P is for Paris

The End of the Alphabet

CS Richardson

Doubleday Canada

Aphorisms be damned! I know they say that you can't judge a book by its cover, but that's what I did with the subject of this week's post and it seemed to work out fine. I was originally attracted to The End of the Alphabet by the picture of the camel that graced the front cover. The cousin that lives with me at the moment has been nuts for dromedaries since she was a little girl. She's got pictures, stuffed animals, figurines, Christmas ornaments -- you name it, and if it has a camel on it, I'm sure she has one.

When I picked up the book and read the publisher's blurb on the dust jacket, I didn't quite know what to expect. I suppose I thought it would be like an alphabetized Book of Hours crossed with Tuesdays with Morrie. It turns out that my assumption wasn't that far off the mark.

Somewhere in his early fifties, art lover and advertising man, Ambrose Zephyr learns that he has a month to live. He decides that in his remaining days he wants to travel his way through the alphabet and use the time he has left to absorb the beauty of art, life and the self. He and his wife only make it as far as Istanbul when Ambrose returns home to die. Gentle, witty and charming, The End of the Alphabet is a magical love letter well worth picking up. Three camels out of five.

Somebody's Watchin' Me

The Traveler
John Twelve Hawks
Vintage

A few months ago, one the big debates being discussed in the Toronto media was whether or not the city should install CCTV cameras to monitor activity in a few "problem" areas in the downtown core. Frankly, the idea that the city could track my movements even more than they already do gave me the creeps. Don't worry, I'm not one of those "live free or die" types, but I do believe that the both the government and big business know way too much about what I do, where I go, and what novel I'm likely to choose next at the bookstore. We could just chalk it up to being one of the perils of living in a post 9/11, information age. Or not. I think it's a matter of perspective.

John Twelve Hawks, the author of 2005's The Traveler, might argue that it is possible, and somewhat preferable, to fly under the information radar and "live off the grid" since it is the only real way to live free. The novel focuses on a pair of brothers, Gabriel and Michael, who are suspected to be Travelers -- that is, men who can escape their physical beings and use their energy or "Light" to travel to other dimensions. An evil empire called the Tabula (headquartered in Purchase, NY) want to capture the brothers and use their powers to open a portal and map a path between realities. While Michael is eventually captured and convinced to use his powers for the dark side, Gabriel manages to elude his seekers and flees to the Arizona desert. He is assisted in his escape by a young woman named Maya -- a trained killer sworn to protect Travelers, and a couple of Angelinos who believe in the cause.

I really liked this book. Twelve Hawks (if that, indeed, is his real name) has managed to put together a novel that defies categorization. Part sci-fi/fantasy, part thriller, part social criticism, this novels works, and works beautifully, on so many levels. Despite the fact that I understand this novel is the first in a trilogy, there is very little fat in the text and even the characters names are invested with meaning. Twelve Hawks has done a fantastic job making this an intelligent, engaging read. Four points of light out of five.

Leonardo's Girl

I, Mona Lisa
Jeanne Kalogridis
St. Martin's Griffin

So, believe it or not, I'm one of those odd ducks that doesn't actually mind spending time at the airport. When my brother and I were quite young, my dad used to take us to Malton on Sunday afternoons to watch the planes from the roof of Terminal One. If we were really lucky, the afternoon would conclude with a dinner at the Ponderosa. Yeah, I know -- I am so small town it hurts.

Anyway, aside from the noise pollution and the smell of automobile and jet exhaust, there isn't much about the airport that I don't like. I still enjoy watching the planes take off and land, I love making up stories about the people I see, and I get a huge kick out of the randomness of the whole experience. I can tell you which airports across North America have the best bars, the best ice cream, the best lounges, the most inconveniently located car rental agencies, and, of course, the best bookstores. What else is there to do when you take a 3 hour delay?

As you've probably guessed from the lead-in, I've been travelling quite a bit lately and the subject of this week's post I, Mona Lisa by Jeanne Kalogridis was purchased last week on my way home from YOW. Set in Florence during the early 16th century, the author skillfully weaves fact and fiction to create a compelling and immensely readable narrative about the fall of the de Medici, the rise of the Savonarola, and the vie quotidienne of one Lisa di Antonio Gherardini. Surprisingly, the most interesting character in the novel is not the subject of that much talked about painting. It is the portrayal of Leonardo da Vinci that really captures the reader's imagination and leaves him/her wanting more. Three flights of fancy out of five.

