Book Review Blog Carnival #66: Doris Day Edition

Welcome to the April 3, 2011, edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival -- number 66 in the series! The 65th edition can still be viewed at I'll Never Forget the Day I Read a Book! Two weeks from today, look for the next edition at Izgad.

Today is the 88th birthday of actress, singer, animal-rights activist, and America's sweetheart, Doris Day, who herself has been the subject of several books in recent years, including Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door, by David Kaufman (2009); Doris Day: The Illustrated Biography, by Michael Freedland (2009); Doris Day: Sentimental Journey, by Garry McGee (2010); Doris Day: Reluctant Star, by David Bret (2009); and Considering Doris Day, by Tom Santopietro (2008). All in all, that's a lot of attention paid to a film star who hasn't made a movie since 1968.

And now, on to the carnival ...

children's and young adult books

Alexia presents Book Review: Darkness Becomes Her posted at Alexia's Books and Such..., saying, "A fun new entry into the Young Adult market!"

Jim Murdoch presents Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli posted at The Truth About Lies, saying, "Beginning as the Germans invade the city we follow an innocent and ignorant young boy who only knows himself as Stopthief because he survives by stealing. He is given the name Misha by another boy who befriends and protects him and his family becomes a group of homeless orphan boys scratching out a life on the streets and eventually get rounded up and locked inside the Warsaw Ghetto where they provide an essential service as smugglers."

Read Aloud ... Dad presents Incredible Illustrated Editions: Jonathan Swift`s Gulliver posted at Read Aloud Dad, saying, "I felt it would be a shame if I could not find a way to get my young twins acquainted with Swift's masterpiece and its principal motifs. So I found the best illustrated edition!"

fiction and literature

Alexia presents Book Review: Pale Demon posted at Alexia's Books and Such..., saying, "A 5/5 amazing read! Best Rachel Morgan story in the whole series!"

Angela England, Feature Writer presents Classic Tales by Irish Authors posted at Blissfully Domestic, saying, ""In fact, some of literary circles most poignant novels have been penned by Irish authors. ""

Marisa Wikramanayake presents Dead Man’s Chest (2010) posted at Jacket & Spine.

Mark Baker presents What's On My Nightstand March 2011 Edition posted at Random Ramblings from Sunny Southern CA, saying, "Here's a review of The Baker Street Letters by Michael Robertson. I enjoyed this debut mystery."

Mon presents Love, Again posted at ink + chai.

Thomas Burchfield presents Nabokov's Gift to a Midnight Reader posted at A Curious Man, saying, "My delightful experience reading The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov."

At Man of la Book, Zohar presents Book Review: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, as well as Book Review: The Stairway to Heaven by Therese Zrihen-Dvir, Book Review: The Help by Kathryn Stockett, and Book Review: 31 Bond Street by Ellen Horan.

history

Marisa Wikramanayake presents Spinner (2010) posted at Jacket & Spine.

Scott presents Review: Gay New York posted at A Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land, saying, "A book review of Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940."

Clark Bjorke presents The World That Made New Orleans posted at I'll Never Forget the Day I Read a Book!, saying, "World history from the point of view of the Big Easy."  Ned Sublette's book's subtitle is the intriguing "From Spanish Silver to Congo Square."

The Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner presents a two-part interview with political scientist Paul Kengor, who teaches at Grove City College in Pennsylvania.  Kengor talks about his book, The Crusader:  Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, a historical analysis of the final years of the Cold War.

non fiction

D. J. McGuire reviews James A. Bacon's Boomergeddon: How Runaway Deficits and the Age Wave Will Bankrupt the Federal Government and Devastate Retirement for Baby Boomers Unless We Act Now in "Why the sky won't necessarily fall" at The Right-Wing Liberal.

Jim Murdoch presents Minding my Peas and Cucumbers by Kay Sexton posted at The Truth About Lies, saying, "If you’ve ever thought it might be nice to have an allotment then this is the book you should read first. It traces author Kay Sexton’s experiences from novice to finally getting her own allotment; it takes a looooong time to get an allotment. So while you’re waiting it might be a good idea to read this mix of memoir, mystery novel, gardening book, etiquette guide, cookbook and science textbook."

Marisa Wikramanayake presents Wardrobe 101: Creating your perfect core wardrobe posted at Jacket & Spine.

Mike Sprouse presents Second Review of The Greatness Gap posted at Open Mike.

Trevor Schmidt presents Book Review: Lone Survivor posted at Bookophile Reviews, saying, "Check out the rest of my book reviews @ Bookophile Reviews!" Written by Marcus Luttrell, Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 is "the story of four Navy SEALs who fought against a force of as many as 150 Taliban and the one SEAL who made it out alive."

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writing

Melissa Batai presents Bookin’ It: Working Writer, Happy Writer posted at Mom's Plans, saying, "If you are looking to make money from home and would like to work as a writer, I highly recommend Working Writer, Happy Writer."

Penny Zang presents Best Book on Writing. Ever. posted at Miss Good on Paper. She writes: "There is one book I return to again and again, though. It is the book I recommend to all aspiring writers and the book from which I make copies for my students: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott."

shameless self-promotion

Last month was the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, and I had an opportunity to interview some of the participants, including the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Jim Leach, and the president of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Robert Vaughan.

As I noted in the interview with Vaughan,

... the annual Virginia Festival of the Book brings about 25,000 visitors to the city to hear and engage with authors, publishers, book reviewers, and bibliophiles.

The 2010 festival hosted 160 events featuring 307 authors, drawing visitors from 35 states and at least six foreign countries.

For his part, NEH Chairman Leach (a former Republican congressman from Iowa), gave several illustrations to explain why it is important to study and support the humanities:

“If you read literature, you put yourself in somebody else’s shoes. You learn from great figures in literature. You can learn lessons not to repeat from [those who] might be considered characters that you don’t identify with.

“History provides a sense of where we’ve been and lessons that can be taken forward.

“Philosophy gives one a barometer [of] ethics of how we could and should lead our life,” he continued, “so I think the humanities have never been more important, particularly as the world becomes so change-intensive.”

I also recently had the opportunity to interview (by telephone) playwright, screenwriter, and novelist Michael Slade about his new musical play, And the Curtain Rises, which had its world premiere at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, on March 27. Slade has written children's theatre, scripts for several daytime soap operas, and a young adult novel, The Horses of Central Park.

In explaining how he wrote And the Curtain Rises, which tells the story of The Black Crook, arguably the first musical comedy produced on Broadway, Slade told me:

“I love the process of researching,” Slade said.

