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B3 Week In Review

11 Jun

Monday: In preparation for our review of Robopocalypse we kick off the week with a look at some historic and overlooked robotic characters from literature. Also, to start the week well informed, we gather news for a Bookish Intelligence Report.

Tuesday: In the tradition of science fiction genre romps like World War Z comes Robopocalypse. We tackle the work by Daniel Wilson that imagines the rise of the machines and mankind’s fight back.

Wednesday: News from around the world is collected to better inform in our regular Bookish Intelligence Report. Also, ahead of tomorrow’s review, we chat with author and former Massachusetts resident Arthur Wooten about his newest work, Birthday Pie.

Thursday: Want to know what we think of Birthday Pie, a book that makes you a fly on the wall of a family in the midst of serious and comedic life issues.

Friday: Always some news happening around the bookish world, and we do our due diligence to collect fresh happenings in a BIR. Also, we want to send you off to weekend gatherings with a new bookish question- What do libraries mean to you?

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B3: The Week That Was

11 Jul

A brilliant holiday weekend segued into a short week for the B3 crew. We kept up the normal pace providing a trio of reviews; as well as features on e-readers and the habits of online or on foot book buyers.

Monday: We hopped into the Way Back Machine and reviewed Peter Benchley’s 1974 summer-time pot boiler, Jaws. We realized that while the book has its moments, the movie adaptation might actually be the better, tighter story.

Tuesday: With the rise in e-reader use, we wondered what kind of cases, sleeves or covers are being produced for the major e-book readers. But, as stalwart supporters of the less ephemeral printed page, we profiled a few new and old fashioned methods of covering a bound book.

Wednesday: Catherine Delors For the King, a historical piece of fiction, is reviewed by the team. More policier than bodice ripper, For the King surprised us as an engaging mystery.

Thursday: We pondered how people shop online and on foot for books; and whether they are similar, different, better or worse?

Friday: The team grabbed a copy of Cammie McGovern’s Neighborhood Watch at the local library. We cracked the spine to find a tale of an apparently wrongly incarcerated librarian that goes from the high walls of prison to the mental barbed wire of suburbia.

Saturday: After a recent book store trip, some on the team wondered why some ‘classics’ are so slender or downright literary waif-like when compared to their blockbuster, cinderblock sized modern brethren?

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Biblioholic Review: For the King

7 Jul

Catherine Delors second novel, For the King, dramatically opens with a Christmas Eve bombing in Paris. The year 1800 is a tumultuous time for Parisians.  The revolution has ended and Napoleon as First Consul is power hungry.  The citizens of France are divided, some are still loyal to the now guillotined  King Louis XVI, while others support Napoleon, but are weary of his growing power.  The bomb is an assassination attempt on Napoleon, en route to the Opera.

There are plenty of people who would have liked to see the assassination attempt succeed, but who actually plotted it?  Delors’ story unfolds as Chief Inspector Roch Miquel investigates the bombing, uncovering power plays and behind-the-scenes politicking that effect the country and his personal life.  Miquel is pushed by his superiors’ ulterior motives to lead the investigation one way and then another; while his own father’s life hangs in the balance.

The setting is prime for an intriguing and adventurous plot but like much historical fiction, it sometimes gets bogged down.  There is enough dalliance to make the story seem genuinely Parisian and attention to detail shows the author’s fondness for the city of love.

The reader spends the most time with Miquel and his character seems to be nothing more than a pawn for the other characters to play with. He is fatally flawed as a poor judge of character.  He looks at true friends as only annoyances while pledging his loyalty to those pursuing their own Machiavellian agendas.  Roch is ambitious but his aspirations are dwarfed by the real titans of 19th century Paris.

The book cover boasts historical detail and romantic story lines.  Delors certainly follows through on the historical particulars but the romance is really third-rate.  Roch fancies himself a romantic but this reader disagrees.

However, what Delors does best in For the King, is carry on a fine French tradition of the policier.  If you are looking for a love story skip For the King but if you prefer a French detective story that happens to take place in 1800, For the King delivers.

For the King by Catherine Delors was received as a free review copy by Boston Book Bums.

