The problem is you

Andrew Bacevich is one of the great influential critics of American foreign policy today. His critiques of American consumerism and foreign policy are not too distant from those of leftie giants like Chalmers Johnson, so the left-leaning find it easy to like him. On the other hand, he says out front that he is a conservative and revives an older tradition of conservatism that opposes growing government power and entangling overseas adventures, so the right can be comfortable with him as well. Too bad the subject of his new book is quite uncomfortable.

His new book is The Limits of Power and it is a wake-up call to the American people. There are many who seem to think that the departure of W means that, economic troubles aside, the US can breath a sigh of relief. While he harshly condemns Bush for his many failures, Bacevich argues that Bush is merely the most fully developed of a tradition of Presidents acquiring more power and using it to pursue adventures abroad in the name of American exceptionalism. He also points to a self-pertuating national security infrastructure and culture that fails to serve the American people and an Empire of consumption that requires a huge share of the world's enegy to be sustained.

What is worrying is that all of the problems he identifies are systemic and are therefore difficult to solve. The economic crisis we are currently facing may give Obama the opportunity to effect major changes in society, but it is sure to be painful regardless. What's more it will likely require a national lifestyle change for which few are ready.

Away from the sadness and back to the book. In this book, Bacevich writes with a sort of peaceful outrage. He is harshly critical, but remains measured and analytical throughout. This does the book and reader as real service as he doesn't fly off the handle or digress into vitriol. If you haven't already, be sure to watch this video interview of Bacevich by Bill Moyers.

How do you solve a problem like Iran?

Robert Baer has an answer for you in his latest book, the Devil We Know. The good news is that he has a good, if difficult to achieve, answer. The bad news is that he often buries it with digressions and some sweeping assertions. Still, he has proposed something I doubt the Obama administration will do, but I greatly hope they consider, which is to ally with Iran.

Sounds crazy, yes? Baer spends a good number of pages arguing that Iran is not some addled theocracy run by maniacs, but is in fact a forward looking, modern society that is ruled by pragamitists and not the delusional madmen we are led to believe. He also argues that it is the dominant power in the region, thanks to our activities in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf, and that it will only get stronger. Confronting them will be costly and will likely fail.

So the realpolitik answer is simple, alleviate their security concerns with the United States and become a partner, or even an ally. This will ensure that the oil supply remains protected, which is the principal interest of the United States in the region. To do so comes with costs, such as letting Iran run, behind the scenes at least, Iraq and most of the Gulf States. He also argues that they should be allowed to become the stewards of Mecca and Medina, which sounds fine except that it means the abandonment of the House of Saud.

The tricky thing with all of this is that it will make all but our closest allies believe that we are unreliable. As Baer notes, this happened before, when the US dumped Taiwan to start a new relationship with Mainland China, and it was a challenge, but it was done. Baer lays out a rather grand plan to ally with Iran that comes with quite a few costs. The US should mend relations with Iran, as it gains little from opposing it, but should try to do it for less than Baer asks.

Mixed

Morrissey looks surprisingly good naked.

This confirms I am a raging geek, but this opera/Wrath of Khan video made me laugh and laugh.

Speaking of nerds, even President nerds are sad when people miss their jokes.

Now here is a challenge. The Congo wars are a subject about which I feel I should know more. They are the deadliest conflict of our age, but I can barely name the participants, the geographies or the issues at hand. Here is a (rare) book about the very subject. Tyler Cowen really likes it, but a reviewer at the very good Small Wars Journal hates it. And the Journal writer explains why unlike Cowen. So I guess I will wait for more reviews.

Amazon has a spring book preview. Lots of good looking stuff here including a supernatural thriller by Robert Masello, a new Tom Ricks book, a true story about hunting for lost cities in the Amazon, and a crime novel by Denis Johnson. Then there are the old books, the White Tiger has been in paperback for awhile. I really need to read that one.

Some covers

What better way to spend the evening that looking for covers?

Lily Allen - Straight To Hell. I don't know much about Lilly Allen, I am just happy she has recorded a cover of this lesser known Clash classic. And if you are curious, that is Mick Jones on backing vocals. Nice. I like that almost as much as Mick Jones playing a drunk biz traveller rocking the karaoke bar with Should I Stay or Should I Go in the movie Code 46.

Ian McGlynn - Mistaken For Strangers. A nice cover, but all the nicer for highlighting the lyrics. (Check the original - awesome song and video but it takes numerous listens to figure out what he is saying) This one takes the tried and true slow-it-way-down-and-play-it-acoustic approach. Don't mess with what works.

Hot Chip/Peter Gabriel - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa. For Vampire Weekend fans only. This one contains the lyric "Feels so natural/Peter Gabriel too" (with a cheeky addition by Mr. Gabriel.

Ema and the Ghosts - Victoria. Ema rocks the ukulele on this one. I will always and forever love the Sonic Youth via the Fall cover, with its apparently drunken mistakes, but this one is a nice addition.

A hookah smoking caterpillar has given me the call

Today, I went on a field trip to the Northwest Children's Theater to see the trippiest program for children I am likely to ever see. It is a jazz interpretation of Alice in Wonderland. The narrative is true to the story, but there is all sorts of singing, dancing and peculiarity that I thought might go over my second grader's head. Apparently not as he talked all about it on the way home. So score one for the Northwest Children's Theater.

Anyway, with all the madness, I couldn't help but think of White Rabbit. The opening riff so wonderfully conjures up feelings of being altered. And the lyrics are great. Enjoy its psychedelic grandeur below.

On the Road

If you listen to NPR at all, you have probably heard the distinctive voice of Rob Gifford. He is now the London bureau chief, but for many years he was the Beijing correspondent. Before he left he wrote China Road, a travelogue and study of China based on a trip along China's Route 312. This road, which Gifford calls China's Route 66 begins in Shanghai, moves into the central farm country, to the historic city of Xi'an, and then through the desert to Central Asia.

There are many books about China, but this is an excellent introduction to country, as well as a great read for those more familiar with the Middle Kingdom. It's Gifford himself that makes the book most worth reading. His writing is lively, witty and self-deprecating. He also takes a balanced view of China, being generally sympathetic, but not afraid to point out flaws.

A main theme of the book is how the rise of China is affecting the daily lives of ordinary Chinese. Gifford is mostly positive about this, noting the incredible range of opportunity now available to the people. In the far West, he stumbles upon a local Amway salesman and is swept up in one of their sales meetings. There are plenty of sad stories as well, including the AIDS villages he encounters where government ignorance and cruelty has led to high incidence of AIDS with little if any treatment.

One of the principal questions about China is whether it can manage its transition to a more developed country or whether internal tensions will tear it apart. Gifford is optimistic, but he points to the death of traditional Chinese culture, tensions in the west and rural unrest as potential pitfalls for China.

China is one of the places (which include India, Iran, Russia...) that Americans need to know better. This book is an easy and entertaining way to learn more.

Sad news for readers

First off, John Updike died yesterday. While he isn't one of my favorite writers, the Rabbit books hold a special place in my heart. I read them (except for Rabbit Redux, as I couldn't find a copy) during my stay in China. Living in an alien culture helps put your own culture into a new perspective. Reading one of the great books about American life (post-World War 2 life, at least) added to this. Michiko Kakutani has an appraisal of Updike up on the Times.

While we should have Ms. Kakutani's New York Times book section to enjoy for the coming years, the stand alone Washington Post book review is going the way of the passenger pigeon. In February, the section will be folded into the Outlook and Style and Arts section. The book section is one of the less profitable elements of the endangered newspaper business, so it isn't a huge surprise. It does mean there are fewer mainstream publications devoted to books. Now only the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle will have stand alone book sections. Perhaps with the migration of readership onto the web, the Post's online book section will continue there.

