Skulduggery Pleasant

I was wandering around Partners and Crime, and found a book called Skulduggery Pleasant on a table.  I bought it yesterday afternoon, completely on the strength of the book jacket whimsy, and stayed up very late last night reading it.  It’s a goofy, slightly supernatural mystery.  I laughed at several turns of phrase, particularly a boy described as having “unfortunate ears.”

A walking, talking skeleton is a private eye in Dublin.  A twelve year old girl wants him to solve the mystery of her uncle’s murder.  It would be a good pickfor pre-teen or young adult readers, but will appeal to adults too: fans of Harry Potter or the Dresden Files.

Book Critics and the Blogosphere

Very interesting article from salon.com, about the idea of “the death of the critic,” how book reviews are changing as blogs and the internet become a forum for discussion. I’m still digesting the article, but I particularly like this bit from Louis Bayard:

“I now want to read more of Northrop Frye, who fired this sterling round of grapeshot at T.S. Eliot for fiddling with the canon of great writers: “…all the literary chit-chat which makes the reputations of poets boom and crash in an imaginary stock-exchange. The wealthy investor, Mr. Eliot, after dumping Milton on the market, is now buying him again; Donne has probably reached his peak and will begin to taper off; Tennyson may be in for a slight flutter but the Shelley stocks are still bearish. This sort of thing cannot be part of any systematic study, for a systematic study can only progress: whatever dithers or vacillates or reacts is merely leisure-class gossip.” Of course, I take Frye’s thematic point — the vagaries of taste are a fickle criterion for evaluation — but I’m more impressed by the dazzling execution of that stock-market metaphor and that ever-so-subtle colon in the last sentence. Anyone who wants to write about writing should be able to write.”

Mostly because it makes me picture John Donne throwing his arms about and making stock-trader gestures, with lace cuffs peeking out from his jacket.

Shortest Book Review Ever

I’m beginning to work with the Bernardsville Bookworm, a privately owned bookstore in Bernardsville, N.J. The review length they need from me is one or two sentences. Distilling the essence of the book and the reading experience that far is a challenging, fun exercise. Hopefully, it will make me better at writing longer reviews with more clarity and precision.

Life After Hogwarts (A Harry Potter Reading List)

Life after Hogwarts
Some selections to further your studies in magical worlds

By ELIZABETH WILLSE
FOR THE STAR-LEDGER

Some selections to further your studies in magical worlds

This is it. You have turned the last page of the last adventure of The Boy Who Lived, and his battle against You-Know- Who. From now on, there will be no more waiting in long, cheerful lines or pouncing on your mail carrier to get the next volume in Harry’s adventures.

You can, and probably will, read past editions over and over. But what do you do to get that thrill of turning the page for the first time, the fizzy rush of the unknown?

All is not lost. There is still magic, alive and well in bookstores and libraries. And, for all the many reasons you love Harry Potter, there is something on a bookshelf, waiting for you to read it the first time.

Here is a sampling of alternatives, recom¬mended mostly for younger readers.

If you love Harry Potter for the delicious dark and spooky chill whenever You-Know-Who comes on the scene, you will like:

The Dark Is Rising series, by Susan Cooper. All but the very youngest Harry fans will want to stay up late reading “Over Sea, Under Stone” (Aladdin, 2000), and the rest of the four-volume series set in Cornwall.

The adventures of the three Drew children, led by their uncle Gumerry (who resembles Dumbledore, if you squint) touch on Arthurian legend, art theft and ancient magic. Good for reading under the covers with a flashlight.

If you love Harry Potter for the sweet whimsy of chocolate frogs, pumpkin juice and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, you will like:

“Boy,” Roald Dahl’s memoirs (Puffin, 2001). Younger readers might find his early family his¬tory intense, but Muggles 11 years and older will be fascinated, especially by the sweet shop filled with gobstoppers, humbugs, licorice boot laces, and lemon sherbet fizzes.

With your literary sweet tooth, and fondness for things British, you have probably already read “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (Puffin, 1998).

If you love Harry Potter for:

The scene where Hagrid yells at the Dursleys and gives Dudley a pigtail, or for Harry’s meeting with his godfather, Sirius Black, you will like:

“Coraline,” by Neil Gaiman (Harper Perennial 2006). Bored, Coraline discovers a secret passage that leads to a very familiar- looking house. It’s the house of her other mother, and other father, with big, creepy black buttons for eyes. A satisfying, creepy tale that makes you appreciate home and family, no matter how boring they might be.