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Biblioholic Review: Kraken

21 Jun

We’ve been chomping at the bit to snag a copy of China Mieville’s Kraken for so long. We begged for a domestic ARC, but to no avail (we’re relative book reviewing newbies, completely understandable.) So, we decided to fire up our every useful UK book buying account and snagged a Brit copy for review.

With a book like Kraken, you really don’t know where to start when reviewing it. Can’t get too deep into the plot for fear of spoilers. Can’t dwell on the metaphysical minutia, because that’s magical somnus powder to a casual reader.

That being said, we’ll just jump right in and declare this was a damn good book! Kraken is literary pointillism, a million little dots of detail, characters and themes that create a marvelous and bewildering universe.

Smartly, Kraken starts of with the drone of normality. The din of dull reality. We’re introduced to Darwin Centre curator Billy Harrow who Mieville perfectly captures in one line “..he would, DiCaprio-like, simply become like an increasingly wizened child.” Harrow, the everyman, is thrust into an impossible situation when the museum’s prized exhibit, the giant squid Architeuthis, vanishes. The specimens collected during Charles Darwin’s Galapagos journeys are left untouched. But this giant squid completely and entirely vanishes.

Unsuccessfully recruited to join the hunt for the squid’s captors, Harrow is harrowingly introduced to a magical world of London unknown to him. The scene in which everything changes for Harrow starts off, like the book’s intro, normal. But literally unfolds in a way that has you grip the page and declare, ‘Did I just read that right?’

There are the Krakenists, Londonmancers, a malevolent Tattoo, a dizzying number of household gods, magical gangs, talismans, omnipotent elements, everything but a warlockian kitchen sink (but even that is not far off.)

If there is a single criticism it is that Mieville dives fast and deep into this occult short-hand. One could use a Kraken-occult-opedia to keep up. That causes the staccato style of his writing to hiccup occasionally as we’re left trying to understand the omnipresent magic that everyone but Harrow and the reader seem to know about. But again, that is a small beef.

Kraken has authorial splashes reminiscent of Bradbury, Gaiman, Pullman, Moorcock and Lovecraft. The novel is also very British, with dozens of local or national references that are sure to go over the heads of some readers on this side of the pond.

The London crime fighters trying to chase down the kraken-napped in this tale are odd and elite, they are the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit, riffing off like a magical version of the BBCs Waking the Dead team. Our favorite character from Kraken wasn’t Harrow, but a member of the occult ‘Old Bill’ team, wise-cracking, chain smoking female Police Constable Collingswood. We’d like to see more of this sassy lass.

As we read Kraken, a work popped into our heads, a purportedly non-fiction travel work, Occult London. The book, penned by Merlin Coverley provided us a nice literary dipping sauce to compliment the main cephalopod dish.

What makes Kraken so interesting is that it is not just one book. It’s not a straight up urban fantasy gone amuck. To the contrary, we race around with cops and occult criminals searching for Harrow, who is also searching for the Kraken, while being assaulted and waylaid at every fantastical turn. Mieville invests proportionally in each little genre, fantasy throughout with dashes of detective, horror and dark comedic tales. Kraken never fills you up with these sub-genres, but appropriately whets your appetite.

Also, Mieville’s creativity investing time in new and odd religions screamed of Roman antiquity in the modern age. We have every manner of faith, god and deity floating around the near-apocalyptic age, but no one bird rules the roost. We imagine this is what ancient Rome was like, a god here a god there, soldiers, merchants and sailors each having their own trinket or talisman. It was practical, but not world weighing serious.

And yet the search for the deity squid and the secrets it may hold are deadly serious for Harrow and the rest of the Kraken inhabitants.

Kraken’s pay off  is near perfection because Mieville expertly foreshadows our climax while engaging in brilliant literary slight of hand until the last possible moment.

Kraken is an occult shell game, bursting with trippy slang and pop-culture references and a straight line plot that takes dozens of tentacle like twists to climax.

Kraken by China Mieville (drops June 29th here in the States) was purchased by Boston Book Bums.

