Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs

Summary: In a convoluted and disturbing string of events, a drug addict flees from the police. His journeys take him across the United States and down into Mexico and beyond. On his travels, he meets up with various members of the underground drug and homosexual cultures. Alongside the twisted narrative runs a counter story about the uses of mind control by governments and psychiatrists to manipulate, destroy and direct the masses. Told in lurid detail that disturbs and disgusts many readers, the novel presents a glimpse into the emerging counter cultures of the 1950s and gives interesting insights into how these forces effect the ongoing development of modern society. (Summary from bookrags.com; cover image from powells.com)

My Review: Many of the books that end up on challenged and banned book lists leave people scratching their heads; few can find anything offensive enough about Harry Potter to comprehend banning it. Not so with Naked Lunch, perhaps the only masterpiece of modern literature ever to be banned from shipment through the U.S. Post Office. It has been burned. It has been banned in cities like Boston and Los Angeles and was the subject of a Massachussets Supreme Court obscenity case. Even today, it’s hard to imagine a school district even considering it for inclusion in a library long enough for parents challenge it.

What does a book have to do to get this sort of reaction? That’s the easy part. Naked Lunch has enough visceral violence, sex, sexual violence, general depravity, and drug use to make even the most jaded reader blanch. But Burrough’s masterpeice isn’t out for cheap shock value. Rather, the disturbing, surreal images serve to underscore the book’s cry for freedom from the invisible prisons of a culture that treats people as merely means to an end. It’s the revelation of our own everyday inhumanity, reflected back to us in grotesque and larger-than-life form, that makes this book hit home.

Naked Lunch is a great book. Not just a Great Book, but actually a fascinating, disturbing, mind-opening and gut-wrenching read. Naked Lunch is also a hard read. Much of it is written in Burrough’s signature “cut-up” style--the literary equivalent of impressionism, if Van Gogh were to paint his worst nightmares, tear the canvases to shreds, and glue them back together at random. Trying to trace the thin threads of theme and motif tying together words, sentences, and scenes quickly leaves the reader bewildered, mentally exhausted, and open to the full impact of the text’s delicate and dangerous poetry.

Star Rating: 5. Caution: This book doesn’t play nice; expect to be appalled.

Sum it up: If ever a novel begged to be banned by the powers that be, this is it. Strike a blow for your own freedom, and pick up a copy today! (Incidentally, the movie adaptation is no more understandable, but other than that it has little in common with the book. Give it a pass unless you're a fan of cinematic surrealism--in which case, you've probably already seen it.)

The Reapers are the Angels - Alden Bell

Summary: For twenty-five years, civilization has survived in meager enclaves, guarded against a plague of the dead. Temple wanders this blighted landscape, keeping to herself and keeping her demons inside her heart. She can't remember a time before the zombies, but she does remember an old man who took her in and the younger brother she cared for until the tragedy that set her on a personal journey toward redemption. Moving back and forth between the insulated remnants of society and the brutal frontier beyond, Temple must decide where ultimately to make a home and find the salvation she seeks. (Summary from book cover - Image from macmillan.com - Books given free to review)

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Pay attention, because we have a little surprise for you!

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Mindy's Review: I am stunned (nearly) speechless by every aspect of this book--the writing, the characters, the plot, every shred of everything. Good thing I can still type, eh?

Dramatic and gritty with a unique, inescapable voice, The Reapers are the Angels is a brilliant story, enhanced by characters that burrow into your skull, and woven together with splinters of bone and rivers of blood. Bell’s exquisite prose runs in striking contrast to vivid images of death and decay. His idiosyncratic grasp of the English language allows him to use the words ain’t and palaver in the same sentence without damaging the authenticity of his characters. Haunted by a past she cannot change and hunted by both the living and the living dead, Temple is a force of nature--fury and endless wonder, death and life personified--in her search for redemption in a horrifying world.

This morning I finished reading, closed the book, let out a big sigh of relief/contentment/sadness and, from the length of my exhalation, realized I must have been holding my breath for half the book. In the past two years or so, I’ve reviewed over 145 books for this blog and I have never read a book like this one. It is gorgeous. It is disgusting. It is just so good. I’m fairly certain it has ruined me for many books to come.

Her Rating: 5 Stars. For the sensitive reader: If you cringe at images of roiling maggots, mangled viscera, or fecal ooze, you probably shouldn’t read this book. Seriously, don’t even think about it. Back away slowly and go pick up something by L.M. Montgomery. Now. This book contains a few brief sexual encounters, occasional swearing, and an incredible amount of gore. It’s possible I’m still in shock and minimizing the extent of the carnage. Don’t you dare say I didn’t warn you.

Sum it up: If you are looking for a book to suck you in, mind, body, and soul, chew you up, and spit you back out again, run to the store and get this book*.

*But please, for the love of Alden Bell, read the above “My Rating” section before you do.

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Daniel's Review: As a reader, I mentally file my favorite works of fiction into two broad categories. Great Literature requires careful attention but can subtly remold your head and heart, changing you forever. Light reading, however, may spark your imagination and tantalize your palate, but seldom fires your soul. Unfortunately, books involving zombies always seem to fall into the latter category.

Not any longer.

One page into The Reapers Are the Angels, it was clear that this was a book that belongs on a shelf with Hawthorne, Dostoevsky, and Calvino. Beautiful images, carefully-crafted phrases, perfectly-balanced nuances--clearly, the work of a skilled writer. By the end of the first chapter, I was seeing through the protagonist’s eyes and tasting the flavor of her thoughts as she regretfully smashed in a zombie’s head with a rock.

Before long, the zombies showed up in force, and I was lost in Bell’s grand and awful vision of a world in ruins. Never has a post-apocalyptic wasteland been so lovingly and dreadfully spread out. But the true action of this book doesn’t come from the countless hordes of entrail-chewing revenants. Rather, it was the living who horrified, disturbed, and even inspired me.

