The First Century After Beatrice by Amin Maalouf

I was only one among many other witnesses of the events which I am consigning to these pages; I was closer to them than the horde of onlookers, but just as powerless.

Opening to The First Century After Beatrice by Amin Maalouf, translated by Dorothy S. Blair.

What if you could guarantee the birth of a boy?  Would you? 

Some of the best science fiction starts out with a simple premise, like the desire to have sons, and spins it out to its disastrous end.  Throughout history, throughout most of the world, sons have been desired over daughters.  This is still the case in much of the modern world and has been the theme of many novels.  Science fiction makes it possible to look at the consequences of getting our collective wish, of being able to guarantee the birth of sons.

Amin Maalouf's novel, The First Century After Beatrice centers on a French entomologist who finds a curious kind of bean in a Cairo market while attending a symposium on scarab beetles.  Swallow the bean, and your children will all be boys.  The entomologist wants nothing more than to marry his love Clarence and for her to give him a daughter, so he has no interest in the bean.  However, while on assignment in India for the Parisian newspaper she works for, Clarence discovers a local clinic that has seen the birth rate of girls drop to nothing.  She begins to connect the dots and discovers that the properties of the bean have been mass produced and marketed to growing numbers of communities where sons are still greatly preferred over daughters.

She explains the problem Europe will eventually face.  Most people in Europe don't care one way or another what sex their child is.  Those who do care are evenly split between wanting  boys and wanting girls.  Those who don't care will continue to have both sons and daughters as will those who want daughters.  Those who want sons, however, can take a pill that will guarantee the birth of a boy.  This means that the next generation, instead of being close to 50-50 male to female, will be 68-32 male to female. 

Be careful what you wish for.

The First Century After Beatrice is a warning, a parable much like P.D. James's book The Children of Men.  I suspect the medical technology necessary to pre-determine the sex of a child is probably not all that far in our futures.  Should it become available to the entire population before we all reach a point where neither sex is favored the results could certainly be disastrous.  In this sense, The First Century After Beatrice is a useful warning.   But The First Century After Beatrice is also a love story.   The entomologist narrator is in love with his wife and devoted to his daughter Beatrice.  For the first 50 pages or so of the novel I thought I was reading a romance.  A darn good one, too. 

I may have an issue with the translation.  It's very difficult for me to judge the writing when reading something in translation. Is what I find problematic the result of the translator's lack of ability, or is the translator simply doing her job, conveying both the content and the style of the original?  I found the narrator's English to be awkward.  He is a professor, a scientist, an entomologist who sometimes speaks in ways that don't ring altogether natural.  He narrates as though he is performing the story, delivering it as a lecture instead of just telling it in a natural voice.  This could be Mr. Maalouf showing us an aspect of his narrator's character.  That's how I'm choosing to view it. 

Maybe you'll see what I mean in this wonderful passage describing his godfather's library. 

I remember, as a matter of fact, that at the end of my very first visit, he walked over to his bookcase at the other end of the sitting-room.  All the volumes were in antique leather bindings and from a distance all looked alike. He took one down and gave it to me.  Gulliver's Travels.  I could keep it.  I was nine years old, and I don't remember whether on my next visit I noticed that there was still a gap where the book had been.  Only, over the course of the years, the bookcase was studded with similar gaps until it resembled a toothless mouth.  Not once did we remark on this, but I eventually realized that these places would remain empty; that for him they were now as sacred as the books; and that these phantom volumes, carved out of the buff-coloured leather, represented all men's unspoken love and the pride they took in plundering their own collections.

See what I mean? Not once did we remark on this.  This does not sound like natural language to me at all, but the image is so wonderful that I'm willing to excuse the faults I find in it.  I feel the same way about the book itself.

Sunday Salon: I have abandonment issues

This is the second Sunday Salon in a row to deal with abandoning a book halfway through. Last week it was Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives; this week it's Jo Nesbo, The Devil's Star.  The Devil's Star is not a bad book at all, it just happens to go to far in the wrong direction for me.

I think most people who read crime novels are like me in that they have a somewhat rigid set of criteria crime novels must meet in order to be enjoyable.  If you've ever spent time in a really good mystery section at a better bookstore, you've seen the wide range of sub-genres out there.  There's something for everyone.  My mother-in-law loved mysteries but would only read ones with no violence, no swearing and no sex.  She was never without a small TBR pile.  I prefer procedurals to who-dun-its.  I prefer hard-boiled to old comfies.  I don't like sub-plots.  I don't care what the detective's personal life is like.  I don't like quirky neighbor characters who interfere with the case at hand.  I don't want the detective to engage in romance unless it's with someone who turns out to be guilty of something. 

The Devil's Star is a police procedural.  It's translated from Norwegian where some very good detective fiction can be found.  It's got a hard-boiled detective hero, Harry Hole, a policeman about to be kicked off the force for insubordination.  The crime is far from an old comfy, actually two sets of crimes that will likely overlap.  But there's just too much filler for my taste.  There's a sub plot involving a rival police detective who may be involved in an arms smuggling.  There's a marriage gone bad.  There's Harry's drinking problem.  They should build the narrative tension but they distract  from the main case as far as I'm concerned.  (I should note that all of these elements are done very well, and are probably just the thing other readers are looking for in a murder mystery.)

