Generally I avoid Chicken Soup books like the plague, as books purposefully written to be heartwarming are normally not anything I would want to read.Generally I avoid Chicken Soup books like the plague, as books purposefully written to be heartwarming are normally not anything I would want to read. (Once I counted all the Chicken Soup books at Barnes & Noble, and came up with about 35 titles, not including Chicken Soup for the Soul of Harry Potter’s Podiatrist.) However, my sister read this book and gave it to me, and told me to read it, so I have; and I found it surprisingly readable (and heartwarming), since I am a confirmed cat person from way back. (We currently technically have six cats, but two of them have also be adopted by neighbors, leaving us with four core cats and a few other cats who come by to eat now and again.)
The book’s stories, none longer than a couple of pages, are written by 101 different authors; each story is prefaced by a famous author quote about cats, and scattered through the book are cat-related Off the Mark cartoons by Mark Parisi. The stories in the beginning have to do with kittens, mostly, with the stories in the middle having to do with teenage and established settled cats. This means that the stories at the end of this collection have to do with cats making that journey over the Rainbow Bridge, which can be a tad depressing.
One hears over and over in the stories of people who had no intention of getting a cat ending up with one, either because they picked up a cat at the shelter or because the cat adopted them by simply showing up at the back door. Cats purr, scratch, leave dead mice for their owners, get spayed / neutered, and in general creep into the hearts of their people. Again and again, cats which seemed aloof become caring when one of their persons or another cat is ill or in need of solace.
This would be a wonderful book for a cat lover; the stories are indeed heartwarming (yes, I know I used that word three times, but this is a Chicken Soup book), and make a cat lover want to go out and adopt more cats (or be adopted by more cats).
This science fiction novel is the third in the Hyperion Cantos, which starts with Hyperion and continues with The Fall of Hyperion. I had read those tThis science fiction novel is the third in the Hyperion Cantos, which starts with Hyperion and continues with The Fall of Hyperion. I had read those two books before (and the final book in the series, The Rise of Endymion), but had never read this third book. I am very glad I did so; it is a very good book, with lots of good hard science and a somewhat unwilling hero helping to guard a young girl who is a threat to the established order of the universe.
It is some 274 years after the events in the previous book; with the Farcasters non-operative, and contact between worlds cut off, the power that now controls most of the known Universe is the Roman Catholic Church, with its own military and spacegoing arm. Under Pope Julius VI, who has been Pope for something more than 250 years. The Church has introduced two new Sacraments: the Acceptance of the Cruciform and the Resurrection. Acceptance of the Cruciform means that one becomes effectively immortal; when one dies, after three days one is resurrected. This means that the Archangel class of spaceships can fly faster than hyperspace, killing its passengers, who are then resurrected upon arrival at the ship’s destination.
The one person who was on the Pilgrimage in the first two books and who is still alive is the poet Martin Silenus on the planet Hyperion. He rescues a 27-year old man named Raul Endymion from being executed and commissions him to rescue his niece Aenea (who stepped into a Time Tomb some 262 years before, and is due to be stepping out in several days) and to keep her from being taken by the Church. The Church as assigned Father Captain Federico de Soya, with absolute authority, to be the officer charged with apprehending the girl and bringing her to the Church planet of Pacem. The book then turns into a fascinating cat-and-mouse game; for some reason, the farcasters work for Aenea, Raul, and A. Bettik (a blue-skinned android), and Father Captain de Soya chases them through the universe.
This was a marvelously good book, and I am very glad to have read it; as reading the fourth book before reading the third book does create a certain amount of confusion in my mind. And in due time I will re-read The Rise of Endymion)....more
Ten years ago I was diagnosed with colon cancer; they took out the cancer (including most of my large intestine), rewired my small intestine to my recTen years ago I was diagnosed with colon cancer; they took out the cancer (including most of my large intestine), rewired my small intestine to my rectum, gave me six month’s worth of light chemotherapy – and I am cancer free to date. (Knock wood.) Five years ago Richard’s sister Pookie died of lung cancer (she never smoked) that had spread throughout her body. So I found this book, written by an oncologist, to be a very fascinating experience into just about anything you ever wanted to know about cancer, And, as there is good reason to believe that cancer will always be with us in one form or another, I can’t think of a soul who would not want to read this book.
