The bits I'd heard about Scalzi's Hugo nominated first novel suggested that it was your standard military scifi, with a twist: In this society, it's the elderly who are sent to war, not the young. This is a technically accurate description.
In Old Man's War, humans, represented by the Colonial Union, are just one of the numerous species seeking to colonize the far reaches of space. Information from off-Earth is practically nil, and the CU isn't interested in sharing its technology, which is drastically superior to what's available on Earth. The only way to travel the stars is to be a colonist (an option only open to refugees from the parts of the world that were nuked in a somewhat recent war) or to join the Colonial Defense Forces as a senior citizen. Our protagonist, John Perry, does the latter. If you're wondering how a military with a minimum age of seventy-five is able to function, the answer is simple. Recruits' consciousnesses are quickly transferred to a souped-up clone of their younger selves (with a green chlorophyll tint and cat-like eyes, as well as enhanced strength, stamina, etc.). So, a couple chapters in, and the old guys ain't old anymore. They're still old on the inside, of course, though they could just as easily be forty or fifty as seventy-five.
The one thing Old Man's War manages to do exceptionally well is walk the line between escapist shoot 'em up fantasy and "war, what is it good for?" The ethical considerations are present throughout, without themselves dominating the narrative.
Despite the novel premise, Old Man's War is a solid, but otherwise pretty run of the mill, military sf novel. If you're a fan of that sub-genre, you'll probably like it. If not, I'd recommend Joe Haldeman's The Forever War (1974) instead.
Simmons' The Fifth Heart falls into the niche genre of Sherlock Holmes pastiche, which is itself generally a genre-mixing of historical fiction and Sherlock Holmes mystery, often involving real historical figures or other pre-existing fictional characters. The most famous of this surprisingly voluminous genre is probably Nicholas Meyers' The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1974), where Holmes and Freud team-up after Holmes' supposed death at Reichenbach Falls. This three year period between the publication of The Final Problem (1891) and The Empty House (1894), referred to as the Great Hiatus, is also the backdrop for Simmons' novel, where Holmes meets Henry James on the bank of the Seine, as both had picked that spot to end their lives. As intriguing as a Henry James/Sherlock Holmes team up may be on its own, there's another oddity about this Holmes pastiche: Sherlock Holmes has deduced that he's a fictional character. Self aware characters are hard to do well, but Simmons' method here is extremely clever. The central conceit of the original Holmes stories is that they are true accounts written by Dr. Watson. Unfortunately, Doyle was never big on fact checking, or even making sure character names and descriptions were consistent across stories. When the location of Watson's war wound shifts from his shoulder to his leg, among other things, Holmes starts down the path that leads him to question his own existence.
It is amid this metaphysical backdrop that Holmes and James sail to America to help solve two cases. The first is whether the suicide of Clover Adams, wife of Henry Adams and member of the elite social circle, the Five of Hearts, was actually a murder. The other is to stop an international anarchist conspiracy to incite a world war. James, as a close friend of Henry Adams and the other three surviving members of the five of hearts (John Hay, Lincoln's former secretary, John's wife Clara, and geologist/explorer Clarence King), is Holmes' way in to the Washington social elite.
Simmons is an incredible researcher, and creates an amazing atmosphere with his descriptions of D.C. in the gilded age. Most of the characters in this novel are real people, mostly writers and politicians ranging from Theodore Roosevelt to Mark Twain. Early on, Simmons sets up a plotline with the narrator directly addressing the reader, suggesting that he has some private source of information for this account, and that the narrator might become a character in and of itself. Unfortunately, Simmons doesn't follow through on this.
My feeling reading this novel changed between the first and second halves, and I found myself thinking of my experience reading two of Simmons' earlier novels, Hyperion (1989) and its sequel, The Fall of Hyperion (1990). The mysteries Simmons creates are so engrossing that their solutions always seem like a let-down.
On the occasion of its re-release as an ebook, I was asked to review Dan Wakefield's debut novel Going All the Way. One of the major themes, as the title suggests, is sex, but more specifically in the context of the social milieu of 1950's Indianapolis. In his foreword, Vonnegut compares it to the previous year's best selling novel, Portnoy's Complaint, claiming that though Wakefield's novel has "wider concerns and more intricate characters, the sexual problems are pretty much the same."
Going All the Way focuses on Willard "Sonny" Burns, who starts the novel on a train back to Indianapolis after spending his service in the Korean War in the public information office in Kansas City. On the train home, he meets Gunner Casselman, one of the "big rods" at Sonny's high school in Indianapolis, returning home from the war a hero. Their friendship develops from here, with Sonny, the insecure, out of shape loser who enlisted only to discover that serving in the Korean War was was like "being on a team in a sport that drew no crowds, except for the players' own parents and friends," and, perhaps more distressing from his point of view, that "Korea wasn't the kind of war that got you laid for being in it," now being taken under the wing one of the town's golden boys. But Gunner has started to realize that this golden boy status is meaningless when the society he's in is so limited.
Vonnegut describes the book as "a period piece," which is only somewhat accurate. There are certain plotlines that are very specific to a certain place and time, for example, the huge social stigma about growing a beard, and Sonny's mother shouting "My Sonny shaves, like a good American." But other aspects remain, maybe not to the same pervasive extent of the midwest in the 1950s, Sonny's mother, much to his chagrin, has become a member of the "Moral Re-Armament Movement," and is trying to get him back into the church. This movement, as much interested in complaining about desegregation and social progress as it is in evangelism, can be seen later in Falwell's moral majority, or even today in any number of organizations, usually with the words "family" or "values" in their names. Maybe the two most popular public figures in Indianapolis at this time are Jesus Christ and Senator Joseph McCarthy. As Gunner laments "anything different is pinko. Anything you ask, if you really want to figure things out, that's pinko too." It is in this repressive social setting that Gunner and Sonny try to have an active sex life, which makes for great comedy until the pressure gets overwhelming.
