My only uncle was a U.S. Marine during WWII and Korea, and then later went on to a far longer career with IBM - yet to his dying day, in his heart (anMy only uncle was a U.S. Marine during WWII and Korea, and then later went on to a far longer career with IBM - yet to his dying day, in his heart (and all of our minds) he was first and foremost a Marine. And in a way that's kind of what's happened to me as well; from the mid-'70s to the early '90s, I was a professional graphic designer, until I just…stopped. Life happened, I returned to the U.S. and have had enjoyable second and then third careers elsewhere for the past 30+ year. But in my heart of hearts, I realize I am still a designer, even though my grown children have never known - or thought of - me as such.
And so anyway, this was a near perfect book for me (if - or so I thought - perhaps no one else), bringing back just a ton of memories. Yet as with The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World, the book's cover called this an "international bestseller;" and to my astonishment the GR ratings and reviews seem to back that up - so, I dunno, go figure. But by the end I too was convinced that this is indeed a book for everyone, (or at least everyone who's ever admired a movie poster or even simply used Microsoft Word - although my one coworker told me near-daily that "I can't believe you're reading a book about…typefaces??"), and so am most happy that so many of you similar folks out there also found and enjoyed this wonderful book.
Just My Type hit home on so many levels and in so many places. For someone who already considered himself fairly well-steeped in the minutia of typography, I still managed to learned a helluva lot. History, of course - the backstories of the printing and typesetting processes, the "behind the scenes" stories of particular typefaces and type designers (including superstars like Hermann Zapf, Matthew Carter and Milton Glaser; as well as bad guys like Eric Gill, ultimately as famous for his "interest" in incest and bestiality as he was for his typefaces), but also beautiful trivia about the phrase "mind your p's and q's;" where the terms "uppercase" and "lowercase" come from (aka "majuscule" and "miniscule;" since while we often refer to uppercase as "capital letters" there is no equivalent term for lowercase letters); the evolution of the ampersand and the Interrobang, and the difference between Linotype and Monotype machines.
One needs to read this book with Google handy, so you can check out things like the unique "P" in Palatino, or the subtle differences between Helvetica and Arial, (or, okay, Eric Gill's weird sexual fetishes). The book also includes a number of great quotes, my two favorites being "I love to be a designer, but could we get rid of clients somehow please?,*" and "By all means break the rules, and break them beautifully, deliberately and well. That is one of the ends for which they exist."
But again, best of all were the personal memories it brought back. Childhood memories of Dymo label makers and my mom's old Selectric "golf ball" typewriter, where you could actually change fonts (gasp!!); college memories of California job cases and setting type by hand…and then all the professional memories that followed, many of which focused on the "hardware" of the time (all now long extinct) - rubber cement and waxers; T-squares and triangles; X-acto knives and Dexter mat cutters, French curves and ellipse templates; Rapidograph pens and Letraset dry-transfer sheets (which never gave you enough "e"s) - just great stuff.
_______________________________
* Clients - whaddya gonna do? I can now chuckle - although it was crazy frustrating at the time - when I recall how every single Taiwanese client would ultimately tell us: "I love the design - but could you make it RED?," (red being the "lucky color" in all Chinese cultures). But as you can see from the below sample of typographic logos we designed back in the '80s, it did kind of limit the range of one's portfolio…blue NEWS logo? How did you make it in there?? :) [image]...more
10 OUT OF 5 STARS - BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (SO FAR)!!
If you enjoy any sort of travel books but haven't yet discovered Dervla Murphy, PLEASE do so - she10 OUT OF 5 STARS - BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (SO FAR)!!
If you enjoy any sort of travel books but haven't yet discovered Dervla Murphy, PLEASE do so - she is just the most admirable, delightful and indestructible travel companion you could possibly imagine.
Have had this one on my shelf for a good while now, and would have read earlier except - and I hate to admit this, as I generally take pride in my geographic knowledge - I apparently didn't realize just where the Indus and Baltistan were, (maybe…India?). But then the minute I opened it up, I realized it was exactly that area of northern Pakistan that has fascinated me ever since first reading about the local travels of Francis Younghusband (1887) and Peter Fleming (1935) in such exotic sounding areas as Gilgit, Hunza and Chitral. (In fact, Murphy begins Chapter Two with a lengthy quote from Younghusband.) Have to put this up front: bought this from Amazon as "Like New," and indeed it was obviously unread - yet came with the inscription "Happy Birthday to Bart - Dervla Murphy" on the first page. Who the hell would get a personally autographed copy of a book like this - and then never read it?? Shame on you Bart, whoever you are - but also thanks for at least reselling this online!
Anyway - just wonderful, but so many thoughts that I don't have the time or energy to put them together in a coherent narrative…so am just going to list a number of the things that really hit me here, which are hopefully enough to encourage you to READ IT YOURSELF, because you really, really should.
