The Baseball Codes delivers

Book 113: The Baseball Codes by Jason Turbow w/Michael Duca

The 2011 major league baseball season ends tonight with a World Serious title for either the Texas Rangers or the St. Louis Cardinals.

The season ends for MLB, but it doesn't have to end for the baseball fan. There is an entire lineup of baseball books begging to be read during the winter months.  The Baseball Codes by Jason Turbow (with Michael Duca) is one of the all-stars in that lineup.

Like all professional sports, baseball has a fat rule book to control the action on and off the field. Unlike other professional sports, baseball also has an unwritten rules that have as much influence on the game as the rules presided over by the Commissioner.

In one lively anecdote after another, Turbow provides the reader with a guided tour of the unwritten rules of the game -- from running into the catcher to stealing base, from sliding properly to never -- ever -- showing up an opponent to perhaps the biggest unwritten rule of them -- cheating is OK, until you get caught.

Most baseball books are biographies of a player, capture a special season or series or are an expose of the game.  No one's ever written a book quite like The Baseball Codes. It's inside baseball at it's best.

Twenty-five years later, White Noise still teems with power, mordant humor

Book 112: White Noise by Don DeLillo

The shape of our fears has changed since Don DeLillo wrote White Noise in 1985.

In DeLillo’s mordant, prize-winning (National Book Award), post-modern novel our fears take amorphous shape: in an “airborne toxic event” created by a chemical spill, in waves and radiation, in the background noise of our daily lives, in experimental drugs, in the unknown expressed by noxious smells and men in Mylex suits.

Today, our fears are no less threatening, but more concrete: planes fall from the sky, pulling down buildings, forcing people to choose between leaping to their death or dying in a crush of concrete and steel; in removing our shoes before we can board an aircraft because of the threat of shoe bombs; in the chilling, perplexing phrase “home-grown terrorist” and the mythical promise of WMDs.

Bluetooth. Wi-Fi. Tablets. Smart phones.

What would White Noise look like if it were written today, 10 years after 9/11 rather than 16 years before that nation-transforming day?

So many changes since the 26 years when White Noise first appeared. The cultural context has shifted, yet DeLillo’s novel remains powerful – and powerfully amusing – because the fears DeLillo taps into have not changed.

NSA. TSA. U.S. Cyber Command. CSS.

White Noise is the story of the Gladney family. Jack is a professor at The-College-on-the-Hill, where he is a pioneer in the field of Hitler Studies. Married five times to four women, Jack and his current wife, Babette, are parents to a brood of children and step-children. 

After toxic chemicals spew into the air following an accident in the train yard, the Gladneys must flee their home, although Jack resists.  "These things happen to poor people who live in exposed areas," Jacks tells his family. "Society is set up in such a way that it's the poor and uneducated who suffer the main impact of natural and man-made disasters . . . I'm a college professor."

Jack is briefly exposed to the chemical cloud and assured by some nameless man with a computer that he is dying.

Erectile dysfunction. Viagra. Cialis.

Both Jack and Babette share an extreme fear of dying.  Her fear leads Babette to search out chemical solace through an experimental drug.  She confesses to Jack that her in desire to obtain the drug, which promises to free her from her fear of death, that she engaged in a month-long tryst with the drug's designer. Her confession leads Jack down dark roads. 

On the surface, DeLillo explores our fear of death and dying. But a closer look reveals DeLillo is examining our fear of life and living. The threats to our existence – then and now -- are so pervasive, so unfamiliar and impossible to defend against , that death takes on a certain appeal. 

Google. Facebook. Twitter. Wikipedia. Dropbox.

The humor in White Noise is the darkest shade of black.  Some of the richest moments are when the Gladneys are all together (inevitably in their car) and engage in a serious, but uninformed discussions.  Discussions that a smart phone, Google and Wikipedia would stop before they started today.

Authors have been known to re-visit their creations.  I can’t think of another author whose take on modern times I’d like to read quite as much as DeLillo. 

DeLillo’s mordant, knowing voice perfectly captured the world of 1985.  It seems suited for our times too. 

*  *  *  *  *

The completion of White Noise brings me near the end of the Internet reading challenge issued by The Roof Beam Reader. The 2011 TBR (To Be Read) Pile Challenge is to read 12 books from your to-be-read pile in 12 months. The challenge began in February, so I am in good position with a few months remaining.

I have started Mr. King's Under the Dome. It's fat book, but once it's finished I will have only two books remaining:

1. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
2. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
3. War and Peace by Mr. Tolstoy
4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
5. The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker
6. Under the Dome by Stephen King
7. White Noise by Don Delillo
8. Yogi Berra Eternal Yankee by Allen Barra
9. The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
10. Winter in the Blood by James Welch
11. Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson
12. Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson

Alternates:
Reservation Road by John Burnham Schwartz
Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich  

Millard weaves a rich tale of murder and madness in Destiny of the Republic

Book 111: Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

It's an almost impossible task for a writer to create and sustain narrative tension when the reader already knows how the story is resolved.

