And the Survey Says .... (with apologies to Richard Dawson)

An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil

Jim Munroe

No Media Kings

Okay, blog readers, I gotta know ... would it bug you if I wrote about you on this blog? I know that I've already made some specific references to friends and family in these posts, but I haven't really spilled anything juicy. My mind has been occupied lately with thoughts about the collision of public and private space, where the boundaries are, and what rules can be applied to private thoughts in a public forum. More significantly, what are the moral implications of me writing about all of you without your permission? Hmmmm ....

Funnily enough, the heroine of this week's novel is facing the same dilemma. Kate registers a website (roommatefromhell.com) and dishes on the comings and goings of her ritual chanting, pentagram drawing housemate. A recovering yuppie, Kate is so fascinated by Lilith's otherworldliness that she asks her to perform her ritual as a performance piece at a gallery opening. The show goes so well that the two girls decide to take the act on the road and while on tour, they eventually evolve into the opening act for a rock band called the Everenders.

Part bildungsroman, part blog, An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil is chock-a-block full of ideas that make a reader pause and think. Where is the line between private and public? What "qualifies" as Outsider Art? Can you ever really trust a narrator? What does it mean when life imitates art? I like books that make me ask a lot of questions. I'm going to give this one 2.5 stars out of 5.

My Boyfriend’s Back

Black Order
James Rollins
Harper

So, for those of you who are following along, I’ve got good news. My boyfriend’s back. That’s right, Grayson Pierce and I hooked up in Copenhagen this past weekend and I have to say, he was as, uh, enigmatic and energetic as ever.

This time, Gray managed to suck me into some kind of post-Nazi Übermensch drama. We originally went to Denmark to attend an auction (I had my eye on a Bible that once belonged to Charles Darwin) and all of a sudden, the bookshop that we were exploring went up in flames. Not that I’m complaining, my boy has skills, but I’m kinda getting tired of being shot at when I’m in his company. Maybe I should rethink this relationship.

Anyway, after a narrow escape, he whisked me away on a private jet to South Africa where we came face-to-face with a creepy Himmler type who had used his millions to fund his own gene modification/evolution project. Of course, Grayson blamed it all on me and my interest in that darn Bible. Apparently someone had hidden a clue in the book and our Himmler friend needed it to solve the riddle of his evolution device. Sounds complicated, right? Good thing Grayson has brains as well as looks …

Much like our first encounter, time spent with the boy was, well, curiously satisfying. I wonder where he’ll take me on our next date. Forget where … I’m even wondering when the next one will be. I have to say, dating an international man of mystery certainly has its disadvantages. The sex is quite good though. I’d say he gets a four out of five. There’s always room for improvement.

Crap Alert - Boys, Please Skip this Post

The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever

Julia Quinn

Harper Collins

There has been a LOT of stuff going on in my personal life lately and I've been in a pissy mood as a result. After the ritualized torture of a session with my personal trainer this weekend, I wandered (okay, limped) over to the bookstore to see what I could find to improve my mood. Bad idea. Nothing spoke to me. I've blogged elsewhere about how books tend to choose me, but on Saturday morning, nothing or nobody was calling my name.

Since it is sacrilege to go away from my Happy Place empty-handed, I decided to try an old stand-by and I made my way over to the romance section. That's right, loyal readers, I picked up a Regency romance. The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever follows the classic Regency formula:

• Girl meets boy and falls in love
• Boy is an entirely inappropriate choice
• Girl and boy end up hitting the sheets and girl's virtue is compromised
• Boy's honour forces them to marry
• Girl and boy have a falling out
• Boy and girl have an epiphany that they are destined to be together
• Girl and boy kiss and make up and live happily ever after in a manor house with a whack of children, some optional hunting dogs, and a lot of money

Why reading this crap cheers me up I have no idea. I think we'd probably have to pay a therapist a lot of money to figure it out. At any rate, Miss Miranda and her diaries held true to form. Maybe it's the comfort of the no-surprise ending. Maybe it's the old fashioned idea of a gentleman being bound by his honour. Maybe it's just the sex scenes (remember ... no boyfriend here.) Maybe it's the fact that when I dropped the novel in the tub when I was startled by the phone, I just didn't care. Whatever the reason, Miss Miranda didn't disappoint and helped me shed my gloomies. One pathetic star out of five.

