Going Postal: A Novel of Discworld HarperCollins
By Terry Pratchett
Reviewed by Deborah Beckers
Life is about choice. Everyday we make inconsequential choices about mundane things. Everything’s connected and every choice has a consequence. Meet Moist Von Lipwig; He’s a man of choices, a con artist and a fraud who lives off the hopes and desires of others until his own choices catch up with him. Moist meets an angel (albeit a flawed one) with his own agenda, who offers him a choice: death or the post office. It’s an easy choice.
“They’re not trying to hurt anyone, Mr. Lipwig,” said Pelc. “They just want deliverance.”
Going Postal is my fist taste of Terry Pratchett and Discworld and you can bet I will be going back for more. His characters are flawed and human, even when they’re not; human that is. The story is so well written; the fact that I knew absolutely nothing about the world that the characters inhabit (Discworld) was not a hindrance to my complete enchantment with the story and its characters. It was like looking into the real lives of the make-believe characters that you fantasized about as a child, seeing all their flaws and loving them anyway.
Who knew banshees had a weakness for pigeons or that wizards are sometimes baffled by their own magic? There are werewolves, smoking Gnus, whispers in the dark, vampires and men made of clay, obsessions with pins and lessons in Corporate Governance, not to mention deadly shoes, hats with wings, glowing suits and a broom that has stars painted on it. The dialogue is witty and understated and pulls you neatly into this wonderful and sometimes frighteningly real world.
Going Postal is a must read for anyone, whether you’re into fantasy fiction or not. Just remember not to ask about Mrs. Cake.
Terry Pratchett has sold over 30 million books worldwide, which have been translated into 27 different languages. What started off as a parody of the fantasy and sci-fi books of the 80s has evolved into satire that looks to skewer our culture today. Learn more about Terry and Discworld at http://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/.
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He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys Simon Spotlight Entertainment
By Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo
Reviewed by Deborah Beckers
You’ve probably already heard all about this book. It has incredible buzz. He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys is a short, easy read; a self-help book along the lines of the infamous series of books known as The Rules. Greg Behrendt (a comedian and a consultant for three seasons of HBO’s Sex in the City) and Liz Tuccillo (an executive story editor on the show) take us through all the relationship incidents that make up the lives of dating singles today. The book boils down to this:
He’s just not that into you if:
1 He’s not asking you out;
2 He’s not calling you;
3 He’s not dating you;
4 He’s not having sex with you;
5 He’s having sex with someone else;
6 He only wants to see you when he’s drunk;
7 He doesn’t want to marry you;
8 He’s breaking up with you;
9 He’s disappeared on you;
10 He’s married or in some other committed relationship;
11 He’s a selfish jerk.
The only one of those that I would have to disagree with is the marriage one, but if you substitute that with “He doesn’t want to commit to a relationship with you,” it makes way more sense. The book has an easy layout, with plenty of examples and arguments representing both sides of the issues.
This book is a must read for every single person out there, male or female. It’s a common sense approach to answering the why’s of a relationship. I’ve been in some relationships too long because I just didn’t get it, or didn’t have enough self-esteem to realize that he wasn’t that into me. No matter how many times your friends tell you, or how hard they want to beat it into you that you could do so much better, sometimes you just need to see it in black and white from someone who has never heard of you.
Go out and buy this book for yourself, your sister and your friends. The next time they ask you “BUT WHY?” – You can give them page and chapter references.
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Hour Game Warner Books
By David Baldacci
Reviewed by Deborah Beckers
David Baldacci has had nine New York Times best sellers and is called (according to his biography), “…one of the world’s favorite story tellers.” You know it’s going to be a rough week when you disagree with the world.
The premise for the book is what made me want to read it. A serial killer terrorizes a small town! There are clues and clever moves to keep you guessing! Smart people face off with the killer that is hiding in their midst! Will they survive? It has such potential, but as it turns out, the blurb on the jacket was better written fiction than the book was.
The characters are unsympathetic, one dimensional, overused stereotypes. You have two former Secret Service agents that have opened a detective agency, the male is smarter than you are and enjoys being clever, and the female has long Olympian legs and bad taste in men. There are spoiled rich people and trailer park trash all mixed in together. The dialogue, which should pull you into the story, is jarring, especially when it tries to infuse some humanity into the characters. You shouldn’t have to tell me that the person is being sarcastic or is teasing the other character, I should already know by the tone of the conversation and their previous scenes together.
The "hour game" the serial killer is playing gets lost about one third into the book and is never really brought in again. It’s a missed opportunity and that is the thing that upsets me the most: the entire book is wasted potential.
Hour Game is billed as “…the most mind blowing and satisfying thriller yet!” I sincerely hope that they mean in comparison to his other books and not in the history of the written word because, although it was mind-blowing, I was by no means satisfied
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Nights of Rain and Stars Dutton Books
By Maeve Binchy
Reviewed by Rachael Stinde
I don’t like to beat around the bush so I’ll say from the beginning that none of the books I’ve read of Maeve Binchy’s has equaled Circle of Friends, with the possible exception of Quentins, but that does not make the present title unworthy. She is ever the consummate storyteller, and so this newest novel is still an entertaining glimpse into others’ lives and emotions, which she can paint so vividly.