Impossible for most, perhaps, but not Candice Millard.

Her first history, the riveting The River of Doubt, chronicled Teddy Roosevelt's arduous journey down an uncharted Amazon river.  Students of history knew Roosevelt survived the journey, yet Millard had the reader hanging on every sentence.

Teddy's survival was known, but just how narrow his escape from death wasn't.  Through Millard's vivid prose, the reader was able to understand the extent of Roosevelt's courage and tenacity, and just how closely he came to death.

Millard once more fashions familiar material into a gripping tale in her new history, Destiny of the Republic, an account of the assassination of President James Garfield. 

Packed into less than 300 pages, Destiny of the Republic ranges from Garfield's reluctant nomination as the Republican candidate for president in 1880 to his election and subsequent assassination to his brave, but futile fight for life.  

Garfield's foil is his assassin Charles Guiteau, a frustrated office-seeker who is convinced that God wants him to kill the president and that Americans will proclaim him a hero for gunning down Garfield in cold blood.  Guiteau anticipates that both fame and fortune will be his.  

Garfield and Guiteau are not the only figures who step from the pages in vivid relief in Millard's fine account. Inventor Alexander Graham Bell and British surgeon Joseph Lister have cameo roles whose importance far outweighs their brief appearance in these pages.

Millard illustrates how Garfield's assassination changed the course of the lives of Vice President Chester Arthur and D.C. physician Willard Bliss -- one for good, the other's reputation tarnished forever.  

Arthur was an ally of Garfield's most implacable political opponent, New York Senator Roscoe Conkling. Many Americans briefly believed that Arthur and Conkling conspired with Guiteau to assassinate the president. Many more were concerned that Arthur, who had never held elective office prior to the vice presidency, would be Conkling's puppet once he ascended to the presidency.

But Athur, grief-stricken by Garfield's death, emerged as his own man.  He shook off Conkling's control and honored Garfield's legacy during his single term in office.

Bliss joins Guiteau as the villain of this sad tale.  He emerges as an insecure man more concerned for his reputation than in saving the president's life.  

And it is that story, the stubborn ignorance and arrogance of the medical community, which doomed Garfield quite as much as Guiteau's bullets, that makes for the most interesting, yet dismaying, part of Millard's book. 

Left untreated, it is likely Garfield would have survived. Instead, Bliss and other medical men probed his wound with their unsanitary fingers and medical utensils. When he died, Garfield's body was riddled with infection.

As Millard illustrates, Garfield died, not from the wounds he received from an assassin's bullets, but from the treatment he received after being shot.  In his trial, in his own defense, Guiteau argued that Garfield was not fatally shot, but died from malpractice. True, perhaps, although it did not persuade the jury that convicted Guiteau and ordered him hung.

As one would expect from a political history, there is also a political debate, concerning the spoils system, woven through the Destiny of the Republic.  The fate of that issue, which contributed to Guiteau's motives, was resolved soon after Garfield's death.

Admittedly, Millard has rich material to work with in telling what the book's sub-title proclaims is a tale of "madness, medicine and murder." Yet it is also clear that the author is richly talented.

And that she knows how to tell a story.

Katrina lacks power in Salvage the Bones

Book 110: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones, a story of a poor black family in Mississippi, builds toward two climatic moments -- a dog fight and a hurricane.

The story is able to support one of those moments, while the other slips away along with the novel's promise. 

Unfortunately, it's the dog fight that emerges as the most powerful and telling moment of this ambitious novel.  It's the narrative high point of the novel and all that follows, including the impact of Hurricane Katrina is anticlimactic. 

Katrina arrives late and leaves quickly. The family's escape from rising flood waters reads like a cheap adventure novel and the family responds to the wake of Katrina'ss devastation as if it were the newest ride at a Disney theme park. 

Salvage the Bones is told through the eyes of 15-year-old Esch, the only girl in this family of five. Mom died years earlier give birth to the youngest child, Junior.  Dad is a distant figure, earning the occasional buck on a rare odd job. Most of the money he makes is spent on alcohol.

Esch has two older brothers. Randall's trying to find a way out of poverty via basketball. Skeetah is absorbed with his pit bull, China, who whelps a litter of pups as the novel opens.  Those pups represent the promise of a huge payday for Skeetah -- if they can survive all the forces bent on their destruction.

Skeetah and China form the most compelling story in the novel. The hurricane looms in the background, building in power over the Gulf of Mexico.  The father attempts to prepare for its arrival, boarding up the windows of their home, hoarding water, stashing food, but the four children give it little thought.

Esch is concerned -- rightly -- with her newly discovered pregnancy. Randall with a bad knee and paying for basketball camp. Skeetah with China's poor response to medication and an effort to poach one of the pups.

The children's effort to survive from day to day invests the novel with dignity and power that the storm leaches away.  One element that never rings true is Esch's focus on the story of Jason and Medea. She's reading, we're told, a book on mythology and see parallels with Medea in her own life.