The Devil's Star is the third Harry Hole novel which means there is a lot of back story the author has to fill  in.  However this is never a problem with an Inspector Maigret novel and the must be close to 100 of those.   Take away the non-murder sub-plots and the book would be 1/3 shorter than it is.  I believe murder mysteries should be economical.  So, for the second week in a row, I'm abandoning a book more than halfway through.

I'm also abandoning the old blog template here at Ready When You Are, C.B.  I've been thinking about changing it for several months but found the prospect of looking for a new template daunting.  Last week I used part of our tax return to buy a new lap-top and yesterday Google released a new template design program for blogger.com.  So, an afternoon at the local coffee shop, one large mocha, my new wireless laptop, and Ready When You Are, C.B. has a whole new look.  I expect that I'll try a few other looks before I settle on a design I like.  I'm not sure what I think of the little birds at the top right.

What do you think?

I'm happily exploring the educational possibilities of Web 2.0.  What do you think of Blabberize.com?  Click on the picture of Dakota above to see how it works.  I think this could be lots of fun with sixth grade history, which I might be teaching next year.  The sixth grade covers ancient history.  I think talking photos of Julius Ceasar, Pericles, Hatshepsut, maybe a couple of Neanderthals, could be lots of fun to do.

Finally, here are two pictures of our backyard.  We have lots of poppies in bloom this year.  The thing is, we didn't plant any poppies this year. I've one idea where they came from.  I did have a bunch in some pots on the patio last year so I'm guessing when they went to seed some blew into the lawn near the flower bed and took root.  C.J. and I both think they look great so we're going to plant more of them next year.  We both want to get rid of more lawn, perhaps a large "field" of poppies. 

The azalea bush is also in full bloom right now.  There's no picture of it but the lemon tree is back in full form, loaded with lemons.  If you're in the neighborhood and could use one or two lemons....

Full disclosure:  I received and advanced review copy of The Devils Star, by Jo Nesbo free from the publisher.  I will try to go back to it write a full, proper review of it next month.

Friday Picture Reading: Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks, Norman Jr. Reading in Bed, 1967

Time for a Break: Booking Through Thursday

Today from Booking Through Thursday:

Do you take breaks while reading a book? Or read it straight through? (And, by breaks, I don’t mean sleeping, eating and going to work; I mean putting it aside for a time while you read something else.)

The quick answer is yes.  I do take breaks in the midst of a reading a book and read something else.  Last year I read Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.  I knew that reading the entire thing straight through would be problematic at best.  So I read one section a month over several months instead.  That's how people used to read larger novels back when they first began to appear.  They came out in monthly installments or in three volumes released over a year or two so readers had to take breaks from them while reading them.

Thesedays I'm usually reading more than one book at a time anyway, typically between two and five.  I don't think that counts as taking breaks though. 

Sometimes, if a book I've requested from the library and had to wait for comes in while I'm in the middle of some other book, I'll stop reading everything and read the library book straight through from start to finish in a day or two, especially if it's a young adult book. 

Full disclosure:  I found the pictures on Wired.com here.

The Execution by Hugo Wilcken

Christian's wife was killed in a car crash yesterday.

Opening line to The Execution by Hugo Wilcken.

If I tell you anything about The Execution I risk giving something away.  Even saying that may have spoiled the book.  Should you read the book after reading this you're going to be expecting something you would not have been expecting if you'd read the book without any preconceptions.  Like I did.

So how can I let you know if this book might be something you'd like without given anything away?

If you liked Hitchcock's Psycho or Strangers on a Train, you'll probably like The Execution.  Not afraid of a little gore, willing to take a close look at human nature's darker side?  Enjoy a tightly plotted novel but longing for fully developed characters with psychological depth?  Want to keep the pages turning? Not afriad of falling for the wrong McGuffin?  Enjoy a good police procedural but ever wondered what it would be like to be on the recieving end of good police work?  The Execution might be the book for you.

Looking for thrilling chases and gunfights?  Want a book with a clear dividing line between who's good and who's bad with no moral ambiquity?  Need something you can enjoy with your brain turned off or maybe just switched to sleep mode?  Want an ending with everything tied up in a neat bow like an episode of Law and Order?  Read something else. The Execution is probably not for you.

As for me, I'll be keeping an eye out for more from Hugo Wilcken. 

The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris by Edmund White

Paris is a big city, in the sense that London and New York are big cities and that Rome is a village, Los Angelos a collection of villages and Zurich a backwater

Opening line to The Flaneur by Edmund White

Edmund White and I have the same taste in museums and the same taste in walks.

A flaneur is a loiterer, one who wanders a city with no specific goal in mind. Most toursits are not flaneurs.  Tourist tend to have very specific attractions the want to see.  The flaneur wants to take it all in, to observe everything. His subject of study is not the attraction but the crowd. Mr. White uses this idea to structure his book about Paris, The Flaneur. In The Flaneur you won't find a specific walk designed to be followed map in hand. Instead, you'll find a collection of meditations, reflections, a few history lessons, places Mr. White recommends. It's not a book for someone planning a short trip to Paris. He does not visit the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame Cathedral. The Flaneur is a book for someone who wants to spend some time without a specific destination in mind. My kind of travelogue.

