Biblio Files is a site for bibliophiles. Please look at the index, and post any feedback you can think of. Comment on posts. If you are interested in writing a review or more for this blog, let me know.
Kira lives with her mother in a sleepy town in Ohio. She has lived there for thirteen years, since coming from California when she was two. So when her friends hypnotize her as a joke, they are startled when Kira remembers running away from violence when she was very young, and they are even more startled when she remembers words in a language that they do not recognize.
Kira asks tells her mother about the incident, hoping that her mother will tell her more about her past. Instead, her mother angrily tells her that she should never have subjected herself to hypnotism. Furthermore, her mother tells her, she does not need to know about her past, there are some things best forgotten. Kira and her friend Lynne do not heed the warning. Instead, they try to snoop into Kira's past, but do not find anything.
Two days later, Kira comes home from school to find that her mother is not there. She calls the library, where her mother works, and is informed that her mother has taken a month-long leave of absence. She waits for her mother, getting more and more scared. Then she finds a note from her mother telling her to go to her friend Lynne's house, but she does not act on it. Finally, a stranger appears at Kira's house and informs her that she is Kira's Aunt Memory. She kidnaps Kira and takes her to Crythe, a town in California that claims to have been founded by the Romans.
Crythe is almost a ghost town, having been destroyed by a civil war. Aunt Memory asks Kira to give a speech to the townspeople, but Kira refuses, wanting to know what is going on. Aunt Memory puts Kira in the dungeon for disobeying, and in the dungeon is Kira's mother, who has also been kidnapped by Aunt Memory.
Kira's mother tells Kira that she is not really her daughter, but her niece. The townspeople of Crythe have perfect memories, and so the Russians tried to use them as a weapon during the cold war. The Crythians could not escape their bad memories, and Kira's parents invented computer technology that could erase or hold memories. That technology is what the woman claiming to be Aunt Memory wants. Go read the book for the rest.
Question: If you had the option to erase your bad memories, would you take it?
Happy reading.
The sequel to Compromising Positions, Long Time No See is a novel told in the first person by Judith Singer, a fiftysomething suburban widow with a love of mysteries. When a neighbor, Courtney Logan goes missing, Judith is intrigued. Monthes later, the case still unsolved, a body is found in the Logans' pool, and is identified as Courtney Logan. The case once again becomes new and Judith's interest is renewed.
Curious, Judith goes to the Logans' house to question Greg Logan, Courtney's husband. Greg proves unwilling, but he tells his father about Judith. Greg's father is Fancy Phil Lowenstein, a mobster who claims to be reformed. He offers to pay Judith to investigate Courtney's murder, in order to clear his son. Judith refuses the money, but informs him of the case.
Judith's former lover (from Long Time No See) is now a police captain investigating organized crime. When Judith has lunch with Fancy Phil, the captain, Nelson Sharpe, is informed. He calls on Judith to tell her to stay away from Fancy Phil, whom he says is very dangerous. The captain's actual role in this novel appears to be comic relief and a little romance.
The novel has many twists and turns, which I will let you, the readers, discover for yourselves. In the acknowledgements for this book, Isaacs thanks many people for their information used in the book, and also says she hopes that, "on the occasions when their facts did not fit the needs of my fiction, I gave the facts the heave-ho". Unfortunately, sometimes the absense of the facts is noticable. Most obviously, Judith has plenty of time to investigate, even though she has a full-time job as a professor. Also in real life, mobsters would find reformation deadly.
Happy reading.
Mr. Ives(whose first name in Edward) has had many life changing events happen to him at Christmas. He was left as a foundling right before Christmas, he was adopted the week before Christmas, his son was born right before Christmas, and his son was shot the day before Christmas. Actually, everything happens to him right before Christmas. Anyhow, this is a story about Ives' life, and how he and the people around him cope with the violence that is all around them. This book is somewhat spiritual, but doesn't really push any theories about spirituality.
Happy reading.
Stories That Changed America
Muckrakers of the 20th Century by Carl Jensen
20 stories of muckraking from the 20th century by 21 different people, some of whom are generally thought of as muckrakers, and some of whom are generally thought of as other things. Among the muckrakers are Ida Mae Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, Betty Freidan, and Ralph Nader. Each muckraker's life is summarized in one chapter, and then the following chapter is a sample of the muckraker's work.
Happy and inspiring reading.
Opening on a funeral for the title character, this book is a puzzle where the narrator and reader piece together Billy's world. Figuring out who the narrator is, who the book is addressed to, and what really happened is more interesting than the puzzle of Billy's life. Taken from my perspective, the many details and conversations are not really relevant to the plot, and not really very interesting.
Happy reading.
Crazy English
The Ultimate Joy Ride Through Our Language by Richard Lederer
In exploring the extremes, inconsistencies, and poetry of the English language, Lederer delivers a comical portrayal of the English language. Comic illustrations show emphasize the strange inconsistancies of the English language. In one picture, Santa and Satan are back to back; a showman popping out of a bannana is given the caption "top bannana".
This book is not entirely comic: it demonstrates many serious writing techniques, like alliteration, but the overall tone of the book is that of someone trying desperately to keep a straight face while telling a joke.