It's difficult to ever accept this line of thought by Esch. What 15-year-old, black or white, rich or poor, is absorbed with ancient Greek myth? Not many.

Esch's preoccupation with mythology ultimately emerges as an authorial device. Through Esch, Ward characterizes Katrina "as the mother that swept into the Gulf and slaughtered. Her chariot was a storm so great and black the Greeks would say it was harnessed to dragons. She was the murderous mother who cut us to the bone . . . "

It feels false.  Overwriting and overreaching by an author rather than a characterization that rings true. 

Salvage the Bones might have succeeded with only one story, either the dog or the hurricane. Pick one and tell it. But the two stories throw the narrative off balance with the result that neither quite works.

The Art of Fielding a book of rare generosity, insight and skill

Book 108: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach 

One hundred and seven books preceded The Art of Fielding in 2011.  One hundred and seven books of various quality, interest and appeal, yet none so luminous or evocative as this extraordinary first novel by Chad Harbach.

Set in Westish College, a small, liberal arts institution nestled along the shores of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin, The Art of Fielding is the story of five intrepid individuals' search for perfection --  in love and life, in one another and on the Elysian fields of the baseball diamond.

Chief among them is Henry Skrimshander, a quiet, self-effacing student, who truly becomes larger than life when he steps onto the baseball field.  A shortstop of unassuming proportions, Henry is the rare athlete who brings elegance and intelligence to his craft.

Henry's own drive for excellence is a given a boost by Mike Schwartz. Catcher and team captain for the Westish Harpooners, Schwartz is Henry's friend, mentor and coach -- although an admittedly reluctant one:

"That was why he didn't want to go into coaching . . . He already knew he could coach. All you had to do was look at each of your players and ask yourself: What story does this guy wish someone would tell him about himself. And then you told the guy that story. You told it with a hint of doom. You included his flaws. You emphasized the obstacles that could prevent him from succeeding. That was what made the story epic: the player, the hero, had to suffer mightily  en route to his final triumph . Schwartz knew that people loved to suffer as long as the suffering made sense."

Initially, Henry's suffering takes a simple form -- his willingness to endure one punishing workout after another, day after day, season after season, in the pursuit of the perfect and a championship season.  But Henry's suffering soon ceases to make sense.  The failure to grip the ball just so, a quirky breeze from off shore and Henry throws the ball beyond the reach of the first baseman. It sails into the dug-out and strikes Henry's roommate, Owen, full in the face.

Owens survives the encounter, Henry barely.  His streak of error-less games vanishes as Henry is suddenly unable to throw the ball with accuracy or confidence.

Schwartz, Owen, Westish President Guert Affenlight and Guert's daughter, Pella, all undergo their own unique forms of suffering.  It is as if Henry's errant throw has unstitched the bonds that holds their lives together. Now, all that remains is to see if their suffering -- and they are suffering mightily -- can lead to triumph.

The Art of Fielding is baseball as a metaphor for life, but it would be wrong to dismiss it as only that. Harbach has written a book of rare generosity, insight and skill.  The characters are vivid and in the course of 500 pages we come to care for them deeply.  The narrative arc is as beautiful as a well-thrown baseball -- the novel ends as it begins with Schwartz and Henry together on the baseball diamond.

And the themes that emerge -- the value of suffering in our lives, the need to strive for perfection, the importance of friendship and love -- tell a story as eloquent and as complete as that most elusive no-hitter.

Book 109: Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie 

In Luka and the Fire of Life, Salman Rushdie joins the family of notable authors who have tried their hand at juvenile fiction.  

It is a clumsy and disappointing for such an accomplished writer.

Luka's father is dying.  The 12-year-old enters the Magic World to steal the fire of life, which will restore his father's health.

Rushdie's Magic World is a mish-mash of old gods, legends and myths that will be lost on most of the book's young readers.  In a futile effort to appeal to those same readers, Luka's quest is presented as a video game.  Soon after entering the Magic World, Luka discovers that he can accumulate hundreds of lives and that he can "save" stages of his progress.

That overlay -- of a video game -- feels as if Rushdie did not have confidence in his main story.  That lack of assurance is justified, but the author's effort to modernize the quest fails too.

Just My Type is, well, just my type

Book 103: Just My Type by Simon Garfield

 If you have a favorite typeface -- and I do -- than Simon Garfield's Just My Type, subtitled A Book About Fonts, is the book for you.

If you don't have a favorite typeface, you might after reading Garfield's book. It's a fascinating look at how fonts are created, their importance in everything from branding products to signage and their recent proliferation due to the emergence of the home computer. 

No surprise that the brilliant Steve Jobs and his first Macintosh computer make a cameo appearance in the introduction. That Macintosh, loaded with a choice of fonts, "was the beginning of something," Garfield writes, "a seismic shift in our everyday relationship with letters and with type. An innovation that, within another decade or so, would place the word 'font' . . .  in the vocabulary of every computer user."