Like the best zombie stories (to which it seems somehow wrong to compare this book), the undead here serve to highlight the depravity and soul-deadness of their as-yet-undecayed prey. Unlike its gore-soaked literary forebears, however, The Reapers Are the Angels lives up to the promise of its title and shows how beauty and redemption come, not in the absence of horror and evil, nor even by overcoming or conquering them, but somehow through them and in harmony with them. A paradox, perhaps, but it’s such complexities and their transcendence that sets great books apart from pulp page-turners.

His Rating: 5 stars. Not for the faint of heart on account of horrific images, which are only partially due to the zombies.

Sum it up: A moving meditation on life and death, beauty and horror, and the meaning of them all (with more zombies than you can shake a shotgun at).

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Are you as excited about this book as we are? If so, you'll be delighted to know that TOMORROW we'll be posting a GIVEAWAY with THREE chances to win
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Lucas Manson - Thomas Hauck

Summary: When Special Agent Mark Dylan investigates a gruesome homicide, he uncovers the terrifying world of the Kingdom Seven Family Temple and its leader, the charismatic and ruthless Minister Lucas Manson. As Dylan and his partner Jill Kelly penetrate the secret inner sanctum of the temple, they learn that friends cannot be distinguished from enemies. The vast and powerful temple holds dark secrets that will change their lives forever.

Lucas Manson asks: Do you know who you are? Do you know which side you're on? The answer may shock you. (Summary from book - Cover image and review copy courtesy of publisher)

My Review: If the author didn't feel the need to describe every detail--down to the material the elevator buttons are made of*--then this book would be… well, still pretty bad. As it is, my brain oozed from my eyeballs after ten pages.

*Bakelite, in case you're curious. You shouldn't be. It's not important. Neither was the menu of every meal eaten during the course of the novel, nor the life stories of half the walk-on characters. Perhaps the obsessive detail would be ok if it were at least inventive; instead, it's patched-together bits of every cliche in the tide pool of popular culture. Even the Evil Cult of Darkness(™) is formulaic.**

**Recipe for an Evil Cult of Darkness: Mix three parts Scientology, two parts Mormonism, and a hefty dose of born-again televangelism. Veil thinly and serve lukewarm. Oh, and make them all vampires.***

***Really, really pathetic vampires. Ok, so I'm just adding footnotes for the fun of it. Remember the bit about my brain oozing from my eyeballs? Apparently the one synapse I have left is the one that does footnotes. Forgive me.

Star Rating: 1 Star. Sensitive readers may be turned off by the hackneyed violence and embarrassingly drool-y sex, if they make it that far.

Sum it up: A book about vampires, or rather, a book that is a vampire--it will suck you dry and destroy everything that is good and pure in your life. It's really that bad.

Odd and the Frost Giants - Neil Gaiman

Summary: In a village in ancient Norway lives a boy named Odd, and he's had some very bad luck: His father perished in a Viking expedition; a tree fell on and shattered his leg; the endless freezing weather is making villagers dangerously grumpy.

Out in the forest Odd encounters a bear, a fox, and an eagle--three creatures with a strange story to tell. Now Odd is forced on a stranger journey than he had imagined--a journey to save Asgard, city of the gods, from the Frost Giants who have invaded it.

It's going to take a very special kind of twelve-year-old boy to outwit the Frost Giants, restore peace to the city of gods, and end the long winter. Someone cheerful and infuriating and clever…

Someone just like Odd… (Summary from book - cover image courtesy of harpercollinschildrens.com)

My Review: I read this book to my four-year-old son. His review was "Dada, I love Odd and the Frost Giants because it's one of my favorites." While he says that about everything, and I'm not sure he understood more than a fraction of the book, I have to agree with his assessment. Charming, inventive, and perfectly pitched for its intended audience (probably closer to eight years old than to four), this is one of the better children's books I've read.

A particular strength is Gaiman's well-practiced ability to convey clear and compelling images of characters, scenes, even moods in a few well-chosen words, woven into an apparently effortless skein of themes and events that leaves no loose ends yet somehow manages to avoid seeming contrived. I was also impressed by the way this story presented the bloody, grim world of Norse mythology in a way that was reasonably true to the legends and yet neither patronizing nor nightmare-inducing--a not-insignificant feat of tact.

I have only two complaints with this book. First, I felt as if it could have been a bit longer without disrupting the balance of the story; both my son and I would have enjoyed another chapter or two. Second, there was no mention of Ragnarok. Even if this is a kid's book, the ship made from dead men's fingernails is too good an image to pass up. (Ok, maybe I'm stretching on that one, but I had to come up with something to complain about.)

Star Rating: 4 Stars

Sum it up: American Gods in miniature, and with less angst.

The Virtues of Mendacity : On Lying in Politics - Martin Jay

Summary: When Michael Dukakis accused George H. W. Bush of being the "Joe Isuzu of American politics" during the 1988 presidential campaign, he asserted in a particularly American tenor the near-ancient idea that lying and politics (and perhaps advertising, too) are inseparable, or at least intertwined. Our response to this phenomenon, writes the renowned intellectual historian Martin Jay, tends to vacillate--often impotently--between moral outrage and amoral realism. In The Virtues of Mendacity, Jay resolves to avoid this conventional framing of the debate over lying and politics by examining what has been said in support of, and opposition to, political lying from Plato and St. Augustine to Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss. Jay proceeds to show that each philosopher's argument corresponds to a particular conception of the political realm, which decisively shapes his or her attitude toward political mendacity. He then applies this insight to a variety of contexts and questions about lying and politics. Surprisingly, he concludes by asking if lying in politics is really all that bad. The political hypocrisy that Americans in particular periodically decry may be, in Jay's view, the best alternative to the violence justified by those who claim to know the truth. (Summary from book - cover image and review copy courtesy of University of Virginia Press)

My Review: A teacher whom I greatly respect once told me that if you can't explain something in plain English, without technical terms and jargon, you don't really understand it. This is true of whether you're writing about particle physics, crocheting, or, as in the case of The Virtues of Mendacity, philosophy. While I don't want to imply that Martin Jay doesn't know his stuff--he certainly does, perhaps better than anyone else--I do wish that he had made it a little easier for us to share in his knowledge.

