Black Wind A Dirk Pitt Novel (Numa Files)Clive Cus­sler
Michael Joseph Ltd 2004World­Cat • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

With three run­ning series of books and at least that many co-authors, Clive Cus­sler seems to have become more of a brand name than an author. The brand seems to be gain­ing more and more inde­pen­dence from edi­to­r­ial con­trol. At 530 pages, this behe­moth often ram­bles. Mis­used words and instances of poor or improper gram­mar abound. A few mis­spellings also appear.

The cast of char­ac­ters is becom­ing a bit clut­tered, with the addi­tion of Dirk Pitt, Jr., Sum­mer Pitt, and Jack Dahlgren. Dirk Pitt the younger might as well be a clone of his father, and Dahlgren is basi­cally a younger, non-Italian Giordino. Sum­mer Pitt doesn’t add much to the story, serv­ing in lieu of an actively involved love inter­est for her brother. The fic­tional Clive Cus­sler makes yet another appear­ance as a con­ve­nient plot device: scrip­tor ex machina.

The plot is clas­sic Cus­sler: the boys (and girl) of NUMA save the world from an evil bil­lion­aire, uncov­er­ing impor­tant mar­itime his­tory along the way. The ques­tion is: how pro­lix, poorly writ­ten, and hack­neyed will Cussler’s (or more accu­rately, his co-authors’) books have to become for me to stop read­ing them?

Home­land and other sto­ries Bar­bara King­solver
Harper­Peren­nial 1993World­Cat • Read Online • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

Each story in this col­lec­tion is a vignette of fam­ily rela­tion­ships. King­solver deftly cre­ates a vari­ety of set­tings from her pro­tag­o­nists, who are mostly moth­ers, wives, or daugh­ters. The sto­ries range from heart-wrenching to plain funny, some tales con­tain­ing both. The sto­ries are well-crafted, but I pre­ferred Kingsolver’s essays in High Tide in Tuc­son.

The Twelfth Card Jef­fery Deaver
Hod­der & Stoughton Ltd 2005World­Cat • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

Deaver’s lat­est novel is a labyrinth of plot twists and decep­tions, even more so than his pre­vi­ous books. He includes an inter­est­ing sub­plot about a freed slave who was involved in early civil rights work and ran afoul of Boss Tweed and other cor­rupt New York offi­cials. Not my favorite Deaver novel, but still pretty enjoyable.

If on a winter’s night a trav­eler Italo Calvino
Har­court Brace Jovanovich 1981World­Cat • Read Online • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

Italo Calvino’s main goal in this novel seems to be to catch you off guard at every pos­si­ble moment, and to keep you always guess­ing. From the very first word of the text, he twists the tra­di­tional form of the novel. I believe that this is the only siz­able work of fic­tion I’ve read that is writ­ten largely in sec­ond per­son — the first word is “you.”

Calvino begins his nar­ra­tive by describ­ing you, the Reader, prepar­ing to read If on a Winter’s Night a Trav­eler, by Italo Calvino. It becomes evi­dent very quickly that you are read­ing a book about read­ing and books. The even chap­ters are begin­nings of books that you, the Reader, come upon in your search, and are given the titles of those books. The odd chap­ters, which are num­bered sequen­tially, tell of the cir­cum­stances that cause you to keep jump­ing from book to book with­out ever fin­ish­ing one. Your mis­for­tunes and adven­tures become more and more fan­tas­tic and more and more inter­twined with the books them­selves. At one point, the idea is fronted for a book about a reader who must, due to exten­u­at­ing cir­cum­stances, jump from book to book in search of an end­ing. So, at that point, you (the real you) are read­ing a book about you (the Reader, who is for a brief time referred to in third per­son) find­ing an author who wants to write a book exactly like the one you (the real one again) are cur­rently read­ing. Got it?