My favorite font is Palatino, a serif typeface designed by Herman Zapf. Release in 1948, Palatino is prized for its legibility and is one of the 10 most widely used serif typefaces. Zapf also later created Zapf Dingbats -- and who hasn't found a use that font?

Book 107: Stan Musial An American Life by George Vecsey

Stan Musial, one of the greatest ballplayers in the history of the game, deserves better than this disappointing biography by George Vecsey.

It feels as if Vecsey collected a few anecdotes, assembled them in chronological order and -- Voila! -- a biography of Musial.  

Yes, some of the anecdotes are entertaining. Very much so.  Baseball anecdotes have that attribute about them.  But this book simply doesn't compare with the fine biographies of Yogi Berra and Roger Maris that emerged last year.

Supergods disappoints

Book 101: Supergods by Grant Morrison

For this kid who has devoured comic books for the best part of six decades, contemplating Grant Morrison's survey of the history of comics was like the promise of a hot bath after a long run.

The trouble is sooner or later the bath water always cools. 

Supergods is launched faster than a speeding bullet as Morrison opens with the creation of the sun god, Superman, and four chapters that comprise a brilliant exposition on the Golden Age of Comics.

The Silver Age, which is where I enter the picture, follows in equally brilliant fashion. Morrison serves up Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, the Fantastic Four and Spider-man. Marvel madness grips the world of comics, and it's never the same again.

(In the interest of disclosure: I am a Marvel fan.  Make Mine Marvel. It's clobbering time. etc. etc. etc.)

It's in the final two sections  -- The Dark Age and The Renaissance -- that the book falters.  What began as an astute history of the comic books becomes Morrison's personal story.  

Some overlap between the two is expected -- Morrison is a towering figure in the industry today, but an unpleasant smugness filters through the book in the final half. Morrison begins to channel Dire Straits (money for nothing and chicks for free.)

That's bad enough, but what had been a balanced and thoughtful approach to comics goes a bubble off level as Morrison contemplates his peers.  Morrison isn't a great fan of Alan Moore's The Watchmen. (For what it's worth -- neither am I.). He's willing to acknowledge the impact Moore's had on comics, but that's about as much as he'll concede.  Frankly, he's a bit pissy about Moore's success.

Some of us feel that way about Morrison. I didn't like his work on the Justice League or Batman & Robin. I thought it a bit overrated.  WE3 was clever, but I'm starting to realize that it's the work of illustrator Frank Quitely, not Morrison's writing, that draws me in.

Back to Supergods.  It's OK. Only that.  Starts strong, but tapers off.

In the current parlance of comics, Morrison is no meta-human.

The Sense of an Ending a haunting, beautiful novel

Book 98: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Like an aging welterweight, The Sense of an Ending is lean, slow of foot, but scrappy, hanging around until author Julian Barnes can deliver one final devastating punch for the knock-out.

Shortlisted for the 2011 Booker Prize, The Sense of an Ending begins with Tony Webster recalling his school days when Tony and his two pals are joined by Adrian Finn, "a tall, shy boy who initially kept his eyes down and his mind to himself" and who the fulcrum of this slim novel.

Adrian is the kind of boy all the others want to be like.  Self-possessed and clearly smarter than his mates he seems destined for certain success.

In university, Adrian begins dating Tony's former girlfriend. Later, Tony learns that Adrian has killed himself.

Tony marries, has one child -- a daughter -- and later divorces his wife, although they remain friends. Tony leads an altogether bland existence.  He goes to great lengths to avoid the upsets common to most lives. He is smugly proud of his ability to live a life that is comfortable, yet also free of any meaningful relationship.

Tony's comfort is disrupted when he receives an unusual bequest -- a gift of money from his former girlfriend's mother and Adrian's diary.  The money is quickly paid, but the girl friend, now a dour woman, withholds the diary and later burns it.

Tony is determined to unravel this minor mystery.  Why did a woman whom he'd met only once leave him a small gift of money on her death? What was in the diary? Why did Adrian take his life?

Tony makes several guesses, all of them wrong.  The answers, which Barnes skillfully withholds until the pages -- are unexpected and powerful. The impact lingers long. For Tony. For the reader.  

As Barnes writes in the closing of this haunting, yet beautiful novel:

"You get towards the end of life . . . There is accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond these, there is unrest. There is great unrest."

Two mystery writers deliver gripping tales, one falters

Peter Robinson, Steve Hamilton and Lee Child -- three great mystery writers, but one of them let me down. 

Book 102: Before the Poison by Peter Robinson 

A few pages into Robinson's newest mystery, Before the Poison, and I was waiting for DCI Banks to take the stage. He never did. 

Ultimately, I realized Robinson's new book is not a part of the Inspector Banks series, but a one-off. 

Chris Lowndes composes musical scores for movies.  After the death of his beloved wife, he's flees L.A. for a remote estate in his native England.  He soon learns that the large house he purchased has a history.  

