An Embarrassment of Riches

My Brother Sam is SO Dead - by Ruth

Sometimes there are classics to be read over and over, and sometimes there are older books from which we just need to move on. Now, I'm not saying that Johnny Tremain is a bad book or that, to quote my favorite teen literature blog, Reading Rants, "My Brother Sam is SO Dead", but there are newer books that are just as, if not more, engaging, well-written and informative about a bygone era. I've been reading about the Revolutionary War lately and have found some quite good, newish fiction for teens on the topic.

The thing I love about historical fiction is that authors can take some pretty bare facts and weave a story that helps us imagine what it might have been like to live in a time long past. Something *is* known about Deborah Sampson because she wrote an autobiographical piece entitled "The Female Review" and went around the nation in her later years dressed as a soldier telling audiences about her time in disguise. In Soldier's Secret, Sheila Solomon Klass takes the bones of Deborah's existence and brings her to life, imagining the creation and maintenance of her alter ego, Robert Shurtliff, as she lived among and fought with the men in the Continental Army.

Nathan Hale spoke one of the most famous lines in Revolutionary War history, but other than that, I knew virtually nothing about him. In Spy!, Anna Myers tells Hale's story from both Hale's point of view and that of Jonah, a fictional student of Nathan's, bringing the people of war-time Connecticut to life and telling us more about the young man who said "I only regret that I have but one life to give my country." Check out these other recent young adult novels for more perspectives on the Revolutionary War: Chains: Seeds of America by Laurie Halse Anderson and The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson.  For an entertaining and helpful list of more historical fiction for teens, see Reading Rants' list, Historical Fiction for Hipsters: Stories from the past that won’t make you snore!

Plumbing the Depths of a Good Story - by Ruth Sometimes once is not enough for me - seeing the movie Amadeus over and over again, eating corn on the cob four days in a row when it's in season, visiting Britain multiple times, walking along Nye Beach, and hiking in the Columbia Gorge.  For some authors, writing a story just once is not enough.  In recent years, a number of books for teens and kids have come out that are based on books written for adults.  This week I read a fantastic book for older kids and teens called Chasing Lincoln's Killer by James Swanson which is based on his Edgar Award winning book Manhunt: The Twelve Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. Swanson first describes the days leading up to the assassination, the prior plot to kidnap Lincoln, and the final plan to kill three of the most important political players of the day:  President Abraham Lincoln, Vice-President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William H. Seward.  He then takes the reader through the assassination and assassination attempts, the various get-aways, the eventual discovery of the culprits and their fates.  He gives just the right amount of detail about the major figures in the story, keeps the action moving, and provides well-placed illustrations including photos of the people involved, newspaper clippings and a map detailing the route of the assassins. 194 pages was probably enough for me, but if you want the full scoop, you can read all 448 pages of Manhunt.

Several other non-fiction adult books and their younger companions to check out are:
Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex and Revenge of the Whale: The True Story of the Whaleship Essex
Mark Kurlansky's Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World and The Cod's Tale
Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal and Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food

One Memoir, Over Easy - by Ruth A former boyfriend of mine was a great cook, and I was only allowed in the kitchen when it was time to do the dishes. This worked well for me, as I like to eat tasty food without putting in a lot of effort, and I don't mind plunging my hands in warm, sudsy water.  I was finally eating some meals that had more than five ingredients! So after we broke up, I went back to my standard Trader Joe's fare of spinach salads and heat and eat entrees. To say I had no interest in spending hours cooking something that would take only minutes to consume would be a vast understatement. I had better things to do with my life. Giulia Melucci's dating experience, chronicled in I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti was the exact opposite of mine: she loves to cook and prepared some pretty yummy dishes for the parade of boyfriends that began when she was in her early twenties. Yummy things (recipes are included) like "Risotto with Intricately Layered Hearts", "Pear Cake for Friends with Benefits", "Salmon with Lemon-Tarragon Butter", "Morning After Pumpkin Bread" and the one that I'm going to try out on my boyfriend:  "Lachlan's Rigatoni with Eggplant". Because, you see, I'm now with someone who actually enjoys it when I prepare meals (he helps, too, and also recently fixed the best grilled cheese sandwich I have ever eaten), and I've discovered how much fun it is to cook for someone besides myself. Guilia got that from the beginning and, with the exception of one guy who was sort of lukewarm on the whole food thing, her boyfriends all seemed happy with her culinary skills.  Never happy enough, alas, to give her the one thing she craved: a marriage proposal. We meet Ethan who, after three years, was given an ultimatum and declined to offer a lifetime together; Mitch Smith who, not very many years after they broke up ("I didn't want a girlfriend or whatever."); ended up marrying someone else, and Lachlan, a Scotsman who was passionate…about food. As we leave Giulia, she's still unwed but doesn't seem too downhearted. Optimism, like cooking, seems to come easy to her.