Jay's understanding is comprehensive, his exposition strong, his analysis insightful, and his conclusions sensible and well-justified. In many respects, this is a perfect book of its sort--cultured, intelligent, and obviously the result of deep and prolonged thought. But it has one drawback--it trusts too much in its readers. Certainly, there are those for whom words like deontological, cryptonormative, instauration, and metaindividuals need no explanation,* and names like Habermas, Arendt, and Derrida no introduction. Indeed, among the students of philosophy who will likely be this book's primary audience, such matters are par for the course. But this book deserves a wider audience than that.

The Virtues of Mendacity was, for me, a welcome--if turgid--change from the polarizing, sensationalized, and demagogic shouting match that makes up so much of current American political discussion, even among the intellectuals who ought to know better. Jay's restraint and avoidance of easy answers provide an excellent model, and his conclusions sound advice, for those who study politics, those who practice it, and those who merely follow it. Unfortunately, only the former are likely ever to get the message.

*Though nobody should use heteroclite or irenic. Ever.

Star Rating: 4 stars.

Sum it up: Excellent--and important--reading, if you don't mind keeping a dictionary and an encyclopedia of philosophy at hand while you read. If you find that you don't need the reference books, it's time to put the book down and go spend some time outside.

Pattern Recognition - William Gibson

Summary: Cayce Pollard is a new kind of prophet--a world-renowned "coolhunter" who predicts the hottest trends. While in London to evaluate the redesign of a famous corporate logo, she's offered a different assignment: find the creator of the obscure, enigmatic video clips being uploaded to the Internet--footage that is generating massive underground buzz worldwide.

Still haunted by the memory of her missing father--a Cold War security guru who disappeared in downtown Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001--Cayce is soon traveling through parallel universes of marketing, globalization, and terror, heading always for the still point where the three converge. From London to Tokyo to Moscow, she follows the implications of a secret as disturbing--and compelling--as the twenty-first century promises to be… (Summary from book - cover image from www.coverbrowser.com)

My Review: Please ignore the summary above. Although completely true, it gives a grossly distorted image of what this book is about--even as a William Gibson fan, I approached this book with hesitation based on that description, which promises exactly the sort of pretentious, shallow, self-consciously "cool" thriller that I make a point of avoiding. In fact, Pattern Recognition is anything but that kind of book.

Not that I could do any better trying to summarize it. I've spent almost a month since reading this book trying to think of a better way to explain it in a review, and failing. It's not a thriller, per se, though it is thrilling. It's not pretentious, though it ought to be, and would be in the hands of a less capable writer. It's not even cool, at least not in the style-before-substance way that so many bestsellers are. For Pattern Recognition, style and substance are the same thing, and are both available in mind-bending quantities.

Gibson's early work had a certain prophetic quality, not so much the result of foretelling the future as of telling stories so powerfully as to shape that future. This book, however, presents something else--a telling of the present so powerful as to capture it, like a dragonfly, in mid-flight. One can almost imagine this book as a sort of linguistic needle, sharp enough and subtle enough to pierce right to the heart of the spirit of our age, and pin it down so we can see the delicate tracery of the veins on its wings.

Star Rating: 5 stars. Contains non-explicit violence and sex, and some explicit language.

Sum it up: Neuromancer come of age. If you're the sort of person who looks for novels with the power to show you not just a different world, but a different perspective on this one, this book is for you.

Under the Jaguar Sun - Italo Calvino

Summary: Taste, hearing, and smell dominate the lives of the characters in these witty, fantastical stories. In “Under the Jaguar Sun” a couple tours Mexico to discover a startling combination of sublime and erotic love in the cuisine of fire-hot chiles and exotic spices. In “A King Listens” the enthroned tyrant is prisoner not only of his power but also of his ear, as echoes in his huge palace carry contradictory messages of deliverance, love, and betrayal. In “The Name, the Nose” a man of the world consults a fashionable Parisian parfumerie in search of a scent worn by a mysterious masked lady, while in London a drugged rock musician is lured into the crazed pursuit of a female whose odor has inflamed him. (Summary from book - Image from amazon.com)

My Review: These three stories are part of a series of five, each centered on a different sense, that was left unfinished by the author’s death. Before reading them, I hadn’t realized what a loss two unwritten stories could be. Each of the three existing stories, though very different in tone and style, is a small, multifaceted masterpiece.

One of the startling aspects of these stories for me is the effect they have in the hours, days, and weeks after I’ve read them. The first story—in addition to making me crave spicy foods—has forced me to re-evaluate the way I handle myself in my close relationships. Who would have thought that cannibalism could be inspiring as well as entertaining?

The second story is a sort of existential nightmare, a shifting minefield of meaning and identity. If modern philosophy—from Hegel’s dialectic to Foucault’s critique of power relationships—were a tragic love story, this would be it. Or perhaps it’s the story of an ego divorced from its id. Either way, you don’t need to know, or care, about philosophy or psychoanalysis to get caught in this story’s mad web of words.

For me, the third story was the weakest, but that might be because I have a nonfunctional sense of smell, so it’s hard for me to relate to characters who live through their noses. Like the sense that it centers on, this story seemed a bit muddled, lacking the crispness of the other stories. But perhaps that was the point. Regardless, Calvino’s off days would be another writer’s strokes of genius, so perhaps I’m just jealous.

Star Rating: 5 stars. Contains mature themes maturely handled.

Sum it up: Three of the most entrancing short stories I’ve read; whoever let Calvino die before he finished the other two should be shot.

Forty-Eight X : The Lemuria Project - Barry Pollack

Summary: A colonel with a shadowy past… A new kind of war and warrior… A military science experiment out of control… On the island of Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the United States has gathered together its most talented scientists to conduct top secret experiments. Their goal—to create a revolutionary new warrior. A warrior so strong, so valiant, so expendable that the age of “casualties of war” becomes only a sad and distant memory. And so, the Lemuria Project is brought to life—by a Nobel laureate in genetics and a three-star general seeking redemption in a long-lost and forgotten metaphysical civilization.