Fifty odd years ago, on a snowy night, the local doctor died in the house.  At first it appeared to be a massive heart attack, but suspicions were raised, leading police to believe the doctor was murdered by his wife. She was convicted and hung.

The solitary Lowndes hears things go bump in the night. Then he starts to see things.

Now it appears Robinson has written a ghost story. But it doesn't take many pages to realize the book that isn't an Inspector Banks mystery, isn't not ghost story either.  And that's the problem with Before the Poison. It's not much of a mystery.

Lowndes sets out to prove that the doctor's wife is innocent. Innocent or guilty there's nothing at stake here. She's long dead, and any evidence long-vanished. There's no ghost to exorcise and nothing, absolutely nothing, riding on the outcome.

It's unusual to encounter such a disappointing effort from Robinson.  I've often felt his long-running Inspector Banks series was the equal to the work of Ian Rankin.  But Before the Poison doesn't come up to par. Both Lowndes and Robinson would have been better off leaving this mystery unsolved.

Book 105: The Hunting Wind by Steve Hamilton 

Each book by Hamilton in his Alex McKnight series is better than the last. In the case of The Hunting Wind, the first McKnight mystery not in the Upper Peninsula -- this one's set in the Lower Peninsula --  it all starts with the first sentence:

"When the left-hander found me, I was sitting in my usual chair in front of the fire, trying to stay warm."

The left-hander and McKnight haven't seen one another in some 30 years when they were teammates in the minor leagues. The left-hander was a pitcher with a trick pitch and McKnight was his catcher.

Now, 30 years later, the left-hander needs McKnight's help again. He spins a story of a search for a long lost love.  Of course, his tale tends to be as unreliable as his pitch once was and McKnight is caught up in a deadly mystery.

The pitcher may not deliver, but Hamilton does.

Book 106: The Affair by Lee Child 

A few books ago I thought Lee Child might have jumped the shark.  His Jack Reacher series just didn't have the spark that characterized a dozen earlier efforts.

Boy, was I wrong.

The Affair is vintage Lee Child. Vintage Reacher.  Not only for the quality of this altogether gripping thriller, but it's set in 1997. Reacher's still part of the U.S. Army and dispatched to a military outpost in Mississippi after a women is murdered.

It's not the only murder. There were others. In his efforts to solve the murders, Reacher is caught between the military, who are convinced the murders are the work of a local, and the local sheriff, who is convinced the murders were the work of a solider.

Did I mention the local sheriff is a retired Marine, and that she's hot?  

No one writes quite like Lee Child and no one has a character quite like Reacher.  Unique -- that's the word to describe this series and this book. Also, fast-paced, gripping and fun.  Jumped the shark, my ass.

A story started in Reservation Road concludes in Northwest Corner

Book 97: Reservation Road by John Burnham Schwartz

Book 104: Northwest Corner by John Burnham Schwartz

Guilt, not grief, is the emotion that runs through John Burnham Schwartz's story of a 10-year-old boy who is struck and killed by a hit and run driver.

It is not only the driver of the car who experiences guilt, but the dead boy's father and mother and little sister.  Each one is imprisoned by a mantra of "if only."

If only I had not had to pee. If only I had ordered him away from the highway. If only . . .  It is a sad and isolating refrain that rings true, yet is truly false. We cannot know if the smallest change in behavior by a member of Josh Learner's family on that summer evening could have saved him.  

That might have made an interesting story, but it is not the one Schwartz chose to write. Instead, equally engrossing, is his account of how guilt fractures the lives, marriages, careers and relationships of those near to Josh's unfortunate death; not only the Learner family, but Dwight Arno, who was driving the car that struck Josh.

We see the slow dissolution of the Learner marriage. The couple is buried so deeply in their individual grief and guilt that they are unable to find solace in one another. Already divorced when we meet him, Dwight Arno is a dissolute man whose life, already fraying at the edges, now unravels entirely.

Saddest of all is the impact on the Learner's daughter, Emily, and Dwight's son, Sam. It is as if three children died that night.  

Unable to comfort themselves, there is no chance that the Learners can comfort Emily. The reader hopes that she is the light that will lead them away from their despond. If you can't shake your grief on your own do it for Emily. Instead, they grow increasingly remote. 

Between his fear of losing his son and his violent responses, Dwight steadily pushes Sam away.

Some of the questions unanswered in Reservation Road are resolved in Northwest Corner, which revisits the characters 12 years later.  (Real time and fictional time are almost identical. Reservation Road was released in 1998. Northwest Corner appears in the bookstores 13 years later.)

The story focuses largely on the Arnos.  Sam, about to graduate college in Connecticut, unexpectedly shows up on his father's doorstep in California.  He has been involved in a bar fight. His assailant, another student, is near death in a local hospital.

Dwight's life is back on track, following a brief prison sentence. Sam's sudden reappearance in his life is welcome, yet threatens to undermine the shaky foundation on which Dwight's life rests.

