Reading list, October - December 2019

Michael Hague, Book of Dragons. NY: Wm. Morrow & Co, 1995.

This collection, seventeen selected excerpts and retellings of tales about the great winged fire-breathing creatures, is illustrated with both black-and-white drawings and full-color scenes. Ranging from ancient China to twentieth-century England, it shows how dragons, even now, exert a universal attraction.


Christopher Moore, Lamb. NY: Wm. Morrow, 2002.

This gospel, as told by Christ’s childhood friend Biff, shows what the other versions don’t: the years between thirteen and thirty-three. These years are consumed by a search for answers, as Jesus travels east to find the wise men who came to honor his birth. During this time, he learns alchemy and kung fu, and he attains enlightenment. Biff, meanwhile, learns alchemy and kung fu.


Tony Hillerman, The Shape Shifter. NY: Harper, 2006.

In this installment, Lt. Leaphorn is drawn to investigate an old, closed case by a magazine photo. In it, he sees a tale-telling rug that was claimed destroyed, and begins to suspect that a man declared dead many years ago had staged the fire, and was now back to kill any remaining potential witnesses.

Part of what makes Hillerman so enjoyable is the way he incorporates native lore and tradition -- obviously a significant part of a Navajo Tribal Policeman’s life -- into the procedural form. The rest of what makes him enjoyable, though, is how well he constructs and tells the story; Hillerman is reliably entertaining.


Ron Chernow, Washington. NY: Penguin, 2010.

There are only sixty-seven chapters, and each is well under twenty pages. The prose is clean and fluid, reading easily in spite of its well-researched and documented information density. The subject is no less than this country’s first, and greatest, hero. I even can see how this might be a suitable primary textbook for an undergraduate US history class, as it removes the shroud of myth from Washington while placing him firmly in context among great events and the other ‘great men’ of his time.


Paul duCoudray & Elizabeth Haidle, The Pipers. Taos: Mascot, 2019.

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling.... In this striking watercolor graphic adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story, a psychiatrist is tasked with determining why soldiers are turning into plants. Pastels give way to darker washes and deeper colors as the action unfolds, and it ends with reds shading to black, but this still may qualify as a happy ending.


Peter Dickinson, illustrated by Wayne Anderson, Flight of Dragons. NY: Harper & Row, 1979.

This isn’t a storybook. It is a serious study of how dragons, if they are assumed to have existed, became airborne. By examining the records that do exist, distorted by myth as they are, Dickinson concludes that several common elements -- fiery breath, huge size, and hoarding gold among them -- actually seem to make sense. Dragons would have been like hot air balloons, with great cavities filled by buoyant gasses that produced flame when expelled into the air; their wings, too weak to lift such mass, were mostly for steering. Profusely illustrated, and covering every aspect of dragon life, it is a welcome scientific grounding for an otherwise fantastic creature.


 Rebecca Stowe, Shadow of Desire. NY: Pantheon, 1996.

This is the sort of book I hate most. Over the course of a winter holiday, the narrator returns home to confront her semi-functional family. It is heavily laden with whiny introspection and memory, spilling family secrets, and unwarranted angst. Then her alcoholic mother dies, the narrator realized that she should just get on with enjoying life, and it is mercifully over.


Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell. Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow, 1981.

I dog-ear poems in Bukowski, scarring the beautifully crafted heavy paper in a way I do not damage other poets or lesser examples of bookmaking. It seems appropriate: these poems are raw expressions, urgent and forceful, loaded with pain and drinking and sex and loneliness and not at all what high school English teachers usually show us as poetry. This book is full of memorable images and phrases, too many to remember, and I am certain Bukowski would rather we bend a page’s corner than treat his words as holy relics.


Alvin Schwartz, Whoppers. NY: Harper Trophy, 1990.

This (well-sourced and noted) collection of tall tales from American folklore is suitable and, in this case, repackaged for an elementary audience. Occasional attempts at accent or dialect in the retellings can feel forced, but generally just good fun.


Peter Morris, Level Playing Fields. Lincoln: Nebraska, 2007.

A look at the early days of professional baseball, from the groundskeeper’s perspective, one of the sport’s premier historians follows the Murphy brothers as they grow from immigrant ditch-diggers to overseeing the finest fields in Major Leagues. It refocuses attention on those responsible for the dirt on a hustling player’s uniform, shows a new side of famous managers like John McGraw and Connie Mack, and keeps the story short enough to hold attention well. It would not be out of place in an undergraduate history course.


Aminder Dhaliwal, Woman World. NY: Drawn & Quarterly, 2018.

A post-apocalyptic graphic novel in pastels that show a world where men haven’t been born in a generation - and that we might all prefer to live there. Warning: the mayor believes in transparency, so there is child-like cartoon nudity on almost every page. It is utterly inoffensive.