“I was not the best student in school, but afterwards I discovered how much fun research was. One can do almost everything on line these days but there’s something about going places and handling real books and articles.”

"Real books and articles" -- that's what we readers are all about, no?

With that, we close the 66th edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival. Submit your blog article to the next edition using the carnival submission form.  Past posts and future hosts can be found at the blog carnival index page.

Four Books to Stuff Into Christmas Stockings

I wish to recommend the four best books that I have read in the past year.  Three are non-fiction, one is fiction.  I regret not having written full-length reviews of these books yet, but I may get around to it eventually.

By far my favorite book of 2010 has been Daniel Okrent's Last Call:  The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.  The title is self-explanatory but completely understates the rich lode of historical matter that Okrent has gathered between the book's covers.  I thought I knew the story of Prohibition, and I was wrong.  So many rich details had slipped my notice over the years, including the seminal work of Wayne B. Wheeler, the pre-eminent lobbyist for Prohibition, who basically invented grass-roots political organizing and direct-mail fundraising years before Marvin Liebman, Richard Viguerie, or MoveOn.org.

Neither did I know how the forces of Prohibition had undermined the Constitution by preventing for a full decade the mandated reapportionment following the 1920 census, because those favoring Prohibition knew that a Congress that more accurately represented cities, suburbs, and recent immigrants would be less inclined to support stiff enforcement of the Volstead Act and would be more inclined to move toward full repeal of the 18th Amendment.  As a result of the manipulation of Wheeler and others, the Congress elected in 1930 represented the same districts as their predecessors did in 1912, a clear violation of the Constitution.

What's more, Okrent did some digging and discovered no evidence for the widely-held belief that the patriarch of the Kennedy clan, Joseph P. Kennedy, was a bootlegger.  Though Kennedy had imported liquor legally at just about the time that repeal seemed inevitable, there simply is no documentary proof that he had imported illegal liquor during Prohibition.  The rumor that the senior Kennedy had been a bootlegger, and had built his family's fortune on that, seems to have begun sometime in the 1950s and, as Okrent points out, if any evidence had existed prior to that date, Kennedy -- who had many enemies in business and politics -- would certainly have been called out on it.

Another book of history that I really enjoyed was Jennifer Burns' Goddess of the Market:  Ayn Rand and the American Right.  Burns, who teaches at the University of Virginia, wrote a page-turner about the Objectivist philosopher and novelist's life.

That may be hard to believe, since the outlines of Rand's career are so well-known, given previous biographies and memoirs.  Somehow, however, Burns is able to keep the reader's attention.  As I read along through the book, I kept saying to myself, "I know what happens next, but I want to find out how it happens."

Burns was the first outside scholar to be given access to Rand's personal papers and library, and the result of her research is a highly readable yet informative chronicle, not only of Rand's life but of her influence on the American conservative and libertarian movements. 

Over the course of the past eleven or twelve months, I have had at least three opportunities to see Burns speak:  once at the Miller Center, once at the Virginia Festival of the Book, and once at a forum she assembled on the idea of "liberaltarianism," or the cooperation between libertarians and liberals in the public square.  On two occasions, I was able to interview her about Ayn Rand and about her book.

In the world of entertainment, it was my pleasure to see TV's Craig Ferguson perform his stand-up act at the Paramount Theatre in Charlottesville on October 17.

In anticipation of that show, I read Ferguson's own autobiography, American on Purpose:  The Improbably Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot.

As the title implies, the story culminates in Ferguson's decision to become an American citizen.  I was actually a bit disappointed that, for all the detail about his life and "adventures" earlier in the book, the section on the naturalization process was thin.  It certainly was not as complete as the reports Ferguson gave about it on The Late, Late Show on CBS while he was going through it.  (That included numerous offers of "honorary citizenship" from state governors, including a then-unknown-outside-Alaska Sarah Palin, whom Ferguson described at the time as something of a "sexy librarian.")

Still, Ferguson's chronicle of his life growing up in a lower-middle-class household near Glasgow in the 1960s and '70s, his love affair with the United States that began upon his first visit here at the age of 13, his early life as a drunk and drug addict, his first attempts at performing (which began with him as the drummer for a punk rock band, leading to a stand-up act as the character "Bing Hitler") that included encounters with other beginners like U2 and Alan Cumming, through his long-term engagement as a regular on The Drew Carey Show and finally, his becoming the best of the late-night talk show hosts (in my opinion, at least).

After Ferguson's performance at the Paramount in Charlottesville, I noticed his tour bus was still parked out back and, curious, I found a cadre of fans standing outside, waiting for the star to emerge.  Sure enough, only a few minutes later, he came out of the stage door and signed a few autographs and posed for a few photographs.  Luckily for me and Steven Latimer, who was with me that night, Craig let us pose with him in the very last shot taken that night.  Naturally, I posted it on Facebook as soon as we got home.  It appears here for the first time outside a social networking context.

As the picture was being snapped, I said to Craig, "You're the smartest host on late-night TV," to which he replied:  "That's like being a tall midget."  Maybe so, but I stand by my statement.

For what it's worth, I also purchased Ferguson's novel, Between the Bridge and the River, on that night at the Paramount.  I have not yet had a chance to read it.

I don't read much fiction, in general, but when I received a review copy of James Magruder's Sugarless late last year, I simply could not put it down.

It has been almost a year since I read the book, but I still think about it because it resonates with my personal experience so much:  not in every aspect, but hitting a sufficient number of points on the matrix to make me believe it.

Sugarless is the story of Rick, a 15-year-old high school student in suburban Chicago during the mid-1970s who, almost purely by chance, ends up on the speech team and finds out he has a talent for dramatic interpretation (or dramatic interp, for those in the know).

Magruder's verisimilitude about high school forensics struck me more than anything else in the book, even the parts about the protaganist's struggle with coming out as gay in an era far less accepting of that than it is now.  His descriptions of the scenes at speech tournaments are amazingly accurate, and his portrayals of coaches and competitors are eerily familiar to me.

The one detail that other readers might find difficult to believe is the choice of the protaganist's speech coach to have him do an excerpt from Mart Crowley's play, The Boys in the Band.  People unfamiliar with high school forensics may think that a play about gay men would be off-limits, especially in 1976, and especially in the American Midwest.

The truth is, a cutting from The Boys in the Band was circulating at that time, and my own coach asked me to do it.  For reasons unrelated to the content of the piece, I ended up doing a different selection.  (If I recall correctly, it was the courtroom scene in A Man for All Seasons, a far more conventional choice.)  So I can testify against the doubters that an excerpt from The Boys in the Band was, indeed, being performed on the high school forensics circuit in the mid-1970s.