One chapter is about oxymorons. An incomplete list of oxymorons is given. The list includes such classic examples as jumbo shrimp and old news, along with fresher ones such as loyal opposition, working vacation, and bridegroom. Please submit an oxymoron to the comment box.
Happy reading.
Books Reviewed:20
Total Books Reviewed:57
Days Blogged/Days In Month:14/31
New Members:none
Total Number of Members:2
Number of Hits This Month:180
Toal Number of Hits:425
Features Added:none
The Envy of the World
On Being A Black Man In America by Ellis Cose
The title says it all; this book is about being a black man in America, and succeeding anyways. The title is actually taken from a passage in Sula by Toni Morrison, which is quoted at the beginning of the book. Addressed to black adolescents in particular, and to everyone else in general, this book is both interesting and instructive. It forces the reader to look at the reality of being black in America, and sounds a hopeful note for improvement.
When I mentioned this book to someone earlier today, she thought that the book must have been written in a bygone era. Alas, this book's reality is that of today; The Envy of the World was published in 2002. One of the statistics quoted in this book was a survey that asked blacks and whites whether they thought blacks were less intelligent, and 19% of blacks and 9% of whites answered yes.
Thoughtful reading.
In a world of extremes, the United States encompasses most of the world. In this world, the United States stands for almost entirely unrestrained capitalism. People take on the last names of the companies that they work for(hence a character named Jennifer Government). Business runs everything from schools to roads to the police. The government still retains some authority, though- it stops people from initiating violence. It also apparently serves to permit lawsuits, although that is not explicitly covered in the book.
Jennifer Government's arch-enemy is John Nike, vice president of Nike, who is trying to enact a hostile takeover of Team Advantage. Team Advantage includes the NRA, which he uses to kill whomever he wants killed. John Nike will stop at nothing in his entrepreneurship, but Jennifer Government intends to stop him nonetheless.
This book is more interesting for the world in proposes than for its story line, although the story is not without merit. The world is not as well explained as I would like, and I would like to have seen what was happening in communist places. Another book in this world would be very interesting.
Question: Is communism or capitalism more workable? Why?
Happy reading.
Fat Camp Commandos Go West by Daniel Pinkwater Illustrated by Andy Rash
Rapph and Sylvia Nebula, fat kids, meet Mavis Goldfarb at a fat-camp. Mavis moves them through adventures, including making fun of skinny people and becoming actors. But the ultimate adventure comes when Mavis arranges for aliens to visit planet earth. The aliens, of couse, are fat people.
This book parodies a lot of things. It parodies solemn writing styles, which it uses in extreme, and therefore absurd, ways. It parodies weight loss programs, and alien sightings, and health nuts.
Happy reading.
Streets and Alleys
Stories with a Chicago Accent by Syd Lieberman
Syd Lieberman, a storyteller, tells autobigraphical stories from his entire life. Most of the stories take place in Chicago, because he lives here. Most of the stories are humourous, because he is a storyteller. The stories are in chronological order, from when he was a little kid, to middle age. Stories about his parents and grandparents are also thrown in.
Happy reading.
The second sentence of this book sets the tone. It says, "I was fourteen when I was my murdered on December 6, 1973". Told by the dead Suzie Salmon, this is the story of how her small town and her family have to cope with her murder. When she dies, her soul brushes a girl with whom she had been friends, Ruth. Ruth and Suzie's former boyfriend, Ray, become close in their grief. Suzie's mother leaves her family, unable to cope, remembering what she had wanted to become, before she married.
Suzie tells this story from heaven, where whatever she really wants, she gets. The only exception to this rule is that she does not get to go back to her life. In her heaven, she goes to high school, but only has to go to her favorite class. If you were to go to heaven now, and heaven worked like this, what would your heaven be like?
Happy reading.
While in the radical weatherman underground, Jason Sinai was in a conspiracy that led to murder. Twenty years later, he has a different identity, and is leading an entirely different life, when events collude in such a way that he is forced to run from the law again, this time to find his one time collaborators to bring them out and tell the story that will save him and his daughter.
Written as a series of emails, the story is told by a many different narrators, ten years after the story which contains many flashbacks to the events of twenty years earlier. The premise that the story was written as a series of emails is not realistic, because of the amount of dialogue and other details, but it does make for a suspenseful story that unwinds masterfully.
This story has many thorough details of the antiwar movement of the Vietnam war era. Marijuana and other drug use is frequent throughout the story, and the Gordon shows both condemnation for drug use, and an acceptance of the frequency of its usage.
Happy reading.
When Robert de Brus declared himself King of Scotland, King Edward of England waged war against Robert de Brus and everyone who was close to him. Robert de Brus' eleven year old daughter Marjorie gets captured, and King Edward, known as Longshanks, decides to imprison her in a cage, where she is kept for two weeks. The cage is in Lanercost, England, where he is staying. Longshanks enjoys taunting his young captive, but she consistantly stands against him.
Girl in a Cage is told from Marjorie's point of view. Chapters alternate between the time of Marjorie's captivity, and from the story of how she came to be in captivity. The story is based on the actual events, but it is not entirely true to history.
Happy reading.
