The Dark Mirror

A few weeks ago I wrote a post called Second Helpings in which I expressed my disappointment that some of my favorite authors are turning out "new" books that failed to say anything new. So I picked up The Dark Mirror by Juliet Marillier with a certain amount of trepidation. Marillier writes romantic fantasy series based on Celtic history and mythology. There are certain hallmarks I expect from a Marillier novel: I expect her protagonist to have a deep respect for nature, I expect druids and supernatural abilities, I expect Celtic folklore and mythology, I expect a conflict between nations, I expect a conflict between the native religion of the land and Christianity, I expect the protagonist to be socially exiled, and that some kind of romantic relationship will sustain her in the final struggle to achieve her goal.

In The Dark Mirror Marillier delivered all these trademarks, and at the same time managed to do something new. How did she make the familiar exciting and new? By developing minor themes from her previous work and making them the major themes of her new book.

For instance, toward the end of Marillier's first book, Daughter of the Forest, readers are introduced to the idea that a community may reject and be afraid of a nubile young outsider, tying this fear to stories of mermaids or other mythological creatures who lure young men from their communities, or simply drive them mad with their beauty. This theme, which did not appear until the final chapters of Daughter of the Forest, was central to The Dark Mirror. War and political intrigue, which played the role of setting in Daughter of the Forest, were crucial to the plot of The Dark Mirror. And, appropriate to the role of battle and political plotting, the primarily female perspective of Daughter of the Forest was replaced by evenly split scenes from the point of view of the hero and the heroine. The Dark Mirror did not have the fairytale quality that made me fall in love with Daughter of the Forest- it felt more like a history, rooted in court life with professional bodyguards, tasters, and men and women angling for power. Marillier changed the tone and character of her followup without losing her voice- and she remained consistent to her world, and made all the changes resonate with elements of her previous work.

The result was a novel that I was just as enthusiastic about at the end of the read as I was when I bought it.

On Amazon the paperback edition of The Dark Mirror ranks #51,413 in Books, and the Kindle edition ranks #9,328 in the Kindle Store.

Blossoming is a pain

Why does pain always have to blossom? Why do gun shot wounds blossom red on white shirts? I've read this "blossoming" description so many times in spec fiction books that it's starting to annoy me, and has officially made my list of expressions I want to avoid in my own writing.

Isn't blossoming a gentle, slow-motion process, anyway? I wonder what attracts writers to this description for being on the receiving end of sudden acts of violence . Perhaps it is the juxtaposition between the beauty of a blooming flower and the horror of intense pain.

Second Helpings

I just finished two novels that I was really looking forward to reading because of how much I enjoyed the author's previous work. Earlier this week I finished The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, and yesterday I turned the last page on The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. In both cases I found myself a little disappointed by how much the new book reminded me of the previous work I'd already read. My first thought was, what's wrong with these authors? My second thought was, what's wrong with me?

Historically I can't get enough of books by my current favorite authors. I ate up Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew mysteries the summer after third grade. In junior high I read the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe. As an adult I've been in love with many fantasy series. Zafón's The Angel's Game can be read as a prequel to The Shadow of the Wind (a book which I read with rapt attention), so I should expect to find many similarities in character, tone, and setting between the two novels. Yet it was this very similarity that disappointed me. So what was I expecting?

In The Angel's Game, Zafón delivers a new story rife with all the trademarks that made me love The Shadow of the Wind: bringing the magic of books to life; the dark and beautifully twisted backdrop of Barcelona; the youthful frustration of fighting against poverty and a chance at love; a fiery, demonic antagonist. But the similarities were so close that they irritated me, made me feel as though I was reading the same book a second time. I found myself almost viscerally disappointed as I entered the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, nonplussed to meet this book's devil-antagonist, completely unenchanted by the growing parallels between the protagonist and his ill-fated forbearer. With The Angel's Game, Zafón offered me second helpings of everything I loved about The Shadow of the Wind. But taken together as a series, I didn't feel that The Angel's Game went anywhere, or took me anyplace new. I gained some insight on events that led to The Shadow of the Wind, which was neat, but was not enough a journey to satisfy me as a reader. I wanted The Angel's Game to add a new dimension to a great author, and it did not.

My experience with Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol was similar. I enjoyed the read, the puzzles, and appreciated Brown's enthusiasm for mythology and symbology. But I was very frustrated by the tight parallels between the plot patterns of The DaVinci Code and The Lost Symbol. Yes, of course, they featured the same protagonist, that's fine. Did Robert Langdon have to team up with a pretty woman with whom he would run from the police? Did Langdon have to run from the police, at all? Was it necessary for both his antagonists to have self-mutilating tendencies? Did we have to wonder whether the cops were part of the evil conspiracy? And did Langdon really have to go for asylum to a wise old man with a disability?

Maybe the answer is, yes. Maybe an author with a fan base needs to continually push the same pleasure buttons on his audience so he's not ripping his fans off, not depriving them of the second helping they were craving. For me, the best part of The Lost Symbol took place when its plot pattern diverged from that of The DaVinci Code. I was craving a story with a similar blend of suspense and mythology, a similar voice, but a different plot structure.