This book (the real one) is quite inter­est­ing, if a bit mind-bending. There is prob­a­bly an actual lit­er­ary term for a work like this, but as I am igno­rant of it, I’ll just call it avant-garde writ­ing. Calvino decon­structs the form of the novel, and to some degree the read­ing process itself.

The more I read nov­els trans­lated from another lan­guage (this one was trans­lated from the Ital­ian by William Weaver), the more I find I enjoy them. Writ­ing styles and won­der­ful word con­struc­tions not usu­ally found in Eng­lish can be delight­ful. With this trans­la­tion, how­ever, I found there to be a few too many obscure words. Not just uncom­mon words, truly obscure words like ‘pul­vis­cu­lar,” for which the OED has but a sin­gle ref­er­ence from 1599, and which is marked both ‘rare’ and ‘obso­lete.’ While it is impor­tant to con­vey the author’s ideas as closely as pos­si­ble in a dif­fer­ent lan­guage, read­ers should not have to pos­sess a multi-volume dic­tio­nary to get though the book. A more com­mon word or con­struc­tion, although maybe not with pre­cisely the same shade of mean­ing, would bet­ter serve the reader.

Dance of death Dou­glas J. Pre­ston
Warner Books 2005World­Cat • Read Online • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

Pre­ston and Child have crammed into this book every char­ac­ter they could from their pre­vi­ous nov­els. I think the only two books not rep­re­sented are Rip­tide and Mount Dragon. Per­haps that will be cor­rected in the next book — Pre­ston and Child seem to be locked into a multi­book sto­ry­line with bizarre/brilliant Agent Pen­der­gast at its cen­ter. This book was a quick, fun read, bit I think I pre­ferred some of Pre­ston and Child’s ear­lier books that were self-contained and con­cen­trated more on sci­ence, his­tory, and archae­ol­ogy than on crime.

Harry Pot­ter and the half-blood prince J. K. Rowl­ing
Scholas­tic, Inc. 2005World­Cat • Read Online • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

I liked this much bet­ter than Order of the Phoenix. I think the aspect of Rowling’s mag­i­cal world that I enjoy most is the seem­ingly end­less vari­ety of spells and mag­i­cal items. There are always new things being invented, dis­cov­ered, or dragged from the depths of obscu­rity or secrecy. Both the Hor­cruxes and the unique pow­er­ful objects used for them fall into this cat­e­gory. The idea that there is magic so old and for­got­ten that great wiz­ards like Dum­b­le­dore and Volde­mort have to redis­cover or recre­ate it fas­ci­nates me.

Rowling’s fear­some were­wolf, Fen­rir Grey­back, reminded me of a char­ac­ter from C.S. Lewis’s Chron­i­cles of Nar­nia: Fen­ris Ulf, the lupine head of the White Witch’s guards. A lit­tle research revealed the com­mon source. Fen­rir or Fenris-wolf appears in Norse mythol­ogy. The child of Loki and Anger­botha, he treach­er­ously bites off the hand of Tyr. He later swal­lows Odin, but is killed by Vithar. The use of var­i­ous mytholo­gies is com­mon for Rowl­ing, but I didn’t pick up on much in Lewis’s writ­ing. I will have to go back to the Chron­i­cles and look more closely.

Well, I guess I’ve now joined the legions of Harry Pot­ter fans who will eagerly await the next book for the next cou­ple of years.

Harry Pot­ter and the Order of the Phoenix J. K. Rowl­ing
Arthur A. Levine Books 2003World­Cat • Read Online • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

The series is def­i­nitely get­ting heav­ier and darker. Harry, now in the prime of his teen years, is also get­ting harder to like. He has become a know-it-all and I spent entire chap­ters cring­ing at his dis­re­gard for adult advice and ten­dency to jump to con­clu­sions. I hope that he’ll grow out of this. Now that the Min­istry of Magic believes that Volde­mort has returned, I won­der how long it will take for the Death Eaters (and their Slytherin chil­dren) to reveal them­selves. The rev­e­la­tion that Harry was not named in the prophecy, and that it could also have applied to Neville Long­bot­tom is surely significant.