Haunted by a dark and dangerous past, Colonel Link McGraw is the officer chosen to train and lead these special “soldiers.” In the course of battles to renew his tattered reputation, he, above all, knows what constitutes the perfect soldier. It’s simple: Follow orders, command decisively, make no excuses, and have no regrets.

When Egyptian beauty Fala al-Shohada and Israeli Joshua Krantz, romantically paired archaeologists, stumble across the top secret project, they are determined to uncover its true nature and pursue their quest to the island of Diego Garcia. Science and politics clash, as do Krantz and McGraw, who vie for Fala’s affection. When they discover they aren’t the only ones on the island competing for her attention, shocking truths are revealed.

The future of the entire human race comes to a crossroads on Lemuria. Will humanity find there its loftier spirit or become a lesser species in earth’s evolution? (Summary from book - Image from thrillerwriters.org - Review copy courtesy of publisher)

My Review: I should have heeded the warning on the gimmicky paper seal that held this book when it arrived in the mail: “Warning: Detailed information about the Lemuria Project is contained within this novel.” If I knew then what I know now, I would have set the book aside and saved myself the trouble of learning about what is surely among the least thrilling secret military projects ever devised by aspiring fictioneers.

It’s not that the plot was predictable and the characters wooden; one comes to expect these things from genre fiction, and see past them. In fact, using a stock plot, near-stock characters (aside from the military mens’ unexpected new-aginess, about which more later), and background research that had all the depth of a Wikipedia article should free an author up to focus on grand visions, penetrating insights, or thought-provoking speculation. No such luck here, though; Forty Eight X-The Lemuria Project fills its pages with plodding exposition, dialogue that reads like late-night infomercial transcripts, and platitudinous hand-wringing about the ethics of war and genetic manipulation. Finally, it drags itself to a series of heavily-telegraphed plot “twists” that serve in place of any true climax.

But on the bright side, the novel’s very clumsiness opens the door for moments of true entertainment. The image of a battle-hardened, square-jawed general getting touchy-feely with his flaky “spiritual guide” above the cosmic vortices of Sedona will stay with me for—at least a bit. Such moments abound, thanks to the book’s attempts to shoehorn all of its poorly-fitting themes into a coherent plot. In other words, this one’s for you, B-movie fans and connoisseurs of the unintentionally ironic. All others, consider yourselves warned.

Star Rating: 2 stars. Warning for delicate sensibilities: It’s not the graphic carnage that has the potential to offend so much as the distressingly awkward sex scenes and the cavalier chauvinism with which they’re handled.

Sum it up: Jurassic Park with apes and reincarnation, but with less dramatic tension.

Son of Steve - Sean Conway

Summary: Son of Steve, Sean Conways' debut novella, sits somewhere between prose and poetry, has no characters except for Jesus and Elvis, and talks about pop culture and sex, creating a sense of suspension in time and space. It isn't surprising that Sean is a film-maker: the pages read like highly evocative scenes or snap shots that bring us back to something primal, beyond categories and labels. If we could bring literature back to its deepest roots, it would probably look a lot like Son of Steve.

There is no story, no characters, nor an ending. As a young filmmaker, Sean creates images, evokes scenes, drills a hole through our bored collective unconscious with a sense of timeless worlds, nameless individuals, and desacralized spaces where we can at last get to the heart of things. He IS the Son of Steve. (Summary from publisher - image from revengeink.com - review copy courtesy of publisher (DVD not included and not reviewed))

My Review: Let’s get one thing straight right off—you will hate this book. It is pretentious, disgusting, perverse, crass, disjointed, ugly, morally bankrupt, often unintelligible, and occasionally boring.

Now that we have that out of the way, there’s something to be said for a book that is pretentious, disgusting, perverse, crass, disjointed, ugly, morally bankrupt, often unintelligible, and occasionally boring. Son of Steve does, in fact, achieve that rare literary quality, a clear and honest view into the unhallowed depths of the author’s mind—and, I suspect, the minds of more of us than would care to admit it. If seeing things “as they are,” without whitewashing or rationalization, is a mark of insight and wisdom, then this book has more to offer than appears at first sight. In this view, the book’s major failing is that it doesn’t have the patience to let its material develop, or the restraint to sort the well-putrified wheat from the chaff of the author’s mental processes. In attempting to be honest, it often verges over into mere stream-of-consciousness reporting of minutiae.

To reiterate, none of this means that you won’t hate Son of Steve—but if you have the proper where-angels-fear-to-tread mentality, you may find it worth reading regardless.

Star Rating: 3 stars. Expect to be offended.

Sum it up: The demons of one man's mind, dried and pinned like bugs in a collection, but without any labels.

A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore

Summary: Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy. A little hapless, somewhat neurotic, sort of a hypochondriac. He’s what’s known as a Beta Male: the kind of fellow who makes his way through life by being careful and constant—you know, the one who’s always there to pick up the pieces when the girl gets dumped by the bigger/taller/stronger Alpha Male.

But Charlie’s been lucky. He owns a building in the heart of San Fransisco, and runs a secondhand store with the help of a couple of loyal, if marginally insane, employees. He’s married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. And she, Rachel, is about to have their first child.

Yes, Charlie’s doing okay for a Beta Male. That is, until the day his daughter, Sophie, is born. Just as Charlie—exhausted from the birth—turns to go home, he sees a strange man in mint-green golf wear at Rachel’s hospital bedside, a man who claims that no one should be able to see him. But see him Charlie does, and from here on out, things get really weird. . . .

