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NPR released its Top 100 Teen Books list yesterday, which I just happened to see this morning on Flipboard on my phone. The list was compiled from more than 75,000 ballots and a finalist list of 235. In conjunction with … Continue reading
Click on cover for more information about the book.
Title: The Eye of the Red Tsar
Author: Sam Eastland
Publication Year: 2010
Genre: Mystery
Pages for Year: 288
Count for Year: 35
I found this one on the new book shelf at our local library, where I work, about a month ago and thought it looked intriguing. The story goes back and forth between 1929, from when Prisoner 4745-P is released from a prison camp in Siberia to 1917 and 1918, where we learn of the prisoner’s identity as the head confidant and investigator for Tsar Nicholas Romanov. The prisoner, whose name is Pekkala, was given the title “The Eye of the Tsar,” because he could go anywhere, do anything he wanted for the Tsar when he was in power. Now Pekkala has been called upon by Stalin himself to investigate the murder of the Tsar and his family, and to see if there are any survivors, so Stalin can grant them amnesty.
I read reviews on Goodreads after I finished this, with reviewers there who didn’t like the book because they thought it didn’t do a good job with the history of the Romanovs. As someone who knows nothing about that history, I didn’t care and was glad to be learning anything about the Romanovs and Russian history. For that reason, I’m giving this one a 3 out of 5, worth taking out of the library, and who knows maybe the second one in the series, scheduled to be published in 2011, will be even better than this one.
Click on cover for more information about the book.
Title: The Collaborator of Bethlehem
Author: Matt Beynon Rees
Publication Year: 2007
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 264
Count for Year: 37
I discovered this one among the fiction stacks in the library, while shelf-reading. When I started at the library, I started a list of books found while shelf-reading, instead of just taking the books off the shelves and bringing them home to sit and not be read. I had included this one earlier this year, but one Saturday when work was particularly slow, I needed a book to read and since I had forgotten to bring a book with me, I picked up this one. Immediately, I was drawn into the story of Omar Yussef, a history teacher in Bethlehem, who becomes an investigator after one of his former students, a former pupil and Christian, is arrested by the Palestinian authorities for collaborating with the Israelis in the killing of a Palestinian guerilla. The dead man’s wife also happens to be a former pupil, adding to the drama.
A former Jerusalem bureau chief and contributor for Time magazine, Rees knows the setting well and captures the political tensions while remaining fairly neutral in his assessment of the conflict. He deftly presents both sides of the conflict, showing that really there are no true winners and many losers. However, the conflict is only the backdrop for a well-crafted murder mystery, which kept me guessing until the end — even though I might have had an inkling. Because it was so well done and I’m looking forward to the others in this series, I give this one a 4 out of 5, because I’d definitely buy a copy of this for myself at some point. It more than deserves a place on the shelf of any serious mystery reader.
My rating system:
5- Classic, must read, worth not only owning, but buying extra copies for friends
4- Worth owning a copy
3- Worth picking up at library
2- Worth skimming at the bookstore
1- Worth being a doorstop
These mini-reviews are part of my ongoing weekly series:
Looking back at the month of June, I read seven books, which while not a great number is better than I’ve done the rest of this year. To date, I’ve read a (mind-numbingly low) total of 28 books, while I’ve watched a (disgracefully high) total of 43 movies thus far this year.
I had high hopes when the month began, and even higher hopes as the month continued, but only got to three of the 17 pictured in those two posts. That hasn’t stopped from me from aiming high as this coming month, I have a pile of 15 books on my desk (which will be revealed during this Sunday’s Sunday Salon).
Out of the seven books from June, my favorite by far was The Beekeeper’s Apprentice with probably my second favorite being the Steve Martin autobiography. I’m looking forward to continue reading the Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell series by King as soon as I get the next one from interlibrary loan. In the meantime, I look forward to continue the Dortmunder series with Westlake as well as the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith to name just a couple of other series I’m enjoying.
Title: A Slight Trick of the Mind
Author: Mitch Cullin
Publication Year: 2005
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 253
Count for Year: 22
Title: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (Or On The Segregation of the Queen)
Author: Laurie R. King
Publication Year: 1994
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 347
Count for Year: 27
I came across the first book while shelf-reading while working at our local library, and instead of placing it into my ongoing list of “books I’ve ‘found’ while shelf-reading”, I decided on a whim to take it home and read it. As for King’s book, I had heard of her book through various book bloggers including Carrie of Books and Movies, who had sung the praises of the Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell series of which this book is the first one.