Has the violence Dwight exhibited during Sam's childhood tainted the boy's entire life? How do Dwight and Sam bridge a gulf created by distance, lies, prison and violence? Will Sam be just another victim of that summer night when Josh Learner died and Dwight Arno fled in confusion and fear?

To answer these questions would be to deny the reader the pleasure of discovering the answers for himself. It is enough to say that the story which started in Reservation Road with a violent death concludes in Northwest Corner with promise and a kiss.

Homicide Survivors Picnic a noteworthy story collection

Two story collections; one I can recommend and one I cannot.

Book 94: Not the End of the World by Kate Atkinson

The one I cannot recommend, and it pains me to say this, is by Kate Atkinson.  I'm something of a fanboy of Ms. Atkinson.  This collection of stories, released in 2002, comes almost exactly midway between several very fine novels.

Atkinson's skill with the long form does not translate to the short story. Oh, there's a couple of stories worth reading here, but only a couple.   

The exquisite work in miniature exhibited by the best practitioners of the short story (Alice Munro and William Trevor come to mind) is simply missing from the dozen stories assembled here.

Book 100: Homicide Survivors Picnic by Lorraine M. Lopez

This story collection from Lorraine Lopez was shortlisted for the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. 

Facing strong competition from Sherman Alexie (War Dances), Lorrie Moore (A Gate at the Stairs) and Barbara Kingsolver (The Lacuna), it didn't win. Alexie won the prize. He'd win about any competition that I juried. 

Still, I'd place Lopez's work squarely in the middle of the five shortlisted titles. Behind Alexie and Kingsolver, ahead of Moore and Colson Whitehead (Sag Harbor).

Lopez is an observant writer, who must have a stint as a social worker in her background.  Many of the stories, including the title piece, Batterers and Human Services, are drawn from that milieu.  

The stories are sympathetic and knowing, yet the characters' excuses and rationalizations don't give them a free pass. The reader is able to hold them to account as a result of Lopez's insight and intelligence. Through the candid lens of her writing we know the characters better than they know themselves.

Newest books by Pelecanos and Penny reflect care and craftsmanship

Little wonder that the mystery genre is so wildly popular. It's a big house with accommodations for a range of styles and approaches.  No better example exists than the two books below -- one a hard-boiled thriller, the other a classic mystery in the tradition of the English cozy. Both reflects the care and craftsmanship of their authors. Both are superb reads.

Book 96: The Cut by George Pelecanos

With a nod to noir, D.C. writer George Pelecanos returns to his roots in The Cut. 

Pelecanos's most recent novels foundered in a high-minded bid to attain a level of moral instruction. That's gone.  His new character, a veteran of "I-raq", is a man of action and moral relativism. He has no qualms about the bodies he leaves in his wake nor his mission to restore stolen drugs to a jailed dealer. Neither will the reader.

With its smooth, jazz-like dialogue, a narrative that sweeps along at breakneck pace and scenes of sudden, explosive violence, The Cut recalls Pelecanos's first four novels, commonly known as the D.C. quartet. It also demonstrates the degree that Pelecanos's work as a writer on HBO's The Wire now influences his novels through concision, focus and pace.

Pelecanos celebrates his return to hard-boiled thrillers and lays claim to his literary heritage. Within the course of the novel he gives a chin nod to Elmore Leonard (Spero's brother is teaching Leonard's Unknown Man #89 to his high school class), Daniel Woodrell and Willy Vlautin (Spero presents a love interest with copies of The Death of Sweet Mister and Lean on Pete. Are you sending a message, she asks. "Good clean writing," says Spero) and Donald Westlake (with a reference to The Hunter, written under Westlake's pseudonym Richard Stark).

He also acknowledges a couple of characters who have served him well in past thrillers -- Derek Strange and Nick Stefanos. Stefanos was the narrator of Pelecanos's first three novels. Strange was a lead character in a number of the novels that followed.  These two may reappear. For now, it's enough to know that Spero "had heard tell of the man, Derek Strange, and his latest partner, a middle-aged Greek whose name he could not recall."

The Cut contains many of the stylistic touches that distinguish a novel by Pelecanos -- the street-level tour through Washington, D.C. and references to food and music. In one sense, there's nothing new to The Cut. It's simply a welcome return to the mean streets Pelecanos has traveled so artfully in the past.

Book 99: A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny  

I don't know which is more absurd -- that the denouement of Louise Penny's new mystery comes on a dark and stormy night with the all the suspects assembled by a crackling fire or that it works.

Because it does work. Just as it has worked so well in her past novels. Penny embraces the elements of the traditional English cozy and then rises above those conventions with an intelligent plot and vivid characters to produce a compelling mystery.

Penny's greatest strength lies in her characters.  Despite the large number of characters that populate her novels by simple necessity -- there's the homicide investigation team, the inhabitants of Three Pines and those figures we meet because of the demands of the current story -- Penny manages to give them each distinct personalities.

I cannot recall another author of a continuing series who has been as successful as Penny in telling the stories of each of her recurring characters.  She works at an almost leisurely pace, introducing their back story, their passions and peccadilloes, over the course of several books. Each character gets their turn in the spotlight.