* Baltistan and the Karakoram mountains are some of the most remote and desolate areas on earth. So who better for Murphy to travel with than…her six-year-old daughter? But turns out young Rachel is just as tough as her mom, and provides an excellent counterpuntal voice to the narrative, with such gleeful comments as "here's another obstacle!" and "I don't think ANYONE could survive if they slipped HERE!" That said, I did Google "Rachel Murphy" just to confirm that she in fact survived into adulthood, (she did, but otherwise - and perhaps understandably - has virtually zero internet presence).
* Apparently, the region played a more important role back in the heyday of the Silk Road. However, since "Partition" and Baltistan becoming a part of Pakistan, it has been cut off from it's traditional eastern trading partners in Ladakh and Kashmir, and so become both a political and economic backwater/cul-de-sac.
* One always needs to have Google handy when reading Murphy, both to look up places on the map and to translate her local terms - nullah, chowdikar, dhobi, chota, bungo, chenar. Took me forever to figure out that her "dula" wasn't a local word at all, but a reference to the walking stick she'd brought back from an earlier trip to Ethiopia.
* Some interesting if depressing religious stuff here. I was surprised that the Shia-Sunni hostilities extended to this remote region, noted in the form of deadly riots in Gilgit during a major festival. Also, I had never heard of the Nurbashi sect of Islam, but seems like they are the most moderate version out there - and so of course are the least followed. And finally, considering this was written mid-'70s, Murphy makes some apt (if also depressing) comparisons between the Sunni-Shia struggles in Asia and the Catholic-Protestant unrest in Ireland.
This was Murphy's sixth book. I thoroughly enjoyed her first three (which all focused on India/Nepal), and then skipped ahead three decades to read One Foot in Laos (her only book set in Southeast Asia). And now Indus of course, since it also focuses on the Karakoram which - while technically not the Himalaya - are close enough, (and are in fact even more desolate and hard to reach than their more famous neighbors). But since there are now only two books between this and her first three - In Ethiopia with a Mule and On a Shoestring to Coorg: An experience of southern India - I've already added them to my TBR list, because (A) after reading The Blue Nile and Flashman on the March, Ethiopia sounds pretty darn interesting, and (B)…well, my OCD side would go nuts if I then left out just one book of her first six.
I sadly - if coincidentally - finished this book on the one-year anniversary of Murphy's death, (she passed at 90, although considering her life choices I'm frankly amazed she lasted that long). She will be sorely missed....more
Excellent book that totally lives up to its title, covering pretty much all of evolution's "greatest hits" - fins to legs, water to land, land back toExcellent book that totally lives up to its title, covering pretty much all of evolution's "greatest hits" - fins to legs, water to land, land back to water, dinosaur to bird, and all the rest. It also neatly explains such typical Creationist "gotcha" features as jaws, eyes, lungs, etc.
Unlike the attractive but busy layout of the Smithsonian/DK Eyewitness books, this standalone volume keeps it plain, simple and elegant - one full-color photo (although in their original browns and grays, the whole book has a classy duotone feel) with wrap-around type:
[image]
The book is filled with spectacular fossils like those shown here (and I could NOT believe the trilobite below was an actual 3-dimensional fossil and not a model, until I went to Google and saw dozens of similar ones); but even the photos of flat gray rock with just stripes or hazy imprints are ultimately fascinating, once you read about what they in fact represent.
[image]
I actually liked the fact that the book didn't include pictures of "what the actual dinosaur (or whatever) would have looked like," and instead focused on just the fossils.* That said, it really helped to keep my phone handy so I could Google things like Anomalocaris, Hallucigenia, or Helicoprion (which has to be seen to be believed).
THINGS I LEARNED: Difference between brachiopods and molluscs; the "Great American Biotic Exchange;" homologous vs. analogous evolution; discredited theory of "orthogenesis;" and Moas as the only truly wingless bird, which is why they look so weird - just two legs…and that's it! Also, I again realized that while evolution writ large is today a generally accepted fact,** the specific details remain very much a work in progress as new facts come to light.
Case in point: just since the book's 2014 publication, scientists are now refuting its claim that South America's thylacosmilus and the North American saber-tooth smilodon are examples of convergent evolution, (i.e., two separate animals evolving along similar paths to fill similar niches), but instead use their ostensibly similar canines to suit their different roles - smilodon as an apex predator who used its teeth to stab and kill, while thylacosmilus was more a scavenger whose teeth were adapted to rip open carcasses.*** Science!!
Okay - so I was almost turned away by the weird orange and lime type on the cover; but otherwise this book gets my HIGHEST recommendation, and is a far better purchase than a borrow. ______________________________
* Okay, so in the final index, there were SOME pictures of what certain fossils may have looked like in the flesh - but they were so ridiculously small that they were infinitely more annoying than actually useful.
Insanely good follow-up to the insanely good All Systems Red.