Mr. White spent 16 years in Paris, wandering all over town, into quarters tourists never visit, often parts of town Parisians avoid. As a result, he has all sorts of insider knowledge, some of it knowledge he maybe shouldn't have. This is not an organized trip to Paris, it does not hit the top ten sites one must see. Instead he moves from one topic to another, lighting for a time on whatever interests him. There is a fascinating section on African Americans in Paris, another on the wonders that can be found in the Arab Quarter. Insider gossip on Baudelaire's decadents and on the Musee Moreau.

Never heard of the Musee Moreau? This is one of Mr. White's favorite Paris museums and one of mine. Gustav Moreau was a  very successful late 19th century artist Moreau  favored by the aesthetes of Oscar Wilde's circle and later by the early surrealist movement, but I seriously doubt that anyone could look at his work today as anything other than high camp. Before he died, Moreau made sure that his home and the studio he kept above it would be preserved as museums just like Delcroix's had been. The result is a strangely wonderful place. The residence is really nothing to speak of--several very small rooms on the building's first two floors filled with average furnishing, a typical 19th century apartment. But the top two floors, his gallery/studio are wonderful. One entire wall is made of glass panes opened to the Paris sky. The walls are crammed with Moreau's unfinished work. He left more drawings than could ever be displayed at once so he himself designed a way to hang them all in large panels that the viewer can thumb through like a giant book. At one end of the third floor is a large spiral staircase that takes the very few museum goers to the top gallery.

There were a handful of other patrons at the Musee Moreau the day C.J. and I went there, but not many. in fact so few people ever go to the Musee Moreau that it has become a good place to meet in secret. According to Mr. White more than a few people have used it as a trysting site. Perhaps the best thing about the Musee Moreau is that it is only a few blocks away from the Musee la Vie Romantique which I've discussed at length before. The Musee la Vie Romantique is several buildings in a quiet courtyard off of the main street.  One building was once the home of Georges Sand and is now devoted to her and Frederic Chopin.  The garden has a charming garden cafe that always has a table available. 

These are not places the typical tourist sees. But that's the whole point of The Flaneur, to experience all of a city, one must be open to go wherever the city takes you. Though this violates the key principal of The Flaneur, reading the book has given me a small list of things I must see the next time I get to Paris.

Sunday Salon: So Long Savage Detectives, Goodbye Roberto Bolano

This week, after  497 pages, I finally gave up on Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives.  Enough is enough.  My policy here is not to review books I haven't actually completed, but after 497 pages, I feel  entitled to my opinion.

At first I loved it.  In the opening section of the novel a young man, Juan García Madero, arrives in Mexico City to attend university.  He soon falls in with a group of Bohemian poets who call themselves Visceral Realists.  Madero becomes fascinated with Arturo Bolano and Ulises Lima, the founders of Visceral Realism, and drops out of school to follow them.  Arturo Bolano and Ulises Lima reminded me of Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, probably because I just recently read Edmund White's biography of Rimbaud.  Though Bolano and Lima are not lovers the two have a fiery relationship and are just as socially unacceptable as Rimbaud and Verlaine were.  It makes for entertaining reading. If I had met them at 17, I might have become a Visceral Realist myself.

There are no examples of Visceral Realist poetry in the first section of the book.  This began to bother me.  The Visceral Realists argue about poetry all the time.  They attack Octavio Paz at nearly every turn, but they never write any poetry themselves.  The reader begins to suspect that this might be the point.  Amateur Reader, who keeps the wonderful blog Wuthering Expectations, suggested this in his comment to last week's Sunday Salon:

Is The Savage Detectives not about the sinister assumptions of Modernist poetry?  Is not Bolaño undermining Modernism, leaving a void of meaning?

I can see Am. Reader's point.  This is probably a good way to read The Savage Detectives.  But I think Samuel R. Delany did this better in his epic  Dhalgren.  I also think Gertrude Stein did it pretty darn well in a single line: "A rose is a rose is a rose." 

The first part of The Savage Detectives ends with young Madero, Bolano and Lima escaping from a gun fight into the night.  Honestly, that's  the end of the fun stuff.  The second section, the one I didn't finish, is a series of interviews with various people connected with the Visceral Realists.  While the first part of the book took place in 1975, the second section covers 20 years, 1976 to 1996.  We get brief glimpses of Bolano and Lima as the witnesses tell their stories. Some only advance rumors.  The two spent time in Barcelona, Paris, Israel, while the rest of the Visceral Realists tried to get bits of work published here and there.  Some of the witnesses are interesting, but after nearly 300 pages enough already.  The book just wasn't going anywhere.  That's okay. Entropy works as a theme for me.  I loved The Crying of Lot 49 and   Dhalgren which don't go anywhere either, but they were fun to read. 

There is an example of Visceral Realist poetry in the second section.  It turns out to be made up of pictures.  A box on a straight line, followed by a box on a wavy line, followed by a box on a jagged zig-zag.  The characters explain it for us.  A ship on a calm ocean, followed by a ship on a wavy ocean, followed by a ship on a stormy ocean.  That's it?  That's what you've got?  Turns out Visceral Realists are about as clever as  moody 9th graders.  I was a moody 9th grader.  I've got old journals full of stuff just as "good" as that.   To be fair, there is some discussion about the poem that explains there is more to it than just a ship on some waves, but not much more. 

The third part of The Savage Detectives does go back to Bolano and Lima  and how the plot that led to the shootout in the opening section finally comes to an end.  But I don't care anymore.  If they live, if they die, if they fly to the moon, it makes no difference to me.