In this large volume the author discusses the history of our knowledge of cancer (dating back to 2500 BC), the treatment of cancer (surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and designer drugs), the quest for factors that cause and / or predispose one towards having one kind or another kind of cancer (external factors, family history, genetics), and where the whole package of cancer awareness, treatment, and cures stands at the present time. The author is very thorough in discussing each main section, and one senses a sort of frustration in the author when he is discussing extreme radical mastectomies for breast cancer or the history of smoking and lung cancer in Western countries. At one time, there was hope that Cancer could be eradicated if one threw enough government money and research at it, but now, as the understanding of what cancer actually is has improved, there is cautious optimism.
Basically (and it does not hurt to say this here), generally speaking, the ability of medicine to cure a given kind of cancer depends largely on the state the cancer is in when diagnosed. A small discrete tumor usually can be taken care of, while a cancer that has metastasized throughout the body is much harder to treat. (I urge my readers to make sure they get their mammograms, their Pap smears, and all the other screening tests; and the book does go into detail on how a screening tests work, and the problems inherent in such tests.)
I recommend this book to all of my readers; in this 21st century, every one of us knows someone who has cancer, or who died of cancer, so the subject of the book is close to all of us....more
The Oxford English Dictionary (first edition) was a monumental undertaking, with some seventy years elapsing between its conception and its completionThe Oxford English Dictionary (first edition) was a monumental undertaking, with some seventy years elapsing between its conception and its completion in 1927. The compiling of all the definitions, and of the quotations that were included in the definitions, was the work of paid editors and unpaid volunteer readers; and this book is the story of one of those editors, one of those readers, and of the history of the Oxford English Dictionary as a whole. And this is a fascinating little book, one that I enjoyed reading.
The author gives us a history of English dictionaries, with particular attention paid to Samuel Johnson’s great Dictionary of 1755 (and no mention whatsoever of Noah Webster, on this side of the Atlantic). In 1857 what became the Oxford English Dictionary was begun, with the novel idea of making it a committee effort, with hundreds and thousands of readers submitting slips containing target words and annotated quotations highlighting the words to the editors. After some initial success, followed by a stalling of effort, the third Editor came on board, Professor James Murray; he revitalized the project and made a fresh call for volunteer readers. A Doctor W. C. Minor, of Broadmoor, Crowthorne, Berks, was one reader who answered the call; and it was some years before the Professor found that Dr. Minor, who had submitted thousands of definitions, was an inmate at the Broadmoor Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
The book tells the history of Professor Murray and of the unfortunate Dr. Minor, who was without doubt insane (with what we now would call paranoid schizophrenia) but who was also quite educated and literate, and how the collaboration between them for better than twenty years was instrumental in the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. The author never lets us lose sight of precisely why Dr. Minor was incarcerated; the book is dedicated “To the memory of G. M.”, George Merrett, the innocent workingman who was shot in cold blood by Dr. Minor in 1872. And I am most happy to have this book for my bookshelves....more
What is religion? To many people, it means assenting to a set of beliefs; once you sign on with the beliefs, then you participate in the rituals of thWhat is religion? To many people, it means assenting to a set of beliefs; once you sign on with the beliefs, then you participate in the rituals of that religion. Armstrong’s thesis in this book is basically that such people have the wrong end of the stick; religion is what you do (externally and internally), which leads to belief. I very much enjoyed this book, as I am guilty of thinking both ways.
All of the great religions have as their basis “Love God and love others”; they all have a very specific set of rituals (lighting the Shabbat candles, saying the Rosary, praying five times a day towards Mecca). But even going back to the ancient Greek philosophers, what they offered their disciples was a full way of life, not just a philosophical set of beliefs. The sacred books of each great religion were regarded as not logos (sober history) but as mythos (stories not meant as historical). Mythos was what took you out of yourself; logos was what educated you as to what and how to think.