Wells' stories are part of no big space opera like "Star Wars" or "The Expanse," they areInsanely good follow-up to the insanely good All Systems Red.
Wells' stories are part of no big space opera like "Star Wars" or "The Expanse," they are intimate tales of one man, (or "terrifying murderbot," as our unnamed hero ironically refers to himself), looking for redemption, or helping defend a group of wronged innocents against a larger evil. And as such, they are much more like classic Westerns, both in structure as well as characters - from the silent, anti-social gunslinger(bot), constantly and stoically patching up his own wounds, to the heart-of-gold hooker(bot) who's just looking for "a way out."
Rarely have I seen a full range of characters so well-defined in such a small space. Mensah and her team from the first book; Rami and hers in this one; and - as virtually every other reviewer has also pointed out - Murderbot's new and simply delightful sidekick ART, short for "Asshole Research Transport" and who is basically HAL from 2001 with an infinitely more annoying personality.
Only possible flaw with this book is it's meaningless All You Need Is Kill-like title, (the Japanese novel that inspired the equally WTF?-named movie "Edge of Tomorrow"). But that's like pointing out a pimple on the Mona Lisa, because otherwise, this is simply a perfect evening's diversion. And now on to #3...
UPDATE: Just read a real stinker, so had to bounce back with something I knew would cheer me up, and this was just as good the second time around. Need to now reread books 3 and 4 so I'm all caught up on my background before finally going for the full-length Murderbook, Network Effect. (BTW, my favorite line that perfectly sums up our reluctant hero:
"Now that I knew something was hacking the security system, I could use countermeasures. I probably should have been doing that from the beginning, but you may have noticed that for a terrifying murderbot I fuck up a lot.")...more
Outstanding novella, and the perfect palette cleaner after the also excellent but considerably darker and heavier 13 Hours. "Murderbot," as our narratOutstanding novella, and the perfect palette cleaner after the also excellent but considerably darker and heavier 13 Hours. "Murderbot," as our narrator/protagonist calls himself (although he is more technically a cyborg), is just a delightful character and a total badass. Consider just the first paragraph:
I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don't know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.
The plot is fairly uncomplicated (for some reason, I kept picturing the movie "Pitch Black" as I read this, although please don't let Vin Diesel star in the movie!), and the ending was a little sudden. Plus, the follow-on ending ending just personally rang a tad hollow for me - but that only knocks the book down from 6 stars to a still-totally-deserved 5. Can't wait to read the three sequels - but will likely have to, since who knows when our library will reopen, and $16 a pop for books this slim is a little steep....more
A good friend recommended Joe Lansdale to me, and so I recently read Zeppelins West, which I did not like at all. However, this was a usually reliableA good friend recommended Joe Lansdale to me, and so I recently read Zeppelins West, which I did not like at all. However, this was a usually reliable friend, so I thought I'd try again...and could not be happier that I did, because The Thicket is about the best book I have read in forever. If you are new to Lansdale, THIS is most definitely the place to start.
In turns hilarious and violent, The Thicket is consistently (and correctly) compared to Charles Portis' classic True Grit, but that in no way deducts from its genius. The narrator Jack Parker is in every way Mattie Ross' equal - but it's Shorty who really stands out here as the most memorable and charismatic character I've run across since Melanie in The Girl With All the Gifts. In both attitude and speech, Shorty reads exactly like Tyrion Lannister transported to the now-so-Old West, and by around page 60 I was already wondering "how has Peter Dinklage not made this into a movie?"
Well, turns out I'm not the first to think that, as a quick search shows that Dinklage did indeed obtain the film rights way back in 2014 - so hopefully now that "Game of Thrones" is wrapping up, he'll have time to bring this insanely great story to the screen!
UPDATE: My son just listened to this as an audiobook, and thought I'd do so as well before returning to the library. And yup, just as good the second time around - even if Shorty comes off sounding more like a Southern colonel than a Texas midget. Still just an outstanding book....more
As I've said in some other reviews (i.e., Open Range, Hombre), the best Westerns are small stories about one or two men's journeys to do what's right As I've said in some other reviews (i.e., Open Range, Hombre), the best Westerns are small stories about one or two men's journeys to do what's right in what was apparently a pretty rootin'-tootin' world, and News of the World hits dead center in that regard.
NOTW has been rightly compared to both True Grit and Lonesome Dove, but it also carves out it's own place in the "grizzled old man" category, (of which I am a member). Captain Kidd was not a lawman or a cowboy; he was a printer who became an itinerant news-reader back in the days before CNN, and so his coolness under pressure and heroism reflects more his overall goodness and competence as a man of the West rather than any professional training or experience, (although as a much younger man he fought in three wars - 1812, Mexican and Civil). And the character of Johanna and her evolution from a sullen 10-year-old Kiowa "wild child," is just a joy to read, especially in the book's final chapter, which serves as a Paul Harvey-esque "rest of the story" postscript (which I wish more books contained).
