Reading List April - June 2021

 Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown. NY: Pantheon, 2020.

An entertaining (and timely) examination of Asian-American identity, from the perspective of Generic Asian Man, an occasional character on the hit show Black & White.

Fritz Leiber, Green Millennium. NY: Ace, 1953.

Phil is not much given to adventure seeking, not until a green cat sneaks into his room. Once he meets Lucky, though, adventure (and exciting women) seem to seek Phil and his is,eventually, discussing his strange pet with the President.

Inspector Stark, Great Green Diamond. NY: Smith & Smith, 1906.

This is just about as colonial a novel as might be found. An “explorer” steals the eye of an African statue; the god’s high priest comes to reclaim it; black people die while white people determine the fate of their wealth and cultural heritage And it predates noir, so the stiff, formal language isn’t even fun to read.

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness. London: Blackwood’s, 1899.

Everything the Great Green Diamond was not, Conrad’s examination of unchecked greed also hinges on exploiting Africans. Yet this has moral compass, and it also has Conrad’s lush, evocative, even overwhelming prose to create a sticky sensation that lingers long after the slim volume has been closed.

Reading List January - March 2021

 

Earl Derr Biggers, House without a Key. Chicago: Academy Chicago, 2008.

This is the first Charlie Chan novel, and it is marvelous. Hawaii blooms in vivid detail, the plot is intricate and entertaining, and Mr Chan is not the racial caricature of the movies, nor one who speaks in Confucian riddles. His voice is distinctive, though: "Endeavoring to make English language my slave", he explains, "I pursue poetry." As should we all.

 

Sophie Kinsella, I Owe You One. NY: Dial, 2019.

Fixie is the youngest of three heirs to the Farr retail kitchen supply shop, and the only one who really works there. When Mom goes on holiday, everything and can, does go wrong. But Fixie, in spite of her romantic distractions, manages to fix it all in the end.

 

Eugenine Schwarzwald (trans A.H. Allen), Homecoming of the Lost Book. Chicago: Black Cat, 1939.

Deja vu: A limited-edition (500 copies) holiday card with uncut pages from Black Cat Press -- eighty years before BlacKat Publishing began sending out little books to celebrate the season. This one contains an essay on the pain of unreturned books, which you ought plan to read elsewhere: this book was a gift, and I won't be lending it.

 

Kate Clayborn, Love Lettering. NY: Kensington, 2020.

This was a reading group title from the Omaha public library - an online group, for safety - and I can see why: a popular author, cute hook (the love for typefaces and hand-lettered signage is contagious), and likable characters trying to overcome something outside their control. But that describes so many books, I’m not sure how this one stood out.

 

Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow. NY: Bantam, 1973.

It’s been over a month and I still don’t want to pick it up again, so I won’t. In Finnegan’s Wake, Joyce presented a reductio ad absurdum argument, not a challenge to make better word salad.

 

Laura Taylor Namey, Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2020.

This might be marketed as a young adult title - and is perfectly PG-13 appropriate for all audiences unafraid of cooties. It’s also a solid coming of age story and straight-forward romance, a nice mash-up of Cuban and English culture, and easy to read fun.

 

Jenny Colgan, Talking to Addison. London: Warner, 2001.

The inevitable autobiographical first novel, she admits, when republishing as My Very ‘90s Romance.

 

Souali Dev, Bollywood Affair. NY: Kensington, 2014.

One child bride and two brothers who thought the “marriage” long annulled, with action alternating between India and Ypsilanti. There’s even a water tower reference.

 

Sonali Dev, Bollywood Bride. NY: Kensington, 2015.

The male lead of Dev’s first book (see above) makes a brief cameo in her second - he is a director, and this Bollywood bride is a star with a  secret she’s desperate to keep.

 

Tessa Bailey, Tools of Engagement. NY: HarperCollins, 2020.

Bethany wants to step out on her own from the family business, but she needs help. It comes from an unexpected source, and with complications.

 

Angie Thomas, On the Come Up. NY: HarperCollins, 2019.

Sixteen year old Bri is a local rap star, just like her father was - before he was shot, when she was five. What will she do to fulfill his legacy?

