On Defending Dr Seuss

Given the hype of the last week, I feel that perhaps I should begin my post with a disclaimer: "The views in this blog are the author's own." While that statement would not wholly exonerate me should someone decide to "cancel" me, perhaps it might halt just a few knee-jerk reactions to my words. We live in a world that is growing increasingly hysterical and decreasingly willing to investigate beyond click-bait headlines and social media memes (remember, a meme is merely a picture with words attached.) 

First and foremost: Dr Seuss is not being "cancelled." Six of his books will not be republished for the foreseeable future. Those books are the intellectual property of the current publisher and the estate of Theodore Giesel. We the people have the right to applaud or denounce that decision. We have the right to write hysterical Facebook posts and to tweet about it. And we have the right to preserve our childhood by searching for our childhood copies of these books -- or to pay the exorbitant prices currently being charged on eBay by people who read the initial news story and sought out their own copies so they could list them, knowing full well someone would panic and actually be willing to spend a day's or two's wages to obtain a copy. 

Second: All those cute Seussian poems making the rounds on Facebook? That's what they are: cute poems written in the style of Dr Seuss, bemoaning lost childhoods and fearful predictions of ongoing censorship. But here's the truth. The "snowflakes" aren't taking anything away from you. Not everyone you disagree with is a snowflake. The "evil, money-grabbing corporations" aren't taking anything away from you. There is still much of Dr Seuss's work left to buy and to own. Those corporations want your money, and they can't get it from you if they have nothing left for you to purchase.  

When I first saw the headline, my curiosity was duly piqued and I did what I was supposed to do: I clicked on the link. And read the story which took me all of two minutes to read, I mention the time because it seems apparent that those writing their clever poems, their tweets, and Facebook posts did not: Most of the books bemoaned as lost are not on the short list of books ceasing publication. When I myself read the list, I recognized only two of the titles: If I Ran the Zoo, and And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street. I don't think I ever read Zoo, and had read Mulberry Street maybe twenty years ago. As such I had little to no memory of the offending images. Scrambled Eggs Super!, On Beyond Zebra!, McElligot's Pool, and The Cat's Quizzer were all titles unfamiliar to me so I cannot say I experienced any sense of loss over their demise. A Wikipedia search made me curious about the wordplay of  Zebra -- but because of the wordplay which I so enjoy in Dr Seuss's other works. For the most part, it's the illustrations that are being challenged, not the text. 

I recognize people might feel that this is the beginning of the end, the slippery slope leading to the censorship of all our childhood favorites, the entering into the worlds of Fahrenheit 451 or 1984. Such fears are not illegitimate nor unwarranted. It is possible. Improbable, but not impossible. But the publishers stated from the beginning which titles they were removing, and why, and they did so rather succinctly. Tweeters and celebrities and politicians and talk show hosts stirred the pot, whether deliberately or not, and the inevitable knee-jerk reactions of a sadly too large segment of social media users did the rest: they reposted, retweeted, and made memes knowing full well the inherent inability of the masses to think before they post. They knew most people cannot spare two minutes reading a press release (although oddly enough they can spare the same two minutes reading rants about "cancel culture" - the current incarnation of "political correctness", "don't be so sensitive", and "can't you take a joke?") 

One need not experience racial prejudice or hatred firsthand to figure out the obvious: others have experienced it. It doesn't take a great deal of brain power, or heart, to recognize that if someone has been hurt, the one causing the hurt needs to stop what they are doing, whether they are the original perpetrator or not. Even if you don't understand why something is hurtful, whether to one, two, ten, a hundred, or a thousand individuals; it takes only a modicum of empathy to stop the hurt. To change the behavior, and then the attitudes, which caused that hurt, now that requires effort. But history shows that Theodore Geisel managed it, and changed his subsequent work to champion diversity and acceptance (those are the titles people are quoting from, not the offending works.)  

Is ceasing publication the proper response? I don't know. I think of one of my childhood favorites, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In the first, 1964, edition, the Oompa-Loompas were described and drawn as African pygmies. When the first film version was announced, the NAACP expressed concern over this. The author Roald sympathized, and subsequent editions changed both written and illustrated descriptions. Could the same be done with the offending Seuss books? It was the offending version I read as a child, and I didn't know at the time it was offending. That I think is part of the issue. As a child, I didn't know such description could be offending. That was simply what the Oompa-Loompas looked like. I was vaguely aware of something called slavery, and had been told it was wrong, but didn't see the Oompa-Loompas as slaves because that was not my idea of slavery, as I had been taught to that point. History is selective. 