What if, as is the case for me, the tastes of audiences are changing? When I was in the third grade, my choice of mystery books was contained on three, two-yard-long shelves on the children's floor of the public library. Now if I want to read a mystery story, say of the type that would appeal to a girl who likes Nancy Drew, I'm a few keystrokes away from thousands of titles, thousands of choices. Modern readers have the option of selecting from a smorgasbord of authors and voices. Do they have room for seconds of the same author they enjoyed before? Right now the answer is, yes. A big yes. The number of choices becomes so overwhelming, that the majority of readers prefer a known quantity. But as readers have more and more choices available to them, and more sophisticated tools to filter the choices that would appeal to them, I don't think it's a bad idea for writers to consider what they can offer to their readers that is new, that takes them not just through the familiar journey of the last book, but takes them somewhere unexpected and interesting. I don't read books by the same author just for second helpings- I want to see how they've grown, how they've changed, I want to share in their evolution, and the evolution of their characters.

I say, if you have leftover mashed potatoes, don't just microwave and eat them again. Make twice baked potatoes. Make gnocchi. Try something new!

Dandelion Wine

For longer than we've been married, my husband and I have been trying to finish Ray Bradbury's summertime classic, Dandelion Wine. We started reading the slender volume of summertime, Americana-drenched vignettes aloud together one summer, long ago, but never finished it. Several summers later we tried to read the book again, but didn't get past chapter three. Our third attempt was no more successful.

In the time it has taken us to *not* read Dandelion Wine, we have finished many sprawling series, such as The Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time, Harry Potter. We read the Iliad out loud, sitting side-by-side at the dining room table in Turin. We read fiction and non-fiction, mysteries, science fiction, fantasy, and mainstream. We read newspapers, magazines, novels, instruction manuals, and poetry. We read books aloud together in English, Italian, and French. We read at least four other books by Ray Bradbury.

So why did we repeatedly fail to finish Dandelion Wine?

Dandelion Wine is the distilled essence of summer: sunshine and sneakers, hot kitchens, porches, lemonade, and ice cream parlors. It isn't best read cramped in a suffocating, miserable apartment, in a land where everyone flees from their hometown during the month of August, or in a bustling city. It's easier to see The Swan in a quiet, small town where people sit on their porches late into the evening. It's easier to sense the Lonely One behind you when the cicadas and crickets have worked their hypnotic song deep into your dreams.

But, no matter where you're living when Dandelion Wine slides between your hands, the magic won't leap off the pages until you can quietly follow the residents of Green Town through the summer of 1928 as June ripens to July, bakes into August, fades to September. It's time to read Dandelion Wine when the reader is ready to accept, along with the residents of Green Town, that what makes life so beautiful is the fact that it's all only temporary.

Throughout the book we say hello, only to say good-bye. As Mrs. Bentley cherishes childhood memories she comes to the realization that she was never a child. Miss Fern and Miss Roberts are thrilled by the the Green Machine, but soon vow never to drive it again. The trolley goes on its last ride. John Huff leaves Green Town for good. We say good-bye to Grandma.

Half of summer's glory is knowing that it fades, turns into back-to-school notebooks and ten-cent erasers. If the seasons never changed, if children never grew into withered old men and women, if even the people we loved never died, would any of our experience be so precious? Finding the summer where it was okay to love things and lose them all at the same time wasn't easy- at least, it wasn't easy for me.

This summer my husband and I began Dandelion Wine in June, and finished the last chapter during the last dusty days before September. We wanted to read the paperback copy we started all those summers ago, a copy which followed us from apartment to apartment and across the ocean (twice) to return to us when we were finally ready to read it. The book is also available in Kindle format, and ranks #38,084 in the Kindle Store.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (the Movie)

On Sunday morning my husband and I were standing outside in the bright summer sun, waiting for the movie theater to open. We weren't the only moviegoers up early on a weekend morning in eager anticipation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Opinions on the quality of the Harry Potter movies swing from ecstatic to sarcastic, as fans of the books are either swept up in the magic of seeing their fantasy world come to life, or bitterly disappointed by the differences between the movie and the book. My first thought on emerging from the dark theater back into the blazing afternoon sun, was that the Half Blood Prince was a particularly good adaptation of the book into movie format.

Simply by using the word adaptation, we are accepting the fact that the content of the book must undergo some alteration, some screenwriting metamorphosis that allows the moviegoer to share approximately the same experience as the reader enjoying the book. In early films we saw screenwriting that attempted to scrupulously preserve plot points and world building details. In later films, we saw mad efforts at condensing huge, sprawling story lines into one film, that usually resulted in awkward, hectic pacing. It is already common knowledge that the seventh film will be broken into two parts, to avoid giving the audience the sense that they are simply skimming over, or reviewing major plot points of the book, instead of enjoying a movie. Given that, I wasn't sure what to expect from the pacing and enjoyability of the Half-Blood Prince.