At just 200 pages, this is a quick read and proves you can tell a good story without going all McMurtry. Would make an excellent movie, if Robert Duvall isn't tired of his "Lonesome Dove," Open Range" and "Broken Trail"-type characters....more
An insanely good book, made the better by finding a mint copy at my local library's annual book sale for just $2 - thanks to whoever donated this, butAn insanely good book, made the better by finding a mint copy at my local library's annual book sale for just $2 - thanks to whoever donated this, but WHY WOULD YOU NOT KEEP THIS FOREVER?
As the description says, this is a collection of Nat Geo articles written between 1890 and 1957, when the magazine "went commercial" and started putting photographs on its covers. All the writers are experts in their areas, and while some of the names and achievements are well known - Teddy Roosevelt's epic safari in Africa, Roy Chapman Andrews in Mongolia, Tenzing and Hillary on Everest, William Beebe in his bathysphere - the best pieces are by people I didn't (but obviously should) already know. Carl Akeley, the big game hunter and taxidermist behind the magnificent African mammals wing of the American Museum of Natural History; Major Keith-Roach, who ruled Darfur in isolation much like Kevin Costner in "Dances With Wolves;" nearly 50 stories in all and each of them a gem.
The book is divided into 12 geographic categories whose titles alone get the juices flowing - The World of Africa; Remote Corners of the Russian Empire; Along China's Turbulent Frontiers; Lost Worlds of the Amazon and Orinoco; The Himalayan Realm; etc. - and I could easily add this book to a dozen more categories than the few I've listed it under. Obviously, some stories are more interesting than others, and I ended up just skipping a few I didn't care about at the time (but may get back to someday.) TO MY ARMCHAIR TRAVELING FRIENDS: I cannot over-recommend this 10-star book. It's a perfect nightstand companion - but I challenge you to stop after reading just one adventure before turning off the light! And best of all is, NEW COPIES OF THIS BOOK ARE AVAILABLE ON AMAZON FOR AROUND $6 (INCLUDING SHIPPING) - SO BUY A COPY TODAY!! POSTSCRIPT: In retrospect - and in light of some of the other, more depressing books and movies I've been reading/watching recently, (e.g., Elizabeth Kolbert's excellent but brutally depressing The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History; Leonardo DiCaprio's "Before The Flood") - it's interesting and ultimately disheartening that these stories end in the late '50's - because it wasn't long afterwards that mankind's "spirit of discovery" gave way to its "thirst for exploitation." And so you have to wonder just how much of today's rapacious logging and drilling and poaching and everything else got its start in the sort of "travel and adventure" so wonderfully described here. Certainly the world was a more unspoiled and diverse place when there were still large unexplored areas on the map. But what's done is done, and certainly none (or very little) of the blame for what happened next can be laid at the feet of the amazing people that this book celebrates....more
This is just an outstanding book - after World War Z probably my favorite zombie story ever, and Melanie is definitely m(SPOILERS? NOT REALLY SURE...)
This is just an outstanding book - after World War Z probably my favorite zombie story ever, and Melanie is definitely my favorite single zombie. Carey does a great job coming up with a new spin on what was becoming a fairly repetitive genre, and does one of the best jobs ever in presenting an almost-believable scientific explanation for the zombie apolcalypse. Still, there are unavoidable influences. The whole third option of a "sentient zombie" - neither fully human nor fully turned - allows Carey to develop the most sympathetic characters in zombie lit since Temple in Alden Bell's The Reapers Are the Angels, while at at the same time owing a debt to Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. The beginning section also bears some resemblance to the end of "28 Days Later," and the second part of the story has shades of both "The Walking Dead" (TV show more than book) and The Road (book more than movie). None of which is a negative, mind you - it's probably impossible these days to not write a story that references past ideas; and so while Carey may remind readers of some of the above sources, he also improves on all of them.
And to top it all off, Finty Williams' narration is just spot on perfect, and has single-handedly restored my faith in audiobooks, (seriously tested by Bronson Pinchot's desecration of The Boy Who Drew Monsters)....more
NEW RULE: Every time I read a real stinker - in this case, John Gardner's License Renewed - I'm going to reread a previous guaranteed 5-star book, jusNEW RULE: Every time I read a real stinker - in this case, John Gardner's License Renewed - I'm going to reread a previous guaranteed 5-star book, just to get the nasty taste out of my mouth. So...below a third (now fourth) reread of Dinosaur Beach; although not a third review per se, just some minor updates to my second reading, as I had pretty much the same feelings - "um, okaay..." for the first 170 pages and then "WOW!" for the rest. I really hate to say this, but it was almost as if Laumer somehow knew he was just months away from a major stroke, and so dredged up some inner, previously-untapped genius to wrap up what really has to be considered his masterpiece. (NOTE: since my first reading DB back in 2014, I have read at least 10 more of Laumer's sci-fi works, and yup - none of them hold a candle to this one.)