Binchy’s characters always learn life lessons, so it is no surprise that barely upon arrival at an idyllic Greek isle, the cast are surrounded by a local tragedy. As strangers in a town struck by enormous grief they can only experience secondhand, they clumsily struggle to come to terms with their own problems, made fresh and present by the disaster at hand. Of course a wise guide or two live in this town, and of course they come to befriend the motley band of tourists; more often than not in Binchy’s books, resolution is the name of the game, however roundabout.
I hoped for more in this novel, and though I happily seated myself in my favorite chair and devoured the thing from start to finish in one go, I found the characters unsurprising, stereotypical (even the Irish ones), and rather like sheep, herded around from place to place, through various mistakes, emotions, and revelations by Binchy’s experienced hand. The only character who really stirs up the reader is Vonni, who is the only one in fact that does not experience full resolution in the sense that all of the other characters do. Hers is the only unpredictable ending, surprisingly; all of the others are neatly resolved into happiness or contentment at least, back on track in life with the added benefit of having gained lifelong friends in paradise. All of the characters know so much more about themselves when they go home (with the exception of Elsa, who continues to escape home, as per the advice of Vonni), and can therefore reintegrate themselves into their own lives, where before there had been some disjunction.
What makes this novel worth a sunny afternoon in the reading chair is that marvelous storyteller quality Maeve Binchy possesses. There is little work involved to absorb this story—one does not read it so much as listen whilst she tells it to you. This is a pleasant change once in a while, a comfort as much as milk and cookies, unadorned but satisfying. As long as there is no expectation of edification, personal growth, or that incredible impact which occurs with works from writers approaching genius, this book feels good.
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By David Anthony Durham
Reviewed by Rachael Stinde
This book is good enough that I want to get complaints (very few of them) off my chest first so I can get on to praise. First: this is a novel written by a man primarily about men, so there is a lot of sex and some rather silly women. Second: the back of the advance reading copy I have proclaims at the top that Pride of Carthage is “[a]n epic work of literary fiction about Hannibal Barca, the superb military leader of Carthage, and his struggle against the mighty Roman Republic.” I take issue with the use of the word “mighty;” I argue that the word only becomes applicable to Rome after the rise of Publius Cornelius Scipio and upon the bestowal of his fame name: Africanus.
Now on to the good stuff. Damn, this one was good. David Anthony Durham accurately describes the ancient military, from common privations and ailments to the matter-of-fact butchery. By creating a character in each sphere of the novel, the reader can follow individuals, some fictional, some historic, through the real arenas and situations which comprised the epic war in a way that most historical accounts fail in when documenting hard facts and nebulous speculations.
The bones of the story and its central characters are certainly factual, however. After reading this book I’m ashamed to admit I once named my pet fish Hamilcar and Hannibal Barca, respectively. It was a slight to these two generals. Because Rome was ultimately the victor, the intelligence of the elder Hamilcar and his beginning in Iberia, and the sheer genius of Hannibal as he roared toward Rome often receive less respect and merit than deserved. Hannibal Barca contested the vast human resources of the Roman hydra and nearly bested the beast without any support, moral or military, from Carthage herself. His charisma kept heart in an army that would otherwise have perished in the numerous battles or the crossing of the Alps, where no army had ever ventured before, and his military genius maneuvered his outnumbered army around the disciplined Romans, slaughtering 70,000 in a single afternoon at Cannae alone. And in fact, Rome and Publius Scipio did not defeat Hannibal so much as Carthage did in its reticence to back him, when it refused to send reinforcements at all, even when Hannibal clamored at the very gates of Rome.
Rarely overdramatic, hauntingly realistic in its goriness and grandeur, Pride of Carthage is an excellent fictionalization of one of the greatest military campaigns of all time. David Anthony Durham brings to life men and women who shaped the very world at one time, and for the most part weaves historical detail with fiction so neatly that it seems as if the story actually happened that way.
Bravo.
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Villages Knopf
By John Updike
Reviewed by Rachael Stinde
One of the most pointed and prominent arguments that John Updike makes in Villages, his latest novel, is that we are all at our most real during sex. Our reality is determined for us by the concept of our being: taken in, modified, and reflected back to us by the people around us, and that vital reflection which defines us is most focused and intense in coitus. In knowing others we know ourselves at the most basic level.
Owen is the book’s central character, but he is never really alone. From the real time chapters of the book the reader departs with Owen into his most personal memories, from his earliest thoughts and experiences. The purpose of the trips down memory lane becomes more and more apparent as Owen grows into a thinking adult and actions build up. These earliest memories of his mother, of bathroom accidents, and of social secrets that hide in the daylight, contribute to the grown up Owen’s memories and actions. These are the wooing of his wife, to whom he always feels inferior, his infidelities with women whose realities he is blinded to until the inevitable aftermath and, offhandedly, the background noise that is his career.