In my opinion the screenwriters did a brilliant job of capturing the emotional journey of the story's characters. By loosening their grip on exacting loyalty to the plot, they were able to focus on character growth and development. The movie skipped important plot points, added a major scene that wasn't in the book, and changed around the order of events- but the result was a beautifully-paced movie, in which I felt I could sit back and follow the characters as they adventured and interacted. The movie version of the book was like an impressionist painting of the book- leaving me with the same feeling that I had reading the book- even if the film was a slightly fuzzy Monet instead of a crisp, digital photograph of what I had read. The ending of the movie, which I can imagine disappointed some viewers, nevertheless produced exactly the same sentiment I had upon the conclusion of re-reading the Half-Blood Prince for the second time: that this had just been our last year at Hogwarts, and hadn't it been a lovely place to grow, to be together, and enjoy.

I think fans of the characters in the book- people who read because they love Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the dozens of other touching and memorable characters that populate Rowling's world- will have a great time watching the movie, despite (and of course because of) the plot changes.

Roan Stallion

I am considered the member of our household least likely to appreciate reading or writing poetry. I find the position rather ironic, as the first thing I ever wrote was a poem, and throughout most of my childhood and adolescence I wrote far more poetry than fiction. A few hot, summer nights ago, we sat down to read the icy, Christmas-time poem, "Roan Stallion," from a book of selected poems by Robinson Jeffers.

The poem is a beautiful epic. Its heroine, California, embodies her dual heritage (and the poet's love of the West Coast) with only her evocative name. Although the poem was written in 1925, California's quest is so easy for the modern reader to grasp. I loved the scene in which she gathers her daughter's Christmas toys to keep them from getting wet (perhaps because, if I'd been in her place, I, too, would have been more worried about the gifts than drowning or freezing). The mystical scene which follows this is a vivid mix of naturalism and Christian mythology, again reflecting California's dual heritage. And the end of the poem was a strong union of spirituality and animal nature, in which California once more embodies two different natures.

The experience of reading "Roan Stallion" has me wondering our small town, composing impromptu poems on the voice recorder of my iPhone. Fortunately no one has come after me with a straitjacket, yet

The Neil Gaiman Audio Collection

I just finished a delightful audio collection of children's short stories written and narrated by Neil Gaiman. The collection includes three short stories: "The Wolves in the Walls," "Cinnamon," and "On The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish." It ends with a poem called "Crazy Hair" and a darling interview with Gaiman conducted by his young daughter. During the interview Gaiman discusses his then upcoming project, The Graveyard Book.

Two of the short stories are prime examples of Gaiman's talent in creating a magical, fairy tale atmosphere using children with modern attitudes who live in modern homes with modern parents. "Cinnamon" is a more exotic fairy tale, in which a young woman comes to terms with her blossoming womanhood through the intervention of a tiger.

The Audio Collection was released in August 2004. It is currently #41,448 in Books on Amazon.

Sag Harbor: Not Really A Novel

Sag Harbor: A Novel seemed an appropriate read for my first summer outside the city in a long time. I've always felt a special magic generated in seasonal communities, where residents own summer homes, come together for the beach days and the barbecues, then drift back to their fall-winter-spring residences and lives. Colson Whitehead did not disappoint in his ability to capture that summer vacation atmosphere, to invoke family life in the 80's, or to paint the bitter-sweetness of coming-of-age. What he did fail to do was write a novel.

I was about two-thirds of the way through the book when I turned back to the cover, in a moment of doubt, to discover that I was not reading Whitehead's memoir, but something he called a novel. I don't have any problem with the fact that Whitehead drew heavily from his own life experience when writing Sag Harbor. But to define the book as a novel, it would have to have a plot.

At the beginning of Sag Harbor, Whitehead hinted at some possible themes: there was the promising idea of duality (disidentification with his "false twin" brother, the duality of his summer life vs. his winter life, finding his place both in his racial community and in white-dominated private Manhattan schools). Unfortunately this duality theme fell away and was not revisited at the end of the novel. Whitehead brought up the coming-of-age theme and the meaning of family theme more consistently throughout the book- but all these themes, like the story line, meandered through the narrative, blending time, place, and situation in much the same way an elderly reminiscer wanders through his cannon of favorite memories- with no regard to dramatic effect or chronology.

I don't mean to sound too harsh about Sag Harbor. It was a pleasant read with a good sense of humor, had memorable and interesting characters, contained beautiful descriptive passages, showed a great command of the language, and created that nice, summer vacation ambiance I was seeking. But it falls into the "enjoy the ride, it's all gonna be ok" mainstream fiction category (although the plot of Sag Harbor was far less coherent than that of The Song Is You). I prefer a lot more drama in something advertised as a novel. I want to be addicted to my current read, anxious to find out what happens next.

On Amazon Sag Harbor is #1,595 in Books and is #1,094 in the Kindle store.

The Silver Pigs

I didn't need Wikipedia to verify that Lindsey Davis, author of the The Silver Pigs, was born in England. Davis writes with distinctly British class-conscious humor. Like Terry Pratchett and China Miéville, Davis builds deliciously complex worlds teeming with distinctive characters and defined by social stratification. And, of course, his protagonist of choice comes does not come from the upper echelons of society.

