Fan Boy on Kate Akinson's newest opus

Book 87: Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

Hey, Kate. Hope you are well. It’s me – fan boy #1.

About that. I’d like to give myself a promotion. I want to be Fan Boy #1².

Yeah, that it . . . Fan Boy to the Second Power!

You rock. I rock. We rock!

Where is this excess of enthusiasm coming from?, you ask. And I answer, Kate, I just finished your most recent opus, Started Early, Took My Dog.

How do you do it? Seriously, that’s not a rhetorical question.

How do you do it?

I am so, like, gob smacked. A nice little mystery, all these interwoven story lines, a riveting narrative and vivid characters. (That’s apparently not a sentence, but I will let it stand.)

About your characters: I liked Courtney the best in this novel. The four-year-old. She reminded me a little of Regina from When Will There Be Good News.

Seriously, Time Magazine is putting Jonathan Franzen on its cover and, well, Jonathan is an OK guy, but they should give out a pair of scissors with each book. (Because his characters are cardboard cut-outs. Ha Ha, just a little literary humor. LOL.)

A little exposition, a pinch of description, a run of dialogue and your characters pop – POP – off the page.

Great title, too.

And, Kate, one more thing. Keep this between us. Our little secret. Your books make me laugh (that’s not the secret), but they make me cry too. I know it’s all paper and ink and fairy dust, but there are times I’m crying and laughing at the same time. Compelling is what I'd call it.

So . . . loved the book. Love you. (I kept flipping to the back of the book to look at your picture on the dust jacket. Even I find that a little creepy.)

OK, Fan Boy #1² needs to close. If you’re reading this, you’re not writing and I want you writing. I'm giddy just thinking about your next book.

Politics & Prose co-founder dies

Carla Cohen, a co-owner of Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C., died today. You can read her obituary in the Washington Post.

The Post describes Carla as "an exuberant force behind the evolution of Politics and Prose from a simple storefront into an institution that defined Washington's literary scene."

My condolences and my prayers to her many friends. Carla's passing is a great loss.

What If . . . Jimmy Carter won his second term?

Book 86: Jimmy Carter by Julian E. Zelizer

What if . . . ?

I've always been a fan of that open-ended question, especially as it relates to my decades-long infatuation with Marvel Comics. What if Spider-Man joined the Fantastic Four? What if the Fantastic Four had different powers? What if Doctor Doom had become a hero?

The possibilities are endless. Not simply as they relate to the Marvel Universe, but to the more mundane and superhero-free universe that we inhabit.

Consider, What if, in 1980, Jimmy Carter had won election to his second term as president? Ronald Reagan would never have been president. By the time, Reagan's next opportunity came around, in 1984, he Reagan would have been 72 and it seems reasonable to believe voters would have turned elsewhere.

If Reagan had not been President, George Bush would not have been Vice President and, again, it seems reasonable to believe that Bush would have never been elected President. If we did not have Bush I, we would not have had W.

And if we had not had W. . . . well, so it goes. America's political landscape would have been transformed.

But Carter did not win. As Julian Zelizer documents in his biography of Carter -- another fine entry in the American Presidents series -- the peanut farmer from Georgia ran afoul of a combination of his own shortcomings and a series of national and world events crippling to any political ambitions.

Some of Carter's shortcomings were born in his first campaign for President. He ran as the consummate Washington outsider alienating members of Congress, including members of his own party. Carter disliked legislative politics and the infighting and ass-kissing it entailed, again alienating members of his own party; members he would need to secure not only passage of his legislative programs, but to pull together the disparate segments of the Democratic Party in support of his campaign for re-election.

Carter had the misfortune to want to save the world -- notably in his efforts to bring peace to the Middle East -- at a time that his own country was drowning in unemployment, high energy prices and the shock of the Iranian hostage crisis. He was never able to successfully cope with those domestic and foreign challenges, driving Independents and many traditional supporters of the Democratic Party into the arms of a nascent Conservative movement.

Zelizer provides a balanced appraisal of Carter as President. He notes, rightly, I think, that Carter was more successful on the world stage in the years following his presidency than he was during his ill-fated four-year term.

The general view of Carter is that he was a good man ill-suited and overwhelmed by the duties of the presidency. Zelizer corrects that view. Carter was an intelligent man and his presidency was largely successful in its first two years. "The president pushed for some of the most comprehensive energy programs that had ever been attempted and won support for a few of those policies, such as solar energy, that are today considered essential," Zelizer writes.

The institutionalization of human rights within American foreign policy and brokering a durable peace agreement between Israel and Egypt rank among his most significant and lasting accomplishments.

Ultimately, Carter was overwhelmed by his own shortcomings, the press of national and world events and a movement that's time had clearly come. Zelizer's analysis of Carter's one term as president opens the door to another question:

What if Jimmy Carter had never been elected president?

Pooping in space and other topics you wanted to know about, but didn't want to ask

These two most recent books -- one a mystery, the other a work of non-fiction -- satisfy my number one criteria: they are entertaining reads.

Book 84: Packing for Mars by Mary Roach

Entertaining isn't something you necessarily expect, or look for, in a work of non-fiction, but that's an apt description of Mary Roach's treatise on man's efforts "to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Roach writes in a effortless manner that equates to a dinner-time chat across the kitchen table with a knowledgeable friend, a friend who is seeking to entertain as well as to inform. Her sense of humor infuses the entire book and, again, brings an unexpected, but welcome quality to a work of non-fiction.

Another apt description of Packing for Mars is gross. Roach dishes out gross, but also engrossing information on all those things we've wondered about life in space, but never asked. She discourses on vomiting, farting, body odor and peeing while among the stars, but her most notable chapter is on pooping in zero gravity.

One might conclude (and I will) that Roach takes the line "to boldly go where no man has gone before" literally in this charmingly informative book.

Book 85: The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny

Charm oozes from the work of Louise Penny. The Cruelest Month is her third novel to feature Inspector Gamache and the villagers of Three Pines.