In 1947, ninety-three-year-old Sherlock Holmes lives out his retirement in a remote Sussex farmhouse with a housekeeper and her young son, Roger, who stumbles upon information about Holmes’s secret past and long-ago infatuation with Mrs. Keller, while the one-time master detective tends his apiary, writes in journals, and copes with the fading powers of his mind.
– from the publisher via Google Books
Set in 1914, a young woman, Mary Russell meets a retired beekeeper. His name is Sherlock Holmes, and he sees a fellow intellect in 15-year-old Mary, so takes her as his apprentice. Together, they tackle crimes and investigations, as Sherlock becomes Mary’s mentor and friend.– from the website Fantastic Fiction
I started reading the stories of Sherlock Holmes last year as part of a now defunct online reading challenge, because I always wanted to read them but just never had gotten around to them. While I’m still continuing the series, when I came across Cullin’s book at the library, I thought it might make for an interesting diversion, and at first, it was and showed promise from the opening paragraph as the reader is presented with a different Holmes:
Upon arriving from his travels abroad, he entered his stone-built farmhouse on a summer’s afternoon, leaving the luggage by the front door for his housekeeper to manage. He then retreated into the library, where he sat quietly, glad to be surrounded by his books and the familiarity of home. For almost two months, he had been away, traveling by military train across India, by Royal Navy Ship to Australia, and then finally setting foot on the occupied shores of postwar Japan. Going and returning, the same interminable routes had been taken– usually in the company of rowdy enlisted men, few of whom acknowledged the elderly gentleman dining or sitting beside them (that slow-walking geriatric, searching his pockets for a match he’d never find, chewing relentlessly on a Jamaican cigar). Only on the rare occasions when an informed officer might announce his identity would the ruddy faces gaze with amazement, assessing him in that moment: For while he used two canes, his body remained unbowed, and the passing of the years hadn’t dimmed his keen gray eyes; his snow-white hair, thick and long, like his beard, was combed straight back in the English fashion.
This Holmes has no pipe but a cigar, long white hair and a beard and is, in a word, old.
The reader also gets to hear Holmes in his own words, as imagined by Cullin, instead of through the prism of Watson, as imagined by Doyle. The son of Holmes’ housekeeper discovers a manuscript that Holmes started years ago but never finished about an old case. The reader is also taken back to Japan, where Holmes just had been visiting, and then returned to the present, to continue his growing friendship with the son.
However, for all the promise, three-quarters of the way through the book, I began to wonder where all this was going and by the end, I realized that it was nowhere. While the journey at times was intriguing, to encounter a Holmes with whom I previously had not been acquainted, the conclusion of the journey was less than satisfying — even though I thought portions of the book were extremely well-written.
Like the opening paragraph of Cullin’s book, the opening paragraph of King’s book also showed promise:
I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defence I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915. In my seven weeks of peripatetic reading amongst the sheep (which tended to move out of my way) and the gorse bushes (to which I had painfully developed an instinctive awareness) I had never before stepped on a person.
However, I think looking back, it showed promise for a different reason: this wasn’t just going to be about Holmes. This was going to be about another character’s perception of Holmes, something that for the most part that was lacking in Cullin’s work, and also about that character’s interaction with Holmes, something that was found in Cullin’s work — but importantly, without the mystery.
Here, unlike in Cullin’s work, and like in Doyle’s original work, the reader is presented with mystery as Holmes finds a kindred soul in the young Mary Russell, a young woman with whom he can continue his exploration of mysteries. The reader is also presented with a series of mysteries, which should be familiar ground for readers of Doyle’s original stories, most of which were published in serial form.
For me, I think this is why King’s book worked for me while Cullin’s didn’t: mystery. King gives us mystery, not only the mysteries that are on seen on the surface, but also just who is this Mary Russell and how is her relationship going to develop with Holmes. Cullin, meanwhile, gives us no mystery, not only any mystery for Holmes to solve, but any mystery for us to solve.
That is why in the end, I give his book a 3 out of 5, and only that high, because it was a short book and also well-written in parts, even if the conclusion was less than satisfying and I give King’s book a 5 out of 5 as it is a very good first book of a series and makes me want to read all the rest.
5- Classic, must read
4- Worth owning a copy
3- Worth picking up at library
2- Worth skimming at the bookstore
1- Worth being a doorstop
FTC Disclosure: I didn’t receive a copy of either of these book from the publisher, but took them both out from my local library.
