Finally a horror novel I can love

Last year I read Sarah Langan's The Keeper and was quite taken with it. You can read my thoughts about that one here. That book was quite good, but I thought that Langan held back a bit in what she was writing. There is no holding back in her latest, The Missing. If you like supernatural horror with a sense of scale, this is your book.

The book starts with kids from the Corpus Christi, Maine school going a field trip an abandoned town. Now this was a tad unbelievable. I can't imagine parents signing off on a field trip pass to an abandoned town site that was recently investigated by the EPA. That momentary break in the suspension of disbelief was quickly overtaken by the pace of her narrative and the sense of impending cataclysm.

On said field trip, the trouble making kid avoids getting back on the bus and while investigating the ruins, uncovers something terrible. That terrible something then begins to threaten the town of Corpus Christi. As the evil spreads and consumes the town, we see the wicked ways of the all the town's social classes. Langan casts a fairly jaundiced eye on nearly all of her characters.

With her socially critical view, her suggestion rather than the depiction of violence, her Maine small town setting and her dark ending, you can't help but compare her to Stephen King. If you like the early, small-town-pays-for-its-wicked-ways novels of King, you will like and maybe even love this.

This is Langan's second novel and she has two more on the way. Right now it looks like she could be one of the greats.

Frontline

I missed the Frontline show, Inside the Meltdown tonight. If you did too, be happy you can watch it online. So far it is an excellent review of how the economic crisis unfolded. The interviews are impressive, with Senators and CEOs among the participants. Watch here.

In honor of the beer I am drinking

Here is Devo's Blockhead.




The beer in question is Coney Island Human Blockhead.

Fun with international relations

I've just read Christopher Layne's Peace of Illusions and was blown away. It manages to be an invigorating read, while also being theoretically rigorous. If you are looking for a more theoretically grounded version of the recent Bacevich book Limits of Power, this is where you should start. (Please note, this is not mean to disparage the excellent Bacevich book nor to say he has not written more theoretical books.) Before I say what I think of the book, I will provide a bit of information to help you decide if you would enjoy reading a book about international relations theory.

International relations theory attempts to explain why states act the way they do. Some theories also try to help policy makers make better decisions. Many theories, including the one on which Peace of Illusions is principally based, are systemic theories. These theories focus on the system of states, rather than the states themselves. For many systemic theories the type of state, whether democratic or authoritarian is meaningless. What does matter is the absolute or relative power of the states and for some, the perceived threat of the state.

Another set of theories focuses on the nature of state. A relatively well known theory, popularized and adapted by Thomas Friedman as the Golden Arches theory, is the democratic peace theory which holds that democracies do not fight one another. This theory was popular in the Clinton and Bush the Younger administrations and partially explained their interest in democratization.

World War 2 provides a useful means of illustrating how theory makes for a new way of looking at things. Ask most people why World War 2 happened, and people will say a nasty man (Hitler) started it. Many, but not all, theorists would say that the weak, unprotected states between Germany and Russia made war likely, but that the domestic character of Germany made that war much worse than it would have been otherwise. If you are interested in foreign policy and this sort of argument is interesting, you will likely enjoy the Payne book.

In War Times

Kathleen Ann Goonan is one of the science fiction writers I have been meaning to read for some time. I started with In War Times, probably because of the World War 2 setting. The book involves the development of a never fully explained technology that allows its users to manipulate time. It is designed as a means of dealing with Hitler, is developed in a race against Hitler and eventually comes to have an impact on the Cold War.

With its focus on the impact of technology on history, the book reads as an allegory about the impact of nuclear weapons. The World War 2 chapters show the peculiar life of soldiers involved in the development of secret weapons and much espionage is conducted to capture the technology. The device also allows for communication with alternate universes and the characters deal with a world where the Cold War doesn't happen and the investment in nuclear weapons (have a look here for some numbers) is instead spent on more productive technologies. As you might expect it is a much nicer place than our world.

There is a lot more going on in this book, including the idea the creation of jazz music shows the same new ways of thinking that make quantam mechanics understandable, or at least understandable to some. Given my limited musical theory understanding, much of this went over my head, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Goonan used her father's war time diaries to create her main character. She even uses them in the book, to great effect.

This was a good read, with the techno-optimism of science fiction combining with a humanistic belief that people can do better.

