Editor's Notes

Book Review: The Wizard of Oz

2008-11-17T07:04:20.0214452-08:00

My mom liked to tell us that during the Depression, she would only get one gift for Christmas and it was always a Frank L. Baum book. Although we didn’t quite believe that anyone could be so deprived (my dad used to say he had to pick rocks out of the fields and walk ten miles to baseball), the treasure was there for us to examine anytime we wanted. She had all the books, but the only one we really liked was the original. I still have it, but no one’s read it in years because it’s a mess. The boards are / have fallen off, the pages are weeping. The only reason I’ve kept it is because I learned to read from it.

Well, I’ve found a worthy replacement. Wait until you see this! It’s from Counterpoint and it’s called Frank L. Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, Illustrated by Graham Rawle (978-1-58243-455-1). I’ve never heard of the guy before, but he seems to have accumulated plenty of accolades for previous collage work, and by collage I mean blending illustration and text. This is no exception. The typography in this unabridged version of the classic is wonderful, but what’s going to catch your eye are the illustrations. Using real items (dolls, masks, fruits), he’s placed them in miniature landscapes to create the most amazing Over the Rainbow ever. But it’s still Dorothy and Tinman and Toto, so fear not: even if you grew up with the Judy Garland version, you’ll find something to love. Check out the amazing Emerald City, or the field of poppies. If the Depression is getting you down and you can only give one book, make it this one.

Read other reviews of Best Picture Books at our 24/7 Bookshelf.

Perfect book with an imperfect title - The Love Song Of Monkey

2008-11-10T07:36:15.3700000-08:00

The Love Song of Monkey
Michael S. A. Graziano
Leapfrog Press
Softcover
978-0-9815148-0-2

If this book had a different title, it would be perfect. Just after he was stuffed into a suitcase by his wife and her lover (who was also his mad doctor) but before he was thrown off a motorboat into the Atlantic, chained to a statue of Venus taken from his own living room, that title was nagging at me. Monkey Man?

Here’s a guy, dying of AIDs and he’s offered the possibility of a complete cure, a better-than-new-cure, but only if he can endure indescribable pain for an hour. Okay, he does describe it:

"Some piece of equipment turned on with a harsh buzzing sound. Then the laser beam hit the bottom of my feet…. If I hadn’t been held down on the table I would have convulsed like a fish and crashed onto the floor. No person could have withstood that pain for any hope or goal. It vaporized my strength of will. I didn’t know anything except my feet. The pain lay in a precise plane, like a deli slicer, the rotating blade taking microscopically thin slices one by one, starting from the bottom of my feet and working its way upward. It seemed that every virus particle was a twist of metal, a splinter that needed to be wriggled and wrenched out, torturing the flesh around it. Every bacterium had to be exploded and the shrapnel scraped out with a blunt spatula. Every blemish, every bit of scar tissue, cut with a microscopic scalpel and excised. This was not the torture of a thousand knives. It was six hundred billion knives and drills and lit matches concentrated into one layer of flesh."

Graziano is a psychology professor at Princeton and author of several other books, as well as articles published in the New York Times, Science Magazine, and Glamour blending fiction, music, and science. The Love Song of Monkey is fabulously imagined and seriously considered and very funny. A kind of fairytale antithesis on the meaning of existence.

Now, if it weren’t for that title. It’s a little thorn. It announces itself boldly in the title, nags where it’s remembered during almost the whole book, then sneaks in at the end and squats there, black-caped, hook-handed.

Look, it’s only 152 pages long. It’s fantastic. It has a wonderful ending. Read it and tell me what you think.

Halloween Books

2008-10-13T09:35:04.8630000-07:00

The story is that parents meddle too much with the first kid, causing pretty much fruitless heartbreak. The others we tend to leave to their own devices, equal parts lack of attention and lack of courage. By the time my third child, Hart, was born, the other two were six and nine. They’d graduated from Winnie the Pooh movies and the Berenstein Bears, and were gleefully into R.L. Stine, “Young Frankenstein,” and “Abbott and Costello Meet The Killer.” Unsurprisingly, young Hart grew up fearless, and ghost stories were at the top of the heap of favorite books.