FINAL UPDATE (4TH READING): Last review - I promise. I only reread this (again) because my younger son also started reading it, so we thought we'd turn it into our first "father/son book club."
So anyway...no major changes from before, although this time around I found the middle "half" more dated and frankly (and unnecessarily) complicated than I remember. That said, still a great first quarter and an outstanding ending, so fully sticking with my earlier comments and rating. Only thing I want to add is that I recently also watched "Loki" on Disney+, and have to say that Laumer here does a pretty good take on the multiverse decades before MARVEL came up with it (at least "movie MARVEL") - even going one step further and actually fixing the whole problem, (or as Laumer calls it "grafting all the threads of unrealized history back into the Mainstem").
So, y'know...nice.
UPDATE FROM 2ND AND 3RD READINGS: Reread this again (and now again) to see if it lived up to my original review. For much of the book I thought, "okay, good; but why did I give it five stars?" - but then I hit that ending and was once again pretty blown away, considering when this was written.
In some ways, this almost reads as an even older book - Laumer is big on Sam Spade-type "here's looking at YOU, kid" dialogue, (including such gems as "don't go female on me now; we don't have time for nonsense" - yikes). But I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and hoping this is a remnant of his character's last earthly "incarnation" being in the mid-1930's. Anyway, on second (and now third) read I'm still sticking with at least 4 1/2 stars. I know some other reviewers criticize the science behind this, but hey, it's time travel; there's really no science involved here to criticize. And I still think Laumer came up with a great solution to a problem that looked insoluble as the whole "fix the previous fixes" scheme just got more and more hopeless, (really loved his comment about how "no amount of paddling the surface of a roiled pond is going to restore it to a mirror surface," despite the repeated "surface" - and yes, as always Laumer could have used a better editor).
ORIGINAL REVIEW: This little book frankly blew me away. A non-descript 1969 "pocket book" with an embarrassing cover and a misleading title, I saved this book at the last minute from my dad's bookshelves before the rest got tossed out. But what a save - Dinosaur Beach turned out to be about the smartest, deepest and most elegantly plotted time travel book I've read. Forty-five years later, not a single technology or idea sounds outdated - this could have been written yesterday, and would make a great movie. Indeed, buried in its 200 pages are ideas that would later resurface in The Matrix, Terminator, and even Total Recall (but not Jurassic Park, as the story has almost nothing to do with dinosaurs - "Dinosaur Beach" is just a place name, like "China Beach" in the old TV series about Vietnam).
This was a literal page-turner that I just had to race through; but I will definitely reread it to get a better understanding of the science/theory/technology behind it, most of which is well ahead of it's time. My biggest fear was that the ending just couldn't live up to all that came before - but then it turned out to be even better than I could have hoped for, and a total surprise.
So the real question is: who the heck is Keith Laumer, and why hadn't I heard of him before? Well, in fact I had - but only as the author of a few unfortunate late-60's "The Avengers" tie-in books I've got stored in my basement somewhere, (and not even from the Emma Peel era, but her sorry replacement Tara King). So I looked at some of Laumer's other books on Goodreads, and sadly, while this book got many well-deserved 5-star reviews, there were also more than a few that ranked this his best, so it's a bit disappointing to hear that everything else will be downhill from here. Still, based on this one book alone, even mediocre Keith Laumer might be better than a lot of what's out there today...maybe I should dig up those old "Avengers" books and give them a reread...
(And oops - since writing the above I did go back and read the Avengers books - and good God they were awful. So WHATEVER you do, if you're interested in trying some Laumer, stay away from anything that implies humor...) SOME MISCELLANEOUS QUOTES: Regardless of his other flaws, Laumer has always had a good ear for simile and metaphor or whatever...basically "Keith use words good!" A few choice samples:
A streetcar clacked and sparked past the intersection, a big toy with cutout heads pasted against the row of little square windows.
I saw the neon sign, the color of red-hot iron, half a block ahead.
The surf pounded and whooshed, indifferent to the personal problems of one erect biped who had no business being anywhere within sixty-five million years of here.
"Are you addressing me?" he said in a voice as chill as Scott's last camp on the icecap.
Total darkness and a roar of sound like Niagara Falls going over me in a barrel.
UPDATE (2019):"And this is only one hospital, one single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreUPDATE (2019):"And this is only one hospital, one single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia. How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible. It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out, these torture-chambers in their hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is."
Brilliant, devastating, and surprisingly contemporary in both content and style - unbelievable that this was written 90 years ago. Together with 1939's Johnny Got His Gun and Peter Jackson's amazing film "They Shall Not Grow Old," Western Front paints a truly Boschian portrait of hell on earth. Frank Muller contributes an outstanding narration to this audiobook version.
ORIGINAL REVIEW (2014):“This book is to be neither an accusation not a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.”
