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Matchstick Men: A Novel of Petty Crimes by Eric Garcia
Roy is a con man. Perhaps because of the tricks he pulls, Roy obsessively checks his tracks. Roy believes that he suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, and his old shrink had given him pills. His partner suggests to him that he see a different shrink, which he does. The shrink reminds him of his ex, who was pregnant when she left him fifteen years earlier. Roy tells his shrink that he would like to know if he has a kid, but he doesn't want to take the initiative. The shrink introduces him to a kid he says is Roy's daughter.
It's a con. The shrink, fake daughter, partner, etc. work together to con Roy. Although I saw it coming for the entire book, I still felt cheated when it turned out that Roy really was being conned. All of the things that Roy did throughout the book that led him to being conned seemed out of character. An obsessive person like Roy should have checked out his shrink. If he really wanted to legitamitely adopt his "daughter", anybody worry wart would certainly have contacted people who would have confirmed that he had a daughter.
Happy reading.
The Boat of Dreams: A Christmas Story by Richard Preston Illustrated by George Henry Jennings
The time is not quite Christmas, 1969. Will T. Foster, Jr. and his younger sister Lila believe that their trailor is haunted by a fat guy whom they've seen on occasion. Their father is missing believed dead, a casualty of the Vietnam war. Their family is facing financial hardship as there is nothing left to pay the rent on the land their trailor sits on, except a boat that their father had loved and that their mother had consequently refused to sell.
When Will and Lila next see their ghost, they find out that his name is Nicholaus Dexter Claus- Santa Claus. Santa's got a problem. The previous year, he and his sled crashed into the hoover dam, and so this year he is in need of something in which to transport his goods. His goods are not physical presents but dreams. He decides to use the Fosters' boat to give out dreams that year.
On Christmas, Will and Lila go with Santa and disperse dreams. Will finds out that Santa is really God. My favorite excerpt:
He hung over the side and boomed: "I have a dream, that all God's children- black, white, red, yellow,and every other amazing color- are walking together in the rain and in the dust and in the hot sun, and they are helping one another down the long road wherever it goes. I dreamed you were hit by a car and it was a wondrous piece of luck, because when you were lying on the pavement and dying in pain, it occured to you that you were alive!"
This book has a surreal quality that is added by the presentation; the ink is blue. Happy reading.
Martin Anderson has been thrown out of a long list of schools. He has an authority problem, he's disruptive, he's rude, and teachers just don't like him. So he gets sent to Edgeview Alternative School, which is a boarding school. As he is being shown the school, there are shouts of "Fire!". Martin's new roomate turns out to have the nickname Torchie; Torchie lights fires all the time, although he constantly protests, "I didn't do nothing!". Worse is the school bully, named Lester Bloodbath; nobody uses his first name if they don't want to become his second.
Although this is mostly a narrative(Martin's), the reader is also shown many letters and documents. Some of these documents are about Edgeview, which is coming up for review by the board, which may decide to close the school. This is especially problematic because the residents of Edgeview do not like having an Alternative school near them.
Despite his bad start at Edgeview, it's not long before Martin has made friends with Torchie and Torchie's friends, each of whom has a nickname. Cheater says he never cheats; and because he seems to know everything, it's hard to see why he would. Lucky claims he never steals; he is just incredibly good at finding things. Flinch never gets hit by anything, he always flinches out of the way. Often he flinches at strange moments.
Martin concludes that his friends have special powers- Torchie is telepyric and can set fires with his mind, Cheater can read minds, and so on. He is surprised at his friends' reaction when he tells them. They are angry. They do not want him to tell them that they are different. When it becomes obvious that they won't let him sit with them, Martin sits next to the only kid who sits alone, Trash. Trash is called trash not because he is trash, but because he always trashes everything around him. Things near him have a tendency to go flying. Martin decides that Trash is moving things with his mind because he never sees Trash throw anything.
Martin's friend do take him back after a few days on the condition that he drop the hidden talents thing, and he is happy to go back to them, but Martin can't drop it. When the science teacher asks the kids to suggest an experiment, Martin suggests mind reading. The class does the experiment, and nobody tests high. Martin is disappointed, but he prints out the test results anyways. He checks Cheater and finds that Cheater has scored an improbable 0 on the test. He shows the test results to his friends, and the truth comes out; they do have special talents.