Give Penny credit, she is willing to embrace all the conventions of the cozy novel. In The Cruelest Month she goes so far as to summon all the murder suspects at the scene of the crime, a haunted house overlooking the village, for the grand denouement by Gamache. It's an ancient convention that Penny manages to make freshingly new.

All her strengths are on display: a genuine mystery to unravel, a brisk and riveting narrative and vividly drawn characters. One particularly nice aspect of The Cruelest Month is the conclusion of a shadow upon Gamache's career.

I have not dwelt on this plot line in talking about Penny's first two books, and I won't here either, expect to say Penny weaves the various threads together into a most satisfying conclusion.

It will be interesting to see where she takes this series in future novels. We have so much more we want to know about Gamache, the members of his team and the village of Three Pines.

On Freedom and Super Sad True Love Story

Book 82: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Book 83: Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

There are many similarities to these two much-heralded books. Both are savage commentaries on the state of American society. Both authors employ love stories as the framing device in which to unroll their commentary.

And I didn’t like either book much.

Franzen’s Freedom has enjoyed all the accolades that the American media can generate: the author made the cover of Time magazine, Freedom was tabbed as the final Oprah Book Club selection (with all the concomitant prestige and increased sales) and The New York Times proclaims the book “a masterpiece of American fiction.”

Publicity for Shteyngart’s dystopian look at a dying America, set in the immediate future (“oh, let’s say next Tuesday,” proclaims the dust jacket), may be more muted, but is no less enthusiastic.

Yet in the face of this gale of critical acclamation, I have problems with these two novels? Damn, betcha.

Franzen's characters are neither fully formed nor appealing. Four characters share the stage -- Walter and Patty Berglund; their son, Joey; and Walter's college roommate, Richard Katz. (A fourth member of the Berglund family, a daughter, Jessica, is limited to a cameo role.)

For much of the novel they are mere cardboard cut-outs, vessels for Franzenian rants on a range of topics from the current generation’s penchant for wearing flip-flops everywhere to the ecological devastation of coal mining in West Virginia to the dangers of world over-population to the predations of house cats on the American songbird population.

We know from the Time magazine article that Franzen is a bird-watcher. Perhaps he should have limited his concerns to the world’s dwindling bird population. Because the trouble with the rant-a-page approach is that the reader does not where to place our limited supply of outrage. Should I be pissed about house cats on the prowl for songbirds? Environmental devastation in neighboring West Virginia? Or those damn flip-flops?

Franzen is clearly more interested in his extended rants on the state of America than in character development. Unfortunately, his characters are not only stock characters, but unappealing stock characters.

Joey is the prodigal son, who wants to make lots of money and be a member in good standing of the Republican Party. Ignored by her parents, Patty over-compensates with her own children. She's a stay-at-home-mom and that's clearly a poor career choice in Franzen's mind. Patty also desires Richard Katz more than her own husband. Katz is some sort of alt-rocker who can't handle success. And Walter . . . Walter is the rational, do-gooding liberal whose dirty little secret is that he has nothing but contempt for the people he's trying to help. He’s the intellectual who successfully overcame a impoverished background, including an underachieving alcoholic father, and now secretly wonders why others can't do the same.

Two themes run through the book. The first is that people aren't what they seem to be. They're neither as good nor as bad as we might believe them to be. Much of Patty's frustration with Walter, and their marriage, is that Walter believes she's better, nicer, than she knows she really is. Walter doesn't realize that Patty, like Jimmy Carter, has lust in her heart. Patty wants Walter to love her, not Walter’s idealized version of her.

The second theme has to do with freedom -- hence the title. Essentially, Franzen suggests, Americans have too much of it and don't know what to do with what we have. All that freedom has gone to waste.

A lot of reviews describe Freedom as darkly comedic. It is dark, but there's not a lot of humor here -- the satire is laid on too heavily and with too much certainty on the author's part that he knows what's best for us to be even slyly comedic. Comedy depends on the comedian laughing with us, not at us. Franzen, like Walter, doesn't seem to like people much.

Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story (hereafter referred to as SSTLS) presents a more sophisticated and prescient satire than Franzen. (Less rant, more thought.) SSTLS recalls some of the early work of William Gibson.

Shteyngart, for example, takes the Blackberry prayer -- our modern tendency to dip the head forward, peering intently toward our lap as we feverishly connect via our increasingly sophisticated mobile phones -- to a logical and scary place where people are always connected to a tiny and ever-present “apparat.” Late in the novel when Americans suddenly find themselves severed from a connection to their “apparat” there are those who find suicide the only acceptable response.

In SSTLS, America is socially, culturally and financially bankrupt. The great American empire has given way to a third world country divided between the haves and have-nots and soon to be divided among the Chinese and the Middle East and other wealthy nations.

Lenny, the protagonist of SSTLS, works for a company that sells life extensions. In this brave new world no one has to die. Actually, no one who is a high net worth individual (HNWI) has to grow old and die. Lenny can’t afford the treatments that will keep him forever young, but does find his own fountain of youth when he falls in love with a Korean woman half his age.

And it’s this love story where Shteyngart goes astray. If his satire is sharper and richer than Franzen’s, his characters are just as wooden. Granted, they’re more appealing – Lenny’s a Jewish schmuck who loves his parents and clings to a collection of real honest-to-God books – but we still don’t care much.

Personally, I think Lenny is better off without his love interest, the boyish Eunice Park, whose betrayal is filled with self-interest. Trust Shteyngart to write an unconventional love story, but conventional love stories work because the reader is rooting for the lovers to get together or to get back together once they've been separated. The idea is that love, not self-interest, prevails.

Franzen and Shteyngart have written interesting books, which is to damn them both with faint praise. It’s the best I can do.

2010 National Book Festival

The 10th annual National Book Festival was today on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Bibliophiles were in line for author Ken Follett 3 hours before his signing was scheduled to begin.

Author Ken Franzen also attracted a line of fans hours before his scheduled appearance.

Jonathan Franzen signing a copy of Freedom, his newest book.

And a smile for a fan from Franzen.

My wife, Beth, waiting for Jonathan Franzen to appear. We were first in line for Franzen as well as Jane Smiley. It was a great day, with thousands on hand, despite the heat.

