kim

I don't think I've read Rudyard Kipling since I was a teen; that was probably Captains Courageous. A quick look at the Books page here on the blog tells me I'm wrong; I read The Jungle Book; Just So Stories in 2010, but didn't write about it. Anyway, I guess you could compare Kim with The Jungle Book, in that it focuses on a young man or boy in India. In both stories the boy has 'gone native' and ends up moving toward a more civilized (less wild) life as a young man. Perhaps its a parable on how we all grow: from a life of play and fantasy as a child, to the norms of society as an adult.

Perhaps they're just boy's adventure stories.

Kipling was born in India during the British rule (1865) but was sent back to England as a 6 year old for his education. He returned to India at 17, and worked there as a journalist and poet until he returned to London as a well known author at 24. So he spent some formative years in India, and you can see why he focused some of his well known stories on young men in India.

Kim (Kimball O'Hara) spends his early life as a street urchin, begging for his meals, and doing odd jobs where he can get the work. His street savvy has caught the attention of a horse dealer, who keeps his eye on the young Sahib, living as a local, and speaking to vernacular.

The story takes place over a number of years (roughly 1898 to 1902) and across a huge swath of India, from the Himalayas and Umballa (Ambala) down through New Delhi and Lucknow, to Benares (what is now Varanasi.) By train, and often on foot, either on an errand for the horse trader, or in the company of a Tibetan lama, whom he adopts and becomes a chela (guide) for in the lama's quest. In time, the lama, the horse trader, even a wealthy widow with her own children and grandchildren, become a kind of family to Kim who has lost his own family. They help him find purpose, education, and an connection to his lost European roots while allowing him to remain true to his 'street' self when he needs to. In the end, Kim even finds wisdom.

There is more to it than that, including a cloak and dagger theme that runs through the book, that I wont get into. I was a little surprised by it, but it gave the story I depth I wasn't expecting when I got into it.

Read this book.

the stranger

The Stranger (L'estranger) by Albert Camus, translated by Matthew Ward, is a small book, only 123 pages, but its a chilling, tightly written glimpse into the mind of a what, sociopath? pschopath? I don't know well enough to tell. I'm not sure we had the words to describe the man Camus tells this story about in the 1946, maybe we did. Again, I'm not the person to say. I'm sure the interwebs knows.*

Its written is short, staccato sentences, especially in the first half, that according to Ward, the translator, Camus based on what he called the 'American Style.' So we find ourselves wandering along with this fellow, as he goes off to the funeral of his mother, spends some time at work, with neighbors, at the beach, and with a girlfriend.

Told in the first person, after a while its becomes clear that our man Meursault may be lacking in empathy, but its goes further than that. Stranger is right; Camus tells a tale of a man that just doesn't seem right, and in the end, isn't really right at all.

It was creepy, but a good read. Thanks to Lino for loaning me this book. I apologize for keeping it so long.



* Looks like psychopath is closer to what I was thinking. Thank you internets.

road to mercy

My wife likes the action novels of the detective and spy variety, and she can read a book in a day, so someone that can crank them out is a plus. So we have a lot of books around the house by writers like Danial Silva, Lee Childs, Brad Thor, and today's writer; David Baldacci. The Long Road to Mercy is the entrance novel for a new character, which I assume we'll be seeing again, Atlee Pine. Pine is an FBI agent, who likes to work alone rather than in a big office somewhere like New York or Los Angeles. She would also prefer her territory to be less populated as well, so she works in a remote FBI office, not far from the Grand Canyon, and has a significantly larger physical area under her jurisdiction.

Atlee Pine's resources are limited, her office furniture is worn out, and possibly second had, and her office assistant is a hot ticket. We'll be seeing more of Carol Blum too, I'm sure. Pine has made friends with the local law enforcement folks as well, and where she is, that includes the sheriff's department, Navajo Nation Police, US Park Rangers, and some ICE agents that also rent space in the same building as her office. These local friends act as a kind of emergency back-up system Lee can turn to in a pinch, and they can turn to her as well.

Pine is described as a 6-foot-plus, beer drinking, competitive weightlifter that almost made the US Olympic team, who has some pain in her past. Blum is an older, smaller woman, with six adult children, no husband, a selection of skirt-suits and pantyhose she wears to work, and has no problem making and/or delivering the coffee.

This story begins with an incident down in the canyon, that seems more odd than anything else, but soon appears to be much more than it appeared to be. The Park Rangers call on Pine to help with some of those oddities, and Pine soon discovers that things just don't add up. Overall, I thought this was pretty good, and I'd read another of Atlee Pine's adventures without hesitation. I'm sure my wife will bring one home at some point.

other woman

The Other Woman is a Gabriel Allon novel by Daniel Silva. I actually read this one before,* and I even came to this blog to check, but I guess I hadn't written about it, or maybe I did but I just couldn't find it. Oh well, its on here now.

