My Cod, What A Fish!

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Are you prepared for the excitement of reading a review about a book about fish? Well, strap yourselves in for a wild ride, folks!*

Why write a book about cod? Why read it? Simple. Without you probably knowing it, cod has been one of the most important parts of our diets over the last thousand years. Without it, long distance sea exploration in medieval times (the era, not the ren fair) would've been just about impossible.

And now, ladies and gentlemen....THE MAJESTIC COD!


No?

Okay, it looks more like this...



Not very majestic, but oh so important.

Cod is a particularly unique fish. It eats just about anything and spawns like crazy. It's the frickin' rabbit of the sea! A single cod (well, a single cod who has "coupled"...heehee...SEX!) can produce millions of eggs. Once full-grown, the cod has virtually no predators. And yet we still managed to nearly fish it into extinction.

Though he does spend some time on the history, a very interesting history indeed, much of Kurlansky's book is about how man recently almost wiped the cod off the face of the earth...or to be specific, netted it off the bottom of the ocean. Cod spends many of its pages devoted to the current crisis, looking at it from the variant points of view: fishermen, the governments controlling the waters and the catch, and the public's ravenous demand for this tasty dish.

Perhaps Cod won't appeal to everyone, but it is written with a sense of humor, gives tons of interesting facts (good pub quiz fodder!), includes recipes interspersed through out and, most importantly, it's short. My interest is probably stronger than most in that I was born and raised in Massachusetts, where Cape Cod has been vital to our way of life. Fish-n-chip shacks were in every little village, even out in the sticks where I lived (45 minutes away from the coast is considered "the sticks" in Massachusetts, and it feels like it, trust me). With the important fishing tradition of Gloucester and Maine, etc., so strongly engrained, most New Englanders grow up thinking of cod as a synonym for fish.

Cod is one of those books that most readers will pass up, but the few who do pick it up will be surprised at the high entertainment value and wealth of easily digestible knowledge to be obtained.


* Okay, so you didn't really need to strap yourselves in...this time! But you never know what's to come and hey, safety first kids, safety first!

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You Too Can Be A Chinese Lady!

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Why read The Joy Luck Club? Because sometimes one needs to get in touch with his inner Chinese feminine side.



Amy Tan's most famous book offered ample opportunity in that regard. The JLC is all about the relationships between Chinese moms and their daughters.

Honestly, I picked this up as part of my studies into Chinese culture. My brother has been teaching English over there for a few years now and I plan on visiting one day. As per usual, I like to read up on a place before the trip. Some people say that spoils the surprise, but I feel like I get more out of the visit that way. There always seems to be plenty of surprises when you travel to the other side of the world, regardless of the prep work.

Was this useful for Chinese studies? Not 100%. The stories herein, which are no doubt heavily indebted to Tan's personal experiences, are not only fictional, but they're also about the Chinese-American experience. A good deal of the book takes place in the U.S. There are many old world/home land stories and Tan does an excellent job including and describing Chinese customs and traditions. It's just that most of the time they are tainted or at least touched by the hand of the West.

The relationships themselves and how they play out is, for the most part, satisfying. Emotions sometimes run high and occasionally over. There are laughs to be had in everyday misunderstandings. The characters may be foreign to me, but were nevertheless utterly relatable. After all, most everyone has a parent-child relationship to relate to. My own relationship with my mother was, for better or worse, close. I may not be a woman or Chinese, but that hardly matters, as nothing was lost in Tan's translation of the mother-child bond.



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Horrorstör

Horrorstör
by Grady Hendrix

Reviewed by Sesana
Four out of five stars

Publisher Summary:

Something strange is happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland, Ohio. Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring bookshelves, shattered Glans water goblets, and smashed Liripip wardrobes. Sales are down, security cameras reveal nothing, and store managers are panicking.

To unravel the mystery, three employees volunteer to work a nine-hour dusk-till-dawn shift. In the dead of the night, they’ll patrol the empty showroom floor, investigate strange sights and sounds, and encounter horrors that defy the imagination.

A traditional haunted house story in a thoroughly contemporary setting, Horrorstör comes packaged in the form of a glossy mail order catalog, complete with product illustrations, a home delivery order form, and a map of Orsk’s labyrinthine showroom.