The Georgie books by Robert Bright, for instance, were huge. My mom read these stories to me and I can’t tell you how much pleasure I felt, rediscovering the Whittaker’s attic. The first book was published in 1944, but don’t miss these just because they’re old.

A recent title that also scores high on the cute meter (although, to be fair, it’s the story that keeps Georgie haunting the bookshelves, not the adorableness) is Frankie Stein by Lola Schaefer, illustrated by Kevan Atteberry (Marshall Cavendish). It’s a rip-off of the Munsters and their “horrible” normal child, but there’s a reason that story worked as well. Here mom and dad try to scare some scariness into their beautiful blond boy. Little kids will like this for the roll-playing and the reversal at the end.

If you want something a little scarier, actually plenty scarier as far as the illustrations go, try Witches’ Night Before Halloween by Lesley Bannatyne, illustrated by Adrian Tans (Pelican). Kindergarten through second graders should be able to handle this however, simply because of the use of the well-known happy tune. The text is good for vocabulary-building, with ghoul, rheumy, snaggle, and hovel punctuating the pages of the headless and shrieking.

Moving in a slightly different direction, although staying in the season, try Uncle Monarch and the Day of the Dead by Judy Goldman, illustrated by René King Moreno (Boyds Mill). The simple but rich illustrations will be a nice change from the foregoing visual mayhem, and the story explains a holiday that honors the dead, instead of one that thumbs its nose at death.

Epicurean Classic

2008-10-03T06:50:23.6610000-07:00

A couple of weekends ago, Traverse City hosted what’s become the largest cookbook event in the US. Essentially, it’s a food and wine festival. Chefs and sommeliers come from all over the country to cook and teach; guests come from as far away as Phoenix and Southern California to learn and sample.

Flower arrangements waiting to be placed on tables.

But what the two founders, Mark Dressler and Matt Sutherland (Mark is also Director of Education for BEA), discovered during the five years they’ve been running the event is that chefs can’t really get away from their jobs – unless it’s their job. And promoting a cookbook is their job, whether they own a restaurant or freelance.

Raghavan Iyer, IACP Teacher of the Year and author of 660 Curries: The Gateway to Indian Cooking.

Consequently, most of the chefs and wine experts who participate in the Epicurean Classic have books recently published, and more and more often, they have books published the same month as the event. The Epicurean Classic has become the premier launching point for chefs with new books. So what began as a food and wine festival has become an Eat, Drink, and Read party.

About 100 books per author are ordered from the publishers for the event. Guests attend the demonstrations, then come down to the main lobby to purchase the chef’s book and get it signed.

Antonio Curti, author, chef and co-founder of Trattoria Grappolo, Santa Ynez, CA.

I say that, but really, the bookstore was crowded from 8 o’clock in the morning until 8 o’clock at night. (Some people don’t care about signings. Some people spend an hour perusing the materials, even taking notes, until they settle on the perfect book.)

And we did, actually, have a “perfect” book this year. It’s called Small Plates, Perfect Wines: Creating Little Dishes with Big Flavors (Andrew McMeel), by Lori Lyn Narlock. It was a hotcake from the moment it hit the tables. With its photos on every page, well-explained recipes, and paperback price – not to mention, perhaps, the suggestion of “small” and “perfect.” Women in particular decided to take it home with them and I sold out a whole day before the show ended.

The Epicurean Classic is held annually in mid-September in Traverse City, Michigan. Traverse City is also the home of the National Cherry Festival and the Michael Moore Film Festival.

Book Reviews: Open Spaces, Driving Cross-country, and Languages

2008-09-08T06:54:55.4848434-07:00

Disappearance is what these three things in the title have in common. The books below challenge their extinction.