Martin suggests that they invite Trash to join them, and they do. The kids begin working on their talents and quickly begin to improve. Cheater learns to alter what he is thinking and write that on tests, so that teachers stop thinking he is cheating. Flinch flinches later than when he feels like, so that he doesn't seem to be flinching at nothing. Torchie learns to set fires at will instead of by accident. Trash learns to control his talent as well. Martin begins to feel left out as his friends greet each other "psi five", and he is only Coach.
When the inspectors come, Bloodbath and his friends try to damage the school and make as much trouble as possible, and Martin and his friends are busy thwarting them. The inspectors are undecided; they say they want talk to a typical kid at Edgeview, and they pick Martin. Nobody is happy. Martin always talks back to adults, and Martin and the pricipal are both of the opinion that Martin will make a horrible impression on the inspectors. The psi five have a sursprise in store though. They tell Martin that he also has a a hidden talent; he can tell what people's weak points are. To prove it, Lucky gets in his face, and Martin blursts "You're pretty cool for someone who still wets the bed."
Knowing about his power makes all the difference, and Martin makes a great impression on the inpectors. He tells them what he thinks is wrong with the school, that kids like Bloodbath don't belong, and that many of the kids are good kids trying to get their acts together. He also tells them that kids need to have the chance to go back to regular schools. The inspectors take his advice.
This is a great book, although there a number of improbabilities in it. One thing I wonder about: If someone told you that you had a special power, how would you feel about it? Would you deny it?
Happy reading.
The library of Congress summary at the begginning of the book says:Seven teens facing such problems as pregnancy, homosexuality, andabuse each discribe in poetic forms what caused them to leave home and where they found home again.
To be more specific, the stories are told in sonnets and sestinas, as explained at the back of the back of the book in notes on the forms. The copy of the book that I am holding has a wonderful book jacket that summarizes the problems of the six kids (the Library of Congress' summary includes Keesha). I frequently checked the jacket as I was reading the first few chapters to get a better hold on the characters. The poems are told not just from the viewpoints of the teenagers but also from that of the adults who care about them.
Keesha's actual house is a safe house, where each of the teens lives at some point in the story. When Joe was a teenager and needed a place to go, his aunt gave him refuge at her house,a nd so now that he has inherited it, he welcomes kids with no place to go. In the beggining, people called it Joe's house, but after Keesha moved in, she took charge of the place and now it is really Keesha's house.
This book is well worth a second read. Happy reading.
When Holly Short of the LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Reconnaisance) catches goblins with illegal softnose guns that were supposed to have been destroyed, she is alarmed. When she discovers that the softnoses are battery powered, she is even more alarmed. With the batteries as evidence of human meddling, she assumes that Artemis Fowl is the culprit. She convinces her superiors to kidnap Artemis Fowl to see what he knows.
Meanwhile, Artemis has problems of his own. He is attending a fancy boarding school which bores him. He has just been sent an urgent email, though; a clip of his father. Artemis must save his father from his kidnappers. To do that, he needs to travel to arctic Russia (hence the title).
When the faeries kidnap Artemis, they are startled to discover that he is not the culprit. Strangly, upon this discovery they decide to take him into their confidence and ask for his (and Butler's) assistance in solving the matter. This point really bugs me. I mean, if you arrest a guy for something and it turns out he didn't do it, does that mean you trust him? No way! If he's under enough suspision that you arrest him, he's under enough suspision that you distrust him. Anyways, Artemis agrees on the condition that afterwards they will take him to Murmansk, in the Artic Circle.
Unfortunately, the human who supplied the batteries to the goblins has been under mesmer(hypnotism), so that finding him only shows that there is some faerie mastermind behind this plot. Goblins are stupid, so our protagonists have a mystery. They go to Murmansk to find Artemis Fowl, Sr., and then they find that their faerie weapons won't work: sabotage. To make matters worse, there's a B'wa Kell group shooting at them (the B'wa Kell are a goblin gang). OF course, our heroes pull through, and now they know that as their weapons are malfunctioning, so must the weapons of the entire LEP.
There's a conspiracy afoot, and now it is revealed. Opal Koboi is plotting to take over the world. And of course, our protagonists stop her, through many adventures.
The second book in the Artemis Fowl series plays heavily on the first. So many of the characters in this book are reintroduced that Colfer might as well assume that his reader is familiar with the first book and left out the introductions of the characters as repetitive. I strongly suggest that you read the first book first. I did, but not so recently that I can review it now. Do I have any readers who would like to review the first Artemis Fowl book?