On another level, this book is about a period of aimlessness for people in their twenties, especially when self-discovery and independence are actively hindered, when "anything different is pinko." This isn't a beat novel, though Wakefield had contact with the major beat authors. Rather a novel of disillusionment, detailing the frustration of young men fighting against the hypocrisy and disappointments of their society, realizing that maybe they're wasting time waiting around for "the perfect combination of sex and intelligence that every man is supposed to find, that is his rightful due," It focuses on a period between the clearly marked path of childhood and high school and college, and the rest of adult life. While there is a lot of humor in this book, there is a solid core of angst, which can range from earnest to, well, angsty.
John Green (1977- ) was born in Indianapolis, Indiana but grew up in Orlando, Florida and Birmingham, Alabama. He double-majored in English and Religious Studies at Kenyon College, graduating in 2000. After graduating, he worked as a chaplain at a children's hospital, then began working for Booklist and was a frequent contributor to NPR's All Things Considered. In 2005, Green published his first novel, Looking for Alaska. In 2006 he married Sarah Urist and published his second novel, An Abundance of Katherines. In 2007, John and his brother Hank Green started vlogging under the name Vlogbrothers. They now have over two million subscribers on youtube. He wrote Paper Towns (2008) and co-wrote Will Grayson, Will Grayson (2009) with David Levithan. His most recent novel, The Fault in Our Stars, was published in 2012 and was adapted to film in 2014. John Green lives in Indianapolis with his wife and two children. The Book:
Length: 313 pages Subject/Genre: Teen issues/YA Romance
The Fault in Our Stars is narrated by Hazel, a 16 year old girl with thyroid cancer that spread to her lungs. At a youth cancer support group, she meets Augustus Waters, a 17 year old boy who lost a leg to osteosarcoma, but will probably remain healthy. Hazel has a terminal diagnosis, though an experimental medication has bought her some (but no one knows how much) time. Their budding (and inherently doomed) relationship is the focus of the novel.
Green uses the protagonists' cancer to amplify the typical teenage experience: angst over the future, the feeling that no one really understands you, obsession with mortality, etc. He avoids being overly cloying or preachy, which he could have easily resorted to.
I rarely read YA. This isn't meant as a condemnation of the genre, just a general lack of interest. So while this novel wasn't my cup of tea, I'm happy to say it wasn't an unpleasant experience. Before now, my limited experience with YA has mostly been of the shitty variety, where the author, either due to lack of talent or disregard for his/her audience, publishes what looks like a rough first draft. I'm happy to say that Green doesn't do this. While I don't find the novel particularly profound, I'm happy to say that its well-written, not only moreso than other YA I've read, but moreso than some of the adult fiction previously reviewed here (cough Valley of the Dolls cough The Da Vinci Code cough).
Despite being published in 2012, The Fault in Our Stars didn't become the #1 annual bestseller until 2014, which is when the movie adaptation was released.
The movie was a financial success, with a $48 million opening weekend. Oddly enough, Fox's Bollywood studios have announced their plans to produce a Hindi remake.
I just realized that this is my last recommendation after over two years of doing this (and the post goes live on my birthday, no less). Anyway, if you like YA and/or Romance, you'll most likely enjoy The Fault in Our Stars. If you're not into either of those genres, it's still an okay read, though you'll likely remain ambivalent.
Bestsellers of 2014: Print:
1. The Fault in Our Stars (trade paperback) by John Green
2. The Long Haul by Jeff Kinney
3. Divergent by Veronica Roth
4. Insurgent by Veronica Roth
5. Killing Patton by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard (non-fiction)
6. Allegiant by Veronica Roth
7. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
8. The Fault in Our Stars (movie tie-in) by John Green
9. The Fault in Our Stars (hardcover) by John Green
10. Frozen by Victoria Saxon
Kindle:
1. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
2. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
3. Divergent by Veronica Roth
4. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
5. Insurgent by Veronica Roth
6. Allegiant by Veronica Roth
7. The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
8. If I Stay by Gayle Forman
9. Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
10. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (non-fiction) Also Published in 2014: The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore What If? by Randall Munroe The Martian by Andy Weir
Sources:
"Biographical Questions." JohnGreenBooks. John Green Books, n.d. Web.
Green, John. The Fault in Our Stars. New York: Dutton Books, 2012. Print. "John Green." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2014. Literature Resource Center. Web.
Dan Brown (1964- ) was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, where his father worked as a professor of mathematics. Brown went on to study at Philips Exeter and later Amherst, from which he received his B.A. in 1986. He moved out to Hollywood to pursue a career in music. He released a few albums by 1994. In 1993, he moved back to New Hampshire with Blythe Newlon, whom he married, and taught English at Philips Exeter. He and his wife co-wrote his first book: 187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman. Brown was credited under the pseudonym Danielle Brown. He quit teaching to work full time in 1996 and published his first novel,Digital Fortress, in 1998. Angels & Demons (2000) was his first novel starring Robert Langdon. His fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code (2003) was the bestselling novel of the year it was published and the following year. His next two novels, The Lost Symbol (2009) and Inferno (2013) were the bestselling novels in the year they were published.
The Book:
Length: 611 pages Subject/Genre: Conspiracy/Conspiracy theory
Inferno starts with Robert Langdon waking up in a hospital room in Florence, a bullet wound having caused some short term amnesia. Except all but one of those things turns out to be a lie. Robert Langdon has to find out what he was working on that almost got him killed, why he's in Italy, and what's happened over the last couple days, with the help of genius doctor/actor/polyglot/prodigy Sienna Brooks. All he has are dreams of a woman predicting doom and an altered version of Botticelli's Mappa dell Inferno.