Rainy Days and Sundays

The Day Watch

Sergei Lukyanenko

Anchor Canada

It's mid-afternoon Sunday and as I type this, I find myself seated in the lounge at the Island Airport waiting to catch a flight to Ottawa. I know it seems a little weird to be heading to Ottawa so early in the day, but it actually works out for me. You see ... I HATE Sundays. Absolutely detest them. I despise the feeling of dread that seems to linger like a black cloud over my day -- there's always so much to do; laundry, packing, running, friending, cleaning, writing -- and it all needs to get done before I head out on the road for another week. Traveling earlier the day means that when I get to where I'm going, I can actually relax and enjoy a few hours of solitude without the pressure of an unloaded dishwasher or an unmade phone call bringing me down. Between the lounge, the plane, and the time spent at the hotel, I tend to read a lot on Sundays and it is pretty much guilt free. Gotta like that.

Last week on the trip to Ottawa I started the next installment in the Night Watch series. I'll admit it -- I'm addicted. In this novel, there is less focus on Anton (although he is still a major character) and we are introduced more thoroughly to some of the Dark players in the game. What struck me in particular about this volume was Lukyanenko's use of setting to enhance/advance the story. After reading these books, I desperately want to go to Russia. Even in translation, he writes so effectively about place that Moscow seems to jump off the page. In some ways, it has a similar feel to the way Dumas describes Paris in The Three Musketeers.

If I had one criticism of the novel it would be the multiple story format. I'm not sure how these were originally published in the late 90s, but for the English editions, each book has a number of related tales that focus on different characters. Had I been the editor for the series, I might have been inclined to combine all of the stories into one bigger tale and identify different narrators for different "chapters". Some work would have had to be done to adjust the chronology, but it might have made the novel a little more consumable/interesting. Regardless, The Day Watch gets three point five werewolves out of five. Oh yeah, and for those of you who care ... the next novel, The Twilight Watch, has already been purchased. It's going to take me a few weeks to get to it though ... I need a break from my new friends. My boyfriend Grayson (remember him?) is getting jealous.

The Wanderer

Kiss the Sunset Pig

Laurie Gough

Penguin

Hmmm ... I think it's about time for another blog-inspired confession. Call me weird, but in addition to Joaquin Phoenix, fantasy novels, and CBC Radio One, I love road trips. Short ones, long ones -- it doesn't matter. Put me in a car, give me some sunshine, some tunes (and some junk food) and I am a very happy girl.

This past spring, some friends and I flew to San Francisco where we made our way to the coast and drove part of the PCH. At Cambria, we cut across the state and picked up Route 66 in Barstow. What a trip! Who knew the Mother Road could be so much fun? I kissed a wild burro in an old mining town, sat on a giant fibreglass jackrabbit somewhere in the desert, stood on the corner of Winslow, Arizona, and saw a million winking fireflies while jogging down a country road outside of Tulsa. Oh yeah ... we can't forget the evening spent getting ridiculously drunk at a biker bar named The Birdcage. Ah ... good times.

In Kiss the Sunset Pig, Laurie Gough, (a girl from Guelph) leaves her Canadian hometown to drive across America with the goal of finding herself (both spiritually and physically) in California. Along the way, she meets some friends, has some adventures and recalls earlier versions of herself that she discovered while traveling to other, more exotic, places in the world. The narrative is smart, funny, introspective, and not so personal that a reader can't relate. Her commentary on the differences between Canadians and Americans is particularly astute. Having spent a great deal of time south of the border, I don't buy into all of the stereotypes either. Three Steak and Shakes out of five.