I'm sure some would argue that changing the text and illustrations is itself censorship, or, if the expressions had existed in 1971, "political correctness" or "cancel culture". I would disagree. I would also disagree that succumbing to prevailing societal attitudes at any given time is indicative of racist attitudes. Insensitive attitudes and actions born of ignorance is not racism - it is insensitivity born of ignorance. But once sensitivity is gained, turning a blind eye through a willful continuation of that ignorance, that is a form of racism. 

I'd like to think most people are capable of that change. 

Body Snatchers

I first read Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1978, shortly before the second movie adaptation came out. Like most readers, I get pretty annoyed when movie makers change the story - especially the ending! Why, why, why? wondered my 15 year old self. The 1993 adaptation was more disappointing; although I had to concede its glimmer-of-hope ending was a step in the right direction, I wondered why movie makers cannot simply state their story is "inspired by" rather than "based upon" a book - for the only resemblances this movie had to Jack Finney's 1955 (revised in 1978) novel were the title and the basic premise: extra-terrestrial seed pods replace humans with emotionless, soulless beings. A perfectly scary enough concept without throwing out hope.

Five, maybe seven years later, I finally got around to watching the first movie adaptation, made in 1956. This was more faithful than the subsequent adaptations, and it too had a more hopeful ending, if considerably different from the book. In later years I rewatched the 1978 version and can appreciate it on its own merits.  In those years I've also accepted the truth that "based upon" generally means "Hey, what a cool title, let's use it." Movies and books are different storytelling mediums, so I don't expect a completely "faithful" adaptation, and indeed that might be dull and uninspiring. A wholly different story ought to be billed as such, such as 2007's The Invasion, which is considered the fourth adaptation of the novel even though the makers intended it to be a different storyline. In this they succeeded and ironically ended up capturing more of the spirit of the novel, if none of its plot.

This year I decided it was high time I reread the novel. Why it took me nearly forty years, I do not know. It's not a perfect novel. There are places where the narrative drags; in other scenes too much happens in too short a time, such as streets that fall into disrepair much quicker than the pod people take over. Perhaps this was intentional, to show that complacency happened by degrees even before the alien visitations.

Although I don't demand happy endings in my reads as I did forty years ago, I still ask for hope. This time around I felt the ending a bit too pat and too quick. It seems the aliens gave up rather easily, although it was implied (rather than shown) others besides the main protagonists had refused to be taken over. Yet the hope was there, the hope that fighting for life, liberty, etc is actually worth it, that you might actually succeed. Life isn't all lollipops and rainbows, but it doesn't have to be about despair and fear.

Where I think the novel's strength lies is in the subtlety of the horror. Little things taken for granted, unacknowleged and underappreciated until they are gone. All that was lost was lost by degrees, much without notice, and even when noticed, there wasn't a sense of urgency to act until it was too late.

Without implicitly doing so, the story asks what it is that makes us human. It's what each of the movies got right: the hardships of life, disease and greed and hate and war - these are all things the alien entities tried to convince Miles and Becky humanity would be better off without. It's a tempting thought. But while those things are inescapable, they need not be embraced. So long as their counterparts exist - love and friendship and laughter and charity - creativity and the will and desire to serve and to better your world - these too are part of the human condition. If the movies suffered from a lack of hope, the book perhaps suffers from a little bit too much idealism. But is that really a bad thing? In the book (spoiler alert!) the aliens left because they realized humans would not give up so easily. But the danger was there. It was complacency, and the erroneous belief that individuals cannot  have a positive impact, that nearly lost the battle.

That is a message worth paying attention to. We might not need to worry about pod people. But perhaps we should be concerned about closing our eyes to the subtle dangers of people and philosophies that tell us all is well when our guts say all is not. Thus the enemy isn't always without. Sometimes the enemy is within.

.

<div id="prodcontain"><a href="https://www.tatteredcover.com/aff/yerffoeg/book/9781501117824"><img src="https://images.booksense.com/images/books/824/117/FC9781501117824.JPG"></br><div id="title">Invasion of the Body Snatchers</div></a></div>

Middle Reader Intrepid Heroines

The world can be a spooky place for children, and not just at election time.

Sorry, couldn't resist.





