Winter's Tale Mark Helprin I was reminded of  Mark Helprin 's  Winter's Tale  by  N.K. Jemisin 's  The City We Became . Both novels are ostensibly about New York City. The city in  Jemisin 's book bears a striking resemblance to the actual city near the south end of the Hudson River. Or at least, it is plausible that it does -- I can't say from my own experience -- although I have visited New York, I have no mental image of it as a whole to which I can compare  Jemisin 's city.  Mark Helprin 's New York, however, I feel confident in saying, is very little like the actual New York city, or indeed, like any city on Earth. They don't make 'em like that. I have a problem that makes it difficult for me to appreciate these novels. I have never been able to see a city as a thing. I lived in Dallas, Texas, for 21 years. I remember the schools I studied at, Brookhaven Community College and Southern Methodist University. I remember the school I taught at, ...

The Running Grave Robert Galbraith The first thing that struck me when I began  Robert Galbraith 's (AKA  J.K. Rowling 's)  The Running Grave  was how  readable  it was. Usually when I begin reading a new book I am conscious of some effort. No matter how good it may be, it feels a little like work to make my way into a new novel. But not when  Rowling  is the author! I was drawn in immediately. And I remained engaged right through to the end. It was not literally unputdownable, but it was pretty darn close. 960 pages, and I finished it in just over two days. What's more, I got up at 4:00 this morning, unable to sleep for wanting to know what came next. As always in a  Cormoran Strike  book, there are two plots. The first plot (which is the plot of the series, as opposed to any particular book) is the Strike/Robin romance. At the end of  The Ink Black Heart  each of them had come to the realization that they were secretly in lov...

The Forever War Joe Haldeman If you know anything about  The Forever War , you probably know that it is a classic Anti-War science fiction novel. And if you read science fiction more than casually, you probably *have* heard of  The Forever War . It won the trifecta: Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards for best novel. And it deserves the awards. I read it because of the awards, not long after it came out in 1974. Now of course it was not the first antiwar book I had read. War is easy to be against, and the list of authors who have written novels that condemn war is very, very long. What took me by surprise, however, was that  The Forever War  is not just an antiwar book -- it is a book that condemns and mocks the armed forces. As a teenager this was new to me. It is now, fifty years later, almost taboo to do what  Joe Haldeman  does here. For many Americans the only acceptable attitude towards the men and women of the military is abject unquestioning worship. One...

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief Lawrence Wright I read this ten years ago. Normally my memories of a book I read ten years ago are vague, but I still remember this one fairly clearly, which is a point in its favor. This was, I believe, the first big book-length  exposé  of the Church of Scientology (COS hence). More have appeared since then, but  Wright  still deserves credit for getting there first.  Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief  describes the structure of COS in some detail. And COS's presence in the entertainment industry is a focus, as suggested by the subtitle. I hadn't known most of this before I read the book. 28-Sep-2023: I am now reading  Robert Galbraith 's  The Running Grave , a mystery novel about a fictional wealthy, powerful cult with celebrity members. It reminds me forcibly of  Going Clear . To be clear, COS is not mentioned at all in  The Running Grave . Amaz...

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress Robert A Heinlein I read  The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress  in paperback not terribly long after it first came out. Over the ensuing years I pretty much read that paperback to rags. The mystery now is, why? Why did I feel at the time that it repaid so much rereading? Part of it, I think, was that for an avid science fiction reader, there was not really a whole lot of better stuff available. It is hard to imagine now, but back in the sixties readable science fiction was pretty thin on the ground. I lived out in the sticks, and my recourses for books were mostly a high school library and a small Waldenbooks at the local mall. (Borders and B&N megastores had not yet been invented.)  Robert A. Heinlein , of course, was one of the Big Four Golden Age science fiction authors. I gobbled everything he wrote voraciously, including some novels that, at the distance of fifty years, I now recognize as Dreck. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress  is not Dreck...

Starter Villain John Scalzi Starter Villain  has two characteristics that I like in a novel. First, although the plot is ostensibly complicated, at its core there is a simple story (see spoiler below). Second, nothing is as it first seems. For instance (I can mention this because the publisher's blurb and cover give it away) the two cats that Charlie adopts at the beginning turn out to be "sentient, language-using, computer-savvy cats". Also, it is often funny. For instance, I enjoyed this conversation with the funeral home director just before his uncle's funeral, I smiled at this and then motioned to a standing spray that featured red roses and lilies, with “Dead? LOL okay” and a smiley-face-with-a-tongue-sticking-out emoji. “At least this one isn’t one hundred percent awful.” “It’s not, but it seems to suggest the sender is not entirely convinced your uncle has passed on,” Chesterfield said. “Has he?” “Passed on?” “Yes.” “He was dead when he arrived here,” Chesterf...