True to form, Silva has written another story of international espionage of a scale that has the potential to unhinge the world as we know it, and who does the world look to to solve it, but the Israeli intelligence service, because (as Silva would have us believe) they are nimble, technologically advanced, and ruthless enough to get the job done without splashing it all over the front pages of the worlds newspapers. if there are such things any more

The other reason a 'third party' is needed is because there are potential implications for both the American and British secret services, MI6 and the CIA, respectively. And they would both like some distance, if not complete deniability. That's where our man Allon comes in, and not only that, if things go well, Allon is known to be happy to let the credit fall to his American or British counterparts as the case may be.

In this case however, I think those two services would rather drop through a hole in the ground and disappear as what this case quickly turns into is a mole hunt; a mole that may have, and probably has, compromised both the American's and the British, given their close ties. This one has some good twists and turns, and a great backstory that helps tie it into reality and give the story some depth.



* Not long after re-reading this, I went in search for something else to read and found two other books my wife bought, and found that I had read both of those as well, some time in the last year. I guess I'm getting sloppy maintaining this blog, I only wrote about one of them. I haven't written about Hidden Order by Brad Thor. If I remember, I'll add it to the year's reading list

lost things

The title of this book gives a pretty good idea about the kind of story you're about to get into, but its also the title of a mysterious book in the story. The Book of Lost Things is, like many of those stories where young people find a doorway into a magical place, is presumably written by the main protagonist after his adventures in the alternate universe he has discovered. The place our young man has found, is decidedly darker and more grim than the more familiar Narnia, Wonderland, or Neverland. The door to this place opens when the when the land of stories begins to bleed into our world.

And that only happens when a young person begins to suffer from sorrow and loss, which can sometimes bring on envy, and even hatred of another young person they've come to blame (wrongly) for their losses. Hmm... if that kind of child on child hatred is something that helps to crack open the door between the worlds, then whatever is drawn to it from the other side can't be good. yeah, its not

John Connolly has put together a pretty creepy book, that reads a little like a young adult story written for adults. Its all the creepiest parts of Grimms Fairy Tales (and other old stories) reimagined as the even nastier 'real' stories that inspired the fairy tales. David brings these stories with him into the world of stories, along with his own demons, and they blend together in a series of adventures that seem to be leading him toward some kind of conclusion.

As David makes his way through this world, meeting, heroes, monsters, witches, and wolves if he's actually heading back toward home, which he says that he wants, or if he is actually being drawn further into an imaginary world he may not be able to escape.

This story is creepy (as I said) wild, funny, satirical, sweet and sometimes sad. Its a lot like the fairy tales that inspired it, as I guess you'd expect. Connolly has done a great job of spinning a yarn that is both familiar and new.

Bonus: The backmatter in this book includes Connolly's analysis of the various fairy tales he used in the story, what he took from them, and then the text of the original fairy tale itself.

past tense

Past Tense is a Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child. I'm pretty sure this is the 754th Reacher novel; I may be off by one or two, I didn't read them all. Thankfully, this one doesn't appear to be one where Child stepped back into Reacher's past to fill in the blanks in the timeline. I've had a little experience with that type of Reacher story, and I wasn't all that excited about it.

Reacher does take a trip down memory lane in this one however, being in the neighborhood where is dad grew up, he decides to take a look around and see if can uncover more of his father's roots. This turns out to be a little trickier than Reacher had hope, not least because his father joined the marines at 17, and didn't do a lot of talking about his hometown when Reacher and his brother were growing up.

As one would expect, there is also some crap going down locally that may call for some ass kicking, and its a good thing our man is in town to pass it out. There seems to be no end to local good ol' boys that just don't understand the physics of a guy that stands six four and weighs as much as a buffalo. You know what I mean... think Tom Cruise, that'll give you a good idea what I'm talking about.

Ass kicking, sarcasm, protection of innocents, three large meals a day, and pants pressed under a mattress. This one has it all, and I'm sure will be a hot with the fans.


Note: This is the last of the books I read while on vacation a few weeks ago, now I just need to catch up on the other books I've read since I got back.

astray

Astray is a series of short stories, which I didn't know until I got into it. I don't usually spend a lot of time on a book jacket, just enough to determine if it might be interesting. This habit is a sword that cuts both ways; I'm not a fan of spoilers, so avoiding the blurbs can often lead to surprises. Some are pleasant, some less so. This surprise fell somewhere in the middle. These short stories are all based on folks that strayed away from their normal track or orbit in life. Some by choice, some not. Additionally, these stories come either directly from, or are inspired by, old records, news items, and letters by and about actual people. Emma Donoghue researches these old stories, mostly from North America's earlier history, and then imagines the story behind what she's read. An interesting concept.