People start dropping dead around him, giant ravens perch on his building, and it seems that everywhere he goes, a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Strange names start appearing on his nightstand notepad, and before he knows it, those people end up dead, too. Yup, it seems that Charlie Asher has been recruited for a new job, an unpleasant but utterly necessary job: Death. It’s a dirty job. But hey, somebody’s gotta do it. (Summary from book - image from harpercollins.com)

My Review: As a reader, I’m pretty jaded. Far too often, I’ve been disappointed when books that came highly recommended turned out to be the same tired plots, flat characters, and hack writing as a thousand other bestsellers destined for the recycle bin. So when A Dirty Job was recommended to me almost five years ago (thanks, Becca!), I mentally filed it under “Maybe if I get really bored,” despite my respect for the recommender’s taste. Now I am kicking myself for wasted time, and running out to get every other Christopher Moore book I can get my hands on.

It’s hard to pick out the best aspects of this book, because from the first paragraph to the Author’s Note at the end, the entire thing is handled with finesse and twisted wit. Christopher Moore has a gift for characterization, and where most novels have a hard time making even the protagonist real and three-dimensional, A Dirty Job overflows with believable, breathing human (and otherworldly) characters whose lives and personalities continue to develop and deepen throughout the story.

The plot itself is a circus sideshow of bizarre twists, razor-sharp transitions, and increasing tension, all delivered in a deadpan voice that can switch from the pathos of a loved one’s funeral with unaffected sincerity, to a scene involving a 14-inch tall undead crocodile-headed assassin in a black silk tuxedo, without missing a beat. Page by page, A Dirty Job builds a world that is equal parts macabre humor, over-the-top insanity, and real life, so convincing and darkly seductive that even after the book is done you want to remain there, in Mr. Moore’s beautiful freakshow.

My Rating: 5 stars. Rated R for language, sexuality, demonic sexuality, violence, demonic violence, mature themes, infantile themes, and incredibly warped humor.

Sum it up: Black comedy at its best. Don’t let the high recommendation fool you—this is one to read immediately.

The Lexicographer's Dilemma - Jack Lynch

Summary: In its long history, the English language has had many lawmakers--those who have tried to regulate or otherwise organize the way we speak. The Lexicographer's Dilemma poses a pair of questions--what does proper English mean, and who gets to say what's right? Our ideas of correct or proper English have a history, and today's debates over the state of the language--whether about Ebonics in the schools, the unique use of language in a South Park episode, or split infinitives in the Times--make sense only in a historical context.

As historian Jack Lynch has discovered, every rule has a human history, and the characters who populate his narrative are as interesting for their obsession as for their erudition. . . . In a sense, they're all been failures: despite their combined efforts, our language is every bit as messy and irrational as it was three hundred years ago. But they and others have shaped and influenced the language we speak today.

Grammatical "rules" or "laws" are not like the law of gravity, or even laws against murder and theft--they're more like rules of etiquette, made by fallible people and subject to change. Charting the evolution of English with wit and intelligence, Jack Lynch provides a rich historical perspective that makes us appreciate anew the hard-won standards we now enjoy. (Summary from book - image from WalkerBooks.com - review copy from my good friend Emily. Thanks!)

My Review: There are some books that shouldn't be read; they're too dangerous, overwhelming the reader with forbidden secrets and leaving him or her mad, comatose, or worse. Luckily, such books are pretty rare, and usually hidden in mouldering libraries where they're not likely to be stumbled on by the unsuspecting. But there is another class of books, easily available but potentially as dangerous. For me, The Lexicographer's Dilemma was such a book.

Let me explain. When I'm not writing these reviews, I moonlight as a copyeditor--a professional grammar nazi and Custodian of the Purity of the English Language. Dangling participles, split infinitives, and more arcane shibboleths feed my family and pay for my ever-expanding shelves of books. I have a vested interest in keeping proper English esoteric, legalistic, and bound by the tyranny of long-dead grammarians.

But after reading this book, I find myself paralyzed every time I sit down with a manuscript. Where once I wielded my red pen like a sword in noble battle against literary Philistines, now I agonize over each "correction." That split infinitive--is it a mark of sin, or a time-honored and natural part of our speech? That common but nonstandard usage--might it be a natural evolution of the language, a fresh and logical development ?

In short, should I follow my pocketbook or my conscience? But I can't avoid the truth-- though the garrisons of ivory towers grumble their hoary rules, they are powerless to chain the language, which runs rampant, Dionysian, with flowers in its hair. My red pen is inked with the blood of the innocent. I lay it aside; go now, writers of English, and be free!

My Rating: 4 stars. Caution: The chapter on expletives is rated R for language (of course!), and the entire book is likely to highly offend anyone who was appalled by my use of a split infinitive in this sentence.

Sum it up: Engaging, well-researched, and above all, reasonable—I should not have read this book.* But you should!

*Though I'm glad I did.

Ghosts of Central Arizona - Heather Woodward

Summary: Take a ghostly road tour of Central Arizona. Ghoulish legends and the author’s personal experiences make for an entertaining—and sometimes scary—trip. Visit the Jerome Grand Hotel and stay in one of their “Death Rooms.” Travel through vortexes at Bell Rock and Boynton Canyon. Learn about the ghost sightings at the Chapel of the Holy Cross and, if you get hungry, the Haunted Hamburger serves up a good ghost tale. From Superstition Mountain to Flagstaff, with just a touch of “Hollywood in Arizona” legend thrown in for good measure, you will experience Central Arizona’s ghost stories. So come along for the ride … if you dare. (Summary from book - image from schifferbooks.com - complementary review copy from publisher)

My Review: At one point in this book, the author states that ghost hunting is mostly waiting in the dark, not knowing when, how, or even if a spirit will put in an appearance. That’s a good metaphor for the book itself—so much time is spent on ghost hunting techniques, background information, and stream-of-consciousness accounts of the author’s every minute, waking or sleeping, on the trail of hauntings that I began to wonder if the spooks would make it into the book before the Index.

When the ghosts did show up, they were a mixed bag, with all the good stuff happening “off stage.” The author—a psychic and long-time paranormal investigator—promises to personally investigate the legends of haunting, but we learn more about her thoughts on exercise (only while shopping!), Catholicism (creepy and morbid!), and Nicholas Cage (crush-worthy!) than about her experiences with ghosts. In fact, for all but a couple of haunted locations, all we get are third-or-fourth-hand rumors—the author never even visits them.