RIP: David Thompson

David Thompson died unexpectedly this week. He was 38.

I had never met David, but I felt that I knew him. And I felt that he knew me.

David was the publicity manager of Murder by the Book in Houston. He was also married to store owner McKenna Jordan. Five years ago, David founded Busted Flush Press, a small publishing company issuing both original material and reprints of neglected mysteries and thrillers.

But he was something more than the publicity manager or the husband of the store's owner or a small-press publisher. Quite a bit more, in fact.

David loved books and the bookstore where he'd worked more than than two decades and he loved the customers who shopped at Murder by the Book. His wife, McKenna, said, "He really prided himself on customer service, on knowing his customers and knowing which books they would love."

And I know that's true because of the time and interest that David invested in me. I've been buying from Murder by the Book for the five or six years. In that time David began to know what I liked and he would make recommendations, recommendations that were almost always spot on. And when they weren't -- although it was certainly something he didn't needed to do -- David would apologize. He took it personally when a recommendation fell flat.

There weren't many times like that, however. David has an uncanny sense for the books and authors that appealed to me. No, I take that back. It wasn't uncanny. David simply cared enough to pay attention and to listen and to ask questions; all that in a relationship forged over email.

I have experienced a profound sense of sadness and loss since I learned of David's death. I'm going to miss him.

And there's not much more I can do expect tell McKenna and David's family and friends how deeply I regret his passing and pray for them to find courage and strength and some measure of comfort at a time when life seems so unfair.

On the inventiveness of Stross and Diaz

Book 80: The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross

Let's call it a guilty pleasure and be done with it. Charles Stross is among the more inventive writers working in the science fiction genre today. He's also among the most entertaining, deftly ranging from hard sci fi to space opera.

The books in two of his series -- the Laundry novels and the Merchant Princes -- make an unusual claim to inventiveness by re-inventing works created by others.

The Merchant Princes series recalls the work of Roger Zelazny. The Laundry novels tap directly into the writing of H.P. Lovecraft. There is magic in the world, but it's mathematically based and the rise of the personal computer -- among other things -- opens doorways into our world to things that go-bump-in-the-night and serves to hasten the end of the world.

It's the job of Stross hero (or anti-hero) Bob Howard to keep the gibbering, soul-eating horrors at bay. Howard does so again in The Fuller Memorandum, calling upon a horde of zombies to defeat a cult, the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh, that's attempting to bring about the end of the world.

I know how it sounds, but the novels are hugely entertaining and after Guillermo del Toro bring's Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness to the big screen, well, the Laundry novels are going to find a whole new audience.

Book 81: Drown by Junot Diaz

Talking about wildly inventive authors is the perfect time to segue to Junot Diaz, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Diaz explores much the same territory in the short stories in Drown that he later expanded into a novel with Oscar Wao. Shall we call these stories gems? Works for me. They're wonderful. It's impressive that someone has young as Diaz has such command of his craft.

Read these stories out of sequence. Start with the first story, Ysrael, but then jump to No Face and then simply absorb the astonishing fact of Diaz's powers of observation, his empathy and his penetrating insight into the lives of these struggling Dominicans.

Diaz is among the most authentic and commanding writers of his generation. I eagerly await his next book.

Tinkers, It's A Book, Bad Boy and more

Book 74: Tinkers by Paul Harding

It's unfortunate for Paul Harding that his first book, Tinkers, won the Pulitzer Prize. Unfortunate because this is a deeply flawed book and the acclaim that Harding now enjoys is likely to obscure that fact.

Tinkers is one of those books where the writing -- or over-writing in this instance -- gets in the way of a terrific story. The writing is certain to have impressed the Pulitzer judges, but not a reader seeking a pure and uncluttered narrative.

It is difficult, at times, to understand what Harding is writing about or to reconcile the narrative voice with the characters he has fashioned and whose stories seems compelling if we could only get at it.

Book 75: Composed by Rosanne Cash

I've been a fan of Johnny Cash for as long as I can remember, but I never paid any attention to the recordings of his daughter Rosanne. Then a friend recommend The List, her superb album that's built around a list of songs her father said every singer-songwriter should know.

The List led me to Composed, the newly released memoir by Cash. The memoir is a pleasant surprise. It's as readable and compelling as her recordings.

One caution: Johnny Cash, musical icon, is here in these pages, but he is generally superseded by Johnny Cash, Rosanne's Daddy, and that's as it should be. Part of the reason this book succeeds is that it is Rosanne's story, not "Johnny Cash as I knew him."

Rosanne Cash will never enjoy the musical stature obtained by her father -- few will -- but her journey through life, and her efforts to define herself as an artist, make Composed something far better, more rich and rewarding, than the standard celebrity bio.

Book 76: Lyndon B. Johnson by Charles Peters

I've long been an admirer of the long-running American Presidents Series by Times Books. This entry, by Charles Peters, is among the best.

Peters has a writing style that is inviting and he offers a incisive portrait of LBJ as a flawed man who is likely to rank in the second tier of Presidents. Below Lincoln, Washington and FDR, but alongside Jefferson, Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt.

It's a fair assessment. Johnson could be petty and cruel. His insecurities helped mire this nation in an unnecessary war in Vietnam. Yet, as Peters notes, LBJ's legislative record is one only FDR can match. Peter's cites two examples and they will serve here as well: Medicare and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Johnson is the subject of fine, multi-book biographies by Robert Caro and Robert Dallek. If you're looking for something shorter, that nicely captures life and presidency of Johnson, this is the book.

Book 77: Bad Boy by Peter Robinson

A former neighbor, needing advice, comes looking for Chief Inspector Alan Banks. But Banks is on vacation, thus setting off a comedy of errors by the police that quickly turns deadly.

Banks' daughter Tracy and DI Annie Cabbot are caught up in the aftermath of a police operation gone wrong. Banks returns from his holiday to the states to find his daughter missing and Cabbot in the hospital fighting for her life.

The merits of a long-running series with well-established characters are apparent in this gripping and delightful thriller. I can't say that Robinson's outdone himself with Bad Boy. I can say that he's done it again.