But I am going to keep the book.  I have this feeling that it may be like A Confederacy of Dunces and Dahlgren.   But both of those are books I disliked the first time around.  I had to try them three times before they clicked, and I enjoyed them.  So I'm going to put The Savage Detectives in a box down in the basement.  Ten or fifteen years from now, once the hoopla currently bubbling around Roberto Bolano has died down, I'll probably come across the box while looking for something else.  It might just be the right time for me to give The Savage Detectives another go.

Dakota's Favorites: The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Since this review first ran it February of 2008 Shaun Tan's reputation and success have only grown.  In the world of children's books, he is an author/illustrator well worth keeping an eye on.  If you've not 'read' The Arrival, you really should.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan tells many stories. The central story is about a man who leaves his family for a better life in a new world. The strangeness of the new world and the other people he meets there, who each have their own story to tell, make up the backbone of this enchanting book.

What makes The Arrival stand out is that it has no words. The story is told entirely through the use of pictures. The pictures are not of America but of a strange place, filled with unfamiliar creatures, architecture the 'reader' has never seen before, and people dressed in very odd clothing who do not behave in ways we've come to expect. This helps the 'reader' understand what it was like to take the great immigrant journey of the last century and what it must continue to be like for many people who make that journey today.

For example, when the hero arrives at his destination, strange bird like creatures fly over the boat he is on. They are not birds we have seen before, so we must figure them out, just like the hero does. How strange it is to see a flock of unfamiliar birds. He is confronted with a processing station that makes little sense to him and to us, since the signs are in a strange language and the people are dressed so weirdly. When it's over, the hero is placed in a box, lifted up by a balloon and dropped into the middle of a city like no other. As we watch him try to make his way, we must also figure out how things work. Where do you go for food? What is food in this new place? How do you find a place to live? Where can you get work? The hero tries to answer these questions as do we.

The answer for our hero is always the same; some one who came before you will help you. Mr. Tan presents many stories, many ways that the people our hero meets ended up in this wondrous city. Some escaped war, some escaped slavery, but they all are more than willing to help the stranger who shares their experience of The Arrival. A lesson we all should remember, even if our families arrived many generations ago, as mine did.

So is this a book? What kind of book is it? You really do have to look at all of the pictures one at a time to 'read' it. If you're not paying attention, you'll miss something important. Because they new world is so strange you have to spend some time with each picture in order to figure things out. A second, I believe fair, question is who is the real audience? Is this a book for children or a book for parents and teachers? Is the medium too new for an older audience? Are the message and the pacing too old fashioned for young readers? I'm not going to say. Maybe that will get you to read the book.

As a teacher, as someone who is open to 'new' wordless books, who likes old fashioned pacing and messages and new mediums, I'm giving The Arrival by Shaun Tan five out of five stars. I loved it.

Top Ten Uses for An Unworn Prom Dress by Tina Ferraro

A heavenly floral scent surrounds me as the zipper of The Dress magically closes against my back.

Opening line to Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress by Tina Ferraro.

I didn't go to the prom.  I didn't go to the Senior Ball either, or the Homecoming Dance or any of the others.  In fact, high school is a time best forgotten as far as I'm concerned.  Middle school was much more fun.  I went to every dance.  College, well, what happens in college, stays in college.  But, I have chaperoned three proms in my life, so I'm not totally unfamiliar with them. 

Finding that one special dress can be big deal.  Sometimes it's more important than finding a date.  Of course without a date, the dress stays in the closet. 

That's what happened to Nicolette Antonovich.  Two days before the prom, the hottest guy in school dropped her.  Turns out he was just asking her to make his ex-girlfriend jealous.  It worked.  He took her to the prom and Nicolette got stuck at home with her perfect dress.  This all happened before the novel begins. The novel is a comic look at what happens over the next year. Nicolette makes her way through Junior year, tries to reconnect with her estranged father, gets to know her new sister, thinks she might just have a chance with the hottest guy in school after all and finds her best friend's older brother is not just some dork who drives them to the mall, but a pretty terrific guy. 

Top Ten Uses for and Unworn Prom Dress probably qualifies as junior chick-lit since it's written for the young adult set.  (I would comfortably recommend it to girls in grades 7 through 10, maybe 11.)  But I found it rose above its genre.  It's got a touching story to tell, (several of them in fact,) a positive outlook on high school life,  a fun sense of wit, good characters and an entertaining plot.  It's a book that looks like it's just going to be a fun read, but turns out to have something real to say in the end.  And it's very well written to boot.  I'd like to see more books like it.



Full Disclosure:  My students are itching to get their hands on the five copies Ms. Ferraro sent for our book clubs to read.  I'm assigning the books today.  If you heard several squeals of delight sometime around 8:50 A.M Pacific Time, they came from room 29.  Ms. Ferraro sent along book marks for her next book, The ABC's of Kissing Boys.  The girls in my classes are already asking me to get copies of it as well.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

So Mom go the postcard today. 

Opening line to When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead.

Have you read A Wrinkle in Time?  Miranda, the sixth grade narrator of When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, has been reading it over and over since she she turned 10.  Miranda points out that the book never says exactly how old the main character, Meg, is.  So, when she was 10, Miranda thought Meg was also 10. Now that she's 11, she thinks Meg is 11.  This is an important to remember if you ever decide to write books for younger young adults.  A Wrinkle in Time is also a very important clue, a masterful piece of foreshadowing.  I'll not say more  so I don't give anything away.