With the coming of the Enlightenment, scientific method was perfected, and it became normative to think of everything in terms of science. Unfortunately, the “everything” included religion, and once theologians accepted scientific method, mythos went out the window and logos reigned supreme. The result is that today we have people who claim to be agnostics or atheists because of all of the logical discrepancies in the Bible or Torah or other sacred books, and people who refuse to believe in evolution or women’s rights or basic human rights because such concepts cannot be found in their sacred books. The author devotes a good bit of discussion to fundamentalist movements, noting that such movements always begin as a protest against a norm; fundamentalist movements are always paranoid, expecting that everyone else is out to destroy them, and when threatened they respond by becoming even more entrenched and extremist.
I have always remembered that God is not a noun, but a verb, and that one cannot talk the talk unless one first walks the walk. I may not always follow these principles, but I do try; and this book reminds us of why we should try. ...more
This book is the third in the Ender series, which started with Ender’s Game and continued with Speaker for the Dead; and it helps to have read those bThis book is the third in the Ender series, which started with Ender’s Game and continued with Speaker for the Dead; and it helps to have read those books before reading this one. Suffice it in this first paragraph to note that it is science fiction of the highest quality, and contains good characterization, physics, and alien sentient species, and that I enjoyed reading it.
The story is mostly set on the world of Lusitania, which is in rebellion against the Starways Congress due to events in the previous book. An armada has been sent by Congress, ostensibly to return the planet to the Starways confederation, but actually to destroy the planet, as the planet harbors the descolada virus, which is necessary for the native life of Lusitania, but is deadly (without constant antidotes) to all other life. The fact that destroying the planet would also destroy the pequininos, the only sentient species native to the planet, is apparently considered by Congress to be a necessary evil.
The armada then disappears, and on the Chinese Buddhist world of Path, a brilliant girl named Han Qing-jao, "Gloriously Bright,” is given the task of finding out why the fleet disappeared. Meantime, on Lusitania, Andrew Wiggin has been joined by his sister Valentine, and in conjunction with the scientific minds of Lusitania, they are attempting to discover if the descolada virus can be somehow changed so that it still allows the native life of Lusitania to continue while not being deadly to all other life, and also trying to find some method of faster-than-light travel so that enough alien species can leave the planet before the arrival of the armada.
The series continues with Children of the Mind, which is a book I plan to read early next year, and I will look forward to reading it.
This novel is the sequel to The Bean Trees, continuing the story of Taylor Greer and her adopted daughter Turtle. One does not have to have read the pThis novel is the sequel to The Bean Trees, continuing the story of Taylor Greer and her adopted daughter Turtle. One does not have to have read the previous novel to read this one, but I am glad to have done so; and I loved this book about love, trust, and home.
It is three years since the events in The Bean Trees, and Taylor takes six year old Turtle on a trip from Tuscon to the Grand Canyon. They stop at Hoover Dam near the end of the day on the Saturday before Easter; driving away, Turtle asks how the boy will get out of the hole. During the ensuing conversation, Taylor realizes her daughter saw someone fall off the dam and into a spillway; she turns around, goes back to the dam, and she and Turtle have a very hard time convincing anyone to investigate. The dramatic rescue of the person who fell into the sinkhole makes the national news, and Turtle and Taylor are invited by Oprah Winfrey to be on a show she is doing about children who saved people.
One of those who sees Turtle on Oprah is Annawake Fourkiller, a very young attorney for the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma; she realizes that if Turtle is Cherokee there is no way that Taylor’s adoption of her can be legitimate. She investigates the adoption, then goes to Tuscon to talk to Taylor; Taylor, seeing someone who wants to take Turtle away from her, leaves town with Turtle. Meantime, Taylor’s mother Alice has left the husband she married two years ago (he never speaks, puts WD-40 on everything to keep things quiet, and watches QVC all day on TV) and joins the pair in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Eventually, and separately, most of the characters in the book end up in the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma; and Alice, Taylor, and Turtle learn about the Cherokee (to her surprise, Alice finds she is fully one-fourth Cherokee), about why family ties are so important to the Cherokee Nation, and how those family ties impact all of them, especially Turtle.