Aftermarket Afterlife Seanan McGuire The novels of the  Incryptid series  are told from the points of view of the members of the Price family in turn. Usually when your turn comes you get two novels, then the series moves on to someone else. We just finished two ( Spelunking Through Hell  and  Backpacking Through Bedlam ) about Grandma Alice. In  Aftermarket Afterlife  we move on to Mary Dunlavy (The Phantom Priestess, as the Aeslin know her). Mary is special in many ways. Most important for the reader is that she has seen more of the family's history than any living person. Notice that I did not say "than any OTHER living person" -- that's because Mary is a ghost. Mary is the Price family babysitter, and has been for the many years of her death. She has responsibility for the children, or any member of the family who needs care, and she will come when they call with comfort and stern but kind discipline. Mary is a splendid character, whom I have always lov...

Carry On, Mr Bowditch Jean Lee Latham Even before reading  Carry On, Mr. Bowditch , I was aware of the existence of  Nathaniel Bowditch , because of the appearance of his name in novels about maritime history,  Kenneth Roberts ,  Horatio Hornblower ,  Patrick O'Brian 's  Aubrey/Maturin  novels. Horatio Hornblower, as a midshipman, studied his  Bowditch , and Jack Aubrey, as captain, used it to teach his midshipmen navigation. What I didn't realize until I read  Carry On, Mr. Bowditch , was that  Bowditch  was an American. Hornblower and Aubrey are both English and served in the English Navy. Some things never change -- the English, then as now, were reluctant to admit that any American was as intelligent as any Englishman, or to prefer any product of any American mind over that of an English mind. There is only one plausible explanation for  Bowditch  becoming the standard navigation textbook of the English navy, and that ...

Shadow of a Bull Maia Wojciechowska This is the arresting first paragraph of  Maia Wojciechowska 's  Shadow of a Bull When Manolo was nine he became aware of three important facts in his life. First: the older he became, the more he looked like his father. Second: he, Manolo Olivar, was a coward. Third: everyone in the town of Arcangel expected him to grow up to be a famous bullfighter, like his father. I was in single digits when I first read it. It was a gift from my Aunt Althea, who lived in New York City and always knew the hottest new books. I remember the cover: it was bright red, with an abstract shadow of a bull drawn in black. (Unfortunately, Goodreads doesn't have the cover of that edition, but you can find images with an Internet search.) In my memory it doesn't have the Newbery medal on the cover, so it is possible Aunt Althea was ahead of the buzz. I was reminded of  Shadow of a Bull  two days ago by  Armstrong Sperry 's  Call It Courage . Both...

City of Blades Robert Jackson Bennett City of Blades  is the second book in  Robert Jackson Bennett 's  Divine Cities Trilogy . The novels take place on a world whose chief political and military power is the nation of Saypur. A hundred years ago Saypur was conquered and enslaved by the Continent, which is a nation of many religions. Formerly the gods of these religions made the Continent formidable. But then Saypur turned the tables on the Continent, killing its gods and thereby destroying its military power. Saypur now occupies and rules the Continent, not gently. The three  Divine Cities  novels are centered respectively on three characters: Shara Komayd, Turyin Mulaghesh, and Sigrud Dauvkind.  City of Stairs  tells how Shara, a Saypuri spy, defeats the last of the gods in Bulikov, the old capital of the Continent.  City of Blades  begins with Shara, now the embattled prime minister of Saypur, contacting the retired military governor of Bu...

The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay Edna St Vincent Millay I read a couple pages of poetry every morning. I find I cannot simply read a book of poetry from cover to cover as I would a novel. After reading a few poems, I lose the ability to appreciate them. I need to let them bounce around in the back of my head for a while to get them. Because I read only a page or two a day, I favor "selected poetry" books like  this Dover Thrift publication . In this way I hope to read a poet's best work over the course of a month or two. The problem with this strategy, of course, is that it puts me at the mercy of the person doing the selecting. For instance, my favorite Millay poem  Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare , is not included in this collection Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare. Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace, And lay them prone upon the earth and cease To ponder on themselves, the while they stare At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere In sha...

Call It Courage Armstrong Sperry Call It Courage  is a simple story that makes a simple point: Courage is not the absence of fear -- courage is overcoming your fear. Without fear, there is no courage. I think most people agree with this idea, and  Armstrong Sperry  is obviously not he first to make the point, but it is a thing that can't be said too often, especially to kids, because so many people get it wrong. The people who make Hollywood movies regularly glorify fearlessness, as if fearlessness were anything other than a particularly dangerous form of stupidity. Even  Aristotle  got this  wrong . (OK, I'm being unfair to  Aristotle . But only in part.) Besides this,  Call It Courage  is beautifully told. It is a brief (128 pages in paperback) story, simply told. It is a beautiful gem-like tale. Amazon review Goodreads review  

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires Grady Hendrix ** spoiler alert ** I began with the audiobook version of  The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires , then halfway through switched to the kindle version. The audio version was too intense for me. Now, the title contains the word "vampires", so you will naturally assume that  TSBCGtSV  is a horror novel. That assumption would be right. Then you probably assumed that when I said it was too intense for me, I meant it was too scary or icky. That assumption would be wrong. In fact, for my tastes the explicit horror portions -- the flood of rats, the vampirism, the blood and gore, were the light entertainment. The parts that were difficult for me were the human interactions. In fact, the scene that made me say, "This is too much" occurs at almost exactly the halfway point. In it our hero, Patricia Campbell, is cruelly humiliated in front of her friends and their husbands by her own awful, ...