 A couple of my grandnieces like reading "spooky" books. Here are two that I've recommended to them, and one more which I just finished today so I've not yet had the chance to send it their way. They are Middle Readers, which is probably my favorite age group to read in, when I'm not being an adult. Frankly, those Middle Reader books present more intriguing premises, more exciting adventures, and far more likeable people than most "adult" books.

~~~

First, Neil Gaiman's 2002 masterpiece "Coraline". Great movie.  Better book.

If you've seen the movie, you know the premise. Coraline and her parents move into an old house they jointly own with a couple of elderly sisters who were once famous actresses. Coraline finds a hidden door, crawls through it, and finds herself in a world mirroring her own in many ways, with her "other parents", similar neighbors, similar woods adjacent to the property, and the same haughty black cat - well, that cat can talk. Coraline soon realizes that there's a sinister undercurrent underneath it all.

The movie was reasonably faithful to the book, more so than most adaptations are. But, like most adaptations, it fell short. For starters, the book has Neil Gaiman's splendid, masterful writing. His descriptions plant you firmly in the worlds he creates; his protagonists are immensely likeable and his antagonists immensely... creepy. The other world Coraline enters promises her the attention she is missing from her sometimes distracted parents. Coraline sees through the ruse in practically no time, and would simply return to her own world and simply be content, but the evil on the other side wants her. And her parents. And her neighbors.

Coraline isn't going to let that happen. How she stops it (with the help of the cat) makes for a more suspenseful, and ultimately more satisfying journey, than the movie.

~~~

Next, M.P. Kozlowsky's 2011 debut, "Juniper Berry", aptly subtitled "A tale of terror and temptation."

Eleven year old Juniper Berry has a dream life - or at least she used to. Her parents are famous movie stars and she lives in a huge house. She writes plays that she and her parents perform together, and they are tremendously happy together. Or at least that's the way it used to be. She still writes the plays, but since becoming famous, her parents have grown increasingly distant and no longer have time for her. At times they are downright cold.

Juniper finds a friend in her neighbor Giles, a lonely boy whose parents have also grown distant and cold. Together they find a secret world underneath a gnarled old tree, and there they discover the horrifying reason why they are losing their parents. There they meet the sinister Skeksyl, who promises them their dreams - for a price. And he makes very convincing arguments the price is well worth the realization of their dreams. The most chilling aspect of this story, for me, was how convincing Skeksyl was - which makes this a cautionary tale for adults as well as for children.

Children, of course, are less gullible than adults, and so they save the day, but not before a few quite suspenseful moments. A final word of caution I give: you'll never again look at toy balloons in quite the same way.

~~~

More lighthearted and less spooky is another debut novel, Christopher Pennell's "The Mysterious Woods of Whistle Root". Booklist offers it up as being "in the vein of E.B. White", and after reading it, I realize the last time I read either "Charlotte's Web" or "Stuart Little" , I was a child, which has probably been far too long considering I still remember the story lines if not the details, and still remember being enchanted by them.

Carly Bean Bitters has never been able to sleep at night, and her parents and multiple doctors never could figure out why. She's now an orphan being raised by her aunt who takes care of her temporal needs but largely ignores her. Her teachers don't understand her and have little patience with her falling asleep every day (she has no difficulty whatsoever sleeping during the day.) And she has no friends. Spending her evenings alone reading and drinking hot tea, she often hears music being played, but can never see who is playing it, nor who is leaving vegetables on the rooftops of the town of Whistle Root.

One moonlit night a rat with a violin asks her if she can play the horn. Carly learns that it is the rats playing the music and leaving the vegetables behind as the owls, who used to dance to their music, suddenly start snatching away the rat musicians one by one. Soon her rat, Lewis, is the only musician left. With Lewis, and an unexpected friend in her schoolmate Green, she learns the history of the town of Whistle Root, the history of the Whistle Root trees (so named for their uniquely shaped roots which can produce a shrill whistle), and the dark creature responsible for the change of behavior in the owls and the disappearance of the trees. And some surprising things about her own history.

~~~

All three are fairly quick reads yet enjoyable enough to be rereads.

Coraline

Juniper Berry

The Mysterious Woods of Whistle Root

  

Atticus's Halo

In the recently released Go Set a Watchman, Jean Louise's uncle Jack tells her,

"As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he'll look for lessons." 

Uncle Jack was referring to then-current events in recalling the events from Scout's childhood. He could have been referring to current events in our day. He could have been referring to the reaction many bloggers and reviewers have had over the book. Even those who have not read it have likely heard of or read how our image of Atticus Finch (who, however ideal he may be, is still a fictional character) has been forever altered and how no one will ever be able to reread To Kill a Mockingbird with the same enjoyment (if at all). Much is made of Atticus's surprising racism and how this sequel is so inconsistent with the original story.

For those who haven't already heard, Go Set a Watchman is the original story, the first draft of the novel which was reworked at Harper Lee's publisher's request, reworked to the point of essentially being rewritten as To Kill a Mockingbird, which has grown so beloved that it is understandable that anyone not knowing this (and quite a few who do know it) would be upset at the surprising things Atticus says to the grown-up Scout. So, to anyone who is apprehensive about reading the book because of the opinions of complete strangers on the internet, I offer a bit of advice to make it more palatable: don't read it as a sequel, but rather a separate story connect only by similarly named characters and places. Because it really is its own story, examining the issue of race from a quite different perspective.