Every year I get the Old Farmer’s Almanac, usually along about late September, and every year along about late November I read it. I have yearly copieEvery year I get the Old Farmer’s Almanac, usually along about late September, and every year along about late November I read it. I have yearly copies of the Old Farmer’s Almanac going back to 1979, and I love reading each year’s new edition, not only for the weather forecasts but because of all the other information contained in its pages.
Besides the weather forecasts, this issue contains the usual reference information (table of measures, wind chill tables, heat index tables, gestation information on various common animals, astronomical information (the Total Eclipse of the Sun next November will be great to see if you are in Australia), plus various interesting articles concerning gardening, baking, farming, and other household pursuits. This is also a good reference book to turn to if you need to figure out how much wallpaper to use in a room, or to determine which plants would be good to plant to attract butterflies.
Granted, a good bit of this information, if not most of it, can be garnered from the Internet; but I enjoy hanging the current year’s copy of the Almanac on a nail on the bathroom wall using the handy hole punched in the corner, and checking out the information that may be noted for each new day in the Calendar Pages once I wake up each morning. (And who knows; someday I might actually need the Gardening Information in the Almanac.)
This is the book we are discussing in tomorrow night’s Third Tuesday Book Club Meeting; I had read this novel many, many years ago, and was the one toThis is the book we are discussing in tomorrow night’s Third Tuesday Book Club Meeting; I had read this novel many, many years ago, and was the one to suggest it for us to read. I am happy to have done so; a dystopian future-world novel written in 1931 that shows alarming aspects of the world as we know it today is always great to discuss, and I am glad to have read this short book (again).
It is the Year of Our Lord 2542 in London, England; but as the world has been remade by the trinity of Ford, Freud, and Behavior Science and Chemistry, it is 632 A.F. For hundreds of years, sperm and ova have been combined, and the results constantly monitored and chemically altered by the State, so that the resulting infant is already predestined to be a smart Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or a lowly barely mentally capable Epsilons. The children are then raised by the State and conditioned from birth to be fully content with their state and with their status in life. The only reason for life to be lived is to be happy; the citizens of this future world work happily at their jobs, do group sports, enjoy group entertainment, then engage in (heterosexual) sex with whomever they want, as everyone belongs to everyone else. After work they take soma, the wonder drug that in small doses blisses one out, and in large doses takes one away on a wonderful dream, with no aftereffects and no side effects. Perfect health and looks endure into one’s sixties, at which time one gets senile and dies; no one is unhappy about this, because what matters is the greater society.
One discontented person in this world of bliss is Bernard Marx, a psychologist. He is an Alpha, but is eight centimetres (three inches and change) shorter than the standard Alpha male, and in consequence feels that he does not properly fit into society. His most anti-social behavior is to want to just sit quietly and talk, which suggestion horrifies his girl of the moment, Lenina Crowne. She does, however, take him up on his suggestion that they visit the Reservation in America, mainly because she’s never been; the Reservation holds a remnant of American Indians, who live a primitive, uncivilized, un-Ford life.
What Bernard and Lenina find at the Reservation, and what they bring back to London with them, is at the heart of this dystopian novel, which is a parable against eugenics, against determinism, against recreational drug use as a tool of the State (a daily dose of it is given out to Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons at the end of the work day; Alphas can take it whenever they want), and against a world that has accepted security and happiness as the only goal of one’s life.
Having read the author’s previous books (The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Good Living : A Loving Look at the Lighter Side of the Catholic Faith, with RecipHaving read the author’s previous books (The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Good Living : A Loving Look at the Lighter Side of the Catholic Faith, with Recipes for Feasts and Fun by John Zmirak and Denise Matychowiak, and The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Wine, Whiskey, & Song: A Spirited Look at Catholic Life & Lore from the Apocalypse to Zinfandel by John Zmirak and Denise Matychowiak), I knew what I was in for with this non-fiction book: a very funny, very Catholic, and very irreverent while being reverent book. In this book, the author (by himself this time) tackles the Seven Deadly Sins and their corresponding Virtues; and I loved reading this book.
