Elegant Enigmas by Karen Wilkin

Elegant Enigmas: the art of Edward Gorey by Karen Wilkin. San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2009.

This is a book for avowed Edward Gorey fans. If you're not one of those, or worse yet, if you've never heard of the guy, don't read THIS book, go read some of Edward Gorey's own books.

This book is essentially the exhibition catalog for an exhibition of original drawings by Gorey which was apparently held at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. For the Gorey aficionado, it provides a rare glimpse of some of his preliminary sketches, and other previously unreleased materials, such as some wonderful illustrated envelopes Gorey created and mailed to his mother while attending Harvard.

There are also bits and pieces from many of his books, but not enough to give more than the flavor. These are rewarding for those already familiar with most of the books, but the newbie won't get but a taste.

Highly recommended for all Gorey fans.

Devil's Trill by Gerald Elias

Devil's Trill by Gerald Elias. New York: Minotaur Books, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-312-54181-1

A great mystery with classical music as its primary focus and background milieu. Reading books with a musical backdrop is one of my favorite reading pleasures, so this book was great fun!

The only downer is the crusty misanthropic nature of the primary character, an over the hill, nearly blind, chain-smoking violin teacher, who (at first glance) seems to hate teaching, hate his life, hate his pupils, pretty much everything. But eventually you warm up to him, since he does have the proverbial heart of gold, sort of, maybe.

Definitely recommended for anyone who, like me, likes musically oriented fiction.

Changes to this blog

Hello to anyone reading this blog:

This has been my "books I've read" blog for the past six years. Starting in August, 2003, I began writing blog entries, brief (and sometimes NOT so brief) reviews of EVERY book I read. Which is and has been a pretty major undertaking, since I'm an inveterate bookworm, always reading, often reading half a dozen books at any given time. I almost never go anywhere--even to the grocery story--without a book in hand.

So, it has always been a challenge to keep up with my reading here on the blog. Taking the time to not just say something quick or facile about each book, but to try and say something that I had thought through, and that might be helpful to someone else considering whether or not to read that book. I'm not sure I even managed to accomplish that goal on a regular basis, but that was my intent.

In the past year or so it has gotten even harder, and frankly, I just plain haven't been able to keep up. There are too many other things vying for my time. I've been struggling just to get the library books I've read blogged before they charge me for the book, since I've had it out so long. Luckily my library has never charged fines, but coming this fall, they're going to start, so there's another reason. Plus, any books that I actually own, or that friends or relatives have loaned me, and that I've read, simply pile up on the floor in front of my desk, waiting to be blogged--waiting, waiting, and still waiting. I don't think I've gotten any of those blogged for well over a year now.

Consequently, I've made the difficult (for me, at least) decision to abandon the notion of blogging every book I read, at least for now. Instead, I plan to blog a book once in a while, books that made a particular impression on me, or that I think are especially worthy of my taking the time to write about for one reason or another, or maybe just because I think I have something in mind that I'd like to say about the book, and all I have to do is sit down and hammer it out.

In the meantime, I'll be keeping track of my reading over on Goodreads.com. You can follow my recent (and some not so recent) reading here: http://www.goodreads.com/tillabooks. Why do I keep using "Tillabooks" as the name for my online book sites? Because I started the Tillabooks book blog while I was living in Tillamook, Oregon, working for the library there, and I just liked the word "Tillabooks" which I thought up one day.

So hop on over to my Goodreads page to see what I've been reading lately, and also to see a list of all the stuff I've read over the past year or two that hasn't made it onto the blog here yet. Anything I've finished lately will have a "read" date attached to it. The rest is all older stuff.

And once in a while, I still hope to post a review here as well. We'll see how that goes!

Longitude by Dava Sobel

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel. New York: Walker, 1995. ISBN: 978-0802713124

This is one of those nonfiction popular scientific books that have become so ubiquitous in recent years. It's been on my “to read” list ever since it first came out, but the old “so many books, so little time” paradox has kept it unread by me until now. It's a relatively easy read. Even in the large print edition that I happened to pick up from a display at my local library it is under 200 pages.