The evil that men do lives after them;
the good is oft interred with their bones

Map of Bones
James Rollins
Avon

I met my latest boyfriend, Grayson Pierce, in transit. I was on my way home from Ottawa and he had been sent by the Vatican (and US special ops) to investigate a mysterious murder/theft from a cathedral in Germany. Our romance was fast-paced -- we hit five different countries in less than a week and it was mere hours after our chance encounter that I was up to my neck in spies, cults, cardinals and religious artifacts. I might have protested, but ... well, he was hot and it's not like I had anything better to do ...

Okay, so back to reality. Unfortunately for me, Grayson's not really my boyfriend. Sigh. I know -- you're completely stunned. He is, however, the lead character in Rollins' fast-paced, Ludlumesque thriller about an underground society that steals the bones of the three magi in an attempt to solve a centuries-old alchemical riddle. Throw in a bunch of murders, some special forces personal, corrupt church officials, and a psychotic grandma and you have a fairly brief (but accurate) synopsis of both plot and characterization.

I liked it. So much so, that I even recommended it to my dad. Map of Bones was a fine example of what I described earlier as True Grit Lit. If I am ever stuck in an airport without something to read, I won't think twice about picking up another Rollins' novel. Three shrouds of mystery out of five

No Spoiler Here

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

J.K. Rowling

Raincoast Books

Like pretty much everyone else on the planet, I got the latest Harry Potter the day it was released. Unlike most of Harry's devoted following, I didn't tuck into it right away. I know ... what the hell was I thinking when I agreed to go up north to visit my parents? It's not like I didn't know that the book was going to be released -- kinda hard to miss the hype.

Anyway, I did get the opportunity to get it started the following Sunday. I gathered some interesting stats over the course of the day -- seven people (three adults and four kids) in the Porter lounge had the book open on their laps. At dinner, three patrons other than myself were alternately munching and turning pages. (Curiously, we were all eating pasta that you could stab with one hand.) On the walk home, I spotted four pedestrians who were living quite dangerously by walking and reading.

It made me wonder -- what is it about these books that make them have such broad appeal? Is it because people are finally waking up to the fact that fantasy is a "legitimate" genre? Nah, I don't think that's it -- the legion of Jordan and Tolkien fans would be apoplectic-- good fantasy has been around for decades. Is it because, like Star Wars, the Potter books treat the archetypal theme of good vs. evil in a new and interesting way? Yeah, that might be it. But really, part of the appeal for me is that the complexity and maturity of Rowling's writing seemed to keep pace with the growth of her characters. Every year that Harry, Ron and Hermione got older, I found that the novels became a little more complex, a little darker and a whole lot more conflicted. Kind of like most of the teenagers I know.

Five soaring Thestrals out of five.

Dave -- This One's 4 U

Breakfast of Champions

Kurt Vonnegut

Delta

A couple of months ago, a friend asked me if I had ever read Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. I was ashamed to admit that I hadn't and agreed to post my review of the book on this blog.

Vonnegut, if you haven't read him, is brilliant. He's also, as I am finding here, difficult to describe. Reading a Vonnegut novel is kind of like being a stranger in a strange land. The reader is never too sure of the rules of the narrative and as such, can't rush to judgement or conclusions. Often, as in Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut uses the elements/conventions of science fiction to dislocate his readers and force them to construct/consider an entirely new world view.

In this novel (which apparently he wrote to celebrate his 5oth birthday) we are introduced to Dwayne Hoover -- a mentally ill, self-made man from the Mid West who owns car dealerships, restaurant franchises, and the local Holiday Inn. Dwayne's chemical imbalance causes him to have a psychotic break (he suspects everyone else in the world is a robot) and he goes on a rampage beating his lover, his son, and a host of other innocent bystanders.

The interesting twist in this novel is how Vonnegut blurs the line between creator and created. Vonnegut is at once the author, the narrator and a "real-time" character in the novel who manipulates the narrative to his own advantage. He "drops in" on his creation and hangs out in the lounge at the Holiday Inn, watching his characters in action, and thinking up new things for them to see/do. The overt parallels between Vonnegut and his deranged hero are also disturbing -- suicides, depression, middle age, the Mid West. Layered into that complexity is the presence of Kilgore Trout, the aging, somewhat distracted science fiction writer (some say Vonnegut's alter-ego) who, in some respects, facilitates Hoover's collapse. What does it all mean? I have no idea ... but it sure was fun to read. Three Heinlein's out of five

Lisa, vampires are make-believe like elves, gremlins and eskimos ...