In fact, if you intend to read When You Reach Me, my advice is to stop reading this review and all other reviews of it.  The more opportunity the book has to surprise you the better.

A few months ago, I saw John Irving interviewed for a radio program, West Coast Live, over in Berkeley.  Mr. Irving said that he always begins his novels with the last line of the book.  Then he works out the plot backwards, going from the finish to the opening.  Afterwards, he begins writing the actual novel, knowing from the moment he begins, exactly how it all will end.  I suspect Ms. Stead has a similar process.  When You Reach Me is a masterpiece of plotting.  Everything fits together naturally even the possibility of supernatural elements.  It's the sort of plot one doesn't find very often anymore, certainly not in adult books.  We've come to expect messiness in novels; we think messiness is natural, realistic.  It's nice to find a novel that revels in plot the way When You Reach Me does.

So the plot....

When You Reach Me is about Miranda, a sixth grader who lives with her single mother in New York City in 1979. Her mother has been selected to appear on The 20,000 Dollar Pyramid, a television game show some readers here may remember.  When not studying for the game show, she is dating a nearly perfect man who wants to move in and working as a para-legal.  She named Miranda after the decision that gave defendants the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney.  Miranda is not as happy about this as her mother would like her to be.

1979 is a difficult year for Miranda.  He long time best friend, a boy, has suddenly stopped speaking to her.  She has become friends with one of the more popular girls in school much to the consternation of the popular girl's former best friend.  And this unusual new boy has arrived on the scene.  One day, Miranda gets a note asking her to write it all down, to tell the complete story.  The note writer seems to know all about Miranda's situation, but she has no idea who he is or how he is connected to her or even how she is supposed to deliver the story once she has written it down.  More notes follow, each one leaving more questions than answers, up until a dramatic, near death experience that brings it all together in a way that made me want to immediately re-read the book so I could figure out just exactly how all the pieces fit once again.

I wish there had been some way for Ms. Stead to avoid naming the grade Miranda is in.  I know some seventh graders who would love this book, even a few eighth graders.  But there is a chance that I'll end up teaching sixth grade English next year.  If I do I'll be first in line to order a class set of When You Reach Me.  

Sunday Salon: How Long Can This Go On?

There's been little activity here lately because I'm still trying to get through Roberto Bolano's novel The Savage Detectives.  I'm almost 500 pages into the novel's 648 pages so it's far too late to give up on it, but it's sure taking a long, long time to get through.

And I really don't know what's going on in it.

I do understand the plot, what there is of it, but I just don't see the point.  At 648 pages long there really should be a point.  So, that's where my reading has been bogged down this week. 

I hope I'll be singing a different tune once I've finally finished.

Last weekend I was at the California Association for the Gifted's statewide conference in Sacramento where I learned all sorts of terrific things one can do with middle schoolers if you have a fully functioning computer lab.  Fortunately, my school has three. 

While in Sacramento I had the chance to visit Time Tested Books, a wonderful little second hand book store in the Mid-town district.  Of course, what did I buy, a novel by Roberto Bolano.  Last weekend I was still a little bit in love with The Savage Detectives.  The Mid-town section of Sacramento has really made a come-back.  I was impressed by how lively it was, lots of shops, restaurants, people out having a night on the town.  Even downtown Sacramento is looking better.  And, I did hear about a promising junior high in the area.....C.J. and I are looking to move next year.....

Friday Picture Reading

Found on Flicker by Mookio here.

Books Read/Movies Seen: Post your Read the Book, See the Movie Challenge Links for March and April Here

Sorry that I'm late getting this up.  If you're out there thinking about running a challenge, it turns out to be a bit more work than you'd expect.  But it's still fun to do. So sorry I'm late posting this links page.  I do appreciate your patience.  There were almost 50 links posted in January/February!  Thanks to everyone who participated. 

You can still sign up to join in the Read the Book, See the Movie Challenge.  To sign up go here.


Post your current reviews below. Hopefully, Mr. Linky is working. If he's not, please leave your link in a comment or check back gain later.



To watch Dakota pick the winners for January/February scroll down.



If you're a winner, please send your mailing address to 204mountain at comcast dot net. I'm making what I hope will be very cool movie related bookmarks for the prizes.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

My mother used to tell me about the ocean.

Opening line to The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

Zombies are the new vampires.

Mary, the teenage narrator of The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan lives in an island of order and safety, surrounded by a wilderness full of The Unconsecrated, the living dead.  Generations ago, something happened, some sort of disease took hold that can turn those infected with it into rage fueled animated corpses.  No one in the book refers to them as zombies, but that's what they are. 

Mary lives with her brother and mother in a secure village, surrounded by a system of fencing and towers built  generations ago by forgotten ancestors who survived the outbreak that produced the unconsecrated.  The village is run by the Guardians, men who patrol the perimeter and keep the unconsecrated at bay, and by the Sisterhood, a group of secretive holy women who maintain order in the village by maintaining religous customs. 

Girls Mary's age are expected to wed, but none of the boys in the village speak for Mary when the time comes.  She is forced to join the sisterhood where she begins to learn several dark secrets about the village and about the unconsecrated.  When the unconsecrated break through the fence, Mary and a small group of other young people are forced to flee through the long disused escape paths, trails into the forest fenced on both sides.  As they run down the path, the unconsecrated follow along outside the fence, looking for a chance to break in and kill Mary and her friends.