 

Cixin Liu (trans. Ken Liu), Death’s End. NY: TOR, 2016.

Turning the complete collapse of the universe - or, at least, a hope for that end - into the most beautiful ending imaginable really takes something special (the sense of horror necessary for the end of everything to be the best outcome... Conrad would be proud), and this final volume proves that The Three Body Problem should stand alongside Foundation and The Hitchhiker’s Guide as essential beyond the bounds of genre.

 

Ellery Adams, Secret, Book, and Scone Society. NY: Kensington, 2017.

In the North Carolina tourist town Miracle springs, where people look for new beginnings, four lonely women with secrets come together to solve a murder.

 

Rebekah Weatherspoon, If the Boot Fits. NY: Kensington, 2020.

Sam, the youngest of three brothers in the Cowboys of California series, is a young, award-winning Black actor cast as Prince Charming in this Cinderella story.

Reading List: October - December 2020

 David Block, Pastime Lost. Lincoln: Nebraska, 2019.

Block continues exploring baseball’s origins, following his Baseball Before We Knew It history of proto-ball in the Americas with a closer look at the English games(s) also known by that name.

Colson Whitehead, Nickel Boys. NY: Doubleday, 2019.

Nickel Boys were wards of a fictional Florida correctional facility modeled on the Dozier School for Boys, where discoveries on the grounds after closing uncovered decades of abuse. Whitehead may not be trying to write horror, but this is a terrifying as anything from Stephen King. It should feature prominently in high-school reading lists.


Mikhail Bulgakov, Heart of a Dog. NY: Harcourt Brace, 1968.

Sharik is injured and freezing in a Moscow doorway when Professor Preobrazhensky finds him, takes him home, and operates. This exacerbates Preobrazhensky’s problems with his house committee, but all ends as well as can be hoped for in 1920’s Soviet Russia.


Madeline Miller, Circe. London: Bloomsbury, 2018.

Odysseus's return to Ithaka from Troy was quite the odyssey, yet most of the ten years it took was spent on islands with nymphs - Calypso kept him for seven years, hoping he would choose to stay forever. Before that, though, he had landed on Circe’s isle, where the defiant daughter of Helios was exiled as a witch. Circe also loved the traveler, but her story required letting him leave.


Janet Evanovich, Look Alive Twenty-Five. NY: Putnam, 2018.

In this installment, intrepid bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is caught up in a kidnapping case.


Anya Seton, Hearth and Eagle. NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1948.

The title was abridged and serialized in Woman’s Home Companion, and the abridgment reissued as a paperback Pocket Book. Pulp pages, foxed into the text and glue cracking with each turn, tell the stormy tale of a read-haired Marblehead girl and her family home by the sea.


Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. NY: Viking, 1962.

Inspiration for the Jack Nicolson film, Kesey’s novel portrays a state mental ward overseen by a former Army nurse who understands discipline but not people. As a indictment of brutal systemic failure, it ranks with Upton Sinclair’s Jungle, and while the movie is an excellent, enjoyable, and affective adaptation, Kesey’s choice of voice and room for detail make the book well worth reading on its own or to supplement viewing.


Richard Hershberger, Strike Four. Lantham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.

The delightful history of baseball rules joins Peter Morris’s Game of Inches in studying how the game developed not through the personalities that played for or owned the teams, but how and why playing conditions evolved.

Malcom Lowry, Under the Volcano. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1965.


Jacqueline Winspear, Maisie Dobbs. NY: Soho, 2003.

Ms Dobbs is a private investigator in London. She served as a nurse the the Great War, and in her series debut uncovers and resolves a string of deaths at a rehabilitation home for injured veterans. Rich in both historical and psychological detail, and more literary than most series mysteries, it should satisfy both mystery readers and readers who enjoy mysteries.


Charlaine Harris, Shakespeare’s Landlord. NY: Berkley Crime, 1996.

Another first-in-series mystery as I race to pad stats before the year ends. This set, named for the small Arkansas town of Shakespeare (an hour and a half from Little Rock) in which they occur, features Lily Bard, the local cleaning lady with a noirish voice, secrets to protect, and no reason to spill those of her clients.