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B3: The Week That Was

20 Jun

We made it another week without any major paper cuts from all the books that keep flying through our grubby little paws. The crew churned out a nice trio of reviews this week on SHIP BREAKER, THE MAP OF TRUE PLACES & PERFECT READER. We also smacked the literary badminton shuttlecock around when talking about the viability and likability of book promotional trailers.

Monday: We reviewed PERFECT READER by Maggie Pouncey a drama filled life that matches the cadence of the academic year. Pouncey creates an emotional journey, while capturing some childhood truths with pitch perfect descriptions.

Tuesday: The team threw the gauntlet as to whether book trailers were worth their salt. They have emerged as a viable online marketing tool to promote a variety of authors and genres. While some retain low production values and unintentional campiness, there is something to be said for the blending of the 24fps and literature.

Wednesday: Brunonia Barry’s second novel, THE MAP OF TRUE PLACES, was reviewed by the Boston Book Bums team. The city of Salem is one strong character in this story of a Boston professional brought home and roiled by family secrets, abuse and mental illness.

Thursday: We spread the word about the Boston Globe-Horn Awards 2010 children book luminaries.

Friday: We walked to a bleak post-apocalyptic beach to find SHIP BREAKER, a Young Adult novel from Paolo Bacigalupi. The story follows a young man, a ship breaker, as he battles nature, greed and genetically engineered henchmen. A solid story and thrilling run that shows YA books aren’t for kids anymore.

Saturday: When it came to buying books for dad, we long for the good old days.

Tomorrow: We review China Mieville’s much anticipated KRAKEN, along with reviews later this week of BOTH WAYS IS THE ONLY WAY I WANT IT and METROPHILIAS.

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Biblioholic Review: The Map of True Places

16 Jun

You may recall that BBB recently read Salem-based author, Brunonia Barry’s first novel, The Lace Reader, and we enjoyed it so much we ran to our local bookstore to buy her recently released 2nd book, The Map of True Places. There are many similarities between The Lace Reader and The Map of True Places, most notably Salem.

If Barry decides to leave the fiction field (although we see no reason why she would) she has a future at Salem’s tourism bureau. She highlights Salem’s history and eccentricities skillfully, intertwining it all in the story of Zee and her family.

Zee, is a pyschotherapist working and living in Boston when both her professional and personal life collide to bring her back home to the North Shore.  We learn of Zee’s mother suicide 15 years ago, which had a direct impact her career choice and her recent patient whose mental health arc is dangerously close to her own mother’s.  Meanwhile, her father is quickly deteriorating from Parkinson’s disease and her impending wedding is seeming less likely each passing day.

Fortunately Zee has old friends, some you may recognize from The Lace Reader, and new friends that help her deal with it all.  Ann Chase, the trust-worthy friend and witch makes a return in The Map of True Places to offer support and advice and even the sexy detective from the 1st novel makes a cameo.

This is not a sequel.  Barry creates an all new cast of characters for her sophomore novel but the Salem is such a part of the story, it makes perfect sense for some of the already established townspeople to be involved in Zee’s life.  Mental illness, abuse and family secrets are the themes that wrap around the characters in The Map of True Places, as well as The Lace Reader.

We may have done a disservice to Barry in reading her second book in such close proximity to her first.  Zee encounters many twist and turns in her pursuit of helping her father, and deciding what she wants in life, there is a great reveal near the end of book, like The Lace Reader, but it lacks the punch.

It seemed that The Lace Reader overshadowed at every turn.

At times, the story seemed redundant, partially because the same ground was covered better in the 1st book and partly because of poor editing.  There is chapter almost 1/2 way through where near identical sentences appear within paragraphs of each other. I understand in writing and rewriting a chapter this would happen but I think that is were an editor comes in.

The Map of True Places is a good book, the characters are likable and the story is engrossing.  Just not as good as Barry’s debut.

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Biblioholic Review: Perfect Reader

14 Jun

Perfect Reader begins after labor day when Flora, the story’s protagonist, arrives to her newly inherited house in the town she grew up in.  Her father has unexpectedly died.  Flora is the only child of divorced parents and now in her early thirties, the sole inheritor of her father’s home and possessions, most notably her father’s unpublished poems.