Posted in Books, Midweek Review, Mind
Tagged book reviews, Books, Laurie R. King, Mary Russell, Mitch Cullin, Sherlock Holmes
1. Born Standing Up. Steve Martin. Scribner, 2007. - via www.twitxr.com/cgcampillo/updates/164275 - Location: Monterrey, Mexico
Title: Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life
Author: Steve Martin
Publication Year: 2007
Genre: Autobiography
Pages: 204
Count for Year: 24
I came across this book while shelf-reading while working at our local library. I’ve mostly been organizing in the biography section and this one especially caught my eye, because I love Steve Martin.
In the midseventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. This book is, in his own words, the story of “why I did stand-up and why I walked away.”
– from the publisher
Warning, this book is not about the Steve Martin that was on Saturday Night Live. Neither is it about the movie star Steve Martin. This book is, as its title suggests, about the stand-up Steve Martin. With that in mind, this book succeeds on all levels as it shows the years leading up to those “glory” years through stories of his struggle to the top and photos of those times, many never seen previous to the publication of this book.
In a sense, this book is not an autobiography but a biography, because I am writing about someone I used to know. Yes, these events are true, yet sometimes they seem to have happened to someone else, and I often feel like a curious onlooker or someone trying to remember a dream. I ignored my stand-up career for twenty-five years, but now, having finished this memoir, I view this time with surprising warmth. One can have, it turns out, an affection for the war years.
So Martin writes in the first chapter, and that affection is clearly shown in the pages that follow, from his career starting at age ten at Disneyland, first selling guidebooks then doing magic shows at the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott’s Berry Farm to his later becoming a writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. He also reveals about his growing up with his mother, father and sister, and the first influences on what would become his comedy routine:
The TV also brought into my life two appealing characters named Laurel and Hardy, whom I found clever and gentle, in contrast to the Three Stooges, who were blatant and violent. Laurel and Hardy’s work, already thirty years old, had survived the decades with no hints of cobwebs. They were also touching and affectionate, and I believe this is where I got the idea that jokes are funniest when played upon oneself. Jack Benny, always his own victim, had a variety show that turned into a brilliant half-hour situation comedy; his likable troupe was now cavorting into my living room, and I was captivated. His slow burn — slower than slow– made me laugh every time. The Red Skelton Show aired on Tuesday evening, and I would memorize Red’s routines about two pooping seagulls, Gertrude and Heathcliffe, or his bit about how different people walk through a rain puddle, and perform them the next day during Wednesday’s morning “sharing time” at my grade school.
Along the way, Martin naturally encounters romance, including with Mitzi Trumbo, the daughter of Dalton Trumbo, the director and screenwriter who was blacklisted in the McCarthy era. One of those romances, Nina Goldblatt (later Lawrence), eventually leads to a job on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and then his departure from comedy writing into the world of stand-up, starting from the bottom:
Because I was generally unknown, in the smaller venues I was free to gamble with material, and there were a few evenings when crucial mutations affected my developing act. At Vanderbilt University in Nashville, I played for approximately a hundred students in a classroom with a stage at one end. I did the show, and it went fine. However, when it was over, something odd happened. The audience didn’t leave. The stage had no wings, no place for me to go, but I still had to pack up my props. I indicated that the show had ended, but they just sat there, even after I said flatly, “It’ over.” They thought this was all part of the act, and I couldn’t convince them otherwise. Then I realized there were no exits from the stage and that the only way out was to go through the audience. So I kept talking. I passed among them, ad-libbing comments along the way. I walked out into the hallway, trying to finish the show, but they followed me there too. A reluctant pied piper, I went outside onto the campus, and they stayed right behind me. I came across a drained swimming pool. I asked the audience to get into it — “Everybody into the pool!”– and they did. Then I said I was going to swim across the top of them, and the crowd knew exactly what to do: I was passed hand over hand as I did the crawl. That night I went to bed feeling I had entered new comic territory. My show was becoming something else, something free and unpredictable, and the doing of it thrilled me, because each new performance brought my view of comedy into sharper focus.
Because of moments like these in the book, and because the book wasn’t about the Steve Martin we all know and love, but about the pre-celebrity persona of Steve Martin, I really enjoyed this book…and for that, I’m giving it a 4 out of 5. While the book is not a classic, it is worth owning a copy of it, because it captures a comedian — and not just any comedian, but Steve Martin — before he became famous.
5- Classic, must read
4- Worth owning a copy
3- Worth picking up at library
2- Worth skimming at the bookstore
1- Worth being a doorstop
FTC Disclosure: I didn’t receive a copy of this book from the publisher, but took it out from my local library.
Posted in Books, Midweek Review, Mind
Tagged book reviews, Books, Born Standing Up, comedy, stand-up comedy, Steve Martin