What would Obama read

Washington Monthly asked a range of writers, reporters and academics which books they would recommend to Obama. They make for a nice reading list for anyone looking for thoughts on how to get the country back on track. It is a list of policy big think books, histories, reports and literature. While it may be among the less pressing, I was happy to see that George Pelecanos recommended Edward Jones' Lost in the City, perhaps my favorite short story collection. Pelecanos wants Obama to remember that there is more to DC than the what goes on in government buildings and this collection is one to show that clearly.

I have seen this book in the remainder stacks, which is a shame. After the success of the Known World, I suspect it had a large print run, but didn't sell. Short story collections don't seem to appeal as much as novels.

James Fallows recommends a report called America's Defense Meltdown which highlights a number of defense problems with which Obama will need to deal in the coming years. It's quite long, but it is provided in PDF format.

More Dune

We have an ongoing discussion of Dune over here, but thinking about the book last night, I thought that three elements could be identified as essential to its success. The book has lots of ideas. It also has a richly developed background and history. Finally, it has an excellent plot. My question is, could the book have been as good without one of these elements or put another way, is one particularly important to the success of the book?

Goodbye Silver Jews

Bad news for fans of arty, folky indie rock. The Silver Jews are breaking up. That is sad enough, but the reason is even sadder. Based on this post at the Drag City message boards, the key member, Dave Berman, apparently viewed the Silver Jews as a sort of karmic bulwark against the evil perpetrated by his lobbyist father. It's a sad post on many levels, and feels like a rock and roll Star Wars where Luke gives up on Anakin.

Here are a few favorite Joos songs.

How to Rent A Room. A friend once complained that this song is adolescent, which I guess it is, but I think Berman is communicating the despondency that comes over people when relationships go disastrously wrong.

New Orleans. An early moody one, but so good. Lots of lyrical delights in this song. It is a bit sophmoric, but I can't resist "There is a house in New Orleans/Not the one you heard about/I'm talking bout another house."

Punks in the Beerlight. Compare the voice on this track made a decade after the prior one. The ravaged voice is reflected in this incredibly bleak track.

Wild Kindness. I am completely clueless as to what this song is about. That said, the music is lovely and I love the words he strings together.

Monsters in the closet

I just finished reading Lauren Groff's Monsters of Templeton and I found it a joyful read, which is odd because the closest comparison I can make is to David Lynch. It has all the oddity, absurdity and evil-hiding-behind-white-picket fences of Lynch, but has the malevolence is cut by a shrugged shoulders kind of happiness.

The Lynchian weirdness starts on page one where a large monster, to which the title alludes, dies and then surfaces in the lake at center of the town of Templeton. The town is surprised but moves on. You will be no doubt shocked to learn that the title has more than one meaning. The monster rising from the depths is foreshadowing for the various monsters Willie Upton discovers in investigating her family tree.

Willie is compelled to research her family when she learns that her mother did not fact get knocked up by her three hippie roomates back in the hippie days, but in fact, by someone in the town of Templeton tied to her own famous family tree. (The Templeton of the story is a stand in for Cooperstown, and one of Willie's ancestors is an undisguised James Fenimore Cooper.) This shocking discovery leads her to research her family, providing for all sorts of odd stories.

There are some truly dark tales in her family's past, including abuse bordering on rape, multiple murders and even a bit of the old supernatural. My favorite of these stories consists of a series of letters between two 19th century women that starts sweet and kind and then devolves into wicked depravity. Not all are this interesting, but Groff shows great talent in writing in a wide range of voices.

Willie's search feels a bit like a framing device for presenting a mix of linked tales and according to the discussion guide, the book at one point was principally separate stories. By increasing the investment in Willie she also brings in some amusing side characters like the Running Buds, a group of men who are known for jogging together for decades. Their initial chapter is a delightful use of the first person plural.

Again like Lynch, Groff tends to take peculiarity to freakish extremes. The Buds are nearly always running, the librarian looks disturbingly like a goat, Willie's best friend is so small she is mistaken for a school girl and one of the sadder ancestors is alarmingly hirsute. Unlike Lynch, the book maintains a sunniness about life and the future, thanks mainly to Willie's mother. It is part of an impressive balancing act that Groff maintains througout and that which makes this such a compelling read.

End of the world tv

In 1992, there was a short lived post-apocalyptic comedy called Woops! (not to be confused with the British mini-series Whoops Apocalypse). It involved a house full of survivors of a nuclear holocaust dealing with the challenges of a destroyed world. It was a classic sitcom, with a stage set and corny jokes, but with plot lines like the survival of the human race. I liked it well enough at the time, but it is certainly dated.

The Remnants is an updated version of the show. Instead of nuclear war, we have an uncertain plague that creates zombies. The filming and the dark humor (and Justine Bateman) give it an Arrested Development feel. Right now the video (via the link) is just a short Web pilot. I really hope someone develops this into an actual show. It shows promise in its ten minutes.

Re-reading Dune

Dune is one of the books I remember loving, but I haven't read it for a number of years, maybe 20, so when a friend suggested we re-read, I thought it was a great idea. We will use this blogpost to talk about re-reading the book. At this stage, we have read up to Book 1. The discussion is in the comments.

Out in the woods

On July 21st 1996, my wife and I were headed off for my honeymoon. On that same day, back country ranger Randy Morgenson, a legend within the ranger community, left his Kings Canyon camp and disappeared. This coincidence probably added to the chill Eric Blehm's Last Season gave me, but I suspect any who love the National Park system will find much to like in this book.

The book is split between the story of the search and rescue operation started after Morgenson's disappearance and a biography of the man who disappeared. Raised in Yosemite National Park, he became a lover of the outdoors from an early age. The backcountry was one of the few places he found happiness and success. He failed as a student, as a husband and as a writer. Thanks to his father's position at Yosemite he struck up a correspondence with Wallace Stegner, who he clearly tried to emulate in his writing.

While he didn't succeed in that by which most lives are judged, he did succeed in helping to protect the wilderness and in helping others enjoy it. That explains the rigor and devotion displayed by the other rangers in their search and rescue. Blehm is excellent in explaining and detailing the theories, challenges and tools of search and rescue. While beautiful, the back country is a dangerous place that can kill or maim in a moment's notice.

Blehm alternates chapters between the search operation and the biographical background. I liked this format as both stories interested me, but it could put off some readers. The search story is all tension and excitement, while the biographical sections tend to the reflective. This can be jarring, especially for those looking for outdoor adventure reading. Morgenson's character is also more than a little imperfect. While he doesn't run over others lives to the exent of the subject of Into the Wild, he picks nature over family in most cases and the damage is apparent. Unlike that character, he also gave quite a bit back over the decades of his service in the wilds.

The book also highlights the service of National Park rangers, a group that is truly underpaid and treated shabbily, although one can say this about any number of government employees. While reading the book, I regretted that I was at the Oregon Coast and not in a National Park where I could hop on a trail and just start walking.

Ghost on the beach

We went to the Oregon Coast this weekend. The coast in January is normally dark and rainy with some chilling wind for good measure. Instead it was sixty degrees and we spent hours on the beach. Bizarre. While the weather was more than we could have expected, a little of the old dark and dreary would have suited one of the books I read. Susan Hill writes ghost tales in the 19th century mold. Her Man in the Picture features dark alleys, ancient academic bachelor libraries, curses and English country homes. The focus of the story is a painting which brings horror to those that possess it.

The book reads like an MR James story with a mix-in of the 70s trippy horror movie Don't Look Now. It feels like it could have been written by James, but it has a peculiar and mysterious ending that feels more modern. The ending itself is a question mark. It was possible that one of the narrators was lying or that the curse itself had changed by the end. Or maybe the evil was much darker than I understood. The book is short at 150 pages and will be popular with those who long for an old school ghost tale.