The Seven Deadly Sins, as outlined and rather graphically described by the author for the modern world, are Lust, Wrath, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth., Vainglory, and Envy; their corresponding Virtues are Chastity, Patience, Temperance, Generosity, Diligence, Humility, and Magnanimosity. For most of the Sins and Virtues, the author also includes famous people who (in his humble opinion) most exemplify the Sin or Virtue under discussion. The Odd chapter numbers are the Sins, while each Sin is followed by its Virtue (in the Even chapter numbers); and after each Virtue chapter, the author has a single-question multiple choice quiz so that the reader can see where he or she ranks in the continuum between Hardened Sinner and Potential Saint.
The author has a solid Catholic education, and while just about anyone would enjoy reading this book (provided they aren’t offended by the irreverentness), I think only a well-educated Catholic would catch all of the puns and references that the author uses. (And while I consider myself a well-educated Catholic, I allow that I may have missed several puns and references.) I loved reading this book, and cannot help but wonder what the author’s next project will be....more
This is the novel that our Third Tuesday Book Club read for October; while I did return from our vacation on the Third Tuesday of October, I had not rThis is the novel that our Third Tuesday Book Club read for October; while I did return from our vacation on the Third Tuesday of October, I had not read the book at that point, and was in no shape to go to the Book Club meeting in any case, as we had been on the road all day from Gadsen, Alabama, to Southwestcentral Louisiana, with a detour to meet my daughter and her boyfriend for a late lunch in Baton Rouge. But I have now read this book, and it was literally a book I could not put down, and one that I enjoyed reading.
The book centers on two main characters: scientist Isabel Duncan, at the Great Ape Language Lab in Kansas, and John Thigpen, a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. They meet on January 1, 2009, when Thigpen comes to the lab with another reporter and a photographer to do a human-interest story on the lab’s bonobos, who understand spoken English and ASL, and who communicate with humans via ASL and a touch-screen computer program. Duncan is engaged (though it’s not public) to the lab’s Director, who has been with the lab for less than a year (he came on after the death of the founder of the Language Lab), and is assisted by her intern Celia, who has hot pink hair, several tattoos, and works at the local Humane Shelter. Thigpen is happily married, though he and his wife Amanda have career problems (she wrote a novel, which was published only in paperback before her publishing house died and her agent abandoned her, and she cannot get anyone to even look at the second novel she wrote; Thigpen himself is not happy that he got his current job through personal connections), and they do not have children after eighteen years of marriage, which fact is beginning to become an issue in their relationship.
Shortly after the reporters leave, Isabel is with the bonobos alone, as the intern has gone into town to get caramel macchiatos for the bonobos (at their request). What happens next in the book defines the plot of the book, and takes the human and animal characters (though, after reading the book, it’s hard to think of bonobos as merely animals) through the worlds of trash television, trash journalism, and animal experimentation.
I literally could not put this book down, after I had gotten about half-way through, when all of the characters were going though very individual kinds of dehumanization; and I will say that the bonobos are the most appealing characters, and have much healthier family relationships than the human characters. I am very much looking forward to our next Third Tuesday Book Club Meeting; although they already discussed the book (indeed, we will be discussing Brave New World by Aldous Huxley), I hope that before the meeting we can talk a bit about this book.
I find that short stories make good bedtime reading; and this collection of short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald contains the best of his short writinI find that short stories make good bedtime reading; and this collection of short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald contains the best of his short writing. He may be known now for his novels, but in his own time he was known as a short story writer who sometimes wrote novels. I very much enjoyed reading these stories, which are not all about rich boys and jaded flappers.
Among the stories in this collection are “Bernice Bobs her Hair”, “The Offshore Pirate”, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (a fantasy, if not science fiction), “The Diamond As Big as The Ritz” (another fantasy), “Absolution” (about a small boy who lies in confession to the priest, and naturally expects the fury of God to be visited upon him), “Babylon Revisited” (one of Fitzgerald’s strongest stories), and “Last Kiss”.