For all of its rambling and meandering, though, Ghosts of Central Arizona does have some redeeming substance. Even though I’ve never lived in Arizona, and have never been ghost-hunting, I found myself drawn into the stories, the history, and the worldview that finds the past infused, spectrally, into the very bricks and stones of our mundane world. Best of all was the story of Superstition Mountain, which is everything a ghost story should be—mysterious, macabre, and, above all, believable. It’s unfortunate that the rest of the book can’t live up to the same standard.

My Rating: 2 stars. Caution: Portions of this book may be offensive to Catholics and members of the Sedona New Age community. The whole thing is offensive to a skeptic, but you probably could have guessed that from the title.

Sum it up: Unless you’re a ghost hunter yourself, a historically-minded Arizonan, or bored and curious, there’s more fluff here than substance.

You Can't AFFORD to Break Up - Stacey Nelkin & Paul Schienberg, Ph.D.

This review was co-written by my wife, Becca Nighting, a secretary and freelance advisor. Nobody should have to suffer through this book alone.

Summary: The tough economic times can affect even the most stable relationships. Breaking up isn't the only answer; it can be rough both emotionally and financially. But by taking stock of your relationship with your partner and a little work, you can stay together and be happy. In this self-help book, actress Stacey Nelkin and therapist Paul Schienberg collaborate to offer ideas to help you jump-start your love life.

Filled with relevant real-life illustrations and stories, You Can't AFFORD to Break Up offers insightful and thought-provoking tips for saving relationships. ... Geared toward couples in all stages of a relationship, You Can't AFFORD to Break Up encourages you to be proactive and use your imagination to be sexy and have fun. You can't afford to break up; save your relationship and save money. All you need is an empty wallet and a dirty mind. (Summary from book - image from www.iuniverse.com. We received this book for review.)

Our Review: Now that the sweet romantic glow of Valentine's is past, you may be facing the harsh realities of a relationship plagued by financial trouble. Perhaps you might find You Can't AFFORD to Break Up in a bookstore, and wonder, "Could this book help me salvage my relationship?" To help you answer this question, we have put together a brief questionnaire in the spirit of the book itself. Pencils ready?

1. Do you believe that Cosmo-style questionnaires can reveal deep insights into "Almost Everything That Matters"?


2. Do you believe that a night of great sex can solve any and all relationship problems, from crushes on the barista to unemployment-related depression?


3. Do you believe that actresses know how to save your marriage because "no one knows about love and sex better than the folks in Hollywood"?


4. Does drinking beer "take you back to the good ol' lustful days of high school"?


5. Does your short attention span keep you from noticing inconsistencies, contradictions, and poor logic?


6. Does your idea of an empty wallet involve cash for sex toys, hotel rooms, dance classes, "soft, sensuous, sexy sheets," and new outfits every few months?


7. Do you find that mocking your partner's sexual abilities tends to get them in the mood for love?

We won't patronize you by offering to interpret your answers--you've probably got the picture. This book impressed us with its ability to turn deep, complex issues into folksy soundbites. Our favorite parts were the case studies, which seemed like they were taken from rejected soap opera scripts. They would probably be more useful than the fluffily incoherent advice in helping a stressed relationship, because they at least are good for a laugh.

Our Rating: 1 star. Caution: This book is likely to be offensive to anyone who dislikes the word "fondle," who doesn't think of themselves as having a dirty mind, or whose relationship has more depth than a TV sitcom marriage.

Sum it up: Cliched, haphazard pop-psychology relationship advice desperately trying to gain relevance by capitalizing on the current recession.

Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino, trans. William Weaver

Summary: In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo--Tartar emperor and Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan has sensed the end of his empire coming soon. Marco Polo diverts the emperor with tales of the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire: cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and designs, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, trading cities, hidden cities. Soon it becomes clear that each of these fantastic places is really the same place. (Summary from book; image from www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com)

My Review: There are some books that are hard to review because they are hideous literary messes, and one doesn't know where to begin panning them. There are others books that are hard to review because they push one's buttons, making a fair appraisal of them difficult. And there are some books that are hard to review because they are too carefully constructed, too subtly and delicately worded, too grand in insight and application, for one possibly to do them justice.

Italo Calvino's masterful Invisible Cities is one of the last sort of books. I could discuss the intricate, dream-like structure of the short episodes and reveries that build the book like the bricks of one of its cities; the jewel-like clarity and poetry of the language; and above all the way the author, like a skillful magician, peels back the veils of our prosaic reality to reveal something far more beautiful, dangerous, and alive--I can tell you about these things, but I'd rather shut up and let the book speak for itself.

My Rating: 5 stars. It's a mercy this book was originally in Italian, lest it be dragged through the muck of every English Literature course and ruined for everyone.

Sum it up: Poignant yet playful, and ripe with insight. Short enough to read in a night--but do yourself the favor of reading it slowly!

The War on Privacy - Jacqueline Klosek

Summary: In today's globalized society, the war on terror has negatively affected privacy rights not just in the United States, but everywhere. When privacy rights are curtailed around the world, American efforts to spread freedom and democracy are hindered, and as a consequence, Americans are less secure in the world. Ironically, the erosion of individual privacy rights, here and abroad, has been happening in the name of enhancing national security.

This book sheds light on this apparent contradiction and argues that governments must do more to preserve privacy rights while endeavoring to protect their citizens against future terror attacks. It is easy to forget that prior to 9/11 privacy rights were on the march. Plans were in the works, in the areas of legislation and regulation, to protect personal privacy from both governmental intrusion and corporate penetration. The need for such protections arose from the swift advances in information technology of the 1990s. But the attacks of 9/11, and the responses of governments to this new level of terrorist threat, put an end to all that. Not only is privacy no longer emphasized in legislation, it is being eroded steadily, raising significant questions about the handling of personal information, surveillance, and other invasions into the private lives of ordinary citizens.
(Image from Amazon.com; summary from book jacket. Free copy reviewed at publisher's request.)