Good, but not great

Thomas H. Cook's The Chatham School Affair is one of my favorite suspense novels. Cook is particularly strong at setting up situations that lead to tragedy and then exploring the long-term damage of the tragedies. Anyone who likes suspense novels should pick it up. After reading it, I knew I wanted more. Cook has written a pile of novels so I picked up Instruments of Night more or less at random. Given my book buying to book reading ratio, I am getting to the book about a year after buying it. While it is good, it is not at the same level of Chatham School Affair.

The book's main character is Paul Graves who writes a series of suspense novels featuring a vile killer who is constantly one step ahead of his pursuer. You can tell something is amiss with our Paul as he is given to imaging dark backstories with every person he sees. He is highly introverted and it comes as no surprise that his books might arise from a horrific event in his past.

We watch him slowly come to terms with this event, as he explores an even older tragedy at the behest of the owner of large country estate. It seems her best friend was murdered in 1946 and the case was never resolved. In order give solace to the victim's aging mother, Graves agrees to imagine what might have happened to the girl.

This twin mysteries, what destroyed Graves and who killed the girl, are developed throughout the book. While I quite liked how the story progressed, I didn't like the resolution of either story. One becomes fairly obvious early on and one felt insufficient somehow. The best part of the book is Graves himself. Although he is not an attractive person, he provides some insight into how writers, or some at least, do their work.

Lincoln

Today is the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. A friend recently visited the Memorial and, having not been in many years, was surprised at its emotive power. It is difficult to overstate his importance in American history Via the excellent Blog Them Out of the Stone Age, an essential military history blog, have a look at the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln (it appears to be popular, try reloading if it doesn't work) reciting the Gettysburg Address. It's cool.

With him (and the USS Lincoln) in mind, I will be starting Craig Symond's Lincoln and His Admirals. Lincoln's often tendentious relationship with his generals is well known, but his relations with naval commanders is relatively unknown. The reviews have been good, so I am looking forward to it.

Still more Dune

So I finished Dune (again) and it was much better than I had anticipated. I enjoyed about as much as I did the first time, which is quite something for a science fiction novel. My only complaint is that the ending seemed a bit rushed. The final battle was incredibly compressed and the fight with Feyd was given more pages than nearly anything else. Did anyone else find the ending a bit off?

Funny reading

I am reading John Hodgman's More Information Than You Require. It is a somewhat brazen follow-up to The Areas of My Expertise. I say brazen as it is a continuation of the first book with the page numbering starting where the first book ended up and with very similar jokes. Fortunately, the jokes are still funny. As seen on the Mac ads and on the Daily Show, Hodgman does an excellent job of seriously presenting the absurd.

Just like the first book, I laughed out loud many times when reading this. Your enjoyment of this book will likely be similar to your enjoyment of this one. Essentially if dry, absurd humor laced with often obscure pop and literary culture references sounds good, you will probably like this. Speaking of somewhat obscure references, there is an art to making references that seem a bit obscure so that the reader feels a bit smug about getting them. Hodgman does this quite well.

Amazon's Omnivoracious has a podcast interview with Hodgman here.

What a wicked game we play

If you are looking for a well plotted spy novel that isn't afraid to show the emotional and physical wear of espionage, then have a look at Alex Berenson's the Silent Man. This book is the third book featuring his super-spy John Wells and it will thrill readers who love action-oriented spy novels. The threat of the book is the terrifying possibility of nuclear terror and Berenson spins a riveting narrative about how terrorists may attack.

Nuclear terror is a challenging subject as the author has to be conversant in nuclear technology and has to spin a credible tale about how nuclear material/weapons might be acquired. In both cases, Berenson does an excellent job. The acquisition plot line is nuanced and brutal. He also makes what could be a boring lecture, how bombs work, into a key and exciting part of the story.

I liked that Berenson explores the idea that the life of a spy is not terribly attractive. John Wells is estranged from his family, cannot connect well with those around him and has made a number of powerful enemies. That said Wells is a bit over-powered. He is like a spy and special operations officer combined, capable of amazing physical feats. This is partially explained by his many years of operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A bit less believable is his predilection for getting in the faces of his superiors, including the DCI. I suspect in real life his behavior would get him a job as Chief of Station on Vanuatu.

If this book were a TV show, it would clearly be 24, and one of the good ones, no cougar sub-plots here. It has all the excitement of the show as well as strong characters. Berenson takes presents a number of interesting characters including a pathetic Russian who helps the terrorists and a disgraced Navy Captain whose independence helps the attempt to stop the terrorists. The show has gone hill, but you can get your fix with Berenson.