Bargaining for Eden: The Fight for the Last Open Spaces in America
by Stephen Trimble
University of California
978-0-520-25111-3

When Earl Holding bought the bankrupt Snowbasin ski area in Ogden, Colorado, in 1984, he was already the owner of Sun Valley in Utah, not to mention Sinclair Oil. Yes, he had the top of the mountain, so to speak, but not the bottom. That belonged to the National Forest—in other words, to you and me. In 1996, still without the additional land, Snowbasin was named a venue for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and the pressure came to a head. Earl Holding wanted all the land, a complete whole to shape and build on and call his own. Don’t we all. As Trimble writes, “On some levels, I am Earl—we are all Earl.”

Writer, photographer, and naturalist Trimble begins his story about 30 miles outside of Laramie, Wyoming, and ends up right at the dinner table of everyone who has ever wanted to put up a fence. “How do we live ethically on land as it shifts underneath us with changing values, exploding growth, and money and politics wielding brute force?” writes Trimble. “I’m looking for answers.”

Greasy Rider: Two Dudes, One Fry-oil-powered Car, and a Cross-country Search for a Greener Future
by Greg Melville
Algonquin Books
978-1-56512-595-7

In the breezy style indicating a membership in the Men’s Journal club (also required are a wife in charge and a rather substandard knowledge of how things really work), Greg Melville sets off from Vermont to Berkeley in a 1980s Mercedes wagon, converted to run on restaurant grease. A few miles out of town, “wingman” Iggy suggests a bet, that Melville can’t “extract a lesson” in sustainability from every day they’re on the road. Melville eventually agrees, although he’d rather that Iggy just die. As a seasoned travel writer, Melville knows that tragic death beats “lessons” every time.

Motoring backwards in the path of H. Nelson Jackson, the first guy to drive coast to coast (1903), Melville and Iggy get to the brightly lit bottom of Al Gore’s personal energy consumption and suggest possible answers to questions like:

Is God angry that men have so messed up the environment?
How will the revolution be won?
Dude, would you really want to live there?

Brady Bunch allusions, waitresses, road rage, and sucking grease out of the bottom of dumpsters are just some of the joys found in this travelogue—the “lessons” are conveniently printed in a different font. Above all, this book is a tribute to American driving spirit: Gas or Grease, We Will Always Find a Way to Hit the Highway.

One Thousand Languages: Living, Endangered, and Lost
Edited by Peter K. Austin
University of California
978-0-520-25560-9

While the two books featured above could be printed in any medium without disrupting the message, this one needs heavy paper, lots of color, and sturdy boards. Open it up and it smells like wall-to-wall ink. After all, this is a book about language.

Divided into sections like “World Languages” (considerably spoken beyond its point of origin), then regionally, then by absence, One Thousand Languages is illustrated with the written shapes of the letters, the landscapes that produced the sounds, and the people who speak them. Each represented language also includes an article about origins and present usage. Kituba, for example, spoken by 4.3 million, began as a contact language among Africans of different tribes living along the Congo River when Portuguese traders arrived. As many of these same Central Africans were taken away to the Americas as slaves, the language survives abroad in Brazilian, Jamaican, and Cuban religious rituals; it’s a source of for Gullah, a language spoken in South Carolina and Georgia; and it became the Palenquero creole in Colombia.

Peter K. Austin has published eleven books on the lesser-spoken and endangered languages. In an article in the Guardian, Austin lists his top ten from the more than 3,000 disappearing tongues. “My selection is a personal one that tries to take into account four factors: (1) geographical coverage—if possible I wanted at least one language from each continent; (2) scientific interest—I wanted to include languages that linguists find interesting and important, because of their structural or historical significance; (3) cultural interest—if possible some information about interesting cultural and political aspects of endangered languages should be included; and (4) social impact—I wanted to include one or more situations showing why languages are endangered, as well as highlighting some of the ways communities are responding to the threat they currently face.”

This book is very warmly recommended for school libraries.