Flo’s father was an academic, the president emeritus of a private liberal arts college in western Massachusetts.  She grew up in this college town and now returns to the insular world of academia where righteous admiration, petty grudges, and hunger for the  successes or failure of ones peers reigns supreme.

It is hard to break the rhythm of the school year, particularly in Boston where populations and apartment leases still follow the academic calendar, years after attending school.  Author Maggie Pouncey builds Flo’s story to match the September to May calendar.

The start of it all  in September, Flora is uneasy, unsure of what is to come.  The winter brings the beginning of the Spring semester and the opportunity to start taking control of one’s life and when May rolls around, it is time to make a move, embrace change, mirrored by the campus graduation ceremony.

Pouncey thoroughly bathes in academia in her first novel, alternately making fun of university snobbery while being snobbish for making fun of university life.  Reading the Perfect Reader, one alternately feels on either side of a line.

Is Flora truly selfish or is she self-deprecating?  Is university life petty or fulfilling?  Is it better to be liberal or pious or are both equally undesirable?  The shifting ground can leave one feeling a little ambivalent about the outcome of Flora’s story.

However, Pouncey fills the pages with pockets of recalled childhood memories that they feel like they could be your own memories.  The strength of the Perfect Reader is definitely Pouncey’s descriptiveness, putting words to thoughts and memories that seem so appropriate it is like no other words could describe that moment.  She describes the hidden desire to rebel, to get in trouble so well that we are reminded of our 16-year-old self.

Perfect Reader comes out tomorrow and Pouncey will appear at Brookline Booksmith on June 23rd.

Perfect Reader by Maggie Pouncey was received as a free review copy.

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Biblioholic Review: Sleepless

2 Jun

Parker Haas is a moral LAPD cop watching Sodom and Gomorrah of  Southern California crumble around him. Haas is a patrol officer turned undercover narcotics cop as the world unravels in a sleep deprived madness.

Haas is the hero in the no-win story established by Charlie Huston in Sleepless. Ten percent of the world’s population is infected by some sort of sleep robbing virus. As it spreads, the numbers grow and the victims suffer through waking nightmares that drive many into madness or suicide.

The Sleepless contagion can only be remedied by a drug called Dreamer. And that drug has eclipsed every other known med or illegal narcotic in value. The importance of the drug’s manufacturer is illustrated by seating him at tables with oil barons, arms producers and all the other titans of 21st century industry. Without Dreamer the world’s sanity would snap in an instant.

Haas is a brain with a badge, but flawed in his handling of his personal life. Racked by the Sleepless virus Haas’ wife, Rose, rapidly deteriorates into a brain rotting madness. His daughter, Omaha, might be immune. But who knows, they don’t want to test her to find out. Each time Haas returns home your heart wrenches. It is sad because you can see compassion and logic battling it out.

If Huston’s Sleepless suffers from any hiccups it is early on in the book when his style of exposition clumsily introduces Haas, the world of Sleepless and Haas evil-righteous shadow, Jasper.

Jasper is a hired gun, apparently ex-Special Forces left over from the Vietnam era (Huston does make a gaff describing Jasper leaping in and out of Cobras, can’t do that in a two seat gunship.) He is ruthless, bloody good at killing, as well a tactician adept at close quarters psychological warfare (ie mind games.) Jasper however ends up being the savior that Haas, in all his morality, could not be.

Huston copiously brand-drops, mostly when it comes to firearms, but pretty much every gadget, typewriter, computer or camera, is sprinkled liberally around Sleepless. Not in a bad way, just in ways that we modern-day consumers are pre-programmed to notice.

When Huston does explain the origins of the Sleepless virus, but you may not buy the tale. Not that Huston failed to write a convincing back story,  you might wonder if the truth is being told by the oily entry into Who’s Who.

Whether conscious or not, Huston utilizes the past two decades of near-apocalyptic riot and civil unrest imagery from Los Angeles to prime the reader. We don’t need broader views, we know the world is crumbling, the U.S. is engaged in oil wars around the world, and that increasing numbers of humanity cannot sleep.