There is adventure to spare in The Forest of Hands and Teeth, along with just enough romance to keep it all interesting.  The group of escapees from the village includes enough people to form a love triangle that would have provided enough material for a novel even without the zombies.  As Mary and her friends move along the trail they discover other groups of people and begin to learn just how it was that the world came to end up the way it is.  Not everything is explained, two sequels are planned, but enough is to satisfy readers looking for a single book to read.  In the end, I felt enough closure to make the book feel complete, but I'd also really like to know what happens next.

If The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan proves to be a typical zombie novel, then long live the zombies.

Sunday Salon: Why is China Picking on Me?

Someone in China is out to get me.  If comments on your blog ask for word verification, you probably don't have this problem, but lately I've been getting hit pretty hard by spam comments in Chinese.   Just about every day this week I've had to go in and remove them.  It's not really much hassle, but I worry about them being sent on to anyone who has subscribed to further comments.  I also have no idea what they say which bothers me. So, I'll be going back to using word verification for a while.

I can't help but wonder why anyone in China would do this.  According to the little tracking map widget, scroll down for it, I don't get many visits from China. Those I do are probably the ones leaving the comments I cannot read.

I'm attending a conference this week end, so I'm writing this on Friday and robo-posting today's Sunday Salon.  If you're reading this Sunday morning, I'm in a workshop at the California Association for the Gifted's (CAG) state conference in Sacramento.  This is my first year attending the conference, though I've taught gifted and talented students for many years.  In the past the conference conflicted with the California Association of Director's of Activities (CADA) state conference.  That one is for people who run student activities and leadership programs which I used to do.  The CADA conference is organized by people who put on rallies for a living.  It's amazing.  I doubt anyone, anywhere puts on a more high energy conference. I expect the CAG conference will be a bit more heady, but we'll see.

I am taking some reading material along of course since I'll be in a hotel room for two nights and dining out.  You never dine out alone when you dine with a book.  I've been slowly working my way through The Savage Detectives by Robeto Bolano.  It's a massive, baggy-pantsed monster as Virginia Woolf would say.  I'm loving it, but I don't really know what it's about or what exactly is going on.  It appears to be about a group of radical Mexican poets who form this group called the Visceral Realists.  The first section is about a young man who has come to Mexico City and is trying to become a part of the group.  Around page 180 the scene suddenly shifts into the future and a documentary crew appears to be interviewing all of the surviving members of the Visceral Realists who are now well into old age.  I don't know what's really going on but I love it.  It reminds me, oddly of Dahlgren by Samuel R. Delaney.

I'm also taking along two kids books because they are lighter to carry around the conference.  I've just started When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead which won this year's Newberry Prize.  So far so good.  I'm told it will appeal to the kinds of kids who enjoyed Holes by Louis Sachaar.  I enjoyed Holes so......

I'm also bringing a book called Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress by Tina Ferraro.  I mentioned Ms. Ferraro here last month, she saw it and generously sent me five copies of her book for my classroom book clubs.  She inscribed each one and included promotional book marks for her new book as well.  The stack has been sitting on my desk at school for the last three weeks.  This is an excellent way to get kids interested in reading.  Leave an appealing stack of books where they can see it but aren't really supposed to touch them, like on a teacher's desk.  Don't say anything about them at all.  Just make sure they can be seen.  I used to do this with the latest Goosebumps book back when Goosebumps first came out and I taught sixth grade.  By yesterday, I had quite a few girls interested in reading Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress.  They are very excited to have autographed books and think the book marks are very cool.  You can tell by the cover that this is not a book intended for boys.  So far none of the boys in my classes have expressed interest in it. 

I'm off to the conference in a few hours.  My principal has given me a materials budget of 100 dollars to spend, which is very generous these days.  I'll let you all know if I find anything good.

Full disclosure.  The odd picture of Chinese security forces training on those weird scooters comes from Boston.com.

Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn D. Wall

The long howl of a wolf rolls over me like a toothache.

Opening line of Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn D. Wall

Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn D. Wall was my book club's most recent book.  We were divided.  Three members loved it, two were indifferent, three hated it.  They didn't say they hated it, they said they "had issues with it."  That's book-club-ease for "I hated it."

I had issues with it. 

 To start with Sweeping up Glass  is written in the present tense.  I don't approve of the use of present tense in novels, maybe a little, maybe a paragraph here and there for effect, but not for an entire novel. Many people have done this, some have won awards and been very successful, but I've never liked it.  It annoys me.  The present tense is for book reviews, not for books.  But I'm willing to own that; it could very well just be me.

Sweeping Up Glass has a very long flashback sequence used to provide the background needed to understand the characters and the narrative.  I'm not a fan of long flashbacks, unless they involve a doomed Parisian love affair, but at least this part of the novel was in the past tense. 

Several of the characters in Sweeping Up Glass do things that I found hard to believe.  This is my biggest issue with the book.  For example, the narrator, a country woman, takes a wounded wolf into her kitchen and tries to nurse it back to health.  This does not go well.  Afterwards she and her grandson try to save the wolf's three, now motherless, cubs.  This also does not go well either.  A woman who has lived her entire life in the mountains of Kentucky ought to know better than to try something like this. My book club argued that her father was a self-trained vet, so she was used to attempts to rescue animals.  Okay, I'll buy that, but we're talking about a fully grown wolf.  In one's kitchen.  There's no way that's going to work. 