More naughty

As I mentioned earlier, the Other Hollywood is a heck of a read. The book is an oral history, so it consists entirely of interview transcripts from key players in the world of adult film, including the actors, directors, the mob financiers, the FBI team that chased the mob, the girlfriends and the occasional tangential player like John Waters. On the face of it, this sounds like the authors didn't do much work, but the organization and selection of the interviews is excellent. You get a story from many angles and directly from the participants.

Many of the stories are quite amusing, many are more than a little shocking and quite a few are just tragic. The story of the famously well endowed John Holmes is a thread for much of the book. The character of Dirk Diggler in Boogies Night is at least partially modeled on that of Holmes. While Diggler experienece a rise and fall followed by a partial rise, Holmes's fall was uninterrupted. The robbery scene from Boogies Nights is based on a real robbery that ended in murder and questions remain about the role Holmes played. The Wonderland killings saw four people die as a result of being brutally beaten. Holmes certainly led the killers to the apartment, but may have even been one of the killers.

Then there is the story of Shannon Wisley who killed herself after she was injured in a drunk driving crash. The belief is that the suicide rose from her belief that her injuries would preclude her from working again. Okervil River wrote two songs about her, one from her father's perspective and one from her own. They are both great songs are terribly sad as you might imagine.

Savannah Smiles


Shannon Wisley on the Starry Stairs

Bermuda Triangle

I was on a trailer site this evening, when I spied this trailer for a horror movie called the Triangle. It might be a good movie, but the trailer is chock full of spoilers. So full I will most likely now avoid watching the movie. No huge loss, as most horror movies are crap. What matter more is that the Bermuda Triangle may finally get its due in pop culture.

When I was but a lad, the Triangle was pretty big, or at least I recall it being big. Other kids may have loved Roswell or Bigfoot, but I loved the Bermuda Triangle. Coming from a Navy town, the fate of a missing Navy flight and the disappearance of a Naval vessel, were already fascinating, but then you add the pure mystery of it and it is so much more intriguing. Like the related Mary Celeste and the vanished Terror and Erebus, these are the sorts of disappearances and mysteries you can mull over eternally. They also make for great science fiction stories as Dan Simmons demonstrated with the Terror.

The 70s saw some books on the subject as well as a board game (scroll down) with a swirling magnetized cloud that stole your ships. If someone like Milton Bradley figures it makes sense to make a game about a subject, it has to be pretty well embedded in the popular culture. Alas that has now changed. Since then, aliens have completely displaced the Triangle. Why can't there be more space for mysterious phenomena in pop culture?

You can find another Bermuda Triangle (in Afghanistan!) themed movie here. Maybe it is coming back?

Naughty, naughty

I've been reading lots of heavier things of late, so I thought it was time for a change of pace. My current read, the Other Hollywood, The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry is certainly that. I recall an article, written during the demise of the dot-com era, which talked about former dot-commers taking office jobs in the adult film world, figuring it couldn't be that different. Thing is, it is that different.

The stories this book tells are astounding, but one that sticks in my mind involves a porn star calling up another for help. She goes to his house and finds that he is holding up another porn star, who's head is stuck in a toilet. Seems they had some really outre action going and her head got stuck. He couldn't free her head as he had to balance her and continually flush the toilet so she could breath.

This is an oral (hee, hee) history, so it all direct quotes well organized by the writers. Some of the quotes are genius, like this one from Eric Edwards.

I didn't know Annie at the time, but I did know Paula, Gerard Damiano's girlfriend. I worked with her. I love that term, "Worked with her."

You know, everyone says that in this business. "Well, I worked with so-and-so, and I worked with so-and-so."

"Oh, you mean you fucked them?"

"Well, yeah, that's what it boils down to."

Oil!

I don't read a lot of business books, but I do love business histories. Ron Chernow has written a number of great books about finance and the families that built financial empires. A friend just lent me The Smartest Guys in the Room, a story about the Enron debacle.

One book that looks fascinating is the Big Rich, a story of four of the great Texan oilmen. The author Bryan Burroughs was on the Diane Rehm show recently. Listen here, it will is a great interview.