Having just seen the excellent documentary about Crowley and his play, Making the Boys, at the Virginia Film Festival, my memories of reading Sugarless earlier this year and my own experience in high school rushed back to me.  I recommend Sugarless to anyone who has competed in speech and debate or to anyone who was once a gay teenager.  It's an excellent book, and a compelling read -- a real achievement for a first-time novelist, even one who, like Magruder, is an accomplished playwright and translator.

(This review essay is excerpted from a longer blog post at Rick Sincere News & Thoughts on November 28, 2010.)

'The Daily Telegraph Book of Carols,' by Ian Bradley

Christmas is unique among holidays in the music we associate with it.

Just think: What other holidays bring to mind so many, and so many different, songs? Outside of church services, Easter has “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” and not much else. Patriotic commemorations like Independence Day or Memorial Day might be celebrated with “The Star Spangled Banner” or “America the Beautiful,” but those and other anthems are not identified with a single holiday. Diehard union organizers might sing “The Internationale” on Labor Day, but even that would be a rarity.

Christmas, on the other hand, has hundreds of songs – some spiritual, some secular, some a strange blend of both – dedicated to it. We hear them on the radio (almost every media market now has at least one FM station that plays Christmas music around the clock starting around Thanksgiving and ending only on December 26), in shops, on street corners, in school pageants, from wandering carolers, and in our own homes.

Christmas songs, it seems, are among the few – besides TV theme songs – that Americans have etched in our memories with the capability of singing by heart, without written notes or lyrics. We know them so well, we think they have been around forever.

Strangely enough, some of those “ancient” songs are newer than we might imagine. Not only that, but many of them became popular despite hardheaded resistance from religious leaders – and I am not talking about opposition to “Rudolph” or “Frosty,” but to deeply spiritual, Bible- or tradition-based hymns that today are more likely to be sung at Midnight Mass than heard on the radio or at the shopping mall. From 1700 until 1782, for instance, only one Christmas hymn – “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night” – was permitted to be sung during Anglican church services; in 1782, “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing” made the acceptable song list twice as long.

The stories of these, and 98 other, familiar (and some not-so-familiar) Christmas songs are told by church historian Ian Bradley in The Daily Telegraph Book of Carols, published in 2006 as a companion to his The Daily Telegraph Book of Hymns (Continuum, 2005). Many would be surprised to learn from Bradley that hymn-singing by congregations during church services is, historically speaking, a rather recent phenomenon. What’s more, “carols” (which used to be songs accompanied by dancing for almost any season of the year, including Lent, Easter, summer, and Christmastime) were particularly looked down upon by the official church.

Bradley explains:

“Yet although it now seems almost unthinkable to celebrate (or survive) the festive season without them, carols originally had nothing to do with Christmas, nor even with Christianity. They were among the many pagan customs taken over by the medieval church which used them initially as much in the celebration of Easter as of Christmas. The subsequent development of the carol as a distinctive genre standing somewhere between the hymn, the folksong and the sacred ballad and having as its subject matter the story and significance of Jesus’ birth serves as an interesting pointer to several major currents in religious, social and cultural history of the last five hundred years. Born out of late medieval humanism, carols were suppressed by Puritan zealots after the Reformation, partially reinstated at the Restoration, sung by Dissenters and radicals to the distaste of the established churches in the eighteenth century, rediscovered and reinvented by Victorian antiquarians and romantics, and re-written in the late twentieth century to fit the demand for social realism and political correctness. As well as reflecting the mood of their times, some of our best-loved carols also contain coded comments on contemporary events, including, perhaps, the 1745 Jacobite rebellion and the revolutions across Europe in 1848.”

Rereading that paragraph from the first two pages of Bradley’s book after having read the whole thing, it becomes remarkably clear that those 205 words serve as a near-complete summation of the 420 pages of text that follow. Bradley has put in a nutshell the whole history of carol-writing and carol-singing. In subsequent chapters, however, he highlights the origins of dozens of carols, some lost in the mists of ancient history, some by composers and lyricists still living in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He offers tidbits of trivia and corrections of misconceptions that deepen our textural appreciation of much-beloved songs of the season.

In the latter category, misconceptions, for instance, the liner notes of many Christmas CDs attribute the words of “Away in a Manger” to Martin Luther. That’s historically unfounded. The first printed record of “Away in the Manger” was when verses one and two were published in Philadelphia in 1885 in the Little Children’s Book for Schools. Verse three was published seven years later in a book called Vineyard Songs. “Away in the Manger,” moreover, is sung to different tunes in Britain and in North America.

One of the favorite hymns on both sides of the Atlantic, “Adeste Fideles” (with its English-language counterpart, “O Come All Ye Faithful”) was long thought to date from the early Middle Ages. Not so, Bradley tells us:

“Until the middle of the twentieth century it was widely believed that this great Latin hymn calling the faithful to worship the newborn Christ was the work of the thirteenth-century mystic Bonaventura. However the discovery of a mid-eighteenth-century manuscript in 1946 by Maurice Frost, vicar of Deddington in Oxfordshire and a noted hymnologist, and research over the next three years by his friend Dom John Stéphan of Buckfast Abbey led both men to conclude that the author of ‘Adeste, fideles’ was John Francis Wade (1711-86).”

Here’s where the story gets even more intriguing. After it was determined that Wade wrote the song sometime in the 1750s – it first appeared in print in England in 1760 – more research led to the discovery of the song’s political overtones. Bradley continues:

“In 1990 Bennett Zon, a historian of music, gave a paper to the Catholic Family History Society in which he speculated that ‘Adeste, fideles’ might even have been written as a coded Jacobite call to arms on the eve of the 1745 rebellion. He pointed out that half-hidden Jacobite imagery, including Scottish thistles and the initials of the Stuart pretenders, often appeared in Wade’s musical transcriptions and manuscripts. Twenty years after the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden, Wade was still writing ‘Domine salvum fac Regem nostrum Carolum’ rather than ‘Georgium’ for English Catholic congregations to sing.”

Such speculation – and, one must admit, the case remains to be proven – is of a piece with Clare Asquith’s theory of William Shakespeare’s crypto-Catholicism in Shadowplay (PublicAffairs, 2006). Asquith makes a persuasive argument that is based on more than marginalia in a few musical manuscripts, however.

Many of us have heard the touching story about the origins of “Silent Night,” perhaps the most beloved – and certainly the most-translated – of Christmas carols. (Even as I write this, I am hearing Tony Bennett sing it on the radio.) Supposedly mice ate the cables of the church organ and the parish priest and organist huddled together to write, as quickly as possible, a song that could be accompanied by guitar at Midnight Mass.