My Review:

There were a few things that drew me to this book. A haunted house that's really an Ikea-like store is an interestingly unique idea. The idea alone appeals to me. I also liked the idea that it would take visual cues from Ikea catalogs (each chapter is headed with an item description). I did my time in retail. And it's set in Cuyahoga County, near where I grew up.

Hendrix uses his retail setting very well. If you've worked retail, you'll recognize the store, the displays, the corporate doublespeak. I was a Linens n Things inmate, Back in the Day. A couple steps down from Ikea and the fictional Orsk, a couple steps up from Walmart. So much felt true to my memories of the place. Especially how weird and creepy those home-like displays look when the store is closed. I feel like this is a book that will appeal most to people who did or are doing the retail thing, for more than just a summer job.

But beyond the gimmick, how is it? Actually, it's pretty creepy. It's an extreme, violent haunting, but it doesn't start full throttle. If it did, it would quickly become overwhelming. It's actually the more subtle stuff towards the beginning that I find so much creepier, like the mysteriously appearing graffiti. I also sort of appreciate that we get to see the aftermath in the main character's life. The ending is basically open, but satisfying enough.

Yes, the book is built on a gimmick, but it's a good gimmick. The story's pretty standard, but the setting is new enough (and has enough personal resonance) to feel like a step or so above your average ghost story. I'll definitely be looking more suspiciously at fake showroom doors in the future.

Golden Boy

Abigail Tarttelin
Atria Books
Reviewed by Nancy
3 out of 5 stars

Summary

Max Walker is a golden boy. Attractive, intelligent, and athletic, he’s the perfect son, the perfect friend, and the perfect crush for the girls in his school. He’s even really nice to his little brother. Karen, Max’s mother, is determined to maintain the façade of effortless excellence she has constructed through the years, but now that the boys are getting older, she worries that the façade might soon begin to crumble. Adding to the tension, her husband Steve has chosen this moment to stand for election to Parliament. The spotlight of the media is about to encircle their lives.

The Walkers are hiding something, you see. Max is special. Max is different. Max is intersex. When an enigmatic childhood friend named Hunter steps out of his past and abuses his trust in the worst possible way, Max is forced to consider the nature of his well-kept secret. Why won’t his parents talk about it? What else are they hiding from Max about his condition and from each other? The deeper Max goes, the more questions emerge about where it all leaves him and what his future holds, especially now that he’s starting to fall head over heels for someone for the first time in his life. Will his friends accept him if he is no longer the Golden Boy? Will anyone ever want him—desire him—once they know? And the biggest one of all, the question he has to look inside himself to answer: Who is Max Walker, really?

Written by twenty-six-year-old rising star Abigail Tarttelin, Golden Boy is a novel you’ll read in one sitting but will never forget; at once a riveting tale of a family in crisis, a fascinating exploration of identity, and a coming-of-age story like no other.

My Review

I feel like a big old meany for not liking this book as much as my friends did.

It is wordy and repetitive, the multiple viewpoints drove me nuts, and the characters lacked substance and authenticity. Though I really admire Max’s parents’ decision not to make their child undergo surgery to correct his intersex condition, I could strangle them for being so secretive about it and allowing Max to grow up and navigate the difficult world of adolescence without any discussion or guidance about sex, relationships, pregnancy, or gender identity. The thing is, when parents don’t talk about this stuff with their kids, they will learn from their friends, or the media, and likely pick up all kinds of incorrect information. What I didn’t understand about Max, particularly in this age of information, was why he showed very little curiosity, didn’t access the internet, or read books. And how does he manage to be the perfect son, the perfect brother, the perfect student, and the perfect boyfriend without any “issues”?

Yet, he is not. Very early on, a childhood friend sexually assaults 16-year-old Max. It is the consequences of that disturbing incident and the fact that his father is running for political office and doesn’t need any negative publicity that make things very complicated for Max.

“I am a normal guy. I am a normal guy who would never have a problem like this. Like what? Like nothing. It doesn’t exist. I am a normal sixteen-year-old. I listen to music. I wear my iPod. I laugh with my friends. I dream about kissing Sylvie Clark. I kiss Sylvie Clark. I am a brother. I am not a sister. I am not an everything. I am not a nothing. I have no big choices to make. I am a teenager, and my biggest job is to be normal. I can’t look at myself in the mirror anymore, or at any reflection of mine in glass. And I don’t know why.”