What in Me is Dark, Illumine

This Blinding Absence of Light

Tahar Ben Jelloun

Penguin Books

Every once in awhile, you come across a book that speaks to you in such an intimate way that it becomes a touchstone for how you live your life. I'm lucky enough to have three -- Le Petit Prince, The Alchemist, and now, This Blinding Absence of Light.

Geographically, the book is set in the Tazmamart prison camp in southeastern Morocco. Though he never fired a gun, the narrator (a lieutentant in the Moroccan army) has been incarcerated for his participation in a failed coup d'etat against King Hassan II. The "prison" is actually a concentration camp and for twenty years, he and the other inmates literally live in the dark -- given only enough bread and water to exist on the edge of death. Individually confined to cells that don't allow them to stand, they only see the light when one of their companions dies and the guards allow them to attend the funeral. Eventually, this "privilege" is also taken away and the men must exist in total physical darkness.

What is so moving about this novel is that collectively and as individuals, the men resist despair. Despite the horrific conditions, they use their faith and their imagination to rise above/beyond their physical selves in an attempt to survive. To be able to transcend the kind of cruelty, pain and suffering that these men endured is a testament to man's infinite capacity for hope. They lived in complete and utter darkness, but some never succumbed -- they never lost sight of the light. Five shining stars out of five.

Get a New Plan Stan

Getting Rid of Matthew

Jane Fallon

Harper Collins

As unfair as it might seem, I had big hopes for this novel. The premise is definitely intriguing. An under-achieving, but very beautiful secretary/PA decides to end the four and a half year affair she has been having with a much older, married co-worker. In the process of leaving her lover, she somehow manages to befriend his wife, alienate his pre-teen daughters, and fall madly in lust with his son. Sounds like it could be a lot of fun, right? Sigh. If only it had lived up to its potential ...

I honestly can't think of anything good to say about this novel. I didn't hate GRoM (it wasn't written well enough to evoke that kind of passion in me,) but I definitely wouldn't recommend it to any of my friends. I found the main character to be vapid and shallow and flat-- much like Kitty Fane at the beginning of The Painted Veil. It could be that the novel is just a victim of bad timing --admittedly, my mental landscape is still occupied with thoughts of Adam Spark and I still don't seem to have room for much else. Or it could be that I had such high expectations (I was hoping that GRoM might be the harbinger of an anti-chick lit genre) that the book just couldn't measure up. I'm not sure. In any event, I have to give this one two thumbs down.

Save Me

The incredible Adam Spark
Alan Bissett
Headline Review

A very unusual thing happened to me last week when I was coming home from the gym. It was Saturday afternoon and I had just finished a gruelling workout (note to self -- never do legs when the trainer has a hangover -- she gets real mean.) As a reward for making it through the session without either giving up or throwing up, I decided that I deserved a trip to the bookstore. As usual, I let the books pick me and I ended up coming home with three selections. I didn't notice it at the time, but each of the titles contained a boy's name -- The incredible Adam Spark, Getting Rid of Matthew, and We Need to Talk About Kevin. I'm sure there must be a message in there somewhere -- if only I had collected enough cereal box tops to send away for that decoder ring ...

Anyway ... let's talk about Adam. The incredible Adam Spark was, for me, a very engaging read. Bissett's brilliant use of colloquial Scots combined with a sort of stream of consciousness narration quite literally hurt my head. I found that I often had to resort to reading sentences out loud in order to figure out what the narrator was saying. Not such a bad strategy in the privacy of my own home, but it did occasion some odd looks on the streetcar during my morning commute.

The story centres on a developmentally challenged young man, Sparkie/Adam, who, after getting a nasty crack in the head, wakes up to discover that he has superpowers; not only can he see auras, but he has also developed the ability to communicate with machines and animals. While his new skills may come in handy in his quest for Employee-of-the-Month, Adam understands that he really needs to use his powers for good. Knowing what "good" is -- well, that's the challenge.