Book 78: It's a Book by Lane Smith

I like children's books and I especially like the work of author/illustrator Lane Smith.

For readers and book lovers, Smith's newest book is an absolute delight. It features a mouse, a jackass and a gorilla. Gorilla is reading a book and jackass simply can't understand how it works.

Can it text? Tweet? Wi-fi? Nope. Nada. And no.

The final page . . . well, it contains a line I'll be using for a long, long time.

Book 79: Cardboard Gods by Josh Wilker

This is not, as I originally thought, a book about collecting baseball cards. It is a memoir with an interesting conceit. Wilker selects a single baseball card, writes about what he sees in that card or what it meant to him and what was going on in his life when he obtained the card.

Eddie Murray represents not merely promise, but promise realized. Ron Guidry, who pitched so well for the hated (by Wilker) New York Yankees, is the sum of the fears that runs through Wilker's adolescent life, and so on.

It works, mostly. Better than I had initially thought. Still, its an odd book. Not quite baseball, not fully memoir, but some odd blend of the two. Wilker drifts through life and his embrace of loserdom is so complete and unquestioning that his attitude becomes a drag on the book as it was on his life.

Yet the fact that we have this book and that Wilker marries in its final pages demonstrates that, like Eddie Murray, he has realized his early promise.

Robert Duvall, Angelina Jolie and Royal Books' Kevin Johnson on books into film

Robert Duvall.

That’s my answer to a question I’ve posed to myself: What single actor’s signature on books that have been made into films would I most covet?

Consider: Duvall played Boo Radley in To Kill A Mockingbird, Ned Pepper in True Grit, Major Frank Burns in MASH, Tom Hagen in The Godfather, Lt. Col. ‘Bull’ Meechum in The Great Santini, Max Mercy in The Natural, Gus McCrae in Lonesome Dove. He appeared in The Handmaid’s Tale, The Road and Crazy Heart.

Each of those films, in which Duvall appeared, and many more, I’m certain, were adapted from books.

I don’t collect books that have been made into films. But anyone who collects modern first editions -- as I do -- is certain to have some books from that category of collectibles on their shelves -- as I do. (Lonesome Dove, The Age of Innocence, Get Shorty, Gone Baby Gone, for example.)

But I wanted to know more about the topic, including whether my assessment of Duvall was reasonable. So I turned to Kevin Johnson. Kevin is the owner of Royal Books in Baltimore and a long-time cinephile. He’s capitalized on his knowledge of books and love of films by authoring two books: The Dark Page, Vol. 1, Books That Inspired American Film Noir 1940-1949 and The Dark Page, Vol. 2, Books That Inspired American Film Noir 1950-1965.

Kevin said that an actor’s signature on a book can add value, but there are a great many conditions to that statement.

“In my experience . . . a celebrity autograph is not as heavy hitting as an autograph by an author or an artist,” Kevin said.

An autograph by an actor isn’t a bad thing, but the signature of a director or screenwriter is better. That’s because the role of the director or screenwriter in the creative process is more analogous to the author’s role.

If you do secure the autograph of someone who has appeared in a film made from a book be certain it’s someone central to the film. “Get the main guy,” Kevin said.

Kevin also said that some actors have “literary credibility” than others. Compare Angelina Jolie, who has appeared principally in films made from graphic novels, to Duvall or Jeff Bridges or even Nick Nolte. “Sissy Spacek is a more literary actress than Michelle Pfeiffer,” he said.

According to Kevin, literary credibility arises by appearing in films that have artistic credibility or literary connections.

Artistic credibility can be difficult to achieve. Kevin notes that some great books result in mediocre films. He thinks it’s because “the pressure of turning a beloved novel, or a popular novel that everybody has read, into a great film is challenging. They feel compelled not to change things.”

The outcome is often different with an obscure book because there’s less pressure.

Kevin cites The World According to Garp as a successful movie made from the popular book by John Irving. Yet, he notes, that the director chopped out more than half the book. Kevin said he didn’t actually read Irving’s novel until years after he saw the film. “I liked the book more,” he is quick to point out, “but the film version was still very memorable and compelling.”

Another good literary adaptation: No Country For Old Men, which was based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel.

Yet a book’s success, or an author’s popularity, is no guarantee of big-screen success. Kevin said the film version of McCarthy’s All The Pretty Horses was mediocre. “Nobody remembers it,” he said. “It didn’t live up to the book.”

Other examples of mediocre film-based books, according to Kevin: Giant, which starred Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and Rock Hudson in the film version of Edna Ferber’s novel. “They tried to make a big, sprawling movie,” Kevin said, “and it didn’t quite work—not bad, but not great.” The two sound film adaptations of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby – starring Alan Ladd in the 1940s and Robert Redford in the 1970s – both failed.

Lousy film adaptations clearly didn’t have an impact on the collectible value of Gatsby, but a great film can increase the value and collectability of a book. “It depends on how well-known the book is,” Kevin said. “Once the word is out . . . the first edition can become a very desirable thing.”

One example, he said, is the book Mute Witness by Robert L. Pike, which is the basis for the Steve McQueen film Bullitt. Kevin said collectible copies of Mute Witness can be difficult to find because most of the print run found its way to libraries. In addition to being the source of a popular movie, the book has a great jacket design. Kevin said whenever he’s able to obtain a copy, he can always sell it quickly.

Jeff Bridges’ recent Oscar vehicle, Crazy Heart, significantly boosted the value of Thomas Cobb’s novel of the same name. The novel, said Kevin, “is not scarce, but it’s not common.” But it was, he said, completely forgotten until the movie was released.

Ultimately, Kevin said the value of a book made into a film always derives from market forces, supply and demand. Do people want the book? Kevin admits that “at times, it’s sort of a mystery to me.”

One example is the book Matchstick Men by Eric Garcia, which was the source of the 2003 Nicholas Cage movie of the same name. “I loved that movie, and I’ve tried to sell the first edition,” Kevin said, “but the book has just quietly gone away.”