From these opening words to the very last page (which finally explains the title in one last heartbreaking irony), this book is a beautiful, brutal history lesson that is perhaps even more relevant today than it was in 1929.
Reading All Quiet on the Western Front was a perfect follow-up to Winston Groom’s excellent non-fiction account of the same trench warfare, A Storm in Flanders - “perfect,” that is, if you want to be intelligently and elegantly led into a totally bleak assessment of how (not) far the human race has really come. Western Front doesn’t really have much of a plot. It is more a beginning-to-end series of arresting scenes and images. The telling details simply noted in passing – the rows of fresh yellow coffins, still smelling of pine and resin; the blue faces and black tongues of the gassed corpses; the frozen clods of winter earth, which during shelling attacks become as deadly as the bomb fragments themselves; the panicked soldiers pissing into a bucket so that the water-cooled machine gun can keep firing – are painful in their precision; this is a book that was lived, not researched. And indeed, Remarque has described the book as being “simply a collection of the best stories I told, and that my friends told, as we sat over drinks and relived the War.” Understanding that, you can see how each story could have come from a different soldier – leave, killing in the crater, sex in the hospital, the Russian prisoners, guarding the supply dump – yet he weaves them into a single narrative that is both breathtaking and heartbreaking.
At times, our hero’s ruminations can get, well, too German: “In the quiet hours when the puzzling reflection of former days like a blurred mirror, projects beyond me the figure of my present existence, I often sit over against myself, as before a stranger, and wonder how the unnameable active principle that calls itself to life has adapted itself even to this form.”
But most of the time, Remarque’s prose is eloquent, spare and pointed:
“Our artillery is fired out, it has too few shells and the barrels are so worn they shoot uncertainly, and scatter so widely as even to fall on ourselves. We have too few horses. Our fresh troops are anemic boys in need of rest, who cannot carry a pack, but merely know how to die. By thousands. They understand nothing about warfare, they simply go on and let themselves be shot down. A single flyer routed two companies of them for a joke, just as they came fresh from the train – before they had ever heard of such a thing as cover.”
OR:
“Bertinick has a chest wound. After a while a fragment smashes away his chin, and the same fragment has sufficient force to tear open Leer’s hip. Leer graons as he supports himself on his arm, he bleeds quickly, no one can help him. Like an emptying tube, after a couple of minutes he collapses.
“What use is it to him now that he was such a good mathematician at school.”
“A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies. And a word of command might transform them into our friends. At some table a document is signed by some persons whom none of us knows, and then for years together that very crime on which formerly the world’s condemnation and severest penalty fall, becomes our highest aim.”
No wonder Hitler ordered this book burned.
It’s funny: I’m always surprised that so many of the “modern” weapons are war are older than I thought. I always associate napalm with Vietnam, but it was used much earlier and with devastating effect on Tokyo and Dresden. And I always think of flamethrowers in WWII, but they were introduced in the trenches of Belgium along with poison gas and that other and apparently most frightening innovation: the tank. “We do not see the guns that bombard us; the attacking lines of the infantry are men like ourselves; but these tanks are machines, their caterpillars run on as endless as the war, they are annihilation, they roll without feeling into the craters, and climb up again without stopping, a fleet of roaring, smoke-belching armor-clads, invulnerable steel beasts squashing the dead and wounded – we shrivel up in our thin skin before them, against their colossal weight our arms are sticks of straw, and our hand grenades matches.”
I was mad at the Germans after reading Flanders, and I’m mad at them still – just as I’m mad at all the people behind (so very far behind) the war. But Paul Baumer could just as well have been British or French - or Japanese and Vietnamese. He is an eloquent everyman, a good soldier who is at the same time one of the strongest anti-war voices who has ever spoken.
This is a book that truly should be read by everyone; it is a book I should have read years ago and should just be rereading now for the third or fourth time....more
A great story with some amazing writing - but so god-awful depressing it makes Crapalachia: A Biography of a Place read like Dr. Seuss. Ree Dolly is aA great story with some amazing writing - but so god-awful depressing it makes Crapalachia: A Biography of a Place read like Dr. Seuss. Ree Dolly is a "real-life" Katniss Everdeen; and indeed, this book offers a more brutal but much more convincing look at what life in District 12 would really look like, rather than the still somewhat Middle-Earthian life of archery and baking and innocent little sisters offered in The Hunger Games. In fact, you could almost read - or even watch the film version of - Winter's Bone as a dark prequel to Games.
Will definitely read more Woodrell, even though based on this one book I find it baffling that someone who has knows and has lived in this world so deeply would choose to still live there....more
(Six days into a ten-day trip to Japan I've already finished both books I brought with me, (I really need to get a Kindle); but the only English books(Six days into a ten-day trip to Japan I've already finished both books I brought with me, (I really need to get a Kindle); but the only English books available in Fukuoka are one small shelf in an otherwise huge Kinokuniya full of things I've already read, romance, J.D. Robb -- and this. So looks like I'll be reading something a little more highbrow for a change -- probably be good for me!)