There's a lot of withholding information going on, often to absolutely no result. For a long time, everyone avoids naming the bad guy, which would make sense if the bad guy were a character we knew of. Even characters who have no reason to avoid using his name awkwardly avoid using it until Langdon figures it out. Likewise, there's plenty that is so blatantly obvious that when the 'secret' is revealed, the only possible response is a resounding, "Yeah, I got that two hundred pages ago." To top it off, there are so many twists we just end up with a story that is convoluted. After the fourth time you say, "All along you assumed it was X, but really it was Y!", I'll stop assuming X is X and I won't be surprised when it turns out to be Y (again).
To be fair though, Inferno was a step up from The Lost Symbol. Since Brown wasn't dealing with a secret society (real or imagined), he stuck closer to facts. A mad scientist obsessed Dante uses clues based on The Divine Comedy, rather than finding some secret code Dante hid in his own poetry. Brown also starts to shy away from calling Langdon a symbologist, only using the phrase a couple times, at one point even referring to Langdon as "an art historian who specialized in iconography." While this may seem like a trivial point, imagine if Indiana Jones went around calling himself a Treasurologist. It just makes the character sound stupid.
Don't get me wrong, I still don't recommend Inferno. The plot is convoluted, the characters are boring, many characters do things solely to advance the plot, etc. It's far more tolerable than any of his earlier books, but you won't miss anything by skipping it. Bestsellers of 2013: Publishers Weekly's list for 2013 is separated by format, includes fiction and non-fiction, and no hard numbers. Since Inferno was #2 on one list and #1 on the other, while Hard Luck was #1 on one list, and didn't appear on the other at all, I went with Inferno.
Print:
1. Hard Luck by Jeff Kinney
2. Inferno by Dan Brown
3. Killing Jesus by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard (non-fiction)
4. Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander (non-fiction *cough* bull shit *cough)
5. The House of Hades by Rick Riordan
6. Divergent by Veronica Roth
7. Jesus Calling by Sarah Young (non-fiction)
8. Sycamore Row by John Grisham
9. The Third Wheel by Jeff Kinney
10. Happy, Happy, Happy by Phil Robertson (non-fiction)
Kindle top 10:
1. Inferno by Dan Brown
2. Divergent by Veronica Roth
3. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
4. Sycamore Row by John Grisham
5. The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
6. Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks
7. Allegiant by Veronica Roth
8. Insurgent by Veronica Roth
9. The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (pseud. for J.K. Rowling)
10. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak Also Published in 2013: MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton The Circle by Dave Eggers Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon Tenth of December by George Saunders The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Erika Mitchell (1963- ) was born in London. She was raised in Buckinghamshire where her father was a BBC cameraman. She went on to study history at the University of Kent, and later became a television producer. She married screenwriter Niall Leonard in 1987. She became active on fanfiction.net and in 2010 began publishing a series of erotic stories under the username Snowqueen's Icedragon, rewriting Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series with Edward as an S&M billionaire playboy. She originally called it Master of the Universe in what I can only hope is the most bizarre Bonfire of the Vanities reference ever. Mitchell rewrote the series enough to avoid an intellectual property lawsuit and published it under the title Fifty Shades of Grey. The first two books in the series, Fifty Shades of Grey and Fifty Shades Darker, were originally published as an e-book or print on demand by Australian vanity publisher The Writer's Coffee Shop, and the third book, Fifty Shades Freed, was published in 2012. The Book:
Well, this was it. From the very beginning, since that first post back in February 2013, this was my white whale. (And I realize I just passed up an opportunity for a 'grey' pun, but no. I am better than that.) While I'd honestly rather have reread all the damn technical chapters from Moby Dick than any of the technical details about Christian Grey's dick, sacrifices must be made. Here goes.
Think about a Twilight erotic fan fiction story where Edward is replaced by a billionaire who's into bondage. Actually, don't think about it. It's awful. I know because I read the result. And the fact is, a lot of the fanfic carried over. Bella Anastasia, the narrator, is clumsy and describes herself as plain and uninteresting (the first and last any reader of 50 Shades can attest to). Though she describes herself as such, for some reason, just like that vampire groupie who shall not be named (lest the Meyer estate sue), every one is in love with her. Seriously, every guy that gets more than five lines and isn't her stepdad wants to bone Anastasia, despite the fact that she is downright awful. She has absolutely no personality. She's an English major in Vancouver, Washington with a part-time job in a hardware store. She and her roommate/best friend plan to move to Seattle when they graduate. So what does Anastasia want to do? She plans to get a job in a publishing firm, but does she want to be a publisher? An editor? What are her opinions on anything besides 19th century literature and Christian Grey's omnipresent gaze.
(And as for the gaze, how many hundreds of times is this specifically mentioned throughout the book? It's like if the billboard of T.J. Eckleburg in The Great Gatsby were trying to mentally undress Daisy every other paragraph.)
And Christian isn't much better. Despite what 50 Shades of Grey fans may think, 'well-hung' is not a character trait. He and Anastasia are blank slates for readers to imprint their kinky fantasies on. (On an unrelated note, the copy I picked up from a used bookstore has slight water damage.)
The obvious response is: well, it's porn. To which my response is: Yeah, but it's terrible porn. Anaïs Nin and Marguerite Duras and Henry Miller and, I assume, many others (I don't know much about erotica as a genre), have shown that libertine writing/erotica can still be (gasp!) well-written. I literally just opened up to a random page and found these gems:
"Holy Moses, he's all mine to play with, and suddenly it's Christmas."
"'It's deep this way,' he murmurs."
"I thought I was in charge. My inner goddess looks like someone snatched her ice cream."
I don't mean to be hard on James, though. She was never trying to write anything more than her sexual fantasy (which just happened to star the cast of a YA paranormal romance novel), and when it got some popularity, she thought she'd make a bit of money off it. That it became an international sensation (pun intended) was never anticipated. And I'm not exaggerating when I say international. Last November I was in Prague, and walking down a street I passed a sex shop. I wouldn't have even noticed it were it not for a big poster advertising the author-approved Fifty Shades of Grey sex kit. No, this wasn't some scuzzy central European Taken-esque trap, but an official, very real product.