I had three more examples but I can't discuss them without spoiling the book.  If my book club is typical then approximately 43% of the people who read Sweeping Up Glass will love it.  I don't want to spoil it for them anymore than I probably already have.

It could just be me.

Dakota's Favorites: Dragon's Keep by Janet Lee Carey

Dragon's Keep came recommended to me by a presenter at a What's New in Young Adult Literature workshop held every year for teachers and librarians.  It turned out to be one of my favorite reads from 2008.  In addition, I got the chance to interview the author, Janet Lee Carey.  You can find the interview here.  I've managed to convince several sets of students to read Dragon's Keep over the past two years.  Never a group larger than three, but every group has loved the book.  We're all waiting for the next book set in the Wilde Island's of Dragon's Keep to come out.


Dragon's Keep by Janet Lee Carey is the winner of the latest "What Should I Read Next" poll. Thank you very much voters; Dragon's Keep is an excellent read.

Set in an alternative history, Dragon's Keep is the story of Rosalind, the future 26th queen of Wilde Island, off the northern coast of the British mainland. Wilde Island is rough country, the place outlaws and treasonous royals are exiled too. Rosalind's ancestors were sent there by Uther Pendragon after a plot to depose him was foiled. Rosalind's mother, the 25th queen, believes Rosalind will fulfill a prophecy, that she will be the one to end a war with the wave of her hand. The queen believes that war is the one currently being fought on the European mainland, but to make it possible for Rosalind to marry well and to end the war the queen must hide Rosalind's secret--Rosalind's ring finger is actually a dragons claw.

Her claw binds Rosalind to the dragons who live in their keep on a nearby island and regularly visit Wilde Island to feast on the inhabitants. The claw pulsates when certain dragons are near; one dragon sees it and licks it fondly sparring Rosalind's life. What is the truth behind the claw? Can Rosalind keep it hidden? If anyone finds out about the claw she will surely be burned as a witch; it's likely that her mother will as well.

I found Dragon's Keep to be a captivating tale, harder to put down as it went along. There are many surprises along the way, none of which disappoint. We find out the secret behind the claw, of course, and discover as Rosalind does that the claw will end the war between humans and dragons. This does not happen in expected ways. The dragons are not nice dragons; dealing with them is not an easy task. The characters in the book are complicated, interesting, and almost always sympathetic often in spite of their actions. Rosalind's mother is probably the closest thing in the book to a villian, but her actions are understandable even if they are disagreeable.

The writing itself is excellent, one or two cuts above what you'll usually find in a young adult fantasy novel. Janet Lee Carey can hold her own against the best of them in this genre; I bet she could do pretty darn well in any genre she chooses. In Dragon's Keep she creates a world that is close enough to ours to be familiar but still strange enough to be it's own contained reality. The story could very well have been one told to the Knights of the Round Table. While the book is being marketed to young adults there is absolutely no reason why it should be limited to this one audience.

I'm giving Dragon's Keep by Janet Lee Carey five out of five stars.

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Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel by Edmund White

When I was sixteen, in 1956,  I discovered Rimbaud.

Opening line to Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel by Edmund White

Athur Rimbaud made a splash on the Paris literary scene, became a scandal, destroyed Paul Verlaine's marriage, revolutionized French poetry and left it all for an obscure post in Northern Africa all before the age of 21. 

At age 16 he sent a few poems to Paul Verliane, already the leading figure in French poetry.  Verlaine was so taken with them he send word to Rimbaud, "Come, dear great soul. We await you; we desire you," along with a one-way train ticket.  Rimbaud was an instant sensation, more for his character, or lack there-of, than for his poetry.  He was the talk of the town and then the one the town refused to talk to.  Paul Verlaine fell head-over-heals in love with him.  The two lived openly as lovers, in spite of Verlaine's marriage and in spite of the anti-homosexual laws of 19th century France.  In disfavor with most of Paris, the two travelled to London where they tried to survive as language tutors and where Rimbaud wrote some of his major works including A Season in Hell and Illuminations.  Their London stay ended badly, an argument got out of hand and Verlaine shot Rimbaud in the wrist.  Rimbaud survived, but he left Verlaine and abandoned poetry altogether. 

Rimbaud never saw the profound effect his poetry had on French literature, nor did he ever see any fame from his work.  At one point he tried to have all of his writing destroyed.  Verlaine, who remained devoted to Rimbaud all his life, published his poetry long after their seperation, once Paris had had time enough to forget how hated Rimbaud had become.  Rimbaud's poetry was a success; his reputation and influence have only grown since his death at age 36.  Today, he enjoys a secure place in the cannon of French literature and a strong cult following. 

Edmund White is his biggest fan.

Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel is an informative biography but it's also a love letter.  Mr. White discovered Rimbaud in school, when he was a lonely student, looking to find a place in the world.  It's easy to see why Arthur Rimbaud would inspire Mr. White.  Many teenagers see themselves as outsiders, gay teenagers especially so.  In Rimbaud, young Edmund White found a kindred spirit.  In his poetry he found inspiration.