Well, sort of.

Bradley has done some digging and found out that there’s more legend than fact in that tale, though the song is no less delightful for it.

He notes that “Stille Nacht!” (as he calls it, using the original, German title)

“almost certainly deserves the accolade of the world’s favourite carol. It has been translated into 230 languages. It is often voted No. 1 in surveys of the most popular carols in Britain although it was pipped into second place by ‘In the bleak midwinter’ in the 2005 BBC Songs of Praise poll. A Gallup poll in December 1996 found that 21 per cent of respondents named ‘Silent Night’ as their favourite carol – more than twice as many as voted for the joint runners-up, ‘Away in a manger’ and ‘O come, all ye faithful,’ which each received nine per cent.”

The legend of “Silent Night” is that it was written and performed for the first time on Christmas Eve, 1818, in the Austrian village of Oberndorf, by musician Franz Gruber and the parish priest, Joseph Mohr.

It turns out, however, that Mohr had written the lyrics, and possibly the music, too, at least two years earlier, while he was still serving at a church in Mariapfarr. “It was there,” Bradley writes, “that he wrote his six-verse carol which is striking in its frequent references to fatherhood and complete absence of references to Mary or motherhood.”

That’s right: in the original German, there is no “round yon virgin.” That line is the invention of John Freeman Young, an Episcopal bishop who gave the song a very free translation in the 1850s, and that is the most familiar translation to come down to us. (Pace Evelyn Waugh, “Episcopal bishop” is not a redundancy, it’s just an Americanism.)

Another tidbit about “Stille Nacht” – it was the subject of what we now call copyright infringement litigation. Bradley continues his story:

“’Stille nacht’ might well have sunk without a trace, alongside hundreds of other Austrian folk carols, had a manuscript copy of it not come into the hands of Josef Strasser, a glove-maker and folk-music enthusiast who had a family singing group in the best ‘Sound of Music’ tradition. The Strasser family performed the piece as a newly discovered Tyrolean folk carol. As a result of a concert they gave in Leipzig in 1832 the carol was published as one of set of four Tyrolean songs. There was no mention of either author or composer in this first printed copy and it was only after recourse to the law that Mohr and Gruber were able to prove their authorship.”

The misidentification of a new carol as old and traditional comes up in another of Bradley’s sketches, this one involving “Calypso Carol” (also known by its first line, “See Him Lying On A Bed Of Straw”), written in London in 1964 by Michael Perry, an Anglican clergyman. Bradley reports that Perry “was amused to tune into the radio one day and hear a BBC announcer describe his work as ‘that traditional folk carol from the West Indies.’”

The number of well-known and well-regarded Christmas carols written by clergymen in the 19th and 20th centuries is quite stunning. During the Victorian era, Christmas celebrations were transformed -- depending on whether one was in the low-church or high-church tradition – from an austere day of prayer and mortification and/or a day of drinking and carousing to a family- and especially child-oriented celebration. Anglican priests, in particular, stepped in to write music appropriate to this new tone. A number of familiar Christmas songs were written also by Catholic priests (or Oxford movement Anglicans who later converted to Rome) and Baptist and Unitarian ministers.

In his introduction, Bradley explains:

“Carols played an important role in the Victorian reinvention of Christmas as a largely domestic festival full of sentimentality and good cheer. A huge number of new carols were written in the mid-nineteenth century, many in a pseudo-traditional style. Even the pioneer socialist William Morris provided a pastiche medieval carol with the refrain ‘The snow in the street and the wind at the door’ … It was the Victorians, rather than Bing Crosby, who invented the concept of the White Christmas, bringing snow into the Nativity story with Christina Rossetti’s ‘In the bleak midwinter’ … and Edward Caswall’s ‘See amid the winter snow.’”

That may be the primary reason for our assumption, ahistorical as it might be, that Christmas songs are older than old, even if they were written within our lifetimes: the composers have made an effort to make them feel ancient, and the artifice works. Is it doubtful that, a century from now, listeners will think “Do You Hear What I Hear” and “The Little Drummer Boy” are relics of the late Middle Ages?

In a way, I guess, they are.

(This review appeared originally, in slightly different form, on Rick Sincere News & Thoughts, December 17, 2009.)

Book Notes 5: In the Aftermath of 9/11

This review essay was published in The Metro Herald on September 28, 2001, under the general heading of "Fathoming the Unfathomable." It was a response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks that month.

Book Round-Up:

New Publications Achieve Unintended Relevance

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

Most publishing companies plan their seasonal lists far in advance. The lead time for a typical new book is at least a year, if not longer. Exceptions are made, of course, when current events dictate: Several “quickie” books came out after last year’s protracted election, for example, and we are no doubt going to see a number of books in the next few weeks about Osama bin Laden, terrorism, and Afghanistan that were either completely unplanned or in their early production stages when the events of September 11 caught us all (including publishers) by surprise.

It is rather chilling, then, to discover books on this fall’s lists that have remarkable relevance to the world since September 11. Here are a few of them.

Dr. Seuss Goes to War
The surge of patriotism in the wake of the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and severely damaged the Pentagon has reminded more than one observer of the immediate aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. December 7 and September 11 are no two dates “that will live in infamy.” In putting the United States on a war footing, President Bush has invited comparisons to President Franklin Roosevelt, despite the fact that it is fairly clear that the 21st-century war against terrorism will not involve the sort of mass mobilization of the general population that characterized World War II.

With these parallels in mind, it is fascinating to examine – “read” is not the most appropriate word here – the new paperback edition of Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel, edited by Richard H. Minear (New York: The New Press, 272 pages, $17.95). The publication date was set for September 28 [2001].

Before he became the world’s most famous author and illustrator of children’s books, Dr. Seuss was a successful advertising artist, working in New York for Flit®, an insecticide as well-known in the 1930s as Raid® and Off® are today. (“Quick, Henry, the Flit!” was a popular catchphrase.) Living on a comfortable income from that steady job during the Great Depression, Dr. Seuss became concerned as war broke out in Europe, and he began submitting editorial cartoons to PM, a short-lived (1940-48) New York daily newspaper with a decidedly left-wing bent. PM was associated with the “Popular Front” of pro-Communist, anti-fascist organizations, many of which were headquartered in New York at the time and which fed, and were fed by, a network of New York intellectuals. While Dr. Seuss apparently did not share his publisher’s pro-Communist sympathies – some of his cartoons actually lampooned Stalin – PM was happy to have his sharp wit and sharp pen contribute to the debate.