"You've read the book, now insert it into an orifice!"
There was an attempt at making a porn parody of Fifty Shades of Grey (because apparently everything from the Adam West Batman series to 30 Rock has gotten porn parodies), but the lawyers got it shut down because they argued it was not transformative, i.e. the original was too close to porn anyway. Also, the above links are SFW to youtube trailers, and, I shit you not, the advertisement that played before the latter was for the DVD of 50 Shades of Grey. I can't make this up. (I mean, I could, but I'm not.)
Speaking of the movie, the adaptation was released on Valentine's Day, 2015. It stars Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan and was directed by Sam Taylor-Wood (her second film, her first being Nowhere Boy (2009)) and screenplay by Kelly Marcel (her second film, her first being Saving Mr. Banks (2013)), because apparently someone thought making a John Lennon biopic and a film about Tom Hanks being charming asWalt Disney was good background for bondage porn. While there may never have been a chance, I'd be remiss not to point out that Bret Easton Ellis (author of American Psycho and Less Than Zero) publicly declared his desire to write the screenplay, but nothing ever came of that.
I'm not quite sure who is supposed to like this movie, besides the executives and their accountants, of course. The whole point of the book is literally being porn, and even a good movie like Blue Valentine barely escaped an NC-17. The whole selling point was, It's a porn book! but that doesn't really carry over to a movie (or, at least not to the type they screen at your local cineplex). On the other hand, the characters range from fucking dull to just fucking, so when you eliminate the latter, you end up with boring characters. From the get-go, there was no way this movie would satisfy any of it fans (pun intended).
In conclusion:
Holy shit, is this bad, but holy hell, is it erotic. I mean, is it erotic? I tend to think there's a difference between graphically sexual and erotic. To steal from Nin, writing to the mysterious benefactor who paid her a dollar a page to write erotica, but constantly demanded 'more sex, less poetry,':
"You do not know what you are missing by your microscopic examination of sexual activity to the exclusion of aspects which are the fuel that ignites it. Intellectual, imaginative, romantic, emotional. This is what gives sex its surprising textures, it's subtle transformations, its aphrodisiac elements."
So I guess, what I'm saying is, screw this book (and I think I need to point out that this is not a recommendation to literally screw this book).
But seriously, you can derive everything beneficial from the experience by watching the following (SFW, except for language) video.
Bestsellers of 2012: 1. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
3. Fifty Shades Darker by E.L. James
4. Fifty Shades Freed by E.L. James
5. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
6. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
7. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel by Jeff Kinney
8. Fifty Shades Trilogy Box Set by E.L. James
9. The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan
10. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn Also Published in 2012: The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel Railsea by China Miéville Home by Toni Morrison
Sources:
Boog, Jason. "The Lost History of Fifty Shades of Grey." GalleyCat. Adweek, Nov. 21, 2012. Web.
Brennan, Zoe. "E.L. James: The Shy Housewife Behind Fifty Shades of Grey." The Telegraph.
Telegraph Media Group, July 07, 2012. Web.
James, E.L. Fifty Shades of Grey. 2011. New York: Vintage Books, 2012. Print.
John Grisham (1955- ) was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, the son of a construction worker. At the age of twelve, his family moved to Southaven, Mississippi. He graduated with a B.S. from Mississippi State University in 1979. He passed the Mississippi Bar exam in 1981, and received his J.D. from the University of Mississippi. In 1981, he married Renee Jones, with whom he had two children.
Grisham began a successful law practice in 1981, starting in criminal law, and moving to more lucrative civil law. In 1984, he was elected to the Mississippi State House of Representatives, a position he held in addition to running his law practice. A case he witnessed while in the state legislature led him to write his first novel, A Time to Kill (1989). He had trouble finding an agent and publisher. He eventually found both, and a limited run of 5,000 copies was printed of his first novel. In 1990, Grisham resigned from his position on state legislature and retired his practice. In 1991, Doubleday published his second novel, The Firm. It was a massive commercial success, as were his third and fourth novels, The Pelican Brief (1992) and The Client (1993). His fourth book, The Chamber (1994) is the first of eleven novels to become the number one annual bestselling novel in the U.S.
Since 1989, Grisham has published a total of 29 novels, five children's books, and a work of non-fiction. His family splits its time between homes in Oxford, Mississippi, Charlottesville, Virginia, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Grisham also serves as a board member on the Innocence Project.
The Book:
Length: 385 pages Subject/Genre: Lawyers/Legal 'thriller' This is it. The last goddamned one. Let's get this over with. The Litigators is about a group of litigators (what a shocker). You start with two low rent ambulance chasers (cf. The Rainmaker) and a successful up-and-comer at a big firm who quits after finding his job meaningless (cf. The Street Lawyer). They get themselves involved in a big ol' class action lawsuit (cf. The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, The Appeal). There's some wackiness (cf. The Brethren) and a bunch of misfits being misfits while trying to make a living practicing law (cf. The Brethren, The Rainmaker). There's a case, there are twists in the case, people keep secrets, some people lose a lot of money, some people make a lot of money (cf. every damned Grisham novel after The Chamber).
This isn't Grisham's worst novel, but it's nothing more than a mixture of his decent novels. The problem now is that I have pretty much nothing to say about it that isn't itself a repeat of an earlier Grisham review. I could see it being entertaining if someone hadn't read ten more of these freakin' things in the last several months, but I don't have that luxury. It is thoroughly, relentlessly, and all and all average. It is neither remarkably good, nor remarkably bad. It is exactly what I would expect when someone says 'Grisham novel,' nothing more, nothing less. Maybe the reason this guy sells so well is that by the time the next book comes out, his readers have forgotten his last one. (I know I'm being rather harsh, both on Grisham and his readers. This is just me venting frustration. Eleven of them, for crying out loud!)