Donoghue has separated the stories into three groups: Departures, In Transit, and Arrivals and Aftermaths. Many of her characters are struggling; with change, with life, loss, poverty, death, and for a large percentage, homosexuality, which I'm sure was extremely difficult a hundred or two-hundred years ago, but does seem over represented, so I assume that is also one of the themes Donoghue is exploring.

The stories are varied, and the characters are well written and engaging. I won't go into the stories themselves, as there are a bunch of them here, only 10 or 12 pages each, mostly. Emma Donoghue is probably best known as the author of Room, didn't read it as well as the subsequent screenplay for the movie of the same title. didn't see it

She's authored a variety of things, listed at her website, and has been honored multiple times for her writing. I'll have to keep my eye out for Room, and some of her other stuff.

magician's tale

I borrowed this book from the collection of books tucked away in a cabinet in the house we stayed in on the beach. I assume the collection of books is assembled from both the owners of the house, and those left behind by other visitors over the years. The front cover was torn away, so I'm guessing that the cover image I've posted is the correct one based on the color scheme which carried onto the rear cover of the copy I read.

The Magician's Tale is from the mid-1990s, written by David Hunt. A quick look online tells me it was pretty popular when it came out and spent some time on the best sellers list.

The Tale is told in first person by a strong female character, Kay Farrow, who is an independent photographer working in the streets of San Francisco, documenting the people living on the wrong side of the law, and one of the less savory neighborhoods of the city.

Our hero has come to know many of the characters who live in the neighborhood, and has become quite friendly with some of them, spending time photographing them, documenting their lives, and the way they live. Farrow captures the lives of the street hustlers, and the johns that pay for their services, with eye toward producing a photo journal of the neighborhood. What sets Farrow apart, aside from her retired cop father, is her colorblindness. Not just red-green confusion, but a total lack of color sensitivity. Hunt's character is a professional photographer who can only see in shade of gray. Guess what kind of film she shoots with.

This story is edgy, smart, progressive, thoughtful, dense, intricate, exciting, and satisfying. If you have a chance, find this book in your library, keep an eye out in used book sales, or stay where I did this summer. Its in the cabinet at the end of the table.

Read this book.

friends of the dusk

Phil Rickman is an English author described as a writer of 'supernatural and mystery novels.' He's pretty deep into it at this point, and because this book had the feel of a recurring character, I took a look-see and sure enough: the Merrily Watkins series has 16 books, and I happened upon a recent one, from 2015, is number 14 in the series. Merrily Watkins is his most written about character by far. All of his writings, in the order they were written is on BookSeriesInOrder.com, as is the quote about his penchant noted above.

Merrily is a vicar in the Church of England, and an exorcist, which the church apparently refers to as deliverance, rather than exorcism. I don't recall seeing it in the text, but perhaps that makes Merrily a deliverist? She lives in a small town in England close to the border with Wales, which may have even been part of Wales at some point. Anyhow, maybe Wales is just spookier than England proper, who knows, but I don't think Americans are Rickman's target audience, too many Englishisms in the text. I get the feeling that Merrily maybe a little bit like that lady in our TV show, Murder She Wrote. I've talked about Dame Angela Lansbury's character before in similar situations. There's something weird about mysteries and homicides popping up around some sweet lady, episode after episode. is it me, or is it weird that British born Dame Angela, recently knighted by the queen, plays a homegrown detective in Maine? Anyhoo...

Rickman sets the tone early, its creepy and slightly eerie very early on, and tension slowly builds throughout the story. I don't think its a spoiler to say that the tension Rickman built up was squandered in my opinion. I was expecting some kind of ass-kicking, pits-of-hell-unroofed finale, but maybe that's the ugly American talking. The story was resolved just fine, but with more whimper and less bang. I guess that's appropriate for a vicar. Maybe the target audience is similar to Murder She Wrote, and Rickman and his publishers don't want to give anyone a heart attack, but don't let me dissuade you, I've only read one of these books, and otherwise it was very good. Spooky, as I said, tightly written; Merrily Watkins is a well developed character, and her personal story is engaging as well.

If I see another one, I'll probably pick it up. Hopefully earlier in the series. I enjoyed it overall, just a little let down at the end.

you suck

Yeah, You Suck!

It doesn't really have an exclamation point but it seems like a good opening for this follow-up to Christopher Moore's Bloodsucking Fiends. I didn't plan on read this second book of the trilogy so quickly but my wife and oldest were shopping at consignment shop and found a hardcover copy of this for cheap.

This doesn't feel like the second book in a trilogy, which in my experience can sometimes move the overall storyline forward, whilst both answering some questions from the first volume and adding more questions to the storyline in turn. Second or middle books can sometimes feel link a link between two larger stories that make up the beginning at the end. Who knows, if I get to the end I may change my mind, but this book does read like it wasn't orignally intended to be the second of three. It reads like more of an afterthought.

It was fun, but basically more of the same.