The main difference between Davis and his spec fiction counterparts is that Davis isn't writing about a fantasy world, but is writing about Ancient Rome. In The Silver Pigs, protagonist Falco is the ancient version of a private eye. Falco has a lot in common with the Maltese Falcon-era private eye. His landlord is hounding him for the rent, a damsel in distress is seriously complicating his life, and his devotion to the case is going to force him into slave labor and freezing-cold deprivation in an ancient British mine. Oh, wait...I guess that last part is just Falco.

I am not an expert in the history of Ancient Rome. But having recently read Empires of Trust-- How Rome Built-- and America is Building-- a New World (Thomas F. Madden) I can verify that Davis got certain details about life in Ancient Rome correct. The attitude of Ancient Romans toward Ancient Greeks, for instance, was depicted by Davis just as Madden described it- somewhat the way Americans traditionally view the French as very intellectual and a little snobby. So, as with all truly fun mystery stories, the reader not only enjoys a good who-dunnit, but learns a little about an interesting topic at the same time- in this case, about life in the ancient world.

The Silver Pigs the first in a series of 19 (to date) Marcus Didius Falco mysteries. The Silver Pigs ranks #34,931 in Books on Amazon. There is no Kindle version available. However, Davis's most recent book in the series, Alexandria, is available on the Kindle. Alexandria ranks #2,674 in the Kindle store, and #4,876 in Books.

The Little Stranger

School is ending, summer vacation about to begin. This was always my favorite time of the year to relax with a sprawling Victorian-era novel, or better yet, a Victorian-era ghost story. Even though I'm no longer on a school schedule, my urge for that slowly unwinding, creepy tale remains. Fortunately Sarah Waters anticipated my need and published The Little Stranger on April 30, 2009.

It is one thing to read Jane Eyre, The Wyvern Mystery, or Dracula for a dose of Victorian-era gothic, but why would anyone want to read a Victorian-era ghost story published about a month before Apple announced the iPhone 3GS? The answer is that Sarah Waters writes with a modern perspective on the death of the Victorian era, and The Little Stranger is a love letter to the now extinct gothic novel.

Waters speaks to the modern reader's nostalgia for Victorian-era gothic by touching her hat to the conventions of these tales. Her protagonist is a family doctor, a man of science, reason, and compassion. Her setting is a magnificent, but crumbling, haunted house. The haunted descend into very Victorian-style madness. And, of course, there is plenty of unspoken sexual tension. With her established conventions creating a backdrop of nostalgia, Waters then writes about the decline of the Victorian era, the end of a way of life that brought us the Brontës, Le Fanu, Stoker. Her protagonist doctor is concerned about the end of his way of life, as events in the story take place on the eve of establishing nationalized health care in England. Her haunted manor house is crumbling a little more than necessary for traditional gothic ambiance. In fact, Hundreds Hall had been partially stripped and ravaged to house soldiers during the war. The family are struggling to hold onto the house, and selling off great tracts of surrounding land to pay the bills. And because the government won't pay for public utilities to run to its farm, even the dairy is failing. So of course the family, the haunted, are fading aristocrats, people with land and title living miserable, deprived, and desperate lives. The modern world has passed them by, and they are struggling, isolated and alone, knowing that one day their property will be converted into a smart new housing development. As for the sexual tension, even that takes an unconventional turn.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Little Stranger. It's a totally satisfying ghost story, tipping its hat to convention, then going beyond convention to describe an interesting historical transition that ended the age of one of my favorite genres. I also appreciated the way Waters treated the mystery of the ghost. Waters gives her own firm opinion on the strange events at Hundreds Hall, but leaves the reader to connect the dots, and even leaves a little space for the reader to come to his or her own conclusion.

On Amazon The Little Stranger is #144 in Books and #14 in genre fiction. It is #145 in the Kindle Store.

The Story Sisters

Thanks to my local library I was able to get my hands on Alice Hoffman's The Story Sisters almost a week before its June 2nd release on Amazon. In its current pre-order status on Amazon, The Story Sisters is #764 in Books. Kindle sales rank is not yet available, but the book will be sold in Kindle format.

I have read very little Alice Hoffman- just a few short stories from Blackbird House. I was impressed by Hoffman's skillful use of magical realism, her blend of fairytale and real-life family saga. She did an excellent job of returning again and again to key themes (heirloom tomatoes, the color of the light in Paris) and key story events, so that the tale felt pleasantly timeworn. Throughout, I had the comfortable feeling that the story had not been written, but passed down through many generations. Each fateful turn of events seemed preordained, unavoidable, and it was hard to imagine the story unfolding in any other way.

Hoffman wrote fantastic and complex female characters, and the story grew organically from their strengths and flaws. But her male characters were pale by comparison. In most cases the males were nothing more than plot catalysts. Some were antagonists, pushing the women into darker places, others seemed to exist only for the purpose of satisfying the needs and desires of the women who, after all they had been through, seemed to deserve the kind of quiet hero who shovels the snow, buries friends, and comes to the rescue whenever the women need him the most. The most interesting of the men, Lorry, combined aspects of the antagonist and hero, but even he was just an agglomeration of two stock characters, and was hardly a person in his own right.