The title really tells much of the story. The problem of ships at sea knowing just where they are was one of the major scientific conundrums for centuries. A very real problem, it lead to the loss of many ships, lives, fortunes, and even wars and kingdoms. The solution? A clock that could keep accurate time at sea. Although a parallel solution was also under development and came to fruition at about the same time, involving extremely complicated calculations, based on plotting of the path of the moon against the stars.

The conflict comes from the fact that astronomers were in charge of awarding the huge prize that the British government had promised to whoever could solve the problem. And naturally, they tended to favor the astronomical solution as more “scientific” than a mere clock.

It's a fascinating story, and Dava Sobel is a thorough if not always scintillating storyteller. Definitely recommended.

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. New York: Penguin Books, 2001. ISBN: 978-0-14-200028-1

This is one of the best self-help books I've read, which probably isn't saying much, since I don't generally read in that category very much. But David Allen does have what sounds like a pretty good plan for organizing your life, and freeing up your brain for creative and thoughtful approaches to pretty much everything you need to tackle.

At the root of his method is the notion that you need a system to capture everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that you're involved in. Get it all down (on paper, or on your computer), and then put it through a process that organizes it into manageable categories, and forces you to make decisions about how to handle it. Once you're confident that your system is in place, and that it really does capture EVERYTHING in such a way that nothing will ever fall through the cracks again, supposedly your mind will be freed from the routine anxieties and stress that plague you now, and make it difficult for you to concentrate and do your work and live your life. I can't describe in one paragraph what Allen takes entire chapters to describe, so if this sounds like something you'd be interested in, you'd best read the book for yourself.

If I have any complaint at all about the book, it's that the author's system relies much too heavily on paper, writing things down on pieces of paper, setting up a filing system for organizing your paper, and just plain using too much paper. Handling paper is one of my least favorite things in all the world. The inability to make filing decisions is a big part of my personal organization problem.

I'd be much happier with a system that allowed me to go entirely electronic. I want to just scan all my pieces of paper, and use an advanced OCR and indexing system to convert everything into machine-readable format that I can keyword search. In the modern age of computer searching, everything is (or could well be) miscellaneous, to coin a phrase. I wish some computer-savvy individual would work with Allen to co-write a completely computerized version of his plan.

Oh well, short of that, this IS a good plan. The problem? I'd need about a month of uninterrupted time to put it into practice. And where am I going to get that month? Still, I do recommend this book to anyone who is looking to get better organized, and reduce stress over unfulfilled obligations or intentions.

The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King

The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King. New York: Bantam Books, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-553-80454-6

Hooray! Another Laurie King Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell novel! This was some of the best and most entertaining reading I’ve done all year. And in what has to be (I think) a first for this series, we get a “to be continued” at the end of the book, when we realize that the villain has escaped alive, and will undoubtedly return for a second round.

In this truly original take on the Sherlock Holmes oeuvre, we learn that Holmes has a son, now grown, hidden from his knowledge all these years by Irene Adler, the boy's mother, and the one woman that Holmes truly admired back in the original canonic tales by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. She also appears to be the only woman and one of the few adults, period, that proved herself to be Holmes’ intellectual equal as well, besting him in the battle of wits between them, and successfully keeping his parentage a secret from him.

Of course, we are supposed to believe that Holmes was particularly vulnerable in this particular area, misogynist that he was. That is the one (and only, in my view) serious flaw in Laurie King’s hypothesis, that Holmes would not merely treat as an equal, but actually marry a young woman 20 years his junior, which is the primary premise of the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series of novels. King makes it believable enough when it happens, and I don’t find that it stretches my innate sense of disbelief when I’m actually reading her stories, only when I sit back at a distance (like now) does it seem rather unlikely.

But back to the story: Holmes’ son is naturally more than a little bitter towards his father. When he finally decides to let Holmes into his life, it is on a fairly limited basis, and only on his own terms.