Close your eyes, can't happen here

Earlier I gushed about the British TV spy drama the Sandbaggers. I am about to wrap up the second season/collection and I was just blown away by the episode titled "It Can't Happen Here." This episode takes the 70s paranoid style to a new level. Spoilers ahead, so stop reading if you haven't seen it.

The episode starts with the assassination of an American Senator. The London based CIA chief of station thinks it is the FBI, since they did the Kennedy and King jobs after all. Burnside thinks King, Kennedy sure, but Hoover is out, so no more dirty tricks, yes? Not so much says CIA guy. Burnside is aghast and is happy it can't happen in the UK. Famous last words of course. Turns out a highly placed British Cabinet Minister is in bed with the boys from the Lubyanka. Try as they might, the SIS cannot dislodge the Minister who merrily goes on his way. Burnside tells his allies that it is better not to go around assasinating politicians in your own country, but then tells one of his staff something a bit different. The last line is an absolute classic.

What is astounding about this episode is that it agrees with the paranoid style films of the 70s that rogue government agencies are taking the law into their own hands, but also that this is in fact a good thing overall. Amazing!

But you take what you should have left and leave what you should have grabbed

Jonathan Ames is a novelist and essayist who is not unwilling to write graphically about the sexual and the scatological. He is also, apparently, not afraid to rake himself across the coals. His graphic novel the Alcoholic is a remarkably clear eyed look at a life constructed out of bad choices. The main character is one Jonathan A. who discovers the joys of boozing as a teen and carousing becomes a central facet of his life.

The tone of the book is a mix of humor and reflective horror. Jonathan damages the most important people in his life, not in a dramatic Lifetime fashion, but through solipsistic neglect and crazed infatuation. The drugs and alcohol take a toll on his health as well. He also has a eye for the bizarre. In the opening panels, Jonathan wakes up in the front seat of a car next to remarkably short elderly woman with a frightening seat of teeth. She remarks it has been quite some time since she has gotten any action and gets ready for some. These off the wall encounters happen throughout.

Dean Haspiel drew the art and it works quite well. He is adept at portraying emotion as well as the farcical, as when Jonathan A gets a bad case of the runs in France and makes a unsuccessful dash for the facilities.

A few

Ricardo Montalban has passed. In his honor, please enjoy this Trek moment.

What may be a bigger foreign policy issue than Pakistan? If Barry McCaffrey is to be believed, it could be Mexico.

I'm glad to see that Charlie Huston's new book is getting some big buzz. I have yet to read one of his books that wasn't excellent entertainment. Early Word collects some of the love.

Criterion Collection is back in the business of in depth picture heavy reviews of Criterion Collection films. Brian De Palma's Sisters is up this time.

If you are curious just how bizarre comics can get, read this blog post. It does contain the most astounding sentence I have seen since I can recall. Not really work safe. (via Vulture)

Crime in past times

Crime fiction fans are most likely already familiar with Sarah Weinman, who writes the Confessions of Idiosyncratic Mind blog. It is your one stop shop for crime fiction reviews and news. She currently has a four part series on the Barnes and Noble review highlighting historical crime fiction. We have ancient crime, medieval crime, Victorian crime, and now inter-war crime. The prolific mother and son team that goes by Charles Todd is covered as in Rennie Airth. I like the Todd books and have two or three on my shelf waiting to be read. Airth writes at a much more leisurely rate. In the past 15 or so years, he has published two novels, but Weinman reports he has a new one coming out this summer.

If you like crime novels, you will find a number of good recommendations in the essays including one of my favorites, the Meaning of Night.

The smell of death is all around

I have been looking for some new horror writers, and on a recommendation I tried Jack Ketchum. I read his short story collection called Closing Time and I thought it was pretty good. Ketchum is best known for ultraviolence and his fans are especially enamored of the Girl Next Door, which is based on the real life murderer Gertrude Baniszewski. Closing Time is more subdued, although the stories frequently revolve around the sudden shock of violence in ordinary life. I liked quite a few of them and will be looking for his Peaceable Kingdom, another short story collection.

Something was missing though as I read. I realized that I kept waiting for the supernatural elements. When I look at the horror novelists that really grab me, like Lovecraft and King, they all focus on cosmic or supernatural horror. My favorite horror movie? The Exorcist. I am clearly an escapist when it comes to horror. Ketchum is focused on the evil that men do. For that sort of thing, I tend to prefer crime novels. Still for those wanting a close look at cruelty, Ketchum is a good bet.

USS Franklin

I was out searching for aircraft carrier videos to entertain my aircraft obsessed son, when I stumbled upon a documentary about the USS Franklin (CV-13). The Franklin was an Essex-class carrier that was severely damaged by Japanese aircraft, but heroic efforts by her crew got her back to the States. The ship was rebuilt and then left in mothballs waiting for a conversion that never came. The shame is that when she was broken up in the 1960s, she was one of the last US Navy carriers that looked as she did in World War 2. The other Essex class carriers that have been made into museums, the Intrepid, the Yorktown, the Lexington and the Hornet were all updated and are really Cold War carriers in their preserved state.

There is at least one book about the ordeal of the Franklin, called Lucky Lady. The documentary below consists mostly of veterans recalling the fight to save the ship. They tell the story of the ship well. There is also great archival footage in the documentary. The opening and closing shots show the ship being taken apart just a few miles downriver from where I grew up. The video below is part 1, the other parts can be found here.

Mixed

David Sanger of the NYT has some great articles this weekend. His Saturday piece on the Israeli attempt to get bunker busters from the US is amazing and his Sunday piece on the Pakistani nuclear program is frightening.

Here is Charles McCarry, of the excellent spy novels, writing in the WSJ about the CIA.

Yardley talks about the new Barry Unsworth novel, which he adores.

Nerd World links to a great Flickr photo set consisting of young Star Wars fans in the late 70s and early 80s. There are some great photos in there and they remind me of how much my own kids love Star Wars, and now, Indiana Jones.

Burger book

Despite quite liking them, I haven't given much thought to the making of hamburgers. I tend to throw in a few odds and ends and then cook them. This is probably why my hamburgers are crappy. With a non-beef eating spouse I don't get to make them that much anyway. Still, I would like to make one that I would want to eat. John T Edge has quite a few ideas on how I might do that in his Hamburger & Fries: An American Story.

While there are quite a few recipes here (one of which calls for beef tallow!,) the book is mostly about the great diversity in hamburgers found throughout the United States. There are the unfortunately named (and apparently none too tasty) slug burgers of the south, which use crackers, flour or other filler. There is the Jucy Lucy (sic) of Minneapolis*, so named because the man who first asked for one apparently said "That is a Juicy Lucy!" Then there are the loose meat sandwiches of the Mid-West. I meant to try these on my last trip across country but failed to stop at an appropriate restaurant. Now I can just make my own.

Edge loves food, but he also focuses on the people making the food. He is interested in how these different burger traditions arose and that is often the best part of his many stories. I like also that he is honest about the burgers he tried. He flat out disliked the slug burger and he thought the Jucy Lucy was interesting, but not as special as advertised. He still provides recipes for both, as your taste may differ.

Edge writes for the Oxford American and has a number of other books, including ones on Apple Pie, Donuts and Fried Chicken. I will be reading more of them. I will also be looking for burger spots on the Portland Hamburger blog. Next stop, Jim Dandy.

*Apparently there are some Jucy Lucy haters out there, have a look at this Wikipedia controversy page.

This is for the People of the Book

Geraldine Brooks won a Pulitzer for her Civil War book, the March. In that book she imagined what happened to a character in Little Women who went off to war. In her latest novel, People of the Book, she imagines what happened to the Sarajevo Haggadah, a sumptuously illustrated Jewish religious text that was created in Spain was passed to Italy and then to Sarajevo where it was protected by Bosnian Muslims.

