days before it’s due to break for Christmas anyway. He gathers up his suitcases and his money and take a train into New York, where he proceeds to behave in a way that has had People Who Feel The Need To Control What You Can Read up in arms since the day the book was published. This, of course, has made it wildly popular. Foul language pours out of Holden’s mouth of its own accord, it would be turrets except that it’s buried in sentences that are both circular and insightful. Salinger’s phrasing is memorable: “give her the time,” “yearbook handsome,” “roller-skate skinny.” The list goes on and on. It’s tempered with the aforementioned circuitousness of Holden’s thought process - a combination that gives him depth and believability.

There’s the thing of it. Reading Holden’s train of thought (which is the way this book is written) can be exhausting. He rarely pauses for breath, he is often angry and borderline hostile and hateful and then will turn on a dime and wax poetic about his sister, or the ducks in Central Park. He describes experiences with his deceased brother with the same fervor as he condemns the phoniness of his older brother’s new career and you believe that both characters probably exist as people somewhere in the world. Even Holden, who is telling the story in a way that is therapeutic to both the character and the reader, exists many times over in the world...and that is what keeps this book relevant, even in an age where walking down the street without your tie is not scandalous.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving

That's right, kids, I read that this week. All 79 pages of it. One of the young ones that I'm staying with this week is having to read it for her 8th grade Honors English class so I thought I'd breeze through it and jog my memory...since my most frequent encounter with the story is As Told By Tim Burton and Johnny Depp.

I know that if you look to the right you'll see that one of my requirements is that I will say nothing if I can't say something nice...but my feelings about the book are ambivalent at best so I'm going to try. Also this is going to be a bit shorter than normal, because I feel that 500 words is almost as long as the book itself.

It starts out nicely enough, a description of the town itself and of Ichabod the School Master. Irving has a knack for description that many modern writers lack. The downside of this is that he gets so mired in the describing of birds, food, clothes, etc, that he winds away from the story and has to bring himself back.

All of the suspenseful action (unless you find his courtship of the Van Tassle girl suspenseful) comes at the end of the story and leaves the reader to decide for herself what exactly happened to Ichabod. If we cared about his Ichabod at all, that might be a good thing. As it was, I feel like I now need to go watch Sleepy Hollow and allow the updated (and significantly creepier) version to wash the taste of the original away.

Respect is due, and given, to Washington Irving for dreaming up and recording this seed of an adventure...but unfortunately it stays just that - a seed. Or maybe I'm just jaded and spoiled. I'll leave that to you to decide. It really is 79 pages. That's an hour of your time to come to your own conclusions.