But very quickly Homes and Russell become involved initially in the disappearance of their new daughter-in-law, and eventually of the son and granddaughter as well. They are apparently (or not so apparently, at least so far as Scotland Yard is concerned) caught up in a somewhat bizarre religion which involves blood sacrifices in or on various of the mystically sacred spaces around Great Britain, ancient collections of standing stones and the like.

All told, it leads to a dramatic finale, with Russell flying in horrific weather to the far north of Britain, risking her life and that of her pilot, to try and reach a specific location where she suspects another ritual death may be planned, perhaps even the death of Holmes' young granddaughter.

Some people have complained that since changing publishers, King has been pressured to up her page counts, and that as a consequence, her recent books have been too long, even plodding, at times. To that I can only say, pshaw! Who cares? To me, the longer, the better. I'm still a rabid fan, devouring every page with pleasure. Just give me more! Highly recommended.

Dragon Harper by Anne and Todd McCaffrey

Dragon Harper by Anne McCaffrey and Todd Mccaffrey. New York: Del Rey, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-345-48031-6

This is the newest (but one) of the new Dragons of Pern novels, written in collaboration between the progenitor of the series, renowned science fiction and fantasy author Anne McCaffrey, and her son, Todd. Diehard fans of the series will definitely want to read it.

Counting myself among their number, I have done so. While I have no regrets about that, I do have to say that Todd doesn’t have quite the deft touch of his mother when it comes to characterization, plot development, and the like.

His story lines are compelling enough. This one being an example: a flu pandemic sweeps throughPern and kills one in three or so of the general population, hitting the young and active the hardest. The dragon riders are only able to provide limited assistance, due to the imminent arrival of threadfall (well, only a decade or so out), so that they cannot afford to lost a third or so of their numbers, which would leave Pern unprotected.

So there is plenty of drama and angst in the story line. But when reading one of Anne’s books, every aspect of the story as it develops seems almost fore-ordained, completely logical, as though it couldn’t possibly happen any other way. You don’t get that feeling in Todd’s writing. At times things that are happening seem a bit confused, and even arbitrary.

Likewise with character development. With Anne’s characters, you invariably relate to them, and identify with them almost immediately. With Todd, it takes longer. You do eventually get there, but it takes time.

There is also one major plot flaw (in my view). Why is our hero, young Kindan, immune to the flu? Why is he the only major character who never catches it? There is no rationale provided for this so far as I could tell, other than pure chance. That hardly seems fair, when almost everyone else we care about succumbs.

Even so, I probably shouldn’t complain. If I didn’t have the master storyteller, Anne McCaffrey, to compare with, I’d probably be perfectly happy with Todd’s writing. Fans of Pern will definitely find this worth the reading.

The Last Theorem by Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl

The Last Theorem by Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl. New York: Ballantine Books/DelRey, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-345-47021-8

This is one of the most congenial SciFi novels I've read in a long time. Meaning it's just a pleasant read (for the most part, anyway, with only a couple of minor exceptions, such as the period where poor Ranjit, our hero, is mistakenly locked up and “interrogated” as a suspected terrorist), entertaining, and intriguing all at once. Not to mention that it's the first, last, and only collaboration between these two science fiction greats, grandmasters both. This alone makes it essential reading for all serious science fiction buffs, such as myself.

Much, even most of the story takes place on the island of Sri Lanka, Arthur C. Clarke's chosen home for many decades. Unfortunately, he had passed on by the time this book made it into print.

Our primary protagonist is a brilliant young mathematician, who lives an eventful, but satisfying life. Among his accomplishments is finally solving Fermat's Last Theorem, one of the perennially classic mathematical challenges. In fact, he actually comes up with with the proof while in prison, suffering from those currently infamous “enhanced” interrogation techniques.