That is not to say there aren't things comfortable and recognizable. The grown-up Scout might prefer to be called by her given name Jean Louise, but she hasn't changed much. She's still a fighter, but more likely to use her mind and words now rather than her fists as she did as a child. She has a sense of moral right and wrong which was instilled in her by her father and Uncle Jack and her housekeeper Calpurnia, and those beliefs have been refined by living her first few adult years in New York. So when she learns "the truth" about her father, her revered hero, she is understandably upset.

It is apparent from the first chapter that Jean Louise is struggling to understand her place in the world, and uncertain of her current beliefs, let alone those beliefs she held in childhood. She is returning to her childhood home for a regular visit, but she has no desire to stay. The novel's first shocking revelation is that her brother Jem has passed away a few year's prior to the novel's beginning. Some reviewers have stated that his death  doesn't seem to have affected her much. I disagree, it has affected her profoundly, but the story is about Jean Louise coming to terms with herself, and flashbacks show how much Jem's death hurt her and shaped her. She is met at the train station by her boyfriend Henry, a childhood friend who now is part of her father Atticus's law practice. In that same first chapter we get the impression that she's not as committed to this relationship as he is.

The first third of the novel has Jean Louise still struggling to get along with her Aunt Alexandra (whose character is also much unchanged), including her aunt still trying to turn her into a proper young lady, coming more to terms with her father's crippling arthritis, seeing her childhood home replaced by an ice cream shop, and visiting classmates she feels she has nothing in common with. Through all this she's simply trying to figure out what she wants in life, what she truly values, and whether or not she wants to marry Henry.

All this happens before the startling events which have created so much undeserved controversy. Jean Louise goes to the courthouse and sits in what was in her childhood the "colored balcony" and listens to her father - or rather, listens to the words of a very bigoted man while her father says nothing, and is made guilty by association not just to Jean Louise but to many of the reviewers who apparently stopped reading the book at that point. I'm not going to list the things she hears that evening, or the things she is told by Atticus when she angrily confronts him later. Those crimes have been listed by many others. I will instead merely say that every single one of those things certain reviewers have pointed out are taken out of context. I do not say this to justify any of those things; ugly is ugly. But in our zero tolerance, politically correct society, words like "bigot" and "racist" have been used and overused and misused to the point where nearly all of the true meanings have been lost. The things which Atticus says to his daughter are neither surprising for the time period, for the place, and certainly not when taken in context with the rest of the novel. Jean Louise shows herself to be as unyielding and prejudiced - albeit in different ways - as Atticus and Henry and all the others she wants to completely write off and disown in her hotheaded 26-year-old self trying to figure out life.

Whether one reads Go Set a Watchman as the sequel it's marketed as (which it isn't) or the rough draft of To Kill a Mockingbird (which is no where near as rough as many reviewers have stated), if it is to be read at all, it needs to be read fully, not thumbed through to zero in on the shocking bits, not via politically correct sound bytes. A friend commented to me that most people remember the Atticus Finch from the movie, not the Atticus Finch in the book, who is a more realistic hero for his rough edges. From the movie, Atticus's halo seems as near straight as a halo can get. Having read To Kill a Mockingbird many times, I found his halo tilting slightly a couple of reads ago. For me, the cultural icon has not been destroyed any more than my real life heroes have been destroyed when I found things in them I found surprising or disheartening. People are complex; they are not perfect. Atticus is in both books a loving father, a good man trying to see society clearly and fairly and a man wanting to set a better example than he knows he's set himself, to set himself a watchman.

Like To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman is about race relations in the South - but neither book is solely about race. Both novels are about growing up. Both show a still loveable Scout (the child being more loveable than the adult) trying to understand the world around her, trying to do the right thing, trying to be a better person than who she was before. No one should object to that.

Go Set a Watchman

  

2014 Reads: Mysteries

When I wrote my last post, I intended to do a series of sorts and eventually write about all the books I completed in 2014. And then, life got in the way, and I allowed it to. To my credit, however, I have been reading more this year than last. Another reason to set aside more time to actually write about the things I love, such as books and food, which is why I started this blog in the first place.

Almost half of the books I read last year are mysteries. Some were rereads, some were favorite authors, some were authors new to me. Twelve books is a lot to review in one blog post, so I will do none of these proper justice, but there wasn't a dud in the lot. I would recommend any and all of them.