Harry Pot­ter and the gob­let of fire J. K. Rowl­ing
Arthur A. Levine Books 2000World­Cat • Read Online • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

Holy crap, these books are get­ting long. This tale prob­a­bly could have used some edi­to­r­ial prun­ing. That said, I still enjoyed it. I like how Rowl­ing keeps reveal­ing and revis­it­ing mag­i­cal beings through­out the world — i.e. the mer­peo­ple in the lake near Hog­warts, the vee­las and lep­rechauns, wiz­ards from other coun­tries, etc. There were also some very inter­est­ing con­nec­tions revealed in this book. One more name ques­tion: does the name Fawkes (Dumbledore’s pet phoenix) have any con­no­ta­tions other than the fiery con­nec­tion between a phoenix’s rebirth and the cel­e­bra­tory bon­fires of Guy Fawkes Day?

Harry Pot­ter and The Pris­oner of Azk­a­ban J. K. Rowl­ing
Scholas­tic Inc. World­Cat • Read Online • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

This book was def­i­nitely the best thus far — it is easy to see how Rowl­ing is improv­ing her craft as the series pro­gresses. This book is also much darker than the pre­vi­ous two. Harry and his friends have always been in some sort of dan­ger, but fear and evil are per­va­sive in this episode. Some of Rowling’s names have moved beyond sim­ply evoca­tive to actu­ally descrip­tive. I haven’t yet decided if I like that or not. For instance, I guessed Pro­fes­sor Lupin’s true nature very early in the book. I’m glad that his first name wasn’t revealed to be Remus until close to the end. Also, I had a hunch that Harry’s deal­ings with the Patronus spell would some­how relate to his father. Well, now that I’ve fin­ished this book, I need to see the movie.

Harry Pot­ter and the Cham­ber of Secrets J. K. Rowl­ing
Arthur A. Levine Books 1999World­Cat • Read Online • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

After read­ing only the first book a num­ber of years ago, I decided to start catch­ing up on the Harry Pot­ter series. This book was a fun read, and although it is intended as a children’s book, there are plenty of lit­tle things that only adults are likely to notice or get. I very much enjoy Rowling’s gift for cre­at­ing evoca­tive names. The dark or evil names, like Slytherin, Snape, Mal­foy, and Volde­mort are par­tic­u­larly good. I’ll be inter­ested to see how the rest of the saga unfolds.

Lost City A Novel From The Numa FilesClive Cus­sler
Thorndike Press 2004World­Cat • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

True to form, Cus­sler squeezes quite a bit into this book. There’s the dis­cov­ery of an archae­o­log­i­cal site that will cause his­tory to be rewrit­ten, a res­cue from beneath a glac­ier, a sci­en­tific exper­i­ment gone hor­ri­bly wrong, the dis­cov­ery of a new marine geot­her­mal phe­nom­e­non, a plot to destroy the world’s oceans, and a rich and pow­er­ful fam­ily that has had its hands in world affairs for mil­lenia. In the end, Kurt Austin saves the planet and gets the girl. As with all of Cussler’s nov­els, the plot is con­vo­luted and absurd, and I loved it.

Atone­ment A NovelIan McE­wan
Anchor 2003World­Cat • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

My ini­tial impres­sion of this book was that it would turn out to be “one of those British nov­els in which noth­ing really hap­pens.” I feared that there would be no sub­stance beyond lush descrip­tions and psy­cho­log­i­cal stud­ies of not par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing child– and young adult­hoods. Luck­ily, I was wrong. McE­wan weaves a tale of acci­dent, real­iza­tion, mis­un­der­stand­ing, mis­for­tune, and spite. The first sec­tion of the book, which makes up approx­i­mately half its length, presents the sit­u­a­tion and actions that demand atone­ment on the part of one of the char­ac­ters. The remain­ing sec­tions explore the last­ing con­se­quenses of the actions and the pain caused to all par­ties involved. I won’t talk about the lat­ter sec­tions of the book, as I don’t want to give any­thing away. Suf­fice it to say that this is a well-written a grip­ping explo­ration of (strangely enough) atone­ment. Thanks, Jerin. I thor­oughly enjoyed it.