The Night Watch

Sergei Lukyanenko

Anchor Canada

I know what you're thinking ... what is it with this girl and vampire novels? How many books about the undead can one person possibly read? Well, next to Dracula, this is probably the most imaginative, dislocating novel concerning vampires that I have ever read. Seriously.

Like all great fantasy novels, The Night Watch narrates the epic struggle between good and evil. In this case, the hero of the story is Anton, an IT geek, apprentice mage, and general warrior of the Light. Anton is also an "Other" -- part of an ancient race of humans who are compelled by their very nature to swear allegiance to either the Light or the Dark. While the balance of power between the factions is governed by a thousand-year old treaty, the uneasy truce is upset by the revelation that someone has been born that will reign supreme and plunge the world into the war to end all wars.

What differentiates the Light from the Dark is what made this novel so intriguing. The Light isn't always "good" -- it can be manipulative, sneaky, and vicious in how it supports its larger purpose. Those serving the Light are committed to serving others. Those serving the Dark are committed to serving themselves. It goes without saying that my reductive mind jumped immediately (and maybe erroneously) to Socialism versus Capitalism, Community versus the Individual, East versus West. Ain't allegory grand? I really enjoyed this novel and once I get the new Harry Potter out of the way, I see the second book in the series, The Day Watch, becoming my traveling companion over the next week or so. Four shape-shifters out of five.

The Case of the Disappearing Entry

Labyrinth

Kate Mosse

Orion

Okay, so a few of you have sent emails asking me what happened to the last post. Well, um, er, shuffle ... I actually took it down and, uh, deleted it. Honestly, it was total crap and I was kinda embarrassed when I put it out there in the first place.

For whatever reason, I've really struggled to find something interesting to say about this book. To be fair, Labyrinth was a decent summer/beach/cottage read. The story revolves around a young woman who, while volunteering on an archaeological dig in France, inadvertently discovers a hidden cave that holds the secret to the holy grail. Think the DaVinci Code meets Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

The book, while quite long, moved along at a good clip and there were a couple of surprises in terms of plot. What I didn't like about the story, was the poor/flat characterization -- the author very much leaned on stereotypes to construct her narrative. Again, as a beach read that's okay. As a potentially more interesting piece of historical fiction about the Cathars, the grail, and medieval France, not so much. Two wooden cups out of five.

That Isn't Writing; It's Typing

On the Road

Jack Kerouac

Penguin Classics

Well, hipsters, I have finally read Kerouac's classic post-war American novel. It took me the better part of a week to get through it and, to be candid, I'm unsure if it was worth the effort. I didn't understand a damn thing. Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I was definitely expecting it to blow me away and, well, it didn't.

For the uninitiated, Kerouac's story (told in a sort of groovy stream-of-consciousness) is narrated by Sal Paradise, a fledgling student/writer, who likes jazz, drugs and very young women. Sal yearns to live in a world without rules and one of the ways in which he expresses his rebelliousness is to take to the road. With very few dollars in his pocket, Sal travels across America -- meeting up with friends, making it with girls, and generally seeking out the margins of society. Central to the novel is Sal's friendship with the iconic Dean Moriarty. Dean is a drug-addled, two-timing con man who is unable to commit to anything but the vision he has of himself. He is altogether unlikeable, yet infinitely interesting and Sal is drawn to him despite the terrible things that he does.

Why did I have such a problem with this novel? Maybe because Sal's celebration of "life on the road" was often punctuated by dependence on the very conventions that he sought to reject. His adventures (unlike Dean's) seem little more than an occasional foray into a forbidden world. He always had a safety net (his aunt in New Jersey, his GI benefits) and it seemed that while he tried to live on the edge, it was always a low risk proposition. Sal was, what my friends in the 80s would have called a "poser"; a watcher who collected someone else's stories and tried to live them as if they were his own.