Look, it was okay. I might have even enjoyed it a bit if it didn't feel like I'd read it ten times already. It's the type of book that a Grisham fan would like, in that it's perfectly standard fare for Grisham. If that sounds like something you'd like, then go ahead and read it. Or read any other Grisham novel for the exact same result. I don't care. I'm just glad to be done. Bestsellers of 2011: 1. The Litigators by John Grisham
2. 11/22/63 by Stephen King
3. The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks
4. Smokin' Seventeen by Janet Evanovich
5. A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin
6. Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich
7. Kill Alex Cross by James Patterson
8. Micro by Michael Crichton
9. Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris
10. Locked On by Tom Clancy and Mark Greaney Also Published in 2011: The Round House by Louise Erdrich The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach Pym by Mat Johnson 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami Swamplandia! by Karen Russell The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
Karl Stig-Erland Larsson (1954-2004), better known as Stieg Larsson, was born in Västerbotten, Sweden, where he lived with his grandparents. As a teenager, he began editing science fiction fanzines. In 1977, he moved to Stockholm, where he continued his involvement with the SF community, while working for a news agency. He joined the Communist Workers League and was known for his journalism and activism exposing white-supremacist and totalitarian groups. He founded the Expo-foundation, which researched right-wing extremist groups and published exposés of their findings, which led to a steady stream of death threats. He co-wrote four non-fiction books, Extremhögern (The Extreme Right) (1991), with Anna-Lena Lodenius; Sverigedemokraterna: Den nationaella rörelsen (Sweden Democrats: The National Movement) (2001), with Mikael Ekman; Sverigedemokraterna från insidan: Berättelsen om Sveriges största parti utanför riksdagen (Sweden Democrats from the inside: The Story of Sweden's Largest Party Outside Parliament) (2004), with Maria Blomquist and David Lagerlöf; and Debatten om hedersmord: Feminism eller rasism (Debate on Honor Killings: Feminism or Racism) (2004), with Cecilia Englund. (N.B.: Title translations are done through google translate, so no guarantee on accuracy.) Larsson started writing fiction as a hobby in 2001, and was partway through his third novel when he approached a publisher. Larsson died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 2004, before any of his novels were published. The first novel, Män som hatar kvinnor (Men Who Hate Women) (2005) was translated to English by Reg Keeland and retitled The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008). His second novel Flickan som lekte med elden (The Girl Who Played with Fire) was published in Swedish in 2006 and English in 2008. His last complete novel, Luftslottet som sprängdes (The Aircastle that Blew Up) was published in 2007 and translated into English 2010. The Book:
1st American edition/
Cover Design-Peter Mendelsund
Length: 563 pages Subject/Genre: Conspiracy/Suspense thriller The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the third and final book of Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. (Yes, I read the first two before writing this review.) If you want to read the trilogy, and haven't read the first two books, stop reading now to avoid spoilers.
Mikael Blomkvist is an investigative reporter for Millennium, a small monthly magazine specializing in investigative reporting of the financial world. He's tricked into publishing a story he can't prove about the corrupt financier Wennerstrom and is convicted of libel, destroying his credibility. He's then hired by Henrik Vanger to investigate the disappearance of his favorite granddaughter decades earlier in a classic locked-room (or, rather, island) mystery. Blomkvist eventually makes contact with Lisbeth Salander, who had been tasked with investigating his background by Vanger. Salander is an incredibly intelligent but introverted hacker who, despite being in her 20s, is a ward of the state for mental deficiency. Her guardian and surrogate father has a stroke, and her new guardian, Bjurman, sexually abuses her. Salander gathers proof of this abuse, and tortures/tattoos Bjurman in revenge, blackmailing him with the evidence. Anyway, Salander and Blomkvist solve the mystery, Salander falls for Blomkvist but realizes she can't have him. They find evidence to prove Wennerstrom's guilt, and Salander steals millions of dollars of Wennerstrom's dirty money before running off. End book one.
In The Girl Who Played with Fire, we start to get some back story on Salander. After the Millennium launches an investigation into sex trafficking, the reporter and his fiance are murdered and Lisbeth is the prime suspect. The gun used in the murder has Salander's fingerprints on it and was used to kill Bjurman. Bjurman had previously reached out to an unknown entity to destroy Salander. This unknown entity is a man named Zalachenko, Lisbeth's father. Zalachenko was a prominent Soviet spy who defected to Sweden in the 80s. To keep his identity secret, a small special unit was formed within the Swedish security police (SAPO) known only as "The Section". There duties involved covering up any crimes Zalachenko committed, including his consistently beating Lisbeth's mother. Unable to find help from the police, a twelve year old Lisbeth attacked Zalachenko by throwing a molotov cocktail in his car. To keep her quiet, she was locked up in a psychiatric ward and declared incompetent. This novel focuses on the investigation of the murders and the sex trafficking trade. Salander becomes public enemy number one, and has only limited contact with Blomkvist. The murders, we discover, were committed by Salander's half-brother, Niedermann. Zalachenko shoots Salander in the head with a .22, but she survives and nearly kills Zalachenko. The novel ends with Niedermann subdued and Blomkvist finding Salander, who's in bad shape but conscious.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest deals with the fallout from the previous novel. Salander and Zalachenko are both recuperating in the same hospital, and plotting to kill each other. "The Section" is desperate to cover up evidence of it's existence and wrongdoings. Blomkvist begins investigations into the Section.
Honestly, this was a well-plotted mystery/thriller. Except for the slowness at the beginning of the first novel, the whole series was solid. The characters manage to play to a type without being caricatures. It can be a bit preachy every now and then, but it's infrequent.