Some really sad stories

What do you get when you put Winesburg, Ohio , a bevy of Jim Thompson characters, and the songs of Big Black and the Drive By Truckers in a blender? You get the brief, brutal and sad stories of Donald Ray Pollock's Knockemstiff. Pollock was born in the actual town of Knockemstiff, Ohio, a town which may have named after a fistfight. The citizens do their best to live up to their town's heritage by filling their days with casual violence, thoughtless sex and a wide range of substance abuse.

It sounds like tough reading, and it is. Some of the stories are tragic as in the case where a mentally damaged recluse stumbles upon a brother and sister rutting in the woods or in the case where a boy tries to earn his father's love by viciously beating another boy. Others are merely sad as when a moves in with one of the town's many brutish thugs in hopes of finally finding a friend. In all these cases, things end poorly.

So why should you read these stories? If you can stand the sadness, it is the characters. Pollock has a real sympathy for his characters, probably developed in working thirty years in a paper mill. He has a clear-eyed view of the lives of the marginalized and the daily challenges they face. He doesn't provide much, if anything, for hope or redemption and even makes a point of the same sad stories repeating across the generations.

This book was short and theoretically you could knock it out in a evening. The stories were just too intense for me to do that. Depending on your viewpoint, that could be good or bad. My vote is good.

Old Disney movies with the kids

My five year old daughter recently told me that she was feeling too old for cartoons, which is too bad for the large stockpile of cartoon DVDs, we have accumulated. In order to please my newly discerning offspring, I have been renting live action Disney movies for the little ones. Here are the results.

20,000 Leagues under the Sea: Still a good movie, but slow in parts. The kids loved that the Captain was named Nemo, the Whale of a Tale song (beware, it is sung incessantly in the movie) and of course they loved the squid fight. They didn't get the political context, and thought the undersea scenes were boring. Also a tad long, so consider the skip feature.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks. The kids liked this one quite a bit more. The use of cartoons was hilarious to them. Like Mary Poppins, the characters frequently break into song, such as Portobello Road with its parade of Royal subjects dance. There is something in this movie for everyone, with silly jokes, Nazis, ghostly knights, cats, singing and Roddy McDowall as a gold digging cleric.

The Black Hole. The surprise hit of the bunch. I think they just like the visuals as they don't really appear to be paying attention to the story. This one holds up surprisingly well, as a kids movie. Although it was clearly a reaction to Star Wars, it feels more like a 50s science fiction film with 70s swinger clothing. The kids also liked that the Captain looks like Captain Nemo.

Can I hear the echo from the days of 39?

Although books about World War 2, fiction and non-fiction, are a dime a dozen, books about the critical predecessor, the Spanish Civil War are few and far between. This may be due to the limited participation of Americans and British, but I suspect it also has to do with the murkiness of the conflict. While there is a strong element of heroism in World War 2, the Spanish Civil war was marked by class warfare, atrocities, factionalism and authoritarianism on both sides. This confused picture makes for a great setting for a spy novel, which CJ Sansom has used to excellent effect in Winter in Madrid.

The novel is set in 1940, with Britain greatly worried that the Fascist Franco might join with his ideological ally Adolf Hitler and seize the strategically vital Gibraltar. Invalided soldier Harry Brett is recruited to spy on his former classmate Sandy Forsyth (a character with more than a dash of Harry Lime) whose gold mines may help Franco escape Britain's limited leverage over Franco. Another former classmate Bernie Piper, who volunteered to serve with the Republicans, rots in a prison while his girlfriend Barbara Clare seeks him out. Complicating matter is that Barbara now lives with Sandy.

Harry is a less than ideal spy, breaking secrecy more than once and missing the political under-currents in Madrid. The political picture is not obvious. The British seek to support the right wing Monarchists, who oppose the right wing Falangists, in hopes of reducing the possibility of war expanding into Iberia. The more experienced diplomats have an amoral realist view of British policy that doesn't really consider the Spaniards at all, which appalls Harry.

Sansom paints a suitably grim picture of Spain under Franco, but also leads one to believe that life under the Soviet-controlled Republicans would have been little better. It would just have meant a different group of people would have been tortured to death. Sansom leans towards a realist policy that would have supported the Republicans before they took their extremist turn under the Soviets.

For a spy novel, this book is quite long and the plot can be meandering. This lack of speed and direction plays into his overall theme of ambiguity and paranoia, which I quite liked. Sansom writes principally about 16th century Britain, but I hope he returns to the modern era as he does it very well.

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.