Putting my dislike of the characters aside, Kerouac's writing is brilliant and the novel is worth reading if only for the beauty of his prose. I came across a couple of new (I guess old!) names for certain drugs in the book and I have to give him props for his use of the word "hincty." And no, I'm not going to tell you what it means. Three juke joints out of five.

A Bouquet of Alarming Aphorisms

Horseradish - Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid
Lemony Snicket
Harper Collins

Daniel Handler strikes again! Horseradish - Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid is a collection of oddly funny, yet slightly depressing aphorisms from the author of the Series of Unfortunate Events. Reading it started me to wonder ... why is it that the bookstore, which is most definitely my "happy place", the source of such angst, sadness and depression in my imaginative life?

I mean, really, just look at the books I have reviewed in the past few months. Why don't people want to write, read and/or publish happy stories? Or is it just me and I am drawn to books with heavy themes like death, war, pestilence and strife? I have liked, if not loved, quite a number of the novels that I have read since starting this blog and I would like to know what, exactly, this says about me. Maybe I should be worried ... Sigh.

Okay, so back to Handler for a moment. His little book of wit and wisdom is divided into thirteen (noticing a trend?) chapters. In each, he offers up a few "kernels of dread" that can inspire or deflate -- depending on the mood of the reader. I will leave you with my favourite and the one that I think, perhaps, is the most true.

It is one of life's bitterest

truths that bedtime so often

arrives just when things are

really getting interesting.

Wanking in the Attic

Apples
Richard Milward
Faber and Faber

Meet Adam and Eve -- two blue-collar kids growing up in the Middlesbrough estates. Adam is a slightly OCD Beatlemaniac who regularly gets beaten up by his dad, has few friends, and is trying desperately to break out of geekdom. Eve is a beautiful, but bored young woman, who spends her weekends going to clubs, getting high, and finding cute boys for snogging and sex. They are both fifteen.

According to other reviewers, Milward's portrayal of Adam and Eve is an accurate depiction of teenage life in the working class areas of northern England. Date rape, teenage pregnancy, underage drinking, domestic violence -- this book had it all. Despite the heaviness of the material, however, I often found myself laughing at the antics of the main characters. The episode where Adam gets caught masturbating to his father's 80's copy of a Razzle magazine still has me giggling.

So, why the title? Well, aside from the obvious, I think the book is supposed to be about temptation, how to deal with it, and what happens when you fail. I think it's also about gaining knowledge, learning the good from the bad, and figuring out how to recover when you choose poorly. While the circumstances and location may be slightly different (it was acid and hot knives in my day ... not poppers and tac) I think everyone can identify with Adam and Eve and that's what makes this book so appealing. Three tempting serpents out of five.

Missives from an Old Friend

Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction

Sue Townsend

Penguin

When I was a teenager, my parents let me spend summers up at the cottage. I have so many good memories of those years -- kissing my first boy, cruising with my cousin Chris in his white Chevy Cavalier, rollerskating to Electric Avenue at the arena, and spending late nights down by the water watching the stars and listening to the chattering of the raccoons.

The cottage was even fun on stormy days. If the bay was really rough, Mom would let us put our legs through the arm holes of a life jacket and bob up and down in the waves. She'd only call us in if we were turning blue from cold or if the lightning was getting too close. One such afternoon, she gave us the hook and offered to make hot chocolate so we could warm up. We settled ourselves in front of the television expecting to watch an old Elvis movie and instead, we saw an episode of the BBC's The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole Aged, 13 and 3/4. I cried I laughed so hard and I was completely smitten with Adrian and Pandora for the rest of the summer.

Sadly, I don't think the Weapons of Mass Destruction stood up well against my memories of the programme or Townsend's first book. Adrian is still a git, Pandora is still a bitch, and Adrian's life, in general, is still a mess. The only thing that I did appreciate about the novel was Townsend's not-so-subtle political commentary. In this installment of the diaries, Adrian's son, Glenn, is shipped to Iraq and Townsend very poignantly deals with the loss of Glenn's best friend. That storyline aside, there wasn't much else to keep my interest. So much so, in fact, that I think my relationship with Adrian is over. This book gets two scuds out of five. Oh wait ... that was the last invasion, er, I mean war ...