And...wow. This was one brilliant book! It starts off slow (and by structure, ends the same way -- but you'll quickly see why when you get into it), but if you stick it out for the first 40 pages or so, what a reward awaits you! The overall structure is amazing -- at times it almost veers towards being too clever, but never quite crosses that line -- and I've never seen such an amazing range of voices in one work before. The Letters from Zedelghem section could have been written by David Sedaris, while the central Sonmi story could have come from World War Z. Timothy Cavendish is laugh-out-loud funny; and Sloosha's Crossin' rivals Ridley Walker in its imagining of a post-apocalyptic and much degraded English language.
Mitchell is also very self-referentially funny at times. The First Luisa Rey Mystery is written in short, Dan Brown-type chapters -- which book editor Cavendish criticizes in a future section; and towards the end of the Sonmi section, the lead character herself points out some of the plot inconsistencies that have come before, (and which - to my embarrassment - went unnoticed when I first read them).
That said, my one minor criticism is that while I was totally blown away when I finished it -- I just still wasn't quite sure what it was all about. Commentary on man's inhumanity to man? In a few sections, yes, but not a unifying theme for the whole book. Abuse of power? Yeeaah, maybe...just don't know. Maybe it doesn't need an overall theme -- and maybe I just missed it in the few overlong preachy sections, (many of which were in the slower-than-necessary final section).
Overall, unquestionably among the top 4-5 books I've read this year -- and I've read some GREAT books. Recommended for absolutely everyone, although you really do have to stick it out through those first pages....more
Saw the Jeff Bridges movie and enjoyed the dialogue so much I decided to read the book. Good decision; very much along the lines of Lonesome Dove, butSaw the Jeff Bridges movie and enjoyed the dialogue so much I decided to read the book. Good decision; very much along the lines of Lonesome Dove, but nicely shorter. ...more
Remarkable Creatures is a truly remarkable book, and I don't say that lightly. Part Jane Austen, part Roy Chapman Andrews, this story is beautifully wRemarkable Creatures is a truly remarkable book, and I don't say that lightly. Part Jane Austen, part Roy Chapman Andrews, this story is beautifully written and excellently narrated (using two equally impressive narrators for the alternating Philpot/Anning chapters), combining natural history, science, religion, social commentary and much more -- I would strongly recommend to absolutely anyone. It's hard to believe this is written by the same author who wrote Girl With a Pearl Earring, which from the description alone (and glimpses of the movie while channel surfing) I could not imagine having less interest in. Just goes to show......more
I really enjoyed this book, and found it the perfect bookend to -- and antidote for -- The Road, (which was an even better book, but let's face it, a I really enjoyed this book, and found it the perfect bookend to -- and antidote for -- The Road, (which was an even better book, but let's face it, a bit of a downer). Like The Road, it featured an idiosyncratic writing style that took a little while to get used to, (sample: "And. She was a doctor. But."), but after a few pages you quickly get used to it, and it never proves to be as distracting as the writing did in The Yellow Birds.
Plus, I really liked the character of Bangley -- a real oddball who, thanks to Heller's skill gets fully fleshed out in a surprisingly small number of appearances. The only complaint I might have with the whole book, in fact, is that the jacket blurb oversimplifies the whole story, and doesn't do proper justice to the complexity of the overall story. I ended up reading the book despite the jacket summary, not because of it.
Oh, and why is the first casualty of the apocalypse the use of quotation marks? The Dog Stars, The Road, Ridley Walker and others I can't immediately recall -- all refuse to put dialogue in quotes, often making it unnecessarily confusing. ...more
Riveting, depressing yet consistently excellent, this epic tale is sort of a cross between "Apocalypse Now" and "Forrest Gump," minus most of the laugRiveting, depressing yet consistently excellent, this epic tale is sort of a cross between "Apocalypse Now" and "Forrest Gump," minus most of the laughs, (although the character of Kim Jung Il is full of black humor, probably because the real Kim himself was so darkly ridiculous). I listened to this book at the same time I was reading The Lizard Cage, and while Lizard is itself a remarkable story, it paled considerably in direct comparison. The Lizard Cage paints a detailed and convincing picture of repression in Burma; but The Orphan Master's Son paints a whole series of such pictures which taken together present the full tapestry of Jun Do's life. The end result is as cinematic as it is literary, and I can't wait for the movie.