The principal character is Hanna Heath, an Australian book conservator who is asked to examine the text in Sarajevo. As she finds bits in the book and in references to it, she begins to tell the story of how the book survived as so many Jews did not. It is usually the bravery of an individual or sheer luck that sends the book along with refugees to the next location.

Almost all of the stories are tragic with the deaths of many innocents. I thought one of the best was the story of Lola, a young Bosnian Jew, who escapes the Nazis to join a partisan band made up of children in the woods. When that goes wrong she is protected by a local Muslim family who save the Haggadah as well. This is a side of World War 2 that is rarely seen in Western books and I found her story particularly touching.

While this all sounds terribly tragic and sad, Brooks keeps coming back to the understandings and goodwill between Jews, Christians and Muslims. She holds out hope that despite centuries of conflict and terror, goodness can still return.

I saw some comparisons to the Da Vinci Code and the literary thriller genre, probably because the story involves a mysterious book. Keep in mind there are no hints of the supernatural or grand conspiracies in this book. Instead you have a hopeful story that something good can survive what seems like the end of the world.

A necessary evil, I suppose

Here is a random video for you. It's Aqueduct's Growing Up with GNR, which I love for the song title alone. Beyond that it is a great slice of indie pop. The video does feature excessive cheesecake in the video (there is more female skin time than in a Warrant video,) but it does make some sense in light of the lyrics. The best part is checking you can check out lead singer David Terry's rock star moves. It is a cross between Jack Black and Robert Pollard.

Most wanted

Here is a cool post from Short Stack, the Washington Post book blog. It lists the top five most wanted out of print books in 2008, from bookfinder.com. It is quite a diverse list, with a book of dirty photos, a book on carpentry and a book on running. Here are some books I am looking for at the moment.

David Gerrold A Matter for Men. I am a sucker for both apocalyptic and alien invasion novels and this one combines the themes in one book. Huzzah! I'm not sure how I missed this one, but I will be getting it soon.

Thomas Schatz The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmaking in the Studio Era. Although I love movies, I have done little reading on the making of movies. This one is supposed to be great.

Algys Burdys Some Will Not Die. More post-apocalyptic reading.

Simon Winchester The Sun Never Sets: Travels to the Remaining Outposts of the British Empire. Winchester is great. I love British Imperial history. Wistfulness always get me. So this one is bound to be good for me.

Angela Thirkell August Folly. Thirkell uses Anthony Trollope's Barsetshire to write English similarly rural focused novels but this time in the early 20th century. Since I like Trollope I think she is well worth a try.

It's 2AM the fear is gone

Although spy novelists, like John LeCarre and Charles McCarry, tend to show the drudgery and internal politics of espionage, film and TV typically do not. The Bond films make the stories even more action oriented than the novels and while 24 has some backroom elements, it is primarily action oriented. The British 1970s television spy drama the Sandbaggers is a wonderful exception.

The Sandbaggers of the title are a small group (three at the start) of special operatives that report directly to the Director of Operations, Neil Burnside. While they do go abroad, to the likes of Cyprus, Gibraltar and the Kola Peninsula, they spend an equal amount of time in the office puzzling out what to do and how to avoid trouble from their rivals at MI-5, their friends at the CIA and from the elected government.

The internal politics of government is the central drama of the show. Burnside can be read (as of season 1 or maybe just "Collection 1", which I have watched) as a committed careerist who plays every more to advance into intelligence leadership or as someone with total devotion to the team. There is evidence for both and Roy Marsden plays him in a reserved style that makes it hard to sell. Probably a mix of the two of course.

There are a few reasons not to watch this. If the description above sounds a bit boring, it probably will be. Also the quality of the film stock is poor, if you are one who must have HD quality in everything, you will be disappointed. Spy novel fans who are looking for something similar on TV will find a treat. I just found the second collection at the library and will be starting it soon.

I'll be you

Tana French's the Likeness stars off slowly and I nearly boxed it off for a friend, but I stuck with it and ended up thinking it superior to her Edgar winning In the Woods.

Her first novel focused on a fairly typical murder investigation. This one has an undercover operation at the center. The title refers to a corpse who looks almost exactly like former undercover operative Detective Cassie Maddox (one of the detectives in the first book). The cops suspect a group of peculiar college students with whom the victim lived. Cassie's former boss Frank Mackey wants her to impersonate the victim and live amongst the students to find the killer.

The opening section deals with the preparation and is slow, but once Cassie is in the house, the book is completely engaging. While there are similarities to the Secret History, the focus here is more on the challenges and tensions of being undercover as well as the slippery definitions of identity. Cassie is able to assume the identity of the victim Lexie Madison with relative ease, but finds her own identity mixing with Lexie's. Lexie, though, had a history of creating and destroying identities, but to her friends she is very real. On a larger level, French looks at the the creation of group identities at the local and national level. This plays into the climax nicely.

For a crime novel, the book verges on being overly long, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. Although I did my typical check the bookmark to see how much further I had to go, I didn't try to hurry it up to get to the next book. The characters are not the stock cops and thugs we see time and again, but are novel and multifaceted. There is lots of talking in this book, which highlights French's skill with dialogue.

In this interview, French reveals that the narrator of the her book will be Frank Mackey. I like that she is using the same universe (what she calls a clump of characters,) but isn't sticking with the same narrator. This gives some continuity while allowing the author to explore a new character and will hopefully prevent a slide into decadence.

Bin Ladens

Steve Coll's Ghost Wars is one of my favorite nonfiction books of the past decade. It details CIA activity in Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion to 9/11. His follow up book, the Bin Ladens, is related in subject matter, it is quite a different book. Unlike Ghost Wars which deals mostly with governments and guerillas in conflict, the Bin Ladens reads like a tragic family story. Imagine reading Ron Chernow's House of Morgan, with the addition of a rogue scion who turns anarchist and tries to blow up Wall Street.

While the Bin Laden name in the West is associated almost exclusively with Osama, in the Arab world it is equally known for wealth and connection to power. Mohammed Bin Laden, father of 50+ children, formed the Bin Laden construction company and became a partner with the House of Saud in building the country. With the relationship came money and an expansion into other businesses.

The book's subtitle is An Arabian Family in an American Century and a key element of the book is the split in the Bin Laden family (representing in some sense a tension in the broader Arab world) between those who wanted to take advantage of the freedoms of the West and those that rejected the West and sought to live a pure Islamic life.

While the book is a tad too long, it reads well. In addition to the challenges of being Islamic in an American world, the Bin Ladens were (and are) fabulously wealthy. Coll details the unbelievable lifestyles, which included a fixation on aviation. That family trait would be taken up by many, including of course Osama.

While the book is in one sense a business family history, it is also the story of Osama. Coll discusses him here mostly in the context of the broader family. Given the huge number of children, it isn't too surprising that there would be outliers, but messianic mass murderers are in a special class of outlier.

This is a book well worth reading, but don't expect a lot of action. While the Afghan jihad plays a part, there is much more on business deals, airplane lessons and trying to be both Islamic and Western. I guess this one didn't sell as well as was hoped, as Amazon has the hardback for seven bucks. What a bargain.

Foreign policy reading

If you are at all interested in international affairs, you should add the new Foreign Policy blogs to your RSS feeds. They've got Dan Drezner (formerly of the eponymous blog) who is an international political economy expert. They've got Tom Ricks (formerly of Washington Post) who has written extensively on the GWOT/Long War/BushWar and whose Fiasco belongs on every bookshelf. They've got realist scholar Stephen Walt who was attacked when he co-wrote a book on the influence of the Israel lobby on US foreign policy. Then there is Shadow Government written by a group of Republican policy experts. There is quite a bit more as well, so be sure to visit.

Mmmmmm, Shai-Hulud

As a non-cat lover, I can give much of the Lolcats stuff a pass (Lolmetal on the other hand is always welcome), but this one make me laugh.