Les Jeux sont faits

Absurdistan

Gary Shteyngart

Random House

I know, I know ... it's been awhile since I've posted anything. The only thing that I can say in my defense is that I haven't really been reading. And yes, before you loyal (and slightly odd) blog followers deluge me with emails and comments, I will admit that me not reading is a little bizarre. Don't panic -- it's not a sign of the Apocalypse or anything. I've just been busy. You know, working, vacationing, commuting to hell, er, I mean Ottawa. Takes a lot out of a girl.

So let's talk about Absurdistan. This novel was a sometimes biting, always over-the-top satire of twenty first century geo-politics. At the centre of the story is (anti) hero Misha Borisovich Vainberg, a grossly rich and obscenely overweight Russian hip-hop fop. Misha, who received a degree in multiculturalism from Accidental College in Middle America, has been exiled from his beloved United States (his father killed an Oklahoman) and he decides to travel to Absurdsvani to obtain a not-so-legitimate Belgian passport so he can become a citizen of the EU. While there, Absurdistan descends into an oil-fueled civil war (that only gets meager coverage by the international media) and our hero has to sort out the good guys from the bad guys.

While most reviewers have firmly positioned Shteyngart's work as a satiric exemplar worthy of Swift or Heller, I think it has more in common with French absurdist/existentialist plays. To my mind, the basic message of the text is that we live in a world where morality and truth do not (perhaps cannot) exist. Like Misha, however, we are responsible for our choices and must absurdly create morality even though we can never be sure of the implications of our actions. Three melancholic Sisyphus out of five.

Crazy Is as Crazy Does

Poppy Shakespeare

Clare Allan

Anchor Canada

Quite honestly, this was one of those novels that make you say WTF?! Set in a north London day hospital, Poppy Shakespeare tells the story of "N" -- a woman who grew up in the system and whose main ambition is to never be discharged. One day, a new girl arrives (Poppy Shakespeare) and asks for N's help to prove to the hospital administration that she is not mad. N agrees and comes up with a crazy plan to win Poppy's freedom.

Darkly and disturbingly funny, Allan's novel blurs the lines between sanity and lunacy. If you can read through the working-class London dialect, Allan's message sounds suspiciously like Plato and the Cave, although she might just be taking the piss out of us -- it's hard to tell. The novel also comes across as a subtle indictment of the British mental health system. One of the characters states "Reality's one thing. The truth quite another." I'm not sure if we readers are to apply that to Poppy's state of mind, the state of institutionalized healthcare in Britain, or take it as a Platonism that should be applied to every day life. Two dribblers out of five.

Memoirs of a Gaysha

Possible Side Effects

Augusten Burroughs

Picador

Honestly, how many memoirs can one fortysomething write? In Possible Side Effects, a book of short, but bitingly funny essays, Burroughs gives us yet another hilarious glimpse into some of the more, uh, interesting periods in his life. When I looked at this novel in the bookstore, I was a little worried that he wouldn't have anything new to say -- how could he top the stories he told in both Running with Scissors and Dry? As it turns out, my worries were not entirely unfounded.

Possible Side Effects seems to be very much about Augusten the writer of today, versus Augusten the abused child, or Augusten the raging alcoholic. Stories about his dogs or the holidays that he takes with his partner might be interesting someday, but right now, they don't have a lot of resonance with me. Maybe I'm not the target audience for some of these anecdotes -- I don't know. Burroughs does seem to understand that people, regardless of our melting pot mentality, still sort themselves into buckets and it could just be that I can't totally identify with the bucket that is GWM.

Having said all that, this book is still worth picking up. The essay entitled "Moving Violations" had me laughing so hard that people were staring. Never in a million years would I have thought that the phrase "the positive power of porn" would enter my head. No kidding -- reading this chapter has completely altered the course of my life. I'd tell you more, but that would spoil the surprise. Two quirks out of five.