On the flip side, Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, Fight Club, which inspired a 1999 film starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, is highly sought after. Kevin believes the interest in Fight Club extends beyond interest in the film. It appeals to people, he said, who are connected to the novel and film in a philosophical way. “It’s always sold well,” he said. “Interest has never flagged.”

People like to collect books that led to Oscar winners such best picture, best director and best actor.

As with any reader and film fan, Kevin has his favorite books he’d like to see made into film. He is championing The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, a novel by Philip K. Dick. A number of Dick’s novels and stories have been made into film (Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly, Total Recall) and, Kevin said, Palmer Eldritch, “a wild, LSD-influenced sci fi novel” could be a great film in the hands of the right director.

He’s eager to see what Guillermo Del Toro, director of the wildly inventive Pan’s Labyrinth, does with H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, which now in development. If it’s well done, Kevin thinks, the film could introduce an entire new generation to Lovecraft’s work.

Finally, he’d like to see someone adapt the late Ross Macdonald’s Archer series to a visual medium. This was tried unsuccessfully, Kevin believes, with the Paul Newman films Harper and The Drowning Pool. Macdonald’s novels “are so literate and so visual and so much in tune with California,” Kevin said, that he believes they’d make great films. Or better yet, a cable series. Something, Kevin said, with the style and literate approach of AMC’s award-winning series Mad Men.

Anyone interested in building a collection of books made into films could gain a solid understanding of how to begin by visiting the Royal Books website. There’s the video mentioned earlier as well as the opportunity to buy The Dark Page (volumes one and two). Book catalogs, issued regularly by Royal Books, are invaluable research tool and as fun to leaf through as the Sears catalog once was at Christmas.

Kevin’s working on a third book. The book, which has the working title The Fractured Page, will examine film sources for crime films and dramas from the ‘60s and ‘70s. Kevin said that the period from 1970 to 1976 was particularly ripe for successful book adaptations. There was, for example, Serpico, The Godfather, Marathon Man, Point Blank and The Graduate – all successful films and all collectible books.

Kevin is also contemplating a fourth book on the film sources for screwball comedies.

On Fesperman, McMurtry and sportswriting in The New Yorker

Book 71: Layover in Dubai by Dan Fesperman

It's an entertaining book, but Dan Fesperman's Layover in Dubai is nonetheless a book that relies far too much on convention and cliche.

The recipe is a familiar one: take one innocent, drop him into a pot of boiling trouble and watch him not only escape the boiling pot, but succeed admirably by bringing a quintet of bad guys to justice.

You've read it before. We all have. In this case, the innocent is Sam Keller, an auditor for an international pharmaceutical company. Sam's asked to do a favor of the company's head of security; a favor that begins by extending a six-hour layover into a couple of days. Before you know it, Sam's on the lam, wanted by his company, the corrupt Emirati police and a couple of hulking Russian no-goodniks.

Sam's only ally is the one non-corrupt man on the Emirati police force who -- yes, it's true -- has a lovely daughter who defies Muslim convention, along with her mother and father.

What lifts Layover in Dubai above the run-of-the-mill thriller is Fesperman's detailed description of Dubai. It's not a place I want to visit, except from the safe confines of Fesperman's novel.

Book 72: The Only Game In Town, Sportswriting from The New Yorker, edited by David Remnick

I suppose that if you weren't a sports fan you might make a case against The Only Game In Town. Then again, the writing is so crisp, so vivid and just so damn wonderful that I don't think a case can be made against the anthology at all. Instead, I'd argue that it shows once again how great writing can (and does) make any topic fascinating.

In compiling such an anthology, Remnick has had a rich treasure trove to plunder. Here's John Cheever, Calvin Trillin, Dan DeLillo, Susan Orlean (with an all too short article), John McPhee, Malcolm Gladwell and . . . that's only a fraction of the writers.

Shaq is here. Tiger Woods, too, and Lance Armstrong.

The Only Game in Town shines because of both the writers and the written about.

My favorite piece, and one that I estimate I've read a dozen times, and would gladly read a dozen more, is The Web of the Game by Roger Angell. Angell sits in the stands with Smokey Joe Wood while watching a baseball game between Yale and St. John's. The game is notable because Wood is in the stands and Ron Darling and Frank Viola are on the mound for Yale and St. John's respectively.

My suggestion is buy this book now and set it in the shelf for the coming winter. When winter arrives, I prescribe a story a day.

Book 73: Hollywood by Larry McMurtry

Larry McMurtry's a clever man as evidenced by his multiple careers as rare book dealer, novelist and screenwriter.

He's written about each in a series of memoirs -- Books, Literary Life and now Hollywood. Yes, that's correct. Three memoirs when one would have done the trick.

All are rather light; each even given to the occasional one paragraph chapter. McMurtry notes, coyly I thought, in Hollywood that readers have complained about the brevity of the chapters in the previous two books.

My sense is that McMurtry believes he'll generate a little more coin for himself through the sale of three memoirs rather than one. Perhaps so. I certainly bought all three.

More power to him. There's the occasional entertaining anecdote, but no more than that. Really, Larry, you could have done better by yourself.

Tepper's The Margarets a deeply moral work; Petterson's I Curse the River of Time falls flat

Book 68: The Margarets by Sheri Tepper

The Margarets by Sheri Tepper is a sprawling book featuring one protagonist who is really seven characters (or seven protagonists who are really one character), an assortment of minor characters, numerous alien races and equally numerous planetary settings.

Yet somehow -- well, we know how, Tepper is a vastly talented writer -- Tepper keeps all the plates spinning and delivers a thoroughly suspenseful, thoroughly satisfying read. The Margarets stands alongside some of her finest work -- Grass, The Gates to Women's Country and The Family Tree.

The Margarets is about the efforts of a shadowy collection of cat-like aliens, humans and minor god to save the human race by giving humankind a racial memory. The only way this can be done is by fulfilling an ancient prophecy that "one road is seven roads, walked simultaneously by one creature." Hence, the Margarets, seven individuals spawned from one young girl who begins her life on the Martian satellite, Phobos.

The Margarets is a work of vast imagination. And, like the best of Tepper's writing, it is also a deeply moral work, exploring the boundaries between good and evil inhabited by the human race.