My Review: You'd think that a book about shadowy government surveillance programs, a la 1984, would practically write itself. How hard can it be to convince your readers that a gargantuan database detailing their every credit card purchase, every phone call, even the color of their hair and (perhaps) the names of their cats--all handled by private contractors with minimal security--is a bad thing?

Apparently, it's harder than I would have thought. Despite (or perhaps because of) encyclopedic descriptions of virtually every privacy-related law in the world, on a country-by-country basis, The War on Privacy is easily the most boring book I've read this year--and I make a living reading boring books. The author seems to have put so much effort into researching the minutia of various laws that she lost sight of the bigger picture--the effects that government invasions of privacy have on real people and on society as a whole. Aside from a few anecdotes and some boilerplate analysis in the introduction and conclusion, there's nothing in this book to give the reader a reason to care.

But being boring is not the worst crime a book on important issues of public policy can commit; far from it. And indeed, our privacies are being rapidly and frighteningly eroded (a trend which has not reversed, that I can tell, since this book was published in 2007). A far worse crime is failing to offer even a framework for a solution to the problems it discusses. Unfortunately, The War on Privacy does not deliver. For all its footnotes and gravitas, this book boils down to little more than intellectual tsk-tsking over the ugly truths of international realpolitik.

My Rating: 1 Star. Give it a pass unless you've got a compelling personal interest in the privacy and terrorism policies of, say, Argentina or Bahrain.

Sum It Up: Like many of its cousins from the fiction section of the library, the most interesting part of this book is the cover. What's inside is mostly filler.

Daniel's Favorite Books List

Selections from Daniel's favorite books list

Fiction
Foucault's Pendulum, Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Galapagos - Kurt Vonnegut
The House of Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Delta of Venus - Anais Nin
The Illuminatus! Trilogy - Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac - Jhonen Vasquez
Demian - Hermann Hesse
The King of Elfland's Daughter - Lord Dunsany
Melmoth the Wanderer - Charles Maturin
The Castle of Crossed Destinies - Italo Calvino
Collected Works of H.P. Lovecraft
Memories of My Melancholy Whores - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Nonfiction
Fear and Trembling - Soren Kierkegaard
Collected Works of C. G. Jung
Three Books of Occult Philosophy - Henry Cornelius Agrippa
Publication Manual of the APA, 4th ed.
Sefer Yetzirah - trans. Aryeh Kaplan
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas Hofstadter
Final Exits: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of How We Die - Michael Largo
The Golden Bough - James Frazer

Poetry
Faust - Goethe
Les Fleurs du Mal - Baudelaire
The Wasteland, Four Quartets - T.S. Eliot
Sonnets to Orpheus - Rainer Maria Rilke
A Season in Hell - Rimbaud
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage - Lord Byron

Everything Else
Thus Spake Zarathustra - Friedrich Nietszche
Metamorphoses - Ovid
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig
The Devil's Dictionary - Ambrose Bierce
The Essential Rumi - trans. Coleman Barks
I Ching - trans. John Blofeld
Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell - William Blake

Evidence of Angels - Suza Scalora & Francesca Lia Block

Yet another guest review from Daniel Nighting, father of the cutest little baby girl (till my own is born, of course) on the West Coast.

Summary: Evidence of Angels, a beautiful and colorful photographic journey into the world of the angels who exist just beyond our vision, began with the questions: "Do angels exist? Or are we alone? What happens after we die and leave this earth?" From there, Suza Scalora, bestselling author of Fairies, began a project, hanging her photographs of angels throughout New York City, on walls and lampposts and fences, along with her email address. Three days later her first letter arrived. Evidence of Angels . . . captures onto each page the responses to those photographs and the world of unseen guardians who offer hope and comfort in times of need--beginning with Suza's reflections in the wake of a loved one's death--and explores her feelings of hopelessness after suffering such a profound loss. (Summary and image from Vision On)

My Review: For those of you who didn't get your fill of sticky-sweet confections over the holidays, Evidence of Angels is certain to speak to your cravings. The "photographs" of the angels, as well as the text, are suffused with a delicate, hazy light that suggests that everything is going to be ok. But like the holiday season's sugarplums, this book is short on substance--which is perhaps to be expected, dealing as it does with things angelic and ephemeral.

I suspect that consumers of this book fall into two camps. The first consists of those who already believe--or want to believe--in the sort of nondenominational, benevolent beings of spiritual energy that Scalora and co-author Francesca Lia Block describe. For these readers, this book is a beautiful, heartfelt affirmation that we are never alone--that the universe is teeming with beauty and love, if we can just open our hearts and eyes and let go of fear and doubt.

The second camp consists of everyone else. These readers, while appreciating the message, may find the artwork more blurry than ethereal, the angels' teachings more trite than touching, and may perhaps feel nostalgia for the grand, vengeful, uncompromising angels of the Apocrypha.

My Rating: 3, plus or minus 1 depending on whether heartwarming messages of hope delivered by glowing metaphysical messengers are your thing.

Sum it up: A sugarcoated dessert composed of equal parts Sylvia Brown and Photoshop. Enjoy after a hearty meal of Edgar Cayce, and don't forget to floss.

Death Mill Mansion - Will Hartzell-Baird

This review comes from our awesome guest reviewer and my friend Daniel Nighting, now father of TWO children (one of them a new-born baby girl). I can't believe he managed to actually read a book, let alone review it, on the 30 minutes of sleep a night he is likely getting.

Summary: A dark and stormy night...
As has been documented in any number of movies and books, there is a particular class of mansion that, through some indescribable means, bestows unanticipated engine/tire difficulty upon passing cars, forcing the unsuspecting occupants to knock on the door, asking to use the phone, never to be seen or heard from again. Countless motorists have been lost to these devious abodes, as well as to the mysterious mansion's close relatives, the darkened gas station and the eerily silent farm community looming unassumingly in the distance. Coincidentally, on a dark, stormy night while driving on an unfamiliar country road, Robbie inexplicably experiences car trouble... (summary from the book - image from www.hartzellbaird.com)

My Review: Few authors would like to hear their work described as being patched together from cliches and stock characters. Will Hartzell-Baird, I suspect, is one of those few. Like a sort of literary Frankenstein's monster (who, incidentally, appears in the book, along with werewolves, vampires, serial killers, mad scientists, deranged robots, and... well, pretty much everybody), Death Mill Mansion is sewn together from the hackneyed corpses of every B-movie and pulp thriller ever made.