Special mention also has to be made of Tim Kang's first-rate narration. Kang plays the unflappable "Detective Cho" on TV's "The Mentalist," and he brings the same low-key approach to his narration -- until he starts doing character voices, at which point he's frequently hilarious; often intentionally (in particular when he's voicing the Dear Leader), but also because I just can't picture Cho speaking in a little girl's voice....more
One of my all-time favorite memoir/adventure stories. As I recall, this book describes three (?) separate adventures; but the main one was YounghusbanOne of my all-time favorite memoir/adventure stories. As I recall, this book describes three (?) separate adventures; but the main one was Younghusband's 1887 solo overland trip from Manchuria across "Greater China" and ultimately back to India - basically just for the hell of it, since everyone else who had been a part of the same mission to Manchuria/Korea made the return trip by ship - you know, the way a normal person would.
But not our Sir Frank. Nope, he went the long way - by horse, camel and foot across both the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts, Xinjiang and ultimately the Karakoram Mountains, being the first European to cross via the treacherous Mustagh Pass.
Recommend this book with no reservations to absolutely everyone who loves old-school, 19th century British explorers - the only infuriating aspect of the whole thing being that Younghusband made this remarkable journey WHEN HE WAS JUST 24 YEARS OLD! Makes me feel like I have TOTALLY wasted my own life... :(
(You could - until recently - learn more about this strangely complex historical badass from many places, but one of my favorites was the adventure-journal.com article, appropriately titled "The Strange Complexity of Historical Badass Sir Francis Younghusband" - but sadly, it looks like this article is no longer available.)...more
RE-READ UPDATE: Yup, still a great book; still a totally misleading cover. In spite of nominally being a book for younger readers, this remains one ofRE-READ UPDATE: Yup, still a great book; still a totally misleading cover. In spite of nominally being a book for younger readers, this remains one of the most grueling tales of polar exploration I've ever read, (although it's never too early to teach the little ones that life is absolutely not a bed of roses). I originally listened to the excellent audiobook, but read a paper copy this time which includes a handy map of both Scott's and Amundsen's routes that shocks every time you refer to it, because you'll read about them trudging through two weeks of blinding blizzard and record temperatures only to look at the map and say "wait a minute, in all that time they only got from here to HERE??"
Bonus points as I now know that Scott's team (and this book) also included the indestructible Irish seaman, Tom Crean.* Crean (who led the pony "Bones") was not only one of the team sent out to find the bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers; but then just two years later sailed back to Antarctica with Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance, eventually becoming one of the "lucky five" who accompanied Shackleton on his epic crossing from Elephant Island back to South Georgia - "one of the most extraordinary feats of seamanship and navigation in recorded history" - and then crossed the previously unexplored mountains and glaciers of South Georgia with Shackleton and Frank Worsley to reach its whaling station and organize the rescue of the remaining crew, capping one of the greatest survival stories of all time. It's no wonder that after that, Crean retired from exploring and opened the famous "South Pole Inn" in Kerry!
ORIGINAL REVIEW: My first five-star review in some time, but well-deserved. This was truly a brilliant concept, beautifully executed and with a truly moving narration by Edoardo Ballerinini that makes this a solid book-on-CD recommendation. "The Winter Pony" tells the amazing and at times horrific story of Captain Robert Scott's attempt to reach the South Pole from the point of view of one of the Manchurian ponies brought along to pull their sledges, (who knew?). Although I’ve never been inside a pony’s head, the voice of the story seems somehow perfect for that of a pony, consistently brave and innocent and trusting, while still managing to convey the full range of emotions experienced in a life of pretty much unceasing hardship. Over the course of the story, the pony also accomplishes the difficult task of creating distinct, three dimensional portraits of both the human and animal characters of the story.
While the book drags just a bit in the middle as they trudge across the ice, it is reflective of what must surely have been the mind-numbing tedium of the journey itself. Actually, what impressed me is that the story didn’t drag even more; this could have easily become a boring story as the party sits out endless delays and blizzards. But in fact, the book is never a page away from some fascinating detail, unexpected adventure, or simply a passage of beautiful writing. Each chapter is also begun with a separate brief narrative that fills in details of the expedition that the pony wouldn't know, or about Scott's competition to reach the Pole, Roald Amundsen. Altogether, “The Winter Pony” is a story that is both moving and beautiful as well as (I have to assume) historically accurate. If I had any criticism at all, it would probably be with the book’s title/cover. The whole thing comes across just a little too “fairyland” or “girl and horse”-ish unless you already know what the story is about; and I would never have picked this up from the title/cover alone if I hadn’t stumbled across a review somewhere. My other comment - not on the book but on its marketing - is that this is seen as "a children's book," which I find totally misleading. I believe any adult who loves adventure, exploration, animals or simply good writing/story-telling will both enjoy and by moved by this exceptional story.
On a semi-related note, I've mentioned before but will mention here again: I think the world would be a much better place (and the younger generation would be better positioned to inherit an uncertain future) if people read more about people like Scott & Amundsen, Mallory & Irvine, Shackleton, Younghusband, Livingstone, Burton and Chapman Andrews; and spent less time worrying about Brad & Angelina, Harry & Megan, and Pete & Kim! ____________________________________
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