If one is only familiar with Fitzgerald’s novels, one owes it to oneself to read at least some of his short stories; and this volume contains wonderful pieces of writing that will raise one’s opinion of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
This non-fiction book, published in 2010, is the final book in the biographical trilogy by the author about Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), The first This non-fiction book, published in 2010, is the final book in the biographical trilogy by the author about Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), The first books in the trilogy were The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (1979, covering the years from his birth in 1858 to his becoming President of the United States in 1901 upon the death of President William McKinley) and Theodore Rex (covering the years of his Presidency, from 1901 to 1909). Logically enough, the present volume takes us from 1910 through his death in 1919 and his legacy thereafter. I very much enjoyed the first two books of this series, and very much enjoyed this last volume; Theodore Roosevelt has been somewhat eclipsed by his fifth cousin by blood and nephew by marriage Franklin D. Roosevelt, but there is a reason why he is the fourth President on Mount Rushmore.
Having left the Presidency in the hands of his hand-picked successor William H. Taft, Roosevelt characteristically began his Life After the Presidency with a safari in Africa. In the nine years of life remaining to him, he went on an exploring expedition in South America, started the Progressive Party (a breakaway Republican party) and ran for President in 1912, lived through an assassination attempt, made innumerable speeches, wrote innumerable letters, and wrote about forty full-length books. Additionally, he served as a gadfly to first President Taft (whom Roosevelt felt had not adequately maintained various reforms put in place by Roosevelt) and then President Woodrow Wilson, who was elected in 1912. To tell more of the book would spoil the experience of reading the biography; but I do want to advise any potential readers to keep track of the footnotes to the book as they read, as they are fully as interesting as the book itself.
Roosevelt was a politician, conservationist, naturalist, author, and soldier, and the first American to win a Nobel Prize (the Peace Prize in 1906). A true polymath, he was one of the greatest Presidents, and I feel enriched by having read this last volume of his Biography by Edmund Morris....more
When someone becomes an outstanding success, is it a result of his or her innate talents? In this book the author makes a very good case that luck, haWhen someone becomes an outstanding success, is it a result of his or her innate talents? In this book the author makes a very good case that luck, hard work, social class, and the lessons learned by one's ancestors and passed down is what produces success. Richard and I very much enjoyed listening to this book while driving down the interstate highways.
In several engaging stories, the author explains how generation, family, culture, and class explain why most Canadian hockey players have birthdays on or shortly after (but not before) January 1st, why Asians are so good at math, and how The Beatles and Bill Gates reached the top.
The secrets of success are varied, but behind every superstar Outlier is a web of opportunity, so that despite the myth of the self-made man, no one makes it to the top without a lot of purposeful help and lucky opportunities....more
I have always liked Caleb Carr’s books (both fiction and nonfiction), and I love Sherlock Holmes stuff, and Richard is of the same mind as me on Carr I have always liked Caleb Carr’s books (both fiction and nonfiction), and I love Sherlock Holmes stuff, and Richard is of the same mind as me on Carr and Holmes. So when Richard found this unabridged audiobook, we both decided that it would be good to listen to on our vacation, and so it was; we both enjoyed it immensely. All good Sherlockania is in the voice of Doctor Watson, and so this book is; the book starts in Baker Street, with a crytic telegram from Holmes’ older brother Mycroft, demanding the presence of Sherlock Holmes in Scotland at Holyrood Castle in Edinburgh, where the Queen is in residence. Holyrood is the site of the murder of the secretary of Mary Queen of Scots, one David Rizzio, in 1566. Two deaths have taken place, in connection with the proposed renovation of the West Tower (where the murder took place), and Mycroft is concerned that Continental spices might be at work.
Holmes and Watson thus head for Scotland, and are immediately plunged into a scene of deception, ghosts, and secret passages. In short, this book is a marvelous imitation of Sir Arthur Conon Doyle, down to Watson’s tendency to be a bit florid with his language at times.
This was a great book to be listening to on our vacation, and a worthy addition to the faux Sherlock Holmes canon. ...more
This is the book we will be discussing at tonight’s Third Tuesday Book Club Meeting, and I am most happy to have finished it today, in time to do my RThis is the book we will be discussing at tonight’s Third Tuesday Book Club Meeting, and I am most happy to have finished it today, in time to do my Review of said book. It starts exactly where the second book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, left off; and so reading that book is a prerequisite for reading this one, and really one should read the first book in the trilogy, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, before all of them. Having said that, this book is a stunning ending to the best spy and murder mystery book series translated from the Swedish that I have ever read. That is not to sell it short; it is a great book, and a great series, and I lament the death of the author of a heart attack in 2004, before the publication of this trilogy.