Over the course of the novel Sparkie/Adam has a lot of adventures. He falls in with a gang, falls out with his sister, and falls in love with girl name Bonnie. He is both wonderful and repulsive and I didn't really want his story to end. I'll definitely be coming back to Bissett to see what other work he has written. There was so much packed into a few hunderd pages that I will be thinking about this book for weeks to come. Four big macs out of five. Supersized.

Who Are They Anyway?

Them - Adventures with Extremists

Jon Ronson

Simon & Schuster

A couple of you keen observers/blog readers have noticed that for a short month, I've managed to churn through quite a few books. Um, well, not that I am apologizing or anything, but some of the material has been quite light (seriously -- it take less than two hours to blast through a Harlequin.) And frankly, I've been in a bit of a funk and what do I do when I'm feeling blue? I read.

So, let's talk about Them. In a nutshell, this book is the chronicle of one man's journey (Jon Ronson) into, well, what my mother would call "Land of the Wackos." Ronson, a British humourist/journalist follows around and reports on the comings and goings of various "extremist" individuals. What makes them "extremists" is not their desire to blow up buildings or kill thousands of innocents -- no, they are "extreme" because they all believe, to one degree or another, that world events are being manipulated by a clandestine, insidious cabal of prominent politicians, thinkers, and financiers. While I'm not so sure that I don't agree with Them -- such a group does exist -- I might dispute the author's contention that this shadowy organization is the infamous Bilderberg group. You see, I had always been under the impression that the world was controlled by the insidious cabal that writes and publishes The Economist. Hmmm ... had I only known ...

To be candid, Them is much more disturbing than it is amusing. I will admit to laughing out loud when the author describes being outed at the Jihadist training camp (Ronson is Jewish, not gay -- imagine the potential consquences!) What really scared me, though, was reading the profiles of the closer-to-home, America-based weirdos. I know I should take comfort in the fact Michael Adams argues that Americans and Canadians have socially divergent values and that the gap is widening every day. And I also know that Ronson is really only describing the lunatic fringe. What scares me is that at the end of the day, people are people, regardless of their country of origin, and weirdos, well, they're not all harmless like me. Three crackpots out of five.

Canada Reads

lullabies for little criminals

Heather O'Neill

Harper Perennial

When I was a little kid, one of my favourite poems was Dennis Lee's Alligator Pie. Aside from the fantastic rhymes, I liked it because it made the complicated ideas of want, need and sacrifice very easy to understand. My grade three teacher, Mrs. Graham, once asked our class what was it that we loved as much as alligator pie and what would we be willing to give up to keep it? To be honest, I have no idea how my eight-year old brain answered that question -- it was the question itself that stuck with me.

If you were to ask me today, however, I would tell you that my alligator pie is CBC Radio-One. I wouldn't be the person that I am if it weren't for the influence of our much maligned public broadcaster. Canada Reads is a perfect case in point. Heading into its sixth "season" CR is essentially Survivor for CanLit. Five panelists each choose a book to defend and at the end of a week, there is only one book left standing. The debates are lively, erudite, heated, and, like most programming on the Ceeb, make you think.

Why the digression into childhood poetry and my love for the Mothership? Well, this week's book, lullabies for little criminals, is actually one the novels being debated in this year's Canada Reads. Set in the rougher neighbourhoods of Montreal, the story is about a young girl, Baby, who is walking the fine line between childhood innocence and the temptations offered by the street-life world of drugs, sex and addiction. Billed by reviewers as a "coming of age"story, the novel definitely exhibits characteristics of the traditional bildungsroman. Aside from her sexual awakening (at the hands of Alphonse her pimp and her ur-nerd boyfriend Xavier), I am not convinced that Baby actually transitions from childhood into maturity. The ending left me curiously unsatisfied and I'll be interested to see how lullabies fares in the debates. 2/5 étoiles.

In the Immortal Words of DW -- Boogity boogity boogity!

Thunderstruck
Roxanne St. Claire
Harlequin

So, I'm going to take a wild guess here and assume that some of you reading this blog are wondering what in the H-E double hockey sticks I'm talking about in the title. Um, well ... DW would be Darrell Waltrip. Boogity boogity boogity is what he says at the start of a race. Uh huh ... that's right, sports fans, tomorrow afternoon will find me sitting in front of my television, a Budweiser in one hand, a bowl of chili in the other, celebrating the start to a new NASCAR Nextel Cup season.