Good Goth! - by Ruth

I love a good gothic novel, but new ones have been scarce since the genre went out of fashion a couple of decades ago.  What's a girl to do when she's read all of Daphne Du Maurier, Mary Stewart and Barbara Michaels?  So I was incredibly pleased to find a brand spanking new AND excellent book that matched my idea of a gothic: The Séance by John Harwood.  It all begins with the death of a young girl, the mother's overwhelming grief and the elder, surviving daughter's need to alleviate that grief.  But, of course, there's a back story and, of course, it involves a sinister man, a decrepit mansion, a romance, a woman (possibly) in peril, and a supernatural element.  It's convoluted and told from multiple points of view and just oh so delicious!

Everything Old is New Again, and Vice Versa - by Ruth The other week a colleague alerted me to a nifty website from Penguin Books (UK) entitled Red Recommendations  that matches contemporary books to classics. So you enjoyed Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible? Check out Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Adore the rich atmosphere, characters and descriptions in Fingersmith by Sarah Waters? You should finally get around to reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. You read Chocolat and it's sequel by Joanne Harris and don't know where to turn next? Why not try Old Goriot by Honore de Balzac? So I was amazed when I picked up The House at Riverton (previously reviewed by Helen here), a new book by Kate Morton, and read the first two lines: "Last November I had a nightmare. It was 1924 and I was at Riverton again." Was this to be Rebecca all over again? And if so, how fabulous would that be! I finished it last night and it was great - family secrets, an interesting time and place in history (early 1900s England), characters I didn't particularly like, but was fascinated by, and some really decent writing. A perfect summer read (even though summer feels like it will never come to Portland). If you're on the waiting list for Riverton, go pick up Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. And if you've read and loved them both, try these other great titles: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, The Dark Lantern by Gerri Brightwell, Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear, and The Crimson Portrait by Jody Shields.

My Family and Other Books - by Ruth (read) One of my favorite books of last year is an oldie but a definite goody:  My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell.  I was finally motivated to read this book when PBS aired a movie version, and I almost never see a movie before reading the book it's based on.  Months later, I found out that it was a friend's favorite book, and he told me about other Durrell books he had enjoyed including two short story collections:  The Picnic and Other Inimitable Stories and Marrying Off Mother and Other Stories.  Durrell is a keen observer (as any naturalist should be!) of not only nature, but of family, friends and other people he comes across in his peripatetic life, and his delightful descriptions make for lots of fun reading.  My Family and Other Animals is about the time he spent with his mother and three siblings on the Greek island of Corfu in the 1930s.  Larry (I had a "Duh!" moment when it finally hit me that Larry was the novelist Lawrence Durrell, author of the Alexandria Quartet!) is querulous and self-absorbed, Leslie - the second eldest brother - will shoot anything that moves (and some things that don't), and Margo, the lone daughter, could be a teenage girl today, with her boyfriend troubles and diets.  Mother is vague and sweet, constantly mediating her family's quarrels while cooking a constant stream of tasty-sounding dishes.  Gerry delights in bugs and all other things in the natural world, and finds friends among the locals while enjoying his status as the youngest family member.  This early love of nature endured throughout Gerald's life - he became a well-known naturalist who established the Jersey Zoological Park, and a prolific author and TV personality. The other two books in the Corfu trilogy are Birds, Beasts and Relatives and Fauna and Family.  If you've never read Gerry, you're in for a treat!