There hasn't been much Swedish lit on the US bestseller lists, and the Millennium trilogy is an interesting specimen, if only because so much of the series is not super Swedish. Much of the first novel could just as easily have taken place off the coast of New England and the latter two could replace SAPO with MI5/6. There are definitely aspects of Swedish culture and history that are addressed, but since the novel fits into the mystery/thriller genre so well, those aspects just form part of the background.
Like I said, we don't see much Swedish pop fic in the US, but that's changed a bit, in no small part due to Larsson himself. The genre known as Scandinavian Noir or Nordic Crime has been growing in popularity over the past several years, with Jo Nesbø being one of the best known. It's an interesting case of a genre crossing national borders and language barriers. Of course, a series this popular has made its appearance on the big screen. All three novels of the Millenium trilogy were adapted to film in Sweden in 2009.
The series stars Noomi Rapace (Prometheus) as Lisbeth Salander and Michael Nyqvist (John Wick, Europa Report) as Mikael Blomkvist.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was adapted to film again in 2011, starring Daniel Craig (Casino Royale, Skyfall) as Mikael Blomkvist and Rooney Mara (The Social Network, Her) as Lisbeth Salander, and directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, The Social Network).
As a whole the Millenium trilogy is an above-average crime thriller, definitely worth a read unless you can't stand crime thrillers.
Bestsellers of 2010: 1. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
2. The Confession by John Grisham
3. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
4. Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks
5. Dead or Alive by Tom Clancy
6. Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich
7. Cross Fire by James Patterson
8. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
9. Port Mortuary by Partricia Cornwell
10. Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King Also Published in 2010: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis The Thousand Augusts of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
Dan Brown (1964- ) was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, where his father worked as a professor of mathematics. Brown went on to study at Philips Exeter and later Amherst, from which he received his B.A. in 1986. He moved out to Hollywood to pursue a career in music. He released a few albums by 1994. In 1993, he moved back to New Hampshire with Blythe Newlon, whom he married, and taught English at Philips Exeter. He and his wife co-wrote his first book: 187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman. Brown was credited under the pseudonym Danielle Brown. He quit teaching to work full time in 1996 and published his first novel,Digital Fortress, in 1998. Angels & Demons (2000) was his first novel starring Robert Langdon. His fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code (2003) was the bestselling novel of the year it was published and the following year. His next two novels, The Lost Symbol (2009) and Inferno (2013) were the bestselling novels in the year they were published.
The Book:
Cover Design-Michael J. Windsor/
Cover photograph-Murat Taner
Length: 639 pages Subject/Genre: Masonic 'symbology'/conspiracy thriller The Da Vinci Code The Lost Symbol starts when Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to Paris Washington D.C. by an older, established symbologist. After he arrives, he finds himself in the world famous Louvre U.S. Capitol Building, where he finds the older symbologist's corpse severed hand, surrounded by arcane symbols. This older symbologist was a high ranking member of the Priory of Sion the Freemasons, and the location of a secret and powerful item is being sought by a deadly albino man covered in tattoos. With a killer on one hand, and a detective CIA officer of questionable loyalties on the other, Langdon must find the secret with the help of the older symbologist's daughter sister, before it's too late.
On the one hand, Brown spent less time blatantly fabricating facts this time around. Not that it did much good. To clarify before I go into this, historical inaccuracy isn't itself the problem. The problem comes from the fact that Robert Langdon is supposed to be an expert, but consistently ignores, or rather, is unaware of, the obvious answer to questions when such answer would make things less mysterious. I'm no expert on history, yet I still seem to know more than Langdon in some cases than others. One common topic in the early parts of the novel is the Greco-Roman influences on D.C. architecture. In addition to their masonic background, Langdon points out the most mysterious aspects of this influence, completely ignoring the fact that the Greeks and the Roman Republic were the first great democratic systems. It ignores the rather interesting Society of the Cincinatti of which George Washington, James Monroe, and Alexander Hamilton were founding members. The theme of apotheosis is also prominent, with Langdon describing The Apotheosis of George Washington and a statue of Washington as Zeus that used to be on display. Somehow, he's completely unaware of the fact that the 'good' Roman emperors were elevated to divinity after their deaths by the Roman senate. Because simply continuing the Greco-Roman motif isn't that mysterious.
There's a scene in the book where Langdon is giving a lecture to a bunch of college freshmen, and he just, like, blows their minds, by pointing out that taking communion and bowing before the cross consists of symbolic cannibalism and bowing before a torture device. And I realized that this is Brown's attitude toward his audience in a nutshell. Except Langdon would be less of a world-renowned Harvard professor and more of a low-tier community college professor, or a guest host on Ancient Aliens. Because the fact is, Robert Langdon comes across as a guy who memorized a bunch of facts, but ignores the obvious explanations and relevant connections. He's a hack.
But as to The Lost Symbol, it has some specific problems The Da Vinci Code didn't. First, and I'm sorry if I spoil anything for you, but nothing is really at stake. At least in The Da Vinci Code, the discovery of Magdalene or of Jesus' descendants would have massive implications, theologically and politically. In The Lost Symbol what's being sought is, well, symbolic. I mean, imagine if Langdon found what the Priory of Sion was hiding, and it turned out there was no grail, the real treasure was friendship. It's basically that bad. It also ends with a twist regarding the bad guy, except the twist is completely pointless. Another spoiler alert. The older symbologist was extremely wealthy, and his son was a irresponsible party boy. After however many attempts to save him, he decided to let his son suffer the consequences. His son was arrested for drug crimes in Turkey, and rather than bribe the guard to release the son into his father's custody, the father decided to go through the official channels with the embassy. The son's cellmate and the guard killed the kid, and took his considerable fortune, and the cellmate then killed the guard. The cellmate soon grew bored with the good life, and saw a special on the freemasons, talking about a secret masonic pyramid. He remembers that the son told him he was offered a small pyramid by his father in lieu of his share of the family fortune. This sets the cellmate off on his quest. He gets some tattoos, changes his name to Mal'Akh, and starts killing people. In the end, we find the twist: Mal'Akh was the son the whole time! He and the guard killed his cellmate, then he killed the guard and ran off with his money because his dad left him in prison. So, this irresponsible millionaire playboy, who as far as we know has done nothing worse than some recreational drugs, decides to murder two people? Especially considering he could have just bribed the guard and bought a fake ID, this makes no goddamn sense. Twist endings are supposed to explain inconsistencies, not create them!