Penny's gift is to create characters the reader cares about. We cannot wait to know what happens next in their lives. What does the future hold? What events are soon to unfold in the village of Three Pines?

On several occasions in A Trick of the Light, characters observe that Three Pines isn't on any map. No matter. Any admirer of intelligent, well-written mysteries knows the way to this small Canadian village.

Closing in on TBR Pile Challenge

More progress this past week in the Internet reading challenge issued by The Roof Beam Reader. I dipped into the alternates list, reading John Burnham Schwartz's Reservation Road.

The 2011 TBR (To Be Read) Pile Challenge is to read 12 books from your to-be-read pile in 12 months. The challenge began in February, so I am in good position with several months remaining.

This is where I stand:

1. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
2. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
3. War and Peace by Mr. Tolstoy
4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
5. The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker
6. Under the Dome by Stephen King
7. White Noise by Don Delillo
8. Yogi Berra Eternal Yankee by Allen Barra
9. The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
10. Winter in the Blood by James Welch
11. Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson
12. Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson

Alternates:
Reservation Road by John Burnham Schwartz
Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich

Men dominate women in personal reading habits

I could do better.

Earlier today I stumbled on the website of VIDA Women in the Literary Arts. Founded in 2009, VIDA seeks “to address the need for female writers of literature to engage in conversations regarding the critical reception of women’s creative writing in our current culture.”

Recently, they’ve been pointing out the imbalance between the sexes in publication rates in “literary” periodicals such as The Best American Short Stories, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s and Granta. 

Surprise! Men dominate women across the board.

Which led me to wonder about my reading rate.  How many women authors to I read compared to men?

Surprise! Men dominate women across the board. 

More than two-thirds of my reading is by male authors.  In fiction, 50 books by men compared to 24 females. In non-fiction, 15 books by men and 7 by women. (A total of 96 books. Among my current reading -- two men and one woman.)

Frankly, I am surprised. I thought my reading would include more women.  I like female authors. Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood are among my favorite writers. I don't discriminate according to sex, at least consciously.

In my current reading, several authors, both male and female, were read more than once. In 2011, I’ve read four books by Louise Penny and two by Steve Hamilton because I’m working through their complete oeuvre.

The roster of female authors is solid. With works by Kate Atkinson (2) and Ann Patchett – again two of my favorite writers. Note – that's two of my favorite writers, not two of my favorite female writers. 

There’s also Jennifer Egan, Karen Russell, Siobhan Fallon and Lee Smith. Fallon’s short story collection currently ranks as the best collection of short stories I’ve read this year. Smith’s is close behind and has the distinction of penning the funniest story I believe I have ever read.

I’m not only surprised by the dominance of men over women in my reading, but disappointed. Some of the imbalance has to do with genre fiction. I’ve read a lot sci-fi this year, but only one book in that genre by a woman – Sherri Tepper. Yet she’s not the only female sci-fi writer.

I read a lot of mysteries too – Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, George Pelecanos, but there’s also Louise Penny, Laura Lippman and Jan Burke.  Still, more men than women.

My survey won’t change my reading habits immediately. The truth is I rarely consider whether a certain book is written by a man or woman.

Maybe it’s time that changed.

Four books yet to be read in reading challenge

In the final four months of 2011, I have only four books left to read in the Internet reading challenge issued by The Roof Beam Reader.

The 2011 TBR (To Be Read) Pile Challenge is to read 12 books from your to-be-read pile in 12 months. The challenge began in February, so I am in good position with several months remaining.

I start one of the alternates, John Burnham Schwartz's Reservation Road, tomorrow.

This is where I stand:

1. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
2. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
3. War and Peace by Mr. Tolstoy
4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
5. The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker
6. Under the Dome by Stephen King
7. White Noise by Don Delillo
8. Yogi Berra Eternal Yankee by Allen Barra
9. The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
10. Winter in the Blood by James Welch
11. Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson
12. Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson

Alternates:
Reservation Road by John Burnham Schwartz
Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich

Rowling's Harry Potter isn't all that magical

Book 93: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Book 95: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

I've done it. I've read them. Two books about that famous Potter boy. The one with the scar like a lightning bolt on his forehead. The one who had all those muzzy adolescents standing in line at midnight waiting for his next book to be issued. The one who starred in those movies.

O.K. Exactly what was all the excitement about?

Typical isn't it? Late to the party and now chippy about it.  Would I have been so snarky if I'd stumbled on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when it first appeared on the shelves of the local bookstores. Admittedly, I have the benefit of hindsight, but the books aren't all that well written (there is hope that the writing improves with each successive book) and they aren't terribly original.

That lack of originality is part of the appeal. Rowling's genius is not in unveiling something entirely new, but in repackaging something old.  Just as Harry stumbled on the Chamber of Secrets, she's stumbled on an ancient formula that compels 12-year-olds to read voraciously. 