Imagine my delight (and frankly, bewilderment) when on my way home from work on Friday I stopped at the local bookshop and found Thunderstruck. Honestly ... I had no idea that NASCAR has it own series of Harlequin romances. Once I managed compose myself (I almost hit the floor I was laughing so hard) I purchased a copy of said romance and unashamedly dug in. The basic "plot" is as follows: Handsome, athletic boy meets beautiful grease monkey girl. After much sexual tension and a few kisses, boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl then have a huge fight. Boy and girl then make up and live happily ever after. The end.

I've read my fair share of Harlequins and this one was as wonderfully crappy as all the rest. The best part of this novel, however, was that it was set at the Daytona track during Speed Week. It couldn't have been more perfect! And just in case you missed it in the About Me section of this blog -- this year, I'm cheering for Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Juan Pablo Montoya. While I think all of them are talented drivers (Tony especially), I'm really cheering for them because I think they are all very attractive. Well, I guess there is a little more to it than that ... I like Tony because he can be a supreme dick on the track and his anger and bad behaviour make me laugh. Junior is my sentimental favourite because his accent just kills me, and I quite liked JP (I've decided to call him JP) when he raced in F1.

Enjoy the race, everyone. I know I will.

Ice Cold, Baby

So Yesterday

Scott Westerfeld

Razor Bill

When I first started reading this novel, I did a bit of a double take. Did I actually pick up a book about the pursuit of cool, or was I reading some kind of trippy, fictionalized version of Crossing the Chasm meets The Tipping Point? The scary thing is that I'm still undecided.


So Yesterday introduces us to 17 year old Hunter Braque. Hunter is a Trendsetter (someone who has the innate ability to spot "cool" before it is "cool") and he occasionally works as a consultant for The Client -- a large footwear manufacturer named after a four-letter Greek god. One of Hunter's jobs is to attend Tastings (aka focus groups) where he and a pack of under twenty-somethings are asked to be the arbiters of taste. Hunter's other job is to roam the streets of New York and take pictures of cool things (using his ultra-hip Finnish mobile device, of course) and send them to his boss. It is on one of these excursions that he meets Jen, the girl of his dreams. The girl, as it turns out, is an Innovator and as soon as they hook up, strange things start to happen. Someone is trying to topple the pyramid of cool and bring rampant consumerism to the brink of destruction. It is up to Hunter and his new girl to figure it all out.

What's cooler than cool? Well, not me and definitely not this book. While I think Westerfeld gets readers to think about some of the issues around the production and marketing of popular culture, the story just doesn't work. What the book lacks, I'm afraid, is innovation. Hunter wouldn't have even picked it up.

New Boy in Town

Darkly Dreaming Dexter
Jeff Lindsay
Vintage Crime / Black Lizard

What is it with me, this blog, and the need to confess? As if liking Bruce Campbell weren't bad enough, now I think I'm in love with a serial killer. Is it any wonder that I'm single? (Don't answer that ... it was entirely rhetorical.)

I first met Dexter Morgan a couple of months ago -- my friend Peter actually introduced us one night after work. Dex is a blood spatter expert with the Miami-Dade police department (great job -- lots of opportunity!) and like of most of my past boyfriends, he is quite handsome, very fit, devastatingly charming, and, uh, emotionally unavailable. Big sigh.

You see, Dex has some serious baggage. He went through a terrible trauma as a young boy and it damaged him. Some people, lay people, might even be tempted to call him a sociopath. Actually, if I look at it objectively, I would have to say that Dexter is pretty much a homicidal maniac. The upside, and the reason I love him, is that he only kills VBPs -- very bad people. To make matters a little more complicated, his sister (a complete potty-mouthed cop if ever I met one) is investigating a series of brutal slayings that bear a striking resemblance to Dex's own unique style.

For someone who doesn't usually express much by way of emotion, he has been a little edgy and out of sorts lately. My internal radar is telling me to stay away ... but there is something so, I dunno, sexy about him, I might just have to see where this could lead. BTW, on our last date, he took me to a little medianoche for the best Cuban sandwich I have ever eaten. The decor left a little to be desired, but on the whole I'd give it three and a half stars. I'll keep you posted (pun intended) if things get serious.