One does not like Owen for any particular reason, nor even dislike him especially, though he is quite selfish. Owen dreams through life and even the sexual escapades, with their bright colors and vivid details and all the senses alive, have for Owen the same indefinable intangibility that causes the faintest feeling of sadness and nostalgia when we first awake from the night’s dreams.
Now I have just a little complaining to do. The book progresses well and is very thorough, but when Owen meets Julia, his second wife and initiator into true adulthood, there is a marked halt in the flow of the story. The tempo is lost, and the remainder of the book is bland. His first wife is sensationally killed in a car accident just in time to free Owen up for the rest of his life, his children are always conveniently functional and the book comes to an end rather perfunctorily on Owen’s musings about dying elderly ladies and the ghostly memories of his women. As the women around him age, he feels himself age also, but only through them. The last chapter is businesslike compared to the musicality of the rest of the book. It is mediocre in comparison to the rest, which I find to be a great commentary on that once taboo facet of the human condition—our sexual selves, at the core of it all.
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The Wilco Book Picture Box
By Wilco et al
Reviewed by James Tyler
There are few things in life more satisfying than indulgence. As an avid reader and drooling, bloodhound-like Wilco fan, The Wilco Book translates directly to this guilty impulse. Chunks of editorial insight into the music-making process from the band and their sound techs spliced together with art, photography and musical criticism. What more could one want?
All of these carefully-arranged components fuse into a dizzying palette, giving the reader something to cuddle up with and climb inside. I was initially unsure what to make of it; at first glance, it comes across as a glossy fanzine with teeth. But amidst the artistic chaos comes a crystal-clear picture of both the band and the individuals that inhabit it. Frenzied visual taxonomies from Fred Tomaselli mirror the creative miasma that went into the making of A Ghost is Born, demonstrating the vast array of seemingly disconnected thoughts and ideas that comprise the exhaustive music-making process.
The sections detailing both the recording space ("The Loft") and their most coveted instruments up-close (superb photography is integrated throughout), show Wilco at their most exposed: thoughtful and perpetually anxious, yet oddly nonchalant about their role within the artistic process. We are treated to a look inside their pre-concert rehearsals and "warm up" devices before bringing down the Chicago Auditorium. Text from bandleader Jeff Tweedy touches upon his science behind the lyricism and wordplay on A Ghost Is Born and his songwriting in general. Bassist John Stirratt shares his inspirations and the pleasure he derives from music. Drummer Glenn Kotche and keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen instead engage us with technicality, sharing the methods and mechanics of the recording process and their various "secret weapons" in finding new ways to express themselves musically (for example, the Appendix dealing with "Inglenntions"). It is refreshing to get this kind of dialog directly from the band members themselves, and none of their words go to waste.
Despite these reflections, perhaps the real secret to Wilco comes from the essays by Henry Miller and Rick Moody, whose works form the symbolic backbone of the book itself.
Miller's powerful rumination "The Angel is my Watermark" dares to shed a more casual light upon the creative process at large. Discussing his position on the connection between life and art, nothing sums up his beliefs more appropriately than this recommendation: "Piss the time away enjoyably. Make water colors, for example. No need to sign your name to them, if you don't wish to. Just turn them out one after the other, good, bad, indifferent, no matter." What Miller is suggesting is that for all our efforts and urges to produce our best possible work from scratch, the better approach might be to live more freely and more openly, relieving one's pressure to succeed at all times, and the end results will ultimately be more fruitful and satisfying. I believe this sort of policy has served Wilco well over the years.
Moody, on the other hand, attempts to pinpoint Wilco's essence amongst their muddy discography. Drawing upon one song from each album as evidence of their evolution, he distills each composition to its rawest nature in order to examine what remains. His approach is effective; Moody paints Wilco as a band that has not changed; their music and their attempts to infer meaning from the world are universal instincts, constants within the confusion and growth.
These conclusions go a long way to understanding Wilco - a group of individuals drawn together by their desires to create, build, demolish, create again, all the while searching for their place in the world and what that entails.
The most sarcastic material is preserved for the grand finale, the long series of footnotes. Beside the lengthy discussions of the CD and its material, one discovers a playful index: Appendix VII, Hymnals, Jeff Tweedy. The juxtaposition of Tweedy's lyrics against the sheet music of historic anthems gives a sly dig at the world of fandom surrounding him and his band: his words, perhaps only previously hinted at as such metaphor, are now set in print as the language of inspiration, of divine artifact.
As if this were not sufficient, we are also treated to a CD of unreleased material from their ambitious A Ghost Is Born sessions. An outstanding take on "Hummingbird" provides an emotional anchor between echo-drenched, spacey tracks like "The High Heat" and "Diamond Claw." I would recommend this book not only for its interesting fusion of philosophy and art, but for this glimpse of a fine American band caught behind closed doors.
The Wilco Book is a staggering collaborative effort that serves many different functions, all of which are worth its acquisition: part fan shrine, part artistic study, part musical genius. To me, Wilco is all of these things, and I will never cease to indulge.
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