These overly convenient male characters are harbingers of the only other flaw in the book. The Story Sisters is just a little too sentimental, its moral compass too conventional. A writer with Hoffman's skill could do more than just reaffirm the values of family bonds and love. That said, she pulled off this reaffirmation with great skill and beauty.

The Good Book

I just finished reading The Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible. I listened to the audiobook version, read by author, David Plotz.

What I found very interesting about this book was that it hinged on a lack of expertise. Plotz states that, although his Jewish religion has always been an important part of his life, he more or less had no idea what was written in the Old Testament. Plotz doesn't take any classes, consult Biblical scholars, or learn Biblical Hebrew. And on the rare occasion he admits to having consulted a reference to better understand a passage of the Bible, he apologizes for it- he calls his use of the reference "cheating."

The point of Plotz's book is not Biblical scholarship, nor are his insights backed up by Biblical scholarship. The point of the book is David Plotz- the author, how he reacted to this experience, and how it changed him.

I actually had a lot of fun listening to The Good Book. Where else will you hear the prophet Habakkuk called a gloomy Gus? Or hear the opinion that God favors the bald? The book also served as a good reminder to me that readers are just as interested in following the experience of an everyman as they are in becoming more informed about a topic of interest. For many readers ideas are interesting, but people are fascinating.

The Good Book ranks #3,843 in Books on Amazon and is #2,006 in the Kindle Store.

Pattern Recognition

Pattern Recognition is a techno-espionage novel written by the father of cyberpunk, William Gibson. The book was well-written, amazingly hip, and a really fun read- except for the ending, which completely failed to meet my expectations.

There were a lot of reasons for me not to like Pattern Recognition. The narrative was in the present tense (I have an allergy to present tense narrative similar to, but less severe than, the allergy protagonist, Cayce, has to trademarks). The book wasn't science fiction, but a present-day international espionage novel. Not my favorite genre. Yet days after returning Pattern Recognition to the library, it's still on my mind.

One reason I liked the novel was that Gibson made the present tense work, even for me. His goal in using the present was to create a sense of urgency and forward motion. Unlike most authors, who think they can achieve this goal simply by switching "was" to "is," Gibson backed up his choice with other narrative tricks, such as frequent use of sentence fragments instead of complete, grammatically whole sentences. To balance this style, he then layered his narrative with precise word choice and detailed description, all appropriate to the tone of the book and the personality of his character. To top it all off, he found several key metaphors such as the "mirror world" (used to describe the subtle differences between the UK and the US) and jet lag (as a condition in which the soul has not caught up with the body), that provided an instant window into his protagonist's state of mind, then continued to feed the tenor of the book throughout the narrative. Just as I was breaking out in a cold, prickly rash from the present tense, Gibson sold me on his writing style with: "awash in limbic tides, brain stem stirring fitfully, flashing inappropriate demands for sex, food, sedation." And I still frequently think of his succinct description of a platonic friendship: "their boy-girl Lego doesn't click."

Gibson also made the espionage story work for me, because it was centered around viral videos, Internet message boards, and social networking. Pattern Recognition made excellent use of the technology available in 2003 when it was published- so much so, that the gadgets and online culture Gibson described still hold up today. But no doubt the best part of the novel was the quirk Gibson gave his protagonist. Her greatest strength, and her greatest weakness: an affinity for cool, an instinct for style, and a visceral revulsion to the lame, the over-marketed, the passé. This offbeat personality trait made for a character unlike any other I've ever read, and it made for an incredibly hip novel.

Unfortunately all the great things Gibson built up in Pattern Recognition came crashing down at the end. Although protagonist, Cayce, was steadily delving closer to solving mysteries with intensely personal meaning to her- at the climax of the novel the rug was pulled from beneath her feet (and the reader's). At the climax Cayce lost consciousness, only to wake to a denouement in which other characters had unraveled her personal enigmas and solved her remaining mysteries. While Cayce was getting filled in on all the pieces of the puzzle she hadn't yet solved, the expository passage read very much like a plot outline, an info dump explaining what had really been going on since the beginning of Cayce's story. I finished the book in a state of shock that an author so skilled would his resolve his intrigues by making the protagonist black out, then regain consciousness and listen politely as the end of her quest ws conveniently explained to her.

On Amazon Pattern Recognition is #27,507 in Books and is #7,746 in the Kindle Store.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Revisited

The first time my husband and I read the Half-Blood Prince, we were suffering from some pretty severe jet lag and a crazy kind of reverse culture shock in which our native land seemed oddly foreign in comparison to the life we had adjusted to overseas. The arrival of the Half-Blood Prince in theaters this summer is kind of a landmark for us, as if the time needed for the book to move from release to feature film was the time we needed to settle back into American rhythms. While reading the Deathly Hallows in 2007, we came to the startling realization that neither one of us really remembered anything about the Half-Blood Prince. As evidence of our amnesia, the word "horcrux" sent us running back to the Half-Blood Prince for reference to this vaguely chilling, but unknown term.