Definitely Not Lost in Translation

The Club Dumas
Arturo Perez-Reverte
Harcourt

When you were a little kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? For the longest time, I was convinced that I was going to be a journalist, get a job with CBC radio, and travel the world. Sometime during university, I realized that I wasn't emotionally tough enough to become the next Mary Lou Findlay, so I decided that I would get married to my then boyfriend and eventually go to grad school to become a literature professor. The boy, well, he dumped me partway through grad school and since I was tired of being a dirt poor student, the other part of the dream faded away as well.

Ask me today what I want to be when I grow up, I'm going to say that I want to become Lucas Corso -- the very rumpled, borderline alcoholic, wolfish, book hunting hero of The Club Dumas. If I had to describe this novel in a sentence, I would probably say that it's The Da Vinci Code for the well-read. The story opens with a possible murder -- a well-known bibliophile is found hanged in his apartment, leaving behind a fragment of Dumas' original manuscript for The Three Musketeers. Corso is hired to authenticate the text and he suddenly finds himself swept into a mystery that involves satanic rituals, angels and demons, forgeries, and of course, a little bit of romance. Set against the backdrop of some of Europe's most literary and beautiful cities, this novel is meant for book-loving cynics.

Corso, while not entirely likeable, gains the reader's admiration and respect -- despite the fact that he uses questionable methods in pursuit of the truth. Like any good thriller, the author kept me guessing right to the very end. You'll have to read it for yourselves to find out more. I would advise you, however, to crack open your Latin text, fire up Google for some of the more obscure references, and do your best imitation of Sherlock Holmes. Four very melodramatic fleur-de-lis out of five.

The Eager Beaver -- A rose by any other name ...

Strip Tease
Carl Hiaasen
Warner Books

I'm having a tough time coming up with content for this entry. It's not that I didn't enjoy Strip Tease -- I did -- it's just that I don't read this kind of book very often and for whatever reason, I don't know how to talk about it.

I guess we should start with the basics. Strip Tease, on one level, is a "suspense/thriller" novel, set in the seedier parts of south Florida. The main protagonist, Erin, is a reluctant stripper (and a former FBI data entry clerk) who needs to make decent money in order to fight her meth-head ex for custody of their child. One night, a sex-addicted congressman commits an indiscretion at the club where Erin works and she is inexorably sucked into a vortex of politics, big-agriculture, extortion and murder. Sounds fun, huh?

Hiaasen's novel is more than a John Grisham wannabe -- it also provides biting social commentary about government, corruption, and the kookiness of the south Florida social scene. While I did find myself laughing out loud in parts (the Eager Beaver is actually the name of the strip joint where, ahem, a great deal of the action takes place,) I also found myself wincing and shifting in my seat. Hiaasen can definitely be funny and make his reader uncomfortable at the same time. Two and a half lap dances out of five.

Exactly, my dear Watson ...

Arthur & George

Julian Barnes

Vintage Canada

With the advent of the gift card, most of my friends have stopped giving me books for Christmas. While I appreciate their thoughtfulness and generosity, I have to admit to missing the thrill of reading something that has been selected for me by someone else. Happily, my best friend isn't afraid to buy me books (he's mastered the concept of the gift receipt) and so far, this year's picks have been top shelf.

Arthur & George, by British novelist Julian Barnes, is an extraordinarily well-crafted piece of historical fiction that tells the story of two Edwardian gentlemen -- one, a world-famous writer, and the other, a quiet, hard-working solicitor of mixed Indian/Scottish descent. Their worlds intersect when George (the solicitor) is wrongly convicted of a heinous crime and spends three years in an English gaol. George receives an early release, but no pardon, so he writes to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and requests the writer's assistance in pursuing justice.

Barnes uses the factual details from both the Edalji case and Doyle's own life to weave a compelling narrative that sweeps the reader back to turn-of-the-century England. When Doyle investigates and eventually shames the Home Office into granting the pardon, George is pleased yet unsatisfied. He wryly notes that he thinks Doyle "too influenced by his own creation." Doyle, on the other hand, is amazed by George's Tory snobbery and reluctance to admit that racism was the true cause of his wrongful imprisonment.