What I did like about this book, in comparison to Annabel, is that it tackles the issues of gender identity with more sensitivity and compassion. I just wish that the author’s research about intersexuality was presented throughout the novel organically and not solely through the voice of Max’s doctor, which made it feel like forced teaching moments.

As I mentioned earlier, there were problems with characterization. The story was narrated by Max, as well as his parents, his younger brother, Daniel, his girlfriend, Sylvie, and his doctor. Max’s parents were caricatures rather than real people. His brother was way too clever for his 10 years and had more sophisticated vocabulary than anyone else. And Sylvie, who was quite an interesting character and very supportive of Max, didn’t get nearly enough page time.

This book made me think and made me feel, but the prose lacked the grace and elegance of Annabel. I’m still waiting for the perfect book about intersexuality.

A HANDFUL OF DUST BY EVELYN WAUGH

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"'I never thought it would last but she seems really keen on it . . . I suppose it's a good plan . . . there wasn't much for her to do at Hetton. Of course she would rather die than admit it, but I believe she got a bit bored there sometimes. I've been thinking it over and that's the conclusion I came to. Brenda must have been bored.'"


Kristin Scott Thomas adds sizzle to the 1988 movie version as Brenda.

Tony and Brenda Last have been married for seven years and although they don’t have a fiery passionate relationship they have settled into a predictable, comfortable one. They live on the Last family country estate named Hetton Abbey, an ugly neo-gothic creation that would need to wait a few decades more before coming back into fashion. Tony is perfectly happy with the house, but Brenda is subtly, or maybe not so subtly, convincing him to make changes. Plans are made to slowly convert the interior to a more modern appearance and also add some much needed bathrooms to the house.

They have one son who is mostly just a source of annoyance to them. He is precocious and starved for attention, and is often shuffled off to the horse trainer or to the housekeeper to keep him from under the feet of his parents.

They are moderately rich, but feel pinched for money as most of it is being funneled back into Hetton Abbey. Entertainment, as most of us know when we hit a financial snag, is the first and easiest to cut back on. This does create childish resentments in Brenda towards Tony and towards the house, even though, she is the one that is insisting on the remodel. After all she doesn’t even like that ugly old house anyway.

Overall, though, despite the snag in their social life things are going rather well

Until…

John Beaver invites himself down to Hetton Abbey for the weekend. He is a social parasite who lives off the family associations. He was reasonably desperate for some one to sponge off or he would have never ventured out to the country to spend time with the Last family.

”Beaver was so seldom wholly welcome anywhere that he was not sensitive to the slight constraint of his reception.”

He is oblivious, completely oblivious to any irritation his hosts might feel at his presence. He is relying on the unshakable, ancestral sense of decorum that people have for guests, even uninvited ones.


The ever so clever Evelyn Waugh.

Beaver is not a dashing figure nor is he all that charming. He is mostly just a young lad more boy than man. He is surprised at Brenda’s interest in him. She has been out of London society for a while and seems to have lost all her bearings for what she should find attractive in a man. Beaver really has nothing to offer except youth.

She ends up leasing a small apartment in London from Beaver’s rather disreputable real estate mogul mother. Brenda begins to instruct Beaver in an attempt to mold him into a more respectful version of a man she should be seen with. This starts to create some friction with young Beaver.

”You are one for making people learn things.”

Beaver goes along as she is paying for most of their expenses as they start appearing in society together.

Brenda tells Tony she is taking economic classes. Tony does the best he can to believe her.

Beaver as far as society is concerned is just a family friend. It is so nice of him to escort her around town. The rest...well...that is all hush hush.

”That’s always the trouble with people when they start walking out. They either think no one knows, or everybody.”

It has been way too long since I’ve read Evelyn Waugh. This may be one of his bleakest novels, but also the one most rife with wonderful biting sarcasm that exposes the self-absorption of the English upper class and the disregard they have for any retributions for their actions. When tragedy strikes the Last family the understated, cold reactions of both Tony and Brenda are so selfish it reveals their truest nature. I felt sorry for Tony for most of the novel because the decisions that Brenda was making were so destructive and based on such an absurd set of reasoning that it all just seemed so unfair. My feelings for Tony changed and by the end it felt like each got what they deserved. Both are so naive and though raised in this upper crust, seemingly conservative society, they seem to know very little about how to conduct themselves in such a rigid system of socially judgmental families.