A friend wants to restart Dune for discussion and I think I will take him up on it. That is such a fun read.

A few items

One of the downfalls of military histories is maps, or the inadequate use of maps. To be fair, many of the battles in history are so complex that one map won't due. Most military campaigns lack the cartographic simplicity of the Battle of the Bulge. For those interested in the Civil War, Civil War Animated is of great help. The site uses maps and succinct descriptions to show the situation in which a battle developed and how it happened. I can't speak to the accuracy of the detail, but it looks great, you see how the regiments moved in relation to one another. I was always confused by the description of the battles of the Seven Day's during the Peninsula Campaign but this animation made it much more clear. (via Tocwoc)

The kids have spent the past few Fridays watching the Indiana Jones films. We've been slightly uneasy with the body count in the movies, but we are the more uneasy about the Indy play acting. The kids sing the theme song all day long and have been attempting Indy like moves, including jumping down the stairs to grab a raincoat and swing to another step. Still I have to admit that the new Indy Legos, like this Flying Wing, and especially the computer game are a lot of fun to play with the kids.

Take a look at this back and forth on why science fiction novels are so long. Peter Hamilton aside, I think scifi novels are a fine length, but that could be my exposure to endless fantasy series. Still they did use to be shorter. I recently read Rendezvous with Rama and was amazed at the length.

Reading resolutions 2009

Well I didn't do very well on my one reading resolution for 2008, taking part in the Back to History Challenge. That called for reading 12 specific books, of which I read about half. I started some others that didn't take (Dorothy Dunnett and Can't Find My Way Home, for example,) but essentially I didn't make it. So this year I will pick a number of vague goals with as few metrics as possible.

Goal # 1: Read more books I received as gifts. I did better in 2008 that I have in years past, I think there are only 3 or 4 books that I have received as gifts in 2008 that I have yet to read. That said, I have over a foot of new books on my shelf. In fact I have placed them in their own special section so I can be reminded that I need to read them.

Goal # 2: Read more science fiction. I LOVE science fiction and yet somehow didn't read much this past year. While not as challenging as keeping up with music, I feel like if I take my eye off the genre it runs away from me. Time to get my head back in the game.

Goal # 3: Make progress on fantasy novels. I am currently midstream on the Song of Fire and Ice, the Malazan Book of the Fallen, the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, and the Gentleman Bastard Sequence, as well as a few more I am probably forgetting. As far as I can tell, if you write fantasy novels you have to write as many as you can and they must have a grandiose overarching name.

Goal # 4: Find another horror novelist that I like. In the past few years I have read a fair bit of horror, most of it not to my liking. I did find and quite enjoy Joe Schreiber and Sarah Langan. Here's hoping another will appeal.

Goal # 5: Support the local book culture. Buy at the local shops, attend literary events, support the library by boosting circulation numbers as high as I can.

These are open ended enough that I should be able to spin whatever I do into a success story, or so I hope.

Getting one's drink on

After this week's social events, beer is probably the last thing on your mind, but if you like beer and spend time on the West Coast you need to take a look at the Good Beer Guide: West Coast USA. Written by two British beer writers, they had the good fortune to tour the Western US to visit brewpubs, breweries and bars and provide exhaustive coverage of the beer drinking opportunities out here.

While I have dabbled in the delights of the West Coast, I know the Portland scene fairly well and they have it beautifully covered. They rightly point out the excellent Concordia Ale House as a highlight and also provide indepth reviews of the local majors like Deschutes, McMenamins and Bridgeport.

The writing is funny and enthusiastic, these guys really do like beer quite a lot. If you drink beer (decent beer that is) and spend time on the West Coast, this is an excellent investment.

Six Frigates

In Six Frigates, author Ian Toll ably presents the story of the creation of the American Navy. The book balances narratives of naval action with the political battles that decided where, how and if a Navy would be built.

Building the six initial frigates was an challenging endeavor. Joshua Humphreys designed the ships to be both more powerful and more sturdy than their European counterparts. Toll describes the difficult process of building and arming the ships, including the harvesting of live oak trees, which were located on malarial islands. Although the design was incredibly successful in battle, it had its difficulties. They were initially loaded with too much cannon which limited their effectiveness. The ships took longer to build than hoped and had trouble being launched.

While construction had its own problems, politics was an even more important factor. The decision to build a Navy raised critical issues for both the Federalist and Republican parties. The Federalists were convinced that the European states and the Barbary states would continue to prey on American commerce until the United States was able to defend it. They also believed that the country needed unifying Federal institutions if it was to survive. The Republicans on the other hand feared that the Navy would cost far too much, give the Federal state far too much power and lead to unnecessary wars with foreign powers.

Toll closely examines the shifting political winds as well as their effects. The political rancor was so heated it could even lead to violence. One of the leading newspaper editors of the day was viciously beaten when he visited a frigate under construction in Philadelphia, no doubt due to his vociferous opposition to John Adam's policies.

Ultimately, it was foreign action including the XYZ affair, Barbary piracy and the British practice of impressing American sailors into British naval service that led to continued investment in the Navy. Toll is as strong at describing action at sea as he is in detailing political back and forth. He also helps show how different the navies of that time were from our own. After having been beaten in single frigate engagements by the US Navy, the British were eager to defeat one. The captain of the HMS Shannon sent a note to the captain of the USS Chesapeake noting that he had sent the other ships blockading the port in which the Chesapeake lay. Given the now even terms, would the American like to come out and fight?

This is an excellent read for the fan of naval history but it also useful for reading for those interested in the development of early American institutions and the debates that continued past the Constitutional convention.

A disappointing movie

I watched [Rec] last night. Ehhh. I was hoping for many more creepy scares. There were quite a few good ones, notably when a character is left to a terrible fate, but like the similarly shaky cam Cloverfield, the film had lots of slow parts. This though is a feature, not a bug. The sub-genre is tly called found footage which means it is supposed to be the footage found by investigators after the fact. The thing is, looking at clues like that is a job, not entertainment.

If you are not familiar with the story, a news reporter goes to a fire station at night to show what their nights are like. After showing the tedium of the job, they get a call to investigate a wounded woman. They visit an apartment complex, get attacked by the injured woman and then find the authorities have sealed off the building. This is of course bad news. The bad decisions pile up and so do the bodies. There is an interesting backstory that would have made for an fun movie on its own, but this is tacked on at the end.

This one isn't easy to see, you might just want to check out the disturbing last five minutes (below) or maybe see the American remake called Quarantine. Or maybe not. The people who liked [Rec] do not appear fond of the remake.

Mixed

Mikal Gilmore's Shot in the Heart is easily one of the best books I have ever read. So I am THRILLED that a collection of his writing called Stories Done has been released. The book is about the 60s, which sounds great, but from him I would probably read a book about visits to the nation's finest convenience stores.

The Times of London some time ago published this interesting Murder map of London of 1888, the year of Jack the Ripper.

Here is an article that will get you thinking and probably fretting. David Streitfeld writes about how the availability of low prices online continues to wear away at the bookstore world. I had no idea that Olsson's was gone from DC. I need to start spending more book dollars in town.

This on the other hand will make you chuckle, or perhaps just ruefully shake your head. Foreign Policy Magazine lists their top ten worst predictions about the year 2008. You just knew Jim Cramer would make the list.

Mark Bowden, of Black Hawk Down fame, has a long piece in the Post about Somalia and how bad it is there.

AA Gill is Awesome

There are some travel writers, like Rory Stewart of the Places in Between fame, who focus so little on themselves that they seem to vanish from the page. AA Gill is not one of those writers. His giant personality, opinion and humor threaten to crowd out whatever subject is at hand. When he is focused he can be quite acerbic, although generally in a witty manner. In AA Gill is Away, his takes on Japan (populated by aliens who are trying hard to look human) and Germany (the section is titled Hunforgiven) flirt with offensiveness, but the humor wins out.