This book is, to borrow a phrase I used frequently in my review of The Da Vinci Code, bullshit. Robert Langdon is to history and art what the cast of The Big Bang Theory is to math and science: caricatures that only make sense when you know absolutely nothing about the subject. Bestsellers of 2009: 1. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
2. The Associate by John Grisham
3. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
4. I, Alex Cross by James Patterson
5. The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks
6. Ford County by John Grisham
7. Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich
8. The Host by Stephenie Meyer
9. Under the Dome by Stephen King
10. Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton Also Published in 2009: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood The Women by T.C. Boyle Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
Khaled Hosseini (1965- ) was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. His father was a diplomat and his mother was a teacher. His family lived in Tehran, Iran, from 1970 to 1973, when his father was stationed at the Afghan embassy there. In 1976, his family left for a diplomatic position in Paris. They were in Paris during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and applied for political asylum in the United States, which was granted in 1980. The family settled in San Jose, California. Hosseini earned a Bachelor's in Biology from Santa Clara University in 1988, and got his medical degree from UC San Diego in 1993. He worked as an internist from 1996 to 2004. His first novel, The Kite Runner (2003), was a critical and commercial success, and received a film adaptation in 2007, the same year A Thousand Splendid Suns was released. He published his third novel, And the Mountains Echoed, in 2013. He lives in Northern California with his wife and two children. The Book:
A Thousand Splendid Suns takes its title from a description of Kabul in a poem by the 17th century Iranian poet Saib Tabrizi. The novel is split into four sections, the first focused on Mariam. Mariam's father was a wealthy business owner in Herat, and her mother was a maid in her father's household. Her father and his wives came to an arrangement whereby Mariam and her mother lived in a small isolated home outside of the city, and the father visits once a week. Mariam's mother is bitter and stubbornly superstitious, considering her epilepsy to be possession by a djinn, even though, as Mariam's points out, there are pills to treat her condition. Mariam leaves her mother for her father's family, only to discover how unwanted she is and is soon married off to an older man from Kabul. This man, Rasheed, is violent, overbearing, and religiously conservative.
The second section follows Mariam's neighbor's daughter, Laila. Her father was a teacher and both parents were forward thinking progressives. Her best friend, who she falls in love with, is a boy named Tariq, who lost his leg to a landmine. The wars in the area tear her family apart, first with the death of her older brothers who had been fighting with the mujaheddin, which leads to her mother's depression and nervous breakdown. The victory of the mujaheddin is only a brief respite from violence, as the different factions turn on each other. Tariq and his family flee Afghanistan, and Laila's family is about to do the same when a rocket hits their home, killing Laila's parents. Laila is rescued from the wreckage by Mariam and Rasheed, who decides to make Laila his second wife.
The rest of the novel deals with the relationship between Laila and Mariam and the continuing strife in Kabul. I'd like to point out that the thirteen books preceding this on the list consisted exclusively of Grisham, Brown, Albom, Waller, and LaHaye/Jenkins. It's nice to read a bestseller that isn't pandering/pseudo-intellectual/boring/or mind-bogglingly stupid (Albom/Waller, Brown, Grisham, and LaHaye/Jenkins, respectively). A Thousand Splendid Suns can be didactic at times, especially early on with language and culture, the characters are rounded, the prose is clean, the history isn't made up, and Hosseini manages to be make moral statements without being heavy-handed. Well, generally. The first section is pretty in-your-face with its message, but it still manages to avoid being patronizing. The second section is less heavy-handed, but it often lapses into didacticism. This is often understandable though, as the history of modern Afghanistan is complex and Hosseini is writing to a mainstream American audience, an audience which he hopes to teach about his home country.
Hosseini uses Mariam and Laila to contrast the radically different social and ideological backgrounds in Afghanistan, without resorting to caricature. As opposed to someone like Michener or Uris, who would spend 367 pages covering a century of Afghan history via a family line acting as representative of an entire ethno-religious demographic, Hosseini views about fifty years of Afghan history through the lens of two individuals and their experiences, with much greater effect. And Afghan history, for obvious reasons, was much on the minds of the American reading public in 2007. Middle Eastern politics is a massive can of worms and seemingly impenetrable to the layman. Tie this to the popularity and credibility Hosseini gained with The Kite Runner, and it's easy to see why A Thousand Splendid Suns was a smash hit.
While the beginning felt a bit heavy-handed, once I got past it I enjoyed the book and would recommend it. Bestsellers of 2007: 1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling*
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
3. Playing for Pizza by John Grisham
4. The Choice by Nicholas Sparks
5. Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich
6. Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich
7. The Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell
8. The Quickie by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
9. The 6th Target by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
10. The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz Also Published in 2007: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson August: Osage County by Tracy Letts
*Although Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold more copies, it was not included on the original Publisher's Weekly list, which is what my reading is based on.