A Handful of Dust

A bleak story, filled with a flurry of witty daggers that I’m sure stuck between the ribs of many a reader in 1930s Britain, but at the same time the book is laugh out loud funny. The plot is a series of absurd situations in which the Lasts and their friends ignore the most sensible course and sail into the rocky reef completely oblivious to the fact that they will most likely lose the ship.

Certainly Waugh was pointing a few fingers and wagging his eyebrows at the upper classes. This is a superb balancing act of black humor and social commentary writing that is not only difficult to do well, but also entirely entertaining in the hands of Evelyn Waugh.



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You Lost Me At Hello

Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham
2014
Reviewed by Diane K.M.
My rating: 1 out of 5 stars


This book reminded me of that scene in an action movie when an older man performs a stunt, and then he mutters to himself, "I'm getting too old for this sh*t."

I am, indeed, too old to have any patience for this kind of sh*tty, self-indulgent writing.

I had wanted to like this book. I like the idea of having a voice like Lena Dunham in the world, telling a different story of womanhood. And I thought the introduction to this book was good. It had this quote:

"There is nothing gutsier to me than a person announcing that their story is one that deserves to be told, especially if that person is a woman. As hard as we have worked and as far as we have come, there are still so many forces conspiring to tell women that our concerns are petty, our opinions aren't needed, that we lack the gravitas necessary for our stories to matter. That personal writing by women is no more than an exercise in vanity and that we should appreciate this new world for women, sit down, and shut up."

I agree with that sentiment, however, I don't think that gives one license to then write drivel about a silly email you wrote to a boy, or about weird boyfriends, or all the times you shared a bed with a guy but didn't have sex, or your burgeoning interest in exhibitionism, or entries from your food journal, blah blah blah.

After a strong introduction, this book quickly became painful to read and I had to skim to get through it. It's a hodgepodge of essays that are fine for a blog, but it doesn't make for a compelling read in print. I cannot recommend this.

Knots and Crosses

Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Girls are being kidnapped and murdered around Edinburgh and John Rebus is on the case. But what, if anything, do the disappearances have to do with bizarre letters Rebus has been getting in the post?

The mother-in-law of the owner of my favorite used bookstore has been on my ass for years to give the Inspector Rebus books a shot. When this one turned up during one of my semi-weekly visits, I decided it was time.

This slim volume packs quite a punch. As the first book in a mystery series, it has a lot of heavy lifting to do, which it does quite well. John Rebus left the SAS under mysterious circumstances and joined the police department. Fifteen years later, he's divorced with a teenage daughter and has large blank areas in his past. When the past comes knocking at his door, it's time to pay the piper.

John Rebus reminded me of a lot of detectives from the time Knots and Crosses was written, like Elvis Cole, for instance, but what he really reminded me of was a late 1980's version of Dorothy Sayers' shell-shocked aristocrat detective, Lord Peter Whimsey. Rebus' buried past lurks on the periphery of his day to day life with the Edinburgh PD, much like Lord Peter's.

Rebus has a lot baggage, from his stage hypnotist brother to his ex-wife and everything in between. He's a sad bastard in a long line of sad bastard detectives but has enough uniqueness that I'll be happy to visit him again in the future.

The mystery wasn't really solveable but I think Knots and Crosses was more of a setup book than anything else. Rankin's writing was pretty good. I think he did a good job of portraying cops as real people. I have to wonder if Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad was influenced by Rankin.

That's enough rambling. 3.5 out of 5 stars. I didn't love it but I liked it enough to want to read more books featuring John Rebus.



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Reviewed by James L. Thane
Five out of five stars

This is the eleventh entry in Lawrence Block's excellent Matthew Scudder series, and it remains my favorite book in the series. As the story opens, Scudder and his girlfriend, Elaine, are thrown together with a young couple named Glenn and Lisa Holtzmann. Elaine and Lisa are taking a class together; the Holtzmanns live in the same neighborhood as the hotel where Matt lives, and the two couples wind up going out to dinner one night.

Matt is not overly impressed. He and Elaine have little in common with the younger couple and there's something about Glenn that puts Matt off. Given that they're something like neighbors, Matt runs into Holtzmann occasionally on the street and Holtzmann keeps proposing that they get together for lunch. Matt always manages to find a reason for refusing the offer and then, suddenly, he no longer needs one when Holtzmann is gunned down while using a pay phone a couple of blocks from his apartment.