If you love Harry Potter, but want to bring your magic a little closer to home, you will like:

The Young Wizards’ Series, by Diane Duane. “So You Want To Be A Wizard,” (Magic Carpet Books, 2003) introduces Kit and Nita, two kids from Long Island who discover a book called “So You Want To Be A Wizard.” Taking the Wizard’s Oath to use magic “In Life’s Name and For Life’s Sake” sends them on a battle against the Lone Power, in a menacing alternate version of New York City. Kit and Nita’s adventures continue across eight more books, taking them all over the East Coast, to Ireland, and even to outer space.

If you love Harry Potter for kids saving the world, with or without magic, you will like:

“Ender’s Game,” by Orson Scott Card (ATOM New Edition). Ender and his friends at the Battle School are training to save the world from aliens known only as “Buggers.” To practice military strategy, they simulate battles in zero-gravity. Until they find out their mock battles are more real than they suspected.

If you love Harry Potter for Dobby, Firenze, (and maybe want a few magical creatures of your own) you will like:

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, beginning with “The Golden Compass” (Yearling, 2001). A deliciously spooky atmosphere permeates the adventures of Lyra, offset by the whimsy of the talking daemons (animal familiars) each wizard at Jordan College possesses.

If you love Harry Potter for:

Reading aloud, or curling up cozily with, you will like:

“In The Wizard’s Hall,” by Jane Yolen (Magic Carpet Books 1999). A sweet story of a young wizard named Thornmallow, who enters the Wizards Hall without much aptitude for magic. But he tries, and ultimately, that perseverance, more than any magical talent, wins the day.

And for adult fans

• “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell,” Susanna Clarke (Tor Books). Too slow by far, but works as both a novel of manners and a novel of magic. Pretends to be a history of British magic in the 19th century, with footnotes referencing imaginary scholarly works of magical study. It is rewarding to the patient reader.
• “Deep Secret,” Diana Wynne Jones (Starscape). Rupert Venable is the Junior Magid on Earth, charged with maintaining the balance of magic in the world. When the Senior Magid dies, Rupert is charged with finding a new Junior Magid.
• “Wyrd Sisters,” Terry Pratchett (HarperTorch). Friends of Harry can use this as a first stop into Pratchett’s Discworld series, complete with three witches: snide Granny Weatherwax, raucous Nanny Ogg and ditzy Magrat Garlick. Tangled Shakespearean plots of meddling, romance and mistaken identity, and sometimes raunchy humor.
• “Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch,” Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (HarperTorch). How’s this for a plot: The Antichrist is delivered to the wrong family by a batty Satanist nun. Not to worry. Aziraphale the angel and Crowley the demon join forces to prevent the Antichrist from launching the battle that will end the world.
• “The Crystal Cave,” Mary Stewart (Eos). Merlin’s boyhood, infused with ancient British history and Druidic lore. Later books in the series are too violent and sexy for younger readers. “The Science of Harry Potter,” Roger Highfield (Headline Book Publishing). Examines the physics, biology and history that might explain the Potter magic, and traces the history of people’s beliefs in magic. Worth browsing.
• “Storm Front,” Jim Butcher, (Roc). Introduces Harry Dresden, private investigator and practicing wizard, awash in missing persons and drug wars in Chicago. Satisfying blend of supernatural elements and the grouchy private eye.

A Remarkable Mother (book review)

Memorable moms: Miss Lillian’s well-lived life

A Remarkable Mother
by Jimmy Carter
Simon & Schuster, 209 pp., $22.95
reviewed by Elizabeth Willse for the Star-Ledger
May 11, 2008
537 words

Former President Jimmy Carter’s memoir/biography of his mother is aptly titled, for he certainly presents Lillian Gordy Carter as both a remarkable mother and a remarkable woman. It also is an engaging volume with a keen sense of American history as well as family warmth, set out in charming and readable prose.

Lillian’s story spans almost the entire 20th century, from her girlhood in rural Georgia through a nursing career that continued as she raised her children. But her later years are perhaps the most intriguing; she was nearly 70 when she volunteered with the Peace Corps in India. Later, during her son’s presidential term, she assumed a unique diplomatic role.

Her sharp wit and determined individuality leap from the pages, as her son recounts the stories that add up to a well-lived life.

Lillian Gordy Carter was a working mother decades before the description came into vogue. The former president describes his mother’s strong belief in her work that taught him and his siblings a sense of self-sufficient responsibility during her long hospital shifts. Her nursing career provides him with the background to write about concerns of social justice without sounding preachy.