Book Review: “The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing”

2008-08-25T13:43:05.8801455-07:00

The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing
Mayra Calvani and Anne K. Edwards
Twilight Times Books
978-1-933353-22-7

Having been mostly dusted out of its corner of the newspaper (replaced by what, exactly, I don’t know), the book review has become something of national hobby. But without the red pencil of a curmudgeonly editor, the Shelfari and GoodReads reviews often reek of amateurism, hardly a tribute to the poor author they’re trying to excoriate or acclaim. Thank your lucky stars then, that Calvani and Edwards are here to kindly save the day.

According to the authors, both writers and reviewers, there are five keys to being a good reviewer:

Command of Language
Clarity of Thought
Honesty
Objectivity
Tact

Sounds like the qualities of good friend, a good person, a good sibling, a good coworker, doesn’t it?

The authors then, very simply, explain how to read critically by breaking down the techniques of writing into different categories, like, in the case of fiction, plot, pacing, and point of view. (Definitions of these techniques are included.) They go on to distinguish different kinds of reviews, and they clarify the distinction between prepublication reviews, press releases, and critiques.

The meat and potatoes of the book come in a section called “Types of Reviews.” Here, the authors produce different kinds of reviews—long/short, positive/negative, nasty/nice, fiction/nonfiction, etc.—then critique the first effort and rewrite. There’s not a reviewer out there that wouldn’t benefit from this review of reviewing.

If the hobby becomes work – in the good sense—there are helpful suggestions about everything from what to do with those books piling up all over the floor, how much money to ask for, and how to start your own book review site online. The last section on the book contains a fat list of online and print publications, divided by genre.

I have to say that the cover of this book is substandard; truly unfortunate as the content is anything but. Nevertheless, this is a great reference book for libraries, and would be a nice (nicer with another cover) addition to book club displays.

The Slippery Art authors follow all the rules of good reviewing in their writing—command of language, clarity of thought, objectivity—and they are also clearly blessed with those two rules that stand behind all good teachers: honesty and tact.

Books on Afghanistan, Iran, & al Qaeda

2008-08-04T13:27:46.4058088-07:00

Once upon a time, I used to do historical research, mainly concerning wars. My last job concerned the war in Afghanistan, and I found myself relying on the authors and editors of the Rand Corporation for their well-researched, boots on the ground approach. (A few of the Special Forces guys I met commented that Rand was the holy grail of post-service, big brain employment.)

Here’s a selection of the Rand books that have come through my office lately. Libraries and bookstores can’t go wrong with these mostly slender volumes. They are indispensable for historians, journalists, academics, and policy makers.

In Their Own Words: Voices of Jihad (Rand, 978-0-8330-4402-0) carries the heavy endorsements of Bob Woodward, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and John Esposito on the back cover. Compiled by Rand’s director of Middle East Public Policy, David Aaron, the book provides a wide variety of views, stories, and justifications by individuals who promote terrorism in the name of Islam. “We have not attempted to present a balanced collection of Muslim views in this book,” Aaron writes in the Note on Sources. “Because the book comprises original jihadi writings, the issue of balance is not germane, except as it pertains to conflicting jihadi views.” While terrorism may have always been a tactic of warfare, seldom have its authors been so well documented.

Iran’s Political, Demographic, and Economic Vulnerabilities (Rand, 978-0-8330-4304-7) by Keith Crane, Rollie Lal, and Jeffrey Martini is the typical under-200-pages size of most of Rand’s monographs. Here, the work was sponsored by the Air Force and carried out in 2005. It covers political, ethnic, and demographic issues, and predicts economic trajectories of growth. Clear and to-the-point, the book finishes with a set of policy recommendations that include discouraging ethnic groups from violently opposing the regime and encouraging the development of markets as the buying power of the electorate translates into less control by the regime. It also recommends that the US not oppose Iran’s accession to the WTO.

Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan (Rand, 978-0-8330-4133-3). Author Seth Jones writes in the summary, “This study’s assessment of 90 insurgencies indicates that it takes an average of 14 years to defeat insurgents once an insurgency develops.” What are the major factors that allow an insurgency to develop and stick? Native lawlessness and a foreign safe haven for resting and resupply. The mujahadeen hid from the Soviets in Pakistan, now Pakistan also protects the Taliban. Jones, who has made repeated trips to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India since 2004, stresses the importance of involving local populations in counterinsurgency operations. The history and strategies in this book are important for understanding the nature of unconventional warfare, no matter where in the world it is.