Arthur & George is wonderful novel. Not just because it provides a portrait of an age, but because it transcends time and deals with themes of love, honour, guilt, privilege, duty, race and class. Barnes is a masterful, witty storyteller and in this novel, it seems to me that he invokes the true spirit of Miss Austen. Already I can guarantee you that Arthur & George will be in the running for the d-e-s book of the year. A very beautiful five Janes out of five.

We Interrupt this Blog ...

For those of you who are not yet intimate with the hideously boring details of ma vie quotidienne, I quit my job back in September to hang out, go to the gym, and catch up on my sleep. Before anyone says "wow, she's so brave," I should probably inform you that it was a very low risk proposition. I was able to pick up some ad hoc consulting days and I had a whack of dough saved from a couple of lucrative years in software sales. I was pretty sure that I needed a "break" and a three-week vacation that would require me to get onto yet another airplane just wasn't going to cut it.

So, here I am now, a few months later, rested, a blogger, much more fit, and finally ready (albeit a bit reluctantly) to go back to work. I start on Monday. Why am I telling you this? Well, part of the reason I started this blog was to give myself a creative outlet that I could access while travelling. Yes, there are still going to be lots of airports and lonely nights at the hotel in my future, but I'm hoping that the idea of "the reading public" will make it a little less solitary. I also thought that it might be fun if I actually recorded the location of where I am when I make the posts. You never know ... maybe I'll be in your city and you can save me from another night of eating in the darkest corner of the bar, avoiding eye contact with creepy old guys in bad suits.

Prithee look back ...

The Bloody Chamber
Angela Carter
Penguin Books

When I was in the third grade, my best friend's name was Janice Slack. I can't remember if Janice and I met in gymnastics or at school, but for a little while there, the two of us were inseperable. We'd walk Bunny (her dog), have sleepovers in the tent trailer that was parked in my driveway, and play dress up in the crawl space of her basement. Like me, Janice was kind of nerdy-- she liked to read almost as much as I did -- and one year for Christmas, her Grandma gave us both a copy of Grimm's fairy tales. We each had our favourites and it shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that I liked the gory ones best.

The Bloody Chamber, by Angela Carter, is a collection of short stories that rework traditional folk stories, legends and fairy tales. While I can't say I enjoyed all her work, I did appreciate how she tries to turn legend on its ear and recast the female figures as active heroines instead of passive victims. Her writing is very sensual and often, borders on the erotic. I also enjoyed the smartness of her narrative -- her work is full of allusion and subtle homage -- quite a lot of fun for someone who likes to play guess the reference. Three blood-curdling screams out of five.

Conflict-ed

Three Day Road
Joseph Boyden
Penguin Canada

My second year of university, my fellow English majors and I had to take a ModernLit class that covered works from the early twentieth century. I didn't particularly love the period and for me, it was tough slogging. Joyce, Woolf, Lawrence, Mansfield, Yeats, ... they seemed to be such an unhappy lot and very little of what they wrote inspired me. The group of individuals known as the War Poets, however, moved me to such an extent that I have never been able to shake the images of what they had to endure.

Boyden's descriptions of trench warfare in Three Day Road reminded me a great deal of the poems of Wilfrid Owen. His prose is brutal, minimal and utterly devastating and it will be some time before I can get it out of my head. The novel itself tells the story of two Cree snipers, Xavier and Elijah, and the horrors they endured on the battlefields of Europe. Woven into the narrative is the the back story of Xavier's youth as well as that of his Auntie, Niska, a bush dweller, a receiver of visions, and a windigo killer.

Conflict is central to this novel and its relationships. And not just war -- Boyden raises many issues that are worth discussing, not the least of which is the collision between red and white culture at the turn of the century. This novel is beautifully written and while the reader is certainly impacted by Boyden's grim depiction of the Great War, he/she is not blinded to the greater themes/truths that the author has conveyed. Three Day Road, like Dulce et Decorum Est, will stick with me forever. Five MMs out of five.