Coming back to the Half-Blood Prince did more than just refresh our memory of the plot and get us emotionally prepared to see the movie, it gave us a real appreciation for Hogwarts. Little did we know, in those early, bleary-eyed reading sessions, that Book 6 would be the last year we'd get to spend with Harry at the school- and it's a really great year. Harry is the captain of the Quidditch team, takes private lessons with Dumbledore, and aces potions class with the aid of the Half-Blood Prince.

We were also extremely impressed with the writing in Book 6. Rowling performs her own brand of magic, managing to review the vast and complex tangle of Harry's story so far without weighing down her readers with exposition. In fact the opening chapters, in which she has a lot of expository ground to cover, are action-packed, exciting, and intriguing. Her flashbacks to Voldemort's history are well-crafted insights into the series' villain and, at the same time, give us great insight into our hero. A book heavy enough to press flowers and leaves has space for wasted words and extraneous scenes, but every word and every event in the story feels critical to the coming crisis in Book 7.

Our only small disappointment with the book was the revelation of the identity of the Half-Blood Prince. Throughout the entire book, neither one of us could remember who the Prince would turn out to be. We cannot entirely blame jet lag for that lapse in our memory- Rowling touches on the revelation so lightly, relying entirely on the chemistry of the characters' personal relationships to bring weight to the resolution of the mystery for which the book was titled.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is currently #593 in Amazon's bestselling books. It is not available on the Kindle.

The Song Is You: Enjoy the ride, it's all gonna be okay

There's nothing wrong with Arthur Phillip's The Song is You. It was #11 on Amazon's Best Books of the Month for April 2009, and it received high praise from The New York Times. The book ranks #936 in Amazon's bestselling books, and is #612 in the Kindle store. Obviously people read the book and like it. I read the book, and didn't dislike it. Phillip writes well, the novel's setting celebrates technology as part of our daily experience, and the story centers around music- one of my life-long passions. But I felt no passion for The Song Is You. My first indication that my interest in the story was only lukewarm, was the unusually long time it took me to read the book. I needed about two weeks to get through 272 pages of The Song Is You, while I read all 608 pages of New Moon in three days.

Certainly some of the speed difference can be accounted for by the different processing speed needed to appreciate Phillip's beautiful prose. But the real reason it took me so long to read The Song Is You was that, about a quarter of the way through the story, I already knew how the book would end. How did I know? Well, it all comes down to Phillip's protagonist.

Arthur Phillips knows how to write very interesting and engaging characters. The protagonist's brother made me laugh every time he entered a scene. His would-be girlfriend was quirky, obsessive, and extremely interesting. The protagonist's alter-ego (the ex-musician/artist) always stirred up the story. But the protagonist, whose life history the reader learned in touching, intimate detail, was a very, very boring guy. Not only that, the protagonist was unsure of what he wanted, and as a result his attempts to make things happen in the story were half-hearted and lukewarm, much like my attachment to the book.

The Song Is You is a story meant to say: "enjoy the ride, it's all gonna be okay." I used to avoid reading mainstream literature, thinking this was always the message. However, I've come to enjoy many mainstream and literary authors (T.C. Boyle, David Wroblewski, Garrison Keillor, William Trevor, John Updike) who know how to write protagonists with unreasonable desires that they will fulfill at any cost. I've decided that "enjoy the ride, it's all gonna be okay" is just one genre out of many under the umbrella of mainstream and literary fiction. I'll bet "enjoy the ride, it's all gonna be okay" is a genre that's nice to read slowly, before bed, with the nightstand lamp lit. There's nothing wrong with the genre, it's just not my cup of tea.

New Moon - Twilight, Book 2

Today New Moon, the second in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, is the 5th bestselling Kindle book. Book 4 of the same series is the 2nd bestselling book, and Book 3 of the same series is the 4th bestselling book. In Amazon's paper bestsellers, New Moon ranks #11, behind books of the same series at #4, #7, and #8.

In other words, New Moon and the Twilight series are insanely popular.

As I read the first three-quarters of New Moon, I was on my way to becoming one more of Meyer's legion of fans. New Moon keeps all that was good about Book 1, and improves it. As I had been hoping, protagonist Bella begins to grow up and become an even stronger character.

Bella wants to become a vampire so she can be with her boyfriend, forever. Meyer thwarts Bella's desire in the most exciting way possible- by having the boyfriend dump Bella. This teenage tragedy may not have the literary substance of Ulysses- but Bella is a quintessential protagonist. Sincere and relentless in her drive to get what she wants, Bella is a protagonist who makes things happen- an ideal engine for the story. She forces fights between monsters, drives her boyfriend from the country, goes on wild motorcycle rides, jumps off cliffs, goes flying half-way around the world on a moment's notice. She is a person who does dangerous things to satisfy her desires, and her dramatic actions result in an equally dramatic story.

In Book 2 Bella is not only a stronger protagonist, but she is stronger physically and emotionally, too. She's a lot tougher in the first three-quarters of Book 2- no more fainting spells every other page. The experience of being dumped by her boyfriend, and living through it, makes her emotionally tougher, as well. This was exactly the sort of character growth I was looking for after Book 1 to justify the series as a good, if guilty-pleasure, read. I was even impressed by Meyer's technique of letting blank chapters scroll past as the time passes during which Bella is in shock after her romantic tragedy.