They are, in the order I read them:

The Pyramid, and Four Other Kurt Wallender Mysteries by Henning Mankell

Epitaph for a Spy, by Eric Ambler

The Black Hand, by Will Thomas

Cop Hater, by Ed McBain

Spider Woman's Daughter, by Anne Hillerman

G is for Gumshoe, by Sue Grafton

Friday the Rabbi Slept Late, by Harry Kemelman

Night Fall, by Joan Aiken

Jerusalem Inn, by Martha Grimes

Fatal Enquiry, by Will Thomas

Silence of the Grave, by Arnaldur Indriđason 
A New York Christmas, by Anne Perry

My thoughts, in order that I am having them today:

~~~~~~

Last year I began reading Scandinavian mysteries. I'd be interested in knowing if all detectives in Scandinavian literature are as downtrodden and morose as Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallender, and Arnaldur Indriđason's Erlendur Sveinsson and Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö's Martin Beck? I'd like to know, for as much as I have enjoyed these books, sometimes I'd like to close a book with a sign of relief because the bad guy has been caught, rather than closing the book with a sigh of relief because the character (and reader!) has an emotional reprieve, at least until the next in the series.

In Silence of the Grave, Detective Erlendur and his team are called in to investigate a skeleton found at a construction site for a new housing development. The skeleton is determined to be close to seventy years old, and the novel soon begins shifting back and forth between the two time periods. On the one hand, there is the story of the degradation of a family due to domestic violence which is difficult to read not because of its savagery but rather because of its casualness on the part of the abuser. Even so, the author manages to elicit just a little just a little sympathy for the devil by alluding to the abuser's own abused past. Just a little. For the most part, the characters are well enough drawn that it's not difficult to hate one very vile being. Present day, the detectives try to solve a very cold case (I am not making a pun here with the story taking place in Iceland) while Erlendur is fighting his own ghosts of the past. The investigators are still at the crime scene when he receives a phone call from his daughter, whom he has not seen nor heard from in months. "Help me. Please." is all she says before the line goes dead. With the caller I.D. saying "unknown", he really has no place to start, but by searching frantically in the early morning hours, he manages to find her, unconscious and bleeding. The majority of the investigation then falls to his team, as he spends much of his time at the hospital talking to his comatose daughter. Here the reader learns more of Erlendur, and what makes him tick, including a tragedy from his childhood. One of the things I like about the Erlendur novels is how he perseveres; despite the harsh realities of his own life, he gets up every morning, he returns love for the hatred his children and ex-wife often thrust at him, and (with the help of his team, fleshed out more here than in the previous novel Jar City) catches the bad guys.

The Pyramid is the first book about  Swedish detective  Kurt Wallender that I've read, although I had seen TV movie production with the character portrayed by different actors. Here is a collection of short stories and novellas written after the main body of the series but taking place in the detective's life twenty plus years prior, from a young beat cop, moving forward through twenty years to the time just before the start of the series. he mysteries themselves are good stories. It's an excellent character study and I plan to read others ion the series. It became a tough read towards the end, because unlike the Beck and Wallender stories I began with last year, I actually saw him fall in love, get married and have children, and slowly lose it all, plus the increasing estrangement with his own father. Being put through the wringer makes for compelling stories, but not for easy reads.

~~~~~~

When I learned that Will Thomas's Fatal Enquiry was soon to be published, a did a happy dance. Six years since The Black Hand had been published, and I'd missed Cyrus Barker and his assistant Thomas Llewelyn. And I realized that although The Black Hand had been in my bookcase for awhile, I'd somehow missed reading it, an oversight I immediately rectified. The books have been compared, both favorable and unfavorably, to the tales of Sherlock Holmes. There are certainly similarities, both to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's book version of the character and Robert Downey Jr's movie version. As different as those two are, so is Cyrus Barker to Sherlock Holmes.  Fatal Enquiry is probably the closest to be considered Holmesian, but even then, more in the comparison of Holme's Moriarty to Barker's nemesis Sebastian Nightwine.

Previous books have had private enquiry agent Barker and his assistant Thomas dealing with racial hatred, obscure and deadly martial arts, white slavers, and political terrorists. The Black Hand deals the mafia; Fatal Enquiry has them dealing with deadly poisonings and Barker framed for those murders and in hiding for most of the novel while Thomas does most of the leg work, which allows Thomas to shine and prove his worth not only to Barker, who believed in the downtrodden young man all along, but for Thomas himself. Some reviewers have stated they didn't think this latest offering had much character development. I disagree; it is subtle but present, and the end of the novel provides a good starting point for more of that development as Thomas is given full trust and becomes more a partner than before.

~~~~~~

Spider Woman's Daughter has Anne Hillerman taking over her late father's series. She makes the characters her own without detracting from all Tony Hillerman had established. When she tries to mimic her father's styles, she's not entirely successful, but when she writes in her own voice, she tells as good a story as her father did.

Navajo Nation police officer Bernie Manuelito sees retired lieutenant Joe Leaphorn shot in the parking lot of the diner where she and her husband Jim Chee have just has breakfast with their former mentor. She gets to the fallen Leaphorn too late to apprehend, or even get a clear look at, the assailant, but manages to keep him awake and coherent long enough for the ambulance to arrive. As usual, the FBI is less than cooperative with the Navajo police. While Leaphorn's life lies in the balance, Leaphorn's wife cannot be found, and Bernie has been told she's too close to the case to investigate effectively (she investigates anyway), evidence comes to light that clues might be found in one of Leaphorn's and Chee's old cases.To say which one might be a spoiler.