You can tell when he is truly angry when the humor disappears. He thunders at the pharmaceutical industry for it's limited investment in tropical medicines as he watches a Ugandan girl undergo a spinal tap and a Uganda boy take arsenic based medicine to test for and treat sleeping sickness. This and his harrowing visit to a Sudanese refugee camp are highlights of the book.

It's not just multinational corporations that get his goat, it is also communism. While I have read of the tragedy of the disappearing Aral Sea (bad economic policy managed to kill the fourth largest lake in the world,) Gill shows the terrible effects on the people still living there.

It's not all doom and gloom though. Gill also manages to convince a pornographic film company to let him write an adult film and goes to see it shot. The story is hilarious but also told quite straight. His treatment of the actors as real people alone sets the story apart.

This recent restaurant review will give you a sense of whether you will like his writing. Here are many more. Here is an enjoyable interview with Gill on restaurants and food.

Samuel Huntington RIP

Samuel Huntington is dead at 81. While he wrote a number of books that are highly regarded in the academic world, including the Soldier and the State and Political Order in Changing Societies, he is best known in the public sphere for his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order.

After the end of the Cold War, one of the biggest questions in international relations was whether the evolving system would be more or less prone to interstate conflict. Huntington's thesis was that cultural differences among civilization groups would make the coming decades more rather than less conflict prone.

In the public space, one of the principal competing ideas was that a globalizing meta-civilization would be too focused on making money to allow for interstate conflict. The standard bearer for this argument was of course Tom Friedman.

This an argument that can and most likely will go on for decades. Both sides can easily say that we just don't know yet how things will turn out. The economic crisis will likely create new arguments as well. It's the rare big think international relations book that breaks into the public debate, so it is makes Huntington's passing all the more sad that we will not have any more of his provocative ideas.

Cheating with conclusions

My enjoyment of two good books, Nobodies and Violent Politics, was marred by a frequent problem in nonfiction writing. In both cases, the authors tell one story in the body of the book and then use their argument to make sweeping, not entirely supported arguments in the conclusion.

In Nobodies, John Bowe shows how globalized labor markets have made possible work conditions that amount to slavery here in the United States. He then uses the conclusion to make a number of indictments about globalization as a whole. In Violent Politics, William Polk investigates a series of insurgencies from the American Revolution to the War in Iraq, arguing that insurgencies are principally wars against foreign invaders and that they nearly always succeed. Like Bowe, Polk has a larger agenda, arguing that the United States is about to find itself in multiple insurgencies across the world and must pull back.

In neither case does the author effectively make an argument, instead they merely state them. If the point of the Bowe book was the globalization is on the whole negative, then the book should have made that argument. If the point of the Polk book is that U.S. foreign policy is overly aggressive and tending towards imperial commitments, then he should have argued that in the book itself.

The most effective conclusions are in some ways boring. For me, the best use is a restatement of the argument and addressing some potential implications. At some level Bowe and Polk do this, but they venture to far from their subject matter.

This is not a terribly important complaint, really. Conclusions are usually boring recitiations of the book's arugument that let you get the gist of the book without reading all of it. These are both good books that are just a little better if you skip the end.

Merry merry

I hope all our enjoy time with their families these days. We used the pause in the storm to get to our destination. Take a look at Boston.com's year in photos and the incredible Hubble Space Telescope Advent calendar.

A serial killer for Portland

Seeing as how winter has shut down Portland making it difficult to enjoy the season, it's a fine time to read a book about Portland, or at least a thriller set in Portland. Chelsea Cain's Heartsick is a solid, entertaining serial killer story set in Portland. You might think all the life has been squeezed out of the serial killer genre, but Cain manages to tell a new and engaging story. It seems someone is killing school girls and the police have to call up damaged cop Archie Sheridan to solve it. For reasons that are not immediately apparent, Sheridan agrees to be shadowed by reporter Susan Ward.

The initial set up is reminiscent of Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, with a cop visiting the brutal serial killer he caught and who brutalized him. Cain is aware of this, even directly referencing the book, but she takes a different tack. Her killer is in some ways even more malevolent than Lechter and the cop here and the relationship between the cop and killer is more twisted.

I thought the plotting and the resolution of the plot threads were excellent. Cain does a good job in moving the story forward and in misdirecting the reader. The only thing I didn't like about the book was how she dealt with Portland. You can't go a few pages in the book without running into some kind of reference to the city, usually a place name or fact about the town. Susan Ward, who worked as a feature writer, is given to spouting random facts about the city when conversations run down. There is so much, it feels like Cain saw this as her one shot at promoting the city.

All this information is interesting, but doesn't create the sense of the city that someone like George Pelecanos does with DC or James Ellroy did with his (nightmare version of) Los Angeles. Cain has written a followup novel called Sweetheart and I hope she will write more. I also hope she dials back on the name checking and helps people understand what life is like here.

Another wasted spot in the Netflix queue

I can see how people didn't like the Ruins, the novel, as it was grim and depressing, but it is hard to see how anyone could like the Ruins, the movie, as it was a compressed version of the story with nearly all the best parts removed.

The book quickly got the characters to the titular Ruins where they find themselves trapped and then hunted, but a teasing, slow moving enemy. The best part of the book was seeing how these characters dealt with their impossible situation. The characters are trapped on the roof of a ruined Mayan temple with threats all around. The overall feel was one of horrid claustrophobia. While they may feel safe from the enemy outside, it is the one within the Ruins that is truly terrible. This foul enemy is quite cruel in the book as well, it is both intelligent and wicked in its taunting of the trapped tourists.

The movie, which finishes in an all too quick 90 minutes, has no time for characters or for atmosphere. Instead, the story barrels along showing us the happy tourists turned into trapped, scared and then dead tourists. We see some flashes of cruel menace in the monster among the Ruins, but for the most part, it is without character, and could be any other faceless killer.

Scott Smith, author of the book, wrote the screenplay which makes me wonder if the director ripped his screenplay down to the barebones or if he has a different viewpoint on what made his novel work. If you are considering watching the movie, don't. Read the book instead.

Mixed scifi

It makes me happy that there is an entire blog devoted to the possible HBO series based on George R R Martin's Song of Fire and Ice books. Winter is Coming will have all your rumors, news, speculation and opinion that you need while you wait for A Dance with Dragons. There are so many characters and plots in the Song of Fire and Ice series that I really should start back at the beginning. That is really hard to do with Red Seas Under Red Skies and The Name of the Wind being so neglected and unread on my bookshelf.

Ultimate Iron Man brings two great nerd tastes together, the Marvel Ultimate universe, a reboot of the entire universe allowing for new origins, and Orson Scott Card, he of Ender's Game fame. Card takes the reboot charter pretty far and goes with his theme of powers and responsibility thrust on children. In this case, Tony Stark is not just a millionaire playboy, but a mutant millionaire playboy who gains super strength at birth. I was never a huge fan of Iron Man, so this didn't bother me. I can see how it might offend the fan base though. I enjoyed it. It is no Ultimates, but it is worth a read.

Star Wars novels, which bookstores segregate into their own subsection of the already ghettoized science fiction section, are not on the top of my reading list. They seem to focus on unnecessary backstory and gap filling. That said, when I see that horror novelist Joe Schreiber has a Star Wars (horror?) book coming out called Deathtroopers, well I admit I get a little excited.

Whole lot of shittin' going on

While mostly a laughing or smirking matter in the developed world, shit is a serious concern for many in the developed world. A sixth of the world population lacks what is called clean water, which is a nice way of saying that their water is polluted by human waste. This pollution kills millions of children each year from diarrhea alone. Rose George explores the world of shit management, or as it is usually called, sanitation in the excellent Big Necessity.