Unfortunately my praise of the book ends at the point in the story where the action drives toward the climax (at exactly the same point I lost interest in Book 1). Several things happen, all of which indicate a decline of quality in the narrative: 1. Bella leaves New Forks (the created world where she coexists with vampires and werewolves). 2. Action drama overtakes relationship drama (Meyer writes relationship drama better than action sequences). 3. Bella begins to faint, droop, swoon, or topple about so often that she is rarely on her own feet. 4. Tension comes from an outside danger instead of coming from the existing situation established in the first three-quarters of the book. 5. Meyer has to do an awful lot of explaining about why certain acts would be awful or terrible for one or more of the characters to live through- her readers should already know that in their guts if the threat is going to hit them where it hurts.

Toward the end of the story New Moon did reclaim a little of my interest by delving deeper into Twilight mythology. We learned more about the enmity between vampires and werewolves (Meyer did achieve the kind of set-up necessary to make the reader feel a visceral sorrow for the fact that Bella has dear friends of both species who are sworn enemies to each other). Meyer also does a little more explaining about what makes Bella so special in her mythological scheme, and adds further interest and complication to the subject of whether or not Bella will achieve her dream of becoming a vampire.

Kindle DX Announced

Amazon has just announced yet another new Kindle device, now available for pre-order. The Kindle DX is meant to make PDF documents, textbooks, reference books, and other graphic-intense materials easier to read. The Kindle DX has a screen two and a half times the size of the regular Kindle. Not only is the screen bigger, it has a wide screen mode, which allows you to tip the device 90 degrees to produce a larger, landscape view (like the iPhone). There is also a 5-way controller on the device which, so it seemed in the promotional video, should make it fast and easy to increase and decrease text size as needed when reading a cookbook, textbook, or professional document. Amother big advantage of the Kindle DX over the Kindle 2 is that the DX can natively download PDF files, no computer conversion needed.

I actually found out about the Kindle DX when I logged onto Amazon to buy a paper book. The book was a home reference, filled with pictures, diagrams, and useful sidebars. It wasn't available in Kindle format- but I avoid buying diagram-heavy reference books in Kindle even when they are available. The Kindle DX, with its large screen, sharp graphics, and ability to zoom in and out of diagrams and sidebars, should make books that include more than just straight narrative text feasible and useful in Kindle format. But my home reference still has one advantage over its future Kindle DX version: the hard copy has color (the Kindle DX graphics are sharp, but still grey scale).

There is little doubt, based on the promotional video presentation, that Amazon hopes to win a share of the college textbook market for the Kindle through the DX model. The promo also heavily targeted professionals.

Liberty: A Lake Wobegone Novel

Having been raised in the Midwest by a Lutheran family, I've always found that Garrison Keillor's tales of his created Lutheran town, Lake Wobegone, can really get under my skin and tickle. Keillor is willing to point out the contradictions and faults of his characters with gentle affection and, of course, humor. I also enjoy Keillor's skill in world building. Lake Wobegone is a town whose geography, history, and population are consistent, and become pleasantly familiar the more stories I hear. I was thrilled to learn that the protagonist of Liberty bought his house from the woman who had a giant snake living under her porch. I remember listening to her story on the radio, years ago. This kind of self-referential history makes Lake Wobegone feel convincingly real.

It has been some time since I listened to Keillor's "News From Lake Wobegon." I remember the Lake Wobegon stories as something I could sit down and listen to with a parent or grandparent- funny family entertainment I would not hesitate to leave playing if a kid came into the room. So when I began the audiobook of Keillor's most recent Lake Wobegon novel (hearing Keillor narrate is half the fun), I was shocked to discover that Lake Wobegon had become a darker, more adult town. Lutherans meet up online to talk dirty, and adultery is not only central to the plot, but described in anatomical detail.

Once the blood drained back out of my cheeks, and I got over the surprise of hearing Garrison Keillor read: "my nipples are getting hard for some reason," I really began to appreciate this modern-day, grown-up Lake Wobegone. There is an endearing honesty to Keillor's portrayal of his characters. Yes, they now cheat on their husbands and wives, vie for air time on CNN, and have DNA tests done to determine their heredity- but they also make mounds of potato salad, bake rhubarb pie, and march an ocarina band in the Fourth of July parade.

In Liberty, Keillor asks, what happens to small town folk who never leave the place where they were born? Their geographical situation may never change, but time still passes, the Internet and the television connect them to a larger world. Something in their individual character and social structure must shift, and Keillor paints this shift with the small details and little stories that make up our lives.

I was also extremely impressed by how Keillor treated the theme of his book. Liberty is the title of the novel, and key to the libertarian character of the protagonist. Liberty is the setting of the novel (A Fourth of July parade), and the conflict (will the protagonist ever get free of Lake Wobegone?). Miss Liberty also plays a crucial role in the story. I have rarely read a book so tightly and delightfully tied to one central concept- in this case, liberty.

Liberty ranks around #22,300 in Kindle books. On Amazon the hardcover is selling at about #153,300.

The Women

Growing up in the Midwest, the highlight of our third grade school year was a trip to Spring Green, Wisconsin. We traveled hours by bus to tour the dwarven homes of Welsh miners and eat delicious pasties. We also took a tour of Taliesin, the home and studio of architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Little did I imagine, on that third grade tour, that Taliesin and its beautiful organic architecture had a history of scandal and brutal murder.

Appropriate to its subject of a great architect, The Women has a beautiful and unusual structure. The novel is divided into three sections, each describing the residence of Frank and one of his wives/mistresses at Taliesin. The reader encounters these sections in reverse historical order, first learning the tale of Olgiavanna, the woman of Wright's senior years, then moving back in time to learn of Miriam's reign at Taliesin, then going back to when Wright bought the property for, designed, and built Taliesin for its first mistress, Mamhah. The effect of the backwards storytelling is to form a portrait of Frank Lloyd Wright using negative space, defining the man through the progression of his love interests. As in an epic poem or tragic opera, the reader knows most of the plot before it unfolds. The interest isn't so much in what will happen next, as it is how it will take place, and why.

As I neared the end of the first section (Olgiavanna's section), I was eager to read the second (Miriam's) section, to learn what Wright could have done to twist Miriam so, to make her into the monster of their older age. Yet the first paragraph of Miriam's section, written at a time when Miriam and Frank had not yet met, makes it clear that Miriam was twisted from the very start. Her relationship with Wright did not change her even a little bit- for better or worse. So the question then became, what could have happened to Wright to bring him to a point where Miriam seemed a fit companion? And this question drew me into the third section.

In an interview with the New York Times, Boyle discusses why he was drawn to Frank Lloyd Wright (Boyle lives in Wright's first Californian house) and why he is drawn to similar historical figures. Boyle discusses the magnetism of men such as Wright, the way they draw a community of people around them, and the way they draft their own utopias founded on personal ideals. Taliesin, the builders, apprentice architects, house staff, and the women and family Wright gathered to his home, created just such a little utopia. The ideal upon which Wright founded the Taliesin community was this: that convention was for small men, with small minds, and that great men with great minds required a different set of rules, especially in the realm of love and marriage (and also in debt repayment). Throughout the book, Boyle seems to question this ideal, showing that not even Wright's beautiful retreat, or convenient way of ignoring abandoned wives and creditors, could shield him from the consequences of shedding convention.

My only (small) disappointment was with the end of the book, in which the deep probing of this question ceases, abruptly, and the focus of the novel shifts to tell the shocking and gruesome story of the murders at Taliesin. Boyle does give the murderer the motive of his conventional views of women and marriage clashing with the free love ideas of Taliesin. But the murderer is clearly insane, his violence not a consequence of differing world views, but of personal mental imbalance. The murders at Taliesin do not read like justice, or moral consequence, but as brutal and almost random acts of violence. Boyle's decision to end with the murders makes sense- they are the most sensational and exciting events in Wright's life story. And it could be argued that the ending paints the consequence of living in a closed, Utopian community, flaunting the rules of convention. But for me the sheer brutality and personal emotional imbalance of the murderer erases all sense, lets the important and difficult question of the book slide, and instead of concluding the discussion, abandons it to shock and horror.

Regardless, The Women was a pleasure to read. Boyle raised very poignant questions about men of greatness, and about what makes them large, and what makes them small. I had a fantastic time learning more about Frank Lloyd Wright and the home and studio I toured as a child. And I was thrilled by the way in which Boyle chose to write his story. His previous book, Talk Talk, used reference to explore the theme of communication. The Women used structure as its primary narrative device because it was a story about grand ideas, and the difficult reality of bringing those ideas into the world through structure. It is very exciting to follow a writer who has the skill set and flexibility to use the just the right tool to tell each new story.

The Women ranks #539 in Amazon's bestselling paper books, and #422 in Kindle books.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium is one of those films whose title gives an accurate description of what the viewer is about to experience. Whimsy abounds in this fantasy- from the quaint cartoon opening, to the unique credits at the end. The 2007 film boasts a cast of well-known actors: Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, even Kermit the Frog, and was written and directed by Zach Helm.

I'm used to fantasy films that take place in fantasy worlds, leaving the audience to connect the vital points between the fantasy experience and their own lives. But Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium expresses its theme quite explicitly- proposing to prove that the successful adult carries childlike wonder with him throughout his life. Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium is all about maintaining that childhood sense of wonder in adulthood, and even into old age and approaching death. The film isn't very subtle in making its point. The plot, the toy store setting, the candy-colored palette, and the typical, hard-nosed accountant foil, all constantly echo the theme- and for extra emphasis, the film's dialog and narration also underline the point. The explicit statement of theme doesn't detract from the fun, the story, or the sense of wonder which Helm invokes. It creates an open-hearted, direct dialog with the viewer, asking the audience to remain wide-eyed and childlike, in keeping with its theme.