In spite of his love for Rimbaud, Mr. White's biography is clear-eyed and honest.  He doesn't suger-coat any of the details, nor treat his subject with kid gloves.  Rimbaud was a horrible person. He may have been guided by a vision of literary greatness, but he was not a nice guy to be around.  Paul Verlaine paid a very heavy price for his affair with the young poet.   Mr. White's biography is in part a reading memoir, by which I mean an account of what it was like to read Rimbaud.  It's here that Mr. White is free to justifiably gush over his subject.  It's also here that Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel is most fun to read.  I doubt anyone will end up loving Rimbaud the man as a result of Mr. White's book, but I do suspect I'm not the only one who'll give Rimbaud's poetry a try because of this biography.
I knew of Rimbaud and Verlaine before reading Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel but I'd never read any of his poetry beyond the peom about the vowels and their colors that often finds its way into school textbooks.  I consider it a testiment to Mr. White's book that it made me want to read Rimbaud's poetry.  I did and it's amazing.  I can see why the young Edmund White fell in love with the author of The Drunken Boat. 

Enough tears! Dawns break hearts.
Every moon is wrong, every sun bitter:
Love's bitter bite has let me swollen, drunk with heat.
Let my hull burst!  Let me sink into the sea!

If I still long for Europe's waters, it's only for
One cold black puddle where a child crouches
Sadly at its brink and releases a boat,
Fragile as a May butterfly, into the fragrant dusk,

Bathed in your weary waves, I can no longer ride
In the wake of cargo ships of cotton,
Nor cross the pride of flags and flames,
Nor swim beneath the killing stares of prison ships.

I've only a vague idea what Rimbaud is talking about, but I'm with him.  I'll drink the absinthe.  Sign me up Mr. White, I'm buying his complete poems. 


For more on Paul Verlaine see the wonderful posts at Wuthering Expectations here. 

This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson

Down the street from the library in Deadwood, South Dakota, the peace is shattered several times a day by the noise of gunfire--just noise.

Opening to This Book is Overdue by Marilyn Johnson.

I always wanted to be a librarian.  I am an English teacher so it's not really that much of a stretch. I think it would be fun to sit behind a desk and recommend books to people, help them find some odd piece of information they need for a project of some sort.  And, I would be paid to open boxes full of new books and put them on shelves.  I love doing that.

Books?  That's so last century.

This Book is Overdue is about librarians on the frontier, the new frontier.  It opens nicely by juxtaposing a library on the old frontier, the town library in Deadwood, South Dakota once a part of America's wild west, with the town library in Deadwood, Second Life, a virtual library in a virtual part of the internet's wild west. Both libraries exist to provide a service, a means for people new in town to find all they need to know to adapt to their surroundings, to learn the town's history, to pick up information or a new skill that will help them better their lives.  One offers tourists information on local historical sites, the other gives avatar's advice on how to dress as a proper saloon girl.  Second Life's version of Deadwood offers players a chance to become a gunslinger or a prospector or a saloon singer for a small fee.  One player, a retired electrical engineer and railroad buff, becomes an librarian in a frilly 19th century dress to become town librarian in the virtual Deadwood.   There are hundreds of professional librarians offering their services and training other volunteers to become virtual librarians in  virtual libraries all over Second Life. 

These librarians have seen the future, and they're going to catalogue it.

Marilyn Johnson takes the reader on a tour of library science's cutting edge.  Libraries that give away single use audio books, internet catalogues that can tell you exactly how many miles away the book you want is,  libraries with Wii rooms, 24-hour information systems open nation wide, and street librarians who wander among demonstrators at protests with wireless laptops handing out the latest updates on everything from legislative actions to police blockades.  If you want to know it, there's a librarian somewhere who wants to tell you. 

They're here to help.

It's not always a pretty picture.  Champions of the old systems will not get much sympathy from This Book is Overdue.  The days of the card catalogue are long gone and the movement to computerized data bases and on-line library catalogues has not been easy for some.  It can be difficult to get one's head around the idea that the new libraries may not actually have all that many books in them.  In an age where anyone with even a second rate computer can access more information that can be found in all the books held in a typical town library, Librarians must adapt if they are to survive.  The librarians Ms. Johnson interviews for This Book is Overdue intend on not just surviving, but on thriving.  Witness the virtual librarians in Second Life.

Though the general public doesn't often see it, librarians are front-line defenders of the Constitution in the United States.  Freedom of speech, more precisely the freedom to read, has always been under some kind of assault in America.  Ms. Johnson devotes a chapter of This Book is Overdue to the case of the Connecticut Four, three librarians and a tech specialist who were forced to sue the Federal Government in order to keep a patron's records private after the passage of the Patriot Act which intended to give the Department of Homeland Security the power to check anyone's library records without a warrant, without stating a reason why and without telling anyone about it.  Maybe a patrons are looking up how to build a bomb.  Or maybe they're looking up how to treat a form a cancer they have, or what to do if they suspect their child is gay, or how they can walk away from an abusive spouse, or how to press charges against someone who hurt them, or any number of other things they want kept private from family members, employers or the government.

Marilyn Johnson is hopeful about the future of libraries and librarians.  They are a group of people she admires greatly and enjoys; her book is a successful tribute to them. 

Below you'll find a video of the first place Book Cart Drill Team at the American Librarian Association's 2009 national convention.  NSFW ;-)



Full Disclosure: I recieved an advanced review copy of This Book is Overdue.