Lisbeth Salander (aka The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) is in the intensive care unit of a Swedish hospital Also in the hospital is Zalachenko, who many years ago was a Russian agent who defected to the Swedes and was for the next twenty or thirty years “handled” by a super-secret cadre known as “the Section” within SÄPO, the Swedish Security Service. Salander and Zalachenko are in the hospital because of each other (in events that happened at the end of the second book in the series), and she is soon placed under lock and key at the hospital, to be transferred to a prison to await charges of attempted murder and various kinds of mayhem.
While Salander lies in the hospital, the Section is plotting to have her eventually declared hopelessly mad and to have her permanently institutionalized; they cannot afford to have their involvement in her life because of the handling of Zalachenko exposed. Mikael Blomkvist, the investigative journalist and co-owner of the monthly magazine Millennium and who has had dealings with Salander in the previous two books, spearheads a group of people who do not think that Salander is a dangerous paranoid schizophrenic Lesbian Satanist, but who instead think that there has been gross mismanagement by forces in the mysterious Section in the path that Salander’s life has taken nearly all her life.
This book contains wheels within wheels, spying, counter-spying, sex, revenge, murder, and unpronounceable Swedish names; in short, it’s a dandy finish to the series, and I will enjoy discussing the book tonight at my book club.
This is the book that I have been reading before I go to bed, for a month or so, and I am very glad to have read this book, as all the stories are gooThis is the book that I have been reading before I go to bed, for a month or so, and I am very glad to have read this book, as all the stories are good, and some are even great.
Among the stories in this collection that I had read before are “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien (arguably the best Vietnam War story ever written) and “No Place for You, My Love” by Eudora Welty. I loved some of the stories I read here for the first time, such as “A Mother’s Tale” by James Agee, “The School” by Donald Barthelme, “The Daughters of the Late Colonel” by Katherine Mansfield, “Master and Man” by Leo Tolstoy, and “The Flowers” by Alice Walker. Each of the stories in this collection is introduced by a writer; I found that it was best to read the introduction after reading each story, especially for stories that were not already familiar to me.
I loved reading this collection of short stories, and I am very glad that I have this book to keep on my own book shelves....more
One does not think of London, England as ever having been a Roman town, but this marvelous book is set in Londinium, Britannia, AD 211, a bustling citOne does not think of London, England as ever having been a Roman town, but this marvelous book is set in Londinium, Britannia, AD 211, a bustling city of slums, palatial Roman homes, gladiators, slaves, vice of every description, and the birthplace of Zuleika, the narrator of this book, which is set up as poetry (mostly irregular unrhymed couplets narration) written by her. The book is raw, feisty, humorous, touching, and a corner into a woman of great spirit, and I loved reading the book.
Although born and raised in Londinium, our Zuleika is the daughter of a pair of Sudanese slaves who escaped from Khartoum; she is thus an exotic person of color, and the older sister of the very much more favored son of the family. She grows up as a very cheerful slum rat, ranging across the city with her best friend Alba, working from the age of about five in the family business, and aware of and accepting everything that is in the city life. However, at the age of eleven, a Roman patrician three times her age sees her in the baths, is smitten by her, and arranges due financial compensation to her father to take her as his wife; she is appalled at this turn in her life, but sees no alternative.
You can take the girl out of the streets, but you can’t take the streets out of the girl; although her marriage marks a huge social step up, the noble Felix arranges for her to be properly educated in the graces necessary to a Roman wife, but he is only resident in Londinium three months out of the year, leaving Zuleika to her own devices. She turns to poetry to keep herself occupied, and continues to hang out with her friend Alba and their mutual friend Venus, a sweet transvestite who runs a club for those seeking alternative lifestyle choices. Her life as a bird in a gilded cage changes when the African-born Emperor Septimius Severus sees her exotic Nubian self at the theatre.