Be More Independent

2008-07-25T06:52:32.2767992-07:00

The IMBA (Independent Mystery Booksellers Association) announced today its June bestsellers, and I’m sorry to say that not a single independent title was among them. Not one. Not in hardcover, trade, or mass market. Is it possible that the mysteries published by big houses are that much better than the ones produced by independents? I don’t believe it.

I’m something of a fan(atic) about mysteries, and took on the job of reviewing titles for the July/August Mystery Feature in ForeWord. I’m pretty sure that there’s nothing we get more of around here—in the mailroom, that is—than mysteries. I must have had two hundred books in the initial pile, narrowed to about thirty, and then, finally, ten. I believe that each of the Final Ten is absolutely fabulous and deserves a place on your patio this summer.

There’s a new Kerry Greenwood out from Poisoned Pen, Queen of the Flowers. If you like cozy/whimsical/extravagant female protagonists, then this one and Assassins at Ospreys by R.T. Raichev (Soho) are for you.

If grit and unhappiness, money and dirt are your penchant, then try Blood Alley by Tom Coffey. The author’s an editor at the NYT and knows his NYC. Easy Innocence by Libby Fischer Hellman (Bleak House) takes on Chicago, actually the North Shore, in a novel about the degenerate elite.

I rather like traveling abroad in my mysteries. I learn about food, living conditions, the people, and get a little sleuthing exercise as well. Soho always has an amazing collection of these kinds of titles. I enjoyed Reconstruction by Mick Herron (takes place at a kindergarten in London) and Blood of the Wicked by Leighton Gage (takes place in the Brazilian boondocks). Also, The Shadow in the Water by Swedish author Laura Wideburg (Pleasure Boat Studio) is lugubriously wide-open creepy as only they can be in the far north.

Back in the States, there’s a fantastic new book out by Archer Mayer, Open Season. Mayer used to write for the big guys, but left them to publish on his own. Wonder how that’s going for him… The story takes place in Vermont, where coincidentally Mayer is a death inspector for the Medical Examiner in real life. Experience and sharp wit make this series a keeper.

Experience also works in first-time novelist Thomas Taylor’s favor. As a former protective services operator (government bodyguard), his book Mortal Shield (Southeast Missouri State) walks and talks like the real thing and mixes the ultimate American pie of God, guns, and infidelity.

Finally, Overlook has brought out a reissue of a Charles McCarry masterwork, The Better Angels. The time is post-Nixon, fuel is scarce, gas rationed, lights out at dark. And there’s an election going on for president between, on the one hand, an authoritarian, and on the other, a man of the people. Too bad the good guy is also a murderer.

Check out the complete reviews of these books online, plus features on poetry, parenting, and music—and get yourself some great independent books from your independent bookstores.

The Price of Everything

2008-07-11T06:53:46.7343752-07:00

The Price of Everything is the name of a book I got in the mail recently from Princeton (978-0-691-13509-0). Apart from the intriguing title, the BISAC categories on the back were POPULAR ECONOMICS and FICTION. Huh?! Who could resist that?

Not me. I sat on the back porch one Saturday and didn’t get up until it was over. Then I went back through and made notes. Then, I decided that all of my children had to read it over summer break—required. A couple of days later, I talked about it to a friend of mine who teaches at a private middle school, convincing him that it would be a good pick for next year’s curriculum. Yes, it’s this good. I just love it when someone takes a topic that generally bores the pants off people and makes it discussion worthy.

Here’s how the book gets started:

Meet Ramon. He’s a senior at Stanford and a tennis star. He’s also an immigrant from Cuba, where his father was a champion and hero of Castro’s favorite sport, baseball. After the father’s death, however, the Great Leader’s favors dried up, and Ramon’s mother felt that opportunities for her son were greater in the US. Of course, after their immigration the statues of the baseball hero were pulled down and the photos erased.