Book 69: A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny

Listen closely. These are words I do not often use. I was wrong. In writing about Louise Penny's first book, Still Life, I indicated that this new series, set in Canada, would feature Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté. And that is true, some of the paperback editions of this series proclaim that it is A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel.

But . . . I did not go far enough, because these novels are also about the small Canadian village of Three Pines. (Other paperback editions of the series proclaim that the book is a Three Pines Mystery.) Each murder has occurred in Three Pines and at least a half dozen of its villagers have been recurring figures in the two mysteries I have read so far.

Now that the record is straight on to A Fatal Grace.

I liked Still Life quite a bit, but was disappointed with A Fatal Grace in its early pages. Or so I thought. Actually the book's murder victim, who is alive in the first 50-odd pages, is such an annoying and unlikeable person that I was reacting to her, not Penny's work. Once the murder takes place and Gamache enters the scene, we have a delightful and diverting mystery.

Book 70: I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson

Amazing, isn't it, how themes so often appear in our reading. I disliked a character in Louise Penny's mystery and it affected my entire outlook of the novel until she exited.

In much the same way, a character's personality has a negative influence on Per Petterson's I Curse the River of Time. If we're going to compare books, and that is inevitable, I think, then I Curse the River of Time is not in the same league as Out Stealing Horses, the superb novel that introduced most Americans to Petterson's writing.

The problem is Arvid Jansen, the book's narrator. Arvid is 37, but as his mother observes, "I wouldn't call him a grown-up. That would be an exaggeration."

Arvid is attempting to come to terms with the knowledge that his mother has cancer and little time to live. This is difficult for Arvid because there is a long-standing emotional distance between him and his mother, largely because Arvid is immature and self-centered. His fascination with Communism, his refusal to further his college education and his impending divorce all serve to make him a disappointment to his mother. Since being a disappointment to one's mother is something we've all experienced to one degree or another, this should make Arvid a sympathetic figure. It doesn't.

Petterson is a skillful and insightful writer, but in this book that seems to work against him. Arvid is such a vivid character and the tone that Petterson has built is so unrelentingly bleak that the reader feels compelled to keep the book at some distance. As with Arvid and his mother, the reader cannot make an emotional connection with the writer.

F**K Me, Ray Bradbury, a literate pop video

You never know what's going to pop up on the Internet these days, do you?

Take, for example, Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury, a music video featuring a literate (truly), pop song about a school girl's love, and lust, for the celebrated science fiction author.

In your face, Nabokov.

Kings of the Earth a terrific companion volume to Finn

In March 2008, Jon Clinch made an appearance at a bookstore in northern Virginia. There were less than a dozen of us in attendance to hear Clinch read from and talk about his debut novel, Finn.

That must have been a disappointing night for Clinch, to appear before such a tiny crowd on the outskirts of Washington D.C., in a bookstore that would normally attract more than a hundred readers for well-known authors -- Elmore Leonard, for example, or Ian Rankin. I remember sharing his disappointment.

Finn had been received well critically, but obviously didn't attract many readers. I thought it was a smashing debut; inventive in telling the mythic story of Huck Finn through the eyes of his cruel, devious and drunken father, Pap.

Kings of the Earth, Clinch's second book, is just as inventive, just as powerful and just as well-written as his first novel. It's captured the attention of critics and, one would hope, has also attracted more readers for this deserving author.

Kings of the Earth is the story of three brothers who lives are largely confined to their dairy farm in upstate New York. The story is told through multiple points of view -- a well-meaning neighbor, the brother's sister and nephew, the brothers' mother and the brothers themselves -- and jumps back and forth through time.

The book's publishers (Random House) published a quote from the San Francisco Chronicle on the book jacket's inside flap that compares Clinch to William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Cormac McCarthy and Edward P. Jones. Those comparisons aren't wide of the mark, but one name is missing from that list -- E.L. Doctorow.

In its Gothic tone and sympathies that are stoutly in support of this trio of innocent, yet ignorant protagonists, Kings of the Earth greatly resembles Doctorow's 2009 novel, Homer & Langley. Both books delve into the eccentric, yet benign, side of man.

One can't help but wonder if the appeal of these two books -- beyond the excellent writing -- doesn't lie in the fascination we have for such eccentrics and in the realization that there, but for the grace of God go I. One only needs to watch a couple of episodes of American Picker to know that there are oddballs throughout the country and, if displaying a little self-awareness, understand that a love for books can all too easily become a mania.

Kings of the Earth is a terrific companion volume to Finn. Clinch has established himself as a first-rate novelist and an insightful chronicler of the loners and oddballs who populate the sidelines of American life.

An ear for dialogue distinguish Faithful Place and The Friends of Eddie Coyle

Two hits, two misses.

The misses first:

Book 63: Bicycle Days by John Burnham Schwartz

I have an affinity for the writing of John Burnham Schwartz. It's not simply that I like his writing, but his tone, the subject manner and his approach to it and, finally, his romantic sensibility all appeal to me.

Bicycle Days is Schwartz's second book. The problems inherent with most novelists' second books are present here. Schwartz loses control of his material near the end of the novel and that's disappointing. But to his credit, Schwartz deftly handles most of this story of a stranger in a strange land. It's closely observed. Schwartz gives us a sense of what it is like to live in a foreign land. He also approaches the Japanese with fondness and respect that foster genuine understanding.

I can't say that Bicycle Days is a great book, or even a very good one. If you like Schwartz, I think you will like this one, or parts of it anyway. If you're unfamiliar with Schwartz try Claire Marvel or The Commoner.

Book 65: Work Song by Ivan Doig

Let's get this out of the way. Work Song is a disappointment. I truly admire so much of Doig's work: This House of Sky, Winter Brothers, The Sea Runners, English Creek, Dancing at the Rascal Fair, but the magic that filled those books is missing here.

Work Song is set in Butte, Montana just after the end of World War I. It's a rough town. Violent, with conflicts constantly brewing between the owners of the Anaconda Copper Mine, the miners and the Wobblies (the I.W.W.) Yet Doig's tone is all wrong; it's almost light-hearted, blithe in a way that does not ring true with the tenor of the times.