Brave new world Aldous Hux­ley
Peren­nial Clas­sics 1998World­Cat • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

Hux­ley has cre­ated a soci­ety in which every­one is happy, sat­is­fied, brain­washed, and boxed-in. His futur­is­tic Utopia seems a lit­tle far-fetched at first, How­ever, as the rea­son­ing behind many aspects of the soci­ety is revealed, it becomes more plau­si­bly an exten­sion of con­tem­po­rary sen­ti­ments. The book was writ­ten between the World Wars, but still rings true today. Safety and sta­bil­ity are desir­able, but not at the expense of free­dom and indi­vid­u­al­ity. If only Hux­ley could have lived to write about the Patriot Act…

Catch-22 Joseph Heller
Simon & Schus­ter 1996World­Cat • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

A won­der­ful piece of satire, var­i­ously hilar­i­ous and heart-wrenching. Heller touches on a vari­ety of sub­jects, includ­ing reli­gion, the mil­i­tary, war prof­i­teer­ing, war in gen­eral, and busi­ness. He has a gift for twist­ing words into delight­fully unex­pected but tech­ni­cally cor­rect gram­matic con­struc­tions. His pen­chant for going off on tan­gents and cre­at­ing bizarre and sur­pris­ing tran­si­tions is a delight.

THIRD TRANSLATION, THE Matt Bon­durant
Hype­r­ion 2005World­Cat • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

What started out as a promis­ing archaeological/cryptographic mystery/adventure quickly dete­ri­o­rated into a focus­less and per­plex­ing book. Many things that were intro­duced were never devel­oped. The author’s attempts at humor sel­dom come off as more than not-quite-funny. The book’s title is never real­ized; a break though trans­la­tion is never made. The main character’s con­stant analo­gies to Egyp­tol­ogy are inter­est­ing at first, but soon become over­whelm­ing. They serve only to make him seem more pathetic. I was never really able to con­nect with him, to empathize. A num­ber of gram­mat­i­cal errors turned me off as well. All in all, a dis­ap­point­ing read.

The Piano Tuner A NovelDaniel Mason
Vin­tage 2003World­Cat • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

Excel­lent. The best piece of fic­tion I’ve read in awhile. Mason has a won­der­ful way with words. His tech­nique of con­vey­ing fran­tic con­ver­sa­tions through con­glom­er­a­tions of sen­tences and frag­ments is par­tic­u­larly effec­tive. The story he weaves is rem­i­nis­cent of Conrad’s Heart of Dark­ness, although Car­roll is the anti-Kurtz. Or is it just that Drake sees him in such a pos­i­tive light? The reader is left to decide Carroll’s true nature.

Radio activ­ity Bill Fitzhugh
William Mor­row 2004World­Cat • Read Online • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

Good, funny stuff — like all of Fitzhugh’s books to date. His col­or­ful char­ac­ters and bizarre sit­u­a­tions are a delight. This book seemed a lit­tle anti­cli­mac­tic com­pared to his oth­ers. The obscure musi­cal con­nec­tions were quite enjoy­able, though.

A pale view of hills Kazuo Ishig­uro
Vin­tage Books 1990World­Cat • Read Online • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

I don’t get it. I’d intended to read this book in one sit­ting, which might have helped. Per­haps I just need to read it again some­time in the future. Ishiguro’s char­ac­ters are often pathetic and spend a fair amount of time jus­ti­fy­ing their actions of those or oth­ers. I liked Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day, but this one just didn’t do it for me.