Mocking the Awards - by Ruth (read)

Every year in the late fall, youth librarian geeks throughout the US start making predictions as to what will win the various youth book awards.  The three best-known youth literary awards in the United States are the Caldecott, the Newbery and the Printz, and all are awarded by divisions of the American Library Association at the midwinter meeting in January. 

Several years ago, I got to serve on the Michael L. Printz Award Committee.  It was a great, although exhausting, experience.  I read all of at least 150 books (and a number of these twice), plus bits of 50 or so more books (all while working full time).  My committee and I were fortunate in that 2003 was a fabulous year for teen books.  We nominated titles, talked non-stop about books, eliminated some titles, and talked some more.  Our meetings were impassioned but respectful, and we ultimately came up with a winner and four honor books. 

Many libraries host mock award workshops that involve reading, discussing and voting on possible winners.  Over the last few years, Multnomah County Library, in conjunction with the Oregon Young Adult Network has hosted a Mock Printz Workshop.  Librarians and teens read ten books in advance and come prepared to discuss the titles based on the Printz Award's criteria.  We get together in small groups to talk about the books, and then the voting begins. It's a great way to become familiar with new books for teens and to discuss what makes a good young adult book.  This year's discussion will feature the following eleven books:

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Paper Towns by John Green
The Last Exit to Normal by Michael B. Harmon
My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks by E. Lockhart
The Missing Girl by Norma Fox Mazer
Madapple by Christina Meldrum
Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson
Black Box by Julie Schumacher
Skim by Mariko Tamaki

Want to participate in geekishness? Find out who won on the morning of January 26th by checking the live webcast of the press conference on the Association for Library Services to Children's Website.  And may the best book win!

The Wrong Man - by Ruth For those of us who have ever fallen for the wrong man, Alice Hoffman's latest book assures us that we are in plentiful, if not necessarily good, company.  There are many women in The Third Angel - so many that I had a bit of trouble at first keeping track - and their stories are told in interconnected, almost novella-like pieces.  At least three of these have fallen for, or are with, men who are neither right nor good for them.  Madeleine gets involved with her sister's fiance (big mistake), Frieda is attracted to a drug-addled singer (why?), and Bryn is still desperately in love with her wildly attractive and Irish-American (sigh), but criminal ex-husband although she is engaged to another man who is dull, dull, dull by comparison.  Bad boys - ya gotta love 'em, and yet, I didn't really like them in this book.  I didn't see the attraction for either the men (well, OK, Michael the Irish-American was dishy and interesting and seemed to maybe truly love Bryn) or the women.  I didn't really like anyone, nor did I have much sympathy for them, although I found their stories somewhat interesting and sorting out of all of the relationships was a bit amusing.  I never really got the whole third angel bit - was it Teddy Healy?  Call me dense, but then explain it to me please.  I did enjoy the hope that came at the end of each piece, because, as any of us whose heart has been bruised by the wrong guy will tell you, there are few happy endings.  

For a fun book on getting over an ex-boyfriend (it will make you laugh while you're crying), check out The Ex-Boyfriend Book:  A Zodiac Guide to Your Former Flames by Rowan Davis.  Sign by sign, dysfunction by dysfunction, you'll learn what you'll miss, what you won't miss, why you are so much better off without him, and, if you so foolishly decide you really want him back, how to get the job done.  But really, why bother?  There's probably another wrong man for you right around the corner!

A Modern James Herriot? - by Ruth

So I put myself on hold for Nick Trout's book ,  Tell Me Where it Hurts: A Day of Humor, Healing and Hope in My Life as an Animal Surgeon after reading a positive review of it somewhere, and fortuitously it came in right before my vacation. Trout is a veterinary surgeon at the Angell Animal Medical Center in Massachusetts, and although he's British, he's pretty far removed from the James Herriot I knew and loved in my youth through All Creatures Great and Small.  Trout focuses mostly on the dogs he's met and operated on and condenses a number of cases he's seen over the years into one day to give readers a sense of the urgency and adrenaline rush one might experience in a day working at Angell.  He begins with an early morning call that gets him out of bed and ends his day over fifteen hours later when friends of his child bring in a pet that needs some immediate attention.  Interspersed among the cases are Trout's ruminations on the practice and business of being a vet - issues that I had barely, if ever, considered over the years of taking my pet to the vet.  Questions of ethics and finance, cures versus palliative care - these are all noted in Trout's honest, if at times slightly condescending, voice.  Now that I make weekly visits to the vet with my elderly cat, the new insight has given me an even deeper appreciation for the doctors who work so hard to make sure our pets have the best possible care.