~~~~~~

Eric Ambler is a new author to me, one I'd not even heard of until I stumbled upon a reference to Epitaph for a Spy, and I said, Hmmmm, sounds intriguing. And I found a copy. There is plenty of intrigue here. Shortly before World War II, Josef Vadassay is at the end of a Riviera holiday when he picks up a roll of film he has dropped off. But the pictures aren't his, he learns when the police subsequently pick him up, and he is accused of being a spy. To avoid permanent arrest (there was a slight problem with his passport....) he is manipulated into investigating the hotel's other guests -- something he's ill-equipped to do, but is given no other choice. Preferring not to get to know the others, now he must make friends with a young American brother and sister, expatriate Brits, and a kind German gentleman who is not who he says he is (nor necessarily who Josef learns he is, either). Josef cannot trust anyone, even those who claim they believe him and want to help him. It's the type of story Alfred Hitchcock would have loved, although as far as I know never looked at. And it's the type of story that makes me want to look into more of Eric Ambler's work.


~~~~~~

A couple years ago, during one of my parents' declutterings, they gave me a box of Harry Kemelman's  Rabbi Small mysteries. Which looked interesting enough to accept and place in one of my mystery bookcases. Where they sat until rediscovered in one of my too-rare browsings of my own bookcases. It is in Friday the Rabbi Slept Late that we are introduced to Rabbi Small and the New England community of Barnard's Crossing. He's the still-new rabbi in this small community, and not everyone is pleased with his intelligence, independence, unflinching honesty, and even the way he dresses, and a small but vocal faction of that community wants him replaced. It certainly doesn't help when the body of a young girl is found strangled on the Temple grounds, and the rabbi cannot provide a believable alibi. Catholic Chief of police Hugh Lanigan believes the rabbi innocent, but must look at the evidence, which points to the man he has been developing a friendship with over theological discussions, which alone are worth reading the book for.

The Rabbi Small books are not currently in print, but affordable used copies are available online, and Audible.com has an audiobook available.

~~~~~~

Good books should not go out of print. They simply should not. They should be available, at the very least, as Print-on-Demand, as books by unknown authors are.Where is the justice that books such as Joan Aiken's 1969 gem, Night Fall, cannot be found newly printed, nor in audio, nor in e-book format? Fortunately I have the paperback copy I bought at the now defunct Hatch's Books back in 1988. I've taken mailing tape to reinforce the binding, and the pages are a little yellowed, but last year's reading was every bit as enjoyable as the (at least) three tiems I read it before that, the first time being a library copy when I was still in high school.