True Grit Lit

Troy -- Shield of Thunder

David Gemmell

Bantam Press

Have you ever wondered why you like some books and don't like others? As someone who reads almost anything, I have often pondered matters of taste. For me, I think my likes/dislikes are somehow tied to genre. You already know that I'm not a big fan of chicklit --far too much self-indulgent navel gazing in my opinion. In fact, if you chucked the whole memoir genre, I don't think we'd lose too many good books. I definitely don't care for those massive historical tomes that you can only imagine being read by some guy whose smoking jacket smells like stale tobacco and last night's brandy. Self-help books? Uh, not so much ... if I wanted advice from harmless crackpots, I'd ask my family and friends.

So, what does the girl like? Well, believe it or not, I quite enjoy historical fiction that is geared toward a male audience. Go figure ... the feminist in me is shrinking from the keyboard even as I type. Taking place during the time of the Trojan War, Shield of Thunder recounts/rewrites the tales of fabled heroes (Aeneas, Hector, Odysseus) and introduces some new characters into the mix. There is a lot of blood and guts and gore in this novel (not so much sex -- sorry ladies!) and Gemmel makes the characters come alive even as he is describing their grisly deaths.

What I like best about this novel is the pace. While Gemmel is a master of characterization, he doesn't belabour character development and the plot just zips along. At the same time, he also adds his own dimensions to characters that have, to some degree, become firmly etched in western literary tradition. While I didn't need break out either Virgil or Homer to read this book, having them in the background definitely enhanced my enjoyment of the work.

And now for the bad news ... I was very saddened to learn that Gemmel passed away this summer from complications following heart surgery. He was only 57. At the time of his death, he had 70,000 words completed of the final installment of the Troy trilogy. I read somewhere that the outline is finished and his wife, Stella, will put out the third book. Here's hoping that it is a worthy tribute to a good writer.

She Blinded Me with Science

Does Anything Eat Wasps? And 101 Other Unsettling, Witty Answers to Questions You Never Thought You Wanted to Ask

New Scientist

Free Press

So, are you guys ready for yet another startling blog-inspired confession? In addition to loving Bruce Campbell and reading, ahem, the occasional business book, I have a secret addiction to popular science. Scary ... but true. If you must know, I blame my parents. As a little kid, copies of National Geographic were littered all over our house -- I couldn't help myself and just had to read them. To make matters worse, on Saturdays around lunchtime, my mom would sit me down at the kitchen table and I would munch on my pickles and carrot sticks while listening to Quirks and Quarks on CBC radio. Come to think of it, this may also explain my strange obsession with David Suzuki ... hmmmm.

Does Anything Eat Wasps? is a collection of questions posed to the editors of New Scientist magazine for their "Last Word" column. The questions are published and then responded to by the ur-Nerds that make up its readership. For the most part, the answers to the questions the book poses are delivered in layman's terms -- there are only a couple of cases where a reader might get bogged down by too much information and be tempted to scan. I was particularly pleased to learn why I have eyebrows and how much weight I will have to gain to become bulletproof. The questions range from the trivial to the fantastic and a great deal of the responses are articulate, witty, and in some cases, delightfully entertaining. Who said science can't be fun?

Rating? I'm giving this one 4 out of 5 Suzukis.

Who Cares What the Author Thinks Anyway?

Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card
Tor

Maybe it's the perpetual hangover I have from being a student of capital L "Literature," but I loathe introductions. Absolutely HATE them. You know the ones I mean ... the serious essays typically written by some high fallutin' professor type who, while well meaning, is essentially telling us that we're too dumb to interpret the text without his/her literary guidance. They infuriate me. "Why?" you ask. Because in my opinion, an introduction (good or bad) prejudices the entire reading experience. The text no longer stands on its own and inevitably gets interpreted through the context/filter of the words that precede it.

So, why the rant instead of the review? Well, the only thing I hate more than reading an introduction prior to the main text (curiously enough, I am okay with reading it after) is reading an introduction written by the author. Big sigh ... I did not get off to a good start with this book.

Having said all that, Ender's Game is an example of superb science fiction writing and it a lot of ways, it reminds me of Dune. Card tackles immense social, religious, economic and political ideas and asks his readers to recontextualize them against the background of an interstellar war led by genetically engineered children. Ender, the messianic figure at the centre of the story, is a six-year old boy, who is taken from his family, isolated at a military academy and whose every move is manipulated by those in charge. Like a lot of science fiction, ultimately, this is not a happy book -- but it does make for compelling reading. Four out of five battleships.