Dr. Seuss’s career as an editorial cartoonist was brief, barely two years, from January 1941 to January 1943, when he joined Frank Capra’s film unit of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. But in that short period, he created about 400 separate cartoons and caricatures. He viciously attacked the expected villains, such as Hitler and Mussolini, as well as people that we today, far removed from the moral and intellectual climate of the times, would find unexpected: Charles Lindbergh, for instance, who as part of the America First movement seemed to favor Germany and who was said to espouse anti-Semitic views.

Dr. Seuss also attacked slackers on the home front, whiners, windbag politicians, and racists and bigots. Several of his cartoons criticized employers who refused to hire blacks or Jews for war industries. At the same time, his characterizations of Japanese and Japanese-American figures were nothing but racist themselves. These not-so-benign Dr. Seuss cartoons are striking reminders of a dark time in U.S. history, when American citizens were herded into concentration camps simply because their skins were a different color, and their ancestors came from a different continent, than those of the majority.

What’s most fascinating, in looking at Dr. Seuss’s cartoons of 60 years ago, is the way they reflect the political debates at home in the months leading to Pearl Harbor, when the United States could not decide between assiduously protecting its neutrality and leaning towards Britain through the Lend-Lease Act, and continuing debates about how best to conduct the war in the months after Pearl Harbor. Just as today there are calls for national unity in the face of the terrorist enemy, so there were in December 1941 and throughout 1942 – calls that would not be necessary if there were not factions threatening that unity in word and deed.

It should be added, unfortunately, that much of the explanatory text provided by the book’s editor, Richard Minear, is unnecessary. For readers unfamiliar with the times, a bit of historical context is necessary, and Minear does a fairly good job in doing that. He goes overboard, however, in describing in detail cartoons that are included in the collection (as well as some that were left out; why any were left out remains a mystery), leading to a soporific effect. Another fault of the book is that the cartoons are not arranged in a simple chronological order; instead, they are grouped according to loose themes that seem to be idiosyncratically chosen. Despite these misgivings, this is a book worth recommending; it would even be interesting in the absence of historical parallels between 2001 and 1941.


The Brand New Kid
While Dr. Seuss Goes to War is not a children’s book, despite its title, The Brand New Kid is. Written by NBC News anchor (and Arlington County, Virginia, native) Katie Couric and illustrated by Marjorie Priceman, The Brand New Kid was published by Doubleday late last year (hardback, 32 pages, $15.95). We include it here because it is, as Couric notes in a brief introduction, “a springboard to talk about the importance of basic human kindness and compassion in our daily lives.” She wrote the book as a way to help parents “do a better job helping our children learn about tolerance and inclusion.”

Given the way in which Americans of Arab, Near Eastern, and even South Asian ancestry have come – literally – under attack in recent weeks, Couric’s book will be welcome in many classrooms and homes as it opens up discussion about how we treat people who are “different.”

In the case of The Brand New Kid, the protagonist – Lazlo S. Gasky – is not Arab, but vaguely Eastern European (perhaps a refugee from the upheavals of the fall of Communism?) who dresses funny and smells funny (to the other children in his new school). Before long, however, some of his classmates take the brave step to make friends with him, risking being made fun of themselves, and – this comes as no surprise, since Couric makes no attempt to be cynical – it turns out he’s not so “different” after all, and all the kids get along. An important lesson, told perhaps too simplistically, but one that needs repeating far too much.


Is Tolerance Possible?
A book intended for adults – indeed, for educated readers – asks whether religious tolerance is truly possible, even in a pluralistic society. In Getting Over Equality: A Critical Diagnosis of Religious Freedom in America (New York University Press, 214 pages, $45), Notre Dame University law professor Steven D. Smith points out the conundrum of religious tolerance: People who truly believe in their religions cannot admit the validity of other religious beliefs, which leads inevitably to a climate of intolerance.

The paradox of American history has been that, for most of the past 225 years, we have achieved a degree of religious tolerance unequaled elsewhere and in any other time. In a chapter entitled “The (Compelling?) Case for Religious Intolerance,” Smith points out:

“To the modern mind, at ease in a pluralistic culture, religious intolerance seems an anomalous and anachronistic vice, like dueling or racial bigotry. Human association is a presumptive good, after all, so why on earth should anyone be reluctant to accept and associate with others merely because they adhere to different faiths (or to none)? How does it hurt me if you profess a different creed than I do? The classic expression was Jefferson’s: ‘[I]t does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’

“From this perspective, religious intolerance seems a manifestation less of outdated thinking than of a failure to think at all; intolerance is an expression of that quintessential (although unexpectedly resilient) modern vice – ‘irrational prejudice.’ It is nonetheless important that we understand the case for religious intolerance, in part because an understanding will help us appreciate the development by which tolerance can evolve from a character flaw into a virtue, and in part because toleration is not a completely secure achievement; it is something that still needs defending.”

Indeed, recent events underscore the salience of Smith’s last sentence. We are learning today the price of religious intolerance worldwide, and the fragility of tolerance even in our own country. Smith asks about the American experience of general religious tolerance: “How has this achievement been accomplished?”

He replies, in part: “The answer is no doubt multifaceted, involving a combination of political, legal, religious, and cultural factors, and probably a certain amount of plain good fortune.”

Steven Smith has written a provocative book that deserves further attention in this time of religious and cultural introspection.


What’s Love Got to Do With It?
Finally, in the fortnight following September 11, Americans have raised and contributed more than half a billion dollars (that’s $500,000,000) to assist the recovery from the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings. That’s an incredible accomplishment and serves as an experiential rebuttal to the argument made by David Wagner, a professor of social work and sociology at the University of Southern Maine in his new book, What’s Love Got to Do With It? A Critical Look at American Charity (New York: The New Press, 210 pages, $18.95 paperback).

In a new-Marcusian mode, Wagner argues that charity in America is something of an illusion, “that America’s ‘virtue talk’ has a great deal to do with obscuring how little we as Americans actually do for people who find themselves in adverse circumstances. More subtly, America’s worship of giving, volunteering, and nonprofit human service work as the center of moral acts and heroic achievement allows the two other sectors of American life – the for-profit business sector and the government – to be legitimized.”

Wagner’s book deserves a more thorough review at a later time, but the juxtaposition of this month’s immense generosity and his crabbed vision was too much to ignore.

(This essay has also appeared, in a slightly different format, on Rick Sincere News & Thoughts, on September 30, 2005.)

Revisiting Eva Perón: A Book Review

This review essay originally appeared in The Metro Herald in April 1997.