Meg is nine when her mother and stepfather are killed in a car accident and she is sent to live with the father she barely knew. Her father is distant but provides well for her; she makes friends with the kids next door and grows up, excelling in art, and gets engaged. But she doesn't have peace: when she is nineteen, a recurring nightmare from her childhood has increased in frequency and intensity: she finds herself falling and landing in pain, and then a ghastly face moves back in the darkness in front of her.against the wishes of her father and fiancé she returns to the seaside village in Cornwall where she had fallen off a cliff and broken her leg as a four-year-old child. She is convinced something happened with that accident that is the cause of her nightmares. She meets a man who wants to help her unravel the mystery, but there is someone else who doesn't want her digging into the past of fifteen years ago, when an unsolved murder was committed....

~~~~~~

Rounding out my mystery reads of last year are authors I've read at least one other book from:

Ed McBain's Cop Hater - I read one or two of the 87th Precinct tales back in high school, but cannot say which ones. This is the first, introducing the characters. Three detectives from the 87th Precinct are killed within days of each other, and Detective Steve Carella's investigation, and a careless journalist, makes him and his deaf girlfriend Teddy targets as well.


Sue Grafton's G is for Gumshoe - I've read a handful of these, not in order. Even though the character of private detective Kinsey Millhone ages and occasionally references previous cases, the books stand well alone and independent of one another and therefore do not need to be read in order. In this one Kinsey learns that someone she has put behind bars has put out a contract on her and after he very nearly succeeds she hires a bodyguard. This makes it difficult to continue with another investigation where she has been hired to find her client's mother, who dies under suspicious circumstances shortly after Kinsey succeeds.

Martha Grimes's Jerusalem Inn, by Martha Grimes - These too do not need to be read in order, but it might help especially with the later ones. Each of the Richard Jury mysteries is named after an English pub, and sometimes a part of the story line takes place there. In this, the fifth novel in the series, Jury makes the acquaintance of a beautiful woman in a graveyard. They have a nice conversation over drinks and he is looking forward to seeing her again. But when he does, she is dead, and Jury doesn't buy the official verdict of suicide. Meanwhile, his best friend Melrose Plant, snowbound in a mansion with friends, stumbles across the body of another beautiful woman. When Jury's own investigation leads him to that mansion, it begins to look like the two murders are connected, and that one of the victims might not have been the intended victim after all.

Anne Perry's A New York Christmas - Anne Perry releases a shorter mystery every Christmastime, taking a member of the supporting cast from one of her two Victorian series and embroiling them in their own intrigue during the holiday season. 2014's offering has the now grown daughter of Inspector Thomas Pitt, Jemima, as traveling companion to Delphina, a young woman engaged to a New York aristocrat. The brother of the groom asks Jemima's help in locating Delphina's mother who had abandoned her as a child, and who he believes is back in New York and will create a scandal. Jemima finds Maria, dead, and is subsequently charged with her murder. Only a young police officer believes in her innocence, and that belief might not be enough to save her, unless working together they can solve the real mystery behind Maria's original disappearance and who truly committed the murder of the woman in her flat.

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Silence of the Grave: An Inspector Erlendur Novel

The Pyramid: The First Wallander Cases

Fatal Enquiry: A Barker & Llewelyn Novel

Spider Woman's Daughter

Epitaph for a Spy

A New York Christmas

2014 Reads: Nonfiction

Of the twenty three books I completed reading in 2014, three were nonfiction. That is well above average for me, as most the nonfiction I read is magazine or newspaper articles. I seldom complete reading nonfiction books, although I will pick them up and browse, reading a paragraph here and occasionally a full chapter. But it was a year of reflection for me, and those books I completed were ones which made me think and reflect on life and friendship.

I started reading Change Your Brain, Change Your Life by Daniel G Amen four years ago on the recommendation of my bishop, and finally finished it early this year. Did it "change my life"? Well, not by itself. But it did encourage me to look at things differently than I had, and helped me to understand things in ways I hadn't understood them before. It is a book about brain chemistry, how the different aspects of the brain should work and how they actually do, when not being adversely altered by physical trauma, injury, poor nutrition, abuse, or either substance or behavioral addictions. For the most part, it is written for the layman, only occasionally growing too clinical. Dr. Amen begins the book by describing the different systems of the brain: the limbic system, the basal ganglia, the prefrontal cortex, the cingulate system, the temporal lobes, what they do, and what happens to you when any of those systems are over or under stimulated. Sometimes these systems overlap, so it could be one or more system out of whack causing a particular problem of anxiety, anger, depression, or destructive thought patterns or behaviors. Case studies of his patients are used as examples, and "prescriptions" are given: medicinal, nutritional, and thought exercises, to help heal your self, as well as when to seek professional help. It all makes for an interesting read. The major premise is this: You are not stuck with the brain you were born with, nor are you stuck with the brain you have been given through injury or abuse or addiction. It is, for the most part, a positive message: that you are in charge, no matter how difficult it seems, and you can change.