Rose is funny, she has a way with people, and she writes well. This helps explain why a book about something as potentially dry as innovations in sanitation is such good reading. She makes a strong case that access to waste free water is an important issue and that the way to do it is with low cost technologies suited to the local culture and economy.

The big story is that the developing world will need to find some other means that the flush toilet infrastructure of the West, and that, the West can learn a thing or two from the developing world. The costs and resource requirements of the Western system are impractical for most of the world and so a number of solutions have arisen. She does however talk about the highest end toilets, those from Japan. In the US, you can relieve yourself Japanese style with the Neorest.

In some cases, as in the Chinese night soil approach, the waste is used to grow food. George notes that China has managed to feed it huge population for four millenia without exhausting the land thanks in part to the rich fertilizer produced by people themselves. Another approach is the biogas digester which uses the methane produced by fermenting excrement to power villages. She also shows how disgust is an important tool in convincing people to adopt new means of dealing with waste. In India, promoters of new sanitation means helped the amount of shit deposited in a village each year. As the villagers worked it out, some vomited in reaction.

George occasionally gets a bit too detailed, but for the most part, she keeps the discussion at the right level and moving at the right pace. I suspect many people will buy this as a gag, but it is a serious book that makes key debates in development accessible.

Mean, nasty parents

In more ways than one. Every parent has stories of unfortunate kid's names from playgroups, the kid's museums or the grapevine. The oddest I have heard before was Forrest Jedi. I thought that kid was going to get razzed something serious. I think little Adolf Hitler Campbell takes the cake, or perhaps not, as his local bakery won't write his name on his birthday cake.

The Separation

A good deal of alternate history focuses on wars ending differently. In The Separation, Christopher Priest also looks at a war, but in a most unusual way. Here Priest examines a pacifist alternate history and also questions history itself. Depending on your read of the book, you could argue that it is not an alternate history at all.

The book starts with at a slow book signing by a British author of popular military histories. He mostly writes about the "German War," which ended in 1941 with an armistice between Britain and Germany (the unfortunate Russians thereby bear the full Nazi effort). At this point, most alternate histories would have Britain falling directly under a Nazi heel or living under a quisling class of anti-Semitic Tories. Instead, Britain is prosperous and free. Priest constructs a reasonable reason for this that reminded me quite a bit of some Niall Ferguson's ideas from the Pity of War.

As the historian gets up to leave, a woman leaves a memoir that the historian is seeking . He is trying learn more about someone who appears to have been both a bomber pilot and a conscientious objector. As it turns out, the one person is two, twins, and each has a diary. Unfortunately for our historian, the stories tell very different stories of the war. In one, the war ends as it does in our world, in another it ends in 1941.

(Spoilers ahead)

At one point, one of the characters calls Churchill a master of the manipulation of history. The creation of history, both as actor and as interpreter, is a major theme of the book. The framing device is the use of history, the pacifist and conventional interpretations of World War 2 are set apart as separate realities. And the major characters are concerned about how they are impacting history. One interpretation of the story is that the time lines are creations that reflect the desires of the characters to validate their choices. Priest ends the book quite ambiguously, so other interpretations, including the intersection of universes are also possible. I think that Priest is also arguing that the quest to fully understand history is not possible and that interpretation and mystery will always play a part.

Anger is an energy

Nixonland, by Rick Perlstein, is my favorite book of the year by far. It is a lengthy, detailed, yet entertainingly written account of the rise of Richard Nixon and his relationship with the "Silent Majority." Perlstein argues that Nixon recognized that many in the U.S feared the impact of black anger, changing sexual mores and the rejection of much of American culture by young Americans. Nixon stoked these fears and spoke to them. The Democrats tended to exacerbate these fears rather, playing into Nixon's hands.

One of the most interesting aspects is the intense anger that people on both sides felt and the alarming level of, and celebration of, violence as an extension of politics. Perlstein shows the frightening reaction to the Kent State and My Lai killings. As the word came in as to what really happened, many letter writers applauded the actions of the soldiers.

On the other side, the Yippies called for the murder of parents and at least one prominent leftist cheered the Tate murders, as the victim was merely a pig. Political enemies were viewed as essentially inhuman and not only should one not be sad that they died, but in fact they should be happy. While the demonization of political opponents is a problem that continues down to our day, we have nothing remotely similar to the broad acceptance of violence in today's political culture.

Be sure read to read Ross Douthat's conservative critique of the book. Here is author Rick Perlstein speaking with David Frum about the book on Bloggingheads.tv.

A few upcoming movies which probably won't be good

Hmm, the new remake of Friday the 13th (trailer here) does not appear to really be a remake of Friday the 13th. We have the mother's voice over but the killer of this movie does appear to be the killer of Friday the 13th. The original movie wasn't bad with a few good surprises and some good lines (Kill her Mommy!) And it has the best explanation for why the drunk, sex crazed teens must die in all horror films. Of course it is crazy person reasoning, but at least it has some logic to it.

The new Terminator might not be terrible. I would be mad if Christian Bale spoiled his good movie streak. The line about this not being the future his mother told him about is odd.

Given my never ending love for films with Satanic/demonic threats, the Unborn looks fun. The dog with the human mask is creepy as is the use of the creepy contortionist crawling taken from the Exorcist deleted scene. But my favorite part is that Stringer Bell is an exorcist. The end of the movie looks quite a bit like Prince of Darkness, which is a good thing.

Tropic Thunder

I watched Tropic Thunder for the first time the other night and thought it hilarious. If you saw it in theatres, consider getting the DVD just for the actor's commentary. Per his character's comment, Robert Downey Jr. stays in character through the commentary, to the surprise of Ben Stiller and Jack Black. See the fake ads for his character Kirk Lazarus for the best supporting actor.

Gun Seller

Hugh Laurie is best known in the states for the TV show House, but his acting character began way back in the 80s. His comedic work in the likes of Blackadder and a A Bit of Fry and Laurie. So it isn't surprising that his only novel to date (another may or may not be published in 2009) is a comedy of sorts. The Gun Seller is humorous spy thriller. It is not a spoof in the Austin Powers vein, but it is more like an Ian Fleming story with a hero known more for his dry wit than his dry martinis.

Laurie keeps the humor verbal and observational rather than situational. He therefore is able to tell a straight thriller story, while also writing hilarious dialogue. The main character, Thomas Lang, is a former soldier who falls into a conspiracy involving drugs, weapons, the CIA, and global terror. The action is fairly cinematic sweeping from London, to the countryside to the Alps and farther on and involves a number of exciting action sequences. Laurie's use of humor also distracts the reader from the action and provides for an extra jolt of shock when the plot moves forward.

This is a spy story in the Fleming heroic mold, as opposed to the Ambler murky mode, or the Le Carre morally ambiguous mode, or the McCarry lonely spy mode. It's also a post-Cold War spy story, a period from which we haven't yet seen a really great spy story emerge.

Links

Wow, this has to be the dirtiest skit ever performed on SNL. Not quite as funny as Dick in a Box, but still quite funny. Looks like SNL still has some spunk (sorry).

Stephen King has his list of the top books of 2008. He cheats a bit, especially with his number one, the novels of Robert Goddard, which stretch from 1986 to this year. Still, I am happy to see this under-rated novelist getting such high profile attention. The book pictured is In Pale Battalions which is excellent. I need to go get some more of these books. He also has Nixonland on his list, which you really need to read.

Foreign Policy has a story on the top ten news stories you missed in 2008. Mostly bad news of course, including the story that the production of solar panels is environmentally hazardous.

A mess o' graphic novels

I spent my reading time over the last few days on graphic novels. I quite like reading them, but I have a devil of time telling which ones to read. I have been relying on Amazon best of lists for awhile. I also have found luck with Powells end cap displays and the featured comics at the Multnomah County Library. Here are the recent reads.