Happy reading.
The narrator of this story never does disclose his name, and the feeling that the author is the narrator permeates this novel. The reader does not find out much about the narrator that is not an immediate part of the story; I was grasping at bits, trying to figure out who was writing.
These things the narrator does say: he is attending a New England boarding school. He is a sixth former, and has been at the school long enough to long to be a sixth former. The time is during JFK's presidency. Our narrator comes from a less priviledged background than many of the boys, but passes as one of the upper class.
The school has a program whereby authors visit the school. Sixth form boys write essays for the priviledge of getting to speak individually to the visiting author. Only one boy can win the priviledge. The winning essay is chosen by the visiting author. Our narrator covets this honor.
The first visiting author is Robert Frost. Frost chooses a piece, written by a boy named George, which he thinks is a parody of his work. Unfortunately, George had meant his work as a tribute to Frost and not as a challenge. The first winner is miserable.
The second visiting author is Ayn Rand, whom the boys are not at all ready for. The winner is Big Jeff, a vegetarian who writes a story about cows coming from outer space coming back and taking revenge on humans. Rand alienates the boys with her brash attitude and crushes Big Jeff by letting him know that she does not take a vegetarian stance; she chose the work because she thought it was an allegory to the human condition. The second winner is miserable.
The third visiting author is to be Ernest Hemingway. Our narrator does not have any idea what to write. Every boy wants the chance to meet Hemingway. For inspiration, the narrator types out Hemingway's stories, trying to understand what it would feel like to write a great story. Reading a story written by a girl from the neighboring girls' school five years earlier, the narrator types out her story. He changes some of the details to make it his own story, and he submits it. He wins. His plagiarism is discovered, and he is expelled.
Happy reading.
No Contest
Corporate Lawyers and the Perversion of Justice in America by Ralph Nader and Wesley J. Smith
This book denounces power lawyers- lawyers in large firms and in-house counsel who use their power ruthlessly. Both authors graduated from law school.
There are nine chapters, two appendices, an introduction, endnotes, and an index. The introduction sets the tone, and introduces the reader, especially the nonlawyer to the legal world. The chapters are entitled:The Power Lawyers, I've Got A Secret, The Obstructionists, Burning The Tapes, SLAPP: Taking Care of Business, The Games Corporate Lawyers Play, The "BUTS" Principle, The Corporate Scheme To Wreck Our Justice System, and Finding The Courage To Change The System.
The first seven chapters are low-controversy, and clearly detail methods used by power lawyers to obstruct justice. The eighth chapter is about tort reform, which the authors refer to as tort deform. They charge that tort reformers make ridiculous claims and distort the facts. And in the cases that they bring, they're right. However, this book was published in 1996, and the medical malpractice scene has changed drastically since then. Click this link The ninth chapter is incredibly disappointing. Throughout the book, the reader will want to change the system, and will look to the end for ways to change the system. However the last chapter is more of an epilouge than anything. It does not include anything for Joe Citizen to do, and includes only a small amount of information on what lawyers can do and are doing.
Happy reading.
The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall The unauthorized parody to Gone With The Wind
This parody is told in the first person in diary format, by Cynara, the mulatto half-sister of Scarlett. Cynara refers to Scarlett as Other, and uses similiar nicknames for many of the characters from Gone With The Wind. The diary is written after the events of Gone With The Wind, but frequently recounts past events. In the parody, Cynara is living with Rhett, and has been his mistress since before he met Scarlett. Cynara eventually marries Rhett, and then dumps him for a black Congressman.
Happy reading.
When a bear invades Lyddie's home, her mother decides that the bear foretells the ending of the world and goes off to live with her brother Lyddie's Armageddon-preaching uncle, leaving Lyddie and her brother Charlie to tend to the farm. Lyddie and Charlie are squeaking by when they receive a letter from their mother saying that she has incurred debts and has hired them off.
Charles goes off to be the miller's apprentice. The miller and his wife, who are childless, treat him as their own son. Lyddie is not so fortunate. She is sent to work at an inn, where she works hard hours for fifty cents a week that her mistress sends to her mother. When the mistress goes away, Lyddie goes to visit her home. There she finds a fugitive slave hiding in her cabin. She is tempted to turn him in for the hundred dollar reward, but after she talks to him, she changes her mind, and loans him all of her money instead. When she returns to the inn, the mistress has already returned and is furious with Lyddie. In a fit of rage, she fires Lyddie. Lyddie decides to go to work in the mills in Lowell, Massachusetts.
The job is not as easy as she had expected it to be, and it has the unwanted condition that she attend church, but the pay is good. Lyddie makes friends with her three roommates: Amelia, the daughter of a preacher and the girls' conscious, Betsy, a spirited girl who introduces Lyddie to the wonder of books, and Prudence, whom we do not really get to know. Lyddie also befriends Diana, a girl she works with at the mill. Diana is a unionizer, and is somewhat infamous among the girls. Amelia warns Lyddie to stay away from Diana.
Lydia makes it through the departure of all of these characters. Amelia leaves, somewhat dispiritted, to become a schoolteacher. Betsy gets too sick. Diana gets pregnant. Lyddie is becoming increasingly disheartened. She agrees to sign a petition for a ten-hour workday, but too late; it had already been submitted. Lyddie doesn't get to leave theatrically, though. Her new friend Brigid is the victim of sexual harassment from the manager, and Lyddie throws a bucket of water on the manager. She is fired.
Lyddie leaves the mills, and goes home. She plans to go to a woman's college when the book ends.
A sequel would be a great addition to the story. The ending does not really seem final, but rather the perfect introduction to a new story.
Happy reading.
There Are No Children Here
The Story of Two Boys Growing Up In The Other America by Alex Kotlowitz
Lafayette and Pharoah Rivers are two boys growing up in the late '80s in Chicago's Henry Horner Projects. This is a story of how anyone can grow up in the projects, and of the many obstacles to growing up placed in their paths. This is an angry story, a sad story. This is a truthful story as well. It does not offer us any solution.
This narrative shows us both scenes from the lives of the boys and scenes from the politics of the projects. We are shown Pharoah's school spelling bee, and we are shown the trial of Jimmy Lee of the Conservative Vice Lords. We see their mothers meeting where she is told she will no longer receive Aid to dependent Families With Children, and we are shown a letter written by agents of the Chicago Housing Authority.
In the preface to this book, Kotlowitz says that it is his hope, and that of the boys' mother, that this book will make America listen. Unfortunately, that seems to have been its only effect. America listened for a moment, and then it went back to minding its own business. If you click on the CHA link above, you will see that the CHA has not made much progress after that detailed in the back of this book.
Do any of you disagree with me? Am I wrong? Tell me! Living in Chicago, I only see that it is time for change, now!
Thoughtful reading.
When Kelly's parents adopt four-year-old Stevie, Kelly resents the intruder immediately. Stevie gets all the attention and Kelly gets none. Kelly tries to get her parents attention, but the cute things that generate lots of attention for Stevie won't work for Kelly. When Kelly complains that Stevie throwws things around, her parents tell her that when she was Stevie's age, she used to scatter her clothing around the house.
So when Kelly's clothes start to appear in strange places, her parents assume that this is a ploy for attention. Kelly knows its not, so she assumes that Stevie is scattering her clothes so that she will take the blame. She tries to catch him in the act unsuccesfully, while her parents blame her and take away her TV priviledges. In the end, Kelly's dog turns out to be the culprit, Kelly's parents apologize, and Kelly decides she loves Stevie after all.
This book is thouroughly bland and predictable. Characters are not well developed and do not act rationally. Kelly's friend Lynn is predictably on the sidelines. Her parents believe her when she says her dog did it, and then they suddenly realize that they're not giving Kelly enough attention. Kelly suddenly loves Stevie, which seems entirely out of character.
Happy reading.
Extra Nutty
Even More Letters from a Nut by Ted L. Nancy Backword by Jerry Seinfield
This is a series of crank letters and the responses to them. In the letters, Mr. Nancy writes to people alleging various ridiculous things. The responses vary from form letters to angry responses. Because pictures of the envelopes are shown, I assume that they are real.
Happy reading.
The General In His Labyrinth by Gabriel Garcia Marquez translated from Spanish by Edith Grossman
This is a fictitious account of the last months of the life of Simon Bolivar. Throughout the book, he is referred to as the General. The book opens on the general as he is beginning his day on a day soon before his congress deposes him. The General is depicted as a sick man, dying young. He journeys out of Venezuela with a large entourage, going only he knows where. The account of his journey is broken frequently with tangential history and anecdotes.
Because this is a translation, there are points where the reader cannot get quite what the author is saying. Some of the words are not translated, and are not in my dictionary (I use the American Heritage Unabridged). My knowledge of South American history also wasn't as complete as it should have been to comfortably read this novel. Somewhat disconcerting to me was when the General refers to America, and is not referring to what I think of as America- the United States. That is, of course, my failing, and not that of the book. I suggest that readers as unaware as myself of Spanish American History read the timeline at the back of the book before reading the book itself.
Happy reading.
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James and Sammy Tillerman, ages 15 and 12, are brothers who live with their grandmother and sister. James is troubled by his own nerdiness, and feels the need to prove himself by being on his school baseball team, even though he hates baseball. Sammy is a lively, popular guy, who is somewhat of a slacker in school. James is bothered by Sammy's lack of realistic future plans, and Sammy sees his brother as a somewhat alien dreamer.
When they go out in search of their father, who left them when Sammy was only two, they learn a lot about themselves. James takes control in searching for his father, and gains some measure of confidence. And as Sammy proves to have many good ideas, James learns to respect his brothers strenghths.
This book was published in 1987 and is set in the early 70s, so the scene seems somewhat strange.
Happy reading.
In this story of discworld, a dying wizard accidentally gives his powers to a girl. The local witch, Granny Weatherwax, does not approve of the idea of a girl wizard. Granny decides to turn Esk into a witch instead, but when she tries to teach Esk witchery, Esk's magic proves too strong for her. Granny and Esk set out for Ankh-Morpork and the Unseen University so that Esk can learn to be a real wizard. On their way, they counter many strange and some interesting people.
Happy reading.
Shutterbug Follies: a graphic novel by Jason Little
This is a graphic novel(a story told in comic book format)about a teenager, Bee, who works developing film. Sometimes she gets strange pictures. When Bee gets some pictures that seem to imply murder, she decides to investigate herself. The style in which this story is told is as interesting as the story itself. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it gives a very different impression than the words would. The reader must read carefully; it is much easier to miss things in the pictures than it would be in a description of them.
Question: Do you get the most from words or pictures?
Happy reading.
Allen Mockery (our narrator) leads a bizarre life. He lives with his uncle, because his parents are dead. Also living with him are his twin sister, a super-genius, a younger brother who is totally evil, a younger sister who doesn't believe in clothes and has an otherwise unusual perspective on life, and a younger brother without quite as much character. Early in the book, Allen tells us that many of the characters will be dead by the end of the book. Periodically, he reminds us of the upcoming slaughter. The reader is left to guess the perpetrator(s) until the end. This narrative is not told quite chronologically; the main plot is chronological, but the flashbacks are frequent and long.
Many philosophical ideas are brought up in this book. Through the bizarre characters, we are asked to examine the necessity of many taboos in life, the deceit that most people are engaged in today, and the nastiness of everyday life. Disturbingly, this novel seems to imply that most people's moral are sadly lacking. It goes as far as to say that there are people, who for no reason, are entirely evil. I find that hard to swallow. Please respond with thoughts on the inherent morality of people.
Happy reading.
This is an autobiographical novel about a Navajo man(the author) who adopts a boy who is dying from AIDS. The boy, Awee, is brought to life in this book. We meet him looking for help. We watch him prove his bravery, tenacity, and liveliness. And then we watch him die. Through his father's love, the reader is shown a lovable boy dying of AIDS, and also a world that won't help the boy. To help ease Awee's pain, his father breaks the law, buying him illegal drugs. He points out that many of the drugs available to help with one problem will cause another problem, sometimes worse than the first one. If this were not a good story in and of itself, it would be worth reading for its portrayal of the American system of dispensing drugs, and of exploiting Native Americans.
Thoughtful and happy reading.
Charlie Gordon is a retarded man who wants to be smart. So when his teacher tells him that there are some doctors who might be able to make him smart, he jumps at the opportunity. The doctors succeed in making Charlie smart, but the results are not what Charlie had hoped for. Instead of making him popular, his new intelligence has alienated him from everyone. He finds that the world he knew was only a slew of misconceptions. And when he finally reaches the point where he can cope with his new self, he finds that his new self isn't permanent. Algernon, by the way, is the mouse on whom Charlie's experiment was first performed.
This book is very emotional. However, the plot seems more designed to make the reader think than it is to make the reader feel. Flowers for Algernon asks a lot of very deep questions. Who are we? How much does our intelligence matter?
Happy and thoughtful reading.