Many diseases that are now preventable or treatable were previously deadly, and those borne by vermin were of particular concern to Lillian. She “ignored the pervasive restraints of racial segregation,” treating all patients equally in her segregated Southern town. Her son credits her nursing work with inspiring his own contributions to public health and charity.

In her late 60s, Lillian volunteered for the Peace Corps, working in Vikhroli, India, distributing birth control pamphlets and advice on vasectomies. After struggling with her study of Hindi, she figured out a way to create a dialogue presenting the concepts she wanted to translate — as a puppet show. She also pursued the nursing work she loved in a local clinic.

At Carter’s inauguration, the press asked Lillian whether she was proud of her son. “Which one?” she famously retorted.

The later chapters, detailing Lillian’s role in her son’s presidential campaign, are particularly intriguing in an election year. It is hard to imagine an entire family campaigning the way the Carters did, meeting with a largely laudatory press along the way. (That, most of all, illustrates how much has changed.) Woven throughout this volume is a keen sense of history and historical context.

Since his term as the nation’s 39th president, Jimmy Carter has written a number of books, with topics ranging from faith to public policy to social justice to the only work of fiction ever penned by a U.S. president. His easygoing, conversational prose is especially appropriate in this memoir, lending coziness and warmth to his reminiscences. His writing style and conviction convey his message of social justice and the strength of his family’s faith without sanctimony or preachiness.

What makes this volume shine, though, is his mother’s own voice, whether in her letters home from India or in excerpts from the interviews she gave throughout her son’s political career. Throughout her life, Lillian Gordy Carter was generous, outspoken, charming and fiercely independent. This book is a testament to a strong family and the thoughtful, adventurous life of a woman who was, inarguably, a remarkable mother.

The English American (book review)

International Relations

The English American

Alison Larkin

Simon and Schuster, 336 pp, $24.95

Review Date: 4/20/2008
Word Count: 529

“The English American” is an engaging, highly readable tale of one woman’s search for love and a place in the world.

Twenty-eight-year-old Pippa Dunn is searching for herself and her roots. She navigates an international bureaucratic tangle and the clashes of culture that erupt when a British woman explodes into the life of a Southern-born artist mother and a world-traveling father. But the answers she seeks run deeper than the search for her birth parents.

Along the way, she is looking for love, acceptance and not just a country, but a sense of belonging and home. Tall, red-haired, messy and freewheeling, Pippa has always felt different from her very proper British adoptive parents. Learning her birth parents were American is no comfort. After all, she went to a posh British boarding school, knows how to pour a proper cuppa, and would rather suffer in stoic British silence than explain any of these feelings to her adoptive parents or their biological daughter.

Feeling rootless, confusing and confused, Pippa begins the search for her birth parents. Her quest takes her to upstate New York, rural Georgia and back to an England she can’t quite call home anymore.

Her birth mother and father embrace the adult Pippa with laughter, joyous tears and amazement at the litany of traits she shares with each of them. It should be perfect — her roots found, her dream realized.

But is a red-haired mother who embraces Pippa’s messiness as artistic and creative a mirror or a distortion? And what about the warm welcome from a globe-trotting father who scarcely has time for his own marriage and children? Can Pippa get all the answers she needs in the 24-hour layover before his flight out of Heathrow? And will having found her birth parents really ease all her uncertainties?

“The English American” explores questions of adoption rights and national identity. Larkin already has made a name for herself recounting these events in a one- woman stage production, and in the discussion of adoption rights taking place in online communities.

Adoptees navigating the search for their own birth parents will identify with Pippa’s frustration as she works her way through the bureaucratic process. Adoptees will empathize with the hopes and impatience that distract her from her ordinary life as she waits for her birth parents to contact her. Larkin portrays Pippa’s doubts and emotions so vividly they will resonate with any reader.

While the romantic subplot, de tailing Pippa’s choices between dashing, romantic Nick and steady, friendly Jack, follows predictable lines, it provides a counterpoint to her search. Finding a balance between her idealized visions and the nuanced realities of romance echoes the equilibrium she seeks between birth parents, the parents who loved and raised her and her sense of self.

Complex characters who are hopeful, flawed and full of good in tentions that don’t always succeed are the novel’s greatest strength. They temper the romanticized elements quite nicely, figuring in Pip pa’s romantic tribulations as well as the consuming search for her roots. Flawed but earnest characters blend with questions about family, culture and the search for self to deepen and enrich the sweetness of this wish-fulfillment romance.