That wouldn't be enough on its own for a good SciFi story, though. What makes the novel more interesting is the fact that we (the human race, that is) have inadvertently and unknowingly come to the attention of the galactic civilization, such as it is, and they have decided that we are likely to be dangerous, and should be quickly snuffed out. There are interesting scientific developments going on here on earth, as well, such as the construction of the first “space elevator,” an actual cable stretching into earth orbit territory, which makes it possible to lift large masses of material into space much less expensively than with rockets.

How these various elements come together into a satisfyingly happy ending keeps you guessing all along the way. Definitely recommended essential reading for SciFi aficionados.

Fortune and Fate by Sharon Shinn

Fortune and Fate by Sharon Shinn. New York: Ace Books, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-441-01636-5

The last book I blogged was the fourth in Mercedes Lackey's “500 Kingdoms” fantasy series. This is the fifth book in Sharon Shinn's “Thirteen Houses” series. And both series have quickly become favorites. Not only that, but I think this is the best book yet in this series. Initially, I probably wouldn't have thought so, since the main character is not one of the primary characters from the other volumes (although they get significant space also), but rather, the one King's Rider who chose NOT to become a Queen's Rider.

Wen is her name, and she no longer feels worthy to be a Rider, one of the elite corps of royal guards that are more than a cut above the regular soldier, and are willing to give their lives to protect their monarch. That's the problem, you see. Wen was standing next to the king when he was killed. The Riders were literally overwhelmed by hundreds of off-island assassins, who came over the walls of the royal palace totally without warning.

Wen feels that for the king to be dead, and she to still be alive, represents a complete failure on her part, and she is no longer worthy to be a Rider. Even though the Riders were vastly outnumbered, and the assassin who killed the king came through the dead rider on the other side of the king, not through Wen. Nevertheless, she left the royal court, and began aimlessly wandering throughout the kingdom of Gillengaria, utterly and completely depressed, caring not whether she lives or dies.

Unexpectedly she rescues the daughter, now heir, of the very man, head of a noble house, who was one of the prime instigators of the uprising against the king. Against her will, and with extreme reluctance, only because she sees a need, she agrees to become the captain of the sixteen-year-old girl's guard, and, mind you, only temporarily, until a suitable replacement can be found.

The tale of how she gradually becomes involved with this family, formerly enemies of her sovereign, is truly heartwarming, in only the way that this classic “romance” plot element can be when used at its finest. By that I mean the person who initially dislikes someone or something, but gradually, over time, has a change of heart.

Only here, the romantic element (woman meets man, woman gets man) is peripheral to the plot; the romance that we get caught up in, is Wen's gradual acceptance of herself as a person worthy to be alive, and with an important role to fill, a role that she comes to value, as she comes to value herself.

Highly recommended, and probably OK to read, even if you haven't read the rest of the series, but the story will make more sense if you have read the others. They are Mystic and Rider (2005), The Thirteenth House and Dark Moon Defender (both 2006), and Reader and Raelynx (2007). Since there are thirteen houses, do you suppose there will be thirteen novels in the series? I don't know, but I certainly hope so!

The Snow Queen by Mercedes Lackey

The Snow Queen by Mercedes Lackey. New York: Luna, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-373-80265-4

The latest in the “500 Kingdoms” series by Mercedes Lackey, the undisputed master (or would it be sexist to say “mistress”?) of the fantasy novel for adolescent girls (and boys, and men, and women). Previous novels in this charming and delightful (overworked, but still apt adjectives) series include The Fairy Godmother (2004), One Good Knight (2006), and Fortune's Fool (2007).

So what's the scoop on this latest entry? The Ice Queen is actually a good witch, a benevolent spirit, but further up into the fastness of the north, someone is wickedly impersonating her, and luring handsome young men to their doom. And so the Queen teams up with the latest victim's betrothed and a village witch, plus a couple of blacksmith type wizards to set things aright.

Lots of romantic adventures ensue, to the eventual delight of all.

Only now have I belatedly realized that Luna is a trademark of Harlequin Books! Who knew? Frankly, who cares? Light but vastly entertaining is my enthusiastic verdict. Highly recommended, as were all of the previous instances of this series.