The police immediately charge a street person named George Sadecki with the killing, and the evidence seems overwhelming. The police do not recover the weapon used, but Sadecki, a Vietnam vet, has policed the area and the police find the shell casings in his jacket pocket. Sadecki, who has never been quite "right" mentally, admits that he might have killed Holtzmann, but he doesn't remember one way or the other.

Sadecki's brother, Tom, knows Matt from AA, and doesn't believe that George would have been capable of killing anyone. He knows the odds are long, but he convinces Matt to look into the case in the hope of giving him some sort of closure. Matt agrees, although the case looks open-and-shut, and he warns Tom Sadecki not to expect much.

In a case like this, SOP is to start by investigating the victim to see who, if anyone, might have had cause to wish him harm. On the surface, Glenn Holtzmann appears to be a pretty straightforward yuppie lawyer, but as Scudder begins poking around, he uncovers some secrets about the late Mr. Holtzmann that are troubling, to say the least.

The case itself is intriguing, but what sets this book apart for me, above all the others in the series, is that Scudder is presented with two very critical moral issues that are not really directly related to the case itself. The real strength of this series has always been the development of the characters, Scudder in particular, and it's extremely interesting to watch him wrestle with these two issues.

To describe either dilemma would be to give away too much. Suffice it to say, that neither is easy, and both will require that Matt look deeply into his own soul in the hope of finding some sort of resolution. Fair warning: watching him do so may well require the reader to examine his or her own conscience as well. This is at least the third time I've read this book, and I'll eagerly look forward to it again as I make my way through this series the next time--one of my favorite crime novels of all.

Find Your Florence With Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet Florence Encounter by Robert Landon
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Firenze, tu sei il mio preferito città Italiane!

I was working at a map company, was about to go on vacation to Italy, and this was the only book we carried specifically on Florence, so I bought it. It wasn't the most useful travel guide I've ever used, but it's very compact (an actual "pocket book" that fits in the pocket, wow!), it's got some fancy pictures and if you're looking for places to eat, it gives you a nice, general rundown of what to expect in this most wondrous city!

Slim and more snapshotty than other more thorough and comprehensive Lonely Planets I've used, Florence Encounter provides a few good ideas that may not have been on your vacation itinerary if you're a first time visitor to Florence. One of my favorite experiences, learned about in this little book, was I Fratellini, a curbside wine and sandwich shop that serves up a simple, but delicious and inexpensive meal that you eat standing in the street or while literally sitting on the curb as we and my others did. It's a fantastically quick and cheap way to get something good in your belly, so you can move along to more touristy sights without spend all afternoon at a restaurant (sometimes it takes a while to eat in Italy I've found).

Travelers' Tip: When my wife and I went to Italy a few years back I learned some basic Italian so we could get around via train and bus, order in restaurants and handle hotel reservations. Because we were always in the major urban areas, it probably wasn't necessary, but it did come in handy now and then. Many Italians speak English, but certainly not all. And heck, it's just polite to exchange pleasantries in your host country's language.

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A Jesus For Everybody!

Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time by Karen Armstrong
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Muhammad



Looks a little like Jesus, doesn't he?

This was one of my first forays into the life of a man who has meant so much to so very many. Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time felt easily digestible to me, an outsider and an utterly ignorant one at that.

Having lived about 500 years after Jesus, we seem to know more concrete information about the life of this prophet, thought by Islamists to be the last prophet, than we do of the Christians' "son of god". He came from Mecca and is the man who brought all of the Arabian nations under one religious umbrella. He was a fighter, who raised a Jihadist army that he turned upon his own hometown, in the name of god of course.

Perhaps that sounded too snarky. I do not intend to belittle the man or his religion. My scorn is for all organized religions. However, I try to set aside my prejudices when reading non-fiction on religious matters or biographies regarding their saintly figures. For instance, some of Muhammad's deeds did not seem entirely honorable in hindsight, but that is hindsight, which is distorted by the distance of time.

Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time is a nice primer, a good first step towards greater knowledge. During these difficult times, when many of us Americans do not readily accept the followers of Islam with open arms, getting to know the history of the people is an important step in realizing our overwhelming similarities as humans, the one an only tribe of man and woman that should truly matter.

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