Cryin' -- But Not Over You

Long for This World
Michael Byers
Mariner Books

For those of you who know me personally, you can attest to the fact that I rarely cry. When I was a little girl, my inconsolable moments were usually as a result of extreme frustration -- I shed many a tear over "not getting" long division in grade three and not being able to master a free-hip-to-handstand on the uneven parallel bars. Who'd have guessed that being eight could be so traumatic?

As a adult, I'm still not much of a crier. True, I do have weepy moments when I get hormonal, but unlike some family members, I am not predisposed to crying while watching sappy Tim Horton's commercials. You can imagine my horror (and that of the gentleman sitting beside me) when I burst into tears on an airplane this past week.

Why the drama? Long for this World is a story about an incredibly bright and funny young man, William Durbin. William has a rare disease, and his geneticist, Henry Moss, is on the cusp of finding a cure for the patient he has grown to love. It wasn't the fact that William died that did me in -- his prognosis was never good and his passing wasn't a surprise. Instead, it was the denouement signalled by his death that was so hard. I was not ready to give up the characters that I met in this book. If it is possible to fall in love with a fictional family, I think that's what happened to me this past week. Byers' characters are flawed, human, and ever so lovingly drawn. I did not want to say goodbye. Four shooting stars out of five.

Notes from a Posthumous Land

The Road
Cormac McCarthy
Vintage

For whatever reason, I think I have been struck by a severe case of performance anxiety. I have been working on this post for a couple of days now and nothing I write seems good enough to keep. I wouldn't call it writer's block exactly -- I just know that there is a thought in my head trying to articulate itself on the page and somewhere, something is getting lost in the process.

A brilliant example of post-apocalyptic fiction, The Road chronicles the journey of an unnamed father and son as they travel through a catastrophe-ravaged world that offers nothing save ash on the wind. Pushing a shopping cart down the interstate, the rag-clad duo scavenge for whatever they can find while trying their best to avoid bands of menacing survivors, or as the young boy calls them, "bad guys."

At first glance, there is little hope in this novel. A pistol with two bullets is all that really stands between the travelers and an uncomfortable death. Why, then, I asked myself, do they go on? What could possibly be the purpose? The cynic in me says that the need to persevere is instinctual -- no different from the way in which a horse or a cow will turn its back to a blast of freezing prairie air. The critics seem to think that McCarthy's implicit message is that it is the love that the man bears for his child that is the wellspring of hope. I'm not really happy with either of those answers. If I look inside myself, I think I've traveled The Road from time to time (I'm pretty sure I was on it this week, in fact) and it was neither love nor hope that kept me going. It was the fundamentally naive belief that things will get better. Maybe I'm not so different from that cow in the wind.

You Don't Send a Gentleman to Catch Vermin

Ratcatcher

James McGee

Harper

When I checked out online reviews of Ratcatcher, I wasn't surprised to learn that women and men seemed to be divided about the relative merits of this book. In general, guys indicated that they didn't particularly enjoy the novel and felt that it was a weak example of the thriller/mystery genre. Female readers, on the other hand, offered praise for both the storyline and the uber-manly charms of the brooding (and, uh, hot) protagonist, Matthew Hawkwood. Why the difference? I'm just guessing, but I suspect it's because this wasn't really a thriller -- it was a Regency romance in disguise.

What's a Regency romance, you ask? Well, it is a novel set in England between the years 1811 - 1820. While the romantic plots revolve around marriages of convenience, compromised honour, and attraction between virginal maids and reckless rakes, the back stories often involve the intrigues of the British monarchy and aristocracy, the ongoing war against Napoleon, and, in some cases, the daring exploits of men such as the Bow Street Runners. Enter our mysterious hero -- former captain in the British military, man of brooding good looks, and quite the player with the ladies ... you can see why it was easy for me to draw my conclusion.

Ratcatcher is probably not a book that would appeal to most men. To be candid, I read the bulk of it by candlelight while lounging in the tub with a glass of white wine. Hawkwood was a good companion for a night, but I'm not sure that I will be asking him back. One Prinny out of five.