Revisiting Eva Perón: A Book Review

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

With "You Must Love Me," the original song by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, winning the Academy Award on March 24, new life has been breathed into the film version of Evita. The film, which received mixed reviews from the critics when it was released on January 1, also was nominated for three other Oscars, in art direction, sound, and cinematography.

Twice before, when the original studio recording of Evita was released and when the opera was transferred to the stage, interest in the life of Eva Perón has been piqued. Previously an obscure figure except in her native Argentina, where she was beloved and remains a national heroine, the fictionalized, musicalized account of her life has kept her persona vivid and vibrant in the popular imagination.

In the wake of the release of Alan Parker's film, boosted by Madonna's star power in the title role, a number of books have been issued to examine and celebrate the life of Eva Maria Duarte de Perón.

Director Alan Parker himself has contributed a coffee-table book called The Making of Evita, with an introduction by Madonna (CollinsPublishers, $40 hardcover, $20 paperback; 130 pages). Like the film itself, this book is filled end-to-end with lush photographs. There is surprisingly little text, and most of that is in captions for the photos. Parker's essay takes up no more than six pages. Tidbits include the news that Madonna begged Parker to cast her as Evita, that she promised to work hard for the role, and that, indeed, while training with a vocal coach "she expanded her vocal range, finding parts of her voice that she had never used before in her own songs." Parker's book will be a nice addition to the libraries of film buffs and Madonna fans.

For information about Eva Perón herself, it is necessary to turn to two more academic volumes, the reissued Evita: The Real Life of Eva Perón, by Nicholas Fraser and Marysa Navarro (W.W. Norton, $11 paperback; 198 pages), which was originally published in 1980, and Alicia Dujovne Ortiz's Eva Perón: A Biography (St. Martin's Press, $25.95 hardcover; 336 pages plus 16 pages of illustrations), which was a bestseller in Argentina and has been translated into English by Shawn Fields.

Ortiz, a respected French and Argentine journalist, had access to Eva's personal memoirs and to people close to Eva and her family who had many reminiscences. She even obtained the confidences of Eva's personal confessor, Father Hernan Benitez. Fraser and Navarro based their account on hundreds of interviews conducted in the mid-1970s, and augmented their study with new revelations that became available in the 1980s, following the end of Argentina's military dictatorship. All three writers make a careful attempt to distinguish between the myth and reality of Eva Perón's life -- a difficult task, to be sure, as Eva herself spent much her life trying to hide the reality and replace it with self-made myths.

That popular entertainment in music or drama can inspire interest in actual historical figures is beneficial to our culture. The high school student who picks up one of these books simply because she admires Madonna and wants to learn more about the character she portrays may be inspired to delve deeper into Argentine or Southern Cone history. It is through such indirection that today's Madonna fan becomes tomorrow's ambassador to Buenos Aires or professor of Latin American studies.

(A slightly modified version of this article appeared on Rick Sincere News & Thoughts on March 12, 2005.)

Book Review Blog Carnival #55: Halloween Edition 2010

Welcome to the 55th edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival.  We're calling it a "Halloween Edition" in deference to the holiday being celebrated today, although there are not any entries that are particularly ghoulish, ghostly, or even impish.

We could as easily have called it the "Reformation Sunday Edition," but there don't seem to be any entries about religion -- nor do the number of posts submitted by book review bloggers add up to the equivalent of 95 theses.

Still, today's date is noteworthy for literary reasons:  it's the birthday of poet John Keats, novelists Dick Francis and Kinky Friedman, Russian writer Irina Denezhkina, and TV journalist Dan Rather.

So, with all that in mind, let's move forward and check out what book reviewers around the blogosphere have been writing about for the past couple of weeks.

HISTORY

Clark Bjorke presents American Insurgents American Patriots posted at I'll Never Forget the Day I Read a Book!, saying, "No, it's not about the Tea Party movement."  T.H. Breen's book, subtitled "The Revolution of the People," turns out, instead, Bjorke writes, "to be the story of ordinary Americans in the years 1774-1775, when what came to be called the coercive acts were imposed on the colony of Massachusetts following the Boston Tea Party. An obvious connection could be drawn to today's Tea Party, one which Breen never mentions. The question sits behind his narrative, If then why not now?"

Zohar presents Book Review: John Quincy Adams by Paul C. Nagel posted at Man of la Book. Zohar explains that John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life "is a biography of the sixth president of these United States. JQA, as he referred to himself to be distinguished from his prominent father, was a melancholy politician who would have rather been a man of letters, than the lawyer / diplomat / politician he turned out to be. The book is based mostly on JQA’s diary which spanned an amazing seven decades – arguably the 'most valuable historical and personal journal kept by any prominent American.'"

Michael Newton presents The Path to Tyranny, by Michael E. Newton posted at Conservative Monitor, saying, "I kept thinking that this book is irrefutable. I can't imagine academic or politician arguing intelligently with Newton's assertions or his conclusions."

Calling The Path to Tyranny a "seminal work," reviewer W.J. Rayment writes that "we are treated to historical examples of what happens when a society allows rampant, uncontrolled democracy to subvert constitutional balance within a government. Newton begins with ancient Western Civilization where in both Greek and Roman society broke down because the mass of people figured out they could violate property rights through the government. When this happened, productivity was discouraged by ever rising taxation. The declining availability of goods and services caused the frustration of the under-classes (because that an exploited economy could not support their demands). Thus, they would resort to a demagogic dictator who would ring society dry for the support of the masses in the aggrandizement of his own wealth and power."


NON-FICTION

Heather presents Review: Scent of the Missing posted at Proud Book Nerd.  This review of Scent of the Missing: Love and Partnership with a Search and Rescue Dog by Susannah Charleson notes that "this story was heart-warming and amazing. The capabilities of these dogs is just fascinating, and makes me want to learn more about these animals and handlers and what all they can do. I would love to be able to witness one of these searches – well, maybe not one of the actual searches (given the circumstances usually requiring such searches), but perhaps a training search. It would be so neat to see these dogs in action first-hand."

Zohar presents Book Review: Directing Animation by David Levy posted at Man of la Book. Zohar explains that "'Directing Animation' by David Levy is a non-fiction book in which the author talks about …directing animated movies. As a teacher and veteran director of episodes on Adult Swim, Assy McGee, Blue’s Clues and more Mr. Levy shares many stories of his personal experience from working as an animator to running the whole show."

Zohar also gives us Book Review: The Soprano State by Bob Ingle and Sandy McClure posted at Man of la Book. Zohar explains that "'The Soprano State: New Jersey’s Culture of Corruption' by ace political reporters Bob Ingle and Sandy McClure is a non-fiction book which examines New Jersey‘s love / hate relationship with the corrupt political class. You don’t have to live in New Jersey to read this book, I’m sure these shenanigans go on in other states, just not as flagrant or as often."