Much of the problem is with Doig's characters. Morrie Morgan, who first appears in The Whistling Season. Morgan is too good to be true. He may have succeeded, marginally, in a one-room schoolhouse in the Marias Coulee, but in Butte, in a novel about a conflict between miners and miners owners, he isn't believable or appealing.

Doig also throws into the mix a pair of good-hearted, retired Welsh miners; a comely, yet good-hearted landlady; a skinny, but speedy waif improbably dubbed the Russian Famine; and a reformed rancher, who once hung rustlers with impunity, but now confines himself to collecting rare books; as well as reviving "Rabrab," one of Morgan's students in The Whistling Season, now grown into a comely, but good-hearted young woman, who is dating the head of the miner's union;

It's an unappetizing, unbelievable jumble by an author who has written so many better books.

Now on to the hits:

Book 66: The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins

We're approaching the 40th anniversary of this crime novel written in 1972 by Higgins who was an assistant U.S. Attorney in Boston at the time.

Much of Eddie is dialogue. In his work in the U.S. Attorney's Office, Higgins developed a ear for the way people talk and he was able to vividly capture it on paper.

It's a great novel, and an important one, providing a template for all the writers of crime novels and thrillers and mysteries that followed.

Eddie was made into a film in 1973 starring Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle.

Book 64: Faithful Place by Tana French

I read this book under the worst possible circumstances. I knocked off the first 200 pages in a couple of days, but then work and travel and vacation meant that it took more than a week to finish the remaining couple of hundred pages. There were days I didn't read it at all, and days where I was lucky to read 10 or 15 pages without interruption. Most novels can't survive that kind of inattention. Faithful Place not only survived my neglect, but established itself as one of the best books I've read this year.

Set in Dublin, the novel is a stew of family regrets and resentments and class warfare. Early in the book a character asks, "What are you willing to die for?", but a better question might be "what are you willing to kill for?" because murder -- two of them -- is at the heart of the lies and anger and violence that animate this story.

French is a powerful writer, who, like Higgins, has an ear for dialogue. Her characters are finely drawn and one cannot help but hope that she will write again about her central character, Frank Mackey, a Dublin cop, who hasn't seen his family in more than two decades.

Mackey is reluctantly drawn back into contact with his family and his old neighborhood when a suitcase that surfaces in an abandoned building leads to the discovery of a body. The mystery that Mackey sets out to unravel is sufficient to carry a book, but French has raised the bar by also weaving a compelling narrative of Mackey's efforts to delicately weave his two lives into one.

Book 62: Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn

Book 62: One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson

Hi Kate! Remember me, it's your Number One Fan Boy. I just finished One Good Turn and here's a funny thing -- I hope you think it's a funny thing -- I read this book in 2008, but I didn't remember that until Goodreads told me so.

I checked the archives of my reading lists (yes, I really call it my archives) and Goodreads was right. It's not that I'm obsessive-compulsive or anything like that, but the book was on my reading pile (pile 3, the one comprised of books to read now) and I thought, "Well, do I put it back or read it again?" And I went ahead and read it again. It was on the pile. I mean it could have been, must have been, fate.

I'm glad I did. Since I had originally read it before Case Histories, which introduces Jackson Brodie, I was missing important perspective on Jackson and Julia. I'm glad you included her in this book. I wasn't expecting that, but it provided important insight into her relationship with Jackson. (Although I guess that's off now.)

I hope this won't mean a demotion -- from Number One Fan Boy -- but I didn't like One Good Turn quite as well as Case Histories or When Will There Be Good News? Still, an average book by Kate Atkinson is better than the best book by a lot of authors. I really believe that!

Many of the characteristics that I've begun to associate with you as a writer are present: your humor, your Dickensian use of minor characters and your ability to take a good many, seemingly discrete events and wrap them all together into a satisfying whole. (I especially like how you even make fun of that last characteristic near the end of this novel.)

So that's it. I know you have a book coming out this fall and I am SO EAGER to read it. Meantime, I can feed my addiction by reading a couple of your early books that I still haven't read. At least, I don't think I have! Ha! Ha! I'm just being funny too. Of course I haven't read them. (I think.)

With affection,

Still, and Always, Your Number One Fan Boy!

Coe plays games with the reader in The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

Book 61: The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Sebastian Coe

Seldom has an author undermined his own novel as successfully as Sebastian Coe undermines his most recent work, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim.

In the final eight pages of the novel, Coe, a British author, commits the literary equivalent of seppuku. In those pages, Coe delves into metafiction. He pulls back the curtain to expose the fraud perpetrated upon the reader in the book's first 332 pages.

Metafiction is when an author self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion. I have no problem with metafiction as a literary device. Paul Auster uses it to good effect. The difference between Auster and Coe is that Auster ushers the reader behind the curtain in the early stages of the novel. That makes all the difference. With Auster we're in the joke. With Coe, Ha, Ha, silly wanker, the joke is on us.

The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim is a story of alienation, of a man lonely and alone in the midst of a communications cornucopia. Sim, who is clinically depressed, has lost his job, his wife and child. He's estranged from his father and his best friend. And, Sim discovers, having 72 friends on Facebook doesn't count for all that much.

Sims talks to the sat-nav system in his rented car (he's seduced by its voice), applauds the proliferation of chain restaurants because he finds the sameness they offer comforting and he seems to be in deep denial about his sexuality. He's one messed up man.

Early in the novel, there is a reference to John Updike's Rabbit novels. With reason. Sim's middle class angst, alienation and depression echo the life of Updike's Rabbit Angstrom.

Here's a suggestion, pass up The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim and read the Rabbit novels. Updike isn't playing games with the reader.

An introduction to the writing of Louise Penny

A lot of my friends recommend books to me. It's something I welcome, and something I fear. Welcome, because through the years I have come to trust the judgment of many of my friends and family about books to read. Inevitably, I am introduced to a fine new author; an enjoyable new book. Fear, because my reading pile is growing at the rate of the national debt. It's difficult to keep up and there are times I simply don't want one more book that I've got to read.