General Tso to Go - By Ruth

  When I was in high school, my mother and I used to go to The Chinese Kitchen on the odd Friday or Saturday evening.  I'd order spicy Mongolian Beef and she'd order a number of blander items such as Sweet and Sour Pork with its neon orange sauce and chow mein.  It was a tasty and inexpensive weekend treat, and we often headed there when I came home on weekends in college. Post-college, I was introduced to the mysteries of Dim Sum by a Chinese-Swedish boyfriend and finally learned how to use chopsticks! 

In the intervening years, I've become more fond of Thai and Vietnamese, and eschewed the seemingly less healthful and tasty Chinese  fare, but occasionally I get a hankering for Sesame Beef, General Tso's Chicken, or Egg Foo Yong.  I never thought much about the authenticity or origins of these menu items until I picked up Jennifer 8. Lee's entertaining and engrossing book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food.  Chop suey, I already had questions about, but imagine my shock when I learned that the crispy sweet tang of General Tso's chicken really belonged to another general!  And fortune cookies might possibly have come from Japan!  Really? 

Lee began her quest for the origins of America's favorite "Chinese" dishes when she heard the story of the multiple Powerball winners who had all chosen the same number because of a series of digits in a fortune cookie.  From there, she went on a multi-state, multi-national quest to find out what about Chinese-American food is truly Chinese, and why Americans have developed such an abiding taste for the cuisine.  Along the way, she uncovers fascinating factoids such as there are more Chinese restaurants than McDonalds in the US (in my neighborhood, it's 2-1 in favor of Chinese) and delves deeply into questions such as what is the connection between the Jewish and Chinese communities and what was the kosher duck scandal in the 1980s really about?  If you're not craving Pot Stickers and Broccoli Beef by the end of the book, I'll be surprised!

Cozy Up to a Good Mystery - by Ruth

Agatha Christie was queen of my reading list when I was in junior high school, and when I ran out of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot books, I started consuming other English mysteries of their ilk. It turns out that what I mostly liked was a sub-genre of mystery called "the cozy", and I read truly frightening numbers of them during the summers from the age of 12 until about 18. Barry Trott notes in Read On…Crime Fiction that "In a cozy mystery, most of the deaths occur offstage, and even when death makes a visit, there is a distinct lack of violence. The same applies to sex….Although the action may be mellow, the characters and the humor in cozies keep the reader entertained and coming back for more." Favorite authors of mine included Dorothy Sayers, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Catherine Aird, Elizabeth Daly, Margery Allingham and Robert Barnard. In later years, I discovered and enjoyed M.C. Beaton's Hamish MacBeth books and Rhys Bowen's Constable Evans series. Mostly these days I prefer British police procedural series with complex characters and relationships that change and develop from book to book; however, the brooding inspectors and their personal problems have been a bit too heavy for me this year, so I was pleased to read a new book in the cozy arena entitled Death of a Cozy Writer by G.M. Malliet. It was perfect - it had all of the elements that I love in a good cozy: dysfunctional English families, lots of suspects, murders that were not too graphically described and, best of all, a country house setting! When the eldest son and heir apparent to the Beauclerk-Fisk family fortune is bumped off in the wine cellar and it looks like the murder is an inside job, family secrets begin rising to the surface and nobody is exempt from suspicion. Will the rest of the family get out alive?

Check out the following websites for more on the Cozy Mystery:

The Cozy Library

Cozy Mystery List

And here's a source for long lists of authors and cozies by theme, courtesy of cozymystery.com.