June Tree presents Generation Earn: A Guide To Spending, Investing and Giving Back (Book Review) posted at The Digerati Life, explaining that Generation Earn "is divided into three main areas: the first focuses on the SELF, which shares stories and advice on goal setting, budgeting, spending and investing; the second focuses on the HOME, and discusses the issues surrounding feathering our nest, the finances that fuel our personal relationships and raising a family; the third section talks about the big picture, and how we can make a positive impact on our WORLD."

June Tree also reviews a new book by Jeremy J. Siegel in Own Stocks For The Long Run posted at The Digerati Life, explaining that "In 'Stocks for the Long Run', Dr. Siegel studied the United States market going back to 1802, using data from several sources. Over that period, he found that the stock market outperformed every other asset class. In stretches of as long as 20 years — including the last 10 and 20 years — long-term government bonds have sometimes outperformed stocks. But as holding periods lengthened, he found that the stock market has almost always pulled ahead. Other studies have found similar results here and in other countries."

Evelyn Hunter presents Book Review: Incredibly Easy Chicken « The Writing Sprite posted at Writesprite's Blog, saying, "Since I love this cookbook so much and have enjoyed its content, the only thing I could think of to return the favor was to review it!" This exuberant review of Incredibly Easy Chicken adds: "If you’re tired of thinking of something to do with that bag of chicken pieces you bought and stuffed in the freezer, or if you think that chicken has just gotten too boring, this book will definitely help you out and change your mind about the wonderful uses of chicken. It will also introduce you to new ingredients that your grocery store has had all along but you either never heard of them, or just never knew they were there."

David Gross presents An Existentialist Ethics posted at The Picket Line.  He reviews Hazel Barnes’s 1967 book An Existentialist Ethics, saying that "Barnes wrestles with the question of whether an ethics can be derived from humanistic, atheistic existentialism or whether instead such an existentialism is ethically agnostic or nihilistic, as its critics have often claimed. She argues that there is an existentialist ethics that can be derived from the commandment not to be 'in bad faith' combined with some of the philosophical assumptions or conclusions of the existentialist worldview."

Khaleef @ KNS Financial presents The Secret to a Successful Budget: Book Review posted at Faithful With A Few, saying, "Recently Craig Ford of Money Help For Christians released a book about creating a budget called, "The Secret to a Successful Budget". This is one of the most helpful, comprehensive, and understandable guides to creating a budget around!" The review goes on to say that "whether you are looking for a resource to approach a budget for the first time, have failed at budgeting many times before, or are an experienced budgeter looking for a fresh perspective, this book is certain to provide you with a wealth of information. Craig provides organized and varied approaches to budgeting to compliment any lifestyle."

Danette M. Schott presents Aspergirls: Some Kind of Girl Hero? posted at Help! S-O-S for Parents.  "Aspergirls" is a term for women with Asperger's Syndrome.  Schott writes that Aspergirls: Empowering Females With Asperger Syndrome, by Rudy Simone, "looks at everything from school, puberty, friendships, sex, marriage, and more, and also includes the thoughts of 35 women with AS or high-functioning autism (HFA), as well as thoughts from their significant others and parents. Rudy ends each chapter with some advice to parents and some advice to Aspergirls.

Kara Williams offers Halfway to Each Other: How a Year in Italy Brought One Family Home posted at The Vacation Gals - Family travel, girlfriend getaways, romantic getaways, destinations, things to do, travel tips, writing: "I heartily recommend [Halfway to Each Other, by Susan Pohlman] to anyone contemplating a long-term move to Italy, with or without children. I think it’s also enlightening for anyone who might be able to relate to a marriage gone stale, who might be in a union that needs some shaking up in order to ultimately last in the long run. With mouthwatering descriptions of vine-ripened tomatoes, savory focaccia and creamy gelato, Halfway to Each Other will, if anything, tantalize your taste buds and inspire you to book a flight to the source of some amazing food — and museums and villages and a slow-paced way of life — in Italy."

Ben Harack addresses the dangers of news media speed posted at Vision Of Earth, saying, "Book: "No Time to Think" Journalism is making mistakes, shortening our attention spans, presenting opinion as news, and trivializing our political debates. The only reliable cure is media literacy, and we all need to learn it. Fast."  Harack writes that Howard Rosenberg and Charles S. Feldman's book, No Time to Think, is an "eloquent, intense, and humorous commentary on the dangers of media speed in our modern world. It is a highly recommended read for people interested in the flow of information in today’s society. Rosenberg and Feldman demonstrated how many areas of life are affected markedly by this increase in media speed."


MYSTERIES AND CRIME

Zohar presents Book Review: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins posted at Man of la Book. Zohar explains that The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins was first "published as a newspaper serial in 1859. In 1860 a collected edition of the chapters was published in book form. The fictional story is considered to be one of the first mystery novels, as well as one of the finest."

Missy Frye presents Book Review: The God Hater by Bill Myers posted at Incurable Disease of Writing, saying, "Just a few thoughts on the Christian suspense novel The God Hater by Bill Myers." Frye explains that The God Hater is "the story of Nicholas Mackenzie, professor of philosophy and raging atheist. He adamantly believes philosophy is 'the study of real truth.' His brother and a team have created a computer generated world filled with artificially intelligent beings who possess human consciousness. He enlists Nicholas’ help to create a philosophy for the inhabitants that leaves their free-will intact and enables them to survive."

KerrieS offers Review: THE NIGHT OF THE MI'RAJ, Zoe Ferraris posted at MYSTERIES in PARADISE, saying, "It is not often that crime fiction readers get the chance to get right inside the skin of another society, but this is what I feel Zoe Ferraris does for us in THE NIGHT OF THE MI'RAJ."  Rating the book "4.8," Kerrie continues, "The characters of Nayir and Katya are so well drawn. Nayir is a Palestinian often mistaken for a Bedouin. He has been employed by the family in the past as a desert guide, and this time to find out the truth about Nouf's disappearance. So he is not a policeman, not even a detective. Katya on the other hand is well qualified in forensic medicine but is a woman, trying to be "modern" in an Islamic world. The picture of each of them trying to bide by convention, Nayir because he wants to, Katya because she must, is carefully drawn."