Apocalypse Nerd by Peter Bagge. I know Bagge's work mostly from Reason magazine where his comics tend take potshots at both the right and left in an amusing way. This book is much darker than that work. The story focuses on two Seattle guys returning from a camping trip to find that Seattle has been nuked by North Korea. They quickly go into survival mode and find that morality is dependent on civilization. The light, goofy art is at odds with the subject matter although it helps lighten the tone quite a bit.

Too Cool to be Forgotten by Alex Robinson. In this book, a 40 year old goes into hypnosis to stop smoking and wakes as a teen in the 1985. Once there he recalls that in 1985 he smoked his first cigarette, so that if he says no he will be cured. Of course, there may be other reasons he started smoking. I found the best parts to be the adult recalling with regret the choices made in high school.

Strangeways: Murder Moon by quite a few people. This one is a werewolf story set in the post-Civil War Wild West. The art is black and white, which makes for some confusion in places, but is otherwise excellent. The story is underdeveloped with frequent unresolved allusions, but it should please horror fans.

Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill. The name is terrible, but this is a great graphic novel. It collects the first six issues of the Locke and Key comic, hence the subtitle. The art in this book is excellent with great transitions, horrific images and characterizations. Hill is an accomplished novelist and short story writer, so it isn't surprising that the story here is excellent. The final pages are clearly a set up for the next set of stories, but this is a complete, and satisfying, story in and of itself. The book has a trailer which you can see here.

Life is fun and I wish you were here

Most crime series continue past their expiration rate into decadence. There are exceptions and among the most painful is the Bernie Gunther series by Philip Kerr. The original trilogy, now packaged as Berlin Noir, features Gunther as a PI in Nazi Germany and then in the immediate aftermath of the war. Kerr recently wrote another book and has another is in the works. What was particularly appealing about the first books was the claustrophobic feeling of dread creating by the Nazi backdrop.

In Child 44, Tom Rob Smith has written a similarly excellent portrayal of crime investigation in a totalitarian state, but the state in this case is Stalinist Russia. Leo Stepanovich Demidov begins the story as a war hero now serving in the secret police. When his superiors prevent him from investigating a murder of a child by pursuing someone he learns is innocent , he begins to question the state and pursue his own agenda.

Kerr's books emphasized the dread the state created and Smith serves up plenty of that, but he also provides an equal dose of terror. The state Smith portrays considers all they arrest to be guilty and they arrest quite a few people, often due to whim or grudges. Torture is a run of the mill activity. There is so much destruction it is a wonder there are any people left standing at the end of the book. Still it is a reminder of how horrid the Stalinist state truly was. The oppressive East German regime of The Lives of Others is the liberalized version of the liberalized version of the state in this book.

The book was long listed for the Booker which is a rare accolade for a crime novel. I suspect it was the depiction of the Stalinist era as well as the effect on interpersonal relationships that won him the honor. The relationship between Leo and his wife plays out quite differently than in other genre books as do the relationships between superiors and inferiors. Politics in the office are a tad more dangerous than in the LAPD. There is so much good about what Smith does that you can't really complain about the fact that the big reveal will be fairly obvious to crime novel fans. The final elements of the ending will cheer fans of the Berlin Noir series.

This is a debut novel which makes it all the more remarkable. We will have to wait for the sophomore effort, but it looks like we have a new author about whom to get excited.

This is it boys, this is war

Happy news from Hollywood. Those making film treatment of World War Z will, as best as they can, maintain the unconventional structure of the book. The framing device of the book is the collection of first hand accounts of the Zombie war for a UN report. This means the story hops across the globe with essentially no character continuity. It works wonderfully, as author Max Brooks, has dozens of great ideas crammed into his skull, which he can develop for 20 or so pages before moving to the next. The script writers could have easily picked a few of the stories for an intimate zombie movie with doomed love stories, but instead they decided to try and show the global scale. Bully for them. (via SF Signal)

In an afterword, Brooks notes that he was inspired to use his approach after reading John Hackett's The Third World War. That book also tells the story of the war by moving from location to location in Europe to describe a potential war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Tom Clancy also adapted the approach and story to make the more successful, as well as better written, Red Storm Rising.

Butchery on Bond Street

The American 19th century, and particularly the crimes of the 19the century, is being revisited by a number of authors. The Devil in the White City, Sin in the Second City, and the Murder of Helen Jewett showed us their was more to pre-World War 1 era than the Civil War. In Butchery on Bond Street, former attorney Benjamin Feldman considers the murder of Harvey Burdell and the trial of Emma Cunningham for the murder.

Burdell and Cunningham were lovers, so she was quickly blamed as the killer. In detailing the lead up to the murder and the trail Feldman shows the unfortunate fate of women who lacked a husband or family to support them. When you add in the corrupt and often lawless nature of mid-century New York City, Cunningham truly had the deck stacked against her.

Feldman conducted extensive primary research which allows him to give a detailed view of the press and society frenzy that surrounded the case. His legal background serves him well here. This book will appeal to fans of New York history and to crime shows. It seems our national lust for crime theater, in art and in real life, is nothing new.

Books vs. music

I was enjoying a Rolling Stones murder song today and I realized how much my reading and musical tastes diverge. The murder song in question, Hand of Fate, is a terribly underappreciated Stones song in the vein of a Jim Thompson story. While there is this overlap, I am much more likely to listen to an arty rock song, like the almost unbearably arty Ottoman by Vampire Weekend (how much you ask? Just now I listened to that song four times. For real) than I am to a Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, DMX or Ice Cube song about killing.

What is the big deal with that? Well well over half (and let's be honest nearly all of my nonfiction) of my fiction reading involves killing. Give me James Ellroy at the top of his game over all of the Booker prize winners (except J.G. Farrell -- more killing!) any day of the week.

When it comes to music, I shun the violent for the erudite word play of Oxford Comma or the Morrissey songbook. Sure, I love Shellac, Slipknot, 1980s Metallica and the Misfits, but I would trade most of them for the witty and learned words of SM.

I can't really explain why I take such different approaches to these different art forms, but I do.

Bring on the body count

In first quarter or so of Ron Rash's Serena, I thought the book was over-hyped. Sure, the writing was good, and I thought the demonic Serena was fascinating, in the manner of a poisonous snake. These feelings fell away as I read late into the night and started anew Thanksgiving morning. I brought the book with me to my mother-in-law's, hoping I might steal away for some quiet reading time. No such luck, but just as well, as I would have distracted.

The book opens as Serena and her newlywed husband George Pemberton arrive at his North Carolina lumber camp. The arrival is a tad awkward as his pregnant former girlfriend is waiting for him, along with her furious father. The unhappy and violent results of the encounter sets the tone and the principal conflict for the book. The Pembertons rule the camp like feudal lords and have as much regard for their loggers as a medieval baron might for his cannon fodder. Whether by accident or by plan, the life expectancy in the camp isn't terribly high.

Perhaps because the death toll is so great, Rash avoids depicting all but the most important of deaths. Instead he uses a Greek chorus consisting of a few lumberjacks discussing lumber camp goings on, which include the latest victims of the Pembertons. This both keeps the plot movie and it allows Rash to concentrate on the warped Serena and the crumbling George. The character of Serena is nearly too much. She is part Ayn Rand wet dream, part Lady MacBeth, and part Keyser Soze. It helps that Serena is mostly spoken of, rather than shown. This helps prevent her descent into cliche.

Despite the period setting, the book is definitely of the moment. The Pembertons and their allies are racing to cut as many trees as they can before the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is created. As that becomes more challenging, Serena turns her eye to the unregulated Amazon. The environmental message is clear, but so is the criticism of the market unbound.

Avoid reading the fly leaf cover. Far too many spoilers. Of course, I read it and still loved the book.