So now, about twenty years later, Ramon and his girlfriend are having dinner one night and there’s an earthquake. They’re used to such things and finish the meal, but later decide that they could use a flashlight or two. They head to Home Depot. Too late. Flashlights are sold out. No worries; there’s a new gigantic everything store—a combo of Borders, Home Depot, and Sam’s Club—called Big Box. They’ll go there.

And they do. And in fact, Big Box has flashlights and milk and diapers and all the other stuff that other stores have run out of. BUT, there’s also a sign posted at the entrance that says: Tonight Only, All Prices, Double the Marked Price.

Predictably, in the parking lot there’s a bit of a riot going on, and some poor sap employee is trying to explain to the irate crowd that basically, there’s nothing he can do about it.

But, here’s the thing: Do they have flashlights? Yes. Do Ramon and his girlfriend buy one even though it costs double the usual? Yes.

In the checkout line, though, they hit a snag. A Spanish-speaking woman with a baby on her hip only has twenty bucks to cover her purchases—she didn’t plan on the prices doubling. Ramon gets involved. He calms the woman, passes a hat, and helps the woman check out. Then he heads outside to that poor sap employee who’s still trying to explain to masses why he’s just a poor sap. Ramon grabs the megaphone and starts to talk. “What kind of store,” he says, “decides to profit off of hungry children and a caring mother? We need to send a message…”

Stay tuned: between the Cuban story, Stanford economics classes, the Big Box boycott, and why no single person is capable of making a pencil, this is a beautiful little book about how the market economy works.

Author Robert Russell is also a professor of economics at George Mason University and research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. This is the third book where he stirs up an economic/fiction stew with his invisible hand.

Killing the POD Author

2008-06-23T13:34:30.4783775-07:00

Oh Amazon.

Remember back in the old first heady days of Amazon when people like me, surrounded by farmland and little children, could discover and order a book, almost any book, and have it hand-delivered to their own personal boondocks? While savings didn’t really exist in price, the service totally made up for it in terms of hassle and availability.

When I wrote my first book and published it just last year, Amazon was also there as a storefront and potential for marketing. Just a bit ago, I even uploaded my book to Kindle for no charge.

However, there are low rumblings and sweet Amazon words coming through my email every week encouraging me to use their POD service when my shelf stock runs out. I’ve been a loyal Lulu user for a couple of years now—printing everything from our local small press offerings to class materials to books. The printed books are always perfectly bound, the pages straight, the text crisp, the covers brilliant.

But, they’re also pretty expensive, particularly as it’s difficult to have orders from Baker & Taylor or Amazon shipped directly from the store.

So here comes Amazon and an enticing CreateSpace offer last week. No set-up charge (unlike BookSurge’s $299 a pop), and single copies running about $5.70 each. Lulu costs me about nine bucks, and that’s not including shipping. So, we’re talking about half the price—big savings. Huge savings.

Let’s try it.

I did. I uploaded the same PDF files I use at Lulu. The very same ones; I didn’t change a thing. It was easy, although CreateSpace didn’t allow me to look at proof online. I had to order one. Which I did. It arrived very quickly—within a week of the upload.

Big disappointment. The title on the cover looks like it’s been chewed at the edges, ditto the spine text. The barcode on the back is blurry and the blurb almost illegible. Although the interior text is legible, it’s far from crisp, and a comparison with the Lulu copy makes it look bloated. Just all around poor printing quality plain and simple.

While I’m sure I could get away with interior text in bookstores, I’m also sure that no one but my mom is going to want to display or endorse a book with such a carelessly produced cover.

Of course, I corresponded with Amazon about the problem, but they weren’t interested.

    Please Note: This e-mail message was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

    Hello Heather,

    Thank you for your reply.

    We are sorry to hear that you are unhappy with our services. We wish you luck in your future endeavors.

    Please feel free to contact us with any other inquiries.

So what I want to know is what happens to authors like me when our shelf stock runs out? Will we be faced with a choice of sinking or swimming in Amazon’s river? And who’s name will be Mud?