KerrieS also presents Review: THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST BRITISH CRIME 2010, edited by Maxim Jakubowski posted at MYSTERIES in PARADISE, saying, "38 short stories: This looks like a who's who of British crime fiction - a real treat. I have read full books by most of these authors, and for the most part enjoyed re-acquaintance through these tasters."  With a rating of 4.3, the reviewer writes: "Overall, there was the usual problem you have with a collection of short stories: some are excellent, while others just didn't seem worthy of the space. It is quite a long book," as one might expect from something called The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime.

In addition, KerrieS gives us Review: NECESSARY AS BLOOD, Deborah Crombie posted at MYSTERIES in PARADISE, saying, "A good solid crime fiction series in the British tradition, albeit from an American author." Of this volume, KerrieS explains, "The action in NECESSARY AS BLOOD plays out against a very rich background that includes not just the disappearance of a young mother, and then the death of her husband three months later, but also the ongoing stories in the lives of Scotland Yard detectives Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid, their families and friends, as well as those they work with."


CHILDREN'S AND YOUNG ADULT

Read Aloud ... Dad presents Today's read aloud: Little pea posted at Read Aloud ... Dad, saying, "Children's book reviews and read aloud impressions from a Dad and his twins. We are reviewing what we read aloud and recommending whether you should Buy, Loan or Pass on the books." The review notes that "some would call [Little Pea, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal] a smashing attempt at reverse psychology, I think it is plain hillarious. And most importantly my kids loved it ever since Little Pea entered our house almost a year ago.

Jim Murdoch presents Dreaming in Black and White by Reinhardt Jung posted at The Truth About Lies, saying, "A most unusual YA novel, written by German author Reinhardt Jung in which a young disabled boy dreams he was living when the Nazis were in power. We all know about Hitler’s persecution of the Jews but not so much is known about how the physically and mentally disabled were treated by the Third Reich. What is especially shocking is what the schools taught children."

Murdoch writes and reminisces: "Dreaming in Black and White is a children’s book. There’s nothing to suggest this from the cover but a recommendation from Michael Morpurgo on the back is enough to tell you this is not intended for grownups. The content, however, is quite grownup. Frankly I can’t imagine being handed a book like this when I was a kid. I don’t honestly think World War II was mentioned at school until I was fourteen. I remember we covered the Greeks, the Romans and British (as opposed to Scottish) histories but that’s all I can remember; history has never excited me. Maybe the teachers simply thought that a war that had only ended twenty-odd years earlier was too recent to count as history."

Jeanne reviews Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk posted at Necromancy Never Pays, about David Sedaris' new book of humorous essays, subtitled "A Modest Bestiary," of which she says, "The volume itself looks like the kind of book you would give to a child as a present--small, printed on thick stock, and attractively illustrated by Ian Falconer. I do hope that the kind of parents and grandparents who don't usually read what they give to children purchase this book and give it away this holiday season, because that would really spread some joy, along with a little eye-widening."


FICTION

Zohar presents Book Review: Panopticon by David Bajo posted at Man of la Book. The review explains: "'Panopticon' by David Bajo is a fictional book which tells the story of three journalists who are sent to cover one final story before their newspaper closes. The setting is on the California / Mexico border and takes place the near future where every move you make is being recorded by public cameras."

B_G gives us grapes and wrath posted at the B_G talkies, saying, "my experience of the saga by steinbeck," adding in the review that the ending of The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck's novel about Okies traveling from the Dust Bowl to California "was a bit jarring, and a very provocative image, but it was a not tying-up-all-threads kind of an ending. people call it 'postmodern'. i looked up the net to read about what others made of the ending, and there was a lot of talk of about how it depicts giving, and sorrow, and humanity's struggle, and other such vague things."

Rebecca Glenn presents The Book Frog: JAMES LEE BURKE posted at The Book Frog, saying, "An appreciation of James Lee Burke, and a review of his novel Pegasus Descending."  Glenn writes of how she found Burke's Pegasus Descending irresistible: "By the end of the paragraph I was hooked. 'Low-rider gangbangers, the broken mufflers of their gas-guzzlers throbbing against the asphalt, smashed liquor bottles on the sidewalks and no one said a word.' A beastly hot, polluted, crime-ridden community of bad luck and no hope drawn in seven amazing sentences."


LISTS

April Davis presents The Top 51 Twilight Blogs posted at Accredited Degree Online, saying, "Twilight. Only a few years ago this word was only known as the time between dusk and night. Now it’s a worldwide phenomenon that is growing by the minute."  Of course, as anyone who doesn't live under a rock knows, the Twilight series of books by Stephenie Meyer has spawned an equally -- or perhaps more -- successful series of movies, as well.

Lindsay Samuels presents The 50 Most Hated Characters in Literary History posted at Library Science Degree, saying, "Characters of both the purely hated and “love to hate” variety make appearances here to encourage improvised games of comparison and contrast. Pretty much every literary character will have his or her defenders – particularly popular romantic leads – though a hefty proportion of them seem to inspire as much disgust as delight."  The list includes characters ranging from Iago in Shakespeare's Othello to Tom Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby to Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.

Erin Lenderts presents Top 50 Fashion Books of All Time posted at Learn-gasm.  Among the books cited (and briefly described) are Tim Gunn: A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style, The Little Black Book of Style, A Cultural History of Fashion in the Twentieth Century: From the Catwalk to the Sidewalk, Christian Dior: The Biography, Edith Wharton and the Making of Fashion, and The Devil Wears Prada.

chris presents Steven Erikson’s Notes on a Crisis Part IX: Back to the Craft of Writing posted at Life As A Human, saying, "Not a review but a review of the writing process from a world famous author and a huge selling series"


AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Your host for this blog carnival recently interviewed several authors about their new books. The interviews have been published on Examiner.com.

Colin Dueck is associate professor of public and international policy at George Mason University. He spoke to me about his new book, Hard Line:  The Republican Party and Foreign Policy Since World War II, on October 28 at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

In a two-part interview published on October 7 and 8, South African author Greg Mills discussed his forthcoming book, Why Africa Is Poor and What Africans Can Do About It. In the first part he answers the question, why is Africa poor? In the second part, he explains what Africans can do about poverty.  The interview was conducted after a book launch at the Cato Institute in Washington.

A bit earlier, the young editor of Human Events, Jason Mattera, spoke to me about his recently published book, Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation, at a bloggers conference held in Arlington, Virginia.

During that same conference, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) gave me an interview about his new book (co-authored with Matt Kibbe), Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto. That interview is published in two parts.

That concludes this edition. I hope you enjoyed it.  Comments are always welcome.

For those who are interested, the 54th edition is still available to read at Proud Book Nerd.  Submit reviews from your blogs to the 56th edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival using our carnival submission form.  Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.

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