Reading list: July - September 2020

 
Vincent Eras, Locks and Keys throughout the Ages. Watchung, NJ: Artisan Ideas, 2019.

I was hoping for something to help learn to use a lock-pick set, but got a reminder that there are many ways to achieve the same goal. Security may be best served by using a variety of techniques to foil those prepared to breech a specific defense.

This volume is a reprinting of the 1957 edition, originally published by LIPS Safe and Lock Manufacturing, the author’s employer. It provides an amply-illustrated history of locks in general, then proceeds to chapters on various modern lock types. It is full of good and useful information. Unfortunately, it is also very dry, using passive voice and stiff, midcentury business-formal constructions. Recommended, nonetheless, for both locksmiths and thieves.


Colson Whitehead, Underground Railroad. NY: Doubleday, 2016.

Two-time Pulitzer Prizewinning Whitehead makes the same move here the Velvet Underground’s cover designer made for “Loaded” and takes the phrase literally. Cora, like her mother, runs away from her plantation in Georgia. The story follows her escape, as does a slave catcher, to South Carolina and beyond.


Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash. NY: Bantam, 1992.

With its focus on viruses, this cyberpunk classic is once again a timely -- and quick -- read.


Lief Enger, Virgil Wander. NY: Grove Atlantic, 2018.

So many times, it made me stop and reread just for joy. One key element doesn’t work, but it’s easy to overlook, especially given its resolution.


Ta-Neshi Coates, Brian Stelfreeze, et al, Black Panther vol. 1 - 3, #1 - 12. NY: Marvel, 2016.

This series finds Wakanda falling into civil war, as the nation’s foremost philosopher’s revolutionary cry “No one man” takes hold; Shuri is trapped, undead, in the plane of memory, and T’Challa is conflicted about how to respond.


Roxane Gay, Untamed State. NY: Black Cat, 2014.

“...though I couldn’t know then the price I would pay for that love” is a warning label at the end of chapter five, one I heed. Though Gay’s tale of an American, kidnapped outside her father’s home in Haiti, is compelling, told in an immediate, powerful first person voice -- one that makes clear she survives, as it looks back -- I do not want to know the price, so I returned this (very good) book to my library unread.


Rainer Maria Rilke (trans. MD Herther Norton), Sonnets for Orpheus. NY: Norton, 1942.

The other day I said, offhand, that Rilke’s Sonnets for Orpheus is one of my favorite books. There is no need to justify this statement, but having made it about a book I hadn’t read in thirty years, I needed to verify. And yes, it still holds. These poems create an exquisite image of our place in eternity. Petrarchan in the German, Norton’s translation is necessarily less concerned with rhyme than sense, and somewhat ethereal.


Shruti Swamy, A House Is a Body. Chapel Hill: Algonquin, 2020.

This collection, it is almost indescribable. The stories are so finely drawn, so full of physical being, that the ephemeral nature of the moments within passes unnoticed, as moments do. Simple declaratives -- this is -- take the place of emotional exploration; things unsaid loom large; like life itself, there is no resolution. I would read it again, but I can’t keep this book -- it simply must be shared. It is too good to hoard for myself.


Gary Cieradkowski, League of Outsider Baseball. NY: Touchstone, 2015.

This is a beautiful book. The most obvious attraction is the illustrations of ballplayers, each an original by the man responsible for graphic design at Baltimore’s Camden Yards and author of the Infinite Baseball Card Set blog. Inspired by conversations with his father, it is an exploration of the colorful, the outlandish, and the forgotten among those players who make the national pastime such an interesting way to spend time.


James Gapinski, Fruit Rot. Indianapolis: Etchings Press, 2020.

This little contemporary morality tale is about gifts and their value. A tree sprouts in a poor couple’s yard; the bite of its fruit heals the person who eats it, entirely, of any and all ills. The fruit turns black upon exposure to air, and a second bite from this blackened fruit kills the immediate family of the person eating it. The couple is soon wealthy.