Madeleine L'Engle has long been one of my favorite fiction authors, and had read excerpts from a number of her books on religion and her Crosswicks journals, but had never read one cover to cover. This spring I picked up The Rock That Is Higher: Story As Truth. She wrote the book following a car accident in 1991, and she talks about the power of story in our lives. Using examples of well known literature, examples from her own works, and many examples from the scriptures, she illustrates how story shapes and affects our lives, how it shapes, molds, transforms our lives. She talks about how stories are true even if not necessarily factual. I loved this book. I loved it for its discussion of religious and spiritual  principles, although I did not always agree with her conclusions. And I loved it for something I saw in the narrative, which I did not see mentioned in any of the reviews I read of the book after reading the book itself: it was, for me, an examination of the creative process. And for that reason I would recommend it to any writer or artist, singer, painter - anyone wanting to give their creative juices a few extra volts.


A Grief Observed was written by C. S. Lewis following the death of his wife, when he had a severe crisis of faith and experienced crushing doubt about everything he held dear. It is a short book, a mere 76 pages in the edition I read, but it packs a powerful punch. Being originally a journal not intended for publication (only years later did he decide the reflections he made during his journey might help others), there is no sugar coating in his thoughts. At times he rails against God, and that might make some readers uncomfortable. We are taught, if not from the pulpit then at least by friends, family and even society, not to doubt our faith, not to question it. But question he did, decry it he did, lambaste it he did. And then, honestly examine it he did, recognizing how his previous faith had been, in his own words, a house of cards. I had half-read it years earlier, a quick perusal before turning it over to a friend who had lost a loved one. I picked it up this year, reasoning that there are other things we grieve over than the death of loved ones, and hoping it would bring me some measure of peace. It did just that. It brought me a great deal of peace and comfort, and although I was not looking for it (or I might chickened out and not read it), brought me to an examination of my own faith, which I hadn't realized I was beginning to doubt. And it earned a spot on my "favorites" bookshelf, something which doesn't often happen with nonfiction.

Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impu

The Rock That Is Higher

Grief Observed

Snacks in the Mail!

There are three things I really really enjoy getting in the mail. They are, not necessarily in order of importance, letters from loved ones, books, and... food. Online grocers, fresh fruit straight from the groves, and snacky items.

Last summer I stumbled upon Nature Box. For twenty bucks a month I could get five "full sized" nutritious snacks delivered to me, and the first box was half price. I spend that much or more every month on munchies anyway so I thought I could give it a try. The day after I signed up I started getting Facebook invites and friends telling me in person about it. One could almost think it a conspiracy, that these guys are suddenly everywhere.

At five in a box for twenty dollars, unless math has changed recently, that's four dollars a bag. The quality of the snacks is what you would find buying snacks at Sprouts Market or Whole Foods. There are no trans-fats nor high fructose corn sweetener. Many are vegan friendly. Some are good but not four dollar good. Others are well worth the price. Whole grain fig bars, chia crackers, nut and fruit mixes, etc. I was considering dropping the service; the snacks were different every month but I didn't get to chose and so I received a few snacks that I didn't care for. None were bad, but some were not worth the price even considering the wholesome ingredients. But last month they made a great change: you can log on to your account and make substitutions for snacks you prefer. Naturally I chose more chocolate.

Recently I did a web search for other monthly snack deliveries. Nature Box has got their marketing down pat, but they are not the only ones on the block. For the most part, the prices are the same, twenty dollars and up a month.  There are some which deliver your ordinary every day junk foods, but unless you were merely trying to limit yourself to what comes in that monthly box, I don't think this is a better deal than plugging money into the office vending machine every day. Plus, the YouTube videos showing people unpacking their first box didn't encourage me: the boxes were filled with junk foods which are popular in some circles, but not appealing to me. Myself, I will stick with the nutritious snacks: there are plenty to chose from. One could easily go broke trying them all.

So I selected just a few to try. If twenty a month is outside your budget or if you don't get the munchies every day (I find that hard to relate to!) there are two offering smaller packages for as little as six dollars a month, with the option of deliveries monthly, every other week, or weekly. Do the math and you see some clever marketing: weekly delivery comes to twenty four dollars a month for smaller snacks, so in that regard Nature Box is the better deal. Graze and Nibblr each deliver four "portion controlled" snacks of nuts, dried fruit, whole grain crackers and the like. The portions are about the size of a vending machine snack, so at six dollars a delivery, about the same cost as four trips to the vending machine, maybe a little more (but after all, delivered to you!) I found the snacks in each -- arranged in four trays inside a box slender enough to fit most mailboxes -- tasty and of higher quality than standard vending machine munchies. Of the two I've preferred the Graze snacks, especially the clever combinations such as "Key Lime Pie" (sponge cake pieces, lime infused raisins and dried meringue pieces). On the other hand, you have to go to their website for full ingredients lists  (why, I don't know) while the Nibblr snacks have them on the package label. A trip to the health food store's bulk foods section would be far more economical, if less convenient, but these are fun to try. I could see these as a fun gift, and they offer gift subscriptions. Who doesn't like opening their mail box and finding a box of food from a friend?

There are many other subscription boxes I've yet to try. There are junk food options, international candy options, gluten free and paleo diet - you name it, it's probably out there, and if it's not there are websites with instructions on how to start your own company. There are monthly clubs (most of which require a three month commitment at $50 to $100 a month) for artisan cheeses, chocolates and bacon. Bacon of the month club! I kid you not. But I think it will be a while before I try that. While I love the idea, I'm only one person, and that's a lot of cabbage for some cheddar, a lot of bread for some bacon, a lot of smackers for a few snackers. Now stop groaning at my puns and go check them out.