If anything Huston could be accused of laying on the machismo a bit too thick, making a serious tone drift into black comedy (exemplified by his description of a Los Angeles high-rise bristling with anti-aircraft weapons. A bit too Escape from New York.)

Sleepless is modern crime-noir-sci-fi. It engages the reader to follow the bloody trail of broken minds to a fully satisfying ending of hope mixed into a cauldron of misery.

To us, near future dystopia is best served by playing it real and dark. And Charlie Huston’s Sleepless does exactly that.

Sleepless by Charlie Huston was purchased for our biblioholic enjoyment by the Boston Book Bums.

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Biblioholic Review: The Lace Reader

31 May

Towner Whitney, a woman who returns home to Salem, MA after a long absence is no witch in a city of witches.  However, she and the other women in her family are Lace Readers. Whitney you see is our emotional focal point in The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry.

Who are Lace Readers?  Lace readers can be likened to readers of tea-leaves.  And like those who divine fortunes  in the patterns of tea, lace can also be interpreted to coax out truth.  Lace Reading is not the only odd occupation of Towner Whitney’s family.

After all, her mother runs a refuge for battered women on an island off shore, her Great Aunt was the community’s resident Emily Post; and her uncle is the town’s evangelist, complete with robed disciples.  You can imagine why Towner left town but that is only the beginning of the strange, tragic story of Towner Whitney.  It is a small town and everybody seems to know Towner Whitney’s story, including the police department’s newest detective. Everyone knows, except Towner herself.  She can only seem to remember pieces of her past.

The Lace Reader is deliciously obtuse.  As a reader, you know that there something going on, but it is between the words on the page. You don’t know what it is, at least we didn’t.  We’re not lace readers or any kind of fortune teller, obviously.  Barry is enigmatically clever and really only reveals there is more to the story near the book’s climax.

The last line of page 343 made the reader sit up in bed, ignore the early set alarm clock and plow through to the end.  It was a very fast, wonderful 40 pages.  Barry skillfully writes the end of the book as if she is slowly lifting the veil of lace she put over the reader’s eyes.

Barry received many accolades for the well-received book and for good reason.  Her second novel, The Map of True Places was released earlier this month.  It was already of Boston Book Bums ‘to be read list,’ but after finishing The Lace Reader, it is time to move it to the top of pile.  Keep an eye of The Map of True Places review in coming weeks.

THE LACE READER was borrowed from the local public library for our biblioholic enjoyment.

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Biblioholic Review: More of this World or Maybe Another

28 May

More of this World or Maybe Another is Barb Johnson’s first published collection of short stories.  Johnson took a winding road to become an author, first a carpenter, then a victim of Hurricane Katrina, and the reader feels Johnson’s experience reverberating throughout the collection.

All nine stories take place in poverty-stricken New Orleans.  These tales are gritty!  There is sadness to every movement, but there is also hope, even if sometimes it is expressed as denial.

Four of the nine tales center on Delia, who if this were a novel would be the heroine and seems at first glance the tie that binds all the other characters together.  A closer look reveals these lives intersect in many ways, not the least of by the snack machine in the laundromat.  Luis, the little boy in the last story sums up the importance of the snack machine as a holder of hopes and dreams when he says “…is dark except for the snack machine.  It glows like a nightlight for Palmyra Street.”

Beautiful and desperate at the same time.

These tales are engrossing and are tied so closely together it is a little hard to distinguish this book as a collection of short stories instead of a novel. It’s a question continually asked during the reading, ‘Why isn’t this a novel?’ Sometimes short story collections subconsciously prompt a reader to jump about. With More of this World, we read straight through like a novel, no skipping about. It’s a testament to Johnson, whose skill binds these stories to a uninterrupted sequence. We liked the stories the more we read, the more emotionally invested in the characters we became, we were committed to her arc.

Sure each individual tale can stand on its own and technically these stories can and do, but each story is really better because of the story proceeding it.

All nine stories are good, but some are great, especially the finale “St. Luis of Palmyra”.

No matter the format or structure, Johnson’s words are completely enjoyable and emotionally potent.

More of this World or Maybe Another by Barb Johnson was purchased by the Boston Book Bums.

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