This is a wonderful rollicking book; one forgets most of the time that one is reading what is in fact poetry, as the story of Zuleika’s life is narrated by herself. It’s a very fun read, and one that I would recommend to just about anyone, with a warning that the language and themes can be quite earthy....more
This is the second volume in the Ender’s Game series of novels and short stories by the author, dealing with such science fiction concepts as near-ligThis is the second volume in the Ender’s Game series of novels and short stories by the author, dealing with such science fiction concepts as near-light-year travel, meetings (both positive and negative) with sentient alien species, and self-aware computer networks. It also deals with trust, with forgiving, and with speaking the truth with compassion, which are topics as old as The Iliad. I enjoyed this science-fiction book, and have two or three of the next books in the series in my Books to Read bookcase, to read when I feel the time is right.
On the planet of Lusitania, founded by colonists originally of Brazilian Catholic extraction, a sentient species was found soon after the founding of the colony. Mindful of what happened the last time mankind was faced with a sentient species. some three thousand years ago. a fence was erected around the colony, with the only ones allowed out being the xenologers (alien anthropologists). The species they study are named Pequeninos (Porteguese for “little ones”), but are universally called Piggies, as they look like pigs. A plague then hit the colony; it was only stopped by the discovery of an agent that would halt the plague, but at the cost of the lives of the two researchers who discovered the agent, the last two people to die of the plague. Their young daughter Novinha, whose grief at the loss of her parents was shunted aside by the colony’s joy that the plague was ended, grew up to become a xenobiologist, working in tandem with the xenologers. After a death by the hand of the piggies, a call goes out from Novinha for a Speaker of the Dead – one who will come from another world, learn all there is to know about a given dead person, and then speak their life in a public ceremony – not a eulogy, but a truthful telling of not only what the person was, and what the person did, but why the person did what that person did.
The Speaker who comes is Andrew Wiggin, who is older than he looks (when you spend a lot of time in near-light-speed travel, a week for you can be twenty or thirty years for everyone else). He answers the call for a Speaker, because he sees in the face of Novinha something that calls to him – a heavy guilt for the death of others. He arrives a week after he left the planet of Trondheim (and his sister Valentine), which is twenty-two years later for everyone else; Novinha, who made the call for a Speaker, had canceled the call while he was en route, but two more calls have gone out for a Speaker, there has been another death at the hands of the piggies, and the Novinha now has six children, who live with her in a poisonous attitude of anger and misunderstanding.
It is perhaps human to fear and hate what we do not understand; if that is so, our task is to learn to not to fear and not to hate by understanding. The Other will always remain the Other until we either make the Other one of Us, or until we make ourselves the Other, which cannot happen except in an attitude of trust, hope, and understanding. But I still have the mental image of the aliens arriving with the cure for cancer, landing in a cornfield in rural America, and being blown away by the shotgun wielded by a terrified farmer. Which has nothing, and everything, to do with this book, which I enjoyed reading....more
Julian of Norwich (c.1342 – c.1416) was one of England’s most important mystics; she spent her adult life as an Anchoress in Norwich, England, and verJulian of Norwich (c.1342 – c.1416) was one of England’s most important mystics; she spent her adult life as an Anchoress in Norwich, England, and very little is known of her life. In paintings and stained glass images of her, she is usually shown with a cat; and this small, very enjoyable novel is a story of that cat.
Life is chancy, and so a cat in Norwich finds it; there are those who love cats, those who think cats are things of the Devil and responsible for illness (or worse), those who think that a cat is acceptable only as a mouser, and those who see cats as worth a few farthings at the furrier’s shop. The story of this particular cat weaves in and out of the story of Nick, an apprentice to a wealthy merchant; Nick was orphaned by the Black Plague, and taken in by the merchant. Nick takes his troubles to the Lady Julian, who lives in her cell by the church, and who will speak through the curtain at her window to any who ask her aid. Both Nick and our cat see the best and worst of Norwich before our cat finds his home with the Lady Julian.
Julian of Norwich is one of my favorite spiritual people (she was never canonized, although she was a theologian of note, as seen by her book, Revelations of Divine Love), and the Ancrene Wisse (Ancient Rule) for Anchoresses allowed an anchoress to keep a cat, presumably to earn its keep as a mouser. I love Julian of Norwich, and I love cats, and I loved this little tale of the Lady Julian and her cat.
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