In these two books, and I assume throughout the series, Rowling appeals to the fantasy life of the typical adolescent. A fantasy life that has nothing to be with magic or basilisks, flying cars or Sorting Hats, but everything to do with the perception that NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME, NO ONE APPRECIATES ME, and NO ONE KNOWS HOW REALLY, REALLY SPECIAL I AM. 

Here's two things I think Rowling got spot on:

1. Potter's an orphan. Brilliant. He lives with a family of Muggles -- the sobriquet for us non-magical sort -- who don't like him, who don't recognize there's anything special about him and who won't let him exercise his special gifts i.e. talking to snakes and other magical stuff.

Harry finds a new family, and friends, once's he packed off to Hogwarts. I cast Hagrid as the mother and Dumbledore as the father.

Think about it. What's the first thing Hagrid does after meeting Harry? He takes him shopping for school supplies. Bet, you did that with your mum. He's always quick to offer a refreshing cup of tea and bit of advice. Dumbledore is the stern, but supportive father. He know it's best if Harry learns for himself, but he's there in the background, with a vanishing cloak or a phoenix to hand, should Harry need help extricating himself from a spot of  bother.

2. Anyone can develop magical powers.  There are entire families with magical ability, true, but Harry's mother's parents were Muggles. The same is true for that Hermione Granger. My God! Her parents are dentists.  You can't get LESS magical than that, yet she's the star pupil of Hogwarts. (I won't add a third point and get into all that suppressed sexuality that the films tap into in such marvelous fashion.)

But if anyone can develop magical powers, if a genetic line of succession isn't necessary, why I could become a powerful sorcerer. You could as well.  It's all there, bubbling below the surface, especially for our typical 12-year-old who doesn't understand those strange feelings he/she is experiencing is called puberty and is not one damn bit magical.

I understand that down the line the books in the Potter series grow fatter and darker.  I suppose I'll read them, but I don't feel any rush (that might require a tidy little compulsion spell, I suppose) now that I've satisifed my curiousity.

One aisde: The Guardian (a Brit newspaper) recently conducted a poll to see who was the favorite Harry Potter character. The winner was Severus Snape. Hermione was second and Harry was fourth -- a distant fourth. 

Two thoughts on the poll: Harry is a rather innocuous character, which I think is by design.  The less well drawn he is, the easier it is for our 12-year-old audience to identify with him. He's an everyman. We can all wear Harry's cloak.

The second thought is that the vote was driven more by the movies than the book.  In the movies, with his sneer and upturned brow, Alan Rickman is superb as Snape.  He makes the character come alive. Snape's rather one dimensional in the books (at least these first two). He doesn't like Harry and he's the source of suspicious when anything nasty happens. Convenient that.

Chernow's Washington a fat, but fine biography

Book 92: Washington by Ron Chernow 

The writing is serviceable, the research impeccable and the portrayal of the man, who even in his lifetime was proclaimed "The Father of His Country," is balanced.

And its title is the smallest thing about Washington, Ron Chernow's biography of George Washington. This book is fat.

As these things go, it's not morbidly obese. There's 817 pages of text. With notes, bibliography, index and other addendum the entire book stretches to 904 pages. And it's a single volume, not three. 

Still, it felt as if it took as long just to read Chernow's lengthy section on Washington leadership during the Revolutionary War as it did for that first wrangle with the British to play out. (Nine years if you've forgotten your high school civics.)

In a brisk 294 pages, David McCullough gives us a lively -- and sufficient -- account of one critical year in the war in his 2005 history 1776.  James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn neatly summarize Washington's entire presidency in fewer than 160 pages in George Washington -- their entry in the uniformly stellar American Presidents Series by Times Books.

Such comparisons are not entirely fair, or apt.  Chernow is furnishing us with an updated biography of the entire life of Gen. George, while McCullough, Burns and Dunn are providing us with snapshots. Yet the problems inherent in such a lengthy work remain, and that is the author's tendency to include material that is extraneous and to be repetitive.

Do we really need to know in whose home George stayed during a certain winter of the war? Let me answer that -- it's on a need to know basis and no one needs to know.

Chernow tends to repeat certain points that he wants to make. He's like the proverbial Chicago voter who goes to the polls early and often. Themes that are repeated include Washington's bad teeth, his icy reserve that hides a violent temper and a sentimental streak, his flirtations that came up to the line but never crossed it (as far as we know, let it be understood: George liked the ladies) and George's profligate spending.  (He also liked nice stuff.)

On a positive note, Chernow, who also wrote a fine and fat biography of Alexander Hamilton in 2004, knows this cast of characters especially well.  He is adept at helping us understand the tempestuous relationships between George, Hamilton, John Adams, Jefferson and Madison.

He makes the political struggle between the Federalists and Republicans vivid and current, and neatly explains many of the heated issues of the day from Citizen Genet to Shay's Rebellion to Washington's distrust of political parties.

Chernow's Washington is a solid biography and a worthy read. It all comes down to a reader's willingness to devote a considerable chunk of time to one book.