So there was some trepidation, and a sigh or two, when a friend recently recommended the works of Louise Penny. Actually, my friend didn't merely recommend Penny's mysteries, he bludgeoned me with entreaties to read her. I received email after email explaining why I needed to read this Canadian writer.

So, I did . . .

One book. Her first, Still Life.

And exactly what I feared would happen happened. I liked it, a lot.

Book 59: Still Life by Louise Penny

Not surprisingly, Penny's books are set in Canada. They revolve around Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté. We learn a few things about Gamache in this introductory novel: He's a crack investigator; sensitive, observant, thoughtful and more than a little stubborn. His career has stalled. He and his wife are empty nesters.

Clearly, in future books, we will grow even more familiar with Gamache and his team.

Gamache is one of the reasons Penny's books are so appealing, but not the only one. In Still Life we are presented with a genuine mystery. Someone in the village of Three Pines has murdered a retired schoolteacher. Who? Why? So many books today that belong to the genre eschew the mystery, and it is the mystery that is often so exquisite. Penny has given us one to chew on.

And then there's Penny's writing. Given a rainy Saturday, this book would be a one-day read. That's not to slight Penny, but to praise her. She writes well, with clarity and pacing. She is as observant as Gamache, offering delightful insights and asides that contribute to the richness of the reading.

Humbert H. Humphrey once said, "My friends. My god damn friends." The context of H.H.H.'s remarks aside, I share his sentiments. Now I have four more books that I absolutely, positively need to read.

Book 60: When That Rough God Goes Riding by Greil Marcus

Recently, I returned from a business trip to Seattle. I flew out early to spend time with my oldest son who lives there. We spent a couple of days haunting book stores, record stores and restaurants. And when I flew home, I carried along a vinyl copy of Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey. I have a CD verison of the album, but misplaced the actual record years ago.

Coincidentally, or maybe not coincidentally at all because I like Van Morrison, when I returned home there was a copy of Greil Marcus's When That Rough God Goes Riding waiting for me. I had thought Marcus's book was a biography of the Irish singer. It's not, and if I'd paid more attention to the sub-title, Listening to Van Morrison, I would know that.

When That Rough God Goes Riding is a work of musical criticism. Marcus provides his observations about Morrison's performances on specific songs . . . Tupelo Honey, Baby Please Don't Go and Caravan, for example.

It's an interesting book, but not one that I can entirely embrace. The fault is not with Marcus, but myself. I don't have the sonic chops that Marcus has. We don't hear the music in the same way. He hears with a depth of understanding, and appreciation, I will never have. For me, I either like a song or I don't. The same with performers. And I don't give it much thought beyond that.

And that's the other reason I'm not enthusiastic about the book. I have no difficulty applying this kind of criticism to literature (can someone tell me, would it be considered deconstruction?), but I can't bring myself to think of music in this way. So I am just going to put Tupelo Honey on the turntable and listen to it and not think about the music at all.

+++

There's a Great Northwest theme to this post. I purchased Still Life at the Mystery Bookshop in Seattle. It's a marvelous little shop bursting with books. The staff is knowledgeable and there are some treasures to be found there. When That Rough God Goes Riding came from Powell's Books in Portland. It's as large and sprawling as the Mystery Bookshop is compact. There are treasures there too.

A summary of recent reading

Book 55: Books Do Furnish A Room by Leslie Geddes-Brown

Books on books, one of my favorite literary genres, play a prominent role in my recent reading. (See below) This book by Geddes-Brown is a lovely entry. Short on text, long on photographs, Books Do Furnish a Room is a visual testament to its title.

I've kept this book close to hand for several months; leafing through a few pages at a time. I'm still reluctant to put it on the shelf. Gazing at photograph after photograph of book-lined rooms and inventive approaches to the shelving of books is, well, relaxing to me. Somewhat akin to my childhood practice of curling up with the Sears catalog as Christmas approached.

Book 56: Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke

Black Cherry Blues is the third book (1989) in Burke's series featuring Dave Robicheaux. All the ingredients found in Burke's later Robicheaux novels are present here, including the over-writing, florid descriptions and passages that simply don't make much sense. Which is to say that if you approach this book unfamiliar with Burke you may like it, but if you've read most of his oeuvre it's going to be deja vu all over again.

Why do I keep reading Burke's books when I feel as if it's the literary equivalent of the hiccups? I can only associate it with the same compulsion that causes me to probe a sore tooth with my tongue.

Book 57: The Case for Books by Robert Darnton

I was bitterly disappointed by The Case for Books, which leaves itself wide open to legal charges of willfully mis-titling a book. But then naming it, Boring Academic Essays That Are Largely Irrelevant to the Current State of Affairs in Publishing might not sell any books.

The essays are devoted to books, that much is true, but also e-books and the impact of e-books upon research libraries. Most of the essays were written early this century -- yes, as much as nine or 10 years ago -- and, thus, seems to have little or no relevance to the current state of affairs.

I like books about books, but not this one.

Book 58: The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross

I freely concede that most readers of this blog (all six of you) won't understand my affection for Charlie Stross's Laundry novels (this is the second and a third is due out soon), but I like them, Sam I Am. I do. I do.

As a reminder, the Laundry novels, which feature the cool, but nerdy Bob Howard, are a brilliant combination of Len Deighton's spy novels and the creepy other-worldly stylings of H.P. Lovecraft. Yeah, it's that weird.

In The Jennifer Morgue, Stross lovingly (actually he's a tad mean) spoofs the spy novels of Ian Fleming, creator of that most famous of spies, James Bond.

The super-villain is The Jennifer Morgue has cast a spell that makes it possible for only a certain archetype, a hero in the James Bond mold, to defeat him. Bob thinks he's the guy, but as it turns out he's not. I'll say no more, except that Bob is cast in another role very familiar to fans of Bond films.

It's all great fun. The soul-sucking, creepy crawlies from another dimension are cast back into the vasty deep and Bob Howard enjoys a well earned vacation. Sort of.