Mitch Albom (1958- ) was born in Passaic, New Jersey, the son of Ira Albom, a corporate executive, and Rhoda Albom, an interior designer. He attended Brandeis university, receiving a B.A. in 1979, and an M.B.A. from Columbia University in 1982. Albom embarked on a popular and critically successful career as a sportswriter and broadcaster in Detroit, winning numerous awards for his sports columns. In fact, his first six books include four anthologies of his sportswriting (The Live Albom (1988), and Live Albom II-IV (1990, 1992, 1995)) and two long-form non-fiction sports books. His major breakthrough as a popular writer came in 1997 with the publication of Tuesdayswith Morrie, documenting his conversations with terminally ill Morrie Schwartz, a former professor of his from Brandeis University. The book was promoted by Oprah, who also produced a made-for-TV movie of the book in 1999 starring Hank Azaria and Jack Lemmon. Albom's first novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003), which was a huge commercial success. He penned two plays, Duck Hunter Shoots Angel (2004) and And the Winner Is (2005). His 2006 novel, For One More Day, was the bestseller of that year. Since then, Albom has written one non-fiction book, Have a Little Faith (2009), and two 'inspirational' novels, The Time Keeper (2012) and The First Phone Call from Heaven (2013). Albom currently hosts a nationally aired general talk show, and a weekly sports show. The Book:
For One More Day starts with a prologue in which an unnamed narrator shows up in the small town of Pepperville Beach, and meets Charles "Chick" Benetto, a washed up major league baseball player who had tried to kill himself. The majority of the novel is Benetto telling his story. In broad strokes: His parents got divorced when he was a kid, and the dad, who was a jerk and the reason Chick became a baseball player, moved away. He dropped out of college to play major league baseball, made it to the world series, lost, got injured, his marriage fell apart, his mom died, he became an alcoholic, and now, after finding out he wasn't invited to his daughter's wedding, he decided to kill himself. His attempt to kill himself is unintentionally bizarre. He gets drunk and drives back to Pepperville Beach, only to crash into a truck on the offramp and he gets thrown clear of the car. That he survives is believable, that he survives and is then able to walk to a water tower, climb it, and throw himself off, and survive that, seems more like a gag from the Simpsons. Anyway, after he throws himself off the water tower he walks to (or hallucinates himself walking to) his childhood home where —Surprise!— his dead mother is there and acting like nothing happened. Chick gets to talk about how much he missed her while his mother goes around comforting a few people who are soon to die.
There is a significant difference between sentimental and saccharine, and this novel is exclusively the latter. It's also unashamedly pandering to a specific demographic, namely mothers. I realize that sounds weird, but let me explain. The vast majority of the novel is Chick lamenting not appreciating his mother more. He even fills up a journal listing every time his mother stood up for him and every time he didn't stand up for his mother. The former includes times when his mother really shouldn't have taken his side (e.g. Chick wanted to invest in a sports bar after his career ended. His wife points out that Chick shouldn't, as he knows nothing about running a sports bar. His mother backs him up. The sports bar is financially disastrous.) and the latter includes a middle-aged Chick regretting every instance of rudeness from his childhood. I started writing what platitude we were supposed to learn from each of these in my copy. One example, taking up two pages of a less than 200 page novel, tells us about when Chick was six years old, and his mother made him a rag and toilet paper mummy costume for the school Halloween parade. It starts raining during the parade, and the costume is ruined, causing Chick no end of embarrassment. "When we reach the schoolyard, where the parents are waiting with cameras, I am a wet, sagging mess of rags and toilet paper fragments....I burst into tears. 'You ruined my life!' I yell." So remember, if your six year old child is ever upset at you, he'll regret it deeply when he grows up. In fact, this entire novel seems to be an extrapolation of "You'll miss me when I'm gone."
Look, I have a good relationship with my parents (Hi, Mom!), and, like any child who ever existed, there were times when I was a real brat. But I think everyone in my family is well-adjusted enough to not obsess over every temper tantrum I had when I when I was still using training wheels. Family is important, and I don't mean any disrespect to people who dedicate their lives to their family, but the mother in this novel has absolutely no interests besides her kids. They are her entire life. If she did or thought anything that wasn't about them, it didn't make it into the novel. And this novel panders to this personality.
While I generally try to avoid giving away endings, I want to break that rule here. After the monologue that makes up the majority of the book, there's an epilogue where the unnamed narrator from the prologue talks about Chick's death natural causes a few years later. I only mention the epilogue because the last paragraph reveals that the unnamed narrator was Chick's daughter the whole time! What a twist! Except, it doesn't change anything. At all. Nothing is resolved by this, nothing is changed or reinterpreted. I guess Albom thought books should end with a twist, so he decided to hide an irrelevant piece of information and reveal it at the end. Is it a surprise? Yes, in the sense that no one was expecting it. But no one was expecting it because it was completely beside the point. It doesn't strengthen the novel in anyway, it just confuses being unpredictable with being original. So, standard formulaic bull.
Beyond pandering to a specific demographic, Albom had a lot going for him with this book. Beyond having his own show, there was the Oprah connection. Her TV movie version of For One More Day, starring Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos) and Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist, Requiem for a Dream)came out in 2007.
But more than that, For One More Day was the first novel Starbucks selected for its Book Break program. According to the linked New York Times article, "Starbucks [was] selling “For One More Day” in about 5,400 stores in the United States..." So, its success isn't that surprising. A lot of people bought it, but I don't think you should, unless you fall into the particular demographic Albom is writing for and want to be pandered to. Bestsellers of 2006: 1. For One More Day by Mitch Albom
2. Cross by James Patterson
3. Dear John by Nicholas Sparks
4. Next by Michael Crichton
5. Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris
6. Lisey's Story by Stephen King
7. Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich
8. Cell by Stephen King
9. Beach Road by James Patterson and Peter De Jonge
10. The Fifth Horseman by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro Also Published in 2006: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne Only Revolutions by Mark Danielewski What Is the What by Dave Eggers An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore The Road by Cormac McCarthy Black Swan Green by David Mitchell Everyman by Philip Roth
Sources:
Albom, Mitch. For One More Day. New York: Hyperion, 2006. Print.
"Mitch Albom." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2014. Literature Resource Center. Web. Motoko, Rich. "Starbucks Picks Novel to Start Its Book-Sale Program." The New York Times. New York Times, August 8, 2006. Web,