...and like Frankenstein's monster, it's alive! ALIVE! With wry wit and keen eye for absurdity, this book breathes life into the stale tropes of the sci-fi and horror genres, deconstructing them, turning them inside-out, and piling weirdness on weirdness until the reader is sucked into an alternate dimension, the plaything of the author's warped imagination. What's more, the book does so while dancing blithely over a morass of potential plot holes, inconsistencies, and paradoxes without once falling in.*

The only failing of Death Mill Mansion, as far as I'm concerned, is the complete lack of any law-related humor.** On occasion, Hartzell-Baird seems to get carried away with a scene and lose track of the plot, but he always manages to find a bizarre new crisis (rather, a new twist to the ongoing crisis that is the plot) before the reader has a chance to lose interest. This book was so well paced that it took the birth of my new daughter to make me put it down.

*And it has footnotes, too! More novels should have footnotes.
**Read the book.

My Rating: 5 stars. An excellent book for when your reality is just too boring.

Sum it up: In some parallel universe--one with far more zombies--this is comic Shakespeare.

(this book was given to us for review)

The Four Corners - Christian Usera

This review is from my friend Dan (husband to Becca, father of almost two), who cracks me up, even when I can't understand a word he's saying...

Summary: "The Four Corners" is an anthology containing a series of folktales by Christian Usera. Each story is an inner journey into the heart of Light, Love, Truth, and Wisdom. Although written in a childish format, the style belies these complex surrealist proverbs. (Summary from book jacket- image from amazon.com)

My review: I tend to get all tingly at words like "complex surrealist proverbs," so I was rather looking forward to reading this book, which contains four short stories liberally illustrated with the author's own paintings. To my disappointment, I soon found that "complex" meant "incoherent," "surrealist" meant "paying little attention to things like plot, character, consistency, or grammar and spelling," and "proverbs" meant "heavy-handed preaching." Nor could the illustrations make up for the weakness of the text; they appeared hastily conceived and haphazardly executed.

The book seems unsure of who its target audience is. The tone veers from condescendingly childish to pompously faux-scriptural, while the stories themselves discuss grand themes (the creation of the world, the nature of the soul, moral laws, and humanity's quest for meaning) using sound bites drawn from the Barnes & Noble metaphysics section. And somehow, despite the book's claim of exploring "Light, Love, Truth, and Wisdom," the primary values I could discern involved misanthropy, a sense of pious superiority, latent sexism, and general disgust at the messiness of life.

To the author's credit, the stories improved somewhat from the earliest to the latest; if he spent the next few years dedicating the same degree of passion to developing the craft of storytelling (and painting) as he has to developing his personal brand of spiritual syncretism, perhaps his next work will be worthy of a more sympathetic review.

My rating: 1 star. I'm all for personal mythologies, esoteric philosophy, and unorthodox experiences of spirituality, but even Great Cosmic Truths suffer from a clumsy presentation--and Great Cosmic Truths are in short supply in this book.

Sum it up: Warmed-over New Age morality tales for the aesthetically numb.

Whom God Would Destroy - Commander Pants

This review comes from my long-lost, newly-reclaimed high school friend Daniel Nighting. Daniel is a critic because he lacks the courage to be a writer (so says he). A freelance academic editor, father of 1 1/2 children, and amateur conspiracy theorist, he lives a reclusive life with his mysterious (and deadly!) wife. Most of his time is devoted to studying the authors he cannot hope to emulate.
Daniel reads anything, and hopes to read everything. He's especially fond of anything that blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction, fact and fantasy. His bookshelves overflow with ancient religious epics, the self-published scribblings of crackpots and cranks, fictionalized autobiographies, and assorted rants, ravings, diatribes, and manifestos--along with the occasional literary classic, so he can look down his oversized nose at the unlettered masses. (Summary courtesy of Daniel - Image from amazon.com)

Summary: God's latest incarnation--a telegenic New Age guru named Jeremy--sets out to preach a new, more selfish gospel for the modern age, to be called Meism, but runs afoul of the first stirrings of His own sexual awakening. Meanwhile, his first disciple Oliver, an inoffensive outreach counselor for the mentally unbalanced, finds that Jeremy's message forces him--and the mental health community he serves--to take a second look at sanity, personal identity, Big Macs, and reality itself. Little does anyone know just how big the answers might be...

My Review: If the above summary bothers you in any way, you'll find little to like about this book, which overflows with irreverence, black humor, bodily functions, and heresy against religion and reason alike. If, on the other hand, you're comfortable with unapologetic sexuality, occasionally adolescent jokes, and an author who holds nothing sacred--especially sacredness itself--then this book is well worth reading.

Commander Pants, the pseudonymous author, has a gift for characterization and the rare ability to juggle and seamlessly interweave a series of largely-unrelated subplots. The book is ripe with florid fruits of an overactive imagination and a willingness to look at everyday events from bizarre angles, and the author has a knack for teasing out the tangled threads that make up our "normal" lives. Despite these strengths, WHOM GOD WOULD DESTROY suffers from many of the shortcomings of a first, perhaps overly ambitious, novel. While the pace keeps up for most of the book, at the climax one can't help but feel that the author has bitten off more than he can chew, barely avoiding a lapse into cliche and thinly-disguised sermonizing. The urge to wrap up loose ends is also carried a bit too far, but despite its roughness, the book manages to land with a suitably comic--and cosmic--flair.

My Rating: 4. Caution! This book is not suitable for more sensitive readers or anyone who dislikes the idea that God is laughing at us, not with us.

